Hi {name},

Welcome to Lenscraft in Focus for May 2022.

Whilst writing this month’s newsletter I’ve realised something quite disturbing. The last time I was out taking photos was mid-March this year. What’s worse still is that I haven’t felt like I’ve missed it and I don’t feel very motivated to pick up a camera.

My problem and I think that it’s a common one amongst photographers is that my photography is lacking purpose. I have hundreds of thousands of images taken over decades, and I probably don’t need to shoot anymore. If I never take another landscape photo, I still have thousands yet to process. The solution to this, and one many professional and serious photographers adopted, is to pursue a passion project alongside their regular photography. It’s certainly a great way to maintain interest and develop your skills, and your project might even develop into something more.

Last month I shared the newly launched Photography Chronicle website. This is an exciting non-commercial site providing exposure for personal photography projects and sharing some wonderful images. I feel so inspired by what I’ve seen that I’ve contacted with Paul who established the site, and he’s been kind enough to give me an interview. You will find the article later in the newsletter and I promise, you don’t want to miss it.

Having mentioned that I have hundreds of thousands of images in my photo library, you may be wondering how I manage them. Well, that’s the subject of my latest book project which you can also read about later. And as always there are other snippets of photography news that I think you may find interesting.

I hope you enjoy May’s newsletter.

Robin

Missing Images Update

It wouldn’t be a newsletter without me saying something about the ongoing missing image saga. Following last month’s request for examples, around 50 people reported that they couldn’t see some images although others were visible. Thank you to everyone who responded as it’s been sufficient to identify and prove a pattern. That’s allowed me to convince the people developing my newsletter software that this is a genuine problem. They are now investigating the cause and I’m hopeful they will identify a fix.

The second problem that came to light from the feedback is that some of you can’t see images on my website. I had fixed a similar problem a couple of months back, but some people continued to experience issues. I’ve now identified and fixed that issue which was also being caused by some of the performance software. With this latest change I’m hopeful that no one will experience missing images on the website.

New Lenscraft Content

Over the past month, I’ve focused on publishing new tutorials and updating old ones. Here’s the list of the changes you can find on Lenscraft.

Learn Affinity Photo - Free Course

Last month I mentioned I was publishing a free course on YouTube to help photographers wanting to learn Affinity Photo. That received a great response (thank you) as well as lots of requests to let you know when the next lessons are available. The best way to be certain that you don’t miss a future lesson is to subscribe to my YouTube channel, but I’m also publishing details in this newsletter.

Here are links to the three lessons published to date:

•  Lesson 1: The Basics https://youtu.be/RChxuWyjaYc
• Lesson 2: Exporting Images & Adjustment Layers https://youtu.be/KBqq1gNHVlw
• Lesson 3: Essential Tools https://youtu.be/_UyjerZtgi0

I’ll be publishing further lessons every 3-4 weeks.

From Around the Internet

A selection of interesting photography related resources from the internet.

World Nature Photography Awards

The winners of the 2021 World Nature Photography Awards were recently announced. As a landscape photographer myself, I like to think that I’m quite a patient person but the patience, skill and dedication of the photographers shooting these images is on a completely different level. Every image is stunning in this collection and it’s well worth visiting the website to view them.

https://www.worldnaturephotographyawards.com/winners-2021

Clever Art

Art like photography is about being creative, but the best images also make you stop and think “that’s clever”. If you want to see great example of “clever images” look no further than the work of Helga Stentzel.

https://www.instagram.com/helga.stentzel/

Photography News Issue 98

Issue 98 of Photography News is now available and free to read online. If you want to keep up to date with the latest equipment, this is a great publication.

https://online.bright-publishing.com/view/38706911/

Website Changes

If you’ve visited Lenscraft over the past month you may have noticed some changes to page layouts. I decided that it’s time to refresh some of the pages as they haven’t changed for quite a few years. I’ve also used this as an opportunity to make the pages quicker to load as well as easier to read, through improved spacing and larger, hopefully clearer text.

Another update is that my image gallery now uses a feed from my Instagram account. This ensures that new images are added most weeks.

I’ll be making further improvements to the site over coming months.

On1 Resize AI 2022 Launched

As some readers will know, I’m a huge fan of Topaz Gigapixel for photo enlargements, as I explain in this article. But before Gigapixel, I used Genuine Fractals software to make enlargement. When this first launched it was an amazing product and way ahead of the competition.

Later Genuine Fractals was taken over by On1 and became On1 Resize. Then unfortunately it fell behind and couldn’t really compete with Gigapixel. Now On1 has launched Resize AI which is their second AI product. Their other AI product is No Noise AI which I recently reviewed against Topaz DeNoise in this video.

So far, I’ve only performed limited tests with Resize AI, but I’ve found I can take small 1,500-pixel images and enlarge them to 5,000 pixels. I know the word amazing is used far too often today but, in this case, it’s the best way to describe the results I’ve seen. I’m planning to do a more detailed investigation over the next month and hopefully make a direct comparison with Topaz Gigapixel.

If you already own On1 Resize 2022 (not AI), this a free upgrade to the AI version of the software. I also understand that if you own On1 Photo RAW 2022 the new software will be integrated to that in a future update. This is an excellent policy of delivering real value for money to existing users.

New On1 Software Discount Code

If you try the software and decide to purchase, I have a new discount code which you can use.

LENSCRAFT20

This code replaces my earlier LENSCRAFT code and can be used with all On1 products.

Photographers You May Not Know – Gab Scanu

Gab Scanu is a young Landscape Photographer and Instagramer in Australia. His work features many breathtaking aerial shots of iconic Australian landscapes and coastlines. I have to say that having viewed his work; drone photography seems to be coming of age. I love the perspective that’s possible when using a drone and the image quality is now extremely good.

Please do take some time to visit his website gallery https://www.gabscanu.com/the-gallery and his impressive Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/gabscanu/. His drone videos are mesmerizing.

Books & Course News

Latest book and course news.

The Next Book Is…

Follow the launch of my recent books (Mastering Selections and Masks in Lightroom Classic CC and the Adobe Camera RAW version) I was considering what to write next. The answer then came to me in a flash following several comments and questions from different sources. There seems to be a lot of photographers who are now struggling to manage their photo libraries. This is not a subject that get’s sufficient attention but it’s one that affects many digital photographers.

I don’t yet have a title, but the book will explain a simple system to manage your photo library using Adobe Lightroom CC Classic. I’ve chosen Lightroom CC Classic as that’s the software I use to manage my own photo library. If it proves successful and there is demand, I might produce versions for other packages like DxO PhotoLab and Capture One.

I’ll provide a progress update in the next newsletter.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed May’s newsletter and until next month, stay safe.

Robin Whalley

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