The Phoblographer

Not long ago, we did a quick hands on review of the beta version of CameraBag 2. Today the company has announced that they are releasing the entire version. CameraBag 2 is a piece of software for Mac and PC that lets the user apply loads and loads of those amazing Instagram-like filters to their images (both RAW and JPEGs.) Additionally, it offers a totally different interface that Lightroom 3 and 4 do while still allowing the user to do quite a bit of the manipulations that those programs offer. It does all this while still remaining non-destructive in the editing process.

For the person that doesn’t want to take the plunge into Lightroom yet, you can surely consider CameraBag 2. However, don’t consider it a replacement for Lightroom or Photoshop.

CameraBag 2 is available now for Mac and PC. A single cross-platform license is available at www.nevercenter.com for $29 (launch sale price: $24), and a Mac-only version is available via the Mac App Store for $24 (launch sale price: $19). A free, fully-functional 30-day demo is included in the download from www.nevercenter.com, where more info, tutorials, and videos can also be found.

I’ve been using the final release for around a week now and will have a full review coming soon.

Camera Bag is an editing software program primarily centered around the use of presets with levels of adjustment: similar to the way that many mobile phone applications like Instagram work. While Adobe Lightroom 3 and Photoshop all have presets that allow users to get images with a cross-processed, plastic camera type of look (amongst others) not many people still know how to accomplish these look or understand color theory.

So does Camera Bag worth your time?

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Mixed lighting photo unedited

As a follow-up to my post on coping with mixed lighting while shooting, here is a way you can save an image where you didn’t get it right in-camera. There are many different ways of doing this that take varying amounts of time, this is just one way to do it and a pretty quick one.We’ll use this image as our test:

You can see that the majority of the image is quite yellow from the incandescent lighting at the event, but there are blue reflections in the platter from the flash as well. There are other issues but for the tutorial let’s just focus on those two obvious problems.

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Do you love the look of film but don’t want to have to shoot and scan? Luckily, Adobe Lightroom 3 has presets that allow you to emulate that look very closely. After searching around the web for a while and shooting with the likes of Portra, Fuji Professional, and looking at Kodachrome prints, I’ve found a couple of free presets that can get the job for you on the cheap. Here are a couple of my favorites and what they look like.

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I’m back with a few more tips and tricks for Adobe Lightroom that I wanted to share with our readers. Again, I’m not a Lightroom expert nor do I claim to know more than the average person, but many photographers are new to the world of post processing and I’d like to help. Even if you have some Lightroom experience, read on. You may learn something.

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Like most photographers, I’m a big fan of manufacturers stuffing large sensors into small cameras. Sigma was one of the first companies to do this with the DP1. While the DP1 had a big sensor in a relatively small body, the odd controls, cryptic menu system, lackluster feature set and sluggish handling hindered the DP1 from being a truly great camera. Since the DP1, Sigma has released several updates updates to the DP line which have not been met with the same fanfare as some of its rivals like Micro Four Thirds (MFT) systems and other advanced compacts (e.g. Panasonic LX – 5). Sigma recently released the latest version of the “DP” line, the DP2x. So has Sigma been able to iron out all of the issues with their large sensor compact? Let’s find out.

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