About four years ago, Alvanas, a photographer, filmmaker, educator, digital artist, and postproduction retoucher, was attending a week-long advanced printing workshop at John Paul Caponigro’s studio. “The first day of portfolio review featured lots of prints of grand vistas from big film cameras—4x5s and 8x10s,” Alvanas says. “I showed on the second day, but I digitally projected my images.”
This morning Microsoft introduced Pix, a free iPhone app designed to automatically enhance your images and improve upon Apple’s built-in camera app through the use of artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and other advanced technologies. The idea is that Pix is so sophisticated that it takes the guesswork out of smartphone photography.
There are plenty of image-editing apps out there, and every so often you stumble upon one that’s a little different like Filteract, which allows you to selectively apply filters to your images using an iPhone or iPad. The app features a simple interface, clean design, and is quite responsive to your input.
DxO, the Paris, France-based company known mostly for software, introduced an intriguing new piece of imaging hardware this morning: a 20.2-megapixel camera with a 1-inch sensor and an f/1.8 lens that fits in your pocket and attaches to an iPhone. Called the DxO One, the 3.8-ounce, 2.65-inch tall camera, connects to an iPhone via the phone’s Lightning port, creating what the company hopes will be a photographic one-two punch to conquer the smartphone conundrum: that is, how do you shoot DSLR-quality images from a slender, inherently limited phone.
Serif has announced that its professional-level Affinity Photo editing app for Mac is now available as a free download for public beta testing. Serif’s Affinity Photo is designed to give pro photographers fast performance, highly accurate editing tools and a fresh workflow.
Today Adobe announced the availability of Lightroom mobile for Android phones. Lightroom mobile is a companion app to the Lightroom 5 desktop software—part of Adobe Creative Cloud. First released for iPad and iPhone, Lightroom mobile offers users the ability to edit, organize and share images anywhere and anytime.
Built on cloud sync architecture, Lightroom mobile is an efficient way to manage/edit images across desktop, mobile devices and the Web. With the Creative Cloud Photography Plan, users have access to pro quality photographic workflows on desktops and smartphones, allowing users to perfect images on any device.
The new Flic app from Lifehack Labs gives you a quick and easy way to get rid of unwanted iPhone photos with just a swipe of your finger. Swipe to the left and an image is deleted. Swipe to the right and it's saved to your phone's camera roll.
These days, digital technology dominates the world of photography and it has become nearly impossible to locate the film stocks we once loved and relied upon. Don’t give up hope just yet, Totally Rad has come to our rescue with their Replichrome I: Icon software. Offering a wide selection of presets that expertly duplicate the most iconic films from Kodak and Fuji you may now create images with the same look you once got from film.
No question about it, the iPad was one of the coolest products launched in 2010, or any other year. The truth of that statement lies in the gazillions of units Apple has sold (over one million a month). But is the iPad a must-have for photographers, or just another tech gizmo?