On a Roll
Had some kids visit, so we stuck up the seamless and shot a few pictures.
Julianne Kost has some
great new tutorials on her website for Lightroom
(both 1.4.1 and the 2.0 beta):
For those of you have have not attended any of
Julianne's sessions at the various conferences, she's
highly entertaining and does a great job of getting
the info across in a way that people seem to just
love. Highly recommended. Go Julianne!
Also, the Lightroom 2 Beta has two expiration dates.
If you are a current 1.0 owner, its longer. There is
a chance to extend it if you know a 1.0 owner.
Read more here on how to extend it
on the Lightroom Journal
Have a good day.
Lightroom Round-Up
- L7Foto has a short video tutorial that talks the basic Pick/Reject/Rating editing task. This is something that every photographer needs to hone - and it takes years.
- Bridge/ACR/Photoshop or Lightroom? Scott Kelby covers this in his blog post on The Photoshop Insider. I worked on Bridge/ACR and then moved to the Lightroom team a year ago. There was a reason why I jumped ship - Lightroom is a much more focused, organized, efficient tool for 90% of the raw processing task. Period.
- Peachpit Press has revamped their Lightroom Resource Center. You can even get access to Martin Evening's LR 2 book before it is printed.
- Matt Kloskowski has revealed some of his deepest, darkets confessions in "Confessions of a Lightroom Addict"
Portraits
A discussion on the Leica mailing list inspired me to get out a vintage Canon 1.2 lens I use periodically for low-light shooting and repurpose it as a portrait lens. Makes sense - a 50mm lens on the M8 approaches a portrait focal lenght. But try using it with a very shallow DOF instead of the typical f8.
Here are some examples...
I'm very happy with the results. Square format (doing
a fair amount of this recently) with a slightly toned
B/W look. Nice.
On the Lightroom front, a few great things over the
past few weeks:
CameraPorn (yes, I know) has a
good tutorial on importing and organizing images
in Lightroom.
Inside Lightroom has a series
of things on the new LR2 beta as well:
Thats all for today. Cheers!
Lightroom 2.0 Beta Q&A
Most of the feedback I've seen is very positive and the potential is getting many excited for the full release later this year (note how I'm being very vague).
Matt Kloskowski has posted a nice Q&A on the Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips website that covers many of the questions I'm hearing.
On a related front, I've
given up on the Canon 40D.
I've had this camera and several reputable pieces of
L glass for about 5 months now and I've never really
been very happy with it. Why? Lots of issues with
sharpness, detail, focus and noise. Every time I look
at images from that camera I am not as happy with it
as I should be. What is weird, performance aside, I
was much happier with the images from an old NIkon
D40 than I've been with the Canon 40D. Go figure.
So I'm done as of today. I just ordered a D300 and
some nice Nikon glass, and hopefully it will live up
to my expectations. It arrives tomorrow and I'll put
it thru the ringer in short order. I realize I'm
somewhat spoiled by the Leica gear I own, but
disappointment just got the best of me. With no 5D
replacement on the horizon yet, it looks like I'm
jumping ship again.
I expect that means my 40D and its assorted
paraphernalia will go on Ebay in the near term as
well. I feel I really gave it a go and it has become
clear to me that I need the speed and flexibility a
good DSLR delivers.
So its Nikon's turn. I hear spectacular things about
the new Nikons, so lets see what happens. I'll
probably pick up an SB-800 and the battery grip as
well as I've become quite fond of them on the 40d.
That said, here is
another few images from my desert vacation. These are
all square formats of the local flora and I'm quite
happy with them.
I was also in the studio
yesterday with some dancers, so I'll be posting some
non-desert stuff soon.
Thats all. Have a great day.
A Few Pictures
The public beta of
Lightroom 2.0 is still in the news and getting an
awesome response.
Here are a few things:
- Photonovice - a brief overview of how the new local corrections feature works.
- Lightroom 2008 Adventure: Tasmania - like they did with 1.0, there is a big group of photographers out putting the beta thru its paces. Several team members are with them and they are blogging their experiences.
