FoCal today announced Version 2 of its automated camera calibration software that helps photographers calibrate the microfocus adjustment on their cameras. The new update will allow users of the software compare their autofocus test results with other users and see previous tests you've run to better see how your gear is performing.
If you enjoy random bits of inspiration throughout your day, Flickr has a new Chrome extension just for you. Called Flickr Tab, it's a simple little browser add-on that shows you a popular photograph from Flickr every time you open up a new blank tab.
Want to understand the concept of depth of field better? Polish photographer and programmer Michael Bemowski has created a fantastic and feature-rich online depth of field calculator and bokeh simulator that can help you wrap your mind around what's going on when you change things like focal length and aperture.
I was working on a commissioned artwork in Photoshop today and I noticed something. I keep my left hand over the shift key pretty much the entire time I am working in PS. That little button does a LOT. So I thought I would take some time and show you guys what you have been missing out on if you haven’t taken advantage of shift key functionalities in PS before.
Want an easily digital way to keep track of your camera gear and all the documents associated with it? A new app called Zither wants to help. It's a stuff organization app that was developed by Marc Silber of Advancing Your Photography, so it's optimized for things like cameras, lenses, and accessories.
Photoshop experts who teach the software for a living generally know it like the back of their hand. But how skilled would they be if they were forced to downgrade to the original version of the program, Photoshop 1.0? That's what CreativeLive set out to find out recently.
VSCO helps photographers easily add the look of film to their images. Lens Distortions does the same thing, except with out of focus glass shards. The service provides a Photoshop Action pack that lets you add an out-of-focus object between you and your subject.
VSCO updated its popular VSCO Cam app today to introduce Copy and Paste functionality that helps speed up your workflow. Instead of editing individual photos at a time, you can now copy the edits from one photo and paste them onto multiple images.
Google's well-known Street View service is one of several monumental efforts to document the world's travel routes through ground-level photos. These projects generally use fancy camera rigs on cars, backpacks, and even camels to capture their images.
Apple has sent out an email reminder to Aperture owners, reminding them that Aperture will no longer be available for purchase starting this spring after it's replaced by the new Photos for OS X app. Aperture users can migrate their libraries to the new Photos app, which is now available for anyone to try through the OS X Beta program.
Preset maker Really Nice Images has announced RNI All Films 3.0, a new film simulation suite that aims to rival the software offered by companies such as DXO and VSCO. RNI claims to be so realistic in its simulation of film that film photographers are fooled by resulting photos in blind tests.
Heads up: you can currently download a free copy of onOne Software's Perfect Effects 9. It's a $60 program that can be used as a Photoshop or Lightroom plugin or as a standalone tool. Inside are customizable filters and hundreds of presets that allow you to quickly apply custom looks to your photos.
Twenty20 is a new stock photography service that just launched to the public after months of beta testing. It claims to have the world's largest crowdsourced commercial image catalog -- one that contains 45 million photos from 250,000 photographers based in 154 countries.
Earlier this month, a leaked product page revealed a number of features that will be found in the upcoming Lightroom 6. One of them was an HDR merging tool that combines multiple exposures into a single HDR image. Here's a first glimpse at how the feature will work.
Adobe celebrated Photoshop's 25th birthday yesterday with great fanfare. Since the original Photoshop version 1.0 was launched back on February 19th, 1990, there have been 15 major versions released that have advanced the way we work with (and look at) photographs.
The web service IFTTT (short for "If This Then That") has launched a new camera app called Do Camera. It's a simple little program that lets you personalize how your camera works and what happens to your photos after they're snapped.
Lightroom 6 is coming soon, and a leaked product listing is giving us a good idea of what we can expect in the latest version of Adobe's popular tool for photographers.
Today marks the 25 year anniversary of Adobe Photoshop being launched and changing the way we see the world. Here's a look at how Photoshop started and how far it has come in the past two-and-a-half decades.
One of the more impressive services in the world of browser-based photo editing is Polarr, a web app that launched to the public back in September 2014. In just a handful of months, the 3-person startup has developed a service used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Retoucher Matt Kloskowski offers this quick and easy Lightroom tip for your mental library: if you ever find yourself with a drastically underexposed photograph, you can use a "secret shadow slider" in Lightroom to try and recover an extreme amount of detail.
The Photographer's Ephemeris is one of the popular sun and moon calculators out there for planning outdoor shoots with natural light. The service has just announced Version 3.0 of its popular iOS app, which is being featured by Apple in the App Store's Photo & Video category.
Darkroom is a new photo editor for iPhones that just launched today. The app offers a number of powerful features for editing photos on iOS, including do-it-yourself photo filters, a curves tool, and an infinite history with all your edits.
Google has acquired Odysee, an app by a small startup called Nimbuz Inc. that had been working on a smartphone software for backing up and sharing photos and videos. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Affinity Photo is a new program that was launched today by the England-based software company Serif. It's designed to be a powerful alternative to Adobe Photoshop for professional photographers and retouchers who work on a Mac.
