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The Enigmatic Snapseed from Google
Surprising to see Snapseed being updated since it is owned by Google. I use this photo processing application to create the posts in the Perfect Imperfection Series on my Smugmug account. If Google was to kill this app, it would probably put an end to my photo series. I tried to find other apps to replace Snapseed but failed to find something that comes close. Now, why is Google even bother maintaining Snapseed? How does it fit their business model?
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Being Unsplashed ā Take 2
If youāve been reading my blogs for a while, you probably know by now that Iām a big fan of Unsplash (āMy Growing Love Affair with Unsplashā). Iāve been using Unsplash constantly to find and use pictures in many of my posts (when I cannot find one of mines that fit the post subject). My contributions slowed a bit in the last year because I spend more time building my online presence on Smugmug (my Smugmug page) and more recently on Glass (my profile on Glass).
This week, the picture above has been selected to be featured in the architecture category. Iām honoured. You can see my featured photo in the architecture category right now. The last time that Iāve been unsplashed was less than a year ago, I wrote about it on my main blog: OMG ā Iāve Been Unsplashed!.
To see all of my contributions to Unsplash, visit my profile page. The expression of ābeing Unsplashā is a creation of mine. š
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On #Glass Appreciation
Surprise! Today, Glass introduced something I thought would never come: Like! Oops, Appreciation (Announcement on Twitter)! In summary: they are private. They are note at the forefront of the experience. They donāt propels algorithms. They arenāt used to sell targeted ads. They are merely a check box in a database. They are gentle. They are a gift. The team behind Glass is showing sign of lucidity. I like whatās Iām seeing since the start of this special place.
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On My Photographic Style
The photo thumbnails are from a personal trip to Austria in 1998. When I look back at these photos, I have to come to a conclusion that my photographic style didnāt really change in 30 years. It feels a bit depressing. It is basically revolving about architecture, nature. Very rarely about people, these are too hard to capture; I donāt have a good sense of timing, and Iām shy. Iām rarely doing street photography. The only addition to my subjects in recent years is urban exploration. Do we come into this world with a pre-determined photographic style?
Here is my Glass page.
And my SmugMug page.
Oh and my Unsplash page!
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Testing Synology Photos as a digital assets management solution (#synology #beta #dsm7)
I’m currently testing Synology as a storage solution for all my non-personal, non-photographic digital assets that I often use to complement my blog posts. After testing Synology Moments, their previous solution for photo management on DSM 6.2, Synology Photos in DSM 7.x is a step in the right direction, a big improvement. I like what I’m seeing. It’s fast. The ability to use folders as well as albums to organize my collection is a big plus. I’ve yet to find a bug. There is an iPad version of their Synology Photos. It’s not perfect but it works. Lacking is support iPad multitasking, which is a shame but not a deal-breaker.
In order to test this solution, I’m using my DS720+ running DSM7 beta inside a virtual machine. DSM Virtual Machine Manager allows the execution of a Virtual DSM which is very cool for testing future releases of their software. I’m impressed by the relative speed of this setup running on 6 GB of RAM, 2 x 6 TB SATA drives and a Samsung M2 NVMe 512 GB cache drive.
Stay tuned for more.
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Photo editing while on the beach
On my iPad Pro, in split-screen view: on the left, Lightroom. On the right, Appleās Photos. Same photo in DNG format (ProRAW) edited with available features and possibilities of each application. Lightroom wins, obviously. Recent update to Lightroom adds editing masks which makes a big difference in achieving desired results. Picture taken with iPhone 13 Pro. On the beach. While in vacation. Cheers. šš¹
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Some of my heroes over the years. Do you have any?
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From ProRAW to JPEG ā When JPEG is Simply Enough
Here is a situation for which Iām searching for a solution. Letās say Iām going out with my iPhone 13 Pro to take a few pictures outside. After a while, I notice that all the pictures that I was shooting were in ProRAW format. What if the lighting conditions were great that day and my photos didnāt require post-processing of any kind besides the iPhoneās own processing? How can I convert from ProRAW to their optimized JPEG counterparts and keep them in my iCloud Photo Library? Such process would decrease image size by a factor of ten.
I cannot find an answer for this seemingly easy question. So far, it all comes down to exporting the photos from Appleās Photos application and then reimporting them. Such process needs to be followed by the deletion of all the original photos to prevent duplicates. There has to be a better way. Shortcuts, on iOS or macOS doesnāt provide any solutions as far as I can tell. Why is such thing not possible? If you happen to have a solution for this, please let me know.
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Here is my Sunday so farā¦ how is yours going?
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Comparing Notion and Craft running on an M1 MacBook Air. Notion takes 382 MB of RAM while Craft uses less than half of this. Both are native, but Notion is based on Electron. Well, Craft is based on Catalyst, it’s not pure AppKit. Yet…
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Time to relax, itās Friday after all. Whoās playing?
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Glass Profile Page ā Finally?
