On1 releases ON1 Photo Keyword AI

On1 has released its AI-based keyword tool.

This tool is designed to analyze what is in your photo and recommend keywords to use with that photo to add you in finding it later. Works with On1 Photo Raw and other applications like Lightroom.

I highly recommend clicking “Learn More” to see its features and its system requirements. And as with all On1 products, you can try before you buy.

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.

Luminar Neo Logo

Skylum releases Luminar Neo 1.10 and Offer

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.

Not only are they releasing the next update, but they are running one of their best sales ever this summer.

Here is the summer special offer pricing and the special gift you will get along with your purchase.

  • Luminar Neo Explore year subscription for $59 + Creative Travel Pack as a gift 
  • Luminar Neo Pro year subscription for $79 + Creative Travel Pack as a gift 
  • Luminar Neo Lifetime for $99 + Creative Travel Pack as a gift 
  • Extension pack for $149 

Affiliates like me have been given a special 10% off coupon code for this summer special so be sure to use the Luminar Neo discount code

AFS-5k66bP

at check out to get your extra 10% off.

Now what’s in the 1.10 update

  • Improvements in Extensions
    • They have made major changes to the Upscale AI extension to improve its performance. I’ve seen a few samples and can’t wait to try it out.
    • The extensions can now collapse individual Extensions panels in the Catalog view so you just see the list of titles for each so the view is not so cluttered. You expand just the extension you want to view its options
    • Interface changes for Noiseless AI, Supersharp AI, and Magic Light AI
  • Added support for additional cameras
  • You can now learn more about each tool by clicking its “i button”
  • You are now able to purchase Luminar Marketplace items directly from within Luminar. No more going from Luminar Neo to the website, and back
  • Many speed improvements in the various tool and Luminar Neo overall.
  • And of course many bug fixes for both the Mac and Windows Versions.

I’ll be downloading the update as soon as it is released on June 1st at 11 am EDT.

On1 releases On1 Photo Raw 2023.5

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.

On1 has released its next update to On1 Photo Raw on May 30th. This is a free update to existing On1 Photo Raw 2023 owners and On1 Subscribers.

What’s in the update

  • New Face Recovery Technology in Resize AI for upscaling faces with remarkable detail.
  • Upgraded raw processing for more natural shadows, fewer edge artifacts, and more responsive sliders
  • Greatly improved Refine Mask Brush for masking challenging areas like hair and trees
  • New Encircle option in the Refine Mask tool, to draw around the borders of an object when masking
  • Enhanced Mask AI for improved masking in photos of people and animals
  • New dropper tool for the Curves control in Effects
  • Zooming and panning the preview as well as adjusting tool properties such as brush size can now be accomplished simultaneously with the scroll-wheel
  • New Cameras and Lenses

Don’t forget to use my On1 Discount code of MDODD20 to get even more of a discount

There is a summer special running, but it ends on May 31st.

It’s been a while

As you can tell from the dates on my posts, it has been a while. For those that do follow me, I appreciate you still, just been an interesting year with a lot going on personally and I’ll admit, I’ve gone down a reorganization of my photos rabbit hole. More on that later.

Updates and current things with my vendor contacts

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.

Skylum

Ultimate Photography Bundle which includes:

  • Luminar Neo Lifetime license (available for new Neo users only) 
  • Luminar X Membership 1 year subscription (available for new Neo users only) 
  • 125 LUTs, Skies, Presets, and Overlays for Luminar, Photoshop, and Lightroom 
  • Full Editing Course on landscape photography from Albert Dros 
  • Portrait Fundamentals from Darlene Hildebrandt 
  • Drone Cinematography Crash Course from Stewart and Alina Carrol 
  • Luminar Neo Ultimate Editing Handbook by Rene Ledrado 
  • Creative content from Mathew Browne and Rene Ledrado 

Click on the banner for either you already own Luminar Neo or you are new to the Luminar Neo to be sent to the correct offer.

Owners who have Neo (the bundle won’t include a Neo license) – $99 instead of $820 (save 87%) 

Click the above banner for users who already own Luminar Neo

New users who don’t have Neo – $149 instead of $1019 (85% discount) 

Click the above banner for new Luminar Neo users

The offer expires on March 28, 2023, and you can use my Luminar Coupon Code of MARKDODD to get an additional discount.


On1 Software

Own it for $79.99 for new users, or upgrade for $59.99 for exiting users of On1. Note: if you are an On1 Plus Member, you already get this offer.

The offer Expires on March 30th do try my On1 Discount code of MDODD20 as it may give you an additional discount.


Mylio Photos

Current offer of a Photo Book, Photo Scanning Course gift

Get a free photo book (worth $30) and a premium video course on how to scan your photos (worth $50).


Corel Products

Corel offers a complete line of products, below are the current coupon code offerings. click the button to see the current special offers that are available to you via affliates.

Coupon Code                  DiscountProducts

10CORELSAVE                10% Off           Most Corel products, excluding CorelDRAW
20ROXIOSAVE                 20% Off           Roxio Toast and Creator Products
VSP2022SAVE10              10% Off           VideoStudio Products


Holiday offerings by vendors 2022

Black Friday/Cyber Monday/ week has passed us on for 2022 and hopefully, some of you got what are usually the best deals of the year. But it is still the holiday season and here are some vendor’s offerings.

The offers

Skylum – Luminar

From 12/16/22 to 12/26/22 Skylum is offering up to an 85% discount depending upon your option choice.

❯ Explore Plan (Luminar Neo without Extensions): $89 $275 for 12 Months of subscription+extra 3 Months for Free+Holiday Spirit bundle for Free 

❯ Pro Plan (Luminar Neo including Extensions): $99 $658 for 12 Months of subscription+extra 3 Months for Free+Holiday Spirit bundle for Free 

❯ Lifetime license:$99 $275 for Lifetime license+Holiday Spirit bundle for Free 

❯ Extensions Pack:The Extensions pack can be bought separately for $199 $383

One bonus on this offer is my Luminar coupon code is good on any of the offers, so be sure to use the coupon code of MARKDODD at checkout

Affinity products line

Affinity (AKA Serif) has released version 2 of their applications. Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher. These are great alternatives to Adobe products and can be purchased one time versus a subscription. As of this writing, they are still offering 40% off

General announcements

Capture One

Capture One is changing the production lifecycle and upgrade structure. If you are an existing Capture One user, I would recommend reading through their announcement as it has some deadlines on upgrade offers before their plan changes for perpetual licenses. more information can be found at https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/7998068628637?__s=xc6jcax4flskeehkz7od

DJI

Announce their latest in the Mavic Mini series, the Mavic Mini 3. Like the previous model, it is still under 249g so if you are just a hobbyist, this is your model. But some new features include longer standard battery life and an optional battery plus for longer flight times, higher wind resistance, new camera that does 4K HDR, and new controller purchase options.

Mylio

A reminder that Mylio has recently released a new version with many new features.

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.

Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2023

Black Friday/Cyber Week 2022

It’s that time of year again for the yearly Black Friday/Cyber Week offers from Photography vendors

The Offers

As I do every year, as I find offers during this time I’ll keep posting them on this page. This will just be just the offers. I will note that all offers have their own start and end dates. The known dates are published but click on the links to find out for sure.

Luminar Neo

Luminar Neo Black Friday

On1 Photo Raw 2023

Mylio (New version just released)

Constant Contact

Parabo Press

Tiffen

Corel, Pinnacle, and Roxio

Parallels

Bluehost

Excire

Adorama

They have constant ongoing various specials this week. Check out their site to see what is currently available.

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.

Updates for the Week of October 2nd

Since my last posting, there have been a few new announcements, a New Application and pricing changes for my affiliate apps. So let’s get into it.

Topaz Logo

As mentioned in the last post, Topaz came out with a new application this month called Topaz Photo AI.

