This week, Andrew Ford taught us about depth of field in nature photography, while Chris Anson discussed his move from a mouse to pen tablet. Bryan Esler took a first look at Capture One Pro 20 for Lightroom Classic users, Michele Grenier told us how to get rid of the early morning look in headshots and Levi Sim walked us through the TourBox App Controller.
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Is the ‘bug’ biting your business? - There is no escaping the current media storm — it is EVERYWHERE! And while many are out panic buying toilet paper and canned goods, what is the overall impact on your photography business? I saw it in my own business fairly early. I’m no doctor or financial expert, but it appears that one is in higher demand than the other. It appeared at the start that people are more worried about a looming financial crisis caused by this outbreak than the outbreak itself. Now it is both. People canceled non-essentials in droves — holidays, conferences and luxury items such as photoshoots and workshops. People are more concerned with getting basic food and household items in the event they run out or if they are forced into quarantine. The supermarkets are sheer madness. Three months ago, Aussies (and the rest of the world) were banding together to help out with the bush fires raging across Eastern Australia. Now there are literally fistfights in supermarket aisles over loo paper and baby formula! Australia has just announced stage three has now been extended for another 30 days, meaning ALL public events with over 500 people need to be closed, canceled and postponed. And that includes the Australian Grand Prix and Australia Rule Football … things are getting serious. I had to cancel a trip up north as an event was canceled and they are asking everyone not to travel. Now no one can travel. The Australian States have closed their borders and we are only allowed out in groups of two, and only for essentials. Talking business So what is the overall impact on your business? Possibly no better than any other sector of business. Travel and hospitality are being hit hard. I am sure that many photographers will be hit hard, too. I am seeing people trying to keep things light, offering a free roll of toilet paper with every photoshoot. Buy a $2500 roll of toilet paper and get a free family photo session, by two and get a free wedding session. At some point in the future. So what should you do? That is a good question. I had to cancel my workshops. At first, it was due to lack of bookings, now it’s the law. I knew the low bookings were not me, as my workshops are usually sellouts. Offer small hands-on workshops, with great prices and great models. I know it’s not the location, as it was a sellout at the location previous months. It’s not the prices, as it was a sellout at the same prices previous months. Pretty sure it’s not the models, as it was a sellout will similar previous months. Doubt it was the theme, which leaves the timing. It’s was not Mother’s Day nor a long weekend. There is no major sporting event (even then, I still sold out during the AFL Grand final last year!), so the only thing I could assume, “that, which shall not be named.” I think it all boils down to available finances and a more than a little concern from the public in general. I have now canceled all other workshops for the foreseeable future, knowing full well they won’t be going ahead at this stage. Do we hunker down and wait it out? We probably don’t have much choice. We cannot force people to book or to not cancel a booking. Wage insurance? Will this cover this sort of thing, or is that only for personal injury or illness? I am going to take some time to catch up on some things that have been neglected a little, maybe take an online course, do a little Netflix bingeing and pottery in the studio. This might be a good time to put your downtime to good use, update your website, really work on building your social media presence. Maybe work out some great deals to offer people who are considering canceling to postpone to a later date. So what’s next? Social distancing and isolation are becoming standard in everyday language and a fact of life. However, with everything being online these days, and access to digital technology being quicker, easier and faster, you can build an online community. Share, learn, inspire and encourage. Take this time to really make your mark. Chances are this is not going to solve your economic problems, but so many people are in the same boat. Offer discounts for people willing to pay now to get service later. Create an online course. Do you make something, do something, create something that others would enjoy? Start a small online classroom offering you niche to others. There are platforms that offer this for free for small courses with limited requirements. Perhaps one-on-one online tutoring through Skype or Zoom? I usually do these face-to-face but will start trying online to see how they go. The fact that I could help people nowhere near me is exciting too. This may not make a huge income but could start something that might just tie you over for a little bit. Create a community Do you have a private Facebook group for your community or business? I am a member of a couple and I also run my own. We are having daily check-ins, challenges and competitions. Granted mostly they not overly serious, but they do help keep spirits up and feel less isolated. Some people are totally isolated and it is very hard on them, this can help even if it’s only in a small way. One such group did an in-house photographic treasure hunt and a multiplicity challenge … keeping people engaged and having fun. Brace for a long spring/autumn By all accounts, this is going to be impacting our daily lives for a while. This IS the new normal. I think it is time to embrace the digital age with new ideas, a new outlook and new enthusiasm. When this does break, people will be looking for something — anything. They will be looking
Lightroom Classic users, is it time to consider Capture One? - As far back as I can remember, I’ve been using one program to manage and process my images — Lightroom Classic. And while I still have great memories using it, there were some things that were starting to bug me. For one, the lack of updates. While Lightroom Classic is an extremely robust program, it was starting to get long in the tooth, in terms of getting feature updates. It’s younger cousin, Lightroom (formerly CC) was getting most of the attention. And rightly so — Lightroom is a great program. But if you rely on a local storage workflow, it’s not ideal. And two, speed. While Lightroom Classic had improved its performance due to things like GPU Acceleration, it is by no means fast. It was manageable, as long as you had a computer that was amped up enough to handle it. So why Capture One? I had heard a lot about Capture One in recent months, mainly surrounding their v.20 update. While I had tried Capture One before, I found it to be overkill for what I needed at the time. But now, with time on my hands, I figured it was worth another look. In my discussions with other pros, Capture One was known for speed and accuracy when it came to color performance. But for me, it’s well-known throughout the world of Olympus that Capture One does the best job in terms of RAW processing its files. Getting familiarized I did a lot of reading and YouTube watching before I got started with Capture One Pro 20. One of the first things I did was set up the interface so it looked similar to Lightroom Classic. To do this, you can go to Window > Workspace > Migration. This will do two things. One, it’ll add the Tools sidebar to the right (instead of the left), and it’ll put the filmstrip (known as the Browser) at the bottom. With this change alone, you should feel much more at home. From there, I dove into my tool tabs. While many tutorials will tell you to activate the Quick tool tab, I really don’t think it’s necessary. You’ll find pretty much all the tools from Lightroom’s Develop module in the Exposure tool tab. If you find yourself not using some of the tools in the Exposure tool tab (like Levels), you can right-click and remove it. The great thing is, as you decide to personalize your workflow more, you can make your own custom tool tabs. Check out this article from Chris Anson, which will show you how. If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide on the above steps — including using the Quick tool tab — check out this video from The Phoblographer below. It really helped me in getting started! The catalog While some people say that Capture One’s catalog system is inferior to Lightroom Classic’s, I disagree. Capture One offers a wide variety of organizational tools through User Collections. But figuring it out is a bit confusing at first. There are four parts to the User Collections area — Albums, Smart Albums, Projects and Groups. Groups (which have a folder icon) and Projects (which have a Collection Set icon from Lightroom) are basically just there for organizational purposes — you can’t put photos inside of them. For my workflow, I have a Group, then a Project under that, followed by Albums and Smart Albums. The nice thing is that you can have nested Smart Albums, meaning you could create a “Selects” album that automatically pulls from, say, a color label or star rating. But it only pulls in photos in that Project. This is something I’ve been asking Adobe about forever, and it’s definitely already improved my workflow! Groups can be nested under other Groups too, meaning I can stay more organized than ever. Plus, your entire User Collections area does not have to be alphabetical, meaning you can click and drag them to any order you wish. Finally, if you like to use edit EXIF and IPTC metadata through keywording, star ratings and more, you can do those just like you would in Lightroom Classic. You can even add metadata for Getty Images (which is built-in by default). Some helpful tips Filtering If you want to filter by star rating or color tag, that can be done in the Library tool tab. But what if you want to select multiple filters at once, and show only, for instance, blue and green tagged photos? On a Mac, hold down the Command key as you click each option. On Windows, use the Control key. Changing keyboard shortcuts If you want to change your keyboard shortcuts to be more like Lightroom, go to Edit > Edit Keyboard Shortcuts. For instance, I set mine up so I could use regular numbers for some of my color labels, just like Lightroom. I use 6 for red, 7 for yellow, 8 for green, 9 for blue, and Cmd+0 to zero out the colors. Exporting While Capture One offers a basic export option, you’ll probably find yourself using the Process tool tab, instead. This will export all the photos you have selected according to what processes you have checked. This makes it super easy and quick to automate your exports and perform export options like Output Naming and size adjustments. There are some great built-in export options already there for you. Watermarks You can’t add a watermark during a standard export — it has to be done through the Process tool tab. What’s missing While Capture One is a great program, there are a few things missing. Limited plugin support Sure, there are plugins in Capture One, but they’re super limited. In order to edit in Luminar, for instance, I find myself right-clicking on a photo and clicking Edit With > Adobe Photoshop, and then using Luminar’s plugin mode in Photoshop. This automatically brings the photo back into Capture One. I tried sending it right from Capture One to Luminar, but
Get rid of the early morning look in your headshots - Have you ever got portraits where your client seemed to come out of bed? Here's how to naturally get rid of the early morning look in your headshots.
TourBox Controller offers controller experience to automate common software commands - Gamers understand that there’s nothing less enjoyable than using the keyboard instead of a controller. They can appreciate the value of a controller that does specific things in games. The same should be true for those who create with their computers. Using a keyboard for shortcuts is far better than using the mouse to click on each command all across the screen, but a controller could really help you save time and use your brain to create instead of looking all over for keys and icons. That’s where TourBox (B&H | Amazon) comes in handy. It’s like a video game controller for Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and whatever other tools you use to create. Dessert first: TourBox is tasty Let me start at the end. I like TourBox. It’s the best controller/keyboard addition I’ve used. If you use a tablet, it’s the ideal companion. TourBox is the only additional controller I really like — and I didn’t realize I didn’t like the other options until I’d used TourBox. Plus, it’s among the most affordable options available. Knobs, dials, buttons … It’s got a knob on top, radial dial, scrolling wheel and 11 additional buttons. Each control function is programmed to replace a combination of keyboard strokes. The one keyboard command everyone should be using all the time when editing is Undo/Redo. Just press Ctrl/Command + Z to Undo, and press Ctrl/Command + Shift + Z to Redo. It’s really handy to know that shortcut combination. The thing is, that’s three keys you have to press. You can program the TourBox to do all that with one button. You don’t have to program it TourBox comes with a lot of common Lightroom and Photoshop shortcuts pre-programmed, so you don’t have to program it yourself. But you can. You can program a lot more functions into it. Lightroom, Photoshop and ____ As I said above, it comes preprogrammed with presets for Lightroom and Photoshop, but you can create a new preset for any application you work in. Just add a new preset and program the buttons and dials. It’s very simple, and it works with every application on your computer. What’s the point? OK, so it removes keyboard work, but who cares? Well, it actually makes your work faster and potentially more enjoyable. It reduces the time spent putting fingers from both hands onto the keys, so you can use your mouse more effectively. If you use a Wacom-style tablet, then it’s the ideal companion. It drives me nuts to be using my pen and have to leave the tablet so I can perform a complex keyboard shortcut with both hands. It’s definitely faster working with TourBox. It’s like using Manual mode at night When you really know your tools well, you can use them without looking at them. Like a pianist who reads music without looking at her fingers, or like using manual mode on your camera at night when you can’t see what the buttons are. You’re able to focus on creating. Using TourBox, you can keep your eyes on the screen and move sliders without leaving the photo. You can fine-tune the adjustments. Who’s it for? TourBox is marketed to photographers and other creatives, but anyone who uses the same keyboard shortcuts over an over again would benefit. I think CAD users would like it. It’s for people who do more than type on their computers. The best feature The best thing about TourBox is its size. It’s smaller than two Apple mice and it goes next to my keyboard instead of in front of it, or next to my tablet. It also goes in my bag when I work on the go. It pairs perfectly with laptops and desktops. Its weight is enough to keep in place on the desk, but not so much that it’s a burden to carry along, and it doesn’t require any assembly when you arrive. To facilitate taking it along, you can export your presets and import them on another computer, like going from desktop to laptop. Lacking feature The thing I want it to do is very simple, and now that I’ve looked around more, I see that they show it off on their website. But I can’t figure out how to make it work. I want the Tour/HUD button next to the dial to shift to the next preset. Meaning, if I’m in Lightroom and I switch to Photoshop or Premiere Pro, I want to press that button so that my preset for that app is now active so I don’t have to change it in the TourBox Console. Like I say, it does it on the website, but I can’t figure it out. I’ll probably hear from them shortly about how to do it ;) This is a very small gripe. I’m really content with the