#793. Monday Post (3 Dec 2018) – Only a bit OT

By Paul Perton | Monday Post

Dec 03

Hating Lightroom.

 

Hoping Luminar’s next release is mainstream usable.

 

Still having issues with ON1 RAW’s blowsy attitude.

 

Wanting RAW Power to get yet more traction.

 

Thinking Capture 1 V12 might be the tipping point.

 

 

 

 

It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m printing, or at least trying my best. Mirage’s software RIP* has drawn a line under my complete contempt for Lightroom and its iffy output. I’m blowing my way through FotoSpeed linen and Epson’s semi gloss A3s at a rate, to say nothing of hocking my pension on ink cartridges for the Epson 3800 sitting on the table next to me.

 

It’s been a long process and I won’t bore you with the difficulties of getting decent ink jet papers this far from civilisation. Or the even more ridiculous post-import duty price(s) of ink.

 

So, I’m calming myself listening to Yellowjacket’s extraordinary “Geraldine” from their 1989 album, “The Spin”. Written by the band’s Russel Ferrante, a short sax and marimba intro oozes into Jimmy Haslip’s bass and six minutes of gentle electric jazz is underway.

 

I’ve never told anyone this before, but one Saturday in the early 1980s, I drove 400km from Johannesburg to Maseru in Lesotho for a board meeting of (then) Southern Africa’s only Outward Bound school. It was a long drive there and back and Geraldine (re)played every second of the way – almost eight hours in all and I didn’t regret a moment, then or now.

 

Where was I?

 

Printing.

 

More music.

 

 

 

 

A gentle hit of serendipity now cues Stanley Turrentine’s 1970 album “Sugar”. It is quite possibly, the epitome of the late 20th century jazz. Tight, musical, surprisingly well recorded (at this remove, almost half a century later) and impossibly hard not to want to play again and again. “Sugar” has been a fixture in my listening for probably three decades and at least one track is likely to be on the playlist at my wake.

 

For me, Jazz doesn’t get much better than this.

 

Take a look at the line-up; there’s Turrentine on tenor sax, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, Hubert Laws, Billy Cobham and Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira.

 

Creed Taylor’s mix (the album was issued on Taylor’s CTI label) is very ‘70s, but holds up surprisingly well in today’s age of electronica. This is one of the very few albums I listen to when auditioning new audio equipment – along with Pat Metheny Group’s 1982 “Travels” and Airto Moreira’s “Fingers”, Oscar Peterson’s 1966 “Waltzing is hip/Satin Doll”** from “Exclusively for my friends” (volume 3) and maybe an early Steely Dan album or two. Pass that test and you can live at Flâneur Central for a good long while.

 

Writing and listening still, Turrentine eases into John Coltrane’s “Impressions”. Better than Trane? I think that depends on your viewpoint. For me, yes, because I like the B3-driven commercial approach, the interplay between the players – this is jazz that has nothing to prove.

 

 

 

 

Hey! This is supposed to be about photography. And printing.

 

It is. While I listen to the print head whoosh back and forth, Mirage takes control of Lightroom and won’t let me back in to prep the next image until it’s done. So, I either sit and twiddle my thumbs, or do something else. Today, it’s iTunes and a random play that has chosen two of my favourites, why shouldn’t I share them with you too?

 

Like last week, this week’s images were shot in the Kruger National Park during the last couple of weeks. I used my Fuji X-H1, X-Pro2, 100-400 zoom and the SBH (16-55 zoom).

 

* Review on the way
** It doesn’t get better than this – all would-be drummers take note…

 


Email: subscribed: 4
  • jean pierre (pete) guaron says:

    ??????????????????????
    I dump my shots into Mirage from the folders where the finished shots are stored. I can then do whatever I like in ANY of the other software programs I use to post process my photos, because there’s no connect whatsoever between Mirage and the rest of them.
    BTW, I the second to last photo – it must be just about the ultimate sunset shot!
    I scarcely use Lightroom any more, Paul – occasionally I tap into it, to see if I can rectify a particular tint in a shot, where none of the other programs is any help. But I can go months without even opening Lightroom, any more.
    On that subject – Alien Skin and ACDSee are often helpful, in playing with colours.
    Don’t scream – it’s not “PhotoShopping” – it’s more a case of coming to terms with the fact we’re all fooling around in 6 colours and a few shades of black, while the universe is feeding our cameras with something north of 700 billion different colours – and when they get fed into our systems, sometimes the translation simply doesn’t work – so you have to play with the shot, to get an acceptable approximation of the colours you saw when you took the shot.
    I have had colour profiles made for my purposes – I generally only use two papers, so two profiles was enough. And since that, using Mirage instead of any of the Adobe products to send the shots to the printer, my wastage rate has tanked – Mirage has paid for itself several times over!
    What I did find interesting is that it is apparently possible to tweak Photoshop and get a similar result using its print function – but I was told it’s quite an elaborate process, because neither Lightroom nor Photosphop are designed around photographers who print their photos !!!!!!!!!!!!! What the hell ARE they meant for then?

