New Year, New Theme! Thanks to all those people that spend a little time every day to see what's new on the site. Stay tuned for some great new content and video upgrades for some of my older content.

Favorite Software for Photographers

Like most photographers, you may have the basic software to get the job done. Typically some version of Photoshop and possibly software that came with your camera for importing and processing files. But what about software for a very specific purpose? Or better yet, what software is worth even getting? I can honestly say that I have tested and tried many of the most popular plug-in’s and programs made for photographers and image processing. Most are decent in their own way, some are a waste of money but here is my short list of those that make the cut as my favorites and/or most used programs (excluding Photoshop which is a given).

Just a video today – Lightroom Processing

I put together a quick video of a typical image processing in Lightroom from start to finish showing the steps on how I take a raw image straight out of camera and make it ready to sell.

In the video I cover quick color corrections, crop and angle, general corrections to density and exposure as well as spot fixes using the adjustment brush. I also hope to post a little more advanced video soon.

For best quality, click to view in full screen and in High Definition (HD button).

Inverse Square Law – A Photographers Take

Seldom would you think that physics comes into play with photography. But you’d be wrong. In fact, the Inverse Square Law states that the intensity of point light source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. (Say what?!) This means an object twice as far away from the source receives only 1/4 of the light. But this also means that the greater the distance from the source, the less change over a given distance.

However, this is where it gets tricky…

Facebook Ads for Photographers

I found this blog post about using Facebook for targeted advertising, specifically written for photographers. For anyone who hasn’t already tried it, this might be worth a quick read before you try out the pay-per-click system on Facebook yourself.

http://jeffsmithbooks.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/facebook-ads-for-photographers/

Eye Retouching – Lightroom Edition

So, you watched my video or read the tutorials on how to do some of my retouching tricks in Photoshop. Eye Retouching and Enhancing – Photoshop Tutorial But you’re still not impressed… Or perhaps you like to work within Lightroom for as much editing as you can. Now you can do complex retouching in Lightroom!

I show the steps to do my eye retouching and enhancing as done in Photoshop, except this time in Adobe Lightroom on a camera raw file in a completely non-destructive way. This may be the future of editing so now is a good time to start practicing! These tips and tricks can be applied to just about any retouching in Lightroom so don’t limit your experimentation to just eyes or simple things. Dig in and see how complex you can go with the tools provided!

Eye Enhancing and Retouching Video Tutorial

I’ve added a short video tutorial to go along with the older Quickie Eye Enhancement Part 1 and Quickie Eye Enhancement Part 2 tutorials. In the video I show some of the tricks from each and a few new tips not covered in the original tutorials.

Click through for the video.

It’s a rare day…

Rarely do I ever link anything back to another blog or post on an internet forum unless it is truly worthy. And this clearly falls into that category of worthy links.

Click through for the link.

Top 10 of 2009

Well, we made it through the first decade of the new millennium. I swear that went way way faster than I can believe. It feels like just yesterday people were scrambling to get ready for the “Y2k bug”.

In any case, 2009 was a good year for some and a very bad year for others. For me I feel it was very sideways. Although I keep looking ahead to the future, things kinda pass me at awkward angles making it difficult to really judge where I am going these days. (Imagine riding in a car and only looking out the side windows.) But I have to say that sometime in the spring of 2009 I decided to start blogging what was in my head as well as some random thoughts among other stuff that I enjoy about photography. I set goals for the site, it keeps growing and I keep blogging as a result. (I hope the said blog posts are getting better as well.) Needless to say, I blew away my 25,000 unique visits goal with almost exactly 28,000 hits as of January 1, 2010.

Thanks to an idea from several other sites I frequent, I decided to compile a list of the top 10 most popular posts on the site in 2009. Here is that list…

Get the best of your Pro Lab

First off, do feel free to read back to my lengthy review of a number of professional labs as well as several chain stores and other popular printers to understand better what labs may give you the best service for your money. The Big Lab Throwdown – Final Results

Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your lab and get back the best prints every time. Including press-printed products that many labs now offer.

Happy Holidays in advance!

And sorry for the lull in new posts and tips this past week. I woke up a week and a half ago with a severe case of viral conjunctivitis in my left eye which as you can imagine was rather irritating. This, along with a lack of sleep and 60+ hour work weeks for the past month have worn me down causing other virus and “bugs” to come have a free for all in my head. Needless to say, a few days ago the “pink eye” infection crossed over to the right eye despite two different prescriptions to try and clear it up first.

Luckily, I was able to see a specialist that prescribed me a much more effective eye drop that has cleared up virtually all of the symptoms. Though the virus is still there, I am less miserable and don’t look like I am possessed by demons anymore. (I’d post a picture but it is truly scary and/or disgusting to some people. Just imagine both eyes entirely blood red where it should be white.) I do still have some small pockets of inflammation in the cornea of my left eye that needs to be monitored so my vision isn’t completely in the clear yet but the new drops should also clear that up before I experience any permanent vision loss.
As an added sign or relief, the last minute holiday rush has ended so things can finally slow back to a much more normal pace and I can sit down and work on some further tests, tricks, video tutorials and posts.

Thanks for following along and have a great holiday regardless of what you celebrate!