Recent Software Articles

Skylum Reveals Neo's Next Extension: Supersharp AI

Skylum has revealed another Extension that will soon be added to the Luminar Neo editing platform for Pro plan subscribers and owners of the 2022 Extensions Pack. Five Extensions have already been revealed, and today, another has been announced for next month: Supersharp AI, a tool for sharpening details in an image.

DXO Pushes Solid Updates to PhotoLab and ViewPoint

Wednesday upgraders and new customers will see PhotoLab 6 and ViewPoint 4 on offer. Photolab 6 has a lot of new features, most notably an update to DXO's popular DXO PureRAW technology, arguably the best software available to fix color, noise, and optical issues in RAW files.

The One Thing AI Scaremongers Forget to Tell Photographers

All this hype and scaremongering about AI in photography is missing one crucial point. No matter how good it gets, far from taking over the world of photography, AI will always fail at one critical point. Our recent history tells us why.

Zoner Photo Studio X Receives Major Update, Continues Pressure on Adobe

Zoner Photo Studio X is a holistic solution to post-processing and file management for photographers, and yet it flies under the radar. Despite the fact its price is a fraction of Adobe's full suite, major updates to improve it are rolled out regularly, and this latest one adds a number of features.

Will Advancements in Technology Bring Back the Shoot and Burn?

The "shoot and burn," a photoshoot in which the photographer immediately delivers the images with minimal edits, saw a peak in popularity in the first decade or so of digital, when the novelty and convenience of digital files made the prospect of instant delivery enticing for a lot of customers, especially in genres like family photography. Now, with the rise of AI-powered culling and editing software, there loom some interesting questions: will the shoot and burn see a resurgence, and will it be a good thing for photographers?

Easily Isolate Your Layers in Photoshop

Working in Photoshop with multiple layers and then trying to navigate to those layers to make tweaks to your edits can sometimes be time-consuming and at times also very annoying if you have forgotten to name the layer.

Topaz Launches Photo AI: An All-in-one AI Image Editor

Topaz Labs, creator of well-respected applications like DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, has announced Photo AI, an all-in-one AI-powered image editor that combines the company's best tools into an "autopilot" editing program, allowing photographers to do everything in one app alone.

Radiant Photo Enables Stunning Edits in No Time at All

Radiant Photo has launched, and it promises to give you photo edits with beautiful colors, crisp details, and natural renderings in just a click, giving you more consistent and professional images in less time, no matter what you shoot.

The End of Professional Photography

Every year, I've had to hear about how a new technology was going to kill the photography industry. I ignored it all, until now.

Is the Arsenal 2 for Advanced Photographers?

You may remember my 2019 review of the original Arsenal hardware. It was a block box you attached to your DSLR or mirrorless camera and it automated many of the tasks photographers face on a regular basis. The Arsenal sold quite well. While it had some good points that could speed or improve a photographer's workflow, it left a lot of buyers unhappy and it seemed to wind up on a lot of shelves and in a lot of drawers, rather than in camera bags. Now we've got Arsenal 2.

Skin Retouching Made Easy With Infinite Guide

Skin retouching can seem a daunting task if you are a beginner. What brush do you use, what layer goes where, and how do you smooth the skin? And on top of that, you have to remember all the steps involved. So, how does Infinite Guide make the whole process simple?

This Software Finds Good and Bad Photos Automatically

The worst part about being a wedding or event photographer is having to edit thousands of photos, but I've recently discovered Narrative Select, software that uses AI to make the culling process much faster.

How To Take Stunning Night Photos

Night photography can be technically daunting. Even with modern cameras, it's not easy to capture high-quality night photos. While photographing the stars already requires high ISOs combined with wide apertures, capturing details in the landscape is even more difficult in the dark. In this article, I walk you through my night photography workflow, which combines image averaging with time blending and focus stacking to achieve high-quality results.

The Lightroom-Killing Catalog System From Mylio: Access Your Photos Anywhere

Good organization skills are crucial in almost every business environment. The same obviously applies to professional photographers, especially when it comes to managing photos. Many photographers will use the built-in catalog system available in Lightroom. However, a company called Mylio may have a much better solution available for you.

The Best Retouching Tools for Photographers

Fstoppers has teamed up with Infinite Tools to bring you the best retouching plugins online. These tools are relevant for every type of photographer and will dramatically speed up and improve any retouching workflow. We are offering them at 20% off in the Fstoppers Store through July 5th.

That’s Not a Lightroom Killer; This Is a Lightroom Killer! We Review ON1 Photo Raw 2022.5

Calling raw handling software a "Lightroom Killer" is a cliche. Nevertheless, this powerful suite of tools is starting to overshadow the Adobe Photographer's Plan. It is now posing a real challenge to Lightroom and Photoshop. ON1 Photo Raw has another update, and now it offers everything most photographers need. It's why I've said goodbye to Lightroom and Photoshop. Will it tempt you too?

A Lightroom Killer? We Review Gemstone Photo Editor 12

If the Adobe subscription package is pulling at your budget, perhaps this single payment editing software can give you everything you need, plus more. With so much other software out there, what makes this one any different? In this article, we'll focus solely on the raw editing capabilities of the software to see if it is the answer to your subscription deal.

Think Outside the Box With Luminar Neo

Now in its seventh year and incarnation as Luminar Neo, Skylum's editing software can fit the needs of some photographers as a standalone app or as a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. But what if you want to push the limits of your creativity with it? That's when you have to think outside of the box.

