FLASH! $20 off of Luminar now through Jan 2

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I just received notice of a Flash Sale this weekend on Luminar 3 with Libraries from Skylum Software. As you know I like Luminar 3 quite a bit, it is a great alternative to the much more costly Adobe Lightroom. The sale is $10 off, but if you use my special promo code HOWTOGURUS you can get another $10 off making this the best deal on Luminar 3 that you will see for a while. I don't know when they will be doing another sale since this last flash sale will be wrapping up their Christmas Season promotions.

Here is the link: Luminar 3 with Libraries Flash Sale

Luminar Pre-Sale Extended

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Luminar 3 with Libraries was just released today and it is the best version yet. On top of that they also announced that they are extending the pre-sale pricing for one more day, $10 off of the regular price. 

I just received my update today and I will be doing a full video review of Luminar 3 in just a day or two on my YouTube channel, but as a fast preview I really like this new version. The addition of the Libraries gives Luminar the ability to organize images just like in Lightroom or Adobe Elements. So Luminar is now an even more viable option as a replacement for the more expensive Adobe Lightroom, plus with the added benefit of just one payment to own the program, none of that subscription stuff required for Adobe Lightroom.

Luminar 3 with Libraries Pre-Sale Event

Luminar having a Pre-Sale Event right now for Luminar 3 with Libraries

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Luminar 3 with Libraries is coming out soon and the folks behind Luminar are having a Pre-Sale discount event right now. I have been testing out a pre-release beta of this new version and it is great. The Libraries add in an important function that Adobe Lightroom had with its Library Module and now makes Luminar an even better alternative to Lightroom. I have posted the announcement and info on this site, click below to check it out.

Luminar 3 with Libraries Pre-Sale Event

 

New Holiday Savings on Photolemur

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Photolemur is a great little program for quickly improving photos, expecially selfies and portraits. Perfect if you have a lot to get through and limited time. I have talked about this a few times on my YouTube channel and only had rave reviews for this photo editing program.

Skylum (the makers of Photolemur) just announced a huge Holiday Bundle. Along with the Photolemur program you get a load of extras at basically no cost:

Photolemur family license ($55)
Three styles + Holiday style ($48)
Cityscape photography eBook ($99)
Coupon for Picaboo printed Christmas cards with your own photos ($50)
Pixbuf Pro 1 Year subscription ($48)
500px pro 3 months subscription ($119)
Total worth - 419 $
Price for the Holidays - 49 $!! 89%OFF

Check it out!

https://photolemur.com/holiday?is=5c118510564e0f0e30e23370

Black Friday Deals

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I just added a new page to my website for Deals and Special Sales, the link is on the menu. Right now the page is filled with Black Friday deals on the topics I have been discussing on my YouTube channel. In the future I will update this page with any sales I hear about. So if you are in the mood to spend some money this page may help you to not spend too much.

Google is shutting down Google+ by August 2019

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Google announced plans to shut down their social media platform after news came out of a security breach this past Spring that released the private information for 500,000 users. Google+ has never been able to compete successfully with Facebook or Twitter and my guess is that the data breach along with the new security laws in the EU were enough for Google to toss in the towel. Looks like they have decided that it is not worth the time and effort to fix and bring up to speed with all of the new privacy laws. So, bye bye Google+, I have to admit aside from posting videos there from YouTube I never really used that social media platform.

ON1 announces new version 2019 coming this November

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On1, the makers of the photo post-production program ON1 Photo Raw, just announced that they will be releasing ON1 Photo Raw 2019 this November. They didn't give a date for the release so I am assuming mid-November as a guess. I was a little bit unsure about ON1 Photo Raw 2018 as it had some problems running on my test computer but the update ON1 Photo Raw 2018.5 fixed all of those issues and I now consider ON1 a great addition to your toolbox. What I especially like about ON1 is its large set of built in effects and the ability to use layers. 2019 promises to add greatly to the power of this program.

Some of the new features announced for ON1 Photo Raw 2019 are:
Lightroom Photo Settings Migration
Non-Destructive Layers
Focus Stacking
Portrait Module
Text Tool
Layered HDR
and more including the expected performance improvements

If you purchase ON1 Photo Raw 2018.5 now version 2019 will be a free upgrade as soon as it is released.

New Content Aware Fill coming to Adobe Photoshop CC 2019

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Adobe just announced an exciting upgrade to their already magical Content Aware Fill tool. Right now this tool can do wonders by filling in a selection with content from elsewhere in the image, often resulting in a perfect clean up of the selected area. But often Content Aware Fill just gets it wrong and you need to go in and do some clean up work with other tools after the automated fix. The new Content Aware Fill tool opens in a new dialog box giving you several additional options allowing you to more easily get a perfect fill.

The new tool first gives you a preview of the repair and allows you to adjust which parts of the original image are used to do the fill, this can solve most of the errors caused by the current tool. For more difficult or tricky fixes the new tool also has options for mirroring, rotation, and perspective. Put all of this together and this one tool will become one of the most useful tools in the Photoshop toolbox instead of being just an occasional tool if the image is right.

Adobe released a quick preview on YouTube on Monday Sep 10. 

Deviant Art is a Great Source for Photoshop Brushes

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Have you checked out Deviant Art recently? If not it is worth your time to get reaquainted.
Deviant Art is a site set up to showcase digital artists best work. I have a page there myself showcasing some of my favorite work from my YouTube channel. But Deviant Art isn't just a great place to look at great artwork it is also a fantastic source for creative tools as well. Many of the artists on Deviant Art upload resources for programs like Adobe Photoshop making it one of the best sources for Photoshop Brushes and Textures. I have used this resource several times in my YouTube video projects.

To find brush sets on Deviant Art just do a search for psbrushes, or to save you time here is the link https://www.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psbrushes/popular-all-time/. This will bring up a page showcasing the most popular Photoshop Brushes on Deviant Art. Deviant Art can be a bit glitchy at times, if you land on a page and get an OOPS! missing page notice just try back again later.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of installing custom brush sets into Adobe Photoshop here is a video showing the process. Photoshop Brushes: How to Find, Download, and Install Custom Brushes

Next big Windows 10 Update coming in October

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Microsoft is currently doing 2 big updates a year for Windows 10, the last one was in April and the next one is coming next month in October. These updates are thoroughly tested over several pre-release versions but eve with all of that there are still problems coming with every update for some users. I am curious to dig into the latest update and see what has been added in the video and audio areas to see if that has any bearing on Adobe now requiring the latest version in their upcoming October update to Creative Cloud.

So, my big recommendation, now is a great time to make sure your backups are up to date and also a good time to set a fresh restore point for Windows, just in case something goes wrong with the update. Chances are that this October update will go perfectly smoothly, but why take chances?

It is always a good idea to have at least 3 copies of your important files, for me that is my computer, an external networked HD, and Carbonite which is a very easy to use online backup service (wish they gave me some money for that plug, but they don't). I have used Carbonite for over a decade and it has saved my bacon several times.