Software Day

The big news is Adobe Lightroom 4.0, which ships today at a new lower price (US$149, US$79 for updates). D4 and D800 owners--hey, wait, are there any yet?--will be happy to know that Lightroom 4.0 supports the new cameras.

Lightroom's changes aren't monumental, but they're scattered throughout the product and very important. The Develop changes alone are probably worth the price of upgrading. If you're a videographer, the fact that Lightroom now deals with organizing and working with your video is also a key feature. The book creation ability (through Blurb) has improved significantly. Throughout the program you find that Adobe has reworked, augmented, and supplemented key elements. XP users need not apply, though, as that decade old OS is no longer supported. At the new price, Lightroom is almost a bargain.

Meanwhile, Adobe also released the US$9.99 Photoshop Touch for the iPad. While it's not everything Photoshop is on a desktop machine and it can be a little sluggish on big files, it's really the first iOS photo editor that feels robust and works the way we're used to. Definitely a bargain.

Elsewhere in software we've got Nik's Snapseed now available for Windows, which makes it pretty available on everything now. It's a completely different approach than Adobe's in terms of image editing, but also one that resonates with a lot of users.

In the Mac App Store convert 1.0 is a batch image conversion program for photographers dealing with large numbers of images; Camera Awesome is SmugMug's contribution to the camera and dispatcher realm, and quite a good one at that; Panorama 1.0 is another in the long line of panorama stitchers; Graphic Converter 7.6.2 adds some minor features and tweaks some of the interface; and PhotoStyler 6.3 is another of those Polaroid/Lomo/et.al. image transformers.

Looking for gear-specific information? Check out our other Web sites:
Nikon Z System mirrorless: zsystemuser.com | Nikon DSLRs: dslrbodies.com | Nikon film SLRs: filmbodies.com
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