With the announcement of Aperture's retirement, many of Apple's software users are seeking a new home for their image libraries. One of the most obvious choices is Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom. But moving those images from Aperture to Lightroom can be a little tricky. A new app has made it out of Beta and hit the app store that may provide an easier solution.
Over the years, Capture One has evolved tremendously in its feature set, and has steadily become one of - or arguably the best - raw processor available. Despite all it's advantages and praises, many remain hesitant to adopt it, largely due to its seeming complexity and the intimidation factor associated with a truly professional tool. In this tutorial I'll be guiding you through the key aspects of Capture One version 12, and demonstrating that it's actually quite intuitive and straightforward to use.
As your photography archive grows, so does the need to handle and protect that data. What happens if your computer doesn’t boot, or an image file won’t open? What if your home or studio gets robbed, or worse, catches fire? What if your backup drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen? These are all questions I ask myself when planning my backup strategy.
Last week FreeFly Systems sent out a rather critical announcement stating the new firmware (version 3.08) had been released with a new Configuration App, and it was imperative to update your devices by August 1st, 2014 because..."If you do not upgrade by the specified date your MōVI could cease to function." What follows is how despite my best efforts, I still managed to brick it.
When it comes to raw converters and photo library managers, our choice of products has recently become more limited with the demise of Apple’s Aperture. My impression in the past was that one’s choice is largely based on features and ease of use with little difference in image quality between them. That opinion was quickly changed when I started digging into Phase One’s Capture One Pro 7.
There are few things we, as photographers, are more OCD about than tack-sharp focus. We invest so many of our hard-earned dollars into nice glass, painstakingly focus, then spend hours in post afterwards pulling our hair out when the eyes aren’t sharp. While of course sometimes OOF images are due to user error, small variations in the lens and camera can result in less-than-sharp images. These discrepancies in camera / lens combination can be dialed in to get perfectly sharp images more consistently. Enter FoCal, a [semi]automated focus calibration software.
Jeff Rojas is challenging you to see just how much retouching you can finish in 6 minutes. Dubbed the Dirty Edit Challenge, Jeff explains that sometimes you don't need to go overboard for certain clients. Maybe you're not getting paid enough, or maybe you have a ton of images that need retouching. In either situation, this is a great way to see what your strengths and weaknesses are in Photoshop.
Adobe has just announced the latest release notes for Camera Raw 8.6 which updates Photoshop CC and CS6. The release candidate adds bug fixes, lens profiles, and support for new cameras including the recently released Nikon D810, Panasonic LUMIX AG-GH4 and the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ1000. The release candidate also includes improvements for batch processing and color matching profiles for the Sony DSC-RX100 III, Sony A7S, and Sony Alpha SLT-A77 II.
Back in 2004 I was given the Nikon D100 digital camera for Christmas and I started making money with the camera within a few months. I fell into wedding photography and within 2 years I was making almost 100% of my income shooting them. In the last 10 years I never learned how to process a RAW file (effectively) or use Lightroom until last week.
We said it was coming, and now it's here: Nikon Capture NX-D is available for download completely free of charge. If you're a Nikon shooter just starting out and don't have anyting you love for RAW processing, it certainly doesn't hurt to give this a try.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got hard drives full of footage from personal or other non-commercial projects, that don’t serve much use once the project they were shot for is completed. I’ve considered trying to license it as stock footage, but never really taken the time to do it. After checking out the site Nimia and interviewing one of their staff however, I decided to give it a try.
Late last month, Adobe released updates to their Creative Cloud applications and one interesting discovery was recently made pertaining to Lightroom. As The DAM Book reported, Lightroom continues to partly function even after subscription to the Creative Cloud ends. Adobe has now officially released a statement making it clear exactly what happens to a user's photographs post-membership.
