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Post-Storm Fort

August 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment
One of the old concrete military installations at Fort Stevens, Oregon.

Last year our family visited Fort Stevens, Oregon, and explored some of the old military installments. At the time we were here the skies were stormy but there were some nice breaks in the clouds which occasionally let through some great sunlight. This photo is a result of one of those moments.

I processed this image using one of Trey Ratcliff’s new presets he’s made available for Lightroom users. I purchased the presets yesterday and have been having some fun. There are three groups of presets which can be purchased for about $10 each or you can grab the whole set for $19.99. If you use Lightroom and enjoy post-processing, grab the presets and have some fun!

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Save 15% off Nik Software Products

July 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Nik SoftwareUpdated March 25, 2013 for the new Nik Collection Pricing: The pricing for the entire Nik Collection is now under $150 – and my discount code “abh” (enter that at checkout) saves you an additional 15%.

All of my photographer friends should like this Nik Software coupon / discount that I can offer. I’m now an affiliate1 for Nik Software products, so if you want to purchase HDR Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Vizify, Color Efex, or any of Nik’s other great photo processing packages I can offer you a 15% discount.

I’ll talk a bit more in the future about some of the strengths of Nik’s software (I use their stuff, and it’s great), but I wanted to share this link with you sooner rather than later.

Use this Nik Software coupon to save 15% on software purchases through Nik’s online store – when you get to checkout, enter discount code “abh” (no quotes) to save an additional 15%.

  1. If you use my discount, I get a small commission from Nik. You save a few bucks and I get a few bucks that helps fund my writing and website. Win-win. ↩

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Dodge & Burn: Photo Processing Ebook Review

July 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Dodge & Burn - photography ebook by Piet Van den EyndeAny serious digital photographer (and even some analog ones) realizes that the in-camera capture isn’t the final step in creation of a photo; after capture there are post-processing decisions to be made about how to complete the image. Dodging and burning are two important processing techniques and Piet Van den Eynde’s new book Dodge & Burn: Leading the Eye with Lightroom and Photoshop explores this subject from a variety of angles.

There’s one big difference between Dodge & Burn and your typical Craft & Vision photography ebook: this one is offered in two packages. You can either buy the “Lite” option which contains the ebook along with a free “lite” version of EasyDodge, a custom Photoshop panel for easy dodging and burning. There’s also the “Full” package (which is what I reviewed) which contains the ebook and the full version of the Photoshop panel – we’ll get into the differences below.

Perhaps you’re wondering about the subject…

What is Dodging and Burning?

The author said it well:

If photography means painting with light, then dodging and burning is painting with light in post-production.

Don’t let the “post-production” there let you think this is something new… dodging and burning techniques were a staple of film photographers such as Ansel Adams. The book however focuses on the best ways to dodge and burn using Lightroom, Photoshop, and some plugins.

The Lightroom / ACR Scenarios

A tiered approach is taken to digital dodging and burning, looking at it first gobally across an image using Lightroom or Photoshop, then with local adjustments, and finally with plugins. After explaining the techniques in detail, the shortcut panel provided with the download is introduced.

For global adjustments, techniques are discussed for both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw (included with Photoshop). While global adjustments aren’t really dodging and burning (which by definition is selective) it’s important to look at global exposure and contrast adjustments with respect to how they’ll provide a base for local changes.

As the discussion moves onto local adjustments, Van den Eynde focuses on two important tools within Lightroom: the graduated filter and the adjustment brush. Explanations of the analog past lead to how-to information for these digital tools. Unlike many Lightroom overviews or introductions, these tools aren’t glossed over or left at a superficial level… rather the author dives into the various nuances of each, explaining what some of those obscure switches and sliders do… and why you should care.

The explanations of tools and configurations are great, but what really makes this section work is a detailed, 17-step fully explained walkthrough of the processing of an image from beginning to end. It’s great to see what steps the author takes (and in what order) and what settings are used to produce a given result.

After exploring local adjustments with Lightroom, some discussion covers a few different plugins from Nik Software. Viveza and Silver Efex Pro are noted for their ability to do selective dodging and burning, but mention is also made of how Color Efex Pro has a great neutral density filter that’s a bit more full-featured than the one in Lightroom.

And Yes, Photoshop

After working through the Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw scenarios, attention is paid to Photoshop. I was pleased to see that the author isn’t a fan of Photoshop’s destructive dodge and burn tools, but rather uses an apporach involving layers and brushes which allows for finer control and the ability to make changes in a way that doesn’t destroy pixels.

