Lately, online, I’ve been seeing what seems like an increasing acceptance of AI-generated imagery from people who know that the frame was made up by a machine. Now, I’m not talking about unrealistic, cartoony, computer-generated (CGI)-style imagery. It’s not real!

No, I’m talking about a seemingly increasing acceptance of that hyper-refined AI imagery we’ve all come to recognize, along with computer-generated scenes whose creators have tried to pass them off as real life but who didn’t quite manage to pull the veil over our eyes. It’s not real!

Comments like “who cares if it’s AI” seem to cross my radar more and more now, and the more I read them, the more absurd I think the whole idea of AI-generated imagery is. It’s not real!

How on Earth can you ever allow yourself to trust an image of something that supposedly exists but which you know never did? It’s like reading Alice in Wonderland or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, perhaps the most absurdly brilliant stories ever – but they’re not real!

I’ve been seeing it increasingly in e-commerce, especially. Comments like “as long as it looks like the real product, then I don’t mind” are among the silliest I’ve read. How could you ever buy from a company using a made-up image to advertise a real, physical product? The image isn't real!

The very notion of trust goes completely out the window when a computer-generated image depicts a seemingly real-life event. The details could be lifelike; hell, there could even be a hyper-realistic video of a model demonstrating the product, but neither the model nor the product are real!

If these “gen-slop acceptors,” as I like to call them, actually said the words “it’s not real” out loud every time they looked at one of these "real" images, perhaps then they’d realize just how absurd it is to be okay with being deceived. It’s not real.

It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s not real!

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Around two-thirds of content buyers – people who license photos, videos, graphics, audio, and other content through stock platforms – believe that human-made works are better than AI-generated content, according to four surveys conducted by StoryBlocks.

While the set of surveys suggests that a large majority prefer human-made over computer-made, only 13 percent said that they have not used any AI-generated visual or audio content in the last year, which means 87 percent have.

The data comes from a survey conducted by StoryBlocks, a stock platform for photos, videos, and audio. The platform conducted four surveys this summer, totalling more than 1,400 people who regularly license content for their jobs.

But while a majority have used AI-generated content in the past year, half said that they’ve rejected a piece of stock content because it was AI-generated.

Across the four surveys, StoryBlocks said that labeling was a “near-universal” demand, with between 74 and 94 percent calling for AI-generated content to be labeled. Even respondents open to AI seemed to agree on the label, the company said.

About 63 percent of those surveyed said they work for organizations that now have policies on AI-generated content. When Storyblocks asked what qualities mattered most in a stock content platform, the availability of AI-generated content consistently ranked last. (Content made by computers, unlike content made by humans, can't be copyrighted in the US.)

Between 33 and 37 percent of those surveyed believe that AI content may be of better quality, but when restricted to respondents who already use a non-AI platform for photos, videos, and audio, that number dropped to between 5 and 8 percent.

Around 83 percent said they felt confident that they could spot AI-generated content.

The survey comes as Storyblocks announces that it has reached a 10 million file milestone, a growth of 66 percent in just one year. Storyblocks does not accept AI-generated content, but the platform does offer generative AI tools to customize stock content or generate new content based on references.

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Nikon has released a flurry of firmware updates for two of its camera bodies and two of its lenses. According to the company, the updates solve a camera body-lens compatibility issue as well as bolstering aperture and zoom performance in the lenses.

Nikon says that firmware versions 5.33 for the Nikon Z9 and 3.12 for the Nikon Z8 fix a bug that “would cause the camera to stop responding with some lenses.”

Not so helpfully, the company hasn’t provided any more detail, so it’s unclear which lenses were affected and which previously affected lenses now function correctly when attached to these camera bodies.

Nikon Firmware Downloads

Firmware version 3.12 (Nikon Z8 camera body)

Firmware version 5.33 (Nikon Z9 camera body)

Firmware version 1.10 (Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S lens)

Firmware version 1.10 (Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II lens)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter and for Nikon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World, and we'll let you know about any problems.

Firmware version 1.10 for the Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S lens brings a minor but important change.

According to Nikon, when a setting other than “Non-linear” is selected for “Focus ring rotation range,” the lens now changes the focus distance according to the amount of focus ring rotation during manual focus, regardless of the speed at which it is rotated.

Before this latest update, turning the focus ring quickly would make the focus jump a long distance. Whereas, if the ring was turned slowly, the focus would move a small amount, even if turned the exact same distance.

Nikon says that the final firmware release, also called version 1.10, albeit for the Nikkor Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II lens, has “improved aperture operation reliability” and “reduced aperture operation noise,” with no further details shared.

So, aside from the outlined focusing update to the Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S lens, it’s pretty vague stuff from Nikon. As always, I recommend waiting a few weeks before going ahead with any firmware update to give any issues a chance to arise and be solved by Nikon.

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Sony has released the latest firmware for the A7R VI, the newest and most powerful rig in its A7R professional lineup. While the latest firmware release, version 1.02, doesn’t bring any major general benefits, wildlife photographers in particular will be pleased.

That’s because, following the update, A7R VI users will now be able to use the camera’s Preset Focus feature with non-power zoom lenses.

Preset Focus enables users to map specific focus distances to the camera’s custom buttons, meaning users can jump straight to that focus point in the frame at the click of its registered button, rather than manually moving the autofocus ring or Flexible Spot.

For wildlife photographers, this is especially useful as it enables them to quickly snap back to a pre-measured feeding station, nest, or obstacle zone when a subject momentarily leaves and returns.

Sony Firmware Download

Firmware version 1.02 (Sony A7R VI)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter and for Sony to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World, and we'll let you know about any problems.

Prior to firmware version 1.02, the A7R VI’s built-in Preset Focus feature was restricted to power zoom lenses.

Lenses without a motorized power zoom mechanism (standard manual zoom and prime lenses) could only register and recall focus positions when tethered to a computer and using Sony's Remote Camera Tool software.

Sony says that firmware version 1.02 also fixes an issue where focusing operations may become unavailable when the movie mode is set to “Manual Focus.”

The company has also stated that the latest release fixes a bug where monitors may turn on at regular intervals despite being off, which may have minor power-saving benefits. As usual, Sony also says the new firmware boosts “operational stability.”

So, these are the goodies packed into firmware version 1.02 for the Sony A7R VI. My advice, as always, is to hold off downloading it for a few weeks, which should give enough time for any issues to arise in community chatter and for Sony to resolve them.

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If you've been thinking about upgrading your video editing software, now might be the perfect time to make the jump. Blackmagic Design has announced a limited-time 20% discount on DaVinci Resolve Studio, bringing the price down from £225 to just £185, saving you a rather welcome £40.

Whether you're a filmmaker, content creator, photographer, or someone looking to take your editing to the next level, this is an excellent opportunity to get your hands on some seriously powerful software for less.

DaVinci Resolve Studio has become one of the most impressive all-in-one creative platforms available, combining professional video editing, color grading, visual effects, motion graphics, audio post-production, and now photo editing into a single application. Rather than jumping between different programs, everything you need is right at your fingertips, making it an incredibly appealing option for anyone working with both stills and moving images. And while there's already a fantastic free version of DaVinci Resolve, the Studio edition unlocks a whole collection of advanced features, including some particularly impressive AI-powered tools.

What makes this deal even more interesting is that Blackmagic Design has also announced significant performance improvements for users running the latest Apple M6 and NVIDIA RTX Spark processors. According to the company, AI SuperScale is almost 70% faster when upscaling HD footage to 8K on an M6-powered Mac compared with the M5, while AI Speed Warp delivers improvements of more than 60%. Windows users haven't been forgotten either, with DaVinci Resolve 21.1 bringing support for NVIDIA RTX Spark systems, delivering AI Magic Mask tracking that's up to 17 times faster and AI Speed Warp performance that's up to 41 times faster than on ARM-based Windows laptops without NVIDIA RTX graphics.

Personally, I think one of DaVinci Resolve Studio's biggest attractions is just how much creative freedom you get from a single piece of software. From editing cinematic footage and producing compelling short-form content to applying professional color grades and cleaning up audio, it's a remarkably complete package. The addition of AI-powered features such as Magic Mask, SuperScale, and Speed Warp only makes that proposition more appealing, particularly for creators who want professional-looking results without spending hours working through complicated editing processes.

And it's not just the software that's getting a discount. Blackmagic Design is also offering 20% off a selection of DaVinci Resolve editing keyboards and color control panels, giving editors and colorists the opportunity to build a more professional hands-on workflow for less. However, you'll need to be quick, as these special prices are only available through participating Blackmagic Design resellers until Friday, November 20, 2026, with hardware offers subject to availability. At just £185 instead of £225, DaVinci Resolve Studio is certainly worth considering if you're serious about taking your video editing to the next level.

Canon has released new firmware for three of its Cinema EOS cameras – the C50, C80 and C400 – fixing a crucial Photo mode bug in the former and bolstering IP streaming security in the latter two models.

Firmware version 1.0.6.1 for the Canon EOS C50 is seemingly the most important of the update. According to Canon, the new firmware “fixes an issue” where image recording to the memory card may not complete while shooting in Photo mode.

That’s to say, some users were finding that their still images were not saving when using the EOS C50 for photos rather than video. Photo mode enables capturing 32MP full-frame images at up to 40fps, with RAW, C-RAW, HEIF and JPEG support.

Canon EOS Firmware Downloads

Firmware version 1.0.6.1 (Canon EOS C50)

Firmware version 1.0.8.1 (Canon EOS C80)

Firmware version 1.0.8.1 (Canon EOS C400)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter and for Canon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World, and we'll let you know about any problems.

The other new firmware release, version 1.0.8.1, brings a pair of updates to the EOS C80 and EOS C400 cameras. Canon says that the latest firmware “enhances IP streaming security” and “corrects display problems" in some language environments.

IP streaming enables you to livestream video from your EOS camera directly over Wi-Fi or Ethernet to computers, decoders or online platforms. The camera's manufacturer says that the EOS C50 has also benefited from this upgrade through its respective firmware update.

That’s it for this Canon firmware bulletin. Seemingly routine stuff regarding the bolstered IP streaming security and corrected language display bugs, but surely a much-welcomed development for EOS C50 users finding that their still images had disappeared.

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If you've been thinking about upgrading your video editing software, now might be the perfect time to make the jump. Blackmagic Design has announced a limited-time 20% discount on DaVinci Resolve Studio, bringing the price down from $295 to just $236, saving you a rather welcome $59.

Whether you're a filmmaker, content creator, photographer, or someone looking to take your editing to the next level, this is an excellent opportunity to get your hands on some seriously powerful software for less.

DaVinci Resolve Studio has become one of the most impressive all-in-one creative platforms available, combining professional video editing, color grading, visual effects, motion graphics, audio post-production, and now photo editing into a single application. Rather than jumping between different programs, everything you need is right at your fingertips, making it an incredibly appealing option for anyone working with both stills and moving images. And while there's already a fantastic free version of DaVinci Resolve, the Studio edition unlocks a whole collection of advanced features, including some particularly impressive AI-powered tools.

What makes this deal even more interesting is that Blackmagic Design has also announced significant performance improvements for users running the latest Apple M6 and NVIDIA RTX Spark processors. According to the company, AI SuperScale is almost 70% faster when upscaling HD footage to 8K on an M6-powered Mac compared with the M5, while AI Speed Warp delivers improvements of more than 60%. Windows users haven't been forgotten either, with DaVinci Resolve 21.1 bringing support for NVIDIA RTX Spark systems, delivering AI Magic Mask tracking that's up to 17 times faster and AI Speed Warp performance that's up to 41 times faster than on ARM-based Windows laptops without NVIDIA RTX graphics.

Personally, I think one of DaVinci Resolve Studio's biggest attractions is just how much creative freedom you get from a single piece of software. From editing cinematic footage and producing compelling short-form content to applying professional color grades and cleaning up audio, it's a remarkably complete package. The addition of AI-powered features such as Magic Mask, SuperScale, and Speed Warp only makes that proposition more appealing, particularly for creators who want professional-looking results without spending hours working through complicated editing processes.

And it's not just the software that's getting a discount. Blackmagic Design is also offering 20% off a selection of DaVinci Resolve editing keyboards and color control panels, giving editors and colorists the opportunity to build a more professional hands-on workflow for less. However, you'll need to be quick, as these special prices are only available through participating Blackmagic Design resellers until Friday, November 20, 2026, with hardware offers subject to availability. At just $236 instead of $295, DaVinci Resolve Studio is certainly worth considering if you're serious about taking your video editing to the next level.

Ricoh Imaging has released new firmware updates for three of its latest compact cameras: the Ricoh GR IV, GR IV HDF, and the GR IV Monochrome.

The updates bring new controls and usability improvements to the GR IV and GR IV HDF, including greater control over AF (autofocus) point memory, User Modes and wireless connectivity.

The GR IV Monochrome also gets these updates, alongside a new Solarized Effect that lets photographers create surreal black-and-white images in-camera.

Ricoh GR IV / GR IV HDF

Version 1.20
Download link for Windows+Mac

Short overview: enhancements and fixes
- The “AF Point” option has been added to Customize Settings → Memory
- Added [Restore User Mode Settings] to [1] USER Mode under Menu > Customize Settings
- Added [Connection While Power Off] to the Wireless Communication Settings under Menu > Setup > [6] Communication Settings
- Added the certification mark required for use in India
- You can now change the end screen displayed when the camera is turned off using the smart device app GR WORLD
- Improved stability for general performance

Find all info and imagery on the updates here.

Ricoh GR IV Monochrome

Version 1.10
Download link for Windows+Mac

Short overview: enhancements and fixes
- Added the [Solarized Effect] Image Control
- Added [AF Point] to [Mode Memory] under Menu > Custom Settings > [2] Operation Customization
- Added [Restore USER Mode Settings] to [1] USER Mode under Menu > Custom Settings
- Added [Connection When Power Off] to the Wireless Communication Settings under Menu > Setup > [6] Communication Settings
- Added the certification mark required for use in India
- You can now change the end screen displayed when the camera is turned off using the smart device app GR WORLD
- Improved stability for general performance

Find all info and imagery on the updates here.

