Thursday, November 1, 2012

Essential Development - 20 Great Techniques for Lightroom 4

New Book from Craft & Vision

There is a new eBook offering from Craft & Vision entitled Essential Development - 20 Great Techniques for Lightroom 4. It's also by a new author to the Craft & Vision stable, Seán McCormack, who many may recognise from the Adobe Lightroom forums and for his regular Lightroom Blog at Pixeq. Seán has been involved with Lightroom since the early beta versions where his forum activity of attracted the attention of Adobe. He was subsequently invited to become a Lightroom beta tester and has been involved with all Lightroom editions since. Thus he has a well established pedigree as an authority on Lightroom.

I've been an avid Lightroom user since those early beta versions too, having migrated from the original Rawshooter program by Pixmatic (where Adobe acquired the original Raw processing software). In that respect I'm no novice and would probably consider myself an advanced user, so I did wonder whether I'd have much to gain from yet another Lightroom tips booklet. Well, as you'll find out I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Read More >>

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Big Stopper Shocker

The Ultimate 10 Stop Filter

Remains of the old Swanage PierI've owned a Lee Big Stopper 10-stop filter for almost 2½ years now and have become quite a fan of long exposures and the effects that this filter can produce. It's become a staple accessory to many a photographers kit bag and it opens additional artistic opportunities to a landscape photographers day once those golden hours have disappeared. Prior to the Big Stopper I used a B+W 10 stop filter, which is of the screw-in type,

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

The Worlds Top 10 Most Expensive Photographs

It doesn't seem so long ago when I was discussing a picture by Australian landsscape photographer Peter Lik with a group of fellow photographers, that had sold for a million dollars. Having been to Lik's gallery in Las Vegas and witnessed the crass commercialism first hand, I guess I wasn't too surprised. But only in America hey? However, something the other day made me want to find out what was so appealing about that picture as to command such an amazing price. During my research I was stunned to find out it's now not even in the top ten most expensive photographs in the world today.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Adobe Release Lightroom 4.1 … but Disappointment for Flickr Users

Lightroom4

Adobe have released an update to Adobe Lightroom with version 4.1 available for download which is free to registered users. Version 4.1 brings support to several new cameras (notably the Canon 5D MIII, 1DX, and Nikon’s D4, D800 & D800E), some bug fixes, new lens profiles, and rather surprisingly, some new features too. This was not dissimilar to the release of Lightroom 3.1 which also added new features, presumably some which were still incomplete at the time of the official release but which the team wanted including. New features include the ability to process 24 and 32 HDR files, save photobooks as JPEGs, and publishing via Adobe Revel. Also greatly enhanced are the colour fringing tools where the user will notice several changes to the Lens Correction panel. Details of the release can be found here.

 

First Looks

Many of the changes are of no surprise of course since Adobe made RC (Release Candidate) versions to users for beta testing with Lightroom 4.1 RC2 being the version prior to the official release. However, I didn’t participate in any of the beta testing and hadn’t road tested either RC1 or RC2, so my first taste of version 4.1 was the official release. My first impression was one of much improved performance on Windows. I found version 4.0 ran pretty smoothly on my Macbook Pro but stumbled along on my Windows 7 desktop (Intel Quadcore 2.4 Mhz, 8GB Ram, 64 bit) and found myself frequently watching and waiting as the little circle span around on my screen. Again I recall a similar experience with LR 3.0 which didn’t improve on Windows until version 3.1. Now my windows version is much more snappier. I discussed just this point with several photographers whilst in Iceland last week, who reencountered similar experiences. It seems the initial Adobe Lightroom release may be optimised for Mac OS, and us poor Window user have to wait a while longer .. who knows, but it certainly seems that way.

