Articles from Mel Martin

When I first heard about the Dwarf Mini Smart Telescope, I have to admit I was skeptical. A smart telescope you can carry in a pocket (albeit a large pocket like a photographer's vest), plop down, and produce decent astrophotos seemed like a stretch. Smart telescopes have certainly evolved over the last few years, and I've reviewed a few of them. 

Aperty, professional portrait retouching software, has released a new update designed to integrate more seamlessly into photographers’ existing workflows. Here are the details from Aperty. 

The update reflects months of direct collaboration with users and marks a strategic shift toward deeper plug-in support, improved performance, and long-term workflow stability.

CYME has just announced Peakto 2.6, the latest version of its AI-powered media manager for Mac, introducing what is now the most comprehensive AI-driven culling and deduplication tool available for photographers and visual creators. 

We’ve looked at products from Radiant Imaging Labs before, and they’ve always offered an interesting and fresh software approach for photographers. 

Current owners of Luminar Neo are getting a holiday update with some new and unique features. Besides the usual bug fixes and some speed increases, Neo has added what they call an AI Assistant. 

It’s been a long time coming, and it finally hit on Tuesday, with the U.S. banning new models of Chinese-made drones effective immediately. 

Astrophotography has been having somewhat of a renaissance over the last few years. Part of that may be the addition of high-quality digital cameras and also computers that can take away the drudgery of aligning the telescope and finding and capturing faint objects. 

DxO has been very active this year, and this month will not be an exception. The company is pumping out new, enhanced versions of three of its most popular photo-editing applications today. 

I've gotten my hands on a beta of the new, and I have to say improved, Luminar Neo fall release from Skylum. It keeps everything that's good in the current version and adds a couple of new features that will likely get non-owners of the current product on board. 

Skylum has announced a significant fall update for Luminar Neo coming in early November. 

This version includes powerful enhancements to existing features as well as innovative new additions such as a Luminar Neo ecosystem, restoration, and an AI editing assistant.

Peakto is releasing a 2.5 update to its excellent media management tool that frees it from the cloud while allowing robust search of all your media assets and enabling team sharing. 

DxO has updated its film emulation package to version 8, and it's a major update. This latest version introduces two standout features: Time Warp Mode, a new interactive way to explore photography’s past, and full integration with Adobe Photoshop, giving photographers direct access to FilmPack’s creative palette.  

Astrophotography is growing rapidly in popularity. Better and more reasonably priced equipment, computer control, and a heightened interest in what is in the night sky have all combined to expand the number of photographers who do night sky imaging. Some create landscapes, better termed “nightscapes,” while others focus on capturing planets, nebulae, and galaxies. 

DxO PhotoLab has been the editing choice for many photographers since 2017, specializing in correcting optical defects in camera bodies and lenses. It has a large following, but Adobe, with Photoshop and Lightroom, has always been the 800-pound gorilla commanding much of the market. 

This is lightning season for large parts of the U.S. and Europe and the rest of the world, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Where I live in Southern Arizona, we're in the monsoon season, with heavy rains and lots of electrical activity in our skies.

I reviewed PanoVolo last year and found it excellent Windows or Mac software for creating panoramic images, even 360-degree ones. 

Now, PanVolo is back with some much-desired improvements and enhancements.

Here's something a little different to display your photos. It's the Aluratek ePaper frame. Photos look like printed photos, and this 13.3" Wi-Fi-connected frame can run for about a year after a charge through its built-in USB-C port. 

Disk Drill has been around a long time. Its job is to recover files from damaged disks such as hard drives and SD cards—pretty much anything that holds media files. 

Adobe has released, without fanfare, a work-in-progress camera app for iPhones that shows tremendous promise, and I think it will excite photographers. The app is part of Adobe's Indigo Project. 

Here are some Adobe-provided sample images: