Software

Keeping track of photo and video files across multiple hard drives, memory cards, and cloud services can become difficult as projects accumulate. A new Mac application called Tusk is designed to give photographers and video creators a way to track those files while also handling parts of the backup and offload process.

Late last year, Adobe introduced integrations for Photoshop, Express, and Acrobat inside OpenAI's conversational AI platform, ChatGPT. Now Adobe has upped the ante and announced the Adobe plugin in ChatGPT, which brings every Adobe app inside ChatGPT.

Adobe released new updates across its Lightroom ecosystem, including Lightroom Classic, Lightroom on desktop, Lightroom for iPad, and Lightroom for mobile. There is a wide range of exciting updates across the board.

Skylum, best known for its AI-powered photo editing software Luminar, is grappling with today's increasingly negative attitude toward artificial intelligence by changing its messaging to double-down on human creativity.

Cadrage has launched Cadrage Studio, a new preproduction platform designed to bring together many of the tools filmmakers use before production into a single application. Built by the team behind the Cadrage director's viewfinder app, the new software combines shot lists, storyboards, camera diagrams, mood boards, script management, and location planning within one collaborative workspace.

With how expensive memory cards are these days, it makes sense that photographers and videographers want to rely on as few of them as possible without sacrificing data security or performance. A new app, Stow, aims to help creators know when their cards are properly backed up and safe to wipe, getting them ready for the next job.

There is increasing backlash against smart glasses. Some owners even say they're scared to wear them now. As part of a growing anti-smart glasses sentiment, or at least concern about how people may use smart glasses, there's a new iPhone app designed to alert users when smart glasses may be nearby.

Moment has updated its popular iPhone camera app, Moment Pro Camera II, with new Action Plates. The company describes Action Plates as swappable control layouts for the camera app, akin to a video game controller for the app.

Professional iPhone camera app, Pearla, has a new, huge update. Pearla Verana IV, as it's officially known, adds a wide array of new features, including PearlaRAW, the "first and only" way to internally capture 14-bit RAW stills and video on iPhone without any external storage. Plus there's a new professional editing app, Revela, and a simple camera app, Joya.

Alongside the new, vastly improved Pearla Verana IV iPhone camera app, newly formed company Pearla Mostra also unveiled Pearla Revela, a non-destructive node-graph editor for photos and videos on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Just over a year ago, Adobe released a new computational photography camera app on iPhone, Project Indigo. It arrived boasting impressive features, including desktop-quality noise reduction and upscaling technology, plus robust camera controls and an emphasis on natural, realistic-looking photos. Today, Adobe launched what it calls "AI Playground" inside Project Indigo, ushering in new ways for photographers to use generative AI.

Capture One has brought its second-generation wireless tethering for Canon cameras to Capture One Mobile, promising speeds that "feel as fast as wired."

Over the last few years, image upscalers powered by AI have become remarkably good at making photos larger. The challenge is no longer whether an image can be enlarged to 4K or even 8K, it's whether the result still looks like the original photograph.

For the past year, Google has been adding new AI-powered features into Google Photos, continuing a trend of cramming generative AI into as many aspects of its hardware and software businesses as possible. That continues today with the addition of Video Remix.

After many years of requests, Capture One has finally added support for Hasselblad .3RF RAW images. While support is limited to Hasselblad's 100-megapixel medium-format cameras for now, this is a massive shift for Capture One that addresses years of user requests.

Capture One and Hasselblad have announced a partnership, finally bringing the two brands together after years of division. Starting with Capture One version 16.8.3, photographers can now import, organize, and develop Hasselblad RAW files (.3FR) directly in Capture One.

Apple has introduced a series of new updates to Apple Creator Studio, the collection of creative apps the company unveiled earlier this year.

Adobe has today announced it is acquiring Topaz Labs, known for its professional-grade photo and video enhancement software.

Capture One has released version 16.8.2 today, which adds real-time collaborative sessions.

Adobe's promised creative agent, or agentic AI, has fully arrived in Creative Cloud. Inside Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, users can tell Adobe's Firefly-powered AI Assistant how to edit photos, videos, and other graphics.

Alongside Studio Pro, its new photo editing platform designed for high-volume working photographers, VSCO announced VSCO One, and it's getting a lot of attention, and not only for good reasons.

Last fall, TourBox released the Dynamic Panel for Lightroom, a new plugin for Adobe Lightroom Classic and Lightroom that enabled full-screen, clutter-free photo editing inside Lightroom when used alongside the TourBox Elite creative editing console. Dynamic Panel V2 has arrived with several new panels that photographers demanded.

