Lightroom Classic’s masking tools use a combination of AI subject recognition and regular brush and gradient tools to offer huge scope for local adjustments and enhancements. But you can get even more control by using masks in combination – in other words, with ‘sub-masks’.

There are many situations where this can be useful, but our sample image shows a very common one – where you want to darken a sky progressively towards the horizon but without darkening any buildings or other objects that jut up into the sky.

In our example, a linear gradient produces the right gradual darkening but would also darken the building. A sky mask would darken the whole sky, right down to the horizon without any natural gradation in tone.

But by ‘intersecting’ a sky mask and a linear gradient, we can get a gradual tonal gradation that affects only the sky. Our cheat sheet shows the location of the key Lightroom Classic masking controls.

Masking mode

To create and edit masks in Lightroom Classic you need to swap to the masking mode. This panel will give you a list of mask types to choose from. When you choose one, it appears in the Masks panel which opens out to the left of the tools sidebar.

Main mask

The Masks panel will show the area affected by your mask as a tiny thumbnail. Each new mask you add to your photo will appear as a new thumbnail. Any or all of these masks can include sub-masks.

Sub-masks

Every mask will have at least one sub-mask. If you’ve just used a single masking tool it will still appear here. Sub-masks become important if you want to combine or edit the masks that Lightroom has created.

Sky mask

To demonstrate this powerful ‘intersect’ command we’ve started off with a sky mask and used the adjustment tools in the right sidebar to darken it. This produced a very ‘flat’ adjustment that didn’t look natural. This is a common issue with sky masks if they are used on their own.

Sky masks identify sky areas very well but don’t offer any natural gradation towards the horizon.

Linear mask 'intersected'

The ideal way to darken a sky progressively is with a linear mask, but these are indiscriminate in that they darken everything at the top of the frame whether it’s actually part of the sky or not.

This is where an ‘intersected’ sky mask and linear mask can achieve what’s needed – a progressive darkening of the sky with other objects in the foreground left untouched. The linear mask achieves the gradual tonal adjustment, while the sky mask restricts it to the sky alone.

Gradient sub-masks remain editable, e.g. you can move them around even if they’ve been ‘intersected’, added or subtracted from the mask.

Add/Subtract buttons

The Masks panel can look pretty busy, especially if you have all your masks expanded to show sub-masks too – so how do the Add/Subtract buttons fit in? In fact, they apply to the main mask you’ve selected. When you use them, they add new sub-masks. They do not apply to sub-masks.

Adjustment tools

Keep in mind that Lightroom’s local adjustment tools apply to the main mask. Any sub-masks you create simply change the area covered by the mask. These sub-masks do not have their own adjustments. If you need to create a new set of adjustments for a different part of the image then you will need a new mask.

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We as photographers spend thousands on modern digital sensors, then spend even more hours making them look like cheap film from the 70s and 80s. The irony is thick, but the trend is real. Film simulations are everywhere, from in-camera profiles to endless Lightroom preset collections promising that elusive "film look." 

Where does this come from? It’s partly Instagram aesthetics, and partly nostalgia for a format most digital photographers never got to interact with. There's a genuine reaction against the "digital look" too—that clinical sharpness and perfect color rendition that feels sterile compared to film's organic qualities. The problem is distinguishing between a legitimate creative tool and procrastination theatre.

The Fujifilm crowd understands this best. Its film simulations are baked into the shooting experience, informing how you see the scene through the viewfinder. That's different from the Lightroom preset collectors cycling through dozens of looks hoping something clicks. One approach shapes your vision. The other substitutes for developing one.

In the days of the darkroom, you chose your film to get the final look before you even took a photo. Using film simulations can be a legitimate technique when you understand what characteristics you're after. Grain structure, color response, highlight rolloff, latitude. Those are technical qualities that serve specific aesthetic goals. But blindly applying presets designed to match someone else's work most likely under completely different conditions? That's chasing aesthetics without understanding the whys and hows.

The workflow question matters too. Applying film looks in-camera forces commitment. You're making creative decisions while shooting, not deferring them to post. In Lightroom, film simulations can become another settings menu to obsess over rather than a tool that serves the work. How much time is spent tweaking grain versus actually shooting and improving?

There's a deeper issue about what we're really saying when we add grain and reduce sharpness to perfect digital files. Are modern sensors just too clean and sharp? Or have we just become accustomed to film's limitations as shorthand for authenticity? When does the film look actually serve your subject matter versus when it's comfort food for your post-processing?

The biggest trap, though, is chasing someone else's style instead of developing your own. Your lighting is different. Your subjects are different. Your camera processes color differently. Blindly applying someone else's recipe rarely produces the results you're expecting, and stunts your ability to (pardon the pun) develop your own recognisable style. 

Film simulations aren't the problem per se. The problem is treating them as a solution to not knowing what you want your images to look like. They become a substitute for vision rather than a tool to achieve it. 

If you consider Ansel Adams' views on previsualization, you should already know how you want the final photo to look. Yes, there is a creative gap initially, but blindly hoping for a look won’t get you there. 

If you shot actual film, you know what's being simulated. The latitude, the grain, the color shifts. You understand which characteristics matter for your work and which are just nostalgia. If you didn't, you're chasing a fantasy version of something you never experienced.

The honest question: does this film simulation serve your image, or are you just uncomfortable with what digital capture actually looks like? Sometimes the answer is the former. But, often it's the latter.

There are photos on my hard drive that I'm genuinely proud of. Technically strong, visually striking, and folks stop when they see them. They have absolutely no business being in my portfolio, and it took me longer than I'd like to admit to accept that.

We’re all guilty of it. You’ve made an image that earns real admiration, the temptation to make it the key photo in your portfolio is impossible to resist.

Here's the thing: a portfolio isn't a greatest hits compilation. It's a promise.

When a client opens your portfolio, they're not there to be impressed. They’re seeking an answer; can this photographer deliver what I need, and do it consistently? Every photo that doesn't fit your established style, no matter how good it is technically, introduces doubt where you need certainty. That stunning landscape you shot on holiday? The dramatic street portrait from a workshop weekend? If everything else you shoot is clean corporate headshots or crisp food photos, those outliers don't elevate the portfolio. They introduce doubt.

Impact and substance are not the same, and we shouldn’t confuse them. Impact is the immediate reaction — the sharp intake of breath. Substance is the strong foundation that gives confidence to a client when they scroll through your work and see the same eye, the same approach, the same excellent quality repeated image after image. Substance is what gets you hired.

The seductive part about a stunning outlier is that it feels like it can only help. But portfolios don't work on averages — they work on coherence. One image that doesn't belong shifts the viewer's attention from the work to the photographer, and not in a useful way. Instead of thinking "this person really understands corporate portraiture," they're thinking "this person has range, but what do they actually do?"

The hardest edit isn't cutting your weakest work. Any photographer can spot the failures with enough distance. The hard edit is removing the work you love that simply doesn't belong.

Your portfolio should feel inevitable. Image after image builds the same case, creating trust rather than demanding admiration. A client should reach the end feeling certain, not dazzled.

Keep the outliers. Post them on social, enter them for awards, put them in a personal project section. Just keep them out of the room where hiring decisions are made.

The photographers who work consistently aren't always the ones with the single best image. They have a body of great images. They're the ones clients can predict. In commercial photography, predictability isn't a weakness. It's the whole job.

Subscriptions aren’t as attractive as perpetual licenses, but when you’re paying just £98.99 at Amazon UK for 365 days of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom (PC/Mac), I think that’ll give even the most ardent subscription naysayers pause for thought. That’s roughly £4 apiece per month for industry-standard photo editing software. And if you just want Lightroom, you can get an entire year for just £61.99 at Amazon UK, which is about £5 per month.

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There’s little to say about Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Lightroom Classic that hasn’t already been said. Heck, Photoshop is so popular it’s become a verb in its own right and is known across the world by people who haven’t ever edited a photograph in their life. It’s the OG, the industry standard by which all other photo-editing software is judged.

And while Adobe has drawn the ire of many a photographer over the years for what some have considered hefty prices and unwanted subscription models, Photoshop and Lightroom are still my go-to for editing my own images because the Creative Cloud ecosystem just works. And at £98.99 for Photoshop and Lightroom, and £61.99 for Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, you’re probably paying less than your Netflix subscription!

If you’re having trouble deciding which one to go for, it all comes down to how much you’re going to use Photoshop. If you’re new to Adobe software, you might think Photoshop is essential (it’s the grandaddy after all). But most photographers, Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic have become the go-to. That’s because they’re designed for batch editing, that’s to say, you can edit lots of images simultaneously, in batches, whereas Photoshop’s layer-based workflow is largely designed for editing one image at a time.

Lightroom has also become more like Photoshop over the years. You can locally edit images using masking and even clone or heal to remove unwanted objects. Personally, I spend most of my time in Lightroom. I turn to Photoshop for things like focus stacking and to make the most of its layer-based workflow so I can make more intricate and involved edits.

Ultimately, if your editing workflow is extremely simple, adjusting a few sliders here and there, you can probably make do with Lightroom. If you anticipate doing heavy cloning, focus stacking, frequency separation, exposure blending, etc, then be sure to pick up the bundle with Photoshop.

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Lightroom is about to speed up the process of retouching acne using a simple slider.

Tucked among the updates introduced during Adobe Max, Lightroom Mobile gained an early preview of a new blemish removal slider. While the slider is only an early preview and only on the mobile app for now, when I sat down with Adobe to demo the new Lightroom tools, the company indicated that it's planning to bring the tool to desktop versions of the popular photo editor in the future.

The blemish removal tool trades the often long process of manually using the healing brush to select each zit for a simple slider. Lightroom first analyzes the image to detect acne. Then, moving the slider to the right will automatically remove the acne.

Putting the tool on a slider gives photo editors the ability to choose how much retouching to do, choosing whether to remove just the largest acne spots or as much as the AI-based tool detects.

I tried out the new tool, using an image from Adobe Stock, and I was impressed at how quickly the slider managed to clean up acne on a portrait. The tool allows editors to select which person to edit in group portraits as well, or editors can choose to adjust everyone at once.

What’s perhaps most impressive, however, is that even moving the slider as far as it could go, the app still left a few freckles and moles intact. My personal editing philosophy is that I edit out anything that’s not there every day, like acne, but I leave in permanent marks like moles, freckles, and scars.

Sometimes, differentiating between a freckle and acne is difficult to do, so I’m glad to see that the slider doesn’t overdo the retouching.

For now, the early preview of the tool is only available on Lightroom Mobile. First, make sure you are using the most recent version of Lightroom Mobile. To find the slider, open an image in the app and tap the retouch menu. Select blemishes, then use the slider to adjust the result.

While I don’t typically edit much on my smartphone, the early preview on the mobile app has me eager for a similar tool to arrive in the photo editor’s desktop apps.

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Take a look at all the newest features in Adobe Lightroom, or learn how to use the new color variance slider in Lightroom.

As a photographer who has photographed more than a few weddings in 90°F heat, I’ve edited my fair share of red skin. But Lightroom just added a new slider that’s going to make correcting red skin far faster: Color Variance.

There are a handful of new tools in the Lightroom October 2025 update that I’m particularly excited about as a portrait and wedding photographer, and Color Variance is one of them.

What is Color Variance in Lightroom?

Color Variance is a slider that creates more or less variety in a selected color tone. Using the Color Vairance slider, photo editors can make a selected color range more uniform, or take the slider in the opposite direction to add more color contrast. That makes the tool useful for smoothing out color variations in skin tones, such as redness from heat or rosacea. But, the slider can also be used in the opposite direction and create more color contrast in landscapes and other shots.

Where is Color Variance located?

Color Variance is located in the Point Color tool, which is available on Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. The new tool can be applied to the entire image, or to a mask, such as applying the change only to the skin tone.

Find the Point Color tool inside the Color Mixer tab in Develop. Then, click on the eye dropper icon, hover over the color that you want to adjust, and click on that color. Now, the sliders in the Point Color tool will adjust the color that you’ve selected.

That includes the new Variance slider. (Adobe calls it Color Variance, but the slider is located in the Color tools and named Variance.) Move the slider to the left for less variety in that color range, such as if you want to create more even skin tones in a portrait. Move the slider to the right if you want to increase the variety of colors in that selected range.

What does Color Variance in Lightroom do?

Decreasing Color Variance is a helpful tool for editing skin. Decreasing the color variance can help correct things like redness from heat. In this particular scenario, editors may want to use a Smart Mask over the skin; otherwise, the edit may also affect the colors in the subject's lips.

Take a look at this photo from Adobe Stock:

First, I masked out the subject’s skin so my adjustments wouldn’t affect the lips. Then, I selected the skin color in Point Color. Look at the before and after when I take that Variance slider all the way to the left:

Now, I like that the redness is gone, but the skin now looks a bit pale, so I adjusted the hue, luminance, and temp just a bit and ended up with this:

That process only took a few seconds, and I didn’t have to brush over specific patches of red skin.

Increasing Color Variance will help create more contrast in the colors without losing detail. If you have a photo of the fall colors, for example, and want to make the variety of different colors in the scene really pop, select one of those fall colors and take the slider to the right.

Take a look at the before and after here, where the only thing I did was move that Variance slider all the way to the right:

Like all Lightroom sliders, you probably don’t want to take the Variance slider all the way to the right or all the way to the left. Variance is a bit more subtle, but it makes a noticeable difference in editing skin or working to add contrast.

Color Variance can be used in conjunction with the other Point Color sliders. That includes the range slider. Range dictates how many colors similar to the one you selected are also impacted by the Point Color sliders, so if you want to adjust more or fewer colors with Color Variance, adjust the range.

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The new Lightroom is here – and as a portrait and wedding photographer, I haven’t been this excited about a new feature since Adobe first introduced Smart Masks. Assisted Culling has arrived to help photographers quickly find the best shots, but there are a handful of new tools like automatic dust spot removal and even a new slider.

I tried out Lightroom’s newest features during Adobe Max in Los Angeles, and there are two that are going to make a big difference in my workflow – Assistive Culling and Color Variance. But, there are some smaller updates tucked inside the latest versions of Lightroom, too.

Here’s what’s new in Lightroom.

Assisted Culling

Assisted Culling is an AI-based tool that helps photographers sort through photos faster. The tool is available both in the import as well as the library for photos that have already been imported.

The AI is trained largely for portraits and people (sorry, landscape photographers) and it’s designed to weed out the shots with blinking eyes, the out-of-focus subjects, and exposure errors. Adobe does say that they are hoping to expand the tool to more genres, but in my tests, the tool worked best with images of people.

Assisted Culling is an Early Access feature, which means Adobe is still fine-tuning, but it’s available directly from Lightroom Classic and Lightroom without downloading the beta app.

I tried it out on my shots from Adobe Max, and the feature feels like a huge time saver. It weeded through my shots to eliminate the accidental captures and errors. The culling tool did a pretty good job of weeding out the images that weren’t quite in focus – though I did go through my rejects and mark one to keep that the AI thought was too underexposed.

Assisted Culling is available from the Library tab on Lightroom (it’s also available when importing, rather than after). Photographers can find the feature by selecting Assisted Culling > Cull. Select the folder to Cull, and then wait for Lightroom to analyze the shots.

Then, inside the Assisted Culling Panel, check what you want to select or reject by using the check boxes for tools like eyes open and subject focus. Use the slider to increase or decrease how "picky" the assistant is and how many shots you want to end up with. In the Auto Stack section, you can choose if you want to stack similar shots together and how.

The magic happens in the Batch Action section. Here, you can tell what you want Lightroom to do with the selects and rejects, including star ratings, flags, and color labels.

You can also review everything that Lightroom selected or rejected. If you want to keep a photo that Lightroom rejected, Control-click on the red X in the corner to mark it as a select instead, and vice versa for selects you want to reject.

Remove dust spots auto-magically

I can still remember the frustration of coming back from a beach shoot only to realize I had gotten sand on my lens, and I was in for a lot of tedious editing. But Lightroom can now automatically detect and remove sensor dust spots for you. The AI tool is trained specifically for lens and sensor dust, so it may not work as well on other types of spots.

Open the photo that needs the correction in the Develop tab and navigate to the remove tool. Under the Distraction Removal section, select Dust and then click Apply.

The software will then find and place a healing brush over the spots automatically. Those corrections show up like a regular heal brush, so you can click and delete or adjust if needed.

Color Variance

Lightroom has a new slider. Color Variance is part of Point Color, the color tool that helps adjust a specific color. The tool increases or decreases the variety within a color range, which can be used to reduce skin redness in portraits or enhance color contrast in landscapes.

To use it, navigate to the Point Color tools and use the eye dropper to select a color. You can also create a mask first, then use Point Color within the mask, like when you want to correct red skin without affecting the lips.

Adjusting the Variance slider to the left will make the colors more similar, to the right, more different. The difference is subtle in some shots, but I found this to be an easy way to tone down red skin.

Landscape masking now recognizes snow

Landscape masking was already part of Lightroom, but now the software can also recognize snow.

Find the feature by going to the Mask Tool and selecting Landscape under Create New Mask. You’ll also see options like sky and architecture.

Landscape masking is also part of Lightroom Mobile, but you’ll find it in the Quick Actions rather than inside the Masking tool.

Automatic blemish removal (Lightroom Mobile only)

Like automatically detecting the dust spots on a sensor, Lightroom Mobile can now detect and remove acne without manual masking. This tool is only in Lightroom Mobile for iOS and Android, though Adobe hints that it could be coming to the desktop versions in a future update.

To find the new blemish removal, head to the Retouch Tab and select Blemishes. The amount slider will adjust the strength of the effect. In shots with multiple people, you can select the person to edit from the thumbnails.

An improved Remove tool

Previously, Adobe always recommended selecting the shadow when selecting an object to remove with the remove tool. Now, the software can automatically select any shadows or reflections for you, removing them along with the object.

For this to work, inside the Remove tool, check the box that says “detect objects.” This tells the software that you want to remove the shadows and reflections as well, but you no longer need to draw over them.

Tech Preview: Improved Search (Lightroom Web only)

On Lightroom Web, Adobe is introducing an improved search experience that allows users to search beyond objects. With the update, users can describe the photo they are looking for, not just an object in the photo. This is made for instances like when searching for “water” will produce too many results.

As a Tech Preview, users have to turn it on by clicking on the profile icon in Lightroom Web, then selecting Technology Previews, and checking the box that says “improved search.”

• See all the news from Adobe Max 2025

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Adobe is working on a chatbot that helps creators plan and create for social media – including integration with Lightroom and Instagram. On Tuesday, October 28, Adobe teased Project Moonlight, a chatbot built to help creators ideate, plan, and create for social media.

During a demo at the keynote for Adobe Max, Adobe shared a glimpse into the upcoming program. Project Moonlight is an AI chatbot designed around social media. The tool is designed to help creators brainstorm and create content for social media. Adobe calls it "an AI assistant that acts like a social strategist."

Lightroom integration allows creators to feed their images into the chatbot, then ask the AI for help with things like generating ideas on how to share those images on social media. In the demo, the chatbot came up with three different ideas initially. Users can then take one of those ideas and take it even further, with the chatbot recommending things like adding overlays to the images.

Project Moonlight is also tied to Firefly, including agentic photo editing, such as asking the bot to apply a Lightroom filter to the images.

But while integration with Lightroom and Firefly may be expected for an Adobe chatbot, Project Moonlight also works with Instagram. This compatibility allows the chatbot to make recommendations that stay on brand with your previous content, as well as offer advice and insight based on how past posts have performed.

As a Sneak, Project Moonlight isn’t available yet, but something Adobe has in the works. The software giant says Project Moonlight is “coming soon.”

• See all the news from Adobe Max 2025

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Adobe's annual creativity conference has brought some of the biggest software updates of 2025 across programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, and Firefly.

Held on October 28-30, Adobe Max brought several key updates to the brand's photo and video editors, along with sneak peeks of tech the software giant is working on behind the scenes. But with such a major event, there's a lot of news to sift through, from AI culling in Lightroom, the ability to customize Firefly models with your own photos, agentic editing in Photoshop, Photoshop 2026, and more.

And that doesn't even include the Sneaks, the look at upcoming tech being worked on behind the scenes that could make its way to future editions of programs like Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

I just returned from Los Angeles, where I watched Adobe's biggest announcements of the year live on stage. In case you missed it, here's a recap of the key photo and video announcements at Adobe Max, posted as they happened.

Watch the Adobe Max keynote replay

Watch Adobe Max Sneaks replay

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, is opening the keynote with a statement on AI and "creativity as a universal language."

"Our vision for Adobe Firefly is to make it your one stop destination for creative workflows," he says.

Here's an interesting statistic: Two out of every three creators using the beta version of Photoshop use generative AI in their workflow every day.

David Wadhwani, President, Adobe Digital Media Business, says there is now five times more demand for content and that 77 percent of creative and marketing teams are hiring.

This is coming at the age of AI. And to meet creators at this intersection, Wadhwani says Adobe is focusing on three things: Continuing to deliver Adobe's own Firefly models, integrating partner models from third-party platforms, and allowing creators to customize and create their own models.

The first two aren't a surprise, as Firefly has been around for a while and Adobe has already integrated models like Nano Banana, but Adobe just announced the ability to customize your own AI models this morning, which is launching in private beta to Firefly. This allows users to feed the AI their own images to get results that are more tailored to their specific style.

Adobe has announced a deep integration of Google models into CC and Firefly apps.

Eli Collins, VP of Google Deep Mind, says Nano Banana has generated over 5 million images since launching two months ago.

Adobe is introducing Custom Models, which are personalized versions of Firefly trained on your assets. Announced earlier today, Adobe is now demoing just what that looks like.

Users drop in reference images of their own and load it into a custom model. The AI then scans, tags, and generates a caption based on the content to understand the style. You need at least 10 images.

Then, in Firefly, creators can choose that custom model from the drop-down menu. Creators can also have multiple styles and multiple models for each.

Those assets can then be opened in Photoshop to work on additional details and customize what the AI generated over in the Firefly app, including mixing multiple elements into a collage.

Adobe says the private beta will be available in the coming days.

Agentic AI is coming to a number of Adobe apps, including Photoshop, bringing a conversational AI tool that allows creators to use natural language to ask the AI to carry out a specific task. The AI assistant allows users to type in a prompt and have the AI carry out the task.

These tools are made to work with the native tools in order to allow creators to keep full creative control. But the natural language element may also help novice creators build inside advanced apps without knowing all the advanced tools.

In Photoshop Labs, Adobe demoed the tool by asking for increased brightness of everything but the subject. The result is created in a layer, so the tool is non-destructive. Creators still have the usual Photoshop tools to use to perfect the results.

The AI assistant can also be used to ask for advice right inside of Photoshop.. In the demo, Adobe asked the AI to review a design layout. The AI suggested more contrast and even gave suggestions for how to fix that.

That conversational chatbot could potentially help new users who are using the AI for tasks that they don’t know how to do.

Adobe also demoed asking the AI to rename all of the layers for them, much to the delight of the audience. The AI does a visual analysis and renames the layers based on what’s inside them.

Is Photoshop about to be integrated into ChatGPT? Adobe just demoed that Express is arriving in ChatGPT, but there’s a hidden Easter Egg here – the drop-down menu shows the Photoshop icon too, hinting perhaps at future Photoshop integration into ChatGPT.

Adobe Firefly Image Model 5 is here, which Adobe says excels at generating realistic images with textures and lighting, and that’s generated at a native 4MP before upscaling.

The model can also edit the image with a prompt to tweak something while keeping the rest of the image consistent. Adobe says it's designed to change as much as you want, while leaving the rest of the image just as you want it.

Partner models allow creators to choose AI platforms from other companies and switch back and forth between them.

Firefly Boards is Adobe’s platform for creating mood boards and brainstorming ideas, including creating a space to generate ideas for a photo shoot.

Now, Boards is gaining presets, which will mix an image with a different style. Restyling will generate new images based on the selected style.

Collaboration is also coming to Boards, inviting others to edit and chime in on the ideas.

Boards also supports Partner Models such as Gemini 2.5, allowing users to mix multiple images together to create a new generation depicting an idea.

Creative Cloud users can open graphics generated in Boards to other platforms. Firefly's web-based editing tools can also be used to edit those generations.

Adobe Firefly is getting a new video editor in beta. In a demo, Adobe showed how the editor is integrated within Firefly, including moving back and forth between the video editor and Firefly’s image editor, as well as audio editing.

In the demo, Lucy Street uploaded a generated edit of an image as a reference, chose a style, then sent to to the Generate Video workspace. She then typed in a prompt, moving from the sketch style to the realistic image.

The video editor has a properties panel that adds controls like speed, duration, opacity, and scale. A timeline looks fairly similar to Premiere Pro.

The video editor also works with Firefly’s speech enhancement and background noise controls, and the before and after in the demo is quite impressive.

Street them demoed how the AI can highlight the pauses in speech, then delete them from the video. The video can also be edited by deleting text from the AI-generated transcript using text-based editing.

Firefly also now has audio capabilities to help create soundtracks for videos.

In the demo, Street used the video generator to take a mural of a turtle and animate it, making it appear like the turtle is crashing through the building in the final video.

The new video editor is in public beta, with the beta version beginning to roll out today. Through December 1, Adobe CC users have unlimited image and video generations with Firefly to try out the new features.

The newly announced Premiere Mobile app on iPhone is here, and now Adobe is showing off some features in a demo.

In a live voiceover, Adobe asked the audience to create some background noise. With the new Enhanced Speech tool, the app can help remove the background noise, and the before and after has quite an improvement.

Premiere’s infinite tracks allow creators to layer in photos, to stagger in how and when they appear in the video.

The app’s image-to-video AI allows users to generate a video from a photo using AI.

Generating sound effects is also incorporated into the app. This allows users to mix their voice and a text prompt in order to create a custom sound effect timed to match the video.

Looks are like Lightroom presets for color grading, but the mobile app also has a handful of color grading tools for fine-tuning.

Finally, the demo included text effects, including highlighting the words as they are said in the voiceover. The results can be imported into Premiere Pro on desktop for further editing.

The Premiere Mobile app is already available to download for free in the App Store, with an Android version in the works.

Adobe has announced a partnership with YouTube that allows Premiere Mobile to send videos right to YouTube Shorts.

The Premiere Mobile app will have YouTube Shorts templates, and viewers on Shorts will also be able to create a new video from that template inside the Premiere Mobile app.

Generative upscale is coming to Photoshop, along with third-party models in Generative Fill. That brings some previously announced beta features into the full version of Photoshop, beginning today.

In the demo of updates to Photoshop, Adobe demonstrated a 2x upscale using a generated image from an earlier demo, using Photoshop’s AI upscaling to add more resolution.

Adobe also demoed the feature using a scan of an old family photo, using Topaz as the model to preserve faces. In the demo, the generative upscale seemed to preserve the faces, including a blinking bored child who still looked blinking and bored.

The demo also included some design features, including Dynamic Text, which automatically scales text so that each line is the same length, which adjusts automatically as the creator alters the text box.

In a composite, Adobe demonstrated mixing tools like remove background with Adobe’s precise tools. The Harmonize tool, previously in beta, is a one-click button on the AI toolbar that matches things like lighting and shadows when compositing images. In the demo, the AI even gave the astronaut added to the background a shadow, along with adjusting the coloring and lighting to better match the background.

Generative Fill is also adding support for Partner Models. In another image, Adobe used a selection brush to control where the generative fill added new elements, using Nano Banana as a partner model.

Now, Photoshop has a send to Firefly option, where Adobe then used the image to generate a video with Firefly’s new video tools.

Lightroom is getting an automatic dust spot removal tool.

In a demo of the new Lightroom CC features, Terry White demonstrated a new AI dust spot removal tool that both finds and removes the dust spots for you. As a photographer who has had dust spots happen before, I’m pretty geeked about this feature.

Lightroom is also gaining some new distraction and reflection removal tools.

The distraction removal tool will also remove people in one click. The tool is designed for tasks like removing tourists from vacation photos.

Reflection removal, first introduced in Adobe Camera RAW, is also coming to Lightroom. The slider uses AI to remove reflections, but take the slider the other way, and you can also enhance the reflection instead of removing it.

Lightroom is gaining AI-assisted culling.

Perhaps one of the tools that I’m most excited about from Adobe Max is Assistive Culling, which is an early access beta feature. This tool allows photographers to automatically sort through photos and reject photos with blinks and soft focus. Photographers can then review the results and go through and make sure those rejects are really rejects.

Photographers can then use batch actions, such as adding a flag to the selects, or a star rating. This allows users to use a check mark to apply a rating or flag or another setting to either all the selects or the rejects.

The tool will also create stacks of similar images, automatically sorting out stacks in the series. The AI will then put what it thinks is the best shot at the top of the stack. When photos are taken into Photoshop, the edits are added to the top of the stack.

Premiere Pro is getting an Auto Bleep tool.

Auto Bleep is a new tool in beta that allows video editors to censor words, highlighting them in the text panel. Users can create a list of censored words and then Premiere Pro will automatically bleep those words out. It also works with custom sound effects, in case you want cuss words to become a duck quack instead of a bleep.

Premiere Pro is gaining AI-assisted masking.

One of my favorite AI tools in Lightroom are the AI masks, but now similar tools are coming for video editing. Adobe demoed AI masking for Premiere Pro during Adobe Max, which was previously a Sneak.

The AI-powered Object Mask moves as the subject moves, maintaining the mask throughout the video. Adobe demoed the feature with a skateboarder an the tool looks quite impressive.

Additional Premiere Pro tools announced today also include new Film Impact tools, which are GPU-accelerated presets for transitions and effects.

The Premiere Pro demo was also heavily integrated into Adobe Firefly. Adobe showcased taking a video of a skateboarder from Premiere Pro into Firefly to change the ending, adding a new trick. This demo is particularly impressive because AI tends to have the toughest time with creating movement that still feels natural.

Firefly’s new ability to generate soundtracks is also a tool that integrates with Premiere Pro, giving video editors the ability to use AI to create a custom soundtrack quickly.

Here’s one for the photographers struggling with gaining traction on social media. Project Moonlight is an Adobe Sneak for a chatbot that’s designed to help creators on social media.

Project Moonlight integrates directly with Lightroom for importing images to the chatbot. Then, users can ask the chatbot to brainstorm some post ideas. In the demo, the chatbot came up with three ideas. Then, the demo used the AI to take the idea even further. The AI generated different things, like overlays on the image.

Project Moonlight can be integrated with Instagram, which is designed to help the chatbot understand how your particular posts perform and what resonates most with your audience. That also allows the chatbot to respond to questions about engagement and metrics. The chatbot can use that data to strategize ideas that are on brand with previous posts.

Project Moonlight can also be used to apply saved presets to images right in the chatbot. Users can then take the generations into Photoshop or Firefly Boards. Taking the images into Firefly Boards, Adobe demoed applying some of the AI-suggested overlays and ideas.

As a Sneak, Project Moonlight isn't yet available, but something Adobe has in the works for a future Firefly update.

One last Sneak before the day one keynote ends – Project Graph is a node-based tool for building creative workflows. This tool integrates features from several different apps to create a single workflow in one place.

Users can drag and drop in new reference images to take that image through the same editing workflow again, automating a process that would typically require opening up multiple apps.

In the demo, Adobe showed how users could build workflows from multiple apps, including Photoshop and Firefly. The workflow asked the program to take the reference image through multiple Adobe programs, including removing the background in Photoshop, generating a composite with a Partner Model, and outputting a video.

The “capsules” can also be worked in the individual apps themselves, giving users more flexibility and control by using things like Photoshop’s native tools.

That’s a wrap on the Adobe Max Keynote for day one. Stay tuned for further updates. On Wednesday, Max includes a second keynote in the morning, but I’m most looking forward to the Sneaks tomorrow night. That’s when Adobe teases the tech that it’s working on behind the scenes that may (or may not) be coming to Adobe software in the future.

Photoshop 2026 has some hidden features.

I sat down with Stephen Nielson, Senior Director of Product Management for Photoshop, to go through some of the newest features in Photoshop – and not all of them were teased during the keynote. Case in point: there's a new Adjustment Layer that works like Lightroom's temp and tint sliders. There's also new integration with Topaz Labs for AI sharpening and denoise, and, no, you don't need a separate Topaz subscription, but it does require generative credits.

Read the full list of features that I'm excited about in Photoshop 2026 here.

The Day 2 keynote is about the creative community.

“Creativity has never been about the tools; it is about the vision that every single day, with every breakthrough, someone like you is daring to say what if,” Lara Belazs, Adobe Global Chief Marketing Officer, said in her opening statement.

Today’s lineup includes Brandon Baum, who is known for special effects videos and will create something on stage with Adobe Firefly. That’s followed by the NASA-engineer-turned-YouTuber Mark Rober, and James Gunn, the award-winning director behind the Guardians of the Galaxy and more.

Brandon Baum says that AI has helped drop the barrier to entry in filmmaking and special effects. “[AI is] not some mighty piece that replaces the whole puzzle, but it does help us move through it faster…but more importantly, you can fail faster, so you can stumble upon gold more quickly.”

That’s an interesting take, the idea of failing faster – because one of the biggest ways creatives grow is through mistakes. Now, he’s walking through how he created a recent special effects video using Firefly and creating a new ending live on stage.

Mark Rober is now talking about creating viral videos – and even shared a glimpse of what his Premiere Pro timelines used to look like, and what they look like now. He says he only creates around 10 videos a year, so each one has to have a big impact.

What do all viral videos have in common? You just have to create a visceral response, Rober says. “It means if someone watches this video, it makes you laugh, amazed, inspired…they just need to feel something. If you don’t feel any one of these things, you don’t share the video, you don’t finish watching. That’s the easy part, the harder part is how do you do this?”

You don’t lay out the facts and specs, he said. You need a feeling, a story. While Rober may be talking more about video, I think this also applies to any creative industry, including photography. The best art tells a story, whether that’s video or photo.

Adobe’s Jason Levine is chatting on stage with director James Gunn.

The two started talking about origin stories, and Gunn started in music and went to school for writing prose, not filmmaking. “A phrase that’s overused is follow your dreams,” Gunn said. “I don’t believe in following your dreams because that’s following something that's outside yourself, that’s not the here and now…I loved doing music, but I wasn’t the best at it.”

Gunn says creativity is about being in the moment, whether that’s screenwriting or directing. “We judge what we are doing, and that is the enemy of any creativity. The thing is to create sh*t. Sit down and do something poorly…go through the phase of allowing yourself to turn off your self-judgement, because I think that’s where true creativity lies, then you’re free.”

That’s a wrap on the Day 2 keynote. Later today, Adobe will unveil Sneaks, which is a deep dive into tech that the software giant is working on behind the scenes, which may (or may not) be coming to future software updates. Sneaks kicks off at 5:30 PM PDT / 8:30 PM EST / 12:30 AM GMT. Sneaks will be co-hosted by Jessica Williams.

Adobe Max Sneaks 2025 are about to start

Head of Adobe Research Gavin Miller called Sneaks "the Olympics of demos." Miller indicated tonight's Sneaks have three themes: reimagining images, revolutionizing video and motion, and transforming sound and storytelling.

When I chatted with Miller earlier today, I learned some interesting insight into where Sneaks come from. Submissions are actually welcomed from everyone at Adobe, not just the research team, and there's multiple rounds before the finalists are chosen.

Sneaks are also often presented by the researchers and coders themselves. How the community – online and in person – responds can influence which Sneaks ship in actual products first.

Let's see what's in store next for Adobe at the 2025 Sneaks.

Project Clean Take is a video production tool that allows users to edit and regenerate sound, including separating sounds from complex tracks. First, the demo showed the tool highlighting text from the transcript and regenerating using AI. The demo included changing the inflection of a word, to changing the actual words themselves.

Then Lee Brimelow moved on to show an example of a bell sounding over the dialog in a video. Project Clean Take can break up the audio components directly into the timeline, separating speech, music, sound effects and reverb. Then, users can mute one of those tracks, which removes the sound of the bell.

Another use? When recording in a public location and there’s music in the background, but you don’t own the license. Project Clean Take has a Find Similar option, which will look and find something similar on Adobe Stock that can be licensed. A Match Acoustics button will help the soundtrack to sound more like the acoustics of the original video.

Back in the transcript, Brimelow demoed highlighting the entire transcript, and changing the emotion of the the speaker – or even altering the voice to a whisper.

Project Surface Swap is a Photoshop tool that can select surfaces, but also understand that it is a surface, including factors like reflections. With one click, Valentin Deschainte showed selecting the car in an image, then going on to use Photoshop’s adjustment layers to change the color.

But the name is Surface SWAP, and that’s part of the tool as well. Once the surface is selected, users can choose a different texture and, as the name implies, swap out the surface, changing a wood table to marble.

Finally, Deschainte demonstrated using the tool to place a logo onto a textured wall in a photograph. But, the wall has vines on it, so Project Surface Swap helped mask out the vines so the logo appeared on the wall realistically. With everything masked, you can even add a drop shadow to the vines.

Project New Depths is a tool for creating composites using a mix of 3D and photo editing tools. As Elie Michel added a tree to a photograph and moved it around, the objects in the photo layered properly with the tree so that it was behind a tractor and foliage.

But that’s when the demo got really interesting. Project New Depths was even able to rotate and change the angle of the photo, viewing the tractor from a different angle. That's because the background image is a series of photos taken at different angles and stitched together.

There’s also a lasso tool to create selections and make adjustments.

In another photo, Adobe demoed selecting part of a fountain and rotating it around on the base.

Project Light Touch is a software for relighting a photograph. In the first demo, Zhixin Shu showed a photo of a lamp, then used the tool to turn the light on, which affected the shadows and highlights in the surrounding room. But that's not the only way the relighting tool can be used.

In the second demo, Adobe showed a portrait with light filtering through a hat. Using Project Light Touch, the software relit the subject’s face, removing the shadows from the face as if the face were evenly lit.

In Spatial Lighting mode, users can add a virtual light in 3D and move it around. Then, upload an image and relight the image based on the 3D model. Users can go back to the 3D model and move the light around to change the effect, including putting the light inside a jack-o-lantern. Jessica Williams even took over to try, moving the light around the 3D model and watching how the image changed as a result.

Finally, Adobe demoed changing the color of the light using Point Controls, lighting up a witch’s cauldron with green light.

Project Trace Erase is the next generation of Generative AI removal tools. While Photoshop has generative remove tools, Trace Erase not only removed a vehicle from a photograph, but also removed its shadow and reflection. Current tools would remove a puddle, but the demo kept it intact.

Next, Adobe demoed that the tool even works when the subject isn’t fully selected, but still was able to remove a person, the shadow and the reflection.

That’s not all though, Trace Erase was also able to remove smoke from an image, then removed a lamp and even took out the light the lamp emitted.

In a photo with lens flare, Trace Erase was able to remove the entire sun flare, including the ghosting spots.

Adobe then leveled up with a photo of a snowy landscape and removed not only the person, but the person’s footsteps. The audience got real loud when the next photo was of a jet ski – Project Trace Erase was able to remove not just the jet ski but the wake behind it.

Project Frame Forward is a tool that makes video editing more like photo editing. It uses generative AI and takes the edit of the first frame of a video, then applies those changes to the entire clip. Using the earlier Trace Erase to remove a person from the first frame in Photoshop, Frame Forward analyzed the edited photo and removed the person from the entire length of the video.

The tool doesn’t use masking or tracking, which Adobe demonstrated by taking a moving race car out of a video with both the car and the camera moving.

Frame Forward isn’t just for removing objects. It can also be used to add objects, editing the first frame like an image, then letting the AI apply those edits to the rest of the frame. Impressively, Adobe included a puddle with reflections in this demo.

In the last example, Adobe showed a wedding video where a guest gets in the background and the bride’s dress is overexposed, along with the sky. Again, Frame Forward edited the first frame as an image in Photoshop, adjusting the light, removing the distractions, and adding a sunset to the overexposed sky. Back in Frame Forward, feeding the image to the software finished the edit, applying those changes to the entire video clip.

Project TurnStyle is another tool that may change how photo editors build composites inside Photoshop. A 3D rotate button on the Contextual Task bar allows users to rotate objects placed into the photo using AI. The tool also includes an upresolution tool to enhance the detail.

Using Photoshop’s new Harmonize button, Adobe demonstrated blending that newly rotated object with the background.

