variety pack #1

Here’s a new kind of post I’ll be doing from now on. In this series I’ll be showing images I’ve shot recently that need to be liberated on the intertubes and that might be of different themes or as a series. Random stuff I guess. Here’s the inaugural batch!

Lightroom 2 rocks!

With the recent release of Lightroom version 2 my workflow and ability to do more without visiting Photoshop has improved tremendously. There are tons of reviews and articles online that will show what all the new features are about so I won’t go into that here; what I want to share is the stuff I’m personally using most.

First the Adjustment Brush. This is the single most important feature for me right now. With it I have the ability to selectively change any area of my image and see the results in real time. Things you can change with the adjustment brush include: exposure, contrast, colour, clarity etc. This is huge! Quick corrections that would have required a trip to photoshop are now done in Lightroom.

 

Sharpening has also been one of my most used features since I can export directly to online services from Lightroom (see below) and sharpen my images as they are exported.

Nested and Smart Collections deserves a mention because I’m a big fan of creating groups of shots that might have the same theme but different adjustments. All of the collections that have the same original files can now belong to a parent collection for easy retreival.

The Filter Bar at the top of the grid view is a big improvement for searching for images. I can quickly turn on and off different criteria to search my library very quickly

Finally something I just discovered that has been an huge time saver. Export to online sites. I’ve recently been more active in showing my work on Flickr and Facebook (after debating the eternal issue of theft of images vs. showing my work to more people…) and I found that there are 2 plugins that work with Lightroom v.2 that automagically send images to both of these social networking sites as well as many others. All this thanks to the new plugin architecture that Lightroom 2 offers.

The Flickr export plugin created by Jeffrey Friedl offers the same features for uploading as other stand alone programs but directly from Lightroom. It sends images to specific sets if desired and has every option you can think of when exporting images, (size, quality, tags, viewing limits, titles etc.) It’s simple to use and has saved me so much time when I want to quickly send shots to Flickr. Did I mention its FREE. Yep, free, so a big thanks to Jeffrey for his work.

 

The Facebook plugin is also from Jeffrey and although it’s in the beta stage I couldn’t believe that it worked perfectly the first time I used it. Zero problems and worked as advertised. You select your images, go to the export panel, select the options you want (including the ability to create a new album on facebook!) and off they go. Really amazing stuff.

Photos of the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest particle accelerator in the world, located between France and Switzerland. This month scientists will start doing tests and gradually ramp up the accelerator to full operational capacity. Before it creates a black hole that sucks up the earth goes online, The Big Picture site has amazing shots of this huge scientific station.

I’ve done some industrial photography in my time but this would be amazing to shoot.

Images of the Large Hadron Collider

 

Barbara Probst

Interesting short interview and some samples of the photography of Barbara Probst. She shoots multiple cameras at the same time but in different positions to give different meanings to the same exposure.

You can click on the images at the top of the page to check out some examples of her work.

Interview with Barbara Probst

Bubble Planets

Cool images from photographer Jason Tozer who was commissioned by Sony to showcase their new Alpha camera. He shot soap bubbles that look like planets from a science fiction book. Click on the image to check out the shots.

There is a behind the scenes piece if you follow this link

 

Phillip Toledano

I found the site for Phillip Toledano while browsing some photography sites and I really like his style. He has a very cool eye for concepts which is one of the things we all struggle with and try to improve on as photographers. Check out the Cubelife and Bankrupt series, they are my favourite.

Inspiration for May

Adobe Lightroom Beta 2

Last week Adobe announced the new version of Lightroom as a beta for anyone to try. Some of the new features look great like output sharpening, localized corrections like dodge and burn and probably one of the most requested features since the debut of Lightroom, dual monitor support.

This new version is not compatible with the current version meaning your libraries should stay separate since they don’t guarantee you will be able to upgrade them when version 2 is finished, but I’m still going to try it out with a few images to check out the new features.

You can get the trial at the Adobe Labs website

A good overview can be found at the Photoshop News website

Photoshop through the web

Adobe just released Adobe Photoshop Express, “an online version of Photoshop” which allows anyone to work on their photographs using just a web browser. The available tools are basic and are not really a full (or even simple) version of Photoshop by any means. They are however very useful for people that want to do some basic corrections to their images, store them online (they offer 2 gigs of storage) and also a way to use those images in other sites like Facebook.

After playing with it for a while I think it’s a good first version that will help many people who just want to do minor adjustments to their images when using any computer in the world. Great for vacation shots you might want to upload while traveling for example. Keep an eye out on this one since Adobe will be making improvements to it and adding more features.

Try it for free at the Adobe Photoshop Express site

Back in Vancouver

Fighting the flu that was everywhere in south florida. Slowly getting back into action. Not much more to report other than a quick bit of news regarding Adobe Lightroom. It seems Adobe released an update to Lightroom which wasn’t fully baked yet and they have pulled it from their website. They say a new version of this update will be available soon. For now they recommend that people who installed it, roll back to the previous version of Lightroom. More information in the O’Reilly Lightroom blog which by the way is a great source of information.