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
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 announces a free update to Luminar AI today and includes many updated features that folks have been asking for.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As I have mentioned before I have been going through my catalog and looking at some of my older images. This time around I took at look at an older one that I have edited and seeing if it could be improved with the latest software.
Recently Topaz upgraded their DeNoise AI program to version 2.4 and it includes an improved Low Light model. Better detail preservation through improved AI architecture and more training time.
So I thought I would give it a try on a favorite Film Days scan of an image I had.
And I think it did a great job.
I particularly wanted to bring out the bridge and mountain in the background.
Below is a comparison of the before and after of that part of the image. Notice the sharpness and detail that are now shown in the red bridge. You can see all the cross bars.
And here is the final full image. I now it is hard to tell on this small image, but I’m loving the detail in the bridge, the trees on the left and even the right. And Mount Taranaki.
Give it a try on your own image. And if you decide you want to purchase don’t forget to use the Topaz Coupon code of MDPDEAL to get 15% off the product.
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 LuminarAI update is here. This update is focused on bug fixes and making the editing flow easier
The updates in this release are considered usability updates versus actual feature updates.
In LuminarAI 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 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.
The EnhanceAI tool is now first in the Edit tools list and opens by default when you access the Edit panel.
You can now use arrow keys to scroll through the AI recommended templates for this photo
Now includes Shadows and Highlights buttons. This makes it more in line with the design of the other LuminarAI tools
Hover over the icons in LuminarAI to get information on what that option does. Makes a new way to learn what each icon does within LuminarAI
Localizations in French, German, and Japanese have been improved and the names of Templates in History are now localized.
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.
This is a free update to all existing owners of LuminarAI. To get the update, choose Check for updates in your software. For Mac OS it is located under the LuminarAI menu on the top menu bar. For Windows, click LumianrAI in the left-hand corner, then choose Help > Check for Updates
And if you still need help, you can always access the LuminarAI user manual online. It is entirely searchable and downloadable
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.
If you are considering purchasing Capture One, wither it is a subscription or thee perpetual license now is the time to do it.
On January 11th, Capture will be implementing a price increase across the board. Some increases as much as $70.
One other change will be the number of activations to 2 per license with the price increase. You currently only get 1 activation per license.
Use Coupon Code MARKDODD to save on Luminar AI
Check out my reviews of Luminar AI Part 1 – The Catalog and Part 2 – Templates. Part 3 – Editing coming soon
It includes over 600 incredible presets, LUTs, textures, and brushes to take your creativity to new heights.
Others can use the Coupon code of MDODD20 to get On1 Photo Raw 2021 with a 20% discount
Is offering 30% off all products, bundles, and upgrades sitewide from December 15 – January 1.
Click here and use Topaz Coupon Code of MDPDEAL to save 15% at checkout
Includes Nik Collection 3 by DxO and the rest of the DXO software
OK, now that you have your images in LuminarAI via the Catalog, on to the next section.
Templates in LuminarAI are what use to be called Looks in Luminar. In other programs they may be referred to as presets. But basically they all do the same thing. They are a pre-set set of settings that you can apply to your image to give it a certain look.
Getting started with Templates. Select the image you wish to work in in the Catalog, then click the Templates menu at the top of the window will bring you to the Templates view
As you can see from the above, this layout has several sections, but the default view you are brought to is the Templates with the recommended AI template collections shown at the top of the Templates menu. Below the AI Template section are other categories of Templates that you may choose to use and those include.
The top right of the window contains the Template Collection that Luminar AI has recommended based upon the photo that you had selected. In my example you will note that it recommended the “Monochrome” Template Collection as one it things I should like to try with this image. I suspect it choose this collection first since this is a Black and White image. There are additional recommended template collections to the right of the Monochrome Collection and to view those, you swipe to see the additional recommended Template collections.
The Star below the “Magic Wand“ as I’m calling it is the “My Collection” menu selector. In this section, you will see any templates that you have marked as your favorites, any that you have purchased via Luminar Marketplace, User Templates (Those that you have created yourself, Yes you can do that), and lastly, Legacy Templates. The Legacy templates are where you will find any templates you have from the previous version of Luminar that are compatible with Luminar AI. Most seem to transfer in my case, but any that use depreciated tools that are no longer in LuminarAI will not transfer and would not be shown.
