Photography and the Art of Seeing

 Making Selective Edits with DxO PureRAW 5 - ISO 11,400 Click on the images to enlarge them to better see the results. Above is the before image and below is the after using DxO PureRAW 5 with selective masking edits. This is how the Masking works; when we start out in PureRAW 5 in the Corrections Panel, we choose a Process method and in this case DeepPRIME XD2s with the Luminance and Force details set to 40 and 0 respectively. This cleans up our image quite well and some may say too well, too smooth, but I am leaving it like this for this tutorial. So the original image is very noisy and the initial processing gets rid of all the noise but may have gone too far and the image looks synthetic as you can see below. The faces are too smooth. The jersey's are too smooth and the football is lacking detail. This is where masking comes in. Step by Step - Starting in the Corrections Panel - Note all of the settings I am using here. When we are in the Masking Panel, by default, our cursor i...

Speeding up your Workflow using Adobe Lightroom Classic and DxO PureRAW 5 Although this article is not necessarily or completely limited to Adobe Lightroom Classic as everything was covered in Part 1, these other options are available to the user in the stand-alone application as well. In the previous article when we sent our NEF Raw file over to PureRAW 5 we choose the "Preview and Process with DxO PureRAW 5" option. Now I would like to discuss the other two options that are available to us;  "Process Instantly with DxO PureRAW 5" or "Process Directly using last settings DxO PureRAW 5". The Process Instantly with DxO PureRAW 5 option presents us with a dialog. More on this shortly The Process Directly using last settings DxO PureRAW 5 automatically starts processing your image(s) without any further interaction with the app. Whatever you used the very last time is exactly what will be used with this option - no dialog, no interaction with the app just get...

 Fine Tuning DxO PureRAW 5.4 for Fujifilm X-Trans 4 Sensors In the previous article I discussed using DeepPRIME XD3 on a base ISO setting of 160 image shot on the Fujifilm X-T4 camera using the Fujinon 23mm f1.4 lens with a shutter speed of 1/800 sec @ f5.6 on a bright sunny day. In this article I am using an image shot on the Fujifilm X-T4 with an ISO of 1,600 using the 16mm f2.8 lens with a shutter speed of 1/1,700 sec at f5.6 in the shade. PureRAW 5.4 Preview and Process Dialog Just in case it is a little difficult to view the processing parameters I am starting out with see below For Denoising & Demosaicing: DeepPRIME XD3 X-Trans I am using the default setting for Luminance and Force details (At least the defaults on my machine). Optical Corrections: Lens Sharpness Optimization is set to Standard Vignetting, Chromatic aberration and Lens distortion are all turned on. Luminance set to 40 - Force details set to 0 Lens Sharpness Optimization set to Standard (+100). Take a look...

  DxO PhotoLab 8.5.1 Elite Edition - For the passionate photographer. To answer that question, one needs to evaluate the need for image editing software. A lot of photographers use the Adobe Subscription and in particular, the Photography Subscription where you get amongst other pieces of software, Photoshop, Bridge & Lightroom. The question you need to ask yourself is; "Do I really need all that is offered by Adobe in order to edit my photographic images to my liking?" The next question is: "Do I want to deal with a monthly subscription or do I just want to buy a software license and be done with it, only updating if I really need to?" If you are working in the industry and need to collaborate with others in the post production world, then maybe you do need the an Adobe subscription of some sort as most photographic studios require these programs but, if you don't fit into this category of photographer, then maybe something like DxO's PhotoLab 8 Standar...