 

imagePerformance aside, the big change is in the Lens Correction Panel, where the Remove Chromatic Aberration has been placed on a separate Colour page, with Fringing gets it’s own page and a set of Defringe controls, comprising two amount sliders (Purple Amount, Green Amount) and two hue sliders (Purple Hue, Green Hue). The former are conventional amount sliders, the latter two are “split” sliders and will present a new type of control to most Lightroom users, but basically allow you to control the amount and hue of the defringing. I find simply clicking the check box works liker a dream on just about all of my pictures and is a fantastic new tool. It’s made a big difference to removing some colour halos on some of my old photographs too. The tools are the work of Eric Chan and if you want to find out how to really get to grips with this new functionality then you’d better read his post here.

 

Disappointment for Flickr Users

If like me, you frequently post to Flickr via the Publish Service Adobe Flickr plugin, then you could be in for a surprise. There was a well documented bug in the 4.1 RC1 version where if you had double space or CR characters in your caption field (which Flickr is added as your description), then then photo would fail to export, as would any export to Flickr presenting a “Can’t Update this collection” error message. This was supposed to be addressed by adobe in RC2, but it appears the bug is still present in the final 4.1 Windows release version. You can get around it of course by removing the offending characters or not having any caption text, but if you’re like me and like to format a full description in a word processor and paste it into the caption field then you’re in for a shock. I’ve been trawling the forums to see if there are any work-arounds, some of which have suggested disconnecting from Flickr and re-authenticating the account but this didn’t work for me. I can still post to Flickr sans-caption, but to loose this functionality is very disappointing. I’ve also noticed that Flickr doesn’t recognise my GPS data added to photographs in the map module so would be interested to hear if anybody else has encountered similar issues. I just hope we don’t have a long wait from Adobe for a fix.

 

Resources

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Free Lightroom 4 Beta Video

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If you thought yesterdays post of Lightroom 4  beta resources wasn’t enough to get you started, well here’s another one for you. It’s another video, or rather a collection of videos over at the well known online training library at Lynda.com. I’m not a member or subscriber but this video is 1 hour 50 minutes of a Lightroom 4 Beta Overview from Chris Orwig and it’s free.

It’s split into many short segments each covering a specific top of LR4 beta so is a very useful resource. I haven't watched it all yet but found the section soft proofing and books very useful. You can find the videos listed here.

Free Lightroom 4 Beta Video

image

If you thought yesterdays post of Lightroom 4  beta resources wasn’t enough to get you started, well here’s another one for you. It’s another video, or rather a video collection of videos over at the well known online training library at Lynda.com. I’m not a member or subscriber to lynda.com but this video is 1 hour 50 minutes of a Lightroom 4 Beta Overview from Chris Orwig and it’s free.

It’s split into many short segments each covering a specific top of LR4 beta so is a very useful resource. I haven't watched it all yet but found the section soft proofing and books very useful. You can find the videos listed here.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Lightroom 4 Public Beta - Online Resources

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It’s been just over 24 hours since the release of Lightroom 4 Beta and already there are a multitude of reviews, resources, discussions, tips and video’s online already. If you are an existing Lightroom user and haven’t downloaded your FREE copy of LR4 beta, you can do so now from Adobe web site here. If you’ve never used Lightroom then this is a great opportunity to start right now and have of a free copy at your disposal for a few months.

But where do you start? If you’ve just downloaded and installed your LR4 beta copy you may be a tad confused on opening up the new version. New modules like Map and Book are pretty obvious, but what about the other, more subtle changes and how do you use them? You may be confused about how to use the new Develop module Basic panel, or like me you may be confused why the Basic panel looks exactly the same as it did before (tip: you need to update the Process to 2012 in the Calibration panel first)? Well don’t worry as there are already many good resources out there and many from the official Adobe testing fraternity who have been involved with the development and have had time to prepare their posts ready for yesterdays release day.

