Memorial Weekend Photo Software info

On May 28, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn General Blog PostLeave a comment

Disclaimer: I may affiliate with a product mentioned on this page. As a result, I may receive some compensation from the vendor. This affiliation does not influence any of my commentary on any product that I may write about, nor does clicking on the affiliate links cost you anything, in fact, you may save some money.

It’s Memorial Day weekend 2021. We have made it through to the end of May and the unofficial beginning of summer. On this holiday weekend, photography and utility software vendors are offering specials on their software or soon-to-be-released products. Since there are many, I’m just going to summaries them for you here.

Luminar AI

Luminar AI just released UPDATE 3

Additions in update 3 include

Better Sky detection
Better Reflections
Better Relighting
Support for Apple M1 hardware
HEIC image format support

Get Luminar AI – Update 3

Use Luminar Coupon Code of MARKDODD to save

On Noise AI Pre-Order

This new product from On1 is separate from On1 Photo Raw and is dedicated Noise reduction software. Current owners of On1 products can pre-order at $30 off using the coupon code of “NONOISE30″ which expires May 31, 2021. It will ship in June of 2021.

Learn more about On1 Noise AI

Pre-Order On1 Noise AI

You can also try my coupon code of “MDODD20” to see which gives you the bigger discount.

Topaz Labs

Topaz labs is ever improving their products and there are several recent udpates.

DeNoise v3.1 with a new AI Model. “Severe Noise”
Video Enhance AI v2.2, which includes a brand new Comparison View
Sharpen AI v3.1 was just released, too! In this update, we’ve made big improvements to the Photoshop plugin when running natively on Apple M1 silicon

Check out all the Topaz Lab software

DeNoise 3.1 is on sale now, Save 25% until 6/4. User my Topaz Labs Coupon Code of MDPDEAL to save 15% on other Topaz Lab products.

Corel Special Offers

Discounts on a series of Corel products including the new VideoStudio Ultimate 2021, Paintshop Pro 2021 Ultimate, Painter 2021, and many others.

You can get an extra 15% off off select downloads using Coupon 15MORE

Check out the Corel Special Offers

Active Corel and Associated software Coupons

Coupon Code	Discount	Products
10CORELSAVE	10% Off	Most Corel products, excluding CorelDRAW
20ROXIOSAVE	20% Off	Roxio Toast and Creator Products
TOAST19SAVE20	20% Off	Roxio Toast 19 Products
VSP2021SAVE10	10% Off	VideoStudio Products

Capture One

Although not a holiday special it is worth mentioning.

Capture One now support’s Apple’s M1 hardware. The M1 support update is free for existing users.

Get Capture One now with Apple M1 Support

The above link goes to the trail download page, but if you end up buying use promo code “DODD” for extra savings.

A Little Bit of Locality (Artists Guild Exhibit)

On April 19, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn American Kiwi Photo, General Blog PostLeave a comment

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As a member of the Carroll County Artists Guild, I’m participating in their exhibit at the Carroll County Artists Council. A collection of works created by members of the Carroll County Artists Guild.

The exhibit is in the Tevis Gallery

at the Carroll Arts Center at 91 West Main Street Westminster, MD 21157 United States Google Map

ViewFinder Gallery Exhibit

On April 19, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn General Blog PostLeave a comment

Come see my latest Gallery exhibit at the Carroll County Arts Council. I’m sharing this exhibit with John Carter. So the above image has two of my images and two of John’s. Come to the Gallery to see whose is whose.

Located in the Community Gallery of the Carroll Arts Center at 91 West Main Street Westminster, MD 21157 United States Google Map

The show runs from Monday, May 3rd to Saturday, June 12th, 2021

The Gallery is free to visit

Luminar AI Update 2

On March 16, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn General Blog PostLeave a comment

Skylum announces a free update to Luminar AI today and includes many updated features that folks have been asking for.

