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Refinement with Textures

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 Using texture overlays is a great way to add character and flair to the final processing of some images. Traditional processing cannot produce the eye-catching distinction achieved with the superimposition of a texture onto a digital photograph. You can produce your own textures by photographing interesting natural textures, but there are many sources of textures online, too. So, why spend time re-inventing the wheel when it's already rolling for you. Shot of a pool with a Texture Bite added. My favorite online source is the Texture Bites package from Photomorphis. Each Bite design comes as a four-layer Photoshop file. Three layers are textures, and the other layer is used to direct placement of your original file within with the texture files. Antique International Harvester Roadster shot at the National Automobile Museum. Texture Bites brings distinction to this image. Open your image in your photo editor capable of handling layers. Then open the Texture Bites file and copy all ...
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Using the Olympus OM-D E-M5 iii

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I love using modern software to stylize digital images, and you don't have to travel to Switzerland to get interesting nature photos for that work. Here are some of my latests shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 iii and the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 prime lens. A view of a pocket park in a Round Rock, Texas neighborhood. 200 iso f9 1/400 sec, ON1 Photo RAW 2025 MAX Here is a Rock Rose, cropped for close-up. 200 ISO f3.5 1/250 sec, ON1 Photo RAW 2025 MAX: Color Film - CF10 Fujifilm Velvia 50 Sometimes adding a texture gets a distinctive look. Cropped for close-up. 200 ISO f1.8 1/4000 sec, ON1 Photo RAW 2025 MAX: Inked texture In the park I spotted what's left of a personal-size flag tangled in the limbs of a dead shrub. Cropped for close-up. ISO 200 f1.8 1/250 sec, ON1 Photo RAW 2025 MAX: masked, filter - High Key B&W Warm. Adjacent to our building are several crape myrtle shrubs in bloom. Here's a close-up with faux-film stylization of one of my favorite black and white fil...
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New Views with Something Old

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 A few months ago I did a bit of camera and lens trading/buying to return to the basics of the micro four thirds format: smaller is better. I acquired a very good, used Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III camera and an excellent-condition Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 lens. E-M5 iii with M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 and Olympus LH-48B lens hood. The used lens, introduced in December 2012, actually came with an Olympus-branded lens hood. Now that I am a "senior" -- old -- and use a cane for walking, I need to have my camera attached to a neck strap, often shooting with one hand. This combination is perfect for that. The 17mm is now my "normal" lens. Cropped image shot with the M.Zuiko 17mm f1.8 on E-M5 iii. I sold my Panasonic Lumix DG Summilux 12mm f1.4, which I acquired soon after it was released in 2016. It is one of the best prime lenses in the MFT lineup, but it was just too bulky and heavy for an old man to deal with. Replacing it was the M.Zuiko Digital 12mm f2.0. Bot...
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"Love Is in the Air"

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 Here's a composite image from a performance of the Enclave Choir, directed by Meg Miller. The show was a collection of love songs and related narrative. Location: The Enclave at Round Rock senior living center, Round Rock, Texas.  The photo was shot using the M.Zuiko 12-100mm F4.0 IS Pro lens on an Olympus E-M1 Mark III camera. In my opinion, this lens is the best zoom lens ever made for the micro four thirds format. The lens was first released in 2016 but never became a big hit because of its size. I purchased the lens soon after its release. At the time, the only MFT camera I owned was the PEN-F, but it had a third-party grip, making it perfect for balancing the heavier lens. With Olympus cameras, the lens adds 2 stops of stabilization, and it had a manual ring clutch for quickly switching from auto focus to manual focus. The  M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3, one of the last lenses in the pipeline before the Olympus camera division became OM System, was designed ...
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Enclave Entertainment

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 Resident Meg Miller and Entertainment & Programming Director Chris Davidson entertained at a recent The Enclave at Round Rock happy hour.
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Phone Frustrations

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 Anyone old enough to remember when a government agency, a private company or doctor's office had a live, human being -- once called a switchboard operator -- on duty to answer the telephone? These days in the name of saving money (another way to be seen keeping taxes low or to pad the chief executive's bloated salary) the switchboard operator has been replaced by an expensive piece of equipment generating recorded voice messages. We're usually guided through a menu of directions to "press 1" for this and "press 2" for that. We're instructed to pay attention because "the menu has changed." Stock images from Pixabay.com Then, there are the responses you get after reaching the correct extension. 1. "Leave message" -- In too many offices, returning phone calls is a low priority and is done at the end of the work day. What about the guy who calls at 8:30 in the morning and is in Tucumcari to help his sister at 4:45 in the afternoon, u...
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PureRAW now in version 2

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 DxO has recently released version 2 of DxO PureRAW, an automated tool that prepares raw files as DNGs for work in your favorite photo editor or outputs JPGs ready for uploading to social media or your image archives. If you are not familiar with the original PureRAW, the app borrows some of the features in DxO PhotoLab Elite, the highly-regarded raw converter, to automatically produce demosaicing, denoising, optical correction and lens sharpening of raw files. Noise reduction choices include Noise Reduction HQ, Prime, and perhaps the best noise reduction on the market, DeepPRIME. DxO says you can gain up to two stops in low light because of ability to clean up the noise. DxO PureRAW can speed the workflow in your process of achieving the best quality rendering of raw files.  Version 2 of PureRAW contains three new features:  support for a Lightroom workflow, including a Lightroom plugin,  support for a Mac Finder/Windows Explorer workflow and  support for Fujif...
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