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The holiday shopping season is upon us, which means it's a great time to start thinking about the perfect gift for the photographer in your life (even if that photographer happens to be you!).

For almost two decades now, some of the world’s most renowned photographers and digital image makers have enthused about a set of Photoshop plugins that help them create a real wow factor. The Nik Collection of plugins, recently re-tooled and re-launched by renowned image processing innovator DxO, makes it easy for almost anyone to add special effects and creative adjustments to images without complicated masks and adjustment layers.

Powered by advanced artificial intelligence, it’s the fastest and easiest PortraitPro ever. Expanded image recognition makes feature finding and background editing ultra easy and accurate.

I was really excited to get my hands on the Lowel Go Lite. It’s a really affordable, portable and easy to use, accessory light. While it’s not powerful enough to light an entire landscape, it does work well as an accent light in low light situations.

Neutral density filters are one of the most important tools in a photographer’s toolkit. They allow a photographer to control the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor. Whether it is a bright sunny day and you want to manage the bright light, or you are photographing water and are looking for that silky smooth look, the neutral density filter can help you achieve the image you are looking for.

We’re chatting with celebrity photographer Manfred Bauman, a dedicated user of PortraitPro software. He shares with us what it’s like to work with some of the biggest stars and what tools he finds helpful in his work.

PortraitPro: What lead you to photographing Hollywood actors?

Manfred Baumann: Sir Roger Moore discovered one of my pictures at an exhibition in Hamburg and bought it for his house in Switzerland. He is a big fan of photography, which is how we got into contact. He was my first Hollywood star, and that got the ball rolling.

There’s never been a better time to engage in printmaking and the potential it offers for creative expression. For me that’s the best reason to print your work; to take advantage of the tools and materials we have available today, from amazing desktop printers to fantastic fine art papers, to make something unique that can be seen and touched in the real world.