Lightroom 4 and Black and White

A week isn’t worth having unless I have time to visit some of my favourite sites on the web. One of these is  by David du Chemin. David duChemin is a world & humanitarian assignment photographer, best-selling author, international workshop leader, and accidental founder of Craft & Vision. When not chasing adventure and looking for beauty, David is based in Vancouver, Canada.

This week I found an article he had written about Lightroom 4 and black an white conversions, here is a bit of what he says:

One of my favourite improvements in Lightroom 4 is the ability, in the graduated filter and the adjustment brush, to dial in colour temperature and tint……It’s worth remembering that in Lightroom you aren’t really working on a monochrome image. You’re working on a colour image with a monochrome filter on top. So moving the colour values around underneath that filter – either with temperature or with the channel mixer (Black and White Mix) – will change the tonal values you see in the resulting image. Different tonal values, different contrasts, and different visual mass – in other words, a different feel for the image, and new ways for us to hone our expression. Want more read on here

©David duChemin

1000 photography links, tutorials, photographers, new camera reviews – posts

Would you believe that in the last 20 months we have made 1,000 posts about photography, wow seems like it was only a few weeks ago we dipped our toes into the world of blogging. Urged on by our favourite music blogger The Recommender to get stuck in, to share our knowledge and passion about photography; to spread the word and to bring the best photographs, photographers, tutorials, camera reviews, information about exhibitions and the wonder of the world of photography to those who care, you. Since October 2010 we have had over 120,000 views, our highest day was 957, I guess we must be doing something right some of the time.

©Steve McCurry – this is probably The Great Steve’s most famous picture but you should go and see his other work start here

We have had a look at our stats and rather encouragingly find that there is as much interest from you in the fantastic photographers we have brought to your attention as there is in cameras and tutorials. A good healthy mix we think.

Here is a list of the top 12 posts the highest has got over 6,000 views

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/top-10-compact-cameras-2011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/light-painting/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/photographer-nan-goldins-best-shots-from-the-guardian/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/duane-michals-sequences/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/best-superzoom-bridge-cameras-2011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/15-digital-point-and-shoot-cameras-used-by-pro-photographers/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/nikon-d800-review/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/cecil-beaton-photographer/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/steve-mccurry-london-exhibition-07092011-24092011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/20-free-photography-ebooks/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/9-crazy-cross-eye-3d-photography-images-and-how-to-make-them/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/google-photography-prize-winner-viktor-johansson/

The top aggregated photographer, that is the most views across all the posts we have made is Steve McCurry this link should get you to all the articles where we have mentioned Steve

The interesting thing we have found is how many of you are interested in the less obvious photographers, Duane Michals comes top for visits to a single post, Cecil Beaton, Nan Goldin and Dorothea Lange all feature heavily, I am sure you never thought you would see those 4 names in the same sentence.

Top camera before and after it’s release was the Nikon D800

The most viewed tutorial was on Light Painting

Our most favourite sources for finding the best photography on the web, and in no particular order are:

Lightstalking, fantastic for tutorials, tips, ideas, features

Digital-Photo-School similar to Lightstalking and also from Australia

Cambridge In Colour for the most sophisticated and intelligent tutorials

The Denver Post for some of the best photojournalism around

The Atlantic, same as The Denver Post, fantastic images from around the world

The British Journal of Photography, just the most complete magazine for photographers

The Pixelated Image blog, David DuChemin is just the man, what a photographer an eye with soul

Photo Tuts for Photoshop and Lightroom tutorials

DP Review, where you find out about cameras, the best review site

Steve’s Digicams, as DP Review a great place to find out about cameras

Tripwire Magazine, we like this for general articles on photography

Magnum, the world’s most famous photo agency, we love this bit Magnum In Motion

Photography Served, a place for finding new photographers with great work

Photography Now, such a beautiful site showcasing the works of the masters of photography

There are undoubtedly lots more we could include here but if you are a regular to our site you will know who we love as inspiration and as a source of great articles.

We have had such great response to the articles we post, the sharing is the thing, finding what is wonderful and putting it out there. We greatly appreciate hearing from you and would welcome more ‘finds’ from you, would consider articles or portfolios you may wish to share with the thousands of like minded people we reach. Here is to the next 1000 posts

Keith Barnes, Oxford School of Photography

A Rough Guide to Adobe Camera Raw

Shooting in RAW and having to spend time processing your images might seem a bore when your camera produces perfectly nice jpegs as you press the shutter release however most serious photographers only shoot in RAW. This is because of the extensive image adjustments you can make to colour and density without producing ugly damaged looking images. Shooting RAW and using Adobe camera RAW found in the various versions of Photoshop and as the backbone of Lightroom has distinct advantages in the range of adjustments but also the plug ins and controls on offer.