Photoshop Panels

At the conclusion of the Photoshop portion of the book, the shortcut panels are introduced. Regardless of whether you have the “Lite” or “Full” package, you’ll get some tools for making easier dodging and burning moves. Buy purchasing the Full package, you’ll get the contrast and clarity portions of the panel that really add some nice effects.

Conclusions

Dodging and burning aren’t necessarily sexy topics like off-camera flash or HDR, but they’re an important pair of tools for a photographer. I found the material in the book to be a good foundation for post-processing and making interesting images. Like other Craft & Vision ebooks, it’s priced quite affordably. I recommend adding it to your collection of photography education materials.

Buy the Full version of Dodge & Burn using this link or purchase the Lite version of Dodge & Burn with that link.

As a Craft & Vision affiliate I get a buck or two if you buy via my links and that helps support my writing. Thanks!

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Interesting Links Roundup: May 16th

May 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As I wander the web I find interesting things. I share:

What have you seen lately that’s interesting?

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iPhoto for the iPad: My Question (and Reaction)

March 6, 2012 by 11 Comments

Update: iPhoto was in fact announced. Further thoughts at the bottom of this original article.

Please do not handle. At Pike Place Market in Seattle.Some well-reasoned pundit speculation about the hours-away iPad 3 announcement indicates we may see iPhoto announced for the iPad. You’d think I’d be all excited about that as a photographer, right?

I’m an Adobe Lightroom user who’s found the experience of editing photos on the iPad to be clunky, awkward, and slow. These problems weren’t because of software, but because a finger-touch system is a crappy way to make precise photo edits. iPhoto won’t fix that.

Why should I care about a system that will involve importing photos from some external camera device, editing them in a clunky interface, and managing them in a system which isn’t compatible with Lightroom?

What am I missing?

Update after the announcement: Apple did announce iPhoto for iOS (both iPad and iPhone). I might load it on my iPhone, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never really use it on the iPad. As I mentioned when I wrote this piece last night, the issue isn’t software – it’s hardware and workflow. I don’t capture images on my iPad… so if I’m going to spend the time to import images onto another device for editing, why would I import to the iPad (with a limited set of photo editing tools) instead of my MacBook Air (with Lightroom)? And when I’m done editing and want to share the photos online, would I rather do that from the iPad one-app-at-a-time interface where sharing/uploads are often clunky, or would I rather do that as a Lightroom export including the various publish services?

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Interesting Links Roundup: February 16th

February 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As I wander the web I find interesting things. I share:

What have you seen lately that’s interesting?

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Interesting Links Roundup: January 11th

January 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As I wander the web I find interesting things. I share:

What have you seen lately that’s interesting?

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Camera Accessories for the New Camera Owner

December 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Did you receive a new camera for Christmas? Millions of folks did… and regardless of whether it’s a DSLR or a point-and-shoot style device, one should consider what accessories are going to help create the best images, keep the camera in the best condition, and help make the most of the photography experience. Here’s a list of some accessories you should consider for your new camera:

Photo Storage & Backup

  • Spare Memory Cards – one can never have too many memory cards, and if you run out while shooting you’ll be faced with the unfortunate task of having to delete images in the field. If your camera uses SD cards, I like the SanDisk Extreme 30MB/s SDHC cards. If your camera uses Compact Flash (CF), get the SanDisk 16GB 60MB/s Extreme Compact Flash Card.
  • Backup Hard Drive – Don’t risk losing your images if your computer’s hard drive crashes. Get the habit of routinely copying photos to a backup drive (and ideally storing that backup drive at an offsite location such as your office, a family member’s house, or even a safe deposit box). The Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB Portable External Hard Drive works great – I’ve used this exact model for several months.

Camera Cleaning

Software

Digital cameras often come with “starter” software, but if you really want to enjoy your images, I recommend the following software, purchased in this order:

  1. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 – Lightroom works on either Mac or PC systems and allows for easy import, cataloging, and editing of RAW and JPG photos from a digital camera. You’ll be able to easily browse your collection of images, add captions and keywords so that you can find things later, and perform a ton of editing adjustments including cropping, color adjustments, exposure adjustments, black/white conversion, and more.
  2. Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 – Lightroom handles 95% (or more) of all of my photo editing. Occasionally I want to do some skin retouching or perhaps remove a distracting object from a scene. That requires a tool with a bit more fine editing power, and I recommend Photoshop Elements. Unlike it’s $700 big brother, Photoshop Elements is focused on tools just for photographers. Like Lightroom, this will run on either a Mac or Windows system and works great.

Learning

Want to learn more about photography? Here are some recommendations for ways to increase your knowledge.

Gear

  • A good camera strap – the straps that come with cameras are okay at best and painful at worst. A small investment in a good padded camera strap will result in your neck thanking you for years to come. I like the Op/Tech Pro Loop Strap.
  • Spare battery – most cameras use a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged from a wall outlet. Look into a spare battery to keep with you so that you won’t miss a shot due to a lack of power.
  • A good camera bag. I like the Lowepro Classified 160AW for a shoulder bag and the Kata DR-467i is a great backpack for carrying a camera, a lens or two, and a laptop. I have both of these items and love them.

What other accessories or add-ons would you recommend for a new camera owner?

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How to Move Adobe Photoshop Lightroom from a PC to a Mac

October 24, 2011 by 25 Comments

More and more creative hobbyists and professionals are making the move from Windows to a Mac. One of the migration duties is moving Lightroom catalog and photos… fortunately this is a pretty simple task. Here are the steps to do it:

Moving the Lightroom Catalog and Photos

    Lightroom Icon
  1. Download Lightroom from Adobe. The Lightroom license allows for installation on two computers, so my existing license key for Windows works just fine on the Mac.
  2. Install Lightroom on the Mac.
  3. Locate your Lightroom catalog and preview cache files. The catalog (filename ends in .lrcat) is the Lightroom database containing all of your edits and metadata. The cache file (same name as your catalog, plus the word Previews, and ending in .lrdata) contains the image thumbnails for your photos. It’s not necessary to move this file, but if you do, you’ll save a bit of time because Lightroom won’t have to rebuild all of your thumbnails.
  4. Take a look at where your photos are stored. After moving Lightroom, you’ll need to update the file locations so that it can find your files. Hopefully you have your images in some sort of logical storage locations.
  5. Move your Lightroom catalog and cache files to the Mac. When I made the move, I used an external (firewire) hard drive but you could also use any other file transfer method. I created a “Lightroom” folder within the “Pictures” folder for my Lightroom files and put them inside.
  6. If you’re moving your photo files, move them at this point. If they’re on a external drive or another storage location that isn’t changing, continue along…

  7. Open Lightroom on the Mac and open up your catalog. You should see thumbnails but if you look in the Folders panel, you’ll see that the names are grayed out because Lightroom can’t find the files.
  8. The final step is to help Lightroom find your photo files. Right-click on a grayed-out folder location and choose “Find Missing Folder” and browse to the correct location.

That’s it! You’ve moved Lightroom and all of your data is intact. You can also move plugins and presets which are as straightforward as moving them from the PC file location to the Mac file location.

Moving Lightroom Plugins and Presets

Since Lightroom lets you choose your own plugin location, you will simply move files from your plugin location on your PC to a location on your Mac, then reinstall the plugin via Lightroom’s Plugin Manager (on the File menu).

Presets might be a little more hidden. On Windows Vista, they’re stored in folders under C:\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\. On Windows XP, they’ll be in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom. Move your custom presets to the Mac. On the Mac, you’ll want to store them inside ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom.

Overall it’s a fairly simple process given the complexity of the program.

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Salvaging Shitty Light at the Crooked River Bridge

September 29, 2011 by 1 Comment

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak about photography at a real estate conference in Central Oregon. My return trip from Bend brought me to the Crooked River bridges including the railroad bridge which sits about 320 feet above the water below. Given the opportunity to photograph an interesting structure, I pulled into the rest area adjacent to the highway and river.

The Problem: Midday Light

Photographers know that midday light is bad. There’s a reason that photographers get up early and stay up late… that’s when the best light occurs naturally. The high sun angle in the middle of the day results in blown highlights and harsh shadows. Given that I arrived at the bridge around 12:30pm with bright sun and an air temperature around 95 degrees, things couldn’t have been much worse. I present to you a program-mode image:

Ugh.

Making Something Out of Nothing

I knew in the field that a “regular” photo wouldn’t cut it if I wanted anything presentable from this little stop. While there, I decided I’d see what I could do in the digital darkroom to create something that wouldn’t be purely a photograph but rather a bit of digital art based on a photograph. I made several images in the field; a few days ago I spent about 45 minutes creating the following image. Is it a photograph? Is it digital art? Does it matter what we call it?

A digital art interpretation of the Crooked River Gorge based on a photograph captured in harsh midday sun.

How’d I do? (Yeah, I know the image is missing a train…)

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