Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i TechLife

ONE COMPANY, TWO phones, and both of them look a lot like their predecessor. The Samsung S8 line was fantastic, and although the S9 is more of the same, it’s more of the same but better. You only have to gently poke at the surface though to find differences between the two models, making it an alluring prospect if you’re looking for a new handset, though the marginal differences will only tempt those who live on the cutting edge to consider upgrading. LOOKING SHARP It’s a game of ‘spot the difference’ when comparing the S9s and S8s. There are a few slight changes that make a big difference, though, starting with the materials used. The fact they use Gorilla Glass 5 is a big step forward, as it means both…

A COUPLE OF DRINKS A DAY CAN KEEP YOUR BRAIN ‘CLEAN’, CLAIMS STUDY AS IF WE NEEDED ANOTHER EXCUSE TO ENJOY A PINT. New research out of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, claims that a little alcohol can go a long way in reducing inflammation in your brain. Low-level alcohol consumption has been shown to also clear away toxins from the brain, including those that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. This study isn’t the first to extol the beneficial health effects of low or moderate alcohol consumption. Many studies have linked low levels of alcohol to the reduction of cardiovascular disease as well. While most of us don’t need an excuse to enjoy a glass of wine or a cold pint,…

Most of the other big phone players — like LG, Motorola, Huawei and HTC — decided, perhaps wisely, to not compete with Samsung’s Galaxy S9 reveal at MWC this year, and while that meant there was a dearth of flagship handsets, it made way for the smaller manufacturers to show off their wares. And, embarassingly, almost all of them were in a race to copy a key design element of the iPhone X. It seems everyone else wants to take a crack at the X’s characteristic notch, which juts out into the screen from the top of the bezel. Never before has the an iPhone feature been copied so quickly and blatantly. And while Apple’s use of the latter has a purpose, some Android implementations, like on the ASUS Zenfone…

It’s Full of Sparks THE CANDLE THAT BURNS TWICE AS BRIGHT… Free with IAP | sparks.dabadugames.com “WHEN THE SPARK of life is lit, the countdown begins” — and you’re about to find out that being a firecracker is a short, sad existence. Meet Neal, he’s a firecracker who decided that he didn’t want to blow up, like all his friends. So he ran as fast as he could and dove headfirst into the sea, quenching his fuse and surviving to the next level. The moment he moves, his fuse is lit and he has only a matter of seconds to rush through the course to find the next safe puddle. His ultimate goal, however, is to find The Old One, a mythical firecracker that cannot die. This game is a…

WINDOWS ULTRABOOKS DON’T come much finer than Dell’s XPS 13. Since it was introduced around four years ago, it’s had many competitors try to topple it, but despite its ageing design it’s managed to remain the slim-and-light Windows laptop to beat. With this latest 2018 refresh (also known as the XPS 13 9370), Dell wisely isn’t messin’ with what ain’t broken — it’s tweaked that design slightly to make the XPS 13 slightly sleeker and shaved 80g off the weight, but unless you’re an owner of the older model, those differences will be fairly hard to notice. The biggest change, physically, is that the body width has been reduced by a little over 20%. When closed, it’s shrunk from 15mm at its widest point to 11.6mm, resulting in a bunch…

AS TRUE WIRELESS headphones lose their novelty status and become mainstream, we’re starting to see the field fill out with some decent and affordable headphones, although the tech is yet to surmount some of its teething problems. The 3SIXT Studio Earbuds retail for a rather competitive $130, so it’s a pleasant surprise to hear some really compelling audio being pumped out of these bantam beauties. The sound is clear and punchy with a generally well-balanced frequency profile, although the slightly boosted bass can boom and distort at loud volumes. The pieces themselves are comfortable to wear, sitting firm and snug, and where similar button designs have resulted in uncomfortable pressure when pressed, we found these clickers to be inoffensive. The Studio buds run on a three-hour battery, but you’ll be…

‘TRUE WIRELESS’ IN-EAR headphones — perhaps best exemplified by Apple’s AirPods — have ballooned from being a non-existent category to a huge piece of the headphone pie over the last couple of years. And yet, it’s hard to say anyone’s really nailed their design. Bose is the latest big brand to take a stab at the concept and the results are, frankly, a little uneven. The SoundSport Frees’ bulbous design makes them a bit bigger than most others and, when inserted in your ears, they physically stick out further too. Mercifully, that doesn’t seem to affect their ability to stay in-ear — something that’s helped by the fact that all three sets of rubber earbud tips come with integrated wings (aka hooks) that should keep them firmly in place. We…