Finally, Adobe demonstrated adding people to the photo, and using TurnStyle to change the angle of how they are standing. As the people turned, the faces looked a bit like wonky AI faces with mushed details, but after using the upresolution button, those AI oddities on the faces disappeared.

That's a wrap on Sneaks for 2025!

• See all the news from Adobe Max 2025

Out of all the pieces that come with photo editing, culling photos – the process of selecting which ones to edit – ranks among my least favorite. But Adobe could be about to make that process easier. Assisted Culling is coming to Lightroom in public beta, the software giant announced during Adobe Max.

Adobe previously teased that it was working on an AI-assisted culling tool, but now Assisted Culling is rolling out in the public beta version of Lightroom. Adobe describes it as “a highly customizable tool that helps creative professionals quickly identify the best images in large photo collections.”

Adobe says that the tool will allow photographers to filter out images based on focus, sharpness, and angles. The idea is to give creatives fewer images to manually cull through by using the AI to identify factors like which photo in a series is the sharpest.

A number of AI culling tools already exist, like Aftershoot and Imagen. But if Lightroom’s tool works well, that could help creatives speed up the cull without a second subscription or purchase.

I have high hopes that the tool could help speed up the process of culling – as a wedding photographer, it’s not unusual for me to have thousands of images to look through.

I’m on site at Adobe Max in Los Angeles, where I’m hoping to get a hands-on test of the new beta culling tool inside Lightroom.

Adobe announced a long list of updates to Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Firefly, and more at the start of the brand’s annual creativity conference.

• See all the news from Adobe Max 2025

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Browse the best photo editors or the best culling software.

Adobe often surprise launches updates to Photoshop and Lightroom throughout the year, but if there’s one time of year where creatives can expect something big is coming, it is Adobe Max. And with Adobe Max just around the corner, I’m predicting that Adobe’s biggest updates to Photoshop and Lightroom could be coming next week.

Adobe Max is a creativity conference that the software giant hosts once a year in the US (they also host a similar event in London annually). This year, Adobe Max is scheduled for October 28-30 in Los Angeles, California.

While Adobe Max is packed with workshops and vendors at the in-person events, Adobe typically also uses the event to announce some key software updates. The first keynote is happening at 9 AM PDT / 12 PM EST / 5 PM BST on October 28.

In past events, Adobe has unveiled a number of updates during the Adobe Max keynote. Last year, for example, Photoshop gained Distraction Removal and a generative workspace, all announced during Adobe Max.

Another key part of Adobe Max is Sneaks, which are the company’s teasers into what their developers are working on behind the scenes. Sneaks may not even end up making its way into actual software, but some features do. Last year, Adobe teased Project Perfect Blend, which wound up in a July 2025 update to Photoshop, although it changed the name to Harmonize.

This year, Adobe’s Sneaks are scheduled for October 29 at 5:30 PM PDT / 8:30 PM EST / 1:30 AM BST.

If the past events are any indication, creatives will likely see a number of new software features coming next week. Based on the company’s recent updates, I’m expecting AI to be a key buzzword during the 2025 Adobe Max announcements.

Adobe will stream several of its keynotes and sessions online for those who can’t make the trip to Los Angeles, and online registration is free. And we'll be there too – bringing you all the big announcements so you don't miss anything.

Along with the Keynotes and Sneaks, online attendees can still find more than 60 online sessions for learning tips and tricks across Adobe’s suite of creative software.

Online registration is open at the Adobe Max website.

• See all the news from Adobe Max 2025

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The Nik Collection plug-ins are sold as a single unit. You can’t buy them separately, but you do use them separately. And although they are typically used as plug-ins for programs like Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, they also work as standalone programs and external editors for other programs, like Capture One. If you like to shoot raw, though, you will need a ‘host’ program to do your raw conversions before sending processed images to the Nik plug-ins for editing.

So even though Nik Collection is usually described as a plug-in suite, it actually offers a wide variety of workflows. This, and its huge creative range, make it one of the best photo-editing software applications for photographers.

Taking them alphabetically, Analog Efex is perhaps the most interesting for anyone trying to recreate the look of old cameras, primitive lenses, and lo-fi film stocks. It can create bokeh effects, light leaks, borders, dust and scratches, even ‘accidental’ multiple exposure effects, and multi-camera images where photos are chopped up into panels. It’s like a wild analog playground and a world apart from DxO’s rather more sober FilmPack film emulation software. It’s weird and sometimes over the top, but brilliant.

Color Efex is perhaps the central tool in the Nik lineup. It offers more than 50 filters, which can be used individually or in combination, each with powerful adjustments and masking tools. In Nik Collection 8, Color Efex gets preset effects for each filter, so there are even more ready-made starting points for your experiments. It’s aimed at more mainstream photographic effects than Analog Efex but has its own share of striking looks alongside regular tools like levels and curves.

Dfine is the Nik Collection’s noise-reduction plug-in, but it only works on JPEGs or images already converted from raw files, rather than directly on raw files, unlike more modern AI noise-reduction tools. It’s effective in an old-fashioned kind of way, with a good deal of control over noise reduction via ‘noise profiles’ and local enhancements, but these days it’s much more effective to tackle noise during the raw-processing phase. It would be great if DxO could find a way to bring its DeepPRIME AI noise reduction to Dfine, but it’s hard to see how it could fit into the editing workflow if your regular ‘host’ program is doing the raw conversion.

HDR Efex has had relatively little attention in recent Nik Collection updates but remains a very effective HDR tool that can be used to merge bracketed exposures or just to add HDR-style shadow and highlight adjustments to single files. Some of the preset effects are throwbacks to the worst excesses of the HDR craze, though it’s possible to produce strong-but-natural-looking results too.

Nik Sharpener comes in two forms: a ‘presharpener’ to crisp up soft-looking images and an ‘output’ sharpener to optimize sharpening for different output devices and print sizes. The screen sharpening is effective if you publish your images digitally, but for this and the print sharpening to be effective, you really need to resize your images for your output device before you send them to Sharpener. I suspect most photographers will just stick to the sharpening tools in their regular host software.

Silver Efex is one of the stars of the Nik Collection and is perhaps the best-known black-and-white software tool of all. It produces remarkable richness, depth, and tonal subtlety in monochrome images, with a powerful set of adjustment tools, preset effects, and local adjustments for ‘dodging and burning’. You can also produce striking black-and-white images in Analog Efex and Color Efex, but Silver Efex is probably the ultimate digital darkroom for monochrome work.

Viveza is harder to categorize. It’s designed for detailed color adjustments, via both global adjustments and local adjustments, but it does seem to be a bit of a one-trick pony, and three of its key adjustments are now incorporated into Color Efex. No doubt Viveza has its fans, but it does seem much more limited than the Nik Collection’s other creative plug-ins.

DxO Nik Collection 8 system requirements

DxO Nik Collection 8: price

DxO Nik Collection 8 sells for $169.99 / £144.99 (about AU$260) for new users, or for $99.99 / £79.99 (about AU$150) as an upgrade from Nik Collection 6 or 7. Note that DxO’s upgrade offer covers the last two versions, so although the Nik Collection is on an annual update cycle, you can afford to skip a version without losing your upgrade entitlement. If you already have Nik Collection 7, for example, and you don’t need the Photoshop workflow enhancements that feature so heavily in Nik Collection 8, you might want to hang on for next year’s Nik Collection 9 release.

Either way, while the Nik Collection is not exactly cheap, you do get an awful lot for your money. Analog Efex, Color Efex, Silver Efex, and perhaps even HDR Efex are easily good enough and different enough to be sold as standalone products, and here you’re getting all the plug-ins for a single price.

DxO Nik Collection 8: interface and usability

They have different jobs, but all the Nik creative plug-ins share the same basic design. The left sidebar displays preset effects and individual filters for building your own effects, while the right sidebar displays panels for each filter so that you can make further adjustments. This right sidebar can get a little busy once you start combining effects, but the panels can be collapsed to save space.

You can also apply a wide range of highly customizable local adjustment masks via DxO’s trademark Control Points, Control Lines, and – now – Polygon masks. These work in a unique way, targeting only specific tones and colors within the mask area, so they are highly selective. The Nik Collection does not offer AI object masking, but this system is equally effective in a different way.

If you want to, you can dive very deep indeed into the Nik Collection’s filters, masks, and controls to create some stunning effects. Or, if that’s just too much to take in initially, you can pick from a long list of excellent preset effects and work back from there.

Improved Photoshop integration is a key feature of this Nik Collection 8 update. It comes with a new-and-improved Nik Collection palette displayed directly within the Photoshop interface, including the ability to save interim edits in Nik plug-ins and return them to Photoshop as layers when you’re done.

Silver Efex gets some updates too, including a color reference image display, interface improvements and local adjustments for ClearView (a bit like Lightroom Dehaze) and Selective Tone adjustments. Also, each filter now comes with pre-defined presets.

Overall, the Nik Collection workflow has been refined to a point where it’s as quick and seamless to use as possible, and you can just click a preset if you don’t want to get bogged down in tools and settings. It also has special features and options for Photoshop users.

DxO Nik Collection 8: performance

The Nik Collection plug-ins offer such a huge variety of image-editing effects, tools, and inspiration that it’s hard to know where to start. If you like a lo-fi analog look, then Analog Efex does it spectacularly well. Color Efex is like a photo editor and effects generator rolled into one, and is like a giant box of filters with endless permutations. Silver Efex Pro is capable of wonderful black-and-white imagery with comparatively little effort – though you can dig as deep as you want with the adjustment and masking tools. HDR Efex does look a little dated in parts, but is still very good at creating classic HDR Effects.

Dfine is less impressive because it’s starting from images that have already been processed once. It can reduce noise very effectively, but you can easily lose detail at the same time, so it’s some way behind the latest AI noise-reduction tools. Sharpener is interesting but perhaps a little specialized for the average user – it’s handy if you want to optimize detail carefully for screen or print, perhaps. It’s also hard to warm to Viveza, as it doesn’t do much that programs like Lightroom or Photoshop can’t, though its masking tools are effective in a different way.

DxO Nik Collection 8: verdict

You probably won’t get equal value out of all the Nik Collection plug-ins, since Dfine is somewhat dated, Sharpener is quite specialized, and Viveza’s color adjustment capabilities are neither unique nor particularly valuable for Lightroom or Photoshop users.

So, does the Nik Collection still deserve a 5-star rating? I think so, because Analog Efex, Color Efex, Silver Efex, and HDR Efex offer such a rich and varied set of image effects that, in my opinion, they easily justify the cost of the Nik Collection on their own.

It’s not just a unique set of photo effects that you’re getting here, but a practically bottomless source of inspiration and ideas. If you’re getting stuck in a rut with your current photo editor – and we all do from time to time – the Nik Collection will bust you out of that rut in a big way. We all need fresh ideas now and again, and that’s exactly what the Nik Collection delivers.

Alternatives

When I traveled to New York City earlier this summer, the only time I was able to see that iconic skyline was at the airport, thanks to fog and a jam-packed schedule. I took a quick snapshot with my iPhone – but the glare off the windows ruined the snapshot to the point that I thought it was destined for the trash. But then I remembered that Adobe Lightroom has a new tool that automatically corrects reflections.

I transferred the photo to my laptop, where Lightroom Classic recently gained an experimental distraction removal tool for reflections. And, much to my surprise, the new reflection removal was able to rescue the photo by removing nearly all the reflections in a few clicks.

Once I opened the photo, I went to the remove tool and scrolled down to the Distraction Removal section in the right-hand sidebar. Then, I clicked “Apply” under reflections, waited for the AI to do its thing, and was greeted with a photo that had nearly all the reflections removed. The AI process took under a minute (although internet connection speeds, hardware limitations, and the preview settings will play a role in how quickly the tool works).

The automatic tool removed all but one small patch of reflection from the image, which I was able to quickly remove by brushing over the area with the heal tool.

The photo isn’t going to win any awards – it’s a quick iPhone snapshot after all – but the edit is a far better representation of my trip than the reflection-marred image.

The Lightroom reflection removal tool is powered by Adobe Firefly, which is the company’s generative AI platform. I admittedly don’t love the idea of using generative AI, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to fix an iPhone snapshot with the clone tool. Firefly is also built on licensed work rather than scraping copyrighted work from the web.

A software-based reflection removal tool is so intriguing because, traditionally, circular polarizers have long been a lens filter that couldn’t be replicated with software. The key question is this: Is software going to replace circular polarizing filters?

Not exactly. While I love that I have the option to remove the reflections when I forget to pack my polarizer or I’m just taking a quick snapshot with my phone, the reflection removal tool has a long way to go.

Take a look at what happens when I tried the tool on a far more powerful reflection, where the reflection of the interior of the airport is far stronger than what’s outside the window:

Well, that’s terrifying.

The other reason that I’m not ditching my polarizer anytime soon is that twisting a polarizing filter on my lens is faster than using generative AI. Yes, the tool worked fairly quickly, and the total edit took just a few minutes. But I can twist a polarizer in seconds.

Still, the ability to rescue a photo ruined by reflections when getting it right in-camera wasn’t possible? That’s a tool that’s going to rescue a lot of images from the trash.

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For years, Fujifilm shooters have looked on enviously while Canon, Nikon, and Sony users enjoyed Lightroom Classic’s baked-in tethered capture. The only escape was Fujifilm’s own plug-ins, which a quick search online shows they have a somewhat questionable reputation. Or you could jump ship to use Capture One. Both are some of the best photo editing software, but abandoning potentially years of built-up Lightroom knowledge might not be so appealing.

That decision finally ends with the June 2025 Lightroom Classic 14.4 update, which adds native Fujifilm tethering support baked directly into Adobe’s software – amongst a host of quality of life improvements.

Do you need to tether? In certain situations, like studio photography, piping images to a large color-calibrated monitor beats squinting at a three-inch LCD, especially with a large team. You can inspect at 100%, flag selects instantly, and begin editing right away. There are compromises. You’re literally on a leash, and cables can snag and get in the way. More photographers are now using wireless solutions, but for transfer speed, you still can't beat a tether cable.

Lightroom’s tether panel already speaks fluent Canon, Nikon, and Sony, but Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensors were always left out. This update finally brings parity with other brands – and kills another excuse to disparage Fujifilm cameras for professional work.

Getting started is easy: update to Lightroom 14.4, and make sure you disable any third-party tether plug-ins you have already set up. Next, set the camera to USB Tether Shooting/PC Remote, shutter dial to T, aperture to A, ISO to C. Finally, plug in a sturdy USB-C cable, and choose File > Tethered Capture.

Supported bodies are: X-T1-T5, X-T30, X-H1, X-H2, X-H2S, X-S10, X-Pro2/3, and every GFX from the 50S and 50R to the flagship GFX 100 II.

As a Fujifilm shooter myself and an avid Lightroom Classic user, I am very happy about this news, and I can't wait to try this out on my next studio shoot!

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• Check out more options for the best photo editing software in our guide.
• Looking for something that can handle video as well? Take a look at our top picks for the best video editing software.

Between taking photos and editing photos sits one of my least favorite parts of photography: culling, or the process of choosing which photos to edit. As a wedding photographer, culling a gallery of several thousand images takes hours of clicking through to find the best shots. But Adobe Lightroom is working on a new tool that could help speed up the culling process.

In a teaser on social media, Adobe shared that developers are working on AI filters, a tool that works to recognize throw-away shots, like shots that are out of focus and blinking portraits. The AI filters, like many of the Lightroom tools, use a slider, allowing photographers to control how strictly to apply these auto-selection filters.

A clean-up slider will also help remove accidental shutter triggers, as well as shots that are over- or underexposed. The AI will also be able to auto-group similar shots together, like those taken with burst mode.

AI culling tools aren’t new – but the tools that exist are third-party platforms and plug-ins that add to the growing number of subscriptions. While I hate culling, my growing subscription aversion has prevented me from buying AI culling software. The idea of getting faster culling without another subscription is one that I can get on board with (albeit one that has recently increased in price).

I’m a Lightroom Classic user, and many of the latest AI-based tools have saved me a lot of time. If AI can do to culling what subject selection did to masking, then such a tool would save me hours of sifting through photographs.

Sometimes, accidental photos end up as happy surprises – an out-of-focus shot that still captures the emotion of the moment, for example. That’s why I’m excited by AI-supportive culling that adds speed yet still leaves the photographer in the driver’s seat. 

But where I think AI culling can save the most time is picking the best shot out of several similar images. I spent a lot of time looking at similar photos to find the one that’s the sharpest and discarding the close-eye shots.

When I chatted with Adobe during the B&H Bild Expo in New York, Adobe indicated the AI filtering would be coming later this year to both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Desktop. AI-based subject detection has saved me hours on tasks like whitening teeth, without even using generative AI. I have high hopes that the upcoming Lightroom AI Filters tool brings more of the same time-saving shortcuts to culling.

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In today's world, shooting with a camera phone or a compact camera is undeniably popular. For many people, the advantages of using pocket-sized technology surpass those of DSLRs or mirrorless cameras, as practicality, affordability and advancements in portable imaging set new standards.

The only 'problem' one might see is the smaller sensor size – but these days, having a small sensor doesn't mean that you have to compromise on the quality of your photographic work!

While smaller sensors can introduce certain practical challenges, advancing technology means that these devices are more than capable of working as a backup to an interchangeable-lens camera, or as a portable alternative.

Of course, if there's a photographic situation that challenges any sensor – especially small ones – it's low light. To demonstrate what small sensors are capable of, we chose to shoot a scene with poor light intensity and a dominance of blue and red – the worst possible scenario for image signal-noise ratio.

Here's how we increased the image quality from a mobile device in super-challenging conditions. While these techniques are shown on a smartphone, the principles are the same if you're using a compact camera.

Shooting Tutorial

1. Select RAW mode

Most of the latest and best camera phone models enable you to shoot in RAW format. Just as in larger cameras, this opens up greater control at the editing stage – which is essential with images from a small sensor. Set the highest file quality so that you are using all the pixels available.

2. Use Pro mode

You need to take as much control over your camera settings as you can. Switch to Professional mode and avoid increasing the ISO beyond the native settings. Where possible, shoot at ISO100-200, but in the end it's still better to increase sensitivity rather than brighten the image in post-processing.

3. Choose your lens

Smartphones have several lenses that can be activated for different situations. However, not all of them have the maximum stated aperture rating. Select the optic that offers the widest possible f-stop – in our case, the medium zoom had an aperture of f/1.5.

4. Shoot wide open

Select the widest aperture you can, to allow as much light into the sensor as possible. Don’t worry about depth of field: the smaller sensor area of a camera phone will produce much more depth than a Micro Four Thirds, APS-C or full-frame sensor. Check the preview for underexposure.

5. Activate anti-shake

Slow the shutter speed to correctly expose the image, avoiding a histogram that’s bunched up on the left side. To reduce camera shake, dive into the shooting menu and make sure image stabilization is turned on if you have it. This may not be activated as standard, especially if you’re using a third-party camera app.

6. Adjust the shutter interface

Activate the self-timer so that you can concentrate on steadiness once the shutter is triggered. Activate the touch shutter so you can focus and shoot with a gentle touch and consider adding a second shutter button icon for a more comfortable, smoother hand movement to reduce vibration.

Pro Tip

Deactivate auto processing

If you’ve gone to the effort of ensuring the maximum possible quality at the shooting stage, make sure this control is retained once you’ve triggered the shutter. Turn off any automatic noise reduction your camera app might have, and leave this for more precise treatment of the RAW files in an external image editor.

This doesn’t always apply to video, where anti-noise or banding processes can’t be easily applied in non-professional software apps. But for stills, check your settings in both the phone’s native camera app and additional third-party applications you have downloaded.

Editing Tutorial

1. Reset noise sliders

Noise is always going to be more pronounced with a small sensor, but you can avoid loss of detail by preventing automatic noise reduction in your editing app. Start by moving the Luminance slider to zero to assess how much noise reduction is pleasing to your eye.

2. Set Blacks and Whites

With the noise reduction applied, you can add basic contrast adjustments while keeping an eye on noise visibility. In this high-contrast scene, set the Black and White points to prevent too much shadow and highlight loss but don’t worry too much about detail in the light sources.

3. Adjust the contrast

To add some weight to the shadows, we applied a light S-curve using the Tone Curve tool in Lightroom. Look at the histogram regularly to ensure you are not clipping individual channels – in our shot, we had to be careful not to blow the detail in the reds in particular.

