Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
Skylum software is having a Black Friday sale, and as I’m a member of their affiliate programme, if you decide to purchase Luminar or Aurora HDR it will help out keeping the lights on here, as there’s a small commission, and as the phrase goes: "every little helps". Here’s some details as to what’s on offer.
I’ve covered the topic of Raw sharpening on my blog many, many times, but every now and then I still get a snarky comment from a viewer or a reader who doesn’t understand how RAW photos work. It is usually along the lines of telling me that I’d be better off “learning to take pictures properly and get them right in camera so they don’t need to be “sharpened”. The thing is though, the reason you need to care about sharpening RAW files actually has nothing to do with whether you captured your photos properly, or whether images are “sharp” in camera or not. It’s actually to do with the way RAW files work.
I’ve written a lot about sharpening Fuji files in various pieces of software, and in fact, I have a whole guide for Capture One with details and corresponding presets. However, for some, this may be still a little too complicated, so I wanted to give you just the absolute basics. This is particularly suitable for those who may be using Capture One Express but the advice works for both express and pro versions. I fact, this advice will really work with any file.
After a few months of slowly ramping up the effort I put into it, my YouTube channel seems to be starting to gain some traction, especially with my Street Photo Diary series. I’ve just published the tenth episode on YouTube, and my channel has just crossed the 3000 mark. These two albeit minor milestones have caused me to reflect and look back on how I got to this point, and where I want to go next.
The latest update to Luminar has just been released and it contains the new “Sky Enhancer” filter which Skylum have been plugging for a little while. The feature is another of the companies AI tools and it is specifically designed to enhance skies.
As a companion to the recently published Issue 36 of Street Photo Diary, I also shot another episode of the companion video series of the same name. It’s hard to believe that I’ve done ten of these now, and when I look back, they’ve really come a long way since my first attempts. In this episode I go searching for the winter light in Dublin city with my Fuji X-Pro 2 as my main camera.
As Autumn draws to a close here in Dublin, and the first days of winter begin to take hold, the cold days have one big plus for photography: the light is absolutely gorgeous. The low sun of the northern(ish) latitude brings with it beautiful long shadows and a golden light, while the skies take on a deep hue of blue.
A little while ago I posted a video overview of the new “express” version of Capture One. That video generated a lot of interest, and I also got a lot of questions about the software. With that in mind I created a follow up video where I answered the most common questions.
When you think of photography, the idea of reverse engineering probably isn't something that immediately comes to mind. Yet the concept is actually a pretty powerful learning technique. By examining an image that inspires you and figuring out how the photographer or artist created it, you can learn a lot, perhaps even more than if you were just told the solution.
While Fujifilm has a reputation for the quality of its lenses, when it comes to its primes, they may be good, but they are expensive. At the moment, while Fuji cameras are competitive, for those on a modest budget, it’s still pretty expensive to build up a collection of lenses. In some focal lengths the cheapest options are still really expensive.
Having repaired the detached mirror on my original Canon 5D I headed out onto the streets of Dublin city to do some street photography and test out the newly repaired camera.
Today Adobe is holding it’s “Max” conference, and the company officially announced a whole bunch of updates to the various creative cloud apps. I won’t go into everything here, but the ones that interest me the most, are the updates to Lightroom and Photoshop. I’m also pretty interested in the new Premiere Rush.
I realise that I’ve been covering Capture One quite a bit lately, but that’s mainly because of the announcements around Photokina regarding its partnership with Fujifilm. However, there’s lots of other software related news and releases, and I haven’t quite kept up with it all. Skylum, in addition to launching Aurora HDR2019, has also been making some announcements regarding Luminar, all of which are pretty interesting.
With the launch of the new free version of Capture One for Fuji shooters, I figured a lot of people would be trying the software for the first time. The software can be a little confusing at first however, especially if you’re coming from Lightroom, and some of the features may be a little hidden or not work the way you think. With that in mind I created a video to give you an overview of how to use the software.
One of the many things I like about Capture One, is the way you can create some really nice monochrome images with it. I’m not sure what it is about the software, but whatever is going on behind the scenes gives black and white images a really rich black look to them. It was this that caused me to create my first set of Capture One styles: Silver Lux.
While I’ve covered quite a few photo workflow applications here on the blog over the years, especially as it pertains to Fuji processing, one of the applications that I haven’t really dealt with is Alien Skin Exposure. It’s also probably the application I get asked about the most. A new version has just been released, and so I decided to give the trial version a spin, and here are some of my initial findings. This is just a first look and is by no means a comprehensive review.
This week Phase One released a new cut down version of Capture One which is free for Fuji shooters. While it doesn’t have all of the features of the full release, it can do quite a lot, considering that it is free. If you’re a Fuji shooter, and you were looking for a Lightroom alternative, then it’s worth giving it a try. In order to evaluate this, I downgraded my full version on one of my computer to check out what was included in the express option.
While the rumours of Panasonic planning to release a new full frame camera were fairly rampant in the lead up to Photokina, I think the announcement of a partnership between Sigma, Panasonic and Leica took many by surprise. Once you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Panasonic and Leica already have a long partnership, and Leica have an existing mount and system, so using that makes a lot of sense for Panasonic. Sigma also joining this group is interesting, because it means that there will be the potential for the system to expand much more quickly than it would with just one manufacturer.
