get against the glass

Ever take pictures of something behind glass?  Maybe at a museum, an aquarium or even on an airplane.  You will almost certainly get a reflection of you or something else in your image - and if you use a flash it will be even worse. 

Simple solution is to put your lens right against the glass barrier itself.  This will shield out the stray light/reflection and give yourself the best possible chance for a decent shot.  If you have a lends hood, you will most likely have to take that off too depending on its shape.  Be careful and take your time and your lens will be perfectly fine. 

This tip is pretty obvious but wanted to share in case you have never tried it.

Here is one I took at Dulles Int’l Airport from the comfort of the United lounge.  You would never know there was 2 inches or more of glass between me and this scene.

photo by Tom Rothenberg

Watermarking in LR3

In this week's video tutorial I begin a new series to cover some of the new features in Lightroom 3 Beta.

We begin with something that was on everyone's wish list for Adobe -  watermarking.  They delivered and now it's possible to do it all from within Lightroom.  

However, you may not want to.  I demonstrate how to add a standard text watermark and then show a more subtle method using an image of text as a watermark within Lightroom. 

You can download the free Beta of Lightroom 3 here.

Don't forget - use the maximize button within the video player to increase the size of the video.

someone blinked

When doing groups shots or even couples, it can be very common for at least one person to blink or not even look at the camera.  Add children to the mix and it becomes nearly impossible to get it right in a single press of the shutter.  I think kids purposely mess with us in that way.

The auto-align layers feature in Photoshop CS3 & CS4 can help you line up multiple shots of the same scene.  With better alignment, you can more easily use a layer mask to get the best shot of each person combined to a single image.

In this week's video tutorial I show you how it's done.

Don't forget - press the maximize button within the video player to increase the size of the video

need more light for bright winter scenes

I am sitting here looking through the studio window at the falling snow.  Who knows how much we actually may get but could easily be 2 feet or more.  I hope by Sunday the snow stops so many of us can get out there and shoot some snowy landscapes. 

A common problem in digital photography is capturing this bright of a scene.  The camera's meter is often fooled by such a bright scene and we wind up capturing gray snow.   Not at all as it looked in person.  But hey, at least it's not yellow snow.

The easy fix is to reach for the exposure compensation dial.  It usually has a +/- label.  Most digital SLR's will have this setting that will overide what the camera thinks it should do.  Or more accurately, add or decrease exposure after it determines what it should do from its own meter reading.  It almost sounds backwards, but you will often need to raise the exposure compensation value in a bright scene,  thus letting more light hitting the camera sensor.

What, more light in an already bright scene?

photo by Tom Rothenberg

Yes indeed.  The camera's exposure meter is calibrated for middle-gray. With that much white dominating a scene it determines that this must be middle gray. Providing you the lovely gray snow.  It happens in most digital cameras.  In fact, if you have a point-and-shoot camera that has a setting for snow or winter, that is exactly what it is doing.  It takes the normal reading and says to itself,  "Self, that metered x and just to make sure we get white snow, let in some extra light to be certain".

For DSLR camera's there is no set rule for how much to compensate, but it can typically between +1/2 stop to a full stop or more.  You simply dial in the compensation to the desired level and go for it.  Start small and take a look at the back of your camera and adjust as necessary.  

If you utilize your histogram, and you should be, it is also not uncommon to clip some highlights in a wintery scene. There could be areas of the image that are completely blown out and without detail.  Something we usually try hard to avoid.  But in small doses, can be quite pleasing in our winter wonderland images. 

Have fun in the snow everyone.

Dude, not so fast on the crop

In this week's video tutorial I demonstrate the CS4 feature of Content Aware Scaling and how it may be used instead of a crop.  Need an 8x10 and don't want to loose elements of the original image ?

Content Aware Scaling may be your answer. 

using Automator to export files from Lightroom and import to iPhoto

Automator is one of the coolest parts of OSX.  It enables us to create complicated workflows and automate tasks.  Think of Automator as a ‘recipe’ to get something done.  Using a simple, visual interface - you build a step-by-step process by picking common tasks from a list and stacking them in a predictable manner. These can be a single action program to a multi-step sequence that performs a very comprehensive set of instructions

I believe the average Mac user doesn't dabble much in Automator because we don’t need to.  The operating system provides much of everything we need.  But where Automator shines is being able to automate workflows for application specific tasks.

Maybe you have the need to target a bunch of documents, convert them to pdf’s, copy them to a back-up drive and email them to someone else.  You could create the steps in Automator and run the workflow whenever you want.  With one click - it can do all of those steps automatically. Once you build it, its a tool ready to be used at any time.

Let's try an easy one 

Like many photographers, I use  Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for my Raw conversions and image organization. But I also use iPhoto for an important purpose - the tight integration to other Apple devices and services.  iPhoto is the portal to iPods, iPhones, AppleTV and Mobile Me galleries.  These are very good reasons to have your Lightroom images also live in iPhoto.

So this is where automator can help. We build a simple automator application,  along with an export preset in Lightroom to do it all for us.

Step 1 - Automator

Launch Automator and choose Application from template chooser

• select Photos from the Library modules to display the image related tasks
• double click import Files into iPhoto
• check the delete source images after importing them  option
• Select the File menu and save as "import to iPhoto" to your applications folder
• Close Automator

Step 2 - Lightroom

While in the library module select the Export... button.  This will open the export dialog box.

Start at the top and select the file settings of your choice.

Choose your desktop for the export to folder,  but you will soon see this part does not really matter.

But consider where the images will ultimately go from iPhoto. If it is an iPhone, you could easily down size. If it’s an AppleTV connected to a large HD TV you may want the full size file.

 

Now here is the trick

• In the Post-Processing section,  select the drop down and select Open in Other Application...
• Click the Choose button and select the “import to iPhoto” app you just saved in your Application foler
• Once all options are set as desired,  click the Add button in the export dialog box.
• Name it “import to iPhoto” and save.  You just created a Lightroom preset export. 
• Now Cancel out of the export dialog box

Step 3 - Try it Out

Browse your catalog and select the desired image(s), choose the Export button and select the newly created preset “import to iPhoto” and click Export and watch the magic.

Your images will be exported from LR, then imported to iPhoto and the exported files on the desktop will get trashed.  

We could have created this Lightroom-to-iPhoto export preset just as easily without the automator application. However, by using it, we were able to have those files we exported to the desktop automatically deleted.

Pretty cool, right?

This is just the small taste of what Automator could bring to your workflow. Think about the tasks you routinely do and it's very likely you can build a workflow in Automator to simplify your life.  

For more information using Automator check out http://www.macosxautomation.com/automator/index.html.

The Digital Dental Hygienist

My wife is a Dental Hygienist.  In fact, she is about the best there is.  Her patients adore her and she makes a significant impact in their lives.  I know how they feel.

We sometimes do similar work for people regarding their smile.  But mine happens in the digital darkroom and takes far less talent.

In this week's video tutorial I demonstrate a very quick and simple Photoshop adjustment to brighten any smile.

This one's for you Allie.