Best Tool to Make HDR Images in Minutes

Picture this.

You’ve taken a trip to the forest and you come across this beautiful spot with the river gently flowing and the afternoon sunlight peeking through the forest trees. 

You take out your camera but you are unsure how to best capture the scene in its full detail. Do you light the dark shadows on the river? Or do you light the trees in the background? The high-contrast scene can prove an impossible task for a camera to capture but not to worry, there is a solution. That solution is called PhotoPad and its sophisticated HDR processing tool.

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What does HDR mean?

In a simplified definition, HDR photography or High Dynamic Range photography is the technique of fusing different exposure images to create a single image with overall correct exposure. PhotoPad, one of the most comprehensive photo editors and HDR software available, takes all the complications away in a couple of clicks to create an image with so much dynamic range and detail that couldn't otherwise be achieved with a normal photo. 

How to Make HDR Images with PhotoPad

• The first step is to capture at least three images with different exposures. The first image is to capture a mid-range exposure shot, the second captures the highlights with higher exposure and the third one is a lower exposure shot that captures the shadows. Feel free to capture additional photos that represent exposures between the two extremes.

  

• Once you have your images, the next step is to install PhotoPad which takes less than a couple of minutes to install.
  
  

• Open PhotoPad and navigate to the Tools tab in the toolbar and select the HDR icon.

  
  
  

• Select the dark, medium, and bright exposure images by holding the Ctrl key and click Open. 

• PhotoPad will now automatically align and combine your images into a single HDR image. 

  

Your eye-popping National Geographic-worthy HDR photo is complete. If you don’t want to take multiple photographs, you can also create an HDR from one RAW image format with neutral lighting and then later create different exposure images digitally with PhotoPad. 

Once your HDR image is complete, continue to edit your image like any other PhotoPad project. Maybe try out the advanced double exposure tool or why not some of our top travel photography editing tips? Download PhotoPad HDR photo editor below and check it out yourself.

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New Release: DreamPlan Home Design Software for macOS

Download DreamPlan 5.34 now at www.nchsoftware.com/design/index.html. Also available for Windows and Android at the same page

New Release: DreamPlan Home Design Software for Windows

Download DreamPlan 5.34 now at www.nchsoftware.com/design/index.html. Also available for macOS and Android at the same page

Free COVID-19 Contact Tracing App Launched For Businesses

We have just launched a free COVID-19 record-keeping and contact tracing app for hospitality businesses around the world to easily and securely collect customer contact details as required by local governments for COVID-19 contact tracing. 

We are really feeling for the hospitality industry during this challenging time and don’t want local businesses who are already experiencing huge financial stress to struggle with the visitor record-keeping process. We are proud to help businesses and the community where we can and hope our free app will help businesses with record-keeping obligations and easily and securely share this information with governments if required.

The app named Brisk Table COVID Check-In, allows any business that is looking to collect contact information to easily create a contact form on any digital device for patrons to fill in when entering the venue. The app also automatically creates a QR code for customers to scan and check-in on their device for contactless data collection.

The Brisk Table COVID Check-In app works on any internet-connected device including computers, laptops, iPads, tablets, and smartphones, and only takes a few minutes to get set up and running. The app also automatically deletes data after a set number of days to comply with data deletion laws.

The app is 100% free for businesses of all sizes that need to collect customer contact details. Please also share this blog with any business that might benefit from this.

To sign up for the app and more information, please visit www.brisktable.com/contact-tracing-software

Just Released: Doxillion Document Converter for Windows

Download Doxillion 4.27 now at www.nchsoftware.com/documentconvert/index.html. Also available for macOS at the same page

Record Video Like a Pro with Debut Video Capture Software

Gadgets Now, one of the largest tech news websites in India has just recently listed NCH’s video capture software, Debut as one of the best video capture tools for PC and Mac. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the article. 

“Every step of the way, you get many options to configure the camera, audio, color, exposure, scheduling, and more.”

“It is intuitive and comes with a manual and video tutorials to help you get acquainted.”

