Linked List: December 17, 2024

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

Gus Mueller:

This is a major update of Acorn, and is currently on a time-limited sale for $19.99. It’s still a one time purchase to use as long as you’d like, and as usual, the full release notes are available. I want to highlight some of my favorite things below.

“Select Subject”, “Mask Subject”, and “Remove Background” are new commands which use machine learning (or A.I. if you prefer) to find the most important parts of your image, and then perform their respective operations. This has been a request for a long time, and while I was doubtful of it’s utility, it’s actually pretty fun to play with and more useful than I figured it would be. So I’m glad I took the time to integrate it.

You can now set your measurement units to inches, centimeter, or pixels, and it shows up across the tools for your image, not just specific ones. This includes the crop palette, shape dimensions, filter settings… well, pretty much everything. This might be the oldest feature request I’ve implemented so far. And then related to this, Acorn 8 now has an on canvas ruler which you can use to measure out distances, straighten your image with, or even redefine the DPI.

Look up Table (LUT) support. LUTs are pretty fun, and they work by mapping one set of colors to another, enabling consistent or stylized visual effects. LUTs are used primarily in photography or filmmaking, and you can download and install new LUTs from various places across the internet.

And more, so much more. The release notes are copious, and for me, always interesting. Acorn remains one of my most-used tools. It’s fast, reliable, powerful, extensible/scriptable, and the interface makes so much intuitive sense. That’s all been true since version 1.0 back in 2007, and that’s why it’s been my go-to image editor since it was in early beta before version 1.0 back in 2007. It’s just faster and more powerful today.

Acorn is, simply put, one of the best Mac apps ever made. It’s that good. You’re nuts (sorry) if you don’t check it out while it’s available for just $20.

Blackmagic Design Now Taking Pre-Orders for Vision-Pro–Optimized Immersive Camera ★

Blackmagic Design:

Blackmagic Design announced it will start taking pre-orders for the new Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera — the world’s first commercial camera system designed to capture Apple Immersive Video for Apple Vision Pro — today with deliveries due to start in early 2025. DaVinci Resolve Studio will be updated to support editing Apple Immersive Video early next year, offering professional filmmakers a comprehensive workflow for producing Apple Immersive Video for Apple Vision Pro. Apple Immersive Video is a remarkable 180-degree media format that leverages ultra-high-resolution immersive video and Spatial Audio to place viewers in the center of the action. [...]

Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive features a fixed, custom lens system pre-installed on the body, which is designed specifically to capture Apple Immersive Video for Apple Vision Pro. The sensor delivers 8160 × 7200 resolution per eye with pixel level synchronization and an incredible 16 stops of dynamic range, so cinematographers can shoot 90fps 3D immersive cinema content to a single file. The custom lens system is designed for URSA Cine’s large format image sensor with extremely accurate positional data that’s read and stored at time of manufacturing. This immersive lens projection data — which is calibrated and stored on device — then travels through post production in the Blackmagic RAW file itself.

$30,000 — not cheap, but not crazy. And this isn’t merely 3D in a rectangular frame — it’s 180° 8K 3D.

David Smith:

What really intrigues me about it is when/if it will show up for rental. I have a few tentative ideas in this space I’d love to explore but I don’t think would justify the cost of owning one.

Looks like Lensrentals rents a vaguely similar, traditional Blackmagic camera kit for around $1,000/week ... which would make experimentation much more accessible.