Working as a retoucher, one of the hardest parts of my job wasn’t even the clean up work that an image typically requires, it was the color grading. Applying a specific look to an image to really enhance or create a mood that meets the client’s vision was either doable or really hard. There was never a time when it was completely easy, even for me.

When the client has appropriate references in similarly lit situations to the job at hand, it’s a bit easier to dissect. If a client has no particular idea of what they want, this became impossible. Think about how many potential options there can be? It’s hard to live up to. What if there was a way to communicate in color that could assist you in color grading?

People always know what they don’t want, but figuring out what they like is the hard part. With the sheer amount of possible color variations that an image could lead to, the choices are almost infinite! And in that moment of realization, I came the idea for Infinite Color. It was born out of necessity for me. I was curious to see what a color grading tool like this could do for my life and for others.

What if there was something that allowed you to see an infinite amount of ways you could do color grading for an image? It almost sounded like a superpower in Infinity War. However, that might be the worst superpower ever in a fight! But for a photographer or a retoucher, it’s a good power to have!

This would open up a level of color communication with yourself and your client. For instance, it would give you an idea of the possible direction you might want to go in without doing a lot of work when you see the color potential of your work. Then, you could easily navigate it towards the final destination.

In relation to clients, I had someone who told me that they used it on set when the client wanted something “edgy” and had no other references. He told them to give Infinite Color a spin and then suddenly the client found something they liked within a few tries. It was a done deal and the process of communication was much easier.

Even within your own personal work, if you’re curious to see which color grading path an image could go on, this opens up an opportunity to explore that. I’ve opened up old work just to see what it could look like and if I had missed any potential paths with color. Maybe you don’t want to use what it provides, but you like the idea of what it created, this gives you that clarity of direction and the ability to modify it to suite your taste.

Suddenly, I realized I solved a huge part of my frustration as a retoucher. I initially developed this for myself but wanted to make it available to everyone to try.

How It Works

Here’s a video I made about what Infinite Color is (within the first two minutes) to how it actually works. There’s even a way to save all your layers at the end of the video that allows you to make your own “presets” and apply it to a series of images for consistency! Every feature is explained in this video.

The Best Features

The video goes over everything on how the color grading panel itself works and the features. There are a few key features which are my favorite that I see people really liking. Be sure to check out the video so these points make more sense.

1. Harmonize
We decided to keep harmonize a feature that picks the highlight color of the image, and then creates a triadic color scheme from that base color. You can then override the colors to your choosing. This tool was originally not going to be included but we decided to do so as a bonus. We also tried to have it so anyone could pick which color they wanted as the primary color but surprisingly the results weren’t as pleasing. Doing it in the way that it is structured in now gave a good recommendation as a starting point, and allows for complete flexibility for adjustment. Since the regions and layers are set up for you, you can modify it on your own. This became the most optimal layout for the feature based on how it starts off and a level of customization.

2. Flexibility of layers
Some people want to only randomize a certain set of adjustment layers rather than all five, so you can turn on only the ones you want. Also, it was important that we built in the ability to shuffle individual layers without altering the rest of the layer stack once it was generated. You can then tweak the settings of each layer as well.

3. Intensity
What made this panel possible was the functionality of intensities. Images with a lot more shadows require more subtle adjustments, so adding three levels of control from light to intense really helped keep the same balance across a wide range of images. The intense feature works better with brighter images with a lot more highlights, and the light setting works best with darker images like the one in the video.

4. Scripted by referencing actual high-end layer stacks
When we had first started out building the panel, it started out really bad! The colors were all over the place because reality didn’t match theory. Truly randomizing layers produced bad results. I had to sit down and dissect what made beautiful color toning so beautiful. So I took 100’s of my old PSD files and referenced what I had done for certain editorials in different lighting conditions. I saw patterns in how far or restrained my settings were for each adjustment layer. With that in mind, we scripted it so it was within those parameters in each intensity setting. Suddenly, the way it all interacted together was like magic and we finally found something we loved.

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared on Pratik Naik’s blog.

Pratik Naik is a high-end retoucher specializing in commercial and editorial work. His work can be seen in magazines ranging from Marie Claire, Elle, Zink and more. Get his Infinite Color plug-in here. And explore his new course Ai for Photographers.

As a thank you to our readers, we’re pleased to offer you a Rangefinder exclusive discount code to get 25% off The Portrait Masters courses below. Use the code RF25 at check out to redeem. This code cannot be used in combination with other sales.

The post Infinite Color: Color Grading Photoshop Tool with Infinite Options appeared first on Rangefinder.

Adobe Max, the company’s annual creativity conference, has just ended, leaving the latest innovations and features across Creative Cloud. You can revisit many of the keynotes and presentations on the Adobe site, but we’ve put together a quick overview of some of the most exciting photo and video news.

Lightroom 

Most of the new features are available for all Lightroom products and for Adobe Camera Raw. These include: 

• Lens Blur uses several tools to simulate blur and bokeh regardless of the lens and f/stop used. Users can adjust the location, amount and type of blur in an image via slider and then choose from five forms of “bokeh” to enhance a portrait or scene. This feature is available now but in “early access,” so check it out and send your feedback to Adobe with suggested improvements. 

• HDR Optimization brings added HDR capabilities to Lightroom. Although users have been able to work with HDR images before, it’s always been in the app’s standard dynamic range. Now you can edit, display and output in true HDR. With a new option in the histogram, you can switch between SDR and HDR and the latter will, of course, deliver increased shadow and highlight detail. Export provides two new formats that contain the HDR information: JPEG XL and AVIF. Of course, to get the full benefit visually, you’ll need an HDR display. 

• Point Color is a new feature that allows users to specifically target colors (even in color casts) and create masks to make precise adjustments. This will be especially helpful to portrait photographers when adjusting skin tones. 

Premiere Pro 

In addition to what Adobe promises to be a 5x timeline performance enhancement, the video editor also provides new color preferences and improved tone mapping. On the feature side: 

• Direct publishing to social media. Premiere Pro now provides users with the ability to publish videos directly to Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. Thanks to a selection of templates designed with typical social media sizes and layouts, users can quickly and easily prepare videos for posting. Add captions, hashtags and keywords and the video is good to go. 

Max 2023 “Sneaks” 

Perhaps one of the most fun and intriguing portions of this year’s Adobe Max are its “Sneaks.” These are essentially sneak peeks at some technological advancements that may make it into Adobe products at some point. Of course, there’s lots of AI-based engineering that goes into these almost magical developments, and we love seeing what may be coming down the road. 

• Project Fast Fill: Using generative fill in video, Project Fast Fill can easily eliminate people from a background (and automatically fill in and replace what’s missing). Or you can give a text prompt to generate options to, say, add a tie to a subject who’s walking through a scene. Once the tie has been added to one frame, it’s automatically applied to the remaining frames complete with changes in light, shadow and motion. 

• Project Scene Change: This technology provides more video magic by allowing users to swap out video backgrounds and combine two videos to work seamlessly together. One of the examples shown was placing the subject, who was walking through an office, into a scene from an exotic location. Project Scene Change maintains the original camera motion and applies the appropriate shadows.  

• Project Res Up: As the name implies, this feature can scale low-res videos to higher resolution with better details and sharpness. The technology can also be applied to GIFs.  

• Project See Through: Shooting through glass (car windows, storefronts, etc.) usually results in reflections that hide and/or distort the objects in front of or behind the glass. This neat tech can remove the reflection in one fell swoop—much more easily than attempting to make the correction manually in Lightroom or Photoshop.  

Those are just a small part of the many, many innovations that were presented at Adobe Max 2023. There are plenty of videos and tutorials on the Web to provide more detailed information. Head over to Adobe.com for more information. 

The Retouching Series

The Chris Orwig Bundle

The Photoshop Masters & Lightroom Masters Bundle

Essential Retouching Workflow

Lightroom 101 by Chris Orwig

Photoshop 101 by Chris Orwig

The Lightroom Masters: Portrait Photographers Collection

The Photoshop Masters: Portrait Photographers Collection

Pratik’s Mini Course Bundle

The Power of Color to Transform Your Images

The post Adobe Max Roundup: Exciting New Features  appeared first on Rangefinder.

Nikon Z 70-180mm f/2.8 

Good news for Nikon Z shooters! Nikon has added two new lenses to its Z-series line: the Nikkor Z 70-180mm f/2.8 and the Z 180-800mm f/5.6-6.3 VR. While the latter is best left to wildlife and sports photographers, we think that the Z 70-180mm f/2.8 model looks like a solid lightweight alternative to its more established Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S sibling—at about half the price. The new lens comes in at $1,250 vs the 70-200mm’s $2,397.  

Granted, the 70-180mm lens doesn’t have VR (one of the reasons for the difference in price and size, of course) but given its slimmed down build, does it need VR? Probably not. At 1.5 pounds the new 70-180mm is about half the weight of the larger lens and loses a few inches along the way: the lens body measures 3.3″ x 6” vs. the larger lens’ 3.6″ x 8.7″. And since all full-frame Z models feature in-camera VR, handholding a zoom lens isn’t a problem. 

Other features of note include a customizable control ring and a minimum focus distance of 0.27m (at 70mm) so you can easily capture portraits as well as bridal decor details without switching lenses. The Z 70-180mm f/2.8 lens will be available mid-July. 

Nikonusa.com 

Tether Tools  

And from the company that enhances your tethering experience, Tether Tools has announced version 5 of its Smart Shooter tethering capture software and is available as a standalone app for a wide variety of cameras (check the site for compatibility) from Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm. A Lightroom Classic plug-in, which has been updated, is also available for Nikon, Sony and now, Fujifilm. 

