RRD Photo Blog

Why are Walmart Prints so Fugly?

2011-12-19T15:31:00.001-05:00

So once again this time of year I've been forced to get some quick prints done at Walmart. Why? Well, because I don't have a RIP and the family "xmas gift order" gets placed (the various pics that need to be printed at various sizes and sent off to people as gifts) too near the deadline for me to order from Smugmug.

Once again this year I'm extremely disappointed in the print quality.

When I want a single print I typically just run it on my Canon i9900 - a dye ink printer that produces outstanding color prints (but ugly black & whites since it's forced to create gray tones through blending colored inks). This is relatively old technology. You would expect high tech lab equipment costing many $10k's - even if it's installed in a Walmart - to be able to produce a print that's at least on par with a $400 home photo printer.

Here are the results.

Original File

1/80@f/2.8 24-70mm on 5DmkII. The exact same source file was used to create both of the following prints...

Canon i9900 Print on Ilford Gallerie Classic Pearl (scanned)

Ignoring the bluish & washed out look that the scanner adds - there is a lot of fine detail in the print from the highlights all the way down into the shadows. The green of the grass comes out a bit warm but the colors are otherwise pretty faithful to the original.

Walmart Lab Print via a giant Fuji machine on Fuji Crystal Archive (scanned)

The same blue cast remains from the scanner. The green of the grass is closer to the original but that's about the only thing good you can say about the print. The shadows are a complete horror show and quite frankly, anything below a midtone appears to quickly crash into black. Note how little detail is preserved in the shoes and grasses. The scanner seems to make this look even worse than it actually is, but it's still NOT good.

Of course the moral of the story is to make your plans ahead of time so that you can either print everything yourself or outsource to a decent lab. But in a pinch you'd like to think that a photo center could get it a tad closer to "right".

Now, I will say that if you look at the Walmart prints on their own without any knowledge of the original photo you may be generally happy with them. This is especially the case if you happen to be a grandparent who could care less about print quality and just want more pictures of your granddaughter. So off they go... there's always next year!

Disclaimer: I can't complain too much about the timing of "the order". If it were left up to me no one would ever get anything!

Oh - and to answer the obvious question of "why not find a good local lab?" - While I agree it would be a good idea to find a local lab who I can trust, this is a problem I run into approximately once per year. Any other time I need prints I can either just do them myself or order via Smugmug... The xmas prints are just too much to deal with at home since I need a combination of several prints or various pics at various shapes & sizes.

Blog moving again...

2011-12-12T10:12:00.001-05:00

Hey RSS subscribers, sorry for the huge update you likely just received! I'm moving my blog back to the Blogger platform in an attempt to simplify my life a bit and not deal with managing WordPress...

At this time I am not making updates to content but will keep the blog online for the foreseeable future since several of the posts get search traffic & have been helpful to those who find them.

Best,
Ryan

Word Magazine Maps Out Album Cover Shoot Locations

2009-09-29T23:10:00.001-04:00

So this is pretty cool: Word Magazine has cobbled together a site allowing readers to drop a pin indicating the location where the cover art of an album was shot. They call it the "Album Covers Map" (or maybe "Album Atlas" - it isn't clear) and it's a pretty cool concept.

The map appears to be in the early stages, though there are a lot of albums listed so far. Still, the functionality is only so-so - at this point you don't get much more than the map with a pin & an info bubble with some generic Wikipedia text... Far more useful would be related info such as address/GPS coordinates, some back story on the photo, or at least the credentials of whomever is claiming to have identified the location. You'd think they'd at least drop an affiliate link to Amazon Music so that they can make a little money on the project! [update: now that I've browsed a bit more it appears that *some* albums have better info than others...]

That aside, this is a pretty cool use of Google Maps and it's very cool to be able to look for albums shot near you or somewhere you'll be traveling - should turn up some very useful location ideas.

The Fallacy of Judging Image Quality Online

2009-09-26T23:05:00.003-04:00

Just a quick post to link to a great rant from Michael Reichmann on his Luminous Landscape site entitled The Fallacy of Judging Image Quality Online.

Whether your photography is ultimately destined for web display, or as prints, isn't the point. Both can be appropriate venues. But please, please, stop judging the technical quality of photographic equipment by looking at small web images. ...this usually bears little real-world relationship to how a photograph will appear in a print...

Photography is a pursuit that involves esthetics as well as technology. The later [sic] serves the former, and it is only when seen in the context of an image's final form of presentation that it is possible to evaluate the technology that helped produce it.

What Michael says in his article is so true! What you see on-screen is a poor approximation of what your image will look like in print - making it unfit for either evaluating gear and serious image critiques. And, whether or not you intend to display your images as prints you may find (as I have) that printing can reveal weaknesses in your image that aren't easily caught on-screen.

Picasa has Face Detection on the Desktop (for real this time)

2009-09-22T21:55:00.001-04:00

A little over a year ago I rushed to post about the latest release of Picasa, Google's free photo browser/manager/editor and their introduction of a Face Recognition feature. It turned out that my post was a bit premature in that they had actually only released this feature on the web version of the tool... well, today that has all changed - the 3.5 desktop release includes the mug finder!

Picasa Supports DNG - but can we use the face tags as keywords?
Now, this is all well and good for Picasa users, but I use Lightroom to manage my images. What I had written previously still applies - I'd love to find a way to work this into my workflow! Fortunately, the Picasa software supports popular RAW formats - including the Adobe DNG format. This means that you can turn Picasa loose on your image library and let it identify people in your photographs.

