This week on Photofocus, Erin Holmstead gave us some tips on how to get started with light painting, while Julie Powell gave us some great ideas on creative Halloween photoshoots! Vanelli walked us through the new Luminar 4 interface, while Bryan Esler gave us his in-depth review of the new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III. Kevin Ames capped off the week with a one-on-one interview with Skylum CEO Alex Tsepko.

Getting started with light painting - So what is light painting? It’s a photo technique where you take a very long exposure with a moving light source. This ends up creating cool laser-like effects in your image. It is fun, cool and actually pretty easy to setup. To get started you only need three things: A DSLR, something to keep your images sharp and your camera stable (like a tripod), and lastly, a light source. You want to make sure that your light source is something that you can easily move around like a flashlight. Your phone works great too, or you could try these really cool light paint brushes. :) Camera settings Next, you are going to want to make some changes to the settings of your camera. First, make sure your camera is in manual mode, and set your exposure to somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds. The longer you set your camera the more time you can run around feeling like a Jedi! Then you are going to want to change your ISO to its lowest point (usually 100). Your aperture should be set to somewhere between f/8 and f/22, depending on how much you want in focus and how much you will be moving. You also want to make sure that you manually focus before you turn off all your lights. Then you’re ready to go. The fun part Now comes the fun part! Take a picture and during your camera’s long exposure, write a word or two or draw a picture or a symbol. Basically do anything crazy that comes to your mind during that time. Just have fun! Mess around with the settings and your lights so you can really see how they work and start perfecting your light painting. There really is no right or wrong way when it comes to light painting. You can do just about anything and people will instantly think it is awesome, including your kids! Head over to my tutorial to learn how to make light painting spirals the easy way.
Luminar gets a new, clutter-free, sleek UI - By now you have seen and heard the hype about the new features added to Luminar 4 — with most new features using the power of artificial intelligence. Skies are replaced with a single click, portraits receive a quick makeover as eyes are enhanced, blemishes removed and skin retouched just by moving a few sliders. AI was added to some of our favorite tools like Structure, making it human-aware. These tools can now automatically detect people in a photo and won’t over-process them. With all these great new features, it may have been easy to overlook the new clutter-free makeover Luminar’s user interface (UI) received. If it sounds like I have an inside scoop, it should. Recently I’ve been promoted to Skylum’s Director of Education, a position I’m proud to have. Skylum has agreed to allow to continue to write for Photofocus and to stay active as a working sports and portrait photographer. This enables me to give solid practical advice as a photographer and share firsthand knowledge of the new changes to Luminar 4. Proper planning to ensure peek performance Lots of time, energy and planning went into designing the new UI. Skylum engineers were tasked to make photo editing a seamless experience so photographers can create stunning shots with less effort. This meant they had to start by studying user experience (UX) and user journeys (including screencasts and lots of feedback). They created the features and workflow of Luminar 4 based on the user’s experience — rather than make them figure out why something works the way it does. It led them to rethink the concept of filters and converted them to tools, giving them the power to solve problems and unlock creativity. Luminar’s user interface Luminar’s interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. Along the Top Toolbar are three viewing tabs; Library, Edit and Info. You can view the tab’s panel by clicking on the name of the tab. The Library view The Library view is where you explore your images. This canvas is designed to be enjoyable for browsing. It also makes it easy to rate and sort your images. Use the Library view to organize your images or to select photos for further editing. The Edit view The Edit view is where you enhance your images. You’ll access controls from three primary areas. The Toolbar contains general-purpose and frequently used functions of the software. The side panel is located to the right of the main image display; all adjustment tools, layers and the histogram can be found here. You can also save time with the Luminar Looks panel, which offers one-click presets at the bottom of the screen. The Info view The Info view provides basic information about a photo including the histogram. When the Info view is activated, the filename of the image is displayed along with basic metadata. How tools are organized for a faster workflow Tools are organized into tabs for their intended purpose, making it easy for users to locate and understand what they do. To create a faster workflow, some of the older filters from previous versions of Luminar have been combined into one tool. Now, when you need to adjust the color of an image, you can use the Color tool from Essentials. This tool combined three old filters; Saturation and Vibrance, Remove Color Cast and Hue Saturation and Luminance (HSL). With most tools, clicking Advanced Settings reveals more options. These options are used less often so tucking them away under Advanced Settings help add to the clutter-free UI. Essential tools Essential tools are some of the most frequently used in Luminar. These tools perform core adjustments that are useful for most images. These tools are a great starting point to enhance and develop your image. I usually start with AI Accent and then use the other tools as needed. Creative tools Creative tools are designed to unlock mood or emotion in an image. A wide range of choices can be used as individual tools or in combination to create new looks. I often combine the Dramatic tool with AI Structure and Detail Enhancer to create my signature Sports Grit look. Portrait tools Portrait tools are designed to enhance portraits faster than ever with revolutionary human-aware technology producing amazingly realistic results with portraits shot in a studio or outdoors. I use AI Skin Enhancer to automatically smooth skin and remove blemishes followed by Portrait Enhancer to enhance eyes, remove dark shadows under the eyes and sometimes slim the face for a more flattering portrait. Professional tools Professional tools allow complete control over images for precise adjustments. These tools offer more control for fine adjustments in an image. I use the Adjustable Gradient tool when I need to direct light or the traditional Dodge & Burn tool to hand paint where I want shadows and highlights. I try my best to avoid having to rely on these tools to fix my image, instead, I strive to use them to enhance them. Skylum’s goal is to free photographers from dull, repetitive work and allows them to focus on creating art. Luminar’s new clutter-free sleek UI is helping make this possible. Pre-order and launch details Luminar 4 has a release date of November 18, 2019. It can be pre-ordered today for $79, which comes with a bonus one-year plan to SmugMug. If you purchase through Photofocus, you’ll also receive a bundle full of Lookup Tables, training videos, skies for AI Sky Replacement and more. If you’re a current Luminar 3 or Luminar Flex subscriber, you can upgrade for $69. Upon release, Luminar 4 will retail for $89, with the upgrade available for $69. Click here to pre-order your copy of Luminar 4 and reserve the Luminar 4 Photofocus Bundle.
Olympus packs pro features into lightweight E-M5 Mark III - Early this morning, Olympus officially announced details of its upcoming OM-D E-M5 Mark III camera — the third iteration of their mid-range mirrorless micro four-thirds camera. The feature list is impressive and includes many of the specs currently seen on the E-M1 Mark II camera. If you haven’t already read our announcement piece on it, be sure to check that out for full specs. I was able to join Olympus for a press experiential event in Moab, UT, where we visited several locations to try out the camera. Places like Arches National Park provided opportunities to photograph portraits and stunning landscapes. In addition to several other landscape opportunities, I was able to test out high-action shots, portraits and still life at Red Cliffs Lodge. Below are my initial impressions of using the camera. Ergonomics and body styling The look and feel of the E-M5 Mark III have been improved quite a bit over the Mark II version. The camera feels really good in the hand, despite being pretty small. There’s an expanded thumb rest on the back of the camera, which does wonders to improve ergonomics. While the grip isn’t nearly as deep as the E-M1 Mark II or E-M1X, it’s still very comfortable and easy for anyone to hold. The top of the camera has seen the biggest transformation, with the mode dial moving from the left side to the right, matching the E-M1 Mark II. The HDR and Display buttons have been moved atop the On/Off switch. There’s also a new dedicated ISO button on the thumb rest. The body comes in two colors — silver and black. The silver color looks like a historic film camera, creating a bit of nostalgia. The camera also receives the ability to have in-body charging via USB. Hands-on performance Landscapes The E-M5 Mark III performed beautifully with landscape photography. It was able to capture the color depth quite well at Arches National Park and dealt with highlights and shadows as you’d expect. Because we often photographed with the sun overhead, there was definitely some shadow and highlight adjusting to do once home, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much detail I was able to bring back. Tripod High Res Shot was quick and worked well, too, providing a 50-megapixel JPEG or 80-megapixel RAW image. This mode takes multiple photographs and shifts them by a half pixel for each frame, resulting in a single higher megapixel image. One thing to note — High Res Shot is limited to f/8 and ISO 1600. In talking with Olympus, this limitation is due to diffraction, as smaller apertures will not provide the same results as f/8 and larger. Panasonic Lumix cameras have similar limitations. I did a bit of camera customization, too, adding bracketing to the On/Off dial on the top left of the camera. That provided me with the options I was used to and made it much easier to shoot brackets rather than searching through the menus. As an Olympus user, I’m used to the menus, but I will say they’re somewhat cumbersome. If you can create shortcuts, you’re definitely going to have a much smoother and quicker experience. Bracketing worked great, but because the mechanical shutter tops out at 6 frames per second, it was a bit trickier to get bracketed shots to line up exactly — especially given the 20-30 mph winds we were dealing with. When it came to astrophotography, we didn’t exactly luck out. The bright moon shone upon the rocks, but the clouds were certainly a distractor. Nevertheless, it provided for some interesting Live Composite photographs, including these, taken for 10 and 30 minutes, respectively. As I’ve said in past articles, Olympus’ development of the Live Composite feature is truly a standout feature for the system and one that no other camera can match. It allows you to create a very, very long exposure (up to four hours), but to only add in new light. This is perfect for things like star trails, as it only