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Evening Light and Snow, Bryce Canyon

The content on this web site was last updated 23 June 2009

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23 June 2009

Adobe have released Lightroom 2.4 and Camera Raw 5.4. The new releases don't provide any new features, but do support even more cameras than before.

Luminous Landscape has released a new video tutorial entitled Where The #%*! Are My Pictures?. In this tutorial Michael Reichmann and Seth Resnick discuss he strategies & techniques of file organization following a typical shoot. They use Adobe's Lightroom 2 but the strategies are applicable to any Digital Asset Management program. As Michael says, "It's the Concepts not the Keystrokes."

I've uploaded some additional images to the photo gallery from my trip to Antarctica earlier this year and refreshed the signature images.

19 April 2009

I've updated my Lightroom printing tutorial for Mac OS X users to reflect the Print modules changes introduced with Lightroom 2. The tutorial can be found here. I would like to post a similar tutorial for Windows users, but the wide variation in drivers means the task is likely to help only a small subset of users. Matters are made worse in that Vista is different from XP.

12 April 2009

I'm sure that it won't have gone without notice that it's been a few years since I published any material relating to scanning film. Nevertheless, the absence of such material doesn't mean that I don't scan film any longer, I do, but not in the quantities that I once did. It's also fair to say that when I do scan it will be from a film that I shot a few years back or even longer. So why am still scanning film? This linked essay that I wrote last year for LaserSoft Imaging and Epson answers the question. It's a 3.4MB Adobe Acrobat file that discusses some of the benefits of using a high-end flatbed scanner such as the Epson Perfection V750 Photo and LaserSoft SilverFast Ai Studio and HDR Studio.

Digitize your analogue images

24 March 2009

Photoshop CS4 has been around for a few months and I was hoping that the initial flurry of requests for me to update my colour management essay would have subsided. In truth, the changes introduced with CS4 are few and far between, but given that the requests keep coming in I've finally bowed to pressure and uploaded a version of the essay for CS4. The new essay on Photoshop CS4 Colour Management can be found here. I hope to upload an updated version of the print tutorial in the coming weeks.

22 March 2009

I've uploaded a new tutorial that describes the Adobe Lightroom Export as Catalog feature. This feature is useful for many situations, but many users still don't realise what they are. Hopefully, this new tutorial will prove useful.

11 March 2009

As promised, I've added some new images to my Crossing the Antarctic Circle gallery and taken the opportunity to update the Index and Home page images at the same time.

18 February 2009

It's just short of a month now since I returned from my second trip to the Antarctic Peninsula. As I've worked my way through the images I constantly find myself being drawn back to those that were shot as we anchored off Stonington Island in Marguerite Bay. I've chosen two images from this location to freshen up the images on the Index and Home pages.

29 January 2009

Well, I'm back from Antarctica and have lots of interesting shots to show. Over the next few weeks I hope to post a gallery showing images from locations ranging from the South Shetland Islands to Marguerite Bay. In the meantime, I've uploaded a small sample gallery, which I hope you have time to view.

Also, while I was away Adobe posted Release Candidate versions of Lightroom 2.3 and Adobe Camera Raw 5.3. While neither includes any new features they do include support for the Nikon D3X and a number of important fixes including for sRaw images from the Canon 5DII and a pretty nasty memory leak.

5 January 2009

I'll be off to Antarctica tomorrow, so new material will be in short supply until my return. In the meantime, I've uploaded some new images to the gallery from my previous trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Hopefully, the weather in 2009 is as kind and photographic opportunities are as in abundance as they were in 2007. I've also revised an earlier Adobe Lightroom tutorial to reflect the changes introduced in Lightroom 2. This updated tutorial entitled - Find moved or missing folders can be found here.

29 December 2008

Well, another year is drawing to a close and it's been a busy one at that. For me it began with my second winter photo shoot to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. From Adobe, we had new versions of Photoshop and Lightroom, plus the new Camera Raw camera profiles and profile editor. I was privileged to be a member of the pre-release group for each, hopefully my feedback to the engineers was helpful. Last but not least, as a treat to myself I purchased a new Canon EOS 5D MK2 digital camera. No doubt it will see plenty of action on my next big photo shoot - Antarctica here I come ;-)

Oh, in all the excitement I nearly forgot. I have put together a Lightroom Tips and Tricks tutorial. At present it contains two tips: the first on the new Lightroom Community Help system and the second on a couple of undocumented features in the Import window. I hope to add others when I return from Antarctica.

14 December 2008

Adobe have just announced that Lightroom 2.2 will be released on 16 December. In addition to some improvements to adjustment brush performance this update will include support for the recently released Canon EOS 5D Mark II, the Canon PowerShot G10 and Panasonic DMC-LX3.

I have updated the Home and Index page images.

11 October 2008

I have made a minor but important change to the Managing your CMYK Photos tutorial. The tutorial now shows how to export a CMYK file from the Lightroom catalog.

28 September 2008

Irrespective of whether you love them or loathe them keyboard shortcuts and modifiers have an important role to play in the Lightroom workflow. Unfortunately, some folk are less than satisfied with some of the functionality that Adobe have provided and are continually looking ways to remove some of the restrictions placed upon them. In this short tutorial I will share some of the tips and tricks that I use to get round the Lightroom keyboard shortcut limitations.

19 September 2008

Adobe has just posted a Public Beta (otherwise known as Release Candidate 1) for Lightroom 2.1 and Camera Raw 4.6. Both provide support for newly released cameras from Fuji and Nikon. Adobe have also managed to included preliminary (not fully tested) support for: Canon Rebel XS, Canon 50D, Olympus SP-565 UZ, Sony A900 and Sigma DP1 (note Sigma DP1 support is not finalized due to an unresolved white balance bug that will require additional testing). Lightroom also includes a fairly lengthy list of bug fixes, which should address most of the performance issues that have impacted on some users of Lightroom 2.0. A download version along with more information on Lightroom 2.1 bug fixes can be found here. Likewise, the downloads and more information on Camera Raw 4.6 can be found here.

2 August 2008

I have updated my tutorial on setting camera default profiles in Lightroom and Camera Raw. The update now includes references to Lightroom 2.0 and Adobe Camera Raw 4.5

29 July 2008

So, it's finally here, the release version Lightroom 2.0 is now available from Adobe. To coincide with it's release I have published a Feature Review that summarises the main feature added since the public beta. I have also published a tutorial entitled Managing your CMYK Photos that explains how to do something that officially can't be done in Lightroom i.e. load CMYK files into your Lightroom catalog.

2 April 2008

Regular readers of this site will recall that it was one of the first to preview a new groundbreaking digital imaging application from Adobe Systems called Lightroom, that was back on 9 January 2006. Before you write to tell me that other similar applications predated Lightroom, I know, I've used them. So, when I write "groundbreaking" I mean that up until Lightroom no major developer had released a "Public Beta" of a brand new "application" with the express aim of allowing the user base to influence its development and direction. Well, here we are again with probably one of the first previews of the next version of Lightroom. As with Lightroom 1.0 I have already been involved with Alpha testing version 2.0 for some months, but now it's your turn to kick the tyres and let Adobe know what you think Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Public Beta

15 March 2008

Adobe Lightroom 1.4 update has been released and fixes an issue that was causing significant colour matching difficulties for folk using older printers from Epson, Canon and HP with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). In particular, prints from Lightroom should now match those from Photoshop CS3. My Lightroom print tutorial has been amended accordingly.

13 March 2008

Some readers may have notice a slight disruption to the site content over recent days. This was due to the content being transferred to a new and hopefully faster server. Now that the transfer is complete I have managed to upload a small gallery of images from my recent photo shoot in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

23 February 2008

Not long after publishing the Lightroom print tutorial it became apparent that many Lightroom users were still experiencing some difficulties when using custom media profiles. As I was away from home on a photographic shoot I was unaware of the problem and the workaround that was found by some users on the Adobe Lightroom User-to-User forum. Since I am now aware of both the problem and workaround I have updated the tutorial. Hopefully, it proves useful to those of you who have been having problems. Note that the information provided is ALL that I know, so please do not send me emails asking for further information or complaining because it doesn't work for you.

19 February 2008

Today is the first birthday of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and to mark the occasion Jeff Schewe asked a few friends "where were you on" 19th February 2007. It also turns out that Photoshop version 1.0 also shipped on the same day in 1990.

