Digital SLR Blog

The Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 5.4 Release Candidate is now available for download. The Camera Raw 5.4 Release Candidate extends raw file support to an additional 26 camera and camera back models including the Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i), Nikon D5000, and 18 Hasselblad models. For more information and to download got tohttp://labs.adobe.com.

Additional Supported Camera and Camera Back Models
Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i)
Epson R-D1x
Hasselblad CF-22, CF-22MS, CF-39, CF-39MS, CFH-22, CFH-39, CFV, 503CWD, H2D-22, H2D-39, H3D-22, H3D-31, H3D-39, H3DII-22, H3DII-31, H3DII-39, H3DII-39MS, H3DII-50
Kodak EasyShare Z980
Nikon D5000
Olympus E-450
Olympus E-620
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1
Sigma DP2

Imagenomic has announced the availability of Portraiture 2 for Aperture. The plug-in claims to fit seamlessly into Aperture digital image management, editing and output and now includes features like; Automatic Skin Tones Mask generation and “One-click” skin retouching, Advanced Skin Masking controls and Enhancement sliders and settings. Portraiture 2 for Aperture can be purchased for  $199.95 (SRP).

Nik Software’s Viveza plug-in filter is now available for Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 2 and higher. The update is free to current owners of Viveza. Viveza installs as a plug-in filter for Lightroom 2 and is accessible via the Lightroom Photo>Edit In…menu. Current owners of Viveza may download a free update at www.niksoftware.com/lightroom .

The Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 update is now available for download courtesy Adobe. Mac users can download it from here and Window users should head over here.

Highlights of the update:

 A number of issues that could cause slow performance have been addressed.

• Pen barrel rotation with Wacom tablets now works correctly.

• Photoshop now correctly recognizes 3D textures edited by a plug-in.

• The quality of the results of Auto-Blend Layers (Stack Images) has been improved.

• A problem that could result in a crash when pasting formatted text has been fixed.

• A crash that could result from a corrupt font no longer occurs.

The 1clickactions Action Station seeks to offer swift browsing and powerful search functions to users of Photoshop actions. The Action Station is compatible with Photoshop CS2, CS3 and CS4 on both Mac and Windows platforms and cab be purchased for $47.95. A UserGuide can be downloaded from http://www.1clickactions.com/pdfs/ActionStationGuide.pdf “The most popular request from our customer feedback monitoring has been for some way to organize all the actions we provided”, says 1click’s David Gill. “Until now our customers have had to navigate the Photoshop action palette and as our range of actions increased so did the size of the action palette.”

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 and Photoshop Camera Raw 5.3 release candidates are now available for download and both provide additional raw file support for the Nikon D3X and Olympus E-30 cameras. In addition, the Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidate provides a solution to a memory leak that affected some customers of the Lightroom 2.2 release. For more information head over tohttp://labs.adobe.com/.

Photoshop Product Manager John Nack admitted in his blog that Adobe is developing a Photoshop CS4 update. This doesn’t surprise us since a number of CS4 users reported problems with the software and the Photoshop update will "improve the situation." Those experiencing problems can contact Adam Jerugim by email to test  "a small pre-release program that we're opening to public volunteers."

Portraiture 2, which is an upgrade to the Portraiture Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, is now available for download. The updated version supports latest versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Creative Suite, including full support for CS4 32 and 64-bit versions. Portraiture 2 supports both Mac OSX and Windows XP/Vista operating systems, and is fully compatible with Photoshop Elements 4/5/6/7, and Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4 (32 and 64-bit versions), as well as Creative Suite Extended.

For more information, visit http://www.imagenomic.com.

Camera Raw 5.2 is now available courtesy Adobe. The latest version of the plug- in now includes RAW support for select new cameras including Canon EOS 5D Mark II.


The full list of newly-supported cameras:

    * Canon EOS 5D Mark II
    * Canon PowerShot G10
    * Panasonic DMC-G1
    * Panasonic DMC-FX150
    * Panasonic DMC-FZ28
    * Panasonic DMC LX3
    * Leica D-LUX 4


You can download it from here:

    * Camera Raw 5.2 for Mac
    * Camera Raw 5.2 for Windows

The  Adobe Configurator for Photoshop CS4 is now available for download. For the uninitiated, the Configurator is an open-source Adobe AIR-based application, which  makes it to snap together one’s own Photoshop panels (a.k.a. palettes). For more information go here.

The Adobe Pixel Bender plug-in is now available as a free download. According to Adobe, the plug-in provides “automatic runtime optimization on heterogeneous hardware" to run Photoshop filters faster.

Says Adobe:

"Pixel Bender is best suited for the kind of algorithms in which processing of any pixel has minimum dependence on the values of other pixels. For example, you can efficiently write a kernel to manipulate brightness of the image because brightness of each pixel can be changed independently. You would not want to use Pixel Bender to compute a histogram, because a histogram requires the values of all the pixels in an image."

Before splurging on Adobe Photoshop CS4, one can try it out for free. The 30-day try-out versions of all the new Adobe CS4 applications are now available online. All one needs to do is sign up for a free Adobe account and then download it from the website. Check out Adobe’s impressive repertoire of application here.

[Via Photography Blog ]

Adobe today unveiled the Photoshop Elements 7 which now includes features like Scene Cleaner, based on Adobe's innovative Photomerge(R) technology and Smart Brush which helps users apply effects to a specific area of a photo. Photoshop Elements 7 also features enhanced Quick Fix tools and now gives the option to its users to sign-up for one year of membership on Photoshop.com. More information about Photoshop.com membership can be found at: www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/membership/.

[Via DCI]

An update to the best-selling book, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers is now available. Authored by Martin Evening, the new edition includes all the information about Lightroom 2. In his book, Evening who is a well-established photographer shows readers how to work with images shot in the raw or JPEG format, create and manage a personal image library, apply tonal adjustments to multiple images quickly, integrate Photoshop Lightroom 2 with Adobe Photoshop and much more.The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers is now available at Peachpit.com, Amazon.com, and Safari Books Online.

 [Via Photography Blog]

Nik Software has released a free update for the Silver Efex Pro. Version 1.001 makes working with Photoshop more stable and corrects some minor issues connected to Apple Aperture. To download the free update go here.

Adobe has updated the Photoshop Express  public beta. The new update which can be downloaded from here offers the following enhancements:

 New Photoshop Express Uploader powered by Adobe AIR that enables seamless photo uploading from the desktop of any Internet-connected computer.

- Adobe AIR technology bridges the real-time, dynamic capabilities of the Web with the computing power and data capabilities of the desktop computer.

- Users can now quickly browse through thumbnails of their photos and easily drag and drop their favorite selections directly from the desktop of their preferred photo management applications into Photoshop Express.

- Ability to print photos through Shutterfly, a leading online printing service provider, that is available to all Photoshop Express users and anyone who receives shared photos.

- To enhance dynamic slideshows, users can now incorporate music created exclusively for Photoshop Express. For organizing, the addition of tags allows for easy viewing and searching by name, party, venue, subject and anything else customers find useful.

- One-click Resize tool with presets for mobile, Web, e-mail or online profiles.

- Users can also download photos from anyone’s public album and keep a collection of their favorites.