The DJI Mavic Air is my New Favorite Drone

I’ve really enjoyed flying my drones over the past few years and adding them as a tool to my photography/videography story telling. My trip to Iceland last year was the first time I shot more footage with my DJI Mavic Pro drone than any other camera that I brought with me on the trip (see my Iceland video here). The more I flew it the more confident I got that I wasn’t going to lost it. This allowed me to capture footage that I probably otherwise wouldn’t have gotten because I wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone.

This year it’s all about the DJI Mavic Air

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What I’m Live Streaming About This Week – 2/12 thru 2/16

As promised this is the first of hopefully many Monday morning posts outlining my Live Streaming Schedule for the week. This way my followers to can easily see where I’ll be live streaming and what the topic will be. This week starts off with:

Monday, February 12, 2018 – 1PM PT – Back to the Basics with Adobe Photoshop CC – Part 4 – How to Work With Layers.

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Back to the Basics with Adobe Photoshop CC & InDesign CC

I’ve been doing a series called “Back to the Basics.” These videos have been done in the form of live streams on YouTube (for Photoshop) and Facebook (for InDesign). While I don’t have a schedule that is locked in stone, I figured it would be best to post here more regularly about the streams I’m planning to do that week. I’ll do my best to start posting my schedule here on Mondays. Let’s see how it goes. In the meantime, you can catch the replays of the ones I’ve done thus far here:

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New Updates to Lightroom – December 2017

New Auto Settings, powered by Adobe Sensei

“Auto” just got a whole lot more, well “Auto.” The NEW Auto Settings are powered by Adobe’s artificial intelligence “Adobe Sensei” Now instead of Auto doing the same thing to every photo based on a few parameters, the NEW Auto Settings will give you better results by actually analyzing your photo and comparing it to thousands of professionally edited photos to create a better result. This new option is now available across the board in Lightroom Classic CC, Lightroom CC and Lightroom CC on your mobile devices. The New Auto may or may not be your final edit, but even in situations where you want to do more to the image, it provides a much better starting point.

The Tone Curve is in Lightroom CC Desktop

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I Found a Magnetic Wireless iPhone X Charging Mount for my Car

Now that I have an iPhone that supports wireless charging I wanted that same convenience in my car. Putting my favorite wireless charger in my house is a piece of cake. I really like the Anker Wireless Charging Pad for my desk and nightstand. However, in the car i had been using a magnetic vent mount that I really like. Here’s one that I like and used with my iPhone 7 Plus from Arkon and here’s one that I like from Kenu. The only problem with either of these two mounts is that while they securely hold my iPhone in place, in order to power it I need to also plug in a cable. I want a solution that is just as convenient as the Anker Wireless Charging Pad, but for my car vent.

I found the right mount!

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iPhone X Review

It’s that time a year again and I know I’m late to the iPhone X (pronounced 10 as in Roman Numeral X) review party. This is the first iPhone in 10 years that I didn’t receive on release day. I did place my iPhone X 256GB Black order just after midnight Pacific Time on Friday October 27th, but my ship date was immediately given as November 17th – November 24th (2 weeks after the first shipment). I did receive it a few days early last week on November 14th. With that out of the way let’s get on to the review.

Wow! Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since the first iPhone. I have done a review every year and it’s fun to go back through the years and see how much has changed. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can see my first iPhone review here. A lot has changed since 2007 and while many iPhone versions (like the “s” models) have been evolutionary, the iPhone X does feel like a brand new iPhone. It’s the first iPhone in 10 years to ditch the home button and this may surprise you, but…

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I’m heading to PhotoPlus Expo 2017…

Hey everyone, if you’re going to be at PhotoPlus Expo 2017 in New York this week, stop by and say hello!

My very busy schedule is below:

Visit the Adobe Show Floor Theater for free 20-minute educational seminars all three days of the show from industry leaders in photography and filmmaking. The Adobe Show Floor Theater, located at the rear of the PhotoPlus Expo hall, is designed for attendees to get more tips and tricks to take their craft to the next level.