controller overall. Update: Version 2 of the TourBox Console launched this month, and it allows you to program the Tour button and use it to switch between presets. Strangely, there’s not an option in the application’s preferences to check for updates, automatically or manually. My advice I can recommend this tool, but it’s not for everyone. The first time you use it, you’ll probably be frustrated, and that’s totally normal. Remember the first time you picked up a camera? You learned how to use a camera, and you can definitely learn to use this. The thing is that you have to USE it. You should spend a week forcing yourself to use your TourBox constantly. As you do, you’ll learn to use it blindly very quickly and you’ll learn which shortcuts you need to add to make it work with your style. I’ve enjoyed getting to know it, and I’m still working with it to refine my workflow and make me faster so I can create more and press buttons less. You can see a lot more demonstrations and all the features at the TourBox website, and you’ll find it at your favorite
Moving from a mouse to a pen tablet - Until recently, I used a mouse, keyboard and trackpad to do all of my photo editing and color grading. In a recent training session, my client was using a pen tablet and I began to explore this as another option for me. I contacted colleagues and they all said that at some point in their editing journey, they found themselves migrating to a pen tablet for parts of their editing work. They were all using Photoshop, Lightroom or Capture One. They told me to buy a medium-sized tablet with a good quality pen — all of them specifically recommended Wacom. They said that the transition from mouse to pen tablet will take some time to learn because the hand to screen coordination is so different from using a mouse. The last piece of advice? Give it time and don’t give up. Wacom in Portland, Oregon I’m fortunate enough to have Wacom Headquarters right here in Portland, so I was able to go to the local Wacom Experience Center and try each of their pen tablets firsthand. I started with the basic Intuos tablet in both small and medium sizes. My finding was that the tracking of the pen seemed a little awkward and didn’t always track in a way that was intuitive for me. I also didn’t care for the button placement at the top of the tablet. It felt awkward reaching them when I was using the pen. Next, I tried the Intuos Pro in small and medium sizes. With these, I found the pen tracking much more accurate and intuitive. The pen just felt better in my hand and I liked the button placement on the left or right side, rather than at the top. So I decided on the Wacom Intuos Pro in the medium size, based on my own experience with it. It also helped that there was a sale going on and a bundle option that made it much more affordable. :) Setting up the tablet With help from Wacom’s online videos and some other YouTubers, I began setting up my pen and tablet. I found that a basic pen setup worked best for me initially and I set up the buttons for specific applications like Photoshop and Capture One. It has also been set up for Bluetooth wireless as well as wired mode via USB. My progress so far The process I’ve been going through has been interesting. Using a pen and tablet is really different from using a mouse and I keep remembering the advice of “give it time and don’t give up.” The hand-to-screen coordination is very different and it’s taking both practice and patience to master it. But I’m finding it worthwhile in that it’s changing the way I work with my images. I’m finding I have more control and am subtler in my edits. Initially, I focused on just using the pen and tablet on a white background in Photoshop and learning how to navigate around the screen and using the pen and pen pressure with the brush, and controlling how the brush behaves and just drawing lines. As I’ve gotten better, I’ve expanded to using it for dodging and burning my photos in Photoshop and Capture One. I’m really liking it. I’ve used the tablet in both wired and Bluetooth wireless mode and find that it works great in either one. In the image below, I’m using it in Bluetooth wireless mode. My final thoughts I find that I’m enjoying the transition to a pen tablet. I’m also very happy with how the Wacom performs on my iMac in both Photoshop and Capture One. My next step will be to expand my use of the pen with pen pressure for things like dodging and burning, as well as to see how it works in mask creation and other areas.
