Before Christmas I talked about my plans for moving to a new store platform. I had been having numerous problems, and I put them down to issues with WordPress and WooCommerce. The plan was to move to Shopify. This was in my mind the only solution, but it wasn’t something to which I was looking forward. Luckily I found a better alternative, and so here’s an update as to what’s happening.

I’ve talked about MacPhun’s Luminar here before. Specifically I discussed it in the context of the software being a new RAW converter, and I talked about the possibilities it offers. However, there’s another way to use the application, which also works really well, and that’s as a plug-in. You can use it as a plug-in for either Photoshop or Lightroom, and it offers a lot of functionality. Recently I was using it on an actual project, and so I thought that I’d discuss what I did and how I used the software.

The has been several photography related announcements at CES this year, but I think the one I am most excited about is the news that Kodak is going bring back Ektachrome. Ektachrome is a slide (positive) film made by Kodak since the 60s and is generally considered to be one of the best slide films that you could buy at the time. It was discontinued by Kodak in 2012. If you’ve seen any issue of National Geographic during that time frame you’ve probably seen Ektachrome, as it was the film of choice for many National Geographic photographers.

The creator of Iridient Developer has just released a public beta of a new product. It’s the company’s first Windows application, but it’s not a full version of Iridient Developer. Instead, it’s something that I think is even more interesting. He’s created a DNG Converter specifically for Fuji X-Trans files. 

Occasionally I like to think out loud and note down my hopes and ideas for the next version of a particular piece of software. It’s not that I think a developer might actually read this and pick up on any of these points, but more as a fun little writing exercise. In this case, I want to talk about Lightroom, and what I would like to see in an updated version this year. 

I wanted to do a look back at the photos I took for my Streets of Dublin project in 2016. I typically keep a running collection of images that I mark as five stars during the year. Now that we’re at the end of the year, that’s accumulated quite a bit, and going through it to find the “best” shots for this post hasn’t been the easiest of tasks. 

One of my photographic new year's resolutions is to take a more project-based approach to my photography this year, rather than the somewhat haphazard approach I took in 2016. With that in mind, the first idea that I came up with was to shoot the first sunrise of the new year.

I have been having a devil of a problem with Photoshop and Camera Raw for quite some time now. Basically, when opening an image, or pretty much anything that triggered the Camera Raw engine, it would take ages to load the window. I’m not talking about a minor inconvenience of a few seconds either, I’m talking about minutes. On occasion it could take up to 10 minutes to launch the Camera Raw window, which in turn would grind Photoshop to a halt. I searched online for a solution but couldn’t find one. Then, the other day, like a bolt of lightning, a possible solution occurred to me, and it seems to have solved the problem. 

On this Christmas Eve, I wanted to wish everyone a very happy holidays. Thank you for your support and readership over this past yea, and I am really grateful to you all. I hope those of you who celebrate a festive holiday this time of year enjoy a very peaceful Christmas and a happy new year, or whatever holiday you celebrate. 

Christmas is nearly here, and I wanted to finish off the year with one more Street Photo diary post. I’ve enjoyed doing this series, and I hope to do more of it next year, but I thought a Christmas themed edition would be somewhat appropriate. 

Just a quick reminder in case you missed it the other day. I’m having a Christmas sale on my digital download store. Because it’s coming up to Christmas, I’m offering 50% off everything in the store. So you can get everything from my ebooks to my Lightroom presets at half price until the end of the year

Read on for details...

One of the things that I love to do for my writing and blogging is to use small and useful little apps from independent developers. I use a lot of these tools, and they’ve become a vital part of my photo blogging workflow. Recently the developer of one such utility which I hadn’t used before asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing it, and I’m glad he did, as it’s turned out to be a very useful little application. It’s called PhotoBulk, and it’s from Eltima Software

Following on from yesterdays post about my new site design, I wanted to update you on some more important updates and changes for the new year. The first concerns my Capture One guide. The second concerns my online store, and if you’ve purchased anything from me in the past, this is an important update, so please read it when you get the chance. 

I’ve been feeling lately that my site design had been getting a little stale. What’s more, it was dictating to me how I approached my posts, and it was getting to the point where I really wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t just the design in terms of what you see but also the functionality. I was adding bits on and using some cheats to get around certain functions that the theme didn’t have, and it was starting to look dated. 

Last weekend here in Dublin, there was a special Christmas edition of the monthly Dublin flea market, and I went along with my camera (of course) to check it out. It wasn’t exactly a typical Christmas market, more of a special extra large version of the normal market for Christmas.