Flight From Callahan County

 ACDSee has just released the latest version of its DAM/Editing software for Mac -- ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 8. Back when I had a Windows-based computer, I relied on ACDSee for my image database management and much of my image editing. Switching to an iMac, I was disappointed with the ACDSee offering for that platform, because most of the helpful editing features of the ACDSee Windows suites were missing.  Version 8 for Mac makes up for some of that with the inclusion of two significant tools introduced on the Windows side last year -- Color Wheel and Tone Wheels. The wheel adjustment concept originated with Capture One developing software several years ago and has been adapted by some competitors, including ACDSee. The ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac 8 implementation is excellent. The Color Wheel on the left has identified the original blue hues of the knobs on the right and replaced them with green hues without altering the other colors in the photo. Quick and easy! The Tone...

Skylum's Luminar 4 is scheduled for public release next week and has already been made available to those of us who took advantage of a pre-release discount back in July. Opening to mostly rave reviews, this photo editor for Windows and Mac platforms has some great new tools using AI technology, including sky replacement and quick enhancement of faces in portraits. For us black and white enthusiasts, there are also dozens of black and white presets that can be downloaded for use in Luminar. But the latest version continues the company's failure to attend to weaknesses in the emulation of the look of black and white films. This is particularly disappointing since Macphun's Tonality CK plugin for the Mac platform had the best monochrome film presets of any software I have used. I ran a test of several photo editors that reproduce the look of black and white films, comparing their "out-of-the-box" presets for Ilford SFX 200, a black and white film in 120 or ...