Lightroom 5 Public Beta available

Just getting used to Lightroom 4? Well, the folks of Adobe aren't letting you rest; they have been working on its successor already…

Lots of cool new features for the upcoming version of Lightroom (and most probably Adobe Camera Raw as well). To see for yourself what this new version of Lightroom has to offer, download the free beta from the Adobe labs website.

Some of the new Features in Lightroom 5 Beta

• Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke. Take precise control over what's being removed as you make unwanted objects just disappear.
• Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click. Upright analyzes images and detects skewed horizontal or vertical lines. You choose one of four correction methods, and Upright can even straighten images where the horizon is hidden.
• Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer's eye through your images with more flexibility and control. The radial gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignette areas within a single image.
• Offline editing with Smart Previews – Easily work with images without bringing your entire library with you. Just generate smaller stand-in files called Smart Previews. Make adjustments or metadata additions to Smart Previews and your changes will be automatically applied to the full-size originals later.
• Video slideshow sharing – Easily share your work in elegant video slideshows. Combine still images, video clips, and music in creative HD videos that can be viewed on almost any computer or device.
• Improved photo book creation – Create beautiful photo books from your images. Lightroom includes a variety of easy-to-use book templates, and now you can edit them to create a customized look. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks.

There is already a plethora of videos and other information on the new Lightroom available on the internet, e.g., at the PhotoshopCAFE Lightroom 5 training site.

Adobe releases Lightroom 4.4, Camera Raw 7.4, and DNG converter 7.4 updates

Adobe has just released an update to its raw converters. The update provides support for additional cameras and lens profiles as well as fixes to bugs present in previous versions of the converter.

If you're not using the latest version of the software (i.e., Lightroom 4, Photoshop CS6, Photoshop Elements 11), you can make use of the DNG Converter 7.4 application to get raw file support for the newly added cameras.

To update:

• Lightroom 4.4 – Please use the update mechanism of the software
• Photoshop CS6 – Please use the update mechanism of the software
• Photoshop Elements 11 – Please use the update mechanism of the software
• DNG converter 7.4: Download Mac / Windows

Below is the complete list of changes (from Adobe).

Complete Nik software collection now only $149

Good news for everyone performing their own post processing: the complete Nik Software collection is now only $149!

The collection consists of all 6 highly rewarded plugins for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Aperture. Available for both Windows and Mac. View the complete collection at the Nik Software website.

Nik Software Collection

• Color Efex Pro 4 – Awesome set of filters for colour correction, retouching, and other creative effects.
• Silver Efex Pro 2 – If you're serious about B&W, this is the filter set to consider.
• HDR Efex Pro 2 – One of the best, if not the best, HDR tools available, I really love it!
• Sharpener Pro 3 – Covers every step in the image sharpening workflow; from Capture Sharpening to Creative Sharpening to Output Sharpening.
• Dfine 2 – Powerful noise reduction.
• Viveza 2 – Creating selections and masks the easy way.

Compatibility

The Nik Software collection is compatible with the following systems:
Mac

• Mac® OS 10.6.8 through 10.8
• Intel processor
• 2GB of RAM (4 GB or more recommended)
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 (CS5 for HDR Efex Pro 2) through CS6
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 11
  (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 4
• Apple® Aperture® 3.1 or later
• 32-bit and 64-bit Compatible (HDR Efex Pro 2 is only compatible with 64-bit systems)
• For GPU acceleration, an Open GL 3.0 compatible graphics card such as the cards listed below. If no compatible card is available, GPU acceleration will be disabled and the CPU will be used.

Windows

• Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Windows 8
• AMD® or Intel® processor
• 2GB of RAM (4 GB or more recommended)
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 through CS6
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 11
  (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 4
• 32-bit and 64-bit Compatible
• For GPU acceleration, an Open GL 3.0 compatible graphics card such as the cards listed below. If no compatible card is available, GPU acceleration will be disabled and the CPU will be used.

GPU Compatibility

• NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series, GeForce 9 Series, GeForce 100 Series, GeForce 200 Series, GeForce 300 Series, GeForce 400 Series, GeForce 500 Series,
• ATI Radeon HD2000 Series, Radeon HD3000 Series, Radeon HD4000 Series, Radeon HD5000 Series, Radeon HD6000 Series,
• Intel HD Graphics 3000

Photoshop CS6 13.0.2/13.1, Lightroom 4.3, and Camera Raw 7.3 updates

Adobe has just released updates to their major photo editing software.

Lightroom 4.3/Camera Raw 7.3

The Lightroom 4.3 and Camera Raw 7.3 updates add support 20 for new cameras, including the Canon 6D and Nikon D5200.

Lightroom 4.3 also includes HiDPI (Mac Retina display) support for the Library and Develop Modules. It is a real pity that Camera Raw does not yet include this support though (hopefully the next update will cover this).

