Recent Apps Articles

We Review DxO PureRAW 4

Last week, I walked you through the features in DxO's PureRAW 4 but didn't have the software to actually test. Now I've had it for several days and have some observations and comments. For those not knowing about it, PureRAW is an app and plug-in that pre-processes raw files, cleaning up lens distortions, noise, sharpness, and optical aberrations as well as issues caused by the mosaicing process of all color sensors.
Long Exposures on an iPhone: No Tripod Needed

I always have my iPhone with me (it's an iPhone 15 Pro Max), and I've been able to capture some excellent images when I'm without my usual gear. But there are times when I'd like to do some long exposures, and without a tripod, you're up the creek with just an iPhone.
Unfold The Beauty of Layflat Photo Books

There are many options out there for printing and presenting your images. In this article, we look at the multitude of benefits of creating a Layflat Photo Book and shed light on why they are fast becoming a favorite amongst professional photographers looking for a budget-minded alternative to Flush Mount Albums.


The Boundless Creativity of Your iPhone With The Reeflex Apps

The iPhone 15 Pro Max could possibly be considered one of the best mobile phone cameras for modern photography and videography. With a sophisticated camera system, and when paired with the Reeflex Pro app, it becomes even more powerful. This app unlocks the full potential of iPhone photography, allowing users to have complete control over their shots.

Skylum Now Adds Even More AI to Luminar Neo

Just a few weeks ago, Skylum added GenErase to the Neo platform, a smart AI erase and fill feature. Now, they are adding the second part of their trilogy of AI tech: this one is GenSwap.

The Best Apps for Planning Photo Shoots

Smartphones are incredibly powerful tools, and they offer a ton of apps and features that make them one of the most useful things a photographer can carry with them. With the huge number of apps out there, it can be tricky to know which is right for you and your work. This fantastic video tutorial features an experienced photographer walking you through some of the best options.

Radiant Photo Mobile Gives You a Powerful Editor in Your Pocket

We've looked at the Radiant Photo Editor for Mac and PC in the past. It was created by some professional photographers to speed your editing process by making some smart decisions about your image and making intelligent changes. It was infinitely variable, and some good improved photos could result from the process.

Peakto Announces Luminar Neo Advanced Compatibility

Luminar Neo is one of my top editors, and Peakto is my very favorite cataloging app. Bringing the two together is a win-win for editors because one of the weaknesses of Neo is their catalog/database. It's been improved some, but it certainly can't compete with Lightroom or even Adobe Bridge.

The 6 Most Valuable Smartphone Apps for Landscape Photographers

In today's digital age, there are numerous apps available that can significantly enhance your landscape photography experience. In this article, I want to take a look at the six apps that have proven invaluable for my own landscape photography.

Five Tips for Better Smartphone Filmmaking

Whether you're a budding vlogger or experienced filmmaker, cell phones can make for pretty powerful shooting tools if you know what you're doing and you're using the right program.
A First Look at the Pixel Fold, Google's First Foldable Smartphone

The Pixel Fold is the first foldable phone engineered by Google. I had a chance to preview this feature-packed productivity tool that is actually both a phone, and a tablet in one. In this review, I will discuss the Pixel Fold from a photographer’s perspective, its myriad of camera features, and its use as a productivity tool for creative professionals.

A Game-Changing Search Update: Google Photos

Google Photos is in the process of testing an enhanced search feature that allows users to perform complex queries, making it simpler and more efficient to find and manage photos within the platform. By catering to detailed and specific queries, users can locate their desired images with greater ease, thereby improving their overall experience.

Mylio Photos Is Relaunching as a Free App

Mylio Photos is about to be reborn as a free app with some options that will have a price attached. Mylio Photos is a complete photo management solution that allows users to easily collect, organize, browse, search, and share their media files, including photos, videos, and documents.

Incredible Hand-Held 30 Second Exposures With an iPhone App

Glyn Dewis looks at a new app that can reduce camera shake and allow you to shoot incredible landscapes and long exposures on your iPhone without a tripod. From the creators of ReeXpose comes Reeheld. It apparently uses AI stabilization (something we are all very aware of at the moment) to create stunning handheld images.
The Limitations of AI Art: Why Hands Often Look Unnatural in Art

AI art generators have made significant strides in recent years, capable of producing stunning pieces of artwork that mimic the styles of famous artists such as Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso. However, there is still one area where these AI algorithms struggle to accurately replicate, the human hand.

DxO Adds Some Powerful New Features to PhotoLab 6.3

DxO PhotoLab is well regarded as one of the finest raw editors available for pro and semi-pro photographers. Although certainly not as well known as the Adobe products like Photoshop and Lightroom, it offers very powerful tools that have gotten a lot of attention.

Capturing and Editing Epic and Timeless Imagery of an Iconic Welsh Landmark With Just Your Mobile

In this video, Glyn Dewis effortlessly explains how he manages to capture the iconic Prince of Wales bridge spanning the border between Wales and England. As a proud Welshman, this was intriguing to me, and as a photographer this is engaging and really shows the potential that mobile technology has to be able to improve the availability and quality of immediate photography.

Luminar Neo Adds an Extension With a Christmas Twist

Just in time for holiday photos, Skylum has a new extension for Luminar Neo. It's the seventh extension offered this year, and it's called Magic LightAI. The release is scheduled for December 15.

Luminar Neo Adds a Focus Stacking Extension

The fifth Extension coming to the Luminar Neo editing platform is Focus Stacking, a tool for achieving a deep depth of field in a photo by merging (or stacking) up to 100 source images. Now, creating photos that are in sharp focus from the front to the back of the image becomes much easier, whether you’re shooting macro photography, portraits, or landscapes.

Don't Miss This Seamless Object Removal Feature

There are a few reasons why you might want to remove an object from a photograph. Maybe it's distracting from the more important elements of the image, a person in the background who isn't supposed to be there, or a sign that you didn't notice. But what do you do when you want to move (or remove) a significant object from your image's foreground? You might have had to do this in the past, and you know it isn't easy to do well.

Skylum Has Created a 'Neo Jr.' for Your Smartphone

Skylum has been one of the leading software companies providing AI-based editors for pro and semi-pro photographers. Luminar Neo has been a big seller, and it has fans and critics, but it has moved the market. Even Adobe and some of the other "big players" are embracing AI.

Radiant Photo Can Make Your Photos... Radiant

Last August, I took a look at a preview of a new app, Radiant Photo. It promised to do some of the heavy lifting on your unedited images and greatly improve them.

Our First Look at Luminar Neo Noiseless AI

I've had a preview release of the Noiseless AI extension that will be offered for Luminar Neo users on August 30. It's not quite finished it terms of GUI, but basic functionality is there. My copy only runs under Rosetta on my Mac Studio, but at release, it will be Apple Silicon Native.

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.

Adobe Premiere Pro Has Some Good New Updates

Adobe is really trying to make editing videos on small screens a more enjoyable process. They've looked at ways to give us more screen real estate. They've combined some tabs and made switching between workspaces much easier. It's even possible to do everything you need to in one workspace, and the workspace can be customized and saved as usual.

Luminar Neo Adds Portrait Background Removal to Its Bag of Editing Tricks

Luminar Neo from Skylum has added a much awaited feature: background removal in portraits. Removing a person's image from a photo is nothing new, but it's generally time-consuming if the background is not simple or solid. Luminar Neo does it usually in one click, and if you're a professional or an advanced hobbyist, it is a time-saver.

Should Product Photographers Learn 3D Modeling?

Most of the time, when it comes to photography or video of cars, beauty products, cosmetics, and even shoes, it’s made on a computer and not by a photographer. There are several reasons for this, but in this video, Karl Taylor, a renowned product photographer and educator, discusses photography versus 3D CGI and the advantages of each.

DxO PureRAW 2 Can Work From Within Lightroom, Increases Speed, and Adds New Cameras and Lenses

DxO PureRAW is a permanent part of my photographic workflow. Before anything else, I take my raw files from my mirrorless camera and my drone through PureRAW first. It checks my camera and lens data and outputs a raw file with corrections that eliminate lens distortions, vignetting, noise, and a host of other issues specific to my hardware. Here's my review of what was a must-have the last time around.

Luminar Neo Now Shipping: We Review the Release Version

Skylum has kept reviewers well stocked with pre-release versions of Luminar Neo, and I've reported on the results. Nowm we've got the release version, although it is still not complete, which I'll detail below. Here's our review.

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.

Why Weather Apps Are Not Accurate Enough for My Landscape Photography

Rain, fog, red sky, hoar frost, and clouds: all these things are predictable with using apps. The only problem is that the probability that forecasts match reality is embarrassing low. I found a much better solution than I have used for some years now. With this, I’m nearly always fantastically prepared for the weather.

3 Alternatives to Adobe for Editing Your Images

When it comes to processing your images, Adobe is the standard choice for a lot of photographers, and many creatives go years without even trying other options. However, nowadays, there are a lot of alternatives to Lightroom and Photoshop, and whether you just do not like subscriptions or you are looking for a different way to work with your photos, this helpful video will give you a brief overview of three different options.

Photoshop Isn’t King Here: The Speciality Programs That Are Just Plain Better

Just about every important image I publish or send to a client passes through Photoshop. It’s an essential part of my workflow, and if you’re like most photographers, I’m sure it’s a part of yours. There are, however, a number of cases where I’ve just found a significantly better tool for the job, one that’s worth paying for. Want to see why you should consider snagging these programs that beat Photoshop at their own game?

Simon Says Squid Game's Strategy Is the Future

How did Squid Game save Netflix? With a global launch on the same date with translations in over 130 languages. How can you adopt this strategy? Let’s look at Simon Says, an online transcription service that surprised me in a good way.

Expect Better Auto-Tone Color Correction in Premiere Pro

Color plays a vital role in photography and video. I would say it gives the work soul. Premiere Pro is constantly updating their NLE, and although their color correction tools were good, it's getting even better soon. Lumetri is becoming intelligent.

What Is Maps.me and Why Should You Be Using It?

Nearly everyone today knows about the effectiveness of Google Maps for finding locations anywhere in the world and even perhaps saving them for reference later. There have been countless articles, written even here on Fstoppers, which exhibit its usefulness. However, many fundamental deficiencies arise upon using Google Maps when you take away the one thing it needs to be functional: an internet connection.

DxO Announces Nik Collection 4.2

Nik Tools (now called the Nik collection) has been around since 1995 as an Adobe plugin. Google bought the tools, then dropped them, and DXO rescued the popular photo-editing aids in 2017. They've undergone continuous upgrades since then, and this new version will please Mac users with the new M1 chips.