- Another Lightroom 2.0 Overview
Thanks for all the great feedback.
Also, I'm going to be out of the office and off the grid next week - taking my son backpacking in the desert southwest and won't be back until late next week.
Enjoy yourselves while I'm gone, and keep the feedback coming.
Lightroom 2.0 Beta Now Available
We did it. Finally.
Its been a long time in coming, but the public beta of Lightroom 2.0 is now available from Adobe Labs.
First, read the Lightroom Blog about the release, that details the fine print...
Primary Known
Issues
- Lightroom 2.0 beta will not upgrade Lightroom 1.x libraries. The beta is intended to be used for testing and feedback purposes. Lightroom 1.x and 2.0 beta libraries will be migrated to the finished version of Lightroom 2.0.
- While data loss is not expected, this is a very early ‘beta’ quality build and you should always work on duplicates of files that are securely backed up.
- Lightroom 2 beta will not overwrite or interfere with a machine that currently has Lightroom 1.3.1 installed.
- Develop settings applied in Lightroom 2.0 beta are not guaranteed to transfer correctly to the final version of 2.0. This is particularly true for localized corrections.
- The new Photoshop integration functionality is only available with Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1) and should only be used for testing purposes. Metadata associated with the original file may not carry over to the subsequent file saved from Photoshop
The Top Drawer Enhancements
- Localized Corrections - Retouch portions of the image (Dodge, Burn, Saturate, Sharpen etc) in Raw - non-destructive local corrections for your images - smack-down to the posers!
- Skin Retouching - This deserves a call out - you can do some awesome skin retouching with the Negative Clarity brush.
- Multiple Monitors - Grid and Develop together in da house.
- Smart Collections - Collections keep'in current
- Picture Package - Simple layout tools for picture package goodness
- Output Sharpening - Sharpening done, juuuuust right
- Post Crop Vignette - Special effects love
Here are a few resources to learn more:
- Terry White's Creative Suite Podcast covers Lightroom 2.0's major new features
- NAPP has a LIghtroom 2.0 Learning Center up already. Check out this great visual overview.
April Fools? That was last Friday.
So grab a copy and start providing feedback - we still got work to do.
Free Lightroom Tutorials
They refer to slightly earlier versions of the
application, but remain topical and authoritative on
the ability to apply presets and converting color
images to black and white.
I've been spending a lot of time in my archive lately
- here are some more images that I'm quite happy
with...
I'm off to do a customer site visit today.
Password Protect a Web Gallery
Pete Marshall covers this in his Blog (AKA Visual Journal):
Self-Portraits
Some very fun images
here. I'm not much for self-portraits myself - I
prefer to be behind the sensor - but here is my
humble submission that wasn't submitted.
On the Lightroom front:
- Lightroom Considerations BEFORE You Shoot - a nice article with tips on what to do before you bring those images into Lightroom (Registration Required)
- Mikhail Baryshnikov is shooting dance photography these days - a nice write-up in the New York Times. Personally I'm not that hot on them, being a dance photographer, but to each his own. Can't argue the man knows a thing or two about dance.
Hangin' with Da Kost
We'd met before, but I've never spent much time with her until today. The booth was booming - lots of questions about Lightroom and one thing that people asked was where they could get a bit more information on how to warm up to Lightroom's way of working. I've always recommended the NAPP tutorials and the stuff that George Jardine (our pro photog evangelist) does on his podcast. Well, I should have probably put 2 and 2 together knowing what Julianne does, but she has a plethora of great resources on her website as well.
She has some great
tutorials for "quick starting" with lightroom,
quick editing and a host of
individual tutorials on specific features. If you
are looking for more great Lightroom resources,
please browse to her site and get some popcorn.
There are also some short PDFs that cover even
more.
I'd also recomend checking out her portfolio of images.
Thanks Julieanne.
So far WPPI is going great. We have a nice booth and
I was non-stop Mr. Answer for almost 5 hours. I
really enjoy booth duty, and while its exhausting,
its a lot of fun to chat up working photographers who
live and die on your software.
