photography

Photos taken with Lytro's light field camera (aka living pictures) were already more interactive than a regular snapshot, letting you endlessly refocus the images by clicking on different parts of them. An upcoming software update takes the interactivity up a notch, letting you change the perspective of your shots, too.

The free Lytro Desktop software update, which rolls out December 4, adds this Perspective Shift feature, enabling Lytro users to slightly change the point of view of a living picture by clicking and dragging it in any direction.

For example, click and hold on the picture at the top … Read more

Did you miss out on the total solar eclipse yesterday?

Take a look at our breathtaking gallery that features pictures of the total (and partial) solar eclipse from the northern tip of Australia, various island countries in the South Pacific, and near Chile.… Read more

When leaving a comment on an Instagram photo, especially one with a lot of comments, it can be difficult to ensure that your comment stands out in the crowd. It seems a lot of Instagram users think the best way to gain followers is to leave comments on popular photos. I've always said I'll know I've made it on Instagram when one of my photos contains countless comments full of nothing but Emoji and #teamfollowback tags.

Thanks to a post on Tags For Likes, you can emphasize your point or comment by using a bold font on … Read more

If you use Apple's Aperture professional photo management program for OS X, then a new update is available that addresses a number of bugs with the previous release.

The update focuses around managing content from shared photo streams, including detecting faces, managing where streams are shared, and incorporating more cross-stream content management.

In addition to stream focus, the update fixes a number of problems with metadata management, resolution and use of secondary displays, and color profile management. The full list of addressed features is the following:

A test version of Adobe Systems' Lightroom 4.3 has added partial support for Apple's Retina displays and other high-resolution screens.

The Lightroom 4.3 release candidate, available on Adobe Labs, shows photos in the develop module so that one pixel in the original photo occupies one pixel on the screen. That means a much sharper and detailed image than with the older Lightroom 4.2, which scales images so that one pixel on the photo occupies four pixels on the screen.

I was worried that Adobe would Retina support for Lightroom 5, which presumably will be a paid … Read more

Two new higher-end but not top-end lenses will arrive in December, the $1,500 EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM and the $850 EF 35mm f/2 IS USM, Canon said today.

The 24-70mm f4 lens, though not inexpensive by any means, extends a Canon tradition of offering intermediate models for enthusiasts and pros who don't necessarily want to pay more for top-end lenses -- in this case, the alternative is the $2,300 Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM introduced in February, whose f2.8 aperture enables photography in low-light shooting and with a blurrier background … Read more

Lens cleaning equipment such as blower brushes and compressed air can take up quite a bit of space in your bag. The folks at Digital Camera World have come up with a novel DIY way of keeping things compact by transforming paintbrushes into portable tools for cleaning off minute particles when shooting in dusty environments.

All you need is an inexpensive paintbrush that's readily available at any craft shop.… Read more

I am a regular user of Instagram and a regular user of an iPad. Unfortunately, these two items do not directly connect. Instagram has yet to release an app optimized for the iPad's larger screen, and I would advise against anyone browsing pixelated images using Instagram magnified on the iPad. Thus, you must turn to a third-party app.

Before we proceed, I should state that Instagram does not let you upload photos via a third-party app. Such an app lets you view your various Instagram feeds and offers a variety of fun and useful features, from commenting on and … Read more

Instagram does not offer an app with native support for the iPad, and blowing up the iPhone app on an iPad is not ideal unless you enjoy blurry, pixelated images. There are a number of free apps -- InstaFlow, Padgram, Pictacular -- that let you view your Instagram feed on the iPad, so why would you spend $1.99 on Iris? I can't quite recommend you do so, but it is the most polished of the group I looked at this week.

Before I get into Iris, I must first offer the standard Instagram-on-the-iPad disclaimer: Instagram does not let you post photos via a third-party app. Thus, no third-party app offers full Instagram functionality. An app such as Iris, however, lets you view crisp, clear, and large Instagram photos on an iPad, along with a variety of fun and useful features, from commenting on and liking photos to sharing via Twitter and browsing photos by location on a map.… Read more