Apple's Aperture 3 Takes Your Photos Further

On Tuesday, Apple's online store went down and the speculation began. When it came back, it had some holiday changes, and a brand new Aperture. Aperture is the grown-up iPhoto. Intended for professional photographers, Aperture offers photo organization and editing in a streamlined workflow.

The changes in Aperture 3.0 are all welcome and include:

• Faces and Places support (though it just looks like it was ported from iPhoto and doesn't look like it belongs in a professional app)
• Brushes that allow for non-destructive editing and awesome edge-detection
• Dozens of new adjustment presets
• Fancy slideshows (woohoo?)
• Gorgeous fullscreen browsing experience for distraction-free editing.

Aperture 1.0 was alright, but it really came into its own with the 2.0 upgrade, and now 3.0 adds even more power to an already competent pro photo program. For a pro photographer, the less you have to go into Photoshop, the better. With RAW support, and all these new features, that will have to happen less and less.

The full version will cost you $199, or $99 for an upgrade. Head to the Aperture site to check out all the new features in depth and download a 30-day free trial.