Adobe’s official release notes can be found here, but if you are looking for a really good explanation of the new features then excellent postings from the Computer Darkroom and dpreview are probably an ideal place to start. Personally I like video instruction as I find this the quickest and easiest way to get up to speed with new features, and in this Adobe have already provided a comprehensive online library of 8 videos on the Lightroom 4 beta at Adobe TV. If you can put up with the rather irritatingly squeaky voice from Adobe’s Evangelist Julieanne Kost who presents these videos, and don’t get fed up with the glaring abundant overuse of the word “Excellent” (sorry Julieanne!), then this is the best video resource for LR4 beta so far.  And lastly don’t forget to check out Michael Reichmann’s 22 minute long video overview on the Luminous Landscape and the series of videos from Matt Kloskowski and Scott Kelby at their NAPP Lightroom 4 Beta Launch Centre. These together with a few other resources I’ve found useful I’ve listed below. Enjoy beta testing!

 

Reviews and New Features

Forums

Resources

Videos

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Lightroom 4 Beta Available for Download.

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Well it’s here, Adobe have today released the beta version of Lightroom 4 and it’s available to download from their web site here. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it so far, but the big new features seem to be Video support (which is not really of much interest to me, but no doubt very commercial), GPS support, new shadow and highlight controls, additional local adjustment controls and the much requested soft-proofing. Adobe’s summary of the new headline features is as follows:

  • Robust Video Support
  • Manage images by location with the Map Module
  • Simplified Basic Adjustments
  • Powerful new Shadow & Highlight controls
  • Additional local adjustments including Noise Reduction and White Balance
  • Soft Proofing Reinvented
  • Elegant Photo Book creation
  • Email from directly within Lightroom
  • Publish videos directly to Facebook or Flickr
  • Enhanced DNG workflows
  • Adobe Revel export workflow

The GPS support includes integration with Google maps. The Develop module has a new engine with a 2012 Process version, and the local adjustments now include noise reduction, temperature and tint, shadows, highlights and moiré. The clarity slider has been refined to help reduce artefacts and after such a long, long wait, soft-proof has finally been introduced to Lightroom including both paper and ink simulation. Soft-proofing has been a much requested feature and it was way up there on my list, so hopefully at long last I won’t have to waste so much expensive photo-paper trying to get my prints look like the screen version.  There’s also book creation direct from Lightroom and tight integration with Blurb printing services.  A full list of the changes, new functionality and enhancements can be found in Adobes release notes here. Some notable absentees are face recognition, and improved slide shows so lets hope Adobe are saving those the final release version. Face recognition is a much heralded feature of Aperture so I’d be surprised if Adobe didn’t match its functionality in LR4, and improved slide shows have been a very much requested feature on the forums.

As ever, don’t use this with your existing catalog as it is only a beta version and things could go wrong. Adobe list some know issues in the release notes. Back up your catalog first, and remember this is only to test drive the new functionality an not meant to be a perfect, fully working copy.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Star Rating your Photographs

Lightroom Star RatingsI recently returned from a once-in-a-lifetime photographic trip to the Antarctic Peninsular where I shot almost 7,500 frames in under 6 days. A phenomenal number of frames by anyone's standard, but as a member of a 73 strong group of photographers my frame count was probably on the low side, and probably very low compared to some I saw. At the end of our trip, during one of the lectures from one the lead photographers and organisers, we we asked to raise our hands if we had captured any 5-star images. The vast majority of the party raised their hands, but I did not. That got me thinking about what exactly constitutes a 5-star image and is what I consider a 5-star image similar to those other photographers? … apparently not so it would seem. Don’t get me wrong, I did acquire many good images that I’m perfectly happy with, but just not quite 5-star images in my book.

