diversions: happy halloween!

Bridge- saving searches (CS3)

A long, long time ago there was a program called Bridge CS3. It didn't have Smart Collections.



There was this thing you could do called "Find". (Edit>Find, or Apple F) You could tell Bridge to Find things with all sorts of attributes, like Ratings, here, all items marked with 5 stars.

That wasn't the Coolest Thing, though.

The Coolest Thing was that, in this time before time, you could Save that Find as a "Collection".

(Hey. wait a minute... "Collection"? Sounds strangely familiar...)



Here I've added "Approved" to the criteria, and hit Save Collection. I've also hit "Add to Favorites".



Check it out.


hmmm. Looks kind of like a Smart Collection in Bridge CS4, huh? Right on my "Favorites" sidebar I get my happy "cover collection". This updates anew every time I click it... it acts just like a Smart Collection. I hit this button, it does a search of the place I've told it to look, and looks for everything in there that matches those criteria.



OK there's one little trick. If you're pointing this search at a Big Place, like your hard drive or desktop, make sure you check "Include All Subfolders", or it will only search the main big folder you've told it to, and not look anywhere else.



How cool is that?

(...and thanks to Schewe for straightening my butt out on that!)

Tech Superpowers Pro Imaging Services (TSPIS) Official Launch

woohoo!

take a look...

Book Updates: Books in Bankok!

"Oct 28 2008 Hi Ted, Just spotted your book in 'Kinokunya' bookshop in Bangkok. Nice work! Tom "

i'm tellin my momma!

Cropping Strategies

If you’ll notice, you get two places to crop in the Smart Object workflow- once in Camera RAW, and the Crop tool in Photoshop. It get’s kind of confusing when you get in there and start cropping, especially considering how Smart Objects get “Placed” into the layers of an image. There’s one little secret that helps. Cropping in Camera RAW crops the object. Cropping in Photoshop crops the Canvas. Let’s take a look.

Here I’ve opened a full, uncropped image into Photoshop, and it creates a Canvas that is 4000 x 3000 pixels.



If I go back into Camera RAW and apply a crop, the Canvas size will stay the same, but the object will show as cropped within that canvas. Here’s what that looks like, the blank Canvas is the checkerboard pattern, and the Image Size is still 4000 x 3000.



I can always re-open the Camera RAW dialog and re-crop. This time I’m cropping using the Crop Tool in Photoshop.



This crops my Image, or Canvas.



If I re-open Camera RAW I can see my whole image, uncropped.



This gets kind of weird, especially in terms of your ability to go back and re-do your cropping work and the non-destructive process. You can, with either method, backtrack and get back to your starting point... if you crop your Canvas you go Image>Reveal All and you get back to your full image. If you start with a cropped RAW file , it will build a Canvas that size, and you have to go back to the RAW dialog, re-crop or remove the crop, then, in Photoshop, do the Image>Reveal move.

If you crop in your Camera RAW panel, you then have your blank Canvas on the outside of your crop which I find distracting. If I do my basic Crop there, and then, once I’ve decided that’s what I want, I’ll then do a “clean-up” crop in Photoshop to get rid of the excess Canvas. (I can always get it back if I really want it.)

After going back and forth on this for a while, I really think the best standard process is to use the Crop Tool in Photoshop for almost everything. The Reveal All move gets us everything we started with, and it's easy and fast. Any other way may be fine for the purpose at hand, but will set up some issues, not big ones, but issues nonetheless, later.

PopPhoto College excerpt from Raw Pipeline

woohoo!

Oct. 24th- PhotoPlus Announcments!

Next Friday I'm spending the day at the New York PhotoPlus and I have three major projects to announce. I hope you can meet me down there, I'll be based at the Maine Media Workshops booth (755), and will be visiting a bunch of old friends on and off the floor.

Here's what's cookin':

Color Pipeline advance copies are here!
You can't get it anywhere else yet, but I'll have one there to show off, and, of course, RAW Pipeline. We also just put the wraps on the new Smart Object Pipeline, and I'll be posting excerpts of that here. Check back, and don't forget the Shoot RAW Smart! Group on Yahoo devoted to Smart Object RAW workflow. See the link on the sidebar...


