r1ch Loc: Colorado

Well I may have caught him on some off days or perhaps I am being a little sensitive. I read some of his older posts and he does help out.

r1ch Loc: Colorado

Well I may have caught him on some off days or perhaps I am being a little sensitive. I read some of his older posts and he does help out.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

It takes an honest and flexible person to examine prior thoughts and opinions. I admire that.

Cheers,
Mark

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

What programs have your tried and not been happy with. You should list these, or you will get suggestions that will be no good.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

Agreed!!!

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

josquin1 Loc: Massachusetts

Wow all of these posts about Paul rather than the topic. Can anybody remember what it was?

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Some people do not recognize that those comments are tongue in cheek and/or sarcastic is a light way. I truly feel sorry for folks who do not recognize nor or enjoy humor. They are missing the joys and stress relief they provide.

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

My thought exactly. The OP never said a word about being offended unless I missed it. Additionally, these forums are moderated pretty actively and if anybody needs their ears pinned back, I'm guessing they would take care of it where needed without any biased amateur help, right??

r1ch Loc: Colorado

So let me try this again.

So without knowing everything you have and what you don't like and what you have problems with.

Luminar Neo has a great many AI features that all work well.

Since you cannot make a folder on your computer, the only folder you will work with is Pictures, everything will be installed there. All pictures from your camera will be there. You will have millions of pictures there and when that drives you crazy, you will learn in Neo how to right click the pictures folder, and create new subfolder like portrait or landscape. But not until you are ready.

There 3 tabs at the top, catalog, there will be only one folder, pictures click the image you want to edit. The next tab at the to is presets. You will not have to edit your pictures, you can use presets. Choose from portrait type or landscape, night, big city, experimental. Click and you are done.

If you want to edit your photos, the 3rd choice is edit. You can edit your photos in develop and get all the adobe type features like.

Under every adjustment is Mask AI. You click on it it will make a number of different masks. It will find sky, mountains, water, buildings, foreground, natural terrain, streets, people, animal and so on. You will be able to use filters or enhancements you like to one, two or multiple mask areas as many times as you like adding the area or subtracting the area.

If you don't want to do that because it is too complicated, you can use enhance AI which will automatically figure it all out and adjust only the areas that should be adjusted. You can use Structure AI to do the same with structure.

If you want to experiment with layers, you can use Sky AI and it will replace the sky with one you choose from a collection (you can buy more) or one of your own skys.

If you take pictures, portrait AI will blur the background, remove the background and you can replace it with something else. It will smooth the persons skin, the AI will find the mouth and eyes and not blur or smooth those and make your subject look great. The AI will also allow you to slim the fact and it will find the body and allow you to make fat people look thin or thinner.

Landscape will take your landscapes and make them look like golden hour, dehaze or enhance the foliage.

Relight AI will allow you to make your subject brighter if they are dark because you shot into the sun. Or it will darken the background based on a depth map that you can control. This is ai and will figure out where your subject and background are.

Atmosphere will allow you to add fog, it is ai so will add it in the right spots

You have all the cool things, Sunrays that are AI and put them between branches with shadows, Glow, mystical, mood, dramatic are all their to add mood to your image.

This software works with JPG but you get more AI features if you use raw images.

All AI all easy, if you can't figure this one out. Go back to Picasa or try another hobby. Luminar Neo is as easy as it gets there are many people who make videos showing you how to use the software.

One more thing. This software company is based in Ukraine. The main office is in Kiev. Tell your wife she will be helping Ukrainians if she buys this software for you if you need some leverage.

Jim Nix videos are great and easy to learn https://youtu.be/4UdLniMZk4o
Jim Nix https://youtu.be/N3fQuaOHnrQ

Anthony Turnham has some great videos https://youtu.be/cctDC6SHGVk

Pixelimperfect is a photoshop guy and he shows more advanced things maybe not for you but show basics as well. https://youtu.be/4UdLniMZk4o

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

I missed.

r1ch Loc: Colorado

So let me try this again.

So without knowing everything you have and what you don't like and what you have problems with.

Luminar Neo has a great many AI features that all work well.

Since you cannot make a folder on your computer, the only folder you will work with is Pictures, everything will be installed there. All pictures from your camera will be there. You will have millions of pictures there and when that drives you crazy, you will learn in Neo how to right click the pictures folder, and create new subfolder like portrait or landscape. But not until you are ready.

