I spent quite a few hours trying to figure out how to integrate the Luminar backup with my existing setup and found some very interesting issues.
Since Luminar does not use sidecar files, I have to transfer the Luminar catalog to my other system. No, it does not stop there…I have to copy the Luminar catalog along with the History folder.
There is some major issue here since Luminar is not storing the edits in the catalog!!!
You cannot simply copy the catalog. In fact, if I delete the History folder on a working system, all edits are lost!
Unless you backup the catalog from Luminar and restore it using Luminar, all edits are lost.
There is no way out it seems since Luminar refuses to restore from any file in its Backup folder. In short, unless you manually create a catalog backup from Luminar, you will lose your edits!
Let’s see what happens and how you can backup the catalog…
A few months ago, when I got my D850, I also invested in an XQD card besides the SD card so I could compare the two and have both the slots occupied in case of overflows.
The camera was still on older firmware and to update it, I would have to copy the firmware to the primary card which happened to be my XQD card.
The solution to this one was simple, I copied the firmware update to my SD card and simply made my SD card as the primary card.
Once the update was done, I switched the XQD card back to being the primary.
More recently, I ran into an issue which happens at times even with my earlier Nikon bodies…
For some strange reason, Lightroom refused to import more than a few files. The only way out, that I already knew from my earlier experience was to copy the files from the card and then import to Lightroom.
Since I never bothered to get an XQD card reader, this was an issue. Fortunately, the D850 offers a very simple card-to-card copy operation.
Once again, the solution was simple. I just copied the contents of my primary XQD card to the SD card and copied the files from the SD card to my computer.
Hope this small tip helps some people who have similar issues.
Although we discussed this issue in an earlier video, this time, we will look at how we can work-around the issue in Luminar itself.
In case you do not have Lightroom or Photoshop installed, you might not see the additional camera profiles. To fix that, just install the free DNG converter from Adobe.
There are visible performance improvements in this update!
The changelog is as follows…
Luminar 4.3: Better performance and extra convenience
We’ve been working hard to bring you the best version of Luminar 4 to date. Take a look at what’s new in the 4.3 update.
FEATURES & IMPROVEMENTS
NEW Search tool
Located in the top menu bar in the Gallery view, Luminar’s Search tool allows you to effortlessly find images in your library and accelerates your editing workflow. Quickly and easily find images by name, folder, date, or extension for straightforward library management.
Performance improvements
Raw files now open faster (depending on your computer’s specifications), and all tools including AI Augmented Sky have been greatly optimized to work twice as fast – or three times as fast in the case of Accent AI.* As a result of decreased memory use, sliders are more responsive and there’s less lag when using multiple tools.
* Note: Speed improvements depend on computer hardware.
500px integration
In the Export menu there’s now an option to share your photos to the global 500px online photo sharing community. Conveniently add a title, description, and keywords – and even mark NSFW content – prior to uploading.
AI Augmented Sky improvements
If you want to deliver a cosmic feel to your photographs, check out the new Space Shuttle 1 object. Also, you can now easily flip and position sky objects.
Instant Looks previews
Just hover your mouse over a Look to see a live preview. You can also quickly return a photo to its unedited state with the new Reset Adjustments button.
Other improvements in Luminar 4.3
In addition to the changes mentioned above, you’ll find many other convenient improvements throughout the software. We hope you enjoy them!
Optimized Crop & Rotate workflow and faster access to this tool
Comfortable access to folders with custom skies in AI Sky Replacement and sky objects in AI Augmented Sky
Optimized masking tool workflow for pleasant and fast editing
Support for more cameras
Improved translations for all supported languages
Better Magic Mouse workflow
BUG FIXES
Thanks to feedback from Luminar Artists, we’ve greatly improved Luminar’s performance. We’ve fixed over 10 major bugs for Mac that could lead to crashes or unexpected results. You can find more information on these fixes here.
That’s all for now! We’re sending you lots of love, and we hope you enjoy this update. Please share the images you create with Luminar 4.3 on 500px and on social media. And don’t forget to use the hashtag #madewithluminars
If you are like me, you probably store your presets along with the Lightroom catalog for an easier, automated backup.
Unfortunately, applications like Nik Plugins, ON1, Luminar and more will put their plugin data into the default Lightroom folders which are different from the catalog folder.
So, if you are not seeing all the edit options in Lightroom, then, it is a simple fix.
I have been experimenting with my D850 for a few months now and I will share some of my findings regarding the ISO response for wildlife.
As one would expect, the ISO response is a lot better than compared to my earlier D7500. In fact, it turns out to be twice as good for my kind of shots.
Normally, I try to shoot as close as practically possible and try to get as much detail on the subjects given the light and exposure I can achieve.
Then, I tried to push the ISO to the limits which, one normally would not do. Today, I tried it at the highest native of 25600 but, in low light. Around 7 pm on a cloudy day.
The idea was to see what I could get from the D850 and use Topaz DeNoise to try and make the images usable.
Photoshop has built-in actions for a variety of functions that not many people that I know of actually use.
Not that I personally use those a lot, but, these built-in actions can save a huge amount of time if you need to do anything similar.