The OFFICIAL LAUNCH of head2head Reviews!
I'm still not allowed to divulge too much about this, but by next week we'll be official. We've been hard at work on developing a new, better camera review site, and I'll be blogging away on the Pro-Digital Blog talking about things that nobody else is talking about- Digital Backs, Pro DSLR cameras, workflow, even the state of the Betterlight Scan Back art! Check back before the show, details will be here, I promise!


Tech Superpowers Professional Imaging Services Launch!
It's time to "cross the streams" of Tech Superpowers' legendary Apple IT support, Digital Photography and Color Management expertise by offering TSPIS, an array of services aimed right at the professional photographer and commercial studios.

Some of the services that we offer to all our clients are:
* Apple Macintosh Sales
* Hardware Repair and Data Recovery
* TechieLink Phone Support
* On-Call Onsite Support
* Managed Machines
* Complete Technology Briefing
* Email Hosting Without Limits

For Professional Photographers, we can do even more:
* "In a Box" Professional System Bundles
* Certified ColorSync Color Management
* Digital Photography Workflow Analysis
* Windows/Mac Integration
* File Processing and QC Consulting
* Cost Containment and Production Efficiency
* Storage, Backup, and Archive Solutions


Visit the TSPIS site here, and sign up for the PhotoPlus special offer: a Complete Imaging Briefing, our own unique evaluation of not only your IT systems, but your imaging and processing workflows to assure you're at the highest level of speed and quality.

I'll see you in New York!

Smart Filter Masks- (from Smart Object Pipeline)

When you make a Smart Filter on your Smart Object layer, you get a mask generated automatically. The white rectangle labeled “Smart Filters”, between the Smart Object on top, and the filter on the bottom, is your mask. This is separate from the filter, and will, for the most part, behave like a regular layer mask that we know and love with a few notable exceptions.

The first little surprise is that you can only use one mask for each Smart Object Filter set. I can add more filters, but they’re just going to sit under that top mask.

I can control the masked areas of the filter just like I do with a regular mask, either by painting on it as I usually do, or even by making a selection and making a mask. The trick there is you have to start by making the selection before you make the Filter. Here, I’ve made a selection from Select>Color Range.

Next I make a Smart Filter for Gaussian Blur.

Here is my happy mask.

I can make the usual moves here, including Command I to invert the mask, as well as accessing the CS4 Mask Panel to do some nice, controlled refinements of my mask.


Finally, you can move and copy Smart Filter masks from layer to layer, just as you can with regular masks, by simply dragging them to the layer you want to move them to, or Option-dragging them to make a copy rather than a move, with one little restriction: you can only copy a Filter Mask to another Filter, and a Layer Mask to another Layer. The “Filter Effects Mask” and the “Layer Mask” are two different animals, and can’t be interchanged.

This does give you an interesting little workaround, though, if you’ve made a Smart Filter and decided afterwards you want to mask it using a selection. Just make a new Smart Object layer and make your selection and make any filter at all.

Then just move your mask to your first Smart Filter. You’ll get this warning.
It moves that nice mask to your first filter,

and then you can just trash that second “working” Smart Object Layer you made.
Bingo, game over!

The Books

...you can read what the marketing guys have written about the books at any of the online stores, but here's what I have to say:

Raw Pipeline

I wrote RAW Pipeline as a "hit-the-road-running" guide to digital photography, with the film photographer especially in mind. There are many similarities between shooting film and digital, but there are some notable differences.

Based on my "Pixel Institute" classes at EP Levine, the book talks about setting up the camera and shooting, data management, things to do and things to avoid. In the second section I discuss essential Photoshop skills- essential to photographers, that is. ...Layers, Masking, and above all, the RAW file and it's importance in the process. In this book I introduce the Smart Object RAW workflow, which I'll hit a lot harder in the Smart Object Pipeline, of course. Finally, we cover printing- how to control, and get the most out of your printer.

Rather than an encyclopedic reference to every distracting feature along the way, RAW Pipeline is designed to be a laser-focus on what photographers want- to learn to take pictures with the digital camera and darkroom.

See the Google Books preview here...

Order from my friends at Digital Silver Imaging, here.


Color Pipeline

Color Management has been the realm of the uber-geek. Rather than clarifying the process, many authors have done just the opposite- adding levels of obfuscation and confusion through the use of terms and concepts that are either simply overly technical, or easy to misunderstand. Color Pipeline is my attempt to clarify what is essentially a simple and effective tool- color management and ColorSync.