 APPLE ONLY HAS the one smart speaker on the market at the moment, the HomePod. Consistent with the Cupertino company’s strategy in other product verticals, this is not the most full-featured entrant in the market, nor does it compete well from a value-for-money perspective. However, Apple has correctly identified that driving sales in this category isn’t necessarily going to hinge on the smart assistant capabilities. At least, not this early in the game. THE HOMEPOD IS UNABASHEDLY A PREMIUM AUDIO SPEAKER FIRST AND SMART VOICE ASSISTANT SECOND, AND AS SUCH, IT’S PACKED TO THE BRIM WITH ENOUGH AUDIO COMPONENTS TO MAKE OTHER SPEAKERS SIZE CRINGE WITH EMBARRASSMENT. The HomePod is unabashedly a premium audio speaker first and smart voice assistant second, and as such, it’s packed to the brim with…

WHETHER YOU HAVE the Amazon Echo, the diminutive but equally powerful Echo Dot, or the premium Echo Plus, all of Amazon’s smartspeakers feature Alexa, an intelligent voice assistant. Your Echo will listen for any commands that you give it after it hears its wake word ‘Alexa’. By saying “Alexa” within its earshot, a blue light will appear, pointing in your general direction. This shows that your Amazon Echo has heard the wake word and is now listening out for your instructions. A seven-piece microphone array is built into each Echo, which helps it hear your voice from almost any direction. You don’t have to shout either, just say “Alexa”, then pause for a second to see if your Echo has heard you. Ambient noise can confuse the Echo, so turn…

AS WITH MOST products from Apple, the HomePod is delightfully easy to set up and use. But there are still various tips, tricks and tactics you can employ to maximise the HomePod’s capabilities. Here’s how you can get the most out of this premium smart speaker and its excellebt audio. POSITIONING The first thing you’ll need to think about is placement. The HomePod has been purposely designed to sound amazing no matter where you put it, with a unique ‘spatial awareness’ technology that automatically adjusts and balances the audio according to the size and shape of the room it’s in, as well as whatever is close to the speaker. This adjustment happens every time you move it, too, by employing a built-in accelerometer to detect a change in its location.…

[ INTERNET ] AutoFill cards Something’s gone wrong with Safari’s AutoFill feature. It used to use the correct info from my Contacts card, but now it uses that from my wife’s card. I cannot seem to get it to switch back and stay there. What’s wrong? [ BILL NATALIE ] Howard Oakley: Normally, it’s simple to correct an AutoFill error like this, because all that’s happened is that the Contacts card that’s set as your identity has changed. In Safari’s preferences, click on the Autofill tab. Click Edit to the right of the option labelled ‘Using info from my contacts’ or similar to view and edit the card in Contacts from which Safari is pulling information. If that’s set correctly, nothing else should alter that. But if you’re signed in…

THE CAMERA ON your iPhone is so good, it can be used as a scanner to capture documents, receipts and other paper-based items so you don’t lose them, they won’t fade, and they’re easier to find and organise (when it’s time to file your tax return, for example). There are dozens of excellent scanner apps in the Store, but do you need one? Apple has upgraded the Notes app in iOS 11 and it now includes a great scanning feature. This enables you to scan all your paperwork and store the images in notes on your phone. With iCloud syncing, you can then access the scans on your Mac and other devices if you need to. Here’s a quick introduction to how it works... [ QUICK LOOK ] THE SCANNING…

WHEN YOU PURCHASE a new camera, are you doing it for a specific purpose and with a clear idea of how it will benefit your photography? Whether you’re upgrading to a DSLR from a compact or bridge camera, or moving up to a model with a more professional specification, you’ll undoubtedly be excited by those features that are most obviously dedicated to your main photographic interests. While this might help you make informed decisions about which camera model is best suited to your needs, there is a notable downside. While focusing on utilising those tools, it’s easy to overlook the many other advanced features found on your DSLR, meaning there is potential for missing out on taking unique images. Successive cameras often build on the specification of their predecessors, so…