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or if ever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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Another day, and another resourceful gearhead has managed to shoehorn classic 1993 first-person shooter Doom onto an old camera, but that’s not all. Daniel Cook has also managed to port Tetris onto another camera to boot! The news, by way of Fuji Rumors, involves porting the software onto a Fujifilm X-A2 and Fujifilm XF1, with Doom running on the former and Tetris on the latter.

According to the Doom video's description, Cook states: "This was not an easy feat, it took days of debugging bare-metal ARM assembly, not to mention the year of reverse engineering leading to this point."

The Tetris port is particularly interesting because rather than using the d-pad, the positioning of the blocks is performed by physically twisting and turning the camera to make use of its internal movement sensor. You can watch both the Doom and Tetris videos above.

As an avid gamer myself, this entirely useless process tickles my nerdy soul, but it’s not for the fainthearted. Any time you stray from a manufacturer’s official firmware, you risk doing serious damage to your camera and voiding any warranty. This is why these sorts of experiments are almost exclusively carried out on older tech, like the aforementioned Fujifilm cameras.

More useful firmware incoming?

It’s not just video games that are making their way onto older Fujifilm cameras, though. Fuji Rumors also referenced a Reddit post from justice-jake, regarding custom firmware for redundant Fujifilm cameras, in a bid to introduce a plethora of modern features including new Film Simulations, a Film Simulation editor, highlight-weighted metering and more. The Redditor even mentions creating custom firmware for newer Fujifilm cameras such as the Fujifilm X100VI and Fujifilm X-M5.

Again, this carries the exact same risks as any other form of unofficial firmware, but rather than being an exercise in futility, I can certainly understand the appeal of unlocking modern Film Simulations on an older Fujifilm camera.

The news comes following a spate of similar instances, where Doom has been ported onto a Hasselblad X2D 100C camera and a slightly more suspicious claim of the video game running on a Nikon Zf.

If you’re wondering why there’s so much interest in the practice, it’s become a little bit of a techie rite of passage to port Doom onto random consumer electronics, from calculators to pregnancy tests. Yes, you heard that right!

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Lightroom’s free mobile app can now fix a longstanding photography problem: the photo taken mid-blink. Open Eyes is a new Quick Action inside Lightroom’s mobile app – which now has “AI Photo Editor” added to its name in the App Store.

Open Eyes is a Quick Action inside the mobile app – Lightroom won’t show the option unless it detects a photo that has the eyes closed. But when that Open Eyes icon appears, Lightroom makes the eye swap in one tap to correct closed eyes inside portraits, selfies, and group shots.

The Open Eyes tool is built with generative AI – which begs the question: how can the AI get things like eye color and shape accurate when that information is not in the original photo?

While Lightroom can generate open eyes without any references, the mobile app also allows users to select reference photos of that same person, in order to generate a set of eyes that more closely match the person’s features.

The new tool uses generative AI to simplify a common photography edit. Photographers have long used platforms like Photoshop to correct a blink by copying a person’s eyes from one photo and pasting them onto another – particularly for group photos where the odds of getting a blink are much higher, even when taking several photographs.

While the new eye-opening tool is built using generative AI, Adobe says that the tool is one of the free tools available inside Lightroom mobile.

Open Eyes is far from the mobile app’s only generative AI tool, joining options like Generative Expand, Generative Remove, and Photo to Video. In the App Store, the iOS version of the app is now listed as “Lightroom: AI Photo Editor.” (On Google Play, the app is Lightroom Photo & Video Editor).

The description looks more like a search term to aid those looking for photo apps in the App Store than an official name change, but some photographers across Reddit and Threads have expressed disappointment over the name change – and the push for generative AI features.

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Adobe Photoshop’s filters are about to get a makeover that allows the longstanding tool to act like a non-destructive layer – and with those updates, Adobe is also bringing a new light leaks filter to the photo editor.

The teaser came hidden in Adobe’s announcement of a partnership with Nvidia that allows devices with the new RTX Spark chip to edit up to twice as fast across apps like Photoshop and Premiere. During a demo of what the GPU-accelerated workflow could do, Adobe also snuck in a teaser of an entirely new way of working with filters.

Currently, Photoshop’s filters menu applies those changes only to the active, visible layer. But, a future version of Photoshop will allow those filters to act more like a non-destructive layer. That allows creatives to drag and filter in the Layers panel to only apply a Gaussian Blur to the background, for example.

Supported filters will also update in real time on the canvas, adjusted in the Properties panel rather than in a pop-up.

But with those changes, Adobe is also introducing a film-inspired filter: Light leaks. In a demo, the new filter includes presets to get started quickly. Then, in the Properties panel, creators can adjust the pattern, strike amount, and color using sliders.

On the canvas, photo editors can also adjust the size and rotation of the light leak and shift the center point.

Adobe told Digital Camera World that the new light leak filter is not generative AI. The updates to the filters will be coming to every device with a supported GPU and is not exclusive to RTX Spark devices.

Photoshop's AI Assistant may soon build custom filters

While the upcoming light leak filter does not rely on generative AI, Adobe also teased a new feature that allows creators to build their own filter inside Photoshop’s AI Assistant.

In a demo of the upcoming tool, Adobe showed the tool being used to create a custom lens flare filter as well as a rain droplet filter. In both examples, the user can also ask the AI to build in specific sliders to customize the tools that accompany the generated filter.

Adobe says that the updates to Photoshop are expected to “start rolling out later this year.”

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Struggling to correct wonky buildings? Perhaps you want a tilt-shift look without investing in a specialist lens. Or maybe barrel distortion has stretched your subject at the corners of the frame. If any of those seem like a you problem, then DxO ViewPoint 6 might be of interest.

The Parisian-based outfit has just launched the latest incarnation of its image geometry-based photo editing software, and the headline new feature is the ability to combine geometric corrections with AI masking for precise, local edits.

Local geometric corrections

The introduction of AI masking into ReShape Fusion allows users to mask a specific object, such as a tall building, and correct its geometry independently from the rest of the photograph. Traditionally, you’d have to correct the geometry of the entire image by cropping into the frame simultaneously. The introduction of AI masking is designed to prevent that.

Users simply draw a selection box around the intended subject, and DxO ViewPoint 6 will mask it and form a mesh that the user can then manually manipulate to adjust the object's geometry. Rather than a uniform mesh across the entire frame, ViewPoint 6 creates a mesh with control points that sit directly on top of the subject in question.

ViewPoint 6 also boasts more subdivision options, allowing you to tailor the mesh to your exact needs, for example, allowing you to work with finer control points locally, surrounding only your intended subject.

It may seem obvious that this would require some form of genAI to fill in the gaps as the object is moved, but DxO is keen to point out that no AI image generation takes place, stating: “It rearranges the components of the scene the photographer captured rather than recreating them”.

A less exciting, but no less important, new feature is DxO ViewPoint 6’s ability to open RAW files (as well as TIFF and JPEG) when used as standalone software. Rendered in DxO Wide Gamut, lens corrections are applied automatically, and adjustments are made to a sidecar file, so the integrity of the original is always preserved. The software can also be used as a plug-in alongside Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, and DxO PhotoLab 10.

What is DxO ViewPoint 6?

DxO ViewPoint 6 isn’t just about manually correcting the geometry of an image or subject. It allows users to fix three common barrel distortions: the curvature of straight lines, converging verticals, and stretched subjects.

In addition to ReShape Fusion, the editing outfit is famous for its DxO Modules, in-house laboratory-crafted lens-correction profiles used to automatically correct distortions in just a few clicks. Volume Deformation is designed to fix stretching at the edges of the frame, but without affecting the rest of the image, correcting only what’s needed. It also does so while maintaining image dimensions, thus preventing forced cropping.

The software also includes Horizon Correction to automatically straighten skewed horizons and Miniature Effect, which can be used to add a shallow depth of field to scenes that are far away. This can make real-life scenes look like miniatures by employing a tilt-shift effect.

DxO ViewPoint 6 is available now and priced at $129.99 / £109.99 for a new license or a reduced rate of $84.99 / £69.99 for existing customers upgrading from ViewPoint 5. You can also take advantage of a 30-day free trial.

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Using a technology called a Brain Interaction Transformer (BIT), the new Brain-IT, presented by academics, can read a person's brain waves and interpret the signal as a visual image using A.I.

What the computer does, in simple terms, is scan the 3D pixels – voxels – of the brain using fMRI, and interpret this data to predict the image.

This is a technology which has been worked on for some time, however, and scientists have struggled for a number of reasons. Unlike humans, an AI needs a large amount of data to learn from.

People also interpret data through both the factual information (what color is it?) and the semantic. In fact the semantic information is used as a kind of key to lock onto in the brain, before the rough layout of the image is translated using a 'diffusion process'.

The process is not the first – others such as MindTurner, MindEye2, and NeuroVLA have all offered alternatives, but none have been as accurate.

This is especially true if the system has only had an hour of training. The usual goal is 40 hours.

This study, led by Roman Beliy of the Weizmann Institute of Science, built on other academic works as far back as 2013, when it was identified that different aspects of the cognition of objects took place in connected but different areas of the brain.

The testing was performed using the Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD), which is one of the few datasets available. It is made up of 73,000 pairs of images (one real, one an fMRI scan made while the subject was looking at it). There are only around 1,000 images that were shown to all 8 test subjects; many of the images (around 9,000 each) couldn't be compared.

The upshot of this research, though, is that the AI was trained to predict what it would see on the fMRI scan from a photographic image as well as interpret an fMRI image of the brain to understand what might be seen.

While the final results are still not perfect, they are far closer to the original image than previous models, incorporating additional details.

From a photography perspective, it seems perfectly possible to read an image from the brain using this kind of technology.

Accuracy wouldn't be guaranteed by optical paths in the same way that true photography is, but it seems very plausible that a version of your memory could simply be scanned from your brain and printed out.

And if that can happen, why bother with a camera at all? It might be more accurate, but you'll probably prefer your memory!

The technology is also just looking through the skin and into the brain to see what pictures are floating around in your head. It could, for example, be worn while asleep (or worse, put onto someone while asleep) to capture the images from dreams. That has more than a few privacy concerns!

It's also been suggested to me that OCD sufferers might not appreciate having their visual thoughts brought out and shared.

But this is a technology we might have to face up to and there are clearly far broader implications than helping some people with very specific forms of blindness regain some form of sight.

The paper was published earlier this year but work continues. At the time only about a couple of seconds of data was collected for each sample – but one of the scientists, Michal Irani, even said that while decoding video was challenging because the images change so frequently. Nonetheless he suggested recording dreams was a future possibility.

Dedicated black-and-white cameras eliminate the color filters for a cleaner, crisp monochrome image. But one color scientist and cinematographer has just reverse-engineered the iPhone camera to create a fully monochrome 16-bit RAW photograph.

Koloristika is an iPhone photography app built from scans of every available type of Kodak film. The app eliminates Apple’s entire processing pipeline – including sharpening and AI upscaling – to create a 12MP photograph with nostalgic colors in an editable RAW photograph.

For the first time, Koloristika has launched a new black-and-white mode, called Monolith, that works at the sensor level. Monolith isn’t a filter – the monochrome iPhone camera mode instead reverse-engineers the iPhone’s camera to create a 16-bit RAW file that, like the files from a dedicated black-and-white camera, is entirely in monochrome.

I sat down with the app’s creator, color scientist and cinematographer Renato R. Renierra, ahead of the launch for an exclusive interview – and tried out the pre-release build for myself.

The new Monolith takes the iPhone’s color sensor and rebuilds the image as a monochrome digital negative. Rather than simply eliminating the color data, – a process that usually results in artifacts – Monolith uses the data on the sensor design itself to reconstruct the image in black-and-white.

“Every sensor is essentially black and white,” Renierra explained. “The Bayer data that we get from Apple is not color data, it is just a measurement of white light through a red, a green, and a blue filter.”

“The easy logic would be to take the engineering data from the sensor manufacturer and nullify the filters, and you would get some type of black-and-white image,” he continued. “That was always a good idea and is a simple approach, but you can get checkerboarding, artifacts, all kinds of problems.”

Koloristika’s new Monolith reconstructs the data rather than simply subtracting some of that data. “We tried to approach it from a different angle,” Renierra said. “If 50 percent of the image is already green, we can reconstruct the rest from the red and blue filters. That’s quite easy. It is processor-intensive, but with some clever mathematics, we can assemble an image with no artifacting from that data. The concept was always there; it just had some engineering problems, and it’s probably why it wasn’t approached.”

The resulting image is a fully monochromatic 16-bit RAW file. Like the color photos from Koloristika, Monolith doesn't use any of Apple's processing at all – which means every photo taken on an iPhone launched since 2016 is 12MP, as the app doesn't use upscaling from the iPhone's Quad Bayer design.

I shot a few photos with Monolith, then I compared them to the same photo shot with the native iPhone camera app with a filter added. Apple’s already-processed JPEG had more contrast right from the start, but Monolith’s adjustable RAW data is far more customizable.

The native iPhone camera has a higher resolution, thanks to upscaling. But the Monolith photographs have a more natural grain structure. Zooming in on the background, the filtered iPhone photo background looks a bit mottled, whereas Monolith looks like it has the grain of a more traditional photograph.

Koloristika is an iPhone camera app built for color nerds, but the app is also gaining traction among iPhone users looking for a more classic, traditional image – without any AI-based processing.

Koloristika processes the image using its own algorithms through every step. The app processes the image not just with color science based on real Kodak film scans, but also skips Apple’s sharpening and HDR algorithms. The resulting images feel made for those who think iPhone photos look “too crunchy.”

“We all know the plasticky, over-processed look of iPhone,” Renierra said. “Deleting all of that processing gets to our own color and the pipeline, without touching any of the sharpening, without AI upscaling. We package the color in our own organic way."

Renierra said that what often hooks users on the app is when they see photos of themselves shot with Koloristika’s color science. “I think people get the idea of Koloristika as soon as they see themselves, how they turned out on the camera, and they do get a nostalgic feeling from the model. I believe it's obvious that it's different from an Instagram filter or VSCO filter. Most of our user reviews on the App Store, everybody mentions exactly that: how they haven’t seen that type of organic color for a while.”

