Today, subscriptions are everywhere. You must pay by the month. But if you stop, you lose all your tool setup at the end of the month. Nothing is left, nothing is yours.

So, I prefer tools I can buy, that will serve me for years. If the service/cost ratio is good, I’m OK with purchasing a competent tool, but I don’t want to keep my wallet open at all times.

FastStone Image Viewer

The very first step in any processing is sorting. You need to move fast, you need to find the best images, sometimes in a batch of 10 (fast bursts are lethal for the number of images).

FastStone Image Viewer is a marvel in this respect: inexpensive, very competent in display and – above all – it offers a critical feature for sorting: it can display images 4 by 4 on the same screen for quick comparison. For example, you can zoom in on all four images in parallel with a flick of the mouse wheel and compare the quality of detail in the pre-selected images. Use the “Del” key to eliminate unnecessary images, and the “*” key to mark images for priority retention.

Since the software is free for amateur users, it’s even better. But a $35 lifetime license is still an attractive price to support the ongoing development of this indispensable tool.

DxO PhotoLab

Visualizing and sorting images is not enough. You also need to be able to work on them to fine-tune the rendering. FasStone Image Viewer has some interesting correction capabilities, but while this is sometimes sufficient, I can’t rely on it and need a powerful image processing tool (including RAW).

Photoshop has long been considered the benchmark. But the other tools on the market have really come into line. Today, there are only two reasons to choose:

• The user interface must be simple and effective
• Noise processing must enable you to gain ISOs to work in the best shooting conditions.

Adobe does this very well, but so do others. In particular, I warmly recommend DxO PhotoLab (not to be confused with DxO PureRAW plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom). The quality of RAW processing is exemplary. When it comes to noise reduction, it’s often the case that DxO does better than Adobe.

I therefore recommend two options:

1. Either you’re addicted to Adobe and need to add DxO PureRAW to maintain your usual workflow with incredible image quality.
2. Or you’ve discovered (with the trial version) that DxO PhotoLab is a perfectly fluid development environment that’s at least as comfortable as Adobe’s. DxO PhotoLab is French, and for €229, the software is yours for life. Upgrades only cost €109, but are not mandatory if you haven’t changed your camera (my main reason for upgrading).

I can’t get enough of DxO PhotoLab, and version 7 (yes, I know, version 8 is already out) is simply incredible in the detail it extracts from my RAW files.

A word of warning though: you need computing power. On PCs, a graphics card less than 3 years old is highly recommended to drive the processing engine.

IrfanView

This tool is a bit of a “tool bag” for my quicker DIY projects. For example, it’s very fast for image viewing. But it’s also remarkably easy to use for cropping or resizing an image without having to bring out the heavy artillery.

What’s more, IrfanView recognizes just about any image format (photo or not), which makes life easier for quick format conversion.

I find several advantages to it:

1. At 5 frames per second on my Canon EOS 70D, the animal moves are decomposed enough to chose the best attitude (e.g. avoiding blinking eyes);
2. I also learned a long time ago that optical stabilization is not the perfect tool to remove strictly all the fuzz and inside a continuous shooting set, the second or the third is often a tad bit more precise, more crispy than the first one (the small move induced by pressing the shutter button will produce a minuscule imprecision that is not welcome on a large-sized  print when the tripod is not available).

Of course, this forces me in comparing thousands of photos. Two by two or three by three, I must choose the best one and dump the other(s). On Adobe Bridge, it goes very fast. But, if -like me) you started regretting the time of simple software prices (instead of monthly license rental costs), you want to go and look elsewhere.

On Windows (it would work on MacOS too), I tried Lightroom but its library management is definitely not living well with my (bad?) habit of transferring files from disk to disk, grouping and backing up in many locations (while handling more than 2 TB of archives). So what can I do? I had to find a better solution, preferably a low-cost one. Since I don’t like the idea of pirating a big executable version (is it still happening today?), I rushed into photo forums  and found FastStone FSViewer which is free for personal use on Windows.

The user interface is not the same as Bridge, of course. But you can easily and quickly compare 4 images. Maybe somewhat faster than on Bridge.

This is a free download and it is a good replacement for Adobe Bridge on Windows (I will no longer need to keep this old version, I can go freeware).

When Adobe launched this kind of solution and when they made it compulsory in order to obtain the most recent version of their tools, some people warned that this was a major blow into the capacity to maintain a reliable capacity to work on our photos. Most either ignored the warning, downplayed its importance or or did not understand the full breadth of the risk. Today, the reality check is here; And it’s hurting real bad with thousands of professionnals waiting for the service to come back while trying to explain to their customers that nothing can be done until Adobe finds a solution (
I sympathize sincerely).

Of course, this suspended animation state is bad in itself (nobody missed that). But this is highlighting the issues at hand that were less obvious or more difficult to understand.

1. Unique/single failure point: If/when Adobe fails, we have no other option than wait. We are used to having a computer fail or a software stopping to work and -usually- it’s only (!) a matter of moving the DVD to a new PC, switching over to another workstation or another professional. Now, all Adobe customers fail in the same minute. This is a systemic risk like we are afraid of in the global bank system. No fall back option.
2. Opacity: The fact that Adobe Creative Cloud is far outside the scope of its users (except maybe some global-level customers who may have a direct line with Adobe management) makes it nearly impossible to have visibility. And in this kind of situation, we, the users, want/need to know immediately a/ what is happening, b/ what we can do to mitigate the situation (even if nothing is possible), c/ how/when the solution will be available. [And today, Adobe communication is an exemple… of what should not be done]

Is ease of subscription worht it? Is the flexibility of having always the latest release version at your hand worth it? This is anybody’s choice and the choice cannot be done for you. But, since we have some time on our hands (if your customers are not shooting on the phone right now), it’s time to think about our choices.

Finally, Adobe has officially announced the newest Photoshop: CS6. We know about everything of it because of the beta which has been available for a few weeks already (and there are a few videos available on a YouTube channel, for you to discover all the new features). But there is one new thing which was left undisclosed up to now, the price.

If the basic cost for a full license is nothing new (some people, including me, were hoping to see a price drop like for Lightroom):

• $699 for a Photoshop CS6 license
• Photoshop CS6 upgrades from $199
• $2599 for the full CS6 collection

But there is now a cloud-based solution allowing a new rent option: US$50 or 20€ per month gives you access to a wealth of applications: all the CS6 Master Collection applications, including Photoshop Extended. The only catch is that you have to pay a full year of subscription. This may not look great if you only need one of the applications but it’s astonishingly good if you need more.

If you are a student, you get an even better bargain at $30 per month.

Remember: You’ve got some time to still decide (Photoshop CS6 starts shipping at the end of May), but you can play with the beta version of Photoshop CS6 up to then.

Download it freely from Adobe Labs.

A reminder of the main new features:

• Improved content-aware patch which is behaving in a nearly magical way;
• Speed improvements everywhere;
• New User Interface with a dark background;
• A lot of newly improved tools (about everywhere).

As always, remember that the beta version will not work any longer after the arrival of the final/official version, that it is not exempt from bugs while Adobe gives no warranty about it (all very good reasons to have backup copies of your pictures before using Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta).

However, if you still want to have an idea of the future of Photoshop through some demos, tests and trials done on some of the versions which were leaked to the Internet, here comes Photoshop CS6 in full video glory.

In English:

Adobe Photoshop CS6.v13.0 Released MacOSX-Incl… par hikarivip

En español :

En français :

In Portuguese:

Last small advice: If you search with Google, you will certainly find a large number of links to download Photoshop CS6. Don’t forget that this is (often, but not always) a fraud to try and infect your computer with a nasty Trojan horse, more than with Photoshop CS6.

Bryan O’Neil Hughes, Senior Product Manager at Adobe, gives us an idea of the next version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).

First, it is possible to download the version 4 beta. So, why not? (apart from the risk associated with working in a software version which is not fully debugged and may not even work when the final version reaches the online shelves – you’ve been warned)

The public beta version of Lightroom 4 can be downloaded on the Adobe Labs website.

The most prominent progress certainly comes from the following:

• the RAW dematricing engine has been improved again
• some new modules were included to support book and maps creation using your own photos
• a new interface to touch-up colors and tones
• it becomes possible to locally correct the white balance
• digital noise and moire local correction
• new features targeting video correction

If you don’t have the time (or the courage) to try it by yourselves, I recommend a few good posts I found on the Internet:

• The interview of Tom Hogarty on DPReview.com, who talks about Lightroom 4 from the point of view of somebody working at Adobe
• the hands-on preview of Lightroom4 at DPReview.com
• French tutorial from Gilles Théophile
• French test and advice from Volker Gilbert

But even if you do not start playing with the new Lightroom, if you still keep the old version of Lightroom, it is still possible to spend some time using Lightroom. I collected some very good articles for you (in various languages, as usual here):

• How to Personalize Lightroom with an Identity Plate
• 5 Top Tips for Lightroom Develop Presets
• How to Add Watermarks to Your Photos in Lightroom 3 va vous apprendre à ajouter ces marques ou ces signatures au coin de vos photos ; cela fait très pro et très élégant (si vous ne vous contentez pas d’ajouter votre nom…)
• Camera RAW vs. Lightroom einmal, in deutscher Sprache verfasst
• Lightroom: Alte Dateinamen rekonstruieren
• 3 Ways to Change White Balance in Lightroom
• How to Add a Photo Border in Lightroom
• Wer braucht Fotobücher aus Lightroom? (in Deutsch)
• Black and White RAW Processing for a Landscape Image – Weekly Lightroom Edit Episode 2

• Video demo of “PatchMatch“, an algorithm developed by Princeton scientific research and Adobe.
• AppleInsider’s sneak peek at CS6 look and feel
• Image de-blurring demonstrated at 2011 Adobe MAX in October 2011, and many other technological presentations shown at the same time.

