Summertime and the living is easy. While this week wraps up summer a lot was happening on Photofocus. Here’s a taste…
Julie Powell leads us off with great advice about comparing our work to social media, a guest post from Giulio Scorio shares 10 must know Lightroom tips, managing editor Bryan Esler weighs in with a first look at AI Structure in Luminar 4, then Levi Sim’s Portrait Tips admonishes to move in close, Bob Coates tells why he stores photos in the cloud and a video from Joseph Linaschke’s LinkedIn Learning class on macro photos of flowers in nature rounds out the week. Enjoy!
10 Lightroom tips you MUST know — desktop and mobile, part one - (Editor’s Note: We’d like to welcome this guest post from Giulio Sciorio. Giulio is one of the first professional photographers to move from DSLR’s to mirrorless in 2010 choosing micro four-thirds as his preferred camera system and has worked with both Olympus and Panasonic to inspire thousands of photographers worldwide. Additionally, while Giulio’s vision for the future of photography has earned him praise as “Ahead of the Curve” by Shutterbug Magazine and featured in the Motion Arts Pro Master Series, his work was recognized by SPD as a top 10 cover shot and has been awarded an addy and press award for photography. Learn more about Giulio at smallcamerabigpicture.com.) What started out a simple, desktop-only raw editing app as evolved into a platform to process your files on desktop or mobile. As Adobe Lightroom (formerly known as Lightroom CC) continues to change and more features are being added, it can be hard to keep up. In this two-part article, I share with 10 Lightroom tips you should know. If you want to up your game with social media, service your customers by rapid delivery of finished photos or just have more fun by editing raw files on the go, these 10 tips on Lightroom is for you. Capture, edit, organize and share on smartphone, tablet or desktop With Lightroom you can capture, edit, organize and share your work on any platform. Adobe Lightroom works on mobile, tablet, desktop and the browser so regardless of what platform you have, you can get to work on your RAW files. What’s more, if you’re working with your smartphone, Lightroom for mobile has a built-in camera that can capture raw photos and what’s super cool is that the Lightroom camera can capture RAW HDR images. What’s impressive about RAW HDR capture with Lightroom is that while the camera captures three RAW files, it will contain them in a single DNG file. The result is an expanded dynamic range and better color for mobile photography. While it’s not a replacement for a dedicated camera, in a pinch it’s handy. Automatically backs up to the cloud and on your desktop (if you set it up) Adobe Lightroom automatically backup all photos (and video) to the cloud which makes accessing your work on any device possible. Beyond cloud backup, the one thing Lightroom does that makes the app even more valuable to someone like me is that Lightroom will backup all your cloud-based images on your desktop as well. This way you’re not locked into using cloud storage only. How I use Adobe Creative Cloud backup with local storage When I’m shooting on location and don’t want to bring a laptop and drives, I’ll use an SD card reader with my iPhone or iPad to get the photos into Lightroom. As my photos and videos are backing up to the cloud they are also being downloaded onto a dedicated drive in my office. As an extra measure, I use Backblaze which backs up every file on my Mac to their cloud storage so I have one copy in Creative Cloud, a second copy on my Mac and the third copy in Backblaze cloud storage. This is cost-effective since my Creative Cloud 1TB storage is $10 a month and Backblaze is $50 a year for unlimited space. Setting up a local backup In Lightroom on your desktop, go to Lightroom > Preferences > Local Storage then choose where you want your local files to be stored. If you delete a file from Lightroom before moving it out of your local folder, Lightroom will delete the file from your local storage as well. As a general rule, be sure to move your work out of Lightroom before deleting anything because once Lightroom deletes a file you have 60 days to recover it. Deleted files can be found in the Deleted collection which is found under My Photos. Lightroom can be used with Lightroom Classic as part of a complete workflow Adobe designed Lightroom to work with Lightroom Classic and doing so makes the most of the Lightroom experience. Because I’m always out of the office creating content, I like to use Lightroom with Lightroom Classic by first importing my captured media onto my iPhone or iPad with the SD Card reader. This allows me to make a quick edit and deliver files to my clients fast so they can share on socials and gives me the opportunity to edit the content further if I have the time. When I’m back in my office, I then move the originals from my master catalog in Lightroom Classic. Sometimes if I’m about to hit the road but need to finish some RAW processing, I’ll move RAW files from Adobe Lightroom Classic to Lightroom. Think of Lightroom Classic and Lightroom as parts of a complete workflow, not as separate applications. Apple Pencil support Before Lightroom came to iPad, I must have used my Apple Pencil twice which made me feel kinda bad about spending $100 on a stylus but now I use the Apple Pencil frequently. Apple Pencil support in Lightroom makes localized adjustments a breeze since, with Pencil, you’re able to paint in subtle adjustments where you want them. Because adjustments sync with your desktop copy of Lightroom, when working in my office, I move between working at my desk, then moving to a more comfortable location in my home to do the localized retouching work. If you are rocking a Microsoft Surface Pro, Adobe Lightroom supports the Surface Pen too. Shavasana! Share and collaborate with galleries With Lightroom, you can share your work with clients in galleries that you’re collaborating with. If you’re shooting professionally, shared galleries in Lightroom is a big deal that should not be overlooked. Some jobs require me to shoot and deliver from multiple locations with tight deadlines and it’s the shared galleries that allow this to happen in a way that looks professional and my clients love it. Earlier this year, I was commissioned to
