Aperture 3 for Macs contains many new features, such as Faces and Places, that will be familiar to iPhoto users. Faces provides face detection and recognition to tag people in your photos automatically. Places uses GPS information embedded in photos to display where the photos were taken, using a pin on a map. As only a few cameras can embed GPS information at capture time, Aperture also allows you to drop untagged photos onto the map manually.

The most popular new feature with existing Aperture users that I interviewed is Brushes. Similar to the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom, it allows a user to apply corrections to an image selectively. Brushes supports pressure-sensitive graphics tablets, and Apple even added a Detect Edges option that mimics Quick Mask in Photoshop, which lets the user see the affected areas.

Aperture 3 also provides a variety of Adjustment Presets that range from image-enhancement settings to special effects like sepia tone. You can customize, save, and share your own presets and import other presets. A quick Internet search revealed that many users are offering or selling their custom presets.

Also new with this release is full 64-bit support, which provides improved performance on newer Macs running Snow Leopard.

When it comes time to share your images, Aperture 3 uploads directly to Facebook and Flickr, and it can produce professional-looking slide shows that combine text, images, music, and even video.

For all of its 200 plus new features, this latest version of Aperture appears to be focused more on the consumer side of photo editing. Existing Aperture users will love the new features, especially the tighter integration with iPhoto, and unlike Lightroom, Aperture 3 can manage video as well as still images.—Dave Huss

Company: Apple Inc.
Price: $199 (Upgrade: $99)
Website: www.apple.com
Rating: 4.5
Hot: 64-bit support; brushes; adjustment presets
Not: No new tools

Topaz DeNoise is a noise-reduction plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past few years, you’re probably aware that there are many products that promise to remove noise from your digital images. Topaz DeNoise differs from the other noise-removal products in several ways.

First and foremost, it’s simple to use. I’ve tested some products with control options that looked like the control panel on the Space Shuttle. The UI on DeNoise is simple, with only a few sliders. In most of my testing, I was able to remove the noise using a single slider adjustment. There are several sliders for fine-tuning but in most cases, I didn’t use them.

Next, it does an excellent job of removing noise while preserving details in the images. I cleaned up some low-light images that were captured in a dimly lit church using a long lens. The photos looked like they were printed on industrial grade sandpaper. DeNoise effectively removed the noise, leaving only some very minor artifacts, which was an acceptable tradeoff considering how noisy these test images were. While removing noise and preserving details, DeNoise can also correct the slight blurring in the image that’s common when shooting at slow shutter speeds.

DeNoise is available for both Mac and Windows. It can work on both 8- and 16-bit images and allows the user to save and reuse settings as presets. Now for the best part—it’s inexpensive (or cheap, as we say in Texas). At $79.99, this jewel is a real bargain. Download the fully functional, 30-day, free trail and see for yourself. Just make sure you watch the video tutorial first before trying it.—Dave Huss

Company: Topaz Labs LLC
Price: $79.99
Web: www.topazlabs.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Inexpensive and easy to use
Not:

I love tripods. I love the rock-steady, razor-sharp images I can create using a tripod. What I don’t like about tripods is carrying them. They don’t fit in the overhead compartment, and if I use a tripod in Rome or on the Acropolis I have to pay a “professional” fee. So when I first encountered the Joby Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM a few years ago, I was intrigued. Looking like a combination back massager and child’s toy, the SLR-ZOOM could wrap its prehensile legs around almost anything stable, and I quickly discovered it kept my camera as steady as any of my behemoth tripods. When I was doing a night shot at the Roman Coliseum, I wrapped the strange Gorillapod legs around an old steel railing and got some great night shots. Most importantly, the local authorities didn’t think it looked like a tripod and so, no fee.

