This week, the Photofocus team landed in New York City for PhotoPlus. While there, we found some great new products! Stay tuned for our overview early next week. Here are some of our favorite articles from the week.
Is AI OK? Or is it the beginning of the end? - AI. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. These terms mean the same thing but is AI a good thing? Or is it the harbinger of the end of humanity? Science fiction becomes reality. Again … Science fiction stories often predict new technologies that become everyday necessities. Star Trek’s communicator and tricorder were devices that practically everyone in the late 60s wanted. Today those two futuristic fantasies are in everyone’s purse or pocket in the form of a smartphone. “The Terminator” movies forecast a dismal, apocalyptic future where the very existence of humanity was threatened by the AI — Skynet. Movies — “Her” and “Jexi” — suggest falling in love with AIs like Siri and Alexa. Doom or boon? This is a “Is the glass half empty or half full?” question. There are two sides to it. Many questions arise in thinking about AI: Would you trust a self-driving car? How about a jet airliner that can land itself? Do you trust the speed adjusting cruise control in newer automobiles? Do you actually believe your GPS? For each of these questions, there is a benefit and a risk. Tesla drivers have been videoed literally asleep at the wheel while their car steers them along a freeway. Spoiler alert: Modern airliners can land themselves. I often chicken out and hit the brakes before the distance ranging cruise control in my Nissan Murano kicks in. And yes. I do (for the most part) trust my GPS to take me where I want to go. Although sometimes it seems like it chooses the most convoluted route to my destination. AI is a tool Period. All of the dooms or boons above require interactions with a human before the AI can do anything. Take comfort in that. AI is only a tool that we can choose to employ or not. I have been editing photos either chemically in the darkroom during the time of film or digitally with primarily Photoshop for decades. Photofocus turns 21 this year. Photoshop celebrates 30 years this coming February, for a bit of perspective. Any more than a photo made on film was finished until it was developed, digital photographs aren’t finished out of the camera. I’ll give you that fast shots done with a smartphone for Instagram don’t get edited. On the other hand, who doesn’t at least click through the filters before pressing share? We want to edit our photos. The problem is that we take so many more than we have time to finish on the computer. AI to the rescue The game has changed. Once upon a time, models wanted one or maybe two or three photos of each outfit or headshot. No more. With social media hungry for more and more content, models want more and more finished photos to post, share and tweet. The days of investing between 15 minutes to an hour to finish an image are behind us. Well, behind me at least for social media deliverables. Yet. Sigh. The times have changed. Clients want what clients want. Putting Luminar 4 to the test Aria sent me a list of 52 picks from a recent session. 19 of them were of one outfit. Doing the minimum retouching in Photoshop — quick and dirty — would have taken an hour and a half. Would AI help make this process faster without being a second rate solution? I exported Aria’s picks as original Canon 5DSr 50 MB files, then opened the folder in Luminar 4. I had the choice to use it as a plug-in in Lightroom Classic, but decided to use it as a stand-alone processor. The total time to run the folder from opening it in Luminar 4 to setting the adjustments to outputting final files was about 5 minutes. The photos below show how well Luminar 4’s AI works in getting a lot of photo finishing done — fast! Artificial intelligence Luminar 4 style just might be the self-driving car of editing our photos. It’s good now. I can hardly wait to see how its machine learning improves going forward. Photofocus celebrates 21 years — enter to win a camera of your choice up to $3000!
