Apps

While some photographers stay close to home, others travel quite regularly. I’ve been traveling my entire life for one reason or another. And whether it was for a newspaper job I was essentially commuting to (living four days in Southern California and three days in Northern California every week) or a short trip on a personal photographic exploration, I quickly learned that it’s great to have some creature comforts to keep you company along the ride once whatever glamour of traveling that’s left these days fades away.

South Africa native Matthew Rycroft creatively combined creepy music, a creepy-looking dude, and some dark, chiaroscuro lighting techniques to create a video that brilliantly mocks the cliché Instagram accounts with which we're all too familiar. The final result is a well thought-out piece that's short and sweet and definitely leaves room for more.

On Thursday, Visual Supply Company (makers of the immensely popular editing app, VSCO) announced the release of DSCO, their new app for creating short, GIF-like clips. I downloaded the app and spent some time with it today.

Snapseed, Google's ridiculously powerful and popular image editing smartphone app, just got a major upgrade for its Android users. Following up on the introduction of raw file capabilities in Android 5 last year, the app now supports editing of those files right on your phone, greatly increasing the capabilities of photographers on the go.

Storehouse angered a number of power users in its big shakeup with the release of Storehouse 2.0 which ditched a number of features for a streamlined, more privatized system that made it harder to use the platform as a photographer’s social media marketing dream. But the numbers are out, and while it may not become the next Instagram of photo marketing and discovery, here’s why there’s a good chance it’ll find its way into your living room, regardless.

Astropad Mini, the app that allows iPhone and iPad users to turn their device into a graphics tablet for the Mac, received a major update on Tuesday. The app now includes support for Apple's 3D Touch, meaning it can now recognize 256 levels of pressure, bringing it even closer to turning your iPhone into a fully functioning graphic tablet.

This week, Instagram released a new app called Boomerang in efforts to grow its need for world domination in the mobile market. This time, they took aim at popular GIF-like apps such as Phhhoto and Apple's New Live Photos. I am a huge fan of Instagram and it has helped me grow my love for photography into something far greater than I ever thought possible, but I have no idea why they keep creating exact copies of already existing apps. Are they trying to simply steal market share? Or, are their hopes to do what Twitter and Periscope did to Meerkat by creating something far better on a larger scale?

A sense of adventure has always been a common trait among photographers especially those who photograph landscapes. This sense of adventure often takes us to some interesting and remote locations. Well now there is an app that allows you turn those remote destinations into a scavenger hunt for other adventurous souls to find. TapTag allows you to leave a photo "postcard" of the location you visit for others to find.

After Monday's release of Lightroom, many users were upset to find the release had seen changes that removed features and worse, had a tendency to crash, rendering it essentially unusable. Today, Adobe has released an update that corrects the crash issue, as well as an apology.

Every year's Adobe MAX conference marks the an obvious time to expect updates throughout Adobe's product lineup. So what's different this time? Mobile. Adobe has the monopoly in the area of creative applications for media editing, but for the first time in a while, it feels like they're competing with some unknown entity. This year's updates bring so many new features across the widest range of Adobe products ever that there's no doubt they're serious about their making customers happy with a huge concentration on mobile.

One of the biggest questions I get when photographers consult with me about managing their brand on Instagram is: "Should I create a business page separate from my personal page?" This discussion was started on the Instagram for Business group by Martin Bonden, who asked what I thought about creating a business page on top of a personal page, as opposed to having just the one. Here are a few reasons why I like to keep mine all in one page as a professional photographer.

We here at Fstoppers can forgive our beloved Trevor Dayley for jumping ship and joined the crew over at SLRLounge as long as he keeps turning us on to useful tools and tips like the Adobe Color CC app. This thing is so cool and it's free. Adobe never seems to stop enriching it's eco systems with improved connectivity and functionality. The Color CC app allows you to sample real world colors (you'll see what I mean by that in Trevor's video) or create color palettes from photos straight from your mobile device.

While some physical improvements with Spotlight, Photos, Safari, and other Apple apps are definitely welcome with today's new OS X release, perhaps the most exciting aspect of El Capitan are the under-the-hood improvements for performance gains. There’s no need to explain how time-saving performance upgrades can be for working professionals — and for those reasons, everyone will want to update immediately. But there are some things to always take into consideration before an operating system upgrade.

Recently our own Lee Morris shot a model photoshoot entirely with an iPhone 6s Plus, showing that with proper lighting technique, a good model, and proficient use of editing software, you can obtain professional looking results with even the most humble of cameras. Andrew Weber, a professional sports photographer, decided to take it one step further by capturing the unpredictable environment of a primetime NFL game with only his iPhone 6s Plus in hand. Weber was kind enough to answer some of our questions and provide a great sampling of his photos from the shoot.

There are thousands of apps out there to expand your mobile photography capabilities, but what about apps that augment your abilities when you're holding a DSLR? Here are five of my favorite apps to enhance your productivity.

I came across a web app for scheduling appointments that was a complete game changer for my business! It's by far my favorite productivity tool. Every wedding photographer needs to check this out. It could be the missing link you need in your business to book more wedding photography clients. In my first week I was able to arrange seven meetings and book two clients. Wow! This changes everything.

Culling, processing and editing jobs is a time consuming endeavor to say the least. Hours go by with you hunched over the Wacom as you find yourself leaning ever closer to your screen. Sometime you just need to get out of the studio (or your apartment) and find a different environment to keep yourself sane. Sometimes you are away on assignment and you just need to find a place with wifi, a plug, a comfortable seat and a good cup of coffee. Well the Work Hard Anywhere app aims to help you with that, by creating a community of freelancers who share their favorite haunts to plug in, plop down and post up in.

Happy New iPhone Day! Today, that small startup in Cupertino known as "Apple" released their latest and greatest iPhones, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. But with all the hype and cool new features, we were mostly concerned with the camera and boy, did they deliver.

Going on an adventure this weekend? Maybe a hike or a cool concert? You're probably going to Instagram it too, aren't you? Well, put your iPhone down, because Barbie (yes, the Hasbro toy) is killing it on Instagram better than you ever could.

Keeping track of contracts and payments can be somewhat cumbersome. If you're like me, sometimes you want to write everything down and have an excel spreadsheet just to double check everything. Along with that there is a neatly organized folder on your hard drive, external, and hard copied in a cabinet somewhere. Agree wants to eliminate a majority of the hassle we experience in our day to day when talking to clients.

There has been a disturbance. Have you felt it? Some astute photophiles (not a word I just made up) have noticed a change in quality in their posts when Instagram pushed a photo to Facebook after the most recent update, 7.5. So I decided to run a few comparison tests of my own to see if the quality really was different, and why my photos suddenly started to look so gritty.

We never thought this day would come, but Instagram now allows you to natively post portrait and landscape oriented photos and video. The days of cropping, white backgrounds, and 640x640 pixel photos and videos are over (unless you don't want them to be).

My favorite on the go retouching solution just got even more mobile with Astropad Mini. The creators of Astropad have managed to scale down their app for use with iPhone and even added functionality for the Apple Watch.

If you’ve ever wanted to know just how many photos you typically shoot in August, or how often you’re really using each lens in your bag, or what seems to be your go-to aperture, there is a free web-based tool that can show you. With Lightroom Dashboard, you simply drag and drop your Lightroom catalog into the browser and get back all sorts of analytical data including those just mentioned plus more.

We have all been there when trying to pick a new lens. 14mm or 18mm? How big of a difference does that 4mm of focal length make? What sort of differences in depth of field will I see when comparing this zoom lens at f4 to this prime lens at f2.8? Well Fuji has come to the rescue and has released an app to iTunes and Google Play that will let you test all of their lenses from your phone or tablet.

Big news comes out of Instagram this week as they open their advertising API to the masses of potential clients around the world. The third-party partners are now plugging their information and creative campaigns into the API making this weekend the most ads I have seen in years. Though the quality of the imagery doesn't seem to stray too far away from what I am used to seeing its interesting to see where this goes for Instagram, I believe it could be the next big advertising company.

You may have heard of "Skyfire" last year, a web-based platform that used custom weather forecasting models to predict the best times to shoot sunrise and sunset. Now, there is a new mobile app available for iOS that uses the Skyfire platform, called "The Photographers Ephemeris," that brings this service to a new level.

The number one questions I receive when talking about Instagram is "How do I build a huge following like you?" and I usually laugh and reply "I honestly have no idea." Though this is true in some sense, there must something attracting these people to follow me by the masses. Whether that be by liking, commenting or even reaching out to collaborate it's still a bit of a mystery to me. Beginning today I am going to break down the various ways to use Instagram for business but first I want to give you all 3 comprehensive steps to building a huge following.

According to a group of Italian security researchers roughly 8% of all Instagram accounts are actually fake. Not a huge shock and slightly lower than other social networks like Twitter from their research. The real question is if it truly matters or effects engagement on an individuals account, that is where their data shows real value.

As part of Apple’s current “100 Apps and Games” featured discount collection, 11 popular photo and video apps are on sale for a slim $0.99. The “Apps for Photography Lovers” selection seems to include something for everyone, ranging from editing tools to time-lapse and slow shutter cameras to interactive photo and travel books.

The future of sharing live video through social media is definitely heating up through apps like Periscope and Meerkat. Basically these apps turn your phone into a live streaming webcam that you can use to share whatever you want to the world. Although Ustream and Youtube have already allowed users to stream live video from other devices like a GoPro, Meerkat is about to make things a lot more interesting by being the first native app to broadcast from the sports camera. This could make social media way more interesting to watch.

Last week Google released its DeepDream code to the public to play with. This code was created while attempting to enhance a computer's ability to recognize a certain scene or object. This code was capable of doing some pretty creepy things to your photos, and now it has become a web app.

