Friday Tip – Developing with the Histogram

Here’s one of those “Holy Crap!!! I never knew that!” tips. First, it’s a Develop module tip so you’ll have to be in the Develop module to use it. Next, it’s a Histogram tip so you’ll have to know where the Histogram is to use it (it’s in the top right of the Develop module). OK, now that we have that behind us check it out. You can develop your photos visually with the Histogram. Just hover your cursor over areas of the Histogram and you’ll see sections become highlighted. Each section (there are 4 total) corresponds to a slider in the Basic panel. On the far left is Blacks, then Fill Light, then Exposure, and finally Recovery. Once your cursor is there just drag to the left or right to adjust that setting on the histogram directly. How’s that for some Friday coolness? Enjoy your weekend (we’re putting our Christmas tree, or the politically correct “Holiday Tree”, up so I know I’ll enjoy mine).

Video – Split Toning 101

This website has been up for over a year now and as I looked through, I couldn’t really find a video where I covered Split Toning in detail. I’ve mentioned it here and there but from looking at forums and comments, I realized that lots of folks had questions on the basics. Fortunately, Split Toning is really easy and, as you’ll find out, after watching this video you’ll know pretty much all there is to know about it. Enjoy.

Click here to watch the video. (21Mb)

Monday Presets – White Balance

I’m back from a long weekend off and I feel totally revitalized. It’s amazing what a few days off will do for ya’. This weeks’ presets hit me over the weekend. I photographed a good friend of mine, Derek, and his family (see the next post for more). As I was going through the photos, I kept experimenting with the white balance presets (cloudy, daylight, etc.) and it was getting to be a pain in the neck to go back and forth. I started thinking how great it would be if when I hovered over the white balance setting I could get a quick preview of what it would look like. That’s when this hit me. I created presets for each white balance setting. Since you can hover over a preset in the Develop module and get a preview of the effects in the Navigator panel above it worked perfectly. I’ve only been using them for a couple of days but I gotta tell you I’m happy I made them. Now they’re yours too for the taking. Enjoy ‘em and make sure you scroll down for the next post for a little “behind the scenes” on my weekend shoot.

Click here to download Matt’s White Balance presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

My Weekend Photo Session for a Friend

Hey folks. Here’s a photo I took this weekend and I thought I’d give you the low-down on the setup for a shot I call “Super Baby!” (get it, low down, set up – I know, it’s bad ). Anyway, a good friend of mine, Derek, asked me to photograph his wife and new baby. He assured me the baby was really great and when that happens you can usually count on a miserable day. But let me tell you – she was the cutest, happiest, best-behaved baby I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve never photographed a more pleasant child and I don’t think she cried once. As for the set up – here goes:
1) Photo taken with a Nikon D200 and a Nikon 17-55 2.8 lens
2) f/11 at 1/160th of a second. ISO was set to 400 (I forgot to change my ISO from my previous shoot – insert expletive %&$# here!)
3) No tripod and I didn’t shoot tethered into Lightroom. With the baby, there was just too much moving around.
4) White Backdrop
5) Lighting – Elinchrom Octa Light Bank (I’m in love with it!). Scott Kelby did a write up about it on his blog so make sure you check it out to find out more.
6) Props: A white rattle with a little Santa Claus on the end of it and lots of goofy adults standing behind me waving and making funny faces and sounds (OK, I may have made a few funny sounds too but not funny faces).
7) Not much done to this one in Lightroom. I increased the Exposure setting by about 1/2 stop. Bumped Clarity to around 40 and used the HSL panel to boost reds and blues (shirt and jeans).
8. I moved into Photoshop only to remove some spots/folds/wrinkles from the white backdrop and a little selective sharpening on the eyes.

A big thanks to my pal RC for helping me out during this shoot. Plus, he reminded me early on that I had my B&W polarizer on the lens. After all, why wouldn’t you want a polarizer on before a studio shoot? Seriously, I always forget to take it off, and I couldn’t figure out why my shutter speed was so slow. Thanks RC

Friday Tip – Deleting your rejects

Hey everyone. I thought to myself this morning that I could go out at the crack of dawn and buy a bunch of cheap stuff that I didn’t really need or… I could stay home and write a tip for the blog. I chose to sleep in and do the latter So…part of managing your library is getting rid of the photos that shouldn’t be there, right?. I know… I know… sometimes it’s hard because we get emotional about the photos and keep ones that maybe shouldn’t be there. However, no matter how great of a photographer you are there’s undoubtedly a handful (or more) of photos that are just out of focus, blurry, or the subject has their eyes closed. Well here’s something to help you get rid of them quickly. First, I go through the Library module and press the letter X (for Reject) on any photo that needs to go. Then, when you’re all done, go up to the Photo menu and choose Delete Rejected Photos. You’ll get a dialog asking if you want to remove them from the Library (which leaves them on your computer) or if you want to delete them from your computer all together. I usually delete from the computer because I don’t want them taking up space on my hard drive. Here’s the thing. I’ll generally do this when I first import my photos to reduce the amount of photos I manage. However, I’ll often go through older folders a month or two (or six) later and do it again. I always find photos later on that I realize I should have deleted earlier. Well that wraps up another week. Have a great weekend!

