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If this title sounds vaguely familiar to you we are probably about the same age, for those of you that don’t know Dire Straits here is a link to history!

We know you love FYP and we also know that you are not always at your computer and therefore can’t get on your browser to keep up-to-date with the latest postings.  Rather than watch you flop around on the floor, I’m going to share some additional ways that you can read your favorite FYP authors during your morning  or afternoon travels, lunchtime or even lying on a tropical beach like me.  If you are reading this congratulations, you already know the most popular way to read the great articles from the most diverse photography writers on the web!  In this posting I’m going to explain elements of the little yellow box on the site inviting you to “Get Fueled”

RSS

Really Simple Syndication more commonly known as RSS is a great way to aggregate feeds from your favorite sites.  RSS comes in both desktop and mobile forms and allows you to go to a single place to receive all your latest updates. Google Reader is a popular desktop and mobile RSS client if you have an Android phone you can get it from the Android Marketplace.  Apple fanboys/fangirls you are not to be left out, a version for iPhone is available here.  Blackberry users , like me, will have to be content with Viigo, it is not quite as intuitive but it does the job!

Once you have your preferred method you can click on the “SITE RSS FEED” link and then select Google Reader and FYP will be added to your feed.  Full and complete articles are available for you to read at any time just by opening your RSS reader and selecting Fuel Your Photography.  This is especially great for smaller screened mobile devices where mobile browsers are a pain.

Email

Keeping up by email is even easier, simply enter your email address in the field in the yellow box that says “Suscribe by Email” and then click the subscribe button new articles will be emailed to you immediately after posting.  Depending on your mobile email client you may not receive the full multimedia experience.  Your mileage may vary!  You will not be sent any Unsolicited Commercial Email (SPAM) by subscribing to the email feed.

Twitter

FYP maintains a very active twitter feed, a link to every article published is posted here along with select other tweets, follow us on twitter @FuelPhotography.   One of our Twitter secrets, for you die hard photographers and tweeters you can follow the list of our writers and keep up with their tweets.  Be advised that writers tweets are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FYP.  If you are brave and not faint of heart follow TeamFYP.

Facebook

Facebook??  Heck yeah, we are on Facebook!  You can find our page here and Facebook provides an additional forum for you to give feedback and easily share our articles with friends and groups, we really appreciate when you do so.  Feel free to fan us on Facebook.   We also have a page strictly dedicated to our FYP/500px Photography Contest, have you entered yet?

Google +

What is Google +?  Google Plus, like FYP, is a great place for creatives, however not as targeted as FYP, we know we are among your top photography resources. FYP maintains a page on Google Plus and reaches out to photographers and photography lovers alike, if you are on Google Plus circle us at gplus.to/FYP, if you are not yet on Google + join here mobile clients are also available.

Flickr

Check, we are also on Flickr and if you are too you can post 2 images per day to our group for feedback of other members.  We look forward to seeing your shared images!

I’ve shared with you some great ways to interact with FYP, I’m interested in hearing how you use it in the comments section below.

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Last time we focused on the Library module , specifically the tasks of importing and organizing images into Lightroom.  Today we are going to get started on the most important module, “The Develop” module. This is where the action begins, it is huge , can be complicated , but its where the benefits of working with a non destructive image management application become evident.

Remember our example of  having  completed a shooting 600 images at  a retirement function for Mr Jameson at the Bradbury Hotel. We had used light room to whittle those 600 images down to a  set  of 5 star images that are suitable for presentation to the client.  Our next step is to retouch the images before we send a proof page of to the client. Lets start with ensuring that what we saw in the viewfinder in terms of colour  is reflected in the images that we are working on . We will do this by  setting white balance and camera calibration  options.

The Develop Module (Overview)

In the module picker, select the develop module. The Develop module contains two sets of panels and a toolbar for viewing and editing a photo. On the left are the Navigator, Presets, Snapshots, History, and Collections panels for previewing, saving, and selecting changes you‘ve made to a photo. On the right are the tools and panels for making global and local adjustments to a photo. The toolbar contains controls for tasks such as changing between Before and After views, playing an impromptu slide show, and zooming. The panel on the left contains the following options

• Presets ( a number of canned actions that can be used to add dramatic flair to images).
• Snapshots ( a means of creating a reference point that captures the editing effects that have been applied to an image)
• History ( very similar to the history panel in Photoshop, this allows the user to step backwards through the various edits that have been performed on an image)
• Collections ( A set of images )

The right panel contains the various  tools and sub panels for editing the image.

• The Histogram
• The adjustment tools (Crop,spot heal, red eye, gradient, adjustment brush)
• Basic  (Brightness, Contrast, Blacks, Saturation etc.)
• Tone  (Tone Curves)
• HSL  (Colour Manipulation)
• Split Toning
• Detail (Sharpness, Noise reduction)
• Lens Correction ( Corrects optical anomalies of a lens)
• Effects  (Vignette)
• Camera Calibration

The bottom panel displays the film loop of images that are currently being worked on .

White balance adjustment

Assuming that we captured the images in the RAW format then the  white balance can be adjusted to reflect the lighting conditions under which it was taken—daylight, tungsten, flash etc.  The  white balance can be set by  either choosing  a white balance preset option or selecting an area in the photo that can be considered to be a neutral color.  Note: White balance preset options are available only for raw and DNG photos. White balance for all photos can be edited using the sliders.

White balance preset options

In the Basic panel of the Develop module, Lightroom  provides a number of white balance options which have been calibrated to closely duplicate the effect of a variety of light sources on an image, these are referred to as the white balance pre sets and can be accessed via the WB button in the basic panel  , these are normally the same presents that can be found in the white balance menu of  most modern  digital cameras.

• As Shot uses the camera‘s white balance settings, if they are available.
• Auto calculates the white balance based on the  image data.
• Daylight emulates the conditions normally found on a cloudless day
• Cloudy  emulates the lighting conditions that can be found on a day with overcast skies
• Shade emulates the lighting conditions that can be found when shooting under shade
• Tungsten emulates the lighting conditions that can be found when shooting under tungsten lights
• Fluorescent emulates the lighting conditions that can be found when shooting  under fluorescent light
• Flash emulates the lighting conditions that can be found when shooting with  a flash unit
• Custom allows the user to create a custom white balance setting to meet specific lighting requirements

When one of the presets is selected then Lightroom applies the white balance setting and moves the Temp and Tint sliders in the Basic panel accordingly. However oi if the Lightroom cannot read the image’s meta data to determine which in camera white balance setting was used it will default to Auto .

The second method of setting the white balance is to select a reference point (neutral area) within the image which Lightroom will use to calibrate the white balance setting. One should select an area of the image that when printed or viewed on the screen will be gray.

1. In the Basic panel of the Develop module, click the White Balance Selector tool  select it, or press the W key.
2. Move the White Balance Selector into an area of the photo that should be a neutral light gray. Avoid spectral highlights or areas that are 100% white.
3. The Navigator displays a preview of the color balance as you move the White Balance Selector over different pixels.
4. When you find an appropriate area, click it., The Temp and Tint sliders in the Basic panel adjust to make the selected colour neutral, if  possible  Fine-tune the white balance using the Temp and Tint controls

In the Basic panel of the Develop module, adjust the Temp and Tint sliders.

Temp

Fine-tunes the white balance using the Kelvin color temperature scale. Move the slider to the left to make the photo appear cooler, and right to warm the photo colors. You can also set a specific Kelvin value in the Temp text box to match the color of the ambient light. Click the current value to select the text box and enter a new value. For example, photographic tungsten lights are often balanced at 3200 Kelvin. If you shoot  under photo tungsten lights and set the image temperature to 3200, your photos should appear color balanced.
One of the benefits of working with  raw files is that you can adjust the color temperature as if you were changing a setting in a camera during capture, allowing a broad range of settings  When working with JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files, you work in a scale of -100 to 100 rather than the Kelvin scale. Non-raw files such as JPEG or TIFF include the temperate setting in the file, so the temperate scale is more limited.

Tint

Fine-tunes the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint. Move the slider to the left (negative values) to add green to the photo; move it to the right (positive values) to add magenta.  If you see a green or magenta color cast in the shadow areas after adjusting the temperature and tint, try removing it by adjusting the Shadows Tint slider in the Camera Calibration panel.

Camera Calibration

Lightroom uses two camera profiles for every camera model it supports to process raw images. The profiles are produced by photographing a color target under different white-balanced lighting conditions. When you set a white balance, Lightroom uses the profiles for your camera to extrapolate color information.

These camera profiles are the same ones developed for Adobe  Camera Raw. They are not ICC color profiles. You can adjust how Lightroom interprets the color from your camera by using the controls in the Camera Calibration panel and saving the changes  as a preset. You may find it useful to photograph a standard color target under the lighting you want to calibrate.

Select a photo, and then set options in the  Camera Calibration panel.

• Profile sets the profile to use for your camera.
• ACR [version]- These profiles are compatible with older versions of Camera Raw and Lightroom. The version corresponds to the version of Camera Raw in which the profile first appeared. Choose an ACR profile if you want consistent behavior with legacy photos.
• Adobe Standard-These profiles significantly improve color rendering, especially in warm tones such as reds, yellows, and oranges, from earlier Adobe camera profiles. The Profile pop-up menu displays  only one Adobe Standard profile for your camera.
• Camera Matching-These profiles attempt to match the camera manufacturer‘s color appearance under specific settings. Use a Camera Matching profile if you prefer the color rendering offered by your camera manufacturer‘s software. Camera Matching profiles include the prefix Camera in the profile name.

Shadows

• Corrects for any green or magenta tint in the shadow areas of the photo.
• Red, Green, and Blue Primary

The Hue and Saturation sliders adjust the red, green, and blue in the photo. Adjust the hue first, and then adjust its saturation. When you are happy with the result on the screen then save the adjustments as a develop preset, which you can use again when faced with images taken with the same camera in similar lighting .

