Studio « 360Photography

RSS

Posts Tagged ‘Studio’

Nikon NX Studio Review: How Good Is This Free Photo Editor?

06 May

The post Nikon NX Studio Review: How Good Is This Free Photo Editor? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

In order to write a good Nikon NX Studio review, it’s important to step back to see who this program is for and how it fits into the image editing landscape.

In 2006, Nikon released a software tool called Capture NX, which was designed for its fledgling line of digital cameras. Over the years, Nikon slowly added new features, but Capture NX was never a serious competitor to Adobe Lightroom, Capture One, or other popular image editing and management software. That all changed in early 2021; Nikon retired Capture NX (and its companion, ViewNX) and replaced them with Nikon NX Studio.

But is Nikon’s software ready for prime time, and can it hold its own against a growing list of competitors? What exactly does NX Studio do and who is it for? The answers might surprise you.

Nikon NX Studio Review Flower — RAW file processed with Nikon NX Studio.
Nikon D7100 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8G | f/2.8 | 1/3000s | ISO 100

Nikon NX Studio overview

In a very basic sense, Nikon NX Studio is like Lightroom – but designed specifically for Nikon shooters. It’s not really a fair comparison, though, because Nikon NX Studio isn’t supposed to be a replacement for Lightroom. The two have a lot of overlap, but when doing a one-to-one feature comparison, Nikon NX Studio comes up woefully short. However, NX Studio does have a workflow that appeals to a lot of photographers, as well as some advanced tools absent from Lightroom.

Nikon NX Studio is great for photographers who want to do more with their photos than what basic programs like Apple Photos can offer. It has tools for common edits such as white balance, brightness, color, noise reduction, cropping, and sharpness. Nikon NX Studio also goes one step beyond Lightroom by letting you perform basic edits on videos, such as trimming and stitching.

It also has one very important advantage over Lightroom and most other programs: It’s free, so you lose nothing by trying it out.

Nikon NX Studio Review Overview — Nikon NX Studio goes way beyond basic image editing, and it has some powerful tools that appeal to amateurs and professionals alike.

For enthusiasts and even professionals, there’s a lot to like about Nikon NX Studio as long as you keep your expectations in check and don’t mind some frustrating bugs and shortcomings. It’s not a full-featured digital asset management tool like Lightroom, though it does offer some basic file management and storage.

But where Nikon NX Studio really shines is in the sheer depth of its tools. The Lightness, Chroma, and Hue adjustments give you incredible control over editing colors, and the Color Point tool gives you fine-grained control that takes several steps to replicate in Lightroom.

Finally, Nikon NX Studio has a trick up its sleeve that no other image editor can match: it works with Nikon RAW files without needing to reverse-engineer the RAW algorithm or convert everything to DNG.

Nikon NX Studio pros

The price is great. It’s a free program and should be updated by Nikon regularly for years to come.
Lots of features that appeal to amateurs, hobbyists, and professionals
Basic movie editing tools are simple and practical
Everything takes place in a single interface without the need to switch between Library and Develop modules like in Lightroom

Nikon NX Studio cons

Very basic import process compared to Lightroom: no keyword management, applying presets, or metadata adjustments
Lacks Brush and Graduated adjustment tools, along with other editing options offered by competing programs
Lack of a simple Undo feature
Lots of bugs and glitches. Some would say this is expected with Version 1 of a program, but these issues happen more frequently than I would like

Nikon NX Studio Review Import — Nikon NX Studio utilizes a separate program called Nikon Transfer 2 to import images from a memory card or other source. It works fine, but it’s fairly simplistic in terms of functionality.

If you’re a Nikon shooter, you can’t go wrong with just downloading Nikon NX Studio to check it out. It’s free, and it won’t alter your current photos even if you use Lightroom, Luminar, or another program. You really have nothing to lose by trying it, and you might find that the results you get from your Nikon RAW files are much better than what you get in Lightroom. (Note that Nikon NX Studio only works with Nikon NEF RAW files. It will not load DNG files or RAW files from Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, and other manufacturers.)

While I do think Nikon NX Studio is worth trying out, let’s take a closer look at some of its characteristics to help determine whether it’s the right program for you.

Layout and ease of use

If you’ve ever used a program like Lightroom, Luminar, or Capture One, you’ll feel right at home in Nikon NX Studio.

The interface is pretty simple: the left side is where you access your photos in folders or albums. The middle is where you scroll through your photos or look at them more closely. Your tools are located on the right and clicking the title of a tool expands and collapses its options just like Lightroom.

Nikon NX Studio review Layout — The Nikon NX Studio layout is similar to other programs like Lightroom, Luminar, and Capture One. Photo storage on the left, editing tools on the right, and your image in the middle.

An Import button in the top-right corner will let you start loading images from a memory card. Additional icons at the top of the main window let you switch between views: thumbnail, map, 2 and 4 images at a time, before and after, and list, which users of Apple’s Aperture software will certainly appreciate. Along the bottom are more tools that let you show view overlays (such as a grid or a histogram), assign star ratings, and rotate photos.

All these buttons and options might seem overwhelming, but it’s very straightforward; you should be able to find your way around the interface after a few minutes of exploring.

One key difference between Nikon NX Studio and Lightroom is that the former stores your image edits in sidecar files, whereas the latter is based around a single massive database, called a catalog. Some prefer one type of storage over the other, but while there have been reports of corrupted Catalogs causing problems for some photographers, it’s not an issue I have experienced.

Still, if you want a powerful image editor but are wary of putting all your editing eggs in a single basket, Nikon NX Studio might be a good choice.

Performance

In terms of sheer speed and editing efficiency, Nikon NX Studio does leave something to be desired. On a 2020 27″ iMac with a 3.6 GHz, 10-core i9 processor, lots of RAM, and a large internal SSD, my edits were fairly smooth.

But running NX Studio on a machine just a few years old with a spinning hard drive felt positively sluggish by comparison. Adjusting any given slider, from White Balance to Highlights to Color Booster, resulted in a visible checkerboard pattern across the image while edits were applied. Each adjustment only took a second or two, but these little bits of time add up quickly when editing dozens or hundreds of images.

goose on the grass with checkerboard pattern — On slower computers, editing operations like changing the white balance can result in a tiny delay, during which time a checkerboard pattern is visible.

Other Nikon NX Studio features resulted in slow response times or outright crashes. Navigating through folders to locate images took much longer than I expected, and simple operations like cropping were slow and choppy. I generally zoom in to a photo to check for focus and sharpness and then zoom out for more editing, but even this relatively basic operation was slower and clunkier than I would have liked. After leaving NX Studio running for a few hours – not processing photos, but simply open in the background – it brought my Mac to its knees with a strange memory management error.

Memory Error — I left Nikon NX Studio running overnight; the next morning, I found that my computer had slowed to a crawl. It had some kind of memory leak that was using every spare scrap of RAM I had available.

I’m not saying that the program is unusable, just that users ought to approach it with a bit of caution. Programs such as Lightroom were just as buggy in their early incarnations and are much improved now, and I have no doubt the same will be true of Nikon NX Studio. It will get better over time, but right now you can expect to encounter some glitches.

However, it’s not all bad news in terms of performance. Loading Nikon NEF RAW files was snappy, navigating between editing panes was quick and easy, and import/export operations had no noticeable lag. When Nikon NX Studio works, which it usually does, it works quite well. But when it doesn’t work, it can be a bit frustrating.

Photo organization

It’s not uncommon for photographers to have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pictures to wade through. Nikon NX Studio isn’t going to win awards for groundbreaking AI-powered image management, but it does have some useful tools to help you organize your pictures.

Nikon NX Studio Review Folder Organization — Nikon NX Studio imports images to folders on your hard drive, not to a proprietary archive. To find your images, use the folders on the left-hand side.

In lieu of a Lightroom-style Catalog system, NX Studio shows you a hierarchical view of all the folders on your main drive and lets you navigate through them to locate your images. It’s not dissimilar from Luminar and others, and I prefer this method over the all-in-one archive system used by Apple Photos. When you import images from a memory card, you can create a new folder to store the pictures. You can create custom names for each import, as well.

When browsing through your pictures, you can assign star ratings, color labels, and keywords. There is a Filter bar that you can use to sort your photos according to these criteria as well as other information, but Nikon NX Studio does not have Smart Albums or other dynamic methods for automatically sorting your images. I use Lightroom’s Smart Collections to help me organize my images, but if you aren’t a fan of this method, then NX Studio will be fine.

Nikon NX Studio Review Filter — The Filter bar lets you sort by many different criteria.

Longtime users of Apple’s now-defunct Aperture software will find the Thumbnail List View to be particularly useful when managing photos. This shows a list-style view similar to what you see when browsing through your Mac OS Finder or Windows Explorer, with columns that display various parameters such as exposure information, file size, date modified, and more.

Nikon NX Studio Review List View — List View is a very useful way of viewing and sorting your images. It is very similar to List View in the Mac OS Finder and in Microsoft Windows Explorer.

While Nikon NX Studio’s photo management tools are not as robust as I would like, they’re certainly a good start. If you prefer a straightforward approach that does not rely on a proprietary catalog or database system, then there’s a lot to appreciate.

Photo-editing capabilities

This is where the rubber meets the road, and fortunately, Nikon NX Studio can hold its own against the competition in virtually all the areas that matter. While some NX Studio features are not as refined as other programs and some tools are missing in action, what it gets right, it really gets right.

There’s a long list of editing options at your disposal, including:

White Balance
Exposure Compensation
Active D-Lighting, which is unique to Nikon cameras and is a nice way to automatically brighten shadows and create a more even exposure
Brightness and Color
Levels and Curves
Lightness, Chroma, and Hue
Adjust Details, which includes Noise Reduction and Sharpness
Touch-Up, to remove spots and blemishes
Adjust Composition, which includes cropping, straightening, and perspective control
Camera and Lens Corrections

Once again, it’s worth remembering that Nikon NX Studio is a free program, and that fact alone makes the inclusion of all these options kind of amazing. While tools like a graduated filter, a radial filter, and an adjustment brush are missing, the options you do have should suffice for most photo editing. You can even create multiple custom sets of adjustment options that include only the tools you use in specific scenarios. This is quite useful if you prefer different tools when editing landscapes compared to editing portraits.

Nikon NX Studio Review Adjustments — You can create custom sets of editing adjustments, then switch to your custom sets with a simple click.

The Color Control Point editing tool is particularly useful, and one that I’d like to see in other applications. It allows you to click anywhere on your image and immediately have access to eight common editing sliders. Drag any of them to the right or left to increase or decrease that particular parameter. The top slider adjusts the size of the area to which the edits will be applied. It’s a highly useful tool for precise color editing, and the ability to adjust sliders right on the image instead of in an editing pane is something I have grown to appreciate a great deal.

Nikon NX Studio Review Color Control Point — The Color Control Point tool lets you click on any part of an image and use sliders to adjust colors on the spot.

The Lightness, Chroma, and Hue Adjustment takes an innovative and highly effective approach to manipulating color. While similar to the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance option in Lightroom, the Nikon NX Studio implementation offers useful options that professional and amateur photographers will appreciate.

You can use the eyedropper tool to select a color in your image, then click and drag up or down in the rainbow panel to adjust that color’s parameters. You can also change the angle of the rainbow, which means that your edits can be implemented more dramatically or more subtly. Finally, Width lets you target your edits to either a very narrow or very wide band of colors. It’s a powerful tool for global color adjustments.

Nikon NX Studio Review Lightness Chroma Hue Adjustment — Nikon NX Studio has a very useful tool for making global color edits to an image. Click and drag up or down on the horizontal line to adjust the parameters of a color, and adjust the Width to control the range of colors affected by a given peak or valley.

There are some important drawbacks to NX Studio’s photo-editing capabilities, and any Nikon NX Studio review would be remiss in not pointing them out.

First, there is no Undo option. Yes, you read that right; instead of an Undo, you can create a saved state for your edits then revert to that saved state at any point, but an actual Undo feature is missing.

Also, there is no History tool that shows you every edit and lets you step through them one by one. While Nikon NX Studio is nondestructive and all your edits can be changed or removed at any time, a History feature would help when doing lots of in-depth changes.

Other strange feature implementations are present, as well. After you apply a crop, you can’t actually make changes to it; you can start over with a new crop, but you can’t edit the crop once it has been applied. You also can’t darken shadows or lighten highlights – at least, not with the Shadows and Highlights sliders. The Retouch brush has no customization options at all other than its size. Finally, there is no way to make export presets, which could be a dealbreaker for those who rely on this feature in Lightroom and other programs.

Nikon NX Studio Review Export Dialog — The Export dialog in Nikon NX Studio has plenty of options, but its use is limited by the lack of export presets.

There’s a couple of ways to look at these drawbacks.

Compared to a program like Lightroom, NX Studio might seem limited. But on the other hand, you could argue that Nikon NX Studio is free, so there’s not much to complain about. It’s also currently on Version 1 and will no doubt be refined and upgraded over time. Many of the drawbacks have workarounds or alternative methods of accomplishing the same task, even if it does involve some extra steps. And finally, there is always a learning curve with new programs.

So are these missing features drawbacks, or is it more a matter of learning a new workflow? One could make a strong case for the latter over the former.

Who should get Nikon NX Studio?

While I can’t recommend Nikon NX Studio across the board, it’s a great option for many shooters. Certainly, Nikon users will appreciate all the tools NX Studio has to offer, especially for editing RAW files. If you are a hobbyist or working professional who needs a suite of powerful editing tools and you don’t mind some interface quirks, Nikon NX Studio could be right up your alley. Beginners might be intimidated by the plethora of buttons, options, and tools, especially compared to more basic image editors that are available for free on mobile phones and some computers. But Nikon NX Studio could be a good way for those individuals to start using a more advanced image editor without spending any money at all.

People who should definitely not use Nikon NX Studio are those who have a mobile-first workflow. There is no version of the program that works on phones or tablets, and it’s unlikely to be created anytime soon. If you primarily shoot and edit with a smartphone, you’re better off sticking with the tools you already have.

Nikon NX Studio review: final words

Nikon NX Studio is an outstanding program in many ways, and the fact that it’s free is certainly one of its most important advantages.

If you shoot in JPEG, you can use everything Nikon NX Studio has to offer, no matter your camera brand, while Nikon users will greatly appreciate its RAW editing capabilities. While there are certainly some important caveats to consider, as well as some messy bugs that will get ironed out over time, I certainly recommend you download it and give it a try.

Hopefully, this Nikon NX Studio review gave you some information to help you understand a bit more about the program and whether it will work for you!

Now I’d like to hear your thoughts:

Are you interested in Nikon NX Studio? Do you think you’ll use it? What do you like and dislike about the software? Share your views in the comments below!

Do I need to have a Nikon camera to use Nikon NX Studio?

Nikon NX Studio will only work with Nikon RAW files. RAW formats from Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, and others will not work, and neither will universal RAW formats like DNG. However, the program works just fine with JPEG images. So if you don’t use a Nikon camera but shoot in JPEG, you can easily use Nikon NX Studio for your editing and photo management.

Will Nikon NX Studio work on my mobile phone?

Nikon NX Studio is designed for desktop-based workflows; there is no mobile version. You can take photos on a mobile phone, transfer them to your computer, and edit them in Nikon NX Studio, but that workflow adds many more steps and probably takes too much time for most people to consider.

Is Nikon NX Studio better than Lightroom, Capture One, or Luminar?

There are advantages and disadvantages to all of these programs, and it’s impossible to say which one is better. Nikon NX Studio is free, but most of the others have free trial periods for new users. If you’re unsure of which to use, I recommend downloading them, signing up for free trials (if available), and making use of dPS’s many articles to help you learn. That way, you can make an informed choice and find the program that suits your needs.