4. Apply custom Noise Reduction

With tonal adjustments applied, you’ll better understand the noise challenges present. Move the Luminance Noise slider in your software to the right in small increments to smooth out random noise patterns. Focus on the flatter tones, like the smooth concrete in our shot.

5. Apply noise treatment

Grain doesn’t have to be a problem, as it can add a sense of sharpness in moderation. However, in central areas of the subject, we need to minimize distracting noise patterns. Here, we used the Adjustment Brush (K) to reduce banding in local shadow areas.

6. Target sharpening

Keep your sharpening targeted to essential details by masking flat tones. In Lightroom, we dragged the Masking slider to the right to reduce sharpening to the flattest tones, where noise is most probable. We also applied a round of local sharpening using the Sharpen tool in Photoshop.

Before and After

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If you are into smartphone photography, read our 12 essential mobile photography tips, or check our guide about the best lenses for iPhone and Android camera phones.

The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine April issue 228 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions!

Welcome to the No.1 Canon magazine, we’re here to help you to improve your Canon EOS camera skills, and advise you on the best Canon kit to buy. Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

Ahh, the Great Outdoors. We know that outdoor photography is incredibly popular with our Canon enthusiast readership, so this issue we’ve got a special Outdoor Photography guide. Better still, it’s with one of the world’s best landscape and nature photographers, Canon professional Guy Edwardes. Check out his amazing photos and inspirational tips, with advice on landscapes and coastal scenes, wildlife and close-ups of nature.

Also inside, our PhotoPlus Apprentice Steve gets top tuition from Canon pro Fiona Turnbull, learning how to take stunning photos of all types of birds, on a day out at WWT Slimbridge, in Gloucestershire.

New Canon camera skills!

We have some out-of-this-world astrophotography in our gallery.

In Canon Skills, we have more photo projects, from how to capture creative photos of starling murmurations, to light painting a pair of boots at home! Plus beautiful baby portrait advice with Taylor Brady. Plus, we have new image-editing tutorials in Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo for you – all with free video guides!

We speak to award-winning beauty and fashion photographer, Amanda Akokhia.

There’s more of your new Photo Stories , and we help you master your flash photography in Canon School, and answer your technical Canon questions in EOS SOS.

We also test Canon’s best-ever sports camera, the EOS R1, with its revolutionary AI features and unbelievable autofocus power.

In Super Test, we review Canon-fit Speedlites to brighten up your life. See which is best.

Finally, don’t forget to download your free The Black & White Photography ebook, worth £15.99. Download details inside.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user.

Every issue of our No.1 Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

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The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine March issue 227 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Welcome to the No.1 Canon magazine, we’re here to help you to improve your Canon EOS camera skills, and advise you on the best Canon kit to buy. Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

To inspire you to start the year on the right track, and improve your Canon camera skills, we’ve got 25 great tips for you in 2025, from cutting-edge techniques to creative camera skills, plus how to use light in better ways.

Also inside, our PhotoPlus Apprentice and Canon pro Jeremy Flint reveal Part 2 of our special photography city break in Budapest, concentrating on the incredible architecture, both inside and outside.

New Canon camera skills!

In Canon Skills, check out our new photo projects, including how to make simple glassware look incredibly artistic with clever lighting and black or white backgrounds.

Embrace the flare when shooting winter scenes, and learn to take pretty ‘Mummy & Me’ family portraits. Plus, we give you new image-editing tutorials in Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo – all with FREE video guides!

We talk to ‘starman’ Josh Dury about his passion for astrophotography ahead of his talk at The Photography & Video Show, and there’s more of your brilliant Photo Stories

We get to grips with all things stabilized in Canon School from IS in lenses, and IBIS on Canon EOS R System mirrorless cameras.

Your tough questions are answered by our Canon expert Brian in EOS SOS.

In Super Test, we go in-depth into the best beginner upgrade lenses – the next lens you should buy to complement your basic kit lens.

Finally, don’t forget to download your free Drones The Complete Manual ebook, worth £8.99 – details inside the magazine.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user.

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month.

Every issue of our No.1 Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

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Happy new year issue! The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine Feb issue 226 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

We’re all about helping you to improve your Canon camera skills in PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, and in this issue we’ll show you how to capture better city photos in our big guide.

Also inside this issue, our lucky PhotoPlus Apprentice wins a long weekend city break in Budapest on us, for some top tuition on how to take great winter travel photos with Canon pro Jeremy Flint.

We have our PhotoPlus Canon Gear Of The Year awards, find out what’s the best Canon EOS cameras, lenses and kit.

New Canon camera skills!

In our full-to-the-brim Canon Skills section, new photo projects, from lightning photos to how to use vintage lenses on your EOS R mirrorless cameras.

It’s also the ideal time of year to work on your image editing, and we have new tutorials in Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo – all with free video guides!

We catch up with the Icelandic Explorer, Gunnar Freyr Gunnarsson, who talks about his love of travel and photography, and overcoming ADHD.

We have more of your fantastic Photo Stories.

In Canon School we explain the difference between Canon RF and EF lenses, learn all the pros and cons of each lens in our expert guide.

Plus we answer your questions in EOS SOS.

Don’t miss your free Teach Yourself Lightroom ebook worth £10.99 – download details inside the magazine.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user.

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month.

Every issue of our No.1 Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

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Recent news that Adobe just quietly upped the cost of Lightroom and Photoshop – one plan by a whopping 52% – is the latest bout of controversy to hit the best photo editing software developer. Add to that the US government's lawsuit regarding customer protection laws. That AI policy. The fact that Photoshop Elements is no longer yours for life. And the recent fall in stocks. 

Adobe and controversy have gone together like mashed potatoes and gravy in 2024.

So, what’s going on?

Well, it certainly hasn’t been all bad news for the titan of post-production software. Revenue is actually up. Despite explaining that stocks are down 15%, Forbes details an 11% year-on-year increase in revenue during Q4, with 13% and 17% year-on-year growth in Q4 for media segment sales and document cloud sales respectively, with the news outlet stating: “The company is benefiting from the migration of customers to high-priced subscription variants, driving the average revenue per customer higher.”

This I found particularly interesting because it made me look at the new photography plan prices in a different way. Firstly, none of the yearly lump sum prices have changed, only the monthly payment plans, which have changed as follows…

• Lightroom (1TB) plan has gone up by $2/£2.01 to $11.99/£11.99 – although it now includes Adobe Lightroom Classic which is a plus point.
• Photography (20GB) plan has gone up by a huge $5/5.01 to $14.99/£14.99, which includes Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Lightroom Classic. And this will now only be available to existing customers.
• Photography (1TB) plan remains the same, $19.99/£19.97.

I find it extremely interesting that the Photography (1TB) plan remains unchanged, while the 20GB plan has been hit by a huge 52% price hike for existing users (and won't be available in future to new customers). Once the ire of those affected by the price increases has moved on, you’re left with a 1TB plan that’s temptingly close to the 20GB plan. You might as well go for it! Clever, eh?

So what do I think about all this? Well, I recently wrote an article detailing how I thought Adobe Creative Cloud was better value than the old Creative Suite and came to the conclusion that cumulative monthly payments meant it wasn’t during long-term usage.

However, I ended that article with a neat Wikipedia fact: "When Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high-end systems (...) cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching. The list price of Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh in 1990 was $895." Puts things into perspective, right?

The problem is that Adobe’s pricing has always been controversial. People moan about Creative Cloud now, but can you remember how much it cost to buy the software outright during the Creative Suite days? There’s a reason I’d never purchased any Adobe software prior to the Creative Cloud subscription model.

And yet, the Photography (20GB) plan has risen exponentially… I mean, come on, 52% is one heck of a price increase. Let me put that into perspective, the current pricing right now for annual monthly payments totals $119.88/£119.76 and after the price hike on January 15 2025 that’ll be $179.88/£179.88.

But what really got my goat was this statement on the Adobe Blog where the pricing changes were detailed. “For more than a decade, we’ve brought photographers hundreds of innovative features in Lightroom and Photoshop without changing the price of our photography plans. Today we’re announcing an update to these plans to better reflect the value that the apps deliver.”

I mean, on the one hand, kudos to Adobe for not changing the photography plans’ pricing, but maybe save the back-patting if you’re going to increase one of the plans by 52%!

So where has this aggressive price hike come from? Well, I’m only throwing in my two cents here, but despite revenue figures looking very good, it seems as though Adobe’s investment in AI could be the reason for the notable drop in shares. Financial news outlet Finimize put this into perspective: “Investors are uneasy about Adobe’s significant investments in artificial intelligence (...) analysts are uneasy about the unclear path to monetization.”

So, there you have it. If you’re unhappy about your Creative Cloud Photography Plan going up, AI could inadvertently be the culprit.

If you want to avoid these price hikes as best you can, my colleague and US Editor, Hillary K Grigonis, explains how in her report on how Adobe just quietly upped the cost of Lightroom and Photoshop.

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In a teaser of features planned for 2025, Adobe shared that it's working on adding a tool to speed up the culling process in Lightroom. The list of Adobe’s 2025 sneak peeks include a feature designed for choosing the best photos faster with a tool that automatically notes the best images on import. Adobe also teased that more time-saving AI tools are planned for next year, along with more one-click editing options and new sharing tools.

Culling is the industry term for the often tedious process of going through hundreds, or sometimes even thousands, of digital photos to choose which ones to edit. In a blog post, Adobe said that it's working to dramatically streamline this process “by automatically identifying the best photos during import.”

Adobe didn’t clarify how the tool would work, but looking over the company’s 2024 announcements and similar photo-culling software from competitors, an AI-based tool seems most likely. The past year the software giant has launched a number of AI-based tools that now include options like generative expand, generative remove, and an AI-based distraction removal.

As a wedding photographer, culling photos is my least favorite part of the process. While I’m not sure I would trust an AI to choose the best emotion, I would trust software to eliminate the shots that ended up out of focus, or to choose the group photo where no one is blinking.

Adobe’s list of updates – which also includes a planned price hike for monthly subscribers – include “more power, precision, and time saved with AI.” Adobe didn’t specifically name which time-saving AI tools would arrive in 2025, but said that it plans to add “features similar to Generative Remove in Lightroom and Distraction Removal in Photoshop, that make it easier to remove people, wires and poles, improve blemishes and remove dust from images.”

From that statement, I wouldn’t be surprised if Photoshop’s new distraction removal tool for removing power lines and people from the background also launches to Lightroom in 2025. Does “improve blemishes” mean an AI-based tool for removing acne? I can only hope, but such a tool would also need to have the ability to differentiate acne from things like freckles and moles that should remain intact in portrait editing.

Adobe also said that it plans to introduce more intelligent one-tap edits by expanding the Quick Actions. Finally, Adobe says that “streamlined sharing” is also on the list of planned updates for 2025.

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The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine January issue 225 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook... PLUS BIG CANON PRIZES! Join Canon Club and enter our big gear giveaway with a Canon EOS R6 Mk II and EOS R7, lenses and printers all worth over £4000!

We have a winter wildlife special for the festive season for you this issue. Winter might not seem the obvious time for wildlife photography, however, at this time of year, many different animals and birds are very active as they search for food.

So this issue, great Canon pro Drew Buckley shows you how to go wild this winter in our Canon skills guide: "From the gear to use, and core photo techniques, all the way through to my more advanced methods, plus tips on wildlife to look out for in your local area. I share my top 25 pro tips inside the Canon Magazine!"

New Canon camera skills!

We have some winning Canon images from the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year competition – see our gallery inside.

We interview Swedish bird photographer, Jonas Classon, who went from a long-term hospital stay to becoming an internationally successful bird photographer and Canon Ambassador. Check out his story and dramatic photos inside.

You may’ve noticed Christmas is coming, so we have a big Canon Gear Christmas Gift Guide for you, with more than 80 gift ideas for loved ones or yourself. From photo kit under £50 to cameras and lenses over £300, there’s something for every budget.

We also have a fun festive project on how to transform pet photos into your own greetings cards, plus other tutorials, all with free video guides.

Also inside, our young PhotoPlus Apprentice learns how to capture film noir-style B&W portraits, with the help of The Creativity Hub and Canon pro Jason Birth.

There’s Photo Stories and EOS SOS, and we get our hands on three new Canon RF hybrid lenses.

And don’t miss your free Outdoor Photography ebook, 164 pages and £17.99 – download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user.

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month.

Every issue of our No.1 Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

• Readly (digital magazine subscription service)

• Follow us on Instagram!
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The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine December issue 224 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

As Canon photographers, there’s no better feeling than when you open the box to your new Canon EOS camera – whether it’s your first EOS camera, or your latest upgrade.

“I still get excited whenever I get to unbox a new EOS camera! It’s the anticipation of the new photographic possibilities a new camera offers, with the improved specs and latest settings available,” smiles Peter Travers, PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine editor.

But all these new modes and menus can also be baffling to begin with. So this issue, deputy editor Dan Mold’s big camera guide will help you set up your Canon the right way; from those key settings and essential shooting modes, to some more advanced autofocus options, plus quick tips.

New Canon camera skills!

“This month I headed up to Tatton Park in Cheshire, with award-winning Canon wildlife photographer Ben Hall and our PhotoPlus Apprentice, to learn how to take great photos of big red deer during the rutting season!” says Peter Travers.

We bring you the best Canon images in the Bird Photographer Of The Year 2024 competition in our big gallery.

In our brilliant Canon Skills section, we have more new photo projects and image-editing tutorials, such as cobwebs covered in dew, and macro shots of watches, and creative flower photos. All with free video guides to follow along at your own pace.

Amazing architecture photographer Fernando Guerra shares the secrets to his successful professional career.

Plus we have new Photo Stories, new lessons in Canon School, plus your questions answered in EOS SOS. We also test eight Canon EOS R mirrorless cameras in the current lineup, including APS-C and full-frame, prices starting at £559.

And don’t miss your free Teach Yourself Astro Photography ebook – download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user.

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month.

Every issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

• Readly (digital magazine subscription service)

• Follow us on Instagram!
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The new PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine November issue 223 is on sale now! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

What’s the best time of day for photographing coastal landscapes: is it at sunrise or sunset? “I’ve always had more success shooting seascapes at sunset, with richer colours in the sky as the sun dips below the horizon. However, this month, on a surprisingly sunny two-day trip in Wales, we were spoilt for choice when both sunrise and sunset produced incredibly vibrant skies,” says PhotoPlus editor Peter Travers.
 
Decide for yourself which time of day produced better seascape photos, as top Canon pro landscape photographer Drew Buckley showed our PhotoPlus Apprentice how and when to capture winning shots with his Canon gear.

Also inside, we have some amazing autumn/fall photography in our Inspirations gallery, and a seasonal camera skills guide to help you make the most of awesome fall/autumn photo opportunities, from colourful landscapes and wildlife, to close-ups of nature.

New Canon camera skills!

In Canon Skills, you have more tasty photo projects to try out, including how to combine sunset shots with traffic-light trails at night, and deputy editor Dan Mold captures a ‘rainbow rose’ with a focus-stacked macro shot. Plus, it’s that time of year to start working more on your image editing, so we have new tutorials, all with free video guides!

Professional motorsports photographer Drew Gibson reveals why he still prefers Canon DSLRs and old-school techniques to take his dynamic images.

There’s new Photo Stories, Canon School, and we answer your technical questions in EOS SOS.

We also bring you Canon news with the new RF 28-70mm F2.8 IS STM lens and ImagePrograf PRO-1100 printer, and in Super Test, we review eight of the sturdiest tripods for sharper shots.

Don’t miss your free Master Your Camera in 4 Weeks ebook worth £17.99 – download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user. 

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month. 

Every issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

• Readly (digital magazine subscription service)

• Follow us on Instagram!
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• Subscribe to PhotoPlus at our online store

There are a multitude of ways to sharpen images in Adobe Photoshop – one of the best photo editing software suites on the market. But by applying the High Pass Filter in Photoshop CC, you can selectively paint a sharpening effect onto your images. This means you can choose where to sharpen your image, likely your focal point. 

The advantages of this include the ability to direct your viewer's gaze, since they'll be naturally drawn to the sharpest area of the image, while also limiting the sharpening effect to where it's needed. This is particularly helpful if you're working with a shallow depth of field or motion blur, since you're unlikely to want to sharpen these ethereal areas of the frame. Sharpening can also accentuate noise, so the ability to apply it sparingly in low-light shots is invaluable. 

Another plus of sharpening in an indestructive manner on layer-based editing software is that you can change the Blending Mode and opacity of your sharpening layer right up until you decide to export your image. So, if you want to selectively sharpen a set of images? Here's how to do it… 

1. Add the High Pass Filter

Open your chosen image in Adobe Photoshop CC. Duplicate the background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) and select Filter>Other>High Pass. Move the Radius Slider until your subject's outline is barely visible on the gray overlay – I usually find around 1.8-2.0px works well – and hit OK.

2. Change the Blending Mode 

Change the Blending Mode to Vivid Light. This will remove the gray overlay, but increase the contrast of any edges to sharpen the image. You can lessen the intensity of the sharpening effect by reducing the layer opacity or changing the Blending Mode to Hard Light, Overlay or Soft Light. If you're unsure, Overlay represents a good middle ground.

3. Apply a layer mask

Select the 'Add layer mask' icon and invert the mask (Cmd/Ctrl+I). Paint over and 'sharpen' your subject with a soft, white brush. The red overlay (\) indicates what you have sharpened – switch to a black brush if you want to remove parts of the mask.

That's all there is to it. Add a High Pass Filter, change the Blending Mode and apply an inverted layer mask to selectively paint the sharpening effect, only onto the areas of the image you want sharpened.

You may also be interested in switching seamlessly between Lightroom and Photoshop, or the best free photo editing software that's available.

Unless you're fluent in the best photo editing software on the market, there's a good chance you've avoided the saturation vs vibrance debate. After all, they both ostensibly do the same thing. Heck, you might use them interchangeably, depending on your mood or you might ignore one of them altogether. 

If either scenario sounds at all familiar, chances are you've been favoring the saturation slider and leaving vibrance to its own devices. Fledgling image editors quickly learn to boost shadows, reduce highlights, add a drop of contrast and sparingly boost saturation. Vibrance is more of an intermediate tool, but it's an easy one to grasp. 

The difference between the two sliders is relatively simple. And once you know it, you're almost certainly going to start adding vibrance into your editing regime... 

You see, saturation boosts all of the colors within an image equally, whereas vibrance favors boosting the saturation of less-dominant colors within an image. Say – for example – you have a photo of a person holding a bright red umbrella in an otherwise dull street and you want to boost that dull street. Boost the saturation slider and the red umbrella may clip long before you reach the desired saturation levels in those duller areas of the image. This is the perfect time to use the vibrance slider, which will allow you to boost the dull surroundings much more intensely before the red umbrella eventually clips.

Vibrance is also much kinder on skin tones. The image at the top of this article illustrates this well. Even boosted to 100% the model's skin tone has been more or less preserved. However, with the saturation boosted to 100%, the skin tone has been pushed noticeably too far. 

Of course, you can also use vibrance to desaturate an image. In this instance it will still prioritize less dominant colors and you may find that even at 0%, you can still see remnants of the punchiest hues. 

But this isn't to say you should ditch the saturation slider altogether. Personally, I like to use the two sliders in tandem. If I want to boost punchier colors in an image, I’ll start by boosting the vibrance to bring the flatter colors into contention. Then, if I still think the overall image needs a boost, I'll bump up the saturation.

Vibrance sliders can be found in a variety of editing suites including Adobe Lightroom CC , Photoshop CC and Photoshop Express, as well as Affinity Photo 2.

There used to be a variety of reasons why you'd switch from Lightroom CC to Photoshop CC, but the line between two of the best photo editing software packages has become increasingly blurred. 

This is largely thanks to once-exclusive functions in Photoshop – such as masking and cloning – making their way into Lightroom, giving Adobe CC users fewer and fewer reasons to enter the post-production giant’s flagship photo editing suite. But for more complicated photo edits that require layer-based tweaks or specific editing tools, Photoshop still reigns supreme. 