Next time we will continue  our exploration of the develop module by looking at “Virtual Copies” and “Global Adjustments”. Until then happy shooting

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I have a confession to make: I am mildly obsessed with just about anything that is of an abnormal scale/size. This includes (but is not limited to) dogs that are of the “giant” or teeny-tiny variety like newfoundlands or teacup and micro sized dogs, or furniture that is impossibly huge or ridiculously small like the giant adirondack chair located DC or the mini 1950s style playball chair that is just the right size for my three-year old daughter.  Also included in my mild obsession? Train sets and dollhouses.

This image was taken with my Android phone and the phone app Pixlr-o-matic as reviewed by my fellow writer David Pringle some weeks ago. It is a snippet of the amazing train set display done at the science center in Pittsburgh every year around this time. Hard to believe but this was maybe 1/10th of the whole set up!

This is another image taken with the same phone app as the above image. This one I tweaked slightly though to make it appear as if it truly is one taken from way back when it historically could have been taken with regard to the part of the train set (the coal miners camps) that is pictured.

So what does this have to do with photography? (Since that IS what we are here for, right?) Well, it’s got a LOT to do with photography. Why? Because there just happens to be a type of photography that goes right to the heart of my love for these miniature views of life. Say “hello” to Tilt-shift photography.

Ever heard of tilt-shift photography? It’s not hugely popular by it’s name because it is so much more easily recognizable by the way it looks. Here are some classic examples of tilt-shift photography. (If these aren’t enough to convince you of the coolness factor of tilt-shifting check out this flickr group devoted entirely to it.)

Kind of amazing to behold isn’t it? It is because of the “magic” that is the tilt-shift lens that makes it all possible. A tilt-shift lens achieves this fake miniaturized effect by using a selective focus on one portion of the frame of an image.  The lens is designed such that it can be bent (or rather tilted) to an angle relative to the image plane (within the camera body) which then shifts the orientation of the plane of focus of one part of the image so that it is sharply focused in juxtaposition with the rest of the image. (The Scheimpflug principle is the reason why it happens this way.)  Is what I just incredibly difficult to follow understand? Well, whether or not you followed it or not doesn’t matter anyway because we can just agree that it looks REALLY cool and that’s the point of this to begin with.

Anyway, can you believe that these pictures would be correctly proportioned if they were only taken with a standard lens and not a tilt-shift lens? Too bad the whole world of tilt-shift photography is so cost prohibitive because of how pricey the lenses are. (Too many of them are in the range of closer to a thousand dollars at least.) Even things like lens babies (an alternative to the actual lenses) still cost a pretty penny enough that it’s hard to justify such an expensive to satisfy an unreasonably obsession like what I have. Let’s not dwell on seemingly impossible dreams here though, okay? I have an incredibly cost effective approach to tilt-shifting. Guess what! You can “fake” the tilt-shift effect with a very quick and simple photoshop tutorial. Check it out in this completely do-able tilt-shift photography tutorial for photoshop that will walk you through the steps of taking an image you already have and digitally rendering it with some tilt-shift magic.

Something else you can do if you don’t have photoshop. How about using lenses you already have?  You can always use what you got and do a little Freelensing a la the legendary Ryan Brenizer.  Be forewarned though! This method and technique is NOT something for the faint of heart or unsteady of hand since it requires you do to something exactly like taking the lens off of your camera body mid-shutter hit and then physically holding it in a bit of a hover in just the right way in front of your camera body. Does it sound a bit challenging? Well. It is. Trust me! (I’ve tried it with less than stellar results.)  However, I’m sure that it is something that you certainly could master with decent practice so that’s why I even mention it here and now.

And last but not least, you can always give the Tilt-shift maker a whirl. I mention this last only because it requires the bare minimum of effort and why work smarter when you can work harder? All you’ll need is a photograph of your choice and then you just point-click and *voila* you’ve got a tilt-shift image with hardly any fuss.

Have I made you a fan of tilt-shift photography?  Please share your best tilt-shift efforts via the comment section below. If you still aren’t convinced of all of its awesomeness and as yet refuse to join the ranks of its fandom, well (I assure you) I am more than enough of a fan to make up for whomever still doesn’t like this the biggest little images there ever could be in the photographic medium.

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This month, we are interviewing travel and portrait photographer Anthony Asael.  In an incredible feat, he is one of the few that has traveled among each of the countries of the United Nations, numbering just under 200. During these journeys, he visited over 950 schools and taught photography to thousands of children. Read below to gain an insight to this photographer’s mind.

FYP: Tell us a little about yourself.

Anthony: I am an international photographer and part of Corbis agency. I am of Turkish and Italian origin. He is also the founder of the not-for-profit organization Art in All of Us.  My passion for photography began very early – at 7 years old, I was already developing my black and white work in the lab. Over the next few years, I travelled several times  with Ruggero Gabbai – a professional photographer and film director – as his personal assistant.

FYP: Have you had formal training in Photography?

Anthony: No I have not. I am self taught, at the age of seven, I was already playing in a photo lab revealing my own photos in black and white. Photography was part of my childhood

FYP: What camera and equipment do you currently use?

Anthony: Nikon D700 and about 8 different lenses. However, most of my shooting is done with a simple 50mm 1.8. For me, photography is not about equipment, but about creativity and emotions.

FYP: Where do you see yourself in five years time?

Anthony: I have no idea, and I am so happy about it…. I just follow the wind.

FYP: What is the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in your photographic career?

Anthony: Well most probably it is to have visited taught photography in all 193 countries of the world. The most difficult to enter was North Korea. It took me 2 and a half years of negotiation with the local government. While entering as a tourist is possible to nearly everyone with some patience, entering and work there in a public school is slightly more difficult. Even with all cultures that one can see around the world, people are very similar, children above all. Children have all the 3 same dreams: one to be loved by their parents, two to be able to play and three, unfortunately, to grow up too fast.

Picasso once said “Children are all born creative and once they are growing up , they lose their creativity”. I passionately believe in that, even if shall be the reserve. When we grow up, we shall be wiser, have access to more knowledge, more information, have a more open mind…. But it is the opposite that happens, with unconscious “brainwashing” from parents, media and education. We should try to stimulate more the creativity and curiosity of children, and that is one of my missions when I travel.

FYP: Who is your favourite artist?

Anthony: Sebastiao Salgado

FYP: Where do you find your inspiration?

Anthony: Simply by closing my eyes.

FYP: What are your favourite techniques or methods?

Anthony: I try to photograph emotions.  To do that, I have to be invisible, even if am straight in front of the model. Models have to feel at ease and not stressed by the camera. Being patient and talking with them is very very important. At the right moment, they will feel comfortable and simply forget about you, that is when I can start shooting.

FYP: How much emphasis do you put on post-production?

Anthony: Very little. I just clean up some dust spots, or add slightly more contrast when necessary. I don’t touch composition, which is also key to my photography. FYP: What genre would you most like to experiment in?

Anthony: I am not in an experimental phase at the moment. However, I have a very dreamy project for the future. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you more about it right now …. Just be patient, I’ll keep you posted on my website.

FYP: If you could photograph anyone/anywhere in the world, who/where would you photograph?

Anthony: I am now in Madagascar, my favourite spot to photograph. People are so genuine and also very positive towards cameras that I can’t be more happy. However, I would like to go back to North Korea and make a longer photographic documentary.
FYP: Have you got any hints or tips to share with aspiring photographers?

Anthony: Don’t buy expensive equipment.  It might be easier to have nice pictures with good cameras as an amateur, but if you want to be a real and good photographer, you need to be excellent at all kind of cameras. The best way to start and to learn is to have the basic of the basics. Be good at it, be excellent at it , be outstanding at it and only then get a better camera.

FYP: What is your favourite way to de-stress?

Anthony: Putting my feet into the ocean and closing my eyes.

FYP:Thank you for the interview, Anthony! Good luck with the future.

Anthony: Keep creative, and keep smiling!

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Last month when I introduced the topic of visual branding for photography, I left things open-ended in and effort to encourage you to brainstorm ideas about visual branding as it applies to you. I asked a bunch of questions that inspired the start of a better understanding of the style and genre of photography (portraits, landscapes, weddings, etc.) that you naturally gravitate toward. In this installment I’m going to do my best to address some of the things I think you might have concluded since last time. Ready to go? Let’s get started!

There are a couple of elements of logo design that exist (color, spacing, shape) but for our purposes we are going to look at the actual typography only. Branding yourself with typography is the easiest way to visually brand yourself because it’s not something that you necessarily have to hire anyone to do. Most of us have desktop publishing and/or computer graphic software platforms that come standard on our computers or that we’ve gotten to help with our workflow in photography. Whether you are using Microsoft Office Publisher or Photoshop or Illustrator, any one of them will work for our purposes. If you don’t have any of those things? You can also draft something up in a word processing software like Microsoft Word. Our goal is to just have a venue where we can try out different types of fonts and typefaces in order to determine if they convey the best visual representation (in one shot!) to represent the whole body of our work. Remember: Your logo design needs to be something that’s all encompassing of you to include both the type of photography you like to do and your overall photography style.

Now comes one of the most challenging parts of this creative process – culling all of our ideas together and creating something tangible that is truly representative of it all. Indulge me a little in some pretending. We’re going to change hats and be Graphic Designers from here on out.  Graphic design is as much visual art as photography is so trying on this role shouldn’t be too hard for us.

As photographers, we are often asked by our clients or challenged by our peers to create visual representations that are infused with specific things, right? In any given frame, we might be aiming to create images that illustrate a feeling of timeless romance or overwhelming danger. We might also attempt to use (and manipulate) environmental elements like extremely open space or the subtle illumination that occurs from the lighting of stars in a night sky.  In so many ways, photographers have a similar job as graphic designers who are creating logos! We’ve sometimes only got one shot just like them when they are challenged to create a visual representation and illustration of a brand that is 1) universally recognizable, 2) uniquely shaped, and 3) easily understood.

Something that is a great advantage in designing visual brands with a basis in typefaces is to have a working knowledge of fonts. Now, to be fair, this isn’t something that most people have. In this day and age it’s not unusual for people to have a favorite go-to font that just feels right to them for any given purpose OR one that we can all agree is terrible for a number of reasons but going beyond that is pretty unusual for the average Joe. Lucky for you, I am one of those unusual types who falls into the category of geekery fandom of typeface design so it’s not hard for me to do things like recognize all manner of fonts AND know the name of them. (Seriously. My husband can verify this fact and also tell you how “old” it’s gotten to hear me complain about my disdain for  how often I see Papyrus font in use.) Now, despite the fact that I do have this weirdness going on about myself, my weirdness will definitely benefit you in this creative process. Allow me to walk you through the things I think about when trying to determine appropriate typefaces for some fictional visual branding clients.  Let’s pretend like we have a whole list of clients who are just begging for our expertise to help them create the best visual brand for themselves possible. Here we go!

The first client is an individual who is sharply dressed, fashion forward, and focuses their camera and body of work in a direction that can be nothing less than reminiscent of fashion photography.  They produce images with clean lines, modern silhouettes, and simply constructed color palettes. My conclusion of what they could go with? Here it is…

This font might be reminiscent of a popular brand that most of us might be all too familiar with despite the fact that it’s a company who aims their business at women. The font used above is not the exact font used by the company I noted and linked but it very much suggests (in a carefully subtle way) the market that someone might be going towards with their own photography stylings. Pretty neat, eh?  Let’s try another one in a whole different direction, shall we?

This fictional client would be one I would lean (stylistically) in this direction: film photography, a good cup of solid black coffee, paper mail correspondence, and perhaps rotary dial phones. If you feel like I’m calling out someone of the hipster stereotype, well… I guess I sort of am. (Except not in a negative way.) People who fall in this category might be those whose body or work focuses on black and white photography exclusively or even one who does wedding photography using post processes that are reminiscent of real instagram type photos or REAL dark room film development and printing that enables cross-process type color palettes. I would recommend a typewriter font for their visual brand because it is so naturally reminiscent of the analog times that they are so obviously more fond of to begin with.

How about a photographer who does work that is exclusively focused on families and children? A font that suggests that it is written by the hand of a child would be awesome for a client like that since it immediately evokes a feeling of playfulness and easy approachability.

Perhaps there is a client who is straight-forward, no nonsense and no fuss about themselves and their style and completely and totally bold in the statements that they make within their body of work. They like to focus their camera lens on subject matter that says what it means and means what it says. They don’t like to waste time beating around the bush with things. Someone like that might be best summed up with a typeface that is heavy in the weight of it’s lines and sans serif with it’s edges, points, and letter shaping.

How about if you are a photographer who as a style and body of work that is very signature to who you are. Your images are easily recognizable because you have a certain type of composition that you have nailed beautifully and are able to recreate time and time again without it getting old or boring. Perhaps you have a standard color palette that you never deviate from and that sets your work apart from everyone else in the market? Well, why not do something that is based in a handwritten font that reminds someone of an actual signature or autograph?

You can also combine handwritten/script typefaces with san serif fonts and despite the fact that mixing up the two different styles up, you can actual yield something that looks quite professional and legitimate as a well established and trusted presence in the business world.

Here is an interesting example for a client who might be the type of photographer who prefers to not call attention to themselves. The formation of the lettering comes largely from the shadows created by the three dimensions of each letter. Technically the letters are not drawn out and they are only suggested similar to the way optical illusion art works. Thus a a design like this would be completely appropriate.

Something else that is always worth trying is to use either all upper case letters or all lower case letters.

Then there are all of the typefaces that are stylized in nature. They don’t really fit into any one specific category other than the miscellaneous one that calls them completely unique in and of themselves.  For those clients that can’t easily be quantified and summed up in a clear and concise way that does justice to their body of work and overall style, a specifically stylized typeface is the only way to go because it so intentionally and obviously infuses the originality of the individual that is being illustrated in the first place.

I hope I’ve offered up some good ideas of how you can go about launching yourself into the direction of self-branding yourself. The point in this article was to further convince you the power and importance of having a visual brand that appropriately encompasses you and your body of photography work is a very essential and powerful thing. It can stand in the way of you legitimizing yourself not just as a serious entrepreneur or freelancer but as defining your artistic identity so that your unique creative voice can be heard (or rather seen) more clearly.

From here on out the best thing you can do for yourself is to start treating yourself more like the creative brand that you always have been from the get-go. Just what I did in all of the aforementioned is what you can do for yourself. Pull open some of your favorite programs that will allow you to do a little bit of typeface play and use what’s there in your font list. If you don’t like what is already installed in your font list? Check out our sister site Fuel Your Creativity and their amazingly comprehensive list of places you can find some awesome fonts that are all absolutely F-R-E-E!!! (Didn’t know we had a sister site? YEAH. Fuel Your Photography is a part of a league and wealth of knowledge that can do nothing short of launch you into serious greatness if you open yourself up to it all.) Something else you can do? How about we keep the conversation flowing in the comments section below. We’re all in this together and who better to help you navigate the waters of visual creativity better than your fellow artistic visionaries?

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Have you ever heard the saying that goes” if you start wrong, you most likely will end wrong”, we know that saying was  mostly used by parents trying to discipline their children, but it also applies to us wayward photographers. If you start wrong then cleaning it up later takes a lot more time and effort. So lets spend a few minutes on the topic of importing and organizing your images using LIghtroom.

As an example, lets assume  we had just completed a shooting a retirement function for Mr Jameson at the Bradbury Hotel. Mr Jameson  retired from the ABC corporation and the retirement function was being held on the 20th of November 2011. We were hired by the ABC corporation and during the night you captured  600 images and now need to import , organise and process these images.

Importing

There are several options available when importing images into Lightroom .

Add (Keeps the photo files in their current location.)The images will remain in their current folder on the disk or memory card and Lightroom will just store a reference to their location (i.e import them into the catalog).

Copy (Copies the photo files to the folder you choose, including any sidecar files.) The second option is to copy the images to a new location whilst importing them to the catalog. With this option a new copy of the images is stored on your hard drive and lightroom will reference this copy

Move (Moves the photo files to the folder you choose, including any sidecar files. Files are removed from their current location). With this option the images are physically moved from their existing location to a new location. This is a destructive process which results in  the images being deleted from the original location and should be used with the utmost care.

For our scenario we will choose the copy option this will allow us to import the 600 images to the catalog and copy them to a folder on the local disk drive of the computer that we are using to process them

• Click the Import button. or from the  main menu, choose File > Import Photos.
• Use the Source panel on the left side of the import window to specify the location of the photos you want to import.
• In the top center of the import window, specify how you want to add the photos to the catalog:. We will use the Copy option.
• We now need to specify where to put them in the Destination panel. Choose one of the following from the Organize menu in the Destination panel:.

Into One Folder (Copies or moves the imported photos into a new folder.)

By Original Folders (Maintains the original hierarchy for the folders that contain the imported photos.)

By Date (Specifies a date name for the folder that contains the imported photos).

For our scenario we will choose “Into One Folder” and in the dialog box we will name the folder  ‘Nov-20-2011-Jameson’ .  You are free to choose what ever naming convention that you wish,but i would strongly suggest that you be consistent in how you apply it.

It is a good idea to apply a few basic keywords to your images during the import process.  This will aid in organizing the images later in the work flow. Keyword tags are text meta-data that describe the important contents of a photo. They help you identify, search for, and find photos in the catalog. Like other meta-data, keyword tags are stored either in the photo file or (in the case of proprietary camera raw files) stored in XMP sidecar files. Once applied to photos, keywords can be read by Adobe applications such as Adobe Bridge, Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements. We will apply the keywords in the ‘Apply during import’ section of the destination panel.  The keywords we will apply are “retirement, Nov 20 2011, 2011,ABC Corporation, Jameson,Bradbury Hotel,” keywords are separated by commas and can be in either lower or uppercase.

Once we have completed entering the keywords then we click on the import button to start the process of moving the images from the cameras flash memory to the local hard disk.

Selecting and Rejecting  Images

Having successfully imported those 600 images, there will be  some that are keepers , (perfectly exposed, in focus, and composed), and others that are under exposed, blurred, missed shots etc. The first step in our work-flow is to  weed out the rejects so that we can focus our precious time on the ones that we wish to send to client.  We need to select the keepers and move the others to the reject bin, for that we use Flags.

Flags designate whether a photo is a pick (selected), rejected , or un-flagged. Flags are set in the Library module. Once photos are flagged, we can click a flag filter button in the Filmstrip or in the Library Filter bar to display and work on photos that we have labeled with a particular flag.

In the Library module, select one photo in the Grid view or the Filmstrip and press the letter P to flag the image a pick or the letter X to mark it as rejected. Hold down Shift and press P or X to set the flag and select the next photo. When we have completed the process of flagging the images , (Note the flag icon displayed at the top left of the image) we have the option of either deleting the rejected images or just hiding them from view. Quite a few photographers do not like to delete images and prefer to just hide them from view so that they can focus on the ‘selected’ images. We can click on the filter button

Ratings: Who are the stars

Now that we have only our best images displayed , we can move onto determining which are the best of the best. The process is facilitated by using Lightrooms rating functions, we can use either stars (*) or colours to rate the images. (I prefer the stars as its more intuitive as we are all familiar with the concept of one star meaning good and  five stars being excellent. Some how this does not translate to colours very easily so I stick to the star rating method). When assigning ratings to files, we can award from zero to five stars. Rating stars can be set or displayed in any view of the Library module. Once photos are rated, we can click a rating filter button in the filmstrip or in the Library Filter bar to display and work on photos that we have rated with a specific number of stars.

Instead of the  two step process we employed to whittle down the 600 images to a set of 5 star images , we could have accomplished the same selection process by just simply using the stars rating method.  We could have used one or two stars to rate the images which we wish to reject and then applied three to five stars for the others. In this case Lightroom is rather flexible In that we can accomplish the same task in more than one way. In the end a method that you are comfortable with and that fits your work-flow  and then be consistent in how you apply it..

There is one more neat trick that lightroom has up its sleeves that can very useful in organizing large amounts of images and that is collections.

Collections

Collections are a way to group photos in one place for easy viewing or for performing a variety of tasks. For example, photos in a collection can be assembled into a slide show, contact sheet, or a web photo gallery. Once created, collections are listed in the Collections panel of the Library, Slide-show, Print, and Web modules. They can be selected anytime you need them. You can create as many collections as you need to Collections are like virtual folders and one benefit of collections is that Images can be in more than one collection at the same time.

Lets go back to our scenario. We have whittled down our 600 images to a manageable set of five star selections but we wish to have some way of grouping all of the images in which Mr. Jameson appears together. We also want to group the images that contain the representative of ABC corporation so that we can send them that set for publication in their news letter.  We cant use stars because we have already used that rating method to select our best images. We could use colours but how will we remember in two years time what colour was used to highlight what set of images. Here comes collections to the rescue.

• In the Library  grid mode select the images that are to be part of the collection
  Choose Library > New Collection.
• In the Create Collection dialog box, type a name in the Collection box. If we wish the collection to be part of a collection set, choose it from the Set menu.Otherwise, choose None.
• Select the Include Selected Photos option.
• The collection appears in the Collections panel with a photo-print icon.
• Photos that are part of a collection display a Photo Is In Collection badge in the Grid view and the Filmstrip.

We have imported 600 images, tagged them with keywords which will allow us to quickly find them in the future . We have whittled them down to the best of the best and then grouped them in such a way that we can easily work with them. Coming next month White Balance & Camera Calibration

]]> http://www.fuelyourphotography.com/lightroom-101-importing-and-organizing-your-images/feed/ 0 http://www.fuelyourphotography.com/travel-photography-alaska/ http://www.fuelyourphotography.com/travel-photography-alaska/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:30:21 +0000 Alice Kung http://www.fuelyourphotography.com/?p=8989

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I’m not a hunter, but I imagine wildlife photography is a lot like hunting.   You wear neutral-colored clothing, spend a lot of time tracking wildlife in the bush, get dirty, wait a lot, and you’d better have some decent aim or else you waste a bunch of shots.

On my most recent bear photography trip to the Katmai wilderness in Alaska, there was a lot of downtime between bear sightings. Sometimes the boat ride into bear territories was 1.5 hours long. In the meantime, however, there was no shortage of wildlife photography!  Bald eagles, osprey, sockeye salmon, and Alaskan wildflowers were common sightings and welcome diversions to the waiting.   I actually found that photographing birds was so much fun, that we spent an entire day at a bald eagle nest just watching and waiting. A particular pair of eagles kept us waiting for nearly an hour as the perched in the sun… finally when we put our cameras down to give our arms a rest, they decided to take off in their glorious flight… they probably enjoyed this game as much as we did!

American Bald Eagles, Alaska

Fireweed

The first and most important thing I learned about wildlife and nature photography is that it’s worth getting to know your subject.  This will help create the opportunity for the shot, help you find the most common locations for your subject, as well as their behavior patterns and best angles.  If all your shots are of a bear’s rear end or a bird flying off into the distance away from you, chances are you are approaching them to quickly or too closely.   Their comfort level will reflect in the images.  This is not only important for the great wildlife shots, but also important for the general well-being of the wildlife.   Often, birds have to conserve their energy to hunt and survive, and cannot waste that precious energy flying away from people who are stalking them and chasing them away from their hunting or nesting grounds.  So consider the well-being of your subjects and it’ll show in the images!

Juvenile bald eagle

Osprey, hunting

For me, I find that shooting hand held worked better than shooting with a tripod.  Before you all go tsk-tsking me, just hear me out!  If I know my subject will be staying in a small contained area, obviously the tripod is the better choice. However, in the wild, animals don’t stay in viewfinders or boxes!   When the eagles took off in flight, I found it was so much easier to track with my body rather than with a tripod, and this resulted in sharper images.  Sometimes I wanted to get down at ground level to get a different perspective of the bears, and I could maneuver my body much faster than I could my tripod.  Sometimes the bears would walk right past us and I wanted to back up to give them room and actually fit them in my 100-400mm lens; it was much easier to scoot myself backwards than awkwardly fumble with a tripod in my waders and 5 layers of clothing.  This is not to say I shot without support- often times I braced my left elbow on my left thigh while kneeling, especially when shooting from the boat.  I also had a 500mm lens with me which was literally a bear to carry around and maneuver (8.5 pounds!); I did benefit from a tripod in this situation but missed out on many shots as sometimes I could not maneuver fast enough to catch the charging bears or swooping osprey.

Taken from the boat, no tripod

Camp Dog Winston, practicing my non-tripod moments

Tripod mandatory, low-light at dawn, long exposure

I do not typically consider myself a technical photographer, but in wildlife photography, sharp, focused images are paramount- I suppose it is akin to having good aim in hunting.   For flying birds, I liked to have a shutter speed of at least 1/1600, but lighting conditions did not always comply (birds are most active in the early morning and late afternoon when the sun tends to be lower).   For the most part, I tried to aim for their eye when shooting; this generally gave me good results and more of the bird ended up being in focus in the end.  Most of you will know what I’m talking about – when you get that gorgeous, perfectly timed, sharp bird image, it makes all that waiting and planning worthwhile.  In my opinion, “getting that image” is far more difficult than spraying a shotgun full of birdshot at a group of ducks.  Photographing birds is humbling and the more I try it, the more I realize there is to learn. Any bird photographers out there willing to share your favorite websites, or a tip or two?  Maybe I’ll devote another blog to the bird photography alone!

Takeoff

Landing

As we were leaving the wilderness, hunters were flying into the region to scour the land for moose, heralding the beginning of moose-hunting season.  Just as the hunters were returning to camp with their trophy heads (I will leave my personal opinion of hunting out of this!), we returned to camp with cameras in-hand, excitedly downloading our daily images into our cameras and backup drives.  Wildlife photography is a lot less bloody than hunting, and instead of cleaning your kills, you just have to clean your lenses.   True, you don’t get to eat your photographs, but the images are trophies nonetheless and great for wall mounting- not to mention the peace and exhilaration that comes with being outside in nature.  Happy shooting!

Success- Alaskan brown bear with sockeye

Trip planning: There are many ways to get to the Katmai wilderness and numerous outfitters that do photography tours. If you are not experienced in the area, the best way to go is with a guide.   We used www.bearguidealaska.com and flew in from Anchorage, Alaska into King Salmon airport.  Bring clothing in layers and insect repellent.  Rain showers can come on quickly and unexpectedly, so waterproof packs or drybags are recommended for your equipment.  Also refer to my previous post for other lessons I learned on this trip.

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Last month we spoke about the stages of finding your style, and specifically, learning how to discern between work that you admire (speaks to your mind) and work that you are attracted to (speaks to your heart). Find part 1 HERE.

Learning how to discern between these two is essential for finding your own voice as an artist. Some of you may already know immediately what you are attracted to, but for the rest of us who need help filtering, here are some great creative exercises to consider.

Look for themes

I offer you two creative exercises in helping to narrow the vision for what you are attracted to

1. Spend some time collecting images of others work. Only choose images that attract you (not just that you admire). Consider some of the following questions:

Does the image make you feel a certain emotion? What is that emotion? Is this the type of emotion that you hope to communicate in your work? Tag it.

I especially love this question, because it is truly helpful in judging the difference between admiration and attraction. There is so much work that I admire that communicates to me, but if I ask myself if that is the same type of message I want to communicate in my own work I usually can know immediately that it doesn’t fit my own personality and how I see the world. And thats okay! We can still admire, remember!

Does the image make you want to take action in any way? (create something, explore, try something new, etc.) Tag it.

If something moves us to action, its stirring in our souls the need to communicate. And if we are wanting to communicate something similar, we have found something our hearts resonates with. Pay attention to work that motivates you in any way!

2. Spend some time looking through your own portfolio. Pick out your favorite images with the following questions in mind:

Why is this a favorite image? What beyond the photographic qualities of light/processing/or exposure speaks to you? What does it say?

If you could boil your style down into three words, what three words would they be?

Do these three words fit your favorite images from your portfolio? Or do your three words represent more of the work that you would like to start creating?

What is style anyway?

A big focus of these questions boils down into the idea of communication. What message do you want to share with the world through your images?

Remember, that style is not merely the way a photo is edited. It is not necessarily the way your subjects are dressed. It isn’t something that can be bought, or derived through templates, actions, or textures.

Your style, is your message.

A consistent message that plays through the body of your work.

The benefits of knowing your style

1. When you understand your message you can be more intentional about the work that you create.

When we’re in the imitation stage of the journey to finding your style, we lack a bit of focus and intent in the work we create. We’re trying out different styles to see what fits us best. Some days we may wear one hat, and other days a new one.

When we finally find the style and message that we want to share consistently with the world, it gives a sharper clarity to the process of creating. You suddenly have goals that are associated with the intent of your work and you begin to create for your vision, not just creating under the expectations of a client.

2. The more clearly (and consistently) you communicate your message the more you will attract the type of people who resonate with your message and style.

There is nothing more awkward and frustrating as an artist or business owner than creating work that you don’t enjoy or creating work that a client doesn’t enjoy!

If you are clear about communicating what you do love by only showing this type of work on your website or blog, you are significantly more likely to only work with people who enjoy the same message and style as you do.

Several years ago, a frustrated photographer emailed me, panicked at a sticky situation with an unhappy client. The client was upset at the lack of formally posed images with everyone looking at the camera.

“But I’m a lifestyle photographer!” the photographer complained to me. “I don’t pose people. I just let them interact as a family and take pictures!”

I had a hunch that proved to be true. We took a quick look at her website and blog. Could you tell that she was the “lifestyle” photographer that she claimed to be? Not by the eclectic images she features that ranged from every type of session, every type of edit, and a lack of consistent style that mixed formal posing with snapshot images.

