Watch Hitler fume at Adobe Subscription’s model. This is just brilliant ! Enjoy! 

Personally I believe going cloud by Adobe is the right way. The subscription model works and the most important thing is that the piracy & illegal copies of Adobe products will stop overnight.

Leading photography software developer Nik Software have released an update to its popular Snapseed® for Mac and Windows desktop computers. Snapseed is an innovative photo  enhancement and sharing app with a powerful suite of imaging filters to make any image extraordinary. The 1.2 version update includes new features, bug fixes, and a free demo version option. The update is free to registered owners of Snapseed Desktop. Snapseed Desktop normally retails for € 15,95, but until August 16, 2012 customers can purchase the electronic download for € 7,99 direct from Snapseed .

Undo—Now one can undo filters that have been applied to the images.

Resize Photos—When saving or sharing enhanced photos one will be able to select image size, allowing to choose how much data is uploaded, emailed, or placed online.

Demo Version Option—Free demos are now available for both Mac and Windows computers.

Twitter Support—Tweet photographies directly out of Snapseed Desktop.

Center Focus—Added feature allows the user to control brightness at the center and at the edges of an image, drawing attention to the subject.   

Custom Presets—Now one can create own presets and add them into the six additional preset slots.

Open Recent—A new menu option allows the user to open a photo from a list of those that were recently edited.

Lightroom also serves as a powerful organizational tool for your photographs. You’ll be able to organize photos to suit your needs using a powerful folder-based data structure. Lightroom lets you store images on multiple storage devices, and it stores low-resolution previews of each and every image in its central database, allowing you to browse your photos even when the original files are offline. You’ll be able to search through your images based on any number of criteria, helping to speed the process of locating a specific image.

Lightroom’s interface is broken up into five major components: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web. Each screen serves its own purpose, and you can go back and forth between them with ease. Of course, there is some overlap in functionality, but for the most part they are compartmentalized.

The Library screen is where you’ll be able to organize and browse your photos. You’ll have full access to all of the folders in your library from this screen, allowing you to reorganize them as needed. This is also where you’ll apply keywords, ratings, color labels, and metadata additions to images. You can create custom searches to create “Collections” based on any of these criteria. There is even a “Smart Collections” function that updates on the fly as additional images meet your criteria. For example, this will allow you to have an up-to-date collection of all images that you have rated with 5 stars. There is also a “Quick Develop” panel which allows you to make minor adjustments to an image, without having to venture into the Develop screen.

The Library also serves as the gateway to import and export images. Clicking “Import” brings up a redesigned screen that will be unfamiliar to users of previous versions of Lightroom. The Import window now expands to fill your entire display. You’ll be able to browse through your hard drive or a memory card to locate images for import. You have the option of leaving the images in their original location, copying or moving to a different folder, or copying them and converting to Adobe’s DNG format. You can apply Develop settings, add metadata, and add keywords during import — perfect for users who like to add a keyword for the camera used to capture the photos. You can also rename files and make a second copy to a backup drive during import.

Getting your photos out of Lightroom is just as important as bringing them into the program. When you’ve finished editing, you can use the Library screen to export them with ease. You have the option of using the “Export” function, which brings up a window with numerous settings — including image size, sharpening, file format, and the like — which you can customize. There is also a new “Publish Services” section, which allows you to send images to your hard drive or Flickr with ease. You’ll be able to create as many presets for Publish Services as you’d like, giving you one-click access to frequently used export operations. This section can be further expanded by use of third-party plug-ins, available from Adobe’s Lightroom Exchange website.

The second major component of Lightroom is the Develop screen. This is where you’ll do the vast majority of your photo editing and toning. You can perform any sort of adjustment imaginable here — color temperature, exposure, black levels, contrast, sharpness, and brightness are just a few examples. You’ll be able to make adjustments via sliders or tone curves, discretely modify color channels, and convert images to black and white. Numerous presets are available, allowing you to quickly apply a certain “look” to a photo, and you can create your own presets based on your favorite settings.

The Develop screen also features powerful History and Snapshot functions. History allows you to browse through all of the adjustments you’ve made to an image, in the order that they were made, so that you can revert back to any stage in the image process. You can create a Snapshot of an image at any time, which saves all of the settings that you’ve applied — this allows you to continue to experiment with a photo after you’ve found a look that you like for it.

