10 Nov 2019

From Russia with Pixels

If you believe that I've mentioned every possible photo editing application, you have another think* coming. This time I've encountered a photo editing application from eastern Russia that you may want to consider.

You've probably noticed that TechByter has had a lot of photo processing application reviews recently. It seems that every software publisher in the market space has just released a new version. Exposure (formerly Alien Skin) released a Exposure X5 in early October. Adobe constantly updates Lightroom and Photoshop, and last week I had a close look at Photoshop Eleme nts 2020. This week, it's Movavi Photo Editor's turn.

Movavi is a company that you may not have heard of. I hadn't, even though it's been around since 2004. In the beginning Movavi had module programs (denoise, focus, noir, and batch), but then decided to merge them into Photo Editor. Because some users prefer single-purpose programs that solve one particular problem, Movavi continues to make the components available individually.

The Movavi Photo Editor has several notable features and one astounding feature. Let's start with the astounding feature because it's, well, astounding. I've been scanning some old family photos. You probably have some pictures like this. Some have tears or other damage and you might like to fix the problems.

Let's make one thing absolutely clear at this point: If damage to the old photograph has destroyed the subject's face or other important parts of the image, there is no way to fix the problem without involving a highly talented photo retoucher. That said, if damage is limited to rips, spots, and such in the background, solid parts of the image, or the subject's hair or clothing, the Movavi Photo Editor will probably surprise you with its magic.

 Click any of the small images for a full-size view. To dismiss the larger image, press ESC or tap outside the image.

I'll start with the astounding feature. The application has a Restore button and clicking it offers two options: Enhance and Colorize. The user can select either or both.

I found a photo of my father as a scoutmaster. The picture was probably taken in the late 1930s and had a lot of dust spots and small scratches. I didn't colorize the image, but I did have the Movavi Photo Editor clean up the dust spots. It did an outstanding job with the dust spots but it also added a considerable amount of smudging and blurring. I like what the application did in cleaning up the scratches and imperfections across my father's face, but found the blurring to be objectionable in other areas.

This is a good reason to keep the original scanned image and the restored image.

A photograph of a relative who served in the Pacific during the Second World War had a small tear and some other imperfections. The restored version is an improvement. The most serious damage has been repaired and the blurring isn't objectionable.

Movavi Photo Editor's colorize option falls short when compared to the colorize function in Adobe Photoshop Elements. Note, though, that the Adobe application doesn't have a repair function.

In a case such as this, the best solution might be to use Movavi Photo Editor to restore the photo, save the image as a TIFF, open it in Adobe Photoshop Elements, and perform the colorization there.

It's also possible to colorize black and white images using Lightroom Classic or Photoshop, but the process is far from automated as you'll see if you watch Nathaniel Dodson's YouTube video on photo colorization.

The Movavi Photo Editor interface is unusual. The first thing I noticed is that there is no file organizer mode. To start working on a photo, the user selects Open from the menu and that opens the Windows Explorer (or Mac Finder). Once any photo in a directory has been opened, all of the images in that directory are shown in a film strip at the bottom of the screen. The program doesn't write sidecar files, so all edits are destructive.

Three buttons at the top left offer Undo, Redo, and Revert, which clears all changes made to the photo.

The top center section of the interface has buttons labeled Adjust, Retouching, Object Removal, Crop, Change Background, Text, Frames, Restore, Denoise, Insert Image, Rotate, Effects, and Resize. On narrow screens, some of these will be hidden and a button labeled More will be present.

The upper right section of the interface has three buttons labeled Before/After, which displays side-by-side views of the original and the edited version; View Original, which toggles between the original and edited versions; and Photo Manager. You may wonder how I can claim that the application has no photo manager, as I said a short time ago, when there's a button labeled Photo Manager. Here's how I can make that claim: Click the button and a browser window will open and offer to sell you the Photo Manager for $40. The Photo Manager application supports all common file formats, including most raw formats.

The right side of the interface is context sensitive. Some examples: In the Adjust mode, you'll see sliders for automatic enhancements, high-dynamic range effects, white balance, exposure, and such. Select Frames and you'll be presented with various frame effects that can be applied to the image. Change Background offers instructions for selecting the main subject so that the background can be removed.

The Denoise function does a reasonable job removing luminance noise (white speckles) and chrominance noise (random color specs) but at the cost of some loss of detail. The image is enlarged to 400% so that both the noise removal and loss of some fine details will be visible. When viewed at a more normal size, the image will display improved clarity without objectionable loss of detail.

Unlike most current applications, Movavi Photo Editor doesn't automatically save changes. When opening a new photo or exiting the application, the user is prompted to save or discard changes. Saving offers two additional options, Save As or Overwrite. Save As is the preferred choice to avoid permanently changing an original image. Several file formats are offered. The best choice for image quality is TIFF.

On installation, Movavi Photo Editor places its files in C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Movavi Photo Editor 6\ instead of the more common C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86). This is because "there were some problems with launching the program from Program Files so we had to change it" according to Movavi's Mariya Serdobintseva.

The Photo Editor is priced at $45 for individuals and $85 for companies. You can add the Photo Manager for $15 or the Photo Manager and a slideshow maker a total price of $80. The prices for business users are $85, $120, and $160, respectively. The application is the the same, but users are told not to use software obtained under a personal license for commercial purposes. Unlike most other software publishers, Movavi allows installation on only a single computer per license. Users with a desktop computer and a notebook computer will need two licenses, as will a user with a Windows system and a MacOS system.

The Movavi website has more than 30 how-to articles covering topics such as fixing red-eye caused by a camera flash, image rotation, and changing a photo's background. There's a free trial version that can be downloaded and, like nearly all other photo applications, it will not run on Windows XP or Vista.

 Movavi Photo Editor Offers Some Compelling Capabilities

Although the Movavi Photo Editor seems to be somewhat behind the curve in some areas and it doesn't have some useful features found in Adobe, Exposure, and On1 applications, its ability to repair scans of damaged old photographs might be worth the cost of the program. The MacOS version of Photo Editor doesn't yet have the photo restoration feature, though. The unusual interface is easy enough to master and, unlike many competing applications, it fits comfortably on a single high-resolution screen.
Additional details are available on the Movavi website.

Short Circuits

Are Traditional Cameras Still Necessary?

Several recent TechByter programs have dealt with photo editing applications, so it was interesting when I received an email from CNet with the subject "Take professional photos on your phone's camera". Would professionals really consider phone-based cameras?

The answer, of course, is NO but that doesn't change the fact that photography is more about the photographer's eye than the hardware involved. Two or three years ago, I tried to explain that in a Facebook group for Lightroom users. My point was that a professional photographer would be able to take exceptional photographs even with a phone. The response from the group's "professionals" told me that no professional would ever select such a camera. Well, of course not but they missed the point entirely: No professional would choose a smart phone to photograph a wedding. It would be the wrong tool for the job and yet a professional photographer might choose a smart phone for any number of reasons in any number of situations.

I am no longer a member of that Facebook group, by the way.

Professional photographers choose the equipment they use for a reason. A camera in a phone isn't acceptable for several reasons and here are just a few of them:

• Limited Settings: Even pocket-size cameras often have options for switching to manual mode so that the user can select the aperture and shutter speed. These are not options that are available on most phone-based cameras and, when they are, the settings are often hard to get to.
• Operational Speed: A digital SLR has essentially no shutter lag time. Click the shutter and take the picture. Phones are faster than the early digital cameras that often had quarter-second lags, but they're still not as fast as cameras that are intended for professionals and serious amateurs.
• Tiny Sensors: Both IOS and Android phones can be used to create images that are far better than they should be. These cameras have sensors smaller that the nail on your smallest finger yet they still create excellent JPEG images and, with the right software, even raw images. But small sensors create images with more noise and there's no way to avoid this.
• Lenses: Photographers who use digital SLR cameras can mount a "walk-around" lens that offers moderate wide-angle to moderate-telephoto views. Cameras in smartphones, even those that offer two or three lenses, are still limited. Phones offer "digital zoom" but the result will always be worse than using optical zoom or even enlarging the image in an application such as Photoshop or Lightroom.

