Photoshop Insider

Here’s Joe like you’ve never seen him before, ‘runnin’ and gunnin,’ with on-location small flash, in this very cute teaser for his new “Light Shaping Tools, part 2″ online class at KelbyTraining.com. In his class, he shares his thought process for lighting and shooting in a mix of indoor and outdoor locations with small off-camera flash (after you watch the short video—and you gotta watch the video–here’s the link to his class, and the full course outline).

Happy Halloween everybody!!! Here’s some quick news nuggets:

• If you’re in New York this weekend, check this out; Jay Maisel is giving his incredible talk on “Light, Color, and Gesture” at 1:00 pm on Sunday, Novemember 2nd, at B&H Photo’s Event Space, in their Headquarters at 420 9th Ave. in New York City. The talk is free, but space is very limited. More info here.
• Matt and I have been “gently teasing” (wink) our Photoshop User TV co-host and good friend Dave Cross, because he’s uses the Bridge rather than Lightroom. We’re totally (mostly) kidding him, but he got us back this week by creating a “Bridge Rocks” t-shirt for Adobe Bridge users that is actually very cool (that’s it shown above), and best of all; you can actually order one yourself through Cafe Press. Here’s the link to Dave’s daily blog with more info (while you’re there, make sure you check out some of the stuff Dave’s been posting lately, including his popular “Finish the Sentence…” series, with his latest interview from David Hobby).
• The voting is done, and on November 3rd we’ll be announcing the winners of the “The iPhone Book, iPhone Photo Contest” While you’re in the ‘iPhone” mood, if you bought my new book, “The iPhone Book” (co-authored with iPhone guru Terry White) at Barnes & Noble.com or Amazon.com, it wouldn’t hurt our feelings one bit (it’s as cheap at $16—perfect Holiday gift, eh?) By the way; don’t forget Friday is “iPhone App of the Week” day at Terry’s Tech Blog (here’s the link to that).

That’s it for today folks, have a safe Halloween—hope you get lots of yummy snacks, and we’ll see you back here on Monday. -Scott

Happy Thursday everybody! Before we kick into this, I want to thank Tim Grey for his inspirational Special Guest Blog post yesterday. I love reading the comments posted by readers, and if you read the one’s posted for Tim’s post yesterday, you can see that his creative insights got a lot of people thinking. Well done, Tim! :)  Now, onto the news:

• First, thanks to everybody who came to spend the day with me in Orlando yesterday learning Lightroom 2. I was up late the night before tweaking every aspect of the workshop, and it really paid off, as I was able to cover more ground, and actually only ran over by 3 minutes. The crowd in Orlando was just a blast to present to, and I was also very lucky to have both Matt Kloskowski and RC Concepcion there helping me field one-on-one questions during the day. Also, Michael Tapes (of Instant JPEG from Raw) made an appearance, and gave me some mini-Whibals to give away (I used one during one of my live shoots), and this was my first gig with Brad Moore assisting me, and as expected; he kicked butt (photo above by Brad). Best of all; we had a really great day! Thanks again to everyone who made me feel so welcome.
• Crash Taylor has a really fascinating interview with the grand master of wedding photographers, David Ziser, which includes photos, and some of the most in-depth, and intriguing  interview questions I’ve seen in a while. I know David fairly well, but Crash’s interview brought out some new things out I didn’t know. Very well done. Here’s the link.
• Congrats to mega-photographer Joe McNally, whose German translation of his book, “The Moment It Clicks,” (called “Der entscheidende Moment” in German) was just awarded the prestigious German Photography Book Award (The silver medal), which is awarded for outstanding photographic quality, a superior aesthetic overall impression as well as pre-eminent photographic technique and background information. A hearty congratulations to Joe on his now “Award-winning” book!
• Today is “Back up Your Lightroom Catalog Thursday,” so if you’ve been hitting the “Skip” button when it asks if you want to back up your Catalog, go ahead and invest five minutes right now (right this minute) and have it back-up your catalog. It may save your butt one day.

Have a really great day, and I hope you’ll drop back by again tomorrow.

Adding Mood to a Photograph

This may sound a little silly coming from a certified Photoshop junkie, but my tendency when optimizing a photo is actually to try to make it look as close to reality as possible. Sure, I’ll add a slight touch of “what I remember” to take it beyond “what it really was,” but by and large my aim with Photoshop is to produce an image that accurately reflects the beautiful scene I chose to photograph in the first place.

