Software

Phase One XF Feature Update #1 Adds Seismographic Vibration Delay and More

When Phase One announced its new XF camera system back in June, the goal was to unleash a new high-tech camera that can stay relevant long into the digital age. The company today announced the first firmware update that helps to fulfill that promise. It's a feature update that brings a number of exciting new features to the XF, including one called Seismographic Vibration Delay.

Researchers Create Software for Designing Pro Drone Shots in a Virtual World

As camera drones become increasingly popular as a relatively cheap and easy way to capture aerial photos and videos, there are more and more stories in the news of drone accidents being caused by poor piloting. For those who wish to capture pro-quality shots without having to worry about piloting drones themselves, a group of researchers at Stanford want to help: they've create a computer tool that lets you create a shot virtually and then have a camera drone automatically turn it into real …

Polarr Photo Editor 3 Launched for Web, Chrome, and Windows 10

The free browser-based photo editor Polarr is expanding its reach yet again. After launching version 2 of its online photo editor back in February and a wildly popular iOS photo editing app back in June, the company today unveiled version 3 of its flagship photo editor and the company's expansion to Chrome and Windows 10 Desktop.

Lightroom’s Import is 600% Slower Than Competition

Adobe has already apologized for fumbling its latest Lightroom update, which was riddled with bugs and missing features. Now there's a new story that's putting a stain on Adobe's image: a new test has found that the latest Lightroom is about 600% slower than its competitors.

A Demo of How Future Cameras May Be Able to Auto-Tag Your Photos

With over a trillion photos created every year now, one feature that could help people make sense of their massive photo collections could be object recognition and automatic tagging. If your camera and photo management software can figure out what's in your shots, it'll make searching through old photos much more easy and intuitive.

Is Capture One’s Default Color Profile Any Better Than Lightroom’s Adobe Standard?

A few months ago I stumbled upon a very interesting article on PetaPixel titled "Why I Stopped Using The DNG File Format." In this article the author mentions that Capture One give us a better starting point for color processing. This point made me excited about the whole idea that my portrait images could turn up a lot better and that I only need to start using Capture One.

Adobe Updates Lightroom CC to Kill the Crash Bug

A couple of days ago, Adobe acknowledged that a nasty bug in Adobe Lightroom CC was causing slowdowns and crashes that were being reported across the Web. If you've been pulling your hair out over the issue, there's good news today: a fix has arrived.

Instagram’s Strict Anti-Nudity Policy is Due to Apple

Instagram has long been at the center of debate over its policies regarding nudity. In March, the service sparked controversy by deleting a menstruation blood photo posted by an artist. Back in April, the service revised its policies to clarify that breastfeeding and post-mastectomy photos are okay.

Adobe Unveils Its Photoshop Fix Mobile Editing App

After pulling the plug on its Photoshop Touch app back in May, Adobe is now back in the mobile photo editing game. Today the company officially launched Photoshop Fix, the app that was teased months ago and code-named "Project Rigel."

A Look at the Math Behind Image Blurs and Filters

If you enjoy knowing the nitty gritty technical details of how photography technologies work, then you may enjoy the 8-minute video above. Published by Computerphile, it features image analyst Mike Pound of the University of Nottingham explaining the math behind how programs apply blurs and image filters (e.g. Instagram) to photos.

6 Fantastic (and Free) Video Editing Apps for iOS

Personal videos have long been an integral part of our lives, allowing us to share and cherish memories with our friends and family. Apple’s recent release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ have introduced ultra high-definition 4K video recording to a massive new audience. With such a powerful device, you may want to tweak your footage before you share it. Today, we are taking a quick look at five different editing solutions for your iOS device.

FLIF is a New Free Lossless Image Format That Raises the Compression Bar

Every so often, a new image format comes to town and attempts to overthrow the established order of how images (and photos) are saved and shared. In 2010, Google announced a new format called WebP, which promised to speed up the Web by shrinking file sizes without hurting quality. Last year, well-known programmer Fabrice Bellard unveiled a format of his own called BPG that claimed to pack the same quality of JPEGs at just half the size.

5 Common File Types in Photography and When You Should Use Each One

You’ve spent the last few hours working on the perfect photo shoot and everything went better than you could have possibly imagined. After importing the RAW files to your PC and making a few edits in Photoshop, it is time to save your masterpiece. But, what file type do you select? With over twenty different file types to choose from, we are here to break down some of the most popular and tell you a bit about their strengths and weaknesses.