My one complaint was that my large camera and its huge lens were almost more weight than the SLR-ZOOM could handle. Along comes the Gorillapod Focus. Hooray! Whereas the SLR-ZOOM has a 6.5-lb limit, the new Focus (which only weighs 1.1 lbs) can handle a whopping 11 lbs. I immediately took it for a spin and was impressed. The Gorillapod uses a standard ¼” screw mount (or 3/8″ with an adapter), which takes time to attach or detach. So I added a quick mount adapter, and now it’s perfect. If you want to use a tripod on your trips, buy one of these jewels now! They come in five different sizes; so find the size that matches you camera and lens. The Gorillapod Focus sells for $109.95 and is worth every penny.—Dave Huss

Company: Joby, Inc.
Price: $109.95
Web: www.joby.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Lightweight; handles large cameras
Not:

The first thing I noticed about this HP printer was its overall sleek design, making it appear as if it had been designed by Apple rather than in a former Soviet Bloc tank factory. Looks aside, the HP Photosmart B8550 offers features such as dual paper trays and a built-in card reader with a 2.4″ LCD that’s designed to allow printing without a computer (though I don’t see a pro using that feature).

The B8550 uses a dye-based, five-ink printing system to produce archive-quality images with an expected 100-year lifetime, which is a lot longer than the life span of any client. I had some doubts about how prints would stack up against printers offering more inks, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good the B8550 prints appeared. The colors were vivid and the detail was sharp.

The B8550 uses a dedicated black cartridge for nonphoto work, which means I can use the same printer to print invoices from the main paper tray and photos from the upper photo tray (max size 5×7″) without swapping paper—a very thoughtful feature. (The lower tray can also be used to print photos.) The B8550 can print images up to 13×19″ (super tabloid). When printing standard photo sizes, the speed of the printer and cost per copy appear competitive with others in its class.

Overall, I like the look and feel of the printer. I was able to achieve excellent color accuracy and quality. Its price ($249.99) and feature set make it appear to be positioned as a high-end consumer printer but it would also serve the professional for a majority of the prints used in wedding and portrait work.—Dave Huss

Company: Hewlett-Packard
Price: $249.99
Web: www.hp.com
Rating: 5

Hot: Dual paper trays; low price
Not:

PHOTO-STITCHING SOFTWARE

Autodesk Stitcher Unlimited 2009 is photo-stitching software for producing panoramas and more. I’ve made hundreds of panoramas using the Photoshop Photomerge feature and have been happy with the results, so my main questions are: Will Stitcher Unlimited “play well” with Photoshop, and is it worth the extra money?

Stitcher uses a photo-stitching engine that stitches, aligns, and color-corrects automatically, and it’s easy to use their five-step process to create a panorama. The acid test of their alignment feature (where most stitching programs fail) was some handheld photos I took of the Golden Gate Bridge with all its suspension cables. The resulting panorama was seamless; every cable between the individual photos matched.

Another Stitcher feature I like is Double Shot, where you can stitch together two fish-eye lens shots into a single panorama. And Stitcher Unlimited even allows you to make panoramas using HDR images. (I didn’t test this last featureÂ…I will as soon as I successfully make my first HDR image. Hope springs eternal!)

So how does it work with Photoshop? You can import and export an image from Photoshop (it supports PSD files, images, and masks), and Stitcher can create a panorama in PSD format that contains separate layers for each individual image.

All of the professional tools are also included, allowing you to create environment maps for 3D rendering and Web-based virtual tours using the Apple QuickTime, Adobe Flash, or Java-based viewers.

The Autodesk Stitcher Unlimited 2009 is a lot cheaper than the cost of a digital panoramic camera and you can download a fully functional 15-day trial version from their website. Stitcher is a professional tool that produces stunning panoramas. If you’re serious about making panoramas, try Stitcher Unlimited. You’ll be impressed. —Dave Huss

Company: Autodesk, Inc.
Price: $350
Web: http://usa.autodesk.com
Rating: 5
Phone: 800-964-6432
Platform: Mac and Windows

What does DxO Optics Pro do? I think of DxO as an excellent RAW converter with lots of options—like a Swiss Army knife. What is it? It’s a tool that can be integrated very smoothly into either your Lightroom or Photoshop workflow.

