Digital Photography Archives - Page 30 of 55

June 1, 2011June 1, 2011

Slickr Flickr Pro for WordPress

[slickr-flickr tag=”Australia” type=”slideshow” delay=”6″ items=”33″ size=”large” width=”650″ height=”488″ border=”on”]

I'm still trying out different methods of posting multiple images to my blog. Last week I showed you the extremely cool LR/Blog plug-in for Lightroom that allows you to post images directly from Lightroom to your WordPress blog. While the LR/Blog plug-in does exactly what I want it to do when I have a few images here or there to post, I was looking for another solution to post a "gallery" of images. Ideally I wanted to take the photos that I post to Flickr.com and have them displayed on my blog. This would make my life even easier since I can post to Flickr directly from Lightroom 3 anyway.

Flickr already does this

If you have a Flickr account you can set it up so that you can post a photoset directly from Flickr to your Blog! See an example here. However, there really isn't much control over it and it's IMMEDIATE! The minute I clicked "Post", it made a new blog post and released it without any warning. Again, there is nothing wrong with this and for many this simple solution will be just fine. As a matter of fact I could so see doing this while on the go or when returning from a photowalk and just letting the image rip! However, if I'm writing a more detailed post and I then want to include the images in that post then I require a little more control over layout, delivery and timing.

WordPress Plug-ins for Flickr

I started looking a few different WordPress plug-ins. Sadly almost all of them disappointed me in one way or another. Either they didn't allow me to simply choose a photoset (Flickr's term for a gallery) or they looked like crap in terms of display. I settled on Slickr Flickr Pro (at least for now). This plug-in offered the closest set of features to what I was looking for. While it oddly doesn't allow you to specify a particular photoset, it does allow you to select images via Tags. If you want to include a selection of images in a post, just tag them all with the same Tag and Slickr Flickr will use those images.

You can display the images as a gallery (like my Australia Post) or you can make a self running slideshow like my images above. The Pro version allows you to go past the image count limit as well as it offers more customization features and better support. This is not the end all be all solution, but it works for now.

Yes I am actually in Australia

I took the photos above the last time I was here in 2007. I haven't had many photo ops on this visit, but I am looking forward to seeing you in Melbourne, tomorrow!

CS5 Evolution Tour

May 31, 2011May 29, 2011

What to do when Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill Doesn’t Work

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWK5cpn3ipY

In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast I'll show you a couple of techniques to use when Photoshop's Content Aware Scale and Content Aware Fill doesn't work. While Content Aware Scale and Content Aware Fill are magical technologies, they don't always work perfectly depending on the image. These tips will help you get better results in those cases!

See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App:

May 20, 2011May 26, 2011

My Random Shots from Warsaw, Poland

I had some time last night and walked around Old Town here in Warsaw. Here are a few random shots from my walk.

[slickr-flickr tag=”Warsaw” type=”slideshow” items=”33″ size=”large” width=”650″ height=”488″ border=”on”]

May 12, 2011May 15, 2011

5 Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts that will Speed Up Your Workflow

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sud57DpfgE

In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast I'll show you 5 Keyboard Shortcuts for Lightroom that will speed up your day to day workflow!

See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode not only has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App, but it also has an EXCLUSIVE PDF with tons of Lightroom Keyboard Shortcuts:

May 6, 2011April 29, 2011

Adobe Photoshop World 2011 Keynote

If you missed Photoshop World Orlando, you missed the Adobe Keynote where Photoshop Product Manager Brian O'neil Hughes showed some sneak peeks of some up and coming Photoshop Technologies being worked on in the labs at Adobe. Check out the video above to see what you missed! Was there really a Photoshop for iPad shown? 😉

See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here:

May 4, 2011December 14, 2013

How the iPad fits into a Photography Workflow

Last week when I was on The Grid, I got asked to describe how the iPad would fit into a photographer’s workflow and I promised to do a post on it…

The iPad is definitely a revolutionary product that has disrupted the status quo. While I absolutely enjoy using an iPad, I don’t find it to be the end all be all replacement for a desktop/laptop computer. At least not full-time. The iPad didn’t replace my phone, nor did it replace my laptop. It’s another device that I use when it’s more convenient to use than either of the other two devices. With that said the question has been asked “How does the iPad fit in a photography workflow?” Last week my buddy Scott Kelby wrote a post about what he’d like to see in a “real Photoshop for iPad.” Adobe demonstrated some Photoshop technologies for iPad at Photoshop World in Orlando. There are several image editing and image viewing Apps for the iPad. So the question becomes does the iPad fit in a Photographer’s workflow and if so how?

The short answer is YES!

Here are the ways that I use my iPad in my day-to-day photography workflow:

Getting ready for the shoot

If i’m doing a model shoot, then I use the PosePad App to plan out my shoot with photos and notes to pull up right there on the spot and walk them over to the model. This is my digital shot list. This has worked extremely well even on location shoots outside the studio.

PosePad for iPad .

