I have used many APS-C mirrorless cameras, from the diminutive Canon EOS M100 to the medium sized Samsung NX500 to the SLR like Samsung NX1 and I have loved them all. But the appeal of ‘full frame’ cameras is strong. After all, full frame must mean better pictures, surely? Sadly, not. No camera will make […]
Luminar 2018 Update – the Sky’s the Limit?
Luminar 2018 has been updated with brand new features: AI Sky Enhancer Accent AI What are they? Here’s what Skylum say about them: Luminar uses Artificial Intelligence to make the sky on your photos look incredible automatically and The Accent AI is a secret “weapon” of thousands of photographers. It analyzes your photos and applies […]
DXO PhotoLab 2 Vs Photo Ninja
A clash of titans! In my opinion, DXO PhotoLab and Photo Ninja are the best RAW converters. Others are good. But, as pure RAW converters, these two are head and shoulders above the others. Things, of course, change over time. Skylum is about to update Luminar. It’s already very good. Who knows just how good it will […]
What’s my Profile?
(You need to check that the software you are using supports custom built profiles before using these techniques.) Colour profiling It’s common practice for photographer’s who share or print their images to profile their display monitor and printer. This ensures that the print’s colour appears as it did on screen. Also, people viewing the images on their […]
Photo Ninja – Contender or Pretender?
I came across Photo Ninja when I was looking for an image noise removal program. I had used Noise Ninja many years ago, with good results, but had stopped using it because DXO is so good at removing image noise from RAW files. However, sometimes DXO doesn’t support the camera I’m using and I wondered […]
Photo software updates
The following photo processing software have recently been updated. Here are my first impressions: Topaz A.I. Gigapixel 2.0 Hot on the heels of last month’s 1.1 release, Topaz have quickly released version 2 of their image resizing application. In my previous review, I concluded that it is the best image upsizing software I had ever used. […]
A.I. Gigipixel 1.1 released.
I recently reviewed the initial release of A.I. Gigapixel and concluded it was a great Image Resize tool. Its main problems were the speed on low end graphics cards and it didn’t support many low end graphics cards at all. This new release fixes the graphics card issue – the software will now run using your PC’s CPU […]
AI Gigapixel Review – worth the cost?
Last week I received an email from Topaz Labs about their latest product, the weirdly named Topaz AI Gigapixel. They claim it to be the ‘best’ image resize tool and it utilises ‘Artistic Intelligence’. Yeah, right. I’m a fan of Topaz Labs’ products, particularly Topaz Detail, but this kind of sell puts me right off. […]
Focus Stacking with Serif Affinity Photo.
Serif Affinity Photo (AP from now on) is marketed as a genuine and very inexpensive Photoshop alternative. My initial look at it was very positive so I thought I’d present it with a focus stacking challenge to see how it measured up in actual use. Focus stacking is a technique of taking the same scene […]
Cinemagraphs – Part 1 – Single Image Animations
Cinemagraphs Cinemagraphs seem to be all the rage at the moment so here’s my take on some software that can produce them. This article deals with single image cinemagraphs, part two will look at cinemagraphs created from a video. What is a cinemagraph? A cinemagraph is either a still photo that has been made to look […]