So where was I? Same place as Jeff and most of the other Lightroom Alpha test team:

Ships Diary - 19th February 2007

Location - Antarctic Peninsula

The early risers were treated to golden light as we passed through the Gerlache Straight. After breakfast we headed into the Lemaire channel not knowing the treats that were to follow. After having navigated our way through the channel we dropped anchor in Pleneau Bay (aka the Iceberg Graveyard).

With Rob our trusty and slightly crazy boatman Michael Reichmann, Jeff Schewe, Seth Resnick, Bill Atkinson, John Paul Caponigro, Stephen Johnson, Kevin Raber, Chris Sanderson and myself climbed aboard the lead Zodiac.

Stephen Johnson had brought his trusty Mini ColorChecker card, but Jeff Schewe wanting to be doubly sure of the correct white balance brought a ColorChecker and multiple grey cards (belt and braces <g>).

The waters in Pleneau Bay are quite shallow, so any icebergs that find their way in quickly become stuck thus presenting photographers with the perfect opportunity to capture their amazing shapes and colours.

I've uploaded a small Flash gallery of images that illustrate above text.

10 February 2008

I have just returned from a photo shoot in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. This was my second winter visit to the parks and due to the very different weather conditions I managed to capture many images that escaped me on my previous visit. Due to other commitments it will probably take me a few weeks pull together a gallery of images. In meantime, I have posted two shots (found on the site Index and Home pages).

The first entitled Hayden Valley Tree was taken in Yellowstone at the end of very long and cold snow coach journey in less than perfect photographic conditions (wind and heavy snow fall). In fact, we had almost given up on any chance of a shot when the weather eased and the subtle contours of the Hayden Valley began to appear. Immediately, eight photographers piled out of the snow coach and grabbed as many shots as the brief interlude in wind and snow would allow. The image is presented in monochrome, which I think is more in keeping with how the scene appeared.

The second image was taken at the Snake River Overlook just as the sun began to rise. The scene was made famous by Ansel Adams with his 1942 image entitled The Grand Tetons and Snake River. Alas, the curve in the river that makes Adam's shot so strong is now obscured by trees, so today's photographers try to come up with their own interpretations. In my case I didn't even try, I shot with morning light on the Tetons using a 28mm wide angle lens on my Canon EOS 5D.

20 January 2008

The various signature images and Flash Gallery from my February 2007 trip to the Southern Ocean and Antarctic Peninsula can now be accessed from a single page rather than a multiple links spread throughout the site.

29 December 2007

A software developers worst nightmare has to be shipping a product at or around the same time as a major update to one of the operating systems it supports. Well, that's what happened with Adobe when they released Lightroom 1.3 a few weeks after Apple shipped Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard). Matters were made worse because Leopard required new printer drivers, which are only now becoming available. Even so, there appears to a lot of confusion as to how the new Leopard compatible drivers from Epson should be configured when using Lightroom. To help reduce the confusion I have posted a tutorial that describes how both Lightroom and the new Epson drivers can be successfully used together with Leopard.

I have also updated the Photoshop CS3 printing tutorial to include details of the print driver setting for Leopard.

18 November 2007

The Lightroom 1.3 review has been updated to include a screenshot of the new Export dialog after it's been adapted by the SDK to support the Flickr photo sharing service.

15 November 2007

Adobe has today released Lightroom 1.3 and Camera Raw 4.3. Apart from support for newly released camera from Canon, Nikon, et al this latest version of Lightroom contains quite a few bug fixes and some feature enhancements. You can find out more in my short review.

6 November 2007

I thought it was time to refresh the signature images. As with the previous set this new pair were taken during my trip to Antarctica in February of this year (it seems like a lot longer). The first image was from the series I shot when in South Georgia and the second at Neko Harbour on the Antarctic Peninsula. The previous signature images can still be seen by scrolling down to 23 August on this page.

