Digital photography

Best apps for iPhone

Did you get an iPhone or iPod Touch as a gift this holiday season?

Now that you've got your account set up, the first thing you'll want to do is check out some of the great apps in the iTunes App Store.

The question is, with more than 500,000 apps, which ones should you choose?

We rounded up our favorite apps across several categories so you can get started right away. In this collection of Best apps for iPhone, we've got everything from alternative browsers to the hottest games; they all have reviews you can read … Read more

Hipstamatic D-Series camera app getting social

The Hipstamatic D-Series camera app announced today offers a new way to tie photos and social networking together.

Synthetic, developer of the popular retro-image iPhone app Hipstamatic, have enjoyed plenty of success in the iTunes App Store since the app was released two years ago. Now, the company aims to make the retro-image-taking experience more social with its new D-Series camera app, available December 15.

The Hipstamatic D-Series app lets you connect with a group of friends via Facebook and snap pictures that all go to a common "film roll." Made for parties, concerts, and any other event, … Read more

Adobe supports new cameras, lenses with Lightroom 3.6

Adobe Systems last night updated Lightroom, its software for editing and cataloging photos, with support for the latest batch of small, high-end cameras.

Supported in Lightroom 3.6--along with its close cousin, Photoshop's Camera Raw 6.6 plug-in, are the Nikon 1 V1 and J1; the Panasonic GX-1; the Samsung NX5 and NX200, and Sony's NEX-7. All those models are of a newer category, compact cameras with interchangeable lenses.

More conventional compact cameras also are supported, including Canon's new S100, Fujifilm's FinePix X10, Ricoh GR Digital IV, and the superzoom Leica V-LUX 3.

Lightroom can accommodate … Read more

Google's WebP crosshairs target PNG, not just JPEG

Google launched WebP to outdo JPEG. Now a new version is designed to take on another dominant graphics format on the Web, PNG.

WebP is based on the open-source compression technology used in Google's WebM video encoding technology, and with it, Google hopes to reduce Web page file sizes and thereby speed up the Net. There are plenty of challenges for the technology, but Google just made WebP a bit more competitive through the addition of two major features.

First is a "lossless" compression option that can image data without loss of fidelity. Second is support for … Read more

Photogene for iOS gets a complete overhaul

There are tons of photo-editing apps in the iTunes App Store, but a recent update to an old favorite might be one of the best yet. It's called Photogene 2 and it offers so many tools that it's almost like it does the job of multiple apps.

Photogene 2 (99 cents until November 17) is the successor of a favorite photo-editing app of ours on iOS, and this completely rebuilt version is definitely worth checking out. To start off, a redesigned interface offers intuitive controls for exploring Photogene2's many editing options.… Read more

Zappos founder's next target: Clothes shoppers' loyalty

There's gold in them thar closets.

That's what Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn is telling people with his new startup, RNKD, which is aiming to dole out rewards to people who share with the world photos of what's in their wardrobes.

The idea behind RNKD, which launched today, is fairly simple. Swinmurn, who came up with the idea for what eventually became Zappos, and who got eventual CEO Tony Hsieh to invest, wants to help brands learn more about shoppers' tastes. And Swinmurn thinks that the best indication of their future behavior is their past actions.

The more … Read more

Adobe Elements on the Mac App Store: 5 implications

Adobe Systems and Apple may not see eye to eye over the Flash Player plug-in, but they've come to an understanding with the new app store era of software distribution.

Adobe announced today that both its consumer-oriented photo and video software, Photoshop Elements 10 and Premiere Elements 10, are now available on the Mac App Store. The move parallels what Adobe already has done with iOS apps and expands on its earlier sales only of Photoshop Elements 9 on the Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store, a standard feature of recent versions of Mac OS X, lets Apple … Read more

Adding image effects on iOS

Now that people have had some time with their iPhone 4S, I'm sure many have had plenty of time to take pictures using the upgraded 8-megapixel camera. On it's own, the iPhone 4S takes great shots, but what if you want something more?

This week's iOS app collection is all about adding effects to your images. The first lets you flip through numerous effects and stack them for amazing results. The second offers tons of premade effects, but also gives you the option to adjust everything to your liking. The third app lets you play with the focused area of your image to produce visually unique images.… Read more

Apple updates Aperture, printer drivers

In the last couple of days Apple has released updates for EFI firmware to address Thunderbolt compatibility issues, as well as iPhoto to fix a crash with third-party video codecs. Today Apple continues its latest round of updates with updates for both Aperture and its support for the latest printers from HP and Epson.

As with iPhoto, the Aperture update is just a point release (Version 3.2.1) that resolves a few issues with the program, including the following:

Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture to quit unexpectedly at launch on Macs with Core Duo processors Addresses problems … Read more