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Aperture 2 delivers over 100 dramatic, new features including advanced image processing,
a streamlined interface, faster performance, and unprecedented Mac integration
Check it out here.
Category: Technique & Workflow
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Apple – Aperture – New Features
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Rob Galbraith DPI: Apple releases Aperture 2
:Apple this morning has released Aperture 2, a new version of its pro imaging application for Mac that boasts over 100 new features. The application is available for the cost of shipping to those who purchased Aperture after January 1, 2008; otherwise it’s a US$99 upgrade, or US$199 for a new license.
Check it out here.
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John Nack on Adobe: New video shows GridIron Flow in action
GridIron Flow, a new workflow management technology designed to work with Photoshop, the Creative Suite, and other tools. Since then the product picked up a Best in Show nod at Macworld, and now you can see it in action in a video on their site. In it company CEO Steve Forde shows Flow managing a workflow spreading across Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and InDesign.
Check it out here.
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Key For The Future – Inside Aperture
:For the longest time, I’ve wanted to figure out the best way to add keywords to my extensive library. I know in theory how to do it, but I have never actually made a concentrated effort to use this very important and powerful feature in Aperture.
Keywording gets even more important as your archive grows, making it easy to find specific images years down the road. Stock shooters will tell you that efficient keywording will make them money, since buyers will search for specific images by keyword, and if your image fits the bill but does not contain the specific keyword, it will never be called up for consideration.
Check it out here.
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One Image – 17 Amazing Interpretations at CameraPorn
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Several weeks back, I posed a challenge to CameraPorn readers. Take an image I dug out of my archives in the form of three bracketed exposures and retouch it into the best final image possible. The “Revisit & Retouch” project was meant to be an exercise in compositing these bracketed exposures into one image, taking details from each, but what it became was an interesting and educational view into the personal style of each of the entrants.
After the jump we have 17 different interpretations and the best part, everyone gets to vote for their favorite image…
Check it out here.
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Stretching the Truth Just Became Easier (and Cheaper) – New York Times
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“Reality is a lie,” said Mr. Baldassi.
Automated tools like Mr. Baldassi’s are changing the editing of photography by making it possible for anyone to tweak a picture, delete unwanted items or even combine the best aspects of several similar pictures into one.
Check it out here.
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The F STOP » Professional Photographers Discuss Their Craft » Article Archive » Guy Neveling
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Compared to the monkey, everything else was a cinch, says Guy Neveling, when asked about the production of our featured image, an advertisement for Volkswagen. “The monkey was all over the studio.” That is, until the time came for something rarely heard of in stateside shoots—his afternoon nap.
A skilled photographer working in a small market like South Africa has to be versatile enough to let the monkey sleep, says Nevelling. “They’ll give you an animal shot one week and then next week, I’ll be shooting a car,” he says. His range serves him well in a region where work is plentiful and photographers are in short supply. “It’s like the Wild West,” Neveling says. “There is violence [in Johannesburg] but people are open to new things and new people.”Check it out here.
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A Photo Editor – Portfolio Website Design
I think we’re all aware that the portfolio website is a very important tool for photographers and I’ll go so far as to predict that it will soon replace printed portfolios (bold, I know), so I wanted to create a quick reference guide for photographers looking for templates or designers or examples of portfolios that I like.
Check it out here.
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Howto: Create Higher Dynamic Range With Bracketed Exposures at CameraPorn
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For those of you that are familiar with our recent blog project “Revisit and Retouch” you’ll recognize this image. I provided CameraPorn readers with a set of three bracketed exposures to have a go at creating their own unique version by any means necessary. The image above is not only my entry to the project, but also an exercise in retouching that focuses on the common practice of compositing multiple, bracketed exposures to create a final image that better represents the scene as viewed by the human eye… In more ‘technical’ terms, an image with a higher dynamic range.
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of how I came to this final image, it’s important to understand what I mean by “higher dynamic range.” Many of you are probably thinking, oh yeah, he means ‘HDR’ imagery like what you create with a program such as Photomatix and see plastered all over flickr, but you’re wrong. As neato as those images can look, they are rarely executed in a way that brings the final image to appear as the scene actually looked to the human eye, which in my opinion, is where the true value lies in creating higher dynamic range images. Creating a tone-mapped HDR image in an HDR program usually leads to oversaturated, dream-like images which look pretty cool but can be created by almost anybody with Photomatix and some bracketed images with little to no skill involved in most cases. Now don’t get me wrong there are some incredibly talented HDR ‘artists’ out there whose work amazes me, but the general image you see on flickr looks too fake for my tastes, and besides today we’re talking about using good old Photoshop and Lightroom. To see how I did it and learn a bit more about dynamic range, read on…
Check it out here.
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From Robert Capa to Ray Charles: What's in your Mexican Suitcase?
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All of this got me instantly thinking (and worrying): What kind of Mexican suitcase will we leave to our future generations to find? A SyQuest cartridge from the early 1990’s? A floppy disk? A Zip drive? I’ve always laughed at the prospect of one of the great ironies of the digital era: In the end, only paper will survive. Our grandchildren might venture into an attic sixty years from now and find a stack of gorgeous prints–made from digital cameras and film cameras alike–and then again, they might find the original files to those prints on a CD with faded Sharpie writing. The prints, of course, will be treasured while the CD will get thrown into the trash faster than one can say, “what’s a SCSI drive?”
(To be fair, there are plenty of atrocities on both sides of the fence. Back in the late eighties, someone at a major Washington newspaper, looking to clear some space, threw away negatives from a 16 year period, including many of those belonging to a minor political dust-up called Watergate.)
Check it out here.
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Lightroom Journal: DNG in the News
For those not familiar with DNG, it’s the archival raw format that Adobe created to address the proliferation of proprietary raw formats. With hundreds of undocumented formats introduced since the advent of raw capture, it’s no wonder that the concept of a raw standard has elicited quite a bit of discussion. Much of the discussion revolves around the topic of file format obsolescence: Will I be able to open my raw files in 50 to 75 years from now? This is a good question and a valid reason why photographers choose to use the openly documented DNG format but there are other more immediate benefits to using a DNG workflow:
Check it out here.
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Be a multimedia McGuyver – 101 DIY tools and techniques for cool, professional photo, audio and video gear on the cheap | Will Sullivan’s Journerdism
Be a multimedia McGuyver – 101 DIY tools and techniques for cool, professional photo, audio and video gear on the cheap | Will Sullivan’s Journerdism: “Long, long ago in high school and college I used to do a bunch of indy films with friends and classmates for fun (and some school classes). We never had any money so we couldn’t buy expensive gear like steadycams and jigs, but we did have Home Depot, some tools, lots of time and ingenuity so we were able to cobble together makeshift gear to make things work.
Now-a-days, the magical internet has connected A/V nerds and backyard engineering geeks. Here’s a long list of cool video, photo, audio and multimedia techniques, tools and things to try out:”
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RRD Photo: Photoshop "Revisit and Retouch" Challenge #1
RRD Photo: Photoshop “Revisit and Retouch” Challenge #1: “Ryan Goodman took this photograph a few years ago in Grand Cayman and produced a nice image (after some editing) which you can see on his site.
Interested to see what other folks would do to this in the digital darkroom, he’s inviting those interested to download the RAW files and give it their best shot.
In this post…
In this post I’ll give a detailed look at my steps for completing this retouch and at the end I’ll link to some books and podcasts that will help teach you these techniques in more detail.” -
Portfolio Workflow Videos
From Extensis:
Photographer Digital Workflow.
This demo will outline how to use Portfolio as a complete workflow tool. From downloading and back-up to editing, sharing and archiving all inside of Portfolio. Learn how to simplify your workflow and have complete control over all of it’s steps.
Here.
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How to Edit 40,000 Photos in a Day
From Photo District News, the photo editing process at US Weekly. Here.
Senior editor Albert Lee picks up a picture of Jennifer Garner clowning around in her Oscar dress.
“What the hell is she doing?” Lee cries. “Eff her!” He casts Garner aside.
