This year, what was once an “exciting technology on the horizon” became something far more immediate. It altered briefs, workflows, client expectations and, occasionally, the collective blood pressure of photographers and filmmakers.

Most strikingly, we all started to wonder what this would all mean for our careers – especially if you were in one of the photography jobs that AI is coming for.

AI image generators hit photorealism so convincingly that retouched portraits from real shoots sometimes struggled to look more polished. On the flipside, editing suites filled with tools that quietly shaved hours off masking, color correction and rough cuts. Truly, AI could giveth and taketh away.

ABOVE: Watch the Sora 2 sizzle reel

Then, just as everyone thought they’d caught their breath, OpenAI released Sora 2 in September. Suddenly we had software capable of producing physically coherent, dialog-synchronized video clips that felt like they came straight from a mid-budget Hollywood production.

Filmmakers and editors were getting a taste of what photographers had already experienced. They weren’t staring at theoretical disruption any more; it was right there on their screens, asking to be added to the workflow.

The deeper story

Yet the story of 2025 isn't simply that AI improved. Of course it improved. The deeper story was the confrontation it forced: what counts as real, what counts as ours and what creativity looks like when machines can mimic almost anything.

The launch of Sora 2 captured this tension perfectly. Technically, it was astonishing. Shots that once required entire departments could be summoned with a prompt. Movements obeyed physics, voices matched lips, shadows fell in exactly the right places. But the rollout caused immediate chaos.

The discovery that Sora’s training data included copyrighted material unless creators actively opted out provoked rightful outrage from studios and rights organizations. Directors and editors found themselves wondering if adopting the tool too soon would entangle clients in the next big intellectual-property scandal.

Then came a twist: audiences didn’t wholeheartedly embrace AI-generated video, either.

Those viral AI clips enjoyed their brief week in the sun, only to fade almost as quickly as they arrived. Filmmakers reported that when clients were offered the choice between AI-crafted footage and something shot by a human with a clear creative perspective, they still gravitated to the latter.

If anything, the excitement surrounding Sora 2 highlighted how wide the gap remains between technological capability and cultural readiness.

Industry split

Around midway through the year, it felt to me that the industry was starting to cleave into two distinct lanes.

In one lane sits the work that AI can produce cheaply, quickly and convincingly: product shoots, corporate headshots, stock-style photography, and the sort of fast-turnaround brand content that was once the backbone of many photographers’ calendars.

Much of this work evaporated almost overnight, with serious consequences for individuals' bank accounts and mortgage payments.

But in the opposite lane, something interesting happened. Creative labor that relied on emotional intelligence and spontaneity has started to flourish. Brands increasingly value the unmistakable fingerprints of human intention.

At the same time the middle ground – that comfortable space of technically competent but stylistically neutral work – has shrunk dramatically.

For photographers and filmmakers themselves, then, mixed emotions were very much the order of the day in 2025.

On one hand, AI integrated itself into every tool we used, from Lightroom to Premiere Pro. Autofocus seemed to read your mind. Color grading assistants prepared shockingly decent first passes. Retouching tasks that once drained your will to live were handled in a single brushstroke.

Even within cameras themselves, computational photography increasingly took over, with AI-powered phones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Google Pixel 9 leading the way.

But all this convenience came with an equal amount of unease. Subscription costs rose. Storage costs ballooned. And perhaps most painfully, skills that we'd spent years refining became optional at best, redundant at worst, almost overnight. And beneath all this ran the defining revelation of the year: the perfection paradox.

The perfection paradox

As AI became capable of generating flawless imagery at industrial scale, perfection itself lost its cultural value. Social feeds were filled with technically immaculate visuals, yet the images that gained traction were the ones that looked touched by real human hands.

Consequently, many photographers leaned into film grain, motion blur, quirky colors, accidental flare and even cameras with deliberate limitations.

Similarly, some filmmakers embraced handheld jitter, imperfect light and textures that signaled real-world presence. This wasn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it was a deliberate response to visual saturation. When everything looks pristine, people crave the unpredictable.

High-end clients caught on to all this quickly. They didn't want work that competed with AI on technical precision; they wanted work that couldn’t be mistaken for AI at all.

Imperfection – or more accurately, human presence – became a marker of value. The more synthetic the landscape became, the more desirable the unpolished truth felt.

Conclusion

So where does that leave us heading into 2026? On the one hand, it seems undeniable that AI will remain a staple of everyday creative work. It’s too useful for battling the repetitive, fiddly, joyless parts of production and post-production to abandon. But it no longer defines the pinnacle of the craft.

Perfection has stopped being the goal. The creators who thrived in 2025 weren’t the ones who matched AI’s precision; they were the ones who focused on the parts of image-making and filmmaking that still belong wholly to humans: perspective, emotion, connection and the ability to turn a real moment into something that resonates.

In short, this year taught us that AI can imitate aesthetics but not intention. It can replicate style but not meaning. And it can generate spectacle but not feeling.

The tools changed. The economics shifted. But the heart of the craft – the spark that makes a viewer feel something – has remained firmly, defiantly human. In the end, I reckon that's the most important lesson 2025 has to offer.

This was the year where we saw camera phones sprout attachable teleconverters, 200MP sensors become almost routine on flagship handsets, and AI editing moved from a neat party trick to an everyday tool. These three trends have each reshaped the way smartphone photography works today – and will likely define where it goes next.

Attachable lenses are back – but this time they’re serious

Attachable smartphone lenses have been around for years. Clip-on lens kits from brands like ShiftCam and Moment – along with plenty of budget alternatives – have made it easy to give phones ultra-wide, macro or even anamorphic shooting options without needing a specialist camera.

However, the difference in 2025 is that attachable optics have gone from novelty accessories to something phone makers themselves are taking seriously.

Vivo kicked things off last year, with its Zeiss co-engineered adapter for the Vivo X200 Pro – an accessory that became a big part of its 2025 launches for the X200 Ultra and X300 Pro. And Oppo has also now joined the adapter club with its latest Find X9 Pro.

On top of its already stacked camera array, Oppo offers an optional Hasselblad co-engineered teleconverter lens that clips onto a dedicated case. It optically extends the 200MP telephoto camera from an already healthy 70mm equivalent to 230mm, with up to a huge 920mm using the phone’s lossless zoom.

These aren’t just fun toys; this is a genuine bridge camera alternative in something that still slides into a pocket. For distant wildlife or sports from the cheap seats, that extra magnification genuinely changes what you can shoot with a phone.

That said, the friction hasn’t gone away: you still need the right case, the right adapter and a pocket to spare. It remains a niche for now, but one that’s steadily gaining momentum.

Looking ahead to 2026, I’d expect more manufacturers to follow Vivo and Oppo with their own official lens systems. It may never be a mass-market accessory, but for enthusiasts, hybrid creators and travellers looking to pack light, attachable lenses could become a standard part of their kit.

High-megapixel sensors went from novelty to normal

There's no doubt that 2025 was the year that normalized the 200MP sensor. What would have been a spec sheet shock just a few years ago has become almost a standard expectation for a modern flagship. This year has seen flagships from Samsung, Vivo, Oppo, Realme, Honor and Xiaomi all call on 200MP sensors to push zoom performance.

The real benefit isn’t shooting in full 200MP mode (most people should never do that; the file sizes are huge and unwieldy to edit), but rather allowing the phone to use those extra pixels for a cleaner and more flexible zoom.

Cropping into a huge-resolution sensor produces sharper and more detailed images, especially in good light. And at night, pixels can be combined for cleaner shots with less noise.

In 2025, this led to a noticeable shift in camera zoom capabilities, with phones like the Oppo X9 Pro offering up to a claimed 13.2x “lossless zoom” from its 200MP sensor.

In 2026, I expect this trend to continue. Sony has just entered the 200MP race this year with its large-format Lytia LYT-901, a 1/1.12-inch sensor that aims to solve the usual trade-off between high resolution and good low-light performance.

But while larger 200MP sensors like Sony’s could become the new flagship standard, older 200MP sensors are likely to trickle further downmarket, becoming a mid-range feature – even if the surrounding optics and processing don’t always match flagship results.

AI stopped being optional

In 2025, AI is everywhere – but this is the year where smartphone photography has perhaps seen its biggest AI push yet.

It now underpins almost every stage of the smartphone photographic process, from analyzing a scene for HDR, white balance and natural skin tones to AI-assisted super-zooms with their generative detail enhancement and beautification tools.

This year, AI is even edging closer to taking our photos for us. The Google Pixel 10 has shown us a glimpse of the future of AI guidance with its Camera Coach. This offers a step-by-step analysis of subjects, angles, lighting and composition, with on-screen guidance for taking a “better” photo – in real-time, right in the camera app.

Apps have also made AI tools dramatically more accessible for editing. System-level photo apps on Android and iOS are now chock-full of AI editing tools, from one-tap sky replacement, background removal, portrait relighting and even generative fill to replace missing or unwanted elements of an image.

Google Photos even enables you to simply dictate your desired edits to the phone. What used to take desktop computing power, pro software and a lot of time and skill now happens in seconds.

Looking to 2026, it’s clear that AI is only going to continue to expand its capabilities and deepen its influence. And with growing concerns around authenticity, the line between truth and fabrication will become harder to see.

This is something that will matter not just for journalists, but for everyone to have faith in what we see online – especially on social media, and even for anyone just trying to preserve genuine memories without AI “improving” them.

Next year we’ll hopefully see more robust tools, from AI generators to watermark content, alongside better transparency controls from sites and social media companies, with clearer AI indicators displayed on images – although this won’t stop bad actors from attempting to circumvent these tools.

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That's neither an insult to you, nor shade at Adobe. But it is an honest observation that explains everything Adobe announced this year, from the genuinely useful (AI culling in Lightroom) to the bewildering (50,000 generative credits per month on the Firefly Premium plan).

The common thread? Photography and filmmaking are no longer ends in themselves in Adobe's universe. They're inputs into something larger: an industrial-scale content production machine designed for brands, agencies and marketing departments drowning in demand.

Serving enterprise, not photographers

Back in 2023, Adobe's research showed that creative and marketing teams were facing an insatiable demand for content that was likely to outpace their resources.

This is the problem that Adobe has spent the time since then solving. Not how to make your images better (though plenty of features do that incidentally), but how to industrialize content creation at enterprise scale.

Of course, photographers and filmmakers happen to create the raw materials that this machine needs: compelling imagery, authentic moments, professional footage. But we're now one ingredient in a much larger recipe.

Consider GenStudio, Adobe's "end-to-end content supply chain solution". Never heard of it? Most photographers haven't, but believe me: it's been a cornerstone of the company's 2025 strategy.

For the uninitiated, GenStudio enables marketing teams to plan, create, manage, activate and measure content with integrations spanning Amazon Ads, Google Marketing Platform, LinkedIn and TikTok.

But if you're a solo photographer, it's not designed for you. It's designed for the people who license your work. Or increasingly, generate approximations of it using AI.

Useful tools

Don't misunderstand me: Adobe has still delivered some genuinely useful tools for photographers in 2025.

The assisted culling feature in Lightroom – which uses AI to identify sharp, well-composed images and flag technical failures – could save you hours on every shoot. Automatic dust spot removal has finally arrived. Distraction and reflection removal tools expanded from Camera Raw into Lightroom proper. Fantastic.

For Photoshop users, the headline features included Select Details for isolating hair and facial features with one click, and Harmonize, which automatically matches lighting and color when compositing elements from different sources.

Then came the big one. Adobe Max 2025 introduced agentic AI: conversational assistants that can understand complex, multi-step instructions and execute them autonomously.

To put that in plain language: in Photoshop, you can now tell the AI assistant to brighten everything except the subject, and it will create non-destructive adjustment layers to accomplish the task. You can ask it to review your design layout and suggest improvements.

You can even tell it to rename all your layers based on visual analysis of their contents, which earned genuine applause at the keynote demo.

Premiere Pro updates, meanwhile, included AI Object Mask in Premiere Pro, which tracks people and objects across moving footage without manual rotoscoping; potentially you saving days on complex projects.

Generative Extend, which fabricates additional frames at the beginning or end of clips, graduated from beta to support 4K and vertical formats. Media Intelligence brought natural-language search to vast footage libraries, enabling editors to find a scene just by typing something like "shot of person walking on beach at sunset".

Double-edged sword

These are all real improvements. They all address tedious bottlenecks. But they're also somewhat of a double-edged sword. Because broadly speaking, while AI is often a friend to photographers and video editors, it's often trained on our content and increasingly set to replace our skills.

In one sense, Adobe has long stood apart as the white knight here. Its generative AI engine, Firefly, famously only trains on properly licensed material – and that's to its credit. Its creation of Content Credentials to identify ownership of content also puts it on the side of the angels.

But the most revealing development in 2025 was the company's embrace of third-party generative platforms. After years of promoting Firefly, Adobe suddenly integrated models from Google, OpenAI, Black Forest Labs, Runway, Topaz and others throughout its applications.

Models that, let's be honest, might well have been trained on your content without permission.

For anyone wanting to use these models, meanwhile, the main catch is the cost. While Firefly operations cost one generative credit, using partner models costs significantly more.

Gemini images cost 20 credits, ChatGPT images cost 60. For photographers on the basic Photography Plan with just 25 monthly credits, this pricing structure is almost comically punitive. But it makes perfect sense when you understand who Adobe is actually serving.

Enterprise clients with Firefly Pro or Premium plans, carrying 7,000 or 50,000 monthly credits respectively, barely notice these costs. They're investing in velocity and output quality at industrial scale.

To put it bluntly, individual photographers watching their monthly allocation evaporate after three or four generations are not the audience for these tools.

The Frame.io revolution 

To be fair to Adobe, it hasn't just been about AI this year. The most significant infrastructure development for working photographers and filmmakers was Frame.io's Camera to Cloud expansion.

Select professional cameras can now upload proxy files directly to Frame.io via network connection, allowing editors and clients to start working with footage before the shoot even wraps.

Fujifilm became the first brand to add still photography support for Frame.io Camera to Cloud, extending this capability beyond video. Photographers can make selections in Frame.io and instantly push files to Lightroom for real-time editing and retouching from any location.

This fundamentally changes production workflows but, again, notice whose problem it solves. It's brilliant for agencies coordinating distributed teams on tight deadlines. It's transformative for productions where clients need immediate feedback and approval. It accelerates the content supply chain.

For the solo photographer shooting a wedding or a portrait session? It's technological overkill addressing a problem you probably don't have.

A year of price hikes

Here's a problem that many solo photographers do have, though: paying for all this. At the start of 2025, Adobe hiked prices on Photography Plans for the first time in over a decade, with some plans increasing up to 50%.

The company justified this by pointing to hundreds of innovations delivered across Photoshop and Lightroom without previous price increases, plus the computational costs of running AI models. Fair enough.

But the timing crystallizes the tension. Adobe is charging solo photographers more for software that's increasingly optimized for workflows they don't actually use. They're embedded in an ecosystem designed for different priorities.

None of this means Adobe's software has become useless for photographers. Quite the opposite: Lightroom and Photoshop remain the industry standard, and many 2025 updates directly improve core photography workflows.

The dust removal tool alone may justify the subscription hike for anyone who's spent hours spotting clone-stamping sensor dust across a wedding shoot.

But 2025 clarified something that was already becoming apparent: Adobe isn't a photography company that happens to make software. It's a content production infrastructure company that counts photography among its many inputs.

Your images, whether captured through a lens or conjured from pixels, are raw material for a vastly larger economy built around feeding brands' bottomless need for content.

Conclusion

So what have we learned? I'm not saying we shouldn't continue using Adobe's tools – which remain excellent for what they do. But I do think we need to recognize our changing position in the ecosystem they're building.

Adobe spent 2025 building infrastructure for a world where content creation scales exponentially through AI augmentation, where brands generate thousands of variations from seed imagery, where marketing teams run content factories that would have required armies of creators just a few years ago.

Individual photographers and filmmakers aren't being eliminated from this ecosystem, but we're being redefined within it. Our role is increasingly to provide the authentic raw material – the real moments, the genuine human perspective, the original vision – that gets multiplied, modified and distributed through AI-powered content engines.

Whether that's progress or setback depends on your perspective. Either way, that's what Adobe's 2025 was actually about.

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See where Adobe's software ranks among the best photo editing software – and if you're feeling burned by the change in tact, take a look at the best Photoshop alternatives and the best Lightroom alternatives.

That said, the digital photo frame market is a crowded one, dominated by established big players Aura and Nixplay, so how does this newcomer make its mark? If the D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame is anything to go by, it's with frames made from premium materials at a very competitive price, as we shall see…

Arzopa D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame: Specifications

Arzopa D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame: Price

Arzopa's own website shows the 'list price' for the D14 as $219.99 / £196, but this feels like an artificially high price that is designed to be discounted. At the time of writing, Arzopa was selling it at $134.99 / £121, and it can be had for even less from the likes of Amazon, which was selling it for $109.99.

So, taking its full RRP with a pinch of salt, and considering its bigger-than-average 14-inch LCD panel and decent hi-res output, it's actually very attractively priced for a frame of this size and upmarket build.

In addition to this 14-inch frame, Arzopa makes the D10, a 10.1-inch model with a 1280 x 800 resolution that costs a little less, and the D15, a 15.6-inch frame with a 1920 x 1080 'Full HD' widescreen aspect ratio that costs a little more.

Arzopa D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame: Design & Handling

The most striking thing about the Arzopa D14 is its genuine metal frame, which is cold to the touch, catches the light, and adds a touch of class. It comes in 'Champagne Gold' and 'Rose Gold' finishes, which have an attractive sheen that simply can't be replicated with metallic-effect plastics. This surrounds a slim, textured inner mount, and the whole thing looks and feels way more upmarket than the multitude of cheap plasticky frames out there.

That said, the main material at the rear of the frame is plastic. And rather quirkily, the back is designed to look like a retro-styled phonograph, with a circular 'turntable' stamped into the plastic and a metal 'arm' playing the 'record'. This arm, in fact, pops out to become the stand and is poked into a hole in one corner of the frame to prop it up in either horizontal or vertical orientations, with images auto-rotating to suit.

