KONTAKT 8 The virtual instrument platform reinvented. Imagine any sound – Kontakt lets you find it, create it, and transform it. The latest edition of our revolutionary sampling platform combines a brand-new set of intelligent tools with countless sound design options, redefining how you generate ideas and make music. A huge choice of sound. Kontakt hosts the world’s largest range of virtual instruments. With thousands of libraries, it’s the gateway to quality sound from Native Instruments, our official partners, and scores of indie developers. Plus, everything is completely tweakable, so you can make any sound your own.
A huge choice of sound Kontakt hosts the world’s largest range of virtual instruments. With thousands of libraries, it’s the gateway to quality sound from Native Instruments, our official partners, and scores of indie developers. Plus, everything is completely tweakable, so you can make any sound your own.
What’s new in Kontakt 8? Our most feature-packed release yet is here to transform the way you generate, modulate, and playback sound. Plus, it’s packed with performance updates so you can work faster than ever.
Smash writer’s block Tools add a completely new layer of creative features to get the ideas flowing. And they work with any Kontakt instrument, old and new. For our first drop, we’re launching MIDI content and randomization features with Chords and Phrases, designed to spark new ideas and get you in the zone fast.
Fast and fun loop control Leap is an ultra-fast and playful way to play and manipulate loops. Spark fresh ideas, sprinkle in expressive performance effects, or just jam. Breathe new life into your sample collection or try something totally fresh with our new Leap Expansions series, starting with 12 curated packs for specific genres and styles.
Get going with hundreds of included instruments Kontakt’s Factory Library comes packed with over hundreds of meticulously sampled instruments. Get started with a huge playable and tweakable selection of acoustic and electronic options, including the renowned collection from Orchestral Tools, plus Hybrid Keys.
Dream it, build it All your favorite Kontakt instruments are built right here. The powerful feature set makes Kontakt the first choice for instrument developers worldwide, and it just got even bigger with enhanced synth capabilities, including real-time wavetable, frequency modulation, and ring modulation oscillators.
Version 8.5.1 (Latest) 2025-07-17 BUILDER CHANGES. ADDED Komplete UI: Popover feature transitioned from Experimental to Stable FIXED Komplete UI: Arc thickness was not constrained to parent frame properties
DxO PhotoLab provides a complete set of smart assisted corrections that you can manually fine-tune at any time. Take control on every aspect of your photos: effectively remove noise, get rid of light constraints, recover color details, apply sophisticated optical corrections, and enhance details.
Reducing digital noise in RAW images is an ongoing challenge for most photo-editing software. But with DxO DeepPRIME we are breaking new ground. The first artificial intelligence-based (AI) technology of its kind, DeepPRIME enables you to demosaic and denoise images simultaneously. Try it out – the results speak for themselves.
What’s New:
What’s new DxO PhotoLab 8
Enjoy a host of upgrades including new tools and an improved workflow.
Image correction & enhancement
DxO’s pioneering Optics Modules are renowned for giving photographers the best possible performance from their gear, and are applied automatically depending on metadata. Lens softness adjustments are tailored according to the idiosyncrasies of individual lenses. They don’t simply sharpen uniformly across the entire image like in other software.
Groundbreaking denoising technologies
Noise reduction powered by machine learning. DeepPRIME, DeepPRIME XD, and DeepPRIME XD2s eliminate noise, recover detail, and improve color reproduction. Two legacy technologies — PRIME and High Quality — are included when speed is crucial. Choose the automatic settings or dial them in manually. Use the new large live preview magnifier to see the impact of denoising — plus all of your other edits.
Color rendering and fidelity
Extra-wide gamut working color space (DxO Wide Gamut) ensures accurate rendering throughout the workflow. Soft Proofing mode ensures accurate colors when preparing files for print or display. Simulate ink and paper via ICC profiles. Create calibrated color profiles using industry-standard color charts to ensure precision.