Here's the full list of new cameras supported in LR4.3/ACR7.3:

• Canon EOS 6D
• Canon PowerShot S110
• Canon PowerShot G15
• Canon PowerShot SX50 HS
• Casio Exilim EX-ZR1000
• Casio Exilim EX-FC300S
• Leica M-E
• Nikon 1 V2
• Nikon D5200
• Nikon D600
• Olympus PEN E-PL5
• Olympus PEN E-PM2
• Olympus STYLUS XZ-2 iHS
• Panasonic DMC-GH3
• Pentax K-5 II
• Pentax K-5 IIs
• Pentax Q10
• Sony DSC-RX1
• Sony NEX-VG30
• Sony NEX-VG900

Photoshop CS6 13.0.2 (Mac only)

Like Lightroom 4.3, this new 13.0.2 version of Adobe Photoshop enables support for new HiDPI displays on the Macintosh platform for “a dramatic improvement in image fidelity and resolution.”

Photoshop CS6 13.1.0 (Creative Cloud subscription only)

If you bought Photoshop CS6 through the Creative Cloud subscription (from $19.99/€24.59 per month) you get some new features added to this, showing the advantage of this subscription based service (though, personally I still find it quiet expensive).

The first Creative Cloud-only update of Photoshop offers a host of new and improved features:

• The Blur Gallery and Liquify are now usable on smart objects, greatly enhancing your “non-destructive editing” capabilities.
• Web design enhancements:
• CSS export from text and layer styles for faster and easier web design.
• Import of colour swatches from you HTML, CSS, or SVG files.
• Conditional actions – People making use of actions a lot will love the fact that you can now have conditional actions.
• Improvements to the crop tool, naming of merged layers, and the ability to see up to 100 of your recently opened files.

Note to Windows XP users: these features are not supported on Windows XP any longer (the same already holds true for some of the GPU-enabled features by the way).

Adobe updates Lightroom, Camera Raw, and DNG converter

Adobe has just released updates for Lightroom 4, Camera Raw, and DNG Converter. The updates include support for many new camera models and lenses.

You can download the new versions using these links:

• Lightroom 4.2: Windows, Mac
• DNG Converter 7.2: Windows, Mac
• Camera Raw 7.2: Use the update mechanism of Photoshop CS6

Below is the full list of fixes and added camera/lens support.

Adobe releases Lightroom 4.1 and Camera Raw/DNG Converter 7.1 updates

Adobe today released updates for Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, and the DNG Converter.

The new features in Lightroom 4.1 and Camera Raw 7.1 include the ability to process HDR TIFF files and new de-fringing controls. The new software versions also support raw files from the Nikon D800 and D800E, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (as well as many other new cameras).

The updates can be downloaded directly from the Adobe web site, or by using the update feature in Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6.

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1
• Adobe Camera Raw 7.1 and DNG Converter 7.1

Photoshop CS6 beta available

Today Adobe announced the availability of a public beta for the next version of their flagship image editing software, Photoshop. You can download the free Photoshop CS6 beta directly from adobe labs. The beta is available both for Windows (1.7GB zip file) and Mac (984MB disk image file).

Photoshop CS6 contains a host of new and improved features. A new version of Adobe Camera Raw (version 7), a new and improved look and interface (darker grey), much improved and expanded video editing capabilities (and you'll love this: these will be present in the standard edition too, not only in extended!), improvements to content-aware fill related tools, all new content-aware patch and move tools, etc.

The Photoshop CS6 beta is compatible with Mac OS 10.6.8 or later, and Windows XP SP3 or Windows 7 SP1. Update (24/03/2012): Windows Vista is indeed not officially supported!
Please note that the beta contains the full functionality of Photoshop CS6 Extended. While this allows you to play with the Extended-only features such as 3D image editing and quantitative image analysis, the final shipping Standard Edition will not contain these capabilities!

Some details on the more pronounced new features and improvements:

New look – Photoshop is now darker and follows the more “modern” look of e.g., Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. If you like you can still choose the the old look or even two other levels of grey.

Preset migration – Yes! Finally CS6 allows for the (automatic) migration of presets from previous versions of Photoshop.

Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine – Performance improvements by making (more) use the GPU (graphics processing unit). Speed improvements will leikely depend on your GPU's specifications, and some GPU-enabled features are not supported on Windows XP.

Adobe Camera Raw 7 – Incorporation of most (all) of the changes and improvements currently present in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4. Improved and redesigned tone controls, better shadow and highlight recovery, additional local editing brushes for white balance, noise reduction, and moiré removal (especially useful when you have a camera without an Anti Alias filter, e.g., the D800E).

Background save and auto recovery – (finally) you can save your large, multi-layered images in the background while continuing to work on another. New is also Photoshop's ability to save auto-recovery information while you work.

Video editing – Photoshop's video editing capabilities have not only been greatly enhanced and expanded, you'll also love the fact that now both the extended and the standard version of Photoshop incorporate them (previously video editing was only present in the more expensive extended edition).

Content Aware – CS5 gave us Content Aware fill, CS6 extends and improves this further and now also includes Content-Aware Patch and Move.

Blur Gallery – A tool for artificially creating lens blur, tilt-shift blur, and other blur effects.

Crop tool – The crop tool has been much improved, especially in the area of rotating and straightening.  

Graphic design – Several improvements in this area, including the ability to add dashed lines and gradient strokes.

3D – A number of new 3D editing features have been added to Photoshop CS6 Extended (only).

>60 “Just Do Its” – A number of smaller feature enhancements and other improvements (many of which originate from user requests).

Have a look at the Adobe Photoshop YouTube Channel for Russell Brown's 6 favourite new features or some of the other informative videos.

Adobe releases Lightroom 4

After a two-month period in which you could freely beta test the application, Adobe has now released Photoshop Lightroom 4, the all-in-one raw converter, image editor, and photo management application.

Some of the top new features include simplified and improved control, enhanced highlight and shadow recovery, more local editing controls, extended support for video files, etc.

People will welcome Adobe's step to halve the price as well. You can now get Lightroom 4 for only $149/€129. As always, students/teacher get an even better price.

Lightroom 4 adds support for the following new cameras:

• Canon EOS-1D X
• Canon PowerShot G1 X
• Canon PowerShot S100V
• Fuji FinePix F505EXR
• Fuji FinePix F605EXR
• Fuji FinePix HS30EXR
• Fuji FinePix HS33EXR
• Fuji FinePix X-S1
• Nikon D4
• Nikon D800
• Nikon D800E

Photoshop Touch for the tablet now available

With the new Photoshop Touch app, Adobe brings a bit of the power of Photoshop to your tablet. Photoshop Touch is available in the iTunes Store (iPad2 required) and Android Market for just $9.99/€7,99.

Some of the features of PS Touch include:

• Well known Photoshop features such as layers, selection tools, adjustments, and filters.
• Easy selection of part of an image with the “Scribble Selection” tool.
• “Refine Edge,” where instead of your mouse/pen you simply use your fingertip to refine the selection around those normally very difficult to select image elements like hair.
• Camera fill feature – fill an area of a layer with the view from your camera.
• Integration with Google Image Search.
• Image sharing on Facebook.
• Step-by-step tutorials for techniques “the pros use.”
• Sync projects with Adobe Creative Cloud and open layered files from Adobe Photoshop Touch in Photoshop.
• Max image size: 1600 x 1600 pixels (enough for a print of 10.7"/27cm at 150ppi).

PS Touch looks like a great (and fun) tool for the creatives amongst us:

Is your image metadata safe on social media websites?

As an artist/photographer you want to make sure people respect your copyright. To this end, it helps if you apply copyright information to the metadata of your published work. While this of course does not stop unauthorised use of your work, it at least makes it traceable.

As it turns out, however, many popular social media websites we use to publish our work, strip the (copyright) metadata from the uploaded images. This is quite bad as this basically renders your work into an "orphan work".

The preliminary results from the on-line survey by Controlled Vocabulary seem to indicate many popular social media websites strip your metadata completely (e.g., Facebook, Wordpress) or at least make it hard to retain the information (e.g., Twitter and related services). And even when websites preserve your metadata, their Terms of Use may actually give them full rights on your images (e.g., Photobucket), which may actually be worse than just stripping the copyright from the photo…

So all in all, if you are an artist/photographer you should pay attention to where (and how) you publish your work to social media websites.

Nikon Capture NX2 updated to version 2.3.1

Nikon today released a new version of their Nikon Capture NX2 image editing software. Version 2.3.1 contains the following updates and fixes:

• Support for RAW images captured with the D4 has been added.
• Extra High 1 (Extra High) and Extra High 2 items have been added to the Active D-Lighting pulldown menu under Camera Settings in the Develop section of the Edit List.
  When "Always use the latest Color Reproduction Process" in the Picture Control Utility Preferences is selected for images captured with cameras released prior to the D4, these items will be displayed.
• Event ID can now be displayed under File Info 2 in the File & Camera Information section of the Metadata palette for images captured by, and to which IPTC information has been added using the IPTC item in the camera’s setup menu, the D4.
• Display format for the following items in the Edit List has been modified.
  - Active D-Lighting under Camera Settings in the Develop section.
  - Color Moiré Reduction under Camera & Lens Corrections in the Develop section
• An issue that prevented sufficient application of vignette control enhancement for RAW (NEF) images captured with the Nikon 1 V1 and Nikon 1 J1 with A firmware Ver. 1.10 or 1.11 and B firmware Ver. 1.10 installed has been resolved.
• An issue that prevented accurate display of lens information in the Metadata palette for images captured with the Nikon 1 V1 or Nikon 1 J1 and a 1 NIKKOR lens has been resolved.
• When certain images with GPS information attached were saved in JPEG format, Capture NX 2 sometimes quit responding. This issue has been resolved.

Download links: USA, UK, NL

Welcome to Hayo Baan's Photography Blog!

There's a new blog in town!

Hayo Baan's Photography blog will be dedicated to bringing you the latest photography news and reviews as well as tips and tricks on hardware, software, post processing, digital workflow and colour management.

Look on the blog for information on:

• Important photography news
• Camera, lens, and accessory news & reviews
• Computer hardware and software news & reviews
• Post processing tips & tricks for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Nikon Capture NX2
• Digital Workflow and Colour Management tips & tricks