Photo Tools: FDR Tool, PortraitProfessional, Lumapix, Digi-labs

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* “FDRTools”:http://fdrtools.com. These are the two most popular HDR photography tools I’ve seen. I like Photomatix and it seems to work well, but the big issues are that it does produce gigantic TIF files. Kinda wish it would just produce a small one and not a big DNR either. Also, I can’t figure out how to get DxO and Photomatix to work. DxO maybe first to take CR2 and take out vignette and also distortion. Then feed them into Photomatix? I’m not sure which goes where? The interface isn’t as nice. Looks like an X-Windows port, but seems to have lots of control for doing tone mapping and more modes for matching various shots.
* “PortraitProfessional”:http://portraitprofessional.com. This is an editing program that is tuned for making people look better. You might call it flatter 2.0. You can face scupt to make someones face look thinner. Skin smoother to get rid of wrinkles, teeth whitener, etc. While not exactly accurate, if you are a pro and want to sell your photos, this is the ticket. For me, hmmm, I might try, but I’m not sure how I feel about using it It is 10% off BTW, if you use the code ne641.
* “Lumapix.com”:http://lumapix.com takes your photos and prints them so it looks like they are in a scrapbook. Pretty useful tool and way to display things. There has got to be an easier and prettier way than 4x6s stuffed together and this looks like one way. Of course not as fast, but more durable. It’s basically electronical scrapbooking.
* “Corel Painter Essentials”:http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1190317151777 is a pretty cool tool. It takes a digital image and turns it into a watercolor or an oil painting. Kind of a neat way again to show something.
* “Digi-labs.net”:http://digi-labs.net lets you create your own calendar. They can then print and bind for you.

And finally, amongst my personal workflow, I learned that “Noise Ninja”: is in fact the best noise reduction, so for me, here is how I work:

* “DxO”:http://dxo.com. I push the raw files through this first. If I’m in a hurry, since I shoot RAW+JPG, I just send folks the JPGs from the camera. If I have time, I wash the RAW through DxO and then produce JPGs. I only do distortion correction, vignette reduction through DxO. This gives me some TIF or DNR files to use next.
* “Noise Ninja”:http://picturecode.com. This is the best program for reducing noise. I normally use it inside Photoshop CS2 before I print because it doesn’t understand too many formats outside of that.