All that doesn't mean that smart phone cameras are useless. They're not. In fact, the images that come from these small devices with tiny sensors often amaze me. Mainly it depends on selecting the right camera for the job. Maybe you've seen an image of a photographer on a mountain. The photographer has carried a large backpack full of equipment to the top of a mountain and there he is taking a photograph with a smart phone. Why???

Well, clearly the guy has brought his tripod, camera bodies, and lenses up the mountain for a reason. The smart phone image might be something he'll use for reference. Or maybe he'll share the image with friends. Obviously, though, he doesn't plan to document the journey with nothing more than a smart phone picture.

Select the hardware to suit your needs. I have a digital SLR camera with several lenses and I love to use that camera, but sometimes lugging all of the gear somewhere is far less than appealing. My younger daughter had a baby in early October. We visited with her, her husband, his father, my wife and older daughter in the hospital. Although I used the camera in my smart phone for some pictures, I also took along a pocket-size digital camera and used it to capture more important images.

Select the hardware to suit your needs. Or did I already say that?

Some photographers still use film cameras. I'm not one of them, but I certainly don't denigrate them. A professional or a serious amateur photographer will understand the importance of choosing the right tool for the task at hand. So don't rule out cameras in smart phones, pocket-size cameras, or digital SLRs.

Keeping External Drives from Going to Sleep

One common problem with with USB disk drives that are attached to Windows computers is that they tend to nod off and this can cause the application that wants to write data to the drive to crash. At the very least, it can cause disk access to become erratic and unreliable. Microsoft should have a setting to control this, and it claims to, but the setting doesn't work. Fortunately, there's a free application that fixes the annoyance.

Users should be able to open the power settings dialog and specify that USB drives should never be allowed to power down. After all, the setting is right there and the description is is plain Microsoftian English. You can change the settings so that the USB drive won't go to sleep but the operating system ignores the setting. At that point, you have several options: Swear uncontrollably, buy a Mac, or download the KeepAlive utility from GitHub. I chose the third option.

KeepAlive can be set to start with Windows and it can be set to write a file to all of your USB drives every few minutes. Windows won't allow a disk drive to go to sleep if it seems to be in use.

I created a KeepAlive directory on each drive and set the application to write a file to that directory every two minutes. It overwrites the existing file so there are no concerns about using a lot of space. The file acts as a success log by writing a file that says "This file was generated by KeepAliveHD application on [a specific date] at [the time the file was written]. If there's ever a problem with the application, and so far there hasn't been, I can review the file to see when it was last written.

Every two minutes seems like a good choice and none of my 7 USB drives has nodded off since I started using the application.

To download the application visit the KeepAliveHD section on GitHub.

Spare Parts

Magic from Adobe at Max in Los Angeles

This year's Adobe Max Conference in Los Angeles exposed 15,000 attendees from 62 countries and nearly one million who viewed keynote addresses online from all around the world to new applications, improved applications, and enhanced features across the entire line of Creative Cloud applications this week.

Adobe releases new software versions on the first day of the three-day conference so Creative Cloud subscribers will hear about the new features and be able to start using them immediately. Starting on the first of November, I was able to start working with some of the updates and probably the best description so far is WOW!

If you wonder just how big Adobe Max is, take a look at Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen standing on the stage in Los Angeles and keep in mind that Shantanu Narayen is not a tiny person.

