PhotoWalkPro

It would have been easy to just re-hash the Lightroom 2 book and add in new features from Lightroom 3 but then that just wouldn’t be Scott Kelby, now would it? I’m always amazed at how each book series update he does seems like something brand new and this latest book is no exception. From the moment I first opened the cover until I turned the last page, I was pleasantly pleased to see so many new features in this book. So let’s talk about the real meat and potatoes of this book.

The book starts out just like you would work in Lightroom, by importing images. It’s hard to believe that there is so much to know about just getting your photos from your camera into Lightroom but everything is well covered in this Chapter. The Import function was completely overhauled for Lightroom 3 and the book uses a step-by-step approach to guide you through importing from camera, computer, even video. There’s also a great section on using the new tethered shooting section.

Next it’s on to the Import module. Once again, everything is laid out in a step-by-step fashion including how to create custom metadata templates for copyright, custom naming templates, and tips on navigating through your images. The next chapter is all about organization. There are tons of different strategies for organizing photos in Lightroom and Scott shares his personal methods for sorting, searching, and keeping all of your shoots organized.

The next chapter is very cool. It’s full of tips on how to customize Lightroom to get the most out of the program. In it, you will find things like setting up two monitors, customizing panels, setting the loupe magnification, and even adding your studio logo to the top of the program banner.

The rest of the book follows the same pattern of instruction, covering the Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web modules, each in great detail but with a simplicity that never leaves you feeling overwhelmed.  If that was all there was to the book, it would be well worth the money but wait, there’s so much more. First of all, every chapter ends with a section of Lightroom Killer Tips. These are short little tips and hints that you probably won’t find in any other book.

The final chapter is by far my favorite because it really pulls everything together. In it, Scott has taken his 7-Point System and adapted it to Lightroom. There are four different projects where Scott walks you through his entire process for adjusting images, including a fashion shot, a landscape, a travel photo, and a sports shot. By following along you will discover just how easy it is to take your good shot and make it great by applying his 7-point system in the develop module. It’s this personal insight into Scott’s Lightroom workflow that really takes this book over the top and gives you the benefit of his vast knowledge of this powerful program.

The bottom line is that, even if you were pretty comfortable using Lightroom 2, version 3 is a whole new ballgame with lots of great new features and this book is the perfect guide. Not only will you learn all of the features and tools that Lightroom 3 has to offer but also Scott’s keen insight on how to leverage them all to your advantage. It’s definitely another winner for Scott and Lightroom users everywhere.

Have you ever processed an image and then made a print only to find that you missed some dust spots and then you have to go back and do it all over again? I know I have but i have a little trick I use to find all those dust specks, even in hard to find locations. It’s not real complicated but it has saved me from having to go back and clean up hard to find spots.

After months of playing with the Lightroom 3 Beta, the waiting is over. Yesterday Adobe announced that Lightroom 3 is ready to ship and is available immediately. A couple of things you might want to know if you are considering purchasing this latest version is that your LR3 Beta catalog will not update into the final version (although I am starting to hear reports that this isn’t the case and you can import your Beta data. Please let me know if this is the case as I have not yet had time to download the official version and confirm this). You will be able to migrate your LR2 catalogs but if you had a lot of images in the Beta, you will need to re-import them. Another thing you might want to consider is jumping over to NAPP and checking out the Lightroom Learning Center. They have lots of updated videos to cover things that were in the Beta and also changes that are in the final release. You can find out about the new Import Dialog, Tethered Shooting, Lens Correction, Noise Reduction, and a whole bunch of other new features in this latest release and it’s all FREE.

Finally, if you were considering purchasing Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 you need to check out the deal below to save yourself 30% off.

Sandisk Launches Professional Photography Contest on Facebook -

SanDisk Corporation announced that it will launch a professional photography contest on the SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook page starting June 8. Participants will be able to submit photos in four different categories – Nature, Wedding/Events, Action and Fashion. The Facebook community of SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook fans can vote for their favorite photos, and a SanDisk panel of professional photographers from the SanDisk Extreme Team will review the quarterfinalists and select the contest winners.

The grand prize winner will be offered a one year spot on the SanDisk Extreme Team and the grand prize winning photo will be exhibited in the “Winner’s Circle” gallery showing during the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City. The four finalists, the winners of each category, will each receive a $1,000 cash prize and their photos will be featured in the online Winner’s Circle gallery. Eight runners-up will receive $250 worth of SanDisk imaging cards and their photos will be featured in the online Winner’s Circle gallery. For more details make sure you check out the SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook page.

Spider Holster Announces New Adaptors -

Finally today, Spider Holster has announced a series of new cross-platform adaptors for its increasingly popular Spider Holster System. New adaptor kits allow users to securely attach their SpiderPro holster directly to ThinkTank and Lowepro belt systems, and a new dove-tail quick-release plate allows users of Arca-Swiss-style ballheads and tripods to transition from holster to mount much faster. These new adaptors are the latest addition to Spider Holster’s effort to enable Spider Holster users to incorporate the system into their existing gear collection and workflow.

