We received the following from Igor Tryndin, Chief Technology Officer at Unified Color, a developer of HDR PhotoStudio…

I would like to announce the availability of a preview build of HDR PhotoStudio version 2.12.x release candidate. We’re planning to go public with this release sometime in early June (we’re still fighting a few bugs, but overall the plans are looking realistic). We’ve been quite busy these last couple months since the last HDR PhotoStudio update! Our product has got many improvements in features, performance and stability.

Here are the links to the installation packages (x86 and x64 — we now support 64 bit native Windows platform):

x86 (32 bit): http://www.unifiedcolor.com/download/rc/HDRPhotoStudioSetup_x86_2_12_19.exe

x64 (64 bit): http://www.unifiedcolor.com/download/rc/HDRPhotoStudioSetup_x64_2_12_19.exe

Note that we’ve changed our licensing system, now the software will require to be activated online. The process is very straightforward — you’ll get prompted for an activation first time you run the app. Your old key has been entered into our database and will allow you to activate and work normally as if you’ve purchased the product. In case you encounter a problem with activation, please let me know.

The most notable changes since the version 2.11:

·         Added two new operations: Color Tone Equalizer (in Saturation), and Color Tuning.

·         Direct HDR merge from TIFF or JPEG — now HDR PhotoStudio doesn’t require camera settings profile (the profile feature has been dropped).

·         Dramatically improved speed for the “reduce halo” option — now it can work faster than the main operation (Local Contrast or Shadow/Highlight). There’s also an additional control slider added for this option.

·         There is a “Preview” button now in all dialogs, to toggle between original and adjusted image.

Color Tuning is one of the exclusive HDR editing operations that control chromatic (color) component in an image. Typically you use Color Tuning after you performed the White Balance adjustment, and its primary purpose is to let you change specific color tones while keeping all other tones intact — one example would be to remove “color cast” caused by either camera error or specific lighting, for example when trying to match a person’s skin color. Please see for yourself how it works, and find out how easy-to-use and powerful this feature is.

There are also some other dramatic improvements. You will find HDR PhotoStudio is getting faster and more stable, we continue to build up its features — more to come in the upcoming months! After this message I include the detailed log of all changes done in this version.

The 2.12.19 build I am sending for your preview is our first release candidate, note that there’s still a few known problems with it, for example the quality of the new HDR merge algorithm is still not satisfactory (you can notice an additional noise being introduced) — we know about this and will fix it very soon. But I thought it’s important to let our partners know and see this build, so that you have time to check out the new features and (which we always appreciate) write about it.

Website :: http://www.unifiedcolor.com/

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