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 feature…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 corner…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

Digital Film Tools specializes in creating practical tools for digital photographers and the Power Stroke plug-in for Photoshop is no exception. Power Stroke version 1 is described by Digital Film Tools as a “stroke-based color correction, colorization, and special effects plug-in.” In other words, it allows you to perform isolated corrections to an image without first having to create a mask.

Anyone who retouches images knows that critical changes rarely (if ever) are applied to the entire image. Power Stroke provides a simple, interactive, stroke-based interface that you use to quickly define the desired area of concern, thus allowing localized targeted adjustments without having to define the region with a mask. But wait, you say (yes, I can hear your thoughts!), Photoshop has a vast array of tools that make such selections easy. And you’re right in thinking that everything done with Power Stroke can be done with Photoshop…given enough time. The real question is what’s your time worth?

One of the cool things about the isolation produced by Power Stroke is that the correction doesn’t just stop at the edge of the area being corrected; instead, it blends into the pixels adjacent to the modified area. Power Stroke can be assigned multiple corrections and effects, such as color correction, re-coloring, or desaturation. It can also be used for colorization of black-and-white images to create the hand-tinted look that’s so popular these days, as well as blur, and fill light. Probably my favorite is the selective black-and-white effect where the subject of the photo retains its color, and everything else becomes black and white or vice versa. (I bet they’d love to have had Power Stroke around when they made the movie Pleasantville.)

The Selective Recoloring tool provides a localized change of color in the immediate area defined by the brushstroke. Most of the tools do what their names imply: Fill Light selectively lightens shadow regions of an image; Diffusion/Glow is used for glamour shots; and Colorize adds color to black-and-white images.

So, how well does it work? As with most advanced tools, I took the time to watch the video tutorials, then jumped right into the program, and discovered that once I understood the principles of how the plug-in worked, it was relatively simple to use and for the most part, worked as advertised. The isolation in selective black and white was the one tool that required some extra time for me to get the hang of it.

The Digital Film Tools website has a gallery of some examples that can be created using Power Stroke but I think many of the examples don’t reflect the quality of work that can be done with this filter (Colorize being the exception). From their website, you can download an evaluation copy of the plug-in as well as the images used in their tutorials. (When running Power Stroke in demo mode, a watermark is placed over the image and rendering to Photoshop is disabled.) Power Stroke works on Adobe Photoshop 7 and above as well as Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 or later. It works with Macintosh OS X 10.4 and above, Windows XP, and Vista.—Dave Huss

PRICE: $120
FROM: Digital Film Tools, LLC
WEB: www.digitalfilmtools.com
RATING: 4.5

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Correction blends into adjacent pixels
NOT Isolation in selective black and white takes time

The new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 is the next generation of Sony’s foray into the compact image-stabilized camera market. The new H5 replaces the previous model (H2) and the differences between the models are few in number but large in scope. For those of you who own the H2 model, here’s a quick summary of the changes found in the DSC-H5. The most important technical change is that the size of the sensor was bumped up from 6 to 7 megapixels. The most apparent change is the LCD screen, which jumped from 2″ to a whopping 3″. And not only is the screen larger, but its resolution has increased from 85,000 pixels to 230,000 pixels. The last notable change is that the body color is now available in black as well as the original silver. Other than those changes, the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 is almost a clone of the H2. It’s as if Sony needed to update the camera every year but they’re running out of ideas of what to put into the next model.

That’s not to say it isn’t a great camera. If you’ve never used one of these Cyber-shot cameras, they fall into the compact, image-stabilized category of digital camera that has a very large (12x) optical zoom capability (36–432mm equivalent). When you combine the great optical zoom with a 7.2-megapixel sensor, you have a serious camera that can do just about anything you ask of it.

The first time I tested the camera, it had a nice SLR feel to it and that’s because Sony put most of the often-accessed controls where they can be reached easily rather than buried deep in a menu. Unlike a TTL viewfinder in an SLR, the H5 uses a 200,000-pixel electronic viewfinder (EVF) that produces a sharp image—although it would be nice if it were larger. The new 3″ LCD screen on the back can also be used to compose a shot even on a bright day.

