Software Reviews

Luminar Neo from Skylum Software balances dynamic presets with essential editing tools and extreme ease-of-use. Newbie or vet, you should take a closer look.

Every year member magazines from the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) gather to consider and vote on the top products of the year in 40 categories, ranging from cameras to tripods to software and printers. This year’s selections represent technological sophistication along with features and functionality that make them leaders in their respective categories.

What I don’t know would fill a 300TB hard drive, that’s for sure. But I thought I had a pretty good handle on Exposure X4 from Alien Skin. I’ve been using Exposure in its progressive incarnations for a long time, so I was really surprised to learn that it has powers I never knew.

For the pro photographer, there are two possible scenarios in managing a photographic workflow. One is the scattershot method, the second approach features a clear organizational method.

Think of Generative Expand as Cropping in reverse gear.  It's mind-blowing. Instead of making the image smaller and deleting pixels, the new feature allows you to expand image content beyond its original borders by using the Adobe Firefly-powered Generative Fill function to create additional content that never existed but blends naturally with the original image. The new content can be an extension of the original data or based on the Command Prompt you type. This description is an oversimplification—read on for some real-world examples you haven't seen anywhere else.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 caters to the entry-level crowd, but is imbued with several professional-level tools. Even when a feature is not really intended for serious photographers, there is a goldmine of functionality that could save countless hours. The app is celebrating 10 years on the market. Adobe has slowly revised the workflow, and it’s getting much better.

In this version, you’ll first see a start-up screen with two buttons, one for organizing photos and one for editing. It makes more sense to click the button to organize images first, especially if you’re not even sure which images need editing.

When you do, one of the first prompts you’ll see asks how you normally import photos. That’s handy, because even the most experienced pro has to get photos off the camera somehow. You might typically load images onto a network drive, or prefer loading directly off the camera. (An option to scan images seems woefully dated these days.) Whatever option you choose, you can always go back and select a different import default. For now, it just means, when you start Elements 10, the app will automatically look for that specific source.

Adobe just released a new version of Photoshop Elements, its popular image editor for photo enthusiasts and advanced amateur photographers. Adobe has added six new features and updated a couple more to Photoshop Elements 2021.