Last week review 17-2025

Weekly Review 17-2025: This week it was a bit cooler again, and one wonders where the much-needed rain is?

This week it was Lightroom 17.4 and Adobe Camera RAW, both of which were introduced as updates. Besides the usual suspects like bug fixes and support for newer cameras and lenses, the standout feature this time was Landscape Masks.

This new feature analyzes a landscape image and attempts to identify the various elements, such as sky, mountains, vegetation, water, ground, etc., and offers to apply a mask to the found components so that they can then be edited separately.

This works quite well, but of course not always perfectly. For example, there are overlaps between vegetation and mountains that then have to be corrected manually. But as a first step, I find these masks a significant relief, not in the area of ​​landscape photography.

This week, DxO updated its Nik Collection to version 8. A license costs just under €160, and the update is still available for just under €90. The software can be tried out for 30 days. The software is available as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom, DxO Photolab, and, of course, as a standalone app.

There appears to be a risky vulnerability in the free image editor GIMP when editing ICO files. As Heise reports, there is no CVS number yet, and a patch is not yet available. Therefore, users, especially those with the Windows version, should refrain from editing ICO files until an update is available.

Finally, Trump’s punitive tariffs are also being felt in photography, as Sigma America has now announced that, due to the tariffs, it will impose new prices on all products starting June 2nd. This naturally affects the entire range of lenses as well as cameras, such as the Sigma BF. According to the article, this should also apply to all items that have been ordered but not yet delivered.

All in all, another very eventful week. I hope you enjoy the articles and look forward to your questions and comments.

ciao tuxoche