But Photoshop and Lightroom have their own RAW converter, so why would you need DxO? Well, consider that DxO now performs noise removal before RAW conversion takes place and it’s actually filtered before de-mosaicing. According to DxO Labs, this approach prevents the noise effects at each pixel location from spreading to neighboring pixels. In my limited testing, I saw an improvement with low-light images shot at ISO 6400, and even greater improvement on images shot at higher ISOs when compared with the built-in Adobe noise-removal methods.

Beyond RAW conversion, DxO corrects lens distortions automatically for most camera and lens combinations. It also removes chromatic aberration (purple fringing) effectively and automatically.

DxO Optics Pro was one of the first applications to offer Lightroom plug-in support and in my tests, I used Lightroom to open and manage the images but would pop them into DxO for correction of lens distortion, chromatic aberration, and color—yes, color. Although I bring this up last, I think it’s the best feature. There’s something that the DxO software does during color correction that really makes the colors in the image look better. By fitting DxO into my Lightroom workflow after a shoot, my resulting photos are finished quicker and look better.

Download the free, fully functional, 14-day trial from the website and see for yourself. The software is available in two versions: DxO Optics Elite and Standard—Elite provides support for high-end professional cameras.—Dave Huss

PRICE: $169 (Standard); $299 (Elite)
FROM: DxO Labs
WEB: www.dxo.com
RATING: 5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Noise reduction
NOT

The dream of a powerful tool that can automatically select an object in a photo has been around since the first days of Photoshop. New masking products are always appearing and old ones are updated on a regular basis, promising to take the drudgery out of what can be a complicated task.

SmartMask 2 is a Photoshop plug-in that isolates and removes the background from a photo. The operation of the plug-in is relatively straightforward. Before opening SmartMask, you must first make the Background layer into an editable layer. Once in SmartMask, select the mode that best fits the subject matter (Sharp, Soft, and Complex), and then identify the subject and the background using the Pencil tools. In Sharp mode, I identified both the background and subject and then clicked the Run icon (this will give you a preview without leaving the SmartMask dialog). SmartMask quickly isolated the subject, although the subject’s stray hairs got clipped. Switching to Soft mode and painting the transition (soft) areas improved the result. After clicking the Apply icon to apply the filter to the actual image, the areas around the subject became transparent instead of creating a layer mask.
In an image where the subject and the background were similar, the results with Sharp and Soft modes were less precise. In Complex mode, I had a difficult time producing a really clean isolated subject. But I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression; I think it’s a fairly good product for the price. Personally, I found it great at isolating overcast skies in landscapes so I could replace the skies.

SmartMask 2 works as a plug-in with Mac and Windows versions of Photoshop CS3 and CS4 and Photoshop Elements 6 and 7. There’s a 10-day fully functional trial version available from http://akvis.com.—Dave Huss

PRICE: $120 (Home); $240 (Business)
FROM: AKVIS Software Inc.
WEB: http://akvis.com
RATING: 3.5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Price; simple to use (after you learn how)
NOT Lack of documentation; Magic Brush for clean-up

Media Maker 8 Premium by NewTech Infosystems (NTI) is an all-in-one CD and DVD burner for Windows users. It provides a suite of easy-to-use tools for creating and recording data (audio, photos, and video) onto CDs and DVDs, plus Blu-ray support for backups and creating data discs (but no Blu-ray video capabilities).

Media Maker 8 features a Video Converter that allows you to convert videos for playback on an iPod, PSP, Zune, and other portable video players. It also includes the NTI Photo Maker, which enables users to quickly import, edit, and share their digital photos and slide shows; the NTI Ripper for ripping and archiving music; and NTI Digital Jack for playback of music collections

All of these programs are opened from an application appropriately called Launch Pad. Many of the applications use a Windows Explorer-style view that allows you to drag-and-drop files you want burned or copied to a CD or DVD. Wizards, called EasySteps, guide you through the process.

