In this video, I demonstrate how to use Trey Ratcliff's HDR photography methods in Aperture and Pixelmator using layer masks and digital blending.
Trey Ratcliff Tutorials: http://www.stuckincustoms.com/photography-tutorials/
Tools:
I bought Aperture for Mac when it was nearly half the price of Adobe Lightroom. Since then, Lightroom has dropped in price to ~$120USD, $40USD more than Aperture and much more robust for editing. Specifically the noise reduction in Lightroom is far superior to Aperture.
Adobe Lightroom 5: http://amzn.to/1mPt2Nm
Aperture for Mac: http://bit.ly/1eyJgZg
Photomatix by HDRSoft: http://www.hdrsoft.com/
Pixelmator for Mac $30USD: http://bit.ly/NEw623