Control exposure, contrast, color & tonality
Use ColorWheel to manipulate colors and customize color channels. Adjust Exposure compensation, edit the Tone Curve (enhanced in v8), tweak Contrast and Microcontrast. Plus White Balance with color picker, Color Accentuation to set saturation/vibrancy, Black-and-white palette with channel mixer, and Selective Tone for greater control over tonal ranges.
Color rendering
As well as DxO’s camera-calibrated profiles and classic film renderings, import and apply DCP profiles, or apply color rendering from your camera. Start your editing process with DxO Styles to open up new creative possibilities.
Smart, automated tools
DxO PhotoLab contains two innovative tools to speed up your editing: DxO Smart Lighting quickly balances brightness levels between shadows and highlights. DxO Clearview Plus reduces atmospheric haze and enhances local contrast.
LUTs
Import and apply LUTs to open up endless creative color options. Choose from 32 pre-installed LUTs and set intensity.
Presets and toning
Create and share presets. Duplicate, rename, import/export presets, and organize into folders. Edit existing presets and create partial presets. Use the Style / Toning palette to apply Simple Toning (e.g., Sepia) and access Split Toning by installing DxO FilmPack.
ReTouch tool
More than just a cloning/healing tool, rotate, scale, and mirror the source area for absolute control. Edit the shape of the area to be retouched using a brush/eraser. Switch between Clone/Repair modes. Remove unwanted elements with automatic source selection (or set manually).
Crop, horizon & perspective tools
Adjust the horizon and crop images using a common or custom ratio — all automatically or manually. Adjust perspective distortion with dedicated tools: force parallels, rectangle, or 8-point guides.
Local Adjustment tools
U Point™ technology features Control Points and Control Lines for intelligent masks without the need for complex layers. Use Brush, Gradient, Eraser, and Auto Mask tools. Create complex adjustments using Hue Masks (new in v8). Toggle visibility and set opacity of masks, and duplicate/invert mask content. Set Control Point/Control Line sensitivity according to Luminance or Chrominance.
Available corrections
The corrections available as local adjustments include
Exposure, Contrast, Microcontrast
Highlights, Midtones, Shadows, Blacks
Hue, Saturation, Luminance (via ColorWheel)
Vibrancy, Saturation, Hue, Sharpness, Blur
White Balance and Tint (RAW only)
Advanced History & Quick Compare
Advanced History palette provides a full editing history including specific values and changes. Grouped corrections can be expanded when applying presets in order to track individual changes. Quick Compare Mode puts your edit alongside the original image with a vertical or horizontal split. You can compare your current image with output versions and virtual copies, or choose a reference image (new in v8).
Virtual Copies
Create Virtual Copies for multiple variations of an image without copying the RAW file. Compare quickly with the original image, and selectively copy/paste settings between images.
Customizable workspaces
Highly customizable workspace: reposition/hide panels, collapse/expand palettes, and use a search field to quickly find tools. Add your most-used tools to a favorites palette, or create custom palettes. Filter displayed corrections by category. Display only the tools actively making changes to an image. Use multiple monitors and palettes. Place the grid view navigator on a second display.
Histogram
Display RGB, individual colors, and luminosity channels. Indicate where highlights and/or shadows have been clipped. Display the RGB value of an individual pixel.
Powerful functionality, catalog-free
Don’t import images; simply browse your disk and edit your images on the fly. Select/search/filter photos with ease. Apply star ratings, color tags, pick/reject images, and choose from a range of criteria when searching, including color tags. For faster searching, simply direct PhotoLab to index specific folders.
Metadata management
Add and manage keywords, create keyword hierarchies, drag/drop keywords to organize them in a tree view list. Import and manage Exif and IPTC metadata, and selectively copy/paste metadata from one image to multiple others. Synchronize metadata changes with third-party applications.
Projects & other organizational tools
Create Projects to gather selections of images, independent of their folder. Create groups of Projects and drag/drop to organize virtual collections. Batch rename files, adjust capture time, drag files to folders to copy/move them, and sort/select files according to flexible options.
Customizable export settings
Choose the size/location of files, set up custom export presets, create multiple parallel exports, and apply original or custom ICC profile, sRGB, or Adobe RGB profiles. Right-click to export to a specific application. Send images directly to other applications. With Nik Collection installed, you have direct access to all plugins.
