Work with brushed adjustment overlays

Overlays are useful tools for identifying where brush strokes for the selected brushed adjustment have been applied to the image. When you’ve brushed an adjustment with a subtle softness and strength over the image, it can be difficult to discern the boundaries of the brush strokes. Aperture provides several types of overlays to help you visually identify the selected brushed adjustment’s cumulative brush strokes. When you accurately identify the boundaries of a brush stroke, you can use the eraser brush to remove any parts of the brush stroke that don’t belong, and you can use the feathering brush to smooth out the edges. For more information, see Apply Quick Brush adjustments and Work with brush strokes.

The Brush Action pop-up menu in the Brush HUD provides the following overlay options to help you with detailed brushing:

Color Overlay: Displays a pink overlay over the brush strokes for the selected adjustment.
Brush Strokes: Displays the brush strokes for the selected adjustment as pure white over a pure black background. This option provides the easiest method for identifying brush strokes that have been applied to an image. It’s a good idea to use this overlay option if you suspect that you missed a tiny part of the image when brushing. The missed portions of the image appear as black dots or lines.
On Black: Displays a pure black mask over the image, with the brush strokes revealing the image beneath. This option is useful for showing detailed brush strokes over a bright area in the image.
On White: Displays a pure white mask over the image, with brush strokes revealing the image beneath. This option is useful for detailed brush strokes over dark areas in the image.

Apply an overlay for a brushed adjustment to an image

Select the photo with the brushed adjustment whose brush strokes you want to identify.
Select the brushed adjustment in the Adjustments inspector or the Adjustments pane of the Inspector HUD, and click the Brush button in the adjustment controls.
In the Brush HUD, choose an overlay option from the Overlay section of the Brush Action pop-up menu.

To turn an overlay off, choose None from the Overlay section of the Brush Action pop-up menu.