I need a major data storage upgrade - OK ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to get real. I’m opening up about a delicate issue I know a lot of female photographers are experiencing as well. Yes … I’m talking about “upgrading my data assets.” Openhearted confession I’ll put my cards on the table: I’ve been rocking my own personal set up for several years and it really did make me happy back in the day. Recently, I had to face reality … this “situation” doesn’t suit my need anymore. Even my husband is going crazy about it. So here we go … Here is THE situation: I’ve always used to back up my data with multiple external hard drives. I would buy a pair, one to work on it and the second to use as a backup. Then, when both would fill up, I’d go to the store and buy another pair and so on. Three years and 12TB later, 10 drives are piled up and collecting dust in my drawer. I’m at a point where I simply can’t keep on going like that. Too small and too flat … I desperately need something bigger to hold tight my much higher volume together. What was wrong in the first place? As I was doing the research for my storage upgrade, I realized I’ve been living dangerously for the past three years without even knowing it. I didn’t know that buying cheaper material for storing my data also put it at great risk … As I was collecting more and more hard drives, a bunch of them storing my older work were not being unused on a regular basis. With little research, I learned that the longevity of the data stored could be compromised by three factors: Magnetic field breakdown, environmental conditions and mechanical failure. That meant I could plug a drive that has been sitting on my shelf for multiple months/years and it might not read my data. Talking about data. Needless to say, the more drives I got, the more difficult it became to locate older photos. I could plug and unplug up to three different hard drives just to find the folder I was looking for. I often had a hard time finding what I needed. This wasn’t anything close to what I’d call efficiency incarnate. #LivingDangerously I was carrying my hard drives on my backpack everywhere. The thing is that the advantage of using these portable devices was also their weakness. I could shock, drop or plain simply lose them at any time. Also, by plugging and unplugging the USB cable from the hard drives to my computer multiple times a day, I was fragilizing the delicate pins and the port from the device. If that port were to break, I wouldn’t have any way to get my data off of the hard drive. In fact, it has happened to me. Twice. Not only have these situations delayed my work, they have also been quite stressful as I didn’t know if a — big bucks high-priced — technician could have fixed it. I might as well say, it’s been a pain in the a$$ and I swore it would never happen again. When you’re looking to invest in something as important as storing your data, it’s no time to play with fire and go the cheap way. Your health (financial and psychological) depends on it. Looking for a perfect fit to my womanly needs I had to find a solution that would get rid of all my frustrations. Photofocus director of content Kevin Ames heard my concerns and talked to our partner, Drobo. The Drobo team covered my back (my front?? …) and sent me a pair of Drobo (a 5D3 and a 5C) to review as part of their newest campaign. My business is growing and so are my storage needs. With over 12TB of precious data, folders and pictures, I have to make sure my hard work is safe and that I can access all of it without going crazy. Can a pair of Drobo fulfill my legitimate, increasing volume needs? In my second article, I’ll share how my life changes as I incorporate these new assets into my daily routine. Will it make me happier and more confident? Will it magically solve all my problems? Stay tuned for more on my quest for the perfect fit.
DxO launches PhotoLab 3 with new color tools - This morning, DxO announced PhotoLab 3, the latest version to its flagship software. The upgrade features several optimizations to the software, including a redesigned HSL color adjustment feature, improvements to the Repair tool and brand-new Local Adjustments Mask Manager. Additionally, the software introduces keywords, allowing users to import existing keywords from other programs as well as search by them. Focus on color The new HSL tool (Hue, Saturation and Luminance) offers more control than ever to produce more natural-looking and creative images. It features a new color adjustment mode based on a chromatic circle called the DxO ColorWheel. The ColorWheel allows you to select a color range from eight channels and fine-tune the value. You can also select a replacement color and adjust transitions for a more natural look. A new Uniformity setting also lets you adjust color variations within a specific range. Finally, the Saturation and Luminance sliders now operate more independently, providing more flexibility. This is particularly useful when converting images to black and white. “With the DxO ColorWheel, we were looking to create a new approach that could make color management both flexible and fun,” said Jean-Marc Alexia, VP Marketing & Product Strategy. “This tool is incredibly user