Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
All in Software
Adobe has released a new update to Lightroom Classic and the rest of the Lightroom and Photoshop family. In Lightroom Classic, there are a couple of significant changes in this release, including a change to how “Enhance” works and some new functions in the remove tool.
When PureRAW 5 was announced a couple of weeks ago, I had only briefly tried it and the initial release had an annoying bug in it, so I wasn’t able to test it properly. However, since that was quickly fixed, I have been trying it out properly to judge how much of an improvement it is over previous iterations. In particular, I have been looking at two main areas. Firstly, how good is the new X-Trans specific mode and secondly, does Deep Prime 3 address some of the issues of the previous version on non X-Trans images.
DxO has released Nik Collection 8, bringing new Photoshop masking features, a redesigned plugin panel, and updates to Silver Efex and Color Efex. It’s an update that adds more flexibility for those using the suite within Photoshop. I’ve gone through the key new features and pricing details in this post.
The latest version of Pure Raw is now available from DXO. The software, DxO Pure Raw 5, was announced about a month ago at the photo plus show, and it features new versions of the companies Deep Prime AI-based processing and denoising algorithms. It also features some interface changes and some much requested workflow improvements.
I think I can safely say that the internet and social media has made April Fool’s Day one of the most hated days of the year. Every time it rolls around, we have to put up with a deluge of stupid jokes and a few that are good enough to be fooled by. Then there’s the actual news that you just assume is a Jobe because it’s so out there. Yes, a fun time is had by all. Not. I only partook in this ritual once and something happened today that made me think of it, but more on that in a minute. It was years ago, and it was on my old “Aperture Blog” blog. It was towards the end of Aperture before it was discontinued, and I put out a fake screenshot that I made in Photoshop and claimed that Apple had finally released Aperture X. I didn’t think anyone would fall for it as it was so obviously a joke. I was wrong.
I recently came across an iOS camera app called 65×24, and I have to say—I'm loving it. It is designed for capturing images in the 65:24 aspect ratio, reminiscent of the legendary Hasselblad XPan and Fujifilm TX-1 film cameras. It also has a nice minimalist interface, that I really like.
DxO has announced PureRAW 5, the latest version of its RAW processing software, set for release on April 15, 2025. The update introduces local adjustments for targeted noise reduction and sharpening, a redesigned interface, and the third generation of the DeepPRIME denoising engine. Fujifilm users also gain access to a new DeepPRIME XD3 X-Trans Beta mode for enhanced detail recovery.
Adobe has unveiled the latest update to Lightroom Classic. Most of the improvements are under the hood or behind the scenes type things, although there is one major new user facing feature…
I have an exclusive DxO Offer for my readers: a 20% discount on Valentine’s Day. This special offer is valid only on February 14th, so if you’re interested, please see the details in the main post…
This month, DxO reached a significant milestone with the release of its 100,000th DxO Camera and Lens Module. Having developed this technology for over two decades, the company is marking the occasion by offering a first-ever glimpse behind the scenes of its calibration lab.
DXO has announced its latest round of Optics Modules for use across the DXO line of software including PureRaw and PhotoLab. This month’s release brings 957 new lens and camera combinations, with the total combinations now supported by DXO software 99,163!
Ever since it was announced that Apple was buying Pixelmator, I’ve been kind of obsessed with PhotoMator, the company’s Lightroom competitor. I actually had the software on my iPad for a long time but I never really used it that much. However, since the acquisition was announced I’ve been trying it more and more on my Mac, and I have to say it’s a really interesting application. It has some really nice features and its incredibly fast and responsive. Unfortunately, it is lacking some keys features which currently hold it back. Some of these you can work around but others are more problematic. But in my opinion it really has potential. In this post I’ll look at what you can do now to get around the shortcomings, and what Apple really needs to do to make the software more competitive.
Here’s a very quick Lightroom tip for you. I was recently processing some Autumn images, and as I was doing some colour grading to enhance the glow of the Autumn/Winter light it occurred to me that there was a feature that people may have missed. That tool is the global Colour Grading tool.
I’m a little late with this one, but in case you missed it, Apple has bought the popular Mac and iPadOS photography app, Pixelmator. Or more to the point, they bought the company that makes Pixelmator. This could be a big deal, depending on what Apple ends up doing with the company and its software. It immediately gives Apple a missing piece of its professional apps puzzle that it’s been lacking ever since the company killed Aperture: a more pro level photo application.
Well, almost.
Long-time readers of the blog will know that I have long been a proponent of Capture One, but lately, I haven’t talked about it much. That’s because, to be honest, I haven’t been using it that much lately. This is due to numerous reasons, which I’ll get into in a later post, but it’s mainly due to the performance issues on 4k displays, and the crazy licence changes from a while ago. That said, I still keep an eye on development and try any new versions when they come out. Recently, Capture One released version 16.5, and it has a few new features, one of which stands out above all others. That feature is the new “Match Look” tool.
As a photographer who has used and written about a variety of software tools over the years, I have often been asked about ON1 Photo RAW. It's been some time since I last explored it and I didn’t have a particularly good experience with it in the past. However, with the release of ON1 Photo RAW 2025, the company asked me to give it another shot, so I’ve been trying the previous version and I’m happy that it’s much improved since the early days. This latest version promises significant updates, particularly around the use of AI for enhancing the editing experience. When I have had enough time to try it properly I’ll try and do a full review, but for now, here’s a breakdown of what’s new in this release.
DxO Labs has announced the release of DxO ViewPoint 5, an updated version of their specialised photo editing software. This tool is designed for photographers who need precise control over image geometry, perspective correction, and the effects of wide-angle lenses.
Adobe has just held its annual adobe MAX conference, and as part of the event it announced a slew of new updates across its product lines. This, of course included its Photography products, and all versions of Lightroom, Camera Raw and Photoshop have been updated. In this blog post, I’m going to cover a few of the key new features across the lineup.