First look: AI Structure in Luminar 4 - Skylum has announced yet another new feature for its upcoming Luminar 4 software — AI Structure. I was lucky enough to get an early look at the new tool that’s coming to the platform with the Luminar 4 release this fall. Whether it be landscapes, people or even food shots, I was curious as to how AI Structure would enhance my images. How does it work, and is it something that can be useful to your everyday workflow? How AI Structure works Skylum uses content-aware algorithms to apply Structure to only the parts of a photograph that need it. It doesn’t negatively impact certain objects, like faces and buildings. The tool boosts hidden details and improves local contrast, which help those fine details come out. Landscapes I photograph a lot of landscapes for fun during my time off, and to practice new techniques. Being in Michigan provides me several opportunities to do so, whether it’s golden hour at the lake or exploring our many nature trails. I tend to not over-process my landscape images, so they look as natural as possible. Still, it’s nice to have the option to add some additional detail to my images, which is when AI Structure can be handy. It also did a great job at enhancing this photograph that I took a couple of years ago in Ireland. While Structure was added to most of the house, there were some parts that it didn’t touch, which created a more life-like scene. I also tried out giving one of my landscapes some negative structure, to better blur the area surrounding the lighthouse. This was really effective for this use case, as it allowed me to further place an emphasis on the red lighthouse. Portraits and events While I don’t photograph a ton of studio portraits, I do photograph people at events quite a bit. I was interested to see how AI Structure would work on these photos, as well as some environmental portraits I had in my archives. You can see in the image above, that the woman’s back part of her hair was brought back into view. AI Structure really shined on this photograph, boosting the fine detail in the hair, taken at an outdoor movie event for downtown Grand Rapids Inc. For some of my event work — specifically that inside in a darker setting — I found that giving AI Structure a negative value is most effective. This reduced some of the details around the main subject, letting the person “pop” more than before. Below, the effect is subtle, but it smooths out the podium a bit. Food and drink I was super curious to see how AI Structure would work with some of my food photography. I’ve recently been photographing more food for a local magazine, and I’m always interested in how to set myself apart from other food photographers in my area. Below are some examples showing how I applied AI Structure on some of my food photographs, with the goal to bring out some of the finer details in the shots. I quickly found that, with food, AI Structure was only realistic up to an amount of 50. Going above 50 meant that the photograph got somewhat unrealistic because of its edginess. For the most part, AI Structure boosted the details where I wanted them enhanced — except for one image specifically. Below you’ll see a plate of French toast. While it did boost the details on the plate, it also boosted the black and white floor, creating a competing element with the plate of food. This is when being able to brush out the effect really comes in handy. Below you can see AI Structure at amounts of 25, 50 and 100. Compare the differences. For me — especially with food — I was more excited to see what a negative value on AI Structure would do. I worked with this photo, taken at a local coffee shop, to see if I could make the coffee cup stand out more by blurring the elements around it with AI Structure. You can see that giving AI Structure a negative amount softens the background slightly, where it’s still realistic. It helps to pop the main subject — in this case, the coffee cup. The results are subtle — you see the most obvious effect in the reflection on the tabletop. When I apply a Boost of 50 to the image though, that’s when things get a bit … well, magical, bringing that softer look to the coffee cup as well. Bumping that to a Boost of 100 definitely increases this effect. While I definitely would use negative values of AI Structure for this, I’d probably stay away from the Boost slider when it comes to food. Day-to-day use While I’ve never been one to use structure controls other than adding a bit of Clarity to my images, I can definitely see where AI Structure would help my images take a step up. Being able to mask out certain elements from AI Structure with the brush tool is very handy, and works just like Luminar’s other filters. The content-aware technologies that Skylum has developed are pretty exciting, and I can’t wait to see how AI Sky Replacement and AI Structure will enhance my images in Luminar 4. You can pre-order your copy of Luminar 4 today on skylum.com.
Portrait Tips: Get close for impactful character portraits - Whenever you make a portrait, you should say to yourself, “Self, I like this picture because ____.” Then, you should use the right tools to help the picture emphasize the things you like. When I made this portrait, I was making a whole series of photos for the beekeepers. I knew I wanted the kind of pictures that would look great in advertising and editorial which meant I needed to get close with a wide lens to create a strong sense of foreshortening. With the bees close to the camera, they appear much larger than they actually are. The wide lens also gives a strong sense of place by including a lot of the surrounding environment. The simple green, blue and yellow colors help make it strong, too. Of course, I still wanted the photo to be dramatic and flattering. I suggested we make pictures at the end of the day so that the light would be pouring in from the side. My subject is facing toward the sun, which is a very easy instruction to follow (especially when you’re holding a hundred bees in your hands). I used Nikon’s marvelous 14-24mm f/2.8 lens on a full-frame D800. I moved around until I had the hives and the mountains framing the beekeeper and I made the shot. It’s one of my favorites from that day. Yes, I ended up getting stung on my hand (which was swollen for 2 weeks), but I’d do it all again to have the experience and make the portraits. Portrait Tips come out each week, and you can see them all right here.
