Luminar Neo update 1.8

Skylum has quietly slipped out an update to Neo without much fanfare. It has two features I’ve really wondered why they were never included. Both make a significant improvement in useability for me.

1. Before & After Sliders

This was pretty hard to believe because Skylum had this feature in Luminar Ai and PhotoLemur. I do find it much better to compare before and after on one screen than flicking the whole screen before and after backwards and forwards. The fact that this also works when you mouse-over presets leads to a better appreciation of their effect on your chosen photo. Finally having a slider to control the opacity of how the preset is applied makes this a real winner in my books.

2. Histogram at the top of the edit controls 

This was also a real puzzle because the histogram has always been displayed in Luminar’s catalogue screens, but was missing when using the edit tools. This is the time that I find the histogram gives its most useful feedback. Specifically, it changes as you apply different edits, so you can follow the tonal impact of them, You do need to understand how the histogram works and why it is a useful graph. It is activated from the main View Menu by ticking the Show Histogram option at the bottom of the pop out list.

An updated Studio :: Painted & Decluttered

I'm still hobbling around a bit after a fall last month, nut these seemed the perfect time to repaint the bedroom I an using as my studio (its been accumulating junk for 25 years first as my office and them as a craft/junk room and eventually my studio)/ there was a lot to clean out (it was the council's hard rubbish collection) and the biggest ting I wanted to do was repaint, specifically to a neutral colour. I didn't mind the burgandy but it played havoc when trying to match colours and calibrate my computer screen.

I had decided on the Neutral Grey that photographers often call (18% grey card) to check colur cast and also exposure time. My theory is that this will help me with colour mixing. Very fortuiosly I visited Bunnings and got 4 litres of a nice neutral grey as close to the photographic refernce card as I could judge.

The clustered was both easier and harder to deal with. The guidig principal though is I only bring back the things I will be using and for which there is a defined place to store them. So that is dominately blank canvases, paper and sketch books. I also have watercolour and acrylic paints, brushes and accessories, pens, pencils and pastels. There are open book shelves, a slick stainless steel set of draws and a file cabent to hold all these tings. 

I also kept the old desk a a work area and place to "stack" my computer and I am intending to mount an old large flat screen tv on the wall as my main computer monitor. Still a bit of work to do here.