Samsung Galaxy S23 photos need Adobe Lightroom for RAW photo editing

Photo: PC Mag

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S23 series, one of the camera features it wanted to highlight was the Expert RAW photo file format available on the new phones. It's Samsung's answer to Apple's ProRAW format, which combines raw image data with the computational photo capabilities of the phone's processor. But for this kind of format, you'll typically need a separate app for it. In Samsung's case, it needs the Expert RAW app, which also lets you tinker with photo settings like ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and exposure value (EV). And this time, Samsung partnered with Adobe to become the "exclusive photo editor for RAW photos taken with the Expert RAW app."

So, if you take RAW photos on the new S23 phones, you'll need to use Lightroom, which the companies integrated into the app. But we don't know for now how much the subscription will cost. The Adobe Lightroom Mobile app is free to download, but this only gives you access to basic image tools. You can't sync images across devices, which Samsung was touting with the new phones and its Galaxy PC range. Samsung gave away a free two-month trial with the Galaxy S22 series, but we don't know if there are special deals. After the trial, you'll need to pay a US$10 monthly subscription fee (around CA$13).

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Qualcomm-powered laptops, smartphones expect better Adobe app performance

Source: Qualcomm

Aside from introducing the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, Qualcomm also announced its new collaboration with Adobe. It plans to improve the performance and introduce exclusive features to laptops, smartphones, and tablets running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors. In 2023, we can also expect Adobe Acrobat and Fresco to run natively on Windows devices with ARM-based chipsets. Meanwhile, Photoshop and Lightroom are expected to get performance boosts as well.

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Pantone Colors are now behind a paywall when using Adobe products

If you use Pantone colours with your Adobe software, you'll need to pay a monthly fee. Pantone is putting its 15,000 colours behind a paywall starting this month. The only Pantone Color books that remain free to use are Pantone + CMYK Coated, Pantone + CMYK Uncoated, and Pantone + Metallic Coated. Pantone passes the cost to users through the Pantone Connect plug-in for either US$59.99 per year or US$7.99 a month. 

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Adobe tests free web version of Photoshop in Canada

Source; CNET

In case you missed the news, Adobe is offering a free web version of Photoshop, which it is piloting in Canada. Adobe's goal is to make the photo editing software accessible to more users. The company plans to offer it in more regions, but it's only available to Canadian users for now.

An Adobe spokesperson confirmed that this free web-based app version will get "all editing features" available. But it is described as a "freemium" product, suggesting there will be a paid option at some point. It will supposedly have the tools to "perform what Adobe considers to be Photoshop's core functions," an upgrade from the previous web version of the app. You will need an Adobe account to try out this app.

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