All new versions of your favorite Adobe creative applications are here! As you might expect it has been a busy few months for me not only getting up to speed on all that’s new for Design and Photography (the areas I focus on), but also creating content so that you can get up to speed quickly.
Before we get to the content let’s talk about installation
Last year when we released the 2014 Release of Creative Cloud there was a lot of confusion because the installer installed the new CC 2014 apps along side your existing CC apps. People didn’t know if they needed to keep the older apps installed or not. This time around the powers that be have decided that it’s best to “uninstall” your older CC applications by default. Of course you can choose NOT to do this if you want to hang on to your older applications. My colleague Jeff Tranberry has done a great job outlining what’s going here.
What’s NEW in the 2015 Release of Adobe Creative Cloud?
I just released 25 NEW videos outlining the individual top features of Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Muse CC, Lightroom CC and the updated Mobile Apps. I put them all in a single playlist to make it easy on ya:
Looking forward to seeing many of you at Professional Imaging in the Netherlands this weekend. Should be a lot of fun and a lot of great information passed on from the very talented list of instructors. I’ll be teaching my photography workflow using Lightroom and Photoshop CC. If you attend the show be sure to stop by and say hello. Also if you have any “must shoot” location recommendations be sure to leave a comment below.
I’ve been doing video tutorials since 2006 and I mostly concentrate on the Adobe’s design and photography products. However, I do dabble in the video tools too. Last May I thought it would be helpful to my followers if I released a How To Get Started with Adobe Premiere Pro CC – 10 Things Beginners Want to Know How To Do. Little did I know then that it would rise to the number three spot of my top 10 most watched videos each month with close to a quarter million views to date. Of course the other side effect was that I got tons of requests to do one on After Effects. While I use Premiere Pro CC on a somewhat regular basis, I haven’t really used After Effects in several months. I didn’t let that stop me from answering the call and yesterday I released the long awaited How To Get Started with Adobe After Effects CC – 10 Things Beginners Want to Know How to Do. This video like its sister video has already had a large number of views in less than 24 hours. You asked for it, here it is:
The February 2015 Updates of Adobe Muse CC and Adobe InDesign CC
I also recently released videos covering the latest updates of Adobe Muse CC and Adobe InDesign CC. Check them out:
B&H Photo and Video now sells the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan
That’s right you can buy a year of Adobe Creative Cloud for photographers, which includes Adobe Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5 and Lightroom Mobile. You can get it here:
I’ve talked about and shown The Turning Gate’s Client Response Gallery plugin for Lightroom. This plugin produces a totally customizable web gallery to get feedback/pic selections from your client. I couldn’t imagine being a photographer without this awesome solution. Last year The Turning Gate moved all of their popular web publishing solutions to their CE4 platform. The obvious omission was the Client Response Gallery (CRG). What the CE4 platform enabled was the ability to use Lightroom’s “Publish Services” to update your website (no matter where it’s hosted) with the same ease as publishing directly to Facebook or Flickr. No more having to export a gallery and use FTP or having to configure and use Lightroom’s FTP. Although the front end of my photography website (http://terrywhitephotography.com) was created with Adobe Muse CC, the galleries are all powered via the The Turning Gate’s Web Publishing Suite. This means that all I have to do to update my site is drag photos into a collection and hit the “Publish” button – Done!
Now imagine that same convenience for putting up a web gallery of “proofs” for your client to look through, select and send those selections back to you. That’s exactly what the NEW CE4 Client Response Gallery brings to the table.
Now I can just create a new Lightroom Collection under the Client Response Gallery Publish Service and click the Publish button.
My images are uploaded at the web resolution I specify with my copyright watermark on them. Once the upload completes I just send my client an email or text message with the link to their gallery.
They can scroll through the thumbnails, click to view the larger versions, play a slideshow and make selections. Even the color labels that I use for identifying my favorites or their (in studio) favorites are shown to make the selection process go faster. They click the Send button, put their name, email address and any comments in and I get an email with the exact photo “titles” that they chose. Now I can simply select the names in the email, copy them and then paste them in the Text search in Lightroom to show me exactly which ones I need to retouch.
The NEW CE4 Client Response Gallery offers even more customization options and the overall performance has been improved. While the price has increased from $25 to now $50 (upgrade pricing is available), it is worth every penny as it saves me time and headache with every single shoot that I do.
If you’re looking for a GREAT place to host your website or your web galleries, check out Bluehost.com as they’re having a sale on their hosting from now through the end of January 2015.
In this episode of Adobe Creative Cloud TV, I’ll show you how to use Lightroom Mobile to get client feedback on your photos. Find out which photos your clients like and perhaps want to purchase.
Lightroom 5.7 and Adobe Camera RAW 8.7 Released Today!
