Adobe Photoshop

One of the sadder developments for serious photographers was the purchase of Nik Software by Google. It was done so that Google could leverage Nik’s Snapseed technology into its Photo offering. However, the excellent Nik tools were orphaned in the process. Now that has finally changed. DxO Labs, makers of OpticsPro, FilmPack, and ViewPoint, has acquired the entire Nik Collection. This will result in at least three pieces of good news for Nik fans:

For photographers looking for an alternative to Photoshop, that want all the power it provides and aren’t satisfied with the more limited processing capabilities of Adobe Lightroom or DxO OpticsPro, there haven’t been too many alternatives. The best options to date have been Adobe Photoshop Elements, Gimp, or perhaps Cyberlink’s PhotoDirector. Now though, Affinity has dramatically improved the capabilities of its Photo product and has also made it available on both Mac and Windows. For the value price of $40, you can have a product that does almost all of what Photoshop does, and many things it doesn’t. I’ve taken it for a spin and enjoyed using it. You can read my full review of Affinity Photo on Extremetech.com.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Adobe Max last week. It is one of the largest gatherings of creative professionals in the world, with over 10,000 attendees this year. In literally hundreds of sessions participants learned about the latest and greatest Adobe products, got teasers of Adobe’s future directions, and had the opportunity to get hands-on training with experts. Interspersed were some inspirational keynotes from leading creatives including Quentin Tarantino, Simpsons Director David Silverman, and veteran war photographer Linsey Addario. There was a lot to cover, so I’ve split my coverage of the event into two. First is my overview of what’s new and important in Adobe CC for 2017. Then, here are what I thought were some of the best highlights of Max in photos.

Without question, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro are two of the most feature-packed applications for editing images and videos. However, they are also two of the most complex. Initially little more than toys, the “Elements” versions of each of them have improved steadily. Now in their 15th version, they provide more than enough capability for most photographers and videographers who don’t already know how to use, and are willing to pay for, their Pro siblings. You can read my full hands-on review of the new features in version 15, but in short, since about version 13, Elements has packed plenty of punch for most editing tasks, and 15 ups the ante with some cool new quick edits and some potentially-interesting AI-assisted object recognition. With this latest update Adobe's Photoshop and Premiere Elements have become the best way to get all the editing tools you're likely to need, in a package you can learn to use right out of the box. As always, the products are competitively priced, with Photoshop Elements 15 priced at $70 (discounted), and Premiere Elements 15 also priced at $90 (discounted). Purchasing both in a bundle saves you some money as you can get both for $120 (discounted).

Not to be outdone by Adobe’s increasingly seamless integration of Adobe’s Stock offering into Photoshop, Shutterstock has released its own version, which is free and available for download now. For more information, we’ve put the full announcement with feature list below:

I’ve been using the new June update for Creative Cloud for about a week, and am enjoying both the new Content-aware Crop feature in Photoshop, and the native 360-degree video support in Premiere (anyone who has tried to edit 360-degree video in a traditional video editor knows how painful it can be). There is also much improved integration with Adobe Stock for those of you who buy images, rather than sell them. On the sell side, Adobe has also promised a spiffy contributor portal for Adobe Stock, but no details yet on when it will be available. You can read my full hands-on with sample images on Extremetech.

Adobe continues to deliver on its promise of steady updates for photographers subscribing to its Creative Cloud Photography plan. This week, Adobe updated the desktop versions of Lightroom and Photoshop with lots of bug fixes (especially to Lightroom), new camera and lens support (including for the new Sony a6300), and (finally) an updated UI for Adobe Camera Raw. Lightroom for the web has also been enhanced with intelligent object-recognition-based indexing for more powerful search, like this one for trees in my online collections…

If you don’t already know the ins and outs of Photoshop, or hate the idea of sending Adobe a check every month forever, Photoshop Elements 14 is easier-to-use, less-expensive, and almost as powerful as its big brother. It also includes image cataloging, so you don’t have to deal with a second application like Lightroom. I’ve done a full hands-on review of it and its companion application, Premiere Elements 14, for Extremetech. As I point out in the review, owning it does not give you access to Adobe’s mobile apps the way a Creative Cloud Photography Plan subscription ($120/year from B&H) does, and it doesn’t allow for syncing to your mobile device. It’s also a bit behind on esoteric features (although Dehaze and camera shake reduction have been added, for example). But its wizards make it far easier to learn and to use than plowing through videos and web tutorials to try to do the same things in Photoshop.