There is a major lack of communication here.

The photographer is not clear on what her message is, and as such, the client is not clear on what they are hiring. Its a recipe for dissatisfaction on both sides.

Style can change. Just like you can change.

If our style is our message then it should be no surprise that it can change along with our life. We each go through different stages of our life when what is important to us varies according to what season we’re in. We’re always learning new life lessons through all of life experiences and since we ourselves are a work in progress, our perspective of the world is constantly changing.

There was a season for me that I enjoyed shooting weddings. I was newly married myself and related to the style and message of the work that I was producing. As we started our own family, my perspective of the world changed and I found a new passion for photographing family centric work that focused on relationships and the imperfections of life–simply because that was something I was finding as a reoccurring theme of importance in my own personal life.

I’m not implying that our style or message is limited to what stage of life we are in, but I have become increasingly aware that my own life experiences influence my message. And it grows and changes along with me.

My style defined:

So, if I were to choose three words as my own personal message and representation of my style, what would they be?

Relationship. Truth. Story.

Each of these words represents something that I value in photography.

I value relationships. Not just on a pedigree level. But a unique level that is personal to each relationship I photograph. I want to find what makes that specific relationship so valuable to the subjects. And if I can show that in an image it is thrilling to me.

I value truth.   I have no interest in staging a set full of props that are trendy and have no meaning to the subjects. I have no interest in creating imagery that makes people look more glammed up than they ever look in real life. I have no interest in creating imagery that is meant to convey an emotion that people are acting instead of feeling. No judgement towards photographers who do any of those things, but my message is centered on the beauty of real life and its imperfections.

I value story. I am simply fascinated with the challenge of storytelling in photography. It largely influences my work, especially in regards to relationship and truth. Sometimes this means that I take a photojournalistic approach to a session, and other times it means that we set out to re-create story moments that are authentic to the subjects.

But that is my style. What is yours?!

In summary:

• Keep in mind that this is a journey that takes time. Finding your own authentic style doesn’t happen overnight and most often comes through the experience of trying on many different hats!
• Learn to judge between work that you admire and work that you are attracted to.
• Your style is akin to your message. What is it you are wanting to communicate through your work?
• The better you become at communicating your message, the more intentional your work is.
• The better you become at communicating your message the more like minded people will be attracted to you.
• Style can change, just like you can change! Its an evolution in progress and that is what makes it exciting! Enjoy the journey!

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As a writer’s note I should start by making sure everyone knows that this particular topic is more of an expertise of my wife, Brandy (@photog_princess on twitter), who does the majority of detail shots when her and I shoot weddings and engagements together.  The majority of photos I will be showing you are hers with a few of mine thrown in, but I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due and know that our wedding business would not be half as successful without her.

As a man and a photographer, when it came to our wedding I cared about a handful of things: 1. The photography 2. Her dress 3. Good food and 4. Avoiding a Capulet/Montague style family feud of any sorts.  What many of us men don’t understand is the amount of details that go into a wedding that the bride spent hours, days, and months trying to figure out.  Color, style, napkins, aisle runners, etc.; they tirelessly try to make every detail perfect.  When I decided to shoot weddings instead of just portraits, I never really considered those shots to be that important.  In my head I was more concentrating on the shots the bride and groom’s family would want to blow up and hang on their walls.  And why wouldn’t I?  That’s where the money is at right?

Well, what I came to realize very quickly was that there’s a whole story behind some of the little things that make up each wedding.  One of the things you should ask your brides is what their “new, old, borrowed, and blue” items are?  Maybe they aren’t doing it or maybe there’s a family heirloom wrapped around her bouquet that you might have missed or overlooked.  As a woman one of the first details Brandy wants to shoot while the bride is getting ready are her shoes and her ring, of course (boy does she loves shoes!).  You can create some of the most artistic shots with a good pair of shoes and brilliant ring.  This is one of the things that I think makes us shine as artists rather than photojournalists.  It’s one thing to see her shoes sitting on the dresser, snap a picture and move on; there’s another thing to take those shoes and meticulously balance that ring between the shoes to create a gallery worthy sculpture worth taking a picture.

When it comes to the reception site, Brandy and I try to get there before anyone else gets into the room (we love when the cocktail hour is outside the main reception room) so we can shoot the other important details.  Place settings, centerpieces, tables and linens, cake, place cards, favors, overall decorations, etc.  The bride put a lot of thought into picking these items and they deserve to be remembered.  That cake is going to get cut into and eaten.  The plates will get dirty.  The flowers will wilt.  The rental pieces will be returned.  Once this day is over your pictures are what they have to remember each item piece.  (This is also a good thing to bring up when your bride tells you they’re trying to save money by going cheap with their photography.)  Regardless, make sure you get everything.  One of the ways to do this, especially if you’re new to the wedding photog biz is to make yourself a checklist.  The easiest way is to keep a generic list on you.  I actually found an app on Android called “Photo Tools” that has a free and pro version.  In it there are numerous amounts of fun things to look through, but it has a few “checklists” including one of what to shoot at a wedding or what to pack in your bag.  So go check it out!  We personally send a questionnaire to our brides and ask those kind of questions.  We ask about an heirlooms being incorporated or anything specific they want to make sure we capture that might not be on our checklist, this makes it MUCH easier to ensure that you provide what your client is looking for.

There’s plenty of other reasons to take great detail shots besides just for the Bride’s album.  One of Brandy and my goals this year was to get our work published.  We still haven’t made it into Bride Magazine or the Washingtonian yet, but we have made it into some local e-magazines and Wedding Blogs.  The main thing that they are looking for is detail shots.  The Washingtonian specifically said when submitting work to them for review they want to see 70% of the work you send to be detail shots.  Why is this?  You have to think about it from the publishers view.  As the photographer I want to show off the amazing portrait I took, but from their perspective that isn’t what the readers want to see necessarily.  The readers of these publications are reading and perusing through the pictures to get ideas for their wedding.  So they don’t really want to see wonderful portraits, but they DO want to see that dress and the all the details of their wedding, so they can decide what they want for their own centerpiece or garter or shoes.  They want to know what’s trending right now in wedding décor.

Ok, ok, you want to know how we got our work published just like we wanted to know.  Well the easiest way was through a site we discovered on Twitter called Two Bright Lights.  The entire purpose of the site is to help you market and submit your work to publications and network with the vendors you’re featuring in those photos.  Always…always…always take the cards of each of the vendors at the site: The florist, the caterer, the dj/band, everyone!  When you’re in a local publication they want to also feature where the brides can find all the beautiful things in your photos and the more you feature those vendors the more those vendors are going to promote you to the brides that come to them because they want you to feature them again.  It’s win/win!

So what do you need to take a good detail shot?  Well, when it comes to the close shots of rings you need a macro lens.  Most regular lenses require you to be a certain distance away from your subject.  The macro lens allows you to be much closer to your subject and still be able to focus.  We’re are Nikon shooters so I know their lenses far more than I know Canon lenses.  For Nikon if you have a CMOS sensor you have two options you can use the 60mm f/2.8 which because it’s a full frame lens will be around 75mm equivalent or you can use the DX 85mm f/3.5 which is a tad bit cheaper.  If you have a full frame camera the 105mm f/2.8 is the best of the best when it comes to Nikon’s macro lenses.

Still not sure what to shoot or how to shoot it?  Look through the same blogs and publications you’re trying to publish in and see what they’re featuring and make your own checklists.  Already shooting that stuff?  Make sure you comment below with your favorite detail shot story or something you always try to shoot that someone might not think about!

Happy Shooting!

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After my last article was published in October, some of my online friends said they were inspired enough to start their 365 projects on January 1st, 2012.  That was one of the greatest things that I have heard this year.  A circle of people who have declared they are going to set out their own journeys has been created on Google+.  So why not joining it myself?  Yes, I’ve decided to do another 365 project again (366 photos will have to be taken this time because 2012 is a leap year).

How about you?  Are you tempted to do it?  For those who haven’t decided yet, I’ll share in this article on how I entertained myself during the 365 project I did last time in 2009.  Having fun as a photographer is one of the most important things for completing this long journey.

1. I Got Close to My Subjects

I had only a point-and-shoot camera then and I wasn’t able to use interchangeable lenses as I do now, so I needed to learn what my tiny fellow was good at and try everything possible with it.  One of the things I found out was that it was very good at getting close to the subjects.  Its shortest focus distance was only five centimeters.  So I often tried macro shots.  With those shots, I realized that I was able to see the world in ways I hadn’t seen before, I was totally obsessed with this idea.

Rings Attached to the Menu on the Table

Another reason I was fascinated with getting close to things was that it was the only way I could get bokeh lights with that camera.  The moment I knew I was able to capture bokeh lights, I fell in love with objects like handrails and walls, because they often offer such views as seen in the images below.

Christmas Illumination beyond the Wet Handrail

Reflected Neon Lights

2. I Went Underneath the Subjects

Technically, I didn’t go underneath the subjects. but my camera did.  I often slid my camera underneath the subjects that I couldn’t sneak under.  I held my camera upward and shot things from below.  It was another fun thing I found out during the project.  See the photo of Hydrangeas below.  I had never seen the ‘inside’ the canopy of those flowers with my ‘bare eyes’ before!

White Hydrangea

One of the things that has to be remembered for this kind of shot is that you have to dial up the exposure value a stop or two.  When your camera faces upward, chances are that the sky is also in the frame and this will cause the main subject go black.

Pink Carnations for Mother’s Day

3. I Went as Low as I Could Get to the Ground

When I was lacking creative ideas, this is what I often did.  I had never gotten drunk and slept on the street, so low-angle views were quite new to me (mind you, I haven’t “slept” on the ground since the project either).  If it is uncomfortable for you to crouch or lie on the ground, ask your girlfriend or boyfriend to join your (If she/he refuses your proposal, I doubt she/he is the person who will be your companion for life).

