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When the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world, we all switched to living our lives online. And during this switch, Canon introduced its EOS Webcam Utility Software – a free tool that lets you use your Canon camera as a webcam.
Two years later, the free software gets some new features in the Canon EOS Webcam Utility Pro. But there’s a catch – if you want to use them, you’re going to have to pay.
ACD Systems has announced its new version of ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2023. As is the trend, it sees the addition of new AI-powered features, including AI Face Edit and AI Actions. It also offers a new Advanced Search feature with enhanced AND/OR logic capabilities as well as tighter integration with Microsoft OneDrive. A new simplified Photomerge feature allows for easy panoramic stitching, HDR and focus stacking.
Sometimes, you come across some photography experiments that are so unique you just have to share them. And this project from Andrew Eckel is one such experiment. He’s a musician, artist and software engineer. Before covid, he would regularly play shows in Boston, but with most of the planet being largely shut down for almost the last two years, he’s had a lot of time to explore other pursuits.
He wanted to have something to sell besides CDs and started working on a book of lyrics. He decided to fill the book with colourful artwork and remembered a programming technique he’d learned in college to average out images to remove outliers. He thought maybe he could create his art using something that does the opposite. So that’s what he did. He pulled on his C++ knowledge to write an application that highlighted the differences between images. The outliers. And it looks pretty amazing.
A recent post on Reddit has highlighted a potential issue for users of Adobe’s perpetual license version of Lightroom 5. Basically, if you bought the digital-only version and don’t have a physical CD from which to install (or you do but you’re using a computer that no longer possesses an optical drive), you may not be able to easily download the installation files again if you ever need to reinstall it on your computer.
Previously, you could download older versions of the software for which you had a valid license and the Reddit user pdaphone says that when they logged in, they could see their serial number, but was unable to download the software through the Adobe interface. Fortunately, it seems like there is a solution. At least for now.
Contracts are a funny thing. The wording they use, the things they have to say in order to allow them to do the things they do, can seem quite overbearing – particularly when it comes to things like Digital Rights Management, otherwise known as DRM. Put simply, DRM is the part of the software that checks to make sure you’re running a legitimate copy of the software with a valid license key. It’s something that Adobe does each month when it checks that you’re still running a valid Creative Cloud subscription.
Capture One, though, seems to demand complete and absolute access to not only your computer through its software checks but “on-site investigations” with physical access to any computers that they suspect are running Capture One. And it’s all in the name of copyright. It sounds a bit (a lot) big brother, but is it something you should really worry about? Well, to quote the great Jar Jar Binks, “Not really, no”.
Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more integrated into image editing. And the first editing software that comes to mind when you mention AI is Luminar AI (announced here). I was honestly curious to test it out ever since it came to market. So I did, and I thought it would be great to share my impressions.
I would describe myself as an experienced hobbyist. I’m not a pro photographer, but I have some experience and have been doing it for a long time. I’m going to write this review for the average Joe photographer. Mostly because I think Luminar AI is more suitable for “everyday shooters.” That said, even if you’re a professional, feel free to check out how it performs and decide if it would be something you’d incorporate into your workflow.
This is something that I really wish more manufacturers would do. Pentax has released Software Development Kits (SDKs) for their range of DSLRs allowing programmers write apps to communicate with them for the desktop, iOS and Android devices. This would allow anybody to be able to make software to talk with Pentax DSLRs, and without any kind of hacks or reverse engineering.
A few weeks ago, we got excited about all the new features in Lightroom CC’s “massive update”. The loved the long-overdue upgrades such as more profiles, faster import, and a better user interface. But, and this is a big but (BUT even), it didn’t take long before the community started experiencing problems that left them quite upset. Today, the software company apologized for the quality hiccup, and better yet, released a bug fix update that resolves these issues.
If you share your photography online, you know that your images will be re-distributed and re-published without your permission.
If you are a professional photographer, or a photo enthusiast, you probably also realize that rampant online copyright infringement costs creative professionals a significant amount of lost revenue – every image that is published without a valid license is a lost sale for someone.
If you have always wanted to fight back against copyright infringement, or if you just want to see exactly who is using your photography where, one solution is to apply an invisible digital watermark to your photography.
In this article, we will review Signili, a new service that can add invisible watermarks (as hidden copyright information) to your photos, and then help track exactly where those photos are used online…
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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