5 November 2007

When Apple released OS X 10.5 (Leopard) back on 26 October it didn't take long before some quirky behaviour began to emerge. To be fair, any new Operating System will have teething problems, some more painful than others. Anyway, one such problem effects JPEGs that have been edited in some way in Adobe Lightroom. So what is the problem? You can read all of the gory details at LightroomNews.Com

1 November 2007

A few days ago while reviewing a series of images from my trip to the South Atlantic and Antarctica I noticed that somehow I had incorrectly identified the location of the Cloud Patterns image. The correct location is actually the Ross Glacier in Royal Bay and not the Nordenskjold Glacier in Cumberland East Bay.

30 August 2007

Anyone reading the Adobe User to User forums, especially the Photoshop forums, will probably have observed that some folk love keyboard shortcuts, others hate them and an in between group would just like to know what the fuss is all about. It's for this latter group that I have posted updated versions of Adobe Bridge CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom keyboard shortcut documents. These pdf documents were first made available as part of my Lightroom 1.1 review, but can now be downloaded without having to wade through the review. The Lightroom documents also include information on search rules plus a few minor corrections. To download a pdf simply click the appropriate icon.

Bridge 2.1 (Win) Bridge 2.1 (Mac) Lightroom 1.1 (Win) Lightroom 1.1 (Mac)

23 August 2007

Two new signature images have been added. Both images were taken during my trip to Antarctica in February. The first is of a Castellated Berg at sunset shot somewhere close to the Danger Islands. Anyway, exact location is unimportant, enjoy the image. The second image is a monochrome rendering of an early morning cloud pattern that formed over the Ross Glacier in Royal Bay, South Georgia. The two previous signature images taken on South Islands can be viewed at the following links - Sunrise Royal Bay and Shipwreck Ocean Harbour.

21 August 2007

As noted in my review of Lightroom 1.1 it is possible to define customised default settings for images shot with specific cameras and/or ISO ratings. My tutorial Customising Default Settings describes how this can be achieved.

30 June 2007

My overview of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1 appears to have been well received with many messages of thanks being received. However, a few readers have asked why I haven't mentioned Lightroom's ability use GPS metadata embedded within images, especially to link up with Google Earth Maps. OK, and even though it's not a new feature, I have put together a few words on GPS tagging and Voice Annotations (yes, you read right - voice annotations).

27 June 2007

As an pre-release tester of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 and 1.1 I've always had the opportunity to checkout new features well in advance of most users. With the 1.1 update now in the public domain I've posted an overview of Lightroom 1.1 which hopefully provides an insight into the new features and enhancements. Note that there are many screenshots, so the page may well take a while to fully load.

9 June 2007 27 June 2007 to reflect new menu options in Lightroom 1.1

With all the buzz around about the up coming release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom V1.1 we could be forgiven for ignoring some of the issues many users face with V1.0. One such issue recently raised its head again on the Adobe Lightroom User to User forum and to my surprise none of the regular forum users seemed up to providing an answer. So, I've written a short tutorial called Locating Missing Files and Folders.

15 May 2007

Swedish readers will pleased to note that Lars Ekdahl has completed his Swedish language translation of my Photoshop CS3 Colour Management essay.

7 May 2007

Photoshop CS3 has many new and advanced features that will benefit photographers of all skill levels. However, these features aren't a lot of good if your prints don't match the screen or on opening a document or an alert pops up to tell you that there's a profile mismatch or worse. Not to worry, I have updated my Colour Management essay and Printing tutorials to reflect the changes/improvements made in CS3.

20 March 2007

Due to very high bandwidth demand for the Antarctica and Southern Ocean images it has been necessary to relocate the gallery to a separate server. Hopefully, the new location will be temporary and doesn't present too much inconvenience. Since the gallery is in the form of a Flash Gallery (created in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) I have little ability to include hyperlinks back to this site, therefore to return to the main site just press the browser back button.

Speaking of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom I'm going to take the liberty of promoting a series of video tutorials my colleague Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape. In this series of 8 videos (6 released to date), which runs for something excess of 4 hours, Michael and co-presenter Jeff Schewe cover just about every aspect of Lightroom. Viewers will learn a lot and may even have a few laughs for free as Michael and Jeff discuss some of their more humorous moments and experiences during the alpha and beta cycle. More information can be found at Luminous Landscape Please note that I have no commercial interest in the Lightroom tutorials, but that doesn't stop me wishing I had <g> - they are excellent in terms of presentation and at $14.95 provide superb value for money.

27 February 2007

I've just returned from a photo shoot in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica with the best part of 7000 images to sort, edit, etc through. Rather than wait for this exercise to be completed and since the site hasn't been updated in a couple of months I have put together a quick and dirty Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Flash Gallery that contains a small sample of the type of subject matter captured. Places visited included the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, South Orkney and the Antarctic Peninsula.

15 November 2006

The tutorial that demonstrated how to Create a Unitary Library & Manage Off-line Images has been updated to reflect the changes in Lightroom Beta 4.x

25 September 2006

Every two years the movers and shakers of the photographic world make their way to Cologne in Germany for Photokina. Traditionally this is the event where the industry announces new and improved products and this year will no doubt follow tradition. So, given its importance in the photographic calendar Adobe Systems Incorporated have decided to use it as the platform from which to announce availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 4 (edit: notice the name change). As a beta tester I've been privileged to be using Beta 4 for a couple of months now and have put together a short review, which is available from here.

22 August 2006

The Lightroom-Photoshop-Lightroom "round-trip" appears to be causing some users a few headaches on the colour management front, therefore I've provided a short tutorial explaining how Photoshop Colour Settings should be configured so as to eliminate the Profile Mismatch dialog that appears to be annoying so many users..

18 July 2006

The wait is finally over for Windows user can now get to "play" with Adobe Lightroom - read more about it here

I've also taken the opportunity to update the Beta 3 review for Mac to include a method for creating pseudo-versions or renditions using the History panel.

17 July 2006

With the introduction of Beta 3 Adobe Lightroom appears to be gaining the attention of more digital photographers than earlier betas. Even so many important features are still not available, which for some makes the task of using the application a lot less attractive than it should be. The two features most requested relate offline/online image storage plus synchronising the image library across multiple computers. A short tutorial called Creating a Unitary Library & Managing Off-line Images is now available.

28 June 2006

Apple have just released Mac OSX 10.4.7 update. If you're using Photoshop 9.01 and experiencing the printing problems discussed in the article I posted on 27 May then I suggest that you download a copy.

25 June 2006

Nothing special in this update, just a few minor tweaks to the Home page and removal of old material. Also, keep an eye out for an update to the Photoshop CS2 Colour Management essay as I'll shortly be adding some guidance on saving images for the web.

13 June 2006

Adobe has just announced availability of Lightroom Public Beta 3. Having been privileged to use this version in various guises over this past few months I'm able to give readers of this site a fairly comprehensive summary of the new and enhanced feature set.

6 May 2006

An updated version of the Eye-One Display 2 review has been uploaded. This review reflect my thoughts on the new features, which were added as part of the version 3.6 upgrade to Eye-One Match.

26 March 2006

Imagine a scenario where you have just inserted keywords and descriptions into hundreds of images using Adobe Bridge. Having done so you need a quick way of finding any that may have been missed, but then you discover that the Bridge Find cannot be used to locate images with empty IPTC fields. No problem, where there's a will there's a way. I have updated the Bridge & Camera Raw - Tips and Tricks tutorial to include a description of how to find such images.

19 February 2006

A short tutorial describing a method by which you can create Manual Collections in Adobe Bridge has been uploaded. This tutorial aims to address one of the areas that many users feel Bridge falls short on (i.e. the ability to create virtual copies of their images).

12 February 2006

In late January through early February 2006 I was privileged to participate in a photographic expedition to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks in the USA. A small selection of images from the trip can be found here.

18 January 2006

I'll be heading off to the USA on a photo shoot shortly and won't be returning until 5 February, so there won't be any new material until I return. In the meantime I've created a new tutorial called Bridge & Camera Raw - Tips and Tricks. This tutorial draws in material from earlier tutorials but also includes a new tip on how to create Collections that can used to easily display only images that match specific criteria (eg. sRGB, portrait format, etc).

9 January 2006

I received an enquiring email last Friday from a reader. So what's the buzz on this new Lightroom application from Adobe, it's all over the Mac rumour sites". Needless to say I didn't respond ;-) OK, so it's now just after midnight on 9th January 2006 and the NDAs are lifted. So, here's the Buzzzzzzzzz on Adobe Lightroom!