Bold and bright color photography is a trend that continues to captivate audiences with its ability to transform ordinary scenes into vibrant works of art. Mastering this style requires a mix of thoughtful composition, lighting control, and a keen eye for detail. Heres how you can elevate your photography with bold, striking colors.The power of saturationBold photography often hinges on saturationthe intensity of colors in your image. Striking the right balance is key. Over-saturation can feel overwhelming, while undersaturation can fail to deliver the desired impact. Look for naturally vibrant scenes, such as a bustling market, a neon-lit street, or a dramatic sunset, to start experimenting. Contrasting colorsUsing complementary colors creates dynamic energy in your images. For example, pair a bright orange subject with a deep blue sky, or combine vivid pink flowers with lush green leaves. When working with contrasts, focus on maintaining balancetoo much can overpower the image, but just enough creates a harmonious and engaging photo. Lighting for color impactGood lighting is critical for bold photography. Bright, direct sunlight can enhance vibrant colors but may also create harsh shadows. For more balanced results, shoot during the golden hour or use diffused lighting to soften tones while maintaining vividness. In studio settings, colored gels can create artificial boldness, adding a unique creative touch to your work. Highlighting a focal pointBold colors work best when they emphasize a clear focal point. Whether its a brightly dressed subject, a vibrant fruit stand, or a single dramatic flower in a muted field, ensure your main subject commands attention. Use shallow depth of field to isolate the subject, letting the bold colors pop against a subdued background.Textures and patternsColors are enhanced when paired with interesting textures and patterns. Look for peeling paint on a colorful wall, the woven detail of a bright tapestry, or even the shimmer of a colorful wet pavement. These details add depth and interest, making the colors even more impactful. Advanced tips for bold photographyPlan Your Wardrobe or Props: When shooting portraits, encourage your subject to wear bold, monochromatic outfits or accessories that align with your vision.Experiment with Reflections: Use puddles, windows, or metallic surfaces to capture and enhance bold colors in unexpected ways.Seek Inspiration in Everyday Scenes: Bold colors often hide in plain sightgraffiti, urban murals, or even the produce section of a grocery store can be perfect settings. Embrace the vibrancyBold and bright photography is about making a statement and capturing the essence of a moment in its most vivid form. You can turn ordinary settings into extraordinary scenes by understanding how to work with color, light, and composition. Step outside your comfort zone, embrace the vibrancy, and let your creativity shine.Not on 500px yet? Click here to learn about Licensing with 500px.The post Transforming ordinary scenes with vibrant colors appeared first on 500px.

Developer Splash Damage has announced that it is halting development on Transformers: Reactivate. The studio took to social media platform X to make the announcement along with a statement explaining why development on the game has been stopped.Today, we have some very difficult news to share, the decision has been made to end development of Transformers: Reactivate, said the studio in its announcement.The studio goes on to explain that the game is being cancelled because Splash Damage wants to scale down its operations and focus on other projects. While details on these projects have not been given, the studio has also mentioned that this cancellation will potentially lead to some layoffs.This means we will be scaling down to refocus our efforts on other projects, it continued. Unfortunately, despite every effort, a number of roles across the studio are now potentially at risk of redundancy.Hasbro was an incredible and supportive partner throughout, and we hope to work with them again. To the many fans, your excitement and support helped keep us going.Development on Transformers: Reactivate had been going on for quite some time, since the game was originally announced back in 2022. Since then, the studio has been quiet about the game, with no new trailers having been released. Transformers: Reactivate was going to be an action game that would also feature co-op multiplayer for up to four players. Unfortunately, no other details about the game had been revealed, aside from its announcement trailer.Splash Damage is a storied studio, having worked on quite a few titles across various genres. The developer originally got started with shooters, with titles like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Brink, and Dirty Bomb. The studio would then go on to team up with Microsoft to work on Gears of War Ultimate Edition in collaboration with The Coalition, as well as turn-based tactics game Gears Tactics.An update on Transformers: Reactivate. pic.twitter.com/jGkzZ0begd Splash Damage (@splashdamage) January 8, 2025

The next Special Program livestream for miHoYos Zenless Zone Zero has been announced for January 10th. It airs at 7:30 PM PST (UTC+8) and focuses on Version 1.5, Astra-nomical Moment.The newest content coming to the free-to-play action RPG will be showcased. These include new limited five-star characters, Astra Yao and her bodyguard, Eveline Chevalier. The former is an Agent specializing in Ether damage and acting as a Support.Meanwhile, the latter is an Attack Agent who deals Fire damage. Both are the only two characters revealed from the Stars of Lyra faction. Following the events of Version 1.4, it remains to be seen how their paths will cross with protagonists Belle and Wise.Stay tuned for more details (and codes for free Polychromes) during the Special Program. Zenless Zone Zero is available for PS5, PC, iOS, and Android. Check out our review of the base game, which we praised for its combat, visual style, and music.Announcing Version 1.5 Astra-nomical Moment Special ProgramDear Proxies, Zenless Zone Zero Version 1.5 Astra-nomical Moment Special Program will start on January 10 at 19:30 (UTC+8).The Special Program will be broadcast live on our official channels. In this livestream, pic.twitter.com/zMK53Es6M7 Zenless Zone Zero (@ZZZ_EN) January 8, 2025

