Photography

Flickr-Getty deal gets new photo sales option

Flickr has added a new option by which people can turn their images at Yahoo's photo-sharing site into revenue.

In Flickr's initial partnership with photo licensing powerhouse Getty Images, Getty representatives cherry-picked Flickr photos and photographers they liked. Later, Flickr members could offer their own candidates for evaluation by Getty for licensing.

The new option, called Request to License, lets photographers nominate photos in a way that those who want to license figure into the transaction.

Here's how it works. A photographer can label a photo to be part of the Request to License program. When somebody … Read more

The rise of the accidental sensor

When IBM speaks of Smarter Planet or the U.S. Department of Energy talks of smart grids, a big part of the vision is pervasive sensors that measure and meter the physical world in real time.

Implicit is the assumption that much of this instrumentation will be deliberate and purposeful, put in place for a specific function such as measuring traffic flows or electricity consumption.

This is all fascinating stuff. But what I find even more intriguing is how data that's created by individuals--perhaps even as an accidental byproduct of some activity--can be aggregated and mined to deliver insights. … Read more

Phase One: All the camera $55K can buy

Most folks think carefully before spending $300 on a new camera. I'm more serious about photography, but I still swallowed hard before buying an SLR costing about 10 times that.

But brace yourself for even more sticker shock, because there are some professionals who spend more than an order of magnitude beyond what I did. This is the domain of medium-format digital cameras, whose sensors have roughly twice the surface area of a high-end SLR for maximum image quality.

Medium-format gear is beyond my means but not beyond my curiosity, so I was pleased with an offer to try one out. In this case, it was Phase One's top-of-the line products--the 645AF and newer 645DF cameras, the P65+ image sensor back that can be attached, and a handful of lenses.

Such gear appeals chiefly to fashion and commercial photographers, the types who produce full-page ads of glamorous models and diamond-encrusted watches. Lacking the gaggle of assistants, spacious studio, and forest of flash equipment common in this realm, I'm not equipped to put a modern medium-format camera through its full paces. But I'm not a bad or inexperienced photographer, so for those who've wondered what a medium-format machine is like, here are my impressions.

So what do I think of a camera with this price tag? … Read more

Apple expands raw, tethered camera support

Apple's Mac OS X 10.6.4 update Tuesday contained several additions of note to serious photographers: support for several cameras' raw image formats and for tethered shooting with Canon cameras in the company's Aperture software.

Apple, like photography software rival Adobe Systems, is on a constant treadmill supporting new cameras' raw formats. The proprietary file formats offer higher quality and greater flexibility, but each camera has its own format for software companies to decode.

By my scrutiny of previous Apple announcements and the updated Apple raw image support page, here are the new cameras supported beyond earlier … Read more

Lightroom 3 gets new core, features

Adobe Systems plans to release Photoshop Lightroom 3 late Monday, swapping in a new engine and bolting some significant new photography extras onto a user interface that largely remains the same.

Available for Windows and Mac, highlights of the new version include a speedier interface, tethered shooting with the camera directly communicating with the software, better noise reduction to get rid of pesky speckles, some basic video handling, publishing services that can ease uploads to Web sites or iPhone photo synchronization, and new lens correction tools. (You can read our full review on download.com.)

Lightroom competes directly with Apple's Aperture, version 3 of which was released in February with its own set of big changes. Lightroom costs more--$299 to Aperture's $199--though both cost $99 to upgrade.

Such software is geared for photo enthusiasts and professionals, in particular those who prefer the greater flexibility and quality available with higher-end cameras' raw image file formats.

There are snapshooters, and then there are more serious photographers for which Lightroom is designed. "When they start taking the camera out of the bag because they see an image, something compelling they want to capture, it's more photography than just recording family events," said Tom Hogarty, Adobe's senior product manager for Lightroom. … Read more

Photoshop CS5 gets new lens fixes, raw support

Adobe Systems has released the final version of an update to its new Photoshop CS5 that gives the program the ability to automatically correct lens flaws while editing raw images.

Photoshop CS5 already could correct geometric distortion, vignetting, and chromatic for ordinary image files, but the Camera Raw 6.1 plug-in lets photographers do the same with the Photoshop module geared specifically for handing raw images from higher-end cameras. The update, released Tuesday, is on the Adobe.com update site.

Raw images taken directly from camera sensors offer more flexibility and quality than JPEGs that have been processed by the … Read more

Adobe patches 'critical' holes in Photoshop CS4

Photoshop users like to expand what the software can do by downloading new brushes, gradients, and color swatches, but the ability to make those additions also turns out to have been a potential avenue for attack.

Adobe Systems on Wednesday released a Photoshop 11.0.2 security update to its earlier CS4 version of Photoshop for both Windows and Mac OS X versions to close off that avenue.

"Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 and earlier for Windows and Macintosh that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits these vulnerabilities to take control of … Read more

Aperture 3: Good option for photo enthusiasts

With three updates now out of the way since its debut in February, Apple's Aperture 3 is ready for prime time, and I recommend the software.

The $199 software is geared for photography enthusiasts and professionals, especially those who shoot raw images rather than just JPEG, and I put the software through its paces for several weeks for a review. My overall opinion: It's solid software that produces very nice images.

If you're an iPhoto user who wants more, it's a good upgrade, though it costs $199 new. If you're an Aperture 2 user, it'… Read more

Adobe announces angst-laden iPad software effort

Adobe has begun a new effort to bring imaging software such as Lightroom to the iPad and other tablet computers--but the leader of the work also is fretting over the control Apple has over it.

"I love making great Mac software, and after eight years product-managing Photoshop, I've been asked to help lead the development of new Adobe applications, written from scratch for tablet computers. In many ways, the iPad is the computer I've been waiting for my whole life," Adobe's John Nack said in a blog post Thursday. "I want to build the … Read more