Making the move: Please check the site and update your RSS feed

Hey folks, especially those reading via RSS, I'm making the move to Word Press because of Blogger cancelling FTP blogging. I'm pretty much ready to go, so please check out the site and update your feeds. There'll be house keeping being done for the next while when we 'move in', but all is basically ready to go. Sorry about the short notice, but I only discovered about Blogger yesterday.
I suspect the new feed will be either feed:http://lightroom-blog.com/wp/feed or feed:http://lightroom-blog.com/feed so please update!

Changes

Hi folks,
As Blogger are removing FTP blogging from May 1st and I'd prefer to retain control over my content, it looks like I have to consider moving to a wordpress blog. This means making sure posts keep the same format to be findable, as well as sorting out those that read the blog exclusively via RSS. I may just use a basic template until I get all the details hammered out, or even go with a brand new design. Hopefully all you readers out there will keep with me as I update and expand. I've need Wordpress style pages for the blog for a while, so I guess it's time to make the jump. I'll keep you all informed and warn when the time comes.

Roaches Hall

For those not interested in general and speaking news, feel free to skip this. Last week I was away in Roaches Hall in the Peak District of England at the invite of Paul RG Haley. I know Paul from the SWPP and Twitter. The premise of this annual residential week is sharing and training, mainly geared to wedding, portrait, boudoir and some fine art nude photography. I was there to talk Lightroom, but also did a session on Off Camera Flash using the Canon ETTL system and manually using radio triggers (in this case Elinchrom Skyports). In the evenings I also did a lot of impromptu Photoshop sessions, which went down really well, with a lot of oohs and ahhs from those around. These evening times also gave people a chance to ask me direct questions about Lightroom, things that they wouldn't ask in a group sessions, which I thought was valuable for them.

Photo by Steve Ramsden (Yorkshire Wedding Photographer)

Other things on during the week included Aladdin Gulec revealing quite a lot of SEO tricks. I will be incorporating some of this information into my plugins, or at least allowing users to access them if they choose. That said, if a user is interested in SEO, I'd highly recommend them do a course. For this session, I was sitting beside Adrian Downing, who actually taught Aladdin some of the things he was showing, so I got even more SEO info from him.

Also there was Richie Crossley, a Maltease fashion photographer based in London. Richie has a knack for being the centre of attention, so needless to say we got on like a house on fire. Richie showed off a few techniques for fashion and headshots, as well as talking about rapport. Check out his site, it's well worth a look.

The final thing I really enjoyed was sharing a twin room with Steve Ramsden. Although the house was reasonably large, most people were sharing. This is actually great for networking, and sharing with Steve was no exception. We had great getting up and going to bed talks about sales, marketing, training and a whole host of other things. Steve took the photo above BTW.

One other benefit to the course is that the models used for the classes are available for hire. Why is this good? Well shots taken during workshops and classes are usually disqualified from competition. By booking the model and shooting yourself, the images shot may be used for portfolio and competitions. Of course you also pay the model for their time!

Kudos to Paul for organising this week, his 5th of this kind. I know I'll be there next year, assuming I get invited!

Back from Focus

Hi Folks! I know I've been a bit quiet here, but that's because I was at Focus On Imaging for most of this week, along with preparing for it. I did 2 talks a day on the Phototraining4U.com stand. I know I've mentioned it before, but I'm their Lightroom Master, so I was there promoting this new aspect of the training. The other new Master there was Kenny Martin, showing off a new portrait promotion called 'Photo Noir', or 'Back 2 Black'. I was very impressed with his talks. (As a former MPA president, he's well able to present!).

For my early talk, I did a landscape develop tutorial, followed by a beauty retouch tutorial. In the late talk, I did a little on Split Toning for Sepia and Cross Processed looks, followed by showing off my plugins. The plugin talk was a little short the first day, so I got up early on Tuesday and made a power point presentation to give it more direction.

Thanks to all the people that came up to speak to me both with questions and, of course, those with compliments on the training that's up on Phototraining4U.com.

Finally I should mention that there's plans afoot for a UK tour with Mark Cleghorn from PT4U. We'll be doing a Photoshop and Lightroom tour in November, so keep your eyes peeled for more information on that.

Focus on Imaging

Hi folks,
I'll be at Focus on Imaging in Birmingham from 7th-10th of the month (yep next Sunday is the 7th). I get in during the afternoon of the 7th so I don't think I'll be speaking that afternoon. I will be on the remaining days on the Mark Cleghorn/Phototraining4U stand (F50) though. Times are not confirmed yet though. See you there.

Top 5 posts of 2009

Everyone seems to be doing top posts lists. Normally I wouldn't, but it was interesting looking at the most popular posts this year. In no particular order:

1. Using Lightroom for your iPhone photos


2. Alphabetic Lightroom


3. Things I like in Beta 3
4. An Introduction to Lightroom Plugins
5. Creating a background image grid


And a bonus, but more infamous popular post

6. My April Fools video post

The 5th one doesn't rank high from comments, but was popular on twitter.

Anyhow, Happy New Year to all and may 2010 turn the tide on bad fortunes everywhere.

Happy Holidays

Wishing you and yours a happy holiday. I'm staying put this year and have my mother in law visiting for Christmas. Lightroom-Blog will be quiet over the holiday season, but I'll be around on Twitter as @lightroomblog.

Email issues

Folks,
if you're trying to email, now is a bad time, as I've no outgoing email due to server issues. My net access is via reception at my apartment complex, and they've been locked down because someone on the network has a trojan and is spoofing email. Hopefully this can be rectified shortly.

LR2Tweetphoto on Hold.

Due to Tweetphoto deprecating their API, this plugin is no longer for sale, until I get it working with the new API. The API docs originally stated that they would be still using the old API, but it seems they've changed their mind and have stopped using it as of Oct 1st. There's a lot more to the new API, so it will be some time before I rerelease this plugin as a version 2 product. In the meantime, if you have a copy I will give a refund or a free cross grade to LR2Twitpic. My apologies for this, but the API change is out of my control.

Troy Gaul on Lightroom Development

A while back Troy Gaul gave a talk on Lightroom at C4[2]. The video is now online:



It's a bit geeky, but I really enjoyed it. Oh to have access to that IDE :)

Slow on the western front

Apologies to my regular readers, it's been busy here with work and generally just keeping up with forums. I've been away a lot recently and doing quite a few all day shoots, leaving me too tired for planning and writing posts.

I've been busy in forums instead, and have a few projects on the go, including a series of training videos for a photo training websites. More on that another time.

In the meantime, here's some links to keep you going:

An older post that'd being pushed by Brandon from the great X-equals: Lightroom Sharpening. I wonder if my comment on an article reminded him of it!

John Beardsworth has a little note on Keyword Synonyms.

Wade Heninger has his weekly 'Lightroom Tuesday' post.

John Nack shows us that Aperture isn't doing so well in the 'war', even among Mac users. Don't get me wrong, Aperture has some wonderful features that I'd love to see in Lightroom (Books!).

Video and Monkey Business 3

Today I'm working on Lightroom videos for Mark Cleghorn. For those not familiar with Mark, he's a great photographer/educator on this side of the pond. And an all round gent at that too. Amongst other things, Mark has a whole series of videos done for Lastolite, on using their product.
Anyhow, I'm heading over to the UK for one of his seminars on the Monkey Business 3 tour. The London date to be precise. It's £25 for the day long seminar with trade show. Let's face it, that's a steal in this current climate. The seminar is a mix of theory and practical and I have to say I'm looking forward to it.

Back

I've been away traveling through Scotland, England and Wales over the last 2 weeks, so if you thought all was quiet on the blog, then you'd be right. I didn't publicly announce it, because there have been reports of break ins due to such announcements by others. Well I'm back now, so expect some more posts this week!

Menus

It's a bit obvious if you're looking at the Blog, but for those on RSS, we've a new menu bar. Because there's 330 posts on the blog, things can be a little inaccessible at times. I've put a lot of the related stuff into their own page, which then references either the post, or the related web page.

World Wide Photo Walk

While not directly a Lightroom thing, I am taking part in this..

The second annual world wide photo walk takes place on the 18th July this year.
I applied and was accepted as walk leader for the Galway walk. There are requirements to lead the walk, such as having lead a camera group or teaching classes. As I've done both, and seeing no one else had applied, I applied.

Anyway, the walk is limited to 50 people, so if you are interested, go to the page on the world wide photo walk page and sign up.

worldwidephotowalk.com/galway-gy-ie/

What is a Photo Walk? Well pretty much as it sounds, you takes photos and walk. There are prizes for the best photo of the walk, and photos get featured on the website. The idea of a world wide photo walk is the brain child of Photoshop author Scott Kelby. It's all about meeting other photographers and having fun in the process.

New Look

So the decorators have been in and we have a new look. While the old template looked great, I wanted something a little more custom. I've actually had the basis of this new blog template started when I launched the LRB Portfolio website. I've finally gotten around to getting it (mostly) done and online. Of course because it's my first attempt as such a thing, I will need to iron bits out as I go..

All you IE users will have to tell me what's broken though..

I finally got a look in IE7.. ouch, dropping Div's.. off to work I go. Fixed.

Twitter

Hey,
As a whole bunch of people are finding me there, I may as well announce that you can find me muttering about Lightroom, rugby(!) and general mutterings on Twitter as @lightroomblog. Find my page at http://twitter.com/lightroomblog

Focus On Imaging 2009

Hey folks,
I'm off to Focus tomorrow (well in about 5 hours after I go to bed!). I'll be bringing the book to show off to my mates, so if you see me about, come say hi.. Here's my ugly mug courtesy of David Hobby AKA Strobist from the London Strobist seminar last Dec. I will be wearing the same hat :)

Photo by David Hobby, Used with permission

I'm not doing any talks or signings, I'm just a punter and really going to see the Elichrom Ranger Quadra system, and look for the new Drew Gardner DVD. I'm not bringing a computer, but I will have the iPhone with me for basic net access and email in WiFi Areas (O2's roaming rates for data are ridiculous).

