3 things to do this week if your’e a Mac user

1. Create a stunning Keynote presentation to be played on a Windows pc

The Windows world has had the misfortune of hosting slideshows that are typically the product of PowerPoint.  We have seen them a hundred times, basic bullets with a few inappropriate transitions thrown in because the creator thought they were cool.  

Go ahead and create in Keynote as you would if presenting on a Mac.  Now export the file to a Quick Time movie.  This will allow Windows to be able to play back the presentation with all it’s goodness.  The Windows PC will need the free Quicktime player.  Whether your using manual transitions, automated builds, including audio/video -  the QT movie will retain all of your desired effects.  Your Windows colleagues will almost certainly comment on your production and wonder how you did such things in PowerPoint.

 

2. Download a free trial of a Productivity App 

One of the beauties of Mac OSX is the developer community and the products they create.  A common way for these companies to get their product out is to offer free trial software.  It is almost a given that if written for OSX - a full functioning trial version of the software is available to try out.  A very different experience than a crippled version of the program with only half the features enabled.  This allows you to use the program to it’s fullness and make a qualified decision and determine if it's for you.  Of course, full functioning trials are not a “Mac only” thing, but more of a standard compared to software trials in other operating systems.

 

3. Check the last time your maintenance scripts ran 

Mac OSX has built in maintenance scripts that help keep your system running in top shape.  The scripts are scheduled to run in the wee morning hours of the morning.  But often your Mac could be turned off, sleeping or another state that may prevent these scripts from running.  An easy way to determine the last time they ran is to simply look at the modified dates of the associated files.  

From the Go menu item in Finder, select Go to Folder....

In the dialog box type /var/log

You are looking for 3 files

daily.out

weekly.out

monthly.out

Notice the modified date for each to determine the last time these scripts were executed.  If all are running on schedule, the daily.out would have a very recent modified date,  the weekly.out could be up to 7 days old and the monthly.out could be several weeks. 

Not to panic if they haven't run in some time.  Just leave your machine on at night to more routinely have these maintenance scripts do their thing.  You can also download free maintenance programs such as Onyx to run these built-in scripts on-demand.  And if your really feeling like a geek, you can learn the syntax and do everything natively in the Terminal.


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

 

 

Blizzard 2010

Today was a beautiful sunny day.  Even warmed up a bit by the afternoon so I planned to take a nice long walk in the battlefield to get some shots.  Unfortunately,  not much plowing has occurred so didn't even make it out of my neighborhood.  Oh well, was still fun to get out of the house.  Here were a few sights along the way.

 

 

 

That's it for now

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Snowy photoshoot

We got another foot of snow this weekend.  And while this can be fun for some, it made for a very, very long commute for friends I shot this weekend.  But we made the best of it and had alot of fun during our time together.

Michael Alban was part of the group that made the snowy trek.  Michael is a freelance musician, actor and model.  As an actor, he has worked as a stand-in and photo double for Ben Affleck and has been a featured extra in scenes with Russell Crowe for the films Body of Lies (2008) and State of Play (2009).  He was also in the November issue of Entrepreneur Magazine.

We shot for several hours - including many wardrobe changes and various creative lighting set-ups.  I want to thank Elysia, Suzanne and Michael for toughing it out and keeping a positive attitude throughout.  Here is just a sample of our day.

photo by Tom Rothenberg

photo by Tom Rothenberg

photo by Tom Rothenberg

photo by Tom Rothenberg

 photo by Tom Rothenberg

To learn more about Michael, please pay him a visit at http://www.michaelalban.net.

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. 

 

portrait retouch

 

Retouching has gotten a lot of press lately with all crazy stuff on the covers of your favorite entertainment magazines.  You know the ones where a celebrities head will be on someone else’s body.  In fact the word “Photoshopped” is in nearly everyone’s vocabulary and usually has a negative or artificial meaning.  That kind of bothers me, but I understand why some may think in those terms.  But those examples of body snatching are not a true example of a portrait retouch.

