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Month: February 2022
structure
More of my images can be seen on my own blog.
structure
Throwback Thursday: Gate
A gate in Metropolis? No!, This fancy gate is the door of the machine hall of a coal mine here in Germany.
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Wordless Wednesday: old tech
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Travel Tuesday: meeting of natural powers
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Monochrome Monday 8-41
Today, I really encourage you to enlarge the image by clicking on it. This panorama is assembled from 22 single images. A panorama was necessary to capture the enormous size of this canyon. It’s not the first huge canyon (the 3rd image) I stood above but comparing the size of the canyon with the little water in the river at the ground it feels like standing on the moon.
Unfortunately, the river became nearly invisible after the sun climbed higher to enlight the ground of the canyon,
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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 187: “water”
This week, Anne is our host for LAPC. Her topic is water, a topic I wished for so long and would be mine, in case I were asked for a topic.
Without water, life on earth were impossible. At least, that kind of life, we know. But, water is extremely flexible. You can find it nearly everywhere and in many different appearances. When asking a physicist , she will tell you, water has 3 different appearances: solid, liquid, and gaseous. Thus, I try to show you all of them.
Ice, solid as a rock.
Water as a surface and above the surface: the sea, the rain, and the clouds.
Hot water releases steam.
Steam climbs up in higher regions and forms clouds.
When there is enough water in the air, it starts falling down: rain!
Some have fun in the rain.
Others have fun with snow, also a kind of solid water.
And rivers bring the water back to the sea.
Although some (many?) humans tend to complain about the rain, this is what it would look like without water:
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Btw. <Ad> Luminar Neo is out. In case, you want to try Luminar Neo on your own images, head over to Skylum and get your own copy. As always, you get a 30-days money back guarantee. In case, you want to read a bit more before heading over, click here to read a review I published earlier today. </Ad>
Review Luminar Neo
Since Thursday, Luminar Neo is finally available. There were already a lot of rumors around on social media as well as a lot of complaints because of the huge delay. This time I got a review copy again. So, I was able to have a look at it. I’m tagging this as an advertisement, because of setting affiliate links.
First, the GUI looks very familiar when comparing it to the previous versions since Luminar 4. But, under the hood, a lot of progress was made to teach the AI editing photos according to Skylum. As a long-time follower, you know, I’m not a fan of AI editing photos. But, I have to admit, the results are great. You don’t have to rely completely on the AI, you still have the option to adjust the edits done by the AI or level how strong the AI should influence the final image.
According to Skylum, the Luminar Engine was built from the ground up to help creatives do more. Using artificial intelligence to analyzes your photos
unlock new, AI-driven editing possibilities:
RelightAI builds a precise 3D Depth Map of the 2D image to provide quick, targeted control of scene lighting, allowing artists to independently adjust lighting and color warmth for far and near objects across the scene and help easily fix portraits where the foreground subject is underexposed.
RelightAI isolates problem areas for correction, leaving the rest of the image untouched. Combine RelightAI with other scene-aware tools and photographers can precisely adjust the lighting of any photo.
Remove Dust Spots — Automatically identify and seamlessly remove small artifacts, like dust spots, from every photo with the help of AI.
Remove Power Lines — Uses AI to automatically identify and effortlessly remove power lines from landscape photographs to create a pristine image free from clutter.
Layers — Combine different images into unique compositions and include new elements from built-in overlays and object libraries.
Presets — Instant style changes designed by professional photographers of every stripe. Or, build and save your own unique looks for reuse on future shoots.
Luminar Neo is significantly faster than LuminarAI for complex photo editing tasks. Driven by the new Luminar engine, artists can now enjoy the following performance gains.
Luminar Neo ships from February 17th, 2022 with RelightAI, Presets, Layers, and other powerful new tools. Portrait Background RemovalAI and MaskAI are planned for the first free update to Luminar Neo, scheduled for release in the spring of 2022.
Luminar Neo is available as a stand-alone application in the App Store for macOS and the Microsoft Store for Windows as well as a plugin for Lightroom Classic and Photoshop and as an extension for Apple Photos.
To learn more about Luminar Neo and sign up for updates, visit
For demonstration purposes, I picked one of my images taken last year in Namibia. It’s taken in RAW format. In the lower-left corner, you can see, what the camera saved and the photo viewer brings up. In the upper left corner, you can see, what level of details is still in the image. The brightness control is turned to the maximum. In the final image, we still have the ambiance of the scene, but we have all structures in the dark parts. I’m quite surprised, at how well Luminar Neo developed the image and coped with the quite hard light conditions to preserve details as well as the ambiance. Btw. it can also handle ProRes DNGs from iPhone 13 Pro 😲.
