Lots going on during the dog days of summer here at Photofocus.
Photoshop becomes more fun with the Logickeyboard in a Levi Sim review. Julie Powell riffs on fractal prism filters for portraits. Mykii Liu praises Lightroom Classic’s GPU upgrade — FINALLY! Lauri Novak tells us to use what’s on hand as backgrounds, then, Chris Anson shows how to add storage capacity while still accessing your data. Hope your week was fun. Stay cool as you can…
Logickeyboard provides quick shortcuts at your fingertips - It may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you want to improve your workflow, but a new keyboard can be a significant upgrade. Logickeyboard makes keyboards and keyboard covers that can help you work more efficiently by learning the keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop and Lightroom. I’ve been using the ALBA keyboard for Mac for Photoshop CC for several months. They also make keyboards for PCs. Let me show you some features and how it can help you. Shortcuts Keyboard shortcuts are the best way to work faster in Lightroom and Photoshop. If you made me use only a mouse, it’d take so long to get my work done. In all Adobe products, pressing one letter on the keyboard or a combination of keys switches views, activates tools or opens various menu dialogs. Fortunately, many of the shortcuts are the same between products, and other brands, like Skylum, ON1 or Topaz, use the same shortcuts so you can work faster in many apps once you learn the basics. I’ve just counted on my keyboard, and there are at least 65 shortcuts I use every day for Lightroom alone. I requested the Photoshop version of the ALBA keyboard so that I could learn the shortcuts better. Features The ALBA keyboard is a standard-sized keyboard with a 10-key pad and all the usual function buttons for typing and navigating other apps, including a full array of function keys. As a bonus, it’s got two USB 2.0 ports, one on each end that communicates with the computer and provides 100mA of power each. It is a corded keyboard, not wireless. The keys are set at 4.5 degrees and can adjust to 8.5 degrees with legs. The keys travel 4mm and have a scissor-switch mechanism for stability. The keyboard is trimmed in an aluminum finish. There’s also a thin all-aluminum version and black version with backlit keys available. It is a true plug-and-play device. Just plug the USB cord into your computer and start working! On top of each key is an overlay that offers the shortcuts. You’ll note that there are various colors of keys and text combinations printed on the keys on more than one facet. Just take a look at each key and use the shortcuts it describes. For instance, the E key says use command-option-shift-E to create a new stamped layer, which is a new layer that combines all the layers below it. It turns out that I use that shortcut all the time. It also has a picture of the Eraser tool and the Merge Layers command on the front facet. After several months of use, the keys still look brand new. The printing and colors are extremely durable and they also shed skin oils well. It looks like this keyboard will last a very long time. Impressions The feel of typing is good. The keystrokes are solid and satisfying and the layout is completely familiar from other Mac keyboards. I think this is a very fine keyboard that will help you learn the shortcuts for whichever apps you order it for. The only problem I have is that I feel like I make a few more typos with this keyboard than with the standard Mac keyboard. I’m not a great typist, and I don’t have terrific form. I still like using it, and I think you will, too. It’s available for Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Capture One Pro, Premiere and many other video, audio and graphic apps. In fact, you can even order a custom made shortcut keyboard, which is very cool Check out all the options at logickeyboard.com. The ALBA retails for between $120 and $140 depending on which version you choose.
Adobe adds GPU acceleration to Lightroom Classic — FINALLY - It feels like more than decade since Adobe had launched Lightroom (now known as Lightroom Classic), and it feels even longer since we’ve asked for better software support to take advantage of our hardware … well, that’s because it has been 12 years. GPU Acceleration was added back in 2015, but it didn’t provide much of a boost for most people. GPU accelerated editing has finally come to Lightroom Classic. Although I haven’t had a chance to put it to the test, it’s supposed to help out with responsiveness across Lightroom Classic’s rendering, editing panels and so forth. The previous version struggles a bit on higher resolution monitors, so the opening for GPUs to create a great experience is quite large. What does GPU acceleration mean? By using a GPU, known as graphics processing unit, Lightroom can offload some of work that your CPU would normally need to do. The GPU is there to help boost mathematical drawings related to what is shown on your screen, so little tweaks that you do within Lightroom Classic that are manipulating images (like using the clone tool or the healing tool within that) or viewing images would be much quicker. This enhancement could technically improve the overall experience within Lightroom Classic — from how it renders previews to actual edits that you do on the image, to merging a panorama. Suggested graphics cards from Adobe Graphics cards released in the year 2014 or afterwards that meet the minimum system requirements (listed below) should work. 1 GB of VRAM (Video RAM, or RAM on the video adapter). 