As some of you may have already known, we were off to somewhat of a rocky start when we launched this new website. For a recap: we ran into a few load issues right before our switchover deadline, so we decided to postpone the launch for nearly 22 hours before launching it again. We have been monitoring the servers very closely and working nonstop to squish all the bugs ever since. Now that the dust has settled, I'd like to talk to you guys about how we set up our servers on Amazon Web Services - the cloud.
While the beta has been out since February and can still be downloaded here, according to a June 26th press release, Nikon will be releasing its new Capture NX-D software July 15th for free. The previous version of Capture NX-2 still goes for $140, so it's nice to see more value added to Nikon's products for us Nikonians out there.
For my inaugural post on Fstoppers, I want to run down of a few of the apps that my studio manager and I use almost daily to help manage the studio and keep things running smoothly. Many of these you’ve probably heard of, others may be new to you. The list is actually endless, but I’ve narrowed it down to these nine to get us started:
Earlier this year, Nikon unveiled a 3D photo booth that used a system of multiple DSLRs to render a 3D model of a subject. Just months later the technology to do so now fits in your pocket — free.
Though this probably won't surprise many of you, Apple is reportedly discontinuing development of their once-popular photo editing and organization platform, Aperture. Aperture was once considered on a level playing field with Adobe Lightroom, but Adobe's continued development and advancements to the software obviously have affected Apple's software, and today's announcement basically confirms that Apple also believes that Lightroom has since catapulted it beyond Aperture's reach.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of testing out the Phase One IQ250, and so I thought I would put together a practical write up of my time spent the Phase One IQ250 Camera System, the Capture One software, and whether or not either one has found a permanent place in my workflow.
This past week I've been sleep deprived, socially inactive, and holding a camera in my hands for more than I ever have in my entire life. You see, this past week I've been working with PRO EDU to film my first tutorial series to go on sale at the Fstoppers store this summer. Though learning a lot about my own work and process, I think I learned the most when I used a rented PhaseOne IQ250 system for one of my shoots.
Adobe has announced a great number of updates to the entire Creative Cloud set of applications (every single application is being updated in some way), but let's focus here on just what's new in Photoshop CC: New Motion Blur Effects, Focus Mask and improved Content-Aware color adaptation along with a set of other updates and enhancements to the entire experience.
That's right, the highly popular Photography Plan that Adobe seemed to continually threaten was going to be a limited-time deal, is finally a permanent pricing fixture. They are removing Behance Pro Site from the bundle, but it does contain Photoshop, Lightroom (on desktop and mobile) and now integrates the newly announced Photoshop Mix.
Adobe has made Lightroom Mobile available on iPhone, and has managed to keep all aspects of the software intact despite the much reduced screen size. The application works exactly the same as the iPad app, just on the smaller profile of your iPhone.
Adobe was very clear that the 2014 updates were mainly focused on what they have seen to be a rapidly evolving market: Mobile. Adobe is seeing a rapid pace of change, explosion of mobile, and a world that is continually and incredibly connected. But their software, for real-work at least, is still tethered to a desk. Adobe thinks this is a problem, and sought to solve it.
Last week, Adobe teased one of the many new features they will be unveiling this week during their launch event in New York (and online). A question that I saw asked in the comments of that article, as well as again posed during a recent Adobe briefing I attended, asked that since we were promised fast and regular updates as a part of the Creative Cloud model, why then are we waiting for a major hyped release? Well, I have an answer for you.
Adobe is hosting a special event on June 18 to show the world what's new in their Creative Cloud set of applications, but today they released a short video highlighting one of the features they're working on in Photoshop: a new way to make automatic selections based on pixels in focus against those out of focus.
Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) previewed a new operating system for the Mac as well as iOS 8 for the iPhone, which comes with a host of new features due out this fall. While many features of Apple's new iOS releases leave out older devices, this one will improve your iPhone's camera (past, current, and future) with some great features we've all been too patient to see.
