Many of us remember the debut of NIK Tools in 1995. They were a powerful set of plugins for Photoshop that did color adjustments, created lovely black and white images, and could sharpen images and lower noise in them. Just about every photographer I knew snapped them up at $500.
Software and firmware updates are a fact of life for photographers. They don't come all that often and usually offer bug fixes or new or improved features. As a longtime Canon user, I found firmware updates easy and unintrusive. Having recently moved to a Sony a7 III, I'm rather shocked at the complexity of what should have be a simple operation.
People are constantly visiting me here in Arizona, and wanting me to point out the best places to take photos. Of course everyone wants to hit the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, and maybe Horseshoe Bend.
I've been a long-time Canon shooter, back to the film days, then a Canon 10D, 20D, 5D, and 6D. I do mostly landscape work and some nightscapes. They've been great cameras, close to state of the art at their release, and frankly, I've never needed a single repair on any of them.
Apple Aperture began with a bang in 2005 and promptly became a favorite of many professional photographers. But what began with a bang ends in a whimper, as Apple quietly issued a support document with some bad news for those few photographers who were still using it.
Skylum's Luminar 3 has been rapidly advancing with new features, and today, they've released Luminar 3.10. It's a free update for current users. This new update features significant enhancements and content-aware recognition to the software’s Accent AI filter, as well as other improvements to its Library.
I've owned lots of image de-noisers over the years. I've used external apps, Photoshop/Lightroom plugins, and I've used the noise reductions controls built into Photoshop and Lightroom. They all work to some degree, but you wind up trading noise reduction for details, and I've never found a noise reduction aid that didn't have some rather large trade-offs. Increase the noise reduction and details suffer. Preserve the details and the noise reduction is not effective. Many of you know the drill.
Late last month I did a post on my ongoing problems with Adobe and the Creative Cloud software and apps. I sometimes find Photoshop unreliable, as well as Bridge. I've also had numerous crashes with the Creative Cloud app too. There were a lot of good comments on my piece, and I also attracted some of the good folks at Adobe who were anxious to weigh in on my experience, which I welcomed.
It didn't seem like very long ago that I reviewed Luminar 3, and while I liked the editing features, I dislikes the fact that if you weren't using Luminar's "Lightroom lite" catalog feature you were stuck with it and couldn't turn it off.
Photoshop and I go way back. I had the first version in 1990, and it has served me well as a photo editor for both my landscape and deep sky work. Over the last couple of years, though, every time I use Photoshop or Lightroom in their Creative Cloud versions I can't help thinking something is wrong.
If you spend a lot of time under the night sky, you already understand the challenges: weather, setting up in the dark, and processing. Astro Panel 2.0 is a nifty Photoshop Plug-in that can automatically ease a lot of processing challenges and greatly improve your night sky photos.
I thought I'd seen iPhone camera capabilities stretched just about as far as they could go with add-on apps, but I was wrong. Focos for iOS does a bunch of interesting things, including real bokeh effects, focusing a photo after shooting it which mimics light field photography, and selective diaphragms to give you different bokeh spot effects and 3D lighting, far more powerful and sophisticated than what Apple provides.
This is a really good idea, and as far as I know it's an original one. The folks at Skylum, who have given us the Luminar and Aurora image editors, are today offering AirMagic, a Mac or PC app designed to apply AI (artificial intelligence) to any drone or aerial-based image you drop into the app, either a single image or a bunch of images. The app will be released March 21, but I got an early review copy and I'll share my impressions below.
Today, Luminar 3 has been updated to version 3.02, and the company, after glitches in version 3, is moving toward being a solid Adobe Lightroom competitor.
I do mostly outdoor photography and anyone who does this can get bitten by the night sky bug. All those beautiful stars and the dramatic Milky Way beckon, but for many beginners it seems an impossible task. They think of needing tracking mounts, ultra-long exposures, and complicated processing. The good news is, it's not all that hard to get started with a fairly modest investment.
Of course, that's not to say your photos aren't already great, but Prisma for iOS or Android is pretty amazing.
I got through the Sunday eclipse and helped a couple of friends with their first time try at eclipse imaging. It got me thinking about what I've learned over the years that might save you some time when the next one comes along.
Obsura 2 has been out for a while, but somehow I missed it. Now that I've connected to this photo app I'm happy to sing its praises.
There was quite a bit of buzz about the Arsenal Smart Camera Assistant some months ago. It's a hardware device that can plug into many DSLR or mirrorless cameras (though there are some important exceptions which I'll detail later.) It's designed to automate a lot of shooting situations, and make AI based decisions about camera settings to get you the best possible images.
I'm a big user of Content Aware Fill in Photoshop. It's hard to take a photo and not want to remove something. But if I'm shooting with my smartphone, I usually don't want to transfer an image to my computer for serious editing unless I have to. My smartphone photos are usually casual and quick, but often retouching is needed on those photos too.