But, for now, since April 2010, we are still stuck with the old and faithful Photoshop CS5. A very good reason to keep looking at enlightening sources of new techniques, tutorials, solutions and free plug-ins. The last ones I stumbled upon:

• An Introduction to Working with Layers and Masks in Photoshop
• Creating Textures in Photoshop
• How to Use Photoshop’s High Pass Filter to Soften Skin While Retaining Texture by PetaPixel
• Smarter Content Aware Fill in Photoshop brilliantly solves an issue often found when using “content-aware fill“: Photoshop sometimes fills with parts of the image that are taken from the most surprising places (and often the less pleasant ones). A simple and 100% efficient solution.
• Camera RAW vs. Lightroom einmal, in deutscher Sprache verfasst
• Finally, a hodge-podge of filters, brushes, plugins, all free for Photoshop: Free Photoshop Filters, Brushes and Plugins

So, many people want to see my photos immediately out of the camera, right after the recording. This is not an issue for me when we are speaking of showing the picture on the back of my camera (Nobody can see anything there, anyway…) but I actively resist when we’re speaking about final pictures. As a matter of fact, I work some more. This is something that ussually annoys a lot of other photographers, but that I consider an integral part of taking a picture (and this is a reason why I switched to digital photography early). First, I sort pictures out in Adobe Bridge. I usually keep only a small part of the images I shot. In a family reunion, I may keep half of the shots (It may vary). From a photo safari, I keep between 1% and 3% of the recorded files. The rest is not really worth it. Your mileage may vary (some will say that I should shoot less and think more, but it’s my style), but you need to select your best pictures.

Then, I enter the real development phase: I work from the RAW picture files of my camera, but this would be near exactly the same from JPEG picture files (I just prefer to start with images less digitally massaged by the camera to reach my own pictures). Consequently, a lot of what I do happens in Adobe Camera Raw (and it applies mostly to Lightroom users too). Here is how I proceed and… why.

The first thing requires to notice that the histogram of most images does not fully cover the full range from black to white: There is not real black (on the left of the histogram) and not real white (on the right). It may be an artistic choice, but in most cases this is merely a consequence of the limitations of the photo camera.

I follow a two-step approach to extend to a full light dynamic range. First, by using the Exposure control to push the highlights to the right of the histogram. Here, I pushed the Exposure to +0.35 to align the last bit of the histogram with the right hand side (I ensured that the white pixels are actually completely white, not light grey and I don’t blow them out).

Then, I do the same with shadows (and the left hand side of the histogram) using the Blacks, pushing only a little.

From this point, the picture dynamic range is maximal. It is also possible to correct the contrast, but it is not often necessary if the shooting conditions were average.Similarly, apart from significant problems in the original, it is not necessary to use the Fill light to lighten dark shadows.

The next step is to re-frame the image: Some will say that I have the bad habit of centering my subject too much, but when we speaking about very active animals, like the three jackals of this picture, I prefer to use the central AF zone of my Sony Alpha 700 which has the most sensitive and fastest AF sensor. So, I leave the re-framing job to Photoshop (even if I recognize that whenever it’s possible, it is simpler to think about framing correctly from shooting time).

For this, I use the re-framing tool in the tool bar at the top of the Adobe Camera Raw window and I choose the right frame with the mouse (thinking about painting traditions and the rule of thirds).

Some will prefer to start the whole process with re-framing (rather than waiting here for this). There are some good reasons for it (specially so when re-framing is used to remove an ugly over- or under-exposed area from the picture). I believe that in most cases, it’s more an issue of personal preference.

Next comes the most controversial step: Detail accentuation. It is easy to over-do it and I strongly recommend to keep the original Adobe settings rather than stepping all over it with too much accentuation (many people do it and I won’t give names). As a matter of fact, it’s true that I tend to force more of these fake details in web pictures than in quality prints.

The best is probably to experiment very lightly, in the Camera Raw settings, after zooming in onto the important area of the image (I’m less tempted to over-do it when it’s big in front of my eyes).

Then, it is simple to open a copy of the image in Photoshop from the “Open copy” button. It will be necessary to save a fine-tuned copy or to print it on your ink-jet printer.

I simply recommend to always convert colors (the impact is usually small but I tend to have confidence in Photoshop choices).

And here is a nice additional step that I get from Patrick Fagot, photographer that I love and whose teachings I used as a basis for my own ideas to use Photoshop, thanks to his advice during photographic trips with did together in Brazil an in Botswana. He advises to immediately add a colored frame to the best photos in order to give them a little additional pro finish and this is true that it help the picture to “pop out”.

It’s only a matter of using the Photoshop Image > Canvas size... control…

…and to choose a new size increased by a few millimeters around the image (and the right Canvas extension color – Black is often good but you can experiment).

Some will prefer the Relative control which allows to give a relative increase size, but I feel it is less comfortable.

From this description, it is possible to change a few settings around this. And I guess this will give inspiration to some of the readers.

If you want to go further: All other tips and tricks of YLovePhoto.