Watermarks
Create your own watermarks. Use both text and images together, adjust the size, opacity, blend modes, and save as presets.
Grids brings the best Instagram experience to your Mac, with Stories (first and only app that supports stories!), Direct Message and Large/Fullscreen photo and video viewing.
As featured on TheNextWeb, AppAdvice, iDownloadBlog, DigitalTrends and many others.
View Stories (pro)
Direct message (pro)
Share photos/user profiles/tags/locations via message
Enlarged view mode allows photo viewing and video playing in large or full screen
Clean, adaptive UI. Works at full screen as well as widget-sized window.
Pixel-perfect layout and rendering. Retina display support. Your Instagram photos never looked this gorgeous.
4 beautiful layout styles for the pleasure of your eyes
Picture size as well as spacing and background color can be adjusted to your liking.
Fastest Instagram browsing experience you will have!
Switch between multiple accounts seamlessly.
Like, comment, follow, search people and tags.
Show users tagged in photo
Bookmark allows you to bookmark people (without having to follow them), locations, tags and individual photos or videos (without having to like them).
Get notification when new feed is available and/or when there is new followers/likes/comments/mentions.
View latest following/news just like on your phone
What’s New:
Version 8.5.1:
Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.
Language: English, German, French, Portuguese and others. Compatibility: macOS 10.13 or later, (Apple Silicon compatible) Homepagehttp://gridsapp.net
Greater control of the authorship process with Augmented Citation Copy, Augmented Glossary, Augmented Views, Cuttings & more.
When you are ready to share your work as a PDF you get an automatically created Reference section. You can also post to WordPress.
Quick-Cite
Copy from PDF in the companion application Reader and paste as a full citation in Author
Paste the BibTex or DOI from an academic PDF to have it automatically turn into a full citation
Cite quickly and easily from Books, Web pages and YouTube videos (from specified time if desired)
Citations can easily be moved around from one document to another by clicking on the citation and choosing ‘Copy Citation’.
Advanced Automatic Export Options
Append References Section
Create Cover Page
Number Headings
Specify how citations should appear: Author Date or Author Number
Makes typed-out links live
Option to have Visual-Meta attached
Publish to WordPress: Supports multiple accounts and image attachments
Advanced Views
Dynamic View: Think freely without being constrained by the traditional columns of text. Mind map, concept map and jot down thoughts, right inside Author.
Instant Outline: Pinch on your trackpad to fold the text to see just the headings. Pinch further in or out to see more or less headings
Advanced Find: If you only want to see sentences with a specific keyword, select the keyword cmd-f to hide all the sentences which do not have the keyword will be hidden. Click on a sentence to jump to it, cmd-f again or ESC to return to the regular view.
Magic Margins: Double click in the margins (in full screen mode) to jot down any notes. If the notes are also in the document they will be bold and you can double-click to see all their occurrences. Note: These margins do not follow your document when you scroll, they are separate, to allow you to have an always-available space to jot notes–hence they are not like traditional margins
Cuttings
Everything you Cut (but not Copied) is remembered by Author. CMD-shift-v to see what you have Cut and choose what to paste
Modern & Minimalist
Makes Author fast and gives you auto saving and everything else you would expect from a modern, native macOS application including iCloud Drive (sync with Author iOS in the future)
cmd- / cmd+ to scale all the text, you cannot change the size, colour or font of specific text in Author, only make it bold and italic, since Author is a writing application, not a layout application so therefore gives you less things to unproductively fiddle with Reduces eye strain and supports native macOS Dark Mode
Including complete citation information and internal links to them. Author is minimalist but not markdown.
ESC to go into and out of full screen. It seems like a detail but is very helpful when going between focused writing and interacting with many documents.
A Liquid Product
Integrated with Reader (PDF reader): Provides instant citations through simply copying and pasting text using the Visual-Meta method as described at http://www.liquid.info/scholarly-copy.html
Integrated with Liquid actions: Provides hundreds of commands in less than one second on any selected text.