But - Picasa doesn't seem to save the name tags in the metadata of the files... this is a bummer, since it means we can use the tagging in other applications. Ideally, you would want the head tags to be added as keywords in some standard format - say person:first_last or something like that. I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of Picasa, so this may be possible - more experimentation is necessary (I've not seen it in any obvious place so far). Another possibility would be to write a quick script that will automate the process of reading the head tags from Picasa and then updating the image EXIF with the keywords...

If anyone does, or knows of a way to do something like this please post in the comments!

About the Face Recognition Feature Performance
After downloading the software I let Picasa import the DNGs of a large wedding I'm currently working on... well over a thousand photos containing tons of faces and totaling 30GB or so. First thing to note: this is going to take a very... long... time. That's fine by me - I'd prefer that Picasa take the time to really look hard at the photos and figure out who's in them. Even if it works through the night, it'll certainly finish before I could - if it wasn't such a monumental task as to prevent my even attempting it in the first place!

The way the process works is pretty straightforward: Picasa scans all images and looks for FACES. If it knows that face, it'll take a shot at automatically tagging it. Otherwise, it will add the face to the "Album of Unnamed People" - a potter's field where you can go to assign names to faces. Clicking on a face will allow you to assign a name; from there Picasa will take this hint and apply it to the rest of the faces it has seen. The software appears to "learn" as it goes, so once you start giving it a few hints it'll get better and better at identifying the folks it comes across - in spite of lighting, pose or even focus (not that there are many of those... er... well, perhaps a few).

So like I said - this will take some time. Picasa has been chugging away in the background burning through CPU cycles (2.8GHz core 2 duo w/ 6MB cache & 4GB ram)... it is only 10% through analyzing the 30GB of images in the hour or so it has been running. The results look promising thus far & I'm sure this will be a great tool once we figure out how to extract the information from Picasa and embed it into the metadata.

Congrats to the Google Picasa team on a job well done & thanks for this great new feature!

Cleveland Orchestra Photographer Roger Mastroianni in Plain Dealer

2009-08-02T15:46:00.003-04:00

Self Portrait, Roger Mastroianni

Saturday's Cleveland Plain Dealer contains a nice feature on my uncle, Roger Mastroianni, and his 20-years of serving as the photographer for the Cleveland Orchestra.

Roger has what can be pretty much summed up as "the best gig ever": he follows the orchestra all over the world and produces interesting photographs - while listening to some of the world's best musicians perform. That's pretty tough to beat!

The story says that he began working with the orchestra in 1988. I can remember kicking around their place back then (as a kid) & being really interested in the way "Uncle Rodge" would use his camera; bouncing the flash, rubber-banding an index card on it for catch lights, etc. It took a few more years before I was able to understand & appreciate classical music, but I'm sure that his library of CDs was at least a catalyst for my interests there today.

I enjoyed his admission in the article about being "the gadget king"; both inside and outside of the world of photography this is an accurate description. Visiting Roger's studio in Cleveland is like entering a photo wonderland - there's just so much gear quite literally everywhere you look. He's got pretty much everything you've ever heard of, from cheap gimmicks to ultra high-end medium & large format systems with digital backs. Of course, most of the stuff never gets any use but Roger has a deep bag of tricks at his disposal when the need arises. (Which is a valid justification in my book... though I suspect my aunt wishes he'd trim some of the fat via eBay once in a while!)

If you haven't followed the link already, give it a whirl and check out the slide show of some of the great images Roger has made during his time with the orchestra. Roger also does some outstanding corporate, industrial and medical work; check out his portfolio at RogerMastroianni.com.

Canon 580 Flash Sync Mod translated into Portuguese

2009-07-27T19:53:00.000-04:00

A very cool "first" for the blog today: my how-to on adding a sync port to the Canon 580EX flash has been used as inspiration for a similar post on a Portuguese photography blog.

Photographer Alessandro Dias contacted me a few weeks ago via the comments section about writing up his own how-to in Portuguese on his blog. I was happy to oblige & think it's pretty cool that he checked with me for permission first. The post is now online & while the text is tough to follow Alessandro has illustrated the post with a ton of detailed photographs.

Thanks to Alessandro for doing a great write-up! Be sure to check out his portfolio site - he does some really nice portraiture work.
Canon 580EX Sync Port Mod (in Portuguese)

Photos from Iran on The Big Picture

2009-06-15T23:55:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I mentioned The Big Picture blog and how consistently great the material is that they post. The last two galleries have been no exception.

Last Friday, The Big Picture posted a series of photographs from the elections in Iran. Today, they've posted a follow-up gallery detailing the chaos that has followed those elections.

Both galleries are full of incredible photographs that tell a compelling story... Seeing this certainly serves as a reminder of how great our system is; even if we have a few bumps along the way.

Seoul, South Korea Image Gallery

2009-06-03T18:17:00.003-04:00

Earlier this year I spent some time touring South Korea and Japan with other students in Xavier University's MBA Program. Though I've gone through several of the photographs, I've not had a chance to post or discuss any so far.