I’m still deciding on my new favorites, I haven’t purchased any yet, and have yet to create any myself, but you can see I have several Legacy Templates to go through in my “My Collections” menu. I’m not sure yet if LuminarAI will use any of these in the recommended Templates yet, but I suspect not. My thinking there is the newer template collections probably have additional information as part of the collection that is used the AI when determining if it is a good fit. That and I have several templates that are shown in my Legacy Templates section that are good for Black and White images and they were not included in the recommend Template collections section. If I find out otherwise, I’ll update you here.
Once you decide on a template collection to use, you now get to choose the specific template from that collection. Each will have its own settings and a slight variation or adjustment, That’s what makes them their own template. but have the same general theme, thus the collection.
Above is the view of the Monochrome collection that was recommended for my image. In this collection there are 5 templates. To see your image with each template, all you need to do is click on each template and LuminarAI immediately applies the templates settings to your image.
Be sure to slide the adjustment slider to see if your image looks better with a bit less of this template applied. This is one feature of LuminarAI and for that matter, other Skylum programs that I’ve always liked. When you select a template, the effect is shown at 100%. I’ve often found templates that I like but I sometimes do not like the effect at 100% so I just slide the slider to the left to back it off a bit.
And if you don’t like the template applied, you can select another, or just choose the Reset Adjustment to go back to your image without adjustments. You know if a template has been applied as the name of the template will show at the bottom right of the window. If no template is applied, there will be no name listed, just a grayed out “Your Template”
And out goes without saying, you don’t have to just use the template collection that the AI recommends, There is many more template collections included and you can always use on of the templates included with them.
Now if adjusting the slider still doesn’t get you the look you want, you can still use that template as a base. Choose Edit in the template’s menu in the bottom right to see the adjustments made in this template and to make additional changes to get the look you want.
Now if you have made adjustments and really like the new look you have created and think you can use this on other images, you now have the option to save this base template with your adjustments as your own custom template. Note, the save button will only show up as being available if you have made your own adjustments. The name of the new template will be the name of the Template you used with the word Edit added. But if you go to the My Collection section and go to the User Templates section, you will now see your modified template saved in this section and you can rename it here if you want by choosing the menu on the right of the new User Template.
We will get more into the whole editing section in Part 3 of the review.
Part of the focus of LuminarAI is to make it easy to do things that use to take multiple steps or were complicated to do.
I think LuminarAI accomplishes this fairly well especially with the new AI template recommendation that is based upon it analyzing the your image and recommending which template to use. I think this recommendation is going to be very helpful to you especially if you start collecting templates. If it didn’t do this for you, you could end up going down a rabbit hole of trying to find which template may work best with your image. You could spend all your time picking a template instead of creating your work of art.. Just let LuminarAI make that selection for you and save some time.
If you are new to Photo editing, this feature will help you get the best out of your images without much work, but you don’t have to stop there. The templates are just a starting point. There is much more that this program can do for you. More on that in the Part 3 – Editing Review.
For me, I use the templates as a starting point. Either to give the overall picture a certain look before I go in and make minor adjustments, or to use as a base for creating my own custom template that I would apply to similar images.
LuminarAI is offered in a couple variations as of this writing. There is a 1 Seat and a 2 Seat version.
What is meant by Seat? In short, each seat is each single installation of LuminarAI by device. So if you want to have LuminarAI on two computers you need to purchase the 2 Seat license.
LuminarAI 1 Seat – Cost is $79 before discount.
LuminarAI 2 Seats Cost is $99 before discount.
Don’t forget to use my LuminarAI Coupon Code of MARKDODD to save an additional amount when you purchase.
There is a 30 day money back guarantee from the time of shipping, which is currently set for December 15th, 2020; so if for some reason you are not happy, you can get your money back.
Please make sure your system is up to the task by checking it against the System requirements listed at the bottom of the product page. And yes, it does work with Mac OS Big Sur. But one note: LuminarAI is not yet been certified as of this writing with the new Apple M1 chip computers. I fully expect to be, but Skylum is still doing its testing on the new M1 chip hardware.