I cover the new features of Lightroom 5.7 as they relate to Lightroom Mobile in the video above. However, there are some more things you should know:
Integrated a utility to import images from Apple Aperture and Apple iPhoto libraries into Lightroom:
Previously available as a separate and downloadable plug-in, this utility has now been integrated into Lightroom 5.7
New Camera Support in Lightroom 5.7
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Canon PowerShot G7 X
Canon PowerShot SX60 HS
Casio EX-100PRO
Fujifilm X30
Fujifilm X100T
Fujifilm X-T1 Graphite Silver
Leaf Credo 50
Leica D-Lux (Typ 109)
Leica M-P
Leica V-Lux (Typ 114)
Leica X (Typ 113)
Nikon D750
Olympus PEN E-PL7
Olympus STYLUS 1s
Panasonic DMC-CM1
Panasonic DMC-GM1S
Panasonic DMC-GM5
Panasonic DMC-LX
Pentax K-S1
Pentax QS-1
Samsung NX1
Sony ILCE-5100
Sony ILCE-QX1
Newly supported cameras for Tethered Capture in Lightroom 5.7
Nikon D4S
Nikon D810
New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 5.7
Apple iPhone 6
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Canon EF SIGMA 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014
Canon EF SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM S014
Canon EF Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm f/2.8
Canon EF Zeiss Otus 1.4/85 ZE
Fujifilm X Fujifilm X100T
Fujifilm X HandeVision IBELUX 40mm F0.85
GoPro Hero
GoPro Hero4 Black Edition
GoPro Hero4 Silver Edition
Leica M Leica SUMMARIT-M 35 mm f/2.4 ASPH
Leica M Leica SUMMARIT-M 50 mm f/2.4
Leica M Leica SUMMARIT-M 75 mm f/2.4
Leica M Leica SUMMARIT-M 90 mm f/2.4
Leica M SLR Magic 50mm T0.95 Hyperprime Cine Lens
Leica M Voigtlander VM 12mm F5.6 Ultra Wide Heliar ASPH.
Leica M Voigtlander VM 15mm F4.5 Super Wide Heliar II ASPH.
Leica M Voigtlander VM 21mm F1.8 Ultron ASPH.
Leica M Voigtlander VM 21mm F4 Color Skopar
Leica M Voigtlander VM 25mm F4 Color Skopar
Leica M Voigtlander VM 28mm F2 Ultron
Leica M Voigtlander VM 35mm F1.2 Nokton II ASPH.
Leica M Voigtlander VM 35mm F1.4 Nokton Classic
Leica M Voigtlander VM 35mm F2.5 Color Skopar
Leica M Voigtlander VM 40mm F1.4 Nokton Classic
Leica M Voigtlander VM 50mm F1.1 Nokton
Leica M Voigtlander VM 50mm F1.5 Nokton
Leica M Voigtlander VM 75mm F1.8 Heliar
Leica S Leica SUMMICRON-S 100 mm f/2 ASPH.
Nikon F Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 20mm f/1.8G ED
Nikon F Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f2.8E FL ED VR
Nikon F SIGMA 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014
Nikon F SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM S014
Nikon F Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX-II 11-16mm f/2.8
Nikon F Voigtlander SL 40mm F2 Ultron ASPHERICAL
Nikon F Voigtlander SL 40mm F2 Ultron ASPHERICAL Close-up Lens
Nikon F Zeiss Otus 1.4/85 ZF.2
Pentax HD PENTAX-DA 645 28-45mm F4.5 ED AW SR
Pentax HD PENTAX-DA 16-85mm F3.5-5.6 ED DC WR
Pentax HD PENTAX-DA 20-40mm F2.8-4 Limited
Sigma SIGMA 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014
Sigma SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM S014
Sony Alpha SIGMA 18-300mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014
Sony Alpha SIGMA 24-105mm F4 DG OS HSM A013
Sony Alpha Sony DT 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 SAM
Sony Alpha Sony DT 18-70mm F3.5-5.6
Sony Alpha Sony DT 55-200mm F4-5.6
Sony Alpha Sony 75-300mm F4.5-5.6
Sony Alpha Sony 300mm F2.8 G SSM
Sony Alpha Sony 500mm F4 G SSM
Sony E HandeVision IBELUX 40mm F0.85
Sony E SLR Magic 50mm F0.95 Hyperprime Lens
Sony E Sony FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS
Sony E Sony FE PZ 28-135mm F4 G OSS
Sony E Zeiss Loxia Biogon T* 2/35
Sony E Zeiss Loxia Planar T* 2/50
Bugs Corrected in Lightroom 5.7
The crop overlay displayed an intermediate step when progressing through images in the filmstrip with overlay displayed.
The lens profile for the Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 would not auto-select when using Lens Profile Corrections.
ICC profiles resulted in incorrectly clipped shadows and blacks in Lightroom. Note that this is related to the issue identified here and only occurs on Mac OSX 10.9 and later
Fixed crash when rapidly adding corrections with the Spot Removal tool.
Fixed bug that prevented the Filter Brush cursor from displaying while changing brush size when the Graduated and Radial Filter overlay is turned off.
Improved quality of Camera Matching color profiles for the Nikon D810. Fixes visible banding issues with the Camera Standard, Camera Vivid, Camera Landscape, and Camera Monochrome profiles.
ACR 8.7 now supports HiDPI displays on Windows. Please use the following steps to enabled HiDPI on Windows:
Go to Photoshop -> Preferences -> Experimental Features
Click on “Scaled UI 200% for high-density displays”
Bug Fixes:
Fixed crash when rapidly adding corrections with the Spot Removal tool.
Fixed bug that prevented the Filter Brush cursor from displaying while changing brush size when the Graduated and Radial Filter overlay is turned off.
Improved quality of Camera Matching color profiles for the Nikon D810. Fixes visible banding issues with the Camera Standard, Camera Vivid, Camera Landscape, and Camera Monochrome profiles.
Please note – If you have trouble updating to the latest ACR update via the Creative Cloud application, please refer to this installation note.
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. My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:
Earlier this year in May I did a post called “Photographers: iMac or Mac Pro?” It was a post that was meant to really ask the question that as a photographer would you benefit from the faster and more expensive Mac Pro over say a nicely equipped iMac (or in my case MacBook Pro)? There was only one problem with that post. I didn’t actually have an iMac to compare. I ran all my tests using my high-end Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Retina Display. I noted that although my MacBook Pro fared quite well against the Mac Pro for common “photography workflow” tasks, that an iMac would probably do even better! Well now I have a NEW iMac Retina 5k Mac to test/review and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results. I was a little blown away!
The same game rules apply!
If you don’t like Macs/Apple or don’t want a Mac for whatever your reasons are, you can pretty much stop here and find something else to do with your time. I find it entertaining when people feel compelled to tell you/me how much they don’t want the thing you’re reviewing or writing about because they use something else. This is not a Mac vs. _______ post. If you’re happy with a Windows PC or Linux PC, or anything else, I’m happy for you. If you can build your own PC cheaper, that’s awesome!
If you’re reading the rest of this post then I’ll assume that you’re a Mac user or thinking of becoming one.
The next thing I’d like to get out of the way is that if you’re looking for a Mac Pro review that tells you this new Mac Pro is better than the previous Mac Pro with all the benchmarks to back it up, then you’d probably be better served by other reviewers who have targeted the performance of the new model vs. the older model. I’m doing this review/comparison simply to answer the question, “as a photographer would I be better off spending my money on the NEW iMac Retina 5K Display or a Mac Pro?” If you’re a videographer and you’re a Mac user then you probably already have the new Mac Pro because you demanded the fastest Mac you could get to render your videos on a daily basis.
Updated: Introduction
When I saw the rumors that Apple was going to release a radically different design for the Mac Pro, to be quite honest I was only mildly interested. As I stated above, I realized with my last Mac Pro that I wasn’t really a Mac Pro customer. Sure I appreciate the faster performance, but I found myself only using my Mac Pro when I knew a process was going to take a long time to complete. Otherwise I was quite happy just using my MacBook Pro simply because I could use it in any room at any time. I could take it with me on the road. However, I said to myself perhaps if the performance (for what I do) is significantly better and the price point for an entry model was $2,500 or less, I’d consider getting one. Well we know the latter didn’t happen, so now it was time to test the performance. I got the opportunity to test a Mac Pro standard configuration in my studio for a few weeks. I loaded the latest version of my Adobe Creative Cloud applications on it as well as a few utilities that I use such as ScreenFlow. Next, I began running side-by-side tests of the things that I do daily that take more than a few seconds. My assumption was that the Mac Pro would certainly be at least twice as fast at everything I threw at it than my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina Display Mac. Actually I was wrong! Now fast forward to November and I have brand new iMac Retina 5k here to review and test. At the time I did the tests back in May, I really wasn’t expecting to run these tests again. Therefore I didn’t really hold on to the test files that I used. Luckily I was able to reassemble most of them with a couple minor exceptions that I will outline below:
When will a Mac Pro significantly outperform any other Mac?
