Apple has introduced Aperture 3, the next major release of its photo editing and management software, with over 200 new features. Also, the upgrade builds on the Faces and Places features introduced in iPhoto ’09, says Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

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. New slideshows let you share your work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.

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 painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform 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 lets you share your work with 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.

Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store (http://www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of US$199 . Existing Aperture users can upgrade for $99. A downloadable 30-day trial version is available here. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS X 10.6 ("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 http://www.apple.com/aperture .