2 GB of dedicated VRAM is suggested for large, high-resolution (such as 4K and 5K) monitors. OpenGL 3.3. If you’re not sure if your card fully supports OpenGL 3.3, contact the card manufacturer. AMD: For AMD cards, consider using the Radeon R9 series of cards, such as the R9 270 through 290. NVIDIA: For NVIDIA cards, consider using a card from the GeForce GTX 760+ line (760, 770, 780, or later) or from the GeForce GTX 900 series. Intel: For Intel cards, Intel HD Graphics 4400+, 5000+, 510+, P530, P630, Iris Pro Graphics 5200, 6100+, P6300, P580 or later are required. Get those fans running While desktop computers will have no problem working with this performance boost, some laptops may encounter some minor issues relating to heat. Most laptops that have a discrete/dedicated GPU (like a NVIDIA GeForce 650, 750, 850, 1050, 1060, 1070, 1080 or RTX 2050, 2060, 2070, 2080; or AMD Radeon or Vega cards) will take find that their laptop’s fans may spin up and become louder and their batteries may drain faster. This is to be expected and is considered normal behavior. Like the CPU, the GPU also requires more power to work harder and generates heat while it does so, and if that heat can’t be dissipated well enough, the computer will slow down the CPU and/or GPU to prevent damaging itself and to work within its thermal limits. The heat pipes that are used to help cool down the CPU are often shared with the GPU so the system will be quicker to spin up the fans and spin the fans faster than usual to compensate for the rise in temperature. So in general, if you’re working on something pretty CPU and GPU intensive, it isn’t a bad idea to invest in additional cooling options like a cheap laptop cooling pad for you portable pixel pushers, or a laptop stand such as the SVALT Cooling Dock that has active cooling or TwelveSouth BookArc that allows for heat to dissipate faster for those so primarily pixel push at home. Laptops with integrated graphics (Intel HD Graphics, Intel Iris or Iris Pro will not typically hit the same thermal limits that discrete/dedicated graphics cards do, so they won’t get as hot as quickly. Integrated graphics cards also don’t provide as much performance as discrete cards (this is often a very large differentiator when it comes to laptop price), so battery life won’t be impacted as much. Although I personally don’t see Lightroom Classic being one to really cause your laptop to stress out a whole lot, you absolutely will experience the above. In most situations, the laptops will perform to its best ability to keep temperatures regulated and you shouldn’t see a slowdown. Just remember that the extra processing power does comes at the cost of power, so you might notice a bit less battery life than usual. More speed! Lightroom Classic has had previous bumps in performance in years past, and they were extremely welcomed. This specific feature is one that I’ve personally wished for several times (along with better multicore support), so I’m happy to know that it’s available. Hopefully, we’ll have some good hands-on experience soon. Those who are more concerned about bugs and stability or those who are a little more constrained and are in the middle of editing a gig or something may not want to update until the patch has been tested by a bunch of us until the bugs are vetted out. Knowing Adobe, end users wouldn’t need to do anything besides update the software in order to take advantage of this new feature. It should be automatically turned on — and I’m sure Adobe will have a list of compatible GPUs that Lightroom Classic will take advantage of. So if you’re looking for better performance, check it out. Thanks, Adobe … you’re moving back up on my list. Not sure how to update your Adobe Lightroom Classic? Check out this link for instructions, Adobe: How to update Creative Cloud apps UPDATE: We asked Adobe about the compatible GPUs. Here’s what they had to say: “We have a set of cards that we’ve proactively tested the feature on which are enabled by default. These cards are based off of the most commonly used graphics adapters by the photographers working within Lightroom Classic, Lightroom desktop and Adobe Camera Raw. We will continue to test and add additional cards into the list of supported
Adding hard drives to a Drobo 5D3 - Drobo sent me a 5D3 direct-attached storage (DAS) unit for me to explore and play with and I wanted to share with you what I discovered. First, the 5D3 has five 3.5″ drive bays which means I can put five hard drives into it. It also has two Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports for connecting it my Mac, which is very fast. Another feature it has is called BeyondRaid™ technology. This protects your data without you having to do anything. It handles drive failures automatically for you. The 5D3 is for those of us who need a large amount of fast storage for photo and video editing. Set up In setting up and working with the 5DC my favorite thing is that it allows me to decide how many hard drives I put into the unit. Rather than being forced to fill it with five hard drives right off, I can decide how many drives I need based upon my storage requirements and what I can afford. Now it’s important to notes that if transfer speeds are most important to you, you’ll get the best performance by putting in five drives. Also larger capacity, 7200 rpm drives will also improve data transfer performance. Add drives as needed My being on a budget, I decided I’d use the Drobo Capacity Calculator located here, to determine what size and how many hard drives I’d start with. I figured that I’d want at least 4TB drives and so I added those to the Capacity Calculator and it showed me this. So you can see that adding two 4TB drives will give me 3.63TB and that the Protection System is using 3.64TB. This Protection System is what allows one hard drive to fail and I won’t lose my data. Here is more information on how Drobo handles a failed drive. Now I wanted to see the impact of adding additional hard drives and how that would affect the storage space available. With three 4TB hard drives, I get 7.26TB of usable storage