If you're just starting out in Adobe Lightroom and would like some guidance on how you can use the software to improve your photographs, here's a free lesson that may be of interest to you. Photography instructor Tim Grey shares his top 10 tips for optimizing photographs in Lightroom.
Fujifilm is bringing its popular mirrorless camera film simulation modes to its desktop RAW conversation software. Rather than shoot photos in certain modes and have those looks baked into the JPEG files, photographers will be able to choose their film look during post-processing.
Apple announced last year that it was pulling the plug on its two main photo editing and management programs: iPhoto, which is aimed at consumers, and Aperture, which is geared toward pros. Both products would be replaced with a single app called "Photos for Mac." …
Microsoft Research has announced version 2.0 of its Image Composite Editor (ICE) software, a free program that offers advanced panoramic photo stitching technology. If you're on a Windows machine and need a way to combine multiple photos into single shots, ICE is a download you may want to look into.
Studio Binder is a new service that's designed to help photographers and filmmakers send and track call times with their cast and crew. The service is designed to take the pain out of making sure everyone shows up at the right time and in the right place for a shoot.
There's a royal rumble going on in the world of cloud storage, and photo storage is one of the battlegrounds upon which the war is being waged. Dropbox launched a photo storage and sharing service in late 2014, and Amazon recently added unlimited photo storage to its Prime membership.
Here's a strange legal rumble that just hit the courts: software giant Adobe is suing clothing giant Forever 21 for pirating copies of Photoshop.
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.
Online creative portfolio service Format has launched a sleek new iPad portfolio app called Kredo. In addition to being a way to share your best images with someone in real life, the app also features a network of creative professionals for sharing your work digitally.
If you want to stay up to date with Adobe's Lightroom software, you'll need to make sure you're up to date with the latest operating systems. Adobe has announced that Lightroom 6 will only be compatible with 64-bit operating systems.
Stay Focused is a new app that brings focus stacking to the iPhone. By shooting multiple photos at different focus distances and then combining them, the app allows users to capture images with a greater depth of field than a single iPhone snap may allow.
WhiteAlbum is a new app and service that wants to bring the fun of disposable camera photography to the world of smartphones. It's a camera app that doesn't let you review your photographs until they show up at your door in the form of prints.
Adobe has announced Lightroom mobile for Android phones. It's an app that helps extend your workflow beyond your desktop and allows you to use your phone to review and edit your photos. Changes made through the app are automatically synced back to your Lightroom catalog on your computer.
If you're ever in a situation in which you need to understand some text in a foreign language, getting a translation is now as free and easy as loading up your phone's camera app. Google has updated its Translate app to include real-time on-screen translations of text you point your camera at.
Fuji has generated a great deal of customer loyalty and satisfaction with its "Kaizen" ("change good") policy of frequent and significant firmware updates that beef up existing cameras with exciting new features. Nikon may soon follow suit.
Back in 2013, Adobe began posting a series of short video tutorials on YouTube called the "Photoshop Playbook." The series has since grown to contain fifty how-to videos showing how some of the most popular and fundamental edits are done in the photo editing program.
GoPro has announced that it will soon be rolling out new firmware for its HERO4 Black and Silver cameras that will improve the devices' photography and video capabilities.
Photographer Eric Kunz has created a new iPhone app that makes it easy to create high-quality double exposure photographs using your phone. It's called LiveBlend, and Kunz claims that it's the only app currently in the App Store that does double exposure blending in real time.
In the world of analog photography, "film swapping" is an activity in which two photographers each shoot through the same roll of film, creating random -- and often beautiful -- double exposure photographs in each frame.
Here's a nice deal for those of you planning to start a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud's Photography Program for 2015: if you subscribe through Amazon instead of Adobe, you'll get a free $30 to spend on Amazon.
People who have autism often have trouble making eye contact and reading facial expressions but enjoy using gadgets. Samsung wants to change that with a new camera app called "Look at Me" that's designed to help autistic children become better at communication skills.
Back in May 2013, Google+ began offering auto enhancement to improve the quality of users' photos. Now the magic has arrived for video as well.
Want a camera that can automatically encrypt photos after taking them? A hacker named Doug did. After having this idea for years without seeing camera companies offer it, he decided to take matters into his own hands and make it happen himself.
If you're the proud owner of a Fujifilm X-T1, X-E2, X-E1, and X-Pro1, here's an early present for you this holiday season: Fujifilm has released firmware updates that add some pretty big new features your camera.
500px released a major update to its iOS app today. Users can now take advantage of an in-app camera and editing tools powered by Adobe Lightroom technologies.
Casio has announced a new Android app called SynchroShot that lets photographers perfectly synchronize up to seven of its new Exilim EX-100PRO cameras for photos or video.
