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Adobe launches free
Lightroom Academy
AS WELL as updating Lightroom and
Photoshop (see right), Adobe has
announced the new Lightroom Academy.
The new service is ‘dedicated to sharing
photographic knowledge that informs,
inspires and supports photographers with
a wide level of experience, equipment, time
and resources’, says Adobe, and it’s free to
use, with no sign-up or Creative Cloud
membership required. As well as sharing
best practice and useful tips, each module
sets some simple homework, aka ‘On Your
Own Activity,’ with details of the gear
needed and the time it should take. For the
range of currently available modules, see
lightroom.adobe.com/academy.
Stereo ga-ga
QUEEN guitarist and stereo
photography obsessive Brian May is
launching a book called Stereoscopy:^ The^
Dawn of 3 - D, featuring a selection of
photos depicting Victorian life. Some come
from Brian’s archive (one of the largest
collections in the world) and include a
previously unpublished stereo image of
Charles Dickens. The book is written by
Denis Pellerin, with Brian editing and
publishing it through his London
Stereoscopic Company. ‘It’s actually the
most important book we have ever
produced because it chronicles the birth
and first steps of what we now call 3-D,’
said Brian. It’s available from 10 November
for £60 from shop.londonstereo.com.
OM System 20 mm f/ 1. 4Pro prime lens unveiledOM DIGITAL Solutions has announced
that it will no longer be using the
Olympus name on its cameras and lenses,
and revealed the first product under its new
OM System brand. The M.Zuiko Digital ED
20mm F1.4 Pro is a large-aperture
standard prime that
should be suitable for
shooting a wide range
of subjects, while
promising premium
optics and build quality.
Of the 11 elements
used in its optical
design, no fewer than
eight are either
constructed from
special glass or use
aspherical profiles, in
order to minimise
optical aberrations. It’s
dust-, splash- and
freeze-proof to the IPX
standard, thanks to anarray of seals arranged around the barrel. A
fluorine coating on the front element repels
water and fingerprints.
In terms of design, the 20mm F1.4 is
simplified compared to its more expensive
f/1.2 Pro siblings, lacking either
an L-Fn button on the
barrel or a push-pull
manual focus clutch.
This helps it to remain
compact and lightweight
at 247g and 61.7mm
in length, while
accepting 58mm filters.
The OM System
20mm F1.4 Pro is due
to go on sale at the end
of November for £649.The Lightroom
updates include
more precise
maskingADOBE has announced a range of
updates for Lightroom and Photoshop,
both desktop and mobile.
Lightroom additions include more precise
selection and masking, eight additional
premium preset packs, crop overlays
including Golden Ratio and Golden Spiral, and
‘Community Remix’ – enabling you to share
your edits with other Lightroom users and
invite them to try alternative approaches.
Photoshop updates include a one-clickLightroom and Photoshop updates
‘mask all objects’ in a layer, and new Neural
filters based on Sensei AI machine learning,
using one click or adjustment sliders. The
new Harmonization filter, for example, helps
you to blend two images with matching colour.
Also announced is a new Photoshop on the
Web (beta) app that lets you edit and view
your work in a web browser.
Meanwhile, Photoshop on iPad updates
include the ability to process raw files from an
iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro (ProRAW).The OM System
20mm f/1.4 is
compact and
lightweight