Koloristika’s focus on color is evident right from the live view screen, which displays the photograph’s color palette. Taking a photograph delivers a soft buzz meant to feel like an old film camera shutter.

Along with the Kodak-based color science and new black-and-white mode, Koloristika also includes a Silverlith slider modeled after bleach bypass and a double exposure tool that creates a RAW rather than a JPEG from two photographs.

The Monolith mode is launching to the Koloristika app beginning October 14 and is available from the App Store. The app is free to try with a 36-photo trial – the same number as one roll of film. The full app is available for $2.99 / £2.99 /AU$4.99 / CA$2.99 a month or $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$29.99 / CA$24.99 a year.

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Nikon has launched not one but two firmware updates, version 2.01 for the Nikon Z6 III and version 2.6.1 for Nikon NX Tether. The former brings Pre-Release Capture to compatible Bluetooth remote controllers among several quality-of-life upgrades and fixes, while the latter adds support for the Nikon Z5IIC alongside various quality-of-life upgrades.

If you’re updating your Nikon Z6 III, make sure you know how to update your Nikon camera’s firmware and be sure to follow Nikon’s own documentation on the download page, which warns to not perform an update with third-party lenses or adapters attached. Only Z-mount Nikkor lenses or the FTZ/FTZ II mount adapters are compatible.

Nikon Z6 III version 2.01

- Pre-Release Capture available from compatible Bluetooth remote controllers

- Focus limiter settings support for…

• Nikon Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR
• Nikon Z DX 18-140mm f/3.5-6.3 VR
• Nikon Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR
• Nikon Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR
• Nikon Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3
• Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S
• Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 S
• Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S

- Picture Controls item name changes…

• ‘Cloud Picture Control’ is now ‘Imaging Recipe’
• ‘Add Cloud Picture Control files’ is now ‘Download Imaging Recipes’

- The following fixes have been made…

• Some Custom Settings menu item numbers fixed
• In rare cases, photos could be overexposed during burst photography in Manual mode
• F-mount lens fixes…
• Rare, unstable exposure during burst shooting with type E lenses
• The camera would sometimes stop responding during burst shooting
• AF wouldn’t always function while using FV lock with flash unit attached
• A non-CPU lens could cause the camera not to capture the required number of shots in Pixel Shift
• When using a manual lens and subject detection, the camera would sometimes stop responding when zooming in or out of the live view display

Nikon NX Tether 2.6.1

• Nikon Z5IIC support
• Imaging Recipe selection now available for Picture Control item in shooting settings pane when connecting to camera with Imaging Recipes registered (Available with ZR, Z5IIC, and Zf)*
• “R3D NE 12-bit (R3D)” video file now also available in auto mode. (Available with ZR)*
• In-focus focus point color displayed in NX Tether when using AF now matches that used in the camera. (Available with Z5II and Z50II)*
• More cameras now support live view. (Now available with Z50II and Z30)*

*Update camera to latest version

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I’ve shot with both the GoPro Mission 1 Pro and the mirrorless ILS, but as a photographer, there was one thing that bothered me about the experience of shooting stills with cameras: the shutter delay. Now, GoPro is making the still photos on its new compact cinema camera line feel like shooting stills on a traditional camera does, thanks to new firmware.

A GoPro Labs update is also bringing anamorphic lens support to the ILS.

The Mission 1 cameras, like the Hero series cameras, had a one-second countdown from one second every time you took a photo, which made timing the shot a bit trickier. With the newest Mission 1 firmware, the cameras now take still photos without that delay.

The Mission 1 cameras can take burst photos, but the burst mode previously shot a preset number of photos. The new firmware will also make the Mission 1 series burst mode operate more like a traditional stills camera. Pressing and holding the shutter in photo mode will activate a burst that continues for as long as the shutter is pressed, or until the camera’s buffer fills up.

The camera's display will also now show a countdown that shows how many shots can still be taken before that buffer is filled up.

Finally, GoPro has added a shutter sound to signal that the photo has been taken, describing it as “a clear, distinguishable audio confirmation.”

Those changes will help shooting still photos with the Mission 1 cameras feel a bit more like working with a traditional stills camera.

GoPro calls the Mission 1 series “compact cinema cameras” – the lineup is video first, photos second. But the update fixes my biggest complaints about shooting photos with the cinema cameras.

The Mission 1 Pro’s biggest features are all video-focused – I think the stills photographers who are picking up something like the Mission 1 Pro are likely grabbing the small camera to record behind-the-scenes footage for social media, not for stills.

But, photographers have long been asking for a waterproof compact camera with a one-inch sensor, and the firmware update will make the Mission 1 Pro feel a bit more like one. I took one to a beach day to use as a point-and-shoot, and the biggest thing that kept it from feeling like a waterproof compact camera was that shutter delay.

The Mission 1 Pro doesn’t have the zoom or adjustable focus of a dedicated compact camera like the OM System Tough TG-7. But I think the firmware update is going to make the camera a lot more enticing as a dual-purpose camera.

That same update also improves the photo experience on the Mission 1 Pro ILS, GoPro’s first mirrorless camera. For still photos, the manual focus adjustments and one-inch sensor aren’t going to entice photographers over some other budget options like the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. But it’s a nice update for filmmakers looking to snap stills along with videos from an affordable 8K shooter.

Filmmakers may be more drawn to an update that’s coming via the public beta platform GoPro Labs: anamorphic lens support. Anamorphic lens support has now been added as a beta feature, which writes pixel aspect ratio metadata to the file so that video software can correct the anamorphic automatically. The beta feature supports squeeze ratios of 1.33x, 1.5x, 1.6x, 1.8x and 2.0x.

The updated firmware is available directly from GoPro as well as through the GoPro Quik app. This is an update that I’m eager to try out – though it’s not a bad idea to wait a few days in case of firmware bugs.

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Canon has released new firmware updates for its R6-series cameras, including the EOS R6 Mark III and EOS R6 V. While there's just a single fix in each update, it's the same important one: addressing an issue where image recording to the card may not complete.

Canon advises performing the firmware update with only the relevant firmware file stored on the memory card. After downloading the compressed file, you'll need to extract the ZIP archive to access the firmware file and the accompanying PDF instructions.

Here's an overview of the updates, download links and expert advice on when it's best to download firmware to your camera.

EOS R6 Mark III

Version 1.1.2
US 🇺🇸 download link: macOS + Windows
UK 🇬🇧 download link: macOS + Windows

Enhancements and fixes
1. Fixes an issue where image recording to the card may not complete

EOS R6 V

Version 1.1.2
US 🇺🇸 download link: macOS + Windows
UK 🇬🇧 download link: macOS + Windows

Enhancements and fixes
1. Fixes an issue where image recording to the card may not complete

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or if ever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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Panasonic has released a round of firmware updates for its Lumix S series full-frame cameras.

This update includes the Lumix S9, S1R II, S1 II, and S1 IIE. Whereas the S9 receives new video recording options and expanded customization, the S1 mirrorless cameras share the same improvements and operational stability updates.

Here's an overview of the updates, download links, and expert advice on when it's best to download firmware to your camera.

Lumix S9

Version 2.1
Download link: Windows + Mac

Enhancements and fixes
1. Addition of 4K 60p/50p and FHD 120p/100p/60p/50p recording options for MP4 (Lite)
2. Support for LUMIX Flow ver.1.7.0 or above
3. Expanded assignable functions for Lens Fn Button settings

Lumix S1R II + S1 II + S1 IIE

Lumix S1R II Version 1.6
Download link: Windows + Mac

Lumix S1 II Version 1.5
Download link: Windows + Mac

Lumix S1 IIE Version 1.5
Download link: Windows + Mac

Enhancements and fixes
1. Improved shutter release time lag and burst shooting performance when using an external flash
2. Operational stability has been improved

Expert Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, but also what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whether – you should update.

You can check out the episode for more insights, potential risks, and expert advice on our YouTube channel, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all your favorite podcast services.

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OM System has released a firmware update for three of its telephoto lenses, expanding their high-speed shooting capabilities and making it easier for photographers to capture fast-moving subjects at a distance.

Firmware version 1.1 for the M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/4.0 PRO, M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS II and M.Zuiko Digital ED 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3 IS adds support for shooting at up to 50 frames per second (fps) in Sequential Shooting SH2 and Pro Capture SH2 modes.

The new functionality works in these lenses when paired with the OM System OM-1, OM-1 Mark II or OM-3 camera bodies.

Download OM System Firmware Version 1.1

M.Zuiko ED 40-150mm f/4.0 PRO

M.Zuiko ED 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS II

M.Zuiko ED 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3 IS Version 1.1

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter and for OM System to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World, and we’ll let you know about any problems.

A previous firmware update already brought 50fps shooting in both Sequential Shooting SH2 and Pro Capture SH2 modes to other M.Zuiko lenses – such as the Digital ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO.

Version 1.1 widens this feature to other models within OM System’s Micro Four Thirds lens lineup, bringing greater versatility for wildlife photographers in particular. Bird photographers, who often need to capture fleeting moments, will especially appreciate 50fps while using Pro Capture SH2 mode.

This mode continuously buffers images following a half-press of the shutter button, enabling you to save frames captured before fully pressing it. Sequential Shooting SH2, on the other hand, captures a rapid burst of images while the shutter button is fully depressed.

Rather than introducing new optical capabilities, firmware version 1.1 gives more opportunities to make use of high-speed continuous shooting with your existing OM System telephoto equipment, ideally helping you capture fast action without needing to change lenses.

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President Donald Trump is now referring to artificial intelligence as ‘super intelligence’; that’s according to a post from the commander-in-chief on Truth Social. In that same post, he refers to it as a “highly accepted new and more accurate term,” going so far as to say that the White House considers those who use the original moniker, artificial intelligence, “The ENEMY!”

AI under the microscope

The move to ‘super intelligence’ would make sense from an industry perspective. In recent weeks, AI has come under the microscope following revelations by Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon, most notably that the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade”. And while Coxon’s comments are hypothetical, what isn’t hypothetical is how the core AI industry remains largely unprofitable.

Some experts are waiting for the AI bubble to burst in what feels very much like Y2K all over again. The Guardian’s Heather Stewart cites Bloomberg in stating: ““The price of AI is collapsing,” while the economics editor also highlights Meta’s smart glasses debacle that has seen them labelled by some as ‘pervert glasses’, which has only added to a rising hysteria.

Heck, I’ve just written an article on how an AI has cloned a large chunk of Adobe’s Creative Cloud photo editing software suite, and that’s before you consider concerns regarding the rapid expansion of data centers, not to mention the raw materials required to keep the AI train rolling. As we near the end of 2026, it certainly doesn’t seem quite so rosy in AI land.

A good old-fashioned rebrand, then, is exactly what the advocates of AI need. But changing the name of artificial intelligence won’t be easy. It’s a term that far predates the genAI boom and has long been used as a marketing buzzword. As such, AI or artificial intelligence is everywhere.

From the micro, such as the names of tools in photo editing software like AI Assistant or the AI algorithms in autofocus systems, to the macro, OpenAI, Meta AI it’s literally in the name. It’s also possible that the introduction of ‘super intelligence’ could confuse the consumer, who, at this point, is very used to AI marketing.

Transparency is paramount

Personally, I don’t want to see the term ‘artificial intelligence’ dropped precisely because it reminds us that AI removes the human element. And in the creative industry, that’s a very important distinction. I’ve noticed that while plenty of people don’t enjoy consuming AI content, they don’t always notice what is and isn’t AI content.

As genAI advances, it’s only going to get harder and harder to decipher what is and isn’t AI. But people deserve to know what they’re consuming so they can make an informed choice about it. I firmly believe that AI-generated content requires more transparency, not less.

Only time will tell if ‘super intelligence’ catches on, but perhaps ‘super artificial intelligence’ would be a better naming convention. SAI certainly has a better ring to it than SI. Still, it’s going to be interesting to see if the industry follows the President’s lead or if AI is simply too ingrained at this point to change.

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I’m trying not to be overly dramatic here, but as soon as I heard that an AI had been used to clone Adobe’s biggest software hits, my first thought was: It’s finally happened. That’s not to say I’m jumping for joy; rather, I’ve been wondering when AI would become a direct threat to a large company. And they don’t come much bigger than Adobe. But before I explain why that matters, let’s delve into the unfolding situation.

What’s happened?

Tech news outlet Ars Technica released an article entitled: “Software is over: Bold AI developer takes aim at Adobe with open source clones”. It turns out that small AI developer Artcraft has used Anthropic’s Claude to build a series of open-source applications based on Adobe’s biggest hitters: Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro.

To be clear, these aren’t like-for-like replications. Each software has its own name, such as PhotoCraft, LightCraft, FilmCraft, etc. But as can be seen on the company’s website, the interfaces of each software are very familiar. So much so that in the YouTube video (above) by AI Samson, he says when comparing both Photoshop and PhotoCraft’s user interfaces: “They are so similar that you’re able to move from one tool to another with zero learning curve.”

Before we get too excited, these free-to-downoad open-source applications are said to be far from perfect in their current state. And yet, Artcraft is bullish in its commitment to refine its offering. In replying to a post in which the announcement was made on Reddit, the developer who goes by the name of ai_art_is_art, replied to a comment stating: “We have a really long way to go to get to complete parity on functionality and file format support, but that's 100% our goal”.

What does this mean for the industry?

So, back to my original point. The reason I find this situation fascinating is that it’s AI directly impacting a giant company. Don’t get me wrong, competition is nothing new for Adobe. In recent years, a plethora of releases, including a free model for Canva's Affinity, have only made things harder.

But when you consider the size of the software titan, its thousands of employees, years of refinement, and billions of dollars spent, the fact that anything remotely close to its Creative Cloud suite is even possible this quickly and with comparatively minuscule investment and personnel will surely be concerning to both Adobe's board and investors – not to mention its legal team!

Don't get me wrong, editing software companies have been riffing off of Adobe for decades. There's a reason why Creative Cloud is still, in many cases, the industry standard. It's not just about the look and feel of the software; it's the quality of the end product. I've not used any of the aforementioned ArtCraft software, but replicating a user experience is one thing; replicating the performance and the quality of the output is another thing altogether.

And yet it poses a question I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Adobe aside, it’s all well and good for all these huge companies to invest in the so-called AI boom, but what happens if/when AI comes for them, too?