Will Nikon NX Studio run on my computer?

Most computers made in the past few years will work just fine with Nikon NX Studio. I personally found better results when I was working with an SSD instead of a spinning hard drive, but almost any modern desktop or laptop will run the program just fine.

Can I use Nikon NX Studio to edit video?

While Nikon NX Studio does have a built-in video editor, its capabilities are very limited. It works for basic trimming and combining clips but not much else.

The post Nikon NX Studio Review: How Good Is This Free Photo Editor? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results

04 Dec

The post How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate Color and Tone Wheels

Color editing is an essential part of nearly every great photo.

Unfortunately, adjusting the colors in most post-processing programs is difficult – or downright impossible.

One impressive exception to this, however, is ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, which offers two powerful tools for color editing:

The Color Wheel
The Tone Wheels

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Tone Wheels

And that’s what this article is all about. I’m going to show you how to use the Color Wheel and Tone Wheels to apply gorgeous color adjustments to your photos. You’ll discover how the Wheels work, what they can do, and how to get a professional look in your own images.

Let’s dive right in.

The Color and Tone Wheels: overview

The Color and Tone Wheels come as part of Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, a recently updated, all-in-one photo editor that you can grab on ACDSee’s website for $ 8.90/month (you also have the option to purchase a lifetime license for $ 149.99).

While Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offers a lot of upgrades over its predecessor (including some major speed improvements that you’ll want to see for yourself), one of the biggest features for amateur and professional photographers is the set of color editing tools: the Color Wheel and the Tone Wheels.

Here’s a quick peek at the Color Wheel:

And here is the Tone Wheels panel:

Together, these two tools can revolutionize your photo editing workflow.

And here’s why:

With the Color and Tone Wheels, you can make both broad and targeted adjustments to the colors in your images. You can shift, brighten, and saturate colors selectively, you can push colors into the shadows, highlights, and midtones separately, and so much more – all with a few easy-to-use wheels and sliders.

As someone who’s a bit color-obsessed, I’ve used quite a few color adjustment tools in many different post-processing programs. But I can honestly say that Photo Studio Ultimate’s version is one of the best implementations I’ve ever seen (if not the best). Yes, the wheels are amazingly powerful, and they should offer any amateur or professional all the color adjustment power they need. But they’re also just so fun and intuitive to work with, which is what’s really sold me on this program.

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 sample

Now let’s take a look at how you can actually use the Color and Tone Wheels for great results (and if you’re feeling intimidated, don’t be – I’ll give you simple, easy-to-follow instructions!).

How to use the Color Wheel to selectively adjust colors in your photos

You’ll find the Color Wheel in Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Develop mode, which you can select in the top-right corner of the screen:

the Develop mode in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021

Then open the Color Wheel panel on the left-hand side, and you’ll see a color wheel with a series of sliders below it:

Here’s what you need to know:

The color wheel itself lets you select the colors you’re targeting in the photo.

And the sliders below it allow you to adjust the targeted colors.

So once you have your Color Wheel panel open, here’s what I recommend you do:

Step 1: Select the colors you want to adjust

Selecting the colors you’d like to adjust pretty easy, and there are a couple of methods you can use.

First, you can simply hover your cursor over different parts of your photo, and watch as it turns into a dropper icon:

Then, by clicking once on the photo, you’ll select that color for adjustment.

So if you click on a pinkish-purple part of your photo, you’ll select all the pink-purple colors:

And if you click on a yellow part of your photo, you’ll select all the yellow colors:

Now, as soon as you click on a part of your photo, you’ll see the color wheel change. This is to show you the color range you’ve selected.

You can also use the display on the color wheel to either select colors (instead of the eyedropper), or to refine your color selection.

To select colors, just click on the relevant part of the wheel:

And to fine-tune the color selection, just narrow the range of colors on the color wheel – by dragging the edges of the selection inward or outward. That way, the adjustments you make via the sliders will affect a narrower or broader range of colors in your photo.

Here, I’ve narrowed the color selection:

And here I’ve broadened it:

Also, if you want to get really picky with your selection, you can drag your color range upward from the center of the wheel:

And this will ensure you only select the more saturated colors.

You can also drag downward from the rim of the wheel to select only the less-saturated colors:

By the way, if you want to see the areas you’ve selected displayed on your photo, just hit the Auto preview the selected range checkbox:

Your selected colors will be highlighted on the image, while everything else will be grayed out:

Cool, right?

Step 2: Adjust the colors using the sliders

Now comes the fun part:

Actually adjusting the colors.

While there are a number of sliders, I recommend you focus on three key options:

Hue.

Saturation.

And Brightness.

These are the main adjustments you’ll want to make (I use them on almost every photo I edit).

By shifting the Hue slider, you shift the hue of your selected color range. So if I select the pink colors in this flower photo and want to make them more purple, I can just push the Hue slider to the left:

I can also make them more red by pushing the Hue slider to the right:

Speaking more generally, the Hue slider is useful for situations where you want to separate colors to create contrast, or where you want to make colors more similar to add harmony.

(How do you know what creates contrast and what creates harmony? Look at the color wheel! Colors that are opposite one another are contrasting/complementary colors, whereas colors next to one another are analogous colors.)

While color contrast will generally create a more powerful, in-your-face photo, analogous colors can result in a more peaceful final image.

Anyway, once you’ve adjusted the hue, I recommend turning to the Saturation slider. This works the way it sounds: It lets you selectively boost or reduce the saturation of your selected color range.

So by selecting the yellows in the image below, then adjusting the Saturation slider, you can boost the yellow intensity:

Or you can dial it back:

In general, boosting the saturation of your main colors looks pretty good, as long as you don’t overdo it. That way, a few colors in your photo will stand out and keep the viewer interested.

However, it can also be helpful to reduce the saturation of colors that distract from the main subject. So if your photo includes a red “Exit” sign in the background, you might reduce the saturation of those reds to keep the viewer focused on the foreground.

Finally, I recommend experimenting with the Brightness slider. This allows you to adjust the brightness of your selected color range. So you can brighten up your selection to make it pop:

Or you can darken the selection down to make it less impactful:

Step 3: Create additional color wheels for further adjustments

While one color adjustment may sometimes be enough, you also have the option to create more.

Simply click the Plus icon:

Then follow the previous steps all over again!

Also, to toggle the effects of the color wheels on and off, you can just check and uncheck the box above each color wheel icon:

How to use the Tone Wheels to produce beautiful color grading

The Tone Wheels panel is located just below the Color Wheel panel in the Develop mode of Photo Studio Ultimate 2021:

using the tone wheels in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021

Now, unlike the Color Wheel panel, you cannot select individual colors to adjust.

Instead, each of the three wheels corresponds to a different tonal range of your photo:

The top wheel corresponds to the highlights (the brightest tones)
The middle wheel corresponds to the midtones (the middle tones)
The bottom wheel corresponds to the shadows (the darkest tones)

And by adjusting the tone wheels, you change the color in the corresponding area of the image.

So by setting the Highlights wheel to yellow, your photo’s highlights will be tinted yellow:

And by setting the Shadows wheel to green, your photo’s shadows will be tinted green:

This is a fantastic way to add different looks to your images. For instance, you can create blue shadows and yellow highlights, which is a popular look on Instagram. Or you can make the highlights orange and the shadows teal, for a cinematic, movie-type result.

Now, the tone wheels themselves only allow you to select the hue and saturation of the color you’d like to add.

But by shifting the Brightness slider – found to the right of each wheel – you can also make the highlights, midtones, and shadows brighter or darker.

So how do you get great results using the Color Wheel panel? How should you approach this color adjustment tool?

Here’s what I recommend:

Step 1: Adjust the shadows

I like to start by adjusting the shadows in my images.

Now, you can choose your shadow color a few different ways:

One method is to select the Shadows eyedropper:

Then you can click on a part of your photo and the Shadows wheel will select its hue:

Alternatively, you can click around the wheel to select different colors:

And you can further fine-tune the saturation with the left-hand slider:

Plus you can change the brightness of the shadows with the right-hand slider:

Personally, my favorite way to select colors is to use the wheel, but start by pushing the Saturation slider all the way up:

saturation pushed all the way to its maximum

That way, you can clearly see the effects of your color grade – and once you’ve chosen the right color, you can dial it back.

Also, while it’s always a good idea to experiment, the best shadow colors are generally cool – blues, greens, and purples.

I’d also recommend paying careful attention to the colors already present in your shadows – by matching the shadow color with already-existing colors, you can unify the darker parts of your photo and make it even stronger.

For this flower photo, I like blue-green shadows:

Step 2: Adjust the highlights

Selecting a color for the Highlights wheel is just like selecting a color for the Shadows wheel.

You can use the eyedropper tool:

Or you can click on the wheel directly.

Of course, you can also fine-tune with the Saturation slider and the Brightness slider:

Generally, you’ll want a warmer color for the highlights: an orange, yellow, or red.

It’s also a good idea to pay attention to your existing highlight colors. For instance, if your photo has a lot of warm sunlight, such as in the shot of the Black-eyed Susan flowers, you might want to accentuate the yellows with some nice golden highlights:

I’d also recommend looking at your shadow colors even when adjusting the Highlights wheel. For a nice result, you might choose a color that contrasts with the shadows to create a complementary color pair (as I discussed in the Color Wheel section, above).

Step 3: Adjust the midtones

Adjusting the midtones is a bit less common than adjusting the highlights and the shadows.

For one, if you adjust the midtones, your photo will often take on a more obvious tinted look, because we humans expect midtones to be more neutral compared to colder shadows and warmer highlights.

Plus, the midtones can correspond to skin tones, which you (generally) want to keep as natural as possible.

So I recommend you be careful when experimenting with the Midtones color wheel. If you do decide you want to make changes, I’d recommend keeping things closely aligned with the highlights, because too many colors in your scene will start to look messy.

Make sense?

As you’d expect, adjusting the midtones is just like adjusting the highlights and shadows. You have the Midtone color wheel that you can click on:

Plus your eyedropper:

Which you can use to give your midtones a slight color grade!

ACDSee’s Color and Tone Wheels: the next steps

Now that you’ve finished this article, you know how to make pro-level color adjustments.

And with Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color Wheel and Tone Wheels tools, you have everything you need to take your color editing to the next level.

So make sure you grab ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. It’s currently available for just $ 8.90 per month, or you can get a lifetime license for $ 149.99. And if you’re just interested in trying out the software, you can get a free trial right here.

ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS.