CAPTURE DESKTOP IMAGES & VIDEO WITH EASE BECOME A SCREENSHOT EXPERT WITH ASHAMPOO SNAP 9 FULL VERSION WORTH $50. Ashampoo Snap 9 is the ideal screenshot and video recording solution for your PC. Capture anything you see on your screen as images or videos and add additional information, e.g. texts or arrows. A picture is worth a thousand words — if it is done well! Use the integrated text recognition to copy entire pages of text or share your processed images with friends and family. Whether you need to explain, document or simply demonstrate, Snap 9 is always the best choice! Download link: www.ashampoo.com/techlife THWART HACKERS, SAVE STRESS FIND OUT IF YOU’VE BEEN COMPROMISED WITH ABELSSOFT HACKCHECK FULL VERSION WORTH $50. How do you know if your online…

2.8 million NUMBER OF U.S. USERS UNDER THE AGE OF 25 THAT FACEBOOK LOST IN 2017 Despite the stereotype of today’s youth being a rather social-media obsessed bunch, according to market research firm eMarketer, in the US Facebook actually lost 2.8 million users in the under-25 age bracket last year. While the firm had predicted a decline in this demographic’s userbase, the actual results were roughly three times more severe than they’d originally anticipated. Unfortunately for Facebook, eMarketer predicts much the same thing will happen again in 2018, with a further 2.1 million user decline in the under-25 age group — the first year-on-year decline the analysis company has ever predicted for this younger segment. 304 pages THE LENGTH OF AN EU-SUPPRESSED STUDY THAT FOUND THERE TO BE NO EVIDENCE…

FOR PROPER BIBLIOPHILES, letting go of the physical page can be tough. There’s the tactile sensation of being able to hold a book in your hands, the thrill of being able to flick through the pages, and even the smell of the book can be an integral part of the experience. But if there’s anything that’ll get you eagerly switching to digital, it’s the promise of cheaper — and even free — tomes. Once you’re equipped with a device that’s capable of displaying ebooks — whether that’s a smartphone, tablet or a dedicated e-reader like a Kindle or Kobo — then you can save quite a bit of money by opting for the digital alternative. Here’s how to do it. KINDLE The Amazon Kindle uses a proprietary format for its…

ALTERNATIVE FACTS AND fake news have no room in these podcasts that are essentially debates, audio essays or just people talking about a chosen topic. It sounds broad in scope, but what’s going to appeal is the structure of each of these podcasts as well as their insightful arguments and conclusions. Just as someone may consider documentaries to be boring until they actually sit down and watch one, these podcasts will leave you surprised. As well as opening your eyes (and ears) to a view contrary to your own, these productions sift through the many misleading facts and ideas that are floating around on the internet to get the bottom of the issue — and that can only be beneficial. From political to cultural, scientific to philosophical, and social to…

Chrome Music Lab A VERITABLE BALL-PIT OF MUSICAL DISCOVERY. musiclab.chromeexperiments.com While Google is constantly developing experiments in the form web applications for its Chrome browser (typically involving some degree of AI input), the Chrome Music Lab aims to make music theory fun. A series of interactive experiments are available to be mucked around with — ranging from a simple chord map on a piano reel to a full-on song maker — and they all have a similarly simplistic and colourful aesthetic. While this makes for an excellent tool for music teachers and tutors, this musically-inclined, grown-up reviewer found several of the interactive web apps to be truly captivating and, at times, a handy tool for sketching out song ideas without the threat of getting bogged down in complications. The latest…

ALMOST TWO YEARS after the release of the Vive and Rift, the PC finds itself playing second fiddle to the Sony PSVR. The console upstart accounts for 49% of the market, with 21% going to the Rift and 16% to the room-scale HTC Vive. The last 14% is claimed by largely wire-free options, which many expect to represent the future of the tech. The Lenovo Explorer is something of an evolutionary oddity, straddling the moves made by the first-gen headsets and the untethered second-gen models. The hardware specs for the Explorer put in a good show against those first headsets, supporting a higher native res, and the option of augmenting the real with the virtual, but it still relies on a long cable plugged into your graphics card. The most…