On the pages of Lightstalking  Jason Row  gives a basic breakdown of the important options available

“Although many of us now use image management programs to process our Raw files, Adobe’s Camera Raw is still one of the most comprehensive convertors around and benefits from being tightly integrated into Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. One bonus of this, is that its user interface will be very familiar to Photoshop users. In this brief guide, we will give a rundown of ACR’s interface and most important features.

ACR’s Main Screen

When you open a Raw file in Photoshop, the program will automatically open the ACR plugin and preview the image in a large window. Surrounding this window are the important tools you need for your Raw conversion. Running along the top of the preview window are a set of image manipulation tools, in essence, very similar to Photoshop’s own tool palette.”

Click Here: A Rough Guide to Adobe Camera Raw

The Modules of Adobe Lightroom

I use Lightroom every day, I must say that in most areas it is a joy. Understanding how the software works can be a bit confusing though as bits sometimes will not do what you expect. As such I am in the process of writing a course on the use of Lightroom and hope to have it ready for next term. In the meantime this excellent explanation by Chase Guttman over on Lightroom will help to explain one of the main features, the use of modules.

“Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is an essential component of any digital photographer’s toolbox. As with all post-processing software, Lightroom is a program that photographer’s can use to improve and organize their visual art. Yet, Lightroom is unique in many ways. Unlike other popular post-processing software, Lightroom is a modular program and has the advantage of non-destructive digital editing (in other words, the original files are never altered within the program). The program is designed in such a way, so that each module found in Lightroom, can be used to accomplish different tasks in an efficient manner.

Another unique feature of Lightroom is that the software is designed to handle many images at once, so it’s equipped to deal with the fast paced workflow of many digital photographers. This is due to the fact that with Lightroom, your images are separated into different catalogs, where Lightroom  handles only a specific set of images at one time.

Finally, with less of a learning curve than Photoshop, Lightroom is the best choice for amateur photographers who are just starting with post-processing.”.…MORE

Click Here: The Modules of Adobe Lightroom

Lightroom 4 free Beta Version download

I am just in the process of writing a new course based on the use of Lightroom. As with all our courses it will feature the most useful aspects to photographers, highlighting those functions that make life easier and better. All software can do more than we ever possibly need unless our interests are specific and well…extreme. The new course based on Lightroom 3 should be ready for the new term after Easter. You will understand my consternation at the imminent arrival of Lightroom 4. It is now available as a free download in beta form. This means it is at testing stage and Adobe make it available for use with the understanding it may have bugs that need ironing out and tweaks to make it even better. These are determined by testing the beta version by working professionals. I have had a good look at 4 and it’s basic functions and way of working is not dissimilar to 3 so I am relieved all the work I have already done on the proposed course is not wasted.

You can download this version here

new book module in LR4

Lightroom 4 beta builds on the vision of the very first Lightroom beta. From day 1, Lightroom was designed for photographers and by photographers to help them focus on what they love—the art and craft of photography. Lightroom provides photographers with an elegant and efficient way to work with their growing digital image collections, bring out the best in their images, and make an impact from raw capture to creative output, all while maintaining the highest possible quality each step of the way.

Download here

• Download Lightroom 4 beta

 

“For the development of this latest release, we’ve focused on further maximizing image quality and expanding output options. New tools let you extract more detail from highlights and shadows, make a wider range of targeted adjustments, and easily share your images and video clips on social media and photo sharing sites.

New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta

• Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

Typical Digital Image Management Workflow

I am often asked what work flow I use, the question is really how do I import my images, what software do I use to sort and edit and how do I archive, back up and output my work. This isn’t rocket science, a good understanding of the software, Aperture and  Lightroom being the most popular but there are many more, Bibble, ACDsee are two I have enjoyed using. My preference now is for Lightroom, I got fed up with Aperture falling over, maybe Apple sorted it out in Aperture 3 but my version of 2 was a dog.

The basis of work flow is what logically works for you, how do you think. I import to an external hard drive and then immediately back up to a second. Then I rate my images and create a set that will require final editing down but at least I have the best one or two from every set or scene. I then go through image prep. adjusting density, colour, cropping etc. Finally I out put to tif. my preferred images and depending on final use may also prepare jpegs. This works for me, many people have a more intense relationship with their work flow and need to tag and keyword images. Anyway this very useful article By Jason Row on 9 Jan 2012 in Post Production via Lightstalking has much good advice, here is a taste of this long article

“Until a few years ago, workflow was a virtually unheard of word. Now it is the mantra of nearly every professional photographer but what does it mean? Well, put simply, its carrying out the day to day work tasks in a consistent and hence efficient way. Following on from my last article on Digital Image Management I want to talk about my workflow for ingesting and organizing images.”

As mentioned before, there are a number of image management programs out there, my personal choice is Apple’s Aperture, mainly because I am Apple orientated and like the way the program interfaces with the rest of the Apple operating system. I allow Aperture to manage my library, meaning that I do not import my images separately to a folder then catalogue; I import them directly to Aperture and allow the program to deal with filing them.

