January 10, 2012

So this was the first sunset I captured in 2012. It cost me $6,612 to take this photo.

Adobe released a beta version of Lightroom 4 today. New features include support for location data through a map module, book making through Blurb, new video features, new shadow/highlight controls, simplified basic adjustments, new local adjustments, and space saving lossy compression for DNG files. You can find a complete list of changes here. You can downloaded the program for free and use it until the beta version expires on March 31st, 2012.

dpreview has published an in-depth hands-on preview of the new Fujifilm X-Pro1. The image above shows the camera next to a Leica M9-P digital rangefinder, which costs about $8,000 -- body only.

Filmmaker Jesse Rosten created this satirical commercial for Fotoshop by Adobé with the tagline "This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty." It's a humorous response to how the beauty industry has distorted our society's perception of beauty through ubiquitous Photoshopping. The video may or may not be work safe, depending on where you work.

With camera-equipped phones eating up more and more of the compact camera market, manufacturers are turning to gimmicky features in order to lure consumers. Canon's new line of ELPH cameras have a Sleeping Face Recognition mode that'll make your camera creepy stealthy (i.e. turn off flash, assist beam, and sounds) when it detects someone sleeping in the frame. Olympus' new VR-340 has a Beauty Make-Up Mode that offers 18 in-camera enhancements (e.g. whiten teeth, lift cheek bones) -- something …

Here's something that might give you a chuckle (or be too painfully accurate for some of you): Visual Idiot created a web-based Adobe Photoshop simulator that attempts to faithfully reproduce how the program works in Mac OS X.

Walter Mason of Berlin, Germany shot these beautiful photographs of land art he created. Land art is abstract artwork created using natural materials found outdoors.

Here's a hands-on tour of the new Fujifilm X-Pro1 that was announced yesterday -- a gorgeous camera that has the photo world buzzing with excitement. There's been a lot of speculation on the camera's price, which hasn't been announced, with most sources reporting that it will be in the range of $1,600-$1,700.