If you’re a product photographer or working in 3D, you’ll love the ability to shoot with up to 10 cameras with the new version 5—a real time saver when capturing different angles without having to move the cameras around the set. And you can photograph or scan a QR code to add data to files. But perhaps one of the features that’s really appealing is “SmartSave” which gives you the ability to automatically save files to multiple locations simultaneously. And you can write custom scripts to further speed up your workflow.  

Available for Mac and PC, prices start at $100 for one camera; add another $100 for each additional camera. All in all, Smart Shooter 5 sounds like a valuable and efficient tethering tool, so you may want to head over to the Tether Tools site and download a free trial to check it out. 

Tethertools.com 

The post Nikkor Z Releases New Lenses & Tether Tools Updates Software  appeared first on Rangefinder.

Most of us have dozens and dozens of apps on our mobile devices. Some are opened every day; others may be specialized and used less frequently. Of course, there’s always a handful that lay dormant until we decide to clean up our screens. 

But, let’s face it, technology changes rapidly and as do our needs, so there’s always room for more apps. We’ve put together a brief list of apps that are new or we think could be a useful addition to your workflow. 

Image Editing 

Affinity Photo 2 for iPad 

There are any number of reasons to check out Affinity Photo 2 for iPad—the perfect companion to its excellent desktop sibling: extensive editing tools/features, undemanding hardware specifications, affordability, and a perpetual license. While the app is compatible with Apple’s M1/M2 iPad Pro models (recommended), you can also use the software on all iPad Pro models running iPad OS 15 or later, as well as select non-Pro models (even some iPad minis). 

But don’t let its lightweight hardware specs fool you—Affinity Photo 2 is packed with features including live adjustments, live masks, layers, blend modes, non-destructive RAW development, and much, much more. The iPad version of Affinity Photo 2 surprisingly doesn’t scrimp when it comes to image editing tools. Performance is surprisingly good as well given its (relatively) minimal hardware requirements; naturally, performance may vary depending on your hardware and workflow. The app is mostly intuitive, but Affinity does some things differently than we’re used to, so you may want to refer to a couple of Affinity’s video tutorials before jumping in. Also, check out the desktop version while you’re there. 

iPad 

$18.49 (perpetual license) 

www.affinity.serif.com 

Capture One for iPad 

Capture One for iPad was announced last year providing a useful companion to Capture One Pro desktop. Designed for the iPad but not limited to M1/M2 versions, this app offers features for making quick adjustments including exposure, white balance, dynamic range, sharpening, and noise reduction, among others. Be sure to import your presets and styles so you can have them on hand for an even speedier workflow. 

While you’re on the road or want computer-free flexibility in the studio, wireless tethering is a must. It’s available for certain Canon, Nikon, Sony, and now Fujifilm cameras (check the website to see if your camera is supported). Shooting without the constraints of a tethering cable is incredibly freeing. 

Paired with Capture One Live, you have the freedom to make some quick edits and then share images as they’re captured with on-site or remote clients. The ability for clients to star rate their pics provides immediate feedback to help guide you as you’re shooting.  

Capture One just announced an iPhone Beta. We don’t have any details, but it looks like users of Capture One’s apps might soon be able to be even more mobile. 

For news about the latest version of Capture One Pro (and a chance to get 12 months of free Capture One’s All-in-One bundle) head over here.

iPad 

$4.99/month 

www.captureone.com 

[Read: Capture One Pro Updates]

Video Editing 

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve for iPad 

Late last year, Blackmagic Design launched DaVinci Resolve for iPad. Built from the ground up, the app is optimized for use with iPad Pros with M1 and M2 chips. Like its desktop version, this app is powerful and free! (The iPad Studio version requires an in-app purchase of about $95.) 

One of DaVinci Resolve’s main strengths is its color grading capabilities, and the iPad version offers a wealth of options on its color page. Better yet, basics like contrast, temperature, and saturation adjustments are intuitive with their easily recognizable imaging tools. The cut page is designed to help speed up your workflow and AI-based features like magic mask, smart reframe, and voice isolation add to the app’s efficiency and convenience.  

More advanced users who are familiar with DaVinci Resolve’s features will find a (mostly) smooth transition to the mobile version. It’s compatible with external hard drives and excellent collaboration tools are available via Blackmagic Cloud, adding to this app’s appeal. Just be sure to check the site to make sure your iPad Pro and OS are compatible. 

iPad 

Free 

www.blackmagicdesign.com 

[Read: 5 Light Painting Tools to Make Your Images Stand Out]

Final Cut Pro for iPad 

Apple recently announced an iPad version of Final Cut Pro (and Logic Pro for iPad), compatible with newer iPad Pro’s with M1 and M2 chips. From what we’ve seen, the software’s feature set is excellent for putting together a behind-the-scenes clip as well as editing longer projects. It doesn’t have all the options of the desktop version but there are a few new additions here that are useful like the virtual jog wheel, the ability to quickly remove and replace an object/person from the background. You can also shoot ProRes with your iPad directly into FCP. 

But we were disappointed to learn that while you can send your files to the desktop you can’t send them back to the iPad. And we didn’t see anything about external hard drive compatibility like we have with DaVinci Resolve and Capture One. A tiny footnote also hints that a new version of FCP desktop is in the works and will be required for at least one or more features on the iPad to work. 