space Capacity doubles when the third drive is added to the Drobo. When only two drives are installed, Drobo automatically mirrors them. With four 4TB hard drives, I get 10.89TB of usable storage space Drobo holds the capacity of the equivalent of one drive in this case, for protection against any drive failing. With five 4TB hard drives, I get 14.52TB of usable storage spac3 So this gave me my road map for when I’d most likely need to add another hard drive to the system based upon how much space I would be needing. Size doesn’t matter Drobo’s BeyondRAID™ system allows any size drive to be added. For simplicity’s sake, my examples show the same size drives. As more capacity is needed, smaller drives may be changed out for larger ones. Currently, the Drobo 5D3 can have a volume size of 64 terabytes Speed matters So starting with two 4TB, 7200 rpm hard drives gave me 3.63TB of storage space with the protection and it gave me this performance measured with Black Magic Speed Test. What I learned To start with use your existing 3.5″ SATA hard drives, plug them into the system and the Drobo configures everything for you. Add new hard drives as your needs require it and bank account allows As you add additional hard drives of similar or greater capacity, performance will improve. Note that larger capacity, 7200 rpm hard drives will give you faster data transfer performance and that having all 5 drive bays filled will give you the best performance You can find drives that Drobo recommends for each product here. I hope you found this article helpful and thanks for reading it! [adsanity id=”99552″ align=”aligncenter”/]
Using what you have on hand as backgrounds - Backgrounds are easy to create. Honest. Many times I hear people say they can’t take certain images because they don’t have the tools, equipment or gear they think they need. My reply to them? Be creative, be like MacGyver! Use what you have, and there are almost always ways to figure out how to do something without spending money on equipment and gear. I don’t have backdrops/backgrounds to use What? I don’t even understand that statement. Anything and everything can be used as a backdrop. Look around your office, your kitchen, your garage … pretty much anything is fair game. Here are a few examples, hopefully, they will jump-start your creativity and get you searching for some backdrops of your own. Cloth and clothing I was shooting shells for a friend and knew the color palette I wanted to use, just so happens I have shirts in my closet that are in that palette, yes, shirts. Aluminum foil Aluminum foil is great for creating some shiny bokeh and crinkly, silvery texture. Material Any material — try whatever you have. I happened to have a bunch of quilting material around so grabbed a few of the pieces to see how they looked. Glitter paper makes great backgrounds You may have to go to the craft store to pick this up but it’s very inexpensive and fun to use. A compact disc (CD) CDs are really fun to play with. They create all sorts of rainbow colors and reflections on their own, but then add water and you get magical floating drops and even more colorful reflections. I hope that these few ideas give you the creative push you need. Get creative, have fun with it, play and see what you can come up with. Here is another article on the making it work with what you have, this one has to do with lighting and still life set up.
Using fractal prisms to create otherworldly winter portraits - Some time back, I did this fabulous Winter Wonderland creative portrait session after being inspired by fellow writer and photographer Jason Hahn’s Snow Scene. We wanted to shoot in the studio and not outdoors, but I still wanted that ‘blanketed in soft snow look.’ Behind the scenes Shot in the studio, I used a white backdrop and created ‘snow’ using rolled-up blankets covered with white sheets. Then, I hung mosquito netting in front of the backdrop. I used a three-light setup. A 90cm octobox, an 45cm beauty dish on Bowens Strobes and a Nikon SB910 Speedlight on the floor for a halo effect. A smoke machine and dried twigs created added depth. If I were going to shoot this again, I would try hobbyfill for snow instead of sheets and of course, my trusty Godox AD200 and Godox AD400 lights. Using fractal prism filters I got my fractal prism filter set from Getfractals. By placing them directly in front of the lens and moving them around, I got fantastic results. I really like the Julia and the Penrose filters. They give such glorious results and somewhat have an ‘otherworldly’ feel to them. Granted, they aren’t the most visually appealing for a stand-alone portrait session, but if you are looking to add something looking different, these might just hit the mark. Almost like snowflakes falling With the halo effect of the Speedlight and the beauty dish, I was able to obtain the most ethereal lighting. Almost sci-fi in feel, enhanced by incredible costume, hair and makeup. If you are looking to create something to really stretch and strengthen your creativity and imagination, I recommend stepping completely out of your comfort zone. Fractals might just be the way to go. Credits Credit must go to my wonderful model, Jess (aka Miss Fairy Floss). She endured several hours of hair and makeup to achieve this transformation. Even to the point of wearing opaque white eye contacts, she was totally blind for the whole shoot. Styling and costume by myself, with the most amazing hair and makeup by Emma Marietta. Without my team, I could never create these fantastic creations. If you would like to see some of our other conceptual portrait creations, please feel free to visit my gallery here. Want to read more about these great filters? Check out Erin Holmstead’s complete review. All images were shot with my Sony a7 II camera using either a 28-70mm or 50mm prime lens.
