Apple has announced the third generation of their RAW editing and workflow application, Aperture 3. This latest version adds “200 new features”, including Faces, Places, and Brushes, the latter of which allows for selective adjustments inside of Aperture.

Aperture 3 is available now at Apple’s website, www.apple.com.
Press Release follows.

Press Release

New Features Include Faces, Places & Brushes

CUPERTINO, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced Aperture™ 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features including Faces, Places and Brushes. Building on the innovative Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto® ‘09, Aperture 3 makes it even easier and faster to organize large photo libraries. Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine your photos including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of your photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. Stunning new slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

“Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets.”

“Aperture 3 gets it right,” said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. “The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they’re so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible.”

“I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it’s now an unbelievable imaging tool as well,” said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. “I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3.”

Aperture 3 allows you to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize your photos by the people in them. You can view faces across your entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven’t yet been named. Places lets you explore your photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, you can assign locations by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or your iPhone® photos.

The new Brushes feature allows you to add professional touches to your photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in your images to let you apply or remove effects exactly where you want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. You can create your own custom presets or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.

Aperture 3 makes it easy to share your work with stunning slideshows that weave together photos, audio, text and HD video. You can select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add your own soundtrack. You can export your slideshows directly to iTunes® to take with you on your iPhone or iPod touch®. You can also share photographs as beautiful prints, create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from Aperture 3.

Pricing & Availability
Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of $99 (US). A downloadable 30-day trial version is available at www.apple.com/aperture/trial. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS® X Snow Leopard® on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Full system requirements, online tutorials and more information on Aperture 3 can be found at www.apple.com/aperture.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Aperture, iPhoto, iPhone, iTunes, iPod touch, Apple Store and Snow Leopard are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Versions 2.6 of Lightroom and 5.6 of Adobe Camera Raw have moved past the “release candidate” status and are now available for download. These updates address a couple “issues”, but more importantly will add support for that new camera of yours. The cameras with added support are as follows:

• Canon EOS 1D Mark IV
• Canon EOS 7D
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Canon PowerShot S90
• Leaf Aptus-II 5
• Mamiya DM22
• Mamiya DM28
• Mamiya DM33
• Mamiya DM56
• Mamiya M18
• Mamiya M22
• Mamiya M31
• Nikon D3s
• Olympus E-P2
• Panasonic DMC-FZ38
• Pentax K-x
• Sigma DP1s
• Sony A500
• Sony A550
• Sony A850

You can get Lightroom 2.6 and Camera Raw 5.6 here at Adobe.

So you like to get creative in your workflow and you spend a lot of time in Photoshop? Well, I do to, perhaps too much time, but one thing I rely on quite a bit to speed up, enhance, or improve my time in Photoshop is its ability to be extended with third party plugins. Of course I’m certainly not unique in this regard, and with so many users and so many needs, there are seemingly hundreds of these plugins, some with very specific tasks, and some that multi-task. Some can do things Photoshop can’t, some do things better than Photoshop, and some just make things easier than Photoshop. Now I’ve collected quite a few of these over the years, but lately my needs have been honed quite a bit, and I find myself turning to 5 plugins on a regular basis

Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro

If you do black and white conversions, you need this plugin. Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro works like magic to turn your images into amazing black and whites, and it’s practically effortless. They provide several presets for you to get started, but you’re welcome to come up with your own recipes. In addition to global adjustments, Silver Efex uses U Point technology to make selective adjustments, just drop a control point on an area you want to adjust, then increase or decrease the radius of the effect. You’re provided with various black and white film emulations, color filters, toning options, and vignette and burn options, and again all the choices you make can be saved as your own preset, that you can come back to again and again.

• Our review of Nik’s Silver Efex Pro
• Nik’s Silver Efex Pro at B&H Photo
• Nik Software’s website (free demo)

Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 3.0

Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro is sort of like 52 filters in one. But right up front, half are basically junk, really I’m using just a handful of the filters, but I turn to them all the time. The white neutralizer is quite handy, film effects I’m constantly using, brilliance/warmth filter for landscapes, reflector effects are great, cross processing is fun, and I could go on just a bit . Like everything made by Nik, Color Efex is easy to use, a good many filters have control points to add or subtract the filter, or highlight/shadow  sliders for protecting sensitive parts of your images. There are a couple of different versions, with more or less filters, so check out the free demo first to get a sense of what you like/need.