As I said above, I was wrong in my assumption that the Mac Pro would be at least twice as fast at everything. Actually it is faster at (almost) everything! Just not by a margin of two. On every test I threw at it the Mac Pro outperformed my now two-year-old MacBook Pro, but in some cases it was only slightly faster. With the new iMac Retina 5k there was even less of a difference. This is when I realized that in order to see significant speed improvements the software you’re testing not only needs to be optimized for the faster processors, but also it would need to take advantage of the multiple cores. Even then, the iMac and MacBook Pro are no slouch. They’ve got multiple cores too. Where I saw the biggest differences was in (no surprise) video rendering and processes that take longer than a minute or so anyway. At this point I now have a new iMac Retina 5K Display to compare as well. The differences in speed were less dramatic as I expected. However, even doing video tasks the iMac held its own and really started bringing into question “when would I ever want a Mac Pro?” When I ran the tests in May the Mac Pro was significantly faster at video tasks than my two year old MacBook Pro. However, I not only now have a new Mid 2014 MacBook Pro Retina that is faster than my old one, but I also have a base model iMac Retina 5k to compare too.
UPDATED TEST RESULTS
What I do as a photographer
As a photographer I spend most of my time in Adobe Lightroom 5 and Adobe Photoshop CC. Photoshop CC definitely takes advantage of multiple cores and now has Open CL support. So filters will run faster on the new Mac Pro. All of these applications are 64bit native and that means that they’ll take advantage of additional RAM.
My first test was one of the things I do after every shoot. I convert my RAW files into .DNG (Digital Negative) format. This is one of the few times that I see a progress bar in Lightroom because it does take time to do it. I converted 435 16MP Nikon .NEF RAW files into DNG format.
First on the MacBook Pro it took 14 minutes 35 seconds
On the Mac Pro the same conversion took 12 minutes 12 seconds.
OK, ready for this? On the NEW iMac Retina 5K a 435 16MP conversion took 11 minutes 39 seconds. Huh! What? Wait a minute! It was actually slightly (less than a second) faster than the Mac Pro. This of course left me scratching my head, but I have a couple of caveats to bring up. First off this is 6 months later and we’re on a newer operating system, Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, which in theory could be faster than Mavericks. The only caveat as I mentioned in the introduction was that I didn’t have all the same exact files from the May test. Yes I converted 435 16.2 MP files from my Nikon D4, but they weren’t the same exact images. I can’t see where that would make too big of a difference though. They are from the same camera and a similar portrait shoot, just not the same exact images as before. We can argue this one more, but just for kicks I ran the same test on my NEW Mid 2014 MacBook Pro Retina with a Core i7 Haswell processor and SSD drive (the iMac has a Fusion drive) and it was even faster at 9 minutes 56 seconds. This we can probably say is faster on the MacBook Pro over the iMac because it’s a faster processor and faster drive, but it doesn’t really explain why it would be faster than the Mac Pro. Since they aren’t the same exact images, let’s move on to the other test where the files ARE THE SAME!
HDR Test
The next test was a simple HDR (High Dynamic Range) conversion in Photoshop CC using three RAW files. This is a two-part process. The first part is simply combining the three (or more) images together and aligning them. Then the second part of the process is applying whatever settings you want to control how your HDR looks.
The first part on the 2012 MacBook Pro took 12.70 seconds and on the Mac Pro it took 9.10 seconds
The second part on the 2012 MacBook Pro took 13.00 seconds and on the Mac Pro it took 11.13 seconds.
What about the iMac Retina 5K?
Since I had the exact same RAW files for this test I ran it on the iMac:
The first part on the iMac took 10.75 seconds and the second part took 10.75 seconds. This makes it only 1.5 seconds slower than the Mac Pro for this test.
Pano Stitch
The next test was stitching a Panorama together using Photoshop CC and 10 RAW files
On the 2012 MacBook Pro this process took 1 minute 12 seconds
On the Mac Pro this process took 51 seconds.
On the iMac Retina 5K Display this process took 1 minute (9 seconds slower than the Mac Pro)
I could have gone on running other tests and other filters, but these are the things I do on a regular basis. If it was faster at something that I rarely do, then I really don’t care as much. As you can see from the results above, the Mac Pro wins on every test as you would expect it to, but the results (even if it was twice as fast in every case) may not justify the difference in cost. We’ll get to that at the end.
Next it was time to look at what I do as a Photographer when it comes to video
I use video in a couple of different ways. The first as a photographer is to tell my story. This means capturing video with my DLSR, GoPro, iPhone, etc. I use Adobe Premiere Pro CC to assemble those videos and then output them to share (usually on YouTube). The next way that I use video and probably the way that I use video the most often is to record my Creative Cloud TV video podcasts. These screen recordings are done with ScreenFlow and since the editing I do is pretty simple I can edit these right in ScreenFlow. Of course I need to export those videos out and this can take a while depending on the length of the video. I had no doubts that this is where the Mac Pro would really shine. After all these are the kind of processor and resource intensive tasks that the Mac Pro was built for. I was not disappointed.
The first test I ran was an export of an hour-long edited video out of ScreenFlow.
On the MacBook Pro this export took 60 minutes
On the Mac Pro this export took 33 minutes.
