When we think of lenses, we usually think of chunks of metal or plastic with glass elements inside them. If somebody says “wooden lens” to us, we usually think of CNC or laser-cut models of lenses that don’t actually have any optical properties and are simply chunks of wood that resemble a lens. But not this time. Oh, no. This one’s a wooden lens, with glass optics that actually works. And who do you think made this lens a reality?...

Although some quite enjoyed the idea of seeing Getty get a good legal spanking for once, that is not how things are turning out. US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff has dismissed all of Carol Highsmith’s federal copyright claims. After the dismissal on October 28th, he left three of Highsmith’s state law claims intact. Those, too, have now been voluntarily dismissed after Highsmith and Getty have reached an agreement to settle the case....

While some people are training eagles to take down drones, and others are using nets, it seems there are much simpler ways to take down a drone. Daniel Eggert took no more than a roll of toilet paper and some strings to do it. And the funniest part is that he didn’t even do it on purpose. Daniel and his friend had a random discussion how much weight they can carry with their DJI Mavic Pro drone....

After Effects has grown in capability a lot since I last used it regularly. Recently, I’ve found myself needing to use it again for a few projects, so I’ve been hitting up the YouTube search to see what’s new and interesting that I might have missed in the last couple of years. During my search, I ran across the channel Jake in Motion, by motion graphics artist and educator Jake Bartlett....

Not everybody who uses Photoshop is a photographer. Some are retouchers, others simply want to learn. Even for those who are photographers, it’s not always possible to go and shoot the kinds of images you need to test out certain techniques. Especially if you’re just starting out with photography. This was the challenge faced by Kash Goudarzi and Gifton Okoronkwo. Too much of their time was being taken up by work and study, but they wanted to improve their post processing techniques....