Apple’s High Sierra operating system is now available, and with it comes some changes to Apple’s Phots application. Most of these were previously announced, so not much of this will probably be a surprise at this stage. However, as I’ve just upgraded my laptop, I thought I’d take it for a quick spin to see if anything stood out. I’ve only been using it for a few hours now, so I’ve probably missed a few things, but anyway, here it goes…

You may have read this already, but if you’re a mac user considering upgrading to High Sierra, and you use a Wacom Tablet, then don’t. The company has announced that the system will require a new driver and that won’t be ready until the end of October.

I’ve mentioned before about how much of a fan I am of Macphun’s Luminar, but that I prefer using as a plug-in rather than with raw files. However, there is one exception to that, and that is when I use it with DNGs created by Iridient X-Transformer. In that case the results are actually really great, so I made a little video to demonstrate.

In case you missed this on my store blog, I’m having a half price sale on some of my Lightroom Presets at the moment. In order to celebrate the arrival of Autumn, my favourite time of the year for photography, I’m reducing the price on a selection of my Lightroom Presets by half. 

Because I have written a lot on various different software applications regarding raw conversion for Fuji shooters, I often get asked what I think is the best option. This is a difficult question, as they all have their pros and cons. In the past, I have done various breakdowns explaining what I see as the advantages and disadvantages of each. I’ve tried to avoid giving my own take, as I know people’s needs and opinions are different. However, I still get regularly asked, and just today I got another request for an opinion. So here it goes…

I recently had the opportunity to borrow a friends Hasselblad, and so in order to make the most out of it, I headed to one of my favourite places in the country, Glendalough. I haven’t shot with a medium format film camera before, and I didn’t want to waste too much film, so I brought my X-Pro2 with me aswell, and actually ended up shooting most of the images on that. 

The internet has certainly helped democratise photography, as it has many other fields, but it also has its downsides, with misleading information and social issues ranging from the semi innocent to the extreme.... There's one unsavoury aspect that seems to be specific to photography, and I’m really sick of it. It’s about camera gear. In case you think you know where I’m going with this, you don’t. I’m not talking about people who like gear or are into gear, or like new technology. No, I’m talking about the people who constantly give out about the people who like gear.

Last weekend I went to one of my favourite spots in Ireland, the Glendalough National Park, which is home to some spectacular scenery and is a glacial valley in the Wicklow mountains. Along with the spectacular scenery, there was some spectacular light too. The weather was changeable, to say the least, and a continuous series of clouds and showers danced across the scenery.

The next version of AuroraHDR is now available to pre-order from MacPhun. Aurora2018 will be available for both Mac and PC and features a new interface among many other additions.

One of the first Fuji X-Trans guides that I had put out, is my “Workflow and Settings for Processing Fuji X-Trans Raw Files in Capture One”. This, while something of a mouthful, got the ball rolling. I have done my best to keep updating it with new versions as the software got updated, but at some point, it started to get messy. 

Among the several things announced by Fujifilm this morning, including the new XE-3, the company also revealed that they are working on some new software for converting raw files. The software, called “Fujifilm X Raw Studio” works in a somewhat unique way. Rather than processing your raw files on your computer, it connects to your Fuji camera and uses the cameras processor to do the conversion.

Pixelmator, which was one of the first new generation Photoshop competitors to come to the mac a few years ago (before Affinity Photo) have just announced a new version called “Pixelmator Pro” which is coming sometime this Autumn (Fall). The new version is a completely new application and it looks really interesting, for a number of reasons

Sometimes I just like to go for a walk with my camera, without intent or purpose. Just to see what one can see. This was one of those days. I set out with my Sony A6000 and Sigma 30mm lens. I didn’t really have any goals in mind. I just wanted to go for a walk and hopefully find some nice images.

Fuji Rumors has been detailing what they believe to be a major firmware update coming to the X-Pro2, possibly as soon as this week. The big feature slated to be announced is that Fuji will bring 4K video to the camera. I really hope this turns out to be true, and I will be delighted if it is the case. I do have a few other things that I would like to see along with the release too, so here is my relatively modest wish list.

I really like Capture One, but I do have one major issue with it which, has been driving me mad. It doesn’t render previews that fully represent what the final output will be like. What do I mean by this? If you are viewing an image set to fit the screen, certain things like sharpening are only approximated, and certain things like aberration correction and fringing aren’t rendered at all. In order to see these properly, you need to view the image at 1:1. There is a way around this, however, but more on that in a minute.