26 October 2017

New software

I recently bought Cyberlink's PhotoDirector software. I intend it to replace PS Elements (v10, more or less) as my primary editor and catalog keeper. Adobe did not get me to subscribe to PS or now Lightroom but it's clear they believe the cloud is the future. For their profits yes, but not holding my images for ransom thank you.

My first big test came this past weekend after I wanted to stitch some GX1 raw images of lake Sacagawea and autumn colors. The merge was as easy as could be, just about like elements. I then played with the merged file and saved out a 49MB image.. perhaps it should get printed?

A small version of the 49MB file. That really yellow tree on the right is.. curious.


The software appears to do all that i would ask. It has curves and a 5-zone slider set to adjust lighting, color adjustments and white balance, even simple HDR &tone mapping adjustments. It can save tiff and png as well as adjustable jpeg.

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I was surprised by pd8's exceptionally yellow leaves on the right side of the image; I like to think I'd have noticed that while on site!  I did adjust many things from the original raw file, but I did not seek to emphasize yellow in particular.

So I tried Polarr's raw processor to see how that tree looked:

Sure enough, that strong yellow foliage is not quite what Polarr sees.. strong color yes, but not as extreme. The orange on the far right is different as well. 


Good information to keep in mind, moving forward!