Given the recent news surrounding the nuke tests, journalists being arrested and other nonsense happening in North Korea, it seemed like a good time to post some photographs and associated observations from my time in Asia. Periodically I will update the galleries with new photos and will announce/discuss them here on the blog; clicking on an image will get you to a larger version.

Sea of People in the Streets of Seoul, Korea - Myeong-dong
March, 2009 -- Ryan R. Dlugosz

The above photograph was taken on one of the many bustling streets of Seoul's Myeong-dong district. With a metro population of around 25 million people - 10 million of whom live in the city proper - it doesn't matter what street you're on - they all look like the above! Fortunately everyone is fairly polite, which makes walking around far less stressful than it would appear to be.

Seoul is a very fashionable city and bears some resemblance to New York with its wide variety of shops, towering buildings and inhabitants who embrace an urban lifestyle.

Much more to come - stay tuned for future updates!

New Media Cincinnati at The Pub

2009-05-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday I spent some time with the folks from New Media Cincinnati to discuss the latest trends on the Internet, debate Twitter, talk photography and, of course, drink some beers. This was my first time visiting with this group & it was a good time... I'll be back for future events.

I won't rehash all of the topics here but you can check out some of the Twitter activity to get a sense of it via #newmediacincy. I will drop some link love to a few of the folks I met who left me with their cards; here goes:

First up, Daniel Johnson, Jr. (@danieljohnsonjr) - coordinator of the meet-up. Daniel is involved with a variety of things including the Ohio Podcamp and can be found on the various SM (that's Social Media, note the lack of an ampersand!) sites linked off of his Virtual Business Card.

Next is Kyle Louis (@kydlo). Kyle is in the Industrial Design program over at UC. He's got a lot of really interesting ideas about product design and was very interesting to talk to. Check out his site at kylelouis.com. He also has a product design podcast.

Also a design student over at UC, Amy Johannigman (@amydoesdesign) is an SM queen (again, note the lack of ampersand!). She has a lot of very interesting, informed opinions on the whole social media scene and it will be cool to follow her thoughts on the topic via Twitter.

Two photographers I talked with at New Media Cincinnati were Christiaan Todd and Chris Bergman (@chrisbergman). A lot of what we discussed had to do with how photography has been changing, business, and rights grab issues.

I met a variety of other folks as well, but beyond following them on Twitter I don't have other links for them to post here.

Oh, last but not least is Dylan Combs. Dylan has a 24/7 video stream of his life running at Dylan.Combs.tv. He is pretty well known for this on the net and has a significant following - I just stopped by and there are 30 or so folks watching the live feed.

Also, I believe Dylan was the one who left the Hak5 stickers lying around - a great tech podcast!

Review of Epson Stylus Pro 7900

2009-05-10T21:45:00.001-04:00

At around $4k, a high-end printer such as the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 is not something I'll be adding to my office any time soon but I nonetheless enjoy reading the reviews. Michael Reichmann over at the Luminous Landscape website has just published a hands-on review of one of these beasts and it's worth a look if you're into printing.

An interesting feature of the 7900 is that its color gamut actually exceeds that of AdobeRGB in some areas (though *not* in overall terms). While this capability is only available in a top-of-the-line printer today, it may be more accessible in the next several years... Reason enough to always work with your selects in the largest space available - leave those "Open in Photoshop" settings at their default (ProPhotoRGB/16-bit) in Lightroom and Camera RAW! (And, just in case you're reading this and thinking that you should do this for all of your images, note that you should always convert to sRGB when outputting for the web and for many (if not most) online printing services. "Work with" in the previous comment refers to your master Photoshop files only; not your output files which should be created with a specfic use in mind.)

Here's hoping that some of this technology eventually finds its way into Epson's more affordable models!

The Big Picture wins Webby Award

2009-05-05T22:10:00.000-04:00

A quick note to mention that the 2009 Webby Award winners have been announced and that The Big Picture blog by Alan Taylor has won for Best Use of Photography. I was previously unaware of this blog, but immediately added it to my feed reader after visiting.

The Big Picture (not to be confused with Barry Ritzholtz' (also great) financial blog by the same name) is a thrice-weekly look at large, amazing photographs documenting the world around us. The site is owned by the Boston Globe, but imagery is sourced from a variety of places.

Be sure to also check out a few of the other sites listed on the Webby Awards site; lots of good stuff there if you're interested in new media.

Krohn Butterfly Photo Contest: Rights-Grab Warning!

2009-05-01T18:23:00.007-04:00

Krohn Conservatory is presently hosting their annual Butterfly Show here in Cincinnati, which is a great event & runs through the 21st of June. What's not so great are the terms and conditions of their Butterfly Photo Contest. Read on for the gory details and a great, free alternative.

In an unfortunately common rights-grab, the official rules (archived here) of the contest contain clauses which transfer ownership and grant an exclusive, unlimited license to the submitted photographs. Adding insult to injury, the lucky "winner" of the contest must agree that they will not display their photograph publicly without permission.

Some prize, eh? At least you get a $25 gas card...

Though targeted toward amateur photographers, if you've ever been to the "photographer nights" at the show you'd know that these folks all take their work quite seriously. Whether or not they ever plan to sell (or even show) their photographs, you can bet that photographers entering the contest would be hurt to realize that they are forever signing over their top shots to Cincinnati.com (Gannett Co.).