Pattern Recognition Company (PRC) has announced that Excire Foto 2027 is now available, promising improved search, organization, and workflow tools for photographers.

VSCO has launched Studio Pro, its next-generation professional editing experience, on iOS. The company promises a macOS version later this year.

This week, Microsoft announced new Surface and Surface Pro laptops, which are powered by Snapdragon X2 processors. These ultra-thin, ultra-light laptops promise more performance for the average user, and part of that pitch is shipping them all with Affinity.

Zoner Studio has released its Summer Update 2026, introducing a collection of workflow-focused improvements designed to help photographers spend less time managing images and more time editing them.

"Have you ever spent hours manually reviewing thousands of photos from an event or portrait shoot to find the selects your clients will love?" Adobe asks. It's a safe bet that for many photographers, the answer is, and Adobe believes its latest Creative Cloud updates will help solve this issue and save photographers time.

Meta's social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, are experiencing widespread issues today, with users reporting login failures, unexpected account logouts, and problems accessing both websites and mobile apps. The Meta Business Suite is also down as of the time of writing.

Mixbook has announced what it calls Story Mode, a new prompt-based photo book creation tool that is built on "patent-pending AI technology" designed to allow users to describe what they want in a photo book. The company says it speeds up creation by 3.5x and cuts time to order in half.

Today at WWDC 2026, Apple unveiled a wide range of new software for its product ecosystem, including macOS 27 Golden Gate, iOS 27, and iPadOS 27. A significant part of all the new software updates is an upgraded Apple Intelligence system, which includes a revamped Image Playground, Apple's generative AI for images.

f8 Develop is a new film negative inversion app made specifically for macOS and is meant to support photographers who scan with a mirrorless or DSLR camera at home.

Google Photos has become one of the most popular photo platforms in the world, serving more than 1.5 billion monthly users and providing everything from cloud backups to AI-powered editing tools. Yet despite its extensive feature set, one capability has remained notably absent for years: batch editing.

Blackmagic Design has officially released the final version of DaVinci Resolve 21, delivering one of the largest updates in the software's history. The release introduces a completely new Photo page for still-image editing, a range of AI-powered tools, major workflow enhancements across editing, color grading, audio, and visual effects, and support for additional camera formats and codecs.

Better Camera is a new iPhone camera app designed, as its name suggests, to be superior to the iPhone's native camera app. The new app offers manual controls and film-inspired simulations and boasts zero AI tech.

As photographers know, light is extremely important. And for outdoor photographers, nothing affects the quality of light quite like the weather. Photographer Matthew Raifman wanted to build a weather app for people like him, photographers who want to know not just what the weather forecast is, but whether or not the conditions will be any good for photography. Enter Atmos for Weather & Photo, also known as Atmos.

Capture One has announced an upcoming price increase that will affect its entire suite of products, including Pro, All-in-One, and Studio, for monthly and annual subscriptions, plus perpetual licenses.

Many photographers will remember the massive controversy Adobe found itself embroiled in nearly two years ago when photographers noticed just how invasive and overreaching the company's updated Terms of Use were. The company quickly reacted. VSCO is now finding itself in a similar position, as users are taking notice of some concerning language in the platform's Terms of Use.

Post-processing has long been the most time-consuming part of a photographer's workflow, and the numbers back that up. According to the 2026 Zenfolio State of the Photography Industry report, about 70% of photographers spend between 26% and 75% of their working time on editing. Only 5% of photographers surveyed feel they are managing the stress of running their business well.

Sony has released firmware version 2.00 for the Sony a7 V, bringing a substantial update focused on professional audio workflows, FTP functionality, and new production tools for hybrid shooters and filmmakers.

VWFNDR has announced VWFNDR + MBL, a new Android camera app designed to work like a camera, "not as a computational filter." The company says it has built its new app to be a tool for intentional, deliberate mobile photographers.

XPPen has announced its first-ever creative editing console, the Pilot Pro, and the company says it sets a new benchmark for professional editing workflows.

A new macOS utility called BatchMark Pro promises to simplify one of the more repetitive parts of a photographer’s workflow: adding watermarks, logos, copyright text, and technical metadata to exported images quickly and consistently.

In a world where photography software companies don't always give photography or photographers the respect they deserve, VSCO has committed to the importance of photography.

Instagram has launched a new feature called Instants, a disappearing photo-sharing system designed around fast, unedited sharing with close friends. Available both inside Instagram and through a new standalone Instants app, the feature pushes even further into real-time photography and casual social sharing, with a strong emphasis on authenticity and privacy.