So thanks to you guys too. Lightroom is a great
product because you help us build it. Go team!
@ WPPI
A few things from around
the web:
- Your Camera Matters - Michael Reichmann's take on the old adage "Its the photographer, not the camera".
- Photoshop Disasters - Image editing faux-pas or "how not to use Photoshop"
- LRG's Complete - LRG's gallery of galleries web template (how many times can I put Gallery in this sentence)
Lightroom 1.4 Now Available
An minor update for Lightroom (1.4) is now available. this is mostly a camera support release, with a Leopard printing bug fix.
Download it here:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/
- Previous camera profiles identified in the Calibrate panel of the Develop module may have displayed poor results at extreme ends of the temperature and tint ranges. A new camera profile identified as Camera Raw 4.4 is now available and will be applied by default to all images without existing Camera Raw or Lightroom settings. The creation of new default profiles will also include the updated Camera Raw 4.4 profile. Images edited in Camera Raw or Lightroom with earlier profiles will retain the earlier profile value and visual appearance.
- In previous grayscale conversions the Color Noise setting was disabled and this could result in an image with excessive noise when grayscale channel mixing is applied. Both the tool and effect have been enabled in Lightroom 1.4 and Camera Raw 4.4 providing the ability to reduce noise in grayscale conversions. In order to return to the prior visual appearance, Color Noise reduction can be set to zero.
- Compatibility with legacy printer drivers on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has been updated.
Soccer Season is Coming!
I've been wanting to shoot a specific picture based on something I saw a few months back, but its either been raining or I've ben out of town. So today it cleared up enough, so we quickly headed down to the soccer fields by our place for a quick shoot. Of course, I forgot my ladder, so the picture I had envisioned was not possible, so I jettisoned that idea and focused on something else. At least it didn't rain.
Go EFC!
In the Lightroom Front, here is a series on using
Lightroom in remote locations.
http://blogs.oreilly.com/lightroom/2008/03/quicksand-turva-and-working-wi.html
I'm Home!
This past week was work-a-thon. We worked all day and thru the weekend trying to get some important things done. I'm glad to be back home as I'll have some time again to focus on a few new projects.
Here is a round up of things heard/seen lately on the web:
- New Inkjet Paper Options Abound - there are a lot of great paper choices out there now. Hallelujah! Lots of great fiber-based solutions that finally got me out of the darkroom. Here is a look at the latest. I'm really happy with the new Ilford Gold paper...
- The Image-Space is offering a free "Lightroom Tips eBook" (free) from their website.
- Lightroom Keyboard Shortcut Tutorial - keyboard shortcuts make you *much* faster in Lightroom. Learn these KBSC and be happier (and here's hoping that guy gets a website redesign soon - I'm having a 90's flashback...)
- Lightroom & Time Machine - an update by JDD on compatibility between this Leopard feature and Lightroom.
- LR/Enfuse - Source-Blending (whatever that is) in Lightroom just got easier. Kinda like HDR I hear. I'll be looking into this.
- Slideshow Pro for Lightroom Updated
- Sharpening in Lightroom - a tutorial on sharpening
- Andy Rouse - Photog and LR user. Interview here.
I have some images coming today.
Shooting Tethered
A
few weeks ago, I ran across a blog by Joe McNally
that showed his setup for shooting tethered...
http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2008/01/28/the-mcnally-tripod-rig/
I've been doing some tethered shooting recently, and
this setup makes it so much easier to see what is
going on. I'm pretty excited about this and hope to
employ it at the studio soon. The small LCD on the
back of the camera isn't big enough for the client
(especially picky ones, like dancers) to see the end
result.
Sweet.
I had to reshave Liam's mohawk Sunday. Here are some
pictures from a few weeks back...
BTW, I'm in San Jose this week (again). More work for the next version of Lightroom.
Printing
I found a nice tutorial on printing in Lightroom from
Matt at the APLRKT blog...
