One of the weapons in my armoury for editing photos is a piece of software called Radiant Photo. Among other things, it allows you to clean your photos of digital noise or radically change the colours with a wide range of presets.
It also integrates seamlessly with Lightroom and Photoshop which makes life so much easier if I want to do a one-off edit on a photo or apply the same preset to a couple hundred of them.
This software was originally known as “Perfectly Clear” and even though I’ve tried other tools in the past such as Lightroom, Photoshop, and Topaz just to name three of them…I’ve always found myself coming back to Perfectly Clear/Radiant as their user interface is pretty much idiot-proof which is a good thing because I can be an idiot when I set my mind to it. 🙂
That was conclusively proven this morning!
The Radiant Toolkit is one of the few annual support plans I’ve maintained because not only does it cover new major versions of the software, they also send coupon codes from time to time that discount the ever-growing library of LOOKs and other presets that end up being worth more than the price of admission!
Sadly, the last EMAIL full of discount codes got mislaid when I moved the domains from InMotion Hosting to Shock Hosting. Then I found the EMAIL and intended to redeem the codes only to realise that I hadn’t done so when I saw the renewal notice for Toolkit.
I frantically search for that EMAIL and discover that the codes had an expiry date of 15 August.
BUMMER!
Except not so much because I figured I’d try using them and wouldn’t you know it, they were still valid!
WOO HOO!
And this is when the EPIC DUMB comes into play. As I’m redeeming the codes one after another, I ended up making a duplicate order on the Landscapes LOOKs package and didn’t realise it until I tried saving the installer package only to have Windows bitch about the file already existing.
OOOPS!
So I figured I’d reach out to support to see if they can help me at least avoid the consequences of my stupidity (not much can be done about the shame of having done something stupid in the first instance!) and send me new vouchers for the ones I’d trashed.
Compounding the idiocy, I thought I’d already ordered that preset package but hadn’t installed it but it turns out that “Vivid Landscapes” is actually different than “Landscape LOOKs”. Duuuuhhhhhh.
I dash off a ticket through the system right about 0800 or so and the answer came straightaway at 0816 from Miss Chloe with a new voucher code and an observation that my friend on the other end had figured out that I hadn’t actually ordered “Landscape LOOKs” previously as I’d thought.
I already love the software even though I don’t get to use it as often as I’d wish as most photos coming off my Nikon get the “Auto Levels” treatment in Lightroom and then they’re exported so that whoever gets the photos can fool with them however they wish. Very rarely does an image come off that camera and survive the culling in Lightroom that I’m not already happy with it as it was shot. Indoor shots are the ones that consistently gets level adjustments because I often stop down the lens a f-stop or so when I’m in lower or less-than-stellar light.
They’d have been well within my rights to tell me to pound sand…I’d done a dumb by letting the codes linger until past expiry and then I was lucky they still worked.
But having my additional dumb sorted out straightaway without fuss or hassle is a true GODSEND in this day and age where customer service is harrowing at best and often really sucks.
I’d have likely renewed Toolkit just because it’s my go-to tool when the photos merit additional editing beyond the basic tone adjustments in Lightroom but rocking customer service in spite of the customer’s own idiocy is next level awesome and the reason Radiant keeps its place as my favourite photo processing tool.
Well done! 🙂