This review is based upon a beta version of LuminarAI, Skylum’s latest photo editor. As such some things may be a little different between the version reviewed and the final released version.
I have been a long-time Skylum customer, back even to the MacPhun days, and as such, I have seen their programs evolve over time. Some things I agree with, some I do not. I hope this to be an unbias review of their latest program LuminarAI.
This is NOT an upgrade/update to Luminar 4. Despite having the base name, this is an entirely new program. Instead of just patching things in Luminar 4, Skylum made the decision to start from scratch with this new program. They, I believe, have taken the best of all their previous programs and some they acquired to make this new Photo editor that combines everything into one application.
This is NOT a cataloging program, aka DAM (Digital Asset Manager). Although you can view your images in what they have labeled a Catalog, in my option, this is more of a browser than a catalog. My view of what a catalog is is something that lets you tag, keyword, label, or add other metadata to your image. LuminarAI does not do this. There are many other programs that can serve this function well, those include Adobe Lightroom, On1, Capture One, ACDsee Photo for example.
LuminarAI is intended to be a program for everyone. It has been designed for the beginner photographer and has options to add that level of user improve their image using AI but it also has the full set of tools a more advanced photographer would want to make more finite adjustments.
As part of this, LuminarAI is taking advantage of AI (Artificial Intelligence) that will analyze your image and make adjustments with little effort on your part. This seems to be a trend in photo editors, the AI bit, and I see this as becoming the norm for all photo editors. More to come on this in the part 3 review post when we get into editing.
In order not to have it be one very long post, I’m breaking it down into several parts. Part 1 will start out with the Catalog, Part 2 will be Templates, Part 3 will be Editing/Exporting
The Catalog in LuminarAI is quite functional for its purposes of letting you view your entire photo library. This is the view you are brought to when you open the program.
For you Luminar 4 users, important note, it does not open/convert your Luminar 4 catalog. When you open LuminarAI for the first time, it will ask you to locate your images so that it can create a fresh catalog of all your images. So, this is a bit of a repeat step but is necessary as they have written the catalog file to improve performance. At first, I thought this would be a bit deal, but after thinking about it what would I rather have done, have a new catalog that is much faster at responding and have to create my Albums from scratch, or have my albums with a slower catalog view. I’d take the faster catalog,
It has default items of All Photos, On this day, Recently added, Recently Searched (although this will only show up after your first search), and Trash (contains items you have trashed in LuminarAI, but they are not yet deleted from your physical photo library). Items are added when you select Move to Luminar Trash on any image.
There is a Folder section that shows what folders you have added to LuminarAI for it to show in your Catalog view. This folders section can contain 1 or many folders, and if you subfolders, you can expand the top-level folder to show those subfolders. The Albums section is where you can create your own Albums to help you organize your images locally or any other way you would like. It doesn’t physically move the image on your computer but lets you group images together in any way you would like.
It has a built-in search function that does let you search but image or folder name, date, or extension to help find your images wither they be in a folder, Album. Once you have found your image, you can see a bit more metadata of the image by clicking the little “i” icon on the bottom left of the Luminar window to show basic metadata information about the image, such as filename and extension, the ISO, Focal length, EV, F stop, and the shutter speed of your image; the date/time, dimensions, and file size of the image; and lastly the device it was taken on including the lens.
LuminarAI is offered in a couple variations as of this writing. There is a 1 Seat and a 2 Seat version.
What is meant by Seat? In short, each seat is each single installation of LuminarAI by device. So if you want to have LuminarAI on two computers you need to purchase the 2 Seat license.
LuminarAI 1 Seat – Cost is $79 before discount.
LuminarAI 2 Seats Cost is $99 before discount.
Don’t forget to use my LuminarAI Coupon Code of MARKDODD to save an additional amount when you purchase.
There is a 30 day money back guarantee from the time of shipping, which is currently set for December 15th, 2020; so if for some reason you are not happy, you can get your money back.
Please make sure your system is up to the task by checking it against the System requirements listed at the bottom of the product page. And yes, it does work with Mac OS Big Sur. But one note: LuminarAI is not yet been certified as of this writing with the new Apple M1 chip computers. I fully expect to be, but Skylum is still doing its testing on the new M1 chip hardware.
LuminarAI Review Part 2 coming soon