The post How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released

28 Sep

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

ACDSee has just launched its latest software:

Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, which improves upon ACDSee’s Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 and continues to compete with programs such as ON1 Photo RAW and Luminar as one of the best all-in-one photo editors on the market.

ACDSee’s software is consistently impressive; Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 contained an excellent mix of digital asset management capabilities, basic adjustments, and more advanced, layer-based edits.

So what does Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offer over its predecessor?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

For one, Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 features increased performance. ACDSee promises “up to 100% faster start up, up to 50% faster mode-switching, up to 100% faster working with keywords & categories, and more.”

After trying Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, it’s clear that this is true. While I wouldn’t refer to the program as fast, it’s certainly speedier than Lightroom, Photoshop, or Luminar.

Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 also offers a brand-new color wheel, which allows you to make precise adjustments to colors in your images. Using an eye-dropper tool, you can select specific colors in your image. And you can modify the selection by way of an intuitive color wheel graphic:

Honestly, this has to be one of my favorite implementations of selective color adjustments, and should give photographers plenty to have fun with.

But ACDSee didn’t stop there. In addition to the Color Wheel feature, you get a set of handy tone wheels. Here, with a few simple clicks, you can selectively tone the highlights, the midtones, and the shadows. This makes it easy to color grade your images and to create a stylistic look that’s truly your own.

Plus, Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offers a nifty little Refine Selection feature. While previous versions of the software allowed for selections while editing, you can now contract, expand, and feather your selection for a more precise result.

Additional new features include:

A modified batch rename option
Improved user experience and layout
Enhanced crop capabilities
Enhanced watermark capabilities
Much more!

So if you’re looking for a photo editor that includes complex digital asset management capabilities, powerful layer-based editing, and a whole host of new processing tools, check out Photo Studio Ultimate 2021.

You can grab it on ACDSee’s website for just $ 8.90 USD per month, $ 89 USD per year, or (if you’d prefer to make a one-time purchase), $ 149.99 USD.

Now over to you:

What do you think of ACDSee’s Photo Studio Ultimate series? And which of the new features are you most excited about? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The post News: ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Released appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

DPReview TV: How to start a YouTube channel Part III – should you shoot in a studio or in the field?

24 Sep

Have you ever dreamed of starting your own YouTube channel? In this video, we discuss the pros and cons of working of shooting from a studio vs. shooting in the field.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get new episodes of DPReview TV every week.

Introduction
Studio: Advantages
Studio: Disadvantages
Field: Advantages
Field: Disadvantages
Field: Conclusion

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 announced, promising faster performance and new features

23 Sep

ACD Systems International has launched ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. This is the newest version of the company’s flagship photo editing software. The new version is focused on providing improved performance. ACD Systems International states that Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s performance enhancements are up to 100 percent faster and RAW decoding is up to 20 percent faster.

Frank Lin, CTO & COO of ACD Systems International, says, ‘This product is everything you need to optimize your digital asset management, your photography workflow, your editing process and your work as a photographer. We’re pleased to have focused on responding to customer feedback to make this the best product for today’s photographers.’

New features in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 include:

New Color Wheels and Tone Wheels – These wheels allow users to more precisely adjust colors, highlights, midtones and shadows.
Text on paths and text in a frame – You can now customize your text, including its path.
Refine Selection – In the new version, you can shift or soften edges, allowing for better use of included tools such as Smart Erase.
New and improved batch rename and resize functionality – You can now create your own templates and presets to speed up batch processes.
New optimized user interface and panes – New UI and panes are designed to streamline the editing process, allow the user to capture snapshots and view a full edit history for a file.
Improved Quick Search – Finding images in large databases is much faster.
Improved crop and watermarking – You can crop multiple images to custom sizes and add watermarks using anchor points.
Easier migration from Lightroom and Picasa – You can import face data in three clicks.

This screenshot shows the new Color Wheel in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. Image credit: ACDSee

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 is available now. You can purchase a perpetual license for $ 149.99 or purchase the software via subscription for $ 69 per year. You can learn more about ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 and evaluate your purchasing options by clicking here. Photo Studio is also available in Professional and Home versions as well for $ 100 and $ 60 respectively. These versions have fewer features than Ultimate in exchange for a lower price.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Nikon Z5 added to studio scene comparison tool, gallery updated with Raw conversions

17 Sep

Updated sample gallery

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_4324192573″,”galleryId”:”4324192573″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”isMobile”:false}) });

The Nikon Z5 is a compelling entry-level full-frame mirrorless camera sporting a 24MP non-BSI CMOS sensor. We recently got our hands on Adobe Camera Raw support and have updated our sample gallery with a variety Raw conversions adjacent to their out-of-camera JPEG counterparts, for your viewing pleasure.

In addition, we’ve run the Z5 through our studio test scene and added it to our comparison widget. Take a look below and see how it stacks up against its 24MP peers. And keep your eyes peeled for our full review, coming soon.

Studio scene

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-4571998″,”widgetId”:779,”initialStateId”:null}) })
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Canon EOS R5 added to studio test scene

27 Jul

The Canon EOS R5 comes with a newly designed 45MP sensor that we were excited to get in front of our studio test. Here, we’ve put it up against some other high-megapixel heavyweights, but feel free to select the comparison camera of your choice and explore.

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-14929297″,”widgetId”:775,”initialStateId”:null}) })
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Canon EOS R6 added to studio test scene

22 Jul

As we charge ahead with our full review of the Canon EOS R6, we’ve had a chance to see how it performs in front of our studio test scene. See for yourself how its 20MP sensor stacks up, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-15294643″,”widgetId”:772,”initialStateId”:null}) })
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Olympus OM-D E-M1 III added to studio test scene comparison

23 May

We’re continuing to test the Olympus OM-D E-M1 III, the latest iteration of the company’s sports-focused camera. It inherits a number of features from its big E-M1X sibling, including a 80MP high-res mode. There’s more work to be done on our full review of the E-M1 III, but in the meantime you can now compare its studio test scene results with those of its peers.

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-65480249″,”widgetId”:765,”initialStateId”:null}) })
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review

21 May

The post ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

dps-acdsee-photo-studio-home-2020-review

It’s not unusual for photo-editing software to be multifunctional. Any combination of browser, raw processor and pixel editor is normal. ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 offers a slightly different blend of digital asset management (DAM) and pixel editing. In this article, we’ll see what this combo can do for you.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - View Mode — View Mode in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020

What is DAM Software?

Many programs that help you organize photos are, rightly or wrongly, described as DAM software. An example of this is the now-discontinued “Picasa.”

With that popular program, you could browse photos, edit them, add metadata, assign keywords, create albums, mark photos as favorites, and so on. It was comprehensive. But was it DAM?

A defining feature of real DAM software is its ability to create a database of your photos. Lightroom does that, as does ACDSee Photo Studio Home.

These products aren’t just an extension of your OS. They record things, like the location of your photos and all the metadata attached to them. And they create thumbnails so you can fly through your collection at high speed whether you’re connected to it or not. This is what separates DAM software from fancy browsers.

First three modes for browsing and DAM

In ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020, the first three modes are for browsing and DAM. The modes are as follows:

Manage Mode is where you can browse folders, filter out photos, create stuff like slideshows and contact sheets, and send images to various photo platforms. You can switch between photo editors from here, too, in case you have other software with different functionality. Manage Mode is the hub of the software. You can even add geographical data to photos from here using the Map tool and reverse geocoding.
Photos Mode is great if you want to see everything on your drive within a short space of time. Let’s say you need to root out photos without any keywords or identifying data—this is the place to do it. This mode lets you see all content at once, whether it’s in folders or subfolders, so there’s no hiding place when you’re trying to find specific pictures.
View Mode gives you a nice big preview of your photos one-by-one, and it’s quick. This is a good place for assessing the content of your photos and grading them. (In another article, I suggest a workflow for this software). You can scrutinize the technical quality of TIFFs and JPEGs* in this mode, too. A nice feature of View Mode is the set of experimental tools it gives you, which you can apply to the picture without committing to the edit.

*Note that View Mode is not a good place for assessing critical sharpness in raw files, as the software displays the embedded JPEG to maintain speed. This JPEG looks especially poor at 100%, but it’s fine for assessing content and composition.

Fast photo browsing in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — Photos Mode. This mode shows all images, whether in folders or subfolders.

Importing and Cataloging

When it comes to importing files into ACDSee software, you don’t need to do it at all.

The software accesses the folder system of your OS, so it’s enough just to copy and paste the files onto your hard drive. They are added to the ACDSee database automatically when you browse them later. That being said, you can import files via the software if you want and adjust filenames or add metadata while you’re doing it.

If you need to catalog lots of pictures without browsing them all first, you can do that too in Manage or Photos modes. This is especially useful when you first start using the software, though you must wait a while for the process to complete.

Getting organized

It’s all very well cataloging your photos, but there’s still a way to go before they’re genuinely searchable.

In Manage and View Modes of Photo Studio Home 2020, you can open the Properties panel to the right-hand side. It’s here that you add keywords, captions, ratings, color labels, and categories to your photos.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - IPTC data — I advise working on keywords in the ACDSee Metadata tab, then copying and pasting them into the IPTC field if you want them to be readable elsewhere. Alas, there’s no button to make this task quicker.

You can use any or all of these features to make your photos searchable, grade them, and track them in your workflow. In a recent sponsored article, I suggested using ratings to grade the quality of your photos and color labels to mark your workflow progress. This is a common use of these tools.

Keywords

Keywords make your photos searchable using a variety of criteria. For instance, you can add different photographic techniques to keywords as well as describing the subject of the photo. How thorough you should be in keywording depends on your needs, but you can import keyword lists to avoid having to create them yourself. That’s a new feature in 2020, and it saves loads of time.

To Tag or not to Tag

To the top left of the properties panel is a check box for “tagging” images. This is a good way to highlight your keepers and reject the rest (or vice versa).

It’d be nice if ACDSee added the ability to proactively reject photos with a dedicated reject flag. As things stand, an untagged file could be one that you’ve simply missed.

Image Baskets

A favorite ACDSee feature of mine is the image basket. This is like a virtual folder, where you can gather image files from various places without physically moving or copying them. It’s very handy for working on quick projects without cluttering up your drive with duplicate files. You can use image baskets for purposes of viewing, editing and sharing.

Face Detection and Recognition

ACDSee software is good at detecting faces, at least when they’re not obscured, and it’s impressively good at recognizing them thereafter.

Often, you only have to name a person once for the software to learn facial features. There are obvious limitations. It won’t necessarily recognize faces across several decades, for instance. But this feature is decidedly useful for cataloging pictures of friends and family.

Face detection technology - face recognition technology — ACDSee software asks for confirmation that this is Marcel Proust. It’s seen one picture of him at this point, so that’s pretty good going.

Edit Mode

Two-thirds of ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is DAM software, aimed at getting your photos organized and being able to find them with ease. If that was all you got for your money, it’d already be good value. But there’s also an Edit Mode where you can work on rendered files (e.g. JPEGs, TIFFs) and get them looking good.

What about raw files?

You can open most types of raw files in Photo Studio Home 2020, but there’s no develop module like there is in ACDSee Ultimate, for instance, so you don’t get to choose the processing parameters.

If you want to benefit fully from shooting raw, you should link this ACDSee software to a raw editor and switch between programs. That, theoretically, would be a higher-quality workflow than having to address technical issues after conversion. And you still have the DAM side of the software for cataloging and grading your raw files.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - raw files — This is why you can’t judge the technical quality of raw files in ACDSee View Mode (where they’re best viewed at low magnifications). The inset shows the same file at 100% in Edit Mode.

Edit Mode features

A bit like Photoshop Elements vs Photoshop CC, there are things missing in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 that aren’t missing in ACDSee Ultimate. For instance, there’s no 16-bit color support, no layers, no perspective tool, no dehaze, no dodge and burn, and no Color EQ. But these absent features are all forgivable since there’s a ton of stuff you do get.

Photo watermarks and logos - ACDSee Photo Studio Home — Using the watermark feature in Edit Mode to place a logo (quickly created elsewhere) into the corner.

Color and Tone

For basic work on color and tone, there are the usual levels and curves tools.

In fact, these tools are nicely implemented by ACDSee, with a built-in histogram and an exposure warning that tells you when you’re losing detail with your edits. You also get a basic version of the proprietary Light EQ tool, which lets you adjust shadows, mid-tones, and highlights separately.

Given that many people only use the basic version of this tool anyway, this is a valuable inclusion.

Photo exposure warning - clipping display — The levels tool in Edit Mode. The exposure warning draws attention to blown highlights and blocked shadows.

Cloning and Healing

I should mention once more that the clone tool does not work for me in ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 (nor its predecessor). I just get a black screen. That seems trivial when set against everything that does work, but it’s still a tad irritating. I can use the heal tool a lot of the time instead, though its pixel-blending function is a bit different.

Creative Tools

ACDSee could be forgiven for providing the bare minimum of Editing tools, but they go beyond that. You get a cross-section of some of their most creative features. Under the “Add” filter menu, for instance, you’ll find Special Effects. And there are many of them for you to try.

I like the “Orton” effect, which smooths details for a dream-like appearance.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 - special effects — The Purple Haze special effect at 50% opacity. Try experimenting with blending modes to see what else you can achieve with these effects.

You can modify all edits with blending modes, opacity, gradients and the Edit Brush. This means you can adjust localized areas of your photo a bit like you can in Adobe Lightroom and other programs. What you can’t do is work on multiple edits at the same time, but this is still useful versatility.

ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review - radial gradient — A radial gradient placed over a black and white LUT, causing color to fade out towards the edges. You can make this kind of localized edit using gradients or the Edit Brush. (Not all LUTs are color, despite ACDSee’s nomenclature.)

The Tilt-Shift filter appears under the “Add” menu.

The temptation with this is always to dig out high-angle views and create that miniaturized effect where buildings, people, and vehicles look like toys.

However, you can try this filter out on other subjects, altering their depth of field and bokeh. It works quite well on close-ups of flowers, for example.

tilt-shift filter on flower - ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 — An atypical use of the tilt-shift tool, creating a very soft “bokeh” outside the center of this flower.

You’ll find the Convert to Black & White filter under the “Color” menu.

This lets you fine-tune your black-and-white conversions by adjusting brightness and contrast in all the colors that make up your picture. Also present here is the equivalent of Photoshop’s Channel Mixer, where you adjust the red, green, and blue (RGB) sliders to achieve your conversion, making sure the total value is at or under 100%.

convert to black and white ACDSee — Simple use of the Convert to Black and White filter. I’ve lowered brightness in greens and increased it in yellows and oranges to create pleasing contrast in this picture.

Color LUTs are found under the “Color” menu, too. These have become popular in recent years, allowing users to mimic the world of movie production by applying color grades to their pictures. The effect is often radical.

ACDSee comes with some color LUTs built in, but you can download more from various sources on the Internet.

Color LUT - orange and teal - color grading - ACDSee Photo Studio Home — The ACDSee “Film” color LUT adds a classic orange and teal look to pictures as well as increasing contrast. This color grading is often seen in movies or TV series.

Summing it up

Genuine DAM software, the kind that catalogs your photos, often costs well over $ 100. Or it’s part of a subscription plan that locks you in annually. ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 is appealing not only for its affordability but because it’s a great photo manager, period. On top of that, it’s a raw opener and pixel polisher with plenty of scope for creativity.

Orton special effect — “Orton” special effect, faded towards the top using a gradient.

If you’re sold on the benefits of shooting and editing raw files, you could pair this software with RawTherapee or DarkTable without spending more cash. Whatever you choose to do, rest assured it’s impossible to waste money on ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020. This software is easy to use but has a depth that far belies its price.

Have you tried this software? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

The post ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2020 Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography