This is quite similar to a shot I posted back in May, but I've posted this one too as I've been experimenting with an alternative RAW processor: Iridient Developer. It's a programme I've had for quite a few years but as Camera RAW improved I've used it less and less. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I downloaded the new version recently and thought I'd give it another try.

It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Camera RAW but there are two things I especially like. First, it has the best curves tool I've ever used, with a single dialog that allows you to edit eight separate curves: RGB, Red, Green, Blue, Lightness, Chroma (ab), a* and b*. In other words, it combines RGB and Lab Color into a single curve, so for this image I was able to use the Lightness curve for contrast and the a* curve for tone, but didn't need to convert to Lab Color first.

Second, it has some great sharpening routines: Unsharp Mask, Hybrid Sharpen, which "uses a combination of low pass/high pass image convolution filters" - and I'm not sure what that means, but it works well - DoG, which "uses the Difference of Gaussians algorithm" (and I don't know what that means either), and my favourite R-L (Richardson-Lucy) Deconvolution which was a sharpening method that was developed to counteract the problems with the initial images from the Hubble Space telescope.

It also has a range of interesting black and white conversion methods: CIELab Lightness, Luma, Desaturate, Intensity, Custom Tone, Channel Mixer and RAW Color Channel Mixer. None of these are quite as flexible as Camera RAW, but they do produce good results.

The bad news is that this is a Mac only product, but the good news is that it's cheap ($75) and you can also download a demo version. If you're a Mac user I'd definitely suggest you give it a try.

Another quiet shot from Jura.

This was taken while we were on our way to the north of Jura to photograph George Orwell's house and the Corryvreckan whirlpool. It was a bit of a struggle to get right – the boat was moving quite quickly making composition and focussing a bit of a struggle – but I'm pleased with how this one turned out. As you'll see, I had to be a bit creative with the Raymarine text – the composition was a bit tight – but as all my wider shots were a bit blurred I decided that this one provided the best starting point.

As always, let me know what you think.

Another night shot from my recent trip to Jura. It was a very beautiful place.

Here's another shot from our recent trip to Jura, taken from the Jetty near the Jura Hotel. As you'll see, rather than crop to 16x9 I extended this one, using Content Aware Scale to stretch the area of the image to the left of the boat. It's not a feature I use very often, but I think it worked well for this image, i.e. the 16x9 format increases the sense of scale.

As always, let me know what you think.

This is one of those shots that I suspect may appeal more to me than it does to you, but there's something about the simplicity, and the contrast between the narrow strip of blue sky and the slate grey tones of the rest of the image that I really like.

If you're interested, it was shot during the five minute ferry crossing from Islay to Jura.

This is one of those shots that almost didn't get taken, simply because it wasn't what I was intent on shooting at the time. Let me explain. Ian Mylam and I had spent a good couple of hours photographing from the end of the jetty near the Jura hotel, and we'd got some good shots and had just about decided to wrap it up for the night. At that point a fishing boat pulled up at the end of the jetty so I started taking a few shots of the boat in profile against the increasingly dark sky. The shots weren't working out - mostly because the boat was rocking in the water and I couldn't get a decent shutter speed without cranking the ISO up to at least 12800 so I gave up.

As I started packing away my gear I wandered to the rear of the boat, which I hadn't even looked at at this point, and noticed that a) it was well lit ... well, relatively well lit, and b) it was a whole lot more interesting than trying to photograph the boat as a whole.

So I grabbed a few frames and we headed back to the Jura Lodge for a nightcap or two. And I'm glad I did as I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Bones on the Isle of Jura. And beyond that I'm not sure what to tell you about this one other than to say that I processed it to create a slightly darker mood than the original. And I also thought about toning this one, with maybe a weak sepia-like tone, but each tone I tried seemed to soften the mood. In the end I just left it in black and white.

As always, let me know what you think.

A splash of colour from the edge of the pier at Lagg on the Isle of Jura.

As you know, I was recently on Jura, running a two day photography workshop for the winners of a competition I judged last year. On the first day we were out and about, but on the second day it was cold, wet and rainy so we stayed at the Jura Lodge and shot a range of portraits: some with strobes, some with natural light. This shot is probably my favourite, a portrait of Todd Winter's father. Todd was one of the competition winners, and Sidney came along to accompany him on his trip.

He was a great sport - we posed him mercilessly for most of the day - and I'm sure we all got a range of great shots.

And it's also a fitting image to post today as I've spent pretty much all of it critiquing the first assignment images for my new course The Art of Black and White Photography: Assignments. And while it was a long day – critiquing 42 images takes time – it was an enjoyable one: they've produced some great work so far.

Here's another shot from Jura, taken during my first evening on the island, from the jetty just across the way from the Jura Lodge.

While I was on the train to Glasgow last Tuesday I got a text message from Libby telling me to make sure I photographed the house on Jura where George Orwell wrote 1984. He was there in 1946 (to 1947), and stayed at Barnhill, a house owned by David Astor, the editor of the Observer. Orwell was in ill health - he died just a few years later - was recently bereaved, and struggled through one of the harshest winters of the century: but he finished a first draft of the book while he was there.

If you're interested, there's a good article here with a lot more detail.

When I looked into it didn't seem likely that we'd be able to get there. The house is at the end of an eight mile track, close to the northernmost end of the island, and we didn't have a 4x4, nor did I fancy a 16 mile walk. As luck would have it we had a boat trip planned for Wednesday morning: from the jetty across the way from the Jura Lodge up to the Corryvreckan whirlpool, and we passed Barnhill on the way.

Next time I go I'll hire a 4x4.

I'm currently sat waiting for a train at Glasgow station, on my way home to Blackpool, but at 5.30 this morning I was on Jura photographing a very beautiful sunrise.

This is my first shot from my three day trip to the Isle of Jura, taken from the Jetty just across the way from the Jura Lodge. Today's my last day on the Island, and we have a fairly busy schedule, so I'll write more when I head back to Blackpool at the weekend.

In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this one.