Software

Close-up of colorful crayons arranged in rows, split vertically; the left side appears grainy and blurry, while the right side is clearer and sharper, showing the crayon details more distinctly.

Apple’s RAW Processing is Finally Evolving After a Decade and It’s a Big Deal

Although Apple's WWDC Keynote gets by far the most attention, the event is a treasure trove of new info for developers across the entire Apple ecosystem. Buried among literally over 100 new videos Apple posted to its Apple Developer YouTube channel this week is one about a significant upgrade to the company's Core Image RAW processing APIs that power RAW and ProRAW capture on iPhone and RAW image processing across all of Apple's platforms.

A collage with four photos: a yellow house on a hill, a person in white near snowy mountains, two orange calla lilies with water droplets, and a whale breaching from the ocean.

Apple’s All-New Image Playground Promises More Than Cartoons

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.

A laptop on a desk displays a photo management app. A menu on the right lists batch editing options: Auto Enhance, Apply Filter, Auto Crop, Rotate, Add Description, and Revert to Original.

New Chrome Extension Brings Batch Editing to Google Photos

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.

A video editing software interface with a preview of a woman in a red dress outdoors, and multiple video and audio tracks visible on the timeline below.

DaVinci Resolve 21 Officially Released With New Photo Editing, AI Tools, and Much More

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.

Four smartphone screens display an astronomy app showing forecasts for the Milky Way, aurora, golden hour, and moonrise, each with vivid background images and forecast ratings at the bottom.

Atmos Is a Weather App By Photographers, for Photographers

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.

8 Editing Problems Nik Collection 9 Actually Solves

Over the last few decades, most photographers have believed that the more powerful the editing tool, the longer they need to spend behind a screen. Selection tools, color grading, and creative effects require layers of manual work and patience. A major update to one of photography’s oldest plug-in suites broke that pattern by taking the editing problems most photographers have accepted as unavoidable and building tools that solve them.

Black and white circular geometric logo with grid lines next to the bold text "VSCO" on a plain white background.

VSCO Terms of Use Explained: Why It Says It Isn’t Stealing Your Photos

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.

Banner advertisement for Imagen features a bride in a white dress, sunflowers, and text promoting "Unlimited Imagen" at a limited-time price of $10 for the first month, down from $165. "Peak Season Sale" is noted at the bottom.

Imagen Is Offering Full AI Editing Access for $10, Just In Time for Peak Season

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.

A green leaf icon, representing the Snapseed app, is centered over a blurred background showing photo editing interfaces and tools on a smartphone screen.

After Years of Waiting, a New Snapseed Finally Arrived on Android

Mobile photographers could have been forgiven for thinking that the beloved Google-owned photo editor Snapseed was dead before it received its first major update in years last June, bringing the app to version 3.0. Good news for Snapseed fans, the wait for the next major update was much shorter, and Snapseed 4.0 has arrived on iOS and Android.

A video editing software interface shows a man holding a camera in the preview window, filmstrip thumbnails below, color grading tools on the right, waveform monitor at the bottom, and a "PetaPixel Reviews" title on the timeline.

You Can Edit Photos in Resolve… But Should You?

While video professionals have grown used to seeing a major update of Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve editing software every April, this year’s update caught the attention of photographers everywhere with the debut of a new “Photo” tool. Headlines popped up instantly proclaiming that photo editing programs Lightroom and Capture One had new competition. But do they? I spent some time with the latest beta of Davinci Resolve 21, and I have some thoughts.

Two smartphones display the Amazon Photos app; one shows a search for "Ellie playing in the snow" with matching photos, while the other displays a smiling girl outdoors with the caption "Summer days.

Amazon Photos Redesign Adds Memory Feed, AI Search, and Alexa Controls

Amazon is rethinking how users interact with their photo libraries, rolling out a redesigned experience for Amazon Photos that shifts the focus from storage to discovery. Rather than opening to a static grid of images, the updated app now surfaces curated memories the moment users launch it, aiming to make photo libraries feel more alive and accessible.

A computer screen displays photography software with a medium format camera as the subject. The interface shows camera controls, settings, and a filmstrip of preview images at the bottom.

Photographer Builds His Own Tethering App to Solve Subscription Fatigue

For more than a decade, commercial photographer and retoucher John Barnard has worked across high-end campaigns for brands including Nike, Apple, Restoration Hardware, and Pottery Barn. But after 15 years in the industry, what ultimately pushed him to build his own software wasn’t a creative breakthrough or a business pivot. It was a broken tethering connection on set.

A grid of 16 images shows a woman in a tan coat holding a brown bag in different lighting and color effects, alternating with images of a red fire extinguisher and fire safety products on varied backgrounds.

Vividon’s New Photoshop Plugin Uses AI to Change Photo Lighting

Ask any working photographer what the one thing that they cannot fix in post is, and the answer will almost always be the same: light. It's easy to clean up skin, tweak color and contrast, and even swap skies or extend backgrounds. Still, bad light has historically meant a costly reshoot, hours of painstaking compositing, or the quiet disappointment of delivering something a client doesn't like. Stockholm-based startup Vividon is looking to change that, and today it has opened early access to …

A large orange icon with three horizontal lines and a right-pointing arrow is centered over a blurred computer interface labeled "Metadata Bridge for DaVinci Resolve" with a file list visible in the background.

EvrBridge Brings Automated Camera Metadata Workflows to Resolve

EvrApp has introduced EvrBridge, stylized "evrBridge," a new Windows application designed to automate one of post-production’s more persistent workflow challenges: extracting and organizing camera metadata for use inside DaVinci Resolve. The app marks the company’s first native Windows solution built around its established metadata processing pipeline.

A computer screen displays an Adobe design template library with colorful sale poster templates for fashion, handbag, and shoe sales. A chat box at the bottom asks for an Instagram story using these templates.

Claude AI Can Orchestrate Creative Workflows Across Adobe Apps

Adobe has introduced a major expansion of its AI-powered creative ecosystem, integrating the Adobe for creativity connector for Anthropic’s Claude alongside a public beta of Firefly AI Assistant. The updates mark a broader push toward agentic workflows, in which creative tools are orchestrated via natural-language prompts across multiple applications.

A woman with blonde hair and bangs sits indoors at a table, looking out a window. The left side shows her through the glass with reflections; the right side shows her clearly without reflections. An icon with stars is centered above.

Adobe’s Latest Photoshop and Lightroom Updates Focus on Speed

Adobe has released the April 2026 updates to Photoshop and Lightroom, bringing version 27.6 to desktop users with a mix of AI-driven tools, workflow refinements, and performance improvements. The update continues the company’s broader push to streamline complex editing tasks while expanding generative capabilities directly inside the app.

Three morel mushrooms stand in the foreground of a forest scene with a large planet visible in the background. Bold text reads “MORELS OUT OF THIS WORLD.”.

This Video Game Turns Mushroom Hunting Into a Sci-Fi Photo Expedition

Abrams Studios has announced that its upcoming title, Morels: Out of This World, will release on May 28, 2026, for Windows PC via Steam. The game builds on the studio’s earlier nature-focused concepts but shifts the setting beyond Earth, placing players as explorers and photographers on a series of alien planets with unfamiliar ecosystems.

A landscape photo of a lake and mountains is displayed on a tablet, laptop, and smartphone, showing Adobe Lightroom's editing interface on each device. The Lightroom logo appears in the top left corner.

Adobe Lightroom Updates Brings Faster AI Workflows and New Tools

Adobe has rolled out a new round of updates across its Lightroom ecosystem, including Lightroom Classic 15.3, Lightroom Desktop 9.3, and Lightroom Mobile 11.3. The releases introduce a mix of performance improvements, AI workflow enhancements, and new creative tools designed to streamline editing and expand flexibility across devices.

Large white text reading "ALMOST THERE" is overlaid on a blurred screenshot of DaVinci Resolve software, with the DaVinci Resolve logo centered below the word "ALMOST.

The DaVinci Resolve 21 Photo Editing Tools Show Promise but Are Imperfect

Blackmagic Design unveiled DaVinci Resolve 21 this week and alongside the expected types of improvements, like more AI-powered video editing features, Blackmagic shocked the creative world by adding RAW photo editing and organization features to Resolve 21. I've been trying Resolve 21's new photo editing features since it arrived on Monday, and there's a lot to like. There's also quite a bit that isn't quite up to snuff, is just a bit too different for my tastes, or is outright confusing.

A smartphone mounted on a camera is displaying a cityscape with a digital overlay of hexagonal guides. Both devices are set up on a balcony with tall glass buildings in the background.

Sony’s Cutting-Edge XYN Spatial Capture Solutions Arrive Very Soon

When PetaPixel editor-in-chief Jaron Schneider saw Sony's cutting-edge XYN immersive display technology at CP+ 2026 in Yokohama, Japan, he described it as being like seeing through an Apple Vision Pro, but without any of the headgear. But XYN goes far beyond a single display device; XYN is an end-to-end spatial capture solution.

A comparison of three versions of a vintage photo of a smiling woman with balloons: the original (left), restored and enhanced by Aiarty (middle), and further enhanced with color correction and AI eraser (right).

Upscale, Denoise, Deblur, and More with Aiarty

Old photos don't just fade, they slowly lose the details that make them meaningful. If you're looking for how to bring old photos back to life or make them clearer, an AI-powered tool like Aiarty Image Enhancer can serve as an essential part of the restoration workflow, offering one of the fastest and most practical solutions.

A white circular grid icon with evenly spaced segments is centered on a blue-green abstract background featuring bubbles and organic shapes.

Nearly 90% of Surveyed Working Photographers Are Using AI

VSCO has increasingly incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) into its photography products, including AI Lab, a dedicated AI-based editing platform inside the VSCO app on iOS. To better understand how photographers feel about AI and how they want to use it in their photography workflow, VSCO conducted a survey of photographers across the U.S. and Canada in December, and the results are quite interesting. The company published its report today.