Weekly Worth-a-click

Howdy folks. Thanks for all the great comments about the graduated filter presets earlier this week. Glad you enjoyed ‘em. Here’s a few links of interest:

• Fotomagico 2.6 is out (the slideshow software that I swear by) and it now supports Adobe Lightroom 2 libraries.

• onOne Software’s PhotoFrame 4 plug-in now works with Lightroom.

• This is more of a Photoshop thing but I thought it was cool. Keyboard shortcut stickers for your keyboard.

• Lastly, we have a facebook page. I wanted to keep my personal facebook page for close friends and family members to view. So we (the Photoshop Guys – Dave, Scott and I) created a Photoshop Guys facebook page. We’ll post behind the scenes photos, links etc… on it so make sure you stop by and “friend” it

• Finally, I posted some answers to some comment-questions for Tuesday preset post. In fact, I do this as often as I can so make sure you go back every few days and re-read the comments from any posts you like here.

Presets – Graduated Filters

I’m back in Tampa from Photo Plus in New York last week and I wanted to say a big thanks to everyone who came up to say hi during the show. It’s always great to get out and meet the people I see comments from here on the blog. OK, now for some presets. This week I’ve got some graduated filter presets. There are literally a ton of ways I can go with these presets so I’ve decided to get fairly specific and create presets for blue skies. When you download them, you’ll see they’re listed in -1, -2, and -3 stop increments (just makes more sense to me then 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9). However, if you’re the traditional filter kinda person, then by all means feel free to change the names once you import them (just right-click on the preset name to rename it). You’ll also see that I’ve included placement for 3 locations. Top Third, Bottom third, and Middle. The top and bottom probably make sense since we typically try to position a horizon at the top third or bottom third. However, after looking through some of my photos, I’ve realized that when there’s another subject in the photo the horizon will often need to shift toward the middle which is why I included that one. Oh, and there’s also separate presets for vertical and horizontal photos because Lightroom has issues with presets created for just one or the other. Finally, there’s a few other settings thrown in there to help enhance the sky as well as any clouds in the sky. Whew! That sounds like a lot for some simple presets doesn’t it? The good news is all you have to do is click on them to use the preset.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy them. I’ve got a few more ideas which I’m sure you’ll see in the coming weeks. Thanks and make sure you leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Click here to see a sample of the presets.
Click here to download Matt’s Graduated Filter Presets
Click here to see a video on how to install presets.

Lightroom 2.1 has been released

I’m heading out to Photo Plus today so make sure you stop by the Peachpit booth at 1pm to say hi. Also, Adobe just announced the official release of Lightroom 2.1. You may remember that they announced a release candidate of 2.1 a while back. Release candidate is really just a fancy word for beta software and, naturally, most people weren’t very keen on downloading the beta. Here’s a link to Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty’s announcement on his blog. When you open Lightroom 2 it should automatically ask you if you want to upgrade (at least mine did). So have at it and let me know your thoughts on the update.

Weekly worth-a-click

Here’s a few links that I thought were interesting. But first I wanted to say a huge thanks to all the folks that attended the Bar Harbor, Maine workshop I taught last week. What a great group of photographers we had. Seriously, I had a really nice time with everyone and, like always, I learned a few things from the group which is always cool. Now on to the links:

• I’ll be teaching at Adobe’s booth at the PDN Photo Plus Expo this week in New York. My class schedule is as follows. Make sure you stop by and say hi:
Thursday: 1:00 pm – Using Layers in Photoshop at the Peachpit Booth
Friday: 2:45 pm – Lightroom from Start to Finish at the Adobe Booth
Saturday: 1:15 pm – Lightroom from Start to Finish at the Adobe Booth

• One of the photographers in my Bar Harbor workshop last week, Howard Ignatius, had some pretty cool time-lapse photography videos on his portfolio site. Click on this link and then go to the 4th page of his portfolio under the movies section. Neat stuff.

• The folks over at Kelby Training are running an iPhone photo contest. Check it out.