As such, you may find yourself performing simple tonal edits in Lightroom and importing your image into Photoshop for additional tweaks. But did you know, you can return said image to Lightroom once you're finished? Best of all, it doesn't matter whether you're using Lightroom Classic – like me – or Lightroom CC, the process is the same. Here's how to do it…

1. Move from Lightroom to Photoshop

If you're used to editing in Lightroom you're probably aware that, by right-clicking on your chosen image in the Filmstrip, you can select Edit in > Edit in Adobe Photoshop 2024. Alternatively, you can simply right-click on the image itself and select the same menu options. 

You may receive a dialogue box; if so, ensure that 'Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments' is checked. This will import the image in question directly into Photoshop, with any changes you've made in Lightroom, so you can continue your editing workflow seamlessly.

2. Move from Photoshop back into Lightroom

What you might not know is that you can reverse the process by importing the image back into Lightroom with your Photoshop changes still intact. To do this you simply select File > Save or File > Close > Save. 

Hitting 'Save As' used to be a recipe for disaster, but recently I've found that hitting 'Save As' and saving a TIFF, Photoshop or Large Document Format file works, even if you change the file name. However, I personally avoid doing this as I've found in the past that renaming a file can break the link to Lightroom.

3. Continue editing in Photoshop 

Once your image is safely back in Lightroom, you'll notice that a copy has been made with the Photoshop changes – so your original Lightroom edit is still available. You're now free to continue editing the copy and can even import the copy back into Photoshop for further tweaks, if you so wish. 

So there you have it. If you didn’t already know about this painfully simple tip, it might just revolutionize your photo-editing workflow in Adobe CC.

DxO PhotoLab 8 is DxO’s flagship photo editor, combining image browsing and organizing with advanced non-destructive editing of both raw files and JPEGs. Its key features are its AI-powered DeepPRIME XD2s noise reduction process and bespoke lens correction profiles, both improved in this version. It's one of the best photo editing software tools on the market.

DeepPRIME XD2s is the latest iteration of DxO’s denoising and detail enhancement process. It denoises and demosaics raw file data at the same time to give the best possible results. DxO says PhotoLab 8’s version is the best yet, and it works here alongside improved lens softness algorithms. DxO’s unique custom-made lens correction profiles don’t just correct distortion, corner shading and color fringing, they also counteract the edge softness almost all lenses exhibit towards the edges of the frame.

One of the limitations of the DeepPRIME process is that it is pretty hardware-intensive, so it’s not possible to display the effect in real time while you’re editing. DxO has got round that in PhotoLab 8, however, with a new Preview panel which can be displayed in two sizes and different magnification levels. This does allow a preview of the DeepPRIME effect almost instantaneously, and gets its own button on the toolbar.

Other improvements in DxO PhotoLab 8 included a new and improved Tone Curve panel which displays a histogram in the background and has a Tone Picker gadget for dragging up and down directly on key areas of the image. You can now enter numerical input/output values directly. These enhancements put PhotoLab’s Tone Curve tool on the same level as Lightroom’s Tone Curve adjustments – but PhotoLab goes further, with a new Luma channel adjustment for brightness values only.

PhotoLab also has very unusual and powerful U-point local adjustment and masking tools, and these get a further boost in PhotoLab 8 with a new Hue Mask option. You can select a specific hue range within the image and then use the regular masking tools to restrict the mask to specific areas or objects.

DxO is also promising multiple performance enhancements and bug fixes in this latest version.

DxO PhotoLab 8 is available now. It comes as a full-powered Elite version (recommended) or as a cheaper but less powerful Essential version. Full pricing is below:

• DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite full version: $229 / £209
• DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite upgrade: $109 / £99T

• DxO PhotoLab 8 Essential: $139 / £129
• DxO PhotoLab 8 Essential upgrade: $75 / £65
• DxO PhotoLab 8 Essential ‘uplevel’ to Elite version: $99 / £89.

There is also a 30-day free trial if you haven’t used PhotoLab before and want to try it out before committing.

DxO PhotoLab 8 is the latest version of DxO’s flagship photo editing software. It’s an interesting alternative to Adobe Lightroom and Capture One, with perhaps a little less emphasis on photo organizing and cataloguing tools and a lot more on high-quality raw processing. In fact, if you shoot raw files in order to get the best possible quality from your camera, then DxO PhotoLab 8 definitely needs to be considered amongst the best photo editing software applications for the job.

PhotoLab 8’s key features include DxO’s proprietary DeepPRIME noise reduction and detail enhancement process, which can achieve amazing results with high ISO images, and its lab-derived lens correction profiles, which don’t just correct distortion, corner shading and chromatic aberration, but also the progressive loss of sharpness towards the edges of the frame shown by most lenses.

PhotoLab 8 also has powerful local adjustment tools and masking options. These don’t follow the current trend towards AI subject recognition but instead use DxO’s own U-point masking technology, which is a very different, but very powerful alternative.

PhotoLab 8 comes in two versions. We’re reviewing the Elite version, but there is a cheaper Essential version. This does not have all of the advanced tools in the Elite version, though. You can check the pricing and upgrade options below.

DxO also publishes the Nik Collection, DxO FilmPack and DxO ViewPoint. You can launch the Nik Collection plug-ins, if installed, direct from PhotoLab 8, while the FilmPack film simulation and ViewPoint perspective correction tools will integrate directly with the PhotoLab interface, as well as working as standalone applications and plug-ins.

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite: What’s new?

DxO PhotoLab appears to be on an annual upgrade cycle, so the burning question is what’s new in PhotoLab 8 to make it worth upgrading to? That will depend on which version you are on a the moment, but here are the key changes:

PhotoLab 8 now comes with an improved DeepPRIME XD2s denoising process. At first glance it does appear to offer some slight gains in performance if you look closely, but it does feel like an evolution rather than a breakthrough. For the record, DeepPRIME XD was already so good at noise reduction and detail enhancement that it hardly left any room for improvement.

If you use a Fujifilm camera with an X-Trans sensor, though, like many of the best Fujifilm cameras, you’ll still be restricted to the original DeepPRIME XD process. That’s also very good, but apparently the X-Trans color filter array is trickier to work with than a regular bayer layout, so this is still a work in progress.

DxO is also claiming improved lens softness correction via an updated algorithm, to produce images with no color fringing or artifacts. My test so far do seem to show slightly better results at the edges of the frame – though again, this will depend on your cameras, lenses and how closely you look.

DxO’s DeepPRIME processing offers exceptional results. The one issue that it’s hardware-intensive and can’t be displayed in real time – you need to export a processed image to see the effect.

That hasn’t changed, but DxO has added a large preview ‘loupe’ which can show DeepPRIME effects with very little delay, and this is a huge improvement over the tiny preview display in the Denoising panel which was all you had to go on before.

The Tone Curve panel gets a major update in PhotoLab 8 too. It now offers both Luma and RGB curve adjustments – adjusting the Luma curve changes the contrast but not the saturation – and, even better, there’s now a Lightroom-style Tone Picker tool you can use to drag directly up and down on areas of the image to create and shift a tone curve point for that tone. The Tone Curve panel also now displays a histogram.

DxO continues to develop its already powerful U-point masking tools, and in PhotoLab 8 it adds a Hue Mask tool for selecting specific colors within the mask area. However, PhotoLab 8 does not include the elliptical and polygonal masking tools we’ve seen in Nik Collection 7.

On top of these new features, DxO is highlighting a new Compare mode, faster and better scrolling and display for LUTs, faster image loading and various bug fixes.

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite : Price and availability

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite is sold only as a perpetual license and is not available on subscription. This will please subscription haters, though it should be noted that PhotoLab is updated annually, so if you do want to keep up with the latest version you will need to keep paying upgrade fees, so there is still an ongoing cost of ownership – though you can of course skip versions.

PhotoLab 8 Elite costs $229 / £209 for new users and $109 / £99 as an upgrade for existing users. There is also a 30-day free trial if you haven’t used it before and want to try it out before committing.

PhotoLab 8 Essential costs $139 / £129 for new users and $75 / £65 as an upgrade for existing users. If you do decide to ‘uplevel’ to the Elite version later, that will cost $99 / £89.

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite: Interface and usability

PhotoLab 8 does have a more technical appearance than many photo editors, especially Lightroom, but its interface is organized on a similar basis.

There are two main operating panels. The PhotoLibrary panel is where you can browse all your folders, view image thumbnails and create Projects (albums) for specific photo collections. The PhotoLibrary also has some effective search tools, where you start typing what you’re looking for and the search box automatically starts matching this to picture information such as EXIF shooting data and filenames. It’s not as sophisticated as programs like Lightroom or Capture One, but much more powerful than a simple file browsing tool like Adobe Bridge.

The main editing work is done in the Customize window, where you also get access to all of PhotoLab 8’s editing and local adjustment tools in the right sidebar. These are quite deep and technical-looking the first time around, but DxO has steadily improved the tool organization so that now related tools are organized into tabs for exposure adjustments, color adjustments, detail and more. There’s also a search box to help you quickly find the tools you need.

However, you can use PhotoLab 8 very effectively without getting drawn into any complex adjustments at all. One of its key features is that it will automatically detect your camera and lens combination and apply (or download) a correction profile to optimize it automatically. You can also choose from a selection of preset effects for an instant ‘look’.

All of PhotoLab 8’s adjustments are non-destructive, so you can go back at any time to make changes. You can also create Virtual Copies to try out different adjustments or looks on an image without having to duplicate the file.

You will need to export/process images to share them. You can create regular TIFF or JPEG images, or output a part-processed Linear DNG file with all of DxO’s lens corrections and denoising applied, ready for use in another program, where it will look and behave exactly like a regular raw file, with all the extended tonal and color information intact – though  if this is all you want to do, you might be better off with DxO’s raw batch processor, PureRAW 4.

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite: Performance

PhotoLab 8’s DeepPRIME XD2s processing is simply spectacular. What it can do with the raw files from older cameras or raw images shot at high ISOs on any camera can leave you rubbing your eyes with disbelief. When you combine its exceptional denoising capabilities with its powerful and effective lens corrections, you have a tool that can dramatically elevate the performance of even quite mediocre camera gear. In fact, the more ‘average’ your gear, the bigger the improvement. Some of the best DSLRs, for example, are a few years old now, but PhotoLab 8's processing and lens corrections brings their image quality right up to date.

It’s not an instant process, though. While PhotoLab 8’s regular adjustments take place in real time, just as with any other photo editor, its DeepPRIME process takes a few seconds, even on a faster computer. This means that you can’t just zoom in and out of an image as you work to see the effect of the DeepPRIME process. However, in this version, the new, large preview window is an effective solution, meaning that you can examine large sections of your image in real time as you work to see how the DeepPRIME process will render your image. You no longer have to export it to find out.

DxO PhotoLab 8 does not have quite the same range of presets as programs like Lightroom, Capture One or ON1 Photo RAW, for example, but it definitely rewards a more considered, manual approach. Its local adjustment tools are particularly effective and, once you get your head around their particular way of working, the U-point control points in particular let you enhance areas and objects in a very fast and intuitive way. 

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite: Verdict

DxO PhotoLab 8 will appeal most to photographers who shoot raw and are happy with a more painstaking approach towards image quality – and if that’s a key priority for you, then PhotoLab definitely delivers. The results that can be achieved from raw files are simply spectacular..

If, on the other hand, you process dozens or hundreds of images at a time following a shoot, and you’re more interested in a consistent style and a rapid, easy workflow, then you’re probably better off with Lightroom or Capture One.

Photographers’ needs do vary, and not everyone can be bothered with pixel peeping. But once you’ve seen what DxO PhotoLab can do with lens corrections, detail rendition and noise removal, it can be hard to go back to a regular photo editor.

DxO PhotoLab 8 Elite: Alternatives

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They say sequels are never better than the originals. But have ‘they’ watched films like The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, or Terminator 2: Judgment Day? It can be the same with camera sequels. The EOS 5D Mark II was a huge improvement on the original 5D DSLR, and now the same can be said about the new EOS R5 Mark II. 

"I can say with confidence, the new Canon EOS R5 Mark II is the most impressive camera I’ve ever had the pleasure of shooting with. It’s not just the tech updates, which include unbelievably intelligent AF tracking and better Eye Control AF to capture wildlife on the move, plus new Action Priority and Registered People Priority AF modes to help you easily keep up with fast ball sports," says PhotoPlus editor Peter Travers. 

"The R5 Mark II also boasts clever AI algorithms and deep learning for In-Camera Upscaling – so you can turn 45MP images into massive 180MP monsters! Ideal if you need to crop an image heavily, but still need a good-sized hi-res image full of pixels," he says. We go in-depth into it all in our complete guide to the Canon EOS R5 Mark II, including our final test verdict.

New Canon camera skills!

Also inside, our lucky PhotoPlus Apprentice heads up north to capture beautiful landscape photos in the delightful Yorkshire Dales, with top tuition from Canon pro Paul Grogan.

In Canon Skills, there’s more photo projects for you to check out, including how to photograph garden veg, and make a splash with your tennis action shots, plus there are new image-editing tutorials, all with free video guides!

We chat to the wonderful wildlife photographer Ellie Rothnie about becoming a Canon Ambassador and her rise to the top. 

Plus new Photo Stories, My Kit, Canon School and EOS SOS, and in Super Test, we review eight of the best telephoto zoom lenses.

Don’t miss your free Teach Yourself Action Photography ebook worth £15.99 – download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user. 

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Tablets sit in a strange place these days and have lost the explosive growth they saw in their early days. But this hasn’t stopped computer manufacturers from producing ultra-portable and lightweight hybrid tablets and laptops with Microsoft leading the way with its Surface line.

The Asus ProArt PZ13 is a direct competitor aimed at creatives on the go, offering a fantastic OLED screen alongside AI-powered processing. It’s undoubtedly a powerful device considering its impressively svelte and lightweight design, but it offers nowhere near the power of the Asus ProArt PX13 and the Asus ProArt P16.

That said, it is a Copilot+ PC for creatives who need a small and lightweight device for photo and video editing on the go. The PZ13 offers the form and function of a tablet alongside the convenience of a laptop with the processing power required for general editing tasks.

The small screen and lack of compatibility with some creative software such as Adobe Lightroom Classic are frustrating, although Lightroom CC and Photoshop are compatible, do reduce its useability. But to be fair you can get most of the tasks you need completed with the PZ13.

I love small and portable devices, including cameras, for obvious reasons. In most cases, you do have to make a handful of concessions because, with a smaller size, limitations of one kind or another are inevitable. The PZ13 makes up for this with a comfortable-to-use detachable keyboard and the Asus Pen that allows you to use it as a pen display/graphics tablet.

Asus ProArt PZ13: Specifications

Asus ProArt PZ13: Price

The Asus ProArt PZ13 is available to buy now, and although the marketing says up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage, this is the standard spec available at the time of writing. A lower spec in these regards would be debilitating for creatives so it would be surprising if lower-end models are released.

The PZ13 costs $1100 / £1200 and is also a whisker less expensive than the Surface Pro, Copilot+ PC (11th Edition), which is the closest Surface model available and direct competitor. This suggests the PZ13 is well priced when you consider that the Surface is the 2-in-1 market leader. Plus, the build quality and overall performance of the PZ13 that’s on offer, which we’ll cover in more detail later, can’t be faulted.

Asus ProArt PZ13: Design & Handling

I have to confess that I’ve always had a soft spot for 2-in-1 laptops/tablets, mostly down to their compact size and lightweight which make them the most capable balance between these two types of devices. I also have to admit that I don’t own one, simply because I prefer the processing power available with more traditional laptops, at the expense of portability in comparative terms.

The PX13’s footprint is similar to a sheet of A4 paper and is 0.35in / 90mm thick with a weight of just 0.85kg / 1.87 lbs. It’s undoubtedly small and portable, but the build quality like all of the ProArt range oozes quality. Asus claims it can perform in extreme environments up to 70°C and as low as -30°C, and has been tested against all sorts of situations most people wouldn’t subject a device to.

It’s also rated against water and dust ingress to IP52, so with all this in mind you should be able to use the PZ13 pretty much anywhere and in most weather conditions. The weak point would have to be the screen in the case of a drop, but the included detachable keyboard and rear stand that act as a case might provide some protection here.

The Asus Pen can be stowed in the rear part of the case, which doesn’t magnetically latch onto the PZ13 quite as well as you’d hope when in stand mode, but it works. The Asus Pen works well in place of a mouse and comes into its own for photo and illustration software where the PZ13 is transformed into a pen display. In tablet mode, you have no physical keyboard, but if the keyboard is attached you can lay the screen and the keyboard flat to use keyboard shortcuts or use the rear stand.

The keyboard itself is comfortable to use, but not so much so that you’d want to use it all day for typing, just like any keyboard of this type. The size of the keys is good, although the Shift and Control keys are small like the other ProArt laptops. There’s also backlighting, which is a great feature for typing in low-light or dark environments.

The main downside to the PZ13 is the lack of ports, which to be fair is unsurprising given the small size of the device. What you do get are two USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C that support power delivery and display, alongside an SD card reader. Yes, you read that correctly, the PZ13 has an SD rather than a microSD card slot. You even get a microSD adaptor in the box.

This means that you’ll have to use a USB hub if you need to attach any USB-A devices, or a USB-C hub if you need to attach more than two USB devices or more than one if you’re charging or running from power. This isn’t out of the ordinary for this type of 2-in-1 and is essentially what you sign up for when you purchase one.

There are front and rear-facing cameras with the front 5MP /1440p camera aimed at video streaming / video calls and Windows Hello face recognition. Image quality is fine for these purposes but not great for taking photos, as you might expect. The rear camera is 13MP and can capture video in 4K. Quality is much better as you’d expect, but JPEG processing is heavy on both, especially in low-light situations.

Asus ProArt PZ13: Performance

For general tasks such as web browsing, typing, and watching movies, the PZ13 sails through these and the ability to use it in tablet mode makes the latter a clutter-free experience. When it comes to editing photos and videos, it has the power required but with only 16GB RAM and no discreet GPU, it’s not going to blow you away. It’s capable, but certainly not commanding in this respect.

Capable is good though, don’t get me wrong, and the Snapdragon X Plus X1P 42 100 Processor with AI capabilities does a stellar job in most situations. Using Photoshop and Lightroom CC, since Lightroom Classic is incompatible, I was able to do everything I needed to in terms of photo editing but more intensive processing tasks require patience. For example, applying Super Resolution in Adobe Camera Raw, where file size is quadrupled, took a whopping three minutes and 34 seconds.

The overall size of the PZ13 means that it’s not a device I’d want to use all day every day as my main computer, but on the go, it can get the job done. Running Davinci Resolve 19 (Windows ARM 64 version), The PZ13 was able to run the software, which is optimized for this type of device, although it’s much slower than a more powerful laptop. Outputting a 10-minute 4K video at best quality settings took 43 minutes, which is a long time.

The PZ13 was also tested with Geekbench and Cinebench, although the latter was unable to perform tests because the Snapdragon X Plus CPU doesn’t have AVX2 instruction support. For Geekbench, however, it scored 2369 for single core, 11218 for multi-core, and 9598 for graphics. It’s middle of the road, but not a bad score when you consider just how small and thin the PZ13 is, and how tightly packed the components are.

The 3K (2880 x 1800) 13.3-inch OLED touchscreen is small yet sufficient for a device of this type, but the on-screen image is fantastic. Asus claims it can display 100% of the P3 color space, and when calibrated using a Spyder XPro it was displaying 97% P3, 95% Adobe RGB 1998, and 99% sRGB, which is good enough for color-critical work. And as an end note, the sound quality is absolutely fine but not as good as the ProArt P16.

Asus ProArt PZ13: Verdict

The Asus ProArt PZ13 is never going to be your everyday computer if you’re a creative, simply because it lacks the processing power that’s currently available in higher-spec machines. More intensive tasks require time and patience because processing times certainly aren’t short, but what you might call standard laptop tasks are fine.

The thing with this device is that it’s not designed to be a main computer; it’s small, lightweight, and highly portable which brings with it compromises in terms of processing capabilities. But for general photo editing tasks in Photoshop and Lightroom CC, it performs adequately and the Asus Pen allows it to be used as a pen display for more precise editing.

Alternatives

There has been a long-winded debate over many years since the iPad first came into existence, and when our mobile phones began to become more powerful: are even the best photo-editing laptops really necessary?

