Computer Gear

Editor’s Choice: Apple Mac Pro Tower 

Apple has trashed the trash can design for a new Mac Pro tower that better dissipates heat and is also more modular and easier to customize than the prior design. It features a removable aluminum enclosure that lifts up to reveal the innards. You can pack the Pro with Xeon processors up to 28 cores and 1.5TB of memory. There are eight PCIe expansion slots and a new graphics architecture and new accelerator card that enables playback of three streams of 8K ProRes video simultaneously. The Mac Pro tower will feature an Apple MPX Module graphics card with Thunderbolt integration and over 500W of power, both firsts for any graphics card, according to Apple.

Price: TBD
apple.com

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BenQ SW270C

The 27-inch SW270C incorporates BenQ’s new Color Uniformity Technology, which promises precise color across the entire display. The monitor is calibrated in the factory and covers 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, 100 percent of the sRGB/Rec. 709 space and 97 percent of the DCI-P3 color space. The SW270C supports 16-bit Look Up Tables, hardware calibration and includes Palette Master Element calibration software for keeping color in check. If you’re a filmmaker, the monitor also supports HDR10 content and plays back both 24p and 25p content at its native cadence. Beyond the calibration software, you’ll get a shade hood to reduce glare. 

Price: $800
benq.com

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Dell Precision 7920

Dell’s workhorse workstation now includes second generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors up to 28 cores and NVIDIA Quadro RTX graphic cards. The tower features an externally accessible, tool-less power supply and FlexBays for lockable, hot-swappable drives. You can pack it with up to a 2TB hard drive or a 256GB SSD and up to 1TB of expandable memory (depending on CPU configuration). The 7920 includes Precision Optimizer software to analyze performance and run apps at the fastest speed possible.

Price: $2,009+
dell.com

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Microsoft Surface Studio 2

Packed inside this 28-inch touch display is a powerful PC with Intel Core i7 processors, up to 2TB of SSD storage and 32GB of RAM. Its unique Zero Gravity hinge design lets you position the Surface like a traditional desktop display or as a (huge) tablet device. The Studio 2 is packed with pixels, delivering a 4500 x 3000 resolution in its color-calibrated display. You can use the Surface Pen stylus, your fingers, the Surface Dial or traditional keyboards and mice to interact with the Studio.

Price: $3,499+
microsoft.com

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HP Z6 G4

Like its other PC peers, HP has added an option for Intel’s Xeon Scalable processors to its Z6 workstation, giving it enough computational punch to crunch through intense photo and video editing. It can run up to 48 processor cores and NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards with up to 384GB of memory via six PCIe slots. The Z6 can accommodate up to 36TB of storage via four drive bays.

Price: $1,829+
hp.com

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Software

Editor’s Choice: Phase One Capture One 12 

With version 12, Phase One’s Capture One compatible with third-party plugins for the first time. It’s also significantly upgrading its masking tools. There’s now luminosity masking for creating masks based on the brightness of pixels in an image. These masks can be applied from one image to another. A Linear Gradient mask lets you adjust the size, shape and symmetry of masks for more precise mask adjustments. Finally, there’s a new Radial Gradient mask tool that creates a fall-off effect and can be adjusted and moved just like the Linear Gradient mask.

Price: $299
captureone.com

Fundy Designer

Among the slew of updates in the new Fundy Designer Suite are Studio Magazines and Marketing Cards. The former lets you create sleek magazines from included templates that even include the text. You’re also free to build your own magazine to show off your work or promote your brand. If you want to keep it more succinct, Fundy lets you build custom marketing cards with the same drag-and-drop ease that’s found throughout the Suite. Both Studio Magazines and Marketing Cards are available in the Album and Pro Suite packages.

Price: $249 (Lite Suite), $349 (Album Suite), $449 (Pro Suite)
fundydesigner.com

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Alien Skin Exposure X4

If you love LUTs, Alien Skin’s 4.5 update is for you. The new update brings support for LUT effects alongside the ability to import third-party LUTs. Other new features include moveable light leak overlays with lens flare and haze, redesigned copy photo tools, photo sizing on export and configurable keyboard shortcuts. There are also transform tools, for correcting perspective, and a monitored folders function if you’d like to shoot tethered.

Price: $119
alienskin.com

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Skylum Luminar 3

While the company has teased version 4, the latest Luminar, as of this writing, continues the company’s quest to plow AI-powered photo fixes into its all-purpose editor. The latest tool is AI Sky Replacement, which easily lets you isolate skies and make a range of changes, including a wholesale replacement with just a few clicks. There’s also a new “Lost Edits Album” that collects all the edits you’ve done to your images in the event you accidentally delete them, rename them or otherwise lose track of them.

Price: $85
skylum.com

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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

The “Classic” version of Lightroom CC has been given a speed boost thanks to a GPU Accelerated Editing feature that taps your computer’s graphic card to offload some processing from the CPU. Other new goodies include the ability to batch-merge images to create HDR stills, panoramas and (you guessed it) HDR panoramas. The cloud edition of Lightroom has added a recovery feature that lets you retrieve images you’ve deleted for up to 60 days. Other enhancements include interactive tutorials, an improved Auto mode and a texture slider for editing fine details.

Price: $10/month
adobe.com

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ON1 Photo RAW 2019

Photo RAW 2019 (.6 edition) delivers a slew of new features to improve photo editing and organizing. Of particular note is a new portrait retouch feature that automatically identifies faces and applies corrections. The UI has been redesigned to make all of the software’s modules accessible as tabs, and you can now selectively sync edits so you have more control over what’s saved. If you’re considering migrating from Lightroom, ON1 offers an AI-powered tool that helps you migrate your collections while preserving edits and other non-destructive settings.

Price: $80
on1.com

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Pixellu Smart Albums

This year, Pixellu rolled out the most significant update to its Smart Albums platform in years. The software will now support single page design, allowing users to work on one page of a spread. If you like the spread, you can take advantage of a new spread mirroring function to quickly replicate it. You can also make edits to color tones and perform black-and-white conversions in Smart Albums. The text tool has been enhanced to support multi-line text. Beyond the new features, the software has been tweaked to improve performance and has a new interface.

Price: $17+/month
pixellu.com

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Anthropics PortraitPro Body 3

Anthropic’s body retoucher has been updated with faster body selections powered by deep learning and image recognition. There’s also a Warp Fixer that lets you adjust bodies without distorting the background image. PortraitPro Body is sold as a standalone app or as a plugin and can be used to alter a subject’s build and height, contour their body, correct their posture, smooth skin and remove blemishes, and even facial expressions and facial lighting.

Price: $60
portraitprobody.com

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Nik Collection 2 by DxO

Now that DxO has ownership over the Nik plugins, they’ve introduced the first major update to the seven titles in years. The new presets include 10 new recipes for Color Efex Pro, 12 new presets for HDR Efex Pro, 10 presets for Silver Efex Pro and 10 new tool combinations for Analog Efex Pro. The number of programs that can host the plugins has also grown to include DxO’s own PhotoLab and Skylum’s Luminar.

Price: $149
nikcollection.dxo.com

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Corel PaintShop Pro Ultimate

This latest update offers a SmartClone tool that can merge multiple images into a single composition. A new Refine Brush tool improves the accuracy of selections. There are three workspaces, including a touch-ready Photography workspace with all your editing tools together. The software includes extra apps like PhotoMirage photo-animation software and AfterShot RAW editing.

Price: $100
corel.com

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