You’ll also be able to remove dust spots and red eye from photos thanks to Lightroom’s spot editing tools. Create image masks to apply graduated filter adjustments to a photo, or use the brush tool to dodge, burn, and make other spot adjustments. You’ll also be able to add vignettes and simulated film grain to images, perfect for breathing analog life into your digital photos.

Distortion correction is one of Lightroom 3′s most impressive new features. Owners of fisheye lenses previously had to export photos to Photoshop in order to “defish” their images. Now, it can be done from within the program. You can correct for both fisheye and rectilinear distortion, perfect for users of extreme wide angle lenses. Numerous lens profiles are included with the software, and you can save your own presets for your own oft-used lenses.

Lens corrections can also be used to eliminate the keystone effect that can be caused when your camera is not straight-on with a subject when shooting. Of course, basic crop and rotation tools are also available for quick and simple adjustments. If there is anything that can’t be handled by Lightroom, it’s easy to export a photo to Photoshop CS4 or CS5 for editing — any changes you make to an image in Photoshop will be automatically reflected in Lightroom.

Lightroom’s other three screens are all about sharing your images with others. The Slideshow screen gives you all the tools necessary to create digital slideshows of your images, complete with transitions and music. You can view these from within Lightroom, or export them to a PDF or video file to share with others.

The Print screen allows you to print your images in any way imaginable. It can be adjusted for many standard paper sizes, and it lets you visually lay out photos on them. This allows you to maximize the number of photos on a single page, helping to reduce your printing costs. Lightroom can automatically position photos so that space on a page will be utilized in the most efficient manner. You can adjust prints for different paper types, color profiles, and add a signature plate if desired.

Finally, the Web screen gives you numerous means to output your photos to the web. Adobe includes a number of HTML and Flash galleries, allowing you to create a web gallery without having any knowledge of programming. These can be customized to suit your needs, and third-party galleries are available via the Adobe Lightroom Exchange website.

To be eligible to purchase this Student and Teacher edition you must be a student, faculty member, or staff member of an accredited primary or secondary school, or public or private university or college.

Please browse our site for many more digital photography courses. We host many photography online courses for free. Regular webinars are hosted with top photographers from around the world to help you with portrait photography tips, how to be a wedding photographer and many other subjects.

Before deciding on which software to invest in, you should consider these options carefully:

Productivity

You need to work smarter rather than harder to streamline your workflow. A good & robust photography studio software should be able to effortlessly handle the day to day of running the business, reminders & things to do, sending quotations, making bookings, keeping track of clients & suppliers, setting up a series of workflow things for various jobs be it weddings, portraits, commercial or sporting events, updating & keeping track of all your events in one place.

Pricing & Support

Pricing & after sales support is extremely important. First decide how much you wish to spend on a photography studio software. Then make a list of 3-4 products and then see what the Support is offered after you purchase the software. Some offer a 30-day support, with some companies you need to go and attend expensive day workshops & seminars just to learn the software and get to grips with it and some offer unlimited free support. Also see on the website whether they have a phone number listed as very few websites offer this. Here is a recorded 1 hour webinar on photo studio management you can watch.

Marketing

You need to turbo charge your marketing efforts in these tough economic climate. One of the best and under-used marketing tools by photographers is Email Marketing. Every marketeer will say this ‘The money is in the list’. So the sooner you start to build an email list, the sooner you can start making money. Email marketing is something

Book Keeping

As a photographer you want a simple photography studio software to help you run your business which gives you a bird’s eye view of your business on a daily basis. What you want is an easy to use book keeping system to help you with your sales & purchases with a powerful enough reporting system to help you see where your business is heading.

I hope this gives you some ideas as to which photography studio software is right for you. I would welcome you to try Foto SF, the award-winning photography studio software , for free and see how it can help you to turbo charge your business.

Oz

As photographers do more of their work in applications like Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® and Apple® Aperture®, onOne Software has evolved its product line to support these changing workflows. Users can access Perfect Portrait directly from Lightroom or Aperture or as a Photoshop plug-in allowing them to use it where they work. To further streamline workflow, photographers can also use Perfect Portrait as a standalone application or as an integrated module in the new Perfect Photo Suite 6.

Key Benefits of Perfect Portrait:  

Designed for Portrait Retouching from the Ground Up: Photographers will appreciate having just the right tools to quickly enhance and retouch portraits. Unnecessary tools or controls that might get in the way are left out intentionally.