Using a program called ColorThink I can show how colors are actually mapped through each level of conversion and processing. It's interesting to see the difference between one Rendering Intent and another, for example, but more importantly, it's a powerful tool if you understand it, and can even visualize it.

We are, after all, not color scientists, we're photographers.

Using the Color Pipeline, you can see the path of colors in your image from the subject, through capture, RAW processing, display and output to understand better where, and what, you can do to control color throughout the entire process.

Order from my friends at Digital Silver Imaging, here


Smart Object Pipeline

Of all four books, Smart Object Pipeline is probably the most unique. RAW processing has changed the very nature of Photography, Smart Object RAW processing has changed how we work with the RAW file, and Smart Object Pipeline is the first book published to look at Smart Object RAW processing in a complete, and comprehensive way.

Not only do we cover Layers and Masking, and give an in-depth guide to working with Camera RAW 5.2, but Smart Object Pipeline covers some of the under-the-hood concepts behind metadata editing, using Smart Filters and plug-ins with Smart Objects, we take another look at the Rosenholtz-Sanchez Effect (the apparent compounding of edits in Smart Object layers and what is really going on), and, above all, building an effective and repeatable process in the Smart Object RAW workflow.

There is simply no other book out there like this, and the process is the most significant development in the ongoing evolution of Adobe's "non-destructive workflow".

Order from my friends at Digital Silver Imaging, here.


Black and White Pipeline

Black and White Pipeline is my answer to Ansel Adams' challenge of the late 1980s, that digital photography will demand the re-analysis of our methods, and make us rebuild many of our skills and understanding of photographic processes.

The core of Adams' work was not the Zone System. The core of his teaching was Visualiztion. In fact, the Zone System was a teaching device Adams used to demonstrate, and help students understand this core concept, the concept that the artist needed to see the photograph, to control the process to fulfill the vision. Without the ability to visualize a photograph, the photographer was merely taking haphazard pot-shots at controlling the tools.

Digital photography, because of the RAW file, (what I like to refer to as the "digital latent image" with nods to Adams), changes the basic process. Instead of the film making the color-to-B/W conversion for us, and us learning to manipulate that, we now have complete control over precisely how colors are mapped to gray. Learning to process digital B/W is about learning how to understand and control that conversion.

In Black and White Pipeline I explore all the available methods to handle B/W digital photography from capture to printing, but with an overriding emphasis on the process, and learning how to use to process to learn how to see in Black and White. It's a step back from the "tips and tricks" philosophy, (the limitless possibilities of Photoshop and the digital world), back to the "paradox of palette"- learning to limit your tools, and work within those limits, to allow the beauty of the Black and White print to express your vision.


Order from my friends at Digital Silver Imaging, here

CS4- Bridge SMART COLLECTIONS

AAAAAAAA! AAAAAAA! My HEAD's essplodin!

Bridge now has Smart Collections. That means you can make instantly updated groupings of files based on criteria like ratings or keywords. As soon as you bring a file into the system and rate it three stars, it gets shown in your collection, for example.

This is a life-altering feature. You can now do, in Bridge, what you could only do in Aperture first, and then Lightroom2 later: LIVE repurpose images for multiple projects and uses without making multiple groupings and copies.



See the little folder to the left of the Trash? Thats our baby.

Search criteria:



Search location:

Smart Objects in Lightroom2

OK, one more post before cocktails and the Sox.

You like Lightroom2, but want your Smart Objects?

From the Library, Photo>Edit in...>Open as Smart Object in Photoshop

(Aperture? nuthin.)

diversion: the big guitars

go to 3:30 to see prince give clapton a schoolin. simply the most badass solo every recorded.

2007 TED Prize Winner James Nachtwey

Update: Camera RAW 4.6

Camera RAW 4.6 here.

Support for the following camera has been added in this update.
* Canon 1000D (Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F)
* Canon 50D
* Fuji FinePix IS Pro
* Kodak EasyShare Kodak Z1015 IS
* Leaf AFi II 6
* Leaf AFi II 7
* Leaf Aptus II 6
* Leaf Aptus II 7
* Nikon D700
* Nikon D90
* Nikon Coolpix P6000
* Olympus SP-565 UZ
* Pentax K2000 (K-m)
* Sigma DP1
* Sony A900

site: Shoot RAW Smart Group on Yahoo

I've started Shoot RAW Smart on Yahoo, to help answer questions, support and advance the Smart Object workflow, and offer a place where you can make your contributions to the process.