But sometimes that just doesn’t cut it.

I find the desire to push a photo beyond reality usually occurs when I’m a little disappointed with a photograph that I really thought would turn out better. Most often that disappointment is a result of having had an emotional response to the scene that can’t adequately be captured in a simple photograph.

A recent trip to Japan provides a couple great examples of this. I started off in Tokyo, and was fascinated by many of the sights. I found myself particularly drawn to the small temples and shrines that hid behind and between large buildings on major streets in some of the busier parts of Tokyo. These temples and shrines provided a remarkable sanctuary, and some great photographic opportunities.

In one case there were three shrines that shared a courtyard, and a small cemetery adjacent to the courtyard. I’m always intrigued by cemeteries, particularly to learn about how different cultures honor those who have passed on. In the corner of this cemetery a collection of wooden planks with Japanese writing on them caught my eye. I was later told these were “prayer sticks” that would be placed at the gravesite by family or friends. I captured an image, confident it would convey the solemn tranquility of this place.

Somehow the image simply didn’t elicit the feeling I was expecting. Sure, it is always a very different experience to view a photograph compared to the actual scene. So I started working with the image in Photoshop to see what I could come up with. I tried various adjustments, and then ventured into slightly more creative areas. I tried a black-and-white conversion. That helped. Then I applied a sepia-tone effect. Better. A boost in contrast and a vignette effect, and I was much happier with the image.

My next stop was Kyoto, and I knew I was in for a treat. This is a city with over 2,000 shrines and temples, 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and a tremendous amount of history. It also contains many wonderful Zen gardens, and it seemed each one I visited was more calming than the one before it.

One garden in particular got me clicking the shutter more than usual (and “usual” is still (more…)

….prolific photography book author, Photoshop World instructor, and digital imaging expert, my buddy Tim Grey.

I’ve probably got at least half of dozen of Tim’s books on my shelves at home, and if you’ve ever caught one of Tim’s sessions at Photoshop World, you know what a great trainer he is. Since I don’t give my Guest Bloggers any guidelines as to what they should write about (it’s totally “their day”), I have no idea what Tim’s got in store, so we’ll both have to check back tomorrow and see what he’s got up his sleeve.

First, I want to thank everybody who came out yesterday to help launch my new Lightroom 2 Tour in Dallas (photo above from yesterday’s event; by Jeff Leimbach). Anytime you launch something of this scale, it makes you hold your breath a little, but we had a really great day, and the people in Dallas were incredibly gracious, polite, and just plain fun to spend the day with.

They were especially patient when, for some reason, my seasonal allergies kicked in big time right before lunch and I nearly blew out the overhead speakers a few times with coughs and sneezes that came on before I could hit the mute button.

Despite all that, the real challenge of the day was fitting all the new Lightroom 2 stuff in to a full-day that was already packed to the gills (we actually ended the day nearly 20 minutes late, which means I’ll be tweaking a few things for Orlando tomorrow to bring us in for a landing closer to “on time”).

I did a quick show of hands to see how many people were already using Lightroom 2; how many were still on Lightroom 1, and how many didn’t have Lightroom at all, but were there to see if this was their workflow of the future. Only around 40% of the nearly 500 photographers on hand yesterday actually had Lightroom 2, but by the end of the day, people were lining up to tell me they were going straight home to upgrade (some ordered it online right during the day). The lightbulb really went on for a lot of people yesterday (which I totally dig), and for a lot of folks it was the first time they had seen Photoshop CS4 (I dedicated nearly an entire class to using Lightroom 2 and CS4 together).

We’ll be back in Dallas in early December with Ben Willmore’s “Photoshop CS4 for Photographers” Tour, and I can tell you this; Ben is going to love the friendly hospitality of the folks in Texas. Thank you all so much for your support; for coming out and spending the day with me, and I hope what you learned yesterday helps you in your work, and fun, in Lightroom 2. Now onto Orlando!

Hi everybody! It’s Monday, and while it’s not a happy day to be a Tampa Bay Sports fan (I watched my Bucs lose live at Texas Stadium, and then went back to my hotel room and watched the Tampa Rays lose another World Series game on TV), I can overlook that for now, ’cause it’s time for the news:

• If you’ve got a friend into photography; have I got a perfect Holiday Gift for them; Barnes & Noble has put together a special “Boxed Set” of my book, “The Digital Photography Book,” where you get both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, along with a set of four 5×7 prints, for just $35.96 (even less if you’re a B&N member)–that’s it pictured above. You can get this specially boxed set at any Barnes & Noble store, or online at Barnes & Noble.com (link). They printed a limited number of these boxed sets, and I just learned that they’re really going fast, so if you’re interested; better grab a box soon.
• One of my blog readers (and a NAPP member) Stephen Power from Limerick, Ireland has launched a new photo blog of his own, called “The Snappy Snapper” (you gotta love that name), and his lead off story today is pretty interesting; it’s called “The Problem With Photography Forums.” You can check it out right here.
• I’m kicking off my Lightroom Tour 2 today in Dallas, Texas to nearly 500 photographers who’ll be joining me for the full-day workshop. My buddy “Hollywood” Mike Kubiesy (the show photographer for NBC’s “Chuck,” along with “NCIS,” “CSI New York,” and a host of other television shows shot out in Hollywood), is hanging out (and assisting me) today, and I’m really looking forward to meeting some new folks, and showing them my latest Lightroom 2 Workflow. My next stop is Orlando, Florida on Wednesday; click here if you want to join me there.
• MPIX is in the news again; USA Today did a piece on them about how they’re challenging sites like Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery (you can read that here), and Jeff Revell over at PhotoWalk Pro finally took the plunge, and got his first prints back from MPIX last week (you can read Jeff’s comments here).
• Yesterday, between games, Mike and I walked over to Union Station, an old train station in Downtown Dallas, to shoot some HDR shots of the exterior. I started shooting the outside of the building from the downtown sidewalk, and sure enough; here comes security. The security guard was pretty polite; she asked what we were doing, and I told her I was in town for the game, and then wanted to take some photos of the architecture of the old building. She told me, “Well, they don’t want you taking pictures of the building.” I was polite, but I let her know this was a public sidewalk; and I was well within my rights to shoot it. She let me know again that they didn’t want me shooting it; I let her know they didn’t have the right to stop me (and so I continued on shooting), and I asked her to call the police and let them settle it. She walked away, and I never saw the police, or her, again.

Well, I gotta run. The seminar starts in a few hours, and I’ve got to set everything up. Have a great Monday everybody, and Go Rays! (he said, half heartedly, knowing how few teams in World Series history have come back from a 1-3 deficit).

A great day at the show yesterday; I did three demo sessions (that’s me above during my gig at the Adobe booth—photo by Ted Waitt); met some great people, saw some old friends; made some new ones; had dinner with some good friends at my favorite restaurant: Carmine’s on West 44th in Manhattan, then watched the Rays win. I’m totally beat, but what a great way to spend the day!

I didn’t get much time to visit booths today, but here’s what I saw that was creating a buzz:

1. The Epson booth was insane, and their new printers were getting a lot of attention. When I went by, I saw a long line, and followed it up to the front and found out why; Joe McNally was signing prints.
2. Stopped by the Bogen Imaging Booth (or should I say, “booths” because they had like six), and they’ve got a new Elinchrom Ranger Kit (portable light and battery pack) coming out that looks cool, and they’ve got so many cool goodies I could almost empty my wallet right there.
3. Adobe’s booth was a madhouse. Lots of buzz around Lightroom 2 and CS4, with back-to-back sessions going all day. The crowd was 10 deep.
4. Not as many wedding album booths as I had seen at Imaging USA back in January, but all the camera makers were well represented. Nikon had presentations going and McNally did an amazing presentation there on speedlights (off camera flash); so did Canon, and Canon’s 5DMark II was getting lots of attention.
5. Sony had a huge booth, but I didn’t get over there yet.
6. Westcott had a cool booth, and live demos going all day (I did one on the Spiderlite TD-5’s this afternoon). Had a really great crowd, and answered a lot of questions. The new brighter bulbs were a big hit.
7. Plug-ins are hot right now, and both Nik Software and OnOne Software had plenty of traffic and buzz.
8. I showed Instant JPEG from Raw in one of my demo sessions and people were diggin’ it.
9. Both NAPP and Kelby Training had booths at the show, and we were slammed all day.
10. Saw Rob Sylvan, from NAPP’s Help Desk, at the show, and he had his Lightoom 2 For Dummies Book (hot off the press). I took a look at it tonight, and Rob did a real nice job with it!
11. B&H Photo was jammin’ (as usual), and they were running free buses from the convention center to the store (and back) all day.
12. There were a lot of live shoots, and live demo shoots, going on all over the floor. More than I remember seeing the past, and most were pretty cool.

That’s it for tonight (I’m falling asleep at the wheel). Hopefully, I’ll have more on the show on Monday, but I’ve got to hit the sack; I have to teach tomorrow. Have a great weekend everybody, and I’ll see some of you (around 500 of you) in Dallas, Texas on Monday. Can’t wait!

Hi folks! It’s Thursday, here’s what’s up:

• First, a big thanks to Rich Harrington for his excellent Guest Blog yesterday. You can see how much time and thought Rich put into that post, and from the wonderful comments he got, you can see the impact what he shared will have on many users. Nice job, Rich (as always).
• Adobe has released a free update to Lightroom 2, and Camera Raw 5, which includes supports for new cameras, and in Lightroom’s case, a few bug fixes are included as well. You can download the free updates from Adobe (here’s the link).
• Big News: Michael Tapes (and the crew at Imagenomics) have released an update to the incredibly hot new utility “Instant JPEG from Raw.” The update (like the utility itself) is free with added camera supports and some minor fixes. Download it free from RawWorkflow.com
• Just a reminder; I’m teaching three FREE SESSIONS at the Photo Plus Expo today in New York City: (1) at 1:00 pm I’m teaching a Lightroom and CS4 Killer Tips session at the Adobe Booth. Then onto Peachpit’s booth at 3:00 for a Portrait Retouching Session, and then wrapping up at Westcott’s booth with a demo of how I use their Spiderlite TD-5s. Hope you’ll stop by and say “hi!”
• Tomorrow’s the last day to enter my iPhone Photo Contest, for your chance to win a $500 Apple Store Gift Card, or a $100 iTunes Gift Card if you win one of the five photo categories. All the info is right here.
• Matt Kloskowski did a video interview with me about my new “Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers” over at his blog, Lightroom Killer Tips. It’s a short interview, and can watch it right here.
• Jeff Revell did a great tutorial over at his PhotoWalk Pro blog about how he edited his shots from the Int’l Gold Cup Race we shot last Saturday (Jeff and I both edited our images using the same technique—I won’t spoil it though–you’ll have to watch the video). Here’s the link.
• Janine Smith (one of my friends, and a wonderful photographer) pointed out this cool Lightroom pop-culture reference to me: “Was delighted to get John Sandford’s latest crime novel this week, “Heat Lightning.” To my surprise, on page 47, a bad guy uses Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to get a license plate by (in detail, correctly) using the sliders on a series of photos to enhance them. When he’s got the license plate, he proceeds to find and kill the guy, so Adobe would probably not appreciate the publicity.” I’m used to seeing Photoshop references in pop culture, but this is the first time I’ve seen Lightroom. Too cool! (Thanks Janine, for sending that my way).

That’s it for today folks. Hope I’ll see you in New York, or in Dallas on Monday, or in Orlando on Wednesday! Have a great day!!!

Regaining Your Digital Life
So You Can Have More of a Personal Life

I frequently find myself scratching my head…why is it that each new tool that is supposed to save us time seems to keep us occupied more often. The more people try to enhance their productivity, the more likely they are to stay attached to their computers. This is really a shame as the goal is to get more time back, more time for shooting, more time with family and friends, or even just more time to sleep.

I make my living being fast in Photoshop. Whether it’s for clients who hire my shop to create broadcast graphics and multimedia projects or for those who read my books and watch the weekly podcasts. It is my job to get things done… in this spirit, let me share ten things you can do to speed up Photoshop and carve out more time for your personal life. On their own, not one of these are not going to change your world, but together you’ll find yourself with literally hours freed up each week.

Scratch Disk & RAM
For many of us, the days of RAM costing as much as the computer seem like recent memories. I remember buying my first Mac clone for my startup business, a Power Computing tower. The RAM cost more than the computer. Hard drives weren’t much better.

Just last week, we added a new Mac Pro to the office. A quick online shopping experience and we added 8GB of RAM for $269 and 1 TB if internal storage for $145. The cost to take the machine to screaming fast? About $425 with next afternoon delivery. That’s not to say you should go crazy with upgrades, but $400 well spent makes the machine significantly faster at opening files and managing memory.

While we are on the topic, if you are going to Photoshop CS4, be sure your graphics card is beefy with Open GL support and you’ll see a much more responsive Photoshop.

Shoot Raw and Use Camera Raw, Lightroom, or Aperture
I am continually amazed at how many people do not shoot Raw, and I mean just Raw. I (more…)