Adobe just announced the immediate availability of ACR 8.5 and DNG Converter 8.5 on Adobe Labs for Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC. The update brings with it several refinements and enhanced compatibility with several new cameras including the Canon G1XII, Fuji S1, Nikon 1 series, Olympus OM-D E-M10, and Panasonic GH4.
Frozen, The Hobbit, Toy Story, Wall-E, Jurassic Park... these are just a handful of the blockbuster movies over the years that have utilized Pixar's award-winning VFX software, RenderMan. In fact, RenderMan has been around since 1984 - used to render computer graphics in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Now you have the chance to own the software yourself - for free! You read that right - FREE!
According to his bio, Jesse Chen is a software engineer at Facebook and recent graduate of UC Berkeley. Jesse has a personal blog which we recently stumbled across that includes a blog post from 2012 that detailed how to go about stealing copyrighted images and removing watermarks.
I'm not usually a huge fan of action sets or other kinds of preset applications, but I am a big fan of free stuff. From now until May 12th OnOne software is giving away free licenses of their photo-effect software, Perfect Effects 8 . I took it for a spin earlier so I would at least know what I was talking about when I went to write this, and it's not bad! This isn't a review so I'm not going to dive into anything about it other than to say that some of you will love it, and others
You heard right! Fujifilm has officially announced the releaes of their new firmware update which will bring the Fujifilm X-T1 viewfinder better performance on top of more enhancements to the award-winning Fujifilm X-E2. The new functions and performance gains that Fuji has announced give many photographers a reason to pick up Fuji cameras for their bags and many a reason to open their bags back up and take them back out.
After yesterday's post, Lars Steenhoff sent us an updated, side-by-side comparison of video bitrates on the Nikon D800 at 3200 ISO with NikonHacker's new firmware. Steenhoff comments that the 64Mbps file has more noise as a result of less compression, but cleans up easily in a final file output that is cleaner with just a little noise reduction. For those interested, he has also made the original 64Mbps and 24Mpbs files downloadable on Dropbox, too.
To date, Nikon users haven't enjoyed the benefits of Magic Lantern hacks appreciated by many Canon shooters. However, this is slowly changing as NikonHacker has added firmware hacks for a variety of Nikon DSLRs. Using recent NikonHacker updates, Lars Steenhoff has shared his own 54Mbps sample, albeit without comparisons for the moment. NikonHacker user, LPowell, however, has shared a series bitrate comparison videos with the Nikon D800.
This week at NAB, Adobe Premiere and After Effects are getting some new features, including Live Text Templates (After Effects text effects can be directly edited in Premiere), and keying effects in After Effects to provide better keying results with compressed footage among a host of other improvements.
IMGembed is a new service designed to help photographers with attribution, tracking and monetizing the online usage of their images. Launched in beta at last years SXSW to an overwhelming response, today IMGembed is rolling out their official version 1.0! Could this be the future of ethical online image use?
Red Giant, the plugin supergroup that is responsible for filter packs like Magic Bullet Looks, Trapcode, and PluralEyes, has recently announced a new plugin model, Universe, where new and updated filters will be provided to members at low to no cost. If you're a motion graphics designer, or love sweetening your video edits with funky filters, check out the video and see if Universe is for you.
Talk to a photographer long enough and the question of screen calibration will be brought up. Often many will say it's an incredibly important tool in your post production workflow, and often many more disregard it all together. So what is screen calibration? Is it still a viable issue within photography today, or is it becoming more and more obsolete, like sync cables and light meters? I'm here to explain it to you.
For those of you who are new to PASS, and even those who have used it for quite a while, you may have come across an issue with uploading once or twice. Usually this issue is related to damaged images, faulty internet connections, or just unexplainable computer errors. There is a really quick fix for this problem, so I wanted to share this with you before you pulled ALL of your hair out!
A quick search on the internet shows a ton of websites that have been hacked, with passwords compromised. Big names such as; Yahoo, Adobe, Kickstarter, Snapchat, and even more with key logging software. If you use one main password then your weakest link could be a website's security.
