Flight From Callahan County

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

 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(another way to be seen keeping taxes low or to pad the chief executive's bloated salary) the switchboard operator has been replaced by an expensive piece of equipment generating recorded voice messages.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

 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 Fujifilm camera X-Trans files

I recently discovered a posting by an amateur photographer on YouTube with directions for changing or adding thumbnails to preset categories shown in the left Presets tab of ON1 Photo RAW 2022.1. I was interested because I have collected a lot of these presets in recent years while using Photo RAW.  This screen grab of the ON1 Photo RAW Browse module shows the way preset categories (the two columns on the left) are displayed. The two generic squares outlined in yellow are older categories with no thumbnails.  Older preset categories and some new ones from third-party providers have no thumbnails, and it can become a bit more difficult with so many generic squares displayed. The YouTube directions identified a method to add thumbnails to the preset categories, but the procedure was complicated. It did not work sometimes. Dylan Kotecki, online trainer for ON1, posted this video about using and modifying presets in an earlier version of Photo RAW, but he did not cover the topic of changi

 As an amature photographer interested in composites and image stylization, I love the use of machine learning/artificial intelligence now being incorporated in editing software. It speeds the workflow tremendously, but some features still need a little work. One of those is sky replacement. The software I use now does a good job of recognizing tree branches, leaves and large buildings sticking above the horizon. However, when it comes to automatically masking thin metal framework or structures like windmills extending into the middle or top area of the image, the software still needs more time in the classroom. The image below is a good example. Both ON1 Photo RAW 2022.1 and Skylum Luminar Neo Early Access masked the trees successfully, however they badly blew proper recognition of the blades and tower of the wind turbine, requiring a significant amount of time to correct. A second area of AI/ML problems is replacement of utility lines. Skylum Luminar Neo -- now with a limited-feature

 The folks at Skylum Software have released what they call an Early Access Version of Luminar NEO to customers who have advanced-purchased this new software. This decision puts Skylum in the category of software publishers who promote public "beta" testing of forthcoming versions. Serif's Affinity products and Computer Insel's PhotoLine are two apps testing this way for a long time. Skylum's primary purpose of Early Access is to seek feedback on their Relight AI, Dust Spot Removal AI and Power Lines Removal AI features. In addition, the early access will help quiet criticism of the company for failing to meet the earlier announced release time of last month. For those of us eager to get our hands on the product, it's a chance to finally see how at least part of the product will work. Early Access is missing layers and numerous other features coming later, but based on my experience with free stock photos and my own raw images shot with Olympus cameras, I am im