The app sounds exciting, but we’ll have to wait until its release on May 23 to dig into the details (Logic Pro for the iPad will be released at the same time). Apple has gone to a subscription for both new iPad apps: $4.99/month or $49/year. And you get one month free. 

iPad 

$4.99/month, $49/year 

www.apple.com 

[Read: Adobe Updates Final Cut Pro]

Finding the Light

The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE)  

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is one of the best and most sophisticated apps for planning an outdoor shoot. Whether you’re headed to the mountains or looking for the ideal light among the tall buildings of a city—or anywhere in between—TPE is the perfect companion.  

All the natural light information you need is at your fingertips. Along with the standard sunrise/sunset, moon cycles and night sky, TPE provides tools to determine the timing and angle of the sun that suits your needs. It’s great for anywhere-in-the-world location weddings, just pick a site to determine the best time for your shoot. If you’re scouting in person, a line of site feature allows you to select your best option. A search will also give you the best dates and times for your shoot so you’ll know in advance when the sun (or moon) will be in alignment with your subject. Head to night mode if you want to schedule a Milky Way shoot at a beach wedding. Info can be saved and shared, too. 

There’s a slight learning curve to the more advanced features but TPE offers a free Web version so you might want to check it out online first. But the basics are fairly easy to master. 

iOS 

$9.99 

www.photoephemeris.com 

The post More Mobile Apps? Yes, Please.  appeared first on Rangefinder.

Adobe has announced a handful of new AI-powered updates for its Lightroom “ecosystem.” Whether you work in Lightroom (Mac/Win), Lightroom Classic, Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), Lightroom Mobile (iOS/Android) or Lightroom on the Web, it’s time to check out the latest features and enhancements. 

Lightroom Mac/Win, Classic, ACR 

Denoise 

Every photographer faces low-light situations sometimes, and even with cameras that deliver better-than-ever results at high ISO, image noise can still be an issue. Adobe promises improved results—less noise while maintaining more details—in Lightroom thanks to its latest AI-powered noise reduction feature. This “one-click simple” feature is currently only available for RAW files but Adobe plans to expand compatibility to other files “soon.” 

Curves in Masking 

Perhaps one of the more interesting (and potentially most useful) new features is the ability to utilize the Curves tool in masks. This combination provides the ability to merge the power of Curves with masking to selectively apply adjustments. Whether you want to warm up a portrait, elevate highlights in a specific area or enhance shadow details, this feature allows you to target portions of an image for fine tuning. 

[Read: Impossible Things: A New and Advanced AI Photo Editor]

New AI Mask Categories for Select People 

Lightroom can automatically generate masks for various portions of an image such as the background, objects and people. And now Adobe has added a couple of additional options when working with humans. New categories include the ability to select clothes and beards. The former makes it easy, for example, to change the color of a shirt or skirt. The latter allows users to enhance the darkness and/or texture of facial hair. While these two categories may not make it onto your top ten (or thirty) list of useful features, it doesn’t hurt to have them handy. 

Lightroom Mac/Win, ACR 

Content Credentials (Tech Preview) 

In 2019, Adobe launched the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) [contentauthenticity.org] to “promote adoption of an open industry standard for content authenticity and provenance.” According to Adobe, the CAI community is “developing an industry-wide attribution framework and features like Content Credentials to provide increased trust and transparency for digital content.” Although currently in development and only available as a tech preview, Content Credentials will provide information such as edits, and verifiable attribution is part of the work’s metadata. Sounds like a feature that’s extremely timely. 

Lightroom Mac/Win, Classic, ACR, iOS, Android, Lightroom on the Web

Additional Adaptive Presets for Portraits 

Adaptive Presets are not new for Lightroom (they started rolling out last year) and the original selection includes presets such as Enhance, Glamour, Whiten Teeth and Texturize Hair. The new AI presets include Polished Portrait, Darken Beard and Enhance Clothing.  

Polished Portrait is the most useful with automatic options for skin smoothing, adjusting lighting and refining facial features. Darken Beard is, as expected, the darkening of facial hair to provide more contrast (and a way to hide the gray). We’re curious about the Enhance Clothing feature, which seems to pump up contrast, saturation and texture to give a little more pizzazz to an outfit. 

Black and White Video 

Although not ready for Android, the rest of the Lightroom apps now offer black and white video (in case you missed it, Adobe added video support for Lightroom last year). Convert your color footage to monochrome with a simple tap then adjust various parameters such as contrast, tint and grain to add your own creative touch. Of course, exposure, dynamic range and color management controls are available as well. Black and white video (and stills) never lose their charm. 

There are numerous other additions to the latest version of the many Lightroom applications that are AI-driven. Check out adobe.com for further information. 

The post Adobe Lightroom Updates  appeared first on Rangefinder.