“If you want more control over what you want to capture, then you will need something like NCH’s Debut Video Capture software”

Debut Video Capture has already been heavily praised by various tech review giants such as Top Ten Reviews and Tech Radar as being a highly recommended stable and capable video capture and screen recording software, and we’re excited that Gadgets Now has joined the growing list of fans. Download Debut today and see for yourself why it has been getting a lot of positive attention.

Download Debut for Windows

Easiest Method to Add Text to Video in Minutes

Adding text to video can help make your video more attractive to viewers by adding some context or helping to get your point across. While video editing can sometimes get tricky with many video editors that are too complex for everyone, VideoPad Video Editor makes video editing including adding text to a video as easy as possible in just a few steps. 

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Whether you need to add captions, descriptions, labels, quotations, or any other text, you can easily do so with VideoPad’s text overlay tool as this video tutorial will show you how.  

Adding text to a video with VideoPad

1. Click the Add Text button on the Home tab toolbar.

2. Select the text type whether it is a simple text overlay, animation, 3D, etc. 

3. Enter your text in the Title text field and edit the clip attributes, such as font, color, and size.

4. Click the X to close the Text Editor window.

5. The text clip will be added to your images bin.

6. When you are ready to add the text to your sequence, simply drag it to the track above the video clip you want it to overlay or click the Add button at the bottom of the window.

It's so easy to add text to video by following those simple steps. Download VideoPad to try it out now! For more VideoPad tips and tricks, check out more video tutorials here.

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Top 5 Travel Photography Editing Tips

We’ve all seen fashion magazine images edited with fake backdrops, flashy text, and intense skies. When it comes to travel photography, it’s recommended to keep editing simple and realistic. 

Whether you’re a backpacker, a travel blogger, or a vacationer, you know travel is all about the experience, the journey, the beautiful places and amazing people you’ve met along the way. Unfortunately on many occasions, your travel photos fail to deliver the same experience behind the captured moment.

Not to worry, here are 5 simple travel photography tips that will turn your photos into something special with the help of PhotoPad, one of the easiest and most comprehensive photo editors available. 

Download PhotoPad for Windows

Crop

While traveling, you won’t always be in the right place at the right time to capture the perfect moment. This leads to photos including unwanted elements which can be distracting. Cropping your image is another way of composing your shot by highlighting the subject. 

  

Take this image of the hot air balloons in Cappadocia, Turkey for example. You can crop the image to focus on a particular subject or make it suitable for social media. To crop the image in PhotoPad, select the Crop button in the toolbar, and adjust your selection. You can also adjust the aspect ratio and resize your crop selection. 

 

AutoFix

Exposure, Resolution, Saturation, Color Correction, Contrast - the photography lingo is endless and can take a while to wrap one’s head around it.

 

One of the best features of PhotoPad is its one-click AutoFix function, which automatically fixes the most common photo problems and enhances your travel photo in seconds. To apply AutoFix, navigate to the Retouch tab in the toolbar, and select AutoFix. It’s that simple!

Color Boost

Don’t you wish you could take photographs with your eyes? You might notice that the vibrancy of colors in your travel photos looks a bit dull. This is where PhotoPad’s one-click Color Boost function will automatically make your pictures pop.

Head to the Filters tab and select Color Boost. You can also adjust the brightness and strength of the Color Boost accordingly. 

Touch Up

All too often when you’re traveling to a place to photograph, other tourists have the same idea and are likely to end up in your photo. Luckily, you can remove tourists from your photo with PhotoPad’s Touch Up tool. This however only works well as long as there isn’t a crowd of people or a lot of elements that need to be removed and the elements are against an unbroken and repeating background like the image of a tourist beside a field of grass below. 

To use the Touch-Up tool, go to the Retouch tab and select Touch Up. The tool works by stamping material from one part of a picture onto whatever other parts you choose. Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the part of the picture that will cover up the tourist, in this case - more grass. This tool is also useful for removing dust spots, blemishes, and other imperfections. Works like magic. 

Lens Distortion

If you have ever noticed your travel photos to be unnaturally curved inwards or outwards, your image is distorted. Commonly caused by a myriad of reasons such as the use of wide-angle/telephoto lenses, camera positioning or camera tilts. Regardless of the distortion type, you can easily correct it with PhotoPad’s Lens Distortion feature.

