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Negative Lab Pro 2.2 update brings rebuilt engine, new tools, LUT-based emulations and more to Lightroom

10 Oct

Negative conversion tool Negative Lab Pro has released a version 2.2 update it calls ‘the most rigorously developed update’ to date, bringing with it a ‘new engine, easier editing tools, and breathtaking color and tone reproduction’

For those unfamiliar with Negative Lab Pro, it’s a plug-in for Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic that adds a specific toolset and workflow for converting negative film scans. It rids the need for hand-editing curves and manually accounting for scan densities, making it easy to go from scan to final image in a matter of minutes through its own graphic interface within Lightroom. Below is a year-old introduction to how Negative Lab Pro works:

With that out of the way, let’s get on to the new features Negative Lab Pro 2.2 brings to the table.

First up, Negative Lab Pro 2.2 features an entirely rebuilt engine that ensures the entire workflow can be done with Raw file formats and is non-destructive. Now, rather than there being multiple layers of adjustments atop the image, all conversions and adjustments are made directly to the Raw negative scan (if you convert the scanned negative into a Raw file format upon import). In theory, this should mean there isn’t any loss of quality when multiple adjustments are made on top of one another.

A screen recording showing how the curves will intelligently adjust based on the adjustments made to scans.

The new engine also features what its developer calls ‘Multilayer Auto-Generating Integrated Curves,’ which is a fancy way of saying the plug-in is able to intelligently adjust the curves to preserve the tonality and scans as adjustments are made. Negative Lab Pro developer Nate Johnson provides an explanation for how this new technology works:

‘The new engine has its own processing pipeline with 9 internal processing layers working together seamlessly under the hood. Internally, I can define, order and combine each layer in the way that makes the most sense for film processing. For instance, color balancing happens earliest in the pipeline, so your color balance remains stable even if you drastically adjust your tones. Negative Lab Pro then auto-generates up to 42 curve points in real time (14 integrated points for each color channel), which are then fed directly into Lightroom’s curve control.’

Put simply, this new development should result in ‘purer tones and colors’ in your negatives, even as adjustments are applied.

Another benefit of the redesigned engine is improved color stability. Now, adjustments made to the image — such as contrast, brightness and more — won’t affect the color balance of an image. Nate demonstrates in the comparison images below the difference between Negative Lab Pro version 2.1 and version 2.2 when making changes to contrast:

A collection of new tools have also been added to Negative Lab Pro 2.2, including film-specific color temperature and tint sliders, a new color picker, range control for highlights and shadows, and new tone profile families, which provide different baselines for getting started with editing your scans.

The integrated temp/tint sliders that use the new 2.2 engine.

If you’re using Negative Lab Pro 2.2 with Lightroom Classic, the update also adds new LUT-based emulations. Unlike Adobe Lightroom 6, Lightroom Classic has integrated 3D Lookup Tables. This capabilities allows the new LUT-based emulations to make ‘incredibly nuanced adjustments to color and tone reproduction,’ which should result in more accurate film stock emulations.

The best part is, in the case of most scans edited with previous versions of Negative Lab Pro should automatically be converted to the rebuilt engine in version 2.2. So, unless you want to make more precise edits with the new engine, you shouldn’t have to go back and manually re-edit all of your scans.

Negative Lab Pro version 2.2 is free for anyone who currently has a license. If you’re trying out Negative Lab Pro for the first time, you will be able to convert 12 images for free before you’re required to purchase a license.

Negative Lab Pro 2.2 is available to purchase for $ 99. The plug-in receives consistent updates and to date, all past updates have been free so long as you own a license. Nate does note, however, that at some point there may be paid updates or extras available for purchase.

You can find out more information about Negative Labs 2.2 in Nate’s incredibly comprehensive update post. on the Negative Lab Pro forums.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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DaVinci Resolve 16 has new Neural Engine, native Frame.io integration and more

11 Apr

In addition to the new battery grip for the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, Blackmagic has announced DaVinci Resolve 16, the latest version of its video editor that brings a massive collection of new and updated features.

The standout feature of DaVinci Resolve 16 is a new cut page designed specifically ‘for editors that need to work quickly and on tight deadlines.’ The updated cut page is an alternate edit page that features a streamlined interface and a new toolset that makes it easier to ingest, process and export footage.

In Blackmagic’s own words, ‘The [new] cut page isn’t about simplification, it’s about removing the things customers don’t need and building powerful, professional tools that help customers work more quickly. And, sometimes, it means borrowing the things that were great about the past and bringing them into the future.’

These new and improved tools include source tape, a new feature that brings all of the clips in a users bin into the viewer as a single long tape so it’s easier to scrub though, select the in/out points and bring the needed footage into the timeline. Another updated tool within the interface is a dual timeline arrangement that makes it possible to see both detailed sections of footage, as well as the whole timeline at once. This makes it easier to get both a macro and micro look at the work, rather than having to zoom in and out constantly.

DaVinci Resolve 16’s Neural Engine at work picking out faces from various clips.

Blackmagic Design has also added its new DaVinci Neural Engine, which uses ‘state of the art deep neural networks and learning, along with artificial intelligence to power new features such as speed warp motion estimation for retiming, super scale for up-scaling footage, auto color and color matching, facial recognition and more.’

The DaVinci Neural Engine is cross-platform and uses the latest GPU technologies to provide improved performance when working on footage and help to streamline the editing process. Blackmagic Design specifically references the DaVinci Neural Engine’s ability to use facial recognition to automatically sort through footage and add individual clips to folders based on who is in the shot.

ResolveFX has also been updated in DaVinci Resolve 16. You can now add vignettes, drop shadows, analog noise/damage, chromatic aberration, video stylization and even remove objects. Blackmagic Design says there have also been improvements to the scalene, beauty, face refinement, blanking fill, warper, dead pixel fixer and colorspace transformation plugins.

Additional features added and improved upon in DaVinci Resolve 16 include new adjustment clips to help add effects and grades to clips in the timeline, a new quick export tool for uploading videos to YouTube and Vimeo from anywhere inside the app and GPU-accelerated scopes to help keep an eye on the technical side of things. Blackmagic has also partnered up with remote collaboration tool Frame.io to add native support in DaVinci Resolve 16. Now, Frame.io is baked right into the software, rather than working as an iteration.

Below is a 25-minute video of Blackmagic Design walking through all of the changes found inside DaVinci Resolve 16:

DaVinci Resolve 16 public beta is available to download from the Blackmagic Design website, where you will also find additional details.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Astro HQ releases Liquid 3.0 video engine for Luna Display and Astropad Studio

25 Jan

Astro HQ has announced the release of Liquid 3.0, the latest version of its video engine for Luna Display, Astropad Standard and Astropad Studio. The updated software brings accelerated GPU support with up to four times better GPU performance over the previous version. As well, Liquid 3.0 slashes latency and screen refresh rates for up to two times faster responsiveness.

Astropad is a product that comes in Standard and Studio variants, both designed to transform an iPad into a full graphics tablet compatible with a Mac computer and any macOS app. Luna Display, meanwhile, is a small dongle-based system that turns an iPad into a small, portable second screen for Mac computers.

Both products utilize Astro’s Liquid video engine, which is Astro’s own proprietary technology. The company said in its announcement today that it focused on GPU performance optimization and latency reduction in its latest engine update. Product owners must update both the Mac and iPad software from their respective app stores to use the new engine.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Luminar Jupiter update brings new Raw conversion engine and big performance boost

17 Apr

Skylum Software—the artist formerly known as Macphun—has released a major update to its photo editing program Luminar. The update, known as Luminar Jupiter, brings more than 300 updates and improvements, including a big performance boost for both Mac and Windows users, automatic lens correction tools, a new Raw conversion engine, and much more.

One of the biggest improvements Luminar Jupiter brings is speed. According to Skylum, the update improves performance by up to 5x on Windows devices and a whopping 12x on MacOS, as illustrated in the graphics below:

Comparison charts for Luminar 2018 running on a Mid-2015 15″ MacBook Pro.

Comparison charts for Luminar 2018 running on a custom-built PC.

Beyond speed, the core of the update is two new features available in both the Windows and MacOS versions of Luminar 2018. They are: automatic lens correction controls and an improved Raw conversion engine that’s said to yield better exposure calculation, cleaner gradients, minimized chromatic aberrations and more robust camera compatibility.

Windows users in particular gain numerous new features including batch processing, an improved cloning tool, and better masking controls, while Mac users gain advanced digital camera profiles.

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The Luminar Jupiter update is available now as a free update to owners of Luminar 2018. Luminar 2017 owners can upgrade for $ 50, while entirely new users can grab the most recent version of Luminar for $ 70. To find out more or to purchase Luminar 2018 for yourself, head over to the Skylum Software website.

Press Release

CORRECTION: Luminar 2018 for new users costs $ 70 for new users, not $ 60 as this article previously stated.

Skylum Updates Award-Winning Software with Luminar 2018 Jupiter

Includes Enormous Speed Increases/New Features and Functions

WHO: Skylum Software, creators of multi-award-winning Luminar 2018 imaging software, has added new and improved features with Luminar 2018 Jupiter.

WHAT: Luminar 2018 Jupiter now provides processing speeds up to 5X faster with Windows and 12X faster with Mac.

Additional new features and updates include:

Automatic lens correction features (NEW for Mac and Windows)
Improved RAW Conversion engine (Mac and Windows)
Advanced Digital Camera Profiles (DCP) for Mac

10 NEW features for Windows users including:

Batch Processing
Free Transform, Flip and Rotate Tools
Overall, more than 300 updates and improvements to software

WHEN: Luminar 2018 Jupiter is available now as a free update to current owners of Luminar 2018. Luminar 2017 owners can upgrade for $ 49 and new customers can purchase Luminar Jupiter for $ 69 (No annual subscription or software renewal needed). Download software here

WHY: Through the efforts of its internal product development team, Skylum Software has developed one of the fastest, easiest, and most affordable universal image processing software in the world. A one time, low-cost purchase with no annual subscription.

DETAILS: Luminar 2018 Jupiter is taking the most complete and cost-effective image processing software and making it a whole lot better by:

Increased performance speed by up to 5X (Windows) and 12X (Mac)
Automatic Lens Distortion correction (Mac and Windows)
Improved RAW Conversion Engine (Mac and Windows)
Better exposure calculation
Cleaner gradients
Fewer halos
More cameras, better compatibility
Eliminate chromatic aberrations

New Features for Windows

Batch processing
Better cloning
Better masking controls, cleaner zooms, easy transformations
Improved workflow with other applications (as a plugin)
Share workspaces (remote sharing)

“Our loyal community of users continues to offer ideas for additional features that would benefit their respective workflows, and we continued to listen, learn, and improve,” said Alex Tsepko, CEO of Skylum. “Our goal is to produce a fast, easy, and feature-rich imaging software that can offer both single-click solutions as well as custom functions for those want absolute control.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Wacom’s new Cintiq Pro Engine turns your Wacom pen display into a full-blown PC

28 Feb

Back in July of 2017, Wacom announced that it would be releasing 24- and 32-inch versions of its popular Cintiq Pro pen display for creatives. But today’s debut of the 24-inch model isn’t the most interesting news out of Wacom; the interesting bit is the Cintiq Pro Engine: a plug-and-play PC module that turns your Cintiq Pro tablet into a full-blown Windows 10 workstation.

Or, in Wacom’s own words:

Designed for professional illustrators, designers, engineers and motion graphics users who require professional computing power and graphics performance, the modular Cintiq Pro Engine slots into the back of the Cintiq Pro 24, eliminating the space, cable clutter and compatibility issues that often result from using external computers and laptops.

The Cintiq Pro Engine is a PC module that quite simply slides into a slot on the back of the 24-inch (and eventually 32-inch) Cintiq Pro pen display. Once added, your Cintiq Pro is now a Windows 10 PC in one of two variations:

If go with the $ 2,500 Cintiq Pro Engine i5, you get:

A quad-core Intel Core i5HQ processor
NVIDIA Quadro P3200 graphics card with 6GB of dedicated GDDR5 RAM
16GB of RAM
A 256GB PCIe Gen3 SSD
WiFi and Bluetooth Connectivity

Or you can get the $ 3,300 Cintiq Pr Engine Xeon with:

An Intel XEON processor
The same NVIDIA Quadro P3200 graphics card with 6GB dedicated GDDR5 RAM
32GB of RAM
A 512GB PCIe Gen3 SSD
Wireless and Bluetooth connectivity

What’s more, the SSDs and RAM inside both versions are upgradable, so you can keep the PC modules current as demands increase. And since the Cintiq Pro Engine is plug-and-play, you can swap it between various Cintiq Pro 24- and 32-inch pen displays “while retaining the same computing environment.”

Both versions of the Cintiq Pro Engine will be available starting in March in Japan, the US, and ‘select countries’ in Europe. To learn more about the Cintiq Pro 24-inch and the Cintiq Pro Engine, visit the Wacom website.

Press Release

Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine and Cintiq Pro displays: The first modular all-in-one creative studio

Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine is a compact PC module that converts the Cintiq Pro into a powerful creative studio. Artists, Designers and Engineers can transform their Cintiq Pro into a powerful Windows 10 workstation with the power to run the demanding creative applications and workflows, including 3D, animation and virtual reality.

Tokyo, Japan – Feb. 27, 2018 – Today Wacom announced the Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine, a creative PC module available in two configurations that fully integrates into the Cintiq Pro 24-inch pen display (announced today in a separate release). Designed for professional illustrators, designers, engineers and motion graphics users who require professional computing power and graphics performance, the modular Cintiq Pro Engine slots into the back of the Cintiq Pro 24, eliminating the space, cable clutter and compatibility issues that often result from using external computers and laptops.

“It is our mission to help professionals create with the least amount of distraction and clutter and to give them the power to tackle the new spaces of creating content for AR, VR and MR. The Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine provides a beautiful, easy to use solution for creatives everywhere,” said Faik Karaoglu, Executive Vice President of the Creative Business Unit at Wacom.

Attaching the Cintiq Pro Engine to the Cintiq Pro 24 tranforms the Cintiq Pro 24 into a full Windows 10 creative studio that supports even the most demanding programs and applications used by creative professionals. The combination of the Wacom Cintiq Pro display, the powerful Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine creative PC module, and a flexible and rotatable new Wacom Ergo Stand is an innovative approach to providing an all-in-one specialized working environment for creatives. Adding the use of the Wacom Pro Pen 3D, professionals who rely on 3D animation or sculpting software, or CAD applications, will see an immediate benefit to their workflow.

Virtual Reality Support

In addition to the benefits around creative applications and workflows, Cintiq Pro Engine supports the increasingly important virtual reality (VR) workflow. Most Wacom products are already capable of supporting VR content creation, but to review and check the VR content, customers frequently need to move the content to another PC that has the graphics power to run VR content.

Powerful Graphics

The Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine is powered by the NVIDIA Quadro P3200. This graphics card is based on the NVIDIA Pascal GPU architecture, which provides the power demanded by today’s creative applications with dramatically faster graphics and computing power than on the CPU.

“Wacom designs products for the way artists and designers create. They’re intuitive, natural and fast and can be used anywhere,” says Bob Pette, vice president, Professional Visualization, NVIDIA. “Our new mobile Quadro P3200 packs a ton of graphics power into the new Cintiq and Cintiq Engine Pro, and we’re thrilled to have them showcased at our upcoming GPU Technology Conference.”

Flexibility Found Nowhere Else

The Wacom Cintiq Pro Engine memory and SSD are exchangeable and upgradable, ensuring system flexibility. Given the plug and play nature of the hardware, it’s easy to move between Cintiq 32” and 24” displays while retaining the same computing environment with the Cintiq Pro Engine. This flexibility is found nowhere else in the market and leads to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than any other solution.

Two Versions of Cintiq Pro Engine

Cintiq Pro Engine i5:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
Processor: Intel® Core i5HQ (Quad Core)
Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® P3200
Dedicated graphics memory: 6GB GDDR5
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 256GB SSD, PCIe Gen3
Wireless LAN: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 ac
Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 4.2
Security: fTPM(TPM2.0)
Input Voltage: 100 to 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz
Connectivity: Internal (communication between PC & Display) 1x USB-C, 1x Power
Connectivity: External (customer interfaces) 1x RJ45 (LAN), 2x USB-C, 1xmHDMI, 1xmDP, 2x DC-in
Price: $ 2,499

Cintiq Pro Engine Xeon:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro for Workstation
Processor: Intel® XEON
Graphics: NVIDIA® Quadro® P3200
Dedicated graphics memory: 6GB GDDR5
RAM: 32GB
Storage: 512GB SSD, PCIe Gen3
Wireless LAN: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 ac
Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 4.2
Security: fTPM(TPM2.0)
Input Voltage: 100 to 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz
Output Voltage: 19.5V/11.8A (230W)
Connectivity: Internal (communication between PC & Display); 1x USB-C, 1x Power
Connectivity: External (customer interfaces); 1x RJ45 (LAN), 2x USB-C, 1xmHDMI, 1xmDP, 2x DC-in
Price: $ 3,299

Availability

There are two versions of Cintiq Pro Engine, available as of May 2018 in Japan, US and selected countries in Europe. For details visit our homepage at Wacom.com. For more information on compatibility, visit www.wacom.com/comp.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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The Apprehension Engine: Machine Makes Disturbing Horror Movie Music

11 Jul

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

Is this the most terrifying musical instrument ever made? If you just take a quick glance at it, you’ll likely say no – it’s an unassuming (albeit rather strange) jumble of strings, rods, reverbs and metal rulers attached to a boxy wooden base. But just you wait until composer Mark Coven, whose work includes the stunning score for the 2016 horror film The Witch, sits down at it and starts to play. The sounds that emerge from the ‘Apprehension Engine’ are designed to give you the creeps, and they’re quite effective.

Korven, who has scored a number of feature films over the years, was sick of using the same old digital samples to get the signature scraping, creaking, squealing and rumbling sounds that help provide a hair-raising atmosphere. The world of creating analog sound effects in audio post-production is pretty fascinating, and foley artists use all sorts of weird objects to create many of the sounds you hear in an average movie or TV show.

But Korven wanted something very specific, all together in a single instrument, so he turned to his friend Tony Duggan-Smith, a guitar maker, to help him craft it. In this video, Korven demonstrates to Great Big Story how the Apprehension Engine works as he plucks, wiggles, flicks, thumps and runs a bow across the various objects connected to the instrument.

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Terrapattern: Satellite Image Search Engine Matches Similar Places

31 May

A powerful tool for artists, designers and researchers, Terrapattern lets users seek out similar-looking locations from an aerial perspective, finding connections and patterns between disparate landscapes and built environments.

The premise is simple: start with a single place, be it a park or street, stadium or shipyard, then let the tool work its magic. The results are uncanny: colors, textures and shapes tied together by computer vision and clever algorithms. The broader use cases are infinite, but specific ones are possible too, like: a user could look for abandoned ships floating around the island of Manhattan.

The system works by looking at its subjects in layers, looking for identifying features like curves, edges and shadows that indicate height. In a way, its task is similar than some pattern recognition software since it is not called upon to identify the subject, just match it.

“For our purposes,” explain the creators, “‘interesting’ features are anthropogenic or natural phenomena that are not only socially or scientifically meaningful, but also visually distinctive—thus lending themselves ideally to machine recognition. Examples could include things like animal herds, methane blowholes, factories, destroyed homes, or logging roads. Many other patterns await discovery.”

The system draws on data from OpenStreetMap, combing through hundreds of thousands of images looking for something like whatever you submitted. Researchers can use tools like this to monitor natural habitats or make archaeological finds, but ordinary people can employ this tool to create art or make inquiries about the cities they live in. Even a quick tour around the engine reveals emergent macro-patterns from individual tiles, some worthy of wall art treatment.

Terrapattern’s creators are indeed excited for more non-standard and unexpected uses: “Terrapattern is ideal for discovering, locating and labeling typologies that aren’t customarily indicated on maps. These might include ephemeral or temporally-contingent features (such as vehicles or construction sites), or the sorts of banal infrastructure (like fracking wells or smokestacks) that only appear on specialist blueprints, if they appear at all.”

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Google Search Engine – What is My IP Address?

01 May

Need to find your public IP address? It’s just a Google search away.

For playing online games or accessing particular Internet services, it might prove useful to know your public IP address (the address that other computers / devices on the Internet can use to contact your machine and the address given out when contacting other computers / devices). If you are using an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that provides dynamic IP addresses, this may change every time you go online. And, if you use a proxy server or VPN (virtual private network), displaying your “public” IP address can help ensure you are actually accessing the Internet via the connected service.

Instead of going through computer settings to display your public IP address, finding this information is just a Google search away:…

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