New features and improvements:

1. Effects can easily be applied to a Title or Key without affecting the background by just selecting the Apply To Title/Key option.
2. Plug-ins have Crop and Transform parameters that allow cropping, scaling, or shifting the input clips within the plug-in.
3. An optional Background input allows most effects to composite their result over a background clip, or perform a picture-in-picture. The video track used for this background can be selected within the plug-in.
4. Many plug-ins also have an optional Mask input which allows choosing a video track to subselect or colorize the areas processed by the effect.
5. A new keyframe model is supported for better animation control of parameter values, including splines and independent keyframes per parameter (AVX2).
6. New on-screen widgets allow easy visual adjustment of many parameter values (AVX2).
7. Treadmill sliders are used to give many parameters wider ranges while still allowing sensitive adjustments (AVX2).
8. All plug-ins have a Bypass Effect option for a quick disable, Reset Parameter Values to restore defaults, and Reset All to also clear keyframes (AVX2).
9. The plug-ins are grouped into several Sapphire2 sub-menus in the effects menu to make them easier to find. The categories are: Adjust, Blur&Sharpen, Composite, Distort, Lighting, Render, Stylize, Time, and Transitions.
10. All effects can process 16-bit images (AVX2 or DS).
11. Rendering speed has been improved.
12. Avid DS 8 on Windows 64 is supported.
13. Avid's version 2.5/5.5 products on Mac are supported, including AVX1 and AVX2 support.
14. In Sapphire 2.05, Avid versions for Mac Intel workstations are supported.

New effects:

1. FilmDamage simulates aged film by adding scratches, dust, stains, grain, shake, flicker, etc. to your clip.
2. Rays produces light beams emitting from the bright areas of an input clip.
3. HalfToneRings generates a half-tone version of the source clip using a repeating pattern of concentric rings.
4. Cartoon, CartoonPaint, and Posterize give cartoon-like looks with exaggerated edges and flat areas of color.
5. BleachBypass and DogVision generate stylized versions of the source clip by simulating a bleach bypass process, or the dual color vision system of dogs.
6. Vignette darkens the outer edges of a clip with various shape options.
7. WarpMagnify simulates a magnifying glass or lens over an area of the source clip.
8. BlurMotionCurves performs a motion blur using animated transform parameter values (AVX2).
9. ChannelSwitcher reorders the RGBA channels of the source clip, and Invert inverts them.
10. GradientRadial makes a smooth radial color gradient in an ellipse shape.
11. TextureMoire creates an abstract Moire texture by adding together two patterns of concentric rings.
12. WipeRings and WipeTiles perform transitions using a pattern of concentric rings, or a pattern of growing or shrinking hexagons, triangles, diamonds, or stars.
13. SwishPan performs a transition by panning one image off and another on with motion blur.
14. DissolveGlow performs a transition while adding glow to both clips, and DissolveFilm performs a transition in a film-like color space to preserve highlights during the dissolve.
15. FieldRemove adaptively removes video field interlacing artifacts while preserving image quality (AVX1.5).
16. Feedback, FeedbackBubble, FeedbackDistort, Trails, TrailsDiffuse, and TimeAverage generate interesting time based effects similar to video feedback or time smoothing (AVX2).
17. NearestColor accumulates colors of frames over time that are nearest to a given color (AVX2).
18. The temporal effects, FreezeFrame, GetFrame, JitterFrames, RandomEdits, ReverseClip, and ReverseEdits, allow automatic re-editing, speed changes, or reversing of a clip (AVX1.5).
19. TimeSlice and TimeDisplace shift different areas of the clip by different amounts in time (AVX1.5).
20. MotionDetect shows areas of motion in your clip (AVX1.5).
21. TimeWarpRGB gives temporal chroma distortion by shifting the RGB channels in time (AVX1.5).
22. FlickerRemove, FlickerRemoveColor, FlickerRemoveMatte, and FlickerRmMatteColor remove temporal flickering from the Source clip (AVX1.5).
23. FlickerMatch, FlickerMatchColor, FlickerMatchMatte, and FlickerMchMatteColor add flicker to a Source clip using the flicker from a second Match clip (AVX1.5).

1. The Wipe and Dissolve effects are automatically initialized with keyframes to perform a complete transition.
2. The Glow, Glint, Glare and EdgeRays effects have new parameters that give the ability to composite the effect behind a title, use the alpha channel to generate the light, or cast the light on the background clip.
3. The Warps and other effects with Wrap parameters use the new Crop parameters to affect the source image bounds for the Wrap:Reflect and Wrap:Tile options. This makes it easier to avoid artifacts when distorting a clip with bad edges.
4. FilmEffect has a Fields option to allow simulation of 3:2 pulldown stutter (AVX2), and simulations have been added for Kodak film types 5217, 5218, 5285, and 7270.
5. WarpChroma has new Color, Brightness, and White Balance parameters.
6. WarpTransform has new Swivel and Tilt parameters for 3D control.
7. BandPass and ZDepthCurBlur have Blur Rel X and Y parameters.
8. Etching has a Lines Shift parameter.
9. Gamma has separate RGB controls for Scale Lights and Offset Darks.
10. HueSatBright has a new Preserve Luma parameter.
11. Layer has 5 new transfer modes.
12. Many other effects have additional controls for added functionality.