Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Gadgetell Quick Review: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

What is it?

Lightroom 2 is a program for Windows and Mac OS X designed to help organize, streamline, and develop your photos.  It costs $99 for the upgrade from Lightroom 1 or $299 for first time buyers.

Pros:

Easy to use thanks to clean and organized interface.
Imports all of your files using your preexisting directory structure.
Works with a wide variety of file formats.

Cons:

Does not allow pixel editing.  Requires another program for that task.
Initial use can be frustrating and can cause loss of work.

Does it hit the mark?

Yes.  Lightroom 2 definitely lived up to all of my expectations.  It’s easy to see that this program would be extremely popular with anyone working in the art or ad industry, or someone who does batch work with photos.  The program allows for very controlled editing and is remarkably easy to use.

For the full review, click “More.”

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Photographers have been messing around with 3D photography for years.  It just hasn’t been a nice and easy, already developed for them, consumer-friendly, point and shoot 3D camera they were using to take the photos.  Some photographers were rigging up their own cameras to get the effect, some doing it in post-processing.  Some, used much less user-friendly four lens cameras that did exist out there, just not with the best picture quality.

Fujifilm is hoping to remedy all of that with their development of their 3D camera.  The way it accomplishes the 3D effect is to use two lenses and two sensors.  The lenses are about 6 to 7-cm apart, which is the width between the average person’s eyes.  These lenses and sensors take different pictures from different angles simultaneously.  Then, it combines the different pictures to create one image that is displayed on the camera’s 2.8-inch, 230,000 pixel LCD screen. 

Read more about 3D cameras after the break.

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Having converted to smartphones with a candy bar form factor years ago, I was certain I couldn’t be swayed by this cute, light, small Pantech C610.  That was until Pantech sent me one.  Not only does the phone feel great in hand, its list of features would make my smartphone drool.

Check out this smart flip phone - hit the jump for follow.

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Power over Ethernet (“PoE”) is nothing new.  Usually, PoE is used to power switches and other networking devices.  A company called Baumer Ltd. is using PoE to power cameras over Cat6 cable.  The “TXG camera” can shoot at VGA and higher resolutions and up to 90 frames per second. 

Where would you use something like this?  It probably could be used in surveillance or in some kind of robot.  These TXG cameras are tiny and weigh less than a quarter pound.  You can get a sense of scale by looking at the Ethernet jack on the back of the device.

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When it comes to cameras, there is a great big variety to choose from, from camera phones to point and shoot to those fancy SLRs.  It seems like every company is trying to sell you on the fact that you need their model.  So, how do you know which one is right for you?

It’s about you

What it boils down to is what you are actually going to be doing with your camera.  Are you just going to be taking a few pictures to email to your friends of you guys hanging out in the dorm partying?  Do you want one that you can use to take shots of little Johnny playing soccer?  Are you into wildlife photography?  Do you want one where it does all the work for you, or do you want to have full control over the settings?

There’s plenty more after the break.  Gadgetell’s resident photography expert, Jodie Andrefski, lays it all out for you.  Plus, get some tips on how to make any of your photos better.

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Often us photographers think we did a pretty good job with optimizing our different picture files, but then when a text editor is used we are able to see that they still contain a ton of data that can actually be removed.  Yep, there are different programs out there that can be used to extract this information from the different GIFs, PNGs, or JPEGs, and still allow the photo look great, but many of these programs require a pretty specific knowledge to use them.  Unless the user knows what they are doing when it comes to command-line tools, they are pretty much out of luck. Until now.

Two members from the Yahoo exceptional performance team, Stoyan Stefanov and Nicole Sullivan, took what they knew of these tools and built a single application called Smush.it that does all the optimizations for you in just one place.  Completely cloud-based, it allows you to upload images, give the image a URL, or use it as a Firefox extension.  The program shows you how many bytes you’ll save, and then gives you the images as .zip file for you to replace them on your site.

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“Every breath you take… Every move you make… Every bond you break… Every step you take..  I’ll be watching you.” Is it the end of privacy as we know it?  People knowing where we are, and when we are there, seeing whatever it is we are doing.  Or, just a cool and fun new way to geotag?  Geotagging is nothing new and most of us are familiar with the term by now.  Take a photo, and “tag” your location to tell all your friends or family where you were at when you shot it.  But now, tagged single shots are going to seem like dinosaurs.

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Finally, someone found the paddles, charged to 350 and zapped some life back into Moto.  These images of the Moto Q11, captured by a website I’ve never heard of, show a phone that looks rather modern.  There certainly is no mistaking this phone for anything else but a Motorola.

Haptic changeable buttons?

The businesses-y Moto Q9 was launched on AT&T back in November.  This update does not bring the haptic changeable keypad I was hoping for, opting for actual hard buttons.  The keypad’s shape looks to take up less real estate of the Q11 vs the Q9.  This phone is still the phone equivalent of an oar blade: flat and wide.  Whatever, at least it is something new.

The rumored specs and keypad image are just a click away, hit more to follow.

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Just in time for the Photokina event happening tomorrow in Germany, Pentax has announced its new entry-level DSLR camera - the K2000 otherwise known as the K-m for the European market. Targeting digital camera users who are about to take the leap into Digital SLRs, the Pentax K2000 comes in the form of an ultra-compact DSLR. So as not to annoy first time DSLR users and to make their transition as pleasant as possible, Pentax has put in Auto Picture modes that include Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Action and Night Portrait. 

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Canon’s Powershot G9 digital camera is one of Canon’s best point-and-shoot models. It’s the next best thing to the entry-level DSLR, the Canon EOS 400D, but it has been a long time since the Powershot G9 came out. Now is just about the right time that Canon come up with a new model - the Powershot G10. For this new model of the G-series digital camera line, Canon is featuring a three-tier functionality, namely DIGIC 4 image processor, 28mm Optical Image Stabilized lens and RAW mode.

Aside from these three major features, advanced photo enthusiasts will also be glad to know that the 14.7 megapixel Powershot G9 now has a 3-inch Pure Color LCD II screen, 5x optical zoom, and optical image stabilization. Its DIGIC 4 image processor function gives the Powershot G9 advanced face detection technology, advanced motion technology, face-detection self-timer, Servo Auto Focus and an Intelligent Contrast Correction function. 

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