On the iMac Retina 5K this export took 35 minutes.
It gets better in Adobe Premiere Pro CC and the Adobe Media Encoder CC. I needed to convert this video into a different format using the Adobe Media Encoder CC.
On the MacBook Pro this conversion/export took 34 minutes 36 seconds
On the Mac Pro this conversion/export took only 12 minutes 36 seconds
On the iMac Retina 5K this conversion/export took 19 minutes 26 seconds
What about that beautiful 5K Retina Display?
No photograph can do this display justice. You have to see it in person with your own eyes to appreciate it!
One the biggest reasons I would recommend an iMac over a Mac Pro to a photographer beside the money saved, is the fact that you’re getting a 27″ 5K Hi-DPI (Retina) display! Your images are going to look amazing on this display. I was blown away by the sharpness and the detail. Besides the obvious sharpness and detail, the other benefit is being able to work at high resolutions in programs like Photoshop. If you set the display resolution higher (I use SwitchResX for complete control of this) you can actually see more of your images as you work. No more having to zoom in to 100%. You can actually see them at 100% if you want. As it stands today, you won’t find a better display to see your images on. If you do, it will likely cost more!
The Bottom Line
I’m sure if we just ran processor and benchmark test that The NEW Mac Pro is the fastest Mac that Apple has ever created. The question you have to ask yourself is, “Do I run benchmark tests or do I use applications on a day to day basis that I’m waiting for tasks to complete?” For me the answer is no. Sure if I spent my days rendering video all day every day, I’d already have the Mac Pro. There would be no question. However, as a photographer I can’t justify the difference in price. Now that the iMac has a Retina 5k display it’s even a more compelling choice for photographers.
The Mac Pro model and configuration that I tested above is here. (Now keep in mind that if I was going to buy one I’d start with this configuration and I’d go with a bigger internal drive and more RAM)
Believe it or not the iMac Retina 5k that I tested was this base model. The results above were achieved with only 8GB of RAM and a 1TB Fusion Drive. If I were to buy an iMac I would get this model and I would buy this 32GB RAM upgrade and put it in myself. This configuration would give me a faster processor, an internal 512GB SSD, 32GB of RAM a 5k Retina Display, Keyboard and Mouse for less than the price of the Mac Pro that I tested.
Why an iMac? Although I don’t use one (I’ll have to send this one back if I don’t want to buy it), an iMac makes sense because you’re getting a fast Mac with a nice big 27″ 5k display all in one. You can’t really get a better display for this price and it includes a computer 🙂
Why a MacBook Pro? For me the MacBook Pro makes the most sense because when I’m at my desk I have connected to a nice 24″ HD Wacom Cintiq display/tablet. When I get ready to go I disconnect it and go. I have a computer with a nice 15″ Retina display when I’m on the road. If I didn’t travel for a living then I would absolutely have an iMac. Since I travel a lot, a MacBook Pro makes more sense. With that said, if I had never used a Cintiq AND I had seen the iMac 5k with my work on it as I have with this test unit I would be hard pressed not to buy one and just use an Intuos Pro tablet instead.
If you want the fastest Mac and you don’t mind spending $3,000-$4,000 (or more) on it plus having to buy a display, keyboard and mouse, then definitely go with a Mac Pro. Almost everything you do will likely be faster than the Mac you’re currently using. At the end of the day I realize that computers have become “fast enough” and that I don’t spend a lot of time waiting these days. Even when a process such as a video render/export is going to take a few minutes I can toss it to the background and work on other things in the foreground. My last Mac Pro once configured set me back over $5,000 and while it was a beast, I found that I wasn’t really using it as much as I had hoped I would, so I sold it. The new Mac Pro is faster, but is it $4,000 + display, keyboard and mouse faster? For me it’s not. The NEW iMac Retina 5k and MacBook Pro Retina 15″ will definitely hold their own against a Mac Pro for the kinds of tasks that photographers do.
After posting my last update about how I had built my photography website with Adobe Lightroom and plug-ins from The Turning Gate, I started getting questions like: “Could you build your site with Adobe Muse CC?” Of course the answer was always “yes I could, but…” There was a big reason that I built this particular site with Lightroom instead of Muse. I’m always updating my photography galleries with new photos and removing older photos. I manage all of my portfolios and this process with Collections in Lightroom. With the Web Publishing Bundle from The Turning Gate I’m able to update those galleries at any time with the click of the “Publish” button right in Lightroom. However, on the other hand Adobe Muse would allow me to customize the look and feel of the site more easily and basically do anything I wanted on any page at any time without having to write code or CSS.
Hmmmm, why not use them both?
