So You Want to Make Better Pictures…
I have a few of steps that may help. 1) Hang out with people who are better photographers than yourself. This means go out and shoot with people who you can learn from. If you want to shoot more than just landscapes, look at magazines and Ads. Find out who’s shooting the pictures you like [...]
Lightroom web galleries.
Creating a web gallery or website can be quite time consuming and difficult, especially if you want to make it look professional. I’ve recently updated my site, www.jessebrownphotography.com, using Lightroom. I’ve been using Lightroom to create my web galleries for a while now and I’ve never been displeased with the results. It’s very easy to [...]
Gearing up for Costa Rica
It’s getting pretty close to March, and that means our photo Workshop in Costa Rica, and that means getting our gear together and putting it on a plane or two. I thought I would share a few thoughts about what I’m bringing, how I’m carrying it and some things you might need if you’re joining us.
Lightroom Plugins for HDR photography
Lightroom makes it easy to store, edit and process your images from one central location. With a few plugins, it is the perfect hub for your HDR workflow. I use Photomatix Pro for my HDR processing, but I’m sure that other HDR software works in a similar fashion.
Cool spot-metering custom function for Nikons
I normally use the Matrix metering mode on my Nikon D700 and D300s cameras. I tend to work in varied lighting conditions, and I find that in most situations Matrix metering does a great job of determining the correct exposure. I can then make easy adjustments using exposure compensation or manual exposure. There are times [...]
Web Resources for New Photographers
I’ll bet there are a lot of new DSLR owners after this December 25th. This is a great time to be a beginning photographer. Not only can good equipment be found relatively inexpensively, but there are thousands of photo references on the web to help you learn about that shiny new camera. There are also numerous opportunities to attend classes, seminars and workshops led by some of the best photographers in the world. Here is a short list of online resources to help get you started…
Don’t forget about those old photos
Here’s a pretty good tip: never forget about old photos. I was backing up some old photos the other day and came across some that I had forgotten about.
After I do a shoot, the first thing I do following it is an initial edit of my shots. Depending on when the deadline is, will dictate when I do my second edit. If it’s a personal shoot, I usually don’t do a second edit until 3 or 4 days later. For me, I find that I really need to separate myself from the experience of taking the pictures.
Make the most of your next photography workshop
You never know what can happen at a photography workshop. A few months ago I went to St Augustine, Florida to attend a workshop taught by Rick Sammon. Before I left, I joked with my wife that Rick and I would hit it off and be good friends. I won a contest the first day [...]
How to turn a normal color image into a dynamic black and white.
There are many ways to create a black and white image in Photoshop. The one that I found that works the best is by going through Silver Efex Pro by Nik Software. Take a look at the original image, which is on the left, and the treated image, which is on the right.
Lightroom’s Camera Calibration Panel
There is a question that a lot of people ask when they decide to start shooting RAW… “why do my jpegs look so much better than my RAW files?” And a related question, “why do my photos look so much better on my camera’s LCD than they do on my computer screen?” The answer is [...]
Lightroom bits and pieces
I wanted to do a post to address the Lightroom info that people are searching for lately. There are a few questions that seem to come up regularly. Here are a few of those questions, and some things I’ve helped my friends with lately. This is a simple thing, but it had a friend of [...]
How to hold a DSLR Camera
I assume that person is a novice. Mainly because most “pro” photographers have figured out how to hold their camera for maximum sharpness. I’ve read articles that mention HOW to hold a camera, but very few mention WHY this is the best way to use an SLR…
My Lightroom Workflow- Sorting and Smart Collections
I had planned to write this post today BEFORE I read Scott Kelby’s post this morning about collections in Lightroom. It was interesting to read his post because we pretty much end up at the same place, but we take a different route to get there…
My Lightroom Workflow- file management ideas
When I started posting Adobe Photoshop Lightroom tutorials a few weeks ago I started with the adjustment brush. It occurred to me that the adjust brush is a weird place to START a series about Lightroom, so I decided to go back to the beginning and talk about my workflow. For me, the most important [...]
Lightroom Adjustment Brush tips part-3. Color
I’m going to start this week with a quick tip that I just learned. Say you’re working with a brush to lighten part of your image, and you have painted over a section with your density at 100. Now say you decide that you would rather not have that section quite so light, but the [...]
Lightroom Adjustment Brush tips part-2. easy re-touch
I wanted to begin this post with a word about the “flow” and “density” sliders inside the Adjustment Brush panel. These are very important for controlling how your adjustments are applied, but they are fairly simple to figure out. Think of the density slider as the maximum that the effect can be applied.
Lightroom Adjustment Brush tips part-1. Creative vignetting
I have been experimenting with Lightroom’s adjustment brush lately, and I have come up with some great uses for this versatile tool. This first tip can be applied to many different kinds of images, and can save you a trip to Photoshop and back…