Is the AI wolf knocking at the door?

As a creative, my biggest worries about genAI have historically been questions over the pilfering of copyrighted work, the erosion of creative autonomy, and the threat cheap AI alternatives pose to working creatives. That’s why I’ve long believed more stringent measures are required and boundaries enforced. But these are problems that have largely threatened smaller companies and working individuals.

And while Adobe does seem to get a lot of hate online, it has at least tried to walk some kind of tightrope between embracing AI and its commitment to the creative industry, with examples including its commercially safe Firefly models and Content Credentials.

But Artcraft’s software suite is direct competition for Adobe, and it’s appeared largely out of nowhere. If it works, what’s to stop others from cloning and undercutting other pieces of software? At the very least, this must have put the entire digital economy on notice. It sure feels like a boundary has been broken and the AI cat is out of the bag.

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There is something about the look of analog film that digital cinematography has never quite managed to replicate, and while modern cameras have come an incredibly long way, filmmakers are still turning to film-inspired looks to give their footage that unmistakable cinematic character. Arri is looking to take that creative freedom even further with the release of Film Lab 1.5, a major update to its OpenFX plugin that brings a host of new controls, improved performance, and greater flexibility to digital video editing workflows.

One of the biggest additions is the ability to choose between different film formats, something that was previously limited to the traditional 35mm aesthetic. With Film Lab 1.5, filmmakers can now select 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, or 65mm as their starting point, opening up a much wider range of creative possibilities. Whether you're chasing the nostalgic, grain-heavy character of Super 8-style footage or the cleaner, more refined look associated with larger film formats, there is now considerably more freedom to achieve the aesthetic you're looking for.

But Arri hasn't stopped at simply introducing new film formats. Two additional controls, Grain Size and Rendition of Detail, allow users to fine-tune the appearance of their footage even further, adjusting everything from the scale of the grain to the perceived sharpness of the image. Both controls offer adjustment ranges between 0.75 and 1.5, meaning filmmakers aren't restricted to the traditional characteristics of each format and can instead create something that sits somewhere between them.

Another particularly interesting addition is the new Anamorphic Ratio control, which offers eight squeeze ratios ranging from 1.25x to 2.0x. This allows filmmakers to adjust how film grain and halation are stretched horizontally, helping the effect better match footage captured using different anamorphic lenses. There is also a new Halation Spread adjustment for controlling the glow around highlights and high-contrast edges, while the maximum Grain Intensity and Halation Intensity settings have both been doubled to 2.0. For anyone who likes to push their footage toward a much more pronounced analog aesthetic, these changes should make a noticeable difference.

Of course, creative controls are only half the story, because there is little point having an impressive film emulation tool if it slows your entire workflow to a crawl. Thankfully, Arri has also made some significant improvements under the hood, with Film Lab 1.5 now offering processing speeds up to four times faster than before. According to Arri, this means smooth, real-time 4K playback is now possible on a much wider range of systems, including Apple Silicon MacBook Pro models, making it considerably easier to experiment with different looks without constantly waiting for footage to render.

The update also brings improved integration with color-managed workflows, including new ACES 2.0 ACEScc and ACEScct input and output options for applications such as DaVinci Resolve and Baselight. Baselight users also benefit from OpenFX 1.5 color management integration, allowing Film Lab to automatically recognize the timeline color space and apply the correct input transform. It might not sound quite as exciting as the new creative controls, but for professional colorists working across complex projects, improvements like these can make a substantial difference to the editing experience.

What makes Film Lab 1.5 particularly interesting is that Arri isn't simply trying to recreate the appearance of traditional film. It is giving filmmakers the freedom to take those characteristics and shape them into something of their own. From subtle grain and delicate highlight glow to much more expressive, vintage-inspired looks, this latest update offers another compelling way to bring analog character into an entirely digital production.

Arri Film Lab 1.5 is available now through RE Effects for $494.60 (or $24.74 per month), with the update offered free of charge to existing license holders, while new users can purchase a license.

Nikon has announced that the winner of its 2026 Small World in Motion Video Competition — a long-running and prestigious scientific imaging contest — has been disqualified.

According to the company, the winning video, created by Dr. Ning Xu of China’s Tsinghua University, “did not comply with the competition rules regarding generative AI,” although Nikon did not state exactly how the rules were broken.

The company did, however, subsequently name Nguyen Nam Nhat, of Vietnam, the new winner for a video depicting a tiny roundworm and a single-celled Dileptus “exploring their microscopic world.”

In late September, Dr. Xu, a biomedical imaging specialist, took first place at the 16th edition of the Nikon contest. His microscopic video captured the abnormal beating of a cellular structure in a patient with a rare genetic respiratory disorder called primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD).

According to the BBC, after the entry appeared on a now-deleted post on the competition's official LinkedIn page, scientists began pointing out to Nikon that Dr. Xu’s video appeared to be computer-generated.

Among them was Dr. Robert Hirst, principal scientist at the University of Leicester’s Division of Respiratory Sciences, who told the BBC he “knew immediately that the video was fabricated.”

“I have been diagnosing PCD for 20 years by examining their cilia waveform, length, cell size and shape,” he said, adding that the cells and cilia in the video looked “nothing like” those of PCD patients.

Dr. Xu defended his use of AI in the post comments before it was deleted. According to CNN, he stated that he wanted the video to be “visually engaging as well as scientifically interesting."

The disqualified winner explained that AI assistance was used in the post-processing of grayscale images to “distinguish and visualize" features in the region below the cilia, not to “anatomically reconstruct the underlying cells or organelles."

Dr. Xu concluded that "a more detailed description” of his optical system and quantitative analysis of the ciliary motion are currently being prepared for publication.

Following the outcry, Nikon removed Dr. Xu’s entry from the winners’ webpage, stating that it had “thoroughly” reevaluated the video and supporting materials, while also consulting members of the judging panel.

Nikon said that the disqualification was “based solely” on the submitted video’s eligibility under the competition rules and should not be interpreted as a “judgment of the entrant’s professional reputation, scientific contributions, or intent.”

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The Fujifilm X-Half brings the brand’s popular film simulations into a digital compact camera built with the intentional limitations of film – but the compact camera just got a new film-like option, thanks to a firmware update.

Part of the X-Half’s more film-like charm – beyond the screen-free film mode and advance lever – comes from the camera’s built-in filters. Firmware 2.0 brings one more option to those retro looks: Soft Glow.

The soft glow option is built to imitate the look of a diffusion filter – or the softer highlights of old film lenses. Fujifilm says this mode softens highlights to enhance the glow.

The Fujifilm X-Half already had a similar mode called halation, but halation and glow are two similar yet distinct image qualities. Halation is a subtle glow that adds a bit of warm tones. On film, this effect was simply a result of the light hitting the film and scattering.

A soft glow traditionally differs from halation because it doesn’t add warm tones and is the result of using softer lenses. A glow effect typically spreads out light sources.

I’m a big fan of using diffusion filters to get a glow, so I love that the X Half now has an option like this built in, without adding filters. The Soft Glow is part of the X Half’s filter effects, which are a separate mode and not used at the same time as the camera’s film simulations.

Along with the addition of Soft Glow, the firmware adds 12 and 24-frame options to the camera’s film mode. The X Half’s film mode locks several settings and disables previews, essentially locking the screen and creating a “screen-free” compact camera. Now photographers can choose to shoot as little as 12 images per roll, allowing for swapping settings between rolls earlier than with a roll of 36.

The firmware update also includes a handful of performance enhancements, including improving the start-up time, enhancing autofocus timing, and reducing the delay between shots.

It’s great to see Fujifilm continue to expand on the X Half’s different built-in filters – and the soft glow looks like a welcome addition. But, as with most firmware, it’s often best to wait a few days (or even weeks) to avoid any potential early bugs.

The new firmware 2.0 for the X Half is available to download directly from Fujifilm.

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Software giant Adobe now owns Topaz Labs, the AI platform known for its upscaling and denoise tools.

After announcing an acquisition agreement back in June, Adobe has now completed the acquisition of Topaz Labs, the company shared on September 23. Topaz Labs will remain available as standalone apps, while the company’s CEO has joined Adobe’s Digital Video and Audio team.

But Adobe Photoshop already incorporated several Topaz Labs tools before the acquisition, including AI Sharpen, AI Denoise, and Generative Upscale. Meanwhile, Adobe Firefly Boards already has a video upscaler from Topaz.

That raises a key question: What’s going to change with Adobe now owning Topaz Labs?

Adobe’s Vice President of Product Marketing for Creative Professionals, Deepa Subramaniam, has dropped a major hint: “Restoring archival footage, refining low-light shots, enhancing mobile clips, preparing content for the big screen, and bringing AI-generated videos to professional quality through creative upscaling will soon be possible within even more existing workflows, helping creatives accomplish more of the work they love.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, but it hints at where Adobe users will see new Topaz-based tools in the future. Video upscaling seems to be a key focus, as such a tool would cover reviving older clips, enhancing smartphone shots, and enhancing the typical lower resolution of AI-generated videos. The mention of “existing workflows” hints that video upscaling could be coming to Adobe’s existing video editing tools.

Adobe also says that the acquisition will help creators to spend less time switching between different tools. Subramaniam also says that Adobe technology will also improve Topaz Labs models.

“The future of creativity will continue to be defined by creative storytelling and human craft regardless of whether content was captured on a professional camera, mobile phone, or generated with AI,” Subramaniam wrote.

While Adobe says that Topaz Labs tools will be integrated into more existing workflows in the future, the company also says that Topaz Labs’ existing apps will remain available as standalone products.

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Evoto has launched the next generation of its AI-powered retouching suite. Evoto Version 8.0 is being rolled out across the photo-editing software company’s entire ecosystem and comes at a time when over 1.2-billion images have been processed via the company’s software by 1.2 million pro photographers across more than 200 countries.

But what surprised me is the implementation of a creator marketplace called Asset Hub, complete with a $500,000 rewards pool to kickstart the community. And I'm pleased to report that everything on display during the event was squarely focused on working photographers, videographers, and creatives. No AI Headshot Generator in sight. Here's what Evoto 8.0 brings to the table...

Evoto 8.0: Retouching stills

The meat of the update for photographers, of course, surrounds Evoto’s AI-powered retouching capabilities. On the subject of Evoto’s flagship desktop application, US Revenue and Marketing Director, Jay Peterson, distilled the software into four core pillars: “More precise retouching, more flexible framing, smarter culling, repeatable workflows.”

This means updates to a range of stills-based AI-powered features and not just retouching. Evoto’s Story-Based Culling puts a new spin on traditional culling workflows for events and wedding photographers. In Storyline Mode, the user chooses chapters in which the software groups photos to build a storyline of the big day. Rather than discard potentially useful outliers, they’re left unassigned for manual rejection or integration. There’s also a more traditional General Mode, which groups images visually, independently of when they were taken.

The new Workflow feature enables users to save an entire workflow to reduce repetition. From import, culling, applying effects, to export and delivery. Jay was keen to point out that this relates to the workflow process, leaving the creative decision-making to the photographer in question. There’s also SDK integration, which is designed for larger production teams trying to script workflows at scale.

And of course, the next generation of Evoto comes with enhanced AI-powered retouching, with Precision Freckles & Acne Retouching, Face Shadow Removal, Clothing Moiré Removal, Liquify Background Repair, Sweat Stain Removal, and Generative Expand. Background Extraction has been improved and now comes with an orientation-aware AI Crop.

Finally, the Home interface has been redesigned. Create Project, Tethered Shooting, Workflow, and Asset Hub are all accessible from the Home screen, along with the software’s AI assistant, Evobot.

Tether to a smart device

A boon for photographers on the move is the ability to tether to the Evoto App. So, you can capture images directly to an iOS or Android device on location. The Evoto App is also getting enhancements in the form of Hot Presets, Color Match, Motion Blur, and Relight.

Evoto 8.0: Retouching video

The headline update is the ability to perform portrait retouching on video footage. Evoto Video enables users to retouch footage while avoiding the laborious process of manual edits such as keyframing. Evoto is also bringing this technology to DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro via the In-Workflow Retouching Plugin, allowing editors to access Evoto’s video retouching from the timeline.

Hair Shine, Teeth Whitening, Facial Fullness, and Color Match are other 8.0 appointments. Hair Shine tracks strands of hair so that the shine remains consistent as the head moves. Teeth Whitening is designed to mask the teeth and apply whitening by reducing yellow hues, without washing out the teeth. Facial Fullness adds “subtle volume where it’s needed” to faces that appear slightly flat due to lighting. Color Match is an exciting prospect. You match the colors of a single reference image to a clip and then apply that look across the rest of the video.

Evoto Asset Hub

Perhaps the most surprising announcement was the creator marketplace Asset Hub. This allows photographers to purchase assets such as AI looks, backdrops, skies, and more. There are also Masters’ Signature Presets from working photographers. And users can publish and sell their own assets, too.

According to Jay: “A photographer’s style might be the reason clients book them; this gives that same style a second way to generate income.” There are no listing fees; creators keep 60% of net sales and set their own prices within set bands. The $500,000 incentive rewards those who join between now and December 31, 2026, with $50 “once their first asset gets approved and goes live”. An additional $100 will be awarded to the top 20 creators by total sales during the campaign.

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Want more editing news? Affinity’s “biggest photography update yet” – but don’t panic, the image editor is still free! Photoshop’s AI Assistant feels made for beginners – so now the tool is coming to the newbie-friendly Photoshop Elements image editor too. Plus, I think the US$100,000-winning Grok Imagine Odyssey footage is proof that Hollywood shouldn’t feel threatened by genAI just yet.

Canva has brought its creative portfolio closer together via the launch of Canva ProSuite. This is said to connect Affinity, Cavalry, Flourish, and Leonardo, along with over 100 new features. The good news for photographers is that Affinity has received its “biggest photography update yet,” and don’t worry, the photo-editing software's free model hasn’t changed.

The Sydney-based software company is touting an improved RAW development engine and batch imports, in a bid to speed up the photo-editing software’s traditional layer-based workflow. Looks can now be applied to groups of images to an entire shoot, while users can take advantage of tools designed to streamline laborious tasks, such as mixed lighting and camera shake.

An “AI-assisted” Scene Decomposition tool can take a flattened image and split it into layers. There’s now a dedicated workspace called Astrophotography Studio, which helps users perform a variety of enhancements, including stacking improvements, star and background separation, color calibration, and more.

Affinity’s file compatibility has been enhanced, too, with the ability to work directly with InDesign files, as well as import .af Affinity files into Cavalry. The update also includes a raft of tool enhancements, such as Noise Reduction Tool, Generative Upscale, Wavelet Denoise, HDR and merge improvements, and more.

A confusing model

One problem I have with Canva’s ecosystem is its pricing structure. It’s not overly clear what’s free and what isn’t. Thankfully, both Affinity and Cavalry are still free to use, as was promised when the Canva rebrand launched back in October 2025, but you’ll need to invest in a paid Canva plan to access Canva AI Studio and Canva Teams.

ProSuite confuses things further because it’s essentially a marketing term and not a tangible product. It’s a little bit like Adobe’s Creative Cloud. There is no Creative Cloud software, but all of Adobe’s programs and plans are part of the Creative Cloud umbrella.

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Ever pushed the saturation slider in your photo editing software and wondered why it's not revealing the details you need? Well, there's a reason for that.

Most color tools only stretch the contrast that you can already see. But NASA needed more detail, so it developed software that works out which colors in a photo are statistically tangled together – then untangles them. The result often looks like an entirely different image.

The two images at the top of this article, captured on the Martian surface, shows what this looks like in practice. The picture on the left depicts exactly the rust-colored Martian that you see with the naked eye, while the one on the right reveals mineral variation in electric pinks and greens.

Remapping the colors

The technique is called decorrelation stretch, and it was originally invented at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a way to map lava flows in Hawaii and prepare for a satellite instrument called ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer).

JPL scientist Ronald Alley wrote the definitive paper on it in 1996, refining an idea first proposed by his colleague Jim Soha two decades earlier.

Rather than simply boosting contrast, it remaps an image's colors across a wider, decorrelated range, using statistical maths borrowed from a theorem called the Karhunen-Loève Transform.

The person who spotted its wider potential was Jon Harman. He wasn't a photographer or an archaeologist by trade, but a mathematician with a background in medical imaging.

He saw the above before-and-after Mars images at a rock art conference around 2005, and realized the same approach could rescue rock paintings that had faded almost to nothing.

Harman went away and built a plugin called Dstretch for ImageJ, an open-source image processing and analysis program originally developed by the National Institutes of Health.

He then followed it with a smartphone app that mimics the effect. The plugin costs $50 (around £44 / AU$70) and the smartphone app costs $20 (£15 / AU$28).

It's astonishing when you think about it: a serious piece of NASA color science that you might have expected would only ever exist in scientific papers has ended up as an affordable app that anyone can point at pretty much anything and get interesting results.

Dstretch has since uncovered around 200 faded paintings at Angkor Wat, previously unknown figures at a Norwegian rock art site, and pictures of bats and pigs in ancient Egyptian tombs.

And the important thing is, none of that required any new photos to be taken – just smarter processing of images that already existed.

Panasonic just dropped important firmware updates for four Lumix cameras – but the thing I actually want is still missing on my camera, 16 months after it debuted.

I feel bad being ungrateful, because Panasonic is brilliant – the best of all the camera brands, in fact – at listening to the community and delivering updates that meaningfully improve the cameras and the way you can use them.

To that end, some short but sweet fixes and features have been released for the Panasonic Lumix S1II, S1RII, S1IIE and S9 – all of which are incredibly welcome.

However, I've been waiting ever since the Urban Sports AF algorithm was released back in May 2025 for it to make its way to the S9 – but despite my fingers being crossed for this week's firmware drop, it's still missing in action.

Which is doubly gutting, because I was shooting skateboarding a couple of nights ago and that autofocus mode would really have helped the poor little S9 keep a pretty AF box around a skater. (Call me crazy but, if I were Panasonic and I had a killer AF mode that nobody else had, I'd be putting it in every camera I made.)

Anyway, entitled whinging aside, here's what you can expect from the new updates:

Lumix S9 version 2.1

In fairness, the updates are pretty sweet – but mainly for videographers, thanks to the addition of much-needed new modes for the MP4 (Lite) codec that is absolutely adored by content creators (I'm looking at you, Emily at Micro Four Nerds).

The camera also gets support for the brilliant Lumix Flow app (or rather, the Lumix Flow app has been updated to support the S9), along with more assignable functions for the customizable buttons on lenses.

Per the official notes:

• Support for Lumix Flow ver.1.7.0 or above
• Addition of 4K 60p/50p and FHD 120p/100p/60p/50p recording options for MP4 (Lite)
• Expanded assignable functions for Lens Fn Button settings, including:
  • Aspect Ratio
  • E-Stabilization (Video)
  • Boost I.S. (Video)
  • Image Area of Video
  • Focus Ring Control
  • Focus Limiter
  • Hybrid Zoom
  • Crop Zoom (Including related zoom operation functions
  • Focus Peaking
  • Video Record

Lumix S1II / S1RII / S1IIE

If you've ever used the S1II series for flash photography, you may have experienced latency issues when using TTL. Panasonic certainly heard from some working pros who struggled with the issue, which is pretty critical if you're using your equipment for client work like weddings.

Thankfully, the latest firmware will "improve shutter release responsiveness and burst shooting performance when using external flash units" according to the manufacturer.

On top of that, there's also the nebulous old chestnut of "enhancing overall operational stability".

Lumix Lab Version 3.1.1

In addition to gaining support for the S9's new MP4 (Lite) formats, the big Lumix Lab improvement is the ability to find LUTs more easily – and download them in collections.

All of which is incredibly welcome if you've ever tried navigating the user-created LUT libraries, which was often a painful experience. Being able to filter them and download batches is much appreciated!

• Support for newly added MP4 (Lite) recording formats on the Lumix S9
• New LUT category filtering functionality
• Introduction of downloadable LUT Packs, which group curated LUTs by creative theme
• Enhanced user interface and overall usability improvements

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OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, might have picked up most attention this week with a former employee's vague warnings about the chances of AI wiping out humanity.

However, despite the calls to slow down development, it hasn't halted work on its camera tools, acquiring a photo-processing company that might even go toward the company's long-anticipated AI gadget.

Glass Imaging is an AI tool that helps improve the quality of images taken with the small image sensors and lenses on camera phones, and create results more like those on devices with full-frame sensors, like DSLRs or mirrorless cameras.

There is an extensive gallery of examples on the company site, largely shot on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 cameras in imperfect light. I was especially interested to see that the AI wasn't above altering the pose of the subject; look at the boy in the example, whose head has turned to face the camera.

Glass A.I. processing sample

An original image shot on an iPhone and the result of Glass A.I. processing

iPhone 16 Pro Max

Glass A.I. Processed

Glass Imaging was a venture-backed company that claimed it could "Unlock the full potential of imaging systems," and the technology used is called 'Glass AI'. It claims to be a "neural ISP" – which presumably means image signal processing.

Image signal processing is the next step on a digital camera's circuits after capturing the light with the sensor. The signal, perhaps from a CMOS sensor, passes via analog-to-digital conversion to an a ISP chip (or a combined system-on-a-chip).

This is where the color science and processing takes place that results in an image file that can be handed off to the storage (such as a memory card).

I understand that adding better technology (under the umbrella of AI) to the ISP can result in theoretically better images than otherwise expected from the same chip.

Essentially, this is what Apple calls "computational photography" – and all camera companies, to a greater or lesser extent, attempt already. Indeed the Honor 600 phone has already incorporated this very tech. Glass Imaging is just openly promising to use the latest thing in tech – AI – and suggesting it'll do it better.

Where that looks a bit strange is in the examples that change the pose rather than just the texture and quality of the image. Now that is the kind of thing that might result from generative AI, but (at least to my way of thinking) isn't really just improving the lens and sensor to their theoretical maximum!

Eliminating grain and making it look like you used 'better glass'? That's great. But changing the pose? That is a different matter.

Not that OpenAI has specified its plans for the software, but the company has been investing a great deal in bringing its own AI-driven device to market – and many are suggesting there is a connection.

This spend is pocket change compared to the $6.5 billion (around £4.9 billion / AU$9.1 billion) OpenAI spent on Io Products, the company Jony Ive founded. Ive is formerly Apple's chief designer, with the iPhone in his list of credits, and has already been connected to smart devices with cameras.

OpenAI is also still thought to be preparing a stock offering, though that is likely to wait until 2027 because of the AI safety fears (or, more precisely, the fear that the IPO won't work as well as hoped in the present climate).

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Back in July, I reported on Elon Musk’s post on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that Grok AI would make a “historically accurate” Odyssey film before the end of 2026. This was accompanied by an AI-generated trailer with a few visible anomalies, to say the least, the most egregious being what appeared to be Odysseus wearing a pair of foam earplugs.

But, credit where credit is due, this was never intended to be the finished film. Cue an article by Futurism, titled “The Winner of Elon Musk’s AI Odyssey Contest Will Make You Laugh Out Loud”.

It turns out that Grok Imagine put together a contest with a $100,000 (approximately £75,000 / AU$140,000) prize for the best depiction of The Odyssey created using the AI platform, stating: “The contest showcased the power of Grok Imagine for creating realistic, captivating scenes that belong on the big screen.”

You can see the winning entry by Nem Perez (above). Perez explained on X how the Phaeacians and Princess Nausicaa were absent from Nolan’s epic, calling the five minutes of Grok Imagine AI footage “My longest, most intricate work to date,” and that the AI platform was pushed “to its absolute limits”.

I'm not a fan of AI-generated content and instead much prefer traditional filmmaking. Heck, last night I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theater. But from the establishing shot of a stormy sea and a title sequence where Odysseus is washed up on the shore (see main image), I don't doubt that Perez's video conveys the power of genAI platforms like Grok Imagine.

But the footage also highlights the hypocrisy of the level of criticism that some have directed at Nolan’s Odyssey.

The Futurism article has already pointed out the many inconsistencies, including that the cyclops clearly has three eyes. I’m not here to do a frame-by-frame analysis of the winning entry, but I didn't agree with Perez's comment: “This is The Odyssey as Homer intended”. Surely the Odyssey that Homer intended is what the Greek poet immortalized in writing.

I think we have to take care that we’re not overly critical of film adaptations. After all, literature and film are two very different forms of media. Blade Runner is a fine example of a film that took huge liberties in the adaptation of its source material, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and I personally think it was all the better for it.

And yet, this competition never intended to turn out a full-length movie – and the year still isn’t out, so there’s still time for Grok AI to produce something special.

That said, I can’t say I’m waiting for a feature-length AI Odyssey with bated breath. If it’s a faithful adaptation that you’re looking for, surely nothing can be better than picking up a respected adaptation of the text. And if you’re looking for a solid movie adaptation with beautiful cinematography and great performances, I highly recommend Nolan’s Odyssey.

We live in a world where Nolan’s brand of filmmaking is getting fewer and farther between. As a self-confessed film buff and supporter of physical moviemaking, I would implore anyone who loves cinema to support and savor these experiences.

In my mind, AI-generated content will never compete with traditional filmmaking, just like AI-generated content will never compete with traditional photography. I will always support retaining the human element.

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When I tried Adobe Photoshop's AI Assistant earlier this year, I couldn’t help but think about how helpful the tool could be for someone learning to edit photos for the first time. Now, Adobe's photo editor built for beginners is gaining that built-in AI assistant.

Announced this week, the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 2027 and Premiere Elements 2027 launch with a list of new AI-powered photo editing tools. The updates bring a handful of key upgrades made to Adobe’s pro photo and video editors down to the software’s little siblings.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2027

Photoshop Elements now has a built-in AI chatbot that Adobe says is designed to help users learn how to make adjustments to photos. While built-in help has long been a part of the Elements family, the chatbot allows users to ask something in plain text and get recommendations on adjustments from the AI as well as step-by-step instructions.

The AI Assistant echoes a similar feature brought to Photoshop earlier this year and, like that original launch, is arriving first in a public beta.

Outside of the AI assistant, Photoshop Elements is also borrowing two key AI-based tools from its big sibling Photoshop: Generative Expand and Generative Upscale.

Generative Expand is a tool for “un-cropping” a photo and adding in more to the edges using generative AI. The tool is particularly useful when trying to crop to a different aspect ratio for prints

Generative Upscale, like the tool by the same name inside Photoshop, uses AI in order to increase the resolution of a photo, helpful for low-quality files and older photos.

Those AI tools will also be located in a new AI tool hub built to make those tools easier to find.

Along with the AI tools, Adobe also added new creative filters to Photoshop Elements, including oil painting and duotone, with sliders to control the intensity of the look.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2027

Like the photo editor, Adobe’s beginner video editor updates are heavy on AI. A new generate image feature allows users to put an AI-created photo into the video using a text description.

Using AI, users can also now create titles and text that are integrated into their surroundings.

Premiere Elements isn’t getting the same AI assistant as the photo editor, but a new Contextual Toolbar allows users to locate the right tool by typing in what they want to do.

Elements Organizer

One of my favorite AI-powered photo tools is the ability to search for a specific photo. That capability is coming to the Elements Organizer. It’s only in English and only in beta, but it's built to help users find a specific photo or video even when that media doesn’t have the right tags attached.

The organizer also has improvements to the ability to find and delete duplicates to free up hard drive space, while a new Share to Phone can transfer photos using a scannable QR code.

Bringing the AI tools designed to make edits easier, like image search and an AI assistant, makes sense for the Elements family, as it's Adobe’s tools that are built for beginners and non-pros.

Adobe offers Elements with a three-year license at $149.99 / £130.49 / AU$241.99 / CA$196.99 for both programs or $99.99 / £86.99 / AU$160 / CA$130.99 for an individual program. Adobe offers a 7-day free trial for new users.

It's worth noting that Adobe's smartphone Photoshop app is also more tailored towards beginners – and is free to use, with more advanced tools requiring a purchase.

