Flight From Callahan County

Stamp is a weathered feature in PhotoLine for painting “stickers” on an image to create borders or other decorative effects. This attribute is similar to brushes found in apps like Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo RAW. To apply the tool in PhotoLine, select a stamp, then drag the cursor across the image to add a curved or straight line of various-angled stickers. The Stamp brush can be resized before clicking by CMD+Left Mouse Button and dragging. Use the Intensity slider in the PhotoLine Tool Settings to add a level of transparency, if desired. This is one of the stamps included in PhotoLine, this one representing the app itself. It has been enlarged beyond its optimum size, suffering from a severe case of jaggies. Note the placement of the "i" and the "e" compared to the other letters. An indication that no time was spent on designing this stamp. The sticker concept, once very popular with scrapbookers, originated in version 5 of the old JASC Paintshop Pro, where they...

Recently I tested a 16mm extension tube on my Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm f1.8 lens. I wanted to verify the combination could be used for impromptu macro work, thereby limiting the the number of lenses and the weight of my camera bag on trips. This rig works, but restrictions include inability to alter the extremely shallow depth of field, and focus only by changing the camera-to-subject distance. Here's a JPEG from the original noisy raw test file shot at high ISO. 75mm lens with 16mm extension tube When I used one of the new noise reduction apps on this file, the results were extremely disappointing. That led to this "eyeball" comparison of four non-Adobe products for cleaning up noise in digital images. Here's my ranking of the four products. Fourth: ON1 NoNoise AI ON1 NoNoise AI out-of-the-box setting ON1 released their artificial intelligence noise reduction application several months ago as a standalone product. It is scheduled to become part of the non-dest...

 It's that time of year -- announcements of new photo editing software -- and Skylum, publishers of Luminar AI and Aurora -- has just revealed a new product, again angering its customer base. A few days ago, Skylum had zoom calls with its photographer-ambassadors to reveal the planned winter release of Luminar NEO , a new product that's not compatible with Luminar AI. When Luminar AI was introduced, existing Luminar users complained because AI dropped layers. Now, layers from Luminar 4 will be back in NEO, but existing users are again indignant over incompatibility and other issues if you believe the responses to the ambassadors' YouTube postings . The Skylum announcement does not surprise me.  My impression is that Skylum (formerly Macphun) is an innovative company with no long-range strategy for building a base of satisfied customers. An engineer has an idea for a new tool. They build a new app to sell around that idea, then move ahead next year with a new sales scheme f...

 I'm an amateur photographer who likes to tinker with my raw images. The process involves many different Photoshop plugins, but I don't use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom. My two raw converters, DxO PhotoLab and ON1 Photo RAW, don't run external plugins. That means using one of two third-party photo editors, Affinity Photo or PhotoLine, to apply one or more plugins after first processing the raw files or creating a TIF file in Photo RAW to run a plugin standalone. The result can be a very convoluted workflow. A solution may be coming soon. ON1 will release ON1 Photo RAW 2022 late this month, and the company has announced the app will run Photoshop plugs as a layer filter, making the plugins part of a non-destructive workflow. If all of the plugins I use are compatible, it will be a real time-saver. We'll soon know.

I have found the replacement for my Olympus 75-300mm MFT lens. It's an adapted vintage four-thirds Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 SWD lens. The Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 SWD with Four Thirds MMF-3 adapter on my Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III. The release of the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm F5.0-6.3 IS for the micro four thirds system several months ago seemed to be the solution for my need to move up to a longer lens for flower and bird photography. The reviews have been good and the test images I have seen are impressive. However, the $1,500 USD price is a little bit expensive for my budget. I had been using the  Olympus M.Zuiko 75-300mm F/4.8-6.7 ii for several years. It is light-weight, auto-focus is quick, keepers are very sharp, and I can hand-hold throughout its focal range. However, I have often wished for a little longer reach, and the bokeh in shots with defocused background is very unpleasant. Back when an Olympus OM-D E-M5 was my pri...

The Olympus (now OM Digital Solutions) announcement last year of its new M.Zuiko 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS lens immediately grabbed my attention.  As an enthusiast micro four thirds amateur, I have a variety of prime and zoom lenses but none to cover the longest telephone range.  My lens lineup includes an Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm F4.8-6.7 II, but I have found it just a bit short on some occasions. In additional to the 400mm reach of the new lens, it can focus very close throughout its zoom range, making it valuable for shooting macro/closeup images of flowers and insects at a distance. Another benefit is compatibility with the standard Olympus MFT teleconverters, the 1.4x MC-14 and the 2x MC-20. However, the large size and its hefty price tag of $1,500 USD have made me rethink the the value this lens would be for me. I used to do a lot of photography on mountain hikes but never pursued birds or wildlife. But as I have gotten older my hikes have become less strenuous w...

 When I was a boy growing up in a rural part of the Big Country of West Texas in the 1950s, our one TV station had no live network programming for several years after it first signed on the air. The reason was the AT&T line (a coaxial cable) carrying network television service extended no farther westward than Dallas-Fort Worth. No football, no basketball, no baseball, no network news. When construction started to expand the service to the Abilene market, the station, KRBC-TV, began running a film promotional announcement with the words "the cable is coming to Abilene." I was reminded of that line yesterday when we had a Google Fiber hanger placed on our front door here in southwest Austin. Google Fiber hanger, promising free installation, unlimited data with no throttling or extra charges, more than enough Wi-Fi with no buffering or interruptions, TV and telephone service. Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash . Door hanger scan . Austin has always been a limited-choice te...