2018-09-12: Wordless Wednesday
2018-09-03: Monochrome Monday
Wishing everyone a great week ahead!
2018-09-02: Leopards in Luminar
I mentioned in my post last week that I would concentrate on using Luminar in Windows for the balance of the month. I missed getting this posted before the end of the month, but still wanted to share the images and my thoughts on Luminar in Windows.
First off, thankfully the clone and stamp issue that I found the first time I opened my version of Luminar in Windows had been corrected once I updated the software. Basically what was happening is the clone and stamp layer would appear to work normally, but then would disappear once you clicked done on the clone and stamp module. A bit frustrating, so I am glad that is no longer an issue.
I had read in a few blogs that there were a couple fewer filters on the Windows version; I didn’t count them myself and never found I was missing a tool I wanted to use, so that’s definitely not a concern for me. The one thing I really enjoyed was using the touchscreen for creating masks; my Windows machine is a Microsoft Surface complete with the Surface Stylus. What a huge difference using that made in terms of accuracy. I never transferred my logo file to my Windows machine, so I had to open up the edited files on my Mac to add a logo and then export. I didn’t have any issues with using the files on different systems, which is a good thing as I don’t see leaving my Mac as my main editing machine any time soon, but it does mean that I can work on the road and transition to home in a fairly seamless way.
I’m going to say for my editing purposes, there really isn’t any difference between Mac and Windows for using Luminar. Others may have a different experience, but I didn’t have any issues.
I decided on leopard images as I knew I had some that had some with contrast issues, some wonky colours to deal with and an images where I would need to test the clone and stamp. And Leopards in Luminar just has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
2018-08-12: World Elephant Day
As you all know, I am just a bit partial to elephants, so I wouldn’t mind if every day were elephant day. But today is officially World Elephant Day, so it’s a great opportunity to share some images of my favourite animal.
I won’t get into a discussion on elephant population numbers, conservation challenges and the like. There are many people and groups far more informed than I that are providing that type of information. I’ll simply say that my opinion is that no one needs ivory except an elephant, and the poaching of these magnificent animals is an absolute tragedy that needs to be stopped.
I’m sure I have said this many times before, but if there was only one animal I could spend time with on an African safari, it would be the elephant.
I’ve kept with my theme for the month of August, and have continued to learn and explore the Luminar editing program and all of these images have been processed using the software. Two things I have noticed over the past week:
1) I find the spot removal tool does not work very well for larger dust spots on blue sky; it leaves behind visible traces of the spot removal that are almost more noticeable than the initial spot. I have found though that the clone stamp tool does an effective job on the larger sensor spot removal. The majority of these images were shot on my old Nikon D610, which had enormous issues with sensor spots, so this is a feature I rely on quite heavily for working on older images.
2) The luminosity mask function is quite limited on the current software version, offering no opportunity for adjusting the luminance values to dial in the mask. I use the luminosity masking function a lot when editing with On1 Photo Raw, especially as an effective way to isolate the sky to perform specific adjustments. The standard masking options also feel a bit more basic than the ones that I use with Photo Raw. For images that need that type of adjustment, I don’t think Luminar would be my first choice as a raw editor.
I’m finding that most of the editing is start to feel natural using this program, now that I have gotten a feel for what the various filters do. But coming from Lightroom and On1 Photo Raw, I’m really used to the automatic lens profile corrections, and having to manually enable and adjust that is something I haven’t yet gotten used to doing as part of my workflow. Generally speaking though, I am finding it an enjoyable program to use.
On to the images 🙂
2018-08-08: Wordless Wednesday
2018-08-05: Processing with Luminar
As I mentioned in my July in Review post, this month I am going to be exploring editing images using Luminar 2018. When I was still using Lightroom and Photoshop, I used the MacPhun plugins quite a lot (especially the Tonality plug-in) so some of the interface and working of Luminar feels familiar, but I really wanted to take a deep dive with the program and get proficient is using it and develop a workflow around it.
Just to get this out of the way, I don’t have any affiliation with Skylum, the makers of Luminar or with any of the creators of the resources I may mention or share links to. Luminar is one of several editing programs that I use, and any links that I mention are from my searches online for Luminar editing tutorials and resources. I’m including links to them in case someone else may find them useful.
In terms of resources, the most logical place to start is direct with the developer. There are loads of videos on the Skylum Youtube Channel from Getting Started videos to tutorials that deal with specific processing situations such as landscapes and portraits. I watched a few of the Problem Solving, Core Skills, Quick Knowledge and Inspiration videos when I first got the software to give me an overview of where to find things, and have just watched a few chapters from Anthony Morganti’s Mastering Luminar 2018 as a refresher, since I only used the program once since purchasing it. Over the coming week I’ll post more resources as I work through them.
I decided to work on an image that didn’t need a lot of work, just some basic refinements including removing dust spots, cropping, adding some detail and contrast, and adjusting the tone of the sky.
I sent this image to Luminar from On1 Photo Raw, selecting the “Edit the raw file option”.
The settings I used in Luminar for this image are below:
2018-07-30: Monochrome Monday
Hopefully no one is getting bored of leopards, after having a few posts in a row featuring my favourite cat.
If you missed the post from yesterday, you can check it out here, with lots more images of this beautiful cat.
Wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead.
2018-07-29: The Tamboti Leopard
Even spending a short time in the bush with a given animal, it is easy to get caught up in the drama of its life, and care how things turn out for it. Regardless how deeply I realize it is all part of nature and the circle of life, I still find myself feeling sad in hearing of the passing of an animal that I had a special sighting of.
I recently read on the Londolozi blog that the Tamboti female leopard has not been spotted in over a month, and is presumed dead. I had two sightings of her on my last trip; the first, we arrived to the riverbed moments after she stashed her cub into a new den site, missing what we thought would have been the sighting of a lifetime. We did catch a brief glimpse of her moving a cub into a deeper part of the bushes she stashed them in, and as we headed back to camp, I was happy to even have seen the briefest glimpse of a cub so tiny.
The next morning, our last on safari, after having an amazing moment with elephants we headed off on a whim back to the clump of bushes where she stashed the cubs. Our wonderful ranger Dave had an instinct that she might move the cubs again, and as we arrived, we found her with one of the cubs and were able to follow her on a long journey through the bush to her new den site, and then spend some time watching her interact with her two tiny cubs. I’ve posted about this sighting before, and you can see some other images here.
Reading that she is now presumed gone, and only her female cub remains, prompted me to edit a few more of my images to share, and to relive those wonderful moments in the bush, watching nature unfold.
2018-07-16: Monochrome Monday
A cheetah family portrait to start the week. There’s always one looking in the wrong direction… 🙂
2018-07-11: Wordless Wednesday
