Here’s a very nifty program: Vincent Cheung released version 2 of his ShapeCollage program, which allows you to easily create a collage of different photos which you can then arrange in the shape you want. Simply pick your images, drag them into shape collage, choose your shape or create one and you are done. Upload the collage to your blog or website, save it as a separate image then import it into Photoshop — there are no boundaries. Let your creativity reign.
Sure, there are other ways to create collages and shapes of collages, but not as easily as in ShapeCollage. Give it a try and see yourself how easy it is to be creative!
Highly recommended!
Price: free
Tiffen released version 2 of its Dfx software, which allows you to reproduce many of the most popular filters you used to use in the field. Overall, the new version includes more than 2,000 standard and special-effects filters, which can be used as-is or even customized and saved for future use. Some of these filters have been part of our workflow and have consistently produced superior results without going through a steep learning curve. While not inexpensive, these filters can save you endless hours trying to re-create a special look or effect in Photoshop.
Some filter examples: Ambient Light, Close-up Lens, Hazem High Contrast, Warm and Cool Polarizers or Wide Angle Lens.
Highly recommended!
Standalone price: $99.95, Amazon: $99.95
Photoshop plugin: $299.95, Amazon: $299.95
Aperture plugin: $299.95, Amazon: $274.85
Today, Western Digital announced a new version of its My Book World Edition. Featuring sizes of 1TB and 2TB, these My Books are ready to be plugged directly into your router. With the click of a few buttons, the storage device can then be configured. As always, it comes with bundled backup-software that can be installed on your Mac or your PC. Given the good experience we have with our Western Digital drives, we have high hopes for this one.
Price: $449.00 (2TB), Amazon: $393.33
Digital Foci’s Photo Safe II is now available in three sizes (80/160/250 GB). It is the near-perfect travel companion: small, lightweight and with only two buttons to operate, you don’t have any excuses any longer not to make backups of your memory cards in the field. You don’t need a computer – just plug your card into the Photo Safe, hit the copy button and you are done. Once back from the trip, the device can be used as a USB drive to copy its content to your Mac or PC.
TidBITS’ in-depth review of the Photo Safe II can be found here.
Price:
80GB: $119.00, Amazon: $97.72
160GB: $149.00, Amazon: $118.08
250GB: $199.00, Amazon $169.00
If you are like us, you carry your iPhone whereever you go. Thus, I’ve been looking for a DOF (Depth of Field) calculator on my iPhone for quite some time. No longer! Bitwerks, a company from Switzerland, released f/8, its DOF implementation for download from Apple’s iTunes store. Once installed, it’s easy to enter through the familiar iPhone interface all of the required information about your cameras and lenses. Then, just pick a camera/lens combination in the field and calculate your DOF. It’s that simple.
Our verdict: Highly recommended!
Price: $3.99
Drobo has established its data storage robots as one of the premier providers of redundant data storage. This is exactly what photographers need and thus, a lot of different sites (TWIT, TWIPphoto, Digital Outback Photo, Luminous Landscape and others) have praised it. Having used it here for almost 6 months (Drobo USB with 3 1TB drives), we can confirm that it deserve the praise that is heaped on it. We use it mainly for backup, much of it autmated. It’s easy to use (connect the unit to a PC or Mac, install software and plug in the drives) and very reliable. The USB unit we have is a bit noisy, but that does not bother us, since the backup unit is connected to our file server and tucked away. Drobo listened to the complaints – the noise problem has been alleviated in the newer USB/Firewire units.
Our verdict: Highly recommended!
Price: $499, Amazon $374.95 after rebate
Recently CameraBits released version 4.5.3.1 of its popular PhotoMechanic software, which is optimized for very fast downloads of images from your camera to a PC or a Mac. Various metadata speed improvements were implemented in addition to speed improvements in the Navigator. As always, a number of bug fixes were implemented as well. The new version adds RAW support for the Canon Powershot G9, Nikon’s D3 and D300 as well as the Sony DSLR A-700.
This is another development of image transferring software from CameraBits. Various changes have been implemented such as improved file reading speed and a re-acceleration of image transplantation from your camera to computer.
From previous tests of this new software, this new and highly developed gadget is able to download images from O2 mobile phones as well, most specially the latest units.
Price: $150
Lemkesoft updated its GraphicConverter, an excellent program to convert graphics and images between different graphics formats on Macs, to version 6.1.2. The free update (41.4 MB) features improved EXIF handling and bug fixes.
List price: $34.95