• SlideShowPro v1.3.4 (the plug-in for Lightroom’s web module) for Lightroom has been released.

• Scott Kelby’s Lightroom tour is coming to Dallas, Texas next week on Oct. 27 and then to Orlando, FL on Oct. 29. There’s also dates coming in Los Angeles and Denver. You can find out more here.

Video – Folders and Hard Drives in LR2

Greetings from chilly (but not really cold) Bar Harbor, Maine. Hey, I’m a Florida guy, what can I say – anything below 70º F is cold Anyway, this week I created a video about a feature in Lightroom 2 that has changed the way I store my photos in Lightroom. In fact, I’m teaching a workshop in Bar Harbor this week and some one came up to me on the first night and commented on how much better Lightroom 2 handles the distinction and management between folders and hard drives (and this was after I had already created this video). So if you’re storing photos on your computer’s hard drive and (or are thinking about) storing photos on external hard drives then make sure you check this video out.

Click here to watch the video. (16MB)

Weekly Update – Contest, HDR, and Inspiration

Hi everyone! I wanted to start the week by tying up a few loose ends from last week. So here goes:

1) First off, the contest. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who watched the video. Apparently you guys like these casual videos so hopefully we’ll be able to get more of them up. Now… the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the winner of the book IS…… Chris Kocher from www.ccphotostories.com. Thanks to everyone for participating.

2) Our HDR crusade from earlier this week was indeed heard. I heard from the folks over at HDRsoft this morning and they did read all of your comments. It seemed very well received but it was difficult for them to give me a definite answer. From what I can gather, they’re very far along the development process of the 3.1 version of the product. I can totally relate to that. Having been in the software business some years ago, we always had to put a “enough is enough” final date on adding new things to the software. I hadn’t realized they were so far into the development cycle for version 3.1, but they are. They also let me know that it is definitely something that is well on their radar and thanked all of the contributors here for making them aware of this feature’s importance.

So, here’s my take is this. When version 3.1 ships you’ll either, a) See a blog post from me celebrating the automatic re-import of the HDR processed file or most likely, b) See a video from me having to explain the process of re-importing the processed HDR file once you’re done with Photomatix and getting it into the same folder, etc. Hey… I can’t complain – it’s job security right?

3) Start your week off with some inspiration. First, check out Red Leaf Studios photography. Mostly wedding and portrait stuff but I’m really digging the use of natural light.
Also, I’m heading off to Bar Harbor, Maine on Wednesday this week to teach my GAPW workshop. As I always do, I did some research on places to shoot and came across this photography portfolio by Greg Hartford. There’s some very nice stuff and if you look closely enough, I’m pretty sure there’s a decent amount of HDR processing going on (subtle though, not the surreal sci-fi effect).

That’s it for Monday. I’ll talk you again later this week.

We have an HDR crusade!

Hi folks. If you haven’t read the post below and you’re into HDR photography then make sure you check it out. Now, I’ve known about the plug-in for a couple of weeks, but blog reader Larry Lohrman pointed me to a post on the Photography for Real Estate website. In a nutshell, he wrote Photomatix to ask that the exported image be re-imported back into Lightroom (kinda like Photoshop does automatically when you save). Now, HDRsoft did respond (which is great) but their Lightroom correspondent felt:

“they do not like to have their processed image in the same location as their RAW file, and do not think this is a good thing. They systematically separate both, and thus prefer the ability (as implemented in Photomatix Pro 3.1beta with the option on the Save dialog) to import the final processed image in Lightroom the way they want”.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to “systematically” have to do anything. I want the software to do it for me. It just makes sense that if we went somewhere from within Lightroom, we want to be right back there automatically when we’re done. It’s the only way to make using plug-ins with Lightroom feel seamless. I think we do indeed want the images back in our catalog so we can manage the processed HDRs with the rest of them (isn’t that why we use Lightroom). I know, I can do this with a checkbox (in Photomatix 3.1 beta) but then it opens the Import dialog and it doesn’t automatically save my image in the right folder, and well, the whole process felt clunky to me.

So here’s what I propose. A crusade if you will, to let the folks at HDRsoft know what we want. I’ve actually talked to them and they’re very nice people with a great product. I think they just need to hear from you that this is the way you want it. Now you could always go to their website and send an email but I’ll make it one step easier. Leave a comment here telling how you feel about the need to automatically re-import the HDR processed image. If there’s enough demand, then early next week, I’ll copy all the comments into an email and send it their way to let them know how we feel. Sound like a deal? Thanks!

Photomatix HDR Export Plug-in for Lightroom

One of the problems I’ve had with using Photomatix Pro in my HDR workflow is the fact that there wasn’t an easy way to go from Lightroom into Photomatix. Well, HDRsoft has recently released an export plug-in for Lightroom that does just that. Yep, once installed, you just select your photos and go to File > Plug-in Extras and Export to Photomatix Pro will appear. Now the company claims the requirements as “The export plugin works in Lightroom version 1.3 or higher, and requires Photomatix Pro version 3.1 or higher. Photomatix Pro 3.1 is currently in beta release.”. However, I have Photomatix Pro 3.0.2 (not the beta 3.1) and it still works fine (I haven’t done any research on that part yet). Anyway, I think it’s newsworthy because HDR is hot these days and most HDR enthusiasts agree Photomatix is the way to go (yes I know there’s others but I’ve found Photomatix to be my favorite as well). Here’s a link to the plug-in page if you want to check it out.

Oh yeah, if you don’t own Photomatix yet and you’re a NAPP member you can get a 20% discount on the purchase using the code in the NAPP members website discount area.

Video Interview with Scott Kelby

I sat down with Scott Kelby (author of the new Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers) to talk about his new book. Before we go any further, let me say that this was totally my idea because I wanted to try to pump Scott’s ego up as far as I could. See, when Scott’s in a good mood he gets really generous with his photo gear and I love photo gear… (and I’m totally just kidding here). Seriously, this was my idea for two reasons: 1) I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people to see if this 2nd version of the book is the same as the first and, 2) I honestly believe it’s the best book out there. I realize you have choices out there when it comes to which book to buy and with things getting a little tighter these days, I truly believe this is the book that will help you the most. I personally watched a “this’ll take a few weeks” timeline turn into double that because of Scott’s dedication to writing and rewriting each tutorial in the book, as well as finding photos that best demonstrated the tutorial. But it even trickled down to what to name a tutorial to make it as easy as possible for you, the reader, to quickly get to the concepts you wanted to learn without sifting through page after page. Anyway, enough talk (or words I guess). See for yourself and watch the 6 minute video.

Oh yeah, don’t forget about the contest at the end. Just leave a comment here that says “Hi!” or something about the book if you already have it (or are thinking of getting it) and I’ll pick a winner at the end of the week.

Oh yeah (again), make sure you scroll down for another weekly worth-a-click post.

[Click Play to watch the video of my interview with Scott.]
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Weekly Worth-a-click

Hi everyone. Hope you’re having a great week so far. Here’s a few links that are worth a click:

• A blog reader from last week pointed out that Adobe is offering a 30% discount on Lightroom 2 if you upgrade with Photoshop CS4. Throw in another 15% if you’re a NAPP member and the total cost of upgrading to both is $238. Not too much help if you already bought LR2 but if not, now ain’t a bad time to do it. Here’s a screen capture of my shopping cart. The one trick is that you’ve actually got to add both to the cart to see the discount as I found it very convoluted to get details. But sure enough, when both items were in the cart I saw the reduced price.

• HDRSoft (makers of the HDR software, Photomatix) has a beta of Photomatix 3.1 out.

• The makers of the SlideshowPro Lightroom Web module plug-in (the best interactive web galleries around in my opinion) have released a few updates in the past month or so. Make sure you check out their site.

• The strobist jet pack. Clever or dorky? A little of both probably but you decide.