GoPro + Lightroom 4 + P90X = Interesting Time Lapse

Just finished recording a tutorial about the LR 4 slideshow module and its timelapse functionality (part of a 14+ hour LR tutorial series).  I am biased but the LR 4 series is without equal. Nothing like a little power yoga to relax afterwards. Thought I might try a  timelapse with Lightroom 4, P90x, and a GoPro camera.

Heading south from Anchorage tomorrow for Sitka to meet the Northern Song, Rick Sammon, and the participants on our first eagle photo trip.  Will put up a shot of the gear list I have with me tomorrow.

Fiat Lux!

P.S. Please no comments on the yoga form or lack thereof.

How to Get Rid of Chromatic Aberration / Jane Conner-ziser

Chromatic Aberration, in simple terminology, is when the colors in a digital file do not line up correctly and you can see color “fringing” around the edges of objects in your picture, mostly in places where a dark object is next to a light one. This is caused when the lens fails to converge all of the colors to a single focal point due to different wavelengths – and it can be exaggerated if there is movement during the capture process.

Sometimes chromatic aberration occurs only in specific areas of a file, but sometimes, like in this sample, it occurs throughout the image and correcting it can become a big job!

SO, in this article I will share with you the most common options for getting rid of chromatic aberration, starting with the easiest; Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom.

Both ACR and Lightroom have options in the Lens Correction Panel that address chromatic aberration.

If the aberration is slight, all it takes is some visual adjustment of the sliders and choosing the defringing option that provides the best visual correction. Finite. Done – but it didn’t work on this image because the aberration is too severe.

The next option is to consider that the problem is that the color channels are not lining up correctly and perhaps there might be an adjustment that can be made in Photoshop to realign them. There are two options for this. The first involves opening the Channels Window, clicking on a color channel plus the visibility icon (eyeball) on the RGB channel and using the Move Tool to realign the color channels, matching the edges of your image.

This worked well in some areas, but not in others. It is possible to distort (transform) the separate channels … but you must keep in mind that image clarity is easily affected – which brings us to the second color channel option, changing the Image Mode to Lab Color first (Image / mode / Lap color) in order to separate the luminosity (detail and value) of the file from the colors. Once the adjustment has been made, return the file mode to RGB.

Unfortunately, this option didn’t do very well on this file either! We will be forced to take care of this the old fashioned way – correcting it by hand, one edge at a time. It’s going to take longer but the results will be perfect – here is how you do it:

Make a New Layer and change the Layer Blending Mode from Normal to Color. Choose the Brush Tool and set the opacity to 50%; use a small sized brush (this image was done with the brush size at 5 pixels, just large enough to cover the discolored edges). Hold down the Option (Alt) key to choose the neighboring color, then simply color over the one you want to change. Apply a few coats, reselect, and continue throughout the image. It is faster than you think and the results are worth it!

I dropped in a neutral gray layer under my paint and am showing the color layer in Normal Mode so you can see my work:

The total of my work looks like this:

And the detail looks like this:

The job took just under an hour once I decided upon my strategy, and you can see how important it is to know your software! Options are important when you’re doing real world retouching because you want to get your work done as quickly as possible, but no two images are alike. Always start with the quick option, but learn a variety of ways of doing things so you won’t find yourself stumped on an important image that just has to be better.

This image was going to be printed as a 6 foot mural, part of a three image display with two other images that did not have the same problems as this one so it was really important that the work was perfect and would hold up to the enlargement. I’m so happy to say that everyone was pleased! Awesome!

Thank you for letting me share this project with you!

Jane Conner-ziser is an internationally recognized expert in ACR, Lightroom, Photoshop and Painter. She is an author, portrait retouching artist, painter and instructor living in Ormond Beach, Florida. She has been actively involved in professional photography for over 25 years. Contact Jane at Light Workshops lightworkshops.com or through her websites www.janeconner-ziser.com and www.jczphotographics.com

Making your Travel Photos Work for You!

By David H. Wells

Travel photography is, ideally, the perfect mix of two passions, traveling to interesting places and then making photographs of those places to share with other people. The disappointment often comes when the experience that the photographer had and the final image they made do not match.  Having photographed across the United States and around the globe, I have learned, sometimes the hard way, how to deal with this exact problem.  You might think a piece of gear or a particular photographic technique might do the trick, but, the only thing you need is a changed perspective.

Simply put, remembering who you are photographing for is the key to good travel photographs.   By this I mean that the best travel photographs serve multiple roles:

1)    They obviously show what the place looks like or who the people are who live there, in the sense that the best travel photographs have strong emphasis on the people, place or thing to be found at the place the photographer actually traveled to in order to make the photograph. 