Perhaps the most important part of this program is its full-featured backup package called Backup Now 5. It takes only a few minutes to set up a system of scheduled backups to a hard drive on the network. Backup Now 5 also provides disc spanning, so you can archive portions of a library across multiple DVDs. The selection setup is a simple procedure to select which files or file types to backup, or to selectively restore. So what backup devices does it support? The list is too lengthy to include in this review, but if you can record to it, Backup Now 5 supports it.—Dave Huss

PRICE: $79.99 (Upgrade $49.99)
FROM: NewTech Infosystems
WEB: www.ntius.com
RATING: 4.5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Covers every aspect of media creation and backup
NOT No Mac version

AKVIS Enhancer 9.2 is a multipurpose image utility that’s available as a standalone application or a Photoshop plug-in. The standalone version has three modes of operation: Enhancer, Focus, and HDR (high-dynamic range), while the plug-in version doesn’t support HDR.

In Enhancer mode, the application attempts to enhance images by intensifying color transitions between adjacent pixels. In testing, the results were uneven. Overall, most images were improved, but the default settings tended to oversaturate the images. Controls allow you to fine-tune the settings and save them as a custom setting. Enhancer also recovers lost detail in shadows, but the recovered areas exhibited an unacceptable amount of noise for professional use.

Focus mode selectively improves sharpness of mildly out-of-focus areas of a photo, but it won’t convert an out-of-focus photo into a sharp one. In some tests, the autofocus focused on the wrong subject or sharpness was lost due to depth of field. To use Focus mode, isolate the area to be brought back into focus by outlining it with the drawing tools. The program made the blurry areas a little crisper if they weren’t too large and there was sufficient detail to recover.

When using HDR mode from the standalone application, if you shoot RAW files, it’s necessary to convert them to a format that Enhancer accepts (I used 8-bit RGB TIFF). My test images of the Colosseum in Rome resulted in a properly exposed sky while retaining details inside the tunnel entrances. Alignment of the different images is done automatically. My test images were shot without a tripod, which made alignment problematic but still it did an okay job. It didn’t remove ghosts (subjects in the photo that move between frames). The finished HDR images were also a little oversaturated but can be corrected by fine-tuning the settings.—Dave Huss

PRICE: $81 (Standalone); $69 (Plug-in)
FROM: AKVIS Software Inc.
WEB: http://akvis.com
RATING: 3

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Simplifies HDR creation
NOT Excessive noise in shadow recovery

Like a guy who married his high school sweetheart, I began using my Wacom tablet years ago and never strayed. But now in my 40s, my roving eyes were drawn recently to the CyberTablet 12000 from Adesso, Inc. With a slight twinge of guilt (sorry, Wacom), I plugged the 12×9″ CyberTablet into one my MacBook’s USB ports, installed the drivers, and started up Photoshop.

Within minutes I was sketching and not giving a thought to my Wacom tablet gathering dust in the cornerÂ…until I made a mistake, flipped the pen over, and tried to erase. Just like the Wacom pen, the CyberTablet pen sports a faux eraser but alas, on the CyberTablet, it’s just decorative. Soon, I noticed some other limitations: You can’t link the function keys (on the included mouse, pen, and tablet) to Photoshop tools; the bundled software (e.g., a note-taking program) works only on Windows PCs; and the tablet only offers 512 levels of pressure-sensitivity (the Wacom has 1,024).

So why buy a CyberTablet? I can’t give you a good answer except that the same size Wacom Intuos lists for $449.95. Since I only use the tablet to draw in Photoshop and Illustrator, it suits my needs—though I do miss the eraser. (I’ll put the leftover cash toward that fast sports car I’ve been eyeing.)—Dave Huss

PRICE: $169.99
FROM: Adesso, Inc.
WEB: www.adesso.com
RATING: 3.5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Can’t beat the price!
NOT No eraser; only basic features