I will be getting one of the Spider Holster Systems soon and I plan on giving it a test drive during the World Wide Photowalk in July. I will be certain to give you a full report after the fact. If you would like to see the Spider Holster system in use, check out the video below and then head to their website for even more demonstration videos and info on the new adaptors (click here).

My buddy Mike popped into my office yesterday to ask me a quick Lightroom question.  He had been editing some scanned slides in Lightroom and one of them was covered in dust specks so he was using the Spot Removal tool to get rid of them.  The problem was that as time went on and the number of removed spots went up and his Lightroom started bogging down.  I knew exactly what he was referring to because I have run across this same problem, usually on images that required a lot of work with the retouching brush.

So here’s the deal, you probably already know that Lightroom isn’t actually applying your edits directly to the image but is saving them as separate data.  The beauty of it is that you can go back to any point in time in your edit history because they are all saved, unlike Photoshop, which is typically set to about 20 states (although you can set it to as high as 1000). There is a way to quickly overcome this problem by creating a duplicate of your image.  I’m not talking about creating a virtual copy.  That just makes virtual copy with all of the same history states.  What I am talking about is actually creating a new verion of your image containing all of your previous edits, kind of like creating a flattened layer in Photoshop.

Here’s how it works. Start making your edits in Lightroom and if you find your computer stars to bog down, right-click on your image and select Edit in Photoshop. Make sure you choose the Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments.

When the image opens in Photoshop, simply close it and select Save in the dialog box. This will put it back in Lightroom but with all of the previous edits and none of the history to bog things down.

Now you have the clean edit and the original to go back to if needed.  The clean version will respond much quicker to future edits because it’s not bogged down with all the history from the original.

Not everyone will suffer these performance problems as it is a direct result of system performance but it can make things move a bit quicker when you have some heavy editing that might start slowing you down.

Okay, it’s not really a secret but you might think it is because so few people seem to use it when processing RAW files.  In fact I was talking to someone the other day and I asked if they use Camera Calibration and they said their camera didn’t need calibrating.  I don’t really blame them for this because it really is a stupid name for such a great feature.  What Adobe really needs to do is change the name from Camera Calibration to something like Camera Profiles or Better Looking Photos.  I’m sure if you saw a tab or panel with that name, it would probably be the first thing that you turned to when processing your files.

The reality is that Camera Calibration is a quick way to apply the camera profiles that are built into your camera and are used when you shoot JPEGs.  First, let me preface this by saying that the camera profiles only apply to RAW images shot with a Nikon or Canon camera.  I’m not sure why they don’t support other manufacturers but that’s just the reality for now. But if you do own a Canon and Nikon, you have probably noticed that the images that you see on your camera LCD screen look so much better than they do when they are imported in Lightroom or opened in Camera Raw.  That’s in large part because the RAW image file has very little processing applied to it.  I say little because Lightroom and Camera Raw always apply some adjustments as a default as soon as your image is pulled into the program.

The problem is that the default profile that Adobe uses is something called Adobe Standard.  How often have you seen anything worthwhile come from something called “standard”?  Yeah, not very often.  So here’s where you can make a huge improvement to your images by changing one little drop-down setting.  Just change Adobe Standard to any one of the other choices in the Camera Calibration section and see how your image becomes instantly better.

Now here’s the trick, you don’t want to necessarily use the same camera profile for every image.  Each profile is different and will have a different impact on your image.  If you are shooting landscapes with bright colors and lots of greens and blues, you might want to start with the Landscape profile.  If you have some lackluster colors you can instantly bump the color saturation and contrast by selecting the Vivid profile.  The thing is that you just have to click each one and pick the one that gives you the best result.  By the way, Canon and Nikon profiles have different names.  Canon uses the Faithful, Landscape Neutral, Portrait, and Camera Standard profiles.  Nikon has the D2X Mode 1, D2X Mode 2, D2X Mode 3, Landscape, Neutral, Portrait, Camera Standard, and Vivid profiles.

Now if you are a JPEG shooter, don’t bother looking for these different profiles because when you click the drop-down, you will find that the only choice you have is Embedded.  That’s because the camera profile was already embedded into your JPEG file by your camera.  If you want to change the look of your image, you can do so by changing the Camera Style in your camera menu. I actually talk a lot about this in my books.  But if you are a RAW shooter, you will definitely want to give the camera calibration panel/tab a look to see how much better your images can be with very little effort on your part.  To get started in Lightroom, go to the Develop Module and the click on the Camera Calibration panel at the bottom of the stack.

If you are using Camera Raw, open your image and then click the Camera Calibration tab, which is the third one over from the right.

Here’s a look at how you can get different results from the same image by just changing the Camera Calibration profile. Click on the first thumbnail to get a larger view of the image and then notice how the color, contrast, and even shadow detail changes as the camera calibration profile changes.