Links and news.

I've posted again on Lightroom news, but you should check out Tim Armes new plugin for Lightroom: LR2/Blog. It's a photoblog plugin for Lightroom that lets you publish blog posts to blogger and Wordpress (or those that use the metaWebLog API) blogs. You can add text to the post, overwrite previous files, etc. It's a great idea for a plugin and works well.

On the 'please release V2 of LRB Portfolio' front, well maybe if people would take a break from mailing in feature requests, it might actually get out the door. As it is I have to rewrite some of the user guide before release! Soon, I promise. And quit asking for beta versions.... :)


One thing I have been doing is spending some time on Lynda.com. I have the bones of a book on writing web galleries done from 1.3, so I've been looking at InDesign course, and of course I'm doing Eric Meyer's CSS course. I've even applied one or 2 ideas to the gallery since (like the dropping image when the window is too narrow issue - now it just hides instead).
Even though I'm only there a week, I really recommend it. I'll take a peek at the Lightroom courses there and do a mini review in time.
Anyhow, back to the grindstone.

Adobe Community Expert

A few weeks ago the Administrator for Adobe Community Help for Lightroom, Anita Dennis, told me that she was nominating me as an Adobe Community Expert. Today I got the news that the nomination had been accepted and that I'm now an Adobe Community Expert. Wow! There's a change happening in how things are being handled, so my name isn't on the current list yet. I'm pretty happy about getting this!

Part of being chosen involves activity in the community, which I already do in many forms, here for example, and on Community Help. It all feels like new shoes.
Don points out that Ian Lyons is also an Adobe Community Expert in the comments. In fact I've already spoken to Ian today about it over the phone. Ian was the first person I ever knew as a Community Expert back in the Lightroom Beta days. He even send me to the page I've linked above to find out more. It's a bit like coming full circle since then!

Blogging the oldies.

One problem with a blog is that it's very much a linear thing based entirely on chronology, which makes it a little one dimensional. I've been endeavouring to add more dimension to it using Labels, but I think it's time to start making reference pages. There's quite a lot of material in the blog going right back to the original Beta. So I think the first thing to do is to make a reference page for Video Tutorials from the past. Obviously (to me anyway) it makes more sense to have the newest ones on top, although a lot of the material can still be relevant despite being from a previous version. Being the start of 2009, it makes sense to try and gather the resources together.

I've created a little shop page at http://lightroom-blog.com/shop, which I'll use as the template for this. Basically I'll have a short description and clickable thumnbnail. I'll also include videos I've done for Lightroom News too, perhaps in their own section.

Happy New Year

It's been a interesting year on Lightroom Blog, not to mention for me personally in regards to Lightroom. I've published a commercial set of presets, along with a Lightroom Web Engine. I've tech edited a Lightroom 2 How-Tos for Chris Orwig (happy new year Chris!), and his Photoshop CS4 book! My own book is in the hands of the publisher (a commissioned book). I have ideas for a book I want to write, actually the first idea for a book I had all along. We'll see if 2009 can make that happen!

I've spent a lot of time being a Moderator for Adobe Lightroom Help, and for Lightroom Forums (where I lend a hand when I can).

I've also been working on various aspects of brushing up my coding, to create more web engines. I'm currently studying Javascript, with a PHP book sitting in the wings on my tech reading list. I do have a rather large pile of 'to read' books! Currently it's Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy and Bunting. I have a good understanding of colour management, but I felt the need to read this, to flesh out what I know, and be able to say I read it! On that list are Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer 'The Photoshop Lightroom Workbook', and 'Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2' by David Huss.

The credit crunch is affording me more time off as venues are only running weekends gigs, so I've more reading and shooting time.
For 2009 I'll continue to do videos and tips here, and on Lightroom News. Relating to video, it's funny that when I'm recording, I'm running very close to clipping the audio input, yet I get a complaint that I'm too quiet. I guess there is no winning. Maybe it's time for a hard limiter so my voice is louder than your CD ;). As always suggestions for topics are welcome via the Skribit bar on the right. Yes I do look at them and I do plan on using them for future tips.
I plan on continuing the interviews for Lightroom News, I've enjoyed them, and would love to do a few more (I'm putting together another one soon).
Anyhow, thanks for dropping by in 2008, and I look forward to seeing you again throughout 2009!

Happy Christmas

Or whichever holiday you are celebrating this week. I'm away for a few days visiting, but will probably have some stuff to publish before the new year.

New Voices

Fellow Lightroom Guru and Moderator on Lightroom Forums Brad Snyder has got a new job. He writing for O'Reillys Inside Lightroom Blog. His first article is an excellent look at an event shooters workflow. In Brad's case it's equestrian in nature, but the techniques can apply to any event.
The Inside Lightroom blog did lose Adobe as a sponsor, and considering Adobe just axed 600 jobs, it's good to see they've new blood to take the reins. I had an offer once to write for them, but I choose Lightroom News instead. Good luck Brad!

Adobe Ouch

While I'm only looking at this from the outside, all I can say is "Ouch!". Adobe is laying off 600 employees worldwide. While I've seen a few names mentioned, I've no idea if any of the Lightroom team were lost. Whether or not, there will be a few extra people home this Christmas with no jobs. Never a good time. Still some have mentioned a reasonable severance package, so hopefully it's not all bad news.

Skribit Suggestions

A few weeks ago, I added the Skribit widget to see if people had particular things they'd like me to write about. Not one comment. So that means you're all reading via RSS or have no questions! So if there is a Lightroom related topic you'd like me to write about, please add it to the widget!

So waddya working on?

Well I've a few things on the go at the moment. Parallel processing isn't a human task, so it's literally one at time until my attention span gives out (easily done, I'm afraid).

LRB Portfolio 1.03 was released yesterday

I'm working on a new website plugin based on 1.03 but very different. Check out the first sample website.

I'm back working on an eBook on making your own galleries. My designer came in with a nice InDesign layout (now I need to learn InDesign!).

I'm still working on the next installment of the tutorials for Lightroom-News.com. Mostly done, but I need to make up the gallery pages again to make sure it all works!

I know Tom is keen to get a music player in galleries, and while I have created a little flash player and have the code for the tunes buried in the galleryInfo.lrweb file, I can't get it to sit in right without frames, which don't seem to be working right in PC Lightroom.

Help

It's not something I make much mention of, but I am a Moderator for Adobe with the community help. Help from Lightroom goes through the design centre, with actual help being the first link. Here's 2 options for you instead of going through the design centre.

Save the link http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/2.0/ in your browser

Open the link and on the top right of the page click on the PDF link to download the Help file for offline reference

So why is help online? Well Adobe are hoping to make it more interactive with comments and moderators. It's not so useful in the Jungle or on Plane though, hence the PDF. But of course you need to go online to get that! At least now you know you can get it before heading in offline territory.

George Jardine says Farewell to Adobe.

I sent George Jardine some nice comments after his recent video from Martin Evenings Lightroom 2 book shoots. He surprised me by telling me it would be his last. He's leaving Adobe. After 4 1/2 years there, he's moving on. George's enthusiasm for Lightroom is what really got me hooked way back in early Beta 1 of version 1 of Lightroom. I think that was Jan '06 (time flies!). I've always looked forward to his posts and now they are at an end. at least from the Adobe perspective.

George, I wish you the best in future endeavours. Enjoy the break, and don't be afraid to come back to doing more podcasts!

Web Gallery production and other news.

Lightroom-Blog has been quiet recently. Trust me it's not intentional. I'm actually very busy with Lightroom related things, along with actually working!

I've gone as far as I can with the Flash Gallery I mentioned before and I'll be releasing it when I get time to write a quick readme/instructions for it. I will probably supply a logo free version file for those making donations(and then asking-helps with the mind reading!).

I'm updating HScroll to Version 2.0 at the moment. It's mostly ready, but I'm awaiting the V2 release so I can add any new gallery features that might appear.

When I initially created the menu system for both Scroll galleries, it was to ease creation of a website for users, something not possible with Lightroom default galleries. Both Matthew Campagna and Joe Capra took the menu idea a step further in the meantime with Pages and LRG Complete. Not to be outdone, I've created a single page that creates a whole website with a home page, about page, contact page and 3 galleries with 20 photos in each. There is a full menu system. This is also awaiting a V2.0 release, but I could drop code to make it 1.4 compatible easily. You can see an example of this gallery in action here.
The contact page uses a PHP form rather than a straight email address. I wrote this myself to prevent 3rd party licensing issues with scripts. I may include this in the standard HScroll gallery also. The final version of this website gallery will also have a few nifty features, so I'll probably be accepting donations for this, as it was a lot of work.
Please leave comments here, letting me know what you think. The contact form in the sample is not connected, I don't want mail from it!

I'm also very busy with rewriting sections of my Lightroom book for GMC pubs. I had it mostly finished when V2 loomed on the horizon, so I'm now hastily rewriting old sections, while adding in new things, such as Local Corrections. This is a basic book, under commission from GMC, but it does contain more advanced tips also. More details will follow as I'm allowed to release them!

During the waiting period I also started a potential eBook on creating web galleries. It's about 2/3rds done, but on hold for now. I'll get back to it after the Lightroom book is done. It's not a full sized book, so I don't think it will make the print phase at any stage.

I'll be doing more speedlink posts also, just to keep up activity here!

Panning Timelapse using Lightroom

Santa Ponsa Beach HD Time Lapse from Sean McCormack on Vimeo.

When thinking about possible feature requests for Lightroom, I began thinking about time lapse photography applications. Now I'm far from an expert on this, but I have done more than enough basic time lapse videos to be familiar with it. Generally I've been using either my Canon TC-80N3 intervalometer, or using EOS utility and a Watched folder in Lightroom. When done I do a video sized export (eg 1280X720 for HD) and use Quicktime Pro to generate the actual video using Open Image Sequence.
While I'm happy with these, I've seen much cooler videos online and from my mate Chris Tierney. Chris uses After Effects to do his panning, and to be blunt, it's well beyond what I need or could afford.
While discussing this with fellow Lightroom folks, coder extraordonaire Jeffrey Friedl came up with a script that made use of Lightroom Metadata cropping to achieve what I wanted. Now Jeffrey will be blogging about the script and hosting it shortly. So by way of introduction, I'm showing a recent timelapse video that uses the panning from Jeffrey's script. I'll defer to Jeffrey on instructions, but in the meantime, check out my Santa Ponsa Time Lapse.