Developer Rebellion has revealed that its upcoming survival game, Atomfall, will not have a quest system like other open-world titles. In an interview with Games Radar, art director Ryan Greene spoke about what sets Atomfall apart from other titles with a similar premise like Fallout.According to Greene, the reason Atomfall doesnt have a quest system is because it is being made as a game that promotes investigations more than following quests. The title will have a few lines of investigation that players can take up right from the outset, with the player having to decide for themselves what path to take.Right from the outset, you can do whatever you want. You can follow whatever lines of investigation that you want. Now, given that youll be poorly equipped, some choices may lead to bad results, said Greene.He goes on to talk about how Atomfall will have more in common with stories like those from classic TV show X-Files rather than other post-apocalyptic stories like Fallout, owing to the games emphasis on players investigating the story of the game.We like to think of it as the X-Files in the Cold War Lake District, Greene explained. It can be difficult to wrap your head around what this game is. There are RPG-ish elements, but its definitely not an RPG. Atomfall is a detective game. Its a survival game. Theres weird stuff happening and you have to adapt to it. You have to talk, you have to research, and you might have to do violence.Rather than having a simpler way to track the story of the game like a quest journal and objective markers, Atomfall will instead allow players to follow different leads to uncover different mysteries. Ultimately, the players efforts will lead to them discovering the reason for the disaster that incites the games events.The freedom offered to the player will also coincide with a sense of paranoia that the game wants to instil. Players will have to deal with various investigative obstacles, such as false leads and misleading journal entries, which could potentially lead to investigative dead-ends. The game has been designed in a way, however, that would allow players to complete its story even if they kill every NPC they encounter.Theoretically, you could play through the game by killing every single character and still find enough leads to uncover a route through the game and understand whats happening, said creative director Ben Fisher.You can kill people at certain times of the game that will potentially sever a line to complete an ending, Fisher continued, but there are also routes to reconfigure some of them by talking to certain characters, making smart choices, or bartering with traders for different information.Atomfall was unveiled last year with a trailer. The post-apocalyptic survival title takes place in 1962, with the player having no memory of themselves or where they are. The studio has previously described Atomfall as being inspired by classic British sci-fi stories like Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and Day of the Triffids.Atomfall will be coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on March 27. For more details on the game, check out a trailer showcasing its setting, and details on the Deluxe Edition that provides early access for players.

Grand Games secures $30m in Series A funding roundStudio plans to expand team from 14 to more than 40 in 2025Image credit: Grand Games News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 9, 2025 Mobile studio Grand Games has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital.Existing investors Bek Ventures, Laton Ventures, and angel investor Mert Gr also participated in this round.Grand Games will use the investment to continue its expansion into global markets and to launch a new title in 2025.The studio also plans to expand its team from 14 to more than 40 this year."Istanbul is producing some of the world's finest gaming studios and within that ecosystem the founders of Grand Games stood out with their vision to create world-class genre-defining casual games that players love to play," said Balderton Capital general partner Suranga Chandratillake."The speed with which they have built a brilliant team culture and achieved success with their first two games demonstrates their talent and commitment."Grand Games raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round last July.The studio was founded in January 2024 by Bekir Batuhan, Mustafa Fırtına, and Mehmet alım

The popular open-source VLC video player was demonstrated on the floor of CES 2025 with automatic AI subtitling and translation, generated locally and offline in real time. Parent organization VideoLAN shared a video on Tuesday in which president Jean-Baptiste Kempf shows off the new feature, which uses open-source AI models to generate subtitles for videos in several languages.At the same time we have automatic translation working to translate the subtitles to your own language, Kempf says, with more than 100 languages planned for support. Whats important is that this is running on your machine locally, offline, without any cloud services. It runs directly inside the executable.AI-powered subtitling has been under development for some time in the form of a plug-in using OpenAIs speech recognition system Whisper, but this new demo appears to be built directly into the VLC app and generates translated subtitles in real time. Theres no word on when the feature will roll out.This week, VideoLAN also celebrated hitting 6 billion downloads, with Kempf boasting, The number of active users of VLC is actually growing, even in this age of streaming services.With CES 2025 still in full swing, well track VideoLAN down on the show floor to see the AI subtitling in action for ourselves.

