Buyers’ guide
Give your work
What comes after the click? Processing and printing, that’s what! Edit, print and display your shots to perfectionwith thismonth’s hand-picked highlights
From£1449.99
chillblast.com
Rather than buying an off-the-shelf, generic PC, why not try one that’s specifically designed with all the power you need for better photo editing? You’ll notice everything moves a lot faster this way, including opening and closing memory-hungry apps and editing high-resolution files. Being an award-winning specialist builder of desktop PCs, this is what Chillblast offers. All of its models are assembled and tested in-house, at the company’s base in the south of England, and come with a five-year warranty. And because they’re built in-house, there are loads of customisation options, too. The Fusion Photo OC Lite V Photo Editing PC is aimed at those wanting amazing photo-editing power, but for less outlay than the company’s flagship Photo OC IXmachine. As standard, it’s built around AMD’s latest eight-core Ryzen 7 processor, and comes with 16GB of 3200MHz DDR4 memory. It also runs off a superfast 500GB Seagate Firecuda solid state drive, which speeds up operation even further, 1. Chillblast Fusion Photo OC Lite V Photo Editing PC
HERE AT PN we want you to give your pictures the finish they deserve. This means better editing and improved printing. So this month, we’ve picked out some great kit to improve this all-important part of your workflow. We start with a PC and monitors made specifically for photographers, then cover calibration and software editing – we’ll make sure all your ducks are in a rowwhen it comes to processing your shots. After that, it’s on to printing with a top choice for a new desktop printer, some great papers to use in it and a neat presentation idea you can order online. Enjoy!
while a 2TB hard drive is also included for storage. A GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card is used for multi-monitor support and to speed up applications like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. It also comes with a Windows 10 Home 64-bit operating system pre-installed, has a DVD writer and an integrated card reader as standard. It’s all wrapped up in a discreet black Chillblast silent workstation case.
£349
gb.colorconfidence.com
From£112
dxo.com
5. X-Rite i1Studio
6. DxO PhotoLab 3
X-rite’s i1 family of calibration devices promises to bring the highest level of colour accuracy to your devices, and that means improved editing and better prints. Small and easy to use, the X-Rite i1Studio lets you calibrate colour on a range of devices including printers, monitors, cameras, scanners and even projectors – it can even improve colour accuracy on mobile devices using the X-Rite ColorTRUE app. The i1 Studio comes with a Mini ColorChecker Chart, providing the device and software a reference point that you can use when shooting. It can also create a series of colour profiles, so you can be assured of consistent output from a range of devices. New features include black & white profiling for improved mono prints.
Fresh from picking up the Best Imaging Software award in the TIPAWorld Awards 2020, you’ll find DxO PhotoLab 3 an excellent package for image processing. Like previous versions, it features a brilliant range of adjustment tools and new options include an updated HSL Tool, which lets you adjust colour settings across eight separate ‘channels’, including orange and purple. There’s also an improved Repair Tool with feathering and opacity controls, enhanced optical corrections, updated ‘one clic’ presets to add colour and toning effects and a ClearView function that removes haze and smog. The Essentials version costs £112, but if you’re an existing user you can upgrade from £59.
22 Photography News | Issue 77
photographynews.co.uk
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