WHERE THE PANASONIC Lumix GH5 catered to the videographer, the latest Lumix G series flagship brings the stills photographer into focus. Inheriting the same 20.3MP micro four-thirds Live MOS sensor from the GH5 — without a low-pass filter to maximise on resolution — the Lumix G9 has improved tech which gives the new camera better dynamic range. And if 20.3MP wasn’t a high enough resolution for you, there’s now a dedicated High Resolution Mode which delivers 80MP files, in case you wanted to print something to fill the side of an office block. Panasonic has made the G9’s design as utilitarian as the company possibly could: there’s a top LCD information display found on most high-end DSLRs but not very common on mirrorless shooters. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is also…

LOGITECH’S LATEST WIRELESS keyboard is one of the best we’ve ever used, but when you can score premium mechanical workhorses for significantly less, you have to ask the pertinent question: is it worth the heavy outlay? The Craft’s design is honed to near perfection, sporting a chic minimalism that does so well for Apple products, and with construction this sturdy, there’s no doubt (either aesthetic or ergonomic) that this is a premium device. Although it’s not adjustable, the ‘board’s slight angle makes for comfortable typing, and the low-profile keys with circular indents are the most pleasant membrane caps our fingers have ever danced across. Logitech Flow is also included in this keyboard, allowing you to switch to one of three paired Bluetooth devices with a single button press, regardless of…

 GOOGLE HOME HAS plenty to recommend it for those in the market for a smart speaker. Currently consisting of the Home Mini and the Home, this ecosystem of smart speakers takes the Google Assistant voice-powered technology that’s been available on Android smartphones and tablets for several years now and makes it accessible within a speaker that the entire family can use. WHETHER YOU’RE ASKING ABOUT THE WEATHER FORECAST OR WHEN YOUR FAVOURITE FOOTY TEAM IS PLAYING NEXT, THE HOME IS ADEPT AT BOTH UNDERSTANDING CONVERSATIONAL ENGLISH AND ACCURATELY RESPONDING WITH THE REQUESTED INFORMATION. The latter point is one of the main distinguishing factors of the Google Home. Unlike the Echo and the HomePod, it can recognise different voices, each of which is linked to its own Google account. This makes…

01 PROTECTION STATUS Shows whether your Windows 10 device is protected. Any issues will be highlighted here. 02 VIRUS & THREAT PROTECTION Tells you if your PC is protected against viruses, using either Windows Defender or a third-party app. 03 SETTINGS Click for Windows Defender’s settings. You can review your firewall and virus/threat protection settings here, too. 04 FIREWALL & NETWORK PROTECTION Click here to see options for using the built-in firewall in Windows 10. 05 WARNING SIGNS If you see a green tick by these icons, it means everything is OK. A yellow warning sign means action is required. 06 FAMILY OPTIONS If you have other family members who use your device, click here to manage how they use Windows 10. WINDOWS 10 IS the safest and most secure…

5G HAS BEEN making the news lately. Telstra has said it plans to start rolling out the new technology in 2019, and the other major telcos have been talking up the technology as well. Optus has said it plans on introduced fixed- wireless versions of 5G in 2019. Before you get too excited, however, you should know that 5G is a different beast from the generations that came before it. It won’t replace 4G, but complement it for certain areas and applications. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, Telstra predicated that the reach of 5G would be about one million homes in Australia, a far cry from universal coverage. That’s because the requirements and capabilities of 5G are quite specific, and this month, we’re going to look…

KeyMat THE CHAIR MAT THAT KEEPS YOU TYPING. tinyurl.com/tla76-keymat The cynic in us raised our eyebrows when we saw this product for the first time and then facepalmed. This crowdfunding project failed to raise its US$10,000 goal, enticing only two people to part with their money. Why? Surely an office chair mat designed to keep you from sitting down too long is a great invention. And it would be, if that mat wasn’t also a keyboard that had you dancing around the floor like you were playing a giant game of Whack-A-Mole. True, it has some good qualities — such as getting you to stand up, while still allowing you to (very slowly) type out your emails or reports, and it also means those with certain disabilities can communicate, but…

Sweet, sweet Android I’ve never really been into phones news and the whole hype that surrounds a new OS release, but I’ve found it hard to escape the ‘What will Google call its next Android OS?’ craze. One question keeps rattling around my mind: why confectionary? Coming from someone who has vowed to lose weight (with mixed results), it’s strange that some sects of our society are frantically trying to get people — particularly children — to eat healthy and exercise, while others are still (actively or unconsciously) undoing all that good work. I don’t want to take on the big confectionary brands (that should be left to the experts), but I wonder whether there should be some kind of responsibility placed on a brand such as Google to move…

NBN CO IS trying to standardise the 50Mbps speed tier, promoting it in a campaign called ‘Focus on 50’. The promotion saw the wholesale price of the 50Mbps drop with an additional 50% extra bandwidth offered for free to service providers (ISP/RSP). The promotion was due to end in April 2018, but the national broadband service has announced that the promotional period will be extended ‘til October to enable RSPs to prepare for the switch to a permanent price once the promotion has ended. In a bid to get more end users on the higher speed plans, some resellers, like TPG, have dropped the 25Mbps plans altogether. Telstra is also upgrading all its customers on the slow plan to the 50Mbps tier for free. While NBN tries to push its…

FACEBOOK IS FACING international investigations into the illicit harvesting of users’ personal data. The information was collected by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that backed President Trump’s 2016 election campaign, and is potentially linked with the Brexit campaign. According to a whistleblower, Cambridge Analytica gathered data from 50 million US users, then developed a software program that profiled these citizens to predict voting patterns and, through micro-targeted ads, influence voting decisions. The data was obtained via a third-party app called ‘thisisyourdigitallife’ in 2013, that participants willingly signed up for and thus gave up permissions. But it then pulled the personal data of these users’ Facebook friends without their consent, vastly increasing the data pool from the initial 200,000 users to the aforementioned 50 million. Facebook altered their platform the…

DJI’S MAVIC AIR is the near-perfect love child of the company’s very successful Mavic Pro and the compact and user-friendly Spark. By taking the tech and foldable rotor arms from the Mavic Pro and the small form factor and playfulness of the Spark — and then improving on both — DJI has produced its best drone yet for the everyman. It has just about every bell and whistle (though this drone certainly does hum) you could ask for — from 4K video and 32MP panoramic pictures to a 21-minute battery life. More importantly, the DJI Mavic Air is easy to pilot thanks to its object avoidance system and great gesture controls. It’s certainly appealing. SWEET THING, SMALL PACKAGES The Mavic Air might resemble the Spark in terms of size, but…

Light Phone 2 DISCONNECT WITH THIS LIGHTWEIGHT PHONE. www.thelightphone.com | Goal: US$250,000 | Raised: US$656,572 from 2,282 backers | RRP: US$400 The goal of the Light Phone 2 is to get the user to leave their actual phone at home and to take this slim device instead, providing that peace of mind that only the lack of social media and gifs can give. It’s designed to give you your time back, to break those hooks that keep you glued to your screens, and to prevent addiction. So what can the device do? For a start, it has a beautiful design, with a black or white matte E-ink display. It allows you to send and receive messages and calls, and it can also act as an alarm clock. The OS is…

WITH AUDIO QUALITY THAT COULD WELL RIVAL THE LIKES OF THE APPLE HOMEPOD, AND PRICES STARTING AT US$199, THE SMART DISPLAY IS PRIMED TO SET ANEW STANDARD FOR THE MARKET. LENOVO SMART DISPLAY 8-inch, US$199; 10-inch, US$249 | www.lenovo.com.au As more and more companies introduce Google Assistant speakers, it was inevitable we’d see some with screens built in. Amazon already has a display in its Echo Show, and the Lenovo Smart Display is set to be one of the first to market using Assistant. The Lenovo comes with either an 8-inch or 10-inch touchscreen display, and while that may not rival your TV, that’s not really its purpose — it’s primarily intended for things like reading recipes or watching the odd YouTube clip as it sits on your kitchen counter…

Permanently mute websites in Chrome SILENCE THOSE PESKY AUTOPLAY VIDEOS FOREVER. AUTOPLAY VIDEOS ARE one of the modern web’s most common annoyances, and to shut them up, you usually have to manually do so on a case-by-case basis, or install a plugin to do it for you. Chrome’s own mute option silenced audio on a particular page for one session, but reloading that page meant you’d have to mute it again. The latest update to Chrome now sees that mute option work for a website on a domain basis, meaning you can easily silence every page on a website. To enable muting, right-click on the relevant tab and select ‘Mute Site’. This selection is saved, so the next time you open the site again it will remain blissfully quiet. […