The more I thought about it the more I figured I could have my cake and eat it too. I could build all the non-gallery pages (Home, About me, Contact, etc.) using Adobe Muse and use Lightroom and The Turning Gate plug-ins to continue to update the galleries. It would take a little more setup up front, but once the work was completed I would have the ease of updating the galleries anytime that I like right from Lightroom AND the ease of customization for the rest of the site using Adobe Muse.
Using Adobe Muse CC I customized the look of the site and navigation
I set out to complete this task this past weekend and I put the new site up (terrywhitephotography.com) on Monday. As with any new site I’m still tweaking things here and there, but I’m LOVING IT so far! I built a standard Adobe Muse site with all three layouts (Desktop, Tablet and Phone) and I also made sure to include the pages that would need to be in the menu, but not actually built in Muse (Galleries, Videos, Tutorials and Buy Prints). Using the trick of Excluding those Pages from the menu allowed me to put custom links in to the Galleries and Videos pages produced by Lightroom/The Turning Gate. I also had to modify my Lightroom produced pages to point back to the main site when someone clicks on home, about and contact.
Using Lightroom and the CE4 Web Publishing System from The Turning Gate I can publish my galleries to my website.
I’ve anticipated at least some of the questions you may have, so here we go:
FAQ
Q. What did Muse let you do that you couldn’t have done with The Turning Gate?
A. The first one was I’ve always wanted a full screen slideshow on the homepage of the desktop layout. It was so easy to do this with the Widgets in Muse and I’m not sure if there was an effective way to do this in The Turning Gate AND have the slideshow work the way I liked.
Q. Your older site was “responsive” and currently Muse isn’t. How did that work out with this website makeover?
A. Well the pages from Lightroom/The Turning Gate are still responsive and therefore when you click on my Galleries page on a mobile device you still get that experience. However, for the rest of the pages made with Muse I was able to optimize the content for Desktop, Tablet and Phone just the way I wanted. So it works out fine.
Q. If you had to do this from scratch, which Turning Gate Plug-ins would you need?
A. Since you’re going to need at least 3 of their plug-ins (Gallery, Auto-Index and Publisher) you’re still better off going with the CE4 Web Publishing Bundle as it will include everything you need for one price.
Q. Will Adobe Muse ever be “Responsive”
A. I get that question a lot and Adobe Muse improves rapidly with new features. Since “ever” is a long time, I would guess that you’ll see the features that people demand the most at some point! (how’s that for a non-committal, keep my job kinda answer?)
Q. Since you’re using Adobe Muse to create the home page and the full screen slideshow, what happens when you want to update it?
A. I did give up the ability to update the homepage slideshow with Lightroom automatically, but since I don’t update it as often I’m ok with exporting images from Lightroom manually when I want to update that one slideshow.
Q. What if I want to add music to my Muse site, HTML 5 video (like you did with the Turning Gate) or even have a template to get started with, what can I do?
A. I have really been impressed with MuseThemes.com. They make a variety of add-ons for Muse including widgets and templates that take Muse beyond the standard set of functionality. They (like most 3rd party add-ons) fill in the gaps.
Q. Will you be adding more Muse features to your site?
A. Yep, now that the hard part (which wasn’t so hard) is out of the way, I can add more features from Muse and use this site to showcase what can be done with Adobe Muse over time. I’ve already take advantage of the full screen slideshow, full width slideshow, SVG support, contact forms, social widgets, composition widget (for my phone menu), menus, TypeKit fonts, custom hyperlink colors, transparency and of course some gratuitous use of scroll effects 🙂 .
One more thing…
Your site is only as good as the web hosting that serves it up to your visitors. So far I couldn’t be happier with Bluehost.com. I was originally turned on to them by The Turning Gate and now they now host all my websites.
As much as I love using Adobe Muse CC to create websites like macgroup.org, I have one website that was better to build using Lightroom 5 and the NEW CE4 Web Publishing Suite from The Turning Gate. My terrywhitephotography.com site is built 100% from Lightroom and the plug-ins from The Turning Gate. While I can certainly have a more customized site using Adobe Muse CC, the one thing that makes it better to do this site in Lightroom is the ease of updating it when I have new photos and videos.
It starts with Collections
Each of my Portfolios are Collections in Lightroom and from there I can sort images, add, and remove images at any time. My website has a slideshow on the home page and again that’s simply controlled by another collection that I can change at any time. One of the BEST features of the CE4 Web Publishing Suite is the “Publisher” plug-in. Once you set this up all you have to do to update your website is add/remove images from the Collection and hit the Publish button. Behind the scenes the images are uploaded to your hosting provider and put right into your galleries. I can’t believe how easy and fast it is to update my website at any time. This is the main reason why I prefer Lightroom for this site instead of Muse. I’m constantly changing my “Recent Work” gallery and it’s so easy to do it with the collection in Lightroom and hit the Publish button as opposed to manually exporting the images and having to update a slideshow in Muse. Again I LOVE Adobe Muse CC, but this workflow rocks in Lightroom!
