Today Aperture 2.0 was announced by Apple Computers. To many people this isn’t a big deal, but to me, a photographer who juggles tens of thousands of photos every day in Aperture 1.5, this is big news. I already have my copy ordered with 2 day shipping, and hopefully sometime next week I’ll be able to give you the low-down on what’s what.

A few things to note based on what you can see from the site.

1. TETHERED SHOOTING. This is big. Apple tried to hard to fight Lightroom, that I think they forgot they need to fight Phase One’s Capture One as well, and Phase made tethered shooting cool before anyone else was into it.

2. A clone/stamp tool that isn’t a Tool in the more offensive sense.

3. A slew if neat new tools, while not typically groundbreaking, are all welcome. This includes vibrance, vignetting, etc.

4. I am still installing the trial on my laptop to test this, but my understanding is that Aperture actually functions quite well on Macbooks now, which is important since not all of us want to drop 2500 on a laptop that can run Aperture.

5. A FILTER-PLUG-IN ARCHITECTURE. While the SDK isn’t out yet (to my knowledge) this will effectively make Aperture infinitely expandable. Now all we need is for some lonely developer to write a burning and dodging plugin.

More news on this product as I receive it and get a chance to write a quick review about it, but until then, happy hunting.

Fear Beats In Five Four

This heart it beats in dueling verse,
It beats both fear and love.
Waltzing tune, or five counts terse,
Still both found in its blood.
The fear it destroys
A staggering noise
Its greatest success
The withering breath.
Chances untaken
And lovers were left.
“And still,” say I in waltzing tongue,
My air so fast escapes,
“It’s love that flows into my lungs,
and grants me life to wake.”