Photoshop CS6 Content Aware Tools
Every Photoshop release seems to come out with a new feature that makes you jump up and shout, “Wowly heck!” It’s looking like CS6 won’t be the exception.
The content-aware tools have taken their vitamins and grown stronger than ever. Moving objects around in your photos has never been easier. Check out this video for proof:
There’s a few other sneak preview videos available on Photoshop’s Youtube channel. The improved Camera RAW features actually have me a bit more excited than the content-aware magic, but locally adjusting noise in RAW is a little less dramatic than casually moving parts of your scene around in an image.
Nikon D800 Announced
The D800. You want this. And if you don’t, I’ll have yours because I certainly do want it.
Rumours of this 36-megapixel beast has been floating around for a couple years and Nikon has finally officially announced the new camera which comes in a couple of flavours: The D800 and the D800E. The latter is a slightly sharper version of the former. The D800E doesn’t come with the same low-pass filter as the D800 thus making its images sharper (but leaving photographers with the potential for moiré patters in their images).
It’s more than just megapixels though. I’ll leave it to the experts at dpreview.com to give you the rundown of all the features in their preview, but suffice it to say, if this camera is as good in real life as it is on paper, photographers can expect some exceptional image quality to start filling their hard drives soon.
The D800 microsite has a few examples of shots from the camera if you can’t wait to see what some people have been doing with it.
One could expect this features set to be wholly unaffordable for enthusiasts, but not so. In the US, it carries a $3,000 price tag which is pretty great considering what you’re getting. It’s a good thing because I’ll probably need a new computer to manage the massive file sizes we can expect from this camera.
Adding Rendered Objects into Photos
Another fascinating tech demo today shows some new tech used to add rendered 3d models into existing photos:
Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs from Kevin Karsch on Vimeo.
Very cool. If product manufacturers have CAD designs of their products, get them rendered and drop them into whatever background you like. Instant photo shoot!
Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera
Well here’s a clever little idea. It’s a ball with 36 cameras mounted inside it that take a photo when tossed into the air. The result can be stitched into a 360 degree panorama with a unique viewpoint.
It seems like a pretty fun way to capture a moment. I just hope their stitching software improves a little bit and some of those stitching seams go away.
I wonder how sturdy the thing is? I’d love to have a game of basketball with it – you’d get some great photos!
How an LCD Screen Works
Time for some hardcore nerd action now. Engineer Bill Hammack shows you just what you’ve always wanted to know: how on earth a Liquid Crystal Display works. Well, it’s probably not what you’ve always wanted to know, but it’s interesting stuff for us nerds who like to know how stuff works.
Besides, don’t you want to know what makes that glowing rectangle you’re staring at for 90% of your day tick?
I’m not sure if there’s anything sadder than sitting at home on a Saturday night and learning about the functionality of LCD displays or not. If there is, it’s probably sitting at home on a Saturday night and blogging about the functionality of LCD displays. But hey, here we are!
New Nikon Gear
It’s early days, but that leaked Nikon roadmap has been fairly accurate so far. Hoax or not, they managed to predict the D300s and the D3000 which were both officially announced today. Check dpreview.com for the info on the D300s and the D3000. I’m not exactly in the rumour game, so I can’t say if this was well-known information or not, but the accuracy of it does strike me as interesting.
Where the roadmap missed the mark was with the lenses that would be announced today. The ever-so-tasty AF-S 70-200mm F/2.8G ED VR II telezoom and the AF-S DX 18-200mm VR II superzoom got time in the spotlight too. The 70-200mm is immediately on my wish list. Too bad I don’t have any wealthy benefactors willing to flip the £1999 bill for that one.
The D300s, of course, continues the photo/video convergence trend with it’s HD movie capabilities, stereo audio input jack and ability to auto-focus while recording. When it comes time to upgrade my camera, my next one will likely have video and I will probably tinker with it. I doubt, however, that it will become my number one source of entertainment or income, so here’s hoping that Nikon and the other manufacturers keep pushing out great cameras for those of us that are satisfied with stopping a brief moment in time. Based on what that (accurate-to-date) roadmap says, there’s not much to fear on that front.
Darby Sawchuk is a Canadian-born photographer who currently resides in Manchester, England. He has travelled to over 40 countries and is always adding more to the list. He creates stock for multiple agencies and is available for assignments.
+44 0790 992 8932