friendly.” Improved Repair tool The Repair tool — which acts as a brush that can erase unwanted elements from an image — has also been updated. You can now manually reposition the area in the source image that you want to use to reconstruct an area in the image being edited. PhotoLab 3 also offers Clone Mode, allowing you to directly replace the area you are editing. Feathering and opacity can also be adjusted in both modes. New Local Adjustments Mask Manager The new Local Adjustments palette lets you manage local correction masks that have been layered within a single image. This allows you to make them visible, mask them or adjust their opacity on an individual basis. You can also reverse the selected mask with a single click. Keywords PhotoLab 3 now offers keyword management and optimizes image organization all the way up to export. Keywords associated with an image can now be displayed in the interface, including when they are imported from other programs. You can add, delete or rename keywords for one or multiple images simultaneously, as well as include them in multi-criteria searches (macOS only upon launch; will be available on Windows at a future date). The software also allows more complete information and metadata display options, as well as additional Projects management options. Camera support Finally, PhotoLab 3 has added several new cameras to the list of what the software supports. This includes the following: Canon: G5 X Mark II, G7 X Mark III Nikon: P1000 Panasonic Lumix: DC-G90/G95/G99/G91, FZ1000 II, TZ95/ZS80 Ricoh: GR III Sony: A7R IV, RX100 VII De-noising capabilities have also been improved with certain Canon and Olympus cameras as well. Pricing and availability DxO PhotoLab 3 for Windows and Mac will be available until November 24, 2019 for $99.99 (Essential Edition) or $149.99 (Elite Edition). After that date, pricing will increase to $129 and $199, respectively. The Essential Edition allows users to install on two computers, while the Elite Edition allows for installation on three machines. Photographers with a license for DxO Optics Pro or DxO PhotoLab 2 can purchase an upgrade license by signing into their customer account on dxo.com. For more information and to download a free trial of DxO PhotoLab 3, visit dxo.com.
“What do I like about this picture?” Photographing and finishing with purpose - The first thing you should do when you start to make a landscape photo is to ask yourself, “What do I like about this picture?” The answer will guide you when you make the picture with the camera, and it will guide you when you finish the picture on your computer. Let me show you what I mean. Standing in the clouds I made this photograph last week while teaching at the Out of Oregon conference. My students and I were standing on a high ridge hoping to find clouds filling the valley below us, and we were lucky enough that it was. As the temperature rises with the sun the clouds begin to flow through the valleys and the scene is constantly changing until it warms enough that all the clouds are gone. We stood there amazed, shifting our compositions continuously to try to record the feeling of being there. When I asked myself, “What do I like about this picture?” it was easy to pinpoint. I liked the trees poking up through the mist, all the texture of the clouds as they moved through the trees, and I liked the subtle color changes as the sun rose. When I looked at this picture, I wanted to imagine how it would feel to stand in those trees as the clouds flowed around me. Finessing the clouds These clouds require finesse. If you trust your camera’s light meter, it’ll tell you that this picture is too bright and will have you underexpose it. That’s because the camera can’t tell the difference between colors and tones. It sees white and thinks it’s too bright. It likes things to be nice and gray. You should normally override the light meter’s idea and make this scene brighter. But in this case, trusting the light meter isn’t a bad idea. All that texture in the clouds is only recorded if the exposure isn’t too bright. Since I knew that I could brighten this picture in post-production, I underexposed it about 2/3 of a stop to keep the detail and color in the clouds. Knowing what your finishing tools can do is essential to knowing what to do in the camera. It would have been better if I had stopped the aperture down a stop or two to ensure maximum sharpness, but I was also balancing the ISO to be as low as possible. These were the settings on my Lumix G9 with 100-400mm lens: f/5.6, 1/250s and ISO 320 all mounted on a tripod. One and done …? No way. I did not shoot just one frame. With the scene constantly shifting, I constantly shifted my camera to take advantage of new revelations in the mist. In fact, I like this picture a lot, but I’m not even sure it’s the best one from that morning because I haven’t looked through all of them yet. Don’t be shy about shooting more compositions. The chances that you nailed it on the first setup are pretty slim. Shoot it again, but move the camera and try something a little different. Retouch with restraint Finishing a picture is challenging: There’s so much you can do with Photoshop, Lightroom, Luminar, ON1 and Topaz — how do you not get lost in the options? The key is to let that original question guide you. “What do I like about this picture?” Because you identified it when you made the picture in the first place, it can guide you through your finishing efforts. My vision for this photo wanted it to remain misty and gentle with detail in the clouds and the subtle color shifts. Because I know a lot about what my tools can do, I chose to use Luminar for its marvelous color tools. I know Photoshop can do the stuff I need, but I don’t know how to do it in Photoshop. Luminar’s easy menus and slider-based adjustments make it simple to get great results. Gentle contrasts This picture is all about the difference between light and dark and the difference between cool and warm. These contrasts are gentle, though. In the Essentials pallet, I used the controls in the Light tab to pull the Highlights down and increase the Whites. I also nudged the Shadows down a little. Next, I used the Pro pallet’s Advanced Contrast controls. These helped me show the detail in the clouds and in the trees. Punch and impact come from increasing the contrast, but these tools let you do it very precisely so that you don’t just end up with black trees on white clouds. They also set the stage for color adjustments. The sky is blue and shines a blue light on everything. The sun is brighter than the sky and covers its blue light with the warm tones of sunrise. As the sunrises, the blue and orange colors battle to fill the scene. The Color Enhancer emphasized both colors and that contrast is really powerful. But I wanted to guide my viewers to the center island of trees so I edited the mask and painted the Color Enhancer only on that area with a soft-edged brush. Areas of increased color and tone contrast draw your eye when you look at a picture. A good start Just as I’m not sure this is my favorite from that morning, I’m also not sure I’m done finishing this photo. It looks good to me now. I see the feelings of being there. The clouds are shifting and inconstant. They are chilly, but as the sun rises the whole world warms. The trees on the island in the middle have matured since their last harvesting, while the dense trees in the foreground are much younger. Everything changes and shifts — including my skills and opinions on retouching. Maybe I’ll change this picture another day, but for now, the question I asked myself on the ridge-top has a pleasing answer.
Creative lighting for your pumpkins - Whether you are photographing pumpkins for fall, Halloween or even Thanksgiving, it’s easy to get creative with lighting for your pumpkins. Halloween spooky Want something a little dark and dramatic, possibly even spooky try a beauty dish on the lowest setting, but at least 5-6 feet away (2 meters). This creates deep shadows and soft highlights. I also added some candles as ambient light as well. The fake cobwebs and spiders together with the skeleton cat create a spooky Halloween-style image. The lighting is basically Rembrandt lighting, but with deep shadows and no reflected light. Dark & moody fall creative lighting for your pumpkins If you are looking for something a little dark and moody to celebrate fall, try shooting in the shadows. A super creative effect is to light a small scene (it will not work so well with a bigger scene) with a candle and use a reflector to bounce a little light back into your scene. It’s kind of like the old-style lamps that used to expand the light from the candle by reflecting it on shiny surfaces. There is also some ambient light in the room, but the reflector was blocking any natural light from directly touching the image. Even in natural light, you can stick to the shadows to create soft shadows and a flat highlight. I have an area behind my house which has the most wonderful light in the afternoon and lots of junk; old ladders, work tables and such, great for creating some simple country-style fall images. Soft & dreamy Soft diffused natural light is best to achieve a soft and dreamy look. Whether it’s a fall celebration look or a Thanksgiving dinner, set the scene with some sheer curtains placed in front of a window and place your table in front of it. The play of light and shadow through the sheer curtains can make for lovely soft images, with some added interest. In the pulled-back behind-the-scenes shots, I used a silver reflector (camera left) to bounce some more light back into the shadows of my scene. This really is a must when shooting into natural light (behind your scene) as it can cause unwanted shadows on the front of your scene with this reflected light. Of course, if you want to increase the moodiness and keep the shadows, simply remove the reflector. Mix things up How about those cheap LED lights on a copper wire? They can add some cool illumination to your pumpkins and scene. Don’t forget that the pumpkin does NOT have to be the star attraction. It can be secondary, adding an overall feel to the story you are trying to capture. I even fed the LED on a copper wire into a vase and used that to add subtle lighting. A bit of a twist on the Jack-o’-lantern. Whichever way you use creative lighting to photograph your pumpkins this fall, have some fun with it. Especially if it’s spooky Halloween Jack-o’-lanterns.