There 3 tabs at the top, catalog, there will be only one folder, pictures click the image you want to edit. The next tab at the to is presets. You will not have to edit your pictures, you can use presets. Choose from portrait type or landscape, night, big city, experimental. Click and you are done.

If you want to edit your photos, the 3rd choice is edit. You can edit your photos in develop and get all the adobe type features like.

Under every adjustment is Mask AI. You click on it it will make a number of different masks. It will find sky, mountains, water, buildings, foreground, natural terrain, streets, people, animal and so on. You will be able to use filters or enhancements you like to one, two or multiple mask areas as many times as you like adding the area or subtracting the area.

If you don't want to do that because it is too complicated, you can use enhance AI which will automatically figure it all out and adjust only the areas that should be adjusted. You can use Structure AI to do the same with structure.

If you want to experiment with layers, you can use Sky AI and it will replace the sky with one you choose from a collection (you can buy more) or one of your own skys.

If you take pictures, portrait AI will blur the background, remove the background and you can replace it with something else. It will smooth the persons skin, the AI will find the mouth and eyes and not blur or smooth those and make your subject look great. The AI will also allow you to slim the fact and it will find the body and allow you to make fat people look thin or thinner.

Landscape will take your landscapes and make them look like golden hour, dehaze or enhance the foliage.

Relight AI will allow you to make your subject brighter if they are dark because you shot into the sun. Or it will darken the background based on a depth map that you can control. This is ai and will figure out where your subject and background are.

Atmosphere will allow you to add fog, it is ai so will add it in the right spots

You have all the cool things, Sunrays that are AI and put them between branches with shadows, Glow, mystical, mood, dramatic are all their to add mood to your image.

This software works with JPG but you get more AI features if you use raw images.

All AI all easy, if you can't figure this one out. Go back to Picasa or try another hobby. Luminar Neo is as easy as it gets there are many people who make videos showing you how to use the software.

One more thing. This software company is based in Ukraine. The main office is in Kiev. Tell your wife she will be helping Ukrainians if she buys this software for you if you need some leverage.

Jim Nix videos are great and easy to learn https://youtu.be/4UdLniMZk4o
Jim Nix https://youtu.be/N3fQuaOHnrQ

Anthony Turnham has some great videos https://youtu.be/cctDC6SHGVk

Pixelimperfect is a photoshop guy and he shows more advanced things maybe not for you but show basics as well. https://youtu.be/4UdLniMZk4o

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

Okay, Richie, I've been trying to ignore you, but since you erroneously responded to my post and not the OP as you intended, I'll give you a short response. You'd want Paul to be hung at dawn for his abrasiveness (in your imagination) and then turn around and tell the OP to get another hobby? BTW, Grammarly is a great spell checker and there's a free version. You can learn all about pseudo-intellectuals from Google... they're usually the folks who call others pseudo-intellectuals. While you're there, look up ad-homonym attacks.

I still say Photoworks would be a good solution for the OP, but surprise, I agree with you on Luminar. I would refer the OP to a video from Peter Mckinnon that goes into very little detail but explains why he might want it... also, Mckinnon's video includes a 15% discount in the comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iROz0ATVoQ4

Laramie Loc: Tempe

It appears flyboy has flown the coop. No surprise, I think. flyboy61, if you are still reading, I would ask, what camera 'system' do you use? Oftentimes, the camera manufacturer also supplies an editing program. For example, Nikon supplies NXStudio. Canon, Digital Photo Professional.

rlv567 Loc: Baguio City, Philippines

So true!!! Paul's occasional "off the cuff" comments are one of the reasons at least some of us really like him. As my wife has learned, I tend to see humor in many things, some not picked up on by all, and I appreciate humor as observed by others. This especially comes into play with humor which may be plays on words, dry, ironic or satirical. And some things may be just plain "funny". I always have believed that a QUICK and relevant expression of humor is a sign of intelligence! And (just maybe) that should be all for today's exposition!

Loren - in Beautiful Baguio City

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Alas, we never heard back from the OP about the list of software titles they've spent $$$ to obtain. That requested list was a real and actionable idea, possibly leading to more responses to the thread. Such as:

a) A ranking of the relative complexity of each title.

b) A ranking of the relative power of each title.

c) A proposed match of each title to the broad spectrum of editing ideas listed by the OP.

d) Identification of written training materials specific to each title.

e) Identification of utube titles / authors addressing individual edit topics and / or each software title.

But, after expressing their problem, there was no follow-up by the OP as needed by the UHH community to provide actionable help beyond the typical and the not very helpful (nor free) idea of continuing the failed process of just buying more software.