  • Christopher C Stump says:

    Thanks for this Paul, and right on topic for me! +1 for Yellowjackets [Rise in the Road] and anything PM [saw him just a month ago in fact!]

    I too find myself unhappy with Adobe and looking at C1. At the same time, we subscribe to CC for my wife’s work, and I’ve been pretty successful printing from LR, so sit squarely on the fence at this point. I have a few questions that perhaps you can address?

    1) Do you find the catalog/thumbnail/image browsing side of things satisfactory? I find navigating my 130k images quite manageable in LR [that’s really its strong suit] and would hate to take a major step backwards in that regard.

    2) I’ve heard that C1 will edit only native RAW captures. Is this still true? Does C1 at least catalog .JPG and .DMG files? I’ve been leaving everything in RAW lately, but would rather not keep these files in a separate app in order to look at older work…although I could I guess.

    3) Did the announced LR > C1 import tool ever materialize, and does it work well? It would be great to import my current catalog with edits intact, and tackle re-editing at my leisure.

    Thanks for any advice you can offer!

    –Chris

    • paulperton says:

      Thanks Chris. I’ll try and answer you ASAP.

    • paulperton says:

      Hi Chris.

      I think LR’s browsing is like most things in LR – acceptable. Just. I don’t have as many images as you in my catalogue, but scrolling can be quick, or frustratingly slow. One of my gripes (I have lots) is the time LR takes to render a high res version of the JPG thumbnail it presents as you select a specific image. I want to see that image, sharp or not, now.

      I have yet to spend much time with C1. I have some time set aside to play with Luminar’s new release a bit later this month. After that, I want to d/l C1 (12) and explore that too. I’m hoping to be able to make some longer-term decisions and write something about it all after that.

      Best,

  • Kristian Wannebo says:

    Paul,
    I just love your photos!

    ( Trees is also one of my subjects, so I’m just a little bit envious; where I live it’s hard to find solitary trees without a disturbing background, and a helping fog is rare.)
    – – –

    I remember the time (in the -90s) when a high quality 34 x 50 cm b/w print took 20 mln + 20 min for the rip! And the printer made only 720 dpi.

  • David Mack says:

    I enjoyed your photos, and would comment, a challenge to print. I must say, for as geeky as you seem to be, I’m surprised that you have not advanced to SureColor by Epson to better bring out the colors you are fussing about; and that you haven’t concentrated of evaluations of the sensors you are using based on your article recently about that technology. Maybe the problem isn’t entirely in the raw processing?? Have you tried Hahnemuhle papers?? And then there is the trichromatic technology sensors by Phase One. Maybe your frustration revolves around the capture, not the conversion???

    Just say’n.

    • paulperton says:

      David.

      You may be right about paper. I’ve spent the last eighteen months trying to track down Hahnemeuhle papers here in South Africa. Either the importer has none, or their agents don’t bother to reply to a stock/quotation request. The last box I located was 100 sheets of A3 white rag and cost almost as much as a small car. I used it very selectively.

      So, I’ve switched to FotoSpeed’s High White Smooth – a 100% cotton rag stock, very like Hahnemeuhle, but obtainable.

      I’m pretty happy with Mirage’s software RIP and when I’ve learned enough about it, plan to write some kind of review for DS.

      Best,

      • jean pierre (pete) guaron says:

        I’m fortunate, with Mirage – one of my camera shops specialises in it and provides me with solutions to anything that’s causing me any concern. Overall, it’s trouble free – MILES faster – and MUCH better quality than using Photoshop’s print function (unless you get professional help to sort out what the hell Adobe’s done to it, to sell it in a form that’s not compatible with the basic urge of a photographer to print a photo – and reconfigure the setup of it).

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