If you're not familiar, Instagram released their web-based platform for the popular app back in 2012. With an odd place to announce the update, Instagram revealed via Twitter that they have redesigned their profiles for web to have simple yet strong search capabilities. The search bar located at the top of your profile page can be used to find people and hashtags quickly.

Adobe has updated their image management and editing software Lightroom Mobile for Android devices. First debuting on Android in January, the Lightroom companion app allows users to sync photos between the desktop version and edit on the go with their mobile devices. In Version 1.2, the team has added a few new features and made several fixes that should improve a user’s overall experience.

For those with Creative Cloud subscriptions, you may have been rudely and often interrupted by Adobe's Creative Cloud desktop client popping up in your menu taskbar (a very similar phenomenon occurred with both Mac and PC platforms). For such an annoying issue, it took Adobe quite some time to come to our rescue, but we can finally celebrate a new kind of independence. Alas, my migraines are finally fading — CC now politely stays where it belongs. That is all. Make sure you update. Have a nice day.

Have you ever just wanted to transform your iPad into a graphics tablet? The ex-Apple engineer duo at Astropad HQ have done just that, over WIFI or USB to boot. It’s also 30 percent off for the next 48 hours.

Finally, it seems Instagram has pushed past its original 640x640 image resolution and made way in almost doubling that to 1080x1080 this week. First noticed a few days ago when posting over the July 4th weekend my iPhone 6 Plus had not left my images soft when hitting the 'share' button but rather closely maintained its original image quality. It took me a few days and some digging in the source code but I had noticed my photos breaking a much larger resolution by surprise.

Having only been shooting for a few years, it's taken me a bit longer to understand things like pricing, licensing, and even a simple model release form. Learning about these things early on could have started me on the right track to better habits in the future. Recently the mobile stock image site Snapwire came out with a simple way to solve one of those issues — the model release form — with their own app called Releases. The best part: it's free.

The brain-trust that is Instagram over at Facebook HQ in California recently released two major updates to their photo-sharing social media app that will help users connect with more photos and photographers. The two new updates include a redesigned Explore page with trending Tags and Places and a more powerful search tool that makes it easier to find people, places and tags relevant to you.

Yesterday, along with many other updates across its creative suite, Adobe announced new its stock image licensing program. The libraries are integrated directly into Adobe’s various creative software, making it incredibly easy for users to browse, test, and integrate stock images or graphics directly into their projects. Adobe acquired stock photo provider Fotolia earlier this year, and has used its image and graphic assets to launch this new service. According to Adobe, there are over 40 million different image and graphics available, with contributors adding new content daily....

Thumbtack, a professional services website used by many freelance photographers, has received a "manual action" from Google which has caused the site to be removed from Google's search results and many photographers are feeling the effects.

The era of 360-degree filmmaking is upon us. Google, in collaboration with The Mill and production company Bullitt, has released the 360-degree short film "HELP" for free on Google's mobile storytelling platform Spotlight Stories. The film is full of explosions, aliens, and action all within a beautiful 360-degree world.

Coolors is a fantastic new app that I stumbled across the other day. It is an incredibly easy and intuitive way to generate a beautiful 5 color palette for any situation. Primarily developed for designers it has instant appeal to us photographers. We deal with colors in most of our work and knowing how to match and complement effectively can make or break the images we create.

Photoshop has been around for quite some time now. It works great and every photographer has gotten used to it. It is a staple in my workflow alongside Capture One and Photo Mechanic. Until a few days ago, I did not think I would hesitate changing my retouching routine. After a few years of trials and errors I am finally somewhere I feel comfortable with my post-production. However, after having installed Affinity I must admit that I might "cheat" on Adobe Photoshop.

There’s been a multitude of social media apps popping up for us to use at our leisure and it might be hard to stay up to date. The most recent of them being Periscope. Periscope was recently purchased by Twitter before it was even launched in the app store, and it’s steadily gaining traction. It was developed as a real time news app but the possibilities in the creative realm are endless.

I was reading this extract on Reuters earlier and was blown away. It is fantastic to see how creatively camera apps are being used for the peoples' benefit for once, especially in the wake of the Walter Scott case.

Now that more and more people are using their smartphones as their main camera, and some have even done entire photoshoots with one, it was only a matter of time until manufacturers started allowing raw capture. For the newly released HTC One M9, that day is today.

[UPDATED May 1, 2015] Added sample images and link to full-res download.

With over 300 million users, Instagram is easily the best way of getting your images across to the world. Aside from its massive user base, Instagram's hashtag ability is one of the best ways of getting your images seen by the right people if used correctly. In its most recent update, along with three new filters, the social media giant has included the ability to hashtag emoji.

Lightroom has become the industry standard for editing images quickly but when it comes to viewing and culling images, it's still incredibly slow. On1 has recently launched Perfect Browse 9.5 as the fastest way to burn through hundreds or thousands of raw files and then import your favorites into Lightroom for editing. Oh, and did I mention, it's totally free for Fstoppers readers right now.

As a wedding photographer, I tend to shoot thousands of images at a time. Before I can edit anything, I need to go through each image one by one, delete the bad ones, and figure...