PhotoWalkPro

The other day I saw that my buddy Scott Kelby had debuted the new iPhone App for Photoshop World and since I recently registered I thought I would give it a whirl.  I figured that it would be good but I wasn’t prepared for just how good.  This is a great app!  Granted, it’s not something that I’ll need after the conference is over but I guarantee you that it will get a lot of use up to that point.  The thing that most impressed me is the way everything is so logically laid out.  It just makes using it so intuitive. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again.  Time to join all of my NAPP friends for another fantastic Photoshop World and this Spring, it’s back in Orlando.  With the Winter that we’ve had here, I will be more than ready to spend a few days in Orlando.  And just as I have at the past two Spring Photoshop Worlds, I’m going to kick things off with a photowalk the day before everything gets rolling at the convention center.  The location for the photowalk will once again be the beautiful downtown area surrounding Lake Eola, just a few minutes drive from the conference location.

I don’t have all the details nailed down yet but we will probably begin sometime around 4:30 or 5:00, depending on the sunset time for the date. Which, by the way, is going to be Tuesday, March 23rd.  It’s important to note that this is not an official Photoshop World activity and is not affiliated with NAPP or Kelby Training.  It’s just a way to get out and have some fun before the conference starts.  In fact, you don’t even have to be going to the conference.  If you are in the Orlando area and just want to get out with your camera and have some fun, then this is the event for you.  So if you are traveling to Orlando for Photoshop World and want to get things kick-started, come on out and join me for an evening in Orlando.

Early Registration Discount Ending Soon -

Speaking of Photoshop World, this is the last week do get the Early Bird pricing.  If you pay for your registration by February 26th you will get $100 off the full conference price.  I’m already registered and I suggest you get yours taken care of because who can’t use an extra 100 bucks.  There are also spots left in 6 of the pre-con classes including HDR with Matt and RC, DSLR Video with Rich Harrington, Real World Concert Photography, and more.  You had better hurry though, the pre-con classes really fill up fast the month before the conference and there’s no telling how long it will be before they are all sold out.  You can find out more information on the classes, instructors, pre-cons, and registration at the official Photoshop World site.

By the way, if you are still trying to convince your boss/spouse to let you go, you have to check out the form letter that has been written for you to help with your argument.  Even if you don’t need it, it’s still worth a read.  You can find it here.

Photo by Matt Kloskowski

While in attendance at the last Photoshop World I had the pleasure of speaking on the Peachpit Stage.  It was a little intimidating for me, especially since there were some lofty presenters that had preceded me like Joe McNally, David DuChemin, Chris Orwig, Matt Kloskowski just to name a few.  The thing that really made me nervous was trying to pick a subject to speak on that would fill my alloted 45 minutes.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with public speaking.  In fact I have been told that I sometimes don’t know when to shut up.  No, the thing that really bothered me was the actual topic for my presentation.  I mean, if you are Joe McNally, you speak about lighting with small flashes or how you scaled the Empire State building to get a shot of a light bulb being changed.  Matt could easily fill a day with Lightroom and Photoshop tips and techniques, but what did I really have to say that would be of value.  Sure, I have authored 3 books now, the third of which (Canon Rebel T1i: Snapshots to Greatshots) has just shipped to distributors, but how could I translate that into something that would have appeal to folks who might not own one of those cameras.

Truth be told, I hadn’t really figured out what I was going to say until the day before I was scheduled to speak.  I thought that maybe I could give some camera tips but seeing as how I have written about both Canon and Nikon books, there probably wasn’t enough there to really help out everyone.  So I took some time and just tried to think about what all of these books have in common.  Was there a consistent theme that could apply to anyone that owned a DSLR, or any camera for that matter.  Then I remembered something that happened to me just the week before.  I was using a friends new camera and I took a picture and looked at the rear LCD screen to check out my shot.  Almost as quickly as I looked down, the screen went blank.  I took another shot and sure enough, it only displayed for a couple of seconds before disappearing.  That’s when I asked my buddy if he knew that he could actually change the default setting so that the image would display for a much longer period.  In fact there were a lot of things that he could do with his camera to make his shooting work flow better.  That’s when it hit me that he hadn’t even read the manual. Just so you know, my friend isn’t some amateur learning photography.  Nope, he is a pro who has been shooting for years.  And this was probably his downfall.  He just assumed that since he knew how to operate the camera’s general functions that he knew everything there was to know.  That’s right, he had never read the manual except to maybe learn where to find a particular adjustment or two.

That experience is what inspired the subject of my presentation, which was “Know Your Camera”.  Even if you are a seasoned pro, the chances are that you can improve your production by learning every technological nuance that the engineers have given you.  Of course this is a harder fact to drive home to the male of the species since we think that instruction manuals are better suited for propping up the short leg on the coffee table.  But the reality is that there are so many technological advances in today’s cameras that you are only short-selling yourself by not exploring every feature and tweak that your camera has to offer and this starts by reading your manual.  Let’s take the Nikon D5000 for example.  Everyone that buys the camera is aware that it shoots video.  That’s one of the major selling points.  But I wonder how many of them know that there is a built in intervalometer that will let them capture a series of time-lapse images and then process them into a time-lapse movie right in the camera.  Pretty darn cool but useless if you don’t know that it exists. For you Canon 40D and 50D owners out there, how many of you have actually learned how to customize the C1 setting on your mode dial?  I’m sure some have but there are others that have never even explored the possibilities.