Thursday, Oct. 26 Presenter
10:15 AM Bring out the best in outdoor shots Nick Pappagallo
10:45 AM Make people look their best Lindsay Adler
11:15 AM Add stock photography to your income stream Terry White
11:45 AM Powerful mobile photography Matt Kloskowski
12:15 PM What’s new in Lightroom Julieanne Kost
12:45 PM Lightroom for beginners Terry White
3:30 PM Tell your story with Adobe Spark Terry White
4:00 PM Solve exposure challenges Serge Ramelli
4:30 PM Explore the Lightroom Develop Module Terry White
Friday, Oct. 27
10:15 AM Lightroom for beginners Terry White
10:45 AM Compositing techniques Katrin Eismann
11:15 AM Make people look their best Lindsay Adler
11:45 AM Remove distracting elements Matt Kloskowski
12:15 PM What’s new in Lightroom Julieanne Kost
12:45 PM Add stock photography to your income stream Terry White
1:15 PM Tell your story with Adobe Spark Al Rossin
1:45 PM Powerful mobile photography Katrin Eismann
2:15 PM Bring out the best in outdoor shots Nick Pappagallo
2:45 PM Explore the Lightroom Develop Module Terry White
3:15 PM Easy landscape and archtictural edits Serge Ramelli
3:45 PM Powerful mobile photography Terry White
4:15 PM Add stock photography to your income stream Terry White
Saturday, Oct. 28
10:15 AM What’s new in Lightroom Terry White
10:45 AM Solve exposure challenges Serge Ramelli
11:15 AM Compositing techniques Katrin Eismann
11:45 AM Remove distracting elements Matt Kloskowski
12:15 PM Add stock photography to your income stream Terry White
12:45 PM Bring out the best in outdoor shots Nick Pappagallo
1:15 PM Lightroom for beginners Terry White
1:45 PM Easy landscape and archtictural edits Serge Ramelli
2:15 PM Powerful mobile photography Terry White
2:45 PM Solve exposure challenges Serge Ramelli
3:15 PM Tell your story with Adobe Spark Terry White

I look forward to seeing you all there!
NYC!


The Find My iPhone App Saved Me Twice in One Week

BlackPods AirPods
You can get your AirPods painted black at blackpods.store
I’m usually very good at keeping up with my gear. To date I’ve never lost a phone, iPod, camera or other portable electronic piece of gear. However, last week I had a couple of close calls and both were quickly solved with the free Find my iPhone app by Apple. Don’t let the name fool you. “Find my iPhone” isn’t just limited to finding lost/stolen iPhones. It can find just about any piece of Apple gear that’s equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth or Cellular.

I almost lost an AirPod

I remember when I got my AirPods at the beginning of the year, the number one question/concern people asked me was “aren’t you afraid of losing them?” I wasn’t afraid of losing them at all. They fit snuggly enough in my ears not to fall out on their own and whenever I’m not using them I return them to the charging case. However, I almost lost one last week in a weird way:

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Adobe Lightroom CC vs. Lightroom Classic CC: Which one is for you?

Last week during Adobe MAX, Adobe took the wraps off its new photography system: Lightroom CC. Wait, wasn’t there already a Lightroom CC? Yes. Let me try to clear up some confusion I’ve seen out there. First off if you were already using Lightroom CC the good news is that Lightroom Classic CC is the same product that you’ve invested time in to learn and have been using for years. There is one change though besides the name. It’s much faster in most areas than it was before. The team has spent the last several months boosting the performance of Lightroom Classic CC, which is what we all wanted.

Lightroom CC
Lightroom CC doing a search for “tree” and finding images that were never keyworded.
OK then what is Lightroom CC? The existing version of Lightroom has been branded Lightroom Classic CC and there is a brand new built from the ground up application called Lightroom CC. This new desktop application now fits in the Lightroom CC family as a seamless way for photographers to have their images everywhere.

Lightroom Classic CC
Lightroom Classic CC
Didn’t Lightroom (Classic) CC have the ability to sync my photos and have them everywhere? Not completely. If you import images into Lightroom Classic CC, you still have the ability to sync images, but what gets sync’d are smart previews and not the original full resolution JPEG and Raw files. Now with the NEW Lightroom CC you get full resolution files sync’d and backed up to the cloud no matter where you import them from. If I import my DSLR raw images they get sync’d to the cloud. If I shoot into the Lightroom CC app on my iPhone or iPad (yes Android too) the full resolution JPEGs or Raw files get sync’d to the cloud and appear everywhere.

Should I use Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic CC?

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