 
Hi Everyone! This is a review of Luminar 4 and the editing possibilities that it brings. As you know, I have been a true believer of Luminar from Skylum software for quite a while. I used Luminar 3 a lot for the AI (Artificial Intelligence) features and as sort of a mix between Lightroom and Photoshop. With Luminar 4 even more AI is available with Sky Replacement and AI augmentation where you can insert objects like the moon or mountains or an airplane. All of these adjustments can be done very easily with the click of a button and moving a slider to make adjustments. I'm mainly a landscape photographer, but the portrait photographer uses lots of AI features also. I use Luminar 4 instead of Photoshop mainly because of the ease of use. I'm basically lazy, and Photoshop is a very powerful and complicated program. You can do all of the things you can do in Luminar in Photoshop, but it's very complicated, very hard to do, and time consuming. So I use Luminar. Let me go over some features of Luminar 4.
Basic Editing- Luminar 4 can do all of the basic editing that Luminar 3 can do from crop to basic light adjustments, all done with sliders. There are also AI sliders that will analyze your photo and correct mistakes such as contrast, exposure, etc. Presets are also available to help edit your photographs. With the touch of a button, you can add the preset to your photo, and if you don't like it you can make adjustments to the preset to make it stronger or weaker. Landscape enhancer - you can enhance the color of foliage and really make them pop. All of these adjustments can be made under the Essentials tab that is on the right of the editing panel.
Creative Tab- This tab is where most of the landscape editing is done. This is where the AI Sky Replacement is done. This is a fantastic feature! You can take a ho-hum photo with a blank sky and replace it with a more interesting sky. Luminar 4 has some to choose from, and you can use your own and make custom skies. Luminar does a good job of replacing the skies and masking out all the other things that are not skies. Also, AI Augmentation is under this tab. You can insert objects into the photograph with this feature -- clouds, birds, airplanes, mountains, or almost anything. Of course Luminar has some ready for you to use, but you can use your own objects also. This is a very cool feature. You can be very creative, and it usually just takes a click and a swipe of the slider and you're golden.
Portrait- This tab has lots of editing tools to help the portrait photographer. First, there is the AI Skin
 Cecille Head Shot 2
Enhancer where you can smooth out skin, and only the skin, but not take away the texture of the skin so it doesn't look like plastic or fake. Under the AI Portrait Enhancer you can lighten the face to make it stand out, use red eye removal, eye whitening, eye enhancer, dark circles remover, slim face, enlarge eyes, improve eyebrows, teeth whitening, and lip enhancements. All of these can be done with the click of a button and the swipe of a slider to make them the way that you want them to look. I haven't used these too much, but I did use them on some older portraits and they worked great! I was very impressed and am looking forward to taking some more portraits.
Professional Tab- In the Professional Tab you can use Advance Contrast to enhance the highlights, mid-tones, and shadow contrast separately. You can use the Adjustable Gradient like you would in Lightroom. With the Dodge and Burn you can use a brush and paint to dodge and burn. Color Enhancer can make the photo warmer or cooler. I haven't used this tab too much, but it looks like it will work very well.
You can start in Lightroom, export a copy of your photos with Lightroom adjustments to Luminar 4, and when you're done you can apply all of your changes and they will show up in Lightroom beside the original photograph. Then you can export to whatever program or Facebook just like you usually do from Lightroom. I really do like this program, and it makes some very interesting images. So check it out. It's a one-time buy just like Luminar 3, and it's under $100. This is great software with lots of value and bang for your buck. If you like creating, Luminar 4 is a great choice for photo editing. So get out and shoot and have some fun!
Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is safe and healthy. This will be my last blog about the Coronavirus. But this one is about what to do after the virus has subsided and the Stay at Home orders have lifted. If you're like me, the virus and everything associated with it did disrupt my plans. Staying at home has made many people very bored, me included. As you know, I like to get out on the weekends and get into nature in some way or another. Camping, backpacking, and of course photography is what I love to do.
 Swansboro Pier Reflection
The virus has put a halt to this, and I've been compensating by putting my hammocks and tarps up in the backyard and taking naps on the weekend. I've also been getting my truck ready for travel. Once the order has lifted to stay at home, I will be traveling again. But what can we do to be ready to explore once the order has lifted?
First of all, get ready. Get all of the things that will be keeping you from doing your hobbies done while you're at home. For me it's clean out the garage. It has accumulated all kinds of things over the year, and it is overgrown. I will be cleaning and getting rid of all of the things that we don't need, downsizing if you will. I have lots of boxes of old things that I haven't or will never use, old clothes that I will never fit into, and old books and electronics that are never going to be used again. So I'm going to get rid of them. So mainly get all of those honey do's done!
