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14 Aug 2020 - Podcast #706 - (26:18)
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Photo editing application Luminar from Skylum continues to improve, and it has a lot of good features. In fact, the changes from last year's version 3 to this year's version 4 are little short of revolutionary, but there are still some problems that get in the way.
In less than four years, photo editing application Luminar has progressed from an impressive initial release to an even more impressive version 4. Macphun released the initial version in late 2016 for the MacOS only. A year later, Macphun changed its name to Skylum, and the company released a Windows version in 2018. So the application I'm reviewing could be said to be just two years old. Most competing photo applications have been in development for far longer, so what Skylum has done in just four years, or just two years, really is remarkable.
So let's start with the features that make Luminar a true contender.
Luminar offer three operating modes: Standalone, external, and plug-in.
The Library was added in version 3 to provide image organization and management. It can be used to present images on a folder-by-folder basis or by Albums that can contain links to images in many various locations. Thumbnail images aren't created automatically at import time. Instead, they are generated when the user opens the directory and scrolls through it. This slows the process initially, but once the thumbnails have been created, scrolling is fast.
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The Shortcuts feature is one that a lot of people will like. Regardless of how you've organized your photos, Luminar creates organizational shortcuts that allow you to browse images organized by the year, month, and day they were taken. Whatever directory structure you created is maintained in the folders section of the interface, so you get the best of both options.
Luminar has added an "On This Day" shortcut. Select it to browse all of the images you've captured on today's date in any year. When I tried this function on 29 July, Luminar showed me images from that date in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2017. There are also categories for images that you've recently added, recently edited, recently searched for, or discarded from Luminar. When you delete a photo from Luminar, any edits are discarded and the image is removed from the catalog, but the file remains on the computer's disk drive.
Albums serve another purpose. They are used to group images that you want to keep together, but without moving them from their location in the directory structure. Maybe you'd like to keep photos from a child's birthday parties over the years together, so you'd drag the images to a Birthday album. Maybe you'd also like to have those pictures in a grouping of family images, so you'd drag them to the Family album. The photos will be in their original location, and links to those images will be added to the albums.
If you looked at Luminar 3 and took a pass, take another look now. Luminar 4 has added some impressive artificial intelligence capabilities. The most impressive AI function is probably the ability to replace a sky, but I found the more basic AI Enhance and AI Structure controls to be useful because they'll be needed for nearly all images.
AI Enhance makes smart choices about color balance, exposure, and contrast. AI Structure makes smart choices about sharpening and image crispness. The user dials each one in by using a (1) slider. It's easy to observe before and after views of the file you're working on by clicking one of two icons. The (2) eyeball icon toggles between full-screen before and after views and the icon with a vertical line creates a split screen with a (3) movable divider.
With version 4, Skylum has made large changes to the user interface — primarily simplifying it and removing options in a way that users of version 3 my find startling. Where version 3 had what seemed to be an infinite number of controls and options to modify the user interface, much of that is gone in version 4. This places the highlight squarely on the artificial intelligence tools, and they are impressive.
The price is impressive, too. Luminar 4 costs just $90.
This is not a problem if you keep your photo files and Luminar's catalog on a large disk, but you can be in trouble if you have a small boot drive and you fail to notice that Luminar places its catalog in C:\Users\{UserName}\Pictures\Luminar Catalog\.
Fortunately, moving it is easy: Just close Luminar, move the files from the default location to another drive (I selected E:\Luminar4Catalog\. because there's plenty of space there). Then open the catalog when you re-open Luminar. The catalog directory contains a folder called "PreviewCache" and that's where the application stores thumbnail images in a dizzying array of folders within folders within folders. That's OK because users never need to deal with these and there are good technical reasons for doing what Skylum did.
Luminar also keeps several copies of the SQLite database file that holds information about the images. These are relatively compact — about 25GB on my computer for some 70,000 digital images. Currently there are five backup copies of the database and the working copy of the database, so about 125GB.
The real problem is in the massive number of "state" files that Luminar stores in the "CacheDocuments" directory. Each change to every image results in the creation of a new state file. Move a slider and you'll generate a new state file. Change the exposure and you'll generate a new state file. Assert the application's lens correction algorithm and you'll create a new state file. Adjust any slider half a dozen times and you'll create half a dozen new state files.
Luminar has lots of sliders and controls, and making even the most basic adjustments to an image might require touching several of them, sometimes more than once. Each change, no matter how small, will generate a new state file. So a file that you work on for even ten or fifteen minutes might end up with hundreds of state files. Skylum already uses a database file to store information about images, so it's puzzling that the developers selected one of the most wasteful options to store the state files.
The state files use the XML format (extensible mark-up language). This makes the file minimally human readable, but it's a horrid choice for data storage and the developers really should consider some other option.
Each of the state files is a LUT file. LUT is an acronym for lookup table and these files are commonly used for "color grading" in both motion picture and still photography to give an image a particular look. So there are three possible approaches:
This isn't the kind of problem a user should need to deal with.
Luminar 4 improves with ageInstead of 3 cats, which Luminar 3 earned last year, Luminar 4 gets a solid 4 cats. It does many things that other image editors do, but often in a different way, and the artificial intelligence features will be very attractive to a lot of users. Luminar 4 still lacks the ability to create virtual copies the way Lightroom Classic does and the disk hogging caused by using XML-format state files are the only two reasons Luminar doesn't earn 5 cats.
Additional details are available on the Skylum website.
Manufacturers of hardware reviewed on TechByter Worldwide typically loan the hardware and it must be returned at the end of the review period. Developers of software reviewed on TechByter Worldwide generally provide a free not-for-resale (NFR) license so that all features of the application will be unlocked.
How much spam do you get? Probably a lot more than you want, and one spam is more than a lot of us want. There's nothing you can do to remove your address from the lists that spammers have compiled, but you might be able to keep your address out of the hands of an organization you don't know until you're sure that you trust it.
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Developers at Mozilla have been working on Firefox Relay, a service that creates "throwaway" email addresses that forward to the address you use to sign into your Firefox account. It's currently being tested in a private beta release, so there are some warnings:
Firefox Relay is still early in development. Mozilla says it's an experimental service that helps you protect your real email address - the one most closely tied to your online identity. It lets you generate unique, random aliases you can use to sign up for accounts, apps, or newsletters, and forwards messages to your real address. If you find that an account is sending unwanted email or spam, you can block the alias and it will stop sending email to your in-box. Once you no longer want an account, you can delete the alias.
There were about 5300 testers when I started working with the application at the end of July. Relay allows users to create up to five forwarding addresses and you'll get whatever random set of characters the application uses. Mine is zzswqrn6u@relay.firefox.com. Among the features that may be added later is one that would allow users to define their own name and possibly even being able to specify a domain.
Another feature being considered for future development is the ability to reply to a message using the Relay alias. Currently there's a workaround for those who know how to set a "reply-to" address. When replying to a message that came through Relay, the user can specify the Relay address in the message's reply-to field. This is a bit of obfuscation, but it won't really hide your true address.
And there's one additional potential problem. Some systems recognize addresses from providers of one-time addresses such as Fastmail, Guerrilla Mail, and Temp-Mail and refuse to accept them. Presumably these systems will also block Firefox Relay addresses.
The results may not be exactly what you expect. Mozilla says Relay does not filter for spam, but Amazon Simple Email Service does block spam and malware. During my early testing, I sent myself seven messages:
A message with no text and only a graphic is often spam, so that's why #3 was blocked. Attachments of any kind can be dangerous, so that's why #4 and #7 were blocked. This suggests that an important message from a friend could be blocked if it has an attachment. So if you're interested in participating in the closed beta test, sign up and give it a try, but don't use a Firefox Relay address to receive any important messages because Amazon Simple Email Service may detect a legitimate message as spam and delete it without telling either you or the sender that the message has been deleted.
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Maybe you've heard of it before because its Its web archive, the Wayback Machine.
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The Internet Archive is a digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge." It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications and games, music, movies and videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. The Internet Archive currently holds over 20 million books and texts, 3 million movies and videos, 400,000 software programs, 7 million audio files, and 400 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine.
The Wayback Machine gives us a view back into what the web looked like more than twenty years ago. For example, how primitive Amazon's website appeared in December 1998.
The Internet Archive includes old films, old software, a collection of microfilm, millions of scanned books, images from NASA, 140 thousand images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and even old games that you can play on any computer using the browser. It's the old games I find interesting. The MS-DOS Games section includes games that ran on DOS computers and also games that ran on Atari, Amiga, and other early computers. No downloads. No installation. Just select the game and it opens in a browser window.
Maybe you'd like to play Sim City, Pac Man, The Oregon Trail, or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. You can even play M.U.L.E. that my family and I played on an Atari 800. Released in 1983, M.U.L.E. was one of my wife's favorites. You're one of four people on planet Irata (that's Atari backwards). If there's just you, the computer can play the other three parts, and you'll have either six or twelve turns to accumulate the most resources and win the game. The game is about four hopeful explorers trying to make a fortune on Irata by producing various goods (food, energy, smithore, and crystite). Each of these goods have their uses: if you don't have enough food, you will have less time during your turn. If you don't have enough energy, your output will be lower. If enough smithore isn't produced, there will be a shortage of M.U.L.E.s. Crystite is the big earner that can make or break your game.
The M.U.L.E.s are "Multiple Use Labor Elements" that are used "to develop and harvest resources from the player's real estate. Depending on how it is outfitted, a M.U.L.E. can be configured to harvest energy, food, smithore (from which M.U.L.E.s are constructed), and crystite (a valuable mineral available only at the "Tournament" level)." Source: Wikipedia.
One of my favorites from back then is Zork, a game that used only text and was published by Infocom even though it existed earlier on minicomputers and mainframes. Infocom split it into three episodes, each sold separately: Zork: The Great Underground Empire – Part I, Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz, and Zork III: The Dungeon Master. The user had to type commands ("walk north" or just "n") and the computer responded by telling you what happened or where you had moved.
Some parts of the Great Underground Empire were inhabited by grues and, if your flashlight ran out of battery power, you might be eaten by a grue in the dark. Other areas had magic pathways that could not exist in the real world. Fortunately, some of the books of hints are also available. I may have to take a trip back to 1982 and wander around in the Great Underground Empire.
There's a lot of hydrogen. In fact, it's the planet's most common element. Hydrogen is referred to as "H" on the periodic table and has an atomic number of 1. It is the lightest element in the periodic table It's also extremely flammable. Maybe you've seen the images of the Hindenburg crashing a a fiery ball in May of 1937. It was filled with hydrogen.
Hydrogen fuel cells may be used to power no-emission automobiles eventually and Microsoft is experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells as backup power for data centers. In a test that could jump start a long-forecast clean energy economy built around the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen fuel cells have powered a row of Microsoft data center servers for 48 consecutive hours.
Microsoft's goal is to be carbon neutral within 10 years. The hydrogen fuel cells would replace expensive and dirty diesel generators that are used when power from the grid is interrupted. Diesel fuel accounts for less than 1% of Microsoft’s overall emissions. Its use is primarily confined to Azure data centers, where, like at most cloud providers around the world, diesel-powered generators support continuous operations in the event of power outages and other service disruptions.
These generators are expensive and sit idle most of the time, and hydrogen fuel cells can be used to generate greenhouse gas-free energy. One primary advantage might be that these devices could collect and store excess energy from solar or wind sources and then feed it back to the grid as needed.
That little lithium-ion battery in your computer or smart phone guarantees that you'll have long-lasting power, but that little lithium-ion battery contains a lot of power in a tiny case. If something goes wrong, the device can burst into flame. Usually it's no big deal because it's so small, but what about a 2.16 megawatt lithium ion battery energy storage system?
A device like that suffered what Underwriters Labs call "a deflagration incident" in Surprise, Arizona. So once we get past the irony of the place name, "a deflagration incident" is a fancy name for "combustion propagating through heat transfer", which is a fancy name for "the thing went up in flames."
The UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute studied the incident and research vice president Steve Kerber noted that the ability to study lithium-ion battery-related fires on this scale with first-person accounts from the responding firefighters is critically important to protecting the lives of first responders in similar situations. Four firefighters with hazmat training were injured in the fire and Kerber says "We're dealing with new technology, which brings about new fire-related hazards. We have an opportunity to learn from this incident and improve future outcomes by sharing resources and enhancing training and safety protocols."
Lithium-ion battery ESS facilities have proliferated in recent years, presenting new challenges for the fire protection community. Sourcing the experiences of the firefighters, the UL FSRI report recommends new standards and codes for ESS sites, research programs, and curricula. To read the full report and all recommendations, visit the UL Fire Safety website.
In 2000, the US Postal Service thought about offering an email service. The plan was so severely flawed that it never got very far. The post office wanted to associate email addresses with postal addresses, and that's such a bad idea on so many levels that it's difficult to comprehend how it got out of a committee meeting. And yet, it might have worked if developed right.
What's the number one problem people have with email? Did you say "spam"? Well, what if every message you sent through the USPS email service cost a penny, or half a penny, or even a tenth of a penny? Would you sign up for a service like that? If you could send 10 emails for a penny and you sent 30 emails a day, that would be around 900 messages per month for 90 cents. No big deal, right? But spammers who send millions of messages per day would find that their messages have a real cost, possibly an unacceptable cost.
Had the USPS proposed that kind of system twenty years ago, it might have caught on and spam might have been eliminated. But of course that wouldn't have eliminated spam. Crooks figure out how to game just about any system.