Assigning a Rating

Of course when I talk about star ratings I’m referring to the system of being able to assign a rating from zero to 5 stars to a digital image, usually in a DAM (Digital Asset Management) program such as Adobe Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture, or Adobe Bridge. It’s not just stars you can assign either, you can flag a photograph as a pick or reject and also assign colours, but for most the system of assigning stars seems to be the favoured method of rating their photographs. Star Rating ToolbarI’ll refer to Adobe Lightroom from now onwards, as this is my preferred DAM/RAW processor of choice, but it’s similar to the others mentioned above. In Lightroom you can assign star ratings in the Library or Develop modules simply by pressing the numeric keys from 0 to 5 to assign none to a maximum of 5 stars to an image, but if you prefer you can us the mouse to click on the star icons in the toolbox to achieve the same end (Tip: you can show or hide the Toolbar by using the T quick key). Rather interestingly, using keys 6 through to 9 will assign the colours red, yellow, green or blue to the images respectively, although there doesn’t appear to be a quick key to set the last colour purple. Thus it is possible to rate an image, albeit rather quirkily, from 0 to 9, although I don’t know any photographers that do this. Note that if you also hold the shift key down whilst pressing a numeric key, the image will be assigned the appropriate star or colour rating and then next image displayed, thus allowing you to move through your image collections whilst rating them. You can also use the right or left square-bracket keys to promote or demote the ranking of an image.

The Rating Process

For most photographers a simple system of assigning 1 to 5 stars seem to be the most common form of rating, with no stars left for unrated or un-judged photographs, 5 stars reserved for the very best or portfolio quality images, and ratings in-between for images of varying quality. But what actually constitutes a portfolio image, and what distinguishes a 3 star image from a 4 star image? Do photographers simply apply a varying degree of quality assignment from visual inspection on the computer monitor? Well talking to several, it would seem that’s exactly what they do. However when asked it seems very few could elaborate in any detail how a 2 star image would differ from a 3 star image, or a 3 star from a 4 star image. Poor images and the very best images are probably the easiest to rate, but those in-between are not quite so easy and it seems that most ratings rather depend on how the individual photographer assesses the image on screen at one particular moment in time and then simply prescribes an arbitrary value of 0 to 5. Of course there is nothing wrong with this type of assessment as this system obviously works and perhaps is all that is required for many photographers. Our poorest and very best images are usually the most obvious to us anyway, but how often have you revisited an image at a later date and changed the rating? I’m sure almost all of you have done that at some time, and perhaps down graded images and upgraded some images in a later reassessment. It’s clear that rating images can be a very subjective, emotional and perhaps an emotive process for photographers.

As digital photographers, let’s be honest, we all tend to shoot a vast amount of images, far more than were ever acquired when we shot film, so it’s no surprise that sometimes good images can be often overlooked or missed out on our initial assessments. A common process is to find the first good image in a sequence of similar images, and commence work on that one, without perhaps, fully inspecting the rest within the sequence. I know I’m frequently guilty of this myself. Time constraints, computer processing time, library size, the sheer abundance of similar images and good old human nature lead us to a propensity in selecting that first good image. Often that first good image tends to jump out at us on screen too, but it may not necessarily be the absolute best image in the sequence. I remember attending a talk once, from a well known British wildlife photographer, who stated that there will be only one 5-star image from each shoot, that his 5-star image he keeps and then he deletes the rest. I didn’t believe him for one minute and although he may be profoundly adept at selecting the one that sells, it’s only human nature for us to change our minds at some point, and surely there may be other images that suite other commercial purposes, even if not quite as good. Perhaps it was just his stage bravado and showmanship talking.

My Rating System

So if not a pure numeric quality rating of zero to 5, then what else? Well I like to rate pictures according to what their use may be together with the actual quality of the image, so my star ratings encompass a range of criteria. For instance I may have an image that I really like that is a great composition, with good light and mood, is well exposed, but perhaps not perfectly sharp or the focusing is slightly off. I know the image is not high enough quality to make a large print, but it may be perfectly suitable for or an A4 or 10 x 8-inch print, and if not good enough for that it may perhaps produce perfectly adequate 5 x7 or 6 x 4-inch prints. I wouldn’t want to delete the image just because it’s not of the absolute best quality. Some of my images I know are probably not good enough for printing at all, but they have a sentimental value or may perhaps be suitable for use in and AV presentation or video, where I don’t need anywhere near close to the capture dimensions as it will be only ever displayed on a computer monitor, or in a video at only 720 resolution or even on an iPhone. This then, is the rating system I now use that works for me:

  • No StarUnrated: Images that have not yet been evaluated.
  • One Star – Neutral/Keepers: Images that are neither good enough for slideshows, or printing, nor flawed enough to be deleted. These may have sentimental or documentary value or snapshots I just whish to keep.
  • Two Star – Good: Images good enough for 6 x 4 or 5 x7 prints and slide shows at 100%, but perhaps not really good enough for full size prints at 300 dpi.
  • Three Star – Very Good: images I like that that are considered to be very good, are technically sharp at 100% and and can be printed at A4 or 10 x 8 in without loss of resolution.
  • Four Star – Excellent: Images I like, think are really good, are sharp at 100%, are technically and compositionally very good to excellent, and good enough for full size prints at 300 dpi.
  • Five Star – Portfolio: Portfolio quality images that I consider are my best photographically and technically and are suitable for extra large prints (24 x 30-inch) and of commercial or exhibition quality.

My rating system has evolved over several years using Lightroom but is now part of my regular workflow, however many (most in fact) of the images in my Library still have zero stars (as yet) and remain unrated. I tend to skip to my better images, rate those and process those images first. In an ideal world I’d return to evaluate, cull or rate all my zero star images, but in reality I know that’s a pipe dream as I know for me it will be impossible to ever achieve that. Hard drive space is relatively cheap these days and as long as my Library size doesn’t effect the performance of Lightroom then I won’t waste an excessive amount of time on trying to cull all the redundant images. Obvious inferior images, those out of focus, badly exposed, and those beyond redemption I may skip at import, or cull immediately after import, but I don’t worry about leaving a huge amount of unrated images within my library folders. I will however, generally try to apply some basic keywords to a shoot (folder), then even the zero-star images may have a chance appearing within a future subject search and may of course provide some pleasant surprises. I tend to use the pick and reject flags after an initial import to highlight the good and the bad, and then apply star ratings to the picks and delete rejects.

You’ll notice too that I don’t use colours for ratings either. I use colours to denote different file types, HDR and panoramic images, but that’s just me. I know some photographers use colours for portfolio shots, or for certain clients or commercial ventures, and to this effect, colour labels seem well suited. I do like the way you can specify your own colour label set in Lightroom and then when you hover your mouse pointer over the each colour in the toolbar, a description of your setting is given in the tooltip; I only wish you could do the same for your star ratings.

Differentiating my 3 star from 4 star images is probably the most subjective part of my system. I may have some images that (to me) possess a wow factor visually but are technically flawed which limits their usage, so they may get down graded to 3 stars, others may be technically perfect but lack a wow factor and but may still achieve 4 stars since they are capable of being printed at large sizes. Portfolio images are usually obvious, and for me they must have a wow factor. There are many times I've thought I have captured a wow image only to find image deficiencies prevent it being rated with five stars once assessed on a computer screen. Thus I have a limited number of what I consider true portfolio images. I’m probably a harsh critic of my own images and perhaps lack a bit of confidence in my own abilities but that’s just me. However I do re-visit library folders occasionally to review my 3 and 4 star images and I sometimes find the odd 3 star image I think now perhaps now worthy of 4 stars or vice versa.

Blog - Antarctica Template

Five Star Images

So that brings me back to my Antarctic shoot and why I haven't rated any of my images as 5-star (yet!). Well, I guess I addressed some of the reasons in the paragraph above. I did acquire many good images, and many that I like and that I’m quite pleased with, but for me none of them just quite possessed that wow factor and some fell short on image quality. As a collective I think they look good (you can judge for yourself by visiting a gallery of some of my favourites here), but to me there are no individuals that really stand out as 5 stars for me. It’s also incredibly easy to be wowed by such an amazing location as Antarctica as it is indeed one of the most impressive places on planet earth. I looked at many Antarctica images prior to my visit, many which then I really thought had that wow factor, but now some don’t seem quite as impressive since I’ve been there and attempted some myself, but I guess that can be said when you’ve photographed any iconic location. The old idiom, “familiarity breeds contempt” often springs to mind, but it’s often the place, not just photograph of the place that is the wow factor, and that certainly rings true for Antarctica.