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The Nikon Z8 has just received a new firmware update. Something I really appreciate about Nikon is its dedication to supporting cameras long after their release, and over the years the ‘Big N’ has rolled out big updates, including mammoth upgrades for the Z8 itself. But not every firmware update can be ground-shaking. Firmware Version 3.11, as reported on by Nikon Rumors, is a quality-of-life upgrade; it fixes a few problems, but doesn’t introduce anything new.

As always, unless any of the fixes are vital to your workflow, I recommend letting new firmware updates sit for a week or two before installing them yourself, just to ensure no teething problems are reported. If it’s been a while since you last updated your Nikon Z8’s firmware, installing this latest update will automatically install all prior updates, such as the big Firmware Version 3.00.

Nikon Z8 Firmware Version 3.11 fixes:

• Unsupported features would sometimes become selectable when wirelessly connected to NX Tether.
• The [High-frequency flicker reduction] setting would sometimes change when [High-frequency flicker reduction] and another role, such as [Protect], were assigned to the same custom control.
• The camera would sometimes stop responding during shooting if certain operations were performed after settings were made in [Manage Picture Control].

You must also ensure that you know how to update your Nikon camera’s firmware and that you maintain good practice. Nikon makes it clear that you should only update the firmware of your Z Series camera with a Z-mount Nikkor lens or Nikon FTZ adapter attached. Updating firmware with a third-party lens attached has been known to cause a camera malfunction.

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With the exception of Adobe Photoshop, Nik Collection is perhaps the oldest photo-editing tool on the market. And yet, thanks to DxO's constant development, it remains right at the forefront of creative photographic techniques, embracing analog effects, contemporary photographic styles and effects, and some of the best black and white editing tools you can get.

You can use the Nik Collection plug-ins from within Adobe Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Affinity. However, each plug-in will also work as a standalone application, so you can use them as external editors for programs like Capture One, which don't support Photoshop-style plug-ins.

So just how good is the Nik Collection, how do its plug-ins stack up today, and does it still deserve to be considered among the best photo editing software applications on the market?

DxO Nik Collection 9: System requirements

Compatible host applications for plug-in: DxO PhotoLab 8 and DxO PhotoLab 9, Adobe Photoshop 2025, 2026, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2025 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2026, Adobe Lightroom Classic 2025, 2026, Serif Affinity Photo 1 and 2, and Affinity by Canva (NB: Nik HDR Efex merge feature and Nik Collection Switch to mode are not compatible with Affinity).

DxO Nik Collection 9: Price

Nik Collection 9 costs $179.99 / £149.99 (about AU$257) for a new licence, while existing Nik Collection 7/8 owners can upgrade for $99.99 / £79.99 (about AU$143). It’s not especially cheap, especially considering you might not get full use out of all the plug-ins, but the creative tools, controls and presets in Analog Efex, Color Efex and Silver Efex are so good that you could argue they carry the whole suite on their own.

The upgrade price for existing users is fair, too, given that this is a substantial upgrade, but given that the Nik Collection plug-ins are not dependent on updates for new cameras and lenses, say (that’s handled by your host software), even older versions may offer all the creative inspiration you need right now.

DxO Nik Collection 9: Interface and usability

What I would call the ‘core’ plug-ins – Analog Efex, Color Efex and Silver Efex – adopt the same interface setup, so it’s easy to swap between them. You have preset effects and individual filters in the left sidebar and a filter ‘stack’ in the right sidebar. This shows all the filters and settings applied by the current preset – and you can edit these at will – or the settings for any filters you select and apply manually. It’s a straightforward system used almost universally by effects software.

Each of the filters you apply can have its own masks, or local adjustments, and in Nik Collection 9 these include AI masks alongside DxO’s regular non-AI control point, control line and control polygon masks. Wisely, I think, DxO has kept the AI masking options simple, with basic object selection and area selection options, and no attempt at subject recognition. This makes the new AI masking both powerful enough and simple enough to be genuinely useful.

HDR Efex hasn’t seen any major changes for some time, and while the craze for HDR might have faded somewhat (thank goodness), it still does a good job. As usual for HDR applications, it invents some tools and adjustments you won’t see in regular photo editors, but it doesn’t take too long to work out what everything does.

Viveza is a bit of an oddity. It’s set up for detailed global and local color adjustments, but that’s pretty much all it does. It’s the kind of thing you might do in your host software instead, or Color Efex – indeed, three of Viveza’s core adjustments are now included in Color Efex’s list of filters. Viveza is easy enough to use but hardly seems to do enough to justify its inclusion as a separate plug-in.

Dfine is distinctly disappointing too. Superficially, it looks like a powerful little plug-in that can analyze the noise profile of the image you’re working on and apply a tailored noise reduction process both globally and locally. However, it only works on already-processed images, so it’s trying to fix a problem too late. It can’t reconstruct lost detail either, in the way that today’s AI raw denoising tools can, so it does feel like a relic of a different age.

Sharpener is interesting for its ability to tailor the sharpening level for different output devices. You can sharpen for screen output, though with today’s website content management systems and social channels, you don’t have a lot of control over the sizes images are displayed at. This could be useful for prints, though curiously it doesn’t display image size sliders by default.

DxO Nik Collection 9: Performance

There are two aspects to any software application’s performance – its speed and responsiveness and the quality of the results. Speedwise, I found it OK but not instantaneous. Analog Efex presets took a couple of seconds to apply, for example, and this was on a 32GB M2 Max Mac Studio. Some of these processes are complex, though, so you can’t expect too much.

The results, at least from Analog Efex, Color Efex and Silver Efex, are stellar. Analog Efex recreates the look and feel of old analog processes and cameras brilliantly – it’s way better, in my opinion, than DxO’s rather dour FilmPack application. It’s a shame the new Halation filter in Nik Collection 9 didn’t appear here rather than Color Efex, since halation is really an analog effect.

Color Efex offers a huge range of more contemporary photo effects, from film simulations (modern and vintage) through graduated filters, tonal contrast enhancement, and so much more. It’s a shame that the new Glass filter in Analog Efex wasn’t used here because it’s a graphic style that might suit Color Efex’s approach better. There’s also some crossover – Color Efex’s Old Photo filter is really good, and Analog Efex doesn’t have anything quite like it. There are some filters you might never use (Duplex? Color Styliser? Indian Summer?), but overall there’s so much in Color Efex that you might never exhaust its potential.

This has been magnified massively by another new feature in Nik Collection 9 – blend modes. Each filter can be assigned a blend mode (not just ‘Normal’ now), which completely changes the way it interacts with the image. For example, the paper textures in Analog Efex take on a whole new life with different blend modes.

Silver Efex, meanwhile, continues to shine as perhaps the best tool there is for black and white photography fans. It can reveal depth and tonality in black and white images that’s hard to replicate in other software. It also uses sliders and adjustments that seem to speak directly to darkroom photographers and how they think, with dedicated film types and grain patterns. It would be nice if there was some kind of blur/bokeh tool and a wider choice of border styles, though.

DxO Nik Collection 9: Verdict

The Nik Collection does feel like a plug-in suite of two halves. Analog Efex, Color Efex and Silver Efex are the creative center, and offer presets, filters and inspiration that’s hard to find anywhere else. HDR Efex is a good tool for an image style that’s perhaps gone out of fashion, and Viveza, Dfine and Sharpener definitely feel past their sell-by dates. Would I buy the Nik Collection for Analog Efex, Color Efex and Silver Efex alone? Yes, I probably would.

Alternatives

When the Canon EOS R5 Mark II and R1 launched in 2024, they joined the ranks of the manufacturer's most powerful full-frame mirrorless cameras. Now, both models have received a fresh firmware update, bringing a handful of enhancements, bug fixes and improvements to operational stability.

In our R1 review, we wrote, "The sports camera king is back to reclaim its throne," highlighting how its combination of AI features and AF (autofocus) performance makes it a formidable camera for sports photography. The R5 Mark II, on the other hand, was described as "the company's most important – and most powerful – camera."

Despite their different target audiences, the cameras share much of the same advanced technology. So it's perhaps no surprise that the latest firmware update includes several improvements shared by both mirrorless models, including live view, linked shooting fixes and improved stability, while the R5 Mark II also gets a fix for unwanted restarts when shooting with Dual Pixel RAW enabled.

Canon EOS R1

Version 1.3.2
UK download link: macOS + Windows
US download links: macOS, Windows

Enhancements and fixes
1. Improves a delay that may occur in the live view display when shooting with the EOS Multi Remote app
2. Fixes an issue that may cause the receiver camera to fail to capture images during linked shooting with EOS Multi Remote when the sender camera is connected to an FTP server
3. Improves operational stability

Canon EOS R5 Mark II

Version 1.3.2
UK download link: macOS, Windows
US download links macOS, Windows

Enhancements and fixes
1. Improves a delay that may occur in the live view display when shooting with the EOS Multi Remote app
2. Fixes an issue that may cause the receiver camera to fail to capture images during linked shooting with EOS Multi Remote when the sender camera is connected to an FTP server
3. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to restart during shooting when Dual Pixel RAW is enabled
4. Improves operational stability

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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Adobe is continuing to invest heavily in AI, and the demo I attended to showcase the latest developments in its flagship video editing software, Adobe Premiere, as well as Adobe After Effects, appears admittedly impressive. But in spite of the vocal pushback against AI, Adobe’s 2026 Creators’ Toolkit Report, at least, suggests that the majority of creators aren’t averse to using AI tools, citing that “nearly nine in ten” use AI creative automation to grow their businesses or audiences.

The photo editing software giant’s goal is to streamline video production “pain points” and “automate tedious tasks” in a bid to give more time back to the creative. That’s where Premiere’s Generative Media Tool comes in. This headline new feature is a fast-track to genAI content by allowing the creator to generate clips and sounds without leaving Premiere – and very often the timeline itself.

Generative Media Tool

Obviously, I saw choice examples of this working in Adobe’s demo, but it’s not just the convincing generated content that’s impressive; it’s the fact that you can fill gaps in your timeline seamlessly, right up to the second.

In the demo by Adobe’s Anton Knoblach, a drone shot was generated to fill a gap. This is performed in a generative taskbar that appears at the top of the timeline so you no longer have to leave Premiere in order to implement genAI content. As you’d expect, you can select your preferred model, be it Firefly or one of Adobe’s partner models.

You can further refine your content by selecting options such as the resolution and aspect ratio. What’s most impressive about all of this is that existing clips within your timeline are used for context. You simply select which clips you want to sample and the AI model will do the rest.

In the demo, the filmed footage looked like it was shot in a desert in the American Southwest. By sampling a few clips to provide context, the AI was able to generate a drone shot that looked like it was captured in the same landscape. Not only that, but the footage matched the grade of the contextual footage.

And all of this extends beyond Generate Video, with Generate Sound Effects bringing similar functionality. The update also introduces Generate Soundscape and Generate Music, which are both currently in beta. During the demo, I was shown a video of a rally car thundering through the desert, and all of the audio was AI-generated.

The sounds didn’t always fit with the rally car; there were some odd gearbox changes, and the squealing tyres sound effect was far too overpowering for a sliding car on a dirt track, but this was very impressive nonetheless. And again, this was all done inside Premiere, without leaving the project. Obviously Adobe is going to refine all of this in the future, but I can see it being a very useful conceptual tool straight off the bat for illustrative rough edits or first drafts at the very least.

Another example of generative audio was the implementation of a jacket zipper sound. Again, using the Generate Sound Effects tool within the Premiere timeline, Anton was able to generate a selection of zipper sounds, while also using their own voice to precisely time the length of the sound. By recording a “zzzzzzzzzzzip” sound, the AI was able to replicate the cadence of the voice while replicating an authentic zipper sound.

Refine audio and colors

That’s not all, Adobe Premiere also boasts “smarter audio” by bringing new AI audio tools into public beta, including Enhance Audio, Separate Crosstalk, and Dynamic Auto Ducking. The former allows users to enhance a variety of sounds, including dialogue, music, sound effects, and ambience, by removing elements, adjusting layers and muting dialogue.

Separate Crosstalk is used to identify speakers that overlap, placing their audio onto separate tracks. And the latter is said to automatically balance sounds without the need for manual keyframes.

Adobe Premiere is also getting an updated Color Mode (currently in beta), which is said to deliver “a first-of-its-kind grading experience”. Like the Generative Media Tool, this lives directly within Adobe Premiere edits, enabling users to make use of the new Auto Color tool. In one click, this automatically sets the color temperature and exposure of a video clip, group, or whole sequence. New Style Modules are also present, such as Vignette and Midtones, allowing you to do more without leaving the edit.

After Effects updates

Adobe After Effects is also getting in on the action, with an AI Assistant now in public beta. This is designed to take some of the load, distilling more complex multi-step workflows into automated processes. However, Adobe is quick to point out that the user remains “in complete creative control,” telling the AI Assistant what and what not to handle, while also shaping “every editable outcome”.

The AI Assistant can be implemented into a whole project, enabling editors to create motion effects without having to code, fix technical issues in the background, and organize large multi-layer projects, for example. According to Adobe, it’s often able to turn hours of work into minutes.

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This week, Camera Intelligence revealed the latest generative AI features in its Caira camera: adding Nano Banana video editing to its genAI photography. It was the latest reminder that the imaging industry, like the rest of the world, is doubling down on AI in its products – including the generative kind.

No hate, no shade. But it reminded me of a conversation I had with Canon earlier this year, when I asked the Japanese leadership about the subject of AI – and they were crystal clear about what is and what is not off limits when it comes to artificial intelligence.

"AI is going to keep on playing an important role for any shooting experiences for our products," said Tetsushi Hibi, advisory director of Canon's Img Optical Business Unit 1, behind closed doors at the CP+ 2026 show in Japan.

"So this is Canon’s stance: we are going to use AI not to generate imagery, but to capture scenes as close to the reality of shooting as possible – noise reduction, color correction, distortion correction, aberration – so those are the functions we are aiming to put it onto in our products."

We've already seen this in practice, particularly with the Canon EOS R1 and R5 Mark II – both of which use Canon's neural network image processing (NnIP) for features like 400% in-camera upscaling and 2-stop noise reduction. And of course, the many algorithmic subject detection and tracking options.

It is heartening to know, however, that generative AI imaging is not on the table for Canon – particularly with the company having rolled out its Authenticity Imaging System in May, offering content compliance to help verify the authenticity of images (and, by proxy, policing image manipulation and AI embelishment).