Before we look at the actions, there are a couple of points to keep in mind…
If you invoke Photoshop from Lightroom, you will get all kinds of errors and this is definitely a bug in the Lightroom-Photoshop workflow.
In case you get any errors while running these actions, just reset the settings for Photoshop by pressing CMD+OPT+SHIFT and then clicking on the PS icon to start PS. You will be prompted to reset the settings and just click okay on that.
Now that we are done with the issues, let us take a look at all the goodies we have already built into Photoshop.
Sometimes, when I already have made some edits in Photoshop and find that I missed out some small areas when using the auto-mask in Lightroom, it was a pain using a brush to fix it.
Turns out that Photoshop not only has an equivalent to the Lightroom auto-mask feature but, it is far more powerful in the way you can control how the auto-masking works.
So, without spending any more time on explaining this, let us open a raw file in Photoshop and see how this works…
To my way of thinking, working with layers implies the ability to precisely mask areas or subjects and apply effects based on the selections or masks.
This is exactly what makes the Luminar 4 layers practically useless. The implementation of the masks/selections is similar to using a paintbrush app vs something like Photoshop.
In Luminar, you only have the fixed brush and gradient tools for the masking. There is no option of something like an edge/tonal detection auto-mask (as in LR) or the perfect brush in ON1 Photo Raw 2020.
This means that you cannot really do clean masking or selection of any subject. Since you cannot make a clean mask, the whole purpose of layers is defeated.
Although there is a luminosity mask in Luminar 4, the same issue makes it practically useless. There is no control over the luminosity mask as in LR (which is not great) or ON1 (which is far better than LR).
While Luminar 4 remains a choice over LR and ON1 for noise reduction and the AI-based image enhancement features, the layers can be ignored almost completely.
The only place you can use layers is when you have shots where you can apply one of the blending modes in Luminar 4 and achieve the effect you want. Other than that, forget layers in Luminar till they have better masking tools.
As always, I will try to avoid tech and math as all that can be found on the net already.
First, a look at the logic behind using ND or solar filters and glasses.
Looking directly into the sun is not recommended in general for a variety of reasons and I would strongly suggest that you avoid doing that. There are times when we move out of our homes and look up to the sky to adjust our eyes to the light around us a bit faster. A passing glance at the sun is okay, not looking at it.
This is where solar glasses come in. These are available online from a variety of online stores and should be used if you want to look at the eclipse.
ND or Neutral Density and Solar filters can be used on cameras and telescopes for the same purpose. In general, Solar filters are recommended over ND filters.
I had neither the glasses nor the filters. I did not quite imagine myself waking up in time for the eclipse anyway, so, did not bother with those.
For some reason, I woke up and took it easy since I had no intension of going to my rooftop till I started looking at some shots people had already started to share on social media.
Okay, so, I was not too concerned with the fact that I had no filters for the camera, but, I was concerned about my eyes. I thought over that part for a while and went to the roof to take some shots of the little of the eclipse that was still around on a cloudy day.
I had to wait a while for the clouds to clear a bit and meantime I set my camera for the exposure that I thought would be correct.
I set the shutter speed to the maximum I have on the D850, i.e., 1/8000, Aperture wide open at f/5.6 and the ISO to the base native of 64. Then I set up the bracketing for a 1 EV change for 7 and later 9 shots.
Generally, I use AF-C priority as Focus (as discussed in an earlier video), so, I changed that to Release for these shots since I already know from experience when I shoot skies for backgrounds, the autofocus generally does not lock. The lens I used was my normal Nikkor 200-500mm.
Since it was still cloudy and the sun not visible, I focussed onto the clouds where I had a good enough focus lock using the AF of the camera instead of manually trying to set it to infinity.
Once the clouds cleared a bit from the sun, I looked through the viewfinder to the area next to the sun, which is like shooting any normal sky. Then, I started moving the camera towards the sun and the moment the light got brighter, I half shut my eye and looked down instead of through the viewfinder since I could “sense” the light through my half-shut eye. The moment it was bright enough to “feel”, I released the shutter for bracketing the first lot.
As we can see, it was over-exposed and I stopped down to f/16, f/18 and finally landed up at f/32. Of course, I was bracketing 9 shots for all of these apertures since the clouds were coming and going it was always safer to bracket.
After I got a bite of the sun, I waited for a while and thought I would get a different image in a while. Not really, the eclipse was over when I tried after about 30-40 minutes and I got only the sun instead.
As we can see from some of these, I probably touched the AF at some point while trying to keep my eyes from looking directly at the sun and the focus shifted completely.
So, I fixed the focus at a patch of clouds and took another 9 shots only to find that the eclipse was over. Oh well…At least I got one piece of the pie 🙂
After this, I went to the rooftop later as I have been since the lockdown and took my daily shots as well. Same gear.
A warning for your gear! Do not use the live view or long exposures. That can totally damage your gear most of the time. Do not try and focus on the sun directly. That will not work. Just try to focus on a patch of clouds and then take a shot as I have described above. My gear was exposed to the eclipse for only about 1 second for the bracketed shots at 1/8000th of a second.
For you as well…Get solar glasses for the next time. I already did 🙂
Nitin Chandra's Blog 