NAPP

I've been a follower of Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider blog for a long time. He has lots of good links and great tips. Of course he's doing a lot of sales and marketing through the blog too, but the thing is, it's all useful and valuable. With Scott as head, I've been debating about joining NAPP recently, but have been but off by the high cost of international print members (let's face it, it's almost double that of US readers and this sucks). There's also no international eduction price. Still in the end, I wanted to join, so I opted for the $99 Digital Edition, which uses Zinio for distribution and reading.
So now you'll also find me over on the NAPP forums now, dispensing wit and wisdom (mostly wit!). I threw up a bunch of very quickly chosen images to create a NAPP Portfolio so be sure to check it out. And yes, I'm just a normal, paid up, member.

See you there.

Mark Hamburg Leaves Adobe

Martin Evening from Lightroom News has announced the departure of Photoshop and Lightroom Architect, Mark Hamburg, from Adobe. Mark is leaving for the rain in Seattle with Microsoft. Mark, if it's any consolation, you'll have the same weather we have here in Galway!

"News has been announced that Mark Hamburg has decided to leave Adobe after having worked at the company for over 17 years. Mark joined Adobe in the Fall of 1990, not long after Photoshop 1.0 was released and was instrumental in devising many of the ‘wow’ features we have all come to love and rely on daily when we work with Photoshop."

Read the whole article at Lightroom News.

Front Burner

While I've posted 2 videos on Lightroom News recently, I've been mildly, and unintentionally, neglectful here.
I've a number of projects on the go taking my time. Along with tech editing a book, I'm also rewriting my own current project for all the changes since Lightroom 2 Beta came out. This stuff takes time, especially the screen captures, which I really want to have nice photos for! I was in Portumna Forest today shooting bluebells, so hopefully they'll feature in something soon! I've also got an upcoming Develop article for the Professional Imagemaker (the SWPP society magazine) to write.

The new Flash based gallery is almost complete, actually it's more than complete enough to release, but I want to add another feature first, which means learning a little more Actionscript first!

Now a few quickies:

One of my favourite photographers is Mark Tucker. For years he provided insight and wisdom on the old Rob Galbraith forums, but left before the changeover. Now those were great forums and I loved them deeply for the wealth of talent, information and community there, but I couldn't see myself paying for them with so many free forums. Anyhow I see Mark has recently added a new gallery to his people portfolio: Mark Tucker / Little House on the Prairie. The expressions/moments he has captured are nothing short of stunning and inspirational, not to mention the sumptuous colour in his post processing (no, I don't know what he's using, but I know PS is involved in his texture based stuff). Enjoy.


Videos: What would you like to see next? Local corrections? Basic Beauty retouch? More short tips and tricks?

Visiting the west of Ireland? Drop me a line, I'll be happy to give you locations to shoot, and if I'm free/out and about, I'm happy to help.

PSE 6 for Mac

While obviously not Lightroom news, I just wanted to mention that Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac is finally available. It's a great complementary program for Lightroom, especially for the budget conscious user. Featuring a cut down version of Bridge (rather than the Organiser), the Mac version has similar features to the Windows version.

Focus In Imaging 2008

Well, it's been a busy few days. After working til 3am on Sunday night, I was picked up just after 5am for the first flight of the day. That was a Galway-Dublin flght. With a small amount of time to spare, we made comfortably time on our next flight. Into Birmingham for Focus On Imaging 2008. I was there for a number of reasons: meeting people, buying things and making new contacts.

I spent the day walking around getting a feel for the show. My intentions were to make a list of places to visit and things to get done. There was no Adobe stand per se, but Rapid (a reseller) had an Adobe Theatre. Mike Wong from On One software was giving a talk on Lightroom. I introduced myself before the show and MIke kept pointing at me and referring to me during the show.. Funny MIke ;) Good to meet you in person!


I spoke at length to Phil Jones from the SWPP about competition judging. They've recently changed the way images are scored to an Award system, rather than a points system. It was refreshing to hear the thought that went into it.

Today, I got to meet Andy Rouse finally and have a chat with him. I'm an avid Canon user, with a fair amount of money invested in glass, but it was still great to hear him sing the praise of the Nikon D3 for noise and autofocus. As I shoot a ot of gigs, it was a very convincing argument, but despite the show price of £2999, I still didn't bite.

I also met Mike McNamee from Professional Imagemaker magazine. I''ve done an article as an introduction to Lightroom for them in the past. I promised a further one on Develop, so I'll be doing that shortly.

I didn't intend buying anything, but the bargains were to be had, so I'm currently sitting beside my Compudaypack, with a 10'X20' Muslin stuck in the Laptop compartment. It fits.... kinda! I got it from Viewfinder Photography, along with some hotshoe umbrella clips.



