Software News

The idea of loading an image and pushing a button and seeing what happens may be anathema to some photographers, but for certain images where you might want an extra-special touch done easy it might just do the trick.

Midwest Photographic Resource Center is now offering their new USB Case. This pro-quality display box comes with either a 8GB or 16GB stainless steel and leather USB flash drive. The lid features a built-in display window that allows you to personalize the box for each client. The retail price for the 8GB drive and USB Case is $29.95.

Sometimes a straight photograph isn’t the goal when we capture images. Thanks to a number of programs, you can take your photograph beyond the ordinary and turn it into a work of art with a few clicks of the mouse. One such program is Topaz Simplify (www.topazlabs.com, $39.99). Running standalone or as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom or Apple’s Aperture, Simplify has a number of presets ranging from cartoon look to wood carvings to help you get started. Additionally, if you create your own look, you can save it as a preset and share those presets with other users.

DALL·E 2 from OpenAI (the folks who gave us ChatGPT) uses AI to convert plain language text strings into realistic images and art. We typed in “Digital camera that looks like a red pepper” and DALL·E 2 generated the image you see here (we added the Shutterbug nameplate). For lovers of imaging, DALL·E 2 is addictive. Read more to view a few other things DALL·E 2 generated for us, and learn how to begin turning your words in pictures.

No human being is created perfect, and photographers probably know that firsthand. Still, everyone wants to look best in their portraits. That desire usually translates into hours of tedious retouching with Photoshop or the likes of it. Whether you are a fashion, an event, or a wedding photographer, you probably wish to make portrait enhancing a breeze. Well, there is software that can grant you that wish.

The question is—does anybody really know what a given image would look like if they shot it on Kodachrome 25, or Fuji Acros, or some obscure color negative film that even in film’s heyday was little used or appreciated? Perhaps the more pertinent question is—how many people have made photographs using film? But film references are what a number of so-called film emulation software programs use for describing presets that can be applied to a digital image. Half academic and half nostalgic, the programs use film brand names to describe saturation, contrast, color nuance, and grain structure variations that are then applied to an image. Perhaps using film names is better than poetic fantasy terms, like “misty blue dawn,” but then again entirely subjective descriptors, rather than supposedly clinical ones used in these software programs, might be just as handy for today’s photography crowd. In any case, I recently tested one such program, DxO’s FilmPack 3.1, to see if it offered up creative variations that could be used as is or as foundation images when interpreting subjects and scenes.