I Found a Leaf and Got Low

I Found the Reflections and Got Low

Sometimes You Can Challenge Your Friends with a “What’s This” Quiz (This is a slide)

4. I Often Played with Toys

You may get a cold or bad weather may prevent you from taking photos outdoors.  In that case, you have to do something with items you have at home.  I often chose my toys as subjects.  I even bought some cheap toys in case these occasions occurred.  But don’t just take plain photographs of your toys, be as creative as you can possibly be.

Oriental-Style Beef Salad

I didn’t have an external flash or a portable photo box, so for the shot above, I creatively used my desk lamp and a white fleece jacket that I wore every day to create a right setting.

Colored Pens

The photo of colored pens above doesn’t look as creative as the beef salad.  In this shot I decided to play with the visitors to my Flickr page.  I let them choose and leave notes on their favorite colors. Click on the image and visit the page, and you’ll see a lot of people enjoyed joining the activity.

The Inside of a Kaleidoscope

You’ll never be able to shoot this with a large lens mounted on a SLR without a special adapter or something.  That’s one of the privileges you have with a small point-and-shoot camera.  Mobile phone cameras should be perfect for doing this, if you have a chance to put your hand on a kaleidoscope give it a try.

5. I Shared My Daily Life

This is the easiest way of proceeding with the project.  What you may consider boring is fun, exciting and amazing to the people living in different countries.  So look carefully, there are a lot of “hidden treasures” around you, you only need to open your eyes and minds.

A Japanese Confectionery and a? Danbo Figure

In the image above, what I wanted to show was not Danbo.  It’s the confectionery in the foreground. That’s Kamome no Tamago, or “Egg of Seagull.”  It’s one of my favorite sweets. I just thought it would be interesting to share my favorite sweet with my online friends, and bingo!  Most of them, of course, have never eaten nor even seen one.  They were very interested in it and said they wanted to see more of Japanese food images.

As I highlighted, I tried a lot of things during my first 365 project.  I tried the popular “cruising” shots that I have written on in one of my articles for the first time during the project.  I also tried long-exposure shots even though my camera only had 5-, 10-, or 15-second exposures.  I know I’ll find out more things during the second trial next year.  What do you think you’ll discover?

You feel like starting the 365 project?  Still wondering?  OK, take a look at this image.  It’s rather long, but it displays my compendium as of December 31, 2009 when my first project ended.

See?  They are the 365 photos I took.  They are what I saw, did, felt, and thought during 2009.  Even now, I feel a little emotional when I see those photos.  That year, I learned a lot.  And I know you will, too, once you start your project!

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“Les Amoureux du Sacre Coeur” by silxy

Let’s talk about the cinema.  For my first project at university, I chose to explore the ‘Cinematography’ genre that I had admired from afar for quite some time.  I have always loved films and the cinematic style, and I decided that in my first project to translate it into my photography.  The theme was “Representing Time”, and I chose to photograph people in their ‘free time’, and to depict their actions in the style of a cinematic film-still.  I had also just purchased a new 50mm F1.8 lens that was perfect for this theme, the reason for which I shall discuss later on.

So what makes a photograph cinematic?  How hard can it really be to make something look cinematic?  Surely all you have to do is insert those two black bars on the top and bottom of an image, and bingo?  Throughout my project, I discovered that it is not as easy as it looks – as most things go.  You cannot just give a photograph two black bars (Mattes) and call it a cinematic shot.  There are numerous other features in cinema and film that make a certain image ‘cinematic’.

"Cinematic: 2" by nfilipevs"

So what makes a photograph cinematic? As of yet, there is no definite explanation, but from what I have gathered (and what I have tried to achieve), a photograph is classed as cinematic if it appears to be of a scene straight from a film because of its stylistic values, and/or if it translates ideas of a bigger back story because of its content. An important thing I should point out is that I was only working in portraiture for my project.  Because of this, I found that one of the main aspects of ‘cinematography’ I employed while I was shooting, was perspective. I found that there were certain compositions and angles that worked and gave my images that ‘film-still’ style, and others that did not. For example, below is an image of someone watching someone else, or perhaps following them. This photograph was taken from behind the person doing the watching/following and it allows the audience to see from their perspective, but to also see them at the same time. From the way the watcher is positioned at an angle away from the person walking away, I want to say that they are not following them, but just watching them walk away.  The lack of colour as well gives a feeling of sadness and emphasises a feeling of abandonment, created by the perspective of this image.

"Cinematography project 2" by santeria-girl"

Another aspect that I paid a lot of attention too was colour – admittedly, this is more of a post-production aspect but as I did not work in RAW all the time, I had to make sure the white balance, tones and general colour cast was suitable for the atmosphere I was trying to create.  Colour plays a big part in cinematography, as it does in all other photography. Again, because I was working in portraiture, I used colour to effectively create the mood of the photograph.

"90" by Ameena Rojee"

"A Drowning" by ravenblakh"

Above is one of the first finished images from my project. In retrospect, I would edit the colour to be less warm because it does not suit the mood that I was trying to get across in this image. I wanted it to feel subdued and quite cold – blue tones and whiter lighting would have been more suitable. Lighting was also a problem though – I had to use whatever lighting I had around me as I have none of my own, and daylight was slowly disappearing earlier and earlier with the approaching winter. In the room I took this photograph, the light was very yellow, and combined with the cream walls it has cast a warm yellow colour over the image, and I have had to just try my best in post-production to get it to where I wanted.

In contrast, this image by ravenblakh shows a woman being drowned by an unknown person, or entity. I say entity because of the colour of the assailants hands – they are an unnatural pale white colour, hinting that whatever is attacking this woman is not completely human, if at all. The colours in this image are very cold, and unnatural because of the combination of the red water and the blue/green tones, which suits the atmosphere and story very well. Also, the perspective of the photograph is very interesting as it puts you in the shoes of the assailant and, and for this reason I think it is very successful in being a ‘cinematic’ photograph because it is a great and effective perspective, especially in this kind of story-line.

"Moody Water" by Latryx"

These tones in this image are gorgeous – the blue tones, the lone fisher in his boat all give off vibes of loneliness and complete desolation. There is not even a hint of life in the river itself. I say loneliness and desolation instead of calm and relaxation, which blue also connotes, because of the darkness of everything. A brighter blue on a sunny day would turn this image into one of happiness and give off the feeling of calmness and utter peace; however, this is not so. The blue is a very dark, murky blue, and the location also gives off the feeling of alienation from the rest of the world. The mistiness and rare calm of the body of water, combined with the seemingly gorgeous location, also add a slight sense of magic and the supernatural, and it is a very atmospheric photograph. Another thing about cinematic style photography that can be included or not are the mattes (the black bars) in images. They exist because of widescreen film, and the 16:9 aspect ratio, and can appear on top and underneath, or on either side of a film. The most popular format though, as seen above, is below and above. On the other hand, the mattes do not need to be used to make an image ‘cinematic’. It does emphasise the idea of a cinematic film still, perhaps more so to those who do not appreciate images as much as photographers and artists, but it does not necessarily make an image cinematic, and therefore should not be seen as a quick shortcut.

Depth-of-field also plays a large hand in cinematic photography. As you can see  in “90″, the focus is quite shallow, only being on the hair, hand and that end of the sofa. This shallow depth-of-field is very common in ‘cinematic’ photography, especially portraiture; however, it is all dependent on the nature and content of your photograph. For example, if there was a landscape photograph of a range of mountains, F1.8 would not be a good choice unless there was perhaps a person or something else in the foreground of importance that you wanted to focus on, consequently removing the focus off of the mountains. For my project,  I have trying to take all my images using my 50mm at F1.8, mostly because I adore a shallow depth-of-field, but I have found that it proves to be most effective when working in portraiture, as proved in the below image.

"105" by Ameena Rojee"

"The Embrace Scene" by Ameena Roje"

Below are a few images from my project that I consider the best.

The above photograph of two people hugging has to be one of my favourites. It was a great timed photograph that I got because I was playing around with my camera in a friend’s flat. I really love the emotion captured in the image, and although it is a very happy image, I went with what felt right when editing the colours, and this is the result, which I am quite happy with. It seems a very nostalgic image, so maybe there are two levels here – the first is the character remembering this scene, and the second is this scene actually happening. Perhaps one of the two people here is the main character, and he or she is remember an old friend or old love. This is the beauty of cinematic photography, I find – the stories created can be as detailed or open-ended as the photographer wants them to be.

"The Kitchen Scene" by Ameena Rojee"

"120" by Ameena Rojee"

At the end of this article, I can say that there are various aspects that are needed to be taken into account when creating cinematic photography, some of which I have explored here. Obviously, there are a whole lot of other things that can affect photographs when trying to create a cinematic style, and hopefully here I have covered the main ones. So what does make a photograph ‘cinematic’? Post your comments, thoughts and links to your cinematic images below.

Thanks for reading!

"vrabiorul-vint" by zorislav stojanović"

Some useful links:

“What is cinematography?”

Cinematic photography tutorial 1

Cinematic photography tutorial 2

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A couple months ago, I wrote a column on this site about freezing motion using very short burst of flash light, in order to capture phenomena that are too fast for our eye to perceive. This time, we are going to explore the opposite end of the time scale, using very long exposures to underline the passage of time and create unusual images and alien worlds.

Technically, a long exposure can be defined as any exposure that lasts from a few seconds to minutes, hours or even days. Some photographs have been made by letting the shutter open for months! We are going to examine the various tools and techniques that are needed for long exposure photography and understand how even the most mundane subjects can be transformed into art, with the right combination of vision and craftsmanship.

92 seconds exposure at f/16, using a 10-stop ND filter © 2011 Ugo Cei

Tools of the trade

Whereas nowadays digital cameras offer an incredible level of convenience with respect to film, the latter still has an advantage when it comes to really long exposures: a film camera, even one with lots of electronics, will use very little power when taking a picture and can keep the shutter open for days without using up the charge of its battery. On the contrary, a digital camera’s battery will only last a few hours, at best, if the camera is in constant use.

