Bernskiold Media » Lightroom

Hydra 2.2 for Lightroom 2 Released

Erik Bernskiold — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:41:23 +0000

Hydra 2.2 from Creaceed is an HDR application that is now available in a new version and as a Lightroom 2 plugin.

The news in the new feature is plenty, with the most important one being the Lightroom 2 plugin (for both 32 and 64 bit) that makes all the features from the standalone version available in the Lightroom plugin.

Hydra supports up to 10 input images, 2 image alignment techniques and 3 tone mappers to help make the HDR image. It has a 1:1 preview loupe, allowing you to see the image in full resolution. Apart from the Lightroom 2 plugin, there are plugins available for Aperture 2 and 3 as well.

Hydra 2.2 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later on a computer with at least 64 MB of VRAM. It is available for $79.95 and this license can be used for both the stand-alone and plugin versions. If you currently have a 2.x license, this upgrade is free, while the upgrade from Hydra 1.x costs $19.95. There is a time-unlimited trial version available, which generates watermarked image files.

Lightroom 2.6 and Camera RAW 5.6 Final Releases

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:36:03 +0000

For a while, Lightroom 2.6 and Camera RAW 5.6 have been in a release candidate version, but now it has been released in a final verion. You an download it through Adobe.com and from the Adobe Updater.

The update, includes bug fixes (full release notes after the break) and new camera support, but do not work with the Lightroom 3 beta, which has not been updated with the new camera raw. If you have a camera that is first supported now in 5.6, you can always use the DNG converter that comes with it and convert to DNG before importing into Lightroom.

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, Canon EOS 7D, Canon PowerShot G11, Canon PowerShot S90, Leaf Aptus-II 5, Mamiya DM22, Mamiya DM28, Mamiya DM33, Mamiya DM56, Mamiya M18, Mamiya M22, Mamiya M31, Nikon D3s, Olympus E-P2, Panasonic DMC-FZ38, Pentax K-x, Sigma DP1s, Sony A500, Sony A550, Sony A850

Lightroom 2.6 Download: Mac or Win

Camera RAW 5.6 Download: Mac or Win

Release Notes

Camera Raw 5.6 and Lightroom 2.6 provide a fix for an issue affecting PowerPC customers using the final Lightroom 2.5, Camera Raw 5.5 and DNG Converter 5.5 updates on the Mac. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in highlight areas when processing raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs.
The Lightroom 3 beta has not been updated with this new camera support. If you’re working with one of these newer cameras and the Lightroom 3 beta, please use the DNG Converter 5.6 to convert proprietary formats to DNG files that can be used in the Lightroom 3 beta.
This release includes improved camera profiles for the Leica M9 and Ricoh GXR.

Lightroom 2.6 and Camera RAW 5.6 in Adobe Labs

Erik Bernskiold — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:22:21 +0000

Adobe has put out both Lightroom 2.6 and Camera RAW 5.6 at the Adobe Labs website. The update adds support for more cameras (listed below) as well as fixing some bugs. Fixes include a visual glitch on Snow Leopard while you are panning and an issue when using PowerPC hardware on the Mac. The new cameras are:

Canon EOS 7D, Canon PowerShot G11, Canon PowerShot S90, Leaf Aptus II 5, Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31, Nikon D3s, Olympus E-P2, Pentax K-x, Panasonic FZ38, Sigma DP1s, Sony A500, Sony A550 and Sony A850.

Adobe announces Public Lightroom 3 Beta!

Erik Bernskiold — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:05:37 +0000

Adobe has today announced the availability of a public beta of the new Lightroom 3. You can download the beta from the Adobe Labs site. Here are some of the new features (from the Adobe Labs page):

Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image librarie
State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you wan
New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)

Camera Raw 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 now available!

Erik Bernskiold — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:44:16 +0000

Adobe has released both Camera Raw 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 today, fixing some bugs and adding support for some new cameras:

Nikon D300s
Nikon D3000
Olympus E-P1 (Pen)
Panasonic DMC-FZ35*
Panasonic DMC-GF1

The other release notes can be read by clicking the read more link. The update can be gotten form the Adobe download section, or by going to Help > Update within either Photoshop CS4 or Lightroom 2 (depending on which you want to upgrade).

Release Notes

Camera Raw 5.5 and Lightroom 2.5 include a correction to the demosaic algorithms for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response. Olympus, Panasonic and Sony are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. The demosaic correction provides a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files.

Lightroom 2.5 corrects for the following problem in Lightroom 2.4. Lightroom 2.4 on Windows continued to display the import dialog when a memory card was detected regardless of the preference setting "Show import dialog when a memory card is detected."

* Note that in Europe and Japan this model is marketed as the DMC-FZ38. Unfortunately, due to a metadata difference between these cameras, files from the DMC-FZ38 will not be supported until the next Camera Raw and Lightroom updates.

Early Thursday Tidbits

Erik Bernskiold — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:05:16 +0000

I’ve been on a little vacation, visiting my cousins for the past days and because yesterday was a travel day, the news update post for yesterday, is now coming today! Image above, taken with my iPhone only, hence the poor quality.

John Nack, the product manager for Photoshop, shared the other day some cool new utilities that work with Lightroom and ACR. A Lightroom plugin that could be of use to you if you use it with another application than Photoshop is Open Directly, a plugin that lets you send a RAW file from Lightroom and right into another editing application of your choice. It’ll become a paid plugin on August 7th, so give it a try.
Something software related again, VLC (the popular media player) has finally been updated to version 1.0! You can read more about this at MacAppZone.
I’m in the process of planning out tutorials and recording more videos for the site again and if you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments here! It is much appreciated.

Unexpected Wednesday Newsies

Erik Bernskiold — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:30:55 +0000

This week my blog schedule has been a little changed, first with the postponed he said – she said post and now with something cool on track for tomorrow. So for that reason I’m postponing the posting of the general article or showcase for Wednesdays to tomorrow for this week! Stay tuned! ;)

An app store tracking and rating website called Apptism is beginning to report that over 20,000 apps are now online in the Apple App Store. Only three months after hitting the big 10,000 applications—which in and of itself didn’t take more than six months—the store has doubled that amount!
The InstantShift website has a great article listing 30 Great WordPress Comments Page Hacks. The hacks that you can do to your comments page include specific comment styling, giving the comments new features and many more cool things! Check it out!
If you are a blogger and also using Lightroom you might want to check out a cool new plugin by plugin-veteran Timothy Armes. His newest plugin called LR2/Blog is designed to post images to blogs that are using the MetaWebLogs standard. Among the systems using this standard is WordPress which should make this plugin perfect for anyone that is using WordPress for photoblogging (as an example).
Nikon has released a new lens this week. It’s an AF-S 35mm ƒ/1.8 G lens made for the DX format. It sports a focus motor in the lens and is clearly meant for anyone that has been having their eyes on a fixed 50 1.8 but this one made for the DX cameras, giving an equivalent focal length of around 50mm, this while as said providing internal focusing for the latest bodies.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers

Erik Bernskiold — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:36:19 +0000

The Adobe Photoshop Lighroom Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby is one of the quite few how-to books on how the Lightroom application works and how to get the most of it. It is written in his award-winning one step at a time style which makes you easily get how to do things in, and how to work with Lightroom.

What sets this book apart from the other Lightroom how-to books that is available, is the fact that it is not just tool tips and module tips and tricks through the book but the two entire chapters are dedicated to the entire workflow. The first of the two is for a portrait photographer and the other is for a landscape photography and it is here the entire book comes together and it is here that you learn the most valueable things and is the reason why I purchased the book in the first place.

Everything is written so that you can easily understand it and there is the compulsory humor in the books that is always in the things that Scott produces. You may or may not like it, I for one do like it and it doesn’t bother me one bit.

If you are looking for a quality book on the different techniques and tools that Lightroom consists of and if you are looking on learning how to work with Lightroom and the modules, then this is definately the book for you and you are going to learn a lot from it!

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It’s Monday “Start of the week” News

Erik Bernskiold — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:22:23 +0000

It’s raining heavily outside, it’s cold and it is dark. I definitely do not want to get up and go outside today but I have to nonetheless. Here are some news for today:

Photodex, makers of the ProShow Gold slideshow program, has announced a plugin for Lightroom that will let you quickly export photos into ProShow Gold or Producer to make slideshows. With ProShow Gold being a PC only program so is the plugin.
A report from SquareTrade says that it’s two times more common that a Blackberry breaks during the first year than an iPhone. Despite all the reports of unhappy iPhone customers (don’t you always hear the unhappy more?) the iPhone, according to the report, is the smartphone with the lowest malfunction rate.
Terry White has posted the new CS4 wallpaper and screensaver (both Mac and PC available) on his blog. Sadly not as nice as the CS3 ones they still are worth to check out!
Finally, Nick La over at the Web Designer Wall posted today and let us know that he’s beginning a complete wordpress theme guide. He is going to update the post with links to each tutorial as he is publishing them.

Finally, check out my own annual Holiday Gadget Gift guide coming in an hour or two, or click the sidebar banner on the site to download it beforehand!

Tuesday News Goodies

Erik Bernskiold — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:00:59 +0000

Net Applications has presented the list of browser usage statistics from October. This month we still see that Firefox is gaining market shares while Internet Explorer is losing then. Furthermore after several months of going strong, Safari has dropped slightly in market shares for October.
Jeffrey Friedl has announced the release of his new “Jeffrey’s Lightroom GPS Support” plugin for Lightroom. It will let you add a “shadow” GPS data from Google Maps or a GPS tracklog for example in Lightroom and then on export combine it into the regular metadata file. Pretty cool so definitely check it out.
WordPress revealed late last week a new feature on their site called Showcase. Showcase is really a showcase of some great WordPress powered websites out there, described as a “display of some of the best and brightest WordPress users, who do a whole lot more than blog.”