I am surprised and disappointed in Adobe with their announced intention to require users of Photoshop to buy version CS5 in order to upgrade to version CS6 when it becomes available. If you don’t buy CS5 for about $150, when CS6 comes out it will cost you about $650. It is time to write to Adobe and protest. Why?
Great Prices on Image Editing Software
Adobe Software
UPDATE – Nov 28, 2011. Elements 10 is now selling for $48 (and change), still the best price for Elements in a long, long time and cheaper than the upgrade version.
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UPDATE – 9:48 PM, Nov 25, 2011: When I checked the price of Lightroom 3 around noon today, it was $99 (almost half off the usual price) so I posted the information below. I checked a few minutes ago and Lightroom 3 has jumped up to $159. That is still $30 less than it was earlier this week ($189). I hope you were able to take advantage of the great Lightroom price while it lasted. Elements is still available at the great $45 price. I have no idea how long these prices will last.
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Photoshop Elements 10 Â has dropped in price from $79 to $49 and Adobe Lightroom 3 has dropped this week from $189 to $99, the best price I have seen on Lightroom in months. I have no idea how long these prices will last.
You can find these prices at my Photography Store, powered by Amazon.com.
You can read about this software in this article.
POTD: Studio Portrait
Two Light Studio Portrait
It doesn’t take a lot of lights to create a portrait. The portrait above was created with two studio lights. This is how the photo was created.
Photo of the Day: Bryce Canyon at Sunrise
Bryce Canyon at Sunrise
Bryce Canyon in southern Utah is one of the most spectacular places on the planet and I finally found a chance to stop there on a trip to California. It was late April and I was hoping for snow. I arrived about sunset (with no snow on the ground) and I had to leave the next morning after only a few hours of shooting time. Mother Nature must have smiled. There was a dusting of snow overnight.
Christmas Gifts for Photographers – 2011
Looking for photo gifts for a photographer (or suggestions for your own wish list)? You’ve come to the right place. It is the time of year that I get asked a lot of questions from people who are buying gifts for photographers, or from photographers wanting to drop hints (“photographer†means anyone who likes to take pictures). “What is the best book for . . . ?†“What are the best point and shoot cameras?†“Is there any really good image editing software for less than $100?â€
The Best of the Best: Photography Recommendations For The Best Photo Gear, Books, Software, and Online Photo Labs
Updated Nov. 19, 2012.
This time each year I put together a collection of articles recommending the best photo gear, books, software, and photo labs. Here’s the list of linked articles.
Best Panorama Gear: Living In Pano Heaven
CAmera, nodal slide, and panning clamp
If you are using an Arca-Swiss compatible quick release system, which I highly recommend, two simple pieces of easy-to-carry equipment can put you in panorama heaven. Get the full story here.
The Best Camera Quick Release System
Arca-Swiss compatible "L-bracket" and tripod head
Mounting a camera onto the screw on top of a tripod head is time consuming. Doing it in the dark when your hands are cold is annoying. Once the camera is mounted, if you flop the camera over to the side to take a vertical photo, the camera tries to rotate on the screw. To provide a solution, all kinds of “quick release systems” have been created. Some of them work quite well, some not so well. Most systems have a weakness of one kind or another.
One system has become the defacto standard for serious photographers. It is arguably the best. If you are tired of the nuisance of screwing your camera onto your tripod head, or if you’ve grown weary with the problems created by an inferior quick release system, it is time for a change. Go here.
KEEPING YOUR WORLD STRAIGHT WITH A DOUBLE BUBBLE LEVEL
Double Bubble Level
Read the complete information article here.
Save money and buy a Manfrotto Double Bubble Level from Amazon.com (and get free shipping).
Great Deal? Don’t Get Burned!
Is it a great deal? Or is it a rip-off? You are searching online for a good price and you come across a terrific deal. Are you about to get burned? There are ways you can tell.
BEST IMAGING EDITING SOFTWARE
Adobe Photoshop Software
Your photos will look their best if you optimize them with some good image editing software.
Short list:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
Adobe Photoshop CS5/CS4/CS3
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM THE BEST ONLINE PHOTO LABS
How do you pick a good online photo lab? How do you get the best results from your lab? What color space should you use for your digital files and how do you convert your files to the right color space? How big a print can you make from your digital files?
It’s the time of year that people think about making prints for family and friends, and more and more people send their files off to an online digital photo lab to have those prints made. So which are the best labs, and what can you do to get the best results? That’s what this article is all about. This article is revised and significantly enlarged from the version posted a year ago.
My short answer: Use Mpix and Shutterfly for prints of all sizes, plus a host of specialty items. Use EZPrints for panoramas. Why these three labs? Keep reading. For maximum color accuracy, convert the files to the sRGB color space before sending them to the lab, and turn auto enhance off at the online photo lab. Stick with the 300 pixel per inch guidelines. More about color space and auto enhance and resizing files later on in this article. First, let’s look at some online labs.
Recommended Incident Light Meters
Incident Light Meter. Photo © Jim Doty Jr.
There’s no question that in some complex metering situations, it can be tough to figure out the best exposure with the meter in your camera. An incident light meter can be quicker, faster, simpler, and more accurate in some of those same situations. Some incidents light meter can also measure light from an electronic flash.
Tripod Head Recommendations: Some of the Best of the Best
Ball Head with Clamp, Really Right Stuff BH-3
The short list.
3-Way Tripod heads:
Manfrotto 056 3D Junior Head (replaces 3025)
Manfrotto 3025
Manfrotto 115 3D Super Junior Head (replaces 3028)
Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head
Ball Heads:
Slik Pro Ballhead 800
Kirk Enterprises BH-3
Kirk Enterprises BH-1
Really Right Stuff BH-40
Really Right Stuff BH-55
Tripod Recommendations: The Best of the Best
Looking for a tripod? Choose wisely. Other than a camera and a good lens, nothing can make a bigger difference in your photography than a good tripod. This is the place to find information, recommended models, and links to more information.
It is best to buy your tripod legs and tripod head separately. The best brands are interchangeable so you can match the legs you want with the tripod head that you want, even if they are from different companies.
THE BEST DIGITAL PHOTO STORAGE
Don’t lose your digital photos to disc-rot or a hard drive crash. Choose the best archival storage options.
Continue reading
BEST MEMORY CARDS FOR DIGITAL CAMERAS
Short List:
SanDisk
Lexar
Memory cards are the “film” for your digital camera. You don’t want to have a card failure and lose your photos. A reliable brand is important.
Finding Wildlife
Wildlife Location Guides
The first step to photographing wildlife is finding wildlife. In the case of common wildlife, that’s easy. If you are looking for squirrels you may not need to look any farther than your own back yard. But if you want to photograph something a little more exotic, like Chachalacas or Green Jays, you need to know where to look for them (the southern tip of Texas).
Great “How To” Nature Photography Books
Want to be a better nature photographer? Read anything by John Shaw, Galen Rowell, Art Wolfe, Freeman Patterson, Tim Fitzharris, George Lepp, Larry West, Arthur Morris, Allen Rokach, John Netherton, Leonard Lee Rue III, Brenda Tharp, and the Stackpole (publisher) nature series.
Here are some specific books to look for.
Book Recommendations: People Photography
The short list:
The Joy of Photographing People, Kodak
Robert Caputo, National Geographic Field Guide: People & Portraits
The Portrait: Professional Techniques and Practices, Kodak Workshop Series
Steve Sint, Digital Portrait Photography: Art, Business, and Style
Christopher Grey, Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers
Jeff Smith, Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide
You can learn more about these books, and buy them, by going here.
Some of the Best All Purpose Photography Books
This is a list of books that I found the most helpful when I took a serious interest in photography. These books were written back when film was king, but that makes them all the more valuable to today’s digital photographers. Some digital photography books get so lost in technical information that the heart and soul of photography can get lost. The best film photography books are about light and shadow, subjects, form, texture, line and shape – all of which applies to digital photography. Some of these books are out of print but well worth finding on the used book market.
Best Astrophotography Books
Star Trails, Rocky Mountain National Park
Interested in getting into astrophotography? Here’s my advice.
Books from the Master: Ansel Adams
I have no idea when I was first entranced by the photos of Ansel Adams. There is a wonderful, luminous quality to his work. Small wonder he is America’s best known landscape photographer. Collections of his work would make a worthy addition to any photographer’s library. This is also the time of year that Ansel Adams calendars pop up like snowstorms.
The best advice I can give you is not to buy any collection of Adam’s work, either book or calendar unless it is published by Little, Brown and Company, or by NYGS (New York Graphic Society, which is also published by Little, Brown).
Why?
BEST BOOK ON PHOTOGRAPHIC LIGHTING
Many photographers would say LIGHT: SCIENCE AND MAGIC is THE best book on photographic lighting – and I agree with them. If you intend to be seriously involved in photography, this book should be on your required reading list.
Mastering Photoshop Series
If you want to master Photoshop, a complete course can be found in the books in the posts below.
FOUNDATIONS
Begin with one or two of the basic to intermediate books in this post. After that, jump into the list of advanced books in the posts below.
ADVANCED SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
Your image processing begins with how you process your RAW files with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). One of your best guides is Bruce Fraser and co-author Jeff Schewe. What you do with your RAW files determines how much or how little you can do with the file later on in Photoshop. You maximize your possibilities later on by making the right choices in ACR. Make the wrong choices, and you have limited what you can do later on.
MASTERING PHOTOSHOP: RETOUCHING, PART TWO
Two essential and challenging Photoshop skills are Masking and Compositing. Fortunately for all of us out in Photoshop land, Katrin Eismann has written a masterful book on developing these skills, Photoshop Masking & Compositing
You will learn about selection tools and techniques, how to use masks and layers, advanced selection techniques for difficult subjects like human hair, and how to do flawless composites.
MASTERING PHOTOSHOP: RETOUCHING, PART ONE
Katrin Eismann is a world class expert on photo retouching. She is one of the best of the best. In 2005 she was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Anything she writes should be high on your reading list if you are serious about making the most of your Photoshop skills.
Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (3rd Edition)
MASTERING PHOTOSHOP: ADVANCED COLOR CORRECTION, PART TWO
Everything you need to know about Dan Margulis is in Advanced Color Correction, Part One.
After you have devoured the book I recommend in that article, you will know why you need to get Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace
MASTERING PHOTOSHOP: ADVANCED COLOR CORRECTION, PART ONE
If you want to master color in Photoshop, Dan Margulis is the best of the best. He is one of the first three persons to be named as a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame. And the book to get is Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction (5th Edition)
MASTERING PHOTOSHOP: ADOBE CAMERA RAW
Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser on RAW Camera Files
If you aren’t shooting RAW files with your digital camera (as opposed to jpeg files), you should think about the advantages of shooting in RAW. Read the articles RAW vs JPEG Camera Files and The RAW vs JPEG Exposure Advantage at my photography web site.
A lot of the quality of your final image will be determined by what you do with your RAW files when you open them in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR).