Alternates to Adobe for RAW Processing - Lecture by Duke Gledhill

This week we were treated to a lecture by club member Duke Gledhill, delivered by Zoom. The topic covered was Alternates to Adobe for RAW Processing, showcasing a few options our members might not have encountered before.

As ever, it was a thoroughly researched and in-depth look at a number of pieces of photo editing software, including but not limited to:

• Adobe Lightroom

• Capture One

• Luminar 4

• Topaz Denoise AI

It was a fascinating and rare opportunity to see several programs running side by side at the same time. It was certainly striking how different the same photo looks when opened with different software, even before any processing has been done. Perhaps most striking for many was how well noise - the bane of many photographer's lives - is handled

Duke presenting his lecture

straight out of camera. All would agree that Capture One seemed to handle it significantly better. If that doesn't sell a few copies I don't know what will.

If that wasn't the highlight, a few heads were certainly turned by the creative tools on offer in Luminar 4. In particular, the ability to replace a sky at the touch of a button.

Maybe this will inspire our members to look at other options for processing in the future?

June Monthly Challenge - Light, Mood & Atmosphere

On Wednesday evening on the 3 June the club held its first ever critique via Zoom.

Thirty six members uploaded images via Dropbox on the topic of their take on Light Mood and Atmosphere. The volunteered critiquers were Richard Fulcher and Tony Renshaw who, over the next hour and a half, split the images between themselves and provided a detailed critique as to how well, in their opinion, the images fitted the bill.

Prior to the Zoom event members had voted for their favourite three images. At the end of the session three images came out top: First Alan Stopher’s "Nick Harper plays Small Seeds", Second Richard Fulcher’s "Alone Again" and thirdly Duke Gledhill’s Venetian scene. James Gibson, Competition Secretary organised the technology and kept both reviewers to time.

Personally I took away two main learning points firstly I must give Topaz de-noise a try and secondly get out there and keep on taking pictures!

1st place:

Nick Harper plays Small Seeds - Alan Stopher

2nd place:

Alone Again - Richard Fulcher

3rd place:

Venetian Scene - Duke Gledhill

Alan Stopher's presentation on photographic composition

On 20th May club member Alan Stopher gave a presentation on Photographic Composition using the Zoom app and sharing his screen to show in Powerpoint.

Drawing heavily from Tony Worobiec’s ‘Complete Guide to Photographic Composition’, Alan illustrated the various techniques using his own photographs. Club members were sent a link to the resulting Youtube recording and the presentation itself has now been uploaded to the members area of this website. Pictured is one of the Powerpoint slides.