Just in time for this year’s NAB, Adobe announced some updates to Premiere Pro—the software that was used to edit 2023 Oscar-winning films such as Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once (which racked up a total of seven Oscars including Best Editing and Best Documentary Feature, Navalny). And while you may not have Oscar aspirations, Premiere Pro has added new features and performance improvement that will enhance your video workflow regardless of your video genre.  

Text-Based Editing 

First up is text-based editing. According to Adobe, Premiere Pro is the only professional NLE with integrated text-based editing. Thanks to Adobe’s AI-powered Sensei, Premiere Pro can automatically transcribe the spoken word from the footage. The transcribed dialogue appears in a separate window identifying each speaker (you can manually apply names to the different speakers). Keywords will locate all the clips in which those words appear—a far faster process than having dialogue transcribed, printed out and highlighted by hand. Copy and paste the transcript onto the timeline and both the clip and the transcript are exactly where you need them to be. Edit the clip on the timeline and the transcript will follow suit. It’s a speedy and efficient process for making a rough cut. 

The demo I saw used two speakers in an interview setting, and that’s probably the best application of this feature. We’re not sure if the transcription will work as well if you’re recording, say, a wedding ceremony, but it might be helpful when putting together guests making toasts at a wedding—or any event where the voices might be more easily differentiated. Using keywords, the transcript will be more easily located during the editing process. Adding captions, which will appear in the timeline, is one-click simple.  

Text-based editing is currently in public Beta but should be available in May. 

Automatic Tone Mapping/Color Management 

Many photographers are more likely to be using two or more digital capture devices such as a still camera, iPhone, drone or a cinema camera to record a series of clips that will be combined into a final video. That means that you’ll likely have HDR footage from an iPhone on the same SDR (standard dynamic range) timeline. Footage from an iPhone or drone may blow out highlights, for example. And if you’re shooting in a venue with windows, it’s important to ensure that the view through the window isn’t washed out. Premiere Pro’s Automatic Tone Mapping feature is on by default and works well (and quickly) to recover highlight details that were missing. It’s also easy to balance clips from different sources. 

Similar challenges arise when footage is shot on different devices that use different color space. The current solution is using LUTs—which can be time-consuming and, for those without experience in this type of color management, a major headache. Premiere Pro’s new color management workflow (which shipped in February) is another automatic process that will fix mixed color space issues. All you have to do is change the default from importing native color spaces to the automatic option and you’re good to go. While the demos I’ve seen are optimized to show off the new features, I have to say I was impressed. Anything that can make video editing speedier and simpler is a big plus. 

Miscellaneous Updates 

There’s a long list of updates that contribute to Adobe’s “Quality, stability and performance” goal for Premiere Pro. According to Francis Crossman, Sr. Product Manager, “This is the most stable and the fastest version of Premiere Pro that we’ve ever shipped.” Of course, that’s something that can’t be experienced over a Zoom briefing but it sounds plausible given the updates. 

Various other updates include background auto-save, system reset options to clear caches, wipe preferences and troubleshoot plug-ins. You’ll also find more zoom levels, ProRes render previews and AAF support of Apple Silicon. And, yes, more GPU acceleration. Some features have shipped, some are in public Beta and others are shipping in the spring. 

For more details on these—and other—updates, visit www.adobe.com. 

The post ADOBE UPDATES PREMIERE PRO   appeared first on Rangefinder.

When DxO Optics Lab folded the Nik Collection into DxO Optics Pro in 2017, the software was renamed to DxO PhotoLab. That program joined the growing number of photo imaging softwares that add extended capabilities to a raw file processing program at a lower cost and without the need for a subscription. Five years later, DxO PhotoLab 6 builds on the ever-increasing feature set of previous versions with new and enhanced AI technology that improves image quality and the user experience in areas crucial to professional photographers.

PhotoLab 6 is available in two editions. The ESSENTIALS edition allows installation on two computers for $139 while the ELITE edition, with additional features, allows installation on three systems for $219. Both are available for Mac and Windows platforms. I worked with the ELITE version.

DxO Viewpoint became part of the DxO family several years ago, providing the ability to globally fix geometry and perspective. Version 4 increases these abilities by addressing control over local image areas and support for Apple Silicon hardware.

[Read: DxO’s Nik Software Celebrates 25 Years with 25 Presets]

ViewPoint 4 is available as a separate program that at you can use as a panel in DxO PhotoLab, as a standalone program, or as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Elements. New users on Mac or Windows will pay $99. Upgrade pricing is available for previous users of both programs.

I tested the ELITE version of DxO PhotoLab 6 on Mac and Windows with Viewpoint 4 available as a panel in the program. I also looked at ViewPoint 4 as a standalone.

DXO PhotoLab 6: What’s New

Version 5 of PhotoLab introduced DeepPRIME noise reduction. DXO PhotoLab 6 updates DeepPRIME with DeepPRIME XD (eXtreme Detail). The updated version uses machine learning to provide greater noise reduction with improved detail enhancement and color for images captured at the ever-higher ISO speeds available on the latest cameras. I also found it very effective at removing noise from high ISO images captured by my earlier Nikons. The original DeepPRIME from version 5 remains.

The ability to soft proof images is also new in PhotoLab 6. This gives you the ability to monitor how the image will look on a specific display or printed output. DxO has also re-engineered the program’s color processing algorithms to provide a new enhanced extended color space.

A new ReTouch tool is available in PhotoLab 6 for healing and cloning. You can fine tune ReTouch with brushes and, as with all of the available tools, it is non-destructive. The tool also allows you to transform the clone source through mirroring, rotating and scaling

While PhotoLab does not rely on a catalog system as with some other raw file processors, version 6 extends its PhotoLibrary system with more complete support of Exif and IPTC standards. New to version 6 are color labels for easier organization and management of images.

ViewPoint 4 features a redesigned toolbar, but the more important change is the addition of the ReShape tool. This new tool provides the ability to locally adjust areas of a scene. You can warp and repair individual areas using the tool’s customizable grid and extensive control points to perfect architectural images and improve group portraits.

New to ViewPoint 4 is the option to add guides to more accurately align horizontal and vertical elements. Among the upgrades in ViewPoint 4 are the ability flip and mirror images and enhanced integration of the crop and horizon tools.

PhotoLab 6’s User Friendliness

It will take some time for new users to come up to speed with PhotoLab 6, although they will likely find that it is worth the effort. By downloading and saving the correct DxO Optics Modules for your camera and lens system, PhotoLab 6 automatically applies corrections so you don’t have to deal with them. With these adjustments as a starting point, you can concentrate on your image adjustments without concern for lens distortion, vignetting, etc. You have the option of choosing to apply all of these corrections, only the optical corrections, or no automatic corrections at all.

The interface takes some getting used to, but you can access many of the more common tools in the toolbar above the preview image without searching through panels to the right. Also available is an Advanced workspace that shows all the available tools in the right panel of the Customize mode, and it is the one I chose to use.

I didn’t find the built-in Help very helpful. Searching for the location of the soft proofing tool and information about it yielded no useful results. Same with the searching for the location of the retouch tool. You will need to download the user guide and search it in Acrobat for meaningful help. The search box above the right panel is helpful in some cases however.    

What Works

In PhotoLab 6, the new DeepPRIME XD delivered slightly improved noise reduction, but a clear improvement in fine detail. The cost is a slightly longer processing time than the previous DeepPRIME from version 5. By selecting a very high ISO image with a good deal of fine detail, the difference is visible on the screen after the image is rendered.

[Read: On1 NoNoise AI’s Impressive Noise Reduction]

Once I found the soft proofing panel and loaded the custom ICC profile for my printer, the result was as I expected. The image displays in the program with white borders, which are a better option than black for this purpose.

The ReTouch tool for cloning and healing is a welcome addition and works well as long as there is an area available that matches the are that you want to remove, no differently that the similar tools in other programs.

In ViewPoint 4, I found the new Reshape tool very tricky to use, but the grid options available and the ability to make subtle changes to localized areas may have a use to some photographers. For overall corrections I love the perspective tools.

What Didn’t Work As Well

I would prefer that a folder open in the PhotoLibrary with a grid view of all of the images in the folder rather than the default view of the first image in the folder. It is easy enough to drag the top of the thumbnail border to display the grid view, but my preference would be the opposite of the way it works now, or a preference to choose between the two.

In the Customize mode that I set to the Advanced workspace in order to display all of the tool in the right panel, I would prefer if only their header names appeared and that, when one sub-panel is open, the others would close automatically, or there would be an option for this.

The ReTouch tool opens with boxes containing brush options and shortcut hints displayed on the screen. You can close these, but I would have preferred the ability to keep them open, but drag them to an area of the image where they would still be available, but out of the way of the retouching.

As fast as PhotoLab is when exporting a file, I would still like the confirmation of a progress bar to know when the export is completed successfully.

As a standalone, ViewPoint 4 only opens TIFF and JPEG files. To take advantage of it with raw files, it must be used with PhotoLab 6.

How DxO PhotoLab 6 Compares to Other Programs

Where other programs offer geometry tools, none offer the range of tools available in them standalone version of ViewPoint or PhotoLab 6 with ViewPoint installed.

As a raw file converter, DxO PhotoLab 6 ranks with the best and a worthy option to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic and without the need for a subscription. The downloadable DxO Optics Modules and the full use of automatic corrections when opening an image definitely speeds your workflow. I preferred working with the initial corrections provided by the optics modules and automatic vignetting and distortion corrections rather than having to click these on as with other programs or make them manually.

While the Control Point technology offers more precise local adjustments than Lightroom Classic, many users will still move images to Adobe Photoshop because of the lack of layers and precise masking in PhotoLab 6. However, the noise reduction and detail enhancement provided by DeepPRIME XD make DxO PhotoLab 6 an essential tool for professional photographers who routinely capture image at high ISO settings. A 30-day free trial of both programs is available at dxo.com.

Stan Sholik is a photographer/writer in San Clemente, CA.

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Adobe Lightroom’s newest AI tools automatically select people, eyes, teeth or skin for retouching, and at the start of its annual creativity conference earlier today, Adobe announced a list of new updates across the Adobe Lightroom family, as well as Photoshop and other programs. The updates take last year’s Subject Selection and Sky Selection tools even further, along with bringing more features to mobile devices.

In Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Adobe Camera RAW on desktop devices, photo editors gain three new smart selection tools: Select People, Select Objects, and Select Background. The first goes beyond the existing Select Subject tool and allows photographers to select one person, a group of people, or just individual features. Along with selecting the entire person, Lightroom can now automatically mask out the skin (face or body), eyebrows, eyes (iris/pupil or sclera/whites masked separately), lips, or hair. Masks are commonly used for tasks like whitening teeth, smoothing skin, or enhancing the eyes; the latest update aims to do that without using the brush tool to select each feature.

While Lightroom already has a Select Subject tool, the new Select Object and Select Background options allow for more specific masks. The Select Object tool is used by either roughly drawing with the brush or using a rectangle selection. The software then detects the edges and creates a mask of the object, similar to the feature by the same name in Photoshop. The Select Background tool simplifies background selection, which could be previously done by using Select Subject and then inverting the mask. (See below how it can pull apart specific elements within complex subjects, such as a person holding a surfboard.)

These masks are also the basis for a new set of Adaptive Presets—unlike the masking tools, though, the presets will also be available on iOS, Android, and iPadOS. Adaptive Presets for portraits include options such as enhancing eyes or whitening teeth with one tap. Earlier Adaptive Presets for skies and subjects are also migrating to mobile.

Adobe Camera RAW also gained the option to adjust the curves within a masked selection. Adobe says that this option will also be coming to Lightroom but at a later date.

[Read: Lightroom Just Expanded to Video Editing in a Major Update]

Lightroom and Lightroom classic, as well as mobile apps, will also gain Content-Aware Remove. Similar to the Photoshop tool, the tool allows photographers to select an object and fill in the gap using data from the surrounding area.

Adobe also announced a handful of updates for Photoshop. One Click Delete mixes Object Selection and Content-Aware Fill. The tool is used by selecting the object, then using a new Shift + Delete keyboard command.

Adobe also announced two features that are available in beta testing mode. The first is a Share for Review tool, which brings comments from approved reviewers right into the Photoshop application. Content Credentials, announced last year, has also expanded but is still in beta. This opt-in tool attaches editing details to the metadata to clearly identify when an image has been digitally enhanced. The metadata can be viewed online using Verify.

Photoshop for iPad also inches closer to the desktop version with the addition of one tap features including background removal, Content-Aware Fill, and tools for automatically adjusting tone, color, and contrast.

Adobe Max continues from Oct, 18 through Oct. 22, online and in Los Angeles. Read more about Lightroom’s newest AI tools and other updates here.

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The Fall 2022 update to the powerful Windows-only Zoner Photo Studio X has arrived with a host of improvements and enhancements. Where the Spring update focused primarily on video, the Fall update concentrates on improving the still photography experience.

Targeted as a direct competitor to other high-end image adjustment programs, the subscription-only Zoner Photo Studio is available for $5.99 per month or $59 per year—a $10 increase in the yearly subscription from the Spring update. Included with the subscription are 20 GB of Zoner on-line storage, 15 free 4×6-inch prints per year, free downloadable presets, and access to the software from any computer, anytime, anywhere. And if you decide not to renew your subscription, you keep the current program and your work, you just don’t receive future updates.

Zoner Photo Studio X: What’s New

While the most obvious improvements to legacy users will likely be the interface enhancements, the most significant change is the new native support for RAW file formats. By taking photos both in the studio and the field with a wide range of digital cameras, Zoner created custom camera profiles that faithfully represent the digital information captured by the sensor. All full-frame mirrorless cameras are supported along with many other popular models. A full list of supported bodies is available on the Zoner website.

In the interface, a new Full View option, is available in the Manager and Develop modules. You access it with an icon next to the Preview icon in the toolbar or using Shift+Enter keyboard shortcut, hides the side panels, giving you a full screen view of your image. However, you can restore the side panels by hovering over the edges to access the folder tree or appropriate right panel for the module you are in. The default background for Full View is black, but it can be changed to white. If you select multiple images, they are all displayed in Full View, making comparisons large, easy, and uncluttered. This also permits you to apply Develop module adjustments to all of the images at the same time.

[Read: Lightroom Just Expanded to Video Editing in Major Update]

Other noticeable changes in the top center toolbar are the Map button that is no longer hidden beneath the Browser button, and the Viewer button moved to the end of the top toolbar next to the other Zoner modules.

The Fall update also simplifies the renaming of files on export and the viewing of photo information below previews. Zoner now does this with metadata tokens, These are prefilled cells that point to metadata in the image or of your choosing that save you from entering the information manually as required previously in Zoner using format strings.