You can click on the image to enlarge it. The bending in the sky is due to the JPG compression level. In case, you want to try Luminar Neo on your own images, head over to Skylum and get your own copy. As always, you get a 30-days money back guarantee.
I also tried a couple of the other AI features and was extremely surprised by how well they worked, especially the power line removal tool was extremely helpful. Below, you can see the crop assistant in action. Surprisingly the assistant had no other advice for cropping the image than to confirm my composition.
But, another issue still exists. There’s still the necessity to work with the catalog. Even when using the edit single photo option, you can only export the final edit and not a workfile like in Luminar 2018 and earlier.
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it started with a kiss
More of my images can be seen on my own blog.
it started with a kiss
Throwback Thursday: frosting
Last week, I found a couple of images taken right before Christmas on the memory card of my camera.
One small hint: When using code HAPPYVALENTINE during checkout, you can save 15% when buying Excire Foto before Feb 20th, 2022. Excire Foto is the perfect tool to find certain images on your disks by searching with keywords either from EXIF data or by the results from the artificial tagging engine. Do you want to know more? There’s already a post here in my blog. Although the post is quite old and talks about version 1.0, the last update to version 1.3 was released in December 2021.
Second hint: when you’re in the US you can benefit from code CNFL-56 and save 43%, because Excire US celebrates the Super Bowl (advertising because of the affiliate link)
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Wordless Wednesday: alerted
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Travel Tuesday: meeting of natural powers
Because of the huge size of the bay and the strong wind from the sea, the big waves came near the shore. so, I was able to get a couple of nice images from only the waves.
One small hint: When using code HAPPYVALENTINE during checkout, you can save 15% when buying Excire Foto before Feb 20th, 2022. Excire Foto is the perfect tool to find certain images on your disks by searching with keywords either from EXIF data or by the results from the artificial tagging engine. Do you want to know more? There’s already a post here in my blog. Although the post is quite old and talks about version 1.0, the last update to version 1.3 was released in December 2021.
Second hint: when you’re in the US you can benefit from code CNFL-56 and save 43%, because Excire US celebrates the Super Bowl (advertising because of the affiliate link)
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Monochrome Monday 8-40
Love is all around – happy valentine’s day!
One small hint: When using code HAPPYVALENTINE during checkout, you can save 15% when buying Excire Foto before Feb 20th, 2022. Excire Foto is the perfect tool to find certain images on your disks by searching with keywords either from EXIF data or by the results from the artificial tagging engine. Do you want to know more? There’s already a post here in my blog. Although the post is quite old and talks about version 1.0, the last update to version 1.3 was released in December 2021.
Second hint: when you’re in the US you can benefit from code CNFL-56 and save 43%, because Excire celebrates the Super Bowl (advertising because of the affiliate link)
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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 186: “low light”
A day come to its end
Birds and other animals head to their preferred place for staying the dark and dangerous night
The sun says good night to the mountains
and another actor enters the stage.
Nowadays, humans are usually not afraid of the night anymore.
In the city when the shops are closed and only the owner or the employees are in to clean up.
At night at the bus stop. No one is around. Everything seems peaceful and silent.
When having a walk in the park now, you can enjoy the silence. Traffic noises from far reaching your ear
Artificial light. For millennia, fire and candles were the only artificial light source.
Nowadays, it’s different
Especially in the cities, you have a lot of lights turning the dark to the new day
But, after crossing the city limits and bringing some kilometers or miles between you and the city
you can start experiencing natural light again.
light pollution to the right from a city in about 50km distance, but already some stars in the sky above
After a dark night, the next morning starts
From dusk ’til dawn, the light isn’t absent. It’s still present, but on a (very) low level.
Thanks, Sofia, for this enlightening challenge this week for The Lens-Artists Photo challenge.
Why don’t head over to her site, look for the rules, and also write a post.
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hallway
More of my images can be seen on my own blog.
hallway
Throwback Thursday: starlings
Exactly one year ago, I noticed a small troop of starlings in our garden. It was the first time I saw starlings here in our region. Enlarge the image to see the beautiful little heart-shaped spots on their feathers. Unfortunately, they picked a quite bad day for their visit. Because they came back from the warm south (Mediterranean region) quite early, everything was covered by snow. Having snow is in my region nowadays a very rare occurrence. So, they had to dig through the snow first to find some food below. And bad for me, because of the lacking sun, the beautiful colorful metallic glow in their plumage wasn’t visible.
