At this year’s North Dakota Renaissance Faire, we enjoyed watching several performers, not the least of which was this duo. Obviously, we weren’t the only ones who enjoyed their music. This little guy was dancing with his mom for a while, then Daddy came up to keep an eye on him. After a few tentative steps, he reached the edge of the stage and stayed there for the song’s duration.

About the photo: Captured on my Samsung S23U, I exported the image into Luminar Neo after cataloging and basic edits in Lightroom. In Neo, I ran Supersharp, tweaked the Enhance AI tool, and added just a touch of structure. I cropped it square for use on Instagram, something I’ve been doing lately since rejoining the social network after a four-year hiatus. You’ll find me there as steinej2. To pixel-peep the photo in 2K HD, click on the image to view it on my Flickr account.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Fargo, North Dakota.

The 2nd annual North Dakota Renaissance Faire presented an opportunity to try out a new module in Luminar Neo. See the details in the About this photo section below. Lynn and I have only been to a couple of Renaissance Fairs, both of them in the Phoenix area. Though there is a major fair in the Minneapolis metro, we’ve never attended. Last year, King Caesar Productions brought their fair to Fargo. We were happy to attend and we enjoyed going with our daughter and grandson.

This year we were happy to see them back again, but as it turns out with a bit of controversy. I will tell that story in a future post featuring more images from the fair. In the meantime, here’s a teaser image of a match at the jousting tournament. Notice that there seem to be four jousters against one. The explanation? It’s a feature, not a bug.

About the photo: Recently Skylum Software added a new module to Luminar Neo that creates panoramic images from multiple images stitched together. While it’s nice to have the option in Neo, I’ve been using that feature in Adobe Lightroom Classic for a very long time. Here’s why I chose to use Neo to create this panorama.

Ukrainian-based Skylum software often thinks “outside the box” and they created an option for their panoramic module that steps out of the box and further. Instead of selecting several images to stitch together, you can choose a video instead. From that video, you can select the start and end points of the video that you’d like to include, and the module will stitch those frames together to create a single panoramic image. To try it out, I captured a couple of videos from the jousting match with my Samsung S23U cell phone.

Skylum’s developers didn’t just stop there with the module. They added a feature called Custom Object Composition. With this tool, you can scan through the video and select several frames to highlight a moving object. I chose to highlight the defeated jouster, the one moving right to left. I selected four frames and drew a box around the jouster as he progressed across the video. When Luminar Neo processed the frames into a panorama, it placed the highlighted subject into the image at the points I selected.

The screenshot above shows how easy the module is to use. The video started before the jousters were ready to go so I just moved the video start point to the right on the timeline. The leftmost blue square with the white dot indicates that I drew a frame around the jouster at the start of the video. The next blue square indicates I added a frame in the video. The third blue square is the current box where the two jousters meet in the center. I went on to add one more frame after the jouster lost the match and dropped his weapon. From there, I hit the Continue box and the program finished creating the panorama.

I have seen better examples of how to use this tool, but I was impressed at how well the program operates in this mode. When the panorama was created, I cropped the top and bottom to remove extraneous negative space and ran the Supersharp module and the Upscale module to add additional sharpness and detail to the image. You can click on the image above to view it in 2K HD via my Flickr site. I seldom take videos, but with this feature in mind, I will probably add them as I come across appropriate subjects.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Challenge 1 – Demonstrate swordsmanship by striking targets. Having missed the first target, our hero takes aim at target 2.

Apache Junction, AZ

This week’s photo challenge asks us to tell a story in three parts. As it says in the challenge post, a story is often depicted by creating an establishing shot that shows the big picture, a medium shot that introduces our subject in greater detail, and finally a close-up shot that provides even more detail and leaves the viewer with a conclusion to the story.

Of course, that form of presentation is not the only way a photographer can tell a story. Another option is to divide the similar images into a time span. In the story I wish to relate, I have chosen to tell of the jousting tournament at the Arizona Renaissance Festival, an annual event held in February and March near Apache Junction, Arizona.

My lords and my ladies, I submit for your entertainment, the story of our intrepid knight’s performance at the jousting tournament. Our hero is astride the horse with the red and black tunic. The captions below the photos help to describe the action.

Challenge 2 – Demonstrate skill with a jousting lance. Having already captured one ring thrown into the air (visible in his right hand), our hero celebrates the capture of his second ring.

Challenge 3 – A fight to the death. Both knights have speared the other’s shield. His opponent’s shield is in mid-air hiding our hero’s helmet. The king declares a draw and the knights live to fight again.

This photo challenge is a preview of an upcoming post featuring more of what goes on at a Renaissance Festival. Arizona’s festival was a first for my wife and I. We will certainly be back for more, probably in Shakopee, Minnesota for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in late summer 2014.

To view the specifics of this week’s challenge, click here.

John Steiner