Main updates

Improved SkyAI with reflections and more
Transformable Texture Overlays
Improved Templates experience
Improved camera support

SkyAI

This is the update I have been waiting for. I’ve got a series of images that I’ve always wanted to replace the sky in, but they had water in the image. Up to now, Luminar AI would replace the sky, but you would not get a matching reflection in the water. With Update 2 of Luminar AI, that is no longer an issue. But that is not the only update. In addition to reflections in water, there is also Scene relighting, relighting of humans in your image to match the scene, new sky orientation options such as Rotation and Horizontal offset, and lastly, easier sky selections. It has a much-improved image processing especially around the edges of items in your image and the sky. No more halos 🙂

On the above take note of the change in lighting on the women in the picture to match the color and tone of the sky selected. Not only on her skin, but her clothing is also changed. Like it determined that the back of her dress should be darker now since it is in the shadow.

Luminar AI Sky AI Demo — Demo of the Sky AI interface with additional options. Shows how easy it is to select and adjust.

One thing to point out on the above beach image is that the reflection on the water on the beach is not just a mirror image of the sky choose, but it adapts to the surface of the water, making changes to the perspective, ripples in the water and color matching. This is what the AI feature of Sky AI does for you.

Texture Overlays

Now supporting PNG overlays from PNG files with transparency. Updates placement tools that let you easily moving, flip, rotate, resize so you can place the overlay exactly where you want it. For those of you that like to Watermark your image and put it in a certain location, you can now do that. Now that you can easily create your own overlay you can save that overlay as it’s own template or sync it across multiple images. Again for those that WaterMark you images, you can save your WaterMark overlay as a template and apply it to any new image. Or sync the setting across your current images

Improved Template Experience

Skylum is always taking feedback on how things can be improved and this would be one area they have done that. Templates are now easier to access by improving how you find and use all the templates and your favorite, purchased, and legacy templates are all found in the main Templates tab just beneath “For this Photo”. Template group previews now show in a uniform size. Any templates purchase from the Luminar Marketplace now are automatically added to the “For This Photo” section and maybe presented by Luminar AI when suggesting enhancements if the purchased Template matches well with your photo.

More Camera’s and File Formats now supported.

New Cameras: Canon EOS R5, Canon EOS R6, EOS 850D, EOS-1D X Mark III (lossy compressed files), Fujifilm X-S10, Leica M10-R, S3, SL2-S, Nikon Z 5, Z 6 II, Z 7 II, Olympus E-M10 Mark IV, Panasonic DC-G100 / G110, DC-S5, Sony ILCE-7C (A7C), ILCE-7SM3 (A7S III) and Zeiss ZX1.
New File Formats: Lossy compressed CR3 files and Lossy compressed RAF files.

How to get the Luminar AI Update 2 details

As mentioned before, this is a free update to existing owners of Luminar AI. Use your App’s option to check for updates.

If you are running LuminarAI as a plugin with Photoshop, Lightroom Classic or Photoshop Elements, it’s also recommended you rerun the plugin installer.

If you do not yet have Luminar AI – upgrade or purchase here

“Odyssey of Light” Webinar

On February 7, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn General Blog PostLeave a comment

There is still time to sign up for this great yearly event. It is also the yearly fundraiser for the Maryland Photography Alliance. So go ahead and sign up and help support a great organization.

Costs is $35 and you get a $30 Gift card, so it is really just costing you $5 for a full day of great photography information

April 17, 2021 – 10:30 AM to 1:45 PM EST

I belong to a local camera club here in Maryland and it is one of the clubs that make up the Maryland Photography Alliance. Every year the MPA puts on a great conference as part of their yearly fundraiser activities.

This year they are going virtual with a Webinar and thus can handle a much larger audience. This has alway been a great event and I expect this year to be the same. Since it is open to the public and now can go world wide, please consider signing up.

Here are the details.

MPA’s Premier Educational Event of the Year! From the organization that brings you “Artist Spotlight”, MPA is incredibly pleased to announce that tickets are now on sale for the 2021 “Odyssey of Light” Webinar.

Internationally known photographers Nevada Wier and David duChemin will inspire and motivate photographers of all levels. Both presentations will be recorded and made available only to ticket purchasers. Nevada will present “Creativity and Travel Photography”, and David will discuss how you can create more engaging images in his presentation “The Heart of the Photograph”.

Your price for the webinar is only $35, and through Nations Photo Lab, all ticket holders will receive a $30 Gift Card. This is an unbeatable value proposition! And if your photography club is a member of MPA, you will save money on the ticket price. Your club will communicate information to you on how to obtain the discount.