Automatic Face Detection:
Because Perfect Portrait automatically detects faces, photographers can get directly to the art of retouching. Each face in the image is located automatically so that they don’t have to be identified through the use of complicated wizards. If there are multiple people in an image, each can have their own, unique settings. Most importantly, the rest of the image is untouched so it maintains its original fidelity.
 
Automatic Feature Detection:
More than just finding each face, Perfect Portrait also quickly finds the eyes and mouth in a portrait automatically. No time is wasted painting in the features or
using manual wizards. Because the features are identified right away, photographers can quickly get to the task of enhancing those critical features.

Hamburg, September 27, 2011—Nik Software today began shipping Color Efex Pro 4, the company’s latest version of its popular digital photographic filters for retouching and creative enhancements. The 55 total filters of Color Efex Pro 4 offer a new generation of technologies and features for creating stunning effects and introduce stackable filter combinations, visual presets, filter recipes, and new filters such as Detail Extractor,
Vintage Film Efex, and Image Borders. Color Efex Pro 4 also includes a new History Browser, improvements to imaging algorithms, greater performance, and enhanced usability.  
 

“Color Efex Pro has hands-down been my most-used plug-in and version 4 opens up a whole new world for photographers,” said Scott Kelby, President, National Assn. of Photoshop Professionals.

“The ability to stack filters on top of each other right inside the plug-in, and to save your own filter recipes, just blew me away. Hats off to Nik Software: If you can only have one plug-in, this has to be the one!”
 
Nik Software’s latest U Point technology provides Color Efex Pro 4 with easy-to-use tools for photographers to fine-tune and stylize their images with precise selective adjustments without complicated selections and layer masks. The filter effects can be added or subtracted from images with incredible precision, using a few clicks of the mouse. When enhancements are made, they are automatically blended throughout an image for natural results. Color Efex Pro 4 takes full advantage of the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) and multi-core processors for responsiveness and fast processing.  
 
KEY NEW FEATURES:
 
• NEW: Filter Combinations—Add multiple filters at once, adjust opacity, and make selective adjustments to get the desired look  
• NEW: Brand New Filters—Detail Extractor, Dark Contrast, Vintage Film Efex, Natural Image Borders, and much more  
• NEW: Visual Presets—Each filter contains single-click starting points making it possible to explore creative options quickly
• NEW: Style Recipes—Customize and share filter combinations with others, using recipes
• NEW: History Browser— Facilitates intuitive comparison of previous edits and different looks
• NEW: GPU Processing and Multi-Core Optimization—GPU Processing takes full
advantage of the processors found on advanced display adapters providing even faster performance
• NEW: Interface, Interaction, and Workflow—Benefit from interface and interaction improvements to filters, zoom controls, shortcut keys, and much more 

Pricing and Availability
Color Efex Pro 4 is available now for electronic and boxed delivery directly from Nik Software, through specialty camera retailers, and through online and national resellers.
 
Two versions of the software are available: The Color Efex Pro 4 Complete Edition contains 55 filters with a suggested retail price of €199,95, US$199.95 or equivalent in other currencies. The Color Efex Pro 4 Select Edition contains 26 filters with a suggested retail price of € 99,95, US$99.95 or equivalent in other currencies. Upgrades to the Complete Edition from any edition of versions 2.0 or 3.0 are € 99,95, US$99.9595 or equivalent in other currencies. Customers who purchased Color Efex Pro or a Complete Collection bundle on or after August 7, 2011 are eligible for a free upgrade. For further information on the free upgrade, customers may visit http://www.niksoftware.com/site/
 
Color Efex Pro 4 is Windows and Mac compatible and installs as a 32-bit and 64-bit plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 or later, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® 2.6 or later, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 or later, Apple® Aperture® 2.1.4 or later. For more information about Color Efex Pro
4, including video tutorials, feature lists, and special live online preview sessions, please visit: www.niksoftware.com/colorefexpro .
 
 
About Nik Software
Nik Software, Inc. develops award-winning desktop and mobile software solutions and technologies for the professional digital imaging and consumer photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic products and technologies, including its patented U Point® technology and its Snapseed™ mobile product line. In 2011, the company earned the prestigious International TIPA Award for Best Photo Software for its Complete Collection of professional photography products, which includes Color Efex Pro™, HDR Efex Pro™, Sharpener Pro™, Silver Efex Pro™, Viveza®, and Dfine®.  In 2011, the company also earned the EISA Award for European Photo Software of the Year 2011-2012 for
Silver Efex Pro 2. For more information, visit www.niksoftware.com .