A final interface enhancement appears in the Develop module. By double-clicking an image in the filmstrip at the bottom of the Develop module, the image appears in a gallery just as it would in the Manage module. When you have done this, you can now select multiple images to export or apply presets directly from the Develop module.

User Friendliness

The new interface changes serve to make the Fall 2022 update significantly more user friendly. Since Zoner combines the functions of Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, and Photoshop in one program, the interface seems more cluttered that those of its competition. Yet it is easy to navigate, with functions moving in a logical order from left to right, and icons providing quick access to essential functions.

Users moving from Adobe software will find that most of the keyboard shortcuts they are familiar with are identical in Zoner. Users migrating from other imaging software will find many of the same tools and sliders found in other image editors. Users new to image editing should be able to quickly come up to speed with the logical layout of Zoner and the help available by clicking the “?” in the top toolbar. This icon can take you to help contents including a list of keyboard shortcuts, a form with which to contact support, the Zoner website, and teaching topics for learning photography and photo editing.

What Works Well in Zoner Photo Studio X

The new native support for RAW files produced excellent results from files captured with my Nikon Z6 and D780. Although not identical to the results from Lightroom, it is easily possible to make them the same, or, with the tools in Zoner’s Develop module to adjust them to your liking.

As I use GPS through Nikon’s SnapBridge and my phone for location photography, I appreciate the Map access now being available in the top center toolbar. The new tokens ability will take me a little time to learn to use efficiently, but I can see their value in speeding renaming and adding metadata.

But what I found most useful was a feature I didn’t know I wanted: the ability to view a single image or compare multiple images with an unobstructed black (or white) background and still be able to call up the Zoner editing functions in the Develop or Editor modules by moving my cursor over the right side of the screen.

What Doesn’t Work as Well

I found no issues with any of the latest enhancements in the Fall 2022 Zoner X update. However, despite the speed improvements in some areas such as navigating and opening files, the program still doesn’t feel as responsive as the competitors when selecting, masking, and applying adjustments. And I’m still awaiting a content-aware fill tool for removing unwanted elements in an image.

How Zoner Photo Studio X Compares with Other Programs

With the Fall 2022 update, Zoner X continues to provide competitive features to all other professional Image editing programs, even exceeding those programs that do not include video editing capabilities. However, it is available only for Windows hardware and on a subscription basis. If these restrictions meet your needs, the latest update to Zoner Photo Studio X is worth a serious look. A 30-day free trial is available at zoner.com.

Stan Sholik is a photographer and writer based in San Clemente, CA.

The post Zoner Photo Studio X: The Fall 2022 Update is Here appeared first on Rangefinder.

Updated 6/28/22: The Capture One for the iPad app has just been released, and includes Batch editing, Dehaze, film grain, Basic Color Editor, Styles import, and more. In the works are additional features for the app, including tethering, layers and masking.

Ahead of the expected iPad app launch at the end of June, Capture One released its Capture One 22 Updates [15.3.0] on June 14. Among expanded collaboration tools and a new look to the tools panel, the update includes a Magic Eraser tool for quickly refining masks. This newest tool is aimed at making deleting mask sections as easy as selecting the mask in the first place.

Just like the Magic Brush selects similar groups of pixels, the new Magic Eraser will erase similar pixels from a mask. That allows users to quickly refine masks with less precise mouse work. Like the Magic Brush, the new eraser tool is designed to select similar areas, only deleting them rather than adding to a masking layer.

[Read: Capture One Software Discontinues its Fujifilm, Nikon and Sony Versions]

The update also expands the software’s relatively young Live sessions, which allows for online collaboration. With the update, Live sessions can now be live for up to one month, while images can now be watermarked ahead of sharing. The update also introduces a beta version of comments, allowing feedback through comments. Initially, the comment feature is only available on the web browser but Capture One says it expects to bring the comments into the app as well.

The Capture One 22 updates also bring in a few features to prepare for the launch of the iPad version, including cloud transfer. The tool panel also sees a redesign which will more closely align the desktop app with the iPad version. The company says the new look has new icons as well as a more intuitive design.

“While the iPad app is completely new, it was important for the team to make it immediately familiar to Capture One users and general iPad users, so it’s both capable and tactile,” says Ravael Orta, Capture One’s CEO. “The distinct feature layout brings order to capability and sets an intuitive flow for new users, making this not only the most affordable way to enjoy Capture One, but the simplest.” The app will be available only as a subscription service and is separate from other Capture One licenses. The subscription costs $4.99 a month and includes access to up to 1,000 photos that can be stored in Cloud File Transfer at any given time with an unlimited number of transfers.

Sony users also gain the ability to tether to the software without a wire. Using Wi-Fi capabilities, the app can now talk to Sony cameras and ditch the tethering cable. The addition comes after Capture One added wireless tethering for Canon users late last year.

As an incremental update, the latest tools are available now as a free download for current users. New users can test out the features in a 30-day free trial (download here), with pricing starting at $24 a month, $107 a year, or $209 for a one-time license.

captureone.com

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