Microsoft is holding another Xbox Developer Direct event on January 23rd. Its the third Developer Direct in a row, making it an annual look at whats ahead for Xbox for the year. Like last years event, Microsoft will provide some updates on Xbox games that are planned for release in 2025, including feature South of Midnight, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and DOOM: The Dark Ages.Microsofts teaser image for the event also includes a teaser for an unannounced brand new game Xbox game. Last years Developer Direct featured a first look at Bethesdas Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.The Xbox Developer Direct will likely follow a similar format to the last two events, with no hosts and around 45 minutes of gameplay and announcements. The Xbox Developer Direct will take place at 1PM ET / 10PM PT / 6PM UK on January 23rd and will be streamed live on onTwitchandYouTube.

The AI search engine Perplexity is launching an integration with Tripadvisor that will add more information about hotels. Now, when you search for places to stay, Perplexity will present you with a neatly organized list of hotels, alongside summaries of why it chose them using information sourced from Tripadvisor.In an example shared by Perplexity, a search for hotels in Madrid for a business trip yields a result for Hotel Regina, which the search engine says you should choose if you want a centrally located hotel in Madrid with exceptional service and a rich breakfast offering. It also displays its ratings and images from Tripadvisor as well as a list of perks, like location, service, and cleanliness.Previously, Perplexity only displayed a numbered list of hotels with their address, user rating, and features, while showing images gathered from each hotels website in its sidebar.Perplexitys Tripadvisor integration versus its old hotel format. Image: TripAdvisorRelatedFrom the Tripadvisor side, they provide an up-to-date trustworthy source of information that we sync regularly, Perplexity cofounder Johnny Ho said during an interview with The Verge. On the fly, well index and retrieve the right results depending on the user intent of the query. Perplexity, which bills itself as an answer engine rather than a search engine, plans to expand the Tripadvisor integration to include information about restaurants and experiences in the future. The AI search engine also added data from Yelp last year as part of its goal to include accurate information you can use.The change comes just weeks after ChatGPT widely rolled out its AI search engine, which now displays results from the web for certain queries. Perplexitys Tripadvisor integration is rolling out now to Perplexity on the web, but it will be available on its mobile app soon.

Marvel Rivals fans now have their first look at upcoming playable character Blade and even an idea of when hell be playable, via a fresh leak.First revealed by X/Twitter user Miller Ross, the Blade image is lifted from an in-game gallery card set to launch alongside Season 1. The image also features Ratatoskr, a giant Asgardian squirrel beast. Developer NetEase Games has yet to announce Blade as an upcoming playable character.According to the in-game lore, new villain Dracula subdues Blade and Ratatoskr, but the Fantastic Four, set to arrive with the launch of Season 1 this week, are ready to save the day.Based on this image and lore, fans are speculating that by the end of Season 1, the Fantastic Four will have defeated Dracula and saved Blade, making him available as a playable character for the launch of Season 2.Blade was leaked as an upcoming playable character ahead of this official first-look. The vampire hunter is part of a list of leaked characters that popped up even before Marvel Rivals launched in December. That list included Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm, both of which are due out with Season 1s launch on January 10.Season 2 is expected to launch in April 2025. In the shorter term, we have Marvel Rivals Season 1 global release times info, Season 1 patch notes, and official stats that reveal Marvel Rivals' pick and win rates in Quickplay and Competitive modes for Season 0.Check out IGNs Marvel Rivals Review to find out what we think. And keep an eye on the latest Marvel Rivals codes for free skins, and vote on the strongest Marvel Rivals characters in our community tier list.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Palworld developer Pocketpair just launched a game on Nintendo Switch despite The Pokmon Company and Nintendo itself suing it for patent infringement.As reported by Automaton, the real-time roguelike deck builder Overdungeon, which released five years before Palworld in 2019, was surprise-launched on Switch today, January 9, 2025. Overdungeon was previously only available on Steam.The release, especially as it's not come to PlayStation or Xbox, feels unusual given The Pokmon Company and Nintendo itself are suing Pocketpair over the wildly popular Palworld.Palworld vs. Pokmon ComparisonIGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!IGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!To start:...try asking a question that can be answered with a "Yes" or "No".000/250This open-world, multiplayer survival game was dubbed "Pokmon with guns" by fans and gained a staggering 25 million players in one month. Many drew further comparisons between it and Pokmon, claiming various Pal designs were practically direct copies of official pocket monsters.The Pokmon Company said in January 2024 that it intended "to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights" but went quiet for months after. Finally, however, in September 2024, Nintendo and The Pokmon Company announced it was suing Pocketpair.The developer didn't appear particularly deterred by the lawsuit, initially saying "we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon" before going on to release Palworld on different platforms afterwords.It later revealed the lawsuit was directed at patents that involce a catching mechanic: Pokmon are famously captured with Pokballs, and Palworld are caught with a spherical object called a Pal Sphere. It's this Nintendo and The Pokmon Company is seeking "an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages" over.Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.