On the other hand, film suffers from the phenomenon called reciprocity failure. In the simplest possible terms, what happens is that, as the amount of light hitting the film decreases below certain limits, the time needed for a correct exposure increases more than linearly. This makes the camera meter useless and manually computing exposure times must take into account the appropriate correction factors. Add to this that you won’t be able to judge the exposure by looking at the histogram on the LCD monitor and you’ll understand why digital is so much more convenient.

Limiting ourselves to the realm of digital, the good news is that it is not necessary to acquire costly professional equipment for most of the techniques that will be presented in this article. Even a compact camera will suffice, provided that it has a manual exposure mode and, possibly, manual focus. A “bulb” mode, whereby the shutter can be kept open for as long as needed, is necessary for exposures longer than 30 seconds. It is also useful to have a mount thread so that it can be mounted on a tripod.

A DSLR will probably be best, however. It gives more versatility, better image quality at high ISOs, and generally much longer battery life. A DSLR, and some high-end compact cameras too, will also be capable of saving RAW files; while this is not absolutely necessary, it can help when doing post-processing.

The second, almost mandatory, tool that you should have is a tripod. In the absence of a tripod, you will have to find somewhere to rest your camera upon, so that it doesn’t move during the exposure.

Finally, it is recommended to have a remote release, either one that attached to the camera via a cable, or an infra-red remote command. This will ensure that the camera does not get any shake from your pressing of the shutter button.

In what follows we are going to present one of the most popular sub-genres of long exposure photography: fine art landscapes. In one of the next columns, we will provide some useful suggestions for shooting star trails instead.

20 seconds exposure at f/20. Lacking a tripod on the occasion, I placed my camera on the fountain's edge. © 2011 Ugo Cei

Fine art landscapes

This is a genre that can be quite difficult to define precisely, especially because it’s hard to pin down what “fine art” means to most people, but if you have trouble figuring it out, you should look at the works of Micheal Kenna and Joel Tijntjelaar.

The specific effect that these artists are usually looking for is the smoothing of the movement of waves in the sea, so much that the surface of the sea becomes an almost uniform, cotton-like substance, or the movement of clouds turning into long, smooth streaks. These effects tend to give landscapes an ethereal, almost otherworldly appearance.

"Things will never be the same" by Garry - www.visionandimagination.com

In order to achieve this effect, exposure times on the order of minutes are normally necessary and obtaining those times means reducing the amount of light entering the lens. Unfortunately, there is only so much that you can do using only the camera controls. For example, on a bright sunny day, at noon, the correct shutter speed at ISO 100 and f/32 would be on the order of 1/25s, which is definitely not long. Short of shooting at night, there is only one way of letting less light in, and that is using a neutral density filter. A neutral density filter, or ND for short, is a filter that blocks most of the light coming through the lens, without affecting the scene’s colors (hence the “neutral”).

ND filters come in different densities, each one corresponding to a number of stops of exposure reduction. A 2-stop ND filter will reduce the exposure by 2 stops, therefore requiring 4 times as much time for a proper exposure. The thickest ND filters that are commercially available will reduce exposure by as much as 10 stops, corresponding to a factor of 1,000. That means that our hypothetical 1/25s exposure time will have to be brought up to 40 seconds, which can be enough to smooth out a raging sea. For more prolonged exposures, more than one filter can be stacked together.

Aside from their strength, which can be expressed as a number of stops, or as a fraction, ND filters are characterized by their shape: you can either have circular filters that screw onto the end of the lens, or rectangular filters that slide into suitable adapters. Both shapes have advantages and disadvantages, and none is obviously better than the other one, but I’m accustomed to using rectangular ones.

Some companies also produce variable ND filters, whose strength can be varied by rotating them, as you would rotate a polarizing filter.

Durdle Door II by Tony Armstrong. Some Rights Reserved.

Operating procedures

Do not forget that beautiful photographs always require interesting subjects and pleasing compositions. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that a technique like long exposure can be a surrogate of vision and craftsmanship.

So, once you have you subject, you composition, and your framing put down, the first thing to do is to meter the scene without the filter. It might be impossible to see anything with the filter on. Now it would also be a good time to focus the scene and switch to manual focus.

After you have determined the correct exposure, multiply the shutter time by the the factor corresponding to the number of stops of your filter. For example, an exposure of 1/100s will become 1/25s with a 2-stop filter, or 10s with a 10-stop filter. You can certainly find tables online which list the correct exposures with respect to a specific filter strength.

If the light conditions are changing, like around sunrise or sunset, you should take that into consideration and maybe shorten or lengthen the exposure by a factor of between 30% and 50%. If the resulting time is more than what can be set in the camera, you will have to set it to “bulb” mode.

Now it’s time to mount the filter, being careful not to move the focus; lock the mirror up, if your camera has a mirror that can be locked up, and shoot using your remote release. If in bulb mode, use a timer to know when the exposure time that you have determined previously has elapsed, then close the shutter. Time to review your picture in the back LCD, compute a more correct time if it came out over- or under-exposed, and possibly shoot again.

Keep in mind that the pictures you have taken are just a starting point. They will probably look flat and lifeless. The colors might also be off because the supposedly neutral filter is not so neutral after all, and introduced a distinct color cast. Time to bring them into your favorite image processing software and tweak them until they really shine.

Five tips for better long exposures

• Composition is king. A badly composed photograph will not become great just by using a long exposure.
• If shooting vast landscapes, try to include some element of foreground interest, like rocks or piers jutting into the sea.
• If shooting at night, consider painting objects in the foreground with a flashlight to avoid them being mere silhouettes.
• When the sky is included in the image, fast moving clouds will create interesting streaks and patterns, whereas a cloudless sky will be boring. In the latter case, compose to include less of the sky.
• Try to use a long exposure to make moving people completely disappear from a crowded place.

An exposure of 6 seconds at f/8 was sufficient to make most of the people on the pier disappear, but not all of them. © 2011 Ugo Cei

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There are a few subjects in the photographic world that will really teach you how to use and understand your camera and how it operates.  One of those subjects is night photography.   I’ve always been the type of person who for whatever reason always seems to take the hard way to learning something, and that’s what I did when it came to night work.  I’m similar to a skier tumbling his butt down the triple black diamond trail on the ski slopes, but by the time I come to the bottom I have it figured out enough that I can actually stand up.  Then I march myself back to the top and do it again…and again…and again.

Night photography requires a few things.  A tripod is first and foremost, followed closely by a remote shutter release.  Working at night teaches you a lot about patience, white balance, how your shutter and aperture play together, and a lot about time.

Most images that are taken at night are long exposures, anywhere from tenths of a second to minuets, to hours.  With the inventions of digital, nobody using a DSLR unless they want to fry their sensor is shooting hour exposures.  One good thing to keep in mind is the longer you leave the shutter open the longer your sensor is on.  Your sensor generates heat and after awhile can leave lots and lots of beautiful hot pixels all over your image that you then have to go and remove…not fun.  I find I won’t go much longer that 15-20min.  Most of the time you won’t need anything longer than 20min anyways.  If you want to shoot star trails like the image above the only way to do it is with an intervelometer and shoot lots of images over time, then combine together later, using any number of stacking programs.  Also this method is used to make some amazing time-lapse work.

220 Images at 14mm f/3.5 ISO 125 @ 30sec

For example the above image was shot at 14mm f3.5 @ 30 seconds times about 220 images, then each shot was dropped into Helicon Focus and combined together.

Night photography forces you to always be thinking about your shutter speed, time, ISO, and aperture.  If you are in the middle of the Mojave Desert and there isn’t any light pollution for miles and miles, and you want to shoot the stars without any movement to them then I might start at my widest aperture, maybe f2.8 or wider and set the ISO to maybe 320 for 30 seconds, throw as much light into the camera and see what happens.   I will then adjust from there if I need to, much of night work is a game of adjustments and it’s obviously much easier now with digital. Another thing I like to play with a bit from time to time is white balance.  Sometimes a change of a setting here can give a photograph an entirely different dimension, especially at night.

Of course if you live in a city, and you want to do the skyline at night with maybe some light trails from cars then you will need a lower ISO, smaller aperture, and maybe the same 30sec exposure or longer.  The combinations of what you can do I could go on and on about but in the end all these things force you to work in Manual mode, and keep you thinking and adjusting and that right there will take someone who isn’t fully comfortable with their camera and it’s functions and turn them into a fairly confident person who IS comfortable with their camera, and that right there is one of the most important things for any photog.  If I’m not comfortable with my camera then I’m not going to make images I’m happy with.

I really love doing night photography.  Especially in NYC where during the day the city is beautiful, but it’s truly majestic at night.  I find the night simplifies subjects a bit, during the day you see everything where as at night you only see what is lit, it’s more dramatic I think.  I suggest go out when you can at night and seeing what you come up with.  Grab the iPod, maybe a flask, or bottle of whatever and head out on your own little adventure and see what the night brings you.  Often times, especially in cities, this is when all the truly interesting things and people reveal themselves.  Not only will you most likely walk away with some great stories, you will walk away feeling more comfortable with your equipment.

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“Failure is always the best way to learn,

Retracing your steps ’til you know.

Have no fear – your wounds will heal.”

– Kings of Convenience, “Failure”

Once upon a time, to earn a few extra bucks, I went out to set off on a different business venture – something that could help pad the income from my photography business. I acted nearly like the thing I hated: a door-to-door salesmen. Going to each restaurant, I recalled the time when I was a restaurant manager, and how much I hated having somebody interrupt my day, trying to sell something to me while I was trying to finish up all the countless projects assigned to me by my GM. Keeping that in mind, I tried my best not to be disruptive to their day and worked on my “elevator pitch” – trying to express what I was selling without taking up too much of their time. Majority of them avoided me, told me they already had someone handling that service, or flat-out said they weren’t interested. It’s a tough pill to swallow, and nobody likes being turned down, but it was hard to keep my spirits up after hearing “no”, “no”, “no”.

