Featured Stories
Topaz Labs Introduces a New Product
Topaz Labs, makers of some of my all-time favorite Photoshop and Lightroom plug-ins has just announced… [more]
Passing It On – News and Events
I'm really slammed right now working on the new book, which is now available for pre-order, but I wanted… [more]
A Fantastic Way to Fire Your Camera – Triggertrap Mobile
I can't remember where I first read about the Triggertrap Mobile but I did know as soon as I saw it that… [more]
The Google+ Conference for Photographers
I am tied up all next week, which is somewhat disappointing to me because it means that I can not be… [more]
My First D800 Photo Shoot
This past Saturday I gathered up some lenses, my new Nikon D800, and my youngest son and headed out to… [more]
Today’s Featured Story

Topaz Labs Introduces a New Product
May 25, 2012 By jeff 3 Comments
Topaz Labs, makers of some of my all-time favorite Photoshop and Lightroom plug-ins has just announced that they are going to be releasing a new product called photoFXlab. There is not a whole lot of info on it right now but it looks to be a one-stop-shopping program to access all of the Topaz plug-ins from one environment but with a few twists. Apparently there is a thumbnail pane that lets you preview effects from all of your Topaz programs on your image without having to actually open the individual plug-ins. It also has the ability to apply selective adjustments using an adjustment brush … [Read More...]
Image Processing

Topaz Labs Introduces a New Product
Topaz Labs, makers of some of my all-time favorite Photoshop and Lightroom plug-ins has just announced that they are going to be releasing a new product called photoFXlab. There is not a whole lot of info on it right now but it looks to be a one-stop-shopping program to access all of the Topaz plug-ins from one environment but with a few twists. Apparently there is a thumbnail pane that lets you … [Read More...]

Picking Custom Colors from your Photos in Lightroom
It's been quite a while since I have done any video tips or tutorials so I thought I would kick the week off with a new one from Lightroom. This isn't really anything new in Lightroom but it's something that a lot of people don't know about. It has to do with picking a custom color from within your photo for things like fonts, strokes, or even backgrounds. Have a watch of the video and enjoy your … [Read More...]
Camera Gear

A Fantastic Way to Fire Your Camera – Triggertrap Mobile
I can't remember where I first read about the Triggertrap Mobile but I did know as soon as I saw it that I had to have one. Why, you ask? Because, for the money, it is the most versatile and easy to use triggering devices for creating all sorts of timelapse images, long exposures with 12 different triggering modes that are all controlled from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The device itself … [Read More...]

Do you really need a new camera?
I spend a good bit of time trolling Google Plus looking for interesting stories, comments, photos, etc. just to help keep my finger on the pulse of the photo community. Over the past couple of weeks the big chatter has been all about the new DSLR cameras that have been introduced by Canon and Nikon (and even Fuji and their X-Pro 1). There has been a lot of excitement but also a lot … [Read More...]
Photography

The Google+ Conference for Photographers
I am tied up all next week, which is somewhat disappointing to me because it means that I can not be in San Francisco for the first ever Google + Conference for Photographers. When I first learned about the conference I knew that this was going to be unique in a lot of different ways. First of all, it’s the first ever conference devoted to a social media platform. Sure, there have been lots of … [Read More...]

My First D800 Photo Shoot
This past Saturday I gathered up some lenses, my new Nikon D800, and my youngest son and headed out to Manassas Municpal airport to see some cool aircraft and watch a little aerobatics. This was my first real photo shoot with the D800 and I had a real blast putting it through its paces. The weather was fantastic so I can't tell you about the ISO performance of the camera (I shot between ISO 100 … [Read More...]
HDR

Creating Faux HDR in Lightroom – the New and the Old
I was working on one of my Lightroom chapters and I got to the section where I described how to do a faux HDR look using the sliders in the Basic panel when it hit me, the sliders I normally use for creating the effect are not there anymore. In LR3 there is a Recovery, Fill Light and Brightness sliders but those are gone, having been replaced by a Highlights, Shadows, and Whites sliders. I then … [Read More...]

Single Image Tonemapping in Photoshop CS5
The other day I was processing some bracketed HDR images that I had recently shot. My typical workflow is to take the images from Lightroom into HDR Pro in Photoshop. I don't typically tonemap in Photoshop, just create the HDR file and save it as a 32-bit radiance file. Then I open the newly created file in Photomatix Pro for tonemapping and then save it back into Lightroom. There's an option in … [Read More...]

