Worth-a-click

I’m gearing up for Photoshop World next week. In the meantime, here’s a few links and what-not to keep you busy. Have a great weekend:

• Word on the street is that Scott Kelby rocked! his first (and sold out) Light it, Shoot it, Retouch It seminar yesterday. Congrats to Scott. Make sure you sign up quickly for the next few tours (Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Chicago) if you want to snag a seat.

• Jason Lykins did a review of my first app done with Kelby Training. The app is called the Photoshop CS5 Crash course and it’s basically a Photoshop beginners training video in app form. You can read the review on Terry White’s Best App Site here.

• Speaking of apps, our buddy Rick Sammon has a new HDR app to check out.

• I guess I’m really app happy today. Check out the upcoming iPad app Photosmith (The mobile companion to Lightroom).

• The folks at ExpoImaging continue to put out some of the best flash modifiers out there. I just got a look at the new Rogue Grid. If you’ve used the Rogue Flashbenders before, then you’ll love this one.

• In case you hadn’t heard, Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 is out (and available for Lightroom). Here’s the link.

• Back in February, I did an interview with Digital Photo Experience on photography, Photoshop and Lightroom. Here’s the link.

• Russell Brown has a great script for automatically opening a layer from Photoshop into Camera Raw. Very cool!

The Story of the “Unintended” Illegal HDR Photo

Last June I wrote a post called “The Story of the Illegal HDR” (link). It was a story about how I captured my HDR photo of St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City. It spurred over 400 comments in 2 days and some of them got pretty heated. Most people were on my side, but there was a good portion of people that thought what I did was dead wrong (to put it lightly)

Fast forward to last week. I was asked by Adobe to come be the keynote speaker at Professional Imaging 2011 in the Netherlands. My wife came with me and we decided to make a small vacation out of it. We took the train to Paris after the event for a few days. Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad. Absolute blah gray skies (no clouds or contrast) and it was cold and windy. It made being creative outside nearly impossible because you just wanted to get back inside as soon as possible. Since Paris has just as much beauty indoors as it does out, I figured I’d do my best to come back with some photos that captured that beauty. HDR photos seem to do that well.

One morning we set out to Notre Dame. I walked in with my camera backpack and tripod across my shoulder. The only signs I saw prohibited large luggage inside. But I carefully looked and never saw anything prohibiting tripods. So my wife did the tour of the church (I’m not much for museums and tours) and I set out to the front of the church. I opened the tripod, attached the camera and waited for the area to clear in front of the altar. Once it was clear, I put the tripod down and started a 9-shot bracket.

Since it was indoors with bright light shining through in areas, I needed the -4 EV and +4 EV that the 9-shot bracket (on a Nikon that is) offers. After the bracket was done, the longest shutter speed I got to was 30 seconds and the photo was still too dark. It was probably due to the fact I had the aperture set to f/16 because I love when the lights have those little starbursts (mmmmm…. Starbursts) on them. At this point, I hadn’t captured all of the detail that I wanted in the shadows so I put the camera on BULB mode and grabbed a 60 and 90 second exposure too. All totaled, one HDR photo took me about 3-4 minutes. I moved once to let some other folks get the center photo, and when it cleared I went in again to get a different angle. I did this two more times. So basically, I camped out right in the middle of the altar for about 15 minutes. Seriously, I might as well have set up a tent and a camp fire I was there so long. And no one said a word to me. I saw people moving things on the altar, walking around yet nobody said a thing about the tripod so I figured I was OK.

Here’s my favorite one processed with Photomatix 4. I took it into Lightroom where I adjusted the white balance, exposure, blacks, along with some detailed brushing with the Adjustment Brush to darken some areas. I also used the Lens Correction panel a little but I personally like the vertical perspective here so I didn’t correct it all the way. Finally, I finished it off in Photoshop with Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast and the Smart Sharpen filter.

(Click for a larger version)

(Taken with a Nikon D3 with a Nikon 14-24mm lens at f/16)

Later that day, I met up with a friend of the blog, Serge (who kindly offered to show me around Paris to his favorite photo spots). When I told him about Notre Dame he was really surprised because he said tripods were prohibited. Even living there, he was never able to bring a tripod in. When I got back to my room, I did some searching on the internet and found plenty of stories about people not being able to use tripods in the church. Oops

I guess I got away with it. Now, I wasn’t trying to get away with anything mind you. I really did look for signs or anything that prohibited tripods and found nothing. Maybe they’re there, but I sure didn’t see them.

But now it begs the question… if I had seen a “no tripods allowed sign”, would I have taken the photo anyway?