• Intro to Lightroom 3 Lens Corrections
• Lightroom Quick Develop Panel
• Re-visit your older photos
• 8 Important Things to know about Lightroom Collections by Helen Bradley
• Perfect Layers: Ebenen-Tool für Lightroom, jetzt als öffentliche Beta
• Lightroom : préréglages automatiques par boîtier et sensibilité
• A Killer Collection of Adobe LightRoom Tutorials
• Where are my Lightroom Files?
• Im Test: Photosmith synchronisiert Lightroom mit iPad
• Lightroom : comment faire migrer ses images sur un disque dur externe ?
• Lightroom : préréglages automatiques par boîtier et sensibilité

• Photoshop: Panoramabilder entzerren
• How to Reduce Your Depth of Field in Photoshop
• Camera Raw 6 : accentuer la netteté
• Learn the basics of color focus editing in Photoshop CS5
• Photoshop Tutorial Mine : from image to flickr
• Photoshop CS5: Der seltsame “Eigene Filter”
• Photoshop CS5: Tuning für den “Eigenen Filter”

And I will also add a few Photoshop plugins that I could recommend right now.

• Curves by Mehdi offers predefined curves (helping understand the curves feature of Photoshop
• Grain Generator by Richard Rosenman will add all the grain you want to your photograph (excessively configurable)
• virtualPhotographer by optikVerve Labs: 200 one-click preset effects
• B/W Conversion by photo-plugins.com
• Fed up with the work of cleaning out wires from the landscape, not having the fill-by-content CS5 feature? Go and download Wire Worm by MV’s Plugins

Lightroom 3 sees its price lowered slightly at Amazon.

What is clearly the matter of speculative thinking is the availability date of Photoshop CS6. Most observers indicate that nothing should be expected before the beginning of 2012. But the usual cycle could be shortened to to take advantage of the holiday sales of the end of 2011.

On the contrary, some technical features are getting pretty clear.

Presentation

Visibly, Photoshop CS6 will receive a (more or less) revamped interface in order to take a better advantage of multiple screens (many graphic designers and photographers now use several screens to widen their work space and to spread several applications around). PS CS6 will allow to better spread the tools, palettes between these screens with a new specific “docking” mode and maybe some additional features to support these users.

Furthermore, it is also said by some that the integration of the high-end graphic card features will be improved again (to speed up many basic functions of Photoshop).

Features and productivity

Adobe is preparing to provide a whole set of new features looking toward the best possible result with the smallest number of steps for many day-to-day needs. We already new the content-aware fill feature to quickly clean up a picture zone without hours of brushing details and textures to keep the change as invisible as when the communist Kremlin was wiping out previous officials from photographs.

Here, Photoshop will come with CS6 features to give a picture the look and appearance of another which is provided as reference image. The examples that Adobe Photoshop could use may be as diverse as the pictures from a well known photographer (“I want my photo to look like one photo from Laurent Baheux or like one photo from David Lachapelle“). If you will not get their genius and elegance, at least, your picture will look similar enough.

I expect that if the reference image is an HDR picture, you will obtain directly the same colorful look without the effort to combine several images, and without the long DIY work of false HDR in Photoshop (6 not-so-easy-to-remember steps).

More generally speaking, the automated tasks like “automatic contrast” or “automatic colors” will be much improved and simplified in order to solve simple problems we all encounter: bad contrast, fuzzy images from hand-held vibration, offset colors, etc.

Then, (as usual, I’m tempted to say) Adobe is ready to improve its selection tools with more efficiency, faster operation, more precision.

Video et animated images

If you are interested in the possibility to present your photographs in an animated format, there will certainly be some more possibilities to go beyond “Animated GIF”, and Adobe Helium will be there to allow the creation of sequences, animations, and even some interactive web components based upon CSS3 and HTML5.

Furthermore, the video capture feature of our SLR cameras will be better served. This is pretty sure, even if we don’t know much except that the new Canon codec being developed for the future Canon EOS 5D MkIII will be supported.

Conclusion

We still have nearly a full year to wait until we see the details, but the already-planned features are significant. They will come with an extension of the use of the 64-bit architecture allowing to handle forever more memory space (we already know that 4 GB of RAM is now the minimum for comfort when using Photoshop and PS CS6 will be no exception).

Some ask if Adobe will apply its subscription/rental offer (month-by-month payment) onto CS6 and onto some other markets than USA. If this is the case, it will be the consequence of the subscription offer there and it could well start before the launch of Photoshop CS6.

Meanwhile, you can still go and have a look at the preview of some features of Photoshop CS6 (Alpha version) from November 2010.

You can now compare the single purchase, definitive but unable to evolve after the regular updates (about US$700) and a subscription or a rental scheme. There are several uses I think could be useful.

• Pay-as-you-go (for a pro photographer, this could be useful in front of the accountant; For the amateur, it could help “swallow” the high cost of the needed updgrade from an old Photoshop version): the yearly subscription is down to US$420, paid month after month (with a 1-year commitment, as in most mobile phone plans).
• Do not commit (for an hesitating photographer or willing to do a “long trial”, over the usual trial period offered by Adobe): the subscription is US$49 per month and can be stopped whenever you want without any question asked by Adobe.
• Pay when you need it (maybe for a traveling photographer who is often not using the tool): US$49 per month, but you need to decide when you need it or not. However, good planning could reduce the costs significantly.

This proposal is not available in all countries, but it presented on the American web site for Adobe: Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 family / Subscription editions.

In order to support our activity and to bring us new ideas or better ways of using Lightroom, here is a collection of links selected just for you (you will notice that I have been able to mix English, German and French).

• How to Edit Multiple Files at Once in Lightroom, by Christopher O’Donnell
• Lightroom or Aperture? 3 Factors to Consider
• How to Convert From Lightroom to Aperture
• Lightroom: Der iPad-Exporter
• Camera Raw et Lightroom : repérer des taches de poussière sur un ciel bleu
• Why I Use Aperture Instead of Lightroom
• Targeted adjustments in Lightroom
• Lightroom: Der Stichwort-Automat
• Lightroom 3 : les dossiers
• Lightroom: Kameraprofile in DNGs
• Black and white in Lightroom
• How to Install a Lightroom Plugin
• 5 HOT Lightroom Features

If you have interesting resources to share with us, please, leave a comment at the bottom of this post. I will make sure to include it in a future Lightroom collection.

Just go to the Adobe Labs web site to get your own downloaded Lightroom.

You’ll get bug fixes for Lightroom v3.3, a long list of supported lenses and an extended list of supported cameras for RAW files including the following.

• Canon EOS 600D (Rebel T3i / Kiss X5)
• Canon EOS 1100D (Rebel T3 / Kiss X50)
• Hasselblad H4D-40
• Olympus E-PL1s
• Olympus E-PL2
• Olympus XZ-1
• Samsung NX11

Free download for Windows

Free download for MacOS

I know that there are plenty of people using Adobe Photoshop. Here comes the time for your list of links to resources that could be useful to you (and me), this time with a large representation of the excellent tutorials from Digital Photography School (but not only them).

• Smarter sharpening with the High Pass filter
• Light Stalking : Lightroom or Photoshop, What is Really the Best Post-processing Software?
• How to Adjust Levels in Photoshop, a video tutorial by Scott Bourne (on Vimeo)
• Dodge and burn: In Photoshop Elements and with Adjustment Layers And Masks in Photoshop.
• A Quick and Effective Way to Enhance Contrast
• How to Batch Resize in Photoshop
• Photoshop: Working with Locked Pixels
• Seven Photoshop tips for better portraits
• Isolate an Object from a Complex Background in Photoshop

To close this issue, I’d like also to propose how to detect photoshopped images and the tools you could use:

• Your own eyes
• Image Error Level Analysis
• Photoshop itself, while pushing contrast and brightness levels to their extremes (up or down) to evidence the local differences

• Unshake is a free photo editing software written in Java that can remove blurs from your photos. It can be used on virtually any platform (Linux, PC, Mac, etc.)
• GIMP is the GNU/Linux-based photo editing software. It also exists in versions for Windows, Mac OS X. Since it has a full system of plug-ins, you can go quite far (including improving your photos with the Refocus-It and Iterative Refocus plug-ins for sharpening the photos).
• Another specific noise-reduction plug-in for GIMP is the GREYCstoration plugin (it will work well to improve photographs shot at high ISO levels).

That’s worth trying, isn’t it?

Besides, an for those of you who are strictly interested in using GIMP, there are additional resources to check:

• techZilo has compiled a handy list of its top 40+ plugins for GIMP.
• How To Use Photoshop Plugins On Linux

The main news seem to be the added support for the following SLR cameras:

• Nikon D7000
• Nikon D3100
• Pentax K-5
• Pentax K-r
• Samsung NX100
• Sony Alpha 560
• Sony Alpha 580

Download freely all these upgrades from the Adobe web site: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/ (in English).

Detailed changes

New Camera Support

• Canon         PowerShot G12
• Canon         PowerShot S95
• Nikon          D7000
• Nikon          Coolpix P7000
• Nikon          D3100
• Olympus     E-5
• Panasonic  DMC-GF2
• Panasonic  DMC-GH2
• Pentax        K-5
• Pentax        K-r
• Ricoh          GXR, GR LENS A12 28mm F2.5
• Samsung    NX100
• Samsung    TL350 (WB2000)
• Sony           A560
• Sony           A580

New Lens Profile Support

**These lens profiles were in the previous release but have been updated to address quality concerns.
NOTE: The Pentax, Tamron and Sigma profiles are the result of collaboration between Adobe and the respective lens manufacturer.