VSCO Keys Lives On By Going Free and Open Source

In early September 2015, we reported that VSCO was discontinuing its VSCO Keys keyboard shortcut software for Lightroom. There's some good news today: instead of killing off the product, VSCO has decided to turn it into a free and open source project.

Nikon Snags New ‘C’ and ‘V’ Trademarks for Software

Nikon recently registered two new trademarks: “C Nikon” and “V Nikon”. According to the information provided from the official US federal trademark (USPTO) database, both items appear to be for upcoming pieces of software (sorry gear junkies!). The trademarks were filed earlier this year in July along with the proposed logos for each item.

Red Dot Camera App Brings the Leica M Experience to Your iPhone

If you've always wanted to play around with the idea of using a Leica M rangefinder but don't want to shell out the cash, Lifelike Apps has a new app for you. Called Red Dot Camera, the iOS app aims to bring the feel of a Leica camera to your iPad or iPhone; it was “inspired by the retro craftsmanship of the classic M camera series” and does “without the interference of gimmicky filters.”

Recently for iOS Turns Your Camera Roll Into a Print Magazine Every Month

Snapping a collection of photos on your iPhone and then having them disappear into your Camera Roll never to be seen again can be quite a common occurrence, but a new iOS app on the market wants to change that. ‘Recently’ is a mobile application for iPhones and iPads that allows you to automatically send your 100 most recent photographs off to be printed in a personal monthly magazine and delivered straight to your door.

Google Street View Now Has Its Own App on Android, 360° Photo Sharing

Google set out in 2007 to create an ambitious effort called Street View: a project aimed at providing panoramic views of individual streets around the world. The unique feature, which has since been copied by other mapping services, has, on Android devices, lived within the Google Maps app. Now, however, Street View is breaking free into its own separate application, and it includes a few features for capturing and sharing your own photospheres.

Panasonic Unveils ‘V-Log’ Firmware, New GH4R That Shoots Unlimited 4K

Videographers wielding the Panasonic GH4 will be excited to learn that the company will soon be making a compelling new update available. Firmware version 2.3 will allow GH4 cameras to shoot with a new ‘V-Log’ recording mode that enables the camera to capture an additional 2-stops of dynamic range. The technology was previously shown off at NAB 2015 and is finally landing on consumer devices.

Comparing a VSCO Film Emulation to the Actual Film

I’ve been a user of VSCO Film for Lightroom for several years now. I’ve been happy with the results, but I wanted to see how close VSCO's settings are to actual film, so I decided to do my own tests.

Adobe is Working on Automatic Distraction Removal Technology

Adobe's Content Aware Fill makes it easy to remove distracting elements in photos using Photoshop, but soon you may not have to. Computer vision scientists at Adobe and Princeton are working on a new technology called "distraction prediction" that can automatically find and remove distracting elements from photos.

Easily Inspect and Organize Your Negatives with Light Box Loupe for iOS

Working with a collection of film negatives can be quite an overwhelming task that requires each photograph to be carefully loaded into a scanner for identification. However, when developer Bruce Johnson needed to go through his grandfather’s extensive collection of photographic work, he realized a better solution was needed. Light Box Loupe is the easy iOS solution for proofing negatives (and reversal film) in real-time.

infltr Lets You Filter Your Photos with Over 5 Million Color Hues

Disappointed with Instagram's limited selection of filters? Well, a new app on the block called ‘infltr’ is promoting the ability to give your photograph over 5.1 million unique hues. Throw in one of your favorite pictures and simply swipe your finger to begin moving throughout the color spectrum. For a small price, you can have more hue filters than you could dream.

AstroPad Mini Turns Your iPhone Into a Photo Editing Graphics Tablet

Last month we reported on the AstroPad App for the Apple iPad: a solution that allowed you to turn your consumer tablet into a professional graphics tablet when working with applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or Illustrator. Now, the company is announcing a new app for the iPhone called AstroPad Mini -- it's everything you love about AstroPad... just minimized.

Facebook’s Moments App Can Now Turn Your Photos Into Movies

Earlier this year, Facebook launched the Moments app for both iOS and Android. Similar to many other applications out there, Moments is aimed at combining your photographs and your friends’ photographers from a single event into an easy to navigate album (and then uploading them to Facebook, of course). Today, the app has received an update that can automatically create movies from your experiences.