Apple announced the immediate availability of Aperture 2 on Tuesday. The new version of the digital photo editing and management application sports a redesigned interface, a new image processing engine, and a price drop down to US$199.
Aperture 2 gained new imaging tools for highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning. It also lets users send their portfolios directly to their .Mac Web Gallery, added a Projects view that is similar to iPhoto’s Events view, and added a heads-up display that toggles between library, metadata and adjustment controls.
Apple also improved Aperture’s overall performance for faster importing, browsing, and searching large image libraries.
Aperture 2 is priced at $199, and upgrades cost $99.