Under the Effects tab, select Lens Distortion where you can manually adjust the distortion correction accordingly, giving your pictures a more professional look. 

There’s so much more to editing your travel photos than just choosing a filter and posting your photo on Instagram. While these are just some of the quick and easy-to-use features listed in this article, PhotoPad is a comprehensive travel photo editor with many more tools and effects available that will take your travel photography to the next level. Happy editing!

Download PhotoPad for Windows

New Release: Switch Sound File Converter for Windows

Download Switch 8.17 now at www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html. Also available for macOS and Android at the same page

Best Method to Change Vinyl to MP3

Have you discovered grandpa’s old collection of vinyl records and are wondering how to digitize them? Or you need some samples for your new DJ mix? Or maybe you just want to preserve your beloved music collection into a format that is a bit more reliable and accessible. 

Either-way, converting your vinyl records, LPs or cassette tapes to MP3 or other digital formats can easily be done with the help of Golden Records Audio Converter, one of the easiest and most comprehensive vinyl to mp3 converter software available.
 

Hardware

To begin converting your vinyl to digital, there are a few tools you will require. First, you will need a PC/laptop with a USB port or a headphone/mic jack, a vinyl player, and the right cables to connect your PC and vinyl player. If your vinyl player has a USB port, grab a USB cable to connect the two devices. 

While this is the easiest method, if your player does not include a USB port, you can also use a stereo RCA to 3.5mm stereo cable, or a stereo RCA to stereo RCA cable with a stereo RCA to 3.5mm stereo adapter to connect the two devices. 

Recording Source

Install and open your copy of Golden Records Audio Converter. Open the Wizard guide by selecting the Wizard icon and select your recording source as vinyl records. 

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The Wizard will then ask you to select a connection mode. If you are connecting your record player via an amp or pre-amp, select the appropriate option, if you’re connecting the record player directly with your PC, select the Direct phono to computer option. You will then be asked to select your audio recording speed. If you are unsure, leave it at the default option of 33/45/78 RPM.    

Volume Calibration

The next step is to test the recording volume. Start playing some music on your vinyl player and keep an eye out on the volume display bar to see where the volume is registered. If you do not see the green bars moving in the display bar, check that the correct Sound Record Device and Sound Input Channel options have been selected.  

Adjust the recording volume bar to change your sound quality level. Ideally, the volume should register in the Good range. 

Recording Vinyl

It is time to begin recording. Move the needle on the vinyl player to start playing and select Start Recording. Once side 1 of the record has finished playing, select Stop. You will then receive a prompt to record side 2, following the same steps.  

          

Split Recordings

Golden Records will automatically split your recordings into separate tracks. Play the tracks to check the splits have occurred in the right places. If these have been incorrectly split, you can join the digital files or click on the Re-Split button to get Golden Records to run the split process again. 

You can also adjust the background noise measure to have Golden Records measure the noise between tracks. Select the Current Noise Floor button, set the vinyl player’s needle to sit near the end of any track, and once the track has ended, select Measure Noise Floor. You can also manually specify the noise floor measurement. 

On the next step, you can select audio restoration options that may enhance your recording.

Output Format

The last step is to choose the output method for your recording. You can either burn the recording onto a CD, convert the recordings to mp3 or continue to work on the files later. Your chosen output file is now stored on your computer. Select the music folder icon to find your local files.

And there you have it, you have successfully converted your vinyl to mp3 using Golden Records. The only thing left to do is sit back and enjoy. If the audiophile in you wants to further edit or enhance your newly converted files, try out WavePad Audio Editing Software.

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Just Released: Express Invoice Invoicing Software for Windows

Download Express Invoice 8.17 now at www.nchsoftware.com/invoice/index.html. Also available for macOS, iOS and Android at the same page

New Release: FastFox Text Expander Software for macOS

Download FastFox 4.00 now at www.nch.com.au/fastfox/index.html. Also available for Windows at the same page

New Release: FlexiServer Productivity and Attendance Software for Windows

Download FlexiServer 5.00 now at www.nchsoftware.com/flexi/index.html

Just Released: Express Animate Motion Graphics and Animation for macOS

Download Express Animate 5.04 now at www.nchsoftware.com/animation/index.html. Also available for Windows at the same page