One bit of fun was getting to jump in on the Bowens stand with Jon Grey shooting model Jade Cartwright, After each session there was a free for all where people watching the talk could shoot. I happened to be passing by a few times and got a go. I spoke to Jade a lunchtime. She's a good bunch of fun and a cracking model. There's nothing like working with an experienced model.

So good fun, nice purchases and great networking! Well worth the trip. 2 fellow photographers, Mike and Trevor, were along for the first time. Trevor got a 5D and Mike got an 85 f1.2, so I think it was worth their while! I'll be back again next year and maybe it'll be with a Press pass for Lightroom-News.com!..

Happy Birthday Lightroom

Well it's the 19th February here now. I guess that means that Lightroom is one year old today!

Happy Birthday to Lightroom. And as Spock might say, 'Live Long and Prosper'!

On the Back Burner

Well now,
I'm sure I've lost some regular readers with my lack of updates, but it's been super hectic around here recently with things.
I've so much on that's it hard to keep control over it sometimes. I've started to pour my brain into a cool little Mac app called Task Paper. It's keeping and lid on my todo list and helping get things done. I will now add a Lightroom Blog project and keep my links ready for blogging.

I've done a little video on some workflow for Landscapes in Lightroom. The video is done, but I need to script the audio and redo it. It's acceptable as is, but I want better. It'll be early next week I suspect before that happens.

There's been a few interesting things come up in the Lightroom world since I last posted.

Matt Kloskowski from Lightroom Killer Tips sent out a reader request for Preset ideas and came back with a rather long list! I suggested Creative Sharpening, while someone made mention of my Infrared preset on Inside Lightroom.

I mentioned Scott Kelbys V2.0 Wishlist over at Lightroom-News.com , but here I'll make mention of his followup post. I really want to highlight something he says, because it's worth expanding on.
As Lightroom Product Manager Tom Hogarty mentioned in his blog post on Monday, to get all the things included on my 2.0 wishlist (now known as “our mutual wishlist” because your ideas are more important than mine) would take literally years (and after meeting with them, I have a much better understanding of why).

The Lightroom team is pretty small. And Scott's list is pretty big. And that list is probably more akin to the feature list of a version 10 product like Photoshop! So along with all the normal things like work, vacations, meetings, Summits, there is only so much coding that can get done in the time alloted to create a new version. And adding people mid project doesn't make it faster, because bringing them up to speed takes time too.
I'm sure there will be lots of new features in Lightroom v2.0 whenever it appears, and I'm sure we all be surprised to find that Adobe was listening. Look at the forums: Not just Adobe's User to User forums, Adobe people have responded to posts in Lightroom Forums.Net and even in the Adobe Lightroom Group on Flickr. They care. And that can only be good for us users at the end of the day.

Anyhow, enough rambling from me, have a great weekend. I'll be watching Ireland beat Italy (Well I hope after out poor Rubgy World cup performance that we will!) in the first game of Six Nations league tomorrow. Hopefully all those Stateside will have a good Superbowl also!

Home at last?

On Aug 18th last year, during the Public Beta phase, I started blogging about Lightroom. It was just somewhere to place my thoughts on the program and publish links on stuff about it. It's been a subdomain of my website ever since, but you know what? It really deserves its own home. And so tonight I finally did what I've been meaning to do: I bought a domain name for my Lightroom blog. And what is it, you may ask? Why Lightroom-blog.com, of course.
Maybe I'll have to start thinking of a logo for it now. Your current link will work, but from now I'll publishing all links using the new name.
I'd also like to thank the folks that have been along for the whole ride!

The Quest for Better

One thing that applies to my photography is that I certainly don't feel like I've arrived. While I'm here giving out tips and passing out tips I've found, I'm certainly not 'at the top of my game'. Every day I learn new things. I love passing these on. Whether through this Blog, or any of the other groups I'm involved with. A big part of my yearn to learn is not to teach, but the quest for better. I want to be a better, more productive photographer. While I shot a lot of landscape work, the rotten summer has seen me do a lot more people work with off camera flash and studio strobes , along with on location portrait work, not to mention a wedding last weekend. For more on learning to use off camera flash, check out Strobist. Like with Lightroom, I've been onboard there from the beginning, and have gone on to teach this stuff to my friends.

How does this relate to Lightroom? Well since I've found Lightroom to be the tool that suits my workflow (trust me, if it wasn't, I wouldn't use it!), I want it to be the best tool it can be. So I push, I get involved and I look for features and fixes. I'm not sure how much say I have (if any), but when one voice mixes with others it can become a shout, which gets heard. I find the Lightroom team are very responsive bunch. You'll never guess what they want? Yep. Better Lightroom. And so they work hard to make it happen.
One example of this is the recent reversion to lower base noise with Zero noise reduction. A lot of people found it very painterly at ISO1600, myself included. As I shoot loads of concert stuff at high ISO's I was glad to see this changed to reflect the needs of the users.

As to the quest for better, you may find me starting to post links to inspirational photographers ala George Jardine and Matt Kloskowski. Let's face it Lightroom is about photography and doesn't exist in a vacuum, so this is my expanding the blog a little bit post.

The twist

A while ago I detailed setting up Lightroom for Bluetooth file exchange for your phone on Mac. Now obviously this can be done on PC by placing a copy of your bluetooth file software (or a shortcut) in the Export Actions folder. My original intention was for putting photos of my son on the phone, to satisfy my broody female friends. However in a slight twist today, I had a model ask for me to bluetooth some of her new images over to the phone as we perused them. I was pleased to be able to do it. She was well impressed with how easy it was to do!

Lightroom on Flickr

There is a Lightroom group on Flickr.com for anyone interested. As well as showing off images processed in Lightroom, there is an active discussion area. There are a number of prerelease testers active in the group, meaning that information can filter back to the team from there.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Support

Adobe has opened the support center for Lightroom at http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/. The page has 4 options: A knowledge base search, a series of tech notes, a bug and feature form and a product resource link.
The tech notes include Troubleshooting on Mac OSX and PC, Emailing from Lightroom, Photo Binders, Libraries, Preferences and file locations.

Information for RSP users.

Tom Hogarty has placed his RSP Faq online on the U2U forums:

Tom Hogarty - 09:07pm Feb 18, 2007 Pacific

Q: When will Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 be available for RawShooter Premium customers?
A: The Photoshop Lightroom offer email for RawShooter Premium customers will be distributed by February 23rd with instructions on how to obtain a free downloadable copy of Lightroom 1.0.

Q: Can RawShooter Premium customers get started with Photoshop Lightroom before receiving the offer email?
A: Yes, please download the 30 day trial version of Lightroom at the following URL and the offer email will provide instructions on how to obtain the serial number that will license the trial version of Lightroom.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom&loc=en_us

Q: Where can I find documentation for Photoshop Lightroom?
A: Tutorials and documentation for Photoshop Lightroom can be found at the following URL:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/designcenter/search.cfm?product=Photoshop+Lightroom&go=Go

Q: Who do I contact if I don’t receive an offer email by February 23rd?
A: If you are an owner of RawShooter Premium (RawShooter Essential users do not qualify for this offer) and you do not receive an offer email by February 23rd please contact Adobe Customer Service in your region for further assistance. (http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/contact.html)

Q: How can I convert my RawShooter Premium settings to Lightroom or Photoshop Camera Raw compatible settings?
A: A free settings conversion tool will be posted to the following URL on March 5th for use by RawShooter Premium customers. http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Pixmantec_RawShooter_Migration_Tool

Regards,
Tom Hogarty

Lightroom Trial available.

I havn't found the official Adobe note, but as it's all over the forums, the address to download the 30-day trial is:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom&loc=en_us

As we count down.

Lightroom will begin shipping and downloading on the 19th as the whole world and his dog know by now. V1.0 is finished and ready for release to a very expectant audience. Not counting multiple downloads, over 570,000 individuals downloaded the Beta's. That's a big crowd to have waiting, not to mention the newcomers since the Launch on the 29th January.
I've outlined a lot of the new features (but not all) on Lightroom-News.com, but that still won't satisfy those who want the program now.

If I were seeing the program for the first time since Beta 4.1, I would be over the moon with the new features. The key thing for me that changes the usability of Version 1, is Spot Removal. This brings almost 90% of my workflow into one application. A good sharpening/noise reduction toolset would bring it to 90%. The remaining 10% is for special files (final selects) requiring skin retouching and other layer based edits. Unless someone writes a dedicated retouch module (which is more than possible), then access to Photoshop is always going to be required. I'm very happy that I can now choose to do my Edits as ProPhoto RGB PSD files, rather than Tiff. I prefer using Photoshops' native format. Lightroom will recognise and show multi-layer PSD files. You need to choose Edit Original though, when going back to Photoshop, or else Lightroom will send out a flattened image. Also Maximize Compatibility must be turned on. All this leaves for me to say is : Roll on the 19th!

Video Vote:

You've seen the blurb and now you want to see the feature.
Drop comments on what you'd like to see covered in my quick dirty video series.
All suggestions welcome.

Adobe Thanks

Adobe have made a Special Thank You page. I made the first page! Must be the 2200+ posts. Actually I have to say it's Thank You, Adobe.

Tutorials

Rather than cover the ground on the 'Big' sites, I'll be posting a few short tutorials on new features in V1.0, perhaps including video clips of them in action. Until further notice that is.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: Cross Platform

In a bold move Adobe have made the license for Lightroom cross platform. You can install on 2 machines regardless of OS.
Tom Hogarty from Adobe makes this clear: "The End User License Agreement(EULA) for Lightroom specifies 2 computers but does not restrict the platform."

Lightroom Version 1 links and news

All those sites that have been poised for weeks are pushing out the news.
Photoshop News
Digital Outback
Rob Galbraith
NAPP

Lightroom released.

Lightroom is GO!. Lightroom is officially here at last. All the details are there. Pricing: $299 with a $199 dollar introduction price to reward all the testers. Price will go back up a the end of April. Us Europeans have a slightly different pricing of €174 Plus VAT until June 28th when it will go to €249 plus VAT.
I've been very proud and busy with the Prerelease Beta program and helping to get this product out the door. The product will ship in both Mac and PC versions on 19th Feb before the expiration of Beta 4.1 on the 28th Feb.

Mark Hamburg on since1968.com

In the first part of a 2 part interview, Mark Hamburg talks to since 1968 about the background of Lightroom and making Kevin Tieskoetters eyes bleed. He also mentions that neither Feb 28th or Jan 29th are the release dates and that there will be no Beta5 or even a Beta 4.2.

http://since1968.com/article/187/

Imaging USA has a video of Tom Hogarty on Lightroom.
 
From  Adobe Gives Photographers a Choice: http://iusatv.imagingusa.org/2007/01/adobe_gives_pho.html. Tom mentions that B4 was the last public Beta and that the product will ship by the end of February. He shows a little of the spot removal tool and talks about the similarities of Develop and ACR4.

Darkroom

With a not very clever twist on the clever twist of Lightroom, NAPP are publishing a Lightroom magazine called Darkroom. It's free to NAPP members and a thinner (in his photo) Scott Kelby remarks "The integration between Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS2/CS3 creates the seamless, consistent, and efficient workflow that today's professionals need, and we launched Darkroom magazine to help these pros make the most of using these two amazing tools together."
Sorry for the lateness of this 'olds' rather than 'news'. I had to overcome my fear of the inimitable first.

Tom Hogarty on LR

A few weeks back Tom Hogarty made a post on a thread on Archiving. It's so fundamental to the vision for Lightroom I'm going to reproduce it here:

For Lightroom 1.0 the focus will be on getting images off the camera, sorted, tagged, organized, developed and back to the client as quickly as possible.(While maintaining the highest possible quality) An elegant solution to this portion of the workflow is what professional and amateur photographers alike have been missing and asking Adobe to provide. Once we address the missing piece of the workflow we can begin addressing elegant solutions to problems that may have already been solved.

We also have designed Lightroom to be extensible so if we're unable to provide the asset management tools you need, we'll be releasing a Software Development Kit(SDK) that will allow third parties to create their own modules that will plug directly into Lightroom.(We'll be releasing this after we release Lightroom 1.0)

Regards,
Tom Hogarty
Adobe Systems

Lightroom on Amazon

Amazon have a prerelease page on Lightroom:

http://www.amazon.com/Lightroom-Mlp-Retail-Ue-1U/dp/B000M9CMC8/sr=1-3/qid=1167848300/ref=sr_1_3/102-9110307-8540145?ie=UTF8&s=software

More from PPE

Martin Evening has posted an enlightening article on Beta 5 and the Adobe presence at PPE over at Photoshopnews:
http://photoshopnews.com/2006/11/08/photo-plus-east-new-york-2006/

Beta 5 at PPE

Jeff Schewe demoed Lightroom Beta 5 at Photo Plus Expo in New York. He did add that caveat that he was unaware if it would actually be released to the public. Among the other things added was a spot healing tool. Here's a collection of posts from people at PPE:
Rob Reese:
"I attended a couple of sessions on Lightroom at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York yesterday. I thought folks might like to know that Jeff Schewe was showing Beta 5 at the Adobe booth. He was clear that this didn't mean that a Beta 5 was ever going to be released and still wouldn't say when the production version would be out.

I wish I had taken better notes. One very interesting thing he demonstrated was the healing brush (very cool). He suggested that in the final implementation you would be able to remove dust spots and then apply the "healing" to other shots with the same spot pattern.

He also demonstrated the variable zoom. You will be able to pick from a list ranging from 1:4 to (in the demo) 1:11. The 1:11 is apparently a programmer's joke (like the amp in the movie "Spinal Tap" - it's one better isn't it?).

Wish I could remember more. I'm not an in-depth user of Lightroom at this point, so I'm not sure if some of the other things he showed were new or not.

OK - I remembered two more things:

There are now view options in the print module, showing an overlay of printer and profile selection on the image.

"plug ins" will be accomplished by allowing folks to add additional modules (like Library and Develop), so in the future I can imagine a Noise Ninja or Lightzone tab. However, the SDK will not be available until after the 1.0 release. "

DAJr comments :
"I was also at the PPE show on Friday, and caught one of Jeff's LR presentations at the Adobe booth. For those who want the option of NOT using the database, there is hope... While I didn't see it "in action," I did catch a glimpse of a new "FOLDERS" tab on the left, in Library mode, next to the "COLLECTIONS" and "SHOOTS" tabs. I can only hope that this is for the purpose of using LR in folder, rather than database mode.

DAJr
www.dajphotography.com
"

Interesting.
In this same thread, Michael Tapes mentions that Beta 5 still may not be a public Beta. Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape has previously stated that Beta 4 was the last beta and having a .1 release with 4.1 seems to support that. As a lot of people felt that these Public Betas were more like Alphas, it may be that the feature complete Betas may not see the light of day to keep stuff secret for the V1.0 release. Time will tell.