Next Plan! For me it's getting back to my personal project of visiting, camping, and photographing in all of the State Parks in North Carolina. I had 13 of them completed when the Stay at Home order went into effect. For now the project is at a halt because all of the parks are either partially closed or completely closed, and of course non-essential travel is prohibited. So what I can do is plan for when the order is lifted. I can plan where I go and how I will stay if I do stay overnight. Will I be backpacking, or will I be car camping if I do stay overnight? Will I try to visit two parks in one weekend if they are close to each other? I can figure out what kind of photographs have been taken there before by other photographers by looking at Google, Flickr, and 500Px, doing the same research that I would normally do the day or so before but doing it now so when the time comes I can
just pack and go.
I know that there is a lot going on now, and who knows what the future will bring? Hopefully this will pass soon and we can get back to normal. But will it ever be normal again? Will social distancing become the new normal? Will handshakes be something of the past? Will working from home become the new normal and working in a brick-and-mortar store the exception? We are living in a strange time, and we can only do what we can to get through it. And we will get through it. So this is the last of my Coronavirus series unless something really strange comes up. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, and until next time keep shooting!
Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is healthy and safe. During the Coronavirus situation that we have going on now, a lot of us are stuck at home. My last two blogs have been related on how to maximize the time you have at home. Now that you know how to maximize your time, let's talk about different projects or ideas that you can do to try and experiment with. Try one of the 10 ideas that you haven't done before, and of course, if you don't know how to do one of these ideas, you can always go on YouTube and search on how to do them if you can't figure them out. So let's get started.
1. Selfies- Take selfies to document this time that you're at home. Experiment with light from natural to man made. Maybe a gobo (Go Between) the
 Kiwi
light source and the subject to make unique shadows.
2. Table Top Macro- Break out that Macro lens that is collecting dust and really start using it by taking Macro shots of things and details of your house.
 Stupid BlackberryThis is an old Blackberry I used to have.
3. Splash Shots- If you have an old aquarium laying around not being used, they are great for splash photography. Dropping items like bell peppers, fruit, and other items and catching them in mid-splash really makes great photos.
4. Bokeh- Break out those old Christmas lights, open up that aperture, and take some really cool images. You can put them up for backgrounds for portraits or behind things for unique images.
 USA Pease
5. Shoot Through- Find interesting things to use to shoot through to make interesting photos, looking through a cubbyhole or through things onto everyday life to make it interesting.
6. Portraits- Take portraits of family members in different situations, family portraits of your family, and don't forget those pets that we love so dearly.
7. Food Photography- I've been looking at Facebook and a lot of people are cooking. Use your camera skills and take awesome photos of this food.
8. Double Exposure- You can take double exposures of yourself with your camera. You'll have to look into your camera manual of how to do this with your brand. You can also do this in Photoshop.
 Ava MLK Day10
9. Textures- Look around the house for different textures to take photos of while you're in the house. From silk to woodgrain to granite table tops.
10. Oil and Water Photography- Oil and water don't mix and can make very interesting photographs with a macro lens, and using colorful backgrounds can make some crazy images.
So get out in that backyard or on that tabletop and start creating some great images and cure that Netflix binging that you've been doing!
Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and is healthy. In my last blog I told you to look for that silver lining in being home because of the coronavirus, but I didn't tell you about one of the most important ways to do this. It's Routine! Now that we are home from work or school, we don't have to get up and take showers and do this or do that to get ready for work or school, and we just lay around wasting time. I have two examples that I will tell you about that will hopefully encourage you to make a routine and stick to it.
During the first Gulf war "Desert Shield and Desert Storm," I was deployed to the desert very early on just a few days after the invasion of Kuwait. When we arrived everything was chaotic and unorganized. Our routine had been interrupted. And in a big way! Nowhere to sleep, eating MRE's, and trying to set up operations in a foreign land in the middle of nowhere. While doing our jobs fueling jets, we did away with our paperwork, safety checks, and a lot of other routines. Guess what happened? We started having accidents. People were doing dumb stuff that they normally wouldn't do back here in the States at our base. I don't know if it was that there were no rules or what was in the back of our minds or what, but we were making mistakes that we normally wouldn't make. So our boss put his foot down and said operations would be just like at home. We had to go through all of the motions, safety checks, and paperwork that we would have to do in the States even though it wasn't needed in a war time situation. Guess what happened? Suddenly no more accidents, no more mistakes. We became very efficient. Other sections on base started doing the same, and before long the whole base was working like well-oiled machinery just as we had been in the States. So what is the lesson? Try to keep the routine that you may have had before all of this Coronavirus stuff. It will help you stay focused and be more productive. Set hours to get up and go to bed just as you would if you had to go to work in the morning. Take a shower and get dressed in the morning just as you would if you were going to work. You don't have to dress in your dress clothes, but get out of those PJ's. Make a list of things to do or things that you want to do, and everyday at home you can work on those during working hours. After your daily working hours, then you can relax and get into those PJ's.
