Reviews, tutorials and news (previously: IT Enquirer)
FxFactory has done it again: they’ve released a plug-in that everyone will want. It’s a plug-in that enables you to create tilt-shift, variable blur, and selective focus effects. That sounds a lot less exciting than it is.
Forklift is a FTP client but not a simplistic one. I pitted its functionality against that of Transmit, one of the other well-known FTP clients for Macs. It turns out ForkLift 3 is a lot closer to Path Finder – a Finder replacement app – than it is to Transmit. You could say ForkLift is a slimmed down Path Finder combined with a speedier Transmit.
Affinity Designer for iPad is the much anticipated competitor of Adobe Illustrator on the iPad. It’s a well-designed port from Designer on the Mac in terms of power and capabilities, and of integration with the iOS environment.
The original ProCube was a nice looking cube that charged camera batteries, with a separate tray to charge four AA NiMh cells at a time. The new ProCube 2 is still a cute cube, but the battery holding system has changed and the unit shows more information on its LCD display.
A control surface is designed to let you navigate and control an image/video editing application efficiently. Loupedeck+ is a Finnish design. It’s a keyboard lookalike with dials and knobs and it integrates with Adobe Lightroom, Capture One (currently in beta) and Skylum Aurora HDR 2018 through a software driver annex control panel.
As tradition wants it, Corel released its update of Painter sometime in August. The new update brings new brushes, a refreshed interface and some other new features, like a colour wheel that you can move to anywhere on your canvas.
Ink and acrylic on paper. Probably not very likeable or inspired even, but an attempt nevertheless.
CalDigit’s Thunderbolt docks offer good value for money, but they’re all mains powered. The new MiniDock is powered by the Thunderbolt 3 bus of your computer, offers dual 4K monitor support, at least one USB 3.0 (5Gbps) port and a Gigabit Ethernet interface. It comes in two versions: with two DisplayPort 1.2 (4096x2160px) or two HDMI 2.0 ports (3840x2160px).
ScreenFlow 8 is a paid upgrade and it’s a big upgrade. Telestream has made ScreenFlow a more professional video editing tool with a detachable timeline and track thumbnails. It’s faster and has time-saving templates and styles that resemble Photoshop more than it does a NLE. And it comes with a subscription-based royalty-free stock media library that has video clips, backgrounds and audio tracks.
Powertraveller has released its new line of solar panel chargers, the Falcon series. There are three panels in this series: Falcon 7, Falcon 21 and Falcon 40. Of these, only the Falcon 7 lacks some features, such as the ability to charge multiple devices at once. The company sent me its Falcon 21 panel for this review.
