Philip:
The bulk of the video was published as part of the Sony FX30 review 2 weeks ago, but I felt it was worth putting out on its own for Sony owners who might not have watched it due to not being interested in the camera. There is a new 4-minute introduction which addresses a few people made in comments on various platforms. If you feel the same way as Gerald and I, please send a message to Sony Alpha on social media, email, letter, or fax…
Dclife spotted a rumor saying that the A7000 will arrive in 2023 and have the following specs:
WARNING: I know who started this rumor (I am not going to link to him) and I know he NEVER posted a correct rumor in is life. This is just a guess what the A6600 successor specs could be…
ON1 released a new major update with new masking enhancements. Moreover it now officially supports the A7rV RAW files!
Press release:
With ON1 Photo RAW 2023, we introduced several amazing new masking features integrated into most of our photo editing software, all powered by a new AI Masking technology. This new technology is integrated into the features Super Select AI, AI Adaptive Presets, Mask AI, and Quick Mask AI. Each feature is truly amazing and saves a ton of time editing your photos. You can click on an object or region to instantly apply an adjustment. Or, in the case of AI Adaptive presets and Mask AI, pick an area by name, like the sky, water, mountains, people, animals, etc, to apply a preset or filter. It is state-of-art! Try it free →
As with any new technology, especially AI technologies, there can be some areas where the AI can miss. We felt confident in the results and potential of these new AI masking features on the thousands of photos we tested internally and from feedback from our beta testers. Today many users of Photo RAW 2023 and its related plugin products, like ON1 Effects, are having a blast using these new features. They make being creative more fun by reducing the pain of complex masking. However, users have also offered feedback on areas to improve. This feedback is invaluable to ON1, and we take it seriously—our engineering team is ready to unveil some new improvements in record time.
I’m happy to announce a new update where we’ve made great strides in improving the AI Masking features. Here are some of the new improvements we’ve made in this release. Anyone who downloaded a trial version of Photo RAW 2023 in the past can download it again and try it for 14 more days.
Masking Improvements Explained
To explain the improvements, you first need to understand how these features work under the hood. The AI Masking features use several different AI models to accomplish their work. They are broken down into two stages. The first stage is known as segmentation. That’s the step of finding and classifying the regions and objects in a photo. A photo can contain large regions like the sky, water, mountains, buildings, etc. To find these regions, we use what is called panoptic segmentation. It can identify about 50 different regions, which we group into larger categories, so you don’t have to select similar surfaces multiple times. These regions include Architecture, Man-Made Ground, Flora, Natural Ground, Water, Snow, Mountains, and Sky. When selecting a region that contains Flora, it picks all the “stuff” that fits in that category, like trees, flowers, and fruit. We then use a different type of segmentation called Instance segmentation to find individual objects such as people, animals, food, and transportation devices. Each can be selected individually with tools like Super Select AI and Quick Mask AI or as groups with Mask AI or AI Adaptive presets. It’s important to note that for a region or object, the Instance Segmentation will select the whole thing, not a portion of it. For example, if you click on a person, it will choose the whole person, not their shirt or hat where you click. You can always mask smaller regions using the other masking tools found in ON1.
Next comes the second stage, known as matting. The results from the segmentation are essentially hard-edged blobs. Imagine cutting out a subject roughly with scissors. The results of just the segmentation would not be a good enough mask. For what it’s worth, these rough segments are what you see when you mouse over the photo and select regions or objects (with Super Select AI, for example). The red and blue-tinted overlays are not the final masks, just an approximation. We take those rough segments and use another AI network that works its way along the edge to create a high-quality, feathered mask. There’s a lot of magic at work in these tools. We could all make a rough brushing of an area quickly. It’s the intricate gradients along the edges of the mask that make it look good.
The matting is where we have made the enhancements in this latest update. Some users who selected small objects in their photos could see part or all of the object removed from the mask compared to the red or blue overlay they saw when they selected it. Obviously, that was not our intention. In these cases, on small objects, the quality of the mask was not up to snuff. We have improved the fidelity of the masks and the consistency at different sizes. From our experience with Sky Swap AI, we already have an excellent AI network trained just for skies, which we now use in these other features when you pick the sky.
There are still some challenging areas, like thick hair and tree branches, that the AI can’t mask. That’s where the Mask Refine Brush comes in. We took this powerful tool and made it much faster. After using the AI Mask features, if you need to improve the mask further, just paint over the area with the Mask Refine Brush to improve it. And, of course, the masks generated by the AI Masking tools are just like any other mask in our apps. You can use the global mask options to adjust them, along with a whole fleet of other masking tools to retouch them as needed.
We love the new AI Masking features, and we know the majority of Photo RAW 2023 owners do as well. If you’ve had trouble with them in the past few weeks, please give them another shot with the update. If you are a trial user and your trial has expired, we have reset it so you can give it another go. Thanks for all of your feedback, both positive and negative. It helps us build a better product for you.
Sony suspended the FX3 and FX30 firmware download:
Important Notice
It was confirmed that some updated products might not operate properly in some cases.
Distribution is suspended as we are currently investigating the cause.
If the issue (unstable operations such as repeating reboots or not working properly) occurs immediately after the update, please ask for repair. (November 18, 2022)
Well what now? pic.twitter.com/qPZvDaAY1u
— Jordan Koman (@jordan_koman) November 17, 2022
Shotkit made an interesting survey. Summary of Our Key Findings
CYME launched the new Peakto 1.2 update (Click here to see all features). You can as usual test it out for free. The one major feature of this update is the following:
Peakto now allows photographers to find their best shots by location
Montpellier, France – Today, CYME announces the availability of a new map view in Peakto, a meta-cataloger for photographers that allows them to explore all their photos in a single interface. Photographers’ photos can now be displayed on a beautiful world map according to the places where they were taken. This display offers to professionals and amateurs a new navigation experience. Thanks to the combination with Peakto’s AI that classifies and rates, photographers can now find their best photos from any selected location.
Best shots from the same location
Thanks to the GPS coordinates of the photo or the photographer’s annotations, Peakto locates the images on a world map. Selected photos on the map can be analyzed by Peakto’s AI based on their content or aesthetic score. Photographers can thus easily access their best shots and photos, automatically categorized by portraits, architectural shots, food pictures, etc. This intelligent curation lets photographers rediscover their favorite moments and hidden gems from a new perspective.
Peakto is the ideal companion for photo editing software. It offers additional services to photographers. For example, it allows Capture One or Luminar users to benefit from a map view that they did not have before.
Peakto helps photographers manage their photos
Peakto was developed by CYME to help photographers easily find images and to give them back the pleasure of browsing through their photos. Peakto is a photo management software where photographers can find a preview of all their photos and discover their pictures automatically categorized by image recognition.
Why is this such a big deal? Because the time required for photographers to wade through thousands of photos (thanks to digital technology) has taken away the pleasure of diving into their images. Instead of leisurely perusing an assortment of images to select their best shots or favorite angles, finding a picture is now a matter of searching for a file name. But exploring catalogs scattered in the cloud, on different hard drives or in different photo editing software is complicated and time-consuming.
Peakto gives photographers back the pleasure of browsing through their photos by gathering them all in one place, automatically sorting them by category, searching through all the catalogs and allowing the creation of multi-source albums.
Peakto is compatible with many photo catalogs, including the most popular photo editing software– Lightroom Classic, Luminar AI/Neo, Capture One, Aperture, and iView Media. It allows photographers to find all the photos taken with an iPhone thanks to its compatibility with Apple photos and, of course, connects with all the image folders saved on a computer or hard disk. Peakto always stays up to date with photo sources to give photographers a perfect view of all their catalogs.
Price and availability
Peakto is a software for macOS, available by subscription or one-time purchase on CYME.io and on the Mac App Store. Peakto can be tested for free for 15 days (no credit card required on CYME.io). Peakto is available on a monthly plan at $9.99/month; a yearly plan at $99/year; or for one-time purchase of $189.
If you like me already own the Sony A7rV and want to use it with Lightroom (no official support yet), here is a small “Hack” to convert the RAW files. Sparris on Dpreview forum wrote:
Magic Wedding Photographer on Youtube has found a workaround to convert the raw files from Sony A7R V so they can be opened with Lightroom and Camera Raw! I just tested it and it works. I suppose it rewrites the header of the file to the one found in A7R IV.
Download Exiftool from https://exiftool.org/ and use the command line in Windows:
“exiftool -sonymodelid=”ILCE-7RM4″ -ext ARW -r” followed by the file name, for example
exiftool -sonymodelid=”ILCE-7RM4″ -ext ARW -r 011.arw
if 011.arw is in the same folder as exiftool.exe
