These next ten days offer little opportunity for me to interact with blogs I follow. I mean, I might interact . . . but I might not.

Same for posting. I’ll try to post a few things but I don’t know how easy it will be. It’s a traveling thing, you see. Or, you will see. Or, you might not see. We’ll see.

Meanwhile . . .

Some people might know I have a SmugMug membership. Well, as a perk, they gave me a free license to Luminar 3 (by Skylum).

OK, really, it’s not like I need another photo editing program (Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity, DxO, Nik Collection, On1, a slew of Topaz offerings, and a few other programs I hardly ever remember I have.

But, I read a few reviews and . . . well, I downloaded it and tried it. I have to admit I like it. I’m not sure if it’s just because it’s new or because I was swayed by the reviews of photographers more capable than I am. I’d like to think it’s because it works well and produces decent results with minimal effort. Mind it, I barely scratched the surface of what it does (I’m busy, busy, busy and stole an hour I probably don’t have).

Ironically, I’m not including a SmugMug gallery (no time) but you can click on the photo for a larger version.

The above are photos I’ve shared before (or photos similar to those I shared before). They don’t have my currently-preferred border option (not sure Luminar can add borders) nor do the photos have my watermark.

Here are a few photos you haven’t seen yet. First, a JPG of the original Nikon D7500 NEF file shot with the kit lens.

Earlier this month — while sitting outside sipping on some coffee and learning about the D7500  — I saw the sky quickly change. I mean, quickly. And it looked odd. Not the kind of clouds I usually see.

For sure, I thought we were in for some weather. And, we were . . . but it was just regular weather. But the sky looked awesome.

Anyway, here are a few Luminar 3 processed versions of the above.

Here’s a photo shortly after I took the above photo.

I would call that a dramatic sky . . . so I opted for two dramatic looks.

I saved that last look because I have many more shots of the sky . . . which I will eventually post.

Meanwhile, one last original and processed with Luminar 3 version.

OK, so I could have done the same (or close, or better) with my current tools. But, this was quick and painless. Plus, the program searched and finds all your photos (something like Picasa used to do) and creates a Library you can work off of.

My guess is that this would be a pretty good replacement for Lightroom for them who just want to own a piece of software instead of renting it. Again, I literally only scratched the surface and I’ve not yet bothered reading what all the program can do.

But, so far, I’m impressed. I’ll be putting Luminar 3 through its paces soon.

Here’s the gallery of the above:

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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