Page Gallery ™ allows the photographer to create beautiful layouts for albums, books, posters and presentations, It is an easy and fast software which offers vast range of layout options which allow immediate access in and out of Photoshop for finishing and retouching of images, it allows the photographer to personalise any layout, add text, background colors etc. It allows unlimited sizing opportunities within the large number of popular layout ratios to facilitate multiple copies of varying sizes.

Page Gallery ™ is a simple as ‘Drag and Drop’ your images into a chosen layout and view the Live Screen to do immediate adjustments to individual requirements.

Page Gallery ™ allows you to create collages and layouts with ease and save valuable time for your studio and impress all your clients with modern, clean-cut presentations.

FEATURES

• Page Gallery ™ vary from very simple and classic designs to more complicated options, it allows the individual artist to compose a personalized layouts for each client.
• Page Gallery ™ is Drag & Drop.
• Page Gallery ™ is designed as an interface with Photoshop 7.0 + , CS, CS2, CS3, CS4.
• Mac OS X & Windows Compatible.
• Page Gallery ™ operates as a skin over Photoshop so you can seamlessly switch between the two.
• Quick page construction (under three minutes per spread).
• Infinitely adjustable designs.
• All individual layers (including some combined constructions for ease of use).
• View your layouts with a Live Screen whilst designing.
• Elegant and Sophisticated templates all designed and constructed by Yervant .
• Multiple sized output within the ratios of a large range of formats.
• Full resolution outputs selectable by operator.
• Batch Output up to 80 spreads.
• 5000+ Templates, compatible with most popular international album manufactures.
• Page Gallery ™ offers photographers the option of having their work printed at any pro lab or even on own printers and art paper.

Watch this 4 minute video and see how easy & quick it is to create stunning layouts….

PRICE

Normal Price: £370.00

We have arranged a very Special Price for our visitors / customers to SF Photo School

Only £300.00

Testimonial

“We have used Page Gallery for the last few years for all our album design works. This software is lightning fast and at the same time producing superb quality layouts which our customers love. Yervant and Anie have produced a software which will help you be more productive. The simplicity and ease of use is such that you don’t need to have a degree in graphic design to produce layouts which are professional looking. I would highly recommend this software for your business.”

Uzair Kharawala, SF Photo School

Portland, OR – April 20, 2011 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative, time saving solutions for professional and advanced amateur photographers, today introduced the Perfect Layers Public Preview. Perfect Layers gives photographers the ability to easily create and work with layered files in their workflow application of choice. Perfect Layers supports the creation of layered files that can be opened and edited by Adobe Photoshop software and can be used directly from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software, Adobe Bridge and, with the shipping version, Apple Aperture.

“The impact Perfect Layers is going to have on photographers using Lightroom makes it a game changer!” said Scott Kelby, Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User magazine. “This is the must-have plug-in for Lightroom.”

“Through our partnership with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and from invaluable insight gained from Scott Kelby, we’re excited to get the Perfect Layers Public Preview into the hands of digital photographers everywhere,” said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. “We hear from photographers every day, that more and more of their image enhancement is taking place in applications like Photoshop Lightroom and they tell us they need additional tools to let them do even more like easily create composite images, retouch portraits and get creative with blending modes. Perfect Layers will allow photographers to do all of these things. That’s why we’re happy to make this Perfect Layers Public Preview available to the photographic community now so they can start using it to enhance their images.”

Top Features in Perfect Layers:
Add Layered File Functionality to Lightroom: The ability to have multiple layers in a single file is a great benefit and provides unlimited creative options when enhancing an image. With the Perfect Layers Public Preview, from directly within Lightroom, photographers can create or open layered files. This means photographers can combine multiple images from Lightroom into a single image. They can also open existing Photoshop documents from within Lightroom. Uses of Perfect Layers include merging two or more exposures of the same scene into a single image and masking in the desired portion of each exposure. Compositing multiple images, such as action shots, becomes a simple task with Perfect Layers. Also with Perfect Layers, Lightroom users can now have access to the power of blending images together with blending modes. Blending layers together is a great way to stylize and enhance a photo as well as to retouch a portrait. Files created with Perfect Layers can be opened by Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements later for additional editing if desired.