I use Lightroom to print most of my personal and client work to an Epson inkjet. At times, however, its nice to have a lab to print your stuff to. I've used WHCC and had mixed results - output has been great, but they did nail me with a 5 day delay before Christmas that really hurt my deliver before Christmas goal.
Lightroom Freebies
Here are a few Lightroom things I've run across in
the past few days:
-
Adobe Lightroom - Getting Started (PDF) - Available in Low (5.4 MB) and High (64 MB) resoultion files
-
Free Develop Presets - a selection of links to various free Lightroom develop presets (I have not looked at all of these yet, so YMMV)
-
Web Galleries - a Horizontal Scroll web gallery from Sean McCormack. These are quite the rage...
Edit in Photoshop
Lightroom is an 80-95% solution for photographers.
Most of the time, you can import, tag, edit and
output your images right from Lightroom and forgo the
multi-app shuffle that was so prevalent before 2007.
However, there are times when you need to do some
heavier lifting (read: compositing, local corrections
such as dodge/burn, HDR, Panoramas etc.). Most
realize that Photoshop CS3 is an indispensable tool
for this type of work, and many photographers who
have Lightroom also have Photoshop (and many came
from Bridge/Photoshop to Lightroom).
Photoshop CS3 gives you an extra set of tools that I
find sometimes useful in a small percentage of my
work. Thankfully, Lightroom has a few options for
round-tripping your images from Lightroom to
Photoshop and back and it looks like George Jardine
(our pro evangelist and podcaster extraordinaire) has
posted another tutorial that covers the "Edit in
Photoshop" workflow. Highly recommended.
This tutorial can be downloaded from his iDisk
at:
http://idisk.mac.com/george_jardine-Public?view=web
You can also subscribe to it in iTunes. Just search for Lightroom in Apple's podcast directory.
Lightroom Podcast
George Jardine has posted another in his excellent
series of Adobe Lightroom podcasts - this time in a
very though provoking interview with Gregory Heisler.
Its a highly recommended listen. Gregory, who I have
the pleasure of meeting a few years back at a
Seth Resnick
workshop,
discusses a broad range of topics (from gaining
one's own style to his digital conversion) and I'm
sure it will resonate highly with working
photographers who have had to face this
reshuffling of the deck.
You can subscribe to the podcast or by searching for it in iTune's podcast directory. George's podcast is a wealth of knowledge - containing information on Lightroom techniques, discussions with industry insiders, Lightroom team members and working photographers as they talk of their art. It is a great, free resource for getting to know your craft.
DNG & Lightroom News
Happy Birthday Lightroom!
One year ago we shipped version 1.0 of Lightroom.
Since then we've had 3 releases and added some major
new features - all for free. February 19th apparently
has an interesting pedigree, as discussed on
Photoshopnews.com...
Tom Hogarty also covers this on the Lightroom blog. As a follow up to my earlier discussion of the benefits of DNG, it looks like Tom also posted an interesting article here that I'd missed.
Minnestoa!
I'm in Minnesota this week for work. It is *freezing*
outside! I forget how cold it can get. I like to walk
to the office in the morning and its quite a reminder
of my childhood in Canada.
Feels like, indeed.
On the Lightroom front, there
is a new Lightroom book for professional
photographers. I have not had a chance to read it
yet, but it might be interesting. Drop me a line if
you have read it.
Here is a review:
Lightroom for Professional
Photographers
Here
is are a few pictures from the recent past:
Lightroom Tutorials
Adobe has a wealth of online Lightroom tutorials for
your educational pleasure. Tutorials are a great way
to either get into a new piece of software or a way
to inspire those already using it by showing them
best practices from the experts.
For the new user:
For the existing user looking to hone his
understanding of the program:
There are plenty of other resources at the Photoshop LIghtroom Design Center. Have a look if you are interested in "uppin' your lightroom game", as it were...
Speaking of Learning and Lightroom, I should I remind you, if you are in the Greater Seattle area, you can take advantage of having yours truly custom tailor a Lightroom solution for your specific workflow at a very affordable price.
