Photography and image editing

Following today's OS X 10.8.2 update for Mountain Lion, Apple has issued updates to iPhoto and Aperture, which bring the latest versions of the popular photo management suites to 9.4 and 3.4, respectively. The updates include a number of small bugs and fixes, along with new features and addresses several notable issues.

The first of these is both programs now support Shared Photo Streams in OS X Mountain Lion, which allows others to view Photo Streams you have set up in iCloud. In addition, the programs now support directly opening and editing a file from … Read more

Long known for its DVD/media playback (PowerDVD) and disc authoring (Power2Go) tools, CyberLink also publishes a full suite of consumer-level photo- and video-editing software that includes powerful technology. In an exclusive release for Download.com, CyberLink's two flagship editing programs -- PhotoDirector for photography editing and management; PowerDirector for video editing and effects -- update to versions 4 and 11, respectively, including a new version of PhotoDirector for Mac. The company is also introducing two new video-production tools for audio -- CyberLink AudioDirector -- and color -- CyberLink ColorDirector, as well as a Director Suite that packages them … Read more

Fourandsix Technologies, a startup founded by a former Photoshop bigwig and a image-analysis guru, has released its first product, the FourMatch software to detect changes to an image.

The most obvious use for the $890 Photoshop plug-in: ensuring that digital photos used as legal evidence are authentic.

The company lists other possibilities, too, though, such as checking that nobody's fiddled with digital images of insurance claims or contest entries, or ensuring the legitimacy of photos that might be published as the truth.

Company executives have good street cred in the area: the software came from Chief Technology Officer Hany … Read more

Apparently 11 years was long enough.

Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, and Adobe said today that the current CS6 version of Photoshop will be the last one to support the operating system.

"The Photoshop team would like to provide advanced notice that Photoshop CS6 (13.0) will be the last major version of Photoshop to support Windows XP," Adobe Product Manager Tom Hogarty said in a blog post.

The reason, he said, is that modern performance-sensitive software requires modern hardware graphics interfaces that Windows XP lacks, in particular a way to tap into the power of graphics … Read more

Photo taking apps are a dime a dozen in the App Store, but if you look a little deeper, you can make some really cool projects as long as you use some creativity.

Instead of simply giving your photos a retro look like many of the popular camera apps, there are a number of options that turn your images into a creative project in which you can use your imagination to come up with something unique.

This week's collection of apps are all about doing something different with your images on your iPhone. The first quickly turns your photos … Read more

HipGeo Travel Blog and Trip Journal (free) lets you tell the story of your vacation with images, videos, text, tags, and more all tied to your geolocation. You start by signing up through Facebook or Twitter, then you can choose people to share your travels with. If you just want to see the app in action before you take your trip (and see best practices from other users) you can use an explore button to check out blogs of popular or featured users, or look at posts from near your location.… Read more

There are several Android photo-editing apps with autocorrection, but none of them are as good as Athentech's Perfectly Clear for iOS. Perfectly Clear for Android, however, seems to top it.

Perfectly Clear basically does one thing -- autocorrect photos. If you're looking for filters or editing tools, you'll have to look elsewhere. But for quickly fixing underexposures, poor white balance, soft details, or dull colors, this is your app.

The interface has been redesigned from the iOS version for better workflow and the processing has been reengineered to take full advantage of newer Android devices, giving it … Read more

If you've managed to get your hands on Mountain Lion for Mac, there's a really cool feature called AirPlay Mirroring where you can show your desktop and more on a big screen hooked up to an Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring is something you might use when you want to show your work at a meeting, show your photos to your family, watch video, and so on, but on an Apple TV-connected big screen. Here's how to do it.

Editors' note:Unfortunately, AirPlay Mirroring only works on Macs made in 2011 or later. For those on older machines … Read more

Whenever Apple releases a new version of its OS X operating system, it soon follows with updates to some of its popular programs for OS X. Today's release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (see here for CNET's full review) is no different, and Apple has made several updates available for its iWork productivity suite, its iPhoto consumer picture manager, and its iMovie home video editor.

The updates are available through Mountain Lion's Mac App Store, which Apple has unified for managing updates to both Mac App Store purchases and also other system updates in the … Read more