brings in what is moving, instead of adding light to the entire scene. You generate a base exposure (in this case, 10 seconds), and then it just continually adds to that every 10 seconds going forward. When there are clouds, it creates a cool staggering effect that develops over time to create its own motion-like look. Portraits I had two very different experiences making portraits at Moab. One, at Arches National Park, provided for some nice smooth sunlight given the direction I was photographing. The second location, at Red Cliffs Lodge, was a bit trickier, as there were much harsher shadows. Still, the results were phenomenal. When I took the camera indoors, in a dark room with a single lightbulb, I was surprised to see the E-M5 Mark III work as well as it did. The photos were crisp and the noise was manageable. Speaking of higher ISOs, the E-M5 Mark III features an expanded Auto ISO range, with the ability to now go up to ISO 6400. Additionally, the ISO performance was significantly better compared to the previous generation. It was identical to what I’ve experienced on the E-M1 Mark II (with the latest firmware) and E-M1X. I used a variety of lenses for the portraits, including the 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II and 45mm f/1.2 PRO lens. While the 45mm is one of my favorites, I was surprised at how well the 14-150mm performed. Even shooting at f/5.6, I was able to get a nice blurred background because I was zoomed in all the way. Action Finally, photographing action is what I was most curious about. I’m not a sports photographer, but there are certainly cases when I do need those types of skills to be present for my work. When using Silent Sequential Low, I was able to achieve 10 fps, and I used that throughout my time at the ranch. Starting out, I shot at high shutter speeds to freeze the action. The results were perfect, providing a
Skylum CEO Alex Tsepko discusses editing photos - Artificial intelligence is part of our everyday lives and is becoming part of photography as well. I had a conversation recently with Alex Tsepko, the CEO of Skylum, to hear his thoughts on AI and how it works in photography. The problem: Immense quantities of photos Kevin Ames: What do you see as the greatest challenge facing people taking pictures today? Alex Tsepko: So many different, cool people and all sorts of people around the world take photos, but then a very small percentage of these people actually edit photos and do something with them. And that was just I would say an eye-opening discovery because we always thought, “Hey, if you take a photo, you should edit it for sure.” But then editing those creative parts, those processing parts, only came to those who actually were not afraid of the photo software and they had time to spend and learn Photoshop and learn Lightroom and learn all the other pieces of the editing process. And we thought that people want to get a great image quickly or they want to just be creative with their software. Ninety percent of the photo software out there is not about the purpose of photography, are not about helping a person to create a great image, but are more about, “Let’s make a cheaper Lightroom alternative. Let’s add new features.” A new approach to photo finishing KA: Adobe is adding artificial intelligence to some of their offerings. AT: I really like what Adobe is doing in terms of user experience and how they innovate. And I was just on the stage with [Director of Product Management, Photoshop] Stephen Neilson talking about AI in photography. We are on the same page. We are on their page. They are on our page. But we look at it as a new type of approach to photo editing. In our case, we have a clear understanding of what we want to use artificial intelligence for. And we want to — on one hand, we want to speed up and automate all the boring and manual processes as much as possible so a photographer can – and when I say photographer it can be experts like yourself, amateurs like myself or a memory keeper mom from your neighborhood who is not – who does not even associate herself with the photography. Basically, anyone who loves photography and takes photos, they can focus on the creative process eliminating this manual boring part. And for making selections. Some people love it. I feel that this should be eliminated. [For example with our cars,] at some point we all moved to automatic transmissions from the manual transmissions. AI in Luminar 4 KA: What is your goal for the AI Skylum is building into Luminar 4? AT: So, for us, AI is just an opportunity to make Luminar more responsive and more creative and allow people a faster and more automated workflow so they can actually focus on achieving the result on purpose, not figuring out how the tool works. Sky Replacement, skin retouching, Structure, Sunrays, Accent AI. Basically, the tools that bring a new approach to help people edit photos themselves, now it’s a purpose-centric approach rather than a tool-centric approach. Luminar 4 — a new way of finishing photos There will be more of my conversation with Alex forthcoming. After our conversation, I opened my newly acquired beta copy of Luminar 4 to experience the “new approach to help people edit photos themselves” for myself. I opened a folder of 50-megapixel RAW files in Luminar 4. The model had chosen way too many to go through the normal retouching workflow. I wanted to put the new AI Skin Enhancer to the test. I chose the photo I wanted to edit in the filmstrip. I clicked the portrait (it’s a face) icon in the sidebar, moved the slider — a very few seconds later I saw the results. I saved it and used it as the opener for this article. That was the only work on the photo. The AI was scary good. Not perfect but extraordinarily good. The workspace is clean, simple, intuitive and it does the job Alex talked about, making editing easy. Win a whole house suite of Xpozer prints & frames Enter today for your chance to win!
