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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Software

The Best Thing to Happen to Photo Editing in a While: RNI Aero Review

Chris Gampat
No Comments
01/06/2021
3 Mins read
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset 'Aero 16'

RNI Aero is one of the best and most innovative things to happen to photography in a while.

There’s a particular look that is of value to many photographers. For years, they’ve been trying to find a simple way to emulate Kodak Aerochrome. This legendary film turns greens into pinks/oranges/red. And RNI finally accomplished it with RNI Aero. We talked to them about how they were doing it a while back. The application is available as Lightroom Presets, a Capture One integration, and on your phone. With this look, you’re getting a much different approach to the standard images you shoot, and embracing something very different. But we’ve been using it for a while.

Features

Created with RNI Films app.

RNI Aero takes greens and transforms them into purples, reds, oranges, magentas, etc. If you’re thinking about the ROYGBIV scale, then it’s leaning more towards the I, V, R and O. Here are details from their website listing:

INFRARED FILMS
Aerochrome 01 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 02 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 03 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 04 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 05 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 06 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 07 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 08 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 09 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 10 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 11 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 12 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 13 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 14 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 15 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 16 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 17 (grainy & clean)
Aerochrome 18 (grainy & clean)
RNI TOOLKIT
– Fade
– Hard Fade
– Grain settings for various ISO values
– Slide Frames
– Smart Contrast
– Vignette
– Analog Softness
– Vintage Lens Effect

 

Ease of Use

If you’re any bit familiar with the RNI Films app, then you’ll feel right at home with Aero. RNI films is truly the single best photo editing app I’ve ever used. It even edits Raws. To start, you download the app to your phone. Then after giving it permission to access your photos, you choose an image. Said image appears in the interface. Like RNI Films, Aero has free presets and paid ones. There are various plans too. But if you don’t want the presets, there are still standard editing tools. Despite all of that, the main reason why you’d use Aero is for the presets.

Above is the original image before I edited it in Aero. This was shot with the Panasonic S5 and the 16-35mm f4. I beamed a JPEG image to my phone using WiFi. Then I loaded the photo into the app and went to work.

Here’s what that image would look like in the editing interface. I applied the Aero 2 preset. You can choose to edit in any order you wish. Apply the preset later if you want. When your done, you can export the image to your phone, to an app, etc. But you’ll always keep the original and the edited version. Oh, and you can always remove the little Aero watermark. If anything, that’s the biggest difference between RNI films and Aero. You have to ensure that the watermark isn’t exported, so the editing process is slower.

Image Quality

Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 03’

Here are sample images done with the app. We shot and edited some of these with the Apple iPhone 8 Plus. Some of the photos were imported from a camera and edited. But overall, you won’t be able to tell the difference. That’s the funnest part about it.

Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 14’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 05’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 04’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 02’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 02’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 02’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 02’
Created with RNI Aero app. Preset ‘Aero 05’

Conclusions

I find Aero to be incredibly fun. More importantly, I think that it opens up a ton of creative possibilities. A model can be in a field of green and you’d render it all to look red. The spinach in your salad can suddenly become pink. Forest can be magenta. It’s incredibly fun and there’s no reason why we wouldn’t recommend it. I’m going to have the most fun with it during Spring and Autumn. When the leaves are naturally changing, the landscapes are most fascinating. That means that they’re bound to make better images with this app.

If you’re on an Apple device, go download RNI Aero. And trust us, buy the other presets.

aero aerochrome app apple capture one lightroom photo editing RNI rni aero rni films
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Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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