Masking Brushes:
Control how much of each layer is visible by using the Masking Brush created originally for PhotoTools 2.6 and FocalPoint 2. Similar to using a layer mask, the Masking Brush can be used to reveal or hide selected areas of a layer. The Masking Brush is non-destructive and can even be re- edited with Photoshop.

Blending Modes:
Perfect Layers brings the power and creativity of blending modes to Lightroom! Blending modes determine how two layers interact with each other. For example, you can blend a black and white version of an image with a color version to get a very dramatic and stylized look. Perfect Layers includes the following blending modes: Normal; Lighten; Darken; Screen; Multiply; Overlay; Soft Light; Hard Light and Color.

Adjust Layers:
The streamlined interface in Perfect Layers contains all the controls needed to size, align and reorder layers. A number of useful blending modes offer the ability to dramatically alter images by changing the brightness, altering the color or even creating special effects. All the adjustments can be easily modified.

The Perfect Layers Public Preview allows photographers to start experimenting now with a subset of the features that the complete, shipping version of Perfect Layers will provide. The complete shipping version of Perfect Layers will add more features including:

– Support for Apple Aperture
– The ability to adjust the image/canvas size
– The MaskingBug control from PhotoTools 2.6 to create smooth gradient masks
– Color fill layers and several other new features

As a public preview release, similar to a beta release, the Perfect Layers Public Preview is not indicative of the final performance and quality of the forthcoming complete shipping version. Technical support is not available for the preview release. Users can submit their feedback on this public preview from within the application.

Availability
The Perfect Layers Public Preview release is available immediately at onOne Software’s Website . The shipping version will be available, with additional features, by mid 2011 as a standalone product for $159.95 and as part of the Perfect Photo Suite 5.5. Owners of Plug-In Suite 5 can upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 5.5, which will include Perfect Layers, at no additional cost. The Perfect Layers Public Preview is a time limited release and will expire on June 30, 2011.

EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR

Perfect Layers means Lightroom users (and soon Aperture users) can work in their favourite RAW processing software and now work in Layers. It’s a brand new technology from our friends at onOne Software and this is the first webinar anywhere outside the US. onOne will be here to share their secrets to what’s been described as “A Game Changer” by pundits in the business. Let’s see why!

Date:      5 May 2011

Time:     1800 hrs UK Time ( Show in my Time Zone )

Where:   Online

Price:     Free

Adobe Systems announced an update to their Adobe Creative Suite 5 software which will be available as a monthly pay as you go subscription. This is a bold move by Adobe to go SasS (Software as a Service).

The Creative Suite 5-5 will be available from next month with more incremental updates between fully new versions of its main products. The subscription editions will let customers try and use Adobe products online without having to spend hundreds or thousands of $ or £ to buy the software suites. This also applies to Photoshop, which sits on the low end of the subscription model at an affordable $49 per month or $35 with a one-year subscription.

“This launch marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite,” the San Jose company said in a statement. “Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and — starting with Creative Suite 5.5 — significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring.”

This model will help photographers, specially those who are starting out, with their cash flow. Those who don’t use Photoshop regularly and need it every now and then, can subscribe for a month only, use the software and then stop the subscription. Or you have the option to try for a month the different software Adobe has to offer i.e InDesign, Illustrator, etc. This is great for those creatives who get projects which require different software to complete it.

What I like about online software is that the risk of piracy is very low or non-existent, which in turn is good for all law abiding citizens as it reduces crime in general. You don’t have to pay for upgrades in most cases and can enjoy the latest software at all times, no need to be restricted to a particular computer or laptop. You can work pretty much from anywhere you like as long as you have internet access.

Adobe will offer two subscription plans: annual and a month-to-month plan with higher prices with no short or long term commitment by the subscriber. You will still have to pay for discontinuous periods. Every 30 days the software will talk to the Adobe servers to check the payment has been made and your credit card is valid.

Unfortunately, the pricing structure is a bit confusing to say the least if you want to do a comparative cost analysis. For example, if you want to buy CS Design Standard and plan to upgrade every two years, then it actually makes sense to subscribe.

I know a lot of photographers are not a big fan of software rental, or rental of anything really. Personally I would be happy to pay a monthly fee to any software company and this sure is a bold move and an experiment on the part of Adobe to take the lead in this software model. Only time will tell whether most will give a thumbs up or a down. If you’d like to add a comment or vent your fury, please do so below.

Oz

Image credit: Adobe Systems