Photography

Dropbox, the popular cloud storage utility for synchronizing files among many devices, ordinarily limits free accounts to 2GB, but those who test a new feature to automatically upload photos can get as much as 4.5GB.

To take advantage of the offer, you have to run a beta version of the company's software, and you have to try a feature that automatically uploads photos and videos to the service, according to a forum post yesterday.

"During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of … Read more

Adobe Systems has released a second advance look at Photoshop CS6 that shows new work to give a hardware boost to the image-editing software.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) speeds the Liquify tool, which lets people smear images in a finger-painting way, according to a Zorana Gee, a Photoshop product manager. She demonstrated the change in a YouTube video, the second in what looks to be a series of previews of the software. An earlier Photoshop CS6 preview showed new raw image editing tools adopted from the Lightroom 4 beta, a darker user interface, and improvements to brush size selection. … Read more

I hate to admit it, but my iPhone is always the first thing I reach for when I spot a photo-worthy scene.

Sure, I own a digital camera, but my iPhone is always with me, packs an excellent camera, plus I have the option to edit and share photos instantly. That (combined with the fact that my Canon G12 usually weighs down my purse) is a good enough reason to use my iPhone as my primary shutter.

If you're like me, or want to start exploring iPhotography, these four hidden tricks will help you take your iPhone camera skills … Read more

Unimpressed by Adobe Systems' Creative Cloud, its forthcoming $50-per-month subscription plan? Adobe wants to change your mind.

The company offered some new details today to show people that the Creative Cloud plan gets people access to more than just the full Creative Suite (CS) Master Collection and tablet-oriented Touch programs. Specifically, according to Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing on Adobe's digital media team, there are these elements:

• The Creative Cloud will include Adobe's Muse and Edge software for creating Web pages. Muse won't be part of the Creative Suite, and Adobe hasn't decided whether … Read more

Pentax fans will be delighted to know they won't have to make do with the ill-starred Pentax Q when it comes to higher-end compact cameras.

Thanks to a gun-jumping announcement by camera retail powerhouse B&H Photo Video, details on the rumored Pentax's K-01 have now emerged. The camera uses the relatively large APS-C-sized sensor and corresponding K mount lenses from Pentax's SLR line, but omits the bulk-inducing flip-up reflex mirror used for SLRs' optical viewfinders.

Update 5:10 p.m. PT: Pentax has officially announced the camera, and B&H's specs were spot … Read more

If there's any doubt about the accelerating shift from traditional SLRs to more compact interchangeable-lens cameras, let the newly released Mac OS X 10.7.3 update put them to rest.

Of the eleven cameras whose raw image formats Lion now supports, six of them are compact mirrorless models. They are the Nikon 1 J1 and V1, the Olympus Pen E-PL1s, E-PM1, and E-PM1; and the Sony Alpha NEX-5N. All these models forsake SLR's flip-up mirror and optical viewfinder, enabling a more compact design.

Raw photo formats, available on SLRs and high-end compact cameras, leave the processing to … Read more

Adobe Systems has published a glimpse of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, an update that brings the dark workspace and raw-image editing tools from the new beta of its sister program, Lightroom 4.

Bryan O'Neil Hughes, an Adobe senior product manager, showed off a bit of the new software in a YouTube video published yesterday. Photoshop CS6 is set to debut along with the sixth version of Adobe's Creative Suite in the first half of 2012.

Darker photo backgrounds are all the rage for photo software since they make photos stand out nicely; the darker interface used in Lightroom … Read more

Google has released Google Earth 6.2 to smooth over earlier versions' unsightly patchwork caused by stitching together widely varying satellite photographs.

The result is a more realistic and less distracting (though still optimistically cloudless) view of the planet. Update: It turns out that by turning on the weather layer, you can dispel Google Earth's sunny optimism and see if it's really cloudy by showing live weather data.

Google Earth offers a terrific interactive view of the planet, complete with 3D buildings in some parts of the world. But I have to say, though, that I was more … Read more

Yahoo has changed its Flickr Pro premium service into a subscription plan, a modest but reasonable change that I hope presages bigger adjustments to compete better against new photo-sharing rivals.

Flickr, a fixture in online photography, has lost luster as alternatives such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and 500px have advanced the state of the art and attracted millions of users. Flickr is shucking old baggage as part of a promise of new vitality in 2012, though. And although the new Flickr Pro pricing scheme is hardly a dramatic new course, at least it shows somebody's at the tiller.

With … Read more