Model and Property Releases

I stopped carrying paper releases over a year ago. There are two fantastic Apps for doing CUSTOM (yes, YOUR text) release forms for both Model and Property releases. I prefer the look and feel of the release forms in Easy Release, but I absolutely love the exhaustive number of available custom fields in the Contract Maker Pro. My recommendation: For a basic release only requiring a few fields and your custom text that looks great, go with Easy Release. If your release forms are more complicated or multiple pages go with Contract Maker Pro. Both Apps are GREAT!

Easy Release .

Contract Maker Pro .

Getting Images into the iPad

When you’re out and on the go chances are you’re going to be shooting and you’ll want to do two things. You’ll want to backup your images and review them. Let’s start with getting them in. There are 3 popular choices. The first is Apple’s own Camera Connection Kit. It works great with SD cards or via a USB cable to your camera. It will bring in your pics (JPG or RAW or both) as well as your videos. However, it will not work with Compact Flash cards. Apple turned down the power of the port via a software update and therefore card readers don’t work anymore connected to the Camera Connection Kit. That brings me to a NEW option: M.i.C. has shipped a CF reader for the iPad. Lastly and probably my favorite method is to shoot wirelessly into the iPad via the Eye-Fi card.

Continue reading “How the iPad fits into a Photography Workflow”

May 2, 2011April 29, 2011

Review: M.I.C Compact Flash Reader for iPad

I reviewed Apple's Camera Connection Kit when it first came out. The Apple kit is two adapters. One is an SD reader and the other is a USB port designed to connect your camera directly to your iPad for image import. The one glaring omission is the lack of a way to bring in images directly from a Compact Flash (CF) card. During my review, I showed how you could attach a standard (San Disk) reader to the Camera Connection Kit and bring images in directly from your CF Cards. However, shortly after I did the review Apple released an iPad software update that basically reduced the amount of power that the dock connector outputs making it virtually impossible to power a card reader. I guess they didn't like people plugging in all the things (keyboard, drives, etc.) they were plugging in to the Camera Connection Kit on their magical devices. That left us with the only option being to use a USB cable and connect the camera directly to the iPad. While this works, it's slow and will drain the cameras battery during long transfers.

Problem Solved by M.I.C

This Hong Kong based company has developed a CF Reader that attaches directly to your iPad and allows you to import your CF cards (up to 400x speed cards) right into your iPad. Of course I ordered a couple of these immediately and mine just arrived this past Friday. I was hopeful and doubtful at the same time. I just couldn't figure out how they would get around the power problem. Well, they did! I plugged in my standard SanDisk 8GB Extreme IV card and it showed up just like the Apple Camera Connection Kit does. I imported my RAW (.NEF) files with no problems.

Hallelujah!

You can order the M.I.C CF Reader here. They are back logged (as you might expect), so give it a couple of weeks.

Show me!

I would normally do a video of such a gadget in action. However, they already had a video that shows it in action and I concur with the results shown. So here it is:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQc22RoTyg

April 28, 2011April 28, 2011

LIVE: Ask a CS Evangelist – again

Join me, Jason Levine (Video Evangelist), Greg Rewis (Web Evangelist) and Paul Trani (Flash Evangelist) for a another LIVE Creative Suite Q&A session Today!

We will show our Top 10 Favorite Features of Adobe Creative Suite 5 and 5.5

Date: Today, Thursday, April 28, 2011

Time: 11:30 AM EDT (GMT-4)

Where: Online in our Connect Room

Cost: Free

Registration: Here

Will there be demos?: Yep

Will there be prizes?: Yes!

What questions can I ask?: Pretty much anything you want, but let's keep it Creative Suite related 🙂

April 27, 2011April 22, 2011

Lessons Learned on The Flash Bus Tour

I had the great pleasure of attending the Flash Bus Tour put on by none other than Joe McNally and David Hobby aka The Strobist. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to learn from these "flash" experts! The day was packed with different lighting setups and live examples.

David Hobby almost never wears long pants 🙂

David Hobby took the morning and started off by deconstructing a couple of his recent shots.

Joe McNally aka Numnuts

Joe McNally took the afternoon and showed how much POWER there is in shooting with speed lights. Drew, I think it's a little close 😉

So that's how they do that Justin Bieber look!

Amazing what you can do with 3 Nikon Speedlights and shooting in TTL.

Audience participation

Great Q&A at the end.

My take-aways

While I own 3 speedlights, I always looked at them as the lights I would use when I travel and don't have the ability to take my "big lights". However, after watching Joe and David I'm really starting to think about using my speedlights more often. As a matter of fact in a recent shoot I did, I decided to use a Nikon SB 900 to augment my natural light setup. I'm having a blast with the possibilities and want to thank Joe and David for not only putting on a great show, but also for bringing the tour to Michigan!

April 27, 2011April 27, 2011

Adobe Lightroom 3.4 is here with Nikon D7000 Tethering Support

If you have a Nikon D7000 (Yippie!), Canon EOS 60D or 550D and you're a Lightroom user you'll be happy to know that the 3.4 update is here and provides built-in Tethering support for your camera.

Grab your update here: