Cyme is now updating its Mac Photo app Peakto to version 1.10, and with it come some impressive speed increases.
It seems like the whole world (or at least the photographic world) is buzzing about the new Osmo Pocket 3 from drone maker DJI. It's a portable, full featured kit for video makers, YouTube creatives, and even regular consumers who want to easily capture high quality 4K video with a gimbal mounted camera.
Skylum has completed its trilogy of new Generative AI tools with the addition of Generative Expand. The company has already released GenErase and GenSwap.
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.
It hasn't been long since I reviewed that Dwarf II portable telescope/camera combo. I found it reasonably priced, ($595 with filters, tripod, extra battery and carry bag), easy to use, and something that was going to excite people of all ages who have longed to take good astrophotographs without spending a fortune or having to learn a lot of complicated science and processing skills.
It was inevitable considering the evolution of photo editing, so Skylum is adding key AI features to its very popular Luminar Neo editing software. The new features include GenErase, GenExpand, and GenSwap. The new tools will be released one by one throughout October, November, and December, starting with GenErase on October 26, 2023.
he Camera Cubes from Peak Design have been quite popular with photographers, offering several options for travel with cameras, lenses, drones, and the varied accessories we are all weighed down with.
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.
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.
I've been an amateur astronomer since I was around 11 years old. I had an uncle, a retired engineer, who had a small reflecting telescope, and when I saw Saturn for the first time I was hooked. Photography through a telescope came much later for me, and it was a very difficult undertaking in the film days. I remember taking some star shots to the drugstore for processing, and they told me they threw them away because there were just a bunch of white spots on them, and I should take better care to learn how to take pictures. Oh well.
I go way back with the Nik Tools software. I bought the set before Google snapped it up, then they let it sit virtually idle. DXO got it six years ago and have added their own deep knowledge of photo editing and, I think, fulfilled the dream of what the Nik Collection should be.
I remember vividly in July of 2019 when Skylum announced Luminar 4, software that featured Sky Replacement. A ho-hum feature for some, it was seen as a major gift by many photographers who wanted an easy way to replace a bland or cloudless sky.
There are plenty of photo cataloging programs out there. Lightroom and Bridge from Adobe are the key products in the category, but there are many other entrants, including Skylum with its Luminar Neo, On1, and Apple Photos on the Mac side. There are even more for Windows users.
It's been a while since Skylum has added any extensions to Luminar Neo, its sophisticated image editor. Now, however, there's an important feature coming.
I've taken a look at some earlier iterations of Astro Panel over the years, a plug-in designed for automating and enhancing both astrophotography and landscape photos. I found it a powerful addition to my editing arsenal, and it was easy to use but could do some very sophisticated editing. This new version from photographer Angelo Perrone adds more than 80 new astrophotography and landscape functions, as well as some features to support portrait editing.
Today, DxO is releasing a revamped collection of editing tools that works as either a Photoshop plugin or as a standalone app. They also can function with Lightroom Classic, Affinity Photo and, of course, DxO PhotoLab.
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.
I've been doing serious astrophotography for around 20 years. I started in Seattle (large mistake), but now, I'm in Arizona, where we get a lot of "severe clear" nights.
Current Luminar Neo users are in for a treat the next time they open the app, which has quietly hit version 1.8.0. Some of the updates are evolutionary, and there's the usual gaggle of bug fixes, but there are some really nice updates here that will please Neo users.
I gave a favorable review to Peakto a couple of weeks ago, and one thing I noticed is that they do frequent updates, which is a positive thing in my view. Bug fixes and new features are frequent. Today, they've offered an update to Peakto that includes integration with Pixelmator Pro, a popular photo editor. Peakto, please note, is a Mac-only application.
I didn't think DxO PureRAW 2 for Mac and Windows could be improved, but it has been, in a variety of both subtle and not-so-subtle ways that improve workflow. The latest, version 3, is out today, and the company says PureRAW 3 features DxO’s latest artificial intelligence technology, DeepPRIME XD, delivering industry-leading noise reduction and RAW image enhancement; greater control over which corrections are applied through DxO’s renowned Optics Modules; and user interface modifications that offer improved integration with every photographer’s workflow.
If you're like me, you've got photos strewn over a variety of storage devices: local, on the web, maybe even some off-line storage. Keeping track of these images is a real pain. I've got multiple image editing apps: Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar Neo, and some dedicated astronomy editing apps. I'm also a former Aperture user (groan). Lightroom has its own catalog system, and it's very good. But I've also got photos in the Neo catalog (it's not so good as a catalog) and all my iPhone photos in Apple's Photo app.
Skylum's Imgmi for smartphones has been out for a while. Like Luminar Neo on the Mac and PC platform, it's an AI-based image editor with a host of features, including sky replacement, power line removal, and tools like saturation, exposure, shadows, and highlights for simple editing.
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.
If you shoot a lot of astrophotos, you know all about gradients. They are almost always present in your images, and they have to be removed to smooth out the sky background and make your images look their best.
Astrophotographers and even regular photographers have a chance at a comet that is now appearing in our early morning, pre-dawn skies. I'm talking about Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF, rapidly approaching its closest encounter with our sun. It hasn't been to our part of the solar system for about 50,000 years. It's a striking green in color, and not all comets are, so it's created a stir among astrophotographers.
DXO has a significant release today for pro and semi-pro users of their software. The DXO optical correction technology updated today appears in their PureRAW, PhotoLab, FilmPack, and ViewPoint software.
I took a look at Radiant Photo when it first came out in September. I found it a capable editor, aimed mostly using AI to improve your color and the overall look of shadows, highlights, and other image parameters. It uses a pixel-by-pixel approach, which the developers claim gives you more creative control of the final result.
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.
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.