So why do we retouch?

Well it’s pretty obvious and you already know I am sure.  People want to look their best and as photographers we share that desire.  The problem occurs when we point that very-high megapixel still camera and press the shutter.  It is unfair really.  We are all beautiful and all so very imperfect.  However, we tend to look at photographs differently than how we look at others in person.  You would never to go up to someone, inches from their face, and study their characteristics and imperfections.  But in a still image we have an opportunity to dissect and study that moment in time.  Not seeing people as they really are.  That is the unfair part.

Say someone had a small blemish one day.  In person you may not even notice cause it isn't important and probably not even visible to you. But in a high resolution photograph it might take a life of it’s own. 

Another scenario is that people have bad days.  Maybe that day they have a pimple, red eyes or even cut themselves shaving that morning.  Again, not how we see them in real life.  Or maybe it's even the fault of the photographer by not capturing a good angle or ensuring flattering light. 

The level of a retouch is totally a subjective thing.  In fashion and marketing we tend to go over the top and try to make perfect looking humans. I have never met any of those perfect humans in real life. Wonder where they hang out?

But in general portraiture it is typically something less than the “china doll” look.  How much, how little?  Just depends on the client, style and the desired effect. 

So next time you hear someone say that was “Photoshopped”, I hope you consider all the possible reasons one would retouch.

before

Special note to photographers/retouchers 

If you do any major retouching, only show the clients the edited version.  Nobody wants to see how bad they looked in the original image.  Seeing a major retouch before/after only magnifies what you did and can make someone feel like crap. 

retouched by Tom Rothenberg


Monticello

I was in Charlottesville today so I took a quick trip over to one of my favorite American's home.  Yep, Thomas Jefferson. It wasn't really a photography trip but I did get a chance to capture a few images. It was a mild day and the sun was out by noon.  The grounds are beautiful and there is so much to learn.

photo by Tom Rothenberg

photo by Tom Rothenberg

It is amazing how much Thomas Jefferson accomplished in his lifetime.

If you are ever near the Charlottesville, VA area, I encourage you to stop by Monticello for a visit.  Of course, you also want to see the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.

 

photo by Tom Rothenberg

 

 

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.

  

The HDR Interior

We have all seen it, sometimes not sure if it is a photograph or an illustration, but always having a strong reaction one way or another.  I am, of course, speaking of High Dynamic Range photography or HDR.  

 This technique is typically accomplished by shooting multiple bracketed exposures of the same shot and blending them together - known as tone mapping them back down to a single image.  This technique allows us to capture detail in the deepest of shadows and the brightest of highlights. 

 This post could go a whole different route and simply talk about the debate within the photo community about the merits of HDR vs. photo realism. For the record, I support any level of post processing, manipulation, or use of any tool for an artist to convey their message in an image.  It is really that simple.  See there, you almost got me going and this isn't my point for this post. 

 The majority of HDR shots we see are usually of beautiful landscapes. You know them when you see it and in the hands of a skilled artist, they are amazing.  But what many photographers don’t often think about is that the technique is also sweet for interiors.

 Interior shots can be very challenging.  Between shadows, bright windows and overall poor lighting conditions for photography - it can be hard to capture anything that has a chance to ever make it off your memory card. Sure, if you have the equipment, skill and time you could artificially light it.  Maybe Joe McNally will even stop by and help out.

photo by Tom Rothenberg But if not, try a simple 3 exposure HDR shot, you might be amazed.  You may need to be less heavy handed during the tone mapping as you might process for a landscape.  Or maybe not, whatever works for you.  Remember, you're the boss.

 For those who don’t know much about HDR and want to learn more, I suggest you go check out Trey Ratcliff over at his Stuck in Customs travel photography blog.  He maintains an excellent HDR tutorial and shares some of his inspiring work.  In fact, his new book “A World in HDR” made our Weekly Hot List

 

Have a great day everyone!