Recent Software Articles

Is the Surface Book 3 a Macbook Pro Killer?

The newly announced Microsoft Surface Book 3 is reportedly their most powerful laptop ever. So could it be good enough to destroy the competition? Namely, the new Apple Macbook Pro 2020. Photographers and creatives alike love Apple products for editing workflows, but could this be the beginning of the end for Apple's domination of the creative market?

3 Fixes for My Weirdest Lightroom Issues

Lightroom is a great piece of software, when it works. In my case, it's an essential piece of my workflow for photography. Unfortunately, it's got some major quirks. Some can be particularly frustrating to solve — here's 3 weird tricks that helped when I ran into an issue.

A Quick Landscape Photography Tutorial From Alaska

We are currently locked down in Puerto Rico, and it's literally illegal for us to go outside to take photos, but we found an old lesson we filmed in Alaska that was never released.

How Good Is Luminar 4 When It Comes to Retouching Skin?

For boudoir photographers, getting skin to look perfect is incredibly important and there are various software options that offer automation and simplicity instead of spending endless hours in Photoshop. In this video, check out how Luminar 4 performs. (Models in the video are wearing lingerie — possibly NSFW!)

Why Doesn't Every Professional Camera Have This Feature?

Shooting while tethered is probably the best way for many photographers. It's obviously not ideal for certain kinds of photography, like events and weddings; however, for those that shoot on a tripod, being tethered to a larger screen can make all the difference.

Canon Quietly Rolls out Its New Mobile App and Cloud Service

Without any fanfare, Canon appears to have launched its new mobile device application and cloud service, canon.image. Like most manufacturers, Canon does not have a great record when it comes to mobile applications. Will this new service be an improvement, and is it about to change the way that camera apps operate?

What Post-Processing Software Is Right for You?

These days, there is a vast range of post-processing software available for photographers, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This excellent video takes a look at five of the most popular options to help you decide which is right for you.

This Free Software From Sony Could Make Gimbals Redundant

Filmmaker Mark Bone has just discovered that some free software from Sony can stabilize footage from his FX9 to the point that he’s wondering how often he will ever need to use a gimbal in the future. Check out this short video.

How to Get Skylum Luminar 3 for Free

If you're looking to try out Skylum Luminar, or just want to own your editing software outright, check out this promotion! By signing up for Skylum's mailing list, you can get a full copy of their editing software, Skylum Luminar, for free.

Why You Should Be Using Capture One Pro Instead of Lightroom

For hardened Lightroom users such as myself, Capture One Pro can feel like a bit of a mystery. What are the advantages and why would you consider changing? Ignoring for a moment the pros and cons of payment models, here are some excellent reasons why Capture One Pro might be worth investigating.

The Easiest Way to Give Your Images a Fresh New Look

One area a lot of photographers can focus their quarantined free time is updating their portfolios. Unfortunately, taking new and fresh photos is probably not part of that process, but that doesn't mean you still can't find new images to add to your website or social media stream.

Fstoppers Reviews Joel Grimes Beauty Brushes

It's always best to get it right in camera, but sometimes, there are cases where subtle things may go unnoticed but become visible later during the retouching process. Having the right set of tools is crucial.

Spend Less Time Culling With the Help of AI

Depending on how many photoshoots you've had, or how long the event was for, you could end up with an abundance of photos to cull through. What if you could use artificial intelligence to help you speed through culling your photos?

A New Way to Take 3D Photos on Your Phone is Coming

Over the years, 3D has come and sort of gone, then come back again. We've seen it in the movies and in photography. After digital imaging got popular, I had a 3D Fuji camera, which was fun, but you either had to make expensive lenticular prints or watch on a 3D TV. Not a fulfilling experience.

How Useful Is Sky Replacement in Luminar 4 and Should You Use It?

With the release of Luminar 4, it has become amazingly easy to replace a boring sky with something more appealing. You only need to pick the sky of your choice, and the artificial intelligence part of the program does an amazing job in masking out the sky and changing it into something else. But should you use it?

DxO PhotoLab 3.1: A Lightroom Replacement?

Photolab 3.1 from DXO has been out a couple of months now, and early looks from photographers have been positive. It's a complete raw editor and has many features photographers will expect to see and adds some very worthwhile enhancements that will highly interest editors at every skill level.

What Photo-Processing Software Is Right for You?

These days, there are numerous options for cataloging and editing your photos, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. This excellent video will give you an overview of the different programs to help you decide which is right for your style and workflow.

Want to Save Money on Your Adobe Subscription? Try This Simple Trick

Earlier this year, Adobe ditched the option to buy Lightroom for a one-off fee, forcing customers to take out annual subscriptions with monthly payments, and annoying a few people along the way. However, this subscription model does present a few opportunities to save money. Check out this simple trick.

Is This the Best Image Enhancement Software Currently Available?

The programming team behind Pixelmator Pro has just released an interesting update that introduces the ability to enhance the resolution of an image with some quite impressive results. Billed as being similar to what you often see in cheesy police dramas, the software invents detail using some sophisticated techniques.

If Everyone Hates Adobe, Why Is It Pulling in Record Profits?

Last week, Adobe reported that the fourth quarter of 2019 was the most lucrative in the company’s history, delivering annual revenues of $11 billion. Given that it’s rare to hear a good word said about Adobe in the world of photography and videography, why is the company still so incredibly successful?

File Formats Demystified: What to Use When Editing and Sharing

Whether you’ve shot raw or JPEG, the choice of what format to use when editing is very important. There are key differences in the capabilities inherent to PSD, PSB, DNG, TIFF, and more. Want to know which format to choose next time you open Photoshop?

Luminar 4 for Beauty Retouching

The software that could save you time or money is here in a big way. I’ve compared the time spent retouching an image like I usually do and retouching it using Luminar’s AI, and the latter takes the cake.

Capture One 20 Released

Capture One 20, the newest version of the photo editing and organization software, has released today. Adopting a new, year-based naming convention, Capture One 20 boasts a number of improved features from Capture One 12, centering around refining the user experience.

Is JPEG Dead?

We’ve had a great run together, and you served us well, but the time has come that we move on. You didn’t do anything wrong, even though others preached that we, photographers, should always use raw instead of you, JPEG. Those who preached only raw and nothing but raw didn’t understand how you, JPEG, were needed and helped digital photography to explode. Yet all good things must come to an end.

2019 Black Friday Deals for Photographers

We at Fstoppers do our best to keep the photography community informed of noteworthy holiday deals. Since Black Friday week is here, we wanted to let you know about some deals we've heard of from various photography and video companies. Some of these deals are only available for a very limited timeframe, so if there's something that piques your interest, make sure to act on it now!

Recovering Noisy and Blurry, Out of Focus Photos Is Possible

Topaz Labs software has more recently been talk of the town in the wildlife photography community, and for good reason. Just like the needs for wildlife gear can get extreme with the 500mm and 600mm uber-expensive lenses and hyper-fast cameras, the demands for software that can squeeze every bit of fine feather or fur detail out of images is equally desired. Many people, myself included, have now been turned onto Topaz DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI to achieve this.

What Will Adobe Release Next?

As photographers and video creators we use post-production and editing applications like Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro. During Adobe Max this year, they gave us a sneak peak of what’s coming, and these videos will show you what to expect.

12 Weeks of Christmas: 7 of the Best Voice Assistant Commands

Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Assistant are here to help, and that has led to a home invasion not seen since the Body Snatchers first lifted B-rate movies in 1956. Voice control is here to stay, so how can photographers make use of it? Here are seven of the best queries.

12 Weeks of Christmas: 8 of the Best Photography Web Apps

No one likes to get caught short, but there are times when you have the image and none of your standard image processing software. Here are eight of the best web apps to help you out in a sticky situation.

Adobe Releases Photoshop on iPad

For the first time, Adobe today released proper Photoshop for the iPad. This isn't Photoshop Mix or any of the other past, smaller, less useful apps that broke out limited features of Photoshop in years past. This is the real deal, complete with PSD support and the ability to handle hundreds of layers (yes, hundreds).

Here Comes Adobe Photoshop 2020: Faster and More Efficient in More Ways Than One

One of the chief complaints of Adobe’s software across the board is performance. While many are angry about Adobe’s performance updates not living up to their standards for apps such as Photoshop and, more notoriously, Lightroom, some changes are coming. Additionally, it may also be time to shift the way we think about performance. Here's what's new in Photoshop 2020. Give it a shot.