The Decline in the Quality of Photography and the Real-world Consequences

The Decline in the Quality of Photography and the Real-world Consequences

Thomas Fitzgerald
Editorial

It's easy to get caught up in various discussion online about all things photographic, both technical and artistic. Some of these discussions are useful, but many are frankly nonsense. Some of the photography tropes that have become accepted in some quarters are doing active harm to the art of photography. The biggest of these is the notion that quality doesn’t matter. I see this over and over again, and while I’ve discussed this before, and why it does actually matter, I wanted to talk about the non-abstract real-world effects of this. The quality of photography used in professional settings is declining, and it's leading to a drop in quality of magazines and books and other publications of all types (not just photography related.)

Nordic Styles for Capture One - First Impressions Review

Nordic Styles for Capture One - First Impressions Review

Thomas Fitzgerald
Capture One

A few weeks ago Capture One launched a new style pack for the software of the same name, called “Nordic Styles”. Available in two packs, each with two styles in two variations, the stated aim of the styles is to “channel nordic light and beauty” and to “achieve elegant colour grading inspired by Scandinavian editorials.” I had a chance to try out both style packs, and in this post, is my first impressions.

Rethinking My Fujifilm Lightroom Recommendations

Rethinking My Fujifilm Lightroom Recommendations

Thomas Fitzgerald
Fuji X-Series, Lightroom

It’s been a while since I updated my recommendations for Lightroom processing of Fuji files. Since then, Lightroom has been changing quite a bit, and so, while I had planned it before but never got around to it, I’m now in the pre-production stages of re-writing my Fuji Lightroom guide. One of the big things I’m changing is how I recommend people process their Fuji files for the best results.

How to use Super Resolution with Capture One

How to use Super Resolution with Capture One

Thomas Fitzgerald
Capture One

I’ve had a few readers ask me about using Adobe’s “Super Resolution” with Capture One. I had thought that this would be a relatively straight forward process, but unfortunately it seems to be a bit more involved that I first assumed. I had speculated that you could just open a DNG file created with Super Resolution in Capture One, but for whatever reason this doesn’t seem to work properly (more on this below). So, while you can’t use the DNG files directly, you can still use a Tiff or PSD. The workflow is a little more convoluted than perhaps it needs to be, but in this post, I’ll outline my suggested way of working with Super Resolution and Capture One.

DXO “Pure Raw” Released - A New Raw Pre-Processor from DXO Labs that works with Lightroom - A First Look Review

DXO “Pure Raw” Released - A New Raw Pre-Processor from DXO Labs that works with Lightroom - A First Look Review

Thomas Fitzgerald
Software

DXO labs today announced the release of a brand new Application called “Pure Raw”. So what is “Pure Raw”? It is a RAW pre-processing application that uses the DXO engine to convert your raw files into DNGs using DXO’s demosiacing and lens correction technology, and more importantly their highly regarded Deep Prime AI based noise reduction. This results in a file that can still be edited much like a RAW file, keeping the ability to change white balance, recover highlights and so on, while taking advantage of DXOs imaging technology.

How to roundtrip a Raw file from Lightroom to any application

How to roundtrip a Raw file from Lightroom to any application

Thomas Fitzgerald
Lightroom

This is kind of a nerdy tip, but it’s actually a really useful thing to understand. Here’s the premise - you’re using Lightroom as your main way of organising your photos, but you want to use some other application to edit your raw file for whatever reason, and bring the result back into Lightroom. If you use the edit with function in Lightroom, you will only send a Tiff or PSD file rather than a RAW file, so unless the application to which you want to send it has a plug in, there isn’t an easy workflow. Or is there?

Adobe’s new “Super Resolution” in Camera RAW- What it is, what it is not, and tips for use

Adobe’s new “Super Resolution” in Camera RAW- What it is, what it is not, and tips for use

Thomas Fitzgerald
Photoshop, Software

Ever since the most recent update (at the time of writing) to Photoshop included the new “super resolution” feature in Camera Raw there has been a lot of discussion, and an equal amount of misinformation about this feature. In case you missed it, “Super Resolution” is Adobe’s new method of upscaling a file using artificial intelligence to give a superior result to previous methods. There have been some wild claims about this online, including some claims that it doubles the resolution of your camera, and that you no longer need to buy a high megapixel system, as this is just as good. In this article, we will take a look at “Super Resolution”, discuss its actual usage case, and talk about some tips on how to use it.

Free Capture One Style Brushes

Free Capture One Style Brushes

Thomas Fitzgerald
Capture One

Ever since Capture One released the 14.1 update, I’ve been playing around with the new style brushes feature, and I’m really linking it. As part fo my experimentation, I’ve been creating a few style brushes of my own, and so, I’m making these experimental brushes available for you tor download and try.

Luminar AI Update 2 Released - Features Sky AI 2.0 - Now with sky reflections

Luminar AI Update 2 Released - Features Sky AI 2.0 - Now with sky reflections

Thomas Fitzgerald
Luminar, Software

Skylum has just released the second update to Luminar AI, and this one contains quite a few changes, including one big new feature. The headline change is the addition of Sky AI 2. This had been shown during the pre-release period of Luminar AI, but never made it to the first release. It’s now here with update 2 and it’s quite impressive, but that’s not all that is included in this update.

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