ON1 Has Announced the Latest Update: ON1 Photo Raw 2022.5

Twice yearly, ON1 produces free upgrades to their Photo Raw program. The newest version is just over the horizon, and it has some expected features to add, plus improvements to its existing arsenal of tools.

We Review Oniric Glow, a Digital Artist's Dream Plugin

There are many ways to create a glow effect in Photoshop using layers and blending modes. What if you could do it in a fraction of the time and get even better results? Would you be interested?

Luminar Neo Makes a Dramatic Leap Forward With AI Masking

Users of Luminar Neo from Skylum will get a solid update when they launch the Windows or Mac raw editor today. The app gains MaskingAI, a feature that applies artificial intelligence to masking objects, saving a lot of time in the editing process.

How to Calibrate Your Displays

One of the first devices I bought for my office when I started with photography was, in addition to a proper monitor, a calibration device. Editing my photos with accurate colors and brightness has always been a priority for me. And the use of a colorimeter and monitor calibration software is a requirement for achieving those. In this article, I explain how to use such a calibration system.

Virtual Lighting Just Got Better!

Elixxier software is an innovative company that has produced very useful and helpful tools for photographers and filmmakers, especially when it comes to creating 3D light simulations.

Adobe Includes Frame.io in Creative Cloud for Free

If you’re entering the video production industry, you’ll be bound to start collaborating with colorists, motion graphics artists, and clients. You’ll also start using cloud-based uploading for review. You’ll be happy to know Frame.io is now included to use in Adobe Creative Cloud, so if you’re a Premiere Pro user, you’re getting a great workflow enhancer for free.

Skylum Team's War Stories

Many of you are likely familiar with the company Skylum. They make the ever-popular Luminar photo-editing software. Some of you may know that Skylum was founded in Ukraine, and the majority of their team resides there.

Focus Stacking Made Easy With Helicon Focus

A few weeks ago I published an article here on Fstoppers about handheld focus stacking. In this article I share my in-the-field workflow, as well as the automatic stacking option Photoshop offers to put all images together during photo editing. This option has its limitations though and because I lately had to work on some very complex stacks, I had to look for a better solution. And with Helicon Focus I found it.

Luminar Neo, a Complete Raw Editor?

It’s been a long time coming but Skylum Software has finally released Luminar Neo, their brand new version of the software that incorporates a ton of new features, is faster, and is simpler, but also offers more depth.

AI Skin Retouch Is Here and It's Pretty Impressive

Innovators and philosophers like Elon Musk and Sam Harris have been theorizing what our world will look like once artificial intelligence completely takes over our everyday lives. We aren't quite there, but if you've ever dreamed of a day when all your skin retouching might be completed using AI and neural networks, well, the future is a lot closer than you might think.

Luminar Neo's New AI Photo Editing Features

Luminar software has been leading the industry when it comes to artificial intelligence photo editing for years, and now, they are taking things even further with Luminar Neo.

Which Program Handles Fujifilm Raw Files Better, Lightroom or Capture One?

Fujifilm cameras have long been praised for the colors they produce. Lightroom has often been criticized for being incapable of processing Fujifilm raw files effectively. Capture One is generally recommended. Therefore, in this article, we will be comparing Lightroom and Capture One to see which is best for Fujifilm raw files.

Tips to Improve Your Results From Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro has become a staple of video editing and attracted many editors to it. Like most modern software, it is deep and nuanced, however, and you can always learn more. In this video, one expert takes you through some of his best tips.

Relight Your Portraits: Testing Out Luminar Neo's New AI Tool

Artificial intelligence has begun to have a real impact in photography via post-processing. This may be a contentious subject, but whichever side of the fence you are, it's interesting to see what it's capable of. In this video by Manny Ortiz, he reworks some images with Luminar's Relight tool.

Capture One Drops Branded Versions for Nikon, Sony, and Fujifilm Cameras

In the run-up to some big upcoming changes, Capture One has announced that they will be dropping their single brand versions of Capture One. Current users of these variants of Capture One 22 will be offered a free upgrade to Capture One Pro 22 or will be offered the standard upgrade pricing for those still using the previous version of Capture One.

Luminar Neo Gives Us a Better Preview of What’s Coming

Skylum has been heavily teasing its new editor called Luminar Neo for many months, and today, I received another working preview of the app, available on Windows and Mac platforms. The new version seems to run a little faster than the last preview, and it is fully native to Apple silicon. I tested it on my 16" MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chipset. The release version will be faster, but Neo was editing at a good clip.

What Do You Lose When Compressing Images With JPEG?

We encounter and use JPEG files daily, but rarely do we give any thought to what the process entails. More importantly to us as photographers, what data do we lose when using this lossy image compression technique?

Is There a New King of Photoshop and Lightroom Performance?

The reviews on Intel’s 12th Gen Core desktop processors, named Alder Lake, have all come in, and the results are surprising. Whether you’re looking to upgrade your computer or just want to stay up to date on tech trends, you’ve got to see how these chips performed.

Is AI Technology the Future for Photographers?

As photographers, we are always looking for ways to improve our craft and stay ahead of the curve. With new technology emerging every day, it can be difficult to know what is worth investing in and what will become obsolete in a few months. In this short article, we will explore the potential of AI technology and how it could benefit photographers in the future.