Thomas is a professional fine art photographer and writer specialising in photography related instructional books as well as travel writing and street photography.
In my latest YouTube tutorial, I demonstrate how to use the mask tool to create a custom vignette effect behind your subject, adding subtle drama to the background while preserving the subject's integrity. The video also shows you how to create a time-saving smart preset for future edits.
On rare occasions, you might encounter the need to update an AI mask in Lightroom, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a direct way to do so. For instance, if you use DXO Pure Raw and apply an AI mask to an image, since Pure Raw employs its own distortion correction algorithm, the mask may become misaligned when the file is returned to Lightroom. This issue can occur with any software that manipulates the raw file while preserving edits.
In this video, I’ll show you a quick trick to fix perspective distortion in Lightroom that the Auto function in the upright tool can’t handle. Sometimes, especially when you have objects near the edge of the screen, especially if they’re circular, even with the upright tool, you can still get a bit of a distortion. But with this trick, you’ll be able to get rid of it!
As many of my long-term followers have probably noted, I haven’t posted nearly as much in this past year as I have previously. While my blogging has been tapering off for a while, 2024 was undoubtedly my least productive. In this post, I wanted to touch on that a little bit as well as cover some of the more positive things from the past year too. I also wanted to share some photos and other tales that I never got to share in 2024. This will probably be a long post, so buckle up, or maybe get some coffee!
As Christmas is almost here, and the year comes to an end, I just wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who’s been following along, reading my posts this year. Whether you’ve been a loyal reader for years or just recently discovered this blog, your support means the world to me.
DXO has announced its latest round of Optics Modules for use across the DXO line of software including PureRaw and PhotoLab. This month’s release brings 957 new lens and camera combinations, with the total combinations now supported by DXO software 99,163!
Much of the photography content online is created by photographers for other photographers, which works well for building communities but limits its broader appeal. If you want your work to reach a wider audience, it’s worth rethinking who your content is really for.
Ever since it was announced that Apple was buying Pixelmator, I’ve been kind of obsessed with PhotoMator, the company’s Lightroom competitor. I actually had the software on my iPad for a long time but I never really used it that much. However, since the acquisition was announced I’ve been trying it more and more on my Mac, and I have to say it’s a really interesting application. It has some really nice features and its incredibly fast and responsive. Unfortunately, it is lacking some keys features which currently hold it back. Some of these you can work around but others are more problematic. But in my opinion it really has potential. In this post I’ll look at what you can do now to get around the shortcomings, and what Apple really needs to do to make the software more competitive.
Here’s a very quick Lightroom tip for you. I was recently processing some Autumn images, and as I was doing some colour grading to enhance the glow of the Autumn/Winter light it occurred to me that there was a feature that people may have missed. That tool is the global Colour Grading tool.
DxO has announced its Black Friday discounts for 2024, offering up to 50% off its range of photo editing software. The deals run from November 22 through December 2, 2024, and apply to both new purchases and upgrades across all major products. Here’s a summary of the available discounts:
In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s been a bit of a sea change in the world of social media platforms recently. Now, at first, you may think, what has this to do with photography? Well, as many artists and photographers use social media to promote their content, I wanted to take a quick look at the changing order of things, and keep you up to date on where I’m posting.
I’m a little late with this one, but in case you missed it, Apple has bought the popular Mac and iPadOS photography app, Pixelmator. Or more to the point, they bought the company that makes Pixelmator. This could be a big deal, depending on what Apple ends up doing with the company and its software. It immediately gives Apple a missing piece of its professional apps puzzle that it’s been lacking ever since the company killed Aperture: a more pro level photo application.
Well, almost.
Long-time readers of the blog will know that I have long been a proponent of Capture One, but lately, I haven’t talked about it much. That’s because, to be honest, I haven’t been using it that much lately. This is due to numerous reasons, which I’ll get into in a later post, but it’s mainly due to the performance issues on 4k displays, and the crazy licence changes from a while ago. That said, I still keep an eye on development and try any new versions when they come out. Recently, Capture One released version 16.5, and it has a few new features, one of which stands out above all others. That feature is the new “Match Look” tool.
As a photographer who has used and written about a variety of software tools over the years, I have often been asked about ON1 Photo RAW. It's been some time since I last explored it and I didn’t have a particularly good experience with it in the past. However, with the release of ON1 Photo RAW 2025, the company asked me to give it another shot, so I’ve been trying the previous version and I’m happy that it’s much improved since the early days. This latest version promises significant updates, particularly around the use of AI for enhancing the editing experience. When I have had enough time to try it properly I’ll try and do a full review, but for now, here’s a breakdown of what’s new in this release.
Recently, I’ve been on sort of a Landscape and nature photography kick, so on a recent weekend, we headed to one of my favourite places to photograph on the east coast of Ireland, a place called Glendalough. I had posted the video of this a while ago, and I’m finally getting around to sharing the corresponding photographs. Click through to see the full photoshoot
DxO Labs has announced the release of DxO ViewPoint 5, an updated version of their specialised photo editing software. This tool is designed for photographers who need precise control over image geometry, perspective correction, and the effects of wide-angle lenses.
Adobe has just held its annual adobe MAX conference, and as part of the event it announced a slew of new updates across its product lines. This, of course included its Photography products, and all versions of Lightroom, Camera Raw and Photoshop have been updated. In this blog post, I’m going to cover a few of the key new features across the lineup.
Our old friends at Fuji Rumors haver caused quite a bit of a stir in the Fuji community with a recent rumour about a new camera that Fujifilm is working on. According to the rumour, the camera which probably won’t be released until 2025 will have a new sensor that is of a different size to one that Fujifilm has used before! As you can imagine this has caused rampant speculation on various social sites. The leading candidate for this “sensor size that Fujifilm hasn’t used before” is Full Frame. But if this came true it would upend years of Fuji insisting that Full Frame isn’t something they want to do.
