On January 15th, 2008, Steve Jobs pulled a MacBook Air out of a manila envelope and changed laptop computers forever. Blink and you might have missed it: the instant when an entire industry shifted to accommodate a new breed of device that made more sense to more people. And last month, Apple had the audacity to do it again.
One of the consequences of reviewing computers for PetaPixel and running benchmark after benchmark is that you learn a thing or two about working in Lightroom. From weird quirks to the optimal performance settings for import, export, and editing, there are a few key changes you can make to coax a little more speed out of Adobe's Raw editor.
Earlier today, Apple officially released Apple ProRAW via iOS 14.3. This new hybrid image format claims to give you the best of both worlds: AI-powered computational photography on the one hand, and the flexibility of a 12-bit RAW file on the other. But does it deliver the goods? In a word: yes.
When Dell decided to bring back the XPS 17, I was skeptical. Most 17-inch laptops fail to give you enough performance to justify the drop in portability; what you end up with is either too big, not powerful enough, or both. That's what makes the XPS 17 so special. This is a 17-inch laptop built with creative professionals in mind.
It happens to the best of us... and in 2020 it happens all the time: creative block. Whether it's a lack of inspiration, a lack of motivation, a lack of free time, or some combination of all three, we've all hit that wall where it feels like every one of our ideas is stale, everyone else is better or more prolific than us, and there's no real reason to keep trying.
One of the best ways to broaden your horizons and inject a little inspiration into your photography is to explore subjects outside the world of photography. To study painting or take a course in graphic design, for example. But I recently discovered a fount of photographic inspiration in an unusual place: a neuroscience lab.
When the mirrorless race began in earnest at the end of 2018, nobody knew who would come out on top. Three years and more than 10 full-frame mirrorless camera bodies later, the answer is obvious: Canon is winning big, and they've done it by going "all in" on the RF Mount.
There are two big leaps you can make in your photo editing workflow. The first is moving from a mouse-and-keyboard setup to a pen tablet like the Wacom Intuos Pro—almost everybody does that at some point. But if you really want to kick your experience up to another level, there's one more step you can take: you can buy yourself a high-resolution pen display.
Late last week, Apple unveiled its most consequential product in at least a decade. 10 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days after Steve Jobs took the stage to unveil the first iPad, Tim Cook announced the release of three new Macs powered by Apple's own M1 system on a chip (SOC)... changing the industry forever.
For photographers, AI photo editing is no longer a fringe topic for ML researchers or a gimmick employed by smartphone apps. With the impending release of Skylum's Luminar AI and Adobe calling the latest build of Photoshop "the world’s most advanced AI application for creatives," it's time for the community to reckon with an important question: What does this mean for photography, photo editing, and creativity at large?
Photographer and YouTuber Frederik Trovatten has just released episode three of his popular "How to take photos like..." series. He started with Vivian Maier, moved on to Robert Frank, and this week he's breaking down the style and philosophy of the great Joel Meyerowitz.
Photographer Zsolt Repasy describes himself as a photographer of "folklore, traditions & forgotten values," and nowhere is that passion more obvious than in his images of Hungarian shepherds. After discovering that traditional shepherds are still alive and well in Hungary, he set out to immortalize their lives in a spirit of curiosity and openness.
Many of you, like myself, have gone through the journey of putting yourself out there as a creative. It’s a part of the territory that goes into showing people your work: whether that’s having an Instagram profile and networking, or opening up a YouTube channel. Some of us may go even further and begin teaching and becoming a person that others go to for information about our craft.
JT from the YouTube channel Run N Gun has put together a quick video that takes you through 10 easy macro photography ideas you can try from the comfort of your own home. If you're looking for some weekend inspiration that won't take you out of the house or wake you up at 4am, this ought to do it.
When I started freelancing as a professional photographer, I knew I had to put together a printed portfolio. Unfortunately, I found it very hard to find useful resources on the Internet on how to actually do this. As I had some experience in bookbinding I managed to bind my first book by myself, but after three books I realized that in this stage of my career, I needed to have something a little more flexible.
In an attempt to prevent the "real-time spread of potentially harmful content" through its platform, photo sharing app Instagram has temporarily removed the "Recent" tab from hashtag pages ahead of the US Presidential election.
Photographer Paul Rutherford is back with another behind the scenes look at what it's like shooting professional sports during the pandemic. Previously he took us to a spectator-free MLB game at Fenway Park; today he's showing us what it's like working an NFL game in an empty Gillette Stadium.
Award-winning drone photographer Brad Walls is back with another beautifully symmetrical photo series that recasts a familiar subject into an aerial perspective. His latest series invites the viewer to experience the beauty of ballet from above.
A man in South Florida was mauled by a black leopard after he paid $150 for a "full-contact experience" with the big cat in what is being described as a "backyard zoo." The experience was supposed to include playing with the leopard, rubbing its belly, and taking pictures... instead the man has had to undergo multiple surgeries.
Venus Optics has just unveiled a new "world's first" in the optics game. The new Laowa 15mm f/4.5 Zero-D Shift Lens is apparently "the world's widest shift lens for full-frame cameras," and it will be available for both DSLR and mirrorless cameras.
An anxiety-ridden nation trepidatiously waits as November 3rd and the 59th presidential election rapidly approaches. And with so many absentee ballots already dropped off in ballot boxes or mailed — not to mention wild stories of hours-long waits for eager early voters — early voting data suggests that voter participation in this election is set to make history.
One of the major updates to the latest version of Photoshop is the addition of Sky Replacement: a tool that has the potential to save you a ton of time when editing your landscape images. But as Aaron Nace explains in this video, this AI-powered tool requires a bit of thought if you want to get professional results.
Photographers know better than most: how you edit a photograph can totally chance the perception of that photo for the viewer. But a new online photo history quiz wants to make this explicit, showing how converting a photo to black-and-white can trick us into thinking a photo is much older than it really is.
Hasselblad has just released a significant firmware update for its X1D II 50C and the 907X 50C cameras that adds some important features, including: a distance scale for manual focusing and multiple improvements to the built-in Interval Timer.
Photographer Markus Hofstätter is known for pushing the art of wet plate photography in new and exciting ways, but... of course... it doesn't always work out. That's what happened in this video, where Hofstätter tries (and fails) to shoot wet plate photography with autofocus by putting a plate inside a Mamiya 645 AF AFD Polaroid Film Back.
If you're in the market for a full-frame DSLR, listen up, because one of the best cameras on the market is now cheaper than ever. The Nikon D850—once dubbed "the pinnacle of DSLR technology" by DPReview—just received a $500 price cut, making it more affordable than it's ever been since it was released in 2017.
Photographer Catherine Panebianco—previously featured here—recently published a beautiful new photo project titled No Memory is Ever Alone that pays tribute to her father by using his old slides to bring a piece of his past into her present.
Jordan Drake and Richard Butler at DPReview recently put the latest Canon EOS R6 firmware update to the test, and what they found is extremely promising. The update more or less solves the overheating issues in "regular" shooting scenarios, and marks a "huge improvement" in overall overheating performance.
In response to the classic camera shutter sound video we shared yesterday, a reader sent over another, even more enjoyable entry into the "oddly satisfying" category. Created a few years ago by YouTube user Tywen Kelly, he describes his video as "a semi-instructional aural ode to [a] great medium format camera" the Zenza Bronica S2a.
Image stacking is a technique used in astrophotography to reduce noise and recover signal. It means taking multiple shots of object (usually long exposures) and combining them to create a cleaner image.