So that was the bulk of my lecture.  Your camera is only as good as your knowledge of its capabilities and limitations.  Once you equip yourself with that knowledge you can concentrate on leveraging the technology to take your images to a better place.

Time is running out for you to place a bid on one of the limited edition prints to raise money for the Walk4Hearing fundraiser.  Rob Jones from Towner-Jones Photography has been hosting the silent auction on his web site.  The auction is nearing an end and you only have until October 11th to place your bid on the images donated by 11 great photographers (okay, 10 great photographers and me).  MPIX has kindly donated to print the 11×14 images for the winning bidders, except for RC Concepcion who is donating his pano image printed on a 5 foot canvas (very sweet).

For Those That Like Concert Photography -

One of the pre-con events at Photoshop World was a concert photography workshop, hosted by Alan Hess and Scott Diussa.  The class got a chance to photograph Scott Kelby’s band, Big Electric Cat as the practiced on stage for their After Hours Party the following evening.  I spoke to a couple of people that had attended the workshop and they were completely stoked on the class and what they learned.  I hadn’t actually seen any images from the class, except for one shot of Scott playing guitar, looking like a major league rock star.  That shot was by Alan Hess.

Last night I found the rest of Alan’s shots of the band (and students) at work on his website, Shot Live Photo.  There are some great shots of the boys in the band and it’s clearly obvious that Alan is the guy you want to talk to if you want to get great concert images.  If you want to see more info about Alan and the other stuff he did at Photoshop World, check out his blog page.

I’m keeping it short today.  So much to do and so little time.  Have a great Wednesday!

Yesterday I posted some images from my shoot in the Las Vegas Boneyard.  Included was one pano that I made by combining 3 images shot with a 10.5mm fish-eye lens.  I had never really thought of making a pano from fish-eye images because the lens has so much distortion around the edges that I never really thought it would merge well.  That’s until I saw Russell Brown from Adobe give his little demo in the opening keynote during Photoshop World (you can watch the entire keynote over at Terry White’s blog).  Dr. Brown showed the power of the Merge to Panorama tool in CS4 and clued me in to the little check-box that I had been missing that let me create my cool pano.  Check out this video to see how it was done.

Now here’s the other really cool thing that I learned at photoshop World and it’s the tool I used to bring you the video tutorial.  See, usually I use a program called iShowU to create my video screen capture videos but this video wasn’t made with iShowU, it was made with an Internet application called Screenr that my buddy Rich Harrington turned me on to.  Screenr is a completely web-based option for creating video screen-casts and posting them to Twitter.  It also allows you to post them to YouTube as well as embedding them into a blog or web page.  It was extremely easy to use and the only downside is that you only get 5 minutes of record time.  Beyond that, it’s a totally cool application that I will be using for all my short tutorials.  You can begin using it for your own videos by checking out the Screenr website.

As it is with every Photoshop World, the end came all too quickly.  I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Vegas, even though the dry air was playing havoc with my sinuses.  Friday began pretty early in the AM with a trip with some old and new friends to the Neon Boneyard.  We had a little bus issue so Matt Kloskowski, Chris Orwig and I headed outside the hotel to shoot some cool shadows and a few sweet rides parked out front.

It’s not every day that you see a Lamborghini, Mercedes McLaren, and Ferrari all lined up and ready to shoot, that is unless you are visiting Las Vegas casino.  Chris Orwig was the first to move to the cars, where he not only shot a portrait of Matt but also pulled out his small plastic TLR to grab some images of the vehicles.  He even managed to give me a scare as he climbed up on the wall of the parking area for a better angle on the cars.  It wasn’t the wall that made me nervous, it was the 2 story drop on the other side of the wall that got me.

Chris Orwig captures the essence of Matt Kloskowski

Chris and his plastic twin lens reflex camera.

Working the reflection on the back of the Ferrari

We finally hooked up with our bus and made our way to the Boneyard, which is actually divided into two separate yards.  We had access to both yards and I grabbed my gear and began shooting.  As I began exploring the first yard with my camera, I remembered something that Matt told me on the bus ride over.  He said, “Give yourself an assignment or you will just wander around not knowing what to shoot.”  Matt was right and so after several minutes of shooting and changing lenses I decided to shoot everything with my 10.5mm Fisheye lens.  The tight quarters seemed to be made for shooting with that lens so I closed the zipper to my camera bag and started working the Fisheye all over the place.  I even made a three shot panorama with it.  That’s David DuChemin standing in the right side of the image.

David DuChemin grabs a few shots in the Boneyard

Here’s a few more shots from the morning.  Most of the images were processed in Lightroom.  I did however shoot a few HDR images and used the Lightroom Plug-In to send them to Photomatix for some combining and tonemapping.  I then was able to save the new image back into Lightroom and finish it up in the Develop module.  Here’s a few more images from that morning.

I will fill you in on Saturday’s happenings and show you something new I learned while sitting in the keynote way back on Thursday.  Until then, have a great beginning to your week.  I might need a little coffee to get mine jump-started.