This new app combines features you find in some of their separate apps all into one application so you are not having to go back and forth between their apps. Those features are, Sharpen, Remove Noise, and Increasing the resolution of your photos. I have not yet fully evaluated this application, but as part of its introduction, Topaz Labs is offering a limited-time discount until October 7th, 2022 of $40 off the regular price of $199. You can try it before you purchase and I recommend doing that, just be aware of the end date for the special pricing.

Skylum Logo

Skylum continues to add to their Luminar Neo Extensions and has released a new extension and has announced additional extensions due out in November.

In addition to the previously release HDR Merge extension, it just released NoiselessAI

This extension to Luminar Neo is to add you in automatically remove Noise from your photo

  • Three noise reduction adjustments: low, middle, high
  • Additional sliders to enhance Luminosity, Color, and Details
  • Manual control over your edits

The additionally announce Extensions to Luminar Neo due out in November are

  • Upscale AI – An AI-powered tool for enhancing image resolution in a natural way.
  • AI Background Removal – An AI-powered tool that automatically removes the background behind any subject.
  • Focus Stacking – Stack up to 100 photos for crisp details and greater depth of field

There are three more extensions due out by the end of the year with two announced this month for delivery in November, and one announced and delivered in December.

Pricing

Skylum has been changing its pricing structure a bit this year and, I’ll admit, it has gotten a little confusing. But in short, You can still purchase lifetime licenses of the base Luminar Neo package without the extension, and then purchase an extension pack. Or you can subscribe to their software at various levels to meet your needs and keep current with the software.

To help with some of the confusion, here is a view of their current pricing structure as of 10/22 including the newly announced Explore option which gets you the base Luminar Neo for one computer and updates.

A couple of things to note, you have the option to subscribe monthly or subscribe yearly for a reduced monthly cost.

While on this page, don’t click any of the Buy now links right away. I’ve found that if you wait a little bit you will be presented with the following

At the time of this writing, it gave you some sky packs in addition

And if you already own any Skylum products, be sure to click the link at the top right of the page to validate your special discounted pricing

Upcoming items

On1 Photo Raw 2023

On1 has announced that their next release of On1 Photo Raw 2023 will be shipping this month.

It is loaded with a ton more features one of which I’m calling content aware masking, but more to come on that this month.

Mylio Photos

The next update to Mylio is either this month or next. It will include additional features and of course bug fixes. I have an upcoming affiliate meeting with them this month so I’ll be able to give more details on that later this month

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.

This week’s photo app updates

There have been a few updates from the various apps that I’m involved with so instead of individual posts I figured I would put them all in one.

Skylum Logo Featured Image

Luminar Neo and other annoucements

Despite having a war in the home country of Skylum, these folks are still churning out updates and additional features to Luminar Neo

So their announcements are

They have added to their Luminar Neo extensions. So now, in addition to the HDR extension, they have added a Noiseless Extension. This extension will be released in August of 2022. They are working on additional extensions for the rest of this year. 5 More are coming.

They have decided not to introduce another MAJOR release this year, but to concentrate on adding functionality to Luminar Neo, mostly via Extensions. But they will also be working on application updates as well. Their new view is that they do not want to force users to upgrade to the next major release and get features that they didn’t need.

They are also introducing a Subscription model that lets users get the latest extensions and application updates as they come out. They will still have the Lifetime version available for those who may only want the core Luminar Neo features and do not need the extension.

So you now have the option to purchase a monthly subscription, an annual subscription, or a lifetime version of Luminar Neo. With the subscription options, you get all releases of Luminar Neo and all the current extensions plus those coming in the future. With the Lifetime purchase, you just get the current version of Luminar Neo without extensions and any performance updates. You will have an option to buy the extensions as a bundle.

The new purchase page lays out the new options pretty well

One other major announcement is the end of life of Luminar AI. As of September 2022, they will no longer be selling this product to concentrate on Luminar Neo. They will do support updates, but will no longer be developing new features for Luminar AI

Topaz Logo

For those that have been with me for a while, Topaz Labs let me offer you a discount coupon. They have decided that they can no longer offer that discount on a permanent basis. Periodically I can ask for a limited-time coupon code, but I have no timeline for that at the moment.

They do have something new coming out next month, but more to come on that later.

Mylio Photos

The newest version of Mylio Photos that was released back in July has already released its first update to the app. So if you haven’t already downloaded the update, make sure you do as it has bug fixes and product improvements. I’m told the next update is due within a few weeks.

I know I owe you all some tutorial videos and other steps, but my regular day job is in a busy mode right now, so I haven’t had any time. They are coming, just can’t say when yet.

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.

HDR in Luminar

Skylum adds HDR to Luminar Neo

I’m a little late to the show on this announcement, but we finally know Skylum’s plans for Aurora HDR. They are just adding HDR to Luminar Neo instead of updating Aurora HDR.

For the HDR they are adding it to Luminar Neo as their first extension option for Luminar Neo. It is not part of the main program, but an add-on that you purchase separately. This is in line with their plans to make Luminar Neo modular. This is the first step in that process.

The new extension will let you merge up to 10 exposure-bracketed images into a single HDR photo. Once your image has been merged you can then do your adjustments with the Luminar Neo tools. It gives you the same merging features you have come to expect from Aurora HDR in that it does Auto-alignment and removal of ghost objects in the image.

As before in Aurora HDR, you don’t have to use brackets, it also works on a single image.

Get the HDR Extension for Luminar Here

Some good news for Luminar Neo itself though, they are adding a new feature of Dodge & Burn has been added.

Some other updates are

● Add Tools to Favorites with visible animation on macOS
● Rotate & Flip any photo from the Catalog
● New interface for the EXIF panel
● New interface for the catalog header
● Export 8-bit and 16-bit PNG images
● Improved Spanish localization
and of course, they fixed another list of bugs.

Pricing

HDR Merge will be free for subscription users and owners of Aurora HDR 2019. It will cost $49.99 for lifetime license owners of Luminar Neo. 

So in short, If you have Luminar Neo and Aurora HDR 2019, this extension is free, if you only have Aurora HDR 2019, then you will need to purchase Luminar Neo in order to use the extension.

If you have earlier versions of Aurora HDR, this will offer you a discount on the HDR Extension price. Make sure you are logged into your Skylum account to see the possible discounts.

For a limited time, you can also get the HDR Mega Pack for free

Some starting with Mylio Tips

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.

Now that I’ve had Mylio for a week and have worked on importing my images into Mylio I thought I would give some tips based on my experiences. But as always, refer to the Mylio Manual or contact their tech support (Which has been great by the way) if you have any issues.

Importing

If you created a new folder for your Mylio Library

This is not my case so what I say here is just from my trial and error when I was testing it out.

Basically, do one import at a time. Such as one memory card at a time, or one folder of images at a time. There is a lot that Mylio is doing in the background, it is not just making a listing in your catalog, but Mylio also does some other work on your files so it is ready for the Face Recognition, De Duplicating, creating previews, creating thumbnails and putting your images on the Map to name a few that I know of

You should be ok having multiple vaults and multiple devices to start

If you choose an existing folder as your Mylio Library Folder

This is the scenario that I fall into and can give you some advise base upon my experience

After you set up Mylio you should have 2 devices, 1 being your computer and the other being your Vault where your Mylio Library is located. Be that your internal drive or external drive (PS recommend external)

You might be tempted to add your other devices right away such as your phone or another computer. HOLD OFF on doing this.

Depending upon how large your existing library of files is, the initial import into Mylio will take some time. Be prepared for that. As mentioned above, it is not just a matter of putting a listing for an image in your Mylio catalog, but many other things are done as your images are imported.

The larger your library the longer it will take. Mine for example was ~ 182000 images that take around 3 TB of space on my external drive and it took a weekend on my 2019 iMac to finish the initial import properly.