I've been a professional sports photographer for nearly 20 years and I always used a laptop – but since I've switched to street and documentary work, I began to realize that everything I do on my laptop can be done on my phone. 

In fact, its been just over a year since I have been exclusively editing all my images on my phone with Adobe Lightroom. And it's made me think: is the laptop dead for the working photographer?

I first began testing out the Adobe Lightroom app on the phone I was using at the time, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, and I was very impressed with the ease of use. Thanks to the Android system I was able to attach a USB-C to USB-A adapter, along with a small USB-A card reader, and export all my images from my SD card right to my phone and into Lightroom.

Most of my edits tend to be an adjustment to contrast, vibrance, or slight crops, and with my black-and-white for film and digital work it tends just to be little tweaks. And you know what? My phone does a much better job than my laptop ever could – and let me explain why.

First you have to understand my workflow, consisting of film and digital – more film than digital these days, which I've spoken about before on DCW. My digital work is simple: shoot, upload to phone, edit, and save to Dropbox ready to share to the masses when I feel like it.

Obviously shooting film has a few more steps, like developing it and then scanning it – but it's after that when my phone becomes the perfect solution over a laptop. When I have a digital file, I simply upload that into my Dropbox and then edit these scans of my negatives anywhere I am. 

Yes I could do this on a laptop, but there is something so intuitive about just being able to edit images on the train with no fuss, or in the coffee shop without being that clichéd photographer.

I tend to share all my images across social media platforms like Threads and Instagram, so your user experience might vary. But for me, my phone is more than able to cope with my Leica M-E digital files or my 30MP equivalent digital scans of my negatives – enabling me to be laptop-free forever.

Honestly, have you ever wanted to be able to share images you have just taken on your wonderful camera? You might think about things like WiFi or Bluetooth – they do exist on modern cameras, but they certainly don't on any of my film bodies!

So my only option is to upload images to a device to be able to share them – and seeing as I always have my phone on me, this phone-only workflow suits my style of editing and sharing images perfectly! 

I've seen many other photographers make the switch from a computer to an iPad and they say they have never looked back. And while I wouldn't mind a bigger screen to see my images on, a phone is good enough because guess what – everyone looking at my images is seeing them on a phone anyway! So if you think about it, it's the best way to view and edit them, as I will see them exactly how most users will see them too.

It has been just over a year now that I have not used my laptop to edit my images. And it's the freest and most liberating feeling, leaving the laptop and its bulkiness behind and just being able to shoot-edit-share in a seamless fashion. I even tried this method for three paid assignments, and 'the system' didn't put a foot wrong; I shot everything on my camera, uploaded the images to my phone, edited them, put them into a private Dropbox folder and emailed them off to the clients. Simple!

It's the ease of use that makes this editing setup fantastic, either for those in fast-paced environments or those that don't tend to edit their images a lot. And that's why I think the laptop is dead for the working photographer, as the phone and iPad killed it!

Take a look at the best iPads for photo editing and the best tablets for photo editing,  along with the best flip phones and fold phones. 

Our September issue 221 of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is on sale now, with a big subscriptions offer! Get a free Lowepro camera bag worth £29.99 PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

We’ve covered the big news from Canon with the new flagship Canon EOS R1, plus the new EOS R5 Mark II cameras! The rapid 30-40fps bursts, incredibly intelligent AF tracking, updated Eye Control AF, supported by a new DIGIC Accelerator processor, all made both the R1 and R5 Mark II cameras a total joy to shoot with when we tested them at Canon HQ. Find out more about these exciting cameras, and our early verdicts.

Also in this issue, in our Modern Landscapes guide, find out the correct Canon EOS cameras, lenses and accessories for capturing your best-ever scenic shots.

New Canon camera skills!

Our PhotoPlus Apprentice spreads his wings, as he learns how to take amazing photos of aircraft, check out the Hot Shots!

In our tasty Canon Skills section, we have new photo projects for you to try out, such as sports stroboscopic shots, and back-garden birds bathing, all with free video guides! Plus there are new Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo image-editing tutorials.

We speak to Polish landscape photographer Paweł Uchorczak on how he turned his passion into his career, and how he takes such atmospheric scenic photos – including this issue’s cover image!

Plus, there’s some great readers’ shots in Photo Stories, new Canon School and EOS SOS, And in Super Test, we test eight of the greatest lenses for landscape photography, for both Canon EOS DSLRs and EOS R cameras.

Don’t forget your free 146-page Photography Post Production ebook worth £15.99 – info inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user. 

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and get a free Lowepro camera bag, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month. 

Every issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

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Photographer and YouTuber Jared Polin, also known as Fro Knows Photo, has recently helped out another aspiring photographer as part of his Fund A Photographer project.

Started in 2021 in collaboration with Canon, Polin regularly gives away camera gear to aspiring photographers starting out in their careers.

The initial giveaway included 50 cameras and 50 lenses given to Polin by Canon, after he contacted them and shared his vision for Fund A Photographer. Think Tank Photo, ProGrade Digital, and Adobe also contributed bags, memory cards and Lightroom memberships. 

This time, Polin has a fresh batch of camera gear from Canon.

“We’ve got everything from Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, 5D Mark IV’s, even EOS R’s because we’ve entered the mirrorless world. But even better, every lens you could imagine, and we’re talking good lenses,” Polin said in a YouTube video.

Polin has everything from 8-15mm lenses, all the way up to the best Canon telephotos, like the 800mm f/5.6, as well as a range of Canon L-series lenses, to give away.

This time, Polin is focusing on Jeff Blount, a recent high school graduate. His teachers reached out to Polin before he graduated, “because one, they didn’t have a lot of gear and they wanted to get gear specifically for the kids, but they also they thought that Blount had great promise and was already starting to make some money, but could use a bit of help because his camera was broken.”

Polin said he got the high school seven bodies, lenses, and SD cards, which Blount used until recently, when Polin presented him with a special surprise.

“It’s been going great,” said Blount who likes to shoot sports and lifestyle sets, “been shooting a lot of content, a lot of pictures, and literally anything that has to do with a camera, I feel like I always got to be behind it or either in front of it just creating.

Thinking that his time with the gifted camera gear is nearly up, Blount said he would work towards buying more gear, maybe borrowing some from a friend and “staying busy.”

“Well the good news is that you’re not going to need to borrow anything from a friend because we got this, we’re stepping you up,” as he presents Blount with a Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, 24-70 f2.8 lens, and 70-200 lens, and a 200-400 lens.

“Well I really appreciate it, big time, this is really going to step my career up,” said Blount, “even if I’m not booked up working, just take a picture anyway.”

Make sure to keep an eye on Blount’s YouTube channel, and check out his photography on his Instagram page. If you know anyone who would benefit from some new gear, you can nominate them on the Fund A Photographer website.

Take a look at our guides to the best Canon cameras, the best Canon RF lenses, and the best cameras for beginners. 

Adobe has chosen World Photography Day to announce that it is launching Frame.io support for its Lightroom photo-editing software. The update will allow Lightroom to store images in their Lightroom library as they shoot - and allow them to collaborate over the cloud with someone, say, who is editing the images they are shooting at a wedding.

Adobe bought Frame.io back in 2021, when the cloud-based service was best known as a video-editing tool that allowed you to upload your footage as you shot it. But in the last three years it is increasingly being used as a photo-editing collaboration tool too. See our article on Frame.io – pricing, how you download it, and what is it

Frame.io is already fully integrated with Adobe Premiere and After Effects programs, but it is currently only enabled for Photoshop if you are a Creative Cloud Enterprise customers. Lightroom's Frame.io functionality will be available in Beta from today - making this online collaboration and back-up tool available to far more photographers. Cameras recently released by Fujifilm and Panasonic provide the necessary C2C (camera-to-cloud) support to enable integration with Frame.io.

"Simply pair your camera-to-cloud enabled camera to a Frame.io project and connect to Lightroom using your Adobe ID", says Julia Rickles, Senior Product Designer at Frame.io. "As you capture images, your photographs will automatically appear in Lightroom on desktop, mobile and web. Whether you are collaborating with another editor while you shoot or are simply looking for a direct path from your camera to Lightroom without moving a memory card or connecting a cable."

You can start using Frame.io for free, with 2GB of storage limited to two users for two projects. For unlimited projects, the monthly cost starts at $15. The Lightroom Beta will work with Frame.io v4 Beta which was announced at NAB in April.

See Adobe's blog announcing the new new Lightroom-Frame.io Beta for more detail.

• Other World Photography Day stories
• World Photography Day: what is it, and why is it today?
• World Photography Day: How Ansel Adams changed photography
• These are the best US camera deals I've found on World Photography Day
• These are the best UK camera deals I've seen on World Photography Day
  

Photo editing software rarely fails to capture the imagination with developers working hard to make their software stand out from the crowd. And, indeed, differentiate themselves from the market leaders who dominate this competitive sector. Zoner Photo Studio X is one such offering which proclaims itself as a Lightroom and Photoshop alternative, but one that's for Windows only.

The main difference here, and one that makes it similar in some ways to ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2024, is that it's all-in-one software offering a single interface made up of Modules. These modules provide image cataloguing, Raw processing, pixel-based editing, photo printing and even basic video editing. 

This streamlined approach to the interface is an interesting concept and one that could make it one of the best photo editing software options for beginners and intermediate photographers. I guess the main issue with Zoner Photo Studio X is that it's not that well-known at the moment, and that's always going to be a significant hurdle to overcome.

The software is intuitive and easy to use, especially if you already have experience with photo editing software. So much so, that you can pretty much hit the ground running with it if you're familiar with Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity Photo 2 and similar software. Absolute beginners will, however, still face the same steep learning curve they would with most editing software.

Zoner Photo Studio X: Specifications

Zoner Photo Studio X: Price

Zoner Photo Studio X is available with a yearly subscription that costs $59 or $5.99 per month, making it one of the more cost-effective subscription-based options available. But where it's different is that there's no limitation in the number of installs so you can have, but this is for one person. You even get some free photo prints thrown in as well as 20GB of Zoner Photo Cloud storage.

A family license is available for $5.99 per month and this allows members of a household to have their own Zoner account with access to the software. There's also the 'ZPS X: The Complete Guide to Photo Editing' PDF book which costs $29 and is available on the Zoner website. It may be useful, but this is pretty much the same price as a physical editing book, if not more expensive than many, so this does appear to be too expensive regardless of its usefulness.

Zoner Photo Studio X: Interface & Usability

The Zoner Photo Studio X is intuitively laid out and follows what you might call the standard layout most photo editing software uses, so there are no surprises here. As an experienced photo editor, I found it incredibly easy to use with the interface split into Modules with Manager, Develop, Editor, Print, and Video; these are all pretty much self-explanatory in terms of what each is for and you can skip seamlessly through these as your workflow demands.

The Manager section is where you can manage your images by selecting, rating, rejecting, inputting metadata, and then opening your shots into the desired part of the software. As standard, this uses a file tree on the left so you can access image folders on your computer or external drive, or you can import images to the Zoner Catalogue to take advantage of Smart Raw previews for higher resolution previews.

This works well, but if the Raw format being installed isn’t supported, the software suggests installing Adobe DNG Converter to expand Raw-loading support. Zoner Photo Studio X then has to be configured to work with the DNG Converter. Even if you don’t want this functionality, I found that when trying to edit Fujifilm Raw files without this functionality still required Adobe DNG Converter to be installed. So, while there's a fix for unsupported Raw files, which is great, it's still frustrating to have to install further software.

The most impressive part of the software is the Develop Module which provides professional-level control over adjustments. It's not as fully featured in terms of localized adjustments as Lightroom, but you ultimately have every control you need at your fingertips to edit your shots. The Print Module is just that, allowing you to print at home or to order prints online through the software. You can also create other types of prints including calendars, canvases, contact sheets, and more with ease.

The Editor Module is the equivalent of Photoshop where you can work with Layers, masks, and other pixel-based editing controls, but it's closer to Photoshop Elements in the level of control available. The Video Module is useful because it provides an easy-to-use video editor with the ability to also create slideshows and time-lapse videos from stills, but its functionality is limited. But it is still useful to have for basic video tasks. This Module can suffer from slowdowns, so it's not as smooth as dedicated video software.

Zoner Photo Studio X: Performance

With Zoner Photo Studio X, you can achieve high-quality edits so image quality isn’t an issue. While you don’t get the level of control available in Photoshop and Lightroom, there are enough controls, particularly in the Develop Module, to meet the needs of beginners and intermediate photographers. The Develop module is by far the best, but the Editor Module can require you to work on copies of the Background Layer due to the limited Adjustment Layers available.

The fact that this is also an all-in-one editing solution helps to maintain a streamlined and consistent workflow, which is never a bad thing regardless of your editing ability. But for beginners especially, only having to use one program to meet all of your editing needs in a single interface can make things easier.

The most advertised feature of Zoner Photo Studio X is that it offers True HDR editing when the software is used with the latest HDR monitors. To cut a slightly longer story short, this ultimately means you can enjoy greater detail when editing with more realistic tones and faithful color rendition. But to enjoy this functionality, you have to be using an HDR monitor or a laptop with an HDR screen.

The main downside here is that although many higher-spec laptops these days come with HDR-enabled screens, as is the case with mine, turning on HDR reduces the color gamut of the monitor so I always edit in SDR for more accurate colors. You can buy wide gamut HDR monitors, and if you already have one, fantastic, Zoner Photo Studio X will be great in this department. But if not, these monitors are expensive when compared to wide gamut SDR options, which are expensive in their own right.

As someone who has been editing photos professionally for many years using SDR monitors and has a high-end professional monitor, I certainly don’t feel the need to rush out to replace it with a wide gamut HDR monitor to take advantage of this feature. However, when upgrade time comes around, and these monitors are the standard, they will inevitably reduce in price.

Zoner Photo Studio X: Verdict

Zoner Photo Studio X is an interesting offering and the affordable price of subscriptions will no doubt be attractive to beginners and intermediate users. I don’t think that it has what it takes to prise professional users away from Adobe and Capture One, but at the same time the Develop Module offers an impressive array of tools and controls.

These aren't quite at the level of professional software, but since this software is clearly aimed at a different audience it shouldn’t be a problem. The most important aspect of the software is that it does everything beginners and intermediate users need, and more, all in one intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

Looking into new software takes a little thinking outside of the box, especially when you're presented with something new that you may not have heard of, but don’t forget that this is Windows-only software so it's limited in terms of operating systems.

Alternatives

Watch video: Props, Pose, Party!

Photo booths have become hugely popular and you’ll often see professional setups at big events. But with a few simple skills, a DIY booth can yield results that are just as good. If you want to set one up – perhaps for a wedding or family party – you’ll find all you need to know to get started over the following article.

A photo booth could be as simple as placing a phone in selfie mode on a tripod. But there are ways to make the booth more polished and dynamic. First there’s the lighting, a couple of studio strobes allows for professional, flattering light that can illuminate groups large and small. Then there’s the user experience. A Live View monitor can make it easier for guests to get into the right position, and a large display for viewing the photos afterwards can give them instant gratification.

If you want to give guests access to the photos then, for a simple solution, you could do as we have here and set up a cloud-based image folder and a QR code so they can instantly see photos on their phones (this gives access to all the photos, so it’s best suited to an event where everyone knows one another).

Unless you want to be standing there supervising all night, you also need the booth to be simple for people to use – and robust enough to withstand users who might have had a few drinks. It can be a challenge to set up, but it’s worth it for the fun, laughter and selection of priceless photos you’ll help to create. 

1. Use an HDMI monitor

An external camera monitor that shows the Live View feed will allow people to see themselves and get into position (it also saves on camera battery). We used a Viltrox 550 Pro monitor, connected via HDMI. Of course, if your camera has a flip screen you could simply turn this to face people instead.

2. Change the image quality

Compose the frame and set your camera to shoot in JPEG at medium quality. This will mean smaller file sizes, so it will be quicker for images to upload to the cloud and easier for guests to view and download. If your camera allows you to reduce the resolution with a DX crop factor, consider setting this too.

3. Tether to the cloud

We can tether the camera to the laptop and direct to Lightroom to save images to the cloud-based folder. We used Google Drive to create an online folder. This folder also appears as a regular folder on our laptop hard drive (install Google Drive for desktop). This way, they appear online moments after shooting.

4. Instant phone access

We can generate a QR code that links to the Google Drive folder so that people can instantly access the photos on their phones. Set permissions for the folder so everyone can view, then copy the share link. Search for ‘Adobe free QR’ in Google and paste the link into the generator to create a QR code.

5. Set eye-detect autofocus

If your camera has it, enable facial detection and turn on continuous AF. This way the camera will continually track, looking for eyes as they enter the frame. If your camera doesn’t have this, make a mark on the floor where people should stand, pre-focus on someone on this spot and switch to manual focus to lock it.

6. Keep things running

In order to keep the booth going until the early hours and the guests coming back for more, be sure to disable sleep mode on the camera and laptop. Always turn off exposure simulation when using flash. Keep a few spare batteries on hand for the camera and check and change them every hour or so.

7. Make a balloon arch

Create a backdrop for your photo booth. We found that balloon arch is a great way to make a frame for people to pose in. We bought a set from Amazon for only $12, which we attached to a couple of light stands (equally it could simply be fixed to a wall).

8. Provide props

Props and dress-up items can add an extra dose of fun to a photo booth. Here we arranged a table next to the booth with an array of wigs, funny glasses, toys, blow-up guitars, microphones, boxing gloves and other fun items. Some may appear on the dance floor later on!

9. Signs and instructions

Leave simple instructions so that people will know where to stand, what to press and where to look. If you’ve created a cloud folder then add the QR code too. Make it clear in the booth instructions that the folder will allow access to all the photos from all guests taken on the night.

10. Lighting setup

Here’s a summary of our photo booth set-up.
[1] First we set the camera up on a tripod  
[2] Next we attach a Speedlite to fire our studio strobes .
[3] We set up an HDMI monitor displaying the Live view feed to help guests get into position .
[4] We attach a wireless remote shutter release and transmitter that people can press to take the shot
[5] Next we set up two studio strobes with white umbrellas set to optical trigger so that they fire on detecting the Speedlite
[6]. We attach the camera to a laptop and tether using Lightroom, then tuck it away under a table
[7] A large display is set up on the table and connected to the laptop as a dual monitor, with Lightroom set to display images full screen as they are taken
[8] The images are uploaded to a Google Drive folder so people can instantly access them on their phones using a QR code
[9] Finally, we place a box over the camera to stop people touching it, with openings for the Live View monitor, lens and Speedlite on top of the camera.

If you're serious about scenery, take a look at the best cameras for landscape photography along with the best lenses for landscapes.

We’re beginning to see some real-world examples of AI-generated content’s utility go mainstream, thanks in part to the weight of companies like Adobe and OpenAI going all out to bring generative AI technology to the masses.

A year after its release, the latest iteration of Adobe Firefly is starting
to look like a real contender as a tool for AI content. Not least because it sits as part of a rapidly evolving ecosystem in Adobe Creative Cloud, which has recently begun to introduce some paradigm-shifting generative AI features. Some of the most impressive things that are now available include AI object removal and editing for video in Adobe Premiere Pro, along with video clip extension and smarter selection tools within Photoshop and Lightroom. 

Now that Adobe is all in on generative AI, early predictions about AI’s promise
are turning into practical realities for creative professionals who use its tools.

I recently came across the work of filmmaker Paul Trillo, who is credited with creating the first music video using OpenAI’s text-to-video tech, Sora.

The video for the song The Hardest Part by indie artist Washed Out (see above) is a fascinating interpretation of the theme of being with someone and then moving on from that relationship. To depict this, Trillo deploys a technique he refers to as a ‘high-speed infinite zoom’, where the perspective of the video is of the viewer zooming into and through the scenes of these people’s lives. It’s a unique and thought-provoking aesthetic that would have been extremely difficult to achieve through conventional methods. 

Above: In this pop video, Trillo uses AI video generator Sora to produce a high-speed infinite zoom effect

Trillo has been at the cutting edge of film technique for many years and has built a reputation for pushing content creation technology to its limits. As well as the Washed Out video, he recently demonstrated some powerful practical uses for other AI tools to create VFX scenes, just like he did in his short film project Notes To My Future Self.