Here are the offending paragraphs; highlights are added for emphasis:

All entries become property of Sponsor. Contestants acknowledge and agree that Sponsor shall have the right to edit, adapt, modify, reproduce, publish, promote, create a sound recording of, broadcast, or otherwise display or use entries in any way it sees fit without limitation or compensation to entrants.
...
8. Copyright. By entering the Contest, each contestant grants to Sponsor an exclusive, royalty-free and irrevocable right and license to publish, print, edit or otherwise use the contestant’s submitted entry, in whole or in part, for any purpose and in any manner or media (including, without limitation, the Internet) throughout the world in perpetuity, and to license others to do so, all without limitation or further compensation. Each contestant further agrees that if his/her entry is selected by Sponsor as the winning entry, he/she will sign any additional license or release that Sponsor may require, and will not publicly perform or display his or her submission without the express permission of Sponsor.

The way I see it, the only way this set of terms could be more offensive is if they promised to slap you on the rear and yell "Booyah!!" if you win.

But the contest is for amateurs - why would they care?
True, some will not care & that's just fine. But, most people who shoot in any professional capacity started off as an amateur and likely have a large library of quality photos created before they ever thought about a paying gig. Also, many non-pros who enjoy displaying their work in a coffee shop would be affected by these terms...

Besides, the business isn't the point here. The real problem is one of pride - the pride you take in your own photographs, regardless of whether you care to make a sale or not. Doesn't the fact that Gannett forces everyone to sign all of your rights away (with a clause buried deep in the terms, no less) make the whole thing feel just a bit... dirty?

Visit the Butterfly Show, but Steer Clear of the Contest!

I'm a big fan of the Krohn Conservatory and especially the annual Butterfly Show - it's always a great photo op and it's very cool that they reserve Monday evenings exclusively for photographers. Please do check it out if you have a chance, but think twice before entering this - or any (especially any Cincinnati.com or Enquirer; their Travel contest has similar terms) - photo contest.

As an alternative, why not post your favorite photographs to a site like Flickr? Tag your photos with krohnbutterfly2009 and everyone can have a look at the great images you've created.

After all, who are you hoping to share your photos with - other photography enthusiasts, or a big company in a crumbling industry looking for alternatives to hiring photographers?

Provident Camera to Close: local business owners take heed

2009-04-05T22:47:00.002-04:00

The most recent victim of the economic downturn and (more so) the tendency of consumers to shop online is downtown Cincinnati's own Provident Camera. Open for over 80 years, the end of a place like Provident is a reminder of the negative side effects that tag along with the good things technology has brought us. Some of my thoughts follow the official message from Provident's owners...

Dear Friends,

It is with sadness that we inform you that on Saturday, April 4, 2009, the Provident Camera Shop at 18W. 7th Street in downtown Cincinnati will be officially closing. We have had a remarkable 80 years in providing photographic services to the greater Cincinnati community. During that time our family has seen many changes in our country. These have included moving people out from a central core to the suburbs. Through advances in technology, many people do not have to leave home to work or shop. There has also been an extended effort to increase retail establishments available to the consumer and move these facilities closer to the suburbs. All of these advancements have caused changes in the way the consumer purchases products. We have tried to overcome some of these issues but taking into account all of these and adding the current economic downturn we have made the decision to close the store.

We want to thank you for your patronage over the years and for becoming much more than customers. Nathan Berkowitz (deceased) the founder of Provident Camera, Barry, Mendy, Rick, Ben and Cindy Lefton, Jim Fausz, Bill Pitzer (deceased), Rob Zeck, Rob Barth, Bob Smith, Andrew Ward, Bess Block, Esther Schatz, and Bobbi Sparto are some of the employees who have contributed to our success and helped to shape our history. We appreciate their efforts in putting our customers first and wish them success in the future. We have made numerous friends over the years, helped to launch many photography careers and helped people take millions of photographs to document special events and individual family histories.

We will be open during regular hours for our official closing on Saturday, April 4, 2009, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. If you have the time, please stop in and say goodbye. Jim Fausz will be in and who knows who else might stop by. Let’s make this last day, one full of positive memories and good wishes. We hope that you will stop in if you are in the neighborhood.

We will have a one day Going-Out of Business Sale on Tuesday, April 7, 2009 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Stock will be limited to what is on hand and all sales will be final. You may want to browse the stock on Saturday before our final sale on Tuesday.

Sincerely,
Rick and Benjamin Lefton

P.S. Jim Fausz will continue to e mail his P.I.C. newsletter keeping you updated about photographic events in our community. If you wish to be removed from the list, please notify him at jvfausz@fuse.net

While it is certainly a shame, one has to wonder if this closing and others like it weren't simply inevitable. Consider major player Ritz Camera shuttering 300 stores and Columbus-based Cord Camera pulling out of the Cleveland area.

Should I have bought more of my gear at Provident? Sure - but, would it have made a difference? There has to be a compelling reason to get a mass audience shopping locally instead of online and only a mass audience can save this kind of local business. (Shipping, by the way, is a non-issue. Often for free, Calumet Photo ships same-day before 5PM and UPS Ground gets from Chicago to my doorstep the following afternoon.)

Whether it's one or several dozen people making a concerted effort to shop a these local stores it doesn't add up to enough to keep the lights on. Sort of like driving a Hybrid - it's a nice idea, but you aren't going to put a dent into emissions until the rest of the US and, oh yeah, the 2.4 billion people in China and India do the same.

Don't get me wrong - I wish Provident Camera did not have to close. But, unfortunately "being local" isn't a good enough value proposition when it comes to (mostly Japanese!) camera gear. While I make an effort to get the unique flavors created by local chefs and avoid the major chains, that same concept just doesn't translate well into the camera world. Does it make sense to pay more for the exact same product?

You can't entirely discount the atmosphere offered by the local camera store; a place where you can spend hours looking through the variety of old and new on the shelves and talk shop with the staff... at least, that's the theory. My personal experience, both with camera shops and musical instrument stores alike, is that you're not really welcome until you can prove that you're of a certain level of accumen. I've always felt a bit uninvited in these specialty stores... and I suspect I'm not alone in feeling this way. For like-minded social chat I'd stick to camera clubs.

Ever since the Internet hit the mainstream the ice has been getting thinner and thinner for local camera retailers like Provident. While it is a shame to see them close, hopefully this can serve as a message to other local businesses: In order to remain viable, a business large or small needs a sustainable competitive advantage.

The advent of online shopping took away Provident's market and they were faced with a decision to either transform or eventually close up shop. While Provident ultimately succumbed to the latter, other small businesses should take a look around and see what they can do to ensure they remain relevant in the modern marketplace. Being local matters less and less each day. What is the true value you offer your customers? How do you differentiate yourself from the big boys online? Is that consistent with the message you send?

A focus on these fundamental questions can mean the difference between a local business that thrives and one that dies.

Lightroom Performance Tip: Empty Recycle Bin

2009-03-09T09:36:00.002-04:00

While downloading the latest Lightroom update (version 2.3), I spent a moment browsing the release notes and spied this little tip:

Lightroom performance can be impacted when the Window’s Recycle Bin contains thousands of files

Now, I'm not sure exactly what areas of the program are affected by the recycle bin - and I'm a bit bothered by Adobe's improper apostrophe placement in the above - but I figured I may as well take out the trash...

Whoa! Whatever the benchmark for "contains thousands of files" may be, I would think that this qualifies. Just something you may want to take a look at in case, like me, emptying your recycle bin is something you do infrequently.

Valentines Day Gifts for the Photographer

2009-02-09T06:05:00.037-05:00

Have a Photographer in your life and need some great gift ideas for Valentines Day (it's the 14th - that's Saturday - by the way). Below are a few thoughts that may work for you...

Books
You'll be hard pressed to find a photographer who doesn't enjoy looking at great photographs! Likewise, there are also a ton of great reference books out there covering every conceivable topic from exposure to Photoshop. Here are a couple I've enjoyed recently...

Photoshop:

Skin by Lee Varis
Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers by Martin Evening
Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Photoshop
Steve Caplin's How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3

Technique:

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally (this is a great coffee table book too!)

Photographs / Coffee Table:

Michael Grecco's Naked Ambition (a little racy, but great images)
Annie Leibovitz' At Work or American Music
LensWork Magazine

The New Kindle:
Not an inexpensive option, but the Kindle 2 was made available today for pre-order. This is the next generation of Amazon's wireless electronic book... I've seen them and they're very cool. It's one of those things that I probably wouldn't buy for myself but would love to receive as a gift.

Gadgets
It is kind of tough to buy gear for your photog beau, but there's a variety of gadetry out there that is hard to go wrong with. [Of course, if you happen to be my wife & you're reading this then the Canon 5D Mark II would be an awesome gift. Seriously.]

Manfrotto Super Clamp - these things rule; you can never have enough of them!
SanDisk Extreme III 8GB CF Card - You can always use more memory...

...Gear and gadets are kind of a tough area to recommend something in. Photographers tend to be a fairly particular bunch, so you may prefer to stick with one of the books above - books *always* go over well!

Good luck and order soon!

Pipes in the Snow

2009-02-05T19:04:00.041-05:00

Pipes in Snow

31 January 2009, Newport, KY

It's been cold around here recently & I've managed to get out to shoot the winter scenes in and around Cincinnati. Due to the mid-week timing of the storm, there wasn't as much shooting time as last March, but I managed to find a few scenes that caught my eye.

My favorite so far is the image of the pipes above. I tend to enjoy graphic images & clean snow against a blue sky lends itself to this style of shooting. The industrial pipes cast some really mean shadows down the snow-covered hill... I really like how the pipes pop out at you (by the way - does anyone have any idea what these pipes are for? Update: Sounds like these are a part of the flood wall system...)

Hope you're enjoying the snowscapes around town... (hey - keeping a positive attitude makes it seem less cold!)

Slides from Layers Talk

2008-12-14T11:59:00.003-05:00

Thanks to all who attended the Photoshop session this evening and for your great questions and participation! As promised, below you'll find the slides to review. Alternatively, you can visit this link to review the deck in full-screen: Photoshop Layers and Blending Modes.

For ease of reference, here's the list of Recommended Reading. I've got all of these (and others) right next to my workstation! Remember, it's not about learning every possible technique - you just need to know which book or website you learned it from.

Skin by Lee Varis
Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers by Martin Evening
Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Photoshop
Steve Caplin's How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3

... http://blog.rrdphoto.com (!)

Upcoming Speaking Engagement: Photoshop Layers! Sunday, Dec 14

2008-12-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

I thought several readers in the Cincinnati area would be interested to know that I will be speaking on the topic of Photoshop Layers and Blending Modes this coming Sunday, December 14th at 5PM for the Cincinnati Photoshop Meetup user group.

Here's a little blurb on the topic:

Photoshop Layers and Blending Modes: Tips and Tricks
What separates Photoshop from MS Paint? Well, quite a bit actually, but certainly one of the most powerful advantages for Photoshop is the ability to edit your images using Layers. During this tutorial you'll learn the ins-and-outs of layers, adjustment layers, masks and blending modes found in Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Examples will include exposure correction, efficient clone-stamp strategies, soft focus portraiture, quick retouch techniques, and a great example of why you should always name your layers! The material will touch on the basics but we'll quickly get into some more advanced techniques that anyone can use once learned.

More information and registration can be found here at the Cincinnati Photoshop Meetup Group website.

Balluminaria 2008 in Eden Park

2008-11-23T21:01:00.005-05:00

Balluminaria 2008 in Eden Park, originally uploaded by rrdphoto.

A little colder this time of year and Mirror Lake was frozen over. The balloonists lit up Eden Park with their signature glow which reflected off of the ice.

I had to do quite a bit of tidying up in Photoshop - turns out they don't have a Zamboni on hand to smooth things over! The surface had a ton of small blocks of ice on it from the kids playing earlier in the day & all those small points of extreme contrast distracted from the balloons. An easy fix that really improves the image.

I was fortunate that they held the event a week early this year - typically it is held on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, and I'm usually not able to make it.

Fun Link: Run every filter in Photoshop!

2008-09-21T08:50:00.000-04:00

Here's a fun link for a Sunday morning: What happens when you run an innocent photo of you and your cat through every available Photoshop filter?

Not particularly useful, yet for some reason very intriguing. Unfortunately, it seems as if you get somewhere around halfway through and you get to pure black or gray frames... I'd guess that the results would be the same regardless of the source - but I'm certainly not patient enough to find out!

Picasa Face Detection: Can't we get this on the Desktop?

2008-09-02T21:20:00.004-04:00

Update: Upon further investigation it seems that the face detection is only a part of the Web interface and is *not* synchronized back to your files on your computer! That's a bummer - hopefully something that can be improved upon in a later version. For the time being, I'll leave this post as-is... it's something we can hope to see down the road! -RD, 9/2

While the news has been mostly buzzing about Google's new Chrome browser, they've also released a new feature to their Picasa product: Face Detection.

The general idea is that the software learns your friends and family after you've tagged a few of them. As you import more and more photographs (or scan your existing library), Google Picasa will tag each with the appropriate handle

...that is, as long as it guesses correctly.

I want this feature in my Lightroom workflow!
What I'd like to try is to let Picasa take a pass at some of my images and attempt to tag out my various faces with names. However, the last thing I want to do is compromise the integrity of my existing keywords and metadata that Lightroom, et. al. have so tirelessly built up.

If I get some spare time, I'd like to test out some different workflow integration options: Do we only run Picasa on newly-imported photos (as we must with the GeoSetter software)? Can it be run at any time in the workflow? Will all of the tags marry up together or will we see some ugly conflicts? Any way to make it more-or-less automatic?

If I could turn Picasa loose on my files & be confident that it's not going to hose me then I'd be more apt to use it. Even better is if I don't need to handhold it - simply script it as a plugin or something to that effect. Clearly you'll have to interact with the Picasa software a bit to correct the recognition, but as it learns your subjects it should become less and less needy.

Just some thoughts on how to make use of a really neat feature until an equivalent finds its way into Lightroom in some way, shape, or form. If you beat me to it, please post about your experience in the comments section! ...Perhaps Jeffrey Friedl will find a way.

BTW - I've recommended Picasa to several people as the best software to use to manage their digital photographs. It isn't quite Lightroom of course, but it has some suprisingly powerful features and is great at what it does. Check it out.

PhotoWalk Contest Winners Announced

2008-08-30T13:59:00.000-04:00

Related to my previous post How To Geotag Your PhotoWalk, Scott Kelby has posted the winners and runner-ups to his blog. There are some great photographs in the mix from all over the world - pretty cool to think that over 8,000 people were out shooting that morning & yet all of the shots are so unique.

To see the winners, please visit Scott's Blog.

Rusted Iron

1/60 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

24-70mm f/2.8L, Canon 5d

Lightroom FUD: Let's Clear the Air

2008-08-27T18:35:00.001-04:00

Recently, Brian Auer posted an article to his blog giving three reasons why he refuses to use Lightroom. While he's certainly entitled to his opinion, I thought I'd spend a moment to clear the air and address some of his concerns.

First, WTF is FUD?
FUD (rhymes with 'thud') is a techno babble acronym for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" - generally it refers to misconceptions or inaccurate statements about how something works and why you should stay away. See Wikipedia (what else?) for more.

In Brian's article, his first point is his main concern - but his fear is based on FUD! Let's have a look.

1. DEPENDENT ON A DATABASE. ...I've been hit with database issues in the past ...I like to keep things organized on a hard drive. ...What happens if you upgrade hard drives? ...use different software?

Yes, it is true that Lightroom uses a database. However, it's also true that Lightroom (1) Stores *all* of your images in folders on the hard drive and (2) Can keep *all* of the adjustments you make to your photos in the sidecar/XMP files (or within the metadata of DNG images).

Lightroom uses its database to quickly and efficiently manage the data associated with your image library - the location & ratings of photos, thumbnails, metadata, keywords, collections, adjustment history, etc. That's a lot of stuff to be sure but note that it's entirely independent of your image files and adjustments! Your files live on the file system; the adjustments live in the metadata (so long as you set the "write changes to XMP" option).

Disaster Strikes!
So what happens if you were to lose your Lightroom Database? Well, it wouldn't be the best day ever, but not the end of the world either. Do you have a backup? You should - Lightroom automatically backs up your database once per week. Just roll back to that (it should go without saying that your Backup Workflow should extend to separate drives, online storage, etc.).

Didn't have a backup? Well, first, go to the store and buy a removable drive. Seriously, they're cheap - especially compared to camera gear. THEN, once you're back up and running with your computer you can just re-import everything into a fresh Lightroom... you haven't lost much, since all of your files contain their own metadata & the photos themselves are already sorted on your hard drive.

On Importing, Sorting, and DNG
The Lightroom import module is *great*. You can have it do a wide variety of steps for you including:

Pull files off of your memory card (duh)
Store in folders based on your spec (I prefer: YYYY/YYYYMMDD_SHOOT_NAME)
Rename files in a variety of ways (I prefer: rrd_YYYYMMDD_TXT_####.dng)
Apply shoot-level keywords to each image
Simultaneously copy to a backup drive
Apply default RAW adjustments
Convert the RAW files to DNG

Plus, once you have it the way you like Lightroom remembers your settings so all you do is change keywords & shoot-specific text. Importing is now one step - you're from card-to-hard [drive] almost automatically with everything in your preferred structure.

Conversion to DNG is, of course, optional but I recommend it highly. I could go on for days about the benefit of storing data in a published spec, but that's too far off topic. Instead, I'll suggest it purely for the next-best feature: no more XMP Sidecar files!! The DNG spec can store both the RAW data and all of the associated adjustments & metadata in a single file - that in itself is a huge plus.

Other hard drives, upgrades, etc.
So long as your storage system is somewhat sane, Lightroom handles storage on multiple drives with ease. In fact, you can perform many operations on files currently offline! Say you're remote on your laptop and you want to find an image in your library - you can do pretty much everything you need short of exporting a full-res image without even connecting the USB drive that the image happens to be stored on.

There are a variety of ways to work with multiple libraries, offline drives, etc. within Lightroom - I'd hazard a guess that it's a lot more capable in this area than you might think.

So you see, the fact that Lightroom uses a database is wholly positive and is only used for features that require a database. With a huge library it'd be difficult (or at least painful) to search, sort, etc. across a traditional file system. Lightroom handles all of this efficiently through its database and is smart enough to know what should be left to the file system.

2. REDUNDANT WITH BRIDGE/ACR ...I've already paid for Photoshop ...Lightroom is just Bridge+ACR ...is it worth the additional cost?

Brian is correct here: Lightroom uses the exact same RAW converter that Photoshop does via its Camera RAW module (ACR). However, it is quite a bit more than just a combination of Bridge and ACR.

Browsing through your photographs and making adjustments in Lightroom is a very fluid process. This is not my experience with Bridge + ACR! What is missing is the database back-end that Lightroom leverages to make browsing quick and efficient. While Bridge can only provide views of the file system, LR is able to combine images, folders, etc in almost any way you can think of - creating organic collections of files is a non-issue and even automatic...

Want a view that shows you all of the files you've taken with the 24-70mm lens in 2008 on the 5d with the keyword 'Tree' (but not those with the keyword 'apple') and are rated 5 stars? Not a problem; it'll even update itself as you import new photos. Want to build a collection of images that you've displayed at a particular gallery show? Just make a collection out of them and this view is always available to you - without requiring extra storage since the collection is just info in the database.

You can't do that in Bridge!

Also nice is that Lightroom treats all image files - not just RAWs - with the exact same interface. When you do hop into Photoshop for some comping, etc., your PSD file can live right alongside (or even stacked with) your RAW file. Cropping, printing, adjusting, etc is all the same from there...

Better Have a Fast PC...
One caveat to all of this is that to use Lightroom effectively you really must have a fast, modern system. I'm running on a quad-core system with 6GB of RAM... you don't need to go to that extreme, but if your computer is more than a couple of years old you'll want to consider an upgrade.

The Investment Decision

NOTE: The comments here only apply if this is a business for you, obviously. If you're doing this purely for fun then none of this rationale applies!!

First off, the fact that you've spent money on your current solution isn't relevant to the Lightroom decision. While your significant other ~~may~~ will disagree, the decision should be based on whether you'll realize net value through the purchase of LR - you can't change the fact that you've already spent money on Photoshop.

Plus, you still need CS3 for more in-depth edits. Lightroom has greatly reduced the time I spend in Photoshop but you still need CS3 when it comes to hardcore edits. Plus, now that LR 2.0 ships with localized edits I find that I can deliver a large percentage of images without ever entering into CS3... That's a huge time & space saver: non-destructive dodging & burning (light painting) is an amazing thing.

Having the organization and advanced editing capabilities right at your fingertips in a single app can save enormous amounts of time.

3. MOB MENTALITY ...LR has a cult following ...I base decisions on my own needs

I hear ya' brother! Lightroom is definitely mainstream, but it's for good reason (see above).

You need to make your own decisions about the tools you use in your workflow and remember that it's about making great images - not the tools you're using to get there. That said, there's something to be said for choosing the right tool for the job and I must say that I feel far more productive using Lightroom than I did with my previous Bridge+ACR workflow.

Good luck and be sure to let us know when you've switched to Lightroom. ;)

Geotagging the Cincinnati PhotoWalk with GPS

2008-08-26T07:24:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday I participated in the first (annual?) Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk via the downtown Cincinnati route led by David Ziser. It was a great event that went off without a hitch and there are a ton of interesting photographs showing up in the Cincinnati Group Pool.

In this post I'll show a few of my images and discuss how I went about geotagging them by carrying a GPS unit along with me. First, a look at our route with markers to indicate the location from which each of my photos were taken:

Our Route for the Cincinnati Photowalk
23 August 2008

Tracking your Photowalk with GPS
The first piece of the geotagging puzzle is (obviously) the GPS unit itself. There are a few ways of going about this, ranging from specialized field/hiking units to small devices that continuously log your location. I just used the one that was in my vehicle - a Mio c320 Digiwalker. While not specifically designed for photography, this unit (like many others) can save what is called a Track Log of your coordinates every few seconds or so.

Syncronize Your Watches...
To make your life considerably easier, remember to sync the time on your camera with the time on your GPS device! As you'll see shortly, the magic of this depends on the clocks clicking together.

Start the tracking and bag the GPS
You'll need to test this with your device, but most units should be able to get a fix on the GPS satelites through the fabric of your camera bag, provided it is thin. Most bags have an outer pocket that isn't too padded, so this will probably be your best bet. Just turn on the GPS and be sure to dim the backlight on your screen in order to get the most out of your battery.

During our walk, I went for about 4 hours before the unit started to have battery trouble. If this were a longer walk I would need to figure out some way to power the device (it can run on +5V from the USB connection) or disable the screen entirely to max out the life.

Now that you've got the GPS tracking, head out and take the nice photographs like you always would. Try hard to forget that The Man is in your bag tracking you!!

Tagging the photos with GeoSetter
Once you've loaded the photos onto your computer, copy the GPX Tracklog from your GPS device into the same directory. You'll need to check the manual or ask online about how to do this on your particular model.

Next, download and fire up the (free!) GeoSetter program and navigate to your folder of images. Geosetter will detect the track log and automatically draw a line on the map illustrating your journey. Next, select all of your images and click the Synchronize Geo Data button. After a short while your images will begin to appear plotted out on the map - cool!!

The last step in geotagging is to save your image files with their newly geotagged metadata. While setting up GeoSetter, be sure you look through all of the options and select things like "Save Flickr Geotags" if you plan to upload them to Flickr.

What if I didn't sync my clocks?
If you forgot to sync your camera's clock with the GPS unit, you'll want to take advantage of GeoSetter's ability to compensate. It will automatically adjust for some small jitter, but just before you sync it provides a nice interface that you can tweak until the clock shown matches the one on your camera. Note that this (of course) depends on your PC being in sync with the GPS... most computers these days can sync their time with the internet clocks - I found mine to be within 10 seconds or so of the GPS device. Good enough for me.

Use GeoSetter BEFORE Lightroom adjustments.
This is an important one, as GeoSetter tends to replace the metadata in your files instead of simply merging the information. If you've already loaded them into Lightroom, you'll need to select all & choose Metadata | Read Metadata after you've finished the geotagging process. This is annoying since you will lose your Lightroom adjustments, but not a big deal so long as you remember to tag first. I use Lightroom to import & convert to DNG; my process was to import via lightroom, run GeoSetter, then have LR re-read the metadata to pick up the changes.

Speaking of Lightroom, check out the little arrow next to the GPS field in the metadata section. Click this and it'll take you over to Google Maps with your photo's location pinpointed! :)

Upload to Flickr
Now that you're tagged, do your usual edits and then upload your photos to Flickr. Prior to uploading, you'll want to ensure that your Flickr Privacy Settings are set to allow automatic placement on the map - otherwise you'll sit there scratching your head wondering why it doesn't work (I may know this from experience...)! If you have trouble, there's a good Geotagging Group to help and also a good intro from Flickr's Blog.

If all went according to plan, you'll see your photos on the Flickr Map!

Back to the Photowalk
Like I said, this was a great event and I was happy to meet a lot of great people and have some great discussions along the way. It was particularly nice talking with Eric & Joe, photogs from the Cleveland area who spent the night before out until 4AM taking night shots of the city! Eric has a great Day/Night shot of the Roebling Bridge on his blog.

I also spent a lot of time speaking with Jim Talkington, who blogs over at ProPhotoLife. Jim is a great resource for anyone interested in the photo biz and is happy to help people get started. His blog contains a lot of helpful videos, so do check it out.

Finally, a big thanks to David Ziser for putting this toghether in Cincinnati. David is both an excellent photog and also a fine educator - not to mention a helluva nice guy! Check David's blog out at DigitalProTalk and also see his training videos over at KelbyTraining.com.

Images and GPS Data
My Photowalk Flickr Set is available, but if you're interested in higher quality versions and prints of my photos please check out the Smugmug gallery of the Cincinati Photowalk. You may also be interested in checking out the GPS Track Log of the walk; it won't sync directly with your photographs, but may be interesting to play around with. Enjoy!