By not adding other devices to your Mylio setup until this is finished, it will speed up the process as Mylio doesn’t have to deal with the other devices during this initial import. That was part of my problem, I couldn’t help myself and I added a second vault right away along with some other devices. And as a result, my initial import took much longer as it copied information to the second vault and to my other devices along with my primary computer and vault when it was adding images to my Mylio Library catalog.

So to the point, after the setup of your computer and 1st vault, let things go until your Mylio Library is all in synced and happy, then add another device, let that sync up, then add another vault if you wish, and let that sync up, etc. Each time you add something, let that sync up completely before adding another. Non Vault devices should be pretty quick, but adding another Vault does take some time.

Once you have slowly added all your devices that you want in your Mylio environment and things sync up across all of them for this initial setup, anytime you add more images it will be much faster to sync to your vault(s) and your other devices as they are connected.

For those Mac OS folks who had been using Apple iPhotos

I have been a long-time Mac OS user and as such have some old iPhoto libraries that still have images that I wanted to import.

I discovered that Mylio didn’t recognize them when I when to add them via the option to add Mac OS, iPhoto, and Aperture option. I believe this to be the fact that these are very old libraries and in a format that Mylio does not recognize. (I have not yet confirmed this with Mylio). But I did find a workaround to make these libraries show up. It will require double the space that your iPhoto Library takes as it will make a copy.

I would open the old library, it would open the current version of Photos and start converting. When it was done and I quit photos I would see two libraries with the same name. One was the new Photos format library and an iPhoto merged library. I would go back to Mylio and choose to add the iPhoto library and low and behold, the iPhoto Merged library would show as being available. I believe that this is due to the format of the iPhoto Library being migrated to the latest iPhoto format before it was converted to a Photos library.

Doesn’t really matter to me what is happening behind the scenes, I just know with this method I can now import this very old iPhoto library into my Mylio Library

If you are a long time Mac User and have images prior to Mac OS X

I am a long time Mac User and I discovered one issue for my images that I had taken before Mac OS X (yes back in the Mac OS 9 days). Those images did not have an extension as part of the file name.

Although Mac OS X does recognize them as images, Mylio was not as it seems Mylio relies on the file extension. So I had the situation where I had images in a vault directory, but they were not showing in my Mylio catalog. This applies to any Linked folder as well.

So the work around it to give your files an extension for the type of image they are. You can do that using the Mac OS Terminal.

  • Locate your images that do not have extensions. If you have a folder that has some with an extension and some without, create a new folder in that same folder and move all the images that do not into that folder.
  • Open the Terminal Application. Found in applications -> utilities
  • type cd and add a space.
  • Drag the folder icon onto the terminal window. This will add the folder file path in the terminal window. Press return. You can also type it as well, but this is a much easier method especially for long file paths.
  • You should now be in the folder that has the images to have an extension added. Yow can confirm this by typing pwd to show the folder path. And doing an ls -l command to show the files
  • Next, you will use the following command to add a JPEG extension to your file names. Just copy and paste the below command. Pressing return after pasting to execute.
    • for i in *; do mv “$i” “$i.jpeg”; done
  • If you have tiff images, the command is similar, just a different extension in the command as shown below. Remember to press return after pasting in the terminal window to execute the command.
    • for i in *; do mv “$i” “$i.tiff”; done

If you make a mistake and accidentally add the tiff extension to Jpeg file types or vice versa, it is easily fixed.

  • Changing the extension from .tiff to .jpeg us the following command in the terminal while in the folder
    • for file in *.tiff; do mv “$file” “${file%tiff}jpeg”; done
  • Changing the extension from .jpeg to .tiff us the following command in the terminal while in the folder
    • for file in *.jpeg; do mv “$file” “${file%jpeg}tiff”; done

Of course, if you have a different extension, the above command work, you just need to change the .tiff or .jpeg to the extensions you need.

Once the extension has been added, Mylio will automatically add the images from these linked folders to your Mylio Catalog.


If you found this post and have not yet tried Mylio, click the button below to get started. You can also click it to get the subscription to add more devices or more than 5000 images that are available in the trial/free version.

By using this special link you will receive the affiliate discount offer that is only available to affilate members