October 2017

Adobe updates Photoshop, goes cloud-first with newly-minted version of Lightroom CC

Submitted by David Cardinal on Tue, 10/31/2017 - 09:03

Adobe Lightroom CC 1.0 user interfaceAdobe rocked the world for many photographers with its cloud-first pivot on Lightroom announced at Adobe MAX 2017. The current CC version has been renamed "Lightroom Classic CC" and gets some performance bumps for loyal desktop-centric users. A new cloud-first version, the new "Lightroom CC" has rolled out. It has a similar UI to the current mobile versions of Lightroom -- a subset of the features found in the desktop version. It requires that all images sync to Adobe's Cloud, for which Adobe charges something extra. Not everyone is thrilled, though, and there is plenty of fear that this means Adobe will de-emphasize its power tools for serious photographers. Along with the new Lightroom, Adobe also made some solid upgrades to its Adobe Photoshop CC. You can .

Adobe Photoshop CC
Adobe Lightroom CC
Adobe Lightroom Classic CC
Adobe Creative Cloud

DxO rescues the popular Nik Collection and rolls U-Points into new PhotoLab image editor

Submitted by David Cardinal on Tue, 10/31/2017 - 08:18

One of the sadder developments for serious photographers was the purchase of Nik Software by Google. It was done so that Google could leverage Nik’s Snapseed technology into its Photo offering. However, the excellent Nik tools were orphaned in the process. Now that has finally changed. DxO Labs, makers of OpticsPro, FilmPack, and ViewPoint, has acquired the entire Nik Collection. This will result in at least three pieces of good news for Nik fans:

 

DxO OpticsPro
DxO PhotoLab
Nik Collection
Image Processing
raw converter
Adobe Lightroom CC
Adobe Photoshop
Capture One Pro

Luminar by MacPhun (now Skylum) coming to Windows: Competition for Photoshop and Lightroom heats up

Submitted by David Cardinal on Mon, 10/30/2017 - 10:03

As a Windows user, I’ve only heard about MacPhun and their Luminar photo editor, but have never had a chance to use it. However, this fall I was able to start using their AuroraHDR product when they brought it to Windows, and have been very impressed. Now, the company (renamed Skylum) is bringing its flagship Luminar image editor to Windows, and it looks like it will be an exciting new entry in the desktop photo editing space. With a price point even less than Adobe Photoshop Elements, it provides a set of features that looks very similar to both Photoshop and the image editing portion of Lightroom. Mac users can try or purchase it now, by . Pre-orders for the Windows version will start on November 1st. I got a chance to use the beta and was very impressed by the interface and architecture. I’ll be doing a more complete review once the shipping version is available.

 

MacPhun Luminar
Luminar Neptune
AuroraHDR
Adobe Lightroom CC
Adobe Photoshop
Image Management
Image Editing
Skylum

Sigma 24mm f/1.4 Art lens field tested: Wide-angle winner

Submitted by David Cardinal on Mon, 10/16/2017 - 09:19

While not as new or celebrated as its bigger sibling, the , the seemed like a worthy candidate to test with my new . After using it off and on for a few weeks, I’m impressed with its combination of features, image quality, and value. It delivers excellent results for a , compared to $2,000 for the .

Sigma 24mm f/1.4 Art lens
Sigma lenses
Lens Review
lens_review
Review
Nikon 24mm f/1.4 lens

Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art lens field tested: Sweet!

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 10/11/2017 - 16:37

Regular readers know that as someone who does a lot of wildlife and sports photography, the long lenses in my camera bag usually don’t leave much room for high-quality (read Large) prime lenses. So I took advantage of a recent hiatus between trips to get review units of two of the sharpest primes to test out with my new . First up is the highly-rated .

 

Sigma lenses
Nikon D850
Lens Review
lens_review
Lenses
portrait photography
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art lens
prime lenses

Adobe releases Photoshop Elements 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018 with lots more AI under the hood

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 10/04/2017 - 08:44

If you want an all-in-one image management, image processing, and video editing suite, Adobe’s Elements has long been a leading contender. With its new 2018 version, Adobe has piled on a lot more AI-based features, including Auto Curate, a literal “eye-opener” for portraits, and some spiffy automated video editing tools. You can read more in my full review on Extremetech, or just go ahead and snag the suite of both ($120 for upgraders through Adobe), or just ($79 for upgraders through Adobe).

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018
Adobe Premiere Elements 2018
software review
Review
Image Management
Image Editing
video editing

Aurora HDR comes to Windows: Very impressive, and chock full of features

Submitted by David Cardinal on Tue, 10/03/2017 - 17:43

I’m a long-time user and big fan of Photomatix from HDRSoft, so when Macphun contacted me to take a look at their HDR software now that they were making it available on Windows, I didn’t make it a huge priority. There were plenty of other high-profile launches like the to cover. Mea culpa. I finally got around to loading Aurora HDR and using it on a few images. It has an impressive, and very slick, UI, and just about every feature you could want in an HDR app. It is going to take me a while to sort through all that it can do and write a more-complete review, but I wanted to get the word out that it is absolutely worth investigating. Here is one sample bracketed image from one of my drones, that aligned nicely, and turned out well shown in the Aurora UI. Stay tuned for more!

HDR
Aurora HDR
Photomatix Pro
HDRSoft
HDR software
bracketing photos
drone photography