My second example was when I got laid off a couple of years ago. When I was first let go, I freaked out! I had never been without a job before. I have worked since I was 15 and now I had nothing. I went into emergency mode and started doing resumes and emailing and all of the stuff you do when you're out of work. But after a week or so of pure panic and working on my problem all of my waking hours, I found that I could do the job hunting in a hour or two a day and then what? I remembered the story above and set myself some goals and routine things that I wanted to do. So I set wake-up times and go-to-bed times. I got up, showered, got dressed, and did my hour or so of job hunting. I made a list of things to do. I decided to teach myself Photoshop, so I set aside so many hours a day to do that. I also set aside time to do some hiking at my local State Park, and my dog and I would take a hike. I had to live as cheaply as I could (no money coming in) and look for ways to be productive. This was a five-month ordeal that worked out great. I did finally get a job without too much of a pay cut. I learned more about Photoshop (still lots to learn), enough that in a few weeks I'll be giving a talk to my Camera Club on Composite Photography, and we'll be social distancing with an online meeting. So my big advice is to set a routine and stick to it. Set goals and write them down and don't forget exercise.
As I'm watching the news, most of it is not good. So turn this Coronavirus bad news around and use the time that it has given you to the fullest by setting routines and goals. There are lots of things that you can do at home. So stay safe, and when this is over get out and shoot!
Hi Everyone! I hope that all of my friends and followers are safe and healthy. The last week or so the Coronavirus has been on everyone's minds and in the news with things happening very quickly and changing every day. As of now 16 states are on some sort of lockdown. Many Americans are at home, and if you look at social media, people are bored and it's only been a week or so. I say find the silver lining in being in self-quarantine. Use this time to work on your photography, your editing skills, and of course getting honey do's done while you have the time to. LOL These are some of the things that I will be doing.
First of all I am very lucky that I can do some of my work remotely, at least for a while until that work runs
 Red Heart
out. I usually commute 1 to 1-1/2 hours one way each day, so even working from home gives me 2 to 3 extra hours a day to get stuff done. Now the first couple of days you're probably going to just veg out in front of the TV, and I understand everyone needs a break. But after that's done we need to set goals and use this time well. As you may know, a few years ago I got laid off and had lots of time on my hands. Besides looking for a job, I decided to teach myself how to work in Photoshop, well at least a little. I learned how to composite a little and found out how hard it really was to do and how much time it takes to do one image. I've got some new software now, Luminar 4.2, and maybe I can play with it and learn some new stuff. My advice to you is to get started if you're self-quarantined. Get online and find some kind of program to help you learn whatever software you're trying to learn. A good program to follow for Photoshop is by Aaron Nace. It's a 30-day tutorial, and you can find it free on Youtube. Just google "Phlearn 30 days of Photoshop." This is a great place to start.
 Blue Water Splash
Right now there is not a travel restriction in my state "YET," but I'm sure it's coming before too long. But when it does, or if you're just scared to go out and about, do photography in your backyard. The spring flowers are starting to bloom, and I have a ring flash that I haven't used hardly at all. I think I will get out in the backyard and do some Macro work. Or maybe you can take some shots of your kids or pets. I'm in the process of watching a tutorial of pet photography, so maybe I'll get out and take some photos of my dog Forrest. Maybe you can learn how to use that flash that you have but only know how to use it in TTL mode. Learn how to use it in manual mode. And the same with your camera. If you only know how to use your camera in auto mode, learn how to use it in manual. It will make you a better photographer understanding how your camera works. After you're good at manual, then you can go to some of the auto modes, but you'll be a much better photographer for doing the manual first.
Start new projects. For me I have many projects. One is getting my truck and camper ready for camping, customizing my truck or making tarps and hammocks to meet any situation I can. I'm really a gear head whether its camping, hiking, or photography, so I can stay busy all day working on these projects. I also like writing these blogs. So maybe I'll get writing and get ahead of the curve. I was just about two weeks ahead on my writing, but now I'm writing the week that I post them and feel like I'm being rushed. I like to put out a blog every week or so.
Honey Do's! There are so many projects that I need to do around the house. Some of them require money, which if you're not working we can't do. But some of them don't take any money. My big one is to clean out my garage. It has become so cluttered that when my small camper is in it you can barley walk around. So I need to organize my garage and get rid of old stuff that I don't need. That is my biggest project, and I'm sure your spouse can find lots of projects for you to do. LOL My biggest point is to do all these things around your house so when the all clear is sounded we can get out and take photos, go camping , hiking, and get outside and keep shooting. Until next week please keep safe and healthy.
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