Catch up on what’s new in tech and software releases for the week, including updates to Photoshop for iPad, Animoto’s release of a brand new version of its marketing video builder, Lexar’s lightning fast SSD, and Lume Cube’s credit-card sized, bi-color LED light.

Lexar® Professional PCIe SSD

Lexar’s new Professional NM700 M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe lightning fast SSD will be available in the U.S. in June. With speeds of up to 3500MB/s (read) and 2000MB/s (write), this SSD drive is designed to meet the needs of photographers and videographers that require excellent performance from their hardware.

Speed of this PCIe-based SSD is estimated to be 6.5x times the speed of a SATA-based SSD. It’s shock and vibration resistant and, of course, has no moving parts.
Prices: $80 (256GB), $111 (512GB) and $200 (1TB)

lexar.com

Adobe Photoshop for iPad Updates

Adobe made a couple of recent updates to Photoshop for iPad including Curves and adjustable Apple Pencil sensitivity.

Curves, as you know, allows non-destructively adjustments to a variety of parameters including contrast, exposure, saturation, highlights, shadows and color balance. As the first iteration of Curves in this app, you can adjust tonal curves for all channels. Adobe promises to add additional features in the near future including the ability to add numerical inputs for more precise adjustments and eye dropper tools.

Also new is adjustable pressure sensitivity for the Apple Pencil. A slider allows users to customize brush pressure. Input ranges from light (least pressure) to heavy (most pressure). Although you may not have an issue with how the pencil works now, having more control will certainly provide a better experience when using brushes.

adobe.com

Animoto 3 Beta

It’s been four years since Animoto developed its original marketing video builder, Animoto 2. Now the company has released the Beta of a brand new version of the video builder. Just log into Animoto and click on Join Animoto 3 Beta.

Animoto 3 is faster, easier and offers a long list of features including the ability to use vertical videos, new video styles and media layouts, along with 27 new themes and lots of text options. And, no worries, you can open your Animoto 2 projects in Animoto 3. If you decide to opt out of Animoto 3, you can easily switch back—just be sure to do so before the new version is launched since Animoto 2 will no longer be available after that.

animoto.com

Lume Cube Panel Mini

New from Lume Cube, this credit-card sized, bi-color LED light measures 3.58 x 2.18 x 0.45 inches and is perfect for mounting on a camera with the included DSLR mini shoe mount or on a tripod via one of its two 1/4″-20 tripod mounts. This 60-LED panel also comes with a USB-C charging cable and a silicon white softening diffuser.

Brightness is full adjustable from 1 percent to 100 percent in 5 percent increments and color temperature can be customized from 3200k to 5600k. There’s also a built-in display screen for tracking settings including brightness levels, color temperature and estimated run time. At 100 percent, you’ll get a little more than an hour’s power; double that at 50 percent brightness.

Price: $60
lumecube.com

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