It was a hard slog at work this week and the comfort of a single malt was not awaiting me this Friday night… the dieting enforcer is in town!

Luckily I had something grand to look forward to… Raya Pro version 2.0 – the super efficient and powerful Photoshop plugin by world renowned Jimmy Mcintyre. If you know what HDR and blending are about then you will certainly know this Scotsman come exposure blending guru.

Version 1.1 had those “luminosity masks”, that some of us whisper about, made easy to understand with various other blending modes and many other useful post processing features. Read more here.

Version 2.0, soon to be released, has a host of other features which make this must-have plugin even more powerful and a .45 on the hip when navigating Photoshop especially in the landscape area (but I would be keen to shoot the inside of a mansion / building and test the images with Raya).

I tried the new Precision masks / Auto Dark Blend and “boom” out came an evenly blended image (I chose one of the 5/6 or so options / created masks it offered to suit my liking). I noticed a new feature called Fix Blend but will need the tutorial for that.

In summary that’s now five (5) different blending modes (if I’m counting correctly) in one plugin that has the potential to make any Joe Soap a master blender.

Jimmy always seems to mention image degradation (something the old style HDR software packages were good at doing) and his plugin clearly cruises the golden mile to effortlessly blend images without turning them into a horror that would make your blind grandma turn in her grave.

I’m sure Glen Phillips and chaps from FISHING DBN will enjoy this blended photo taken at sunrise on Poenskop looking North across the Nkadusweni River Mouth (it’s the favourite Port St Johns Tourism fishing spot of many a fisherman with tall tales).

Base image F10, 0.5 sec. ISO 100 Canon 6D 24-105 mm L