2)    The best travel photographs also convey the feeling of the place, through the typical tools most photographers use such as, light, color, framing, focus, etc. In the best travel imagery, the mood that would be experienced by someone who is actually there is conveyed photographically by the time of day that is shown, the photographer’s position, the choice of lens, etc.

3)    The best travel photographs build on our expectations of a given place but they also surprise us.  Not only do they take us some place that is new to us, but they also show it to us in a new way. The cliché postcard image of a given place is what we know about that place (and in fact may be a good starting point) but the best travel photos take the viewer one or two steps beyond the expected.

4)    An example of this is the clichéd image of a friend standing in front of a landmark, stiff as the building itself. That works fine for you but not for a wider audience. Similarly, a straight on shot of the building in question works fine to show the building as landmark, but it does no better a job in conveying the mood or experience of being at such a place. Think of it this way: A photograph of your partner acting like they are holding up the leaning tower of Pisa is only funny to you.  A photograph of dozens of people doing exactly the same thing, made in such a way as they look like cartoon characters, that is a great travel photograph that anyone can enjoy. 

A travel photography workshop, such as the one I am leading in April built around the Morro Bay Kite Festival is the ideal place to advance the skills required for good travel photography.  We will explore the photographic skills needed to make photos that are more than just documents, photos that convey the mood or atmosphere of a place.  We will also explore the important process of remembering “who is the audience for your photographs and how that affects your working”.  One other great thing about this kind of photography workshop is that the skills you refine in the workshop are applicable to almost every kind of photography you might ever do, so it is real win-win situation.

We hope to see you this April here with David Wells!

Best Methods for Cleaning Your Images

One of the most common gotchas we see in images and prints is the presence of spots. Regardless of the source such as dust on the sensor, every photographer should spot check their images before print, upload, email, delivery, etc. There are very few things that scream "lack of attention to detail" like spots in a finished image. At Light, we recommend spot checking every image at 100% or 1:1 view.

The best technique we have found to locate your spots is to use the Hand tool or a version of the Hand tool (other software) to slowly scroll through the image. Human eyes are very keen at detecting movement and this can help us find our spots. Many spots are very challenging to see on bright monitors when the photographer stares at the image. When you slowly scroll the image, dust spots appear to be moving against the background image.

This technique works extremely well. If you want to confirm a dust spot, wiggle the image with the Hand tool and the dust spot will jump off the screen at you. There are many instructors and photographers who recommend jumping through the image via keyboard shortcut. This is not nearly as effective as the scroll/wiggle method. Once you find your spots let the retouching commence (in a non-destructive manner, of course.) A common error with this method is to lose track of where you are in the image as you scroll. Use the Navigator to keep your bearings and you will easily check the entire image.

 Fiat Lux!

New RRS Tripod and Ben Willmore/Light Review from Joe

Really Right Stuff recently released their new travel tripod.  The link will take you to their description and also to a great review.  Joe Jr. joined LIGHT and Ben Willmore recently for a week long class and attached a review in the RRS newsletter.

RRS Newsletter (link no longer available... sorry!)

Cannot wait to get my hands (and camera) on this tripod.

Fiat Lux!

On the "Radio" with Michael Stern

Had a great time with Michael Stern this morning on the Build a Better Photograph online radio/podcast show.  He also had a guest on who is an expert on search engine optimization (SEO) for photographers.  Definitely worth a quick listen.

The link below will take you to the podcast download.

Build a Better Photograph

Fiat Lux!

Lightroom 4 Beta Quick Look

Adobe released the Lightroom 4 Beta earlier today and this video is a quick first look at the major changes in the program that relate to still photos.  I used a fairly broad brush to cover the changes and will go more into detail as the Beta test progresses.

Unfortunately, not a single one of my main upgrade requests is included in version 4 of the program.  Regardless, there are some interesting and useful new features and functions. 

I think the new Book module will be very useful to many users.  Adobe partnered with Blurb and it is now very simple to layout a photo book design.  For those that do not use or have not used Blurb you can also export the book to PDF. 

There is also a Map module for use with geo locating or geo tagging your images. It's pretty cool.

Inside the Develop Module, the Basic tab changed (more detail in the video), there are more options for local adjustments, and CA removal has been simplified (although I have not found it to work all that well.) Soft proofing was also added to the Develop Module for use in prepping an output file.

There are some very large changes to video handling and optimization.  I did not have the time in this quick look to go through them.  But if you do video, you will like them.

I will discuss more regarding the Beta soon.

Fiat Lux!

