'Bliss,' the default wallpaper that shipped with Windows XP, was photographed in Sonoma County, California, and may be the most viewed photo of all time. For its upcoming Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft enlisted the help of creative director Bradley G. Munkowitz for a fresh new default desktop photo that the company hopes will one day be just as iconic.
If you shoot film, you know how difficult it can be to properly organize your photographs once they have been digitized to your computer. Modern digital cameras allow easy organization with built in metadata that provides every bit of information you could ever need; however, digitally scanned photos contain no such data. Promote Systems has introduced the Meta35, a device to easily import and sync your film camera’s metadata.
If you're not comfortable with the idea of uploading photos to the Web with geotag data baked into the file, there are some easy ways you can scrub the data to protect your privacy. Both Mac and Windows computers offer simple solutions for quickly removing sensitive location info from your photo files.
If you ever hand your phone over to family and friends with hesitance, afraid they might swipe over one photo too far when you’re trying to show them a few photos, Microsoft Research’s new app Xim might just save you from a few nerve-wracking moments.
There are some Lightroom plugins that make you truly question why the feature isn’t built directly into Lightroom itself, and Show Focus Points is one of those. Just as the name implies, it’s a plugin that lets you see which focus point was used when your camera captured the photograph.
Earlier today, Adobe quietly announced the release of Photoshop Mobile for Windows Phone. No longer do iOS and Android users get to have all the fun, Windows Phone has officially been brought into the Adobe fold.
Sony rolled out an impressive firmware update for owners of its Sony Action Cams today. Owners of the higher-end AS100V get the better end of the deal, but Sony's not leaving AS30V owners out either.
As of yesterday, Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP. And in honor of one of the longest-living operating systems, the above video takes a look at the story behind what is arguably XP's most recognized quality: the 'Bliss' wallpaper that came stock on every machine.
Sunsets are beautiful. They've inspired songs and paintings, they've been the backdrops to weddings and celebrations, and overall they're natures way of ending almost every day on a beautiful note.
However, as photographers, we often see them as something of a cliché. To change that up a bit, photographer Bing Wright decided to create a series of images titled "Broken Mirror/Evening Sky" that add a new element to the equation. As you can see from the image above as well as those below, it looks like he photographed some beautiful sunsets through broken windows. But that wasn't exactly how the images came to be.
Flect is a simple device I developed to take photos through glass without reflections or glare from the surrounding environment. Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to make one for yourself.
Just in case you’ve been wondering: yes, the latest versions of Adobe’s photo-editing programs are all compatible with the …
Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond of NOTsoNOISY created this amazing stop-motion animation titled "Animated Tower." He found students and staff volunteers to turn an 11-story-building at the University of Health Sciences (HESAV) in Switzerland into a giant 10 by 11 display, with each window serving as a single pixel.
This news might not be very relevant to most of you, but Adobe has announced that future versions of …
The photographs in photographer Gail Albert Halaban's series Out My Window are unsettling and beautiful at the same time. Each of them shows people framed by open apartment windows in New York City -- quite creepy if the images are actually of unsuspecting strangers. At the same time, the voyeur is quite a photographer, as each shot perfectly balances the lighting of the subject inside with the cityscapes and brick walls outside.
The scenes were actually all staged, and are intended to share something that Halaban says New Yorkers can relate to: "connecting" with neighbors through apartment windows.
If you’re a Windows user that preordered a Lytro light field camera, here’s some terrific news: …
For Windows users who frequently need access to Creative Commons photography, Abelssoft’s free desktop app …
Recently, Microsoft has been showing off many of the new features we'll be seeing in the much-anticipated official release of Windows 8, and the most recent sneak peek Microsoft gave us was of the new Photos app. The app offers a native way for Windows users to organize, view and share all of their photos regardless of what they were taken with or where they're stored.
Cinemagraphs, or still images that have a dash of movement, have become very popular as of late. So popular, in fact, that Microsoft Research is jumping onto the bandwagon.
Nikon shooters: Nikon Camera Control is a new open source Windows application that …
The Microsoft team tasked with building Windows 8 has published a blog post with various user suggestions they've decided to implement in the OS. A big thing they're focusing on is file management -- something that isn't usually touted as a "feature" but is important in day-to-day computer usage. One useful improvement is having the OS read the EXIF data in JPEG photos to automatically present the correct orientation.
For his project Lightscapes by photographer James Reeve photographed cities at night, and then stripped away everything but the lights and windows. The technique turns both buildings and cityscapes into "anonymous patterns of light".
Photographer Anne-Laure House photographs illuminated windows at night in cities around the world, and arranges them into beautiful collages. She writes,
At nightfall, the windows of the flats that are lit up attract more attention than the façade of the buildings that frame them. Lit interiors become real tableaux vivants. The interior takes precedence over the exterior, and we can glimpse moments of people’s intimate lives. I am not actually interested in their intimacy as such, but rather by the space itself – the warmth of a particular light, the twinkling of a Christmas garland or the shimmering glow of a television, the corner of a painting. All these details stir my imagination and inspire my work. When I gaze at these windows, I like to tell myself a story. I capture these intimate moments and build my own structures."
The collage above shows windows seen in New York City.
Great news for PC users: Microsoft has finally released a free codec pack …
If you have an instant camera, have you ever tried taking digital photos of the prints right after you made them? For his series titled "Instax Windows", Shawn McClung carries around a digital camera and snaps a digital photo of his Fuji Instax prints right after they're taken, with the scene in the print lined up with the real world.
French company Oloneo has just released a free beta for their product, PhotoEngine. The software is a straightforward HDR creator and non-destructive editor that allows you to quickly merge HDR photos. Additionally, it has features that can adjust specific light sources in the photo, to change the white balance or the exposure. This could come in handy when shooting HDR frames that have a variety of different light sources with different temperatures.
If you’re not naturally an organized person, then figuring out where certain photos are on your computer or external …
This past week we ran a poll asking our readers what operating system …
Photo Magician is a free and lightweight (less than 1MB) program for Windows that allows you to batch convert a directory of photographs. It's similar in functionality to Photoshop's "Image Processor" feature, with one difference being you can't select the output quality like you can using Photoshop.