Danced & Infared
Another picture as I sort thru some images shot
before all my traveling adventures...
Sean McCormack (from
Lightroom
News)
has a great article on creating Infrared
photography in Lightroom.
Have a great day.
Lightroom Previews & Henry Coe State Park
On the personal work front, I got back from San Jose
yesterday (early as it turns out - I managed to get
standby on a flight 6 hours before I was expected -
which makes for a happy wife) and just started going
thru my pictures from a weekend backpacking in
Henry Coe State Park.
Henry Coe State Park is an
wonderful place, located less than an hour from
the Bay Area and consisting of more than 80
thousand acres of prime wilderness. I've been
backpacking and hiking there since 2000 when I
discovered it, and its come to be one of my
favorite places to get away from the bustle of
Silicon Valley.
The sad thing is, the Governor of that great state is
proposing to shutter Henry Coe (along with 48 other state
parks) as a cost saving measure. It really
saddens me when we have billions of dollars to
fight unnecessary wars and yet we can't adequately
fund our state parks. Henry Coe really does not
get used like it should by the nearby residents -
people in that blighted place tend to sit in front
of their bloody computers instead of getting
outside and communing with nature. Its nice,
because you get the park to yourself, but its also
sad for obvious reasons.
So I really made an effort to get there after my
weeks work and was richly rewarded. Henry Coe hiking
is characterized by ups and downs. Mostly ups. The
views are epic - rolling hills, old trees, expansive
meadows and sweeping ridge-lines. The trails are
punishing on the weak - they generally go straight up
and down, as if switchbacks were anathema to those
who settled the area.
Here are a few pictures from the trip that capture
some of this majesty (gallery to come):
As an aside, I just put 8 more GB of Ram in my Mac. Yowsza! What an upgrade.
Supplication and DNG
Just another day in the development of Lightroom...
Ok, so it was just a setup - a joke if you will -
playing on the funny relationship designers and their
engineering counterparts go thru daily to bring you
good (and sometimes not so good) software.
Moving on to the question of DNG.
I get asked that a lot by photographers wondering why
they should convert their proprietary raw files to
Adobe's DNG standard. The answer is fairly easy: its
free, its open and its archival. I convert all
pictures (well at least the ones not coming native
DNG from my M8) to DNG as part of the import process
in Lightroom. It takes a bit of extra time, but it
ensures your pictures will be readable in the future,
which is the reason many important workflow gurus
suggest likewise. On the Adobe Creative Suite podcast
this week, Terry White covers this "To DNG or not to
DNG" question...
So, in short, convert to DNG and be happy. Its self-contained, its archival and it saves you space, and if you are smart and do it as you import images, the process is automatic.
Portraits
I ran into an interesting 3 part discussion on the Epic Edits blog regarding Image Management - the author talks about Lightroom and other image management tools.
My wife got a new haircut this past weekend, and
before I left, I had a chance to shoot a few
pictures...
Auditions - Take 2
Here are a few of my favorites...
Outdoor Photographer just posted an online review of Lightroom that presents a short but sweet take on Lightroom's position in the marketplace. My favorite quote:
Easier. Faster. Effective. Yup."Develop is a place where magic occurs. This module mimics Camera Raw in some ways, but it makes working on an image so much easier, effective and faster than Camera Raw. The right panel of adjustments includes the necessary controls to allow you to get the most from your core image processing."
Going for a Walk
So at lunch today I stepped out and brought the Canon 40d with me (its not exactly a walk around camera like the M8, but its what I grabbed).
Here are a few of my favorites...
Tonight I have a shoot setup with a dancer at EBT - she got accepted to a couple of summer programs and needs a few more pictures to, ahem, seal the deal. She is a lot of fun to work with, so I expect some great things.
In the Lightroom world, David Ziser, a well known wedding photog and educator, posted a nice round up of a series of Lightroom tips he finds useful in his job. Some great stuff, and a good blog to follow for a professional perspective on the industry.