Yakuza 6 THE JAPANESE CRIME ADVENTURE IS NICHE, YET CLASSIC $99.95 | PS4 | yakuza.sega.com/yakuza6 FOR ALL THE slavish demand for a new Shenmue game, it’s surprising that the Yakuza series is still a mere cult phenomenon outside of its native Japan. While different in tone to that highly regarded Dreamcast title, Yakuza’s focus on complex, albeit melodramatic storytelling, and small-but-detailed open worlds, feels like a (more violent and gritty) evolution of that older game. And while this is the sixth mainline Yakuza game, it’s as good a place to start as any if you’re interested in this idiosyncratic series. You should be interested. Protagonist Kiryu is a former member of a Yakuza family and, having spent a period in jail, is released to find that his adopted daughter has…

RAZER IS BASICALLY attempting the impossible with its latest revamp of the Blade Pro, matching a 17.3-inch screen with a thin (well, ‘thinner’) form factor than you typically see in gaming laptops of this size, with the company trying to make a more portable 17-incher. The result is admittedly still a beastly and burly machine, but it’s one that’s been made about as svelte as you could reasonably ask, and weighs a respectable 3.07kg sans power brick. Like Razer’s other Blades, the overarching design is rather MackBook like, with nice clean lines and a tough metal exterior that looks very much like a black version of Apple’s circa-2012 MacBooks — and physically, the Blade Pro is the closest thing we’ve seen to a 17-inch MacBook since Apple discontinued the latter…

TAKING NOTE OF your bodyweight might seem like a task that’s too minor to require automation, but if you’re actively attempting to lose some kilos, or you want to keep track of your weight for a raft of other health purposes, noting it down daily can become a more laborious process than you might think. Smart scales like this second-generation Fitbit Aria will take a lot of the menial labour out of keeping tabs on your flabs, and they can also offer greater insights into the nuances of your body’s composition. The Aria 2 scales are pitched as featuring improved instrument accuracy and much simpler setup process over their earlier incarnation -- a feature that’ll be appreciated by anyone who suffered through the involved setup of the original Aria scales.…

GOOGLE HAS MADE its Home smart speaker easy enough for a child to use. However, there are a handful of functions and features you need to be aware of to ensure you get the best possible experience. POSITIONING There’s really no hard and fast rule about where you should place the Google Home in order to get the best sound quality. The internal audio components are arranged to deliver ‘360-degree’ audio, which means it should theoretically sound the same no matter where you put it. That said, having one side of it close to a wall — about 7-10cm away — will enable the sound waves to bounce off the wall and amplify it. You should also consider where the speaker will be used most often. While the dual microphones…

IT’S EASY TO FORGET THESE OPTIONS EXIST BECAUSE THEY’RE TUCKED AWAY EVERYONE KNOWS HOW to use a web browser, but do you know about the special settings and techniques that make your browsing experience better? Safari is packed with them. One of Safari 11’s most useful additions is the ability to apply per-site settings to zoom in on pages’ contents, define whether media plays automatically, and set whether the Reader feature is invoked automatically to help you read lengthy articles. However, it’s easy to forget these options exist, and that’s exacerbated by access to them being tucked away: they’re accessed either from Safari’s eponymous menu, or by Ctrl-clicking a page’s address and choosing ‘Settings for This Website’. You may have spotted the speaker icons that appear on tabs and in…

THERE’S NO HOTTER buzzword in IT now than ‘blockchain’. Companies with ‘blockchain’ in their name are receiving massive amounts of investment money and everybody seems to want a piece of that blockchain pie, even though few people seem to actually understand what it is. Mostly, they know it has something to do with Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is the flavour of the month. So this issue, we thought we’d take a look at blockchain — what it is, and what applications it might have. WHAT IS A BLOCKCHAIN, ANYWAY? Simply put, a blockchain is a tamper-proof way of storing data. That’s it — that’s all it is. To explain it better, we need to start with the concept of a cryptographic hash. Much like a checksum, a hash is a mathematical…

PHOTOSHOP IS A vast editing program capable of amazing image transformations, but there are a number of its basic tools every photographer needs to understand. Curves is one of them, because of the many effects this single tool can achieve. Curves is an essential editing tool for photographers because of the precise control over brightness, contrast and colour it provides. Thanks to four channels, including one that covers the other three together, you have everything you need to help make your shots look their best without the need to fill up the Layers panel with multiple Adjustment Layers. Our start image is too light, and too warm in terms of the colour balance. You’ll fix both of these issues while adding a retro colour effect before boosting contrast in a…