Yep it’s Responsive
All of the modules/plug-ins used in the CE4 Web Publishing Suite use modern web technologies such as Responsive web design/CSS that looks good on desktops, tablets and mobile phones. This way I know that visitors to my site will see my work the way I intend them to no matter what device they view it on. My photos and videos playback great on all platforms. Even my landscapes will show the location where they were shot if the use taps/clicks on the location icon.
It works with Videos too
The CEW Web Publishing Suite supports HTML 5 video that you host on your site or videos from YouTube and Vimeo. You can even mix them as I have some in HTML 5 and one from YouTube. Again using the Publisher plug-in I can add new videos with ease.
Watch me do a LIVE update to my site in this short clip
A GREAT Client Response Gallery
Although it’s not a part of my main site, another one of The Turning Gate plug-ins that I couldn’t imagine life without is the Client Response Gallery. This is the one that I use when I want to send a client their proofs and have them make their choices/selections on the web and send them back to me from the site. Even if you’re not going to build your website with the CE4 Web Publishing Suite, you should still check out the Client Response Gallery Plug-in for Lightroom.
The Bottom Line
My photography is my hobby and my way to express my creativity. Since I don’t have a staff or web team I have to do everything myself. The CE4 Web Publishing Suite from The Turning Gate makes my life so much easier and as I always say, “If a website is easy to update you will update it more often, if it’s not you won’t!” My photography website is always up to date because I manage all my photos with Lightroom and updating my website is as easy as clicking a button.
I’m going to do a separate post on my recent move to Bluehost.com, but they totally ROCK! I moved all my main sites there and haven’t had a single problem. It’s such a relief knowing that my sites are UP and that if there is a problem they have 24/7 phone support with people located here in the U.S. Highly Recommended!
I actually have a Nikon D810 on loan for review and I’ll be posting my initial impressions of it soon. One of the things that’s going to make it much easier for my to take the D810 through its paces is having Nikon D810 native RAW support in both Lightroom 5 and Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). Well that wait is over as they are now available. Here are the release notes from the team:
Lightroom 5.6
is now available as a final release on Adobe.com and through the update mechanism in Lightroom 5. The goal of this release is to provide support for additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom.
Release Notes
New Camera Support in Lightroom 5.6
Nikon D810 (Yay!)
Panasonic LUMIX AG-GH4
Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ1000
New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 5.6
Mount
Name
Canon
CanonEF-S10-18mmf/4.5-5.6ISSTM
Canon
CanonEF16-35mmf/4LISUSM
Canon
Tamron28-300mmf/3.5-6.3DiVCPZDA010E
Canon
Tamron18-200f/3.5-6.3DiIIIVCB011EM
Nikon
Nikon1NIKKORVR70-300mmf/4.5-5.6
Nikon
Tamon28-300mmf/3.5-6.3DiVCPZDA010N
Pentax
Sigma18-35mmf/1.8DCHSMA013
PhaseOneA/S
SchneiderKreuznachLS40-80mmf/4.0-5.6
SonyAlpha
Sigma18-35mmf/1.8DCHSMA013
SonyAlpha
Sony28mmf/2.8
SonyAlpha
Sony16mmf/2.8Fisheye
SonyAlpha
Sony100mmf/2.8MACRO
SonyAlpha
SonyDT16-105mmf/3.5-5.6
SonyAlpha
SonyDT18-200mmf/3.5-6.3
SonyAlpha
SonyDT18-250mmf/3.5-6.3
SonyAlpha
Sony70-200mmf/2.8G
SonyAlpha
Sony70-300mmf/4.5-5.6GSSM
SonyAlpha
Sony70-400mmf/4-5.6GSSM
SonyAlpha
Sony70-400mmf/4-5.6GSSMII
SonyAlpha
Sony135mmf/2.8[T4.5]STF
SonyAlpha
Sony300mmf/2.8GSSMII
SonyE
ZeissTouit2.8/50M
Please note – the profile for the newly added Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens is not automatically located when applying lens profile corrections. This is a bug and we will fix it in an future release. The workaround is to:
– Manually select the profile and choose “Save New Lens Profile Defaults” in the Setup menu on the Profile tab. From then on, the lens should automatically select when the profile is enabled.
Bugs Corrected in Lightroom 5.6
Collections with a custom sort order would sometimes not properly sync with Lightroom mobile.
Updated the “Adobe Standard” color profile for the Nikon D810. Please note that this only impacts customers who used Camera Raw 8.6 or DNG Converter 8.6 to convert NEF raw files from the D810 to DNG
Star ratings set in Lightroom mobile did not properly sync to Lightroom desktop. Please note that this only occurred on images that were added to Lightroom mobile from the camera roll
Resolved the issues causing the persistent “Syncing … images” state that some of our customers have reported.”