In the breakdown video below, Paul describes how “bad compositing comes from bad green screen lighting in which no one knows what the final background is going to look like”. He overcame that problem by generating backgrounds using Stable Diffusion and extending them with Photoshop, then upscaling them with Topaz Labs, Magnific and Krea to get them up to 8K resolution. 

He also used Runway Gen-2, a multi-modal AI system, to create moving elements in each scene, such as swaying branches or dynamic lighting. These details helped to sell the VFX illusion that each scene was grounded in the real world, despite being entirely AI-generated. 

What’s clear from Paul’s pioneering work is that the utility of these tools is undeniable. AI as creative aid is already helping people bring ideas to life that were far too impractical to shoot without an exhaustive budget and without wasting precious time on something that may not even work.

AI helps speed up the trial-and-error aspect of creation and reduces the cost of failure when it comes to exploring new ideas. That’s important because failing is a key component of success. 

Take a look at the best AI image generators. You might also like to read more of Jon Devo's Scanning Ahead blogs.

Our new July issue 219 of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is on sale now, with a big half-price subscriptions offer! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 110 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

In this issue’s big Canon travel photography guide, we teach you how to photograph everything on your holidays – whether you’re home or away. From people and places, wildlife and colourful events, to stunning travel landscapes, our travel tips will broaden your photographic mind. 

We also head to Donington Park race track, with the UK’s leading motorsports photographer Jakob Ebrey, and our PhotoPlus Apprentice, who learns how to capture fast action shots of a variety of motorsport cars.

New Canon camera skills!

Canon releases exciting new gear this month – and we get a hands-on experience with the new Canon RF 35mm lens and new Speedite EL-10.

In our amazing Canon Skills section, we have more new photo projects and image-editing tutorials to follow along, including how to capture atmospheric band photos, and local sports shots. All with free video guides.

It’s coming home… we speak to the brilliant Canon sports pro Eddie Keogh about his life as the official England football team photographer and more. He shoots! He scores! His photos are all winners!

We have inspiring Photo Stories from you, and in our Canon School we show you how to improve your lens performance, plus your technical questions answered in EOS SOS.

We also test eight of the best Canon-fit zoom lenses for your photo trips, whether weekend breaks and month-long travels overseas.

And don’t forget your free Teach Yourself Modern Landscape Photography ebook worth £17.99, download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user. 

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month. 

Every issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

• Readly (digital magazine subscription service)

• Follow us on Instagram!
• Join PhotoPlus on Facebook
• Follow PhotoPlus on X
• Subscribe to PhotoPlus at our online store

You’ve become something of a Lightroom expert, and you’ve even made a dent in Photoshop, getting comfortable with compositing and retouching. Not only that but you love the edit as well as shooting. You can do everything you need done. Or can you? 

The biggest fact in life about any subject, is that for a long time you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s only when you start to dig a lot deeper that you begin to see how much you still have to learn. Some of it is the Dunning-Kruger effect, and some of it is just knowing enough to get by.  

This could be stopping you from trying out plugins for Lightroom Classic or Photoshop CC. Even if you usually stick to Lightroom Classic, it’s worth going to Photoshop for plugins as you can use Smart Objects to let you edit plugin settings. 

What’s the biggest thing you spend, but can never get more of? Yes, it’s time, of course. Now, time doing things you enjoy is never wasted time, but making those things easier is definitely worth the time saving. Plugins can do a few things for you. Plugins that do a job faster, like the Retouch4Me plugins, can give you back precious time editing people and relieve the tedium of repetitive editing.

More importantly, plugins can make you more creative. Take Boris FX Optics or Corel Particleshop. Both allow you to add effects to your photo, taking you in directions that wouldn’t be able to do easily otherwise. Optics does both light effects and particle effects, while Particleshop does particles, but it in a very different way. The key element in both is fun. 

So how can you extend that knowledge? Well, most plugin makers have free trials. Some allow you to see the effect without saving, others will create a watermarked output, while others again give full use but for a limited time. This is one place where spending a little time to save you more is worth it.  

• Photography Tips & Photoshop Tutorials
• Photoshop tutorials: 100 editing tips
• 32 Lightroom tutorials to try today

Is your editing feeling a little jaded? Does your processing leave you feeling stale? Well buckle up, I’ve got something that’ll boost your photos, your editing and your creativity. Even more, you’ll inject a shot of fun into your computer time. 

Optics 2024, from Oscar-winning Boris FX, gives big-screen quality effects on your still images. After years of doing walkthroughs on hundreds of plugins, this is hands down my favorite plugin ever. 

Optics 2024 was created as a mix of the old Tiffen Dfx, which had cool gobo effects (drop gothic window light in anyone?), blurs, film stocks, and color grading combined with Sapphire and Particle Illusion, two of Boris FX’s popular movie plugins. The plugin suite works with Photoshop CC, Lightroom, or Photoshop Elements.

Sapphire: the editing gem

Sapphire is a light-generating engine that does everything from light leaks to night skies. Want a scene that has the night sky from the date on location you were born? No problem. Fancy a little JJ Abrams Star Trek lens flare on your nighttime portraits? Easy. Rays, sparkles, or vignettes? Again, all part of the fun. Or maybe Glow which adds a soft, ethereal light, enhancing portraits with a dreamy quality or making your landscapes appear otherworldly. 

Use your Particle Illusion

Particle Illusion provides powerful tools for adding dynamic particle effects. Imagine enhancing a dancer's leap with sparkling dust trails, creating a magical sense of motion. These effects are fully customizable, allowing you to adjust particle size, velocity, and color to enhance your creative vision. Fog, smoke and explosions sit alongside transporter effects and wormholes. Because this tool is video-based, you can choose frames in a timeline for a more unique effect. 

The Film Look

I love the concept of color grading like the movies but don’t know how to balance colors. Optics has you covered. Whether it’s choosing a film stock, damage, or cross-processing, Film Lab will come to the rescue.

Masking made EZ

You may not want effects on the whole image, and Optics has a range of masking options, like Paint, Gradient or Spot. The king of masking tools within Optics is EZ Mask. Left-click and paint where you want to keep, right-click for where you don’t want the effect, and EZ Mask will detect the transitions automatically. It’s especially useful for placing effects behind your subject. 

Step Back

Optics runs seamlessly as a Smart Object, so your photo can always be edited and tweaked in the future, effectively making it non-destructive. It also remembers your last edit, so if you’ve messed up and take the original image back into Optics, you can regenerate your layers and tweak again. 

I see the Light!

Boris FX Optics was love at first sight for me. The pristine lens flares, where you can build your lenses from scratch or modify existing ones, had me hooked immediately. Of course, that’s one of the 180 filters with thousands of presets to get you started. Take your editing in directions you never thought possible and inject that fun back into your post-processing with Boris FX Optics. 

• Photography Tips & Photoshop Tutorials
• Photoshop tutorials: 100 editing tips
• 32 Lightroom tutorials to try today

Our new June issue 218 of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is on sale now, with a big half-price subscriptions offer! 50% discount on UK subscriptions PLUS all print subscribers get FREE digital editions, with digital access to over 120 back issues worth over £90!

Here's what's in the new No.1 Canon Magazine + FREE videos + FREE ebook...

In this issue’s big Canon camera techniques guide, Canon pro Jeremy Flint teaches you how to master different lighting conditions for stunning landscape photos.

Canon photographer Anthony Sinfield teaches PhotoPlus Apprentice David how to take great close-ups of butterflies. 

New Canon camera skills!

In our cracking Canon Skills section, there are new photo projects and easy-to-follow image-editing tutorials, with free video guides! Including how to create multiple silhouetted portraits at sunset.

We interview the talented Canon photographer and content creator, Matthew Perks.

Special Photo Stories focuses on Canon’s incredible World Unseen campaign that opens up the world of photography to the visually impaired.

• There’s also our Canon School and EOS SOS sections, and in Super Test we test eight best macro lenses to suit your Canon EOS DSLR or EOS R mirrorless for proper close-up photos.

And don’t forget your free Outdoor Landscape & Nature Photography ebook worth £12.99, download details inside the mag.

We're the No.1 Canon magazine, written by Canon photographers, for Canon photographers, and we cater for every Canon EOS camera user. 

If you’re not a PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine subscriber already CLICK HERE to join our Canon crew and save 50% of new UK subscription, plus FREE digital editions to all print subscribers!*This also makes sure your copy is delivered to your door every month. 

Every issue of PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine is packed with essential Canon techniques, tests, tutorials and inspiration every issue – out now at all good newsagents and supermarkets.

Thank you for choosing PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine!

Back issues and digital editions

Limited back issues of PhotoPlus print editions are available on our MagazinesDirect secure store

Alternatively, we have a number of different digital options available:

• Apple app (for iPad or iPhone)

• Pocket Mags (mult-platform app, great for Android users)

• Zinio app (multi-platform app for desktop or smartphone)

• Readly (digital magazine subscription service)

• Follow us on Instagram!
• Join PhotoPlus on Facebook
• Follow PhotoPlus on X
• Subscribe to PhotoPlus at our online store

We have been wowed by the powers of Adobe’s generative AI across the company’s suite of apps, with AI popping up in video, graphics and photo applications to aid content editing and generation. According to Adobe, Firefly has been used to generate over 7 billion images worldwide across Adobe creative tools since its initial debut in March 2023. 

For photographers, we have been treated to some seriously impressive photo editing powers in Express and Photoshop apps for the last year or so now, from AI-powered object removal and replacement to Generative Expand imagining brand-new data around the edges of an image to increase the canvas size.

Adobe’s Lightroom software has so far felt a little left out of the AI party. So far very little of the company’s focus has been directed at what is perhaps its most beloved app by photo editors. That is about to change, however, as Adobe has unveiled the first Firefly-AI-powered tools in the Lightroom ecosystem – via Lightroom CC on mobile, desktop, iPad, and web, and Lightroom Classic.

The first new AI tool in Lightroom’s toolbox will be Generative Remove. Perfect for removing distractions from photos, Generative Remove empowers you to effortlessly eliminate unwanted objects without altering the original image. (As with all Lightroom edits, Generative Remove is non-destructive and can be undone in a click.) 

Generative Remove uses Firefly AI to replace the removed area with AI-imagined content that it hopes seamlessly matches the look and feel of the original image. 

Not stopping there, several other new features are also making their way to the software in the latest update. Lightroom’s AI-powered Lens Blur tool, which aims to artificially create the background blur of using a wide aperture lens, is now generally available after spending some time in an early access beta over the last few months. Adobe has added some all-new presets to the tool, giving more choice over the aesthetic blur effects applied to the photo.

Adobe is also expanding tethering support to Sony cameras, making it more of a seamless experience to shoot and capture images directly into Lightroom to speed up the import and editing process. Lightroom already supports tethering for Canon and Nikon cameras. 

HDR Optimization has been improved, which should enable anyone capturing HDR photos to edit and export their photos with brighter highlights, deeper shadows, and more vivid colors. Instant access to photo libraries in Lightroom mobile and desktop apps should also make getting into photo editing that much quicker. Finally, Lightroom’s mobile experience is improved with an all-new mobile toolbar to prioritize the most popular features, which should make it faster and more intuitive to edit.

The specter of AI will continue to make many creatives wary. For anyone worried about using AI content in their work, Adobe is keen to point out that Firefly is trained on licensed content, including Adobe Stock, and Firefly should generate content suitable for commercial use that does not infringe on copyright and intellectual property rights such as trademarks and logos. And, with Adobe being a founding member of the Content Authenticity Initiative, when using Generative Remove in Lightroom, Content Credentials will be automatically attached to photos edited with the feature.

All the features above including Generative Remove will be available today to all Lightroom users in an early access form. You can find the new updates in the Adobe CC app, or you can manually kick off the update in Lightroom under the ‘Help’ menu. 

For more choices in editing your images check out our guide to the best photo editing software.

I’ve tried every filter-adding app out there, from Instagram to VSCO. And I’ve been playing around with presets and filter tools in Lightroom for just as long. I even have a folder called "lens flares and light leaks" which I'll occasionally open in Photoshop when I need to jazz up a landscape image in a hurt. So what?

Despite all that, I still firmly believe in using the best filters over adding digital ones in the editing suite. The visuals are just better when you filter the light during capture, especially for creative effects. The results are more accurate. More realistic and more believable. But only if you have good quality glass. That’s why I was interested to try the relatively new Kenko Anamorflare filters, designed to replicate the characteristic flare you get from anamorphic lenses... without the cost and faff of actually using anamorphic lenses.

Kenko released its set of six Anamorflare filters in late 2023. It claims they help photographers and videographers to capture "impressive light rays without impacting your budget". Once mounted, you can capture and angle flare from strong light sources and recreate the look of your favorite cinematic movies in-camera. But are the results a gimmick, or do the Anamorflare filters have a place in the kit bag of creators? I tried them all to find out.

Kenko Anamorflare filters: Specifications

Kenko Anamorflare filters: Price

Kenko's Anamorflare filters come in six different flare colors: blue, green, yellow, red, clear, and rainbow. Currently, the filters are only available in an 82mm thread size, but you could use a stepping ring to convert them for different lenses. 

The filters aren't yet widely on sale in the US, but are available on Kenko's website for $109. In the UK the filters are available on Amazon for between £100-£120 at the time of writing. This sounded pricy to me at first, especially if you want to get a few for different colored flares. Similar alternatives (albeit from lesser-known names) also cost a third of Kenko's version. Still, I suspect you're paying for the brand, its associated quality, and the currently limited availability. And you'll spend much less sticking one of these filters on your lens than investing in an anamorphic lens setup.

Kenko Anamorflare filters: Build and Handling

The design of the Kenko Anamorflare filters will come as no surprise if you've ever used Kenko filters before, or circular polarizing filters, for that matter. The round, slim black frame is made from sturdy aluminum that doesn't feel like it would dent or bend easily. 

There's a thin textured thread on the inside of the filter to mount it onto your lens and a rotating ring on the exterior which you turn to angle the flare in an image (more on that later). Each filter contains straight lines across in the corresponding color to the flare produced.

Anamorflare filters only come in an 82mm thread size, which was ideal for testing with my Canon RF24-70mm F2.8 L IS USM lens but could be slightly limiting if you don't have a lens to fit already. I guess Kenko is still testing the appetite for these filters or a wide lens area is needed to create the pronounced flare effects.

Screwing the filter onto the lens takes seconds, and once it's on securely there's no way that you can unscrew it accidentally. I like that the filters are designed to allow a lens cap to sit on top so you can replace it and protect the filter in between shots. Changing filters is easy too, and Kenko provides a clip-shut rectangular plastic box with foam padding to store the filter in. It's not the most luxurious container, but it feels hardwearing and stows in a camera bag neatly.

Kenko Anamorflare filters: Performance

Once mounted, the Anamorflare filters work best when pointed toward a strong light source such as the sun, car lights, or streetlights. It doesn't need to be a direct light, and I got some pretty, diffused results when I used the rainbow filter and caught rays of light dappled through a woodland. The effect of the rainbow filter includes the colors you get when shooting through a prism, which makes sense. It's the filter I used and enjoyed the most,

I tested all six filters, including the clear, colored, and rainbow versions. It's hard to describe the visual results you get in one or two sentences, as these depend so much on the light source, and its strength and distance. But in the same situations, I found that each filter produced an equally strong light ray effect. The clear filter is best when you want neutral flares, such as in strong daylight, but I also found myself matching the filter color to the light source for a complementary effect.

One of the features of the filter is that you can alter the angle of the light beam by rotating the front element to change the direction of the lines on the filter. I found this very agile for angling the light around a subject but with the rainbow filter it also changed the order of the colors. I was pleased to note that none of the filters introduced a noticeable color cast or vignetting to my images, although Keno does suggest leaving the camera's White Balance in Auto mode for the best results.

The focal length affects the appearance of the light ray, and Kenko suggests using anything from 50mm and longer. That's because when you go wider than this the ray will distort and no longer appear as a straight line. Aesthetically, I don't have a problem with the curved flare lines, it just isn't necessarily something you'd get from a traditional anamorphic lens. Like all creative outputs, it's yours to make your own.

I did have a slight problem with the stripes appearing in the out-of-focus areas (the bokeh) which Kenko says is down to the structure of the filter. These aren't obvious unless you zoom in slightly and look for it, but once I'd noticed the effect, I found it quite irritating in my stills at wider apertures. And speaking of apertures, smaller apertures can break up the light rays, but I found I could shoot up to around f/8 without encountering this.

When you introduce creative filters onto the front of a lens, there's always a worry that it will impede the autofocus speed and accuracy. And I thought the filters' lines would cause my lens to hunt for the right subject. It's also difficult for any lens to focus onto a thick beam of light if that's where you're pointing it, but there were only a few rare instances where I struggled to lock on to the right target with the filters attached. When this happened, I simply shifted my focus position slightly and got a sharp, well-focused result.

Kenko Anamorflare filters: Verdict

If I'm assessing the Anamorflare filters purely on whether they do what they're designed to, I have nothing but praise. Each filter achieves a distinct and noticeable light ray when pointed toward a light source, and the ability to angle the ray allows you to tailor the shot to your subject - be it a portrait or a scenic. Changing the flare direction is also a cool effect when filming, and the filter rotation is just smooth enough to avoid camera shake (although it could do with a few notches for more control).

These filters add a distinct creative effect to your content, but it won't be for everyone. Some may find the flare effect too overcooked for their tastes and may lament the ability to remove it after a shoot. Generally, I found the filters upheld the quality of my telephoto lens well, which is another bonus for pros. For creators who love the look of flare and want to enhance the colors of lights in their stills and videos, I can see the Anamorflare filters being a great tool. Yes, you can add flare in post-production, but nowhere near as organically or intensely.

Alternatives

The DxO Nik Collection now consists of seven different plug-ins, five of which are designed to offer creative inspiration and effects, while two are more ‘corrective’ image enhancement tools. We call them plug-ins, and they can indeed be used from within Lightroom Classic, Adobe Photoshop, Capture One, DxO PhotoLab, and Affinity Photo, but they can also be used on their own as standalone applications.

We've long considered the Nik Collection to be one of the best photo editing software suites on the market, so what exactly do you get?

The creative plug-ins include Nik Color Efex, Silver Efex, Analog Efex, Viveza, and HDR Efex, and while there is a degree of crossover for black and white photography and color adjustments, each one is aimed at a particular style or genre of photography.

With Nik Collection 7, Color Efex becomes the principal photo editing tool, with its ability to apply over 50 different filter effects, combine them as presets, and mask each one with DxO’s fast and effective control point adjustments.

Color Efex 7 gets the lion’s share of updates in this version, with new preset management options, ‘dynamic’ filters which now include (improved) HSL controls, grain effects, and DxO’s own contrast-enhancing ClearView effect. It also has three new filters taken from the Viveza plug-in to extend its potential for image enhancement and effects.

The other plug-ins benefit from new control point options too, including the ability to reshape circular control points as ellipses and a new polygonal control point tool. It’s now possible to switch images to a different Nik plug-in while you work and to export a version of an image straight from the plug-in without having to return to the host program first.

Nik Silver Efex 7 specializes in black and white photography, with powerful tools and controls that reproduce the depth and richness of analog black and white photography, while Analog Efex 7 replicates the flawed, faded, and distressed look of old analog photos and adds in camera effects like double exposures, lens blur and bokeh.

HDR Efex 7 is little changed from previous versions but is a very effective tool for merging bracketed images into high dynamic range composites with a range of preset effects and manual adjustments. Viveza is a simpler tool aimed at color control and enhancement using both global adjustments and DxO control points for local adjustments.

Nik Dfine 7 and Nik Sharpener 7 are different and perhaps a little dated in their appeal. Dfine is a noise reduction plug-in that’s effective enough in a modest way but outclassed by today’s AI-drive raw denoising tools. Sharpener 7 is very good at ‘output’ sharpening for specific devices, but you can almost certainly do this in your host software too.

The plug-in missing from this release is Perspective Efex. This makes sense because there was always a rather confusing crossover (duplication, even) with DxO’s standalone ViewPoint software. Besides, most host programs like Lightroom Classic and Capture One have perfectly effective perspective correction tools of their own, which you can apply before or after sending images to the Nik plug-ins.

DxO Nik Collection 7: Price

DxO Nik Collection 7 is available to download now. The full version costs $159 / £145 (about AU$243), but existing users can upgrade for $89 / £79 (about AU$136). Alternatively, if you just want to see what it can do, there’s a 30-day free trial.

You do get a lot for your money. A new license will cost a little more than an annual Adobe Photography Plan subscription, but it’s cheaper than a Capture One license and in the same ballpark as other software tools. It’s also a perpetual license, so if you don’t need any of the new features in subsequent editions, you can use this one indefinitely. It doesn’t work directly with raw files, so it won’t be made obsolete by new cameras and lenses.

DxO Nik Collection 7: Interface and usability

Typically, the Nik plug-ins follow a standard modern layout, with presets in the left sidebar and manual controls, including local adjustments, on the right. There are differences in the details, though. Nik Color Efex 7 offers both individual filters and presets (combinations of filters) in its left sidebar, and the ability to change the stacking order of filters in the right sidebar – changing the order the filters are applied will change the appearance of the image.

Silver Efex 7 is slightly different in that the left sidebar has presets, but there are no filters as such, just adjustments you can apply in the right sidebar, and you can’t change the order – though that really doesn’t matter very much.

Analog Efex 7 has presets too, but not filters as such. Instead, it has different tools and effects under a ‘Camera Kit’ heading which you can select manually, and they then appear in the right sidebar where you can make detailed adjustments.

HDR Efex 7 is different again. In Lightroom, this has to be launched via the ‘Export’ menu rather than the ‘Edit in’ menu, and the interface layout is similar to Silver Efex, with presets on the left sidebar and manual tools on the right.

So while all the Nik plug-ins share the same family resemblance, they do operate slightly differently. It’s not a problem and you very quickly get used to it and think no more about it, but it’s worth pointing out that they are not identical.

If you’re launching them from Photoshop, you have another potential workflow. The Nik Collection installer adds a Nik Collection 7 palette which you can use to launch the plug-ins directly. There’s also a section for ‘Meta presets’, which are automated combinations of plug-ins and settings you can apply with a single click – though it’s a relatively small selection and you can’t create your own.

The Photoshop workflow is interesting because you can apply the Nik filters to Smart Objects, which means you can go back and change the filter settings later – it’s a non-destructive workflow.

But you can also achieve a non-destructive workflow from Lightroom and other host applications, or even when launching the Nik tools as standalone apps. There’s a non-destructive TIFF file option that does double the file size, but stores both the original image, the edited version, and the processing instructions needed to achieve it.

This non-destructive route is not new, but the plug-in switcher and quick export options are. These are genuinely useful additions to Nik Collection 7. They don’t change any of the creative options available, but they do make it possible to swap to another of the plug-ins if you realize you didn’t launch the best one for the job or to export one or more versions of your image while you’re still in the plug-in.

DxO Nik Collection 7: Quality of results

Nik Silver Efex enjoys a near-legendary reputation amongst black and white photographers for its ability to produce rich, dense, and dramatic black-and-white images. It also offers a set of tools that properly reflect the way photographers see and manipulate black-and-white images.

For me, though, Color Efex has always been the star of the show. Its filters are powerful, inventive, and genuinely useful day to day, and the range of permutations and presets you can create are practically infinite. The improvements in Nik Collection 7 make it better still.

I also love Analog Efex, though its presets can be a little heavy-handed and its sometimes odd photography jargon firmly rooted in the Google era – this is the one plug-in added by Google during its tenure before DxO took over. But what other tool gives you multiple-exposure effects, lens distortion, motion blur, and multi-lens effects like these?

I also like HDR Efex 7, though its HDR presets can look a little over the top by today’s standards. If you want naturalistic high dynamic range imaging, you are better off in a program like Lightroom, Capture One or Affinity Photo, where the HDR tone mapping is designed to be invisible, not exaggerated.

Viveza seems, to me, less valuable. It offers global and local color adjustments you can apply just as easily in Color Efex. Indeed, Color Efex 7 now includes three core components of Viveza as new dynamic filters.

Dfine seems a rather old-fashioned approach to removing noise in images that have already been processed. It can do a useful job on noisy old JPEGs, but if you shoot raw you would be better off with one of today’s raw denoising tools. Nik Sharpener 7, meanwhile, can apply subtle sharpening enhancements for printed output, but again seems a bit of a throwback to older ways of working.

DxO Nik Collection 7: Verdict

This review points out some inconsistencies in the Nik Collection 7 plug-ins and perhaps some areas for improvement. This might make it sound like a rather average sort of product. It isn’t.

The fact is, Color Efex 7, Silver Efex 7, Analog Efex 7 and even HDR Efex 7 are just so spectacularly good you could forgive the Nik Collection 7 anything. Viveza seems less useful and Dfine and Sharpener are distinctly old fashioned and limited. But who cares? Those first four plug-ins are so good they easily carry the rest.

These Nik Collection plug-ins are classic photo editing tools that have stood the test of time and then some. DxO has constantly updated them without ruining them, enhancing and developing them with a care and sometimes an ingenuity that’s kept them right at the cutting edge of photographic creativity. AI? Who needs it, when you have software that so perfectly releases the photographer’s own human intelligence?

Nik Collection 7 is not perfect and perhaps never will be, but it’s so good that it hardly matters.

DxO Nik Collection 7: Alternatives

Sunsets are probably one of the most popular natural phenomena to photograph. Most people are awake for them, they occur daily (even if they’re not always super impressive) and they can completely transform a landscape with dazzling hues of pink, orange, blue, yellow and purple. But I’ve recently made a rather peculiar promise to myself – to never take a boring sunset photo again.

I love a sunset as much as anyone, but for me, even really good photos never quite portray their magic. I was sat on a beach in Koh Tao trying to capture the sun setting over the horizon and I found myself looking at the photos completely uninspired. To me, photography is meant to elicit some kind of emotion or remind you of the finer details of that particular moment. So if I’m capturing a sunset that could be taken on any beach in the world where (so long as the sun sets beyond the horizon) I’m not meeting either of my photography criteria.

That’s not to say I’ve stopped taking sunset photos entirely, I’m just deadset on putting a lot more effort into the framing and composition. Instead of taking a sunset shot at the shoreline, I’ll take it from much further back where I can frame it with greenery and include people or boats to add some interest. I look for leading lines that draw your eyes to the focal point or birds that are creating an interesting shape in the sky. Since I’ve started really thinking about it, I’ve fallen in love with taking photos of sunsets all over again. By challenging myself to think outside the box, move around, change my shooting height and experiment with depth of field, I’ve managed to take some sunset shots I’m not only proud of but that I can instantly identify as being a specific beach.

There are a few other things you can do to up your game when it comes to shooting sunsets. If you can afford to, it’s well worth investing in a filter holder kit and a set of graduated filters. Picking one of the best graduated ND filters you can apply a gradual ND filter to either the top or bottom of the image while lining it up with the horizon so you can perfectly expose the highlights without crushing the shadows. Shooting in RAW will also enable you to darken the highlights and bring out the shadows so you can keep the details in the image while the colours of the sky are as true to life as possible. Adding a slight colour grade with warm pink tones in Lightroom, Photoshop, or your chosen photo editing software will make your sunset photos pop – just make sure you don’t go too crazy you don’t want your sunset looking fake!

Although I don’t see nearly half as many (or probably a quarter as many come to think of it), I actually much prefer shooting sunrise. There’s something exciting about capturing the start of a new day yet to unravel, rather than saying goodbye to another one. No matter whether you’re an early bird or a sunset worshipper, you can use these tips to start taking much more impressive sunset photos that will make you more confident in your photography and perhaps even earn themselves a place on your wall. 

Read about what I shouldn't have taken with me.

Launched in January this year, Fundy Designer V11 is the latest iteration of the Fundy album design (and more) software that first saw the light of day in 2008. It’s aimed at wedding, portrait, and social photographers seeking to expand their product offerings with minimal additional workload or complication. 

The software simplifies the creation of high-quality albums, wall art, and cards, and in some cases enables photographers to design and order products directly from their chosen labs. The inclusion of an online proofer within the Pro Enhancements package ensures that clients can swiftly approve designs, facilitating a seamless transition from approval to order placement.

Fundy Designer: Specifications

Fundy Designer: Key Features

Fundy Designer V11 integrates into a photographer’s existing workflow, accepting rated images from popular software like Photo Mechanic, Adobe Bridge and Lightroom. Photographers can export their edited images as JPGs to a folder, then import them into Fundy Designer.

The significant addition to V11 in comparison with V10 is the arrival of the new all-in-one ‘Design Wizard’. Where V10 has an ‘Auto Design’ feature that creates an album with a single click, V11 can now extend this to include wall art and card creation as well. 

Fundy Designer: Interface

The interface of Fundy Designer V11 is logical and intuitive. The first step after launching the software is to import photos by tapping the ‘Add Photo’ button. I found it took just over 90 seconds to import 135 images (1.98GB). 

With some images imported, you’ll see thumbnails along the bottom of the screen and you have the option to make selections and ratings or hit the Design Wizard button straight away.. 

While Fundy Designer can work with the ratings that are applied in other software, you can also add them quickly within the software itself. Simply double-click on any of the thumbnails to open the image browser and start clicking on the stars and hearts as you like. 

If you wish, you can also select a few images as ‘main’ images to occupy a whole page in an album, select the cover photo, mark images to be shown as panoramas across two pages and group images to be shown together on a page. There’s also the option to tag images to indicate what they depict. When the shoot type is set to Wedding, for instance, there are options such as Location, Details, Bride Getting Ready, Groom Getting Ready, etc. Other shoot types include Portrait, Seniors, Event, Boudoir, and two custom options.

Once you’ve finished tagging and grouping images, clicking on the album icon returns you to the main page with the thumbnails along the bottom and the Design Wizard button. Hitting that button opens a new window to select settings for the album, wall art, and card creation. By default those three creation options are set to ‘on’, but they can be turned off if you prefer to just create one or two of the product types.

If you haven’t tagged or ‘favorited’ the images you’re working on within your editing software, it’s worth doing so in Fundy Designer. It’s also useful to have given some thought to which images would work best by themselves, with other, and as panoramas and tag them accordingly.

Fundy Designer: Performance

Fundy Designer selects some default settings for each of the products you want to design, but there are dropdown options available to change the format, cover style, and design style of the album, and the format and design style of the wall art and cards. Clicking on the ‘Advanced Options’ link gives you further control, including the ability to select the lab with which you wish to print your work. 

GraphiStudio, Millers, and Renaissance Albums are listed as ‘Direct Labs’ for album creation, which means you can order the product with them from within Fundy Designer. There’s also an extensive list of other labs including Bay Photo Lab, Bobs Books, Digitalab, Loxley Colour, nPhoto, and many more, which aren’t fully integrated but have products listed for selection so their dimensions are imported. However, if the lab you wish to use isn’t available, use the Custom Size option in the Album Company window and then set the dimensions of the album you plan to create. 

This is also where you have the ability to set the number of images you want to include across your preferred number of pages.

The list of labs available to make wall art is shorter than the album list, and there are none listed for the card creation, but again, it’s possible to set the size you want to print. 

After you’ve finished selecting the settings for the album, wall art, and cards, click on ‘Design Project’ and then the icon for the product you want to see. I created a square album with 40 pages and 60 images from 135 supplied by Scott Johnson of The Edge Photography and the preview was visible as soon as I clicked to see it.

The album design isn’t set in stone, it can be tweaked until you get exactly what you or your clients want. Clicking on any of the spreads in the album puts a yellow box around it and reveals a few icons that allow you to make quick changes like shuffling the images around or moving the spread to a different location in the album. You can also drag images from the thumbnail bar onto a spread and the software adapts so that everything fits nicely automatically. 

Double-clicking on a spread opens its preview and allows further changes such as changing an image’s aspect ratio or alignment.

Once you’re happy with the album, you can move on to the wall art and card designs by selecting them from the menu bar at the top of the page. 

By default, the wall art is shown against a default background image of a room to give it scale. There’s a selection of room images to pick from, or you can put them on white or black. Alternatively, you can upload an image of your client’s rooms and scale everything appropriately. As with the albums, you can swap images around and change their print size and the like. The idea is to help clients see how your images could look on their walls and to encourage them to order more or larger prints.

When all the editing is finished, click on the export icon in the top right corner of the screen. This reveals options to upload your creations to your selected lab or download the files ready to upload to your lab. You can also create a design proof to share with clients, export it for web use, or save it as a design set for future use.

Fundy Designer: Verdict

The Design Wizard is the standout feature of Fundy Designer V11 and with a little guidance, it creates good-looking, neatly arranged albums within seconds. It also makes creating an attractive wall art design and cards so easy that professional photographers can create them on the off-chance of making extra sales to their clients. This is backed by Fundy Software’s excellent drop zone technology that makes it easy to move images around and perfect a design or tweak it to a customer’s preferences.

While Fundy Designer V11 is most likely to appeal to wedding photographers, it can also open up new revenue streams to other photographers who may not have previously considered selling albums, large prints, or cards. Crucially, it doesn’t add a huge amount of work and can slip into an existing workflow.

Generative AI has quickly emerged as one of the most transformative and controversial technologies of our era. For photographers and photo editors, the implications are profound. Will it just make our jobs easier? Or will it replace them altogether?

At the center of this unfolding revolution / disruption / total calamity (delete as appropriate) is Adobe's Firefly, a groundbreaking generative AI model now baked directly into Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop.

You might have ignored Firefly up until now, assuming that it's a temporary phenomenon—a mere blip or novelty that will soon be forgotten about. But if that's the case, then Zeke Koch, VP of product management at Firefly, is here to tell you (warmly and diplomatically) that you're very wrong. As far as Adobe's concerned, Firefly is the future, not just of Photoshop and Lightroom but all of its creative software.

To give us more details, Zeke sat down with us to discuss how Firefly is transforming the creative process and why photographers shouldn't fear this disruptive new tech. Even though all the images that accompany this article were generated entirely by AI, with no actual photographer needed.

What's new in Firefly 3.0

Koch, a product veteran who has worked on Adobe Stock and Photoshop, explains that the AI model has been trained on a vast dataset of images and concepts, allowing it to understand and generate a wide variety of visual elements.

In plain language, that means the software has trawled millions of photos in the Adobe Stock library, and learned how to automatically craft new images that will look similarly "real" and professional.

"We're trying to teach the model to understand reality, so it can really go to photographic reality," he explains. "We're trying to teach it to understand how a camera would understand the world. And then to better give you the kind of image you're trying to generate, we've introduced the Reference Image feature. That means you don't have to rely on words in your prompts, you can upload an image to show the AI the kind of thing you're looking for."

If you've tried Firefly in the last year and found it unimpressive, it worth noting that this week, Firefly has been updated from model 2.0 to model 3.0. And it's quite the game changer.

This update delivers, in the words of the release notice: "stunning advancements in photorealistic quality, styling capabilities detail and accuracy along with greater variety [and] significant advancements in speed of generation [that] make the ideation and creation process more productive and efficient". 

These are not just flowery words. Koch explains that there are real, verifiable software enhancements behind all the hyperbolic adjectives.

"There are a couple of different measures of the complexity that the model understands objectively," he begins. "And so one is what we call the latent space. It's effectively how many concepts you have. Those are more tied to the words in the prompt than they are to the picture. But essentially if you type something like 'bear with guitar' how many different variants are there of the bear guitar and what's in the background and all those different things.

"So that represents all the concepts that you can explain in the network. And so we've made the latent space twice as big as it was before. And then the other thing is the imagery part: the part that tries to render what we think you want. That's about three times as big as it used to be. And then the third thing is called attention. It's basically, when we take your prompt and try to convert it into an image, how much does the model look at all the inputs that you give it? How much attention does it paid all those things? So we've also about tripled that."

What this means in practice is that Firefly delivers higher-quality image generations, with better details and variety. Koch showed me a number of pictures produced by both 2.0 and 3.0 versions of Firefly. And, once he zoomed into the details, it was clear that the clarify of images produced by the latest version is palpably higher, as well as being more representative of real photography.

Officially titled Firefly Image 3 Foundation Model (beta), the new model is available for use in Photoshop (beta) and on firefly.adobe.com.

How it can help photographers

The short version is that this is impressive tech indeed, with its powerful AI capabilities, not to mention increasingly seamless integration with Adobe Creative Cloud. But what's it all actually for? Kock is clear on this one: Adobe believes Firefly is poised to become an essential tool for photographers, image editors and indeed creatives of all stripes.

"Generative AI doesn't replace creativity: it turbocharges and extends the creator's abilities," he stresses. "The creative spark still comes from you as the photographer. The AI amplifies your efforts so you can create, ideate and iterate much faster."

In other words, Koch sees Firefly as a "supercharged editorial assistant" handling tedious tasks like background removal and object insertion, while the human being continues to drive the overarching artistic vision.

"We're not just doing text to image generation from scratch," he points out. "That's been on the Firefly web app from the beginning. But the magic in Photoshop is using generative AI to augment and accelerate your existing creative process on real photos you care about."

Specifically, he points to new tools like Generative Fill which allows replacing backgrounds, adding objects, or tweaking visual elements in one click instead of tedious editing. "We're trying to make the model understand photographic reality as closely as possible, so it can do the rote editing tasks for you, while you focus on your creative vision."  

By providing a starting point and a range of options, Firefly can help photographers explore new ideas and push the boundaries of their craft. Ultimately, Koch believes that Firefly and other generative AI tools will become an integral part of the creative workflow, just as digital cameras and editing software have transformed photography over the past few decades. 

The ethics of it all

Whether or not you buy the argument that AI won't replace our jobs, there's also the separate issue of how AI is learning from our existing work by studying it online. To many people's minds, that's simply another form of piracy.

On this issue, Koch is keen to stress the ethical nature of Firefly, based on the fact that it doesn't scrape content people haven't agreed to be scraped. "We're creating models with deep expertise in areas like imagery, video and design," Koch explains. "And we're building these commercially-safe models only using data we have proper rights and licenses for, like Adobe Stock."

As an added bonus, Adobe embeds content credentials for transparency on whether something was computer-generated. "As this technology proliferates, understanding where content comes from and if it was AI-generated is crucial for maintaining trust," he adds.

The future of Firefly 

A more functional aspect of Firefly that sets it apart is its integration with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps beyond Photoshop. "There's text to vector in Adobe Illustrator. There's text effects in Express, there's generative images in Adobe Express," Koch explains. "There's a little bit in Adobe Stock. So there are a bunch of different systems that can work together seamlessly."

Lightroom is noticeably absent on the list for now, but as Terry White teased on stage at Adobe Max London it's not been forgotten: generative AI capabilities will be coming to Lightroom on desktop and mobile soon.

In the future, such integrations will allow for a seamless workflow, where photographers can use Firefly to generate initial concepts or fill in gaps, and then refine and polish them using their favorite Adobe tools. "Having AI in Photoshop allows you to quickly remove the things in a picture that don't meet your needs," Koch says. "Or you can start with a blank canvas, get something started, for your inspiration."

• Gen AI is coming to Lightroom
• How to make Adobe Firefly generative AI work for you, not against you
• “It's awesome. It's also terrible, and that's what I love about AI"

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Lightroom users have been left high and dry so far when it comes to generative AI. And indeed, at Adobe Max London this year there were no new Lightroom features announced at all – with a big emphasis on new Generative AI features in Photoshop.

But they were keen to express that they haven't forgotten about Lightroom users. And at Sneaks, a segment in which they tease stuff they're currently working on, Adobe evangelist Terry White announced that they're currently working on bringing the same generative AI features that are already in Photoshop to Lightroom too. 

Terry went on to show us an example of those in action. 

His demo involved a restaurant scene, where there was a blurry and distracting sign in front of a pile of napkins. Currently, you could try using the Remove tool on this, but realistically that tool is more for simple blemishes than something as complicated as this object. 

With the new tool, though, removing it was as easy as drawing roughly around it, clicking a single box and watching it disappear. And Terry demonstrated how we'll be able to do so on both the desktop and mobile versions of Lightroom.

There was a still a while to go in Sneaks, so the audience anxiously waited for the third and final announcement. And when the Premiere Pro logo came up on screen, we all drew an excited breath. 

Sadly, this was just a reheated roundup of the new Premiere Pro features teased in this YouTube video a week ago. If you missed that story, though, it is worth paying attention to: you can find all the details in our article Adobe's generative AI in Premiere Pro looks like a total game-changer for video editing.