• Nik’s Color Efex Pro 3.0 at B&H Photo
• Nik’s Color Efex Pro 3.0 at Amazon
• Nik Software’s website (free demo)

Nik Software’s Viveza

What Silver Efex Pro is to your black and white work, Viveza is to your color work. Viveza makes editing and enhancing your color images incredibly easy, again thanks in large part to U Point technology. Want to deepen that blue sky? Just drop a control point on it, increase the radius to fill the entire sky, then adjust the control point’s brightness slider to darker. It really is amazingly simple, almost too good to be true. Just this week Nik Software announced Viveza 2, and while we haven’t tried it yet, it seems to have added everything I was hoping for, like global adjustments and structure sliders to the control points. Another “must-have” in my opinion. Viveza 2 isn’t currently available, but Nik is offering free upgrades to folks who buy Viveza after Sept. 22.

• Viveza at B&H Photo
• Viveza at Amazon
• Nik Software’s website (free demo)

Topaz Denoise

Photoshop is terrible at removing noise from images, or rather it’s great at removing noise, terrible at retaining detail. There are several plugins designed to bring improved  noise removal results, and most of them are easily superior to Photoshop. For quite some time I’ve been a regular user of  Picturecode’s Noise Ninja and I’ve been quite happy with the results (and speed). Recently though, I’ve been trying Topaz’s DeNOISE, which seems to provide even better results. With today’s camera abilities to shoot at higher ISO, users are lured into taking images where noise can get a tad excessive. DeNOISE is the best way to get rid of it.

• Topaz’s website (free demo)

HDRsoft’s Photomatix

OK, it isn’t exactly a plugin (you can get the tone mapping feature as a plugin), but HDRsoft’s Photomatix is pretty indispensable for creating HDR images from multiple exposures. With much better results than Photoshop, Photomatix is pretty much the crowd favorite for HDR work. I use it to enhance dynamic range in a photo, then bring the results in as a layer. I use this layer in conjunction with masks to fix problem areas in my photos, as opposed to using the straight up HDR image. You’re free to use it how you want though, and with Photomatix’s versatile tone mapping you can go from subtle to surreal quite easily.

• HDRsoft’s website

Nik Software has announced the immediate availability of Viveza 2, the upgrade to their very popular and powerful color image editing program. I’m a big fan of Viveza, and Nik’s products in general, so its interesting to see the additions to Viveza 2, which include global adjustments and the addition of editing structure with Nik’s “U Point” technology. I’ll just add if you like to edit your photos in Photoshop, and your work is in color, you’ll love Viveza. I highly recommend checking out some of the demos at Nik’s site for examples of how powerful and easy to use Viveza  is.

Viveza 2 is $199 or $99 for those upgrading, and is available as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightrom, and Aperture. See the press release below for more details.

Press Release

Nik Software Announces Viveza 2 for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom & Apple Aperture

Now offers a complete range of new and powerful selective and global adjustments for fast and efficient photo editing

New York, NY (PhotoPlus Expo Booth #766) – October 22, 2009 – Nik Software announces today Viveza 2, an upgrade to its award winning and revolutionary plug-in for selective color and light control. Available in December, Viveza 2 now offers users robust global adjustments and precise selective controls that utilize Nik Software’s award-winning U Point^® technology. Viveza 2 eliminates the need to create complicated selections or layer masks and provides a powerful solution for users looking to save time and effort when editing images.

“New global image controls added to Viveza’s powerful selective editing capabilities now enable users to quickly and easily perform virtually all of their color and light adjustments within a single step,” said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. “New features such as shadow recovery, structure control, increased precision of selections, and user interface improvements together give users ultimate control, enabling truly spectacular results.”

Viveza 2, powered by Nik Software’s patented U Point technology, is the most powerful and precise tool available to globally and selectively control light and color in photographs. With

U Point technology, users can quickly select areas of an image to adjust by pointing and clicking and then using simple to use sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, red, green, blue, hue, and warmth in a fraction of the time needed by other tools.

Key features of Viveza 2 include:

• · Powerful Color Control Points, enabling precise selective control of color and light
• · New global image adjustments
• · New and powerful levels and curves adjustments
• · New shadow recovery—global or selective
• · New fine detail structure enhancements
• · Improved color rendering and increased precision of selections
• · Improved timesaving user interface, including improved slider controls, slider favorites, multiple zoom states, keyboard nudging, grouped Color Control Points, and multiple undo levels
• · Smart Filter support (Photoshop only)
• · Selective Brush tool (Photoshop only)
• · Multi-image support (Lightroom and Aperture only)
• · New 64-bit support on Microsoft Windows

Pricing and Availability

Nik Software’s Viveza 2, offering support for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Apple Aperture, will be available via electronic and boxed delivery directly from Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) or through specialty camera retailers. A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers.

Viveza 2 retails for $199.95. Customers that already own Viveza can upgrade for $99.95. Customers who have purchased Viveza after September 22, 2009 will be eligible for a free upgrade to Viveza 2.

To watch a video introduction of Viveza 2 and to sign up to be notified when the software is available, please visit www.niksoftware.com/viveza2.

DxO has added an update for Windows editions of Optics Pro. Version 6.1 adds support for the Canon EOS 7D, the PowerShot G11, and the Nikon D3000, in addition to addressing and improving other aspects of the RAW editing software.

Press Release

56 new DxO Optics Modules and user interface improvements.

The new version 6.1 of DxO Optics Pro for Windows adds support for 3 new cameras:
- Canon EOS 7D (Standard or Elite Editions);
- Canon PowerShot G11 (Standard or Elite Editions);
- Nikon D3000 (Standard or Elite Editions).

For this new release, DxO Labs fixed several bugs and also made some improvements to the user interface, based on customer feedback and suggestions, including:
- full screen display mode for increased visual comfort
- additional shortcuts for improved productivity
- additional presets for increased flexibility

Check the release notes for more information.

Furthermore, 56 new DxO Optics Modules are now available to DxO Optics Pro users, covering the Canon 7D, DIGITAL REBEL XTi/400D, DIGITAL REBEL XSi/450D, DIGITAL REBEL T1i/500D, Nikon D3, D300, D300s, D40x, and D3000; the Olympus E-30, E-420, E-510, and E-620; and the Sony A300, A850, and A900. See list below.

DxO Optics Pro v6.1 for Windows, both Standard and Elite editions, are immediately available, at an exceptional 30 % discount until December 31, 2009.

All customers who purchased DxO Optics Pro 5 after June 1st, 2009 are entitled to a free upgrade to version 6. All other users benefit from a special 40% discount until December 31, 2009.

Right now, you can pick up Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 2 for just $169.99! That’s about $100 cheaper than you’ll find Lightroom just about anywhere else. These sort of things don’t typically last long at Amazon, so if you’ve been waiting to get a hold of Lightroom, do it now.

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 (Mac & PC Editions) $169.99

You can now download release candidates of both Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 and Lightroom 2.6, which add support for several popular digital cameras. The “Release Candidate” status indicates that the version is “well tested” but not quite finalized. The updates add support for the following cameras:

• Canon EOS 7D
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Canon PowerShot S90
• Leaf Aptus II 5
• Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
• Nikon D3s
• Olympus E-P2
• Pentax K-x
• Panasonic FZ38
• Sigma DP1s
• Sony A500
• Sony A550
• Sony A850

In addition ACR 5.6 and Lightroom address the following:

Camera Raw 5.6 also provides a a fix for an issue affecting PowerPC customers using the final Camera Raw 5.5 and DNG Converter 5.5 updates on the Mac. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in highlight areas when processing raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs.

You can grab Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 at Adobe’s site here. Lightroom 2.6 is available here.

Bibble Labs has released an updated public preview of Bibble 5, their RAW editing and workflow software. Support for 50 new cameras has been added to the preview and other highlights include:

• On-demand and Background Printing Support Added
• Watched-Folders for Workflow Automation
• Dramatic Improvements to Selective Editing
• Upgraded Catalog Format

You can download the free preview at Bibble Lab’s site here.