Why let Rosenholtz and Sanchez have all the fun?

Visit here, and join up!

Smart Object Pipeline cover is in!

site: PhotoAttorney

Great site/blog by Carolyn E. Wright for legal issues like copyright and business issues for photographers.

PhotoAttorney here.

site: The Daily Beast

Tina Brown is BACK!

Cropping in Camera RAW

Go to the Crop Tool.

Select "Custom".



Set parameters of croppage.



Set crop.



Now, when you process the file you get that crop. The crop gets saved in the RAW metadata, the XMP file. If you re-open and want to change the crop, go right ahead... if you want to clear it, just hit "esc" when you're in the Crop Tool.

GEEKZONE: The Rosenholtz-Sanchez Effect Explained

(...a little tease from Smart Object Pipeline)

We’ve been talking about this effect, what is it, really?

There are a couple of ways that Smart Object Layers seem to compound an adjustment. Basically, this applies to copying a layer that you’ve applied an adjustment with a mask to.

If I start with a layer, then make another Smart Object on top of it, I’ll get a solid, self-contained layer that has edits that only apply to itself.



In this case I’ve adjusted it darker, to burn down the perimeter. Now, I make a mask, and “burn” down the areas I want. If I now copy that layer, it will appear to compound the adjustment, making it darker still. If I keep copying the latest, top layer, it just keeps getting darker and darker. Here’s what three iterations of that looks like:



It’s simple really. Each “Smart Object via Copy” move uses the source layer as it’s starting point, and applies that to the overall image. The moral of this story? Be really careful of which Smart Object you’re copying, and how it’s propagating adjustments. To be safe, I usually copy only from the first, or Background layer.

Something is fishy here, though. If you make a straight, unmasked darker Smart Object layer and make several copies on it, you’ll notice it doesn’t get any darker. If the edits get compounded, then why isn’t this compounding here? Go ahead, try it.



Here’s a basic “dark” move, copied a bunch of times. The result is no darker than the first edit.

Here’s the thing. The “Smart Object via Copy” move compounds the mask, not the edit. Here’s a basic image, and a very dark adjustment on top.



Now I’m going to hold that back (by turning it off for the moment) and make a copy with a mask, using my standard 50% flow and 50% opacity settings, and I’m just going to hit it lightly. Here’s what it looks like.



(I named it “unmasked adjustment” to keep it straight.) OK, I just hammered out a bunch of copies of the masked layer until it didn’t get any darker. After 19 layers, I have the same tonal value as the unmasked layer. (Here’s the 19th layer,



and here’s the dark layer moved to the top.)



Each “Smart Object Layer via Copy” move compounds the mask, moving it to more and more transparent… it basically is like painting on it with the 50%/50% brush over and over, 19 times in fact, until it shows 100% of the Smart Object it’s masking.

Want to see something funny? Here



is what my 19 copies looks like. Here



is what it looks like when I hit my mask 19 times with the same 50%/50% brush setting. The spread of the mask is a little different, but the density of the edit is the same.

It feels, when you’re working with Smart Objects and Smart Filters in a masking workflow, like there is some magical mechanism going on and the edits, filters and adjustments you’re making can get out of control.

Keep this in mind. It’s not magic, it’s the mask.

instant jpegs. POOF

IJFR via RawWorkFlow.com, here.

PhotoPlus Expo! I'm in!

OK, yup... I'm making an overnight of it, wooHOO! PHOTOGEEKFEST!

Here are the deets:

Location:
Javits Convention Center
655 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001

When:
Friday, October 24, 10:00AM - 5PM

I'll be loitering around the Maine Media Workshops all day, talking about the Workshops in general, and my classes this Spring in specific - RAW Pipeline and Color Pipeline...

Also I'm celebrating the simultaneous launches of three big projects:
- The Head-to-head Digital Photography website: www.h2hreviews.com
- Tech Superpowers' Pro Imaging Services
...and the releases of RAW Pipeline and Color Pipeline, my new books from Lark Books/ Sterling Publications.

I hope we see you there!

(I'll be arriving on the 23rd, so if you're in town then, give a shout!)

Official site here.

UPDATE:
Evite here.