Lightroom 3.3 Bugs – Fixed

• Edit in PS CS4 from LR 3.2 did not give option to render to TIFF/PSD
• Process Version defaulted to PV 2003 when Lightroom’s installed Develop Presets are applied on Import
• All Auto-ISO values were not properly handled for the Nikon D3s
• An error could be generated when sorting by “User Order” in Collections
• There was an incorrect Profile Name tag for Canon 18-55 and 17-40 lens profiles
• Facebook album selection only displayed up to 25 albums
• Lightroom 3 could fail to launch Photoshop CS5 if Photoshop CS4 was uninstalled after the Photoshop CS5 installation
• Numerous cloning or healing spots could have caused Lightroom to become unresponsive
• Lightroom could have crashed when the metadata filter is selected and the grid is displaying all images in the catalog
• Lightroom 3.2 could have failed to import all of the images from an iPhone 4
• Some Sigma X3F raw files were rendering incorrectly
• Choosing the “Make a second copy to” option on import would result in incorrect folder structure for the second copy
• Resetting the crop angle by double-clicking the Angle slider removed a custom aspect ratio
• A tooltip for the Japanese language version of Lightroom 3 displayed the wrong keyboard shortcut for “Flag as Pick”
• Paste Settings did not apply to all images in the Develop module Filmstrip
• Smart collections in Lightroom 3 did not use the same definition of “All Searchable Metadata” previously available in Lightroom 2
• Text watermarks or portions of text watermarks could have failed to be applied to images on export
• SmugMug publish collection dialog included a mixture of English text  when using a language setting other than English
• Lightroom would not import files from the Panasonic LX5 that were shot with the iZoom Function set to above 90mm
• Choosing the Limit File Size option in the export dialog could have stripped certain EXIF fields from the exported file
• The Targeted Adjustment Tool may have performed slowly in the Lightroom 3.3 release candidate
• A single image published to multiple collections for a single publish service did not display comments properly
• Updating an existing Develop preset with all settings could have failed under certain conditions
• The watermark drop shadow settings behaved differently in Lightroom 3.2 when compared to Lightroom 3.0.  They have been returned to the Lightroom 3.0 behavior.
• The YYYYMMDD file renaming option was not available when the Lightroom language setting was set to Dutch
• An existing Smart Collection updated to filter for all photos with “Ratings is Zero” would show all images in the catalog
• Publishing an empty category to SmugMug would cause an error
• JPEG exports in the Lightroom 3.3 Release Candidate were significantly slower than the same export process in Lightroom 3.2.
• A graphical Identity Plate included in output was not correctly color managed
• Deleting all images in a Flickr photoset could have caused Lightroom to return an error message
• Changing the sort order to “User Order” while in Survey View on the Mac may have caused an error to appear
• Lightroom could have failed to respond when viewing an image containing numerous cloning or healing spots at 1:1 view
• RGB values were not displaying properly in the white balance tool
• The Smart Collection criteria “Folder starts with” was not working properly
• The navigator panel in the Develop module would incorrectly display threshold information when holding down the alt or option key and applying adjustments
• Applying a flag, star or label setting to an image via the toolbar in the Develop module while in auto-advance mode would result in an incorrect setting display for the subsequent image
• The application of color noise reduction at low color temperatures (e.g., tungsten or candlelight) could have provided results below our quality standards

Camera Raw 6.3 Release Notes
These items have been FIXED in Camera Raw 6.3:

• Camera Raw would not correctly read files from the Panasonic LX5 that were shot with the iZoom Function set to above 90mm
• The scroll bar could stop working properly with over 150 images in the filmstrip
• The DNG Converter could prevent customers from setting a “Destination” folder outside of their Home directory
• Some Sigma X3F raw files were rendering incorrectly
• Embedding GPS information into a Sony ARW file using third party solutions utilizing Exiftool could result in a color shift
• All Auto-ISO values were not properly handled for the Nikon D3s
• Updated Camera Raw default settings were not respected in Bridge thumbnails or previews after applying a rating
• JPEG and TIFF Previews re-rendered as over-exposed after cropping in Camera Raw
• Adjustment settings via the numeric entry field could have failed with multiple raw files selected

Known Issues in Lightroom 3.3/6.3

• A Japanese language file name is not properly preserved when uploading images to SmugMug

Known Issues in Lightroom 3.3/Camera Raw 6.3

• Raw images shot with the Nikon D7000 in Multi Exposure Mode have a strong magenta color cast.  The cast can be partially corrected by setting the white balance using the eye dropper tool. The issue will be corrected in a future update.

• LR/Mogrify 2 pour Lightroom par Alpha Numérique (en français)
• Bilder auf eine neue Festplatte migrieren (Deutsch)
• La correction des objectifs (en français)
• Filters or Smart Collections?
• LightRoom 3 sur un netbook (en français)



• How to Get Dramatic Skies in Lightroom
• 8 Steps to Crafting Images in Lightroom gives an excellent example of how to use a good processing workflow for digital pictures, even if it goes too far into the image manipulation for my own taste (2 too many gradient filters, I think). See the example on the right.
• Light Stalking : Lightroom or Photoshop, What is Really the Best Post-processing Software?
• Le traitement du bruit avec Lightroom 3 par Gilles Theophile
• Light Stalking : How to adjust your white balance in Lightroom

The future of Photoshop CS6 has been recently shown at MAX2010, the Adobe conference in Los Angeles.

