Photography Software

The photography software landscape has never been more crowded — or more capable. This section helps you navigate it: reviews of editing applications, DAM tools, tethering software, AI-powered tools, and the utilities that photographers rely on daily. Whether you're looking for a Lightroom alternative or trying to understand what's new in Photoshop, this is where to start.

Make Lightroom Classic Yours: The Best Ways To Customize Your Experience

While Lightroom Classic doesn’t offer as many customization options as programs like Photoshop, there’s still a number of major improvements you can make to the default experience. You can speed up browsing, create a way smarter default set of adjustments, and even rebrand Lightroom with your logo, in just minutes. 

Does Luminar AI or Photoshop Produce Better Fake Bokeh?

No doubt, a few years ago, any sort of bokeh added in post was noticeably fake. However, software has come a long way in the last few years, especially with the proliferation of things like artificial intelligence and neural network capabilities.

Pacific Northwest Escape Mission 1: Helicopter Shooting the North Cascades

Just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, sits one of America’s most majestic spots — and every photographer’s dream. Often called the American Alps, North Cascades National Park features endless opportunities to capture America in all its striking glory. But before you point and shoot, you need to know where to look. 

A Portrait Studio on Your Desktop

If you are new to the studio or want to practice your lighting techniques plus save time when in the studio, you should check out this 3D software by Ellixxier. 

How Long Should You Spend Editing a Photo in Lightroom?

The ideal situation is to take a photo that requires no editing whatsoever. But those shots are few and far between. In most cases, it's important to edit photos in order to develop them properly, but how long is too long when it comes to image editing? I'll be taking a look using Lightroom. 

Zoner Photo Studio X Changed My Professional Photography Workflow

Every time a piece of software catches attention, a question many photographers ask is how useful it is in a professional workflow. This is exactly what this article is aimed to answer about Zoner Photo Studio X. I used it in a professional photography workflow and saw how it could be integrated.  

How to Save Time by Culling With Photo Mechanic

Depending on what genre you shoot in, you can often come home with literally thousands of images from a shoot, and culling them can be a tremendously tedious and annoying process. While you can cull in Lightroom, it is not always the fastest, particularly when it comes to rendering previews.

How Does the Latest Lightroom Update Impact the Average User?

The latest Lightroom Classic update has just landed, and there are a fair few features and functions that will benefit many professional users. But what about the average Joe who uses Lightroom occasionally for their own hobbyist snaps? 

5 Affinity Photo Tools That We Need in Adobe Photoshop

For most things retouching, Adobe Photoshop sets the pace and has been the industry standard for decades. However, as alternative software improves and innovates, there are some features that Photoshop doesn't have that would improve it.

 

Are You Shooting Raw? There May Be a Good Reason Not To

I shoot solely raw. However, I know some tremendous photographers whose cameras are set to record just JPEGs, and they will never change. I am envious because they spend less time in front of the computer. Shooting raw is worth learning, but maybe there's also a good reason to shun it.

 

NIK Collection 4 Has New Tools and a Revamped Interface

NIK Collection 4 is hitting the virtual streets today with some updated tools and some welcome changes to its GUI.  

The popular NIK Collection came back from the dead when DxO rescued it from Google, which was letting it languish. Since then, DxO has actively improved the software suite, and it's being used by a lot of pros and serious amateurs.

Simulate Light Setups On Your Computer With Set.A.Light 3D

If you are going to shoot a model, it is great to have an idea about the right lighting setup. Experimenting when the model is standing in front of your camera may not be the best time to do this. With the software set.a.light.3D, it is possible to simulate any possible lighting setup imaginable. 

New LuminarAI Update Sports New Features and Mac M1 Compatibility

Skylum's Luminar has had quite an impact on the editing market, with AI features for landscape and portrait photographers that have left some of the competition scrambling to catch up. Wanting to stay ahead, a new version of Luminar, called Update 3, will be available free for current owners today.  

Intel AI Tool Makes GTA V Look Incredibly Photorealistic

Just when you thought your brand new super-spec gaming machine was powerful enough to handle anything, something new comes along to dash your hopes and monster rig dreams. A recent video from Intel demonstrates an AI tool that "enhances" graphics to look photorealistic. The implications of this could be incredible for gaming and photography industries.

3 Things Lightroom is Still Missing 14 Years Later

I use Lightroom, in some capacity, for everything I shoot. Without it, my workflow would be entirely different, and probably not for the better. While some of the recent feature updates have been fine, I still can’t believe these three features haven’t made it into the software after all this time. 

Are Our Photos and Video Backups Really Archival?