The frame itself is pretty slim, but the stand is quite long, forcing the frame a good eight inches or so away from whatever is behind it, which might be a problem on shelves that aren't that deep or are cluttered with other knick-knacks. There are also hook recesses for wall hanging, if you don't mind its power cable trailing down to the nearest power outlet. This cable is of the plastic-coated variety, rather than the braided fabric of some rivals, so I think most people would prefer to have it tucked out of sight.

The only physical control is a power button on the back of the frame, with the main interaction via the touch-sensitive screen, which allows you to swipe between images, re-crop them, and access basic frame functionality. For anything more involved, you'll need to use the Arzopa app, more of which is in the 'Performance' section below.

Arzopa D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame: Performance

The frame is based on a 14-inch IPS touchscreen panel that has a 1920 x 1200 display, which is pretty high resolution and results in a pixel density of around 160ppi. The 67% sRGB color gamut isn't particularly earth-shattering on paper, but the images look sharp and detailed.

You can swipe left and right on the touchscreen to move through the images stored on the frame, and tapping the screen brings up a limited menu. This allows basic tasks, such as selecting between the frame's internal image libraries, resizing photographs, changing its brightness, and granting others access to the frame via an on-screen QR code.

By default, images are displayed in their entirety, necessitating a border around the 'empty' portion of the image. You can tap an icon to make images fill the screen instead, and pinch to zoom in further, while swiping with two fingers scrolls the image around to perfect your crop. It's a bit fiddly to get it right, and as the frame or app has no 'intelligent' cropping function, but merely zooms into the center of each image, you will have to manually recrop the vast majority of your pictures, as the frame's 16:10 aspect ratio isn't native to the 4:3 of most phones or 3:2 of 'proper' cameras. Otherwise, unless you've got your subject bang in the center when you took the original shot, zooming in to remove the unsightly border will likely result in the tops of heads being cut off and the like.

To access any in-depth settings, such as overlaying the time and weather on photos (I like to switch all of these kinds of distractions off), you'll have to delve into the companion Arzopa app. This is the main way to upload images from your phone, too. Once you grant the app access to your image library, you can scroll through your pics and check a tickbox to upload them. However, all images are displayed square in a grid, which makes it impossible to see whether the images are in portrait or landscape format.

Hats off to Arzopa for developing its own app, rather than using an off-the-shelf solution like the Frameo software that powers many rival photo frames, but it has to be said that there's plenty of room for improvement. It doesn't attempt to intelligently crop images to suit the subject, for example, or allow you to correct images that aren't well-cropped; you'll have to upload them to the frame first. However, software can always be updated, so I'm hopeful that Arzopa can improve this over time.

There's a generous 32GB of internal storage. Arzopa doesn't state how many images this will hold, but it does also claim to offer unlimited cloud storage, covering all the bases. There are also USB-A, USB-C, and SD card slots, which can be used to bump the storage up to 128GB or as a means of transferring images to the internal memory. You can also connect the frame directly to a PC to transfer images via USB, which is handy for photographers who like to edit their images on their computer first. But it is only compatible with PCs; Macs are not supported.

Arzopa D14 Metal Digital Picture Frame: Verdict

The Arzopa D14 is an attractive-looking and well-designed photo frame. The metal outer frame makes a really nice change from the usual plastic and is both unfussy and eye-catching. The high-resolution display shows off images crisply and clearly, even if the color gamut isn't as wide as some competitor frames. And just as importantly, it's available at a very good price considering its specs, undercutting the top-end competitors by quite a margin, while being a far more upmarket product than some of its cheap and cheerful rivals.

Its shortcomings are mainly on the software side. The companion Arzopa app is fiddly to use compared to the established apps from the likes of Aura, or off-the-shelf apps like Frameo, and having to crop each and every image manually on the frame is a bit of a faff. Hopefully, that's something that Arzopa can address over time.

Alternatives

I directed exactly that question to not just a Photoshop expert but Adobe Photoshop’s Senior Director of Product Management, Stephen Nielsen. Here’s when (and why) photo editors may want to try a third-party AI.

Adobe Firefly

Best for: Commercially-safe AI

Adobe Firefly has a key feature for creators: it’s built on licensed content, not photos scraped from the internet. That makes Firefly safe for commercial use, Adobe says.

Firefly is the safer choice – and the more ethical option for creatives, as many generative AI platforms do not share where the training data comes from. There are a number of lawsuits and legal questions surrounding AI and what constitutes fair use for training data.

Photoshop’s third-party AI models are also considered a premium generative AI feature, whereas Firefly is considered a standard feature. That means that, depending on what subscription you have, you may have to purchase extra generative credits to use the third-party models, where some standard generative credits are included in some Adobe Photography plans.

Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro

Best for: Legible text and signs, understanding instructions

AI image generators are notoriously bad a generating text, but Google’s Nano Banana Pro shows significant improvement. For editors who need to generate text, Nano Banana may spit out the most usable options.

Nano Banana Pro is also able to understand instructions. Firefly wasn’t built to use instruction verbs like “change this to that” in the prompt, so using those types of prompts can introduce unintended errors. Editors using prompts with instruction verbs may want to experiment with Nano Banana inside Photoshop.

Flux.1 and Flux.2

Best for: Realism, maintaining image “identity,” understanding instructions

Black Forest Lab’s Flux AI models are known for realism, and that can extend into Photoshop’s Generative Fill. Editors may also want to experiment with the Flux models for maintaining “identity” or keeping more of the original intact and staying in line with the original image.

Like Nano Banana Pro, Flux models' training allows them to handle instruction verbs in the prompt better than Firefly at times.

Currently, third-party AI models are only available in Generative Fill inside Photoshop. Third-party models are available by using the drop-down menu next to the prompt text box in the Contextual Task Bar. Third-party AI model support was introduced in October 2026, and a software update is required for those running older versions of the software.

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The Fujifilm Share SP-3 is being sold for £74.25 - that's a massive saving of £100 - but you need to be quick if you want to get this highly-discounted portable color printer, as Wex only has limited stock. The listed price is £99, but if you apply the discount code WINTER25 at checkout, you get the extra 25% disount.

The Fujifilm SP-3 uses instax Square paper, providing instant prints from your camera or smartphone in just a few seconds. Th like this area great for family occasions - allowing you to share the shots you take. But they are also great for professionals - allowing clients to take something away with from the shoot.

The Wex deal only gets you the printer, but Wex will also sell two packs of film at the same time with a nice bit of discount to sweeten your Chrimas.

See our full guide to the best portable printers

In the study, which the authors describe as “sobering for computational creativity,” two AI systems were set up to generate 100 images without human input. Despite repeating that test to generate thousands of images, the researchers found that the generations all tended to fall into one of 12 common motifs, such as a bridge, a lonely tree, an action photo, or a lighthouse scene.

The researchers described the resulting collection of images as generic-looking “visual elevator music.” The study comes from research based out of the Department of Data Analytics at Dalarna University in Sweden and the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action at Michigan State University in the US.

For the research, the group wanted to set up an AI to generate images without human input. To do that, the team gave an AI image generator a prompt to produce an image. A second AI was then asked to describe that image. The description was then fed back into the image generator to create an image based on that AI-written prompt. This went on for 100 rounds. Researchers repeated the experiment 40 times and then repeated it with four different image generators.

When the researchers looked at the results, they found that the images tended to fall into one of twelve different motifs or styles. As the researchers described it, “...the systems systematically evolved toward nearly identical semantic and visual endpoints—stormy lighthouses, urban night scenes, gothic cathedrals, and palatial interiors. Rather than exploring creative possibilities, autonomous AI loops appear to gravitate toward what could be called visual elevator music.”

“These findings are sobering for computational creativity,” the researchers wrote. “If AI systems consistently collapse toward generic outputs when operating without human intervention, this questions whether current approaches can achieve genuine machine creativity. The tendency toward ‘safe’ visual tropes suggests that maintaining creative diversity may require explicit anti-convergence mechanisms or continuous human curation.”

The consistency that the multiple image generators returned to the same 12 general topics or themes suggests “that these systems favor high-probability outputs over genuine novelty,” the researchers concluded.

The researchers warned that “widespread deployment of such systems could inadvertently homogenize visual culture.”

But, the researchers note that human culture transmission research tends to repeat common themes as well, noting themes in storytelling as well as visual arts repeated across even separate cultures and during different time periods. “The difference lies not in the presence of convergence but in the specific attractors: where humans converge on flood myths and spiral patterns shaped by embodied cognition, AI systems converge on stock photography aesthetics shaped by internet-scale training data,” the researchers explained.

Generative AI systems are trained on human-created data, the study’s authors note, wondering, “What does the convergence on common artistic motifs say about us?”

The research is available at Patterns.

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In a teaser shared to the laptop-maker's social channels, Asus shared that “the ProArt GoPro Edition is about to break cover,” along with a save-the-date for January 6 at 9 AM PST, which is during the Consumer Electronics Show or CES.

In the teaser video, Asus shares a few hints, including a close-up of a GoPro shortcut key. The video also hints at a laptop with a textured front and what looks like the Asus DialPad included in some models.

A ProArt and GoPro collab makes sense – in fact, the two companies have worked together before, bringing the GoPro Cloud to the StoryCube media management app earlier this year. The previous collab also brought a complimentary GoPro Premium+ subscription with some ProArt purchases.

But, if the teaser is any indication, the upcoming ProArt x GoPro launch looks like the action-camera maker will be integrated in more than just software. There’s that GoPro key on the keyboard, for starters, and in the final image, there’s something boxy behind the laptop that’s also GoPro-branded.

The teaser leaves a lot of questions. Will the upcoming laptop borrow GoPro’s durability? Some ProArt models, like the P16, undergo tests for sand, dust, drops, extreme temperatures, and vibrations, so the idea doesn’t seem terribly far-fetched. What’s sitting behind the laptop in that teaser video?

GoPro fans won’t have to wait too long, as Asus says the livestream airs on January 6 at 9 AM PST / Noon EST / 5 PM GMT.

That’s not the only GoPro to look forward to, either. CEO Nicolas Woodman has indicated to investors that the company plans to launch a pro-grade low-light camera, which could come as early as 2026.

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I recently debated with Digital Camera World head honcho, James Artaius, on the Bokeh Face podcast whether or not it’s wise to update firmware on day one (as well as offering our thoughts on paid upgrades), so make sure you give that a watch / listen because we'd love to hear your take.

But back to the aging – yet still mighty – Sony A1 and firmware version 4.00. You can visit the update page here. As you can see below, this is an extensive update; along with improved operational stability, you can expect the following tasty upgrades…

Do make sure you read Sony's literature regarding the update, including the correct update order for those who have missed previous updates in the past. Some update features also require the latest edition of the Monitor & Control app, and some firmware services may not be available in certain countries or regions.

Sony A1 firmware version 4.00

• Displayed shooting information adapts for both landscape and portrait orientations
• The Spot section of the Focus Area menu gets Spot: XL and Spot: XS options
• The Tracking section of the Focus Area menu gets Tracking: Spot XL, and Spot XS, Tracking: Custom 1, 2 and 3
• You can simultaneously delete and rate images stored on both memory card slot one and two
• Folder and file names can be displayed during playback
• You can cancel the scheduled transfer of selected images during FTP transfer
• Support added for the following Transfer & Tagging settings…
  • Setting to automatically schedule FTP transfer of protected still images from FTP Import
  • Setting to automatically schedule FTP transfer of protected still images and videos from FTP Upload Preset
  • Setting to automatically protect still images transferred via FTP from FTP Upload Preset
• Supports the following Monitor & Control app functions:
  • Focus map display
  • IRIS operation bar display
• Supports the Write Digital Signature function for movies as part of Sony’s Camera Authenticity Solution
• Supports Scan and Tag, Photo Cropping, and Volume Photography Commands under the Volume Photography License (paid license is required for use)
• The camera no longer supports Security (IPsec), WPA, and WEP functionalities

The firmware also fixes two issues: A lag of one to two seconds where continuous shooting wouldn’t resume after a period of burst shooting, and an instance where the multi-selector on the vertical grip wouldn’t function correctly.

Sony ZV-E10 II 4K 120p

It’s not every day a camera receives an upgrade as good as this. The Sony ZV-E10 II can now capture internal 4K 120p for slick slow-motion footage. That’s up to 5x slow-motion footage with full AF performance, and that’s not all; you also get FullHD 240p for 10x slow-motion.

The word "license" might initially conjure up fears of payment, but this is completely free. However, it’s not bundled within a firmware update; hence, you have to obtain the upgrade licence via Sony’s Creators’ Cloud website.

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Check out the best Sony cameras, the highest-resolution cameras on the market, and the best cameras for vlogging.

Its only feature of note? It was slightly thinner than Samsung's previous very thin phone, the Galaxy S25 Edge.

Did anyone want or have use for a very thin phone? We honestly didn't think so at Digital Camera World. My theory on the iPhone Air is that it is just half of a folding phone.

Essentially, I hypothesized that Apple was tricking a small niche of people into covering some research and development costs for another product category in which it is now years behind the game (check out one of Samsung's latest tri-folding phones if you don't believe me).

Some thought it might disappear altogether, but phone rumor site GSM Arena has started circulating some very interesting suggestions about a possible sequel to the device that isn't the long-awaited iPhone Fold.

A second camera

Firstly, and this perhaps won't be much of a surprise, there is the idea that a second camera will be added. This makes a lot of sense because the iPhone Air was very expensive for a single-camera phone.

No firm details exist, but an ultrawide would be the expected 'second camera' based on Apple's previous two camera phones (and that the single camera on the first generation is a hybrid zoom already).

This price will seem even more unacceptable to most consumers when the novelty of being the 'first' Air has gone, and adding the camera to the lump means it won't affect the marketing team's assessment of the device's thickness!

New release window

Secondly, for those of us who have come to expect a new iPhone at a certain time of year, the launch window would be spring 2027. Perhaps Apple just needs longer to move units of the first-generation phones? I understand that. I wouldn't buy one! It's only got one camera, after all!

A shocking price – but not how you'd expect

Thirdly, though, and this is the most shocking one of all for many, it is thought that Apple will be reducing the price by $100. Partly that is because the company likes a round 100, so coming down by 'just 50' wouldn't be enough.

But reducing the price of phones is something that rarely happens – and never happens to Apple products. Even more so if features are actually increasing.

It certainly seems that Apple isn't anticipating a price premium being something it can charge for future generations of the Air, though, even if the idea of an ultra-thin phone continues to be worth selling.

What I'd say is that everything here is logical. If there is to be an iPhone Air 2 it should be cheaper, should have a better camera system and it probably isn't needed in a hurry. But it also sounds pretty implausible all put together, doesn't it?

In the meantime I can also tell you that I don't mind carrying the slightly heavier iPhone 17 Pro Max – and I get a really good and useful telephoto camera and decent battery life. I don't understand the appeal of the Air at all.

To each their own, eh?

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Check our guides to the best iPhone for photographers and the best camera phone. Also read my piece on having spent over $34,800 on iPhones!

While TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has stayed quiet through much of the rumored sales required to keep the app running in the US, the news of a joint US venture has reportedly been confirmed by an internal memo from ByteDance CEO Shou Chew. The agreement, expected to close in January 2026, sees US-based investors take partial ownership, as well as being responsible for data protection.

The agreement comes nearly a year after TikTok went dark in the US for a few hours before President Donald Trump passed a deadline extension for the law that required the China-based social media platform to sell, a law based on data security concerns. The deadline has now been extended at least four times since then, and it looks like an arrangement to keep the app in the US is coming next month.

The TikTok ban echoes another ban over data concerns for China-based tech companies, as DJI faces a potential ban in the US on December 23. Last year, the US passed a law that required passing a security review within a year's time or face being automatically placed on an FCC list that would prevent any new products from being announced in the US.

That government-mandated security review has yet to happen, despite repeated pleas from DJI to begin the audit process. Now, the drone giant is urging lawmakers to extend the deadline and assign an agency to carry out the security audit.

The TikTok ban and the DJI ban are not part of the same legislation, but the two bans have similar echoes of concern over data security. The concern stems in part from a law in China that requires businesses to give the government access to user data, no matter where the user is based.

TikTok was granted several deadline extensions to keep the app running in the US. DJI appears to be hoping for the same thing, as the company is now urging US legislators to extend the deadline. The law requiring the security audit did not detail what would happen if the audit did not begin on time, nor did it assign a specific government agency to carry out the audit process.

If December 23 passes without a completed security audit or government extension, new DJI products will not gain the required FCC authorization to sell products in the US, which includes drones as well as action cameras, gimbals, and accessories. A recently passed law makes it possible for the FCC to also revoke the authorization for previously launched products.

As an American drone pilot, I’m hoping that DJI will see a similar deadline extension. DJI has such a large share of the drone market that finding a drone alternative is a challenge, and many of the other options are also from companies based in China.

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Read more FAQs about the US DJI ban, or browse the best non-DJI drones to buy.

The data comes from Aftershoot’s annual look at aggregated, anonymized user data, a report dubbed Snapshot 2025. The company says the data indicates photographers are facing record workloads, but automation is helping keep up.

Across 188,000 photographers, Aftershoot’s active users saved an estimated 89 million hours through culling and editing automation. That comes out to 473 hours for each photographer, which is just under a dozen 40-hour workweeks.

Aftershoot says that users processed 8.8 billion images in 2025. AI-automated culling, or the process of selecting the best shot and weeding out the duplicates and misses, looked at 6.8 billion images and recognized around 1.24 billion duplicates.

The company estimates that the time saved is about $212 million in savings on lost time – and around 17.8M kWhs.

“As photographers take on bigger workloads and shorter deadlines, AI has shifted from a nice-to-have to an essential part of running a sustainable creative business,” Harshit Dwivedi, Founder of Aftershoot, said. “Saving 89 million hours in a single year isn’t just a number – it represents time creators reclaimed for creativity, clients, and life beyond the screen.”

In 2025, Aftershoot added beta retrouching tools to the software. The company says that it has saved around 401 hours per photographer on average, with the most-used tools being those for acne, blemishes, face smoothing, stray hair removal, and teeth whitening.

Another new 2025 feature? Instant AI profiles, which take a photographer’s favorite Lightroom presets and apply them dynamically, creating consistency across images shot with different exposures, white balance, and other settings.

In the 2024 numbers, Aftershoot tallied 5.4 billion images, showing a significant jump to 8.8 billion images in 2025.

As part of the study, Aftershoot has an introductory offer for new users that discounts the first six months of Aftershoot Pro to $99 (about £75 / AU$150 / CA$137).

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Browse the best culling software or the best photo editing software.

Nixplay is one of the premium manufacturers of digital photo frames, and in their pre-Christmas sale, they are selling their most popular frame, the Classic 10.1in HD Touch Screen, for half the regular price, at just £89.99, down from £179.99.

And not only that, if you buy two frames, they'll knock another tenner off, bringing the price down to just £84.99 per frame, so you could get one as a gift and keep one for yourself.

If you want to really show off your shots in style, there's the same half-price deal on the Classic 15.6in, which is a real showstopper of a frame, down from £349.99 to £174.99. This time, if you buy two, you'll save a further £20.

And if that deal wasn't sweet enough, there's free shipping too, but you'll need to order by Saturday, December 20, to guarantee delivery in time for Christmas…

That’s all, folks! This is the camera’s first firmware update, after all, and it’s good news that Fujifilm hasn’t needed to fix anything major. What you’re left with is a delightful little camera and one of my favorite cameras for beginners.

In fact, my colleague James Artaius and I waxed lyrical over the X-T30 III in the most recent episode of the Bokeh Face podcast – you can watch our discussion below (the video will jump to the X-T30 III chat):

Ultimately, what makes this camera such an attractive prospect for beginner photographers is that it’s highly versatile, since it’s an interchangeable-lens camera, and it’s got a proper X-Trans sensor, so images have the coveted "Fujifilm look".

It boasts some key upgrades over its predecessor, too, largely centered around the X Processor 5, which is Fujifilm’s current-gen chip and gives the X-T30 III much better autofocus and video. Oh, and on that subject, it also follows in the footsteps of the Fujifilm X-M5 with 6K open gate video.

In a world where entry-level cameras are becoming harder and harder to find, the Fujifilm X-T30 III sits right up there with the Canon EOS R100 as one of the best possible mirrorless camera starts you can get as a photographer.

You can download firmware version 1.01 here – though as always, you might be wise to wait a week or so to ensure that there are no issues with the update.

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Check out the best Fujifilm cameras. Here's why the Fujifilm X-M5 finally delivers on the compact promise of mirrorless. And to keep updated on everything that's happening in the imaging world, here's the latest camera news.

Announced on December 18, Ray3 Modify is designed to work around one of the biggest struggles of generative AI video: getting accurate human motion and emotion. Text-based generative video AI typically struggles with complex movements (as this hilarious video of an AI gymnast demonstrates).

Ray3 Modify instead takes real, camera-recorded footage and enhances it with AI. The company says that creative teams can use the platform to change the actor into a fantasy character, swap wardrobes, add makeup, alter the background, and more.

Above: see Luma AI sizzle reel

Character Reference is a tool that places a custom character over a real actor’s performance, using AI to create the character, but the actor leads the motion and facial expressions. Luma AI says that the tool is designed to lock in the likeness, customer, and identity continuity for the full shot.

The company says the AI is also designed with performance preservation, which means the actor’s original motion, timing, eye line, and delivery remain consistent despite the AI changes.

Ray3 Modify can edit original camera-shot video in other ways too, including swapping out the background, changing the lighting, or altering the weather. The AI also supports start and end frames, allowing users to create a reference image for the start of the clip and a second for the end to dictate the camera movement and the character’s changes in between.

The example clips suggest that Ray3 Modify could also be used to add special effects to low-budget shoots or “travel” to multiple shoot locations without a travel budget.

“Generative video models are incredibly expressive but also hard to control. Today, we are excited to introduce Ray3 Modify that blends the real-world with the expressivity of AI while giving full control to creatives,” Amit Jain, CEO and co-founder of Luma AI, said. “This means creative teams can capture performances with a camera and then immediately modify it to be in any location imaginable, change costumes, or even go back and reshoot the scene with AI, without recreating the physical shoot.”

The company notes a few limitations of the AI, recommending that users play with the “modify Strength Levels” tool to adjust how much (or how little) of the scene the AI reimagines. Uploading a video with an aspect ratio not yet in the AI can also degrade the quality.

Ray3 Modify builds on the previously launched Ray3 and is available to try inside of Luma AI’s Dream Machine. Free tier users can create up to eight videos in draft mode for non-commercial use. The cheapest option with 4K output for non-commercial users costs $9.99 a month, while commercial subscriptions start at $29.99 a month.

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Firmware version 4.0.0 is now available, delivering performance refinements and a refreshed shooting experience across multiple models, with a clear focus on speed, precision and usability for both stills and video shooters.

For SL-System users, the update introduces notable gains for the Leica SL3 and SL3-S. Leica’s hybrid autofocus has been further refined, responding faster and locking on with greater accuracy, particularly when tracking people and animals.

System performance has also been optimized, giving the cameras a more responsive feel in day-to-day use and demanding professional scenarios alike.

One of the standout additions is a new Multishot mode for the SL3, which enables the full-frame camera to capture images at up to 240MP. It’s a feature aimed squarely at photographers working in fine art, landscape and commercial disciplines, where ultimate resolution and detail are paramount.

Alongside this, Leica continues to lean into professional workflows with direct cloud connectivity to Adobe Frame.io – enabling faster delivery and collaboration straight from the camera.

The Leica Q3 and Q3 43 also receive firmware version 4.0.0, bringing with it a completely redesigned user interface inspired by the SL3. Redesigned icons, a cleaner menu structure and quicker navigation make the Q3 experience feel more modern and fluid, while improved touch functionality helps streamline operation in the field.

The update also complements the camera’s autofocus improvements and configurable Leica Looks, enabling photographers to tailor the camera more closely to their shooting style.

Both firmware updates are available immediately and can be installed either via the Leica Fotos app or using an SD card. It’s a quietly significant release from Leica, reinforcing its commitment to long-term camera support while ensuring its current lineup continues to evolve well beyond the point of purchase.

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Take a look at the best Leica cameras along with the best Leica SL lenses for mirrorless and the best Leica M lenses for rangefinders.

This week, Meta announced that it’s testing Instagram for TV, an update that brings Reels to larger screens via Amazon Fire TV devices. For now, Instagram TV is just a test, which means that not only are features limited, but it’s also only rolling out to the US and only to Fire TV devices, though Instagram says it expects to expand to more countries and devices.

Instagram for TV is designed for watching Reels together. At launch, the app supports up to five accounts, so users can watch a personalized feed on their TVs, and Instagram notes that users can also create an account just for the TV app.

In the home screen, Instagram TV will show groups of Reels by channels that match interests, along with videos that are popular among friends. “Over time, we plan to introduce new features, which may include using your phone as a remote, a more intuitive way to channel surf, shared feeds with friends, and making it easier to keep up with your favorite creators in one place,” Meta writes.

But, as a creator, the Instagram TV test raises a number of interesting questions. First, a common complaint among Instagram users is the social platform’s longstanding resolution limitations. If Instagram is experimenting with bringing its content to larger screens, it begs this question: Will higher resolution support follow if Instagram TV fares well in tests?

While Instagram can support larger files by toggling on “Upload at highest quality” in the settings, most reels playback at 1080x1920 pixels. That may be fine for a small smartphone screen, but it feels a bit diminutive for a TV screen.

Instagram Reels are also made for vertical smartphone screens, so bringing them to a traditional horizontal widescreen seems a bit odd. I wonder if the test could lead to support for a wider variety of formats?

But my final question is the more pressing as a photographer, not a videographer – is Instagram even considering bringing photos to TVs? Yes, I know that video is the more obvious choice for a TV, but I’m thinking along the lines of the viral Samsung art TV, The Frame. I would happily trade my Roku screensaver for a slideshow of images from my favorite photographers.

For now, Instagram for TV is just a test. Meta says it is planning to improve the smart TV app based on feedback, so it will be interesting to see where the move leads the social platform.

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Redmi Note 15

The standard Redmi Note 15 is the most straightforward of the bunch, but it still puts a big number front and centre. You get a 108MP main camera with a 1/1.67-inch sensor, using 9-in-1 pixel binning, paired with a basic 2MP depth sensor. There’s no ultra-wide here, so photography is very much focused on the main camera, with Xiaomi leaning on in-sensor cropping to offer multiple focal lengths from a single lens. Around the front, there’s a 20MP selfie camera.

Beyond the cameras, it features a 6.77-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a MediaTek Helio G100-Ultra chipset, and a large 6,000mAh battery, making this the endurance-focused, entry point of the series.

Redmi Note 15 5G

The Redmi Note 15 5G builds on the base model in a few key photographic ways. The headline 108MP main camera gains optical image stabilisation, which should make a noticeable difference for low-light shooting and video. More importantly, it adds an 8MP ultra-wide camera, making this the first model in the lineup to offer multi-camera flexibility.

It keeps the same 20MP front camera, but steps up in other areas too, with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset, faster charging, and a slimmer, lighter design. If you want a versatile camera setup without jumping to the Pro models, this is the obvious upgrade.

Redmi Note 15 Pro

The Redmi Note 15 Pro jumps to a 200MP main camera with a larger 1/1.4-inch sensor and 16-in-1 pixel binning, again with OIS. That larger sensor and higher resolution are designed to deliver more detail, better dynamic range, and cleaner low-light results. It’s paired with an 8MP ultra-wide camera and a higher-resolution 32MP selfie camera.

The Pro also brings a tougher build with Gorilla Glass Victus 2, a 6,500mAh battery, and a more advanced AI Creativity Assistant, positioning it as the first genuinely photography-focused option in the range.

Redmi Note 15 Pro 5G

The Redmi Note 15 Pro 5G uses the same 200MP main camera system as the Pro, but adds more advanced imaging features around it. Xiaomi highlights improved in-sensor zoom options, multiple focal lengths from a single lens, and upgraded video and portrait processing. The ultra-wide camera remains at 8MP, while the front camera drops back to 20MP.

Elsewhere, it steps up to a larger 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display, faster performance from the Dimensity 7400-Ultra, and improved durability with higher water and dust resistance ratings.

Redmi Note 15 Pro+ 5G

At the top of the tree sits the Redmi Note 15 Pro+ 5G. It shares the same 200MP, 1/1.4-inch main camera hardware, but pairs it with Xiaomi’s most advanced AI imaging pipeline, improved zoom processing, and enhanced 4K video capabilities. The 32MP front camera returns here, making it the strongest option for both rear and front-facing shooters.

It also brings the fastest performance with a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor, a 6.83in 1.5K resolution ALOMED display, and a 6500mAh battery with 100W fast charging, rounding out the most premium photography-first phone in the Redmi Note 15 family. If camera performance is your top priority and budget allows, this is clearly the flagship choice.

Pricing and availability

The Redmi Note 15 series' global launch unfortunately doesn't include the US, but they will be available in the UK and Europe, and prices scale accordingly across the lineup.

The Redmi Note 15 Pro+ 5G sits at the top, priced at £429 for the 8GB + 256GB model and £479 for the 12GB + 512GB version.

The Redmi Note 15 Pro 5G is available in three configurations: £349 for 8GB + 256GB, £379 for 8GB + 512GB, and £399 for the 12GB + 512GB model.

The Redmi Note 15 Pro will be sold in 8GB + 256GB and 12GB + 512GB variants, with prices starting from £249.

Lower down the range, the Redmi Note 15 5G comes in 6GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB options, starting from £199, while the standard Redmi Note 15 is available in the same memory configurations, starting from £179.

The Redmi Note 15 series will be available soon, with pre-orders opening from 5 January 2026.

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For more, check out our guides to the best Android phones for photography or the best camera phones.

The list of firmware was previously teased in September, but now Canon cinema users have a date as to when they can find that firmware: after 09:00 EST on Thursday December 18.

The Canon EOS C400 is the only camera on the list gaining new open gate capabilities with the mid-December firmware update, bringing it in line with its new sibling the Canon EOS C50 (and R6 Mark III). The software update will enable full-frame 3:2 open gate recording on the cinema camera.

Open gate is a fairly highly requested feature among videographers and hybrid creators. Open gate simply means that the camera records without aspect ratios and shoots using the full width and height of the sensor.

That enables the footage to retain the highest possible amount of resolution, for more flexibility when cropping in post, a welcome feature in a time when many creators need to create for both traditional horizontal screens as well as vertical.

The Canon EOS C80, C70 and R5 C will also be gaining new firmware. The update adds view assist in media mode, improves focus peaking, enhances the assign buttons feature and updates the joystick operability.

The firmware updates will be available directly from Canon after 09:00 EST on December 18.

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This is the first phone launching globally that features the new Qualcomm Snapdragon® 8 Gen 5 mobile platform. This chip falls short of the Elite alternative but still delivers efficiency and advanced AI at a more affordable price point. This enables OnePlus to keep the price low.

The OnePlus 15R is now available for preorder across Europe, India and North America with colorways including Charcoal Black for a warm, soft touch and Mint Breeze for a subtle shimmer.

Dual-cameras with DetailMax Engine

The OnePlus 15R features a dual-camera setup at the rear. This begins with a 50MP camera that is backed up by the same IMX906 sensor found on OnePlus 15. Then there's an 8MP ultra-wide sensor with a 112-degree field of view. At the front is a 32MP selfie camera with autofocus to boot.

The stripped-back sensors would result in disappointing results if it wasn't for the DetailMax Engine that is also found on the OnePlus 15. When we reviewed the flagship device, we found a "pleasing sharpness and clarity to photos without an overaggressive artificial sharpening, causing unwanted artifacts. Colors are also very true to life."

The DetailMax Engine technologies include Ultra Clear Mode, Clear Burst and the Clear Night Engine, which OnePlus claims delivers "amazing results whether you're capturing day, night or motion shots."

The OnePlus 15R is also capable of recording 4K video at up to 120 frames per second. There's also onboard functionality for editing footage without having to transfer files to a laptop.

An impressive display and promising battery

The OnePlus 15R has a 1.5K AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 165Hz LTPS. This should deliver deep blacks and high contrast, although we'd have to reserve judgement until we've reviewed it properly. At the very least, the refresh rate promises to be exactly what is required for those into mobile gaming.

The display measures 6.83 inches and features 450 pixels per inch. It can also go as high as 1800 nits of brightness and as low as 1 nit with Reduce White Point activated. Based on the display specs, comparable phones include the Xiaomi 15T Pro and Realme P3 Ultra.

The 7,400 mAh battery is larger than what is found in the OnePlus 15 and more substantial than any phone released by OnePlus. You'll also find SUPERVOOC fast charging technology, which is suited to harsh environments and designed to keep running with at least 80% capacity after four years.

In terms of durability, the OnePlus 15R is covered by four separate IP ratings, IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K, for an impressive level of protection from the elements.

Pricing and availability

The OnePlus 15R is now available for preorder, with open sales starting from January 15 2026. The 12GB RAM and 256GB storage ship in Charcoal Black and Mint Breeze finishes for £649 (US pricing and availability to be confirmed).

For an upgraded 512GB of storage, you'll only have the Charcoal Black option, and it'll cost £729. OnePlus is running a £100 discount until January 21 but only on the 512GB version.

Whichever you choose, OnePlus is also giving away two free gifts (while stocks last), which include a 120W Adapter Kit (£69.99) and an additional gift, including OnePlus Buds 4 Black Only (limited) or a OnePlus 15R Sandstone Magnetic Case (£24.99).

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Find more of the best Android phones for photography or the best camera phones in our guides.

At a time when clients want content faster than ever, it’s hard to meet deadlines if your PC is choked by RAW files or struggles to process today’s high-resolution video. A monitor with inaccurate or constantly shifting hues can lead to time-consuming corrections, and an aging system can prevent you from being able to take full advantage of the latest AI tools designed to speed up editing.

These challenges are common, but you don’t have to put up with them. The ASUS ProArt ecosystem offers a complete solution built specifically to eliminate bottlenecks for creators like you.

The ASUS ProArt ecosystem: built for creators

ASUS ProArt is a whole family of creative hardware, from monitors to motherboards, graphics cards and pre-built computers. They’re united by a core promise: to solve professional creatives’ needs through precision, performance and reliability.

The result is a holistic ecosystem where colour consistency is guaranteed, render times are slashed and every element works in harmony.

A powerful foundation

At the heart of the ProArt ecosystem lies Intel's latest Core Ultra 200 series processors. Paired with ASUS ProArt motherboards, these CPUs have the raw processing power to handle demanding creative workloads.

Whether you choose the fully featured ASUS ProArt Z890 (around £500) or the more budget friendly ASUS ProArt B860 for around £200, ASUS ProArt motherboards provide robust power delivery for consistent performance, even during extended editing sessions.

This allows lag-free RAW processing, seamless 4K and 8K video editing and effortless multitasking. Extensive PCIe and NVMe storage support allows photographers to work with massive RAW libraries without compromising, while high-bandwidth USB4/Thunderbolt connectivity ensures blazing-fast data transfers.

With a quiet thermal design, the processors won’t distract you with noisy fans, and ASUS's Advanced RMA and 3+2 Year Extended Warranty on ProArt motherboards provides reassurance that your setup will last for years.*

Accurate colours every time

As a photographer or videographer, you need to be confident that the colour you see is the colour you deliver. That’s why ProArt monitors are individually factory-calibrated with a printed calibration report, guaranteeing exceptional accuracy out of the box.

Whether you're working with HDR content or fine-tuning subtle details, ProArt monitors ensure you see your work as it really looks, every time, delivering the precision needed to achieve your creative vision.

From entry-level models to an industry-leading 8K display, there's a ProArt monitor to suit every photographer's needs and budget, from enthusiasts to professional studios. For those looking for a budget-friendly upgrade to 4K resolution with 100% sRGB coverage, the PA279CRV offers phenomenal value at under £550.

The PA32QCV (£1,300) provides a larger display and stunning 6K resolution, making it a great value choice for video editors. And the flagship PA32UCDM (£1,600) has a vivid OLED panel ideal for HDR work and studio-level colour grading with 99% DCI-P3 coverage and precision accuracy of ΔE < 1.

Again, with ASUS's Advanced RMA and 3+2 Year Extended Warranty, ASUS ProArt monitors provide complete peace of mind.

Harness next-gen AI and imaging workflows

With AI transforming creative work, speeding up editing and unlocking new possibilities for photographers and videographers, the ASUS ProArt RTX 5080 graphics card (around £1,500) provides the GPU power you need to take full advantage of the latest tools.

Testing has shown it to accelerate AI-assisted editing, batch processing and complex masking in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop’s GPU-accelerated functions and to speed up upscaling and AI denoising in Topaz applications,

The GPU’s slim design makes it suitable for any studio environment, and optimised cooling ensures quiet operation, even during long editing sessions. It also works in perfect harmony with ProArt motherboards and Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs for a powerful but balanced system.

Powered by ASUS: Ready-Made Intel Creator Systems

Opting for the power and precision of ASUS ProArt components doesn’t have to mean sweating though the construction of a PC yourself. For professionals who want uncompromising performance without the hassle of building a computer, Powered by ASUS creator systems from SCAN are the perfect solution.

The combination of Intel's Core Ultra 200 CPUs, ASUS ProArt components and SCAN's premium build quality ensures exceptional reliability and performance, and all systems are optimised and stability-tested specifically for photography and hybrid creative workloads.

An ASUS ProArt creator system is more than a boost in computing speed, it means upgrading to an ecosystem where every component works together to help empower your vision.

Explore ASUS Powered by ASUS PCs by 3XS Systems at SCAN UK today to learn how ASUS ProArt can transform your workflow.

Right now, you can get up to 3 months free subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud suite with the purchase of select DIY ASUS ProArt components.**

Industry Leading Warranty

*ASUS Advanced RMA and 3+2 Year Extended Warranty applies to select ProArt monitors and motherboards. See website for full terms and conditions.

** Free Adobe Creative Cloud subscription offer valid on select ASUS ProArt components purchased between 2 October 2023 and 31 August 2026. Redemption instructions and full terms and conditions can be found at www.asus.com

Specifications, pricing, and availability are subject to change without notice. Please check with retailers for the most up-to-date information.

Discover the full ASUS ProArt range to learn how it can help you realise your creative vision.

Merriam-Webster defines slop this way: “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”

Slop is AI content, not photography, yet the term earning top honors for the year is enough to make anyone in any creative field grin. See, Merrim-Webster’s Word of the Year (and its runner-ups, such as “touch grass,” “tariff” and the cringe-worthy “6 7”) are based on spikes in search data and the word is often representative of the year’s current events.

Choosing a word that mocks AI as word of the year is a win for human creators in all art types, including photography. Yes, creators all year have been bemoaning generative AI. But, a word that, as the dictionary company puts it, “has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch” becoming so widely used to describe the technology, feels indicative of the general public’s views on AI, not just creatives.

I keep coming back to a meme that I saw months back that referred to writing, but could just as aptly be used for photography. It said something along the lines of this: “If no one can be bothered to write it, why should I be bothered to read it?” If a photographer can’t be bothered to take the photo, why should anyone be bothered to look at the photo?

As Merriam-Webster puts it, “The word sends a little message to AI: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.”

I’m counting that as a win for the humans.

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Firefly video editor is a browser-based software

Adobe’s online Firefly can now do more than generate. The new Firefly video editor is a web-based video editing software meant to assemble and tweak AI-generated video. Previously, Firefly generated videos in the web app that could be later taken into Premiere Pro, but the update brings prompting and editing into one online workspace.

The Firefly video editor, which is now in public beta, allows creators to combine generated clips using a multi-track timeline, a lightweight version reminiscent of similar tools in software like Premiere Pro.

Users can take advantage of the timeline to edit, or can also use the text editor to shorten, trim, and rearrange interviews and other talking-head videos.

The web-based software also supports exporting in multiple formats, including vertical and widescreen.

Firefly can now edit videos with prompts, rather than regenerating

Previously, if Firefly didn’t get a clip just right, the only option was to try again and regenerate the entire clip. Now, Adobe has introduced prompt-based editing, which allows creators to correct part of a clip without regenerating the entire thing.

Adobe demonstrated using the tool to swap one object out for another, replace the background, or even change the weather, while keeping the rest of the clip intact.

The update also allows users to adjust the “camera,” asking the AI for a wider shot, a bird’s-eye view, or perhaps a closeup.

The updates also give users more control over how the “camera” moves during a clip. Inside the Firefly Video Model, users can upload one image as a reference for the starting point, and another for the end, in order to direct the AI how to move the "camera" between those two perspectives.

AI upscaling for video is now available in Boards

Adobe is also adding the ability to upscale videos using AI, a feature that’s done using Topaz Astra. The feature has echoes of the new Photoshop tool to upscale images using Topaz AI, however, the video upscaling is only headed to Firefly Boards for now, not the new Firefly video editor yet.

Adobe says that the AI upscaling in Boards can be used to push a 1080p video to 4K.

Firefly adds FLUX.2 to third-party models

The update also brings another addition to Adobe’s list of supported third-party AI models with the addition of Black Forest Lab’s FLUX.2. FLUX.2 is a photo generator, not an image generator, however, which means the support is rolling out to Firefly Text to Image, Firefly Prompt to Edit, Firefly Boards, and Photoshop’s Generative Fill. (In January, FLUX.2 will also be available in Adobe Express.)

To give users more flexibility to experiment with the new tools, Adobe is giving current Firefly Pro, Firefly Premium, and 7,000 credit and 50,00 credit generative AI plans unlimited photo and video generations on the Firefly app until January 15, 2026.

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Adobe recently published its annual predictions for creative trends. Two of the four trends feel like an evolution of the brand’s 2025 trend report. Visuals that Engage the Senses feels a bit like a visual-focused take on the immersive art installations that Adobe highlighted in last year’s report. Similarly, the surrealism trend that Adobe called Fantastic Frontiers last year feels revamped in the 2026 trend Surreal Stillness. The Surrealism trend discusses using AI to create images that defy the laws of physics.

But, the other two of the four trends feel focused on authenticity and emotions – and as a photographer, I think those two trends are key to standing out in a world that now feels heavily focused on AI.

Connectioneering

Adobe describes the Connectioneering trend this way: “Images that Stir Emotions and Spark Connection.” Or, as Adobe Principal of Creative Services and Visual Trends Brenda Miller puts it, “People really want to feel what connects us all to the special, valuable things that make us human.”

A trend that focuses on human connections in an AI-saturated world is refreshing – but I think this trend will always be integral to photographers standing out in a world where computers can create images, not just in 2026.

Computers can’t feel emotions; they can’t feel the things that make humans human. Sure, AI can try to mimic these emotions by generating images based on a database of human-created images, but emotional photographs by creators actually capable of feeling such emotions will always have an advantage.

I was reading an article a few weeks back about a photo studio that specialized in photographing couples on a blank background and then generating a background of a popular travel destination behind them. My first thought was, why would I want a photo of myself in a place that I never got to experience?

This trend is why I think it’s important for photographers to consider not just the photos that they are getting, but the experience that clients are having in front of the camera. Are they stuck in bored poses in forced smiles? Or are they genuinely enjoying the photoshoot? I think both photos that spark emotion in the viewer and emotion in the person in front of the camera will be key to standing out in an AI world.

Local Flavors

“Local Flavors” is all about authentic experiences from around the world, Adobe says. The tech company has noticed an uptick in enterprise customers looking for authentic local and regional images, which is another positive trend for photographers moving into the coming year.

Along with the growing number of businesses looking for local photographs, Adobe also ties the trend into Gen Z and “appstinence,” or taking a break from the constant connectivity. I’m already seeing this in screen-free cameras and the resurgence of lo-fi compact cameras.

But I think the desire to take a break from constant connections applies to not just taking photos with devices that don’t have notifications but to the photos themselves. Adobe says that when brands work with local creators, the content feels more authentic and memorable.

“Embrace the culture’s authentic voice – no translators, no filters,” Adobe wrote. Like the Connectioneering trend, I think this speaks to photographers finding inspiration in their own culture and what makes them unique – and human.

Many of Adobe’s launches in 2025 have focused on AI (although not all, like the new Color Variance tool or Photoshop’s new color adjustment layer). It’s refreshing to see a list of 2026 predictions that is both a mix of AI and anti-AI.

“Some are telling stories that move us. Others are using AI as a tool to explore the world in ways we've never seen before, bringing bold ideas to life,” Adobe writes. “The real opportunity lies in embracing authenticity and innovation together — while recognizing that people remain at the heart of the creative process.”

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What sets this new frame apart from the competition is that it's billed as the world's first photo frame with a rear backlight; a gentle light projects from the rear of the frame, which helps lift it from its surroundings and draw attention to the photos displayed on it. This novelty aside, let's see what else this frame has to offer.

Lexar Pexar Starlight 15.6in digital photo frame: Specifications

Lexar Pexar Starlight 15.6in digital photo frame: Price

The list price for the Starlight is $349.99 / £349.99 (it was unavailable at the time of writing in Australia, but websites including Amazon have a holding page for it, so it's coming). That's a premium price, and a little more than other large frames from respected brands, such as the Aura Walden.

However, digital photo frames are often discounted, and even shortly after its initial release the Starlight was available at around $50 / £50 less than the RRP, which certainly makes it a more tempting buy, so it pays to shop around to see whether you might be able to pick it up for a more attractive price.

Lexar Pexar Starlight 15.6in digital photo frame: Design & Handling

The Starlight is based on a 15.6-inch, 16x9 ratio, 1920 x 1080-pixel panel – the same dimensions as your widescreen television (and the same resolution, if it's a 'Full-HD' model). This is inset within a textured off-white beveled inset that's about an inch and a half deep, and it's all set within a wood-effect frame. It's certainly a nice change from the usual minimalist black bezel that many digital frames have as standard.

Its USP, which gives it the Starlight name, is a subtle light at the rear that envelops the entire frame with a golden glow that lifts it from its surroundings. There's a sturdy metal stand that props it up in both portrait and landscape orientations, with the display auto-rotating to display images.

The only physical button is a power on/off switch, with all the functionality being controlled via the touch-sensitive screen. Tapping anywhere on the screen brings up a menu that enables you to easily grant access to 'friends' via an on-screen QR code that links directly to the frame, access the frame's library to decide which photos are displayed, hide photos you'd prefer weren't on display, recrop images, or jump into a more involved settings menu that controls every aspect of the frame.

Lexar Pexar Starlight 15.6in digital photo frame: Performance

This may be physically larger than the same company's 11in 2K frame, but it's lower resolution, with a 1920 x 1080 display as opposed to the other frame's 2000 x 1200 pixels. It therefore has a much lower pixel density of 141ppi compared to 212 ppi. It doesn't boast its sibling's 100% sRGB color gamut either. On the surface, then, this bigger screen isn't as highly specced as the 2K frame, but does this really matter? When viewed side by side, perhaps you'll see a difference. In reality, when viewed from a sensible distance, there isn't a whole lot in it, and it's a clear and bright display that will do your photos justice.

The parent company behind Pexar is Lexar, the memory storage specialists better known for memory cards, SSD drives, and USB sticks. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that the Starlight boasts a huge 64GB of internal storage, which is enough for 80,000 images. There are also USB-A, USB-C, and SD card slots, which can be used to store additional images, should 80,000 not be enough, or to copy images to the internal memory.

It's powered by the popular Frameo app, which allows you to browse through your phone's library, select, and upload images in batches of up to 10 at a time. If you want to upload more simultaneously or back up photographs to Frameo's servers, you'll need to take out a subscription at an additional cost, but for most of us, the app's basic free functionality will be absolutely fine.

Lexar Pexar Starlight 15.6in digital photo frame: Verdict

You may regard the gallery backlighting feature as a novelty to set this apart from the many other frames out there, but it really does help make this something of a statement frame. The warm and gentle light it emits behind the frame gives it a rather lovely golden glow.

It's a big frame too, although the 16x9 aspect ratio isn't perfect for either smartphone or camera photos, but if the automatic cropping doesn't get things quite right, it's easy enough to tap an image and reframe it to your liking. On the whole, this is an upmarket frame that shows off photographs admirably, but it's on the expensive side.

Alternatives

The Nikon Z9 boasts the best autofocus in the ‘Big N’s’ line-up, and now, it’s even better. Nikon says that multiple focusing enhancements have been added, with a significant improvement in subject acquisition, tracking, and stability for fast-moving subjects. The flagship camera’s subject detection, which draws from Nikon’s deep-learning algorithms, is now available in Single-point AF and Dynamic-area AF (S/M/L). Subject detection is also available for Single-point AF when capturing video and can be toggled on/off using a custom-function button.

Auto Capture has also been shown the love, too, with operability and performance updates, including face detection, as well as a new AF standby position. These changes have prompted Nikon to call the Z9, the “ultimate and most intelligent remote camera setup”. The Z9 also gets Nikon’s Flexible Color Picture Control, which allows you to create your own color profiles in NX Studio, which you can then load onto your camera as a Custom Picture Control for real-time application (a bit like Fujifilm Film Simulation Recipes).

That’s not all, you can find a list of additional improvements and fixes below. For a full list of firmware features, and to download the update itself, visit the Nikon Download Center. If you want to refresh your mind on how to install the update, here’s how to update your Nikon camera’s firmware.

• Focusing is now possible with the maximum aperture in live view.
• A magnification option of [400%] has been added to [Zoom on/off] available for CustomSettings.
• Use of an external microphone (wired/wireless) is now possible when recording voice memos.
• Extended the dimensions of focus areas available with [Wide-area AF (C1)] and [Wide-area AF (C2)]AF-area modes.
• Added [Flat Monochrome] and [Deep Tone Monochrome] Picture Controls.
• Added [USB streaming (UVC/UAC)] to [USB] in the [NETWORK MENU].
• Changed the specifications for uninterrupted video output to HDMI devices such as external monitorswhen recording ended.
• The headphone volume level can now be adjusted in the “i” menu during video recording.

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The AI-infused plug-in, the outfit's first-ever release, is said to enable users to relight images by choosing from a vast library of lighting setups, designed to mimic both real-world studio and environmental lighting. The direction, intensity and mood can then be tweaked via a series of sliders.

"Lighting used to be a fixed, expensive process," explains Vividon in the demo video (embedded below).

"Rigs. Setups. But everything is about to change. Introducing Vividon – a groundbreaking, user-friendly relighting plug-in for Photoshop. No prompts. No complexity. Instead, curated lights. Truly photorealistic relighting, in any way imaginable.

"Vividon creates a clean, editable Photoshop layer ready to be used immediately. No lighting rigs. No reshoots. Massive savings. Limitless creative freedom."

This certainly sounds like a more familiar way of working for creatives than simply writing out a prompt and cycling through a series of random results.

The Stockholm-based outfit also states that adjustments are transparent, so the original image is preserved, providing what is presumably a non-destructive workflow.

This 'shoot once and decide on the light later' ethos could be useful for commercial photographers when dealing with feedback from clients. The AI startup itself says that the software, developed in collaboration with creatives, aims to “dramatically reduce the need for complex on-set setups, reshoots and heavy compositing.”

There are also plans to develop the technology further to provide more advanced controls, video platforms, and 3D pipelines. You can sign up for access to the free beta now at the Vividon website.

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This week, Adobe announced that some Photoshop tools would be available directly inside ChatGPT. Admittedly, I was expecting the chatbot to churn out a fully AI-generated image – but that’s not at all what’s happening here. ChatGPT is now able to help users apply select Photoshop effects, including colors and brightness, to photographs.

On the one hand, I took these photos in June and still haven’t found the time to edit them; I’m always looking for ways to speed up photo editing. But on the other hand, I’m a bit wary of AI. Here’s what I found when I tested Photoshop inside ChatGPT.

Photoshop inside ChatGPT is not generative AI

The Photoshop-ChatGPT collab is Agentic AI, where a chatbot does something for you, but it is not generative AI, where an AI creates something completely new. That means the resulting image applies edits, but does not generate new pixels. It also means that Adobe doesn’t apply Content Credentials to the image.

This is an important distinction. I don’t have an issue with AI that can help me quickly mask out a subject (provided that AI is trained on licensed content that pays the original creators). But I don’t want an AI to create for me – and that’s not what the ChatGPT Photoshop integration is doing.

Photoshop inside ChatGPT is meant to be a learning tool…

If a chatbot can handle all the editing for me, is there any reason to learn photo editing techniques? Admittedly, I was also expecting the Agentic AI to remove the learning process entirely, but I was relieved to see that that is not at all the case here.

When ChatGPT adjusted the colors of this photograph for me, the chatbot explained a bit of the difference between the saturation and vibrance sliders, for example.

I think this tool could potentially be a boost for new photographers learning the jargon of the photo editing industry, as the chatbot doesn’t just handle the edit without explanation and doesn’t entirely remove specific photographer terms either.

Another important distinction is that ChatGPT gives the user sliders to control how much (or how little) of the effect to apply.

… but ChatGPT can use the wrong terms

I got pretty excited when ChatGPT said it could apply a Kodachrome look to my photo. Imagine my disappointment, then, when ChatGPT instead delivered a slider for the tritone effect.

Kodachrome is a popular film stock; trione is an editing process that maps the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows to three different colors. The two things are not at all similar.

That, I think, is one of the downsides to trusting an agentic AI to teach the ins and outs of photography and photo editing: AI can be wrong, and mistakes aren’t exactly rare.

ChatGPT’s Photoshop is a very lite version of the photo editor

The initial launch inside ChatGPT contains only a few Photoshop features. Users can adjust color, brightness and contrast. It can apply a few special effects, like tritone and halftone dots, but that’s pretty much it, offering a very small taste of the longstanding pro photo editor.

The Photoshop ChatGPT app feels more like Photoshop Elements – and even that isn’t exactly correct, as Photoshop Elements can still do things like crop and retouch acne, while the ChatGPT collab cannot (at least not yet).

It's also important to note that while Photoshop is free, it's subject to the same limitations as the ChatGPT payment tiers. I don’t have a paid account, so I was only able to upload one image a day, and I ran out of thinking space towards the end.

Photo editing with ChatGPT wasn’t faster than doing it myself

Here’s my biggest sticking point: I tweaked the photo's colors in Lightroom far faster than ChatGPT edited the photo for me. Of course, as a pro photographer, I’m not the intended audience for this tool, but it’s a distinction worth noting.

It took some time to upload the image to ChatGPT, some time for the AI to think. And it probably took me a bit longer because there were a few things that I couldn’t figure out. I still haven’t, for example, found the ability to export a full-resolution file of the edit, though Adobe previously indicated that it was possible.

Part of this is that the feature still feels a bit glitchy. ChatGPT told me on a few occasions that the Photoshop tools were temporarily offline.

Will Agentic AI be part of the future of photo editing?

Many software brands have gone all-in on AI, but I think some AI is more ethical than others – and AI is better suited for some tasks over others.

After trying out the ChatGPT-Photoshop integration, where I see Agentic AI fitting in the industry the best is to carry out tedious, non-creative tasks. I feel like agentic AI could eventually replace things like Photoshop’s batch editing and Actions tools.

I also think Agentic AI could perhaps be an updated form of in-app help, though this is still subject to some AI inaccuracies.

Photoshop’s integration into ChatGPT isn’t going to replace pro editing – it’s not even close. But it could give new users a taste – and may indicate where future sedition automation and in-app learning may be headed. (And I’m so very glad that its not generative AI.)

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And we're not talking about a few cents per phone here, either. Estimates suggest DRAM prices have shot up by as much as 80%, with some reports even quoting incredible increases closer to 170%. It's not uncommon for DRAM prices to fluctuate, but these skyrocketing prices are exceptional. What's more, it's not just the surge in DRAM demand from AI datacentres that's making things tough for camera phone manufacturers: phones themselves also need more DRAM in order to run the next generation of on-device AI processing. So not only will the same capacity of DRAM in a camera phone cost substantially more in 2026, you're going to need even more of it, pushing up the device cost still further.

Of course in an ultra-competitive market like camera phones, manufacturers will be pained to push up device prices for fear of losing market share. Cost-cutting in other areas will likely be a more favourable approach to offsetting the additional DRAM costs. While it's unlikely manufacturers would roll back any major hardware element of a camera phone to an older/inferior specification, we wouldn't expect many major hardware upgrades, with key components like screens and, sadly, cameras, likely to be carried over directly from 2025 handsets. We've seen brands like Samsung use the same 200MP primary camera sensor in several consecutive Galaxy S Ultra phones, and it would seem that trend is probably going to continue. As we've come to expect for the last few years, phone companies will probably lean on new AI features to set their 2026 phones apart from their predecessors. And who can blame them? With AI's ever-increasing prevalence seemingly about to send camera phone prices spiralling, we should darned well get our money's worth from it.

Story credit: Android Police

Adobe’s revenue rose to a record $6.19 billion in Q4, which is 10% year-over-year growth, while cash flows from operations hit a record $3.16 billion. The Digital Media segment, which includes Creative Cloud, boasted 11% year-over-year growth with revenue at $4.62 billion.

Total Customer Group subscription revenue enjoyed 12% year-over-year growth, with $5.96 billion in revenue. And despite rising subscription costs drawing the ire of the Creative Cloud community, the numbers add up, with Business Professionals & Consumers subscription revenue rising to $1.72 billion, for 15% year-over-year growth.

And while Q4 was a highlight, it was a strong year overall, with Adobe exceeding targets for FY2025. Revenue hit $23.77 billion, representing 11% year-over-year growth. $17.65 billion can be attributed to the Digital Media segment, with Total Customer Group subscription revenue drawing in $22.80 billion.

Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen, said “Adobe’s record FY2025 results reflect our growing importance in the global AI ecosystem and the rapid adoption of our AI-driven tools,” and that means high hopes for the current fiscal year. “By advancing our innovative generative and agentic platforms and expanding our customer base, we are excited to target double-digit ARR growth in FY2026.”

Adobe has an awful lot riding on its optimistic adoption of AI, and according to Reuters, monthly active users for its free-to-use AI offerings have surpassed 70 million, translating to a 35% increase year over year. The outlet quoted Adobe CFO Dan Durn who revealed that embedding generative AI into core Creative Cloud plans was paying off.

But while Adobe’s financial results are certainly moving in the right direction, a large degree of uncertainty regarding the profitability of artificial intelligence still exists. At the time of writing, Adobe stock is up, but an article from TipRanks has highlighted reticence from some analysts, despite financial results exceeding Wall Street expectations.

This is something we’ve seen before. Only a couple of months ago, stock market analysts Morgan Stanley downgraded Adobe’s stock rating amid record-breaking profits. Ultimately, publishing financial results within a bubble is one thing, but Adobe’s strength within the AI sphere rests on how it compares to the performance of its competitors.

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The tool uses AI to upscale images by as much as 4x, the company said. According to VSCO, the update “sharpens detail, reduces pixelization, and keeps your composition intact.”

The tool is designed to help creators crop tighter, give new life to old photos, and make larger prints. Users can choose between a 2x, 3x, or 4x upscale.

The tool is part of VSCO’s new AI Lab, which uses Flux.1 Kontext model mixed with VSCO’s “proprietary, purpose-built technology.”

VSCO launched the AI Lab in October, launching first with an AI-powered remove tool and promising more features in the future. Now, AI upscaling has joined the list of tools.

AI Labs is part of VSCO’s paid membership, but the company notes that users can try it out for free without a trial. The AI Lab is currently only part of the VSCO app on iPhone and isn’t yet available on desktop or Android.

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On Wednesday, December 10, Adobe announced that Photoshop – alongside Adobe Express and Acrobat – are now available inside ChatGPT without a subscription. Importantly, those adjustments are "standard Photoshop edits and not generative edits," an Adobe spokesperson told Digital Camera World, which means the resulting image is AI edited, not AI generated.

The announcement rolls out first in the US, using ChatGPT on desktop, web, and iOS apps. Adobe indicates that the tool is expected to come to the UK and EU in the "near future," along with Android support coming soon.

The software giant already has plans for bringing additional programs into ChatGPT, adding that “this is just the beginning, we will continue to add new capabilities to our apps in ChatGPT in the coming weeks.”

The launch gives ChatGPT users the ability to ask for photo edits using natural language, such as “make this photo brighter” without knowing photography jargon like “exposure.” The Photoshop that’s integrated into the chatbot can tackle both edits to the entire picture and adjustments to only a small portion of the image.

The chatbot doesn’t stop at just making the requested adjustment though – the tool gives users sliders to tweak the results. Users also have the option to open the image in the web browser version of Photoshop for further adjustments.

ChatGPT users can call on the longstanding photo editor to edit their work by starting a prompt with “Adobe Photoshop” or by choosing Photoshop from the + icon dropdown menu.

The ChatGPT integration doesn't come with all of Photoshop's tools, but it is meant for those new to Photoshop and includes adjustments to contrast, brightness, and exposure, as well as adjustments to the background and applying creative effects. The integration also has a shortcut to continue editing inside Photoshop Web, or to open the image in the full-featured Photoshop.

I watched a demo of the tool ahead of the announcement. Adobe Principal Director Evangelist Paul Trani showed how users could ask for something specific, such as taking a photo of New York City and asking “give it a vintage look, except for the taxis.”

Trani also demonstrated how the AI could respond to less specific requests. When asked a simple “add special effects,” ChatGPT-Photoshop came up with a few different suggestions, showing a preview of the different ideas on the photo.

The ChatGPT partnership isn’t the first time Adobe has added agentic photo editing – an AI agent that edits photos for you – to Photoshop. In October, Adobe announced agentic photo editing for Photoshop, but the feature is still only a private beta and only in Photoshop Web. Integrating the longstanding editing software directly into ChatGPT brings agentic photo editing to the AI’s 800 million users.

"This builds on the foundational investments we've made in AI assistants across our own apps and allows us to meet customers where they already are as working with AI agents become the starting point for accomplishing everyday tasks. And for anyone who wants the full power of our tools it's seamless to move from ChatGPT into our native apps,” said Adobe Digital Media Chief Technology Officer Ely Greenfield.

Adobe says the feature "preserves the quality of the image." The company notes that ChatGPT performs Photoshop edits for the user, but it does not regenerate a new image. The original resolution of the image is also preserved, unlike some of the resolution limitations on some generative AI.

Because ChatGPT is applying Photoshop edits and not generating a new image, Adobe says that Content Credentials and other AI watermarking tools are not added to the image.

A perk for ChatGPT users may also be a point of contention among photographers, as Photoshop inside ChatGPT is free. Meanwhile, using generative AI inside Photoshop requires generative credits, which can drive up the cost of Photoshop (beyond the subscription alone) for heavy AI users.

Photoshop inside ChatGPT is rolling out on December 10 to the AI chatbot.

Editor's note: This post was updated with additional comments from Adobe.

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Now Aura has made uploading images to a frame as easy as sending a text. The company's new "text-to-frame" feature lets friends and family send their shots directly to an Aura frame via a text message, eliminating the need for contributors to download a dedicated app.

With text-to-frame, the frame owner still manages the device via the Aura app, but they can now invite specific contacts to contribute via text. Once invited, these contacts simply send a picture message to a designated number, and the image automatically appears in the frame's library. To prevent spam or unwanted images from appearing on your frame, only contacts explicitly invited by the frame owner can contribute.

The core appeal of the new feature is accessibility. While digital frames are popular for displaying family photos, requiring every contributor to create an account and download an app can be a barrier, particularly for friends or extended family members who may not be as tech-savvy.

According to Ashley Phillips, Director of Product at Aura, the feature was born out of a desire to capture "quick snaps" and "everyday moments" that often get buried in group chats or text threads. While messaging apps are a primary way families stay connected, those digital memories rarely make it off the phone screen.

"If they can text, they can share," said Phillips.

The process is designed to be frictionless for the sender. The frame owner attaches a phone number to their Aura account and invites contacts. Invited users can then text a photo (or multiple images) to the frame. The photos are securely uploaded to the Aura cloud and appear on the designated frame instantly.

The text-to-frame feature is available immediately for iOS and Android users with a US phone number within the United States, and Aura says it will explore market availability in other territories in due course.

Home cinema or a display for gaming enthusiasts is likely the main market, but portability is a useful addition for this projector, which is designed to display on a screen or surface at up to 150-inches.

Epson has targeted quality rather than the biggest stats (there are plenty of competitors who will happily suggest they can display at 200-inches), so the question in this review is do you want to go for Epson – a brand with many years in the game and which has made quality a big part of their pitch, or would another brand serve you?

I have tried a lot of projectors recently – including the Epson – so here is what I think:

Pricing

Although the launch price was higher, as I write this review a few months after I first tested the new model, the 4K model is generally available for $999 or perhaps less if you know where to look.

Specifications

Epson Lifestudio Flex EF-72: Build and handling

The construction of this projector is where it really stands out from anything else I've ever tried. Sure, I've tested massive big feeling devices that are clearly built to dominate, but this is by far and away the highest quality seeming projector I've encountered that is designed to sit in the room with you.

Given that, realistically, almost all portable projectors are going to end up sitting in the room with you (and a fan will end up running inside them), that should be a consideration!

The design has LED light display under the main unit, which can be changed with a tap on the top, or turned off altogether with a long press. This could have been over the top, but has been integrated with style and I really liked as a feature.

As for the build in general, it has become relatively commonplace among projectors to include a large gimbal arm around the whole projector housing, increasing the physical size.

Epson, in the past, has created black cube-like projectors which Star Trek fans might have associated with the Borg (aliens with cube-shaped ships to the uninitiated), but this time the cube seems to have managed chic.

Epson has, rather than copying the gimbal approach (which is very practical) come up with a more compact alternative – a single column in the center of the device. The designers didn't even let this interfere with the appearance when the projector was at a relatively level angle, by providing a simple blanking plate to match the appearance of the speaker grille which appears to go all the way around the projector.

By basing the projector on the Android TV system which has spread like wildfire through the consumer projector market, Epson has delivered another projector with a sophisticated but easy-to-use operating system that can do most of the operations you'd imagine.

The design is completed with a host of other small refinements. One I liked was the fact the power connection port was recessed, so if you keep your projector near the wall, you won't end up forcing the cable into a nasty bend.

This kind of thoughtful touch – like the blanking plate – are appreciated, but don't seem to have stopped Epson having a bit of modern fun with features like the LEDs. Bravo.

Epson Lifestudio Flex EF-72: Performance

While the image brightness isn't as high as some other projectors tested recently, that shouldn't be an issue for home movies, especially in the long dark winter nights (or anywhere you can close the curtains). 1,000 is bright but not the brightest.

The speed the EF-72 was able to perform operations was tasks was not a problem for me, and in general I have no issues with Google's TV platform. Doing everything via Wi-Fi is convinient (once I've tracked down that password!)

Auto keystone correction worked well, and the audio from the 'Audio by Bose' speaker system built in was certainly enough to fill the ordinary rooms that I tested the system in.

The image is created by 4K pixel shifting, but seemed sharp. All the key apps worked (Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video) (and in the UK Channel 4 but not BBC iPlayer, which rarely seems to get on with Google TV on projectors I test.)

Sound can pass Atmos out via the HDMI eARC, but the 10W internal speaker (2x 5W in fact) is pretty handy too. For the most cinematic picture, use the settings to choose Cinema or Natural modes would be my advice, by the way.

Epson Lifestudio Flex EF-72: Overall Verdict

There was a time when I'd just advise you to look for the highest number of lumens (ANSI lumens – compare like with like), but if we're in the 1,000 territory that isn't where we're aiming. This is all about home theatre and a room where not too much light is coming from outside but, given there are many environments where we can control the light, why not invest in a projector which has its own qualities – style, image sharpness and the like? A coffee table projector.

The Epson Lifestudio is a winner in these categories, and you only have to look at it to see whether you think it'll seem at home on your coffee table in a way that quite a lot of big, heavy, noisy boxes might not.

For that reason, I went into this review a little cautious – wondering if this was going to be a bit of "style over content" and came out really wanting one of these devices for myself! The projector's compact portability and performance is very appealing, and for the scenarios I use projection in – evening light – a few hundred lumens would make little difference, while having something that looks this good and performs this well would be noticed!

Small design touches – the recessed power socket – as well as major ones like the single pillar design – make it easy to see why it has won design awards.

Alternatives

How I test

When I test projector I use several different test surfaces because no one does the same thing all the time, right? I have a dedicated projection screen – a 100-inch pull-down type – and I also use a white-painted wall. Reflected light, after all, is what cinema is all about. I also test on a light gray-painted wall to see how it copes with less-than-ideal conditions; this projector, for example, promises to be able to compensate for imperfect paint and in general life is a lot easier, especially with a portable projector, if you can use a wall!

I also conduct what I call the 'coffee table test', putting the projector on a table at an awkward angle from the wall. This is important to check the automated keystone correction.

I also always test by connecting to a MacBook to see how typical monitor images look – after all, this is a photography & video site! The appearance of type (black on white, white on black, etc.) and typical sample photos as well as standard tests like the color bars, and a selection of video clips with dark backgrounds, fast motion, and other key criteria are all important.

Finally, I also like to declare it "movie night" and see whether the device works with friends and family. My girlfriend's input is always interesting too, different pairs of eyes might feel differently about projector effects.

The XPPen Artist Ultra 16 is a 4K OLED pen display that claims to offer a color gamut of 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, and 98% Display P3. It’s also Calman Verified for color and can produce 1.07 billion colors with an astonishing 100,000:1 contrast ratio. Calman Verified means that the display has high color accuracy out of the box, with the idea being that you can connect the display, install the drivers, and get to work instantly.

As a 16-inch pen display, the Artist 16 provides a comfortable working area and screen size without taking up too much desk space; this is something you have to accept with much larger 24-inch pen displays. The Artist 16 also offers pen sensitivity of 16,384 levels and 10-finger multi-touch capabilities. This means you can use either one of the two X3 Pro styluses or your fingers to draw and zoom into images.

With the resolution, OLED screen, and specs in general, the Artist Ultra 16 is fairly expensive compared to XPPen’s more budget-conscious entry-level pen displays. However, it is a high-end device. The question is, do you get the features and functionality you’re paying for? Let’s find out…

XPPen Artist Ultra 16: Specifications

XPPen Artist Ultra 16: Price

The XPPen Artist Ultra 16 launched on September 26, 2025, and costs $900 / £899 / AU$1,500, which is quite a high price for a 16-inch pen display. However, it has a 4K AMOLED Calman Verified screen with 10-finger multi-touch capability, making it a rather unique proposition at the time of writing, so it’s arguably priced competitively.

In the box, you get the Artist Ultra 16, an X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus, an X3 Pro Slim Stylus Pen, case with nibs (X3 Pro Slim Stylus nibs x 4, X3 Pro Stylus felt nibs x 4), an ACK05 Shortcut Remote, a Bluetooth Receiver, 2x USB-C to USB-C Cables, a USB-C to USB-A Cable, a Power Adapter, a 3-in-1 Cable, 10x X3 Pro Slim Stylus nibs, 10x X3 Pro Stylus Standard Nibs, a ACS 16 Stand, a Cleaning Cloth and glove. This is everything you need to keep working for many years to come.

XPPen Artist Ultra 16: Design & Handling

The XPPen Artist Ultra 16 is a slick-looking device with a clean bezel featuring no controls whatsoever. The dial and shortcut buttons are all on the ACK05 Shortcut Remote, which can be connected to computers via Bluetooth or a USB cable. This controller features a dial and 10 buttons that can be customized with different keyboard functions.

The buttons are blank since they don’t have specific functions tied to them, so you have to remember what each one does once set up. Over time, the button functionality will become second nature, but at first, things can be hit or miss. For a pen display of this price and quality, it would be great to see buttons with mini screens that display their function, like the Logitech MX Creative Console, and present on other pen displays such as the Xencelabs Pen Display 16.

The pen display is also quite slim, which adds to its portability and provides a more modern look. There are no fans for cooling, so the Ultra 16 is silent during operation, and there’s ventilation on the back of the device for heat dissipation. When using the Ultra 16 on your lap, it’s worth being sure that the ventilation isn’t being covered by your legs to avoid the risk of overheating.

Build quality is excellent, and the Ultra 16 looks and feels like a professional device. Overall dimensions are 405x273x13.5mm / 15.94x10.75x0.53in with a weight of 1.53kg / 3.4lbs, putting it in the medium-size pen display category. The display comes with a basic stand for angled use, can be used flat, and at this size and weight, it can also be comfortably used on your lap if you prefer.

I tended to use it on my desk with my keyboard behind, using the stand to tilt the Ultra 16, and found this a comfortable way to work. I also used it connected to my notebook, resting it on my lap while I sat on the sofa. The ability to move away from what you might call a formal workspace and continue to work comfortably is great. And while this isn’t the smallest and most portable XPPen pen display available, it’s not so large and heavy that you can’t travel with it.

The screen itself offers a generous 344.2x193.6mm / 13.55x7.62in working area. The AG nano-etched glass also provides both viewing comfort and general comfort in use. Setting up the driver software is simple, and once you calibrate the input by clicking on reference points on the screen, you can take advantage of precise and accurate input. Calibration is essential because without it, the mouse pointer never sits directly below the stylus, but this only takes a minute during the simple setup.

XPPen Artist Ultra 16: Performance

With a 4K OLED screen, a color gamut of up to 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, 98% Display P3, and a contrast ratio of 100,000:1, the image produced by the Ultra 16 is fantastic as you’d imagine. It’s punchy and highly detailed, making it ideal for drawing, design work, and even more colour-critical photo editing tasks. The screen is also 10-bit and can produce up to 1.07 billion colors. Brightness is 350 nits, and there’s a 170-degree viewing angle. This is wide, and I never once had any viewing issues.

The Ultra 16 comes with the X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus and the X3 Pro Slim Stylus, both offering 16K pressure sensitivity and 60 degrees of tilt recognition. These come in a handy storage case that doubles as a pen stand and stores the spare nibs, etc., for each stylus. Having two styluses available allows you to choose the one that’s most comfortable to you personally, and I found the chunkier X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus most comfortable.

The X3 Pro Slim Stylus is indeed comfortable and feels much more compact in use. This, paired with the touch control allowed for what felt like a seamless workflow using both stylus and hand to navigate images when drawing and photo editing. For touch control, you can even customize zones to avoid accidental palm inputs.

There’s also a Floating Menu that can be initiated and customized with keyboard shortcuts or touch gestures. As the name suggests, the menu floats on screen. This is alongside the ACK05 Shortcut Remote, so you can use one or both depending on your preference.

The Ultra 16 is compatible with Windows, macOS, Chromebook and Android smartphones. It isn’t, unfortunately, compatible with iPhones because of the way they work. Plugging the Ultra 16 into my Samsung Galaxy Ultra opened up Samsung Dex, which provides a more desktop-like experience, and I was able to edit phone Raw files in Lightroom Mobile using a much larger touchscreen than my phone. It’s not essential functionality in my opinion, but it’s not a bad thing to have either.

XPPen Artist Ultra 16: Verdict

The XPPen Artist Ultra 16 is an impressive pen display that blends an excellent range of features with fantastic image quality. The 10-bit OLED screen produces vibrant images that are bursting with detail. Not to mention, a color gamut of up to 99% sRGB, 99% Adobe RGB, and 98% Display P3, Calman Verification, and the ability to produce 1.07 billion colors mean it can be used for color-critical work.

The pen and touch input, including 10-finger multi-touch with customizable zones, allows you to blend touch and stylus control for a much more efficient workflow. This isn’t a cheap pen display by any stretch, but it’s not the most expensive either, especially when considering what’s on offer. Plus, the build quality is excellent while the design is simple and stylish.

Alternatives

Wex Photo Video is offering £330 off the DJI Power 1000 v2, which reduces the cost of this to just £429 – the lowest ever price we have ever seen for this monster power bank.

I've fully tested the original DJI Power 1000 in my review, and it was impressive. Moreover, DJI has extended the functionality with accessories for any situation that allow you to work with multiple DJI batteries, and charge quickly using a vehicle. so it makes sense to snap some more up even if you already have one.

These are obviously useful if you're out camping or you're our flying. Drone batteries aren't cheap and – if you charge as you go – then you don't need to buy as many batteries to have a fruitful day flying, but DJI will also cover you if you're worried about a collapsing power grid!

I have also seen these devices popular with professional content creators who need to keep topping up on the go and with pilots of fun craft like the Avata 2 drone which, if we're honest, burns through batteries faster when you're having more fun!

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Check our guide to the best laptop power banks and the best camera drones. (Wanna check the competition – check the Anker Solix C1000).

The Magic 8 Lite arrives with a 108MP ultra-sensing main camera using a 1/1.67-inch sensor, backed by OIS and EIS to keep shots sharp in tricky lighting. Honor says this setup delivers “daylight precision and low-light refinement,” and given the company’s track record with punchy computational imaging, expectations are high.

The main sensor is joined by a 5MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera for landscapes and group shots, and on the front, there is a 16MP f/2.45 selfie camera with Honor's AI-enhanced beauty modes. It's not a comprehensive multi-lens flagship, but Honor's clearly hoping its clever AI tricks might mean it can punch above its low price.

It also leans into AI heavily for image editing. Features like AI Eraser, AI Cutout, and AI Outpainting bring some of Honor’s flagship-tier editing tools to a more accessible device, while the new 4K HD moving photo collage mode gives users an easy way to build more dynamic visual stories straight from the gallery. Honor Connection also now supports photo transfers to iOS, smoothing out a long-standing frustration for cross-platform users.

While the cameras get most of my attention, the rest of the hardware is ambitious for a Lite-series phone. The Magic 8 Lite’s 7500mAh silicon-carbon cell promises up to three days of use, with longevity rated at 80% capacity after six years. Although having tested the OnePlus 15 and Oppo Find X9 Pro with similarly sized batteries this year, on paper, three days seems ambitious. The phone also supports 66W wired SuperCharge and can act as a 7.5W power bank via reverse charging.

Durability is another major theme: the device carries SGS 5-Star Comprehensive Reliability Certification, IP69K water resistance, and reinforced Ultra-Bounce anti-drop construction rated for drops up to 2.5 metres. And the 6.79-inch 1.5K OLED displays 1.07 billion colours, with a 6000-nit peak HDR brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate, surrounded by slim 1.3mm bezels.

The Honor Magic 8 Lite, powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 with 8GB RAM and 512GB storage, launches in Forest Green, Midnight Black, and Reddish Brown. Final pricing will be revealed when the phone officially goes on sale in January, but with the Honor Magic 7 Lite launching at £399 / €399, I'd expect a similar price for the new model.

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Check out more of the best Android phones for photography or the best camera phones.

But the latest leaks about the iPhone 17e have me reconsidering everything. And I suspect I'm not alone. Apple appears to be planning something unusual for March. It looks like the iPhone 17e won't just another iterative update.

If the leaks are true, this thing will pack the A19 chip from the flagship iPhone 17 series into a body that costs from around $599 / £599. That's the same processor powering phones costing twice as much. And that's significant. Apple typically saves its latest silicon for premium models, drip-feeding older chips into affordable devices. But here, reportedly, they're throwing their newest processor into their cheapest phone.

The front-facing camera is reportedly jumping to 18MP with that clever Centre Stage technology from the flagship models. For anyone doing video calls, social content, or even just better selfies, that's a meaningful upgrade. The rear camera situation seems a bit more complicated, though.

Leaks suggest a single 48MP sensor, which sounds limiting until you remember that computational photography has largely closed the multi-lens gap. Yes, you lose optical zoom and ultra-wide versatility, but for everyday shooting? A single excellent sensor with Apple's image processing might well outperform the mediocre triple-camera arrays scattered across mid-range Android devices.

Why this matters

It also sound pretty promising. Apple recently killed off their SE lineup, leaving a gaping hole in their range. But now the iPhone 17e appears designed to fill that gap whilst simultaneously raiding Android's mid-range territory. For someone like me, who appreciates iOS polish but balks at flagship pricing, this could be the entry point that finally makes sense.

The A19 chip matters beyond raw speed. It means years of iOS updates, smooth performance as apps grow heavier, and better computational photography processing. That's future-proofing at a price point where Android manufacturers usually offer compromises.

Before we get carried away, though, some scepticism is warranted too. That 60Hz display will feel sluggish compared to the 120Hz panels now standard on mid-range Androids. And the single rear camera, however capable, won't match flagship versatility. There's also the fact that switching to iPhone means embracing Apple's walled garden completely – iCloud, iMessage, the works. That's probably brilliant if you're in it already, constraining if (like me) you're not.

Of course, none of this is confirmed yet. Apple hasn't said a word officially, and they won't until they're good and ready. But if these leaks prove accurate, the iPhone 17e represents something rare: an affordable Apple device that doesn't feel like a compromised afterthought.

The main thing, though, is that I've started to make the mental leap. This could be the phone that finally breaks my Android habit. Not because it's revolutionary, but because it's sensible. And sometimes that's actually more disruptive than innovation.

So... will I switch? Ask me again in March. But most importantly, for the first time in years, I'm genuinely tempted.

Check out the best iPhones for photography available right now

Scanners exist for a wide variety of use cases, and none cover all the ground. In the case of the Three, the aim is very much for scanning smaller objects. The Three comes with a turntable to aid in this, so I’ve set it up and spent some time to see how good the results and the experience are, and how it compares to the best 3D scanners on the market.

Matter and Form Three: Specifications

Matter and Form Three: Price

With a list price of $1499.99 in the USA, the Three is a hefty investment, but it can often be found for significantly less. Even at the higher price, I’d suggest it should be on your shortlist due to its build quality and performance. If you’re budgeting for a complete setup, keep in mind that with most other options you’ll need to factor in a computer of some kind, but the Three does all the computation internally, which could mean a decent saving.

Matter and Form Three: Design & Handling

There’s been a slow adoption by tech companies of supplying gear in semi-rigid cases over the last few years, and while this is a good thing, they are not made equal, with some not even able to house all the parts of a given device. Matter and Form ships the Three in a pretty rigid case, which feels very premium and is a custom-fit to carry the entire setup, which I really appreciate. Nothing rattles around or slips out of place in transport.

Everything you need is contained in the case, including the scanner unit, WiFi antenna, tripod, calibration boards and stand, documentation, and the power adapter with locking terminals for different countries. Everything is very well made indeed, even the tripod, which is often a cheap, flimsy affair. Worthy of mention is that the power cord is 10 feet long, making this usable in many environments without the need to run extension cables. It’s a small thing, but one that I really welcome.

There are two calibration boards, with a pattern of glyphs used to ensure accuracy, as well as the larger one that serves a second purpose I shall get to shortly.

The main unit feels quite weighty, no doubt partly due to its housing of all the computing hardware in addition to the scanning components. Yes, that’s right. No need to tether to a desktop or laptop, or even a phone. All you need is something with a web browser. I love this approach, as it means less to carry, store, or travel with. Good move!

This may have led to a finicky setup, dealing with an on-board computer, but MAF has developed a pretty sleek process, where you pop the larger calibration board on the stand, mount the scanner on the tripod, connect it to the turntable (by a very nice magnetic connector), screw in the antenna, and power it up. The scanner projects menus onto the board, and you simply follow the instructions to get set up, using whichever device you want to use. This is done using the IP address you’re given and works really well. I found the connection pretty stable, with only the odd hiccup. On first launch, the projection will run you through a tutorial, so you can get up to speed.

Once you’re set up, you can very easily access the Three without the need to use the projection again. Simply connect from your chosen browser, and off you go. All smooth and easy.

Matter and Form Three Performance

I adore the browser-based approach to operating the Three; however, it is worth noting that your browser choice may affect your experience. I couldn’t get it to work using Edge. It’s a browser I rarely use personally, and I'm not sure it’s widely used either, but I feel it's worth mentioning, as it is listed as compatible on the MAF site. Every other browser I tried worked just fine. Do pay attention to your device's display resolution too. I tested it on all kinds, and they all work okay, but I felt somewhat handicapped by my iPhone, which required a lot of scrolling around. My preference is an iPad or a laptop, where you can see everything all at once using Safari or Chrome.

Before scanning, a calibration process is needed, but don’t be put off by that, as it is quick and easy. The scanning process is pretty intuitive, too. You pop your target object onto the turntable and adjust a few settings in the software, mostly specifying the number of scans and the exposure. When it comes to the number of scans, I found the sweet spot to be five or six. Unlike some scanners, which use a single, constant moving scan, the Three takes a set of still scans, which are then stitched together automatically to produce the final mesh. Both methods work well, but I found this to be more predictable.

For complex objects or those with overhanging portions that the scanner can’t see, you can flip the object and take further scans to capture these other areas, which the Three’s software then stitches together, and it does it really well.

Like most scanners, the Three can struggle a little with very underlit areas or objects that are painted black, but adjusting the exposure to compensate works well to counter this.

When setting the number of scans, you can choose to scan only a portion of the full 360 degrees. This is a handy option that will save both processing time and file size when scanning objects where the back isn’t needed, and can be adjusted from 1º up to the full 360º.

It’s almost inevitable that the scanned geometry will have some gaps in it, but not to worry, as the Three’s software can handle that for you, too.

So, what are the results actually like? I’m truly impressed with the Three's output. I think this is due, in part, to the pair of Sony 13-megapixel cameras that it uses, which far exceed not just the resolution but the quality of the sensors used in so many 3D scanners. These cameras also have autofocus, ensuring optimum results.

The actual fidelity of the Three goes right down to 37 microns for smaller, closer scans, although this drops off to (a still very respectable) 114 microns when scanning from around two feet away. This means fine details scan pretty much perfectly, edges retain sharpness, and all but the very finest surface textures are picked up.

What’s more impressive is that these details are stitched seamlessly when doing multi-part scans. Now, this brings me to a slightly frustrating element, although it can be managed. The scans can be quite dense, which is necessary for good results, but it does mean files get quite large, slowing down processing. In these situations, I found that the turntable rotation gave a lot of overlap, and more data was captured than is really needed. In these cases, I was able to delete some scans while preserving the coverage of the object and freeing up space. This gets easier as you scan more and learn the best settings. It’s not a deal-breaker by any means and is completely manageable, but waiting for processing can be annoying at first.

I said earlier that the Three is meant for smaller objects, and while that is true, it is relative, to a degree. The camera coverage and autofocus can capture objects up to two meters away, but some detail is lost at that distance. I’d be most comfortable scanning objects up to around 30 centimetres across, so, basically, if it will fit on the turntable, you’re good to go. That turntable can take a good amount of weight too, so if there’s masonry or metalwork you need to capture, it will take it, up to a maximum load of 20 pounds.

Matter and Form Three: Verdict

The experience of scanning using the Three is a really positive one. It makes the entire process simple, but doesn’t skimp on performance. The details it can capture are very impressive indeed, and for anything up to a couple of feet in size, this is my new go-to 3D scanner.

Alternatives

I’ve spotted a number of different solutions to capturing behind-the-scenes videos on my feed when photographers work solo, without an assistant, as I do. Smart glasses seem popular, but I wear prescription glasses, and outfitting the tech with prescription lenses seemed expensive.

Another popular solution is to slide an action camera into the hot shoe mount on the camera. I like the simplicity of this approach (and I already own a GoPro), but there’s one big problem – I use my hot shoe slot for flash.

I tried a backpack strap mount, but I don’t wear my camera backpack all day at a wedding, and my camera harness moves around too much to clip it there.

The solution came when I wasn’t looking for it. I picked up a wooden grip to add a bit of custom flair to my mirrorless camera and immediately realized that it added a cold shoe mount at the side.

Not only did that leave my hot shoe free, but the cold shoe sits in the opposite direction – meaning it actually holds my GoPro vertically, so I’m losing even less resolution when I crop for the Reels format.

I added a GoPro cold shoe mount adapter, the older GoPro that I already had (though any action camera will work), and I finally had a way to shoot behind-the-scenes videos without diverting too much of my focus away from actually taking pictures.

Here are some Reels I created with this setup:

I’ve been admittedly slow to jump on the video trend but, as a wedding photographer, I’m extremely conscious of the fact that there are only so many hours, minutes and seconds for my couples to enjoy their day.

There has to be a balance between having enough time to capture memories of the day, and actually having time to make those memories. Spending even 15 minutes to shoot a Reel feels like stealing time from the best-day-ever so, above everything else, I wanted a solution that took seconds, not minutes.

When I have a GoPro mounted right next to my camera, I only have to press one button to get a video started, then continue on with my photography.

The grip that I bought is designed specifically for my Fujifilm X-T4 and won’t work with other models. I highly recommend doing a search for a grip customized to your specific camera model to find something similar first. Camera cages are another option, as many of them also add extra cold shoe mounts.

But, if you can’t find a custom option, there are a few cages and grips with universal compatibility and a vertical cold shoe. ChromLives makes an affordable and simple aluminum L bracket with two extra cold shoes, for example.

The best hack to shooting behind-the-scenes videos for photographers will depend on how you shoot – perhaps smart glasses or popping an action camera into the hot shoe will work for you. But as someone who already wears prescription glasses and needs the hot shoe for flash, I found a grip with an extra cold shoe and an action camera a wonderfully simple solution.

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Revopoint offers a wide range of scanners for different uses. Some are designed for scanning small objects, while others, like this Range 2, are aimed at capturing larger ones. The Range is optimized for scanning people, automobiles, furniture, and so on, so its design is all about making that easier. I’ve spent some time with it to see how it compares to the many other 3D scanners I’ve used over the years.

Revopoint Range 2: Specifications

Revopoint Range 2: Price

The Range 2 has a retail price of $729 / £699 / AU$1,250, although at the time of writing, it was available at a 20% discount. That’s a considerable saving, making what was already good value even better.

Revopoint Range 2: Design & Handling

The Range 2 ships in a good, padded semi-hard case, which holds everything you need and does so well, unlike some cases of this type. There are cutouts for the main components on one side, and on the underside, you'll find spaces for cables, a tracking mat, and a sheet of tracking stickers.

The main unit is surprisingly light and feels nimble in the hand, even with the battery grip and a phone attached, and I had no issues holding it for extended scans. This light weight does mean some of the plastics feel cheap, but I think that the balance is just right between quality materials and the intended use. Overall, the build feels great, everything fits nicely, and I never feel like anything is at risk of breaking.

The Range 2 can be used in two ways. Firstly, it can be connected to a Mac or PC via the Revo Scan software to control everything, or to a smartphone using the app version of the program. Considering this scanner is aimed at users who want to scan larger objects, I think most will opt for the phone method, which is what I did for the most part. The computer system works just as well, so long as you don’t mind carrying a laptop, too.

The Range 2 connects to the battery grip via a split cable. A locking USB-C cable connects to the scanner, with a USB-C and a USB-A connecting to the handle. Between the two sits the phone holder, which has a button for quickly connecting to the main unit. This is handy for quick setups, and the adapter can stay screwed to the scanner, which still fits in the case nicely.

Revopoint Range 2: Performance

Let's talk about the basics first. Once everything is connected, the first step is to get the app up and running with WiFi. This is a simple case of connecting the Range 2 to the battery grip via the split cable. You’ll see a green light, at which point you can go to your phone's settings and choose the Range’s WiFI network. There’s no password to remember or save, which is great, plus no need to worry about being within range of a router. This makes perfect sense for a device meant to scan larger objects, enabling you to work outdoors on cars and other large items.

Now that brings me on to the main issue with the Range 2. Lighting in the area you wish to scan is key to good results, and harsh shadows can really throw it off, so bright, sunny days are a no-go. Ideal conditions are overcast, with even lighting and soft shadows. The Range 2 is equipped with four flashlights, but they can’t overpower the sun, so be mindful of this if your use case calls for extensive outdoor scanning.

But once you find yourself in suitable surroundings, the going is fantastic. The app is easy to use, with a large bar indicating the optimum distance from the target object. This makes it really easy to get the best results. Alongside the main 3D viewer, which shows the mesh as scanned so far, are other viewers showing the object in greyscale and colour. A neat feature of the main unit is a trio of buttons on the rear. You can use these to start a scan or, more usefully, adjust the exposure on the fly. If you move to a less well-lit section of an object, you can increase the exposure, helping the scanner resolve finer detail in those areas.

The actual scanning process is really very simple. You press the Start button and move around the object to be scanned, using the distance guide to ensure you are at the optimum range and check the images to see what you are capturing. You’ll likely capture other things too, especially the surface your scanned object is sitting on, but don’t worry: the software can handle that.

There’s a frame rate counter on the main screen. It’s worth keeping an eye on this, especially during your first few scans, since the Range 2 runs at 16fps. That doesn’t sound all that fast, but in use, it’s higher than you might think, and it’s worth slowing down a little to capture full detail.

The main difference in my experience, compared to scanners for small items, is the working window. The Range 2 can capture a larger area per frame, meaning you can cover the entirety of your object in fewer passes; this is very welcome when scanning something like a car! This also means less strain on the battery as you can work faster. That said, the battery life is pretty good. I scanned for nearly four hours before needing to charge the battery grip.

The software, Revo Scan, is really the heart of the setup here. Once you have your scan, you can process it with a single click. It can then identify parts that aren’t connected, like the floor, or sections of other objects that have entered the frame, which you can then delete.

The app even has tools to fill any holes in the mesh, which is nice to have generally and vital if you plan to 3D-print your models. You may prefer to do this in another piece of software if you’re a seasoned 3D pro, but the app does a good job, with pleasing results. The scanner does a really good job, and any gaps in the geometry tend to be very small. Plus, as you get used to adjusting exposure and speed of movement, any geometry issues like this will be reduced to pretty minimal.

Although the Range 2 is aimed at users wanting to scan large items, which it does very well, it can handle smaller objects too. I scanned everything from an apple, through a small fridge used for storing film, to an armchair. They all produced good results, but I would suggest the experience is better when scanning anything over around two feet in size, where the form factor, scan speed and working distance are really optimized.

If you are hunting for a scanner for small jobs, check out our guide to the best 3D scanners to see the alternatives best suited to your needs.

The Range 2 ships with a mat covered in tracking dots, which you place your object on for increased accuracy. There are also some adhesive tracking markers for the same purpose. I’d say the mat is probably better suited to smaller jobs, but the markers can be useful. If you need to scan bigger objects with large, smooth surfaces, placing some of these will really help the scanner produce good results on the first attempt.

One note on scale: yes, the Range 2 is the right tool for scanning large objects, but before you begin, make sure you have access all around and above your target. You may want to get a stepladder so you can reach taller objects, and it can be surprising how quickly you get to the limits of what you can comfortably cover. Luckily, you can pause and restart a scan, so moving a ladder or a box around to make life easier isn’t too much of a hassle.

Revopoint Range 2: Verdict

If you plan to scan objects that tend to be on the larger side, the Revopoint Range 2 is a great option. It’s truly portable, doesn’t rely on WiFi (other than its own), and is easy to operate. The software is excellent, with built-in processing and hole-filling. The geometry produced is accurate, and you can capture objects of almost any size. Highly recommended.

Alternatives

For DSLR shooters, no matter your brand, this raises a bigger question: will DSLRs in the future still get firmware updates at all? With Canon ending DSLR development, Nikon's focus landing firmly on mirrorless and Sony having long exited optical-viewfinder cameras, the Pentax update is a rare blip on the radar.

Below, you will find more information about the new firmware and why your DSLR model didn't get an update.

New firmware

Shared improvements: K-1 II, K-1, KF, K-70

Across all four Pentax bodies, the headline feature is clear:

Improved star-tracking accuracy with Astrotracer (Type 2 method)
Selecting "2 Type" under "Shooting Method for B" (menus vary slightly by model) now yields noticeably better precision when tracking stars during long exposures. The Astrotracer remains one of the most unique in-body features available on any camera system – DSLR or mirrorless.

General stability tweaks
Small, unspecific, but always welcome: smoother operation, safer long exposures, fewer hiccups when switching modes or reviewing images.

Pentax K-1 II / J Limited 01 – Ver. 2.51
- Improved Astrotracer Type 2 star tracking accuracy
- Improved overall stability

Pentax K-1 – Ver. 2.51
- Improved Astrotracer Type 2 star tracking
- Improved overall stability

Pentax KF – Ver. 1.33
- Improved Astrotracer Type 2 accuracy for deep-sky shooting

Pentax K-70 – Ver. 1.16
- Improved Astrotracer Type 2 accuracy
- Minor behind-the-scenes operational refinements

Why your DSLR missed out

Most brands have shifted their engineering, firmware teams and product maps toward mirrorless. DSLRs do still get firmware updates, but only from a handful of manufacturers – and usually for niche reasons.

This raises the question of what new firmware updates for DSLRs will look like in the future. Here's where big players stand…

Canon
Canon has officially ended its DSLR development, with the EOS-1D X Mark III being the last pro DSLR ever made. Firmware support continues for a few models, but the most recent updates, for example, date back to 2024-2023 for the 1D Mark III, 5D Mark IV and 6D Mark II. Canon's energy now sits squarely with the EOS R mirrorless line.

Nikon
Nikon still supports its DSLRs – just not as frequently. For example, the most recent DSLR firmware (August 2024) included bug fixes for overexposure and silent photography for the Nikon D6 (Ver. 1.70) and autofocus and exposure stability fixes for the Nikon D780 (Ver. 1.20). Nikon maintains its DSLR pro bodies primarily for sports and wildlife photographers who prefer optical finders.

Sony
Sony hasn't made DSLRs in years. The last major DSLR-adjacent system was A-mount SLT, and the firmware is long discontinued. Current updates (late 2025) target only mirrorless models like the A7R V and A7 IV.

Pentax
Pentax is the key exception. Under Ricoh, it remains the only major manufacturer still fully committed to designing, developing and selling new DSLRs, even while the rest of the industry moves on. Its current lineup – from the rugged K-1 Mark II full-frame to the fast K-3 Mark III APS-C – continues to appeal to photographers who love optical viewfinders, mechanical feel and durability, but the brand inevitably faces long-term headwinds as the broader market shifts.

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: The Digital Camera World Podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, but also what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or if – you should update.

You can check out the episode for more insights, potential risks, and expert advice on our YouTube channel, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all your favorite podcast services.

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Browse the best Pentax cameras and the best DSLRs.

Whether you're shooting high-speed action with the X-H2S, managing complex shoots with the X-H2, or wireless transmitting files on the FT-HX, these updates smooth out the tech friction and keep you in control.

Across the board, Fujifilm has strengthened wireless security, changed pairing procedures, and removed legacy menus to simplify operations. That means no more hunting through old "Wireless Communication" menus – everything is now streamlined for modern devices and apps.

But the update isn't just about security: it's about workflow efficiency, stability, and ensuring your camera keeps pace with today's demanding production environments.

Each camera also gets some tailored tweaks.

The X-H2S benefits from broader system optimizations, ensuring fast, reliable connections and stable operation for intense shooting sessions.

The X-H2 keeps things smooth for hybrid shooters who rely on the XApp ecosystem. Meanwhile, the FT-HX file transmitter sees its wireless performance and app integration upgraded, meaning your critical files move quickly and securely from camera to device without extra hassle.

Shared improvements

What's new: X-H2, X-H2S, FT-HX

• Enhanced wireless communication security when pairing with Fujifilm XApp or Camera remote
• Updating pairing procedures for iOS (iOS13+) and Android (Bluetooth 4.2+)
• Legacy "Wireless Communication" menus removed for a cleaner, more modern interface
• Instax printer menus removed – now handled via XApp
• Network settings reset to "1: Universal Setting," requiring reconfiguration for FTP, Frame.io, and other professional workflows

Specific updates

X-H2: Ver. 5.30

• Includes all shared wireless enhancements
• Keeps hybrid shooters in sync with XApp and Camera remote
• Network and USB settings refined for smoother everyday operation

X-H2S: Ver. 7.30

• Incorporates all shared wireless improvements
• Optimized pairing for faster, more reliable connection to XApp, and Camera Remote
• Streamlined workflow tweaks for professional shooting

FT-X: Ver. 2.30

• Focused update for wireless security and app integration
• Faster, safer file transfers to devices
• Ensures reliability for professional workflows

Pro Advice

If you caught Episode 4 of Bokeh Face: Digital Camera World podcast, we discussed the best time to install firmware updates, why they matter, but also what issues they can cause. It's a helpful listen if you're unsure when – or whenever – you should update.

You can check out the episode for more insights, potential risks, and expert advice on our YouTube channel,Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all your favorite podcast services.

You might like...

Browse the best Fujifilm cameras and the best Fujifilm lenses.

Users across Reddit and Apple Community have launched internet tirades pointing out the lack of a feature that their older devices had. The Pro and Pro Max models have supported using both Portrait mode and Night mode at the same time, but users are pointing out that the feature is missing on the iPhone 17 Pro and Max models.

The apparent lack of the longstanding feature isn’t a bug – Apple has a list of iPhones that support both Portrait mode and Night mode at the same time, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max aren’t on it. (The iPhone 17 series, including the Air, does pop up on the list of devices that support Night Mode with selfies and time-lapses.) Apple hasn’t yet shared a statement as to why the feature is no longer on the new models.

Portrait mode uses LiDAR to capture depth information, which can be used to blur the background. It can also be used to add or edit blur after the photo has already been taken. Night mode is designed to boost image quality in limited light. Both Portrait mode and Night mode exist independently on the iPhone 17 Pro and Max, but unlike earlier models, the models can’t be used simultaneously.

Night mode is one of my all-time favorite improvements to the iPhone camera. Just a few years ago, snapping a photo of the northern lights with my smartphone would have looked terrible. Now, my iPhone 15 Pro isn’t on the same level as my mirrorless, but the aurora shots are actually possible.

Without an official statement from Apple, it’s unclear as to why those two modes can no longer be used together, though that, naturally, hasn’t stopped the speculation as to why. Night mode improves low-light quality, but has its drawbacks, including motion blur that may not work well when photographing people. Night mode increases the ISO, which also increases noise.

What's clear, however, is that some users who used the feature are frustrated that there was no early indication of the missing feature.

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This Epson EcoTank printer is a cost-effective, bottle-fed, multi-function printer that claims to save you up to 95 per cent in ink costs, with up to three years’ worth of ink supplied in a set of full-sized bottles in the retail pack. The setup procedure consumes a little of this but you should still have enough ink left over for 6,600 mono pages and 5,500 color document pages. That should keep you going for ages and when you do need replacement bottles, they’ll be good for 8,500 mono pages and 6,500 color pages. It’s a whole different world to using cartridges and the Epson aims to be one of the best all-in-one printers for the home office and hybrid working.

Epson EcoTank ET-2950 / ET-2980: Specifications

Epson EcoTank ET-2950 / ET-2980: Price

Manufacturers have to make their money somewhere. Historically, cartridge inkjet printers have often been relatively cheap to buy but there’s a sting in the tail, with your first set of replacement cartridges costing more than the printer itself. You might be tempted to just buy a new printer instead, but setup cartridges can have a notoriously short lifespan. Flip the coin and you’re often looking at comparatively expensive initial purchase costs for EcoTank printers, but with much cheaper running costs going forward. Pay your money, take your choice. Either way, the up-front price of the Epson EcoTank ET-2980 / ET-2950 is pretty competitive for a bottle-fed printer, at $330 / £320 / AU$499. That’s a modest outlay for a brand new EcoTank printer, especially as you’re unlikely to need to buy any ink for a long time to come.

Epson EcoTank ET-2950 / ET-2980: Design & Handling

A key design factor is that the Epson has large tanks of ink which are replenished with bottles, rather than using cartridges. The inks themselves feature a pigment-based black and dye-based cyan, magenta and yellow. The mix aims to deliver crisp, durable and smudge-resistant black text on plain paper, along with strong color performance. The dye-based inks should ensure a smooth finish on glossy photo paper, but the absence of an additional black dye cartridge could be a limiting factor for photo quality. I’ll come back to this later in ‘performance’.

It’s only natural to feel short-changed when the ‘setup cartridges’ supplied with some printers seem to last barely any longer than the actual setup procedure. This EcoTank printer is supplied with a complete set of full-sized bottles, comprising 127ml of ink for black and 70ml for each of the cyan, magenta and yellow inks. That’s a tick in a box as far as I’m concerned. It’s also fairly common to worry that bottled ink is going to be a messy business. However, the bottles are designed to be easy to use with separately keyed tops so you can’t pour ink into the wrong tank. They’re drip-free, gravity fed with no squeezing, and shut off automatically with built-in valves to avoid any danger of over-filling at top-up time. In short, the whole process of initially filling the tanks and topping them up later is quick, easy and entirely painless. That’s a tick in another box.

You can get a status report on ink levels via the printer driver but the easiest way to keep tabs on ink is simply to take a glance at the tanks, which have clear inspection windows at the front. Each window has five level markers, from full to empty.

After filling each of the tanks, hinged stoppers fasten securely and are hidden away beneath a cover. It’s all very neat and tidy. The initial setup uses a fair bit of ink to prime the heads, but you should still have enough left over for 6,600 mono pages and 5,500 color document pages. Going forward, replacement bottles should last for 8,500 mono pages and 6,500 color pages, and cost $24.99 / £15.49 / AU$39.98 for a bottle of black ink or $75.95 / £39.49 / AU$99.95 for a full set of all four ink bottles. Suffice it to say that running costs are very inexpensive and massively cheaper than using cartridges.

The final part of the installation process is to print a test/alignment page which you then scan in using the printer’s flatbed scanner. It’s fully automatic so you don’t need to compare a bunch of printed blocks or lines and enter numerical values for each set of test areas, as you do with many printers.

Placing the calibration page into the scanner and completing the process only takes a few moments and ensures that the print heads are optimally aligned for the best and sharpest printing results.

A disappointment as far as I’m concerned is that, while the printer is pleasingly compact and sits fairly low on a table, there’s no internal paper feed cassette. As such, you need to slot paper into the upright feeder at the rear, which comes complete with a pull-up support and adjustable width guides. At least it makes it relatively easy to swap between different sizes and types of paper. Even so, I’d rather be able to fill an internal cassette with plain paper and pop photo paper into a rear feeder as and when required.

While the paper input system is fairly basic, the output tray is more refined. I’m happy that the output tray is fully motorized, so it extends automatically when you’re printing and there’s an option to fully retract it again when you switch off the printer. It’s a space-saver and again helps to keep everything neat and tidy.

Some people love touchscreens for everything but I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a regular color display screen and a set of dedicated buttons for making adjustments. That’s what’s featured here, and the control panel is both logical and intuitive. To be picky, the 3.7cm / 1.5" color LCD screen is pretty small, but I found it clear enough to read comfortably.

Around the back, there’s an auto duplex unit, so double-sided printing is on the menu without the need to flip paper over manually feed it back into the printer. And if you’re unlucky enough to suffer a paper jam during the automatic process, the duplex unit easily detaches for inspection and paper removal, with just a couple of pinch-action clips.

The rear of the printer also features a socket for the mains cable and a time-honored printer-type USB socket. As I’d expect in this day and age, the printer also supports Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi direct. This enables you not only to print wirelessly from computers around the home, but also to print and scan from smart devices, taking advantage of the Epson Smart Panel app. There’s support for Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service and Mopria Scan. I’d have also liked to see a USB socket on the front panel, for scanning to and printing from a memory stick, but that’s not featured.

Epson EcoTank ET-2950 / ET-2980: Performance

I’ve used ink tank printers that were rather slower than cartridge-based models, but this Epson is no slouch. It can output mono text pages at 15ppm and color pages at 8ppm in standard quality mode, rising to 33ppm for mono and 20ppm for color at the top speed setting. In my tests, printing single mono text and color text and graphics pages, the printer took 7 seconds for mono and 14 seconds for color in standard quality mode, and I can certainly live with that.

True to my expectations, black text on plain paper is crisp, dark and robust with good attention to fine detail. Color graphics are also reproduced very well, with good vibrancy and boldness. Arguably more of a handling plus point than a performance factor, I like the way that the front panel hinges upwards, so you can more clearly see the small LCD screen and use the pushbutton control panel to make any required changes.

This printer is clearly designed and advertised as a document printer, and I’ve only seen print speeds and page counts for ink usage quoted by Epson for documents, not for photos. Even so, the dye-based cyan, magenta and yellow inks work well for creating photo prints on glossy paper, up to a point. Being dye-based rather than pigment-based inks they’re fully absorbed beneath the outer glossy layer of photo paper, resulting in a smooth and uniform finish with no ‘bronzing’ or areas of uneven reflectivity.

However, the absence of a secondary dye-based black ink means that really dark areas of photos are reproduced with ‘composite black’ from all three colors. The result is that photos can be a bit lacking in contrast and depth. Photo printing is also relatively slow. I found that the printer took 1m 30s or 2m 55s to output a borderless 7x5-inch photo print in standard and high quality settings respectively. And for borderless A4 photos in standard or high quality mode, it was 2m 45s or 5m 15s. In terms of photographic fidelity, I found no benefit in switching from standard to high quality print mode.

Back on the plus side, the Epson printer driver is typically intuitive and easy to use. That really can be a performance boost, as it’s quick and simple to make any necessary changes to printer settings, and the same goes for running maintenance routines like nozzle checks and cleaning cycles. The gallery below shows the three main screens for the Windows printer driver.

Another performance facet is that you don’t want downtime when you’re counting on your printer. It’s generally not so much of an issue nowadays but historically, many inkjet printers needed to be sent away for servicing if the ‘maintenance cartridge’ became full of excess ink. Like most of its modern competitors, this Epson has a user-replaceable maintenance cartridge, and if you should come to need one, it’s cheap to buy at $10.99 / £10.49 / AU$15.99 for the genuine Epson article.

Epson EcoTank ET-2950 / ET-2980: Verdict

One of my pet hates with cartridge-based printers is the seemingly continual need to buy and replace ink cartridges. And it can be a very pricey business. I like that by comparison, this Epson printer is very cheap to run, and that bottles of ink last for absolutely ages. Despite this, the up-front purchase price of the printer is very reasonable, which I can’t say for many bottle-fed printers. All in all, the Epson is great value for money, easy to use and delivers very good quality mono and color documents with a quick turnaround. It’s less ideal for glossy photo printing, which is relatively slow and not of the best quality, but it can certainly turn its hand to the task when needed. I think it’s also a shame that the printer doesn’t have dual paper feed trays, with an internal cassette and separate rear feeder. All things considered though, it’s a very good choice as a multi-function printer for the home office and for family life.

Alternatives

Some might say Sony is over four years late to the 200MP party with this sensor. The first 200MP camera phone sensor - the Samsung ISOCELL HP1 - was released back in September 2021.

But the new LYT-901 could well be worth the wait. The sensor's 1/1.12-inch size makes it marginally larger than any of Samsung's 200MP camera phone sensors, and that bodes well for low-light image quality and reduced image noise.

Sony is promising almost 17 stops of dynamic range thanks to its Hybrid Frame-HDR technology that composites frames captured in a short exposure burst. This works in conjunction with Dual Conversion Gain‐HDR - a technology which composites data read at different gain settings into a single frame, enabling high dynamic range up to 4x zoom.

The stacked CMOS design utilizes a Quad-Quad Bayer Coding (QQBC) array, in which 16 (4x4) adjacent pixels are clustered with filters of the same color. During normal shooting, the signals of the 16 clustered pixels are processed as a single pixel unit, allowing the camera to maintain high sensitivity even at night and in dim indoor shooting conditions (and resulting in 12.5MP output images). Alternatively, a portion of the sensor can be used for on-sensor zoom, in which case clustering/pixel binning is no longer used and the sensor defaults to generating images using its individual pixels.

AI is also employed when on-sensor zoom is used. Typically, a pixel-packed sensor like the LYT-901 will struggle to resolve fine detail in anything other than optimal shooting conditions when it can't rely on pixel binning. This is due to the individual pixels being extremely small, not especially light-sensitive, and therefore more susceptible to generating image noise. Consequently, when the LYT-901 has to revert to a per-pixel readout when zooming ('remosaicing', in Sony's terminology), an AI learning-based remosaicing circuit, mounted inside the sensor itself, is said to enable "superior reproduction of details such as fine patterns and letters", along with high-speed processing and up to 30 fps video capture when shooting with up to 4x zoom at 4K resolution.

It's not yet known what might be the first camera phone to incorporate the Lytia LYT-901. However, I'd wager it'd be a flagship device from Oppo, Vivo or Xiaomi, as recent flagship handsets from these manufacturers have all used Sony Lytia sensors.

Aside from a flagship camera system, the main highlight is the 10-inch display that turns the standard smartphone (when folded) into a full-size tablet (when fully unfolded). At this size, and with premium hardware, the Galaxy Z TriFold will no doubt appeal to consumers who want to be able to work, game, and watch a movie all on the same device.

Top-tier flagship cameras

The triple camera system is housed inside a sizable bump and features a 200MP wide-angle, a 12MP ultra-wide, and a 10MP telephoto. The wide-angle camera boasts Quad Pixel AF, OIS, an f/1.7 aperture, an 85° field of view, and 2x optical quality zoom. The ultra-wide has a 120° field of view and an f/2.2 aperture. The rear camera setup is polished off with the telephoto lens that features OIS, an f/2.4 aperture, a field of view of 36°, 3x optical zoom, and a digital zoom up to 30x.

On the front, Samsung has included two selfie camera cutouts, one 10MP camera on the cover screen and another 10MP camera on the main screen. Both have an f-number of 2.2, although the main screen camera has a wider 100° field of view over and above the 85° that is present on the cover screen camera.

This is a flagship set of camera specs that puts it amongst the best on the market right now for folding devices. We've seen Samsung repeatedly pushing the boundaries of camera tech with the likes of the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and now they're bringing the same A-game to the Galaxy Z TriFold.

A serious set of specs beyond the cameras

Moving on to the internals, the Galaxy Z TriFold features a Snapdragon 8 Elite Mobile Platform and 16GB of RAM. This is identical to the top-tier model of the Z Fold 7. In terms of storage, there will be 512GB and 1TB options.

Samsung has also packed the Galaxy Z TriFold with a 5,600 mAh three-cell battery system, which is the biggest battery they've ever had in a foldable phone. To ensure balanced power across the whole device, the cells have been spread across all three panels. The device also supports 45 W super-fast charging.

In terms of materials, the titanium hinge housing introduces a thin piece of metal that protects the folding mechanism. The frame of the device is supported by Advanced Armor Aluminum, which aims to deliver rigidity without increasing bulk. And the back panel is made of a ceramic-glass fiber-reinforced polymer.

Availability

The Galaxy Z TriFold will be available in South Korea on December 12, with a US launch expected in early 2026, but as of yet, there's no indication of timeframes.

There are also no details of pricing for Western markets, although the price in South Korea will be a whopping KRW 3,590,400, which is the equivalent of around $2,500. This is unbelievably high and significantly more expensive than many other folding phones, including the Galaxy Z Fold 7.

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For a busy home office environment or as a printer for the whole family, Epson reckons the ink supplied with this printer straight off the shelf should keep you going for up to three years. Indeed, it’s supplied with a set of full-capacity ink bottles, plus an extra bottle of black ink for twice as much text printing. Crunching the numbers as well as a mighty stack of paper along the way, the supplied ink should be sufficient for printing up to 15,100 pages of mono text and 5,500 color documents. I hate to think how many cartridges I’d have to buy and how much they’d cost, to rack up those kinds of numbers. This Epson certainly aims to be one of the best all-in-one printers for the home office and for hybrid working.

Epson EcoTank ET-4950: Specifications

Epson EcoTank ET-4950: Price

You can buy cartridge-based inkjet printers for a lot less than this one, which sells for $500 / £460 / AU$729. But the savings tend to be short-lived. Typically, the ‘setup cartridges’ supplied with the printer don’t last very much longer than the setup procedure itself. From then on, you’re into buying expensive cartridges, often on an alarmingly frequent basis. While this EcoTank printer is relatively pricey up-front, the flip side is that running costs are massively cheaper if you need to print documents more than just occasionally. Ultimately, the ET-4950 can save you a big pot of money in the long term.

Epson EcoTank ET-4950: Design & Handling

Inks are a fundamental design factor for any inkjet printer. This one runs on a pigment-based black ink and dye-based cyan, magenta and yellow inks. The sum of the parts is geared to enabling crisp, durable black text on plain paper, along with convincing color performance. Color printing on glossy photo paper comes with the advantage that only the dye-based inks are employed, so you’re guaranteed a smooth finish with uniform reflectivity. The downside is the absence of an additional dye-based black cartridge, which can degrade photo quality.

Unlike many printers that come with low-capacity ‘setup cartridges’, this EcoTank printer is supplied with a complete set of full-sized bottles, to keep you going for longer. It’ll actually be a lot longer, as you get not one but two 127ml bottles of pigment black ink, as well as regular 70ml bottles of dye-based cyan, magenta and yellow inks. And if you’re thinking that bottles of ink bring the risk of spillage, rest assured that the bottles have a gravity-fed delivery system with shut-off valves to avoid any mess. They also have individually and differently keyed tops, to stop you accidentally pouring ink into the wrong tank.

The printer driver can give you updates on ink levels within the tanks but for a more hands-on, or rather eyes-on approach, the tanks have inspection windows at the front. This makes it easy to keep track of ink levels with just a quick peek.

As a final word on filling the tanks, access to them is gained by a cover that hinges forward. The cover also happens to have a pleasant blue-illuminated ring around the top, which gives a visual indication of when the printer is in use. After hinging the cover forward, you get access to the tanks.

After filling each of the tanks, flip-over stoppers fasten securely and are hidden away beneath the cover. The initial setup procedure uses some ink to prime the print heads, but you should still have enough left over for 15,100 mono pages and 5,500 color document pages. That’s a lot of pages! Going forward, replacement bottles should last for 8,500 pages of black text and 6,500 color documents. The cost works out to $24.99 / £15.49 / AU$39.98 per bottle of black ink or $75.95 / £39.49 / AU$99.95 for a full set of all four ink bottles. The net results is that running costs tend to be massively cheaper than for cartridge-based printers.

The installation procedure is quick and easy, taking less than half an hour from start to finish. The final part of the process is to print a test page which also acts as a print head alignment page. In some cases, print head alignment is a chore, based on manually entering different numbers into various boxes. In this case, it’s all automatic and quickly finished.

After you place the calibration page onto the scanning platen, the printer simply scans the page and carries out the alignment procedure all by itself, in just a few moments. This ensures that the print heads are optimally aligned for the sharpest printing results. For more typical scanning jobs, you’re probably more likely to use the auto document feeder.

When folded out for use, as shown below, the ADF can accommodate up to 30 sheets of paper, ideal for scanning, copying or faxing multi-page documents. It also stretches the maximum size of originals that can be scanned, from A4 or 8.5x11.7" to 8.5x14”. The ADF is definitely a useful feature to have and doesn’t add much to the overall height when in use.

Although the Epson is predominantly a document printer, I’d still like to have the luxury of putting plain paper in an internal feeding cassette, and photo paper or other specialist paper like letterheaded paper in a top feeder or secondary tray. The printer gets half way there with a convenient space-saving 250-sheet internal paper feed cassette, but there’s no secondary cassette nor an upright feeder at the rear.

I’m a lot happier about the output tray than the single input cassette. It’s fully motorized and extends automatically when you start a print job. You also get the option to automatically retract the output tray when switching off the printer, so the front of the printer is flush from top to bottom.

Following the recent trend for touchscreens in almost any type of gadget, the printer features a 6.1cm / 2.4" color touchscreen on its front panel. It’s certainly not massive but, to my mind and eye, it’s big enough to do the job. It’s also quite easy and intuitive in use. And to make it easier to see and to operate, the front panel hinges up so that you can choose the angle you find most convenient.

An auto duplex unit is built into the back of the printer, enabling automatic double-sided printing without the chore of manually flipping paper over and feeding it back into the printer. It worked reliably throughout my testing but if you should suffer a paper jam, it’s easy to unclip the unit at the back and clear any stuck paper.

There’s a variety of sockets and ports built into the rear of the printer. These include USB, LAN and fax, along with the mains socket. The printer also has built-in Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi direct, which many of us find more ideal for printing from multiple computers or laptops around the home. You can also print and scan from smart devices, taking advantage of the Epson Smart Panel app. There’s support for Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service and Mopria Scan, but no card slot nor a USB socket for scanning to and printing from a memory stick or memory card.

Epson EcoTank ET-4950: Performance

The ET-4950 has a decent turn of speed, outputting mono text pages at 18ppm and color pages at 9ppm in standard quality mode. The ‘first page printout’ speed can be notoriously slower but I was impressed during my tests. Printing a single mono text page took just 5 seconds, while a page of mono text and color graphics took 12 seconds, both in standard quality mode.

Mono text on plain paper is crisp and robust, as I’d expect from a pigment-based black ink, and fine detail as well as the ‘small print’ are clearly rendered. There’s also good vibrancy for color graphics, which literally look good on paper. Solid blocks of color and graduated tints are both reproduced very nicely.

On Epson’s spec sheet and supporting online literature, I haven’t seen any claims about print speeds for glossy photo printing, nor how many photo prints you can expect from a set of ink bottles. That’s fair enough, as the ET-4950 is predominantly designed as a document printer. Even so, the dye-based cyan, magenta and yellow inks make a decent stab at glossy photo prints. The dye-based inks are fully absorbed beneath the outer glossy layer of photo paper, resulting in a smooth and uniform finish with no ‘bronzing’ or areas of uneven reflectivity. However, the pigment black ink isn’t used for glossy photo output and the lack of an additional dye-based black ink limits the gamut and tonal range, so dark areas in photos can look a little insipid.

Photo printing is also relatively slow. I set about making 7x5-inch borderless photo prints on glossy paper and they took me 1m 30s or 2m 55s each, in standard and high quality settings respectively. Stepping up to full A4 borderless photos in standard or high quality mode, prints took 2m 45s or 5m 15s each. There was very little to choose between high quality and standard quality modes in terms of photographic fidelity.

I’ve become well used to Epson printer driver software being intuitive and easy to use over the years, and the drivers for this model are no exception. That’s a performance boost in my books, cutting down the time it takes to adjust settings. The gallery below shows the three main screens for the Windows printer driver, include the Maintenance section with options like nozzle checks and print head cleaning.

Performance can be put on hold if you need to send your printer away to be serviced. This has often been the case in the past when maintenance cartridges have become full to capacity with excess ink. Like most modern competitors, the ET-4950 has a user-replaceable maintenance cartridge, which is quick and easy to change if it becomes full. The genuine Epson replacement is inexpensive to buy, at $10.99 / £10.49 / AU$15.99.

Epson EcoTank ET-4950: Verdict

I really like the stamina of the Epson EcoTank ET-4950 printer. I find the relatively continuous and arduous task of searching for, ordering and replacing ink cartridges to be a time-wasting and money-wasting chore. The ink tanks are sufficiently large in this printer that I can simply fill them with the supplied ink and forget about them for months on end. I like the speed and quality for mono and color document printing on plain paper, and that the ‘all-in-one’ features stretch to direct faxing as well as just printing, scanning and copying. The auto document feeder for the scanner, auto duplex unit and motorized output tray are further plus points, and so is the intuitive color touchscreen. I’m less impressed by the lack of a secondary paper input tray and glossy photo printing could be better and faster. All in all though, this Epson printer is a very good fit for the busy home office and for productive families taking on anything from general paperwork to homework assignments.

Alternatives

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There’s little to say about Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Lightroom Classic that hasn’t already been said. Heck, Photoshop is so popular it’s become a verb in its own right and is known across the world by people who haven’t ever edited a photograph in their life. It’s the OG, the industry standard by which all other photo-editing software is judged.

And while Adobe has drawn the ire of many a photographer over the years for what some have considered hefty prices and unwanted subscription models, Photoshop and Lightroom are still my go-to for editing my own images because the Creative Cloud ecosystem just works. And at £98.99 for Photoshop and Lightroom, and £61.99 for Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, you’re probably paying less than your Netflix subscription!

If you’re having trouble deciding which one to go for, it all comes down to how much you’re going to use Photoshop. If you’re new to Adobe software, you might think Photoshop is essential (it’s the grandaddy after all). But most photographers, Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic have become the go-to. That’s because they’re designed for batch editing, that’s to say, you can edit lots of images simultaneously, in batches, whereas Photoshop’s layer-based workflow is largely designed for editing one image at a time.

Lightroom has also become more like Photoshop over the years. You can locally edit images using masking and even clone or heal to remove unwanted objects. Personally, I spend most of my time in Lightroom. I turn to Photoshop for things like focus stacking and to make the most of its layer-based workflow so I can make more intricate and involved edits.

Ultimately, if your editing workflow is extremely simple, adjusting a few sliders here and there, you can probably make do with Lightroom. If you anticipate doing heavy cloning, focus stacking, frequency separation, exposure blending, etc, then be sure to pick up the bundle with Photoshop.

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Epson is an established name in the field of projectors, and when I tried this projector I was impressed by how much that shone through in the little details as much as the overall design.

Not only has Epson joined in with the other brands and included Google TV, so the projector is easy to cast things to from your phone, or use like a modern TV with apps like Netflix, Disney+ and – to my initial surprise, but not these days – even Apple TV. No, Epson also knows what it is doing when it comes to things like subtle design features, so, for example, there is a recess where the power socket connects to the back of the projector so you won't find yourself pushing cable against the wall in a nasty way if you use a shelf like I do.

The overall design, though, is the cleverest thing about this series of projectors. Many new projectors are based around U-shaped gimbals to make it easier to tilt the projector and get the perfect angle against the wall, making them more flexible. This is great, but Epson's designers have realised that a single pillar is all that's needed, and placed this in the center.

When you need to tip the projector up all the way to point to the ceiling, you can, and you just need to pop out a piece of the speaker grille. Oh, and that speaker grille – it's hiding built-in speakers from Bose, and underneath a chic color-changing LED feature which definitely makes this the best looking projector for home, office, or the most stylish classroom you can imagine.

And, yeah, perhaps those lights will impress in whatever room you Netflix and chill.

The result is a much more elegant-looking device, and a smaller one than many other projectors in the same category, yet this is from Epson.