That aside, I think perhaps many of my fellow shipmates perhaps rate their 5 star images more equivalent to how I rank my 4-star images. For me 5 stars must remain “the very best of my very best” and something I feel is quite special.

Summary

Rating your photographs is a very subjective and emotive process. There is no one correct system and what works for one person may not for another, so what ever you have developed may probably be the right system for you. Remember also that ratings don’t just have to be on photo quality or a “marks out of 10” system for an image, but can include other criteria such as how an image will be used. The key is to define a set of rating criteria and try to be consistent in your method. Occasionally think about revisiting and re-evaluating some of photographs from time to time, check to see if you missed some hidden gem, or been too harsh or lenient with others, you may just get some surprises.

If you have an interesting way of rating your pictures leave a comment and let me know.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Lightroom 4 Beta Soon ?

Lightroom 4 Beta

Lightroom 4 Beta to be released soon?

I was recently on a Photo workshop with a well known Lightroom beta tester who also writes books on a particular aspect of Lightroom. He let slip his new revised book on Lightroom 4 is set to be delivered to his publisher in February 2012 and that we should seeing a Beta version of Lightroom 4 released very soon. He also intimated that there may be a few surprises in store especially with the Lightroom user interface, but he was pretty tight-lipped about exactly what those surprises would be. He had a beta version of LR4 on his laptop but of course we didn't get to see it! He indicated that the released beta version would probably only contain around 60% of the functionality of the final release version so we can expect additional functions to be included at release time.

The Evidence

Other glimpses of a beta version have been observed on the web also with Sean Reid’s review of the Fuji X10 on Luminous Landscape where the RAW files were apparently converted in a beta version of Lightroom. Also keen eyed followers of Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom Killer Tips, have spotted a files called LR_4.0_796371_osx10_Release_Installer.zip and LR4R15ReleaseNotes.pdf" in his video release on December 12th 2011, so make of those what you will. Perhaps the final release is closer than we think although I somehow doubt that.

Of course, programming new features, and especially debugging and refining them even after beta testing can be a tricky and time consuming art, so don’t be surprised if the time fame gets extended, but it certainly looks also we should be getting a beta version sooner rather than later.

What New Features to Expect?

The question now of course is what big new features can we expect to see in LR4. Judging from comments made by Jeff Schewe in the recent video release "From Camera to Print & screen" from Luminous Landscape, soft proofing (much to Jeff’s seemingly apparent annoyance) was dropped from the LR3 release at the very last minute, so I’d fully expect it to play a significant role within LR4. Soft proofing was a pretty major part of my wish list for Lightroom 4 as I still have problems getting my prints to match the screen version and I know many other photographers still do too. My wish list (which can be seen here) also contained GPS support, a keyword manager,  face recognition, and improved cloning and healing tools to name but a few. Certainly the later seems to have been a firm favourite around the forums together with improved local adjustment tools to include vibrance, white balance,  fill light and individual HSL controls. There’s a multitude of GPS devices around now too so that may just have caught the LR boffin’s eyes, but it’s certainly not on everyone’s list. There have also been many requests to add Photo-stitching for panoramas and HDR blending for HDR, but these require computational intensive algorithms and personally I can’t see them being included in Lightroom as they seem more suited to Photoshop.  Face recognition is popular in many other photo-packages now including Lightroom’s main rival Aperture; I’ve tried it and it’s a very useful too, so that would be a great addition to see.

Scott Kelby posted his wish list on his blog site in August which of course got a lot of attention and enough comments were left to justify another article on the most popular feature request for Lightroom 4. He also mentioned that the Lightroom developers were listening, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the most popular features request are included.

Let's hope there's not long too wait.

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