I believe that the really impressive part of this technical demonstration is the set of automatisms which operate -essentially- by showing the machine an example of the result to reach rather than finding the right settings (as in this first example where the settings are automatically computed to reproduce the graphic style of the American photographer Ansel Adams). Clearly, Adobe keeps pushing Photoshop into more features built to reach a goal (sometimes a very ambitious one) rather than simply provide raw computer tools. And the magical de-blurring tool (registered trademark) is impressive too.

It’s really at the core of the idea of empowering the photographer. This is Photoshop CS6 (avant-première) before Photoshop CS6.

Via John Nack.

photo credit: Microsoft Sweden

The rumor started yesterday (Friday): Microsoft was on the verge of buying Adobe right off the market. The Adobe stock price shot up by 17% during the day (triggering an automated circuit-breaker to stop pricing), after the announcement of a meeting between Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

But the rumor seems already blown out with analysts remarking that the anti-trust authorities of many a country would find reason for investigation and that the expected gains from a simple purchasing are not as high as those coming from a technical and commercial cooperation which would be much easier to setup.

Source: Bloomberg.

For the all-new Photoshop CS5:

• Photoshop CS5 Content Aware Fill – Just how good is it?
• An Introduction to Focus Stacking with Adobe Photoshop CS4
• Multiple Image Printing in Photoshop CS4

But also for those who stayed -for now- with an older Photoshop (like CS4 or CS3):

• How to Correct Perspective in Photoshop
• Photoshop Technique: Digital Airbrush
• The 8 Basic Things Every Photographer Should Know How to do in Photoshop
• Photoshop Toning with Adjustment Layers

And one specific addition for users of Adobe Bridge (included in Photoshop): 3 Things to Know about Working in Adobe Bridge.

The final releases of DNG Converter 6.2, Adobe Camera Raw 6.2 and Lightroom 3.2 includes RAW file conversion for the Sony Alpha 33, Alpha 55, Alpha 290, Alpha 390, NEX-5 and NEX-3. Those were included in the Release Candidate versions, but they become official/final now.

Of course, other cameras are also taken into account like the all new Canon EOS 60D, the Samsung NX10, the Panasonic Lumix LX5 and the Pentax 645D.

But Sony love is still very visible here.

Download the new Adobe files (updates).

Eiffel Tower, by night – Copyright (C) Yves Roumazeilles

Now, I would like to underline the quality of a full series of posts, published by Patrick Moll on Alpha Numérique, and dedicated to comparing as precisely as possible the various offers now on the market to develop and improve as much as possible the pictures that -sometimes- we must shoot using very high levels of ISO sensitivity (with the troubling levels of digital noise that come with big ISO levels).

The list of the software programs taken into account is quite respectable:

• Image Data Converter 3
• Lightroom 3 / Camera Raw 6
• DxO Optics Pro 6
• Aperture 3
• Bibble Pro 5
• Capture One Pro 5
• ACDSee Pro 3
• Silkypix 4
• Lightzone 3
• Raw Developer 1 (dcraw)

Not bad, eh!

Even if the comparisons done here are not only for Sony photo cameras, Patrick Moll applied its tests to a quite appreciable list of cameras too:

• A100
• A550
• A700
• A900
• A330 (not ready yet when I published this post)

Even if you are not reading French, I highly recommend checking these (most of the posts are made of image comparisons using the yellow buttons to select the software program results you want to see). Even if you are equipped with Pentax, Canon or Nikon gear, the lessons you will draw from this are applicable on all the photo camera brands, concerning strengths and weaknesses of each of these software tools.

To understand the review process and the methodology, I would recommend the reading of (here, all in French):

• Introduction
• Réduction du bruit et accentuation

With the tests, body by body, you will immediately recognize the excellent results of Lightroom 3/Camera Raw 6 (these two Adobe software programs share a single common RAW file management core). Just behind, comes DxO Optics Pro 6 which is a bit more violent (or more accentuation prone) and the (not famous enough) Bibble Pro 5.

From this point, you will always be able to get the best from the photos you were forced into shooting in poor lighting conditions which required big ISO figures.

• How to Remove Sensor Dust With Lightroom
• Adventure Photographer Tyler Stableford’s Lightroom 3 Beta 2 Workflow (Video on YouTube)
• 10 de los mejores sitios donde conseguir preajustes para Lightroom (en español)
• Hand coloring in Lightroom
• 10 plug-ins para mejorar tu experiencia con Lightroom (en Español)
• 5 (More) Lightroom Panel Tricks
• Lightrooom 3 books at Peachpit
• Round Tripping with Lightroom
• Embracing brightness (Lightroom)
• Choosing images using Survey view in Lightroom
• Stacking images in Lightroom
• Lightroom Compare View

Please, notice that I extended it to include a number of languages that are used only by some of our readers, but I felt that this could be useful. You can voice your opinion in the comments: Is this useful or not?

• Ars Technica reviews Adobe Lightroom 3 (6 pages)
• Photography Blog’s Lightroom 3 Review
• Erster Test: Lightroom 3 deutsch ist da – die Top-Neuerungen aus meiner Sicht
• Lightroom 3.0 est disponible ! (par Gilles Théophile)
• Les nouveautés de Lightroom 3 (vidéo en français)
• Lightroom 3 : visualiser et trier ses images avant leur importation
• Le watermark avec Lightroom 3 (en français)
• Vilka är nu de stora nyheterna i Lightroom 3? (in Swedish)
• A Quick First Look at Adobe Lightroom 3 & How it Compares With Aperture 3
• Adobe: What’s new in Lightroom 3 (Video in English)
• Photoshop User: Lightroom 3 Learning Center (with videos)
• CameraDojo’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 Learning Center (12+ videos in English)
• Lightroom 3′s Lesser Known New Features
• Lightroom 3 shortcuts (PDF)
• Lightroom 3 resources from Lightroom blog
• Lightroom 3: Q&A für Updater auf Version 3

After several weeks of waiting, I can now confirm that the latest version of Adobe Lightroom, version 3, is now available. You can go and purchase it.

Press Release

Major Release Advances Image Quality, Performance and Workflow Flexibility for Photographers

SAN JOSE, Calif., – June 8, 2010 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe(r) Photoshop(r) Lightroom(r) 3 software for Windows(r) and Macintosh, the essential digital photography workflow solution that allows photographers to quickly organize, enhance and showcase their images from one application. First released as a public beta in October 2009, the final version of Lightroom 3 introduces a completely redesigned performance architecture that better handles growing image libraries and provides an unrivaled raw processing engine with noise reduction and sharpening tools to achieve the highest image quality. The 64-bit capable Lightroom 3 includes new features that optimize workflows and allow images to be shared in creative ways, including support for DSLR video files and tethered shooting on select cameras.

“There have been over 600,000 downloads of the Lightroom 3 public beta, which has supplied us with a huge amount of valuable feedback from a passionate community of professional and advanced amateur photographers,” said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for Digital Imaging at Adobe. “The open dialog we have with our customers allows us to further improve Lightroom and provide the best tools they need to produce high-quality images.  We’re happy to see that so many people are anxiously anticipating the final release, so they can start taking advantage of all the new features they had a hand in developing.”

Public Beta Process Perfects Lightroom 3 New Features
Re-built from its core to be lightening fast and responsive, Lightroom 3 adds power throughout the application to provide a fluid experience for photographers. Images load almost instantaneously, and the import experience has been redesigned to be more intuitive, with added previews and default selections that give users quick access to sort through and find images. Helping streamline and adapt to photographers’ changing workflows, Lightroom 3 now allows users to import and manage DSLR video files, as well as take advantage of tethered shooting for select Nikon and Canon cameras.

New state-of-the-art photographic tools help photographers bring out the best in their images. Unrivaled Luminance and Color Noise Reduction tools help produce a clearer picture from high ISO or underexposed images while still preserving details. The highly-requested Automatic Lens Correction feature can dramatically improve the results possible with any lens by allowing users to apply profiles that correct for undesirable geometric distortions, chromatic aberrations, and lens vignette effects that most lenses introduce to the image. Users now also have a straighten tool to perfect vertical and horizontal perspective, additional presets for applying more photographic adjustment styles, and three new contemporary vignette styles and a Grain effect to add a more natural look with images.

Lightroom 3 Expands Image Showcasing
Output options have also been enhanced in this release, with new capabilities to publish collections on online sharing sites. Flickr(r) users have the ability to synch their accounts to Lightroom with one click, and integration with additional online photo sharing sites can be added via third-party plug-ins. Customizable print layouts provide more refined control over how photographers present final images, and new watermarking features with options to modify text, size, location and style, help give professionals and amateurs flexibility for branding images. Lightroom 3 now also includes the ability to export polished slideshows as video files with the option to add audio and title screens.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 for Windows and Macintosh is available now at www.adobe.com/store, for pre-order via Amazon.com and NewEgg.com and will be available soon at retail and online outlets such as Frys, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, Walmart.com, Staples.com, OfficeMax.com, OfficeDepot.com and select camera stores.

The estimated street price is USD $299 for new users with an upgrade price of USD$99 for qualified registered Lightroom users. Recommended system requirements are Macintosh OS X v 10.5, 10.6 with Intel(r) based processor, or Microsoft(r) Windows(r) 7, Windows Vista(r) Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise or Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 processor, 2 GB RAM and a 1,024×768 resolution screen.

This new version of Camera Raw, with its new improvements in digital noise management, brings new options of automatic lens defect correction (vignetting, distortion and chromatic aberrations) as shown in the presentation video from Downloadsquad just below. But the best is still to go and download the beta version (unless you would prefer to avoid testing a version which is not 100% debugged by Adobe).