Rejection sucks, but it’s something we face a lot starting up a business and trying to get our name out there into the world. Sometimes, it may be that your idea or product just isn’t what they’re looking for or something people don’t really need. I’m not trying to brag, but I had a brilliant idea. I mean, it was good. To hear people express being uninterested was insulting and disappointing, but I had to move on. How does someone manage to let it roll off of their back and stay the course?

I started questioning myself and my concept. Bad. Bad, bad, bad. It made me lose confidence and pride in what I was selling and doing, but going on to the next place with that kind of attitude wouldn’t have been beneficial to my cause. I had to remind myself that sometimes the idea of trying to convince people they need something they didn’t know they needed is a tough sell and doesn’t work initially, but it may work on the next place, or someone else will see the value in what you’re doing. Keeping a positive attitude and putting the rejection behind you helps keep you motivated to accomplish your goals. If you continue to believe in what you are doing, it’s a lot easier to get someone else to believe in what you are doing.

When I hear “no, thank you”, it’s easy to become discouraged, but always bow out gracefully and with a smile. I always thanked them for their time and made sure they knew I was available in case they changed their mind. They may not, but if they have a positive interaction with you, the chances they might actually consider you for opportunities in the future only increase. If you immediately become defensive and abrasive, do you think they’re really going to reconsider?

A difficult aspect of managing rejection in times when it comes to your photography is trying not to take it personally. Considering a lot of the time, our work is essentially an extension of ourselves and an expression of who we are, it may be difficult not to take offense to being turned down, since the resulting work we turn in didn’t meet someone’s approval; it’s as if they’re rejecting us. The thing to remember is that they aren’t rejecting you as a person – hell, they may even have a few rounds at the pub with you after telling you your work wasn’t suitable for their business/publication/whatever. They may be taking a different creative direction with their project or what have you and your style doesn’t fit that. Different strokes for different folks, right? Don’t let it get you down, and if you truly believe in your work, keep hustling to make it happen. Edison didn’t invent the light bulb on his first try, after all.

The most important thing to bear in mind when gracefully handling rejection is that even though they may not need your services doesn’t mean they don’t know someone else who might. And that whole “word of mouth” thing is crucial in the photography business, where everybody is a photographer these days and hunting for jobs is extremely competitive. By accepting rejection and thanking the client for their time, you never know when one of their friends could be looking for a photographer and would tell them, “even though I didn’t use them, I know of someone you’d be interested in working with.” Because we’d all rather have them say that instead of, “I know of a photographer… but he/she was extremely rude when I turned them down. Never mind.” If you leave on a good, positive note, it’s only going to help your cause.

I always try to keep in mind that there will be instances that I’ll face rejection. It’s inevitable. It may also be that they just don’t need my services at this time, but it might be available to bring me on when their budget increases later down the road or when my creative approach better fits what they’re looking for. Sometimes, it ends up working out, where, had I been accepted by them, I would have missed out on a better paying gig, or one that presented a better opportunity to expand my business. It all sounds like a bunch of psychiatry nonsense, but if you saw how many times I’ve faced being turned down until I ultimately got accepted for a job, you’d see that after enough of those instances and trying out that “psychiatry nonsense” definitely helps your mental health and attitude. You never know what life has in store for you, so keep the faith and don’t ever give up.

Rejection isn’t pleasant, but unfortunately, it’s a part of life.  Have no fear – your wounds will heal.

Until next time,

- Patrick

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“I think of the negative as the ‘score,’ and the print as a ‘performance’ of that score, which conveys the emotional and aesthetic ideas of the photographer at the time of making the exposure.” – Ansel Adams, 1983

These are the words of a master and despite the fact that Ansel Adams was never exposed to the level of digital wizardry that we take for granted, these words still ring true.  If we extend this metaphor to the digital world then we need to add  the orchestra to the mix .  Let me take the bold step of  rephrasing Mr Adam’s words to meet the  digital age.

“I think of the raw file as the ‘score’, Lightroom and Photoshop as the ‘orchestra’ and the print as a ‘performance’, which    conveys the emotional and aesthetic ideas of the photographer at the time of making the exposure.”

When we shot film, the wet darkroom was the medium that was used to  transform the negative from a piece of coated plastic to a work of art on paper.  Skill behind the camera was important and unless you relinquished control by outsourcing the developing and printing of your images, the darkroom skills were equally important.
In the digital age the dark room skills have now been replaced by a different set of skills, that I will refer to as ‘digital image management’ (DIM) skills. Let us make no mistake, these skills are just as important as the wet darkroom ones that make it extremely important that the photographer of today takes the time to be familiar with the standard of the DIM  tool set.

This ten-part series will focus on one of those tools, Adobe Lightroom, and will demonstrate how, with some basic knowledge, it can be used to streamline your workflow and bring the best out of your images. However before I begin I would like to state a disclaimer that : Lightroom is only one of the tools; it has as it’s place in the tool box but it’s not the only tool and like most tools it’s not suited for every job. There are some jobs which will need special treatment and for those you may need to use Photoshop, Photmatix, Portrait Professional etc.  A simple warning: “Be flexible!  Expose yourself to as many tools as possible.  You may download free trials of most of the popular software and take them for a test run.  That’s the best way to determine what fits your needs and style.

One more thing before we start. You will often hear the comment “I am a photographer I want to spend time behind the camera not in-front of a computer”.  That is cool, but realistically speaking unless you spend the time in-front of the computer developing a standard work-flow, you are doomed to spending even more time in-front of the computer in frustration.  Invest the time I now and it will reap benefits in the future.

Lightroom 101 Part 1

The tedious part – getting started.

Do you remember those king-fu movies in which the young and upcoming fighter has to undergo months of painful training under the tutelage of the wise sage of a master before he could finally be ready to take on his evil foe?  Well to draw an analogy, the first section of this will be painful as we need to build the foundation for future success by dealing with some of the drier aspects at the beginning.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has been designed from the ground up to provide a streamlined and simple interface.  This makes it easy for photographers to quickly perform the most common steps in their own work-flow. Lightroom is not a replacement for Photoshop (which you still need to perform pixel-level editing) but is distinctive because  it blends the strength of a  digital asset management tool with the flexibility  of an excellent non destructive  image editor.  Of key importance is the  phrase “non destructive” because, unlike Photoshop, the adjustments that are made in Lightroom do not affect the underlying pixels of an image. All adjustments are recorded as actions in Lightroom’s database and are only applied when the image is exported.
Lightroom is arranged in several different modules  – Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web. The modules are used to separate related functions and make it easier to navigate the program.

• The Library module is used to import images and organize images.
• The Develop module, is used to apply adjustments to the image such as white balance, saturation,lighting, colours and tone.
• The  Slideshow module facilitates the creation of slideshows from the images.
• The Print module is used to prepare images for printing.
• Finally, the Web module is used to create web galleries in  both HTML and Flash.

Asset Management- The Library Module

In simple terms, how do you go about storing, backing up, retrieving those thousands of images that you have taken?  Can you  quickly put  your hand on that image taken 3 years ago that is required by a client? This is one of the strong points of Lightroom, its ability to manage digital assets in a way  that makes it easy for the photographer at any level.  At the heart of this is where we will start “The Library Module”

The Library is where you import, organize, categorize and rate your images. Lightroom can import 140 different raw image formats as well as TIFF and Jpeg images.
The Library screenshot shown below, provides a view of how the work area is laid out. The left panel has tools for organizing and classifying your images, adding pictures to collections and browsing images. Images may be filtered by keyword or by metadata (e.g images pictures taken with a specific camera model). The right panel contains ―Quick Develop features for simple image adjustment, a section to edit keywords and metadata. Along the bottom of the main window are buttons that provide various ways to view and sort the images. Images may be viewed as a grid or a single image. Images can also be compared images side by side. It is also within this section where images can be flagged and/or rated.

Organisation

The catalog is the database file that Lightroom uses to store the information about all of the images you‘ve imported.  You can liken the “catalog” as being like your address book on your computer. For each entry in your address book, you have information about that person such as their name, phone number, email, and, sometimes, a small photo. In Lightroom, each image that is imported has its own database entry, which contains  a visual preview, or thumbnail, of the photo, the date the picture was taken, the shutter speed, changes made to the photo (history), and many other items. The  database file, typically named Lightroom Catalog.lrcat or is by default, stored in a folder named Lightroom in your Pictures or My Pictures folder of your computer. You can, however, store this folder and included files wherever you wish. When creating a new catalog, you can also name it whatever you wish. You can have as many Lightroom Catalogs as you wish. However only one catalog can be active (open)  at a time.  For beginners it is probably best that you use one catalog to avoid confusion .

The actual images (the photos that came out of our camera) are not stored inside any Lightroom catalog or database. These files reside in a location (typically a hard drive) where Lightroom can find and read information from them. The Folders panel in the Library Module of Lightroom allows us to see the folders on our hard drives where these originals files are located. In the example above you‘ll see, on the left in the Folders panel, the active folder in Lightroom. That folder is called ‘Boats’ and  it sits in a disk folder on an external drive called “Toshiba”. You can tell this from the hierarchical display of parent and child folders in Lightroom. Folders in Lightroom always correspond to real, live folders on some storage device. If you move an image out of a folder in Lightroom into another folder, it will move that actual file (negative file) on your hard drive.  If you delete an image from a folder in Lightroom, you‘ll be asked if you want to remove the image from Lightroom (the entry for that file in the catalog) or actually delete it from the disk (throw it in your computer‘s Recycle Bin or Trash).

Coming Installments

• Importing and Organising Your Images
• White Balance & Camera Calibration
• Virtual Clones ( Dolly the Sheep)
• Global Adjustments  (World Change)
• Local Adjustment (Overview)
• The Adjustment Brush (The Power Tool)
• Using Presets  (Highway or Dirt Road) )
• Exporting & Working with Photoshop (The Missing Link)
• Printing (The Final Frontier)