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Does anyone know what’s happening with Exposure X7?
It’s one of my favourite all-in-one photo organising, editing and effects tools, but Exposure X7 was launched way back in 2021. Exposure X7 is still on sale on the Exposure Software website, but there have been no new blog posts since 2022 and all of my attempts to contact the company by email (I can’t find a phone number) have failed.
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You can use Lightroom without importing images into a catalog and you don’t need to store images in the cloud
The trouble with Lightroom Classic is that you have to import images into its catalog, and the trouble with Lightroom (the web version) is that you need (or think you need) to store images in the cloud. What if there was a workaround that gave you simple ‘live’ folder browsing on your computer but still with all of Lightroom’s editing tools?
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Lightroom now uses Topaz AI Sharpen, following Adobe’s acquisition, but at 10 AI credits per operation!
This happened in the June 2026 Lightroom update, so that you can now use an AI Sharpen option powered by Topaz AI, and there’s an optional Topaz Denoise checkbox you can use alongside it. It shows Adobe’s determination to dominate the AI landscape, but at what cost? (Not to Adobe, of course, but to us.)
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Capture One now has AI denoising built in, but is it as good as DxO DeepPRIME in PureRAW 6?
DxO’s DeepPRIME processing is still the gold standard for AI denoising in my opinion, but if you want to use it alongside your regular workflow, it does add an extra step – you need to batch-process all your RAW files into DxO DNGs before adding them to your catalog. The in-built AI denoising in Lightroom is not quite as good but it is more convenient, and now Capture One has AI denoising too. So how does it compare with DxO’s?
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Struggling for inspiration? Check out ON1’s online Creative Library for a huge array of presets and LUTs
There is a reason I don’t create and share ON1 presets – there are just so many of them already available for download from ON1! I do complain about some software publishers not having a lot of imagination when it comes to effects and ideas, but that’s definitely not the case with ON1, and especially the extra preset packs on the ON1 website. For some downloads you need an ON1 Plus subscription, but many are completely free.
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How to relight a scene for drama and contrast with the simplest of masking techniques
So many of the advances in photo editing software right now use AI, principally AI noise reduction (good), AI upscaling (if you need it) and AI subject masking – ESPECIALLY AI subject masking. Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes it’s not. I’ve used it a lot, on all sorts of images, but for most of the edits I do, most of the time, I use a much simpler approach based around carefully positioned radial masks.
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Lightroom adds Feather and Edge adjustments for AI masks – but how useful are they?
One of the issues with Lightroom’s AI masks is that although they create very precise and accurate masks, they also tend to be very hard-edged. If your masking adjustments are fairly mild, you probably won’t notice, but if you push them to extremes, these hard mask edges become obvious. In particular you start to see strong edge artefacts and outlines. So can the new Edge and Feather adjustments fix this?
