Photography Software

We look at what makes a successful backup system, the components, the ideal outcome, and how we test that all is working before the inevitable happens. 

Optimize and save a ton of space, speed up your computer, and make it easy to find your files. 

Think of your computer’s hard drive like a big library with all your files being like books stored within. Isn’t it quicker to find the book you want with fewer things in the library?

Getting it right in camera is definitely the best thing to do. If you can correctly light, compose, and white balance your footage and images, then you're probably going to have an easier time. However, there are situations when the lighting just isn't working or you need to capture footage in less-than-ideal situations. In those situations, use Topaz Labs.

A lot has changed from the previous version of ACDSee. It has new tools and powerful AI features. If you are looking for Digital Asset Management, developing, and editing tool, the ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2023 may meet your needs. Here's a workflow introducing you to and guiding you through the main features of this dynamic software. 

Adobe ruled the waves for image processing. However, evermore people are jumping that ship in favor of alternative methods. Most have similar functions, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. If you are thinking about changing, here are some alternative combined digital asset management, photo development, and editing options. 

ACDSee is becoming a household name in the photography industry. The latest software from the company boasts a whole host of incredible new features.  

A couple of days ago, my colleague, Ivor Rackham, had a positive review of Affinity Photo 2. What many people miss is that Affinity Photo is also an excellent astro image-processing tool. 

Here are 20 quick, essential tips on how to keep your photography business running and up to date in an age where technology changes day to day. 

We cannot live without our phones. Furthermore, phone apps that access your photos can be a lot of fun. However, they have a dark side, and maybe we should start to be more cautious about using them. 

At first glance, Affinity Photo 2 doesn’t seem that different from the previous software version. However, as you delve more deeply into it, you’ll find a host of valuable improvements since the last release of this versatile photo editor. It’s affordable too.  

DxO is well known to our readers. They've been leaders in camera and lens optical testing, and they've offered software like the DxO PureRAW pre-processing software and PhotoLab 6, which is a full-featured raw editor.  

As a digital artist, being able to easily get your hands on overlays and effects for your images can sometimes be a costly experience and, at times, not provide you with enough scope of selections for your edits. One of the plugins I have in my collection is Infinite Texture, which provides a whole host of editing possibilities, from simple sky replacement to more complex edits. 

Topaz Labs, the company behind the wildly popular DeNoise AI, Sharpen AI, and Gigapixel AI, has made a huge change. These apps, once a triad of separate programs to fix your photographs, are now combined into one beefy app that is here to save the day. Meet Topaz Photo AI, your new best post-processing friend. Let me show you how I used it to save my low-light wildlife photographs. 

Although I've watched videos and read reviews about Topaz products, I had never actually tried them, remaining faithful to my workflow and not venturing farther afield. I do like software and seeing what it can do with my images, but felt safe with what I currently use. So, what could Topaz Photo AI bring to the table that I couldn't already accomplish? 

Infinite Color for Infinite Tools is a color grading plugin for Photoshop. We put it through its paces. 

If you're a photographer who earns a living photographing people, you need to be prepared for this.  

ON1 Photo Raw 2023's is reaching a point where we don't need other apps to process our photos. It indeed addressed some of our most significant developing and editing annoyances. 

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?

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. 

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.  

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 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. 

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.

Imagine a world where words can create images. Now imagine what that would do for the art world and photography. Well, it's here and it's not going to go away.  A few sentences can create an image. Describe the scene using a few simple adjectives and the likes of Midjourney will create an image using your inputted text.

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 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 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. 

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.  

With Luminar Neo, you have the option to remove power lines and sensor dust spots with a single click. It’s never been easier, and above all, it takes a lot of work off your hands. But is it faster than doing it manually? Or does the automatic process take up more time in the end? 

Infinite Tools released a range of great plugins for Photoshop. Being a fan of black and white, I decided to delve into it and see how well it works. Would it help Photoshop compete against the ever-growing and very good competition? 

Seems like only a few weeks ago, I was reporting on an extension for Luminar Neo. It allowed the HDR combining of different exposures. Now, another extension is on the way, this one for AI-based noise reduction. 

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.

Just when you thought there were more than enough raw image editors out there, along comes another one with some fresh thinking and excellent results. This new editor is called Radiant Photo. 

ACDSee, known for their fast and capable digital asset management software, has announced ACDSee Free, a totally free application that offers a range of features for culling and managing raw files without needing to import any of them. Read on for what you can expect.  

ACDSee Free comes with a variety of free features, including:

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? 

Luminar Neo is getting its release with the HDR extension on Thursday, and I was sent an advance copy to see how it works. 

Actually, I thought it worked pretty well, with a few caveats because I was not testing final release software.

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.  

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.

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.  

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. 

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?

It's hard to believe but the Nik Collection is 25 years old, going back to a commercial product that was very popular long ago. It was snagged by Google, then, as often happens, Google sold it to DXO, who has made a great many enhancements with each release.  

For better or worse, artificial intelligence is going to dramatically change the face of the photography industry. Here's a look at the photorealistic imagery that AI tools can generate from scratch in a matter of seconds.  

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. 

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. 

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. 

The 2022.5 version comes free to those who already own the software and contains some significant changes to the existing software.

I’m increasingly impressed with the products from ON1. Does their latest software update, ON1 Resize AI 2022, live up to the standards of the other products from that stable and its "Perfect" heritage? 

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?  

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. 

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.