In this episode of Adobe Creative Cloud TV, I’ll cover 5 important things you need to know about your Lightroom 5 catalog.
Are you missing out on my Bonus Content?
See more of my Adobe Creative Cloud Videos on my Adobe Creative Cloud TV and get the App below. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:
No matter how good your subject is, bad light can be distracting.
Any good landscape photographer will tell you that you’ll get the best results if you’re up, out, and ready to shoot as the sun is coming up or as the sun is going down. Middle of the day is probably the absolute worst time to be outside shooting. However, if you’re shooting a wedding or other gig you may not have the luxury of having everyone on set before the sun comes up. Sometimes you’re going to be out in bad light. I hate it, you hate it, and we try to avoid it at all costs, but it may happen some day. Luckily if you’ve got the right gear, it doesn’t have to suck.
As you can see from the harsh mid-morning sun we have hard shadows and unflattering light.
I recently did a beach shoot and I purposely waited until after 9AM to arrive on location. Yep, that’s right I purposely sabotaged my own shoot. I wanted to see if I could still get good results if I used a Scrim Jim Kit. The sun was up and the light was HARSH!
Any other time I would have turned around and headed back home. Even though it wasn’t noon, it looked like it was. Not only was the light harsh on the subjects, but it was a clear sunny day with no clouds and that meant a lot of squinting on the part of my models. It was just bad all the way around.
I set up the Westscott Scrim Jim Large Reflector Kit and I had two people to hold it for me over my subject to block the sun. Now instead of the sun being my enemy, the sun turned the Scrim Jim into a giant softbox with nice even light. The only problem was the wind. It was a windy cool morning and it was a challenge for my assistants to keep the large Scrim Jim in place. It was like holding a sail at times. However, they did a masterful job with it and I was able to shoot with sun being my ally instead of an enemy.
Shot with the Nikon D600, 85mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 200, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec.
The Bottom Line
Now with the Westcott Scrim Jim Large Reflector Kit in place the light is much much better.
I still highly recommend that you shoot in good beautiful natural light. However, if the situation is out of your control and you need to be out in harsh lighting conditions, then I definitely recommend the Westcott Scrim Jim Large Reflector Kit.
Even when you’re not out in bad light you can use it as a reflector. It comes with both a 3/4 stop white diffusion fabric sheet and white/silver reflector fabric sheet and you can quickly attach either one as needed with the built-in Velcro. The frame is quick to assemble and disassemble and it comes in a nice carrying case. If the wind isn’t bad you can also get a stand to hold it for those times when you don’t have an assistant.
Shooting in bad light doesn’t have to suck! You can get the Westcott Scrim Jim Large Reflector Kit here.
Join me on June 18, 2014 as we take the wraps off what’s next in Creative Cloud. See the newest innovations from Adobe as well as updates to many of your favorite products. You can signup to watch the live broadcast here.
I usually carry my Wacom Bamboo Duo Stylus or Wacom Creative Stylus when I travel for business. The Wacom Bamboo Duo Stylus is a great general purpose stylus for touch screens and the Wacom Creative Stylus takes it up a notch by adding pressure sensitivity with supported apps such as Adobe Ideas. However, on a recent trip to Boston I forgot to pack my usual gear and decided to pick one up from Brookstone in the airport. I really was looking for something basic, but I couldn’t resist the Brookstone 3-in-1 USB Tablet Stylus. Like the Wacom Bamboo Duo it serves both as a stylus for touch screens AND a regular ink pen, but they added a 4GB USB flash drive on the end. I don’t use flash drives much these days, but it’s nice to know I have one for a quick file transfer to a client/colleague.
The Brookstone 3-in-1 USB Tablet Stylus feels good in my hand and definitely allows me to draw and sign more accurately on my iPad/iPhone. I guess my only small nitpick is that if you’re going to including a USB flash drive, it’s probably best to make it at least 8GB these days. 4GB seems so small. Otherwise this was a great emergency buy and I will continue to use it along side my other ones.
You can get the Brookstone 3-in-1 USB Table Stylus here.