“Odyssey of Light” is MPA’s only fund raiser of the year and it supports all the great programs MPA does like “Artist Spotlight” and raising money for the Maryland Food Bank. We hope you will be able to attend this exciting webinar and help support MPA!

For more information and to order tickets: CLICK HERE

Have questions: mpa@mdphotoalliance.org

“Odyssey of Light” is being sponsored this year by Canon, Capital Photography Center, Fuji, Nations Photo Lab, Nikon, Pro Master, Photographic Society of America, Service Photo, Sony and Tamron.

Luminar AI 1.0.1 is here — New editing section, bug fixes, and more

On January 25, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn General Blog PostLeave a comment

Disclaimer: I have an affiliation with one or more of the vendors mentioned on this page and as such may receive some compensation from them.

The first Luminar^AI update is here. This update is focused on bug fixes and making the editing flow easier

What’s new in version 1.0.1

The updates in this release are considered usability updates versus actual feature updates.

A better Edit Panel

In Luminar^AI 1.0.1, you’ll find a more comfortable Edit panel layout with all of the Edit tools in one list. The Essential, Creative, Portrait, and Pro tools are divided into color-coded categories, but there’s no need to switch between tabs.

In version 1.0 version, there were separate tabs that you clicked on to see the options for that group. Now each section (Group) is still there, but you just scroll down the full expanded list still organized by sections, but the options are now displayed

A new pop-up interface when clicking the Import icon

A more intuitive interface when importing photos. Just click the plus icon in the toolbar and choose whether you’d like to add a folder or add a single image.

Enhance AI is now the default

The Enhance^AI tool is now first in the Edit tools list and opens by default when you access the Edit panel.

For this photo: easily scroll through the templates

You can now use arrow keys to scroll through the AI recommended templates for this photo

A new redesigned Toning Tool

Now includes Shadows and Highlights buttons. This makes it more in line with the design of the other Luminar^AI tools

More helpful tooltips have been added throughout the software

Hover over the icons in Luminar^AI to get information on what that option does. Makes a new way to learn what each icon does within Luminar^AI

Additional Localization improvement

Localizations in French, German, and Japanese have been improved and the names of Templates in History are now localized.

And of course Bug Fixes

As with all new software, there is always things to fix. They are saying they have fixed 101 bugs with this release.

Here are just some of the highlights of fixes for Mac and Windows.

On Mac OS:

Use Cmd+Z or Undo in the Erase tool to go back one step instead of removing all previous adjustments AI
The Sky tool now shows all images in the Custom list, including images with the TIFF
Install Luminar as a plugin in Lightroom and Photoshop in a beat without duplicate files in the plugin folder
Export photos and replace existing files in folders without crashes
Move subfolders within a folder without a hitch
Use Clone & Stamp on zoomed photos and enjoy a smooth result, without any artifacts or crashes
Smoothly switch between Template previews with no more overlapping of the previous and next Templates preview
Add PNG files to your textures in the Local Masking tool

On Windows:

No more issues with working in the Edit panel, when when the screen is scaled to 150% and you’re viewing in full HD
Apply changes in the Optics tool and switch to other tools without loss of image sharpness
Experience a smooth, crash-free migration from Luminar 4 even if the Looks folder is inaccessible or TIF extension AI
Achieve a realistic background blend when adding your custom Objects in PNG format AI using Augmented Sky

How to update

This is a free update to all existing owners of Luminar^AI. To get the update, choose Check for updates in your software. For Mac OS it is located under the LuminarA^I menu on the top menu bar. For Windows, click Lumianr^AI in the left-hand corner, then choose Help > Check for Updates

Luminar^AI Manual

And if you still need help, you can always access the Luminar^AI user manual online. It is entirely searchable and downloadable

Going through older images

On January 17, 2021September 22, 2021 By Mark DoddIn Baltimore, Fells Point, General Blog Post, Inner Harbor, MarylandLeave a comment

Taking sometime this holiday weekend to take a look at some older images that I marked to edit but never got around to.

It is worth your time to go through your older images from time to time. As technology changes in photography software some of those images that you didn’t think would work may now be one of your better images. You never know.

Anyway, here is one of the images I worked on this weekend from a 2016 trip down to Fells Point in Baltimore with a photographer friend of mine. One of the early morning trips that I have taken. I’m not a morning person, so this took some dedication.