My first impression remains as it has always been. AP2 is difficult to navigate, with too many different tools in too many different places.
I have said before that, coming from Photoshop CS3 about 6 years ago, I found AP to give me that “uncanny valley” feeling. (seems familiar but, in fact, is quite different)
I just redid @mikemyers trolleybus shot with just the low and high tones tool and a tone curve in the Develop persona and got this…
If I hadn’t used PL for the past 6 versions, I could have been satisfied. But, if I needed to do much more, I get the impression I’m going to have to do an awful lot of Googling and watching of videos - something I have never found necessary with PL.
Interesting. I learnt most about Photoshop by working through a tutorial, but nowadays with all the “smart” this and that, it appears like a mountain full of functions buried all over the place and difficult to find.
Affinity’s Photo and Designer videos are perfect for me. They have one topic, like 3-8 minutes and everything is rather straightforward. Comparing AP and PS in terms of usability and simplicity, AP often wins. And now, with their new RAW (embedded) or (linked) strategy, they came up with an entirely new workflow which I prefer to the old “RAW-development in dedicated tool, Pixel Editor in another tool”-way. I’m really looking forward to their next ideas. Adobe? Boring. Only busy with making more money. 4.3 billions per year should guarantee for nice salaries, though.
Interesting in the trolley shot: the LED display above the red light appears to be shot with a far too short shutter speed, or the refresh rate of the display is slow. Else I think, for not liking AP’s interface the interpretation is not too bad.
Interesting take on AP. My last Photoshop was CS6 which I no longer even bother installing as I prefer AP and consider it more “photography” focused. With CS6 you don’t even get built in features like FFT or Frequency separation filters, unless you paid even more for the “extended” edition.
Thanks to a new friend of mine, I have a very different way of thinking about this image. I have been trying to use a global tool on the image, but that will never work. The “interior” (low light) part of my image needs to be processed so it looks best. Then, the “outside” (daylight) parts of my image need to be processed so they look best. I think I have a plan on how to do this, but the only person who did something like this before was @Wolfgang. I need to go back through my old topics, and find where Wolfgang was teaching me about “masks”. If I was smarter, I’d have taken the time way back when to learn this, but if I remember correctly I was about to leave on another trip to India, and never got around to it.
So, how to best process an image with an exposure offset?
I’m not going to copy/paste what my friend wrote me, but I now accept that processing my whole image at once is never going to work.
I also tried my luck with that picture (just in AP2, like Joanna). In my opinion it’s massively underexposed and causes lots of unnecessary noise. 1/800 at ISO 1600 - for what? Histogram looks like a huge pile of garbage on the right side. I sort of recall @Joanna to have told you, @mikemyers, to use spot metering and overexpose 2(?) stops. Why have’t you done so?
I can do it better, but this should illustrate well how such an exposure offset is handled. In this case the interior is handled by adjusting the global exposure, and the exterior sits in its own local adjustment “layer” which has been dialed back exposure wise.
BTW, reducing the ISO some stops would have slightly improved the already impressive dynamic range. A shutter speed around 1/250 - 1/320 might be worth considering the next time.
Or even lower shutter speed, depending on the trolley’s engine vibrations. Else the LED sign will remain a couple of unreadable dots. After all, it’s only 24MP, so engine vibrations won’t have a significant effect on motion blurr, especially if Mike Myers shoots handheld. It’s 24 mm FL, so he’d get away with 1/60.
My opinion - this edit is by far my favorite, no question. Not only does the trolley looks good, the outside view looks like what I saw, a nice, normal, outdoor image, with the proper exposure and vibrance/saturation. It is not what my eyes seemed to see, but to me, the overall effect is excellent.
I was always limited before, in editing “the trolley”, because it ruined the view through the windows.
I want everything - and while I like the earlier attempts, the edit by @Grebstad put everything together beautifully.
Sure, will lower the ISO next time, but I’m worried about the shutter speed because the trolley is bumping and swaying so much. For this specific shot, we were going quite slow, about to turn to the right, so it was easier to hold the camera steady. My M10 gives me a hand-grip and a thumb-grip, making it easier to hold the camera steady. The D780 is pretty good as-is, and with much newer software, it’s going to have a technical edge over the M10.
As to the LED display, it is in constant motion from right to left, and I just ignore it.
This latest image from @Grebstad - to me, it’s everything I hoped I could capture when I took the photo - to me, it’s perfect.:
I personally think AP is very easy to use, at least on PCs. The iPad versions have been hugely improved from a UI perspective but I still feel way more comfortable on PC. But… what software like Lightroom and PhotoLab offer that AP does not is a workflow. All of your photos to work through. All adjustments laid out in one view (or series of views). Adjustments aimed at processing photos for light and colour, with a selection of “corrective” tools. Easy bulk import and export. AP is none of these things. Aside from the DAM functions, can it do everything the other can? Of course. But is it optimised for that task? No.
I have absolutely zero need for the ability to paint on my photos. Nor add coloured gradients, nor draw lines and shapes, nor add warped and rotated text, nor build up many layers with complex masks and special effects, nor slice up the finished image and output PNGs in multiple resolutions.
I agree it’s difficult to navigate if you’re trying to process photos. I always maintained that “Photoshop” is an inappropriate name as it isn’t about photos at all. It’s about graphics. The same is true of AP.
I find most tutorials difficult to learn from. I learned most of my Photoshop skills from my brother, based on wanting to do something and asking him how. Having tailored advice to my specific problem made learning much more effective than watching someone else’s idea of “what people need to know”. That could be just me, of course.
My plan for later tonight is to start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnEA2mMAzM
I think I need to process the image only for the trolley, and from what I hope to learn from the above video, how to process the outdoor scenes as if they were shot in pure daylight (which they were). I suspect this will resolve the things I dislike in almost all the above images, such as why the outdoor scenes are all blown out, no color, no clarity.
I have no interest in that display, nor do I understand how it works - lots of red dots that make it seem like message is scrolling right to left. I suppose I ought to edit the display so nobody notices it.
Since PhotoLab does not give us full quality renditions unless we export the image (neither Prime nor DeepPrime show up in previews, there are issues with optical correction preview as well), close comparisons of images in progress in PhotoLab, unless they are low ISO images is a bit of a waste of time.
I would certainly suggest that you export the versions (not via history but via command-D, creating a new version) as you go and compare them with the external tool of your choice. FastRawViewer can be set to the export folder where the exports will accumulate. FastRawViewer also allows setting favourite folders so it’s not a lot of clicking around to navigate to the export folder.
I might start to set DxO to export to an absolute path from where I’ll move the exports when I’m done with them. Normally one only works on one set at a time. I would like to force myself to keep finished images in a completely separate folder structure and not with the RAW originals.
If I buy a new camera or a new lens, or both, what good is your recommendation to me? I will have to upgrade even if the improvements are minimal or don’t meet some expectations that are basic to me.
Those of us who have bought Photo Lab have not done so on a whim but because we have appreciated some particularities that make it stand out. But with use you also see that there are shortcomings that are difficult to justify.
So our criticisms are not aimed at discrediting the developers or complaining like spoilt children, but rather to cooperate with them so that this software is as complete as LR or C1. And that is not to say that these other two programs are not also worthy of criticism. For example Capure One refused to change the date of the files like LR did because they said it affected the EXIF data and could corrupt it (which is not true), and also to stack sets of photos. Well, in the end they have listened to those of us who asked for it and in version 23 they have implemented it.
Is there anything wrong with complaining to improve a programme that we adore in many aspects? Is it a constructive or a destructive thing?
My sentence is for people who are writing “i don’t see any reason to update.”
Supported critisism is always information for the owners so a good thing.
Showing better ways or just other ways. Not every tool can be duplicated due reasons of claims.
It’s starts to be wrong/less good if it’s plain complaining you did 't got what you wanted so it must be bad. Without first testing the new version propperly.(in general not pointing towards a person.)
Sometimes you need to update because of support of camera or lens and sometimes you can skip one.
And my sentence is for people unable to accept others don’t want to throw money into a highly unattractive update. If one invested some money into an app and it’s developers are ignoring many user requests, not replying in their own forum, it looks like very much not caring about the people paying their salaries. Lens support? First, it’s not that fabulous as you might think, at least some profiles are worse than genuine manufacturer profiles, second many users are waiting extremely long for their lens getting a profile. you don’t have to agree on “no reasons to update” but you should accept decisions of others without coming up with a rather pointless post - it’s not changing anything and doesn’t make another invest into an update more reasonable.
It’s not about if i agree or not agree about update or not.
Everyone is free to make his or her decision.
To leave and choose an other program or just wait for the next one or just stay at the owned version.
If you are primarily using an iPhone to capture images I agree with you. However, if the majority of your shooting is done with a different camera, a large number of very useful features has been added since PhotoLab 3.