The photo applications pick up a lot of new an improved features, including one-click subject selection. In-app tutorials have been added to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. I'll have an in-depth look at those application on the 1 December program following the Thanksgiving break.

Those who use Creative Cloud on an IPad will now have access to all 17,000 typefaces. Sensei and other content-aware capabilities will make tasks easier. The first iteraton of Photoshop and Illustrator for IPad have been released with a user interface that's optimized for touch.

Presenters at the conference included Abhay Parasnis, Chantel Benson, Deepanjana Chakravarti, Emily Bogue, Eric Snowden, Jamie Myrold, Jason Levine, Khoi Vinh, Kyle Webster, Scott Belsky, Terry White (all pictured here) and many other Adobe professionals.

InDesign is now 20 years old and the version introduced this week will include support for variable fonts. This is exciting technology that was tried a decade or two ago, but didn't catch on. Instead of just a few selected weights for any typeface, designers will be able to set typeface properties such as weight, width, slant, and optical size and other aspects of the type to exactly fit a face to the task. A blog post by Adobe's Wayne Hoang also notes that "For multi-column designs that have a line, or 'rule', separating them [in InDesign], you’ll no longer need to manually draw the line—now the process is automated." InDesign is about 25 years late with this feature, which is remarkable for an application that's just 20 years old.

The conference's two primary themes were "Faster, More Powerful, & More Reliable" and "Create Anywhere, Anytime, with Anyone". There's been an increasing emphasis on collaboration so that people can work together on projects regardless of where they are or what hardware they're using.

That Email from "Someone You Know" May Be a Fraud

Let's say you've just received an email from someone you know. It has an attachment but the person the message is from often sends attachments. You look a little closer and see that a person who's always CC'd on messages wasn't included. You also notice that the attachment is a macro-enabled Microsoft Word file, which is something your correspondent has never sent in the past. What do you do?

In this case, the person who received the message asked if the message was legitimate and found that the sender's email account had been compromised. This is a growing trend. Email attacks that impersonate individuals are increasing according to email security firm Agari.

Fraudsters deployed phishing campaigns using identity deception techniques that impersonate trusted brands or individuals. Identity deception-based attacks accounted for 62% of all advanced email attacks from July through September 2019. These percentages are up in the aggregate. Two identity deception attacks are favored among email fraudsters: Phishing campaigns impersonating brands, which dropped 6% quarter-over-quarter, and phishing campaigns impersonating individuals, which rose to 22%, compared to just 12% in the previous quarter.

"Malicious emails impersonating well-known brands are generally associated with credentials-harvesting schemes," according to Patrick Peterson, Agari's founder and CEO, "and those spoofing trusted individuals are typically linked to more sophisticated, social engineering-based business email compromise attacks."

Payroll diversions now account for about a quarter of these cons. The HR department receives a message claiming to be from an employee who closed one bank account and opened another. The "employee" want salary payments to be sent to the new bank.

You can read the full report by downloading it from the Agari website. (You will need to provide your full name, email address, company name, country, and job title.)

Twenty Years Ago: We Weren't Backing Up Our Data

How much has changed? In 1999, I wrote "PCs are particularly at risk because they're often not backed up. At some companies PCs are not backed up, but users are instructed to store data and programs on network servers that are backed up. Servers should backed up each day and the backup tapes should then be stored off-site. Individual PCs are not used to store critical data. Alternatively, there are network-based backup utilities that are designed to back up all data from PCs that are connected to the network."

The results in 2019 are still distressing. One fifth of all computer users have never backed up their systems according so a survey by Backblaze. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of computers are backed up every day and around 20% are backed up at least monthly.

In 1999, a study researched and written by Pepperdine University economics professor and labor economist David Smith, estimated that 6% of PCs will data loss in any given year. "Each incident requires an average $2,557 to fix, including costs such as retrieving and recovering the missing information, lost productivity, technical services, and the data's average value. Smith estimates that businesses spent $11.8 billion to recover data in 1998."