Since more and more people are using power hungry smartphones more and more each day it’s not uncommon to think about portable batteries to charge your smartphone on the go. If you’re always at your desk or in your car, this is probably less of a concern. However, if you’re a frequent traveler or simply spend several hours a day away from an outlet you can start to get nervous around 3pm as you see that you have less than 30-40% battery remaining. I seem to be amassing a collection of these batteries in all shapes and sizes. Recently the Mophie Power Reserve caught my attention. What stood out to me was the relatively small size, the fact that it attaches to your keys with a supplied keyring and it has a built-in Lightning (or Micro USB) connector. All my other batteries with the exception of the Mophie Juice Air require that I also carry a charging cable. However, the Power Reserve has the cable built right onto the side of it.
What I like about it
I’ve already pretty much covered the things I like about it above, but a couple more things make this a nice battery to have. Although it attaches to my keys with a built-in keyring, they were smart enough to build in a “quick release” button. Just press and hold down the button and the battery detaches from the keyring and exposes the charging cable. Very nice design. Also it’s nice having the small LED (not too bright) status lights to let you know how much juice you have left. Lastly it’s really light weight. My car key weighs more than this battery. It’s also nice to have a choice of colors: black, Product RED and white. It charges via a Micro USB port and comes with a charging cable. You have to supply the charger though (like the one you use for your phone).
What I’m not too crazy about
Like I said, I’ve got a collection of different batteries now and even my smallest one is 3,000 mAh. That means that it has enough battery in it to charge my iPhone 5s all the way up to 100% from dead/near dead. The Mophie Power Reserve only has a 1350 mAh battery in it which they claim will get you about 60% more battery. This is fine in those emergency situations where you need a charge just to get you through the rest of the day or to make that call home or emergency Facebook status update ;-). However, Mophie is charging top dollar for this battery! It’s $49.95. That’s a LOT for a battery this small (in capacity). At first I thought well maybe they have to charge more for the Lightning connector. That was until I checked and saw that the Micro USB version is the exact same price. I normally don’t complain about price in my reviews, but when I look at batteries like this one and this one, that give you a lot more juice for less than/almost half the price, I realize that with the Power Reserve you’re paying a premium for the “design” and integrated cable. The other thing is that the Power Reserve only has a 5V 1 Amp output, which means that it’s really only good for your smartphone and not your tablet. Again, not a big deal since it’s designed to be a smartphone charger, except for when you look at the price.
The Bottom Line
Overall I really like this product. I normally just carry my car key in my pocket, but now it’s a car key plus Mophie Power Reserve. I would love to see Mophie upgrade this product with a higher capacity battery even if it means adding a little more weight to it. I would want 3000 mAh minimum. If not an upgrade then simply cut the price to $24.95 and they won’t be able to make enough of them.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women that currently serve or have served in our US Military Service! Your continued sacrifices to protect our freedoms are greatly appreciated. We are able to spend this day with our friends and families because of what you do!
As we observe this solemn day, we must remember all the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives in the service of our great country.
I still run into photographers that don’t know about this great deal. Adobe is still offering Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, a Behance Prosite (customizable website like mine) and 20GB of cloud storage for only $9.99/month! Yes, this also includes access to Lightroom Mobile. You can sign up for this plan here. I’ve also included three videos below to help you get started:
I’m on the road and I realized that I’m going to be doing more tutorials for my YouTube channel and Creative Cloud TV. While I have a great microphone in my studio, I really didn’t have a good one that’s small enough to travel with. I was in the Apple Store in San Francisco and decided to check out their selection. I was with my colleague and musician Jason Levine. I picked up a small microphone by Apogee and Jason immediately recognized the name and said “you can’t go wrong with them.” Apparently they are well known for professional audio equipment. He saw that it was 24-bit and was again very impressed. Since I trust Jason’s opinion when it comes to audio gear I knew I was holding the best one. I was also intrigued to see that this particular microphone not only had GREAT specs, but it was designed to work with a Mac, iPad, or iPhone! That made this a win-win purchase. I could have a great quality mic for recording on any of my devices.
Setting up the Mic 96k
One concern I had before leaving the store was that it was unclear if it included the stand that was pictured on the box. It stated that it included a “mic adapter” (which it does). The Apple Store rep didn’t know either. I was pleasantly surprised to see that once I opened the box it not only included the little tabletop stand, but also three cables. I expected to have a USB cable for the Mac and one for the Lightning connector on the iPad/iPhone, but it even included the older cable with the 30pin connector for older iOS devices. Setting up the Mic 96 is really easy. Just attach the appropriate cable for your device and plug it in. That’s it. No software to install. The light will go on blue at first. This lets you know that it’s on but not ready. It will then turn green when it’s ready and red if your gain is too high.
