Friday, September 30, 2022

Money Money Money Money..... Money (hum it with me)

Just a quick addendum to yesterday's post on the new Luminar Neo pricing programs. You can take an additional $10 off, using my personal discount code: DanGauss  if you purchase a 1 year subscription of either Pro or new Explore!  You're welcome.


BONUS POST:

And here's a teaser of an upcoming extension-


I've been looking forward to this one more than any other so far! It will mean new life for so many of my old photos from the days of tiny sensors! More when the release date gets closer, some time in October.


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Thursday, September 29, 2022

News Flash!

Forest Altar, ©Daniel Gauss/Shot On Site

I swear, I'll have other product mentions on this blog eventually, but first I have big Luminar Neo news! The folks at Skylum have announced some new levels of pricing, and introduced the Explore Plan. It's a slimmed down version of Luminar Neo at a very attractive price. There is also limited time reduced pricing on the other Luminar plans. If you've been "Luminar-curious", this is your opportunity. Find out all about it at this link

The above image took about 10 minutes time in Luminar Neo, using just a couple of tools. Below you can see the before/after, from the original Fujifilm RAF (raw) file, to finished image. Impressive.


Posts may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these, I may receive a small commission at no increased cost to you. Thanks.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Bring da Noize.... outta here.


If you're like me, you have many older images that maybe weren't shot in the most ideal of conditions.  Fast action in low light forces you to jack the ISO way up, and that "brings da noize", so to speak. And noting look worse than a noisy photo. Did you know it's possible to eliminate most of that noise with a single click of a mouse? Check this out: (click to play GIF, then make FULL SCREEN)


This is the latest extension tool from Luminar Neo, called NoiselessAI. I intentionally shot this image at the highest ISO my Fujifilm camera was capable of in RAW, 12,800. As you can see, it's annoyingly noisy! If you follow my cursor on the GIF, I simply click on Noiseless in the right column, which opens the tool. The AI then analyzes the image and suggests (you can always disagree!) Low, Medium, or High level of noise removal. In this case, High was the obvious suggestion, and my choice. When done, Neo will display the image at an increased magnification and you can toggle the eyeball to see the before and after. How cool is that?  

I should note that in the above example, I didn't use any other Luminar editing tools, only the NoiselessAI. You have, of course, all of the other tools available to make this the best possible finished image. The images below were finished with other tools after the noise was removed.

Below, I'll post a few more before and after images; some using Medium some High, and some Low.



...and the full image:

©Daniel Gauss/Shot On Site

Next: (before applying NoiselessAI)

©Daniel Gauss/Shot On Site

..and after:

©Daniel Gauss/Shot On Site


NOTE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these, I may receive a small commission at no increased cost to you. Thanks.






 

Monday, September 05, 2022

This On Your Bucket List?

Are you a photographer? Have you ever had a hankering to go to Iceland and capture the mind blowing images available there? What if you could do that in the company of some great photographers. Best of all worlds, right?  It's not cheap, but it's available here, with a limited time early bird discount. Check it out!

©Sam Kolder


Br-r-r-r-r-ackets!

Upper Gallinas Campground, Gila National Forest. New Mexico, USA  ©Daniel Gauss/Shot On Site

I rarely go out with the express intention of only shooting bracketed exposures. It's been 10 years, in fact. On this one day road trip up to the Black Range in the Gila, it was my main purpose. I wanted to try out the new HDR Merge extension for Luminar Neo with multiple exposures. In the previous post, I tried out its "single image HDR" capabilities with great success.  This image was made up of 5 images, each 1 stop of exposure apart; an average exposure, and +1, +2, -1, -2.   I used several other Luminar Neo tools to complete the image, including layers, sunrays, and atmosphere.  Gotta say, it looks nothing like an image from the early days of HDR. No "clown vomit" here! 

Skylum have announced several more extension releases before 2022 is over, one of which is already here: NoislessAI, and Upscaling will follow shortly.  If you want to find out more about what's happening at Skylum, click on my affiliate links above, or click here.