The overall operation of the camera is excellent. The focus mechanism is generally fast for this class of camera except that it seemed a tad slow at the extreme zoom lens settings. The Cyber-shot DSC-H5 has five White Balance presets but during testing, the Auto White Balance worked so well, I didn’t need to use the presets at all. The flash is one of the best in its class with a reach of between 22–30′, while the colors of the flash images are perfectly corrected and consistent. One problem faced by all compact cameras with extreme zoom factors is chromatic aberration (also called purple fringing). The H5 exhibits more than its fair share of this problem but I saw it only on high-contrast, backlit images. The image stabilization of the camera is impressive and allows you to achieve sharp images at several stops lower than you could achieve without it. The Movie mode of the camera works as well as can be expected—great for short flicks but it won’t replace your camcorder.

For a non-SLR camera the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 has everything you need to take professional quality photos…almost. The only format that the camera supports is JPEG. With the increasing popularity of the RAW format, it’s surprising that the H5 doesn’t offer RAW or another non-lossy format, such as DNG or TIFF.—Dave Huss

PRICE $499.95
FROM Sony Electronics Inc.
PHONE 877-865-7669
WEB www.sonystyle.com
FOR Mac and Windows

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Fast focus and best flash in its class
NOT JPEG format only (no RAW)
RATING 4.5

When the Canon PowerShot S2 IS first appeared, Canon clearly had a winner on their hands. And when its successor, the new PowerShot S3 IS, was announced, I anticipated some new wonders; however, a quick scan of the specifications revealed that the S3 was almost identical to the S2. The S2 camera has just about everything you could ask for in a digital camera so when it came time for Canon to design the S3, there wasn’t much more to add. This doesn’t make it a bad camera; in fact it’s a very good digital camera. Let’s look at what the new S3 has to offer.

If you own an S2 camera and were thinking about upgrading to the S3, the big changes are that you’ll now get a 6-megapixel sensor and the camera’s color has changed from ray-gun silver to really cool gunmetal gray. Other improvements in the S3 include a new Sports mode, a slightly larger LCD, and more.

The PowerShot S3 is an image-stabilized compact camera that offers an ultrazoom (12x) optical lens and a 2″ LCD that twists out and away from the camera body. The most important part of the camera is its overall feel when you’re holding and shooting with it. The folks at Canon have used their design experience to create a compact camera that feels and performs like a digital SLR. This is especially true when it comes to the camera controls, which Canon has made accessible in the form of buttons on the body, rather than following the popular design philosophy of burying them in LCD menus. This means that it’s easier to make changes quickly when shooting. For those who like scene presets, you’ll find 20 of them covering a diverse range from the new Sports mode to Color Accent. When I was taking some sample shots, I noticed that the camera produced some chromatic aberration (also called purple fringing) at the higher zoom levels—not unexpected with an ultrazoom.

The Canon S3 is also a serious movie camera. The movies are recorded in Motion JPEG (AVI) with stereo sound (no kidding!). The quality of the movies that I shot (640×480 at 30 fps) equaled those shot with my camcorder. The difference is that in Movie mode, the SD memory card fills up pretty quickly. For example, a 1-GB SD card can hold about 8 minutes of video, so have a handful of the cards available if you want to include a lot of movie clips of your vacation.

The image stabilization (IS) works as well as its competitors’. Probably the greatest complaint that users have about IS is unrealistic expectations about what the feature can do. When shooting under low-light conditions, the Canon IS system allows you to shoot about one or two f-stops lower than possible without IS turned on.

The images that the camera produces are vivid and crisp. It has a pop-up flash that’s fairly powerful although it doesn’t pop up automatically. My complaints about the S3 are few: I was surprised to discover that it doesn’t come with rechargeable batteries (it runs on four AA batteries) and I found the LCD a little difficult to see on a sunny day. Another disappointment was that such a full-featured camera doesn’t offer a RAW image file format.—Dave Huss

PRICE $499.99
FROM Canon USA
PHONE 800-652-2666
WEB www.usa.canon.com
FOR Mac and Windows

LAYERS VERDICT
HOT Feels and performs like an SLR
NOT No RAW format or rechargeable batteries
RATING 4