I screwed up my first recording
I mistakenly positioned the capsule up instead of facing me.
OK sometimes I’m an idiot when it comes to things like this. I didn’t pay attention to the capsule location so I had the mic pointing at me like a singer would hold a mic instead of straight up and down. It worked, but boy what a difference it made once I put it in the proper orientation. I did a quick test into Screenflow and the sound quality was outstanding. Sadly it was too late to re-record my latest episode as it was already posted.
Testing on the iPad Air
Since I blew my chance to get a real world recording for this week’s episode, I decided to do a quick test on the iPad using Adobe Voice. You can hear the results below or here:
The Bottom Line
Overall I’m very happy with the quality of the hardware itself as well as the audio quality. My only complaint is that for the price I feel it should have come with a carrying case, especially since they tout it as a solution for iPad/iPhone. This means that they expect people to carry it. Other than that I love it!
In this episode of Adobe Creative Cloud TV, I’ll show you how to take advantage of linked smart objects in Photoshop CC. Not only can we place files as links in Photoshop now, but they can even be RAW files. See a workflow from Lightroom to Photoshop to InDesign and Muse.
Are you missing out on my Bonus Content?
See more of my Adobe Creative Cloud Videos on my Adobe Creative Cloud TV and get the App below. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:
A few days ago one of my readers left a comment on one of my posts and he was basically asking why I convert my camera’s RAW files into DNG (Digital Negative) format? He asked if I had a post that I could refer him to about my reasons. I realized that while I’ve talked about converting RAW files into DNG format for years at seminars, training classes and on my videos, I’ve never really done a blog post on it. So here it is – Why DNG?:
What is DNG?
DNG stands for Digital Negative format. The problem with the RAW files that your camera produces is that they are proprietary. Also since every camera manufacturer makes their own RAW format (Nikon .NEF, Canon .CR2, etc.) there is no real standard. Each camera manufacturer does whatever they feel like in their format. This also means that not all software can read every RAW format because with each camera manufacturer and each new camera the software companies have to update their software to be compatible with the slight changes in each RAW format. Notice how your software never has to be upgraded to read JPEG files. That’s because JPEG is a universal, non-proprietary standard. You never have to worry about a company going out of business and therefore not being able to access your JPEG files. Like JPEG, DNG is an open standard. Although it was created by Adobe, it’s an open standard with a published specification. If Adobe did nothing else with DNG the standard would still live on. Some cameras even shoot natively in DNG format now.
Why I convert my Nikon .NEF files into DNG
I’ve been converting my Nikon, Sony, and Canon RAW files into DNG format for several years now. However, as usual the question comes up – why? Why go through the extra step to convert your files to DNG. Here are a few reasons for me:
My images are my memories and can’t be replaced. I never want to worry about a day when I can’t open them up because of a company going out of business or deciding to stop support of a format. With DNG I have that extra peace of mind.
DNG saves me space. On average my DNG files take up about 1MB less space than my original .NEF files. Since there’s no loss of quality I’ll happily take the storage savings.
No XMP Sidecar Files! Since software programs can’t really edit RAW files (it’s the non-destructive benefit of working in RAW), any changes you make are made to a small text file that accompanies the RAW file. These small text files are called sidecar files and it becomes one more thing you have to keep track of. Now instead of a folder of images, you have a folder of images and sidecar files. With DNG the changes you make are written non-destructively right into the DNG file.
Backwards compatibility. DNG format has been supported since Photoshop 7, so I can hand off a DNG file from a camera that just came out to someone with an older version of Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom and they’d be able to open it up and work on it.
How To Convert Your RAW files to DNG format
Like I said, I’ve been converting my RAW files into DNG for years now. I do it upon import into Adobe Lightroom. However, if you’ve already got images in Lightroom that are in your camera’s RAW format, you can convert them after the fact by selecting the ones you want to convert and choosing “Convert Photos to DNG” from the Library menu.
If you’re not using Lightroom, Adobe actually makes a FREE stand alone DNG converter. It’s always updated anytime there is a new version of Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom so that it has support for the latest digital cameras and their RAW formats. You can learn more about DNG and grab the FREE DNG converter for Mac or Win here.
