Capture One has released a new beta version of the software, that adds a much requested feature. The new release adds AI noise reduction to the photo editing application, and while currently only in Beta, it looks promising.
All in Software
How to fix “Stretchy People” when shooting with a wide angle lens
This is one of those things that you might only ever come across once in the blue moon, but when you do, it’s useful to know how to fix it. If you’re shooting with a wide-angle lens, something like a 24mm or wider, and you have people at the edge of the frame, they can be distorted. This is especially true when shooting in portrait orientation and looking up. Like I said, this is a very specific situation, and it’s only by chance that I knew how to fix this.
Capture One Adds Affinity File Format Support. How To Round-Trip to Affinity
Capture One and Canva have recently announced that Capture One will now support native Affinity files in the photo editing application. In conjunction with an update to Affinity, you can now open and save native Affinity format files in Capture One. I can’t emphasise enough how important a step this is. If you wanted to use Affinity with Capture One before this, you would have had to use the TIFF or Photoshop format, but that was an absolute pain for round-tripping because you can’t save directly in Affinity to TIFF or Photoshop; you had to export from Affinity and overwrite the file from Capture One or manually re-import. Now, round-tripping is basically as seamless as working with Photoshop.
Davinci Resolve adds Photo Editing. Why it’s a big deal.
Last week, Blackmagic Design announced the release of the beta version of DaVinci Resolve 21. One of the new features of that release took everyone by surprise: the software would now support photo editing. Resolve 21 now has a photo page which lets you work with RAW and non-RAW photos, with RAW support from a variety of manufacturers. Not only that, but you can use the full (almost) colour and Fusion pages with your still photos for complex colour grading and image editing. It’s a pretty big deal, although there are still quite a few limitations in the current version.
DXO Releases Nik Collection 9. A first look review of the new suite.
DXO has just released the latest version of their venerable photography plug-in suite. Nik Collection 9 adds a whole host of new features, including some across-the-suite changes and some new filters within the individual applications. There are some very useful new changes, including AI and depth masking, as well as blend modes in some of the applications. I had access to the beta version for a few days, and here is my first look at the new suite. There is actually quite a lot going on in this, so I’ll do my best to cover everything, but I may have missed a few things.
DXO Updates PhotoLab to Version 9.6
Hot on the heels of the recent PureRAW version 6 release, DXO has also updated PhotoLab to version 9.6. This update includes the DeepPrime improvements that were seen with PureRAW and also a new feature for working with masks.
DXO launches Pure Raw 6 with a long sought after feature. A first look at the new release.
DXO have launched the latest upgrade to their RAW pre-processing software, DXO Pure RAW 6. If you’re unfamiliar with the application, it basically lets you convert Raw files to DNG using DXO’s technology, including the companies excellent noise reduction software, Deep Prime. It does so in a way that maintains edit-ability and so you can use it to work with software such as Lightroom or Capture One, but bypass their raw conversion engine to use DXO’s instead. The latest version adds a new version of DeepPrime for Beyer sensors, adds a feature people have been wanting since version one, and another new tool that was quite unexpected but works surprisingly well. Read on for the details…
New Video: A Hidden(ish) Feature of Lightroom that will Seriously speed up Your Editing
When you’ve been using software for a long time you often pick up tricks and techniques and they become habits and you forget how you heard about them in the first place. I was recently editing an image for a friend in Lightroom as they watched, and when I did the technique in this video, they were surprised as they had no idea you could do that. I then realised that perhaps there is quite a few people out there who don’t know that you can do this either. That technique is editing by dragging the histogram.
Apple Creator Studio Review: the Good, the Bad and the Weird.
A few weeks after the initial excitement of the announcement, Apple’s new “Creator Studio” bundle is finally available. Now that I’ve had a chance to take it for a test drive, I wanted to write about the experience. I’m not going to go into every detail on all the new features, but instead I wanted to take a look at the bigger picture here, and what this might mean going forward. Because, while this bundle does offer great value if you don’t have any of the apps already, there are a lot of questions and a few issues with the new bundle and how it was released.
(I’ve published this on my Medium blog as it’s not entirely about Photography.)
DXO adds full Affinity compatibility to the Nik Collection
Just a quick PSA as you may have missed this - but DxO has added full compatibility between Nik Collection 8 and the latest version of Affinity, allowing Affinity users to integrate Nik’s editing tools directly into their existing workflow. This update enables photographers and creators to use the Nik plugins inside Affinity without relying on additional host applications.
So Many Software Updates: Capture One, Pure RAW, Iridient and More!
There’s been so many software updates for photography software over the last week that I almost can’t keep up. It was never really my intention to have this be a news site, but I’ve somehow ended up reporting on these things a lot. Anyway, I’m trying to get away from that because there are plenty of other places to get the news from, but as there are all applications that I use, or have interest in, I’ll do a quick overview of some of the things worth checking out.
Lightroom Classic 15.0 Released
Adobe has just released the latest version of Lightroom Classic. The newest update, version 15.0 brings a set of new tools and workflow improvements aimed at image selection, organisation, and fine-tuning. The release also includes the usual additions to camera and lens support.
On1 Photo Raw 2026 released
On1 Software has just released On1 Photo Raw 2026. The latest version of the companies flagship Photo Software adds new AI-based masking, extended creative filters, integrated super-resolution tools, and improved workspace customisation.
DxO Announces FilmPack 8 with New Features and Photoshop Integration
DxO has announced the release of FilmPack 8, the latest version of its film emulation software for macOS and Windows. The update brings a range of new tools designed to expand creative options and improve workflow, including a new Time Warp mode, direct integration with Adobe Photoshop, and additional film renderings. It also adds features for working with scanned negatives, updates to FilmPack’s historical Time Machine archive, and higher resolution versions of its creative effects.
DXO PureRAW 5.3 Released - X-Trans Support now out of Beta
As well as DXO Photo Lab 9, DXO also released an update for PureRAW today that Fujifilm users will be happy with. The latest version brings X-Trans support out of beta, and more importantly, it now supports all fujifilm cameras.
DxO Releases PhotoLab 9 with AI Masking and Expanded Local Adjustments
DxO has released PhotoLab 9, the latest version of its RAW photo editor. The update adds AI-powered masking, expanded local adjustments for noise reduction and sharpening, workflow improvements such as image stacking and batch renaming, and support for Apple HEIC/HEIF and ProRAW formats. The release also introduces DeepPRIME XD3 processing for Fujifilm X-Trans files.
If you prefer the old DNG based Lightroom Enhance to the 14.4 method, then here are two possible solutions.
I know I’ve been covering the topic of the changes Adobe made to the old “enhance” workflow a lot lately, but there seems to be quite a bit of questions and confusion around the topic. When I first made a video about it, I knew some people would have an issue with the way Lightroom now works, but I wasn’t really expecting such a backlash. On hindsight, I probably should have, but anyway. As some people really still want to be able to batch process Denoise or Raw Details in their images to a DNG, there are really only two solutions that I can think of.
How to batch process Denoise in Lightroom 14.4
The recent release of Lightroom Classic 14.4 brought with it a major change to how denoise, raw details and super resolution work, and with that, some confusion. One of the most recurring questions I received since publishing a video on the new version last week was “how do you batch process Denoise in the new version?”. It’s pretty straightforward, and there’s actually several ways of doing it.