Posts made in March, 2010
Adobe CS5 Registration
You are officially invited (by me) to view the launch details of Adobe Photoshop CS5 on April 12 at 11 AM (EST). See and hear the latest word on new features from the experts at Adobe via a live webcast. If you have an Adobe password (you created one to download the beta version of Lightroom 3 as I suggested, didn’t you?) click here to reserve a spot on April 12th.
AND … three wonderfully talented and well-known photographers were thrown together in a portrait shootout of sorts recently during a workshop in Dubai (yes, we are not going there but we can see the results here). Zack Arias, David Hobby, and Joey Lawrence were given two models and 25 minutes to come up with the best image they could manage (set-up, photo, and post-process included). The video here at David’s site is fun to watch. But, watch closely … these guys demonstrate how to think about your setup and then take the shot when given a new situation and little time. Don’t we all have to do that all the time?
FINALLY, JoeyL takes such great protraits that you have to take a look at his commercial and personal work. These are just phenomenal. He sells a set of DVDs on technique and style, but I havn’t been able to afford them. But maybe someday ….
Read MoreContest Time!
A great site for give-aways.
PSDFAN.com sponsors some great give-aways … for free. You go to their website [click here], leave a comment about the contest or its prize, and voila! you are entered. The current contest is for 500 free business cards from a fine printing site, UPrinting.com. There will be ten winners, there are no fees, and even the shipping is free. What more could we ask for? (except to ask whether or not we won, of course).
Sign up before the end of the day of April 4 (next Sunday) , and … Good Luck!
Read MoreHoodman for the Aging Photographer
Check out all the great Hoodman products.
For the aging or simply vision-challenged photographer, there is a new product from Hoodman. The same people who brought you the indispensable Hoodman Loupe (I have posted on this previously) now bring you an eyeglass system to solve the constant and troublesome need to take off and put back on your eyeglasses when shooting. It is not an inexpensive solution (what is for photography?) but it looks like a convenient and long-term one. Take a look at this short video and see if this is what you have been looking for all these years.
More Adobe Lightroom 3 beta
Adobe Lightroom is a great program for not only organizing your photos (it’s the best thing out there), but it is every bit as capable as Photoshop for initial processing of your images (and for a lot less $$). We have been talking about Lightroom 3 recently. Download it (for free here) and play with it. I guarantee you will like it if you give it more than a day to sink in.
Now Lightroom 3, part 2 is out there for download, as I posted previously. I have looked it over and it is a worthy upgrade, indicating that the final release isn’t all that far off. So, as far as a home user reviewer goes, this version is a winner. I heartily recommend it for anyone doing photo processing who doesn’t want to spend hours and days and weeks learning every little nuance of a program that simply works.
And, for those of you who do use Lightroom 2, here is a tip that may save you some hard drive space … and with today’s files that can be quite helpful. Go into your Backups directory which resides somewhere near your Lightroom catalog file (now, if you haven’t ever done any backups from the initial opening screen you won’t have any to delete). If you can’t find it and you know you did some backups, run a Search to find the files. You then may get rid of all but the last two or three backups. You don’t need that many old copies, and the oldest ones are probably waaaaay out of touch with the your present photo collection. Hard drive space always is useful, and this is a free way to get some back.
Have a good weekend. Your camera is calling you.
Read MoreLate Post … Busy Day
Image by Simon Mark Whitton, all rights reserved.
Today’s post is very late. I spent waaaaay too much time last night and today trying to make a bad image look good. It was one I really liked, but I got it wrong in the camera. No amount of work was going to save it, and I finally just had to give up and admit defeat. The moral is a good one for all of us to remember – getting it right (or close) in the camera mean a LOT less work later on.
Today I went back as I periodically do and checked out Crash Taylor’s site [link]. I posted about him earlier this year and I go back regularly to see what new images he has put up. His site has some great images and the neat thing is that the photographer explains what equipment he used, his motivation, post-processing, etc. The back story helps deconstruct what you see in the finished product (I am big on deconstructing; it is a most enjoyable way to learn from others) and puts some great ideas in mind for your own next field trip.
I am elevating Taylor to a spot on my Blogroll, making it easy for you (and me) to visit his site often. That sounds like a great idea … why not check it out right now?
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