Star ratings would sometimes not sync from Lightroom desktop to Lightroom mobile. Please note that this only occurred when attempting to sync a Collection that contained more than 100 photos that already contained star ratings.
Added information to the “System Info” dialogue to help designate if the customer installed Lightroom from the Creative Cloud.
Unable to open sRaw files from the Nikon D810. Please note that this only impacted customers that converted D810 sRaw files to DNG in either Camera Raw 8.6 RC or DNG Converter 8.6 RC.
Images with invalid GPS coordinates would not properly sync with Lightroom mobile
Lightroom occasionally crashed when changing image selection on Windows. Please note that this only occurred on the Windows platform.
JPEG files exported from Lightroom would not open or be available to edit within Canon Digital Photo Professional application software.
Lightroom would run in reduced functionality mode when it should not.
Adobe Camera RAW 8.6 has the same camera support and lens profile support listed above that Lightroom 5.6 has. Camera Raw 8.6 is now available as a final candidate on Adobe Labs for Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC. This release improves performance when batch processing images, both through the Save button in Camera Raw and when converting images to DNG in the DNG Converter. DNG Converter 8.6 is provided for customers using versions of Photoshop older than Photoshop CS6. As mentioned here, updates to Camera Raw 8 for Photoshop CS6 only include new camera support, lens profile support, and bug fixes. The new features listed in the release notes are only available in Photoshop CC.
Camera Raw 8.6 adds camera matching color profiles for the following camera models:
• Sony DSC-RX100 III
• Sony A7S (ILCE-7S)
• Sony Alpha SLT-A77 II (ILCA-77M2)
Camera Raw 8.6 introduces the following new features for Photoshop CC customers:
– Improved performance when batch processing images via the Save button (in Camera Raw) and when converting images to DNG (in DNG Converter). The performance improvements are available only on 64 bit systems.
Bug Fixes:
• Fixed crash on launch in some cases on Hi DPI (Retina) systems.
• Fixed crash when opening some Sigma SD9 raw files.
• Fixed issue with JPEG images saved by Camera Raw not readable in some external applications.
• Fixed automatic lens profile selection for Leica M (Typ 240) when using most recent firmware version.
• Fixed issue with some Hasselblad H5D-50c and H5D-60 3FR raw images appearing slightly too dark. Unfortunately, this fix may affect the appearance of existing images captured with this combination of settings. It is recommended that you (1) purge the Camera Raw cache via the Camera Raw Preferences dialog, and (2) review previously captured images for unexpected brightness changes.
• Fixed bug with converting Nikon D810 and Nikon D4S sRaw files to DNG.
• Tweaked and updated the Adobe Standard color profile for the Nikon D810. Please note that this only impacts customers that used Camera Raw 8.6 RC with the Nikon D810.
Please note – If you have trouble updating to the latest ACR update via the Creative Cloud application, please refer to the following plugin installation:
Apple recently announced that they will no longer develop Aperture. While there have been no official plans announced to move Aperture users over to Lightroom, there is a developer (7822383 Canada Ltd) that has released a “beta” utility called Aperture Exporter to help you out. First you have to realize that there is no real way to transfer/translate the adjustments you made to your images in Aperture to the Lightroom and have the images look exactly the same. So the next best thing is to bring over as much of your Aperture Library structure as possible over to Lightroom and render out adjusted files so that they do look the same in Lightroom (or anywhere else). I think this company has done a good job and took a logical approach in doing it and sense it doesn’t harm your original Aperture Library (make a backup anyway!) it’s worth a try.
I tested it on an Aperture library and the results were as advertised. I created a sample Aperture Library and imported images my into it. Then I made adjustments, flagged, keyworded, star rated, labeled, organized, etc. the images. Next I fired up the Aperture Exporter and did the export. Before clicking the “Begin Export” button I went back and star rated my adjusted images as it uses star ratings to determine if your adjusted images should be exported as TIF or JPG with the adjustments rendered in. Once it was done I had folders and subfolders representing the structure I created in Aperture.
Then it was time to import those folders into Lightroom. No issues there. The images came in with the metadata intact. Now keep in mind things like color labels don’t translate. So instead the utility takes any Aperture color labels and adds the appropriate keyword to the images ie. “GreenLabel”. Once in Lightroom it’s easy to filter on these keywords, select all and then actually apply the corresponding Lightroom color label. So yes there is some clean up necessary once you’re in Lightroom, but overall the this utility takes the major work out of moving your Aperture Library to Lightroom.
If you’re looking to make the conversion from Aperture to Lightroom sooner rather than later, you should head over and grab the FREE download here.
Also don’t forget that you can get the NEW Creative Cloud Photography Program which includes Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5 and Lightroom Mobile for only $9.99/month.