A little inspiration (and stuff) to hold you over

It’s a short week for me so here are a few things to hold you over the long weekend.

1) First, pay a visit to Rodolphe Simeon Photography. His photostream over at Flickr is generating quite a bit of traffic and his website has some really great photos on it. Definitely worth visiting.

2) A while ago I posted a link to Elizabeth Carmel’s fine art photography website. Well, she’s updated the look and added some new stuff on there so you’ll want to re-visit when you get the chance. If you haven’t seen it – well, make sure you take a look. She’s got some fantastic work.

3) Finally, I know most of you have probably seen this site before so consider this as a gentle reminder to go visit it again. It’s the Strobist and if you’re looking for a Thanksgiving weekend project, then reading through the old posts on this site will keep you busy for the duration. Great site! I don’t visit every day but when I do visit I wind up killing a couple of hours and even get some inspiration about new projects to try.

Well, that’s it for the Wednesday inspiration update (and other stuff). Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday Preset – My favorite Split Tone

Happy Thanksgiving week to everyone out there. It’s a short one for me so I’m pretty psyched to have some time off. Anyway, today I’m sharing my favorite Split Tone preset. It’s not really colorful like some split tone effects I’ve seen out there. It actually only adds a slight amount of red/orange to the highlights and yellow/orange to the shadows. I think it works great when you’re looking for that subtle classic effect. Also, don’t forget that split toning really works best when you already convert the photo to a black and white. So, I’ve included two presets here. The one with the (BW) at the end of it automatically converts the photo to black and white using the “General – Grayscale” preset that ships with Lightroom. Then I’ve added my split toning effects on top of it. Since Lightroom’s Grayscale preset may not work well on your particular photo, the other one just adds the split tone effect so you’ll have to convert your photo to black and white first. Enjoy ‘em!

Click here to see a sample of the preset.
Click here to download Matt’s Classic Split Tone presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Lightroom 1.3 Update (and more!)

Looks like the folks over at Adobe have been quite busy lately. There’s a brand new update for Lightroom which brings us to version 1.3. One of the most notable of the enhancements is compatibility with Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard). I posted a Q&A about it earlier this week. There’s also support for some of the new cameras (mainly the newer Nikon and Canon cameras). If that weren’t enough, Adobe has also released updates for Camera Raw and Photoshop CS3 and Bridge CS3. The easiest way to find out more about the updates is to check out Terry White’s Tech blog. Or click on one of the links below to download the updates.
- Click the Help menu in Photoshop and choose Updates to get the updates for Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Bridge
- Or…Download all of the updates here

Why Lightroom?

I recently saw a blog post (from a totally unrelated industry) about one simple word – Why? The writer encouraged people to think about why we do things. It got me thinking about Lightroom. I teach it to so many people. I’m excited about it. I think using it over Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw (for photographers that is) is the right thing to do. But why? Could it be the fact that I had $200 bucks burning a hole in my jeans pocket? Probably not. After pondering away for hours (ok, 7 minutes), I did come up with one simple answer: it’s just easier. Truth be told, I was hoping for a more complicated answer. Then I started thinking about whether or not everything needs to be quantifiable and have a long drawn out answer. Is the answer “it’s just easier” enough? I don’t know exactly why, but LR is just so much easier for me to use then Bridge and Camera Raw ever felt. They worked, but it seemed like it was clunky. It felt like I was using tools that were created for the masses and not tools that were made for me. That’s where LR feels easier to me. It’s one program and it does a very finite number of things. I know that. I like the fact that I’ll eventually run out of choices in Lightroom and I’ll have to stop. It makes my photo processing much easier as a result.

You can kinda compare it to the iPhone. Is the iPhone revolutionary in what it does in any way, shape or form? Not one little bit. I was doing iPhone-like things on my phone 2-3 years ago. So why has it taken the country by storm? Compare this to Lightroom and why it has become the total buzz in the photography community. LR doesn’t really offer any new tools does it? Cataloging, Raw processing, printing, web galleries. We’ve been able to do the exact same stuff in Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw for years. But it’s not always about what it does… it’s about how it does it.

So why do I use Lightroom? It’s just easier. I may not be able to expand on the why but what I do know are the results. I get more done with Lightroom then I ever did with Bridge and Camera Raw. I find my photos MUCH faster. I process my photos faster. It allows me to concentrate on the task at hand without getting caught up in several interfaces. This leaves me time to a) process more photos or, b) more importantly, spare time to do the other things I like to do. In the end, the “Why?” may not be that glamorous but hey, I gave it the old college try. That said, consider leaving a comment here about why you use Lightroom. Is it just the pretty interface or is there more? Trust me, I’d love to read what you have to say. It’ll help me a ton because when I’m standing in front of 400 people and they ask me “Why use Lightroom?”, telling them that it’s just easier doesn’t really cut it. Thanks.

Video – Printing on a Black Background

Ah… the old printing on a black background trick! Sounds simple right? Actually it is but there’s a little trickery involved. A lot of folks have asked how to get Lightroom to let you print on to a black background instead of the usual white. In this week’s video I’ll show you exactly how to do just that. It involves a little Photoshop (really quick, I promise) too but I think you’ll find it’s really easy and it can make a dramatic difference with the right print.

Click here to watch the video. (8 Mb)