If you, like me, have reached the limits of iPhoto, the recently-introduced Mac App Store provided two fantastic reasons to upgrade to Aperture: 1.) Apple’s pro-level photo manager is now less than half its old price (and less than a quarter of its starting price), and 2.) you no longer need to pay for iPhoto if you use another piece of the iLife suite. Practically a steal at $79 in the App Store, Aperture 3 is packed with useful features, and the general consensus seems to be that it is finally on par with Adobe’s Lightroom offering.

Hot on the heels of the announcement of iLife ’11, Apple has posted an update to Aperture, bumping it up to version 3.1. This version contains a number of bug fixes and performance enhancements, along with compatibility for iLife ’11. But don’t write it off a a simple update; Apple has quite a long update list in the Release Notes.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the Internet, and I’ll assume you have, you’ve likely stumbled across something that seems to be all the rage these days. It’s called High Dynamic Range photography, or HDR for short, and, if nothing else, you know it looks cool. But it’s not something your camera can do on its own, no no, it needs help. But which software to choose? There are numerous applications and plug-ins available, but I found three that help you make HDR images quickly and easily. They are, in no particular order, Hydra, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photomatix. Let’s get right to it.

Mac applications have always been great gifts for the holidays. They are easy to purchase and often very helpful for the receiver. To help you find Mac gifts for people on your list, I have compiled of some of the best paid applications that are now available.

• TextExpander
• Wallet
• Coda
• Aperture
• QuickTime Pro

Pixelmator, which claims to be “Image editing for the rest of us,” comes full of all sorts of different features for a relatively small price ($59.00) compared to other graphic design/image software of this nature such as Aperture and Photoshop. If what the app contained before wasn’t enough to cause you to buy it, the more »

For those of you who use Aperture, a new version of the SDK for the popular photo management app has arrived. If you can’t remember straight, Aperture 2.1 added a greater ability to write and create plugins, extras, and even editing tools. A month later, the SDK has arrived, allowing the general public to stop more »

Apple today released Aperture 2.1, a great update that includes not only bug fixes, but some great new features as well.

From Software Update:

Aperture 2.1 updates various features of the application and addresses issues related to performance and overall stability. The updates include the following:

Dodge & Burn Plug-in. A sample plug-in is pre-installed, taking advantage of the Edit API introduced in Aperture 2.0. The plug-in adds brush-based tools for Dodge (Lighten), Burn (Darken), Contrast, Saturation, Sharpen and Blur.Customize Default Adjustment Set. You can now specify which adjustments appear by default in the Adjustments Inspector/HUD.Updated Crop Tool. A simplified UI makes it easier to preserve an image’s original aspect ratio, match the aspect ratio of your display, or use one of the standard preset aspect ratios.Sorting in All Projects View. A contextual menu allows you to sort the All Projects view in ascending or descending date order.Show on Map. A contextual menu allows you to choose the Show on Map by right-clicking (or Control-clicking) on an image that contains GPS data.Access to Toolbar on Second Display. When using multiple displays in Full Screen mode, the Full Screen toolbar is now accessible on a second display.

More after the jump.

If you’re a user of Aperture and like to shoot your photos in RAW format, you should install Apple’s latest software update. Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.0 brings extended support for RAW images to Apple’s Aperture and iPhoto ’08 photo-organising software. The update includes support to the following new digital SLR cameras: Hasselblad CFV-16 Hasselblad more »

After releasing an update to Lightroom last week, they are now pulling it from their website and asking users to downgrade. There are three major bugs. The first is an error with EXIF time stamps. “There is an error in the EXIF time stamp update technology that causes Lightroom to believe that the files are more »

Although I prefer Lightroom (as many of you may know), Aperture is a subpar, secondary alternative available from Apple. With 2.0 being released lately, many people were astonished that Aperture wouldn’t run on their systems, simply because they were too old. If you’re one of those people with an old processor or graphics card, today’s more »