Tip – Deleting the easy way

Bonjour! Today’s my last day in Paris but I wanted to leave you with a quick tip for the weekend that I use myself all the time. By the way, thanks to anyone who sent me a message about where to shoot in Paris. I got some great ideas and even met up with a local NAPP member which was awesome (more on that next week). Anyway, the tip…

Last night I was going through my photos and whenever I come across one to delete (which happens a lot for me ) I always press the X key to flag it as a reject. Then, almost as if it’s second nature, I go to the Photo menu and choose Delete Rejected Photos. But I realized the other week at one of my seminars that quite a few people hadn’t seen that one so that’s your tip. Flag your photos as rejects first. That keeps you from having to answer the “Are you sure you want to delete” question multiple times. Then, when you’re done, just go to Photo > Delete Rejected Photos and remove them all at once. I delete from the hard drive too, not just the catalog. If they’re rejects that means I want them gone forever.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Lightroom 3.4 and Professional Imaging Update

Had a great time teaching here in the Netherlands at Professional Imaging 2011. You can see a behind the scenes video from Frank Doorhof here (link). I’ll post a bit more in depth next week and some shots from a live Compositing and Selections class that I did but overall I had a wonderful 3 days.

In other news, Adobe announced a release candidate of Lightroom 3.4 on the Adobe labs website. It basically includes support and profiles for new cameras and lenses and a few bug fixes. Since it’s a “release candidate” it’s not totally ready for prime time yet but they say it’s very well tested at this point so the full release isn’t far away. Simply put, if you have a camera or lens that you need support for right away (that’s included in the release candidate) then I’d probably download it. If not, I’d just wait for the full version.

That’s it from Amsterdam. Heading out to Paris for a quick vacation with the wife for a few days and then back home. If you have any shooting suggestions please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

Fading Lightroom Presets

I’m in Houston, TX getting ready for my full day Kelby Training Lightroom seminar tomorrow. I always get a little anxious the night before, especially since I haven’t used Lightroom in about 2 years (totally just kidding!). If you are at the seminar though, make sure you stop by the front and say hi. I always enjoying meeting people from the blog. OK, on to the tip for today. A blog reader turned me on to this clever little Lightroom plug-in. It’s simply called, The Fader. Kinda like Darth Vader but without the Darth and the V is really an F in this case. So, maybe not just like Darth Vader, but close

Anyway, it does exactly what it says. It fades presets. If you’ve ever applied a preset and like the effect, but just think it’s a little “too much” then that’s where The Fader comes in (insert deep echoed breathing here). You pick a preset and then move the slider to tone it down a bit. That’s it. Here’s the link to download it.

News – A Brand New Industry Talk Show

Today, we (Scott Kelby and I) launch a brand new live industry talk show called The Grid. We’ll cover all topics in the industry around photography, Photoshop, Lightroom, and, well, you name it. We’ve got some great topics (and special guest Jeremy Cowart) for the first show, and we’ll be taking your comments via twitter (@thegridlive). You can catch the show live (at 12:30pm EST) as it airs today, or afterward in our free rebroadcast (so you can watch it whenever you want) at KelbyTV.com/thegrid.

Lightroom News and a Painter Tool Tip

Here’s some quick news and a tip:

• First up, don’t forget I’m teaching the Lightroom 3 Live seminar in Houston next Wednesday March 9th. There’s still time to sign up. Oh, and if you know any good shooting opportunities or places while I’m in Houston, please leave a comment here. Hope to see you there!

• The folks over at the Turning Gate have released some new updates for their Lightroom web galleries

• The Photographers Toolbox has a Metadata Panels plugin that extends the Metadata section within Lightroom’s Library module.

• I’m always posting stuff over on my Facebook page. Lately I’ve been posing questions about the industry and giving away some free prizes too. So if you want to keep up please head over and click “Like” – Facebook.com/ThePhotoshopGuy

• And the tip… this one comes from the video on the Painter tool that I did earlier this week. If you want to access the tool at any time (in the Library module that is), just press Shift-Option (PC: Shift-Alt). It temporarily switches to the tool (using whatever setting you used last). When you let go, it goes away.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by this week!

Video – Painter Tool Tipsru

Last week I posted an HDR video tip (link) that happened to use the Painter tool as a quick way to apply a setting to your photos. I saw a bunch of questions come up about the tool itself so I figured I’d dedicate a video to it. It’s probably not the most commonly used tool, but it definitely has it’s place. And it’s kinda fun to use Enjoy!