After a successful initial launch, categories support addition, now here is profile page support. Glass is maturing, one step at a time. The web experience wasnāt part of the initial launch and I think it is fine. This is my profile page. Works great on iPhone, and on iPad which is cool. To join, you need to download the application. Works great on iPhone, not available on iPad. Oops. Next? Like support? I donāt think so. Hoping to meet you there!
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Computational Photography Meet Traditional Cameras
But I wonder, where is photography headed from here? Surely, computational photography will play a big role in the short term. In my opinion, smartphones are not the future of photography, but they are hinting at where standalone, interchangeable lens cameras have to go in the next few years. I canāt wait to see whatās coming next. Source: Where is photography headed? ā aows
What if Canon or Nikon were developing computational photography features in their cameras, just like Apple does for its iPhone? Imagine a “real” lens, a much bigger CCD captor, algorithms coupled with machine learning running on a powerful CPU. I wonder if this is the only way for Canon and Nikon to survive.
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Understanding Halide Pro+ Capture Format
Iām still learning new things about shooting in ProRAW on my iPhone 13 Pro. The latest tidbits that I learned is not directly related to ProRAW usage, but to a setting in Halide related to photo capture modes.
When using what is called āPro+ā setting, Halide will take two photos for each shot. One is taken in HEIC format, the other is taken in ProRAW. Both photos are tied together and stored in Appleās Photos library as one image. Here is the thing that I learned: when browsing previously taken photos from within Halide, metadata is shown in two different panels: HEIC and DNG (see above screenshots). Each component is taking a certain amount of space. The former being the smallest one. The latter, being the ProRAW version, is usually ten times bigger. But, when browsing the same photo in Photos, only the HEIC size is shown, as depicted in the following screenshot.
In summary, for pictures taken with Halideās Pro+ format, donāt be deceived by Appleās Photos showing only the HEIC size. The actual space consumed by this image is actually the sum of the HEIC part + ProRAW part (in DNG). Thatās big, for only one image. Is it worth it? It depends, as I recently wrote about this.
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Is the Cost of ProRAW Worth It? #apple #photography #proraw
Iām still trying to wrap my mind around Appleās ProRAW. I know, Iām late to the party. Image size can be as much as 10x the size of a jpeg. I think that for non-edge cases (optimal lighting), ProRAW ācostā isnāt worth it. Also, ProRAW images taken with Halide are much smaller than using Appleās camera app, for reasons I still donāt understand.
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I’ve been playing with my iPhone 13 Pro last weekend. On the following diagram, the picture on the left was shot with the telephoto lens, while the picture on the right was shot in macro mode, in the area shown on the left. Both pictures were processed in Adobe Lightroom CC.
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Where Should Glass Go? A Debate About Likes
Matt Bircher on the lack of āLikeā on Glass:
Maybe this is a terrible idea and I’m in the minority here, but I really do think that I would enjoy the app more if I was able to give lower-friction reactions to people’s photos. I still like Glass quite a bit, and I browse it everyday, but I do often feel like I don’t have the energy to comment on all the photos I like, and that’s a shame.
Lee Petersonās take on his blog:
Not having follower counts and likes is a great way to stop the comparison to others and help to reduce the stress of feeling bad about myself for not making engaging content.
Itās not an easy thing to consider. Mattās point of view also echos mine. If Glass added likes, does that put them on the path of Instagram, ads, and algorithm-based feed? I donāt think so. Glass is a paid service. Thatās the key.
What if the decision of enabling likes was delegated to the photographer posting photos? I would enable it, Matt probably would too, but not Lee. The same goes for seeing and showing the followers count on the profile page. What if those decisions were put in the hands of the content creator? Let the platform have it builtin and the content creator decide what to do with it. Twitterās Revue offers such a feature of showing the subscribers count on the Revue profile page. I like it, and it is enabled, even though I only have two subscribers.
On Micro.blog, the situation is pretty much the same. We donāt get likes to our posts, we donāt get to see how many followers weāve got. I made requests to the guy behind Micro.blog for the ability to see the followers count on Micro.blog without much success. This data could be made private, and we could enable to show it on our profile page.
Why is the platform the only one making those decisions? Let the content creators decide. You can find me on Glass under the Numericcitizen moniker, here is one of my shared photo.
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šš» This game was destined for the iPad. I’m in love. š„° Bye bye Steam! Currently in beta and pre-orders are open. Works great! Read my comments about this game here: A Simple Review of Townscraper - Numeric Citizen Blog
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On the way back home
I’m on my way back home from a weekend in the Niagara Falls region. I put my iPhone 13 Pro to the test. I’m quite happy with my experience. Most of my photos are in ProRAW format. I’m not sure how I’ll process them: with Pixelmator? Lightroom CC? If the latter, the import process is putting me on the break instead of a more integrated experience with Pixelmator.
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The waiting combo. Itās the story of a lonely couple waiting for something to happen. Tomorrow they will come together at last.
