CameraBag 2.5 (RC) is out

Last month I mentioned the upcoming update from CameraBag. Well last night they released version 2.5 Release Candidate, a beta copy, before it is officially released and any last bugs are caught. If you already own CameraBag 2, this is a free update, if not you can get a free 14 day trial.

As soon as you install it you can see a few changes to the layout (like splitting the presets into Styles & Camaras) but what interested me most was the addition of being able to watermark images. Recently I haven't had much need for Lightroom except for adding a watermark and was solely using CameraBag, so was delighted to hear this was coming and even more so on how they have done it.

Its simple to create a watermark (even easier than in Lightroom!) and it is just added like any of the presets you'd normally use. The watermark is also added when you are editing the image not when you are exporting, so you can see if you need to change position/colour/size depending on the image itself.

Top New Features 

• Nested Tiles: Nest one or more tiles in your tray into a single tile that can be dragged or adjusted as a single adjustment. 

• Watermarks: Add branding to your photos with a watermark or other image that you can easily overlay anywhere on your photos. 

• Sharpen: Photos a bit blurry? No problem, sharpen them up with the new Sharpen tile. 

• Blur: Photos looking too sharp and modern? You can take care of that, too, with two new blurring tiles. Use the Circular Blur tile to simulate lens effects. 

• Custom Image Borders: Use your own image-based borders and CameraBag will automatically fill the transparent area with your image. Great for both faux-film looks and for specific website or gallery needs. 

• Updated Styles: A massive update to the library of styles included by default in CameraBag.

Another great update to a very affordable (even cheaper at the pre-release price of $15) piece of software.

From CameraBag
The CameraBag 2.5 Release Candidate is ready, and we’d like to invite our Facebook followers to try it first! Download from the links below (see bottom of post) and let us know if there are any problems with it on your system. Read more about the new features and see them in action on our website here: http://nevercenter.com/camerabag/desktop/2_5/

Note: This will replace your current version of CameraBag. If you want, you can make a backup of the old version before installing by renaming the CameraBag.app file (Mac) or the CameraBag 2 folder in Program Files (Windows).

Mac: http://nevercenter.com/cb2_5_rc_mac
Windows: http://nevercenter.com/cb2_5_rc_win

This download includes fresh 14-day trial period, so feel free to share with friends who don’t yet own CameraBag!

CameraBag 2 Update

Last year I did a little review of the photo editing software CameraBag. Its a great bit of software, not a full replacement for Lightroom/Aperture, but with some of these latest updates it comes one step closer to achieving that.

The upcoming upgrade has 5 new features, I wont go into them all now, but the stand-out upgrade gives the ability to add a watermark. I would say I use CameraBag for 25% of photos without first doing some tweaking in Lightroom, but after working on them in CameraBag I need to import them into Lightroom solely to add a watermark. Its great to see I will be able to avoid this step with the next upgrade.

Well done lads, for a very well priced product this is coming closer and closer to edging the bigger ones out

Check out all the upgrades here:
http://youtu.be/xx7Em5GnIAw

CameraBag 2

I'm not sure how I stumbled across CameraBag, but when I did they were offering it for $19 (€15/£12) with a free upgrade to CameraBag 2 which was following in a number of weeks. 

What its not is Photoshop, but almost! What it is, is probably the best $19 I've ever spent! 

I have been using it as my final pass for a number of images after I've prepared and cleaned the photo in Lightroom. I've even by-passed Lightroom and just processed a number of photos in here. Combing this with something like GIMP is the perfect and very affordable alternative to Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture etc. 

The thing that stood out the most for me with CameraBag was how easy it was to use and get going with it straight away. The interface is clean, simple and very intuitive:

• Application menu down the right, with a sub menu for items inside each section
• Adjust menu along the bottom when an item is chosen from the application menu
• Both side and bottom menus can be hidden when required

Menus

You get adjustment options (25 of them) - subdivided into Basics, Light, Color, Photographic & Utilty. Some of these adjustments include:

• crop
• rotate
• exposure
• contrast
• saturation
• vibrance
• brightness
• shadows
• various curves
• grain
• color correction
• tint
• RGB curve
• and a lot of other options

The amount of filters (like presets in Lightroom) it comes with by default is fantastic, a great start to processing your image. You have full control over these filters to adjust them and make them your own. You can save your own and share them, and add other new ones, other people have made.

The adjustment controls are a nice size and really easy to understand and use, the slider being big enough to tweak as necessary. It has non-destructive editing, and removing an effect is as easy as just closing the control for it, no need for Cntrl-Z'ing!

Adjustments

Inline Preview gives you a preview beside your original image. You are not limited to one preset, you can layer presets, adding them one after another.

Inline Preview

Quicklooks is a nice feature which takes the Inline Preview a step further, where you get a page of thumbnails with all presets worked on your photo, see one you like click on it and adjust as necessary.

Quicklook

Another nice easy to use feature is Batch Processing, its a cinch; adjust one image, then point the software to the folder you want to run it on the rest of your images which get output with an added _cb to the orignal filename by default.

The only things I found lacking were controls such as clone/heal, dodge/burn, watermarking, but as I've already said above, I've been using this as a last pass, and as I've said, combined with the likes of GIMP this is perfect for you. And for the cost of takeaway & DVD it is more than worth it.

For what it has to offer at the price I wouldn't be expecting anything more...in fact I would have thought it had a lot less.

Camerabag 2 is currently $24 - http://nevercenter.com/camerabag/desktop

Samples:

Click here for CameraBag YouTube Videos