So, for efficiency, start as you mean to go on. Get into the habit of uploading your images every time you return home. This way you can clean your cards, and start afresh next time you go out to shoot. It also means you are cataloging whilst things are still fresh in your mind.

The first thing I do when returning from a shoot is ingest my images into Aperture. As most of my images are travel based, my cataloging hierarchy is date and place related. My images are organized into projects by year, into folders by month and into individual shoots by albums. Typically I would return from a shoot and create a new album called for example 2012-01-01 Odessa. This album would reside in a folder called 2012-January inside a project called 2012-Images. Upon importing, I would batch name each image 2012-01-01 Odessa-(Sequential Number) Most image management software allows you to batch name your photographs in various ways. Before importing, I also add any keywords that are consistent throughout the shoot and most importantly add my copyright and date information to the metadata. I then import all the images.”……MORE

 

 

Learn Lightroom in a week

I regularly recommend the use of Lightroom as my preferred RAW conversion software. There may be others that are more refined but I’m not a refined sort of guy, LR has everything I need to make global alterations to an image. The setting of perfect exposure and colour, the bringing back of blown highlights or opening up the shadows. The many options it has as a way of improving an image and then the opportunity to apply presets that give a defined different look to the image as well as the chance to create my own presets are essential. My favourite place for presets is Preset Heaven. I use the cataloging systems to organise my images, I don’t need the keywording facilities much but appreciate their ease of use when I do. As a piece of software I find it essential and a joy to use.

I have people asking if I will run a course on LR but to me it seems so easy to use that I am not sure what I would teach except what seems obvious. There are some magnificent tutorials on line for Lightroom and one of the best that we have featured before is

Learn Lightroom in a week

Here are the links to our pages from where you can access the original tutorials on Photo-Tuts

Day 1, Monday I suppose

Day 2, Tuesday

Day 3 Wednesday

Day 4 Thursday

Day 5 Friday

The weekend Days 6 and 7

You are now an expert and know everything that you need to know.

 

RAW Processing – Weekly Lightroom Edit Episode 1

I am a great believer in RAW, I only ever shoot in this mode, of course that means I spend more time at my computer than is healthy but I do love the cotrol RAW processing gives me. This series of tutorials on the Digital Photo School site by Post Production Pye will give you an insight that might help you to do better and convince you to only shoot in RAW.

Here are the links to part one and part two, if you want the rest then follow DPS and get them directly fed to your computer. These tutorials use Lightroom, if you want the most comprehensive instruction in Lightroom have a look at our earlier posts here is a link to parts 6 and 7, there are the preceding 5 as well just go search for them in our search box

There is no such thing as absolute truth in photography

“There is no such thing as absolute truth in photography. Understanding how and why photos are edited will make you a better shooter and a smarter viewer.”

I have had so many discussions with photography purists, people who believe that only what is caught in camera is valid,  that decisions or processes undertaken post camera invalidate an image and it’s worth. I have always, in the 40+ years I have been taking pictures, made decisions post camera. How I developed the film, how it was printed, whether it was toned.

This is an excellent article Written by Ben Long on the Creativepro.com site  I think I agree with everything he has to say

“Has that been Photoshopped a lot?”

“I sometimes hear that question when showing one of my photos to someone, and I have to confess that it bugs me. Not because it’s prying into my photographic process, or because it’s a technical remark rather than a response to the actual image, but because it reveals how little the viewer understands about the medium of photography.

In that question, “Photoshop” is being used to mean “edited” or “manipulated” or “altered,” and the subtext of the question is, “Has this image been edited or manipulated? I need to know because I want to know if the image is true.”

The answer to the question is always “yes” because all photos are edited and manipulated. They always have been. Even photos that are very realistic are no more an objective, “real” representation of reality than is a watercolor painting. Photography is an abstract medium, and the more you understand that, the better your shooting will be.”.….more

These 2 pictures by Ben perfectly explain his article

 

How to Create More Dynamic Images Using Local Adjustments

I want to drive you over to the ever impressive Lightstalking site today for this very useful and well written article about local adjustments. Lightstalking has many tutorials and galleries worth investigating so after you get there have a good look around. This article is By Jacob Maentz

“A powerful post-processing technique I use for almost every photo is adjusting my settings locally.  I use this technique to bring emphasis to key areas of a photo that I want my viewer to focus on. I am using Adobe’s Lightroom Adjustment Brush and Adobe’s Photoshop Dodging and Burning tools to accomplish this.

I generally shoot in RAW so images right out of the camera are typically flat and dull. I first make general adjustments to my photos such as correcting for white balance and overall exposure. Then I will start making the important local adjustments. When using Lightroom’s Adjustment brush I can make the following local adjustments: Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness and Color. Depending on the photo I may use all of these or only one. I use the Exposure, Clarity and Contrast adjustments most frequently.  In Photoshop the only local adjustments I make are dodging and burning. These techniques can also be made with other file types, but I prefer uncompressed RAW files”…..more