Over the history of mankind, the best way found to archive data was to carve it into stone, then bury it in the sand. Photographically, the most stable form of archiving is probably a black-and-white silver-based image on a glass plate. For digital data storage, there is no perfect permanent storage option.

How to Edit Stunning Portraits Using Luminar AI

Luminar AI offers a very different workflow when compared to Lightroom and Capture One, and one of the biggest differences is probably the speed at which changes can be made, thanks to some intelligent automation. This short video gives you insights into simple techniques that deliver great results. 

AI Is Everywhere in Photography. Should We Just Learn To Love It?

The floodgates for artificial intelligence’s interference (or improvements, depending on your point of view) in digital photography have opened up since Apple and Google made it mainstream, with advancements such as Portrait Mode and Night Sight.

The Fastest Way to Cull Your Photos? Fstoppers Reviews Narrative Select

I don’t know about you, but I really hate culling images. I hate waiting for images to load. I hate zooming in to see if it’s in focus. I hate the time it takes to go through so many images. About six months ago, I started using Narrative Select for culling, and it might be the fastest way to cull images.  

DxO PureRAW Just Might Be the Best Way to Start Your Editing

Every photographer has their own workflow, and most of us start by making edits in our raw files. Sometimes, I start in Lightroom Classic; other times, I open them with Photoshop, which takes me to Camera Raw. At times, I use Luminar AI.

A Feature-Rich Platform for Print Sales: Fstoppers Reviews Art Storefronts

If you’ve decided to start selling prints of your work, you’ve found there are a lot of options, from print-on-demand websites where your work is part of a larger marketplace and orders are fulfilled by the website, to customizable platforms that you can make all your own. Art Storefronts attempts to offer the best of both worlds. 

Wand, the New (and Free) Lightroom Culling Plugin for Event and Wedding Photographers

Let's face it, most of us dislike spending time on culling. Luckily, a new culling plugin has been released and the best thing is that it's currently available for free! It's unlikely that you will have spent a lot of time culling any work throughout the periods when lockdown restrictions have been in place as there were hardly any weddings or large events taking place.

The Analog Look in Lightroom: A Review of RNI’s All Films Pack

There’s a lot of options in the preset and profiles space, but in my experience, one has stood above the rest. If you’re looking to bring a bit of analog spirit to your images, here’s why RNI's All Films 5 pack is the product you should get.  

Did Photoshop’s New Feature Just Crush This AI Product?

One of the latest buzzwords in tech and editing has been AI. While the earliest implementations were a bit of a gimmick, powerful tools and developments from companies like Adobe, NVIDIA, and Luminar have brought AI to the end-user in a meaningful way. Photoshop’s March 2021 update introduces a new AI tool that promises massive resolution improvements for any camera.

PortraitPro 21 Is Here and Better Than Ever

Retouching portraits is a crucial process, but it is also highly time-consuming, particularly if you are working with a large batch of images. PortraitPro 21 is here, and it brings a wide variety of intelligent features that will streamline your workflow and save you a ton of time. 

A Swiss Army Knife for Migrating Your Catalogs: Fstoppers Reviews Avalanche

Avalanche for Mac is an interesting product for Mac photographers, and it has one function: to get your images out of one application catalog into another. With all the changes in photo applications, it's easy to switch to something that seems more useful, but often, the catalogs don't come along with your move.

Frame.io Gives Us a New Camera To Cloud Workflow

Soon you'll be able to capture footage and have it automatically transferred to a cloud-based platform where editors and production teams can get working on it.  I remember the 56k Modem sound and the slow downloading of a YouTube video I wanted to watch. Back then I thought YouTube was ridiculous. Who would ever use it and actually wait for a video to download? 

How Good Is the New Colorize Neural Filter in Photoshop?

Photoshop has been embracing A.I and neural filters over the last year or so, and one that has grabbed a lot of attention is the automatic colorize filter. But how good is it for coloring black and white images? 

Is Photo Mechanic Plus a Lightroom Killer? An In-Depth Fstoppers Review Part 1: Importing Photos

Lightroom totally dominates the realm of digital asset management (DAM) — a solution to everything, it fits the mold of most photographic workflows. However, the bitter pill to swallow can be the treacle-like performance and that monthly subscription (something I've touched upon before). Photo Mechanic, renowned for its blisteringly fast performance, offers a new solution.

Why Would You Switch to Final Cut?

There are reasons to stay with the editor we know, the one that comes with our monthly subscriptions. But, could you be convinced to reconsider your decision? Here are 5 reasons I believe are strong enough to make you do just that.