Looking for ideas for Halloween-themed photoshoots? - Are you looking for some fun ideas to photograph some spooky Halloween themed shoots? Why not grab some friends — and I do mean a few. This can be thrown together quite quickly if you’re organized enough. You would be amazed at what you can create with a little thinking outside the box. Where to start Pick a date and a location. People spend so long thinking up a theme that they simply run out of time. But it’s the location and a date and time to suit everyone — that’s the key to it all. It could be a park, someone’s house or garage … or does someone own a studio? It really is amazing what can be achieved with a blank white wall and some creative thinking. A green or gray screen can really work as well. Pick your crew This may sound a little harsh, but pick your crew wisely. Pick people you like and know you can work well with is a must. But also think about people who are creative, and think on their feet. Think about who may have items that are portable and usable; lights (even a studio), backdrops and such. Limit to 10 photographers. It’s still like herding cats but any more than 10 people becomes unmanageable. On our group sessions, everyone who shoots puts money into a central fund. We limited it to $50 per photographer. We could then buy backdrops, costumes and props. We often have enough left over for sandwich platters for lunch on the day. Pick a Halloween theme This is where too many chiefs can really make things a nightmare. Pick something simple. I love to work on well-known favorites and then twist them around and make them my own; childhood fairy tales, movies and TV shows. This is also good because people often know the theme and it makes it easier to work with. Some ideas for Halloween themes include “The Addams Family” or “The Munsters,” books like “It” (Stephen King as so many), pirates, ghosts and more. Some of my past shoots have been An Addams Family Wedding, 1920s Speakeasy Gangster shoot, Goldilocks (gone bad), and Alice in Wonderland. The list really is endless. Either pick something and get everyone else excited about it, or pick two or three and put it to a vote. But have a strict deadline on the deciding day. Choose your subjects Once you have a location, a crew and a theme, it’s time to start looking at subjects. The biggest shoot I did had 10 models, which required A LOT of costumes and makeup, but was still manageable. If this is your first group project stick to three or four; ask family and friends. You would be surprised who says yes to this sort of shoot, where a normal portrait shoot they would never do. Ask on TFP Modeling sites, some people will jump at the chance to get some extra photos for their portfolio. If you regularly work with models, I am sure they are only too happy to get gory and bloody for the fun of it. If they can do their own hair and makeup or can even bring someone on board, that’s a bonus too. Select backgrounds and props There are some cheap printed vinyl backdrops available online that can hang from a standard backdrop frame. But a white wall can work just as well. With so many people as subjects and crew, get everyone to hunt around for props. Pretty much everything from “The Addams Family” shoot we found or borrowed, including the wedding dress. There are always stores that are selling off bits and pieces for Halloween parties and decorations, especially at this time of year. Having a budget to play with is a great way to collect some key pieces as well. Some great, cost-effective props include red food dye, fake blood, fake cobwebs, candles, smoke machines and dry ice. Print off creepy poison labels and stick them on old bottles and fill with colored water. Spray paint fake flowers. Even though this is not a paid or even a professional shoot, try to keep it professional. I ALWAYS have a model release. I always expect everyone to be polite and respectful on set, especially when there are so many people involved. Think of this as a fun day out with friends — a learning exercise. You can always learn something about your craft on a shoot like this, especially if you have more experienced photographers involved. Some of my favorite Halloween shoots were shot on white or black bedsheets. Just throw in a little Photoshop magic. It truly is wonderful to work on something a little bit creepy, spooky, or gory and to share with a few friends. It makes for a wonderful day.

It was a great and fun-filled week at Photofocus. We can’t wait to show you everything we see next week at PhotoPlus! Stay tuned, and don’t forget to enter our 21st Birthday Celebration!