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Wordless Wednesday: on guard
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Travel Tuesday: meeting of natural powers
Because of the huge size of the bay and the strong wind from the sea, the big waves came near the shore. so, I was able to get a couple of nice images from only the waves.
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Monochrome Monday 8-39
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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 184: “What travel has taught me” and LAPC 185 “Change”
Again, I’m combining two Lens-Artist Photo-Challenges. Last week Amy asked for what “travel has thought me” and this week John is asking for “Change”. I was extremely busy last weekend and over the week I’m following my own schedule. But, knowing the topic in advance, gave me the time to prepare a post although this weekend I’m very busy again.
You know, I was in Namibia last year for visiting and experiencing a desert. Namibia has lots of them. They are different from the sand deserts of the Sahara. But, you can see, how the sun dried out the country. Every now and then, we were crossing sand-filled valleys by using bridges. These valleys are rivers. According to my experience, rivers consist of water. In Africa, rivers cal also consist of sand and dust for some time during the year. They dry out. Here in Europe rivers don’t dry out. Even during the extremely hot summers of 2017-2019, the rivers had at least some water. The water level was very low and even for river Rhine, shipping had to be stopped for a couple of weeks. But, for Africa, it’s quite normal that rivers dry out.
We have to be very, very careful with our activities as they have an impact on our environment. I’m not an ecologist, but Global Warming can’t be denied. Glaciers are melting and the additional water is diluting the salty water in the oceans, which makes the inner-ocean streams (i.e. Gulf Stream or Humboldt Stream) collapse which results in climatic changes on the continents as well as collapses of fish schools. Increasing temperatures are affecting the countries, especially around the equator. Bigger areas of heat and no rain at all will avoid growing food because of the lack of water. Monsoon-like rain at quite low temperatures in other parts will also avoid growing food because the rain will wash away the fertile soil.
We are the generation to initiate the change. Michael Jackson sang in his song “Man in the mirror” (written be Glen Ballard / Siedah Garrett):
I’m gonna make a change
For once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right….Who am I, to be blind pretending not to see their needs?….That’s why I want you to knowI’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could’ve been any clearer
If they wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a changeI’ve been a victim of a selfish kind of love
It’s time that I realize
….Gonna make that change come on
(Man in the mirror)You know it
You know it
You know it
You know
Change
Make that change
Earlier this week I watched a documentary about people living in the Zambesi plains in Zambia. The people make their living with fishing. Traditionally, they were fishing with self-made traps and caught only the big fish, while the smaller ones were able to escape. So, over millennia, the system works well. Over time, more and more people came up with the idea to use nets instead of traps, because with the nets they were able to catch more fish. Unfortunately, they now also caught the small and young ones. Guess, what, the number of fish decreased enormously. So, the government forbade using nets but the people didn’t care. during the documentary, fishermen were interviewed by the film team. Surprisingly, they are aware they are exterminating all fish and killing the base of their lives. Their excuse: Even when I stop using nets, the others still use them. So, they will have more fish to sell, than me.
In small, this is the situation, we see all over the world. No-one is willing the do the first step. No government, no company, no women or man.
I want to hand over a loveable and lovely planet to our children. I want to make them see and experience the unique beauty of this wonderful tiny blue pearl in the black and cold universe. I don’t want to forbid. I want you to think about what you’re doing. Re-think it from end to end. When Sting published his song against Cold War in the 1980s, he phrased “The Russians love their children, too”. I believe this. Not only the Russians, all people all over the world. When people don’t have health anymore, who should spend money on products? When we don’t have enough water to grow plants, what do they want to eat? Do CEOs want to go out in the fields to grow and harvest their food on their own, because there are no farmers anymore?
The sentence «S’ils n’ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche.» (if they don’t have bread, they should eat cake) is attributed to the French Queen Marie-Antoinette and is supposed to be the final spark to start the storm of the French Revolution. The result is written in each history book.
A quote supposed to be said by either Chief Sitting Bull, Chief Seattle, or part of a prophecy of the Cree reads “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.” Regardless, who was the first one having said this, it’s true. Thus, I’m reciting Michael Jackson “start with the man/woman in the mirror and make the change!”
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A winter’s day!
More of my images can be seen on my own blog.
A winter’s day!
Throwback Thursday: cheetah
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Wordless Wednesday: agama agama
This time the lady. The male was shown last week 🙂
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Travel Tuesday: a hole in the water
Because of the huge size of the bay and the strong wind from the sea, the big waves came near the shore. so, I was able to get a couple of nice images from only the waves.
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