Top 50 Images from Click

The Top 50 images from the 2011 California Photo Festival are up on the Festival SmugMug page.  Our next group of judges will select 10 of these images as the Top 10 and will also pick one Overall Winner.

Click! 2 Top 50 Images

The photographer who shot the top image will receive a free pass to the 2012 California Photo Fest (Click 3!) and a SmugMug Pro account.

Other prizes are Lightroom books, SmugMug Pro accounts, and Corel Painter!

Thanks again to Adobe, SmugMug, and Corel for the tremendous support of LIGHT Photographic Workshops and the California Photo Fest.

The 2012 Fest is taking shape and registrations will start the day we announce our contest winner, 15 January.  We are adding more instructors and different events to make Click 3 even better.

Fiat Lux!

Part 3 - Camera Setup Checklist

By Hal Schmitt. Embellished by Victoria Schmitt

Select Desired Aperture

Do you want a shallow depth of field to isolate your subject or do you want as much of your scene in focus as possible? Remember the bigger the hole (smaller the number f4.5) the more shallow your depth of field, the small the hole (larger number f22) the more depth of field you will get.

Compose the rough scene

Look into your viewfinder and start to compose your scene. You can scan left right, up and down see what you want included or centered in your frame.

Meter and set exposure

Hopefully at this point your back-button focus is going to be your primary meter and focusing button. Depending on what exposure your aperture is giving you adjust the shutter speed to compensate for your exposure. If you are having a hard time getting a fast enough shutter speed, you will have to either change your ISO or your aperture to get the desired focus and exposure for the scene.

Focus

Make sure the primary subject is in focus.

Fine tune composition

If you now have to move your composition so that your subject is not smack dab in the middle, make sure your focus is set and move accordingly.

Fine tune your exposure

Shoot!

(Or just take a photo, picture or snapshot if your lingo does not include a shooting reference)

Review as necessary

Look at the back of your LCD. Make sure you are looking at your histogram!!! You don't want your histogram piled high on either side, but don't worry if there are parts of you scene that have a black point and a white point built-in. If you have a large amount of 1 "gray" tone (Blue sky, red rocks) you may have strange peaks and valleys in your histogram. What you're looking for is a balanced exposure. Do not depend on the picture you see on your LCD and always refer to your histogram. Remember, these are pixels. It's information being captured on a sensor, so rely on the information it gives you and not how pretty the LCD picture is.

Happy Shooting and Fiat Lux!

Part 2 - Camera Setup Checklist

Last week I started with a checklist created by Hal to help you set up your inner camera settings before going out to shoot. Here I have another great checklist to help you start getting your camera working the way you want it to work.

Checklist by Hal, embellished by Victoria

Select Mode

– We recommend Manual- Always. Yes, there are those out there who want the "P", "professional mode" because life happens fast, right? Well, yes, but do want to capture life the way your camera brand wants, or how you want to capture it? Your camera doesn't know that your subject is back-lit and running quickly. But you can make your own adjustments in order to accommodate what you want exposed properly, in focus etc.

AV and TV is nice, but the camera is still making those critical decisions for you. Practice in Manual now so that later on you know how to control your camera quickly. If you have a camera that can create custom functions then you can set those to help you quickly change from your custom portrait settings into action settings as good starting points. But never assume that a camera should or can think for you.

Set White Balance-

 Cloudy? Sunny? Are you using a strobe? Yes, you can kind of "correct" this later in RAW, but there are more than a few reasons to save yourself a step or a few steps before you even take the photo.

ISO

- We recommend starting at your lowest ISO that your camera will give you for the cleanest noise-free image possible. If you're in lower light see if you can adjust your aperture (smaller number, bigger hole) to get a fast enough shutter speed to hand-hold your camera. If you're on a tripod then there's are very few reasons to be on a higher ISO. You don't want your stars to be dots of noise from your sensor. 

Metering modes- 

Try to stick with Evaluative metering, or Matrix metering. 

Auto focus- 

Set correct mode for the scene you have. A simple guideline:

If you are photographing a moving object you will want Ai Servo, if you are shooting a non-moving subject/object then put it in "one shot" mode. 

Drive mode- 

You have single, continuous, or timer. Single (one square) is 1 shot per press of the shutter button. Good for portraits or slow moving scenes etc. Continuous mode and Continuous mode "H" for high speed (multi-squares and a multi square with an "H") is awesome for the soccer mom/dad, shooting horses on the beach at the California Photo Festival, or birds etc.

Select Auto Focus point/points:

If there is a moving object you may want to set these point on one of the sides of your focus choices. if the object is running from Left to right, I will set my primary focus point on the far right side of my viewfinder. That way as I follow the object the front of the object is always the point of focus.

Lens modes:

These are for the larger lenses and lenses that have these options. not all lenses have these options available.

-IS/VR:

Image stabilizer/Vibration reduction- This send out a small vibration to counter the vibration you are giving your lens while holding it.  We recommend you turn it on when hand-holding and turning it off when you're on a tripod.

-Mode 1 or 2 for IS/VR?

Mode 1 is better if you are simply hand-holding your camera. Mode 2 is better if you are panning or moving while you're shooting.

-Focal Distance?

On my 100-400, for instance, it has a choice of either 1.8m to infinity, or 6.5m to infinity. This is setting your minimum focusing distance on your lens.

I hope this helps you during your next adventure or local photo-shoot!

Fiat Lux!

Victoria Schmitt

Here is a sneak peak to next week's list:

Select Aperture (which one and why)
Select your shutter speed
Is your Shutter speed or Aperture more important?
Compose the scene (how and why)
Review as necessary (where, why and what to look for)

...and more...

Part 1 - Camera Setup Checklist

Written by Hal and Embellished by Victoria

I have received a few inquiries about how Hal and I set up our cameras and our gear before we go out on a shoot. Hal, being the thorough instructor that he is, has created checklists for this very thing. We usually hand these checklists to our "Basics of your DSLR" workshop attendees. In this class Hal teaches, in detail, his methods and recommendations for camera set-up as they go through the checklist.   Since you don't have his in-person charm to explain his points, I went through them and added a few embellishments.
So here is his simple check-list (the first of 3 parts) as good starting points for you to set up your camera before going out to shoot. 

In your camera setting menus
1. Set Image Quality
Picture Style for JPEG? All cameras give you “JPEG preview” for your LCD. We recommend the Neutral setting which gives you the closest “look” to your RAW image.
2. "Shoot without card" Option
Turn this Off! That way you don’t realize 100 shots in that none of your images have been recorded because you didn’t put a card in your camera…This has never happened to us, of course.
3. Color Space
Adobe is preferred: Adobe 1998 etc. Give yourself the largest color space possible to start out with. That way you have the choice of minimizing color space later on if needed.
4. Highlight Alert
Enable (remember to check your histogram also!) This is a friendly reminder from your camera that you have over exposed your highlights. It says you are “void” of pixel information where the “blinkies” occur.
5. Auto rotate
On- Save yourself some time in the post process!
6. File numbering
Continuous- If you aren't renaming your files when importing, this will keep from having duplicate numbers- which could create confusion or overwriting your files in your folder.
7. Set Correct Date and Time
Ultimately, you will be using this for your import process, key wording, searching for images. For wedding and event photographers that use a second shooter or camera, this REALLY helps when combining second shooter/camera images into your catalog or “time-sorted” folders.
8. Program back button focus only
AF-On: Opposed to shutter button focusing.
AF-On or the “Back-button” (*) focus is what we recommend to all who use auto-focus.

Tim Grey- Your Digital Imaging Guru!

Tim Grey is a highly regarded digital imaging specialist that has been educating photographers for over 10 years. Tim's vast understanding of the various outlets for image enhancement, including Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements, has led him to write over a dozen books on digital imaging for photographers. He has also been published in several magazines such as PC Photo, Digital Photo Pro, and Outdoor Photographer.

Tim is returning to the Central Coast for a second year of teaching at the California Photo Festival, October 12-16, 2011. Each day Tim will be sharing essential techniques for photographers of all levels. His courses this year will include Fundamentals of Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, a series on Time Lapse Video and more!

We've asked Tim why he is coming back to teach at the California Photo Festival for a second year...

​© Tim Grey

​© Tim Grey

What do you like about teaching at the California Photo Festival?

"Are you kidding?! It is a great event in a beautiful location with lots of incredible instructors and wonderful attendees. This is easily one of my favorite events to teach at."

Why should other photographers join you at this years event?

"It's quite simple. This event is in a beautiful location that photographers will love, it features the best photographers in the industry, and there are many other enthusiastic attendees to mingle with. Don't miss it!"

Learn more about Tim by visiting 

www.TimGrey.com

© Tim Grey

© Tim Grey

Don't miss out on your chance to deepen your photography skills, with hands-on instruction from this digital imaging guru! Click here to see all of Tim's classes during the California Photo Festival.

With 16 world-class instructors, over 150 events, and the beauty of the Central Coast, this year's California Photo Festival will be an amazing learning experience for all! Get your pass today at CaliforniaPhotoFest.com!