Where Canon definitely is implementing AI, however, is in the design phase.

"We have started our attempt to use AI for design," notes Hibi, which is born out by a recent company report that AI will be used in the early prototyping phase to simulate things like drop tests and assess thermal performance.

"We have no choice but to use AI in the design department," adds Go Tokura, executive vice president and head of Canon's Imaging Group. He's also sure to point out that the fruits of the technology will still be distinctly 'Canon', rather than resulting in homogenized products that are the same as other brands.

"When it comes to design, it is said that the AI can bring up the best possible solution. And you may think, if that’s the case, every single company will come up with the same new products.

"We have our own accumulated technology – not just designing capabilities, but also production technology as well, and materials. So even if we use AI for design, AI will consider all these unique capabilities to come up with the best solution for Canon.

"So even if the solution is generated by AI, that could be a good solution that will be able to differentiate our product from the others."

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The weirdest camera in Nikon’s lineup has just received a small firmware update. If you’re a Nikon Coolpix P1100 owner you can benefit from firmware update version 1.1, which Nikon says fixes the following two issues:

• Camera stops responding when adjusting zoom during burst photography (rare).
• Some timestamps in metadata of video files differ from actual date and time of recording.

As always, it’s worth making sure you know how to update your Nikon camera’s firmware before performing the update. While issues are rare, you may also wish to wait a week or two to ensure that there are no problems with the update before updating your camera.

What is it? Nikon Coolpix P1100

The Nikon Coolpix P1100 is the only bridge camera in Nikon’s current lineup – and beyond its predecessor, the Nikon Coolpix P1000, there really isn’t anything else quite like it. The camera’s main selling point is its humongous 125x optical zoom, which equates to 24-3000mm in 35mm terms.

It’s built around a 1/2.3-in CMOS sensor and, while it doesn’t deliver the very best image quality in the world, nothing is going to get you closer to faraway subjects, so the trade-off is well worth it if you ask me.

This is the kind of camera that sports, wildlife and lunar hobbyists will have an absolute blast with. You’re unlikely to capture award-winning images with it but, if your goal is simply to record what you see in the distance, you’re unlikely to find a cheaper or more compact option.

Even if it is an absolute monster-sized bridge camera.

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Camera Intelligence is a startup which has decided to change cameras – it might not be for everybody, but the company thinks its Caira camera might sell to ten times as many to creatives than the entire mirrorless market. Until today, I wasn't sure why.

Last year we covered the Kickstarter for the Caira, in which Camera Intelligence CEO Vishal Kumar unveiled a Micro Four Thirds camera system which – he says – attaches to a phone and bridges the gap between the photographic aspirations of people who buy the 'iPhone Pro' series (of whom there are 100 million every year) and the desire for simplicity and easy of use which limits real camera purchase to 10 million a year.

The result is a piece of hardware with a SnapDragon processor and a touchscreen that has similar power to a smartphone, and a MFT 4:3 image sensor.

A subscription will be needed for the use of the Nano Banana feature, but I was able to test it out in person and I can see the appeal.

Some of the most impressive effects demonstrated were video – from a simple instruction and a short clip the camera could create a whole clip with consistent style – for example by telling it: "orbit this statue like a drone."

The device, called an "AI-native Micro Four Thirds" was backed with $459,000 (670 backers) and the devices are now shipping as they are delivered.

As of today's event, new generative features on the device included Nano Banana for video editing, which is part of the Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash "any-to-any" model introduced at Google I/O as well as Runway's Aleph 2.0 which adds "real-world understanding" (helping it create effects and even apparent 3D motion to clips which have already been captured).

The ultimate goal for Camera Intelligence is to eliminate the three stage workflow that photographers presently work through, especially creators in a hurry. By eliminating the memory card and on-computer edit, and instead achieving video and photo editing in device (or, at least apparently), before sharing directly through your phone's usual means.

Now of course we have seen some of these features – tone adjustments and the like – in other cameras, but I was astounded by the demonstration I saw, inspired by the Harry Potter movies, no doubt – in which a photo of St. Pancras Station in London was turned into a drone-style flypast.

This was made possible with the new AI tools that create and extend video from that you shoot in device. The high-speed integration of this feature (it's only been days since it was announced) gives an idea of how this camera works with software agents first and foremost.

The problem that the company has set out to solve is not that there aren't professionals looking for professional workflows, but that there is a camera workflow that hasn't changed in 30 years, which puts creators spending 20% of their time creating on device, and 80% editing.

By attaching a MFT system to a phone, and Google's "Edge" TPU on device, as well as a Wi-Fi connection to the phone, everything is there for computational photography not just in the 'iPhone sense', but LLM instructions. This combines to form what Kumar called a "Vertically integrated platform."

So, can Camera Intelligence find a market for cameras that has eluded the rest of the world? I don't see why not myself. After all, many people are happy to buy phone accessories (especially if they'll last multiple generations), and many find traditional camera system menus somewhat bewildering.

Being able to interface with your serious camera via a phone-like touchscreen app seems to bridge a lot of that gap (and might do so even more for younger users with no prior experience of cameras).

There will be frustrations. The Nano Banana – and any other AI image generator which is integrated onto the device at a later date – will need to be paid for by subscription.

There are also, in the form I tried, limitations which seem a good idea – AI content is generated from material you take, and cannot do things to change people's appearance.

In the world where you need to publish 3-4 times a week to stay relevant, a device with AI on hand could help out. I can only imagine more need for features like this. Of course, if features are added by a simple app update, is there a line that can be drawn? I'm not sure, but I am more than intrigued.

The final hardware and software are expected in Fall 2026, with generative video only available in the USA and UK at first.

All-in-one super zooms, also known as workhorse lenses, give photographers incredible versatility from a single lens. The Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC OS | C is a prime example. Designed for APS-C mirrorless cameras, it offers an impressive 18.8x zoom range, covering everything from wide-angle to telephoto without changing lenses.

Now, Sigma has released a new firmware update for the superzoom, improving AF (autofocus) operation speed, tweaking peripheral illumination correction, and fixing occasional blackout/freesing issue when used with the Canon EOS R6 Mark III.

The latter hints at why photographers shouldn't get too excited. While the 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC OS | C is available for Canon RF, Fujifilm X, Sony E and L-mount, the firmware update is only for the Canon RF version.

Firmware overview

Ver.1.0.1
Download link Windows
Download link Mac OS

Improvements
• Fixed an isolated issue where the monitor blacks out and the camera freezes during shooting when used with the Canon EOS R6 Mark III
• Improved autofocus (AF) operation speed
• Optimized peripheral illumination correction data to improve correction accuracy

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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In November, a fledgling awards event that celebrates films made with artificial intelligence (AI) comes to London. The second edition of the AI Movie Awards (AIMA), which debuted in March in Spain, will recognize creations across a host of categories including feature films, short films, advertising clips and even music and art.

These awards are another in the growing number of events now recognizing films and photos generated using AI instead of with production crews, sets and actors. And, in one sense, I do believe that AI can be used creatively and that truly great AI creations are the result of a creative mind – not simply prompts and a click of a button.

But then, I remind myself that AI companies scrape copyrighted content – images, text and videos that an artist poured blood, sweat and tears into making – in order to sell subscription-based access to their tools without any sort of financial kickback to the creator whose work they’ve "borrowed".

I’d love to say "stolen", but this is such a legal grey area – with ongoing suits all over the world between AI platforms and publishers – that unfortunately, according to the law, I’m not even sure I can say that they’re stealing, even though it definitely feels this way.

Perhaps I’m succumbing to some sort of “AI overload.” You know, like when any other new, controversial thing is released and your resistance gradually turns to acceptance once you realize it’s here to stay.

And maybe it’s this that’s shifted my perspective on recognizing AI creations – and not that I actually think a movie generated purely with software deserves an award.

Or perhaps it’s that this new event in London is just one of many recent societal shifts toward accepting AI creations, even at the highest levels of cinema.

Take the AIMA 2026 judging panel, for instance. Sitting on this is Tommy Harper, a Hollywood and TV producer known for some pretty big titles, including the Star Trek reboot films.

And with Tribeca becoming the first ever film festival to recognize a fully AI-generated feature film this summer, these are people and institutions whose opinions on filmmaking carry weight – and I certainly think they’re worth considering.

However, I’m still unsure whether these awards should recognize creations brought about by the use of tools that, in part, run on copyrighted content.

I do think truly creative AI films and images can be recognized. But at the same time, I fear that it only helps legitimize the practice of using other people’s work without compensating them.

What are your thoughts?

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The UK’s Royal Navy has released a new short feature film on YouTube, throwing us right into the action with its official photographers.

Life Through The Lens documents what it’s like to be a camera operator in the British Royal Navy, from documenting the split-second chaos of combat to the drawn-out, somber funerals of those lost in the line of duty.

Much like Capa, McCullin and other famed war photographers of the past, the interviewed Navy personnel tell gritty stories of documenting some of the most emotionally and physically challenging moments of their lives.

But unlike the famous photojournalists of conflicts gone by, they face a new challenge – one they say will never be able to create something as “visually strong” yet “authentic to military life” as they can: artificial intelligence (AI).

ABOVE: Watch Life Through The Lens

According to former Royal Navy photographer Sean Clee: “AI can’t replicate what we do. It can’t go out on the ground. It can’t search out human interest stories.” Clee served for a quarter of a century in the Navy, the latter 15 years with a camera in hand.

While on deployment in Afghanistan, he captured the immediate aftermath of a rocket-propelled grenade explosion close to his unit. “There’s gotta be a face out there,” he said, adding that “AI can’t find these things.”

And it would appear that, at least for now, the UK military forces have no plans to replace their photographers with AI in any way. Wording in JSP 936, the Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s principal policy framework, states that the UK armed forces reject the use of AI that risks harming institutional credibility.

Credibility is what Chief Petty Officer Hoare – also interviewed in the featurette – says is at the heart of Royal Navy photographers’ work.

“Imagine using an AI image of made-up sailors instead of sailors that are actually doing the job,” he said. “We’re capturing real life […] we don’t lie about what we do.”

Life Through The Lens, the new photography mini-documentary from the Royal Navy, is now available to watch on YouTube (embedded above).

It’s not only a visceral insight into what these photographers endure to capture their images, but also a real-world refute of AI – demonstrating the limits of the technology through a unique line of photography.

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Light is the single most essential part of a great photograph – and now Photoshop is giving photographers a non-destructive layer just for light. On August 27, Adobe announced a long list of refreshes for Photoshop, including a new Light Adjustment Layer, along with new tools and more control over using AI inside the popular photo editor.

Editing light has long been a part of Photoshop’s workflow, but the addition of the Light Adjustment Layer brings several of those tools into a non-destructive layer. The new adjustment layer adds a dedicated space for adjusting exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks, with the ability to go back and tweak those controls later on.

Photoshop already has Exposure Adjustment Layer and Curves Adjustment Layer options, but the addition of the Light Adjustment Layer adds more nuanced control with the ability to also control highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks.

Unlike the curves layer, adjustments to the new Light layer use a simple set of sliders that will look immediately familiar to any photographer who has used Lightroom before.

Adobe says that the new layer delivers “Camera RAW-level results” without having to go back into Adobe’s RAW adjustment tool.

I do most of my editing in Lightroom Classic, pulling up Photoshop when I need to make more specific, fine-tuned adjustments. I’ve long had a photo open in Photoshop only to realize I still need more tweaks using Lightroom’s light-based sliders, and now Photoshop has a non-destructive tool with similar controls.

The August 2026 Photoshop update also adjusts several AI tools

The new adjustment layer launches alongside a handful of refreshes to Photoshop’s AI-based tools and interface, including updates to localized AI edits and a separate interface dedicated to prompt-based editing, a tool that’s still in beta.

First, Adobe says that Firefly Image 5 understands the photograph’s context better. Instruct Edit with Masks allows users to describe precise edits using prompts and leave the unmasked areas untouched.

Creators will also be able to draw over where Firefly should make any changes using a Markup tool. Adobe says users can now sketch arrows or brush in a rough shape for the software to recolor an area or add in new elements.

Photoshop’s prompt-based editing, which is a beta tool that allows users to describe what they want and have the GenAI assist, also now has its own separate user interface. AI-Assisted Editor is a new separate workspace from Photoshop’s usual one that creates a dedicated space for asking the chatbot for help with images.

Inside the new AI-Assisted Editor space, users can use natural language prompts to ask for help, along with using tools like background removal, generative expand, the remote tool, generative fill, and generative upscale, all in a new space built for working with AI edits.

Adobe says the usual interface will still be available using the Contextual Task Bar inside Photoshop’s usual user interface to access AI tools.

The new AI Assisted Workspace looks like it could be a simplified way for creators new to Photoshop who are using the chatbot to learn the ropes without so many daunting controls. But I do wish that Photoshop would also do the opposite and add in a master switch for turning off all Generative AI rather than adjusting each tool one-by-one.

The August 2026 update also includes an update to Dynamic Text that allows text to follow any custom shape or path, along with a new Adobe Stock panel that puts stock images into a dockable panel.

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Canon has announced a raft of firmware updates for its Cinema EOS series of cameras for filmmaking, adding new functionality and compatibility as well as general operability improvements.

The cameras getting the updates are the Canon EOS C80 (1.0.7.1), EOS C400 (1.0.7.1), EOS C50 (1.0.5.1), EOS C70 (1.1.4.1) and the Canon EOS R5 C (1.1.3.1).

The C80 and C400 are getting a new ‘Cinema Exposure’ mode. This is designed to improve highlight performance when shooting above base ISO levels (up to two stops) and streamlines the menus for log shooting. The intention, according to Canon, is to provide users with as much shooting ease and flexibility as possible in challenging shooting environments.

All cameras are gaining compatibility with the CN30x40 IAS J R1/P1 lens, a powerful 30x zoom in RF and PL mounts with a built-in 1.5x teleextender. The mirrorless EOS R5C – a camera that some users wondered if Canon had given up on – is also gaining a few new features, as well as some bug fixes.

There was a little strangeness around the rollout of some of this firmware, with the European versions being released a month in advance, but Canon says this was simply an operational error and not to read anything into it – YouTuber Ordinary Filmmaker has a good rundown if you’re interested.

Let’s take a closer look at what each of these cameras are getting…

EOS C80

Canon EOS C80 – Version 1.0.7.1

UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds a new [Capture Mode], enabling selection of the new [Cinema Exposure] feature in addition to the existing [Custom Picture].

Enables adjustment of the dynamic range balance (allocation between highlight and shadow ranges) based on ISO sensitivity in [Cinema Exposure].

2. Adds compatibility with the "CINE-SERVO" cinema lenses "CN30×40 IAS J/R1" (RF mount) and "CN30×40 IAS J/P1" (PL mount).

3. Adds [S&F External Audio Output] during Slow & Fast Motion recording. When this audio option is set to On, it allows audio output via external outputs (SDI/HDMI/headphones).

4. Improves operational stability.

EOS C400

Canon EOS C400 – Version 1.0.7.1

UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds a new [Capture Mode], enabling selection of the new [Cinema Exposure] feature in addition to the existing [Custom Picture].

Enables adjustment of the dynamic range balance (allocation between highlight and shadow ranges) based on ISO sensitivity in [Cinema Exposure].

2. Adds compatibility with the "CINE-SERVO" cinema lenses "CN30×40 IAS J/R1" (RF mount) and "CN30×40 IAS J/P1" (PL mount).

3. Adds [Auto Exp. Ramping Comp.] (Auto Exposure Ramping Compensation) to [Camera Settings].

Applying in-camera gain compensation according to the zoom position, maintains image brightness.

Compatible lenses:

- CN7×17 KAS S/E1

- CN10×25 IAS S/E1

- CN20×50 IAS H/E1

- CN8×15 IAS S/E1

- CN7×17 KAS T/R1

- CN5×11 IAS T/R1

- CN30×40 IAS J/R1

4. Adds [S&F External Audio Output] during Slow & Fast Motion recording. When this audio option is set to On, it allows audio output via external outputs (SDI/HDMI/headphones).

EOS C50

Canon EOS C50 – Version 1.0.5.1

UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds compatibility with the "CINE-SERVO" cinema lenses "CN30×40 IAS J/R1" (RF mount) and "CN30×40 IAS J/P1" (PL mount).

2. Improves operational stability.

EOS C70

Canon EOS C70 – Version 1.1.4.1

UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds compatibility with the "CINE-SERVO" cinema lenses "CN30×40 IAS J/R1" (RF mount) and "CN30×40 IAS J/P1" (PL mount).

When connected to external devices using the XC protocol, if the T value is 10 or greater, only the integer part is displayed on the external devices.

2. Fixes an issue that may interfere with the camera's ability to connect to an FTP server.

3. Improves operational stability.

EOS R5 C

Canon EOS R5 C – Version 1.1.3.1

UK: More information & download link
US: More information & download link

1. Adds compatibility with the "CINE-SERVO" cinema lenses "CN30×40 IAS J/R1" (RF mount) and "CN30×40 IAS J/P1" (PL mount).

2. Changes the color of the level indicator when the orientation of the camera is level.

3. Enables the playback of RAW clips in Media mode with Lens Corrections settings, such as Distortion Aberration Correction.

4. Fixes an issue that may interfere with the camera's ability to connect to an FTP server.

5. Fixes an issue that may cause the camera to not be recognized when connected to a smartphone via USB.

6. Improves operational stability.

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Nikon has released a pair of firmware updates: one for the Nikon Coolpix P1000 bridge camera and another for the Nikon Z5 II entry-level mirrorless camera.

Firmware version 1.9 for the P1000 sorts a rare yet serious issue that would cause the camera to temporarily freeze when adjusting the zoom while in burst mode.

Firmware version 1.20 brings a host of updates to the Z5 II, including more versatile aperture control when recording video and a host of changes to the settings menus.

Nikon Firmware Downloads

Firmware version 1.20 (Nikon Z5II)

Firmware version 1.9 (Nikon Coolpix P1000)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Nikon to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

Nikon hasn’t given any technical explanation as to why the Coolpix would freeze while zooming in burst mode. However, it’s thought that processor-heavy burst sequences could overwhelm the camera buffer, causing the device to stop responding.

Arguably, the two most practical updates to the Z5 II are the ability to save focus position to user settings and an extension of the ISO auto shutter-speed threshold.

The former enables your saved custom shooting modes (U1 / U2) to remember your preset focus distance, which is especially useful for tripod or fixed studio setups. The latter offers finer control over when the camera steps up ISO versus dropping the shutter speed, helping avoid unwanted motion blur when shooting handheld.

There’s also a new “auto-switch” option under the Setup menu, giving you more control over toggling between the rear LCD screen and viewfinder. And a new FTP inactivity timeout automatically manages idle connections to preserve battery life.

So, a major update for the Coolpix P1000, which will hopefully solve what was a serious issue for a small number of users. Whereas the Z5II gets a suite of tweaks which, together, could bolster workflows meaningfully.

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The 2026 solar eclipse brought troves of viewers across the path of totality, many equipped with cameras and smartphones – but some viewers walked away with impossible photos that would only happen if the Earth happened to have two moons.

Several failed eclipse photos are making the rounds on the internet, where users snapping photos with a smartphone realized that the phone had "captured" what looks like the moon passing in front of…another moon.

Across Reddit and Twitter, several smartphone photographers have shared photos taken during the eclipse that turn the sun’s orange glow into what looks like the surface of the moon.

The culprit? Several posts – and one comparison between a handful of different smartphones – suggest that the impossible photo of the Moon blocking what looks like another Moon comes from the supermoon mode on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, suggesting the use of AI-enhanced photography in the supermoon mode.

The smartphone’s supermoon mode uses computational photography to enhance photos of the moon. As one user on X described (translated from Spanish), “It detected a bright sphere in the sky, went into 'supermoon' mode, and straight up invented the entire surface.”

While enhancing the surface of the moon may be less obvious under a more typical scenario, photographing the eclipse requires using a protective filter, turning the sun into a dark orange orb. The mishap seems to be one of mistaken identity, misreading the sun as the moon when the moon was a dark shadow. The scenario isn't likely to pop up very often – after all, the 2026 eclipse was the first time mainland Spain has been in the path of totality since 1905.

Thankfully, the mode is something that can be turned off. Another user commented that disabling supermoon mode on the phone fixed the issue and returned the photos to the expected solar eclipse shots.

I find the gaff rather humorous, though admittedly it would have been frustrating to experience. After all, why take the time out of a celestial phenomenon that only lasts for a few minutes to take a photo that AI could generate anyway?

The viral posts over the glitch echo a similar controversy from a few years back when Samsung users found that the camera was enhancing the texture of the moon.

As a photographer, the viral posts over the supermoon mode eclipse mishap illustrate why generative AI doesn’t belong inside cameras.

Standard AI already powers excellent camera features like subject detection and autofocus. But generative AI, where a computer is creating something that’s not there, shouldn’t be trusted inside the devices that capture memories.

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A new study carried out by the folks behind an AI-powered photo editing software has found that the vast majority of its users don’t like the way its AI adjusts photos, often leaving creators with an “unnatural” final result.

The survey was carried out by Skylum, the parent company of Luminar, which found that, of 1,328 survey respondents, 76% who use Luminar on their smartphones dial back the AI suggestions to create a more “authentic” feel.

What’s more, according to the data, 93% of respondents, whom Skylum has defined simply as “photographers,” said they want results that look “natural.”

I don’t think this study reveals anything starkly different to what the photography community already feels towards AI in general: that part of the problem with the technology is that it can create results that just don’t feel right.

But I do think the study highlights that there is an acceptance within the community to use AI in post-production, as long as it doesn’t edit images in a way that you wouldn’t.

After all, 73% of respondents said staying “natural” mattered more to them than looking “flawless,” while only 39% of respondents said they hold back from AI editing altogether, which leads me to believe that photographers want the time-saving benefits of AI without feeling like AI has taken the reins.

Skylum also said that 80% of respondents would rather a photo captures “feeling” than “technical details”, which I guess does allude to a new insight that there may be a general feeling among photographers that AI oversharpens images, for example. However, that’s my take, as the company didn’t clarify what “technical details” meant.

I think the overall takeaway here is that, among Luminar users at least, there’s no issue with using AI, as long as it edits images in a way that reflects what they actually saw when pressing the shutter – and that the final result doesn’t deviate from the creative vision they had.

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Leica has rolled out a slew of firmware updates for a host of its cameras.

Firmware version 4.1.1 for the Leica Q3, Q3 43 and Q3 Monochrom forms the meat of the news, while smaller and seemingly less important updates have been rolled out for the Leica SL2 and SL2-S along with the D-Lux 8.

The company hasn't gone too in-depth with the details but, from what I can gather, the Q3 cameras get important fixes for bugs affecting auto-shutdown and remote app control, while the SL2 models and D-Lux 8 see their operational stability bolstered.

Leica firmware downloads

Here are the firmware downloads, all of which I’ll explain below:

Download firmware 4.1.1 (Leica Q3 / Q3 43 / Q3 Monochrom)

Download Firmware 1.9.0 (Leica D-Lux 8)

Download firmware 6.3.0 (Leica SL2 and Leica SL2-S)

It’s a good idea to hold off downloading the latest firmware for a few weeks. This should give enough time for any new issues to arise in community chatter, and for Leica to address them. Keep an eye on Digital Camera World and we'll let you know about any problems.

Firmware 4.1.1 (Leica Q3 / Q3 43 / Q3 Monochrom)

The Leica Q3 series brings high-end, full-frame compact digital cameras known for their solid build quality, 60MP sensor, and fixed prime lenses. Firmware 4.1.1 brings a trio of main updates for these cameras:

• A fix for a bug preventing the camera from turning off automatically during wireless charging in “certain situations”. Leica hasn’t elaborated on what these are, but has confirmed the Q3 models now turn off automatically as soon as wireless charging is detected.
• A fix for a bug causing the camera to unexpectedly switch to the default user profile in “certain situations”. Again, we don't know what the exact situations were, but if you were facing it, Leica says the issue is now resolved.
• A fix for a bug causing Bluetooth connection failure between the Leica Fotos mobile app and a Q3 camera after a remote wake-up with certain Leica Looks (in-camera profiles) or AF mode settings applied. Leica hasn’t clarified which Looks or AF settings were triggering the error.

Firmware 1.9.0 (Leica D-Lux 8)

The Leica D-Lux 8 is a premium pocket-sized compact camera featuring a 17MP Micro Four Thirds sensor and a fast 24–75mm equivalent f/1.7–2.8 zoom lens.

Leica says that the latest firmware fixes existing “bugs in the firmware” without going into any details whatsoever. This is likely a routine firmware update to maintain stability.

Firmware 6.3.0 (Leica SL2 and Leica SL2-S)

The Leica SL2 and Leica SL2-S are full-frame mirrorless rigs sharing the same weather-sealed metal body and in-body image stabilization, but featuring different sensor resolution, speed, and video capabilities.

Leica hasn’t published release notes for firmware version 6.3.0, so we don’t actually know what the update entails. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any new information and update this article accordingly.

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ChatGPT can now use more than 70 different tools from Adobe apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere without leaving the chatbot, thanks to a new Adobe plugin in ChatGPT.

Announced on August 06, the Adobe plugin allows ChatGPT users to type prompts across photos, videos, and designs, then allow the AI to run an Adobe-powered workflow without leaving the AI program.

The move builds on previously released tools by bringing more than 70 different tools using a plug-in for the AI. The plug-in is designed for ChatGPT’s more advanced Work and Codex, two components of the ChatGPT desktop app.

Adobe explains that the plugin allows users to upload multiple photos, describe the look they want, then get a consistently styled edit across the entire set of images, with the collection saved to the Creative Cloud.

For videos, the plugin can help build a short highlight video from a longer project, along with resizing videos to fit different social media platforms.

The plugin also works with Adobe apps beyond photo and video, including Acrobat for building PDFs as well as InDesign and Illustrator for graphic design.

“The Adobe plugin in ChatGPT isn’t a replacement for our flagship apps that creative professionals rely on every day,” said Forest Key, vice president of Adobe Firefly & Agentic AI at Adobe. “It brings Adobe’s trusted, pro-grade creative and productivity tools into the flow of conversation, so more people can create high-quality content the moment inspiration strikes. Our flagship apps go deeper when projects call for hands-on precision and creative control. Together, they give more people more ways to create with Adobe.”

Adobe says that the plug-in uses the same trusted tools found inside Adobe apps and, when users need a tool not found inside the plug-in, a partially finished edit can be opened inside Photoshop for further adjustments.

ChatGPT users first need to open the ChatGPT app, navigate to plugins, then find and install the Adobe plugin. After installation, users can use “@Adobe” to tell the chatbot to work within the Adobe ecosystem.

Logged-in Adobe account holders will have access to more generative capabilities as well as Creative Cloud file storage, but Adobe notes that guests can use the tool without signing in as well.

The Adobe ChatGPT plug-in is rolling out globally from August 06.

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Think DSLRs are dead? Not quite, even in 2026. Nikon may have moved firmly into the mirrorless era, but it hasn't forgotten its high-end DSLRs.

Nikon's D780 and flagship D6 are both six-year-old full-frame DSLRs, but both have just received new firmware updates that fix a handful of exposure-related bugs.

There are no flashy new features here, but it's a reassuring sign that Nikon is still ironing out the quirks of these older DSLRs.

Firmware overview

Nikon D780
Ver 1.21 – Download link for Windows and Mac OS

Nikon D6
Ver. 1.71 – Download link for Windows and Mac OS

Improvements

Nikon D780
• Fixed an issue where photos taken would sometimes be underexposed when zoom was adjusted during burst photography in high-speed continuous release mode

Nikon D6
Fixed the following issues:
• Photos taken would sometimes be underexposed with a D-type lens attached
• Recalling shooting functions would sometimes limit the shutter speed to 1/250 s with auto FP high-speed sync

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, above, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, and what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

It's smart to wait a week or two after release to see if any users hit snags. In the past, brands have had a few hiccups with major updates – for instance, introducing memory-setting bugs or minor interface glitches before being reissued.

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