Photographing macro flowers in a natural setting - In this video, Joseph Linaschke shows us best practices for capturing macro flower photographs in a natural setting. For more LinkedIn Learning videos about photography, click here. When you start shooting macro, one of the first things that’ll come to mind is shooting flowers. Flowers are beautiful, they’re colorful, they’re pretty much everywhere and they have the added benefit that your friends and family are going to enjoy looking at nice pictures of them. So let’s talk about how to make great pictures of flowers. Here I have this lovely red and yellow flower that I really wish I knew what it was called, but I don’t. But it’s still lovely, and I want to take some nice pictures of it. Now we are going to start really simple and obvious. I’m just going to shoot pretty much straight down on it. Now let’s talk about the gear for a moment. Today I am shooting with a Canon 5D, and I’ve got on here a 100mm macro lens. I’m going to go ahead and take a picture of this just straight down. I’m in Aperture Priority Mode. And I’ve got a medium-ish setting on the aperture; let’s actually go to about f/8 on there. That should give me not too shallow of a depth of field, but not a whole lot in focus either. And let’s see what our first shot looks like. This video is from Photography 101: Shooting Macros and Close-Ups by Joseph “PhotoJoseph” Linaschke So straight down, I’m going to focus right on the tip there. Beautiful. So that shot, colorful, nice perspective, a little slow on the shutter speed though. At f/8 I was only getting a 1/20s. That’s pretty hard to hand hold. So lemme go ahead and take the ISO up a little bit to about 640 and I’m going to drop the aperture, open it up a little bit to 5.6. Let’s try again. Much better. Now we’re looking at about a hundredth of a second so that’s good hand holdable. And the picture’s beautiful. You can see on here that the tip of the stamen are in focus, the deep part of the flower is not, and some of the tips of the leaves are in focus as well. Looks pretty good. Now let’s try from a different angle. Now this is a really important part about shooting flowers or any kind of photography really. Change your angle, change your perspective, everybody’s used to seeing a flower from this angle. This is how they see it when they walk by, but not everybody gets down on the ground. So let’s go down and see what it looks like from down here. Beautiful, totally different shot down here. Again I’m in 5.6, this time I’m at 1/60s and I think it’s a lovely shot. Now let’s change the aperture again and get a little bit more depth of field. I’m going to take it up to, say up to f/14. Now I’m also going to have to take the ISO up to do this, because if I don’t, I’m going to have too of a slow shutter speed to hand hold it. So let’s take the ISO all the way up to about 3200. That might be a little bit too high for your camera — it just depends on what you’ve got. Some cameras do high ISO really, really well and you won’t even notice that you’re at such a high ISO. So, let’s see what this looks like. Beautiful. As you can see here, we have a lot more in focus. So having that smaller aperture has allowed me to keep more of the shot in focus. So, that’s what we’ve got here. Now this is relatively easy. As you can see here we have a nice big flower. We don’t have to get super close to it. And there’s no wind on it. There’s no direct sun or anything like that. But, as we move around the garden, you’re going to find other challenges to face. You’re going to find things like direct sunlight, which makes harsh shadows. You’ll find the wind knocking your flowers around. And none of those things are conducive to good photography. So, let’s see how we can overcome those challenges in our own backyard. Lead photo by Abigail Faith on Unsplash
Why I finally chose to backup my photos to the cloud - I tend to be a slow adopter of new technology. And, I fought the possibility of having a cloud backup, especially to backup photos from my computer for the longest time. I felt the upload to the cloud would be too tedious and take too much time for the amount of data that I have. Well, I gotta tell you things have changed. Backblaze to the rescue I was first introduced to Backblaze on Photofocus. But that is not why I made the decision to subscribe to the service. Backblaze has a free 15-day trial. By availing myself of the trial I learned that technology has made the process almost invisible. Once you are signed in the download begins … and it is invisible to the user. The upload happens in the background and there’s no need to change any of your work habits. If you turn off your computer the upload picks up right where it left off. It can’t be more simple than that. Need to use the backup? Should you need to recover files due to a loss Backblaze makes it easy to reacquire your files. If it is just a few files you can download them. If it were a major loss your internet download speed would take a long, long time. In that case, Back Blaze will load your files onto a flash drive or a USB drive and send it via FedEx. You get your money refunded when you return the drive. Is backing up photos to the cloud the final solution? In an ideal world, your backup strategy should be based on 3-2-1. Three copies of your data. Your original and at least two other copies with one of those needing to be off-site. Using Backblaze can be a perfect part of your strategy for protecting your files. I keep my hard drive copies in a fireproof safe which is very close to off-site. Adding cloud storage makes me feel even more secure. The price Some of the best news of all and another reason I signed up. The price is $70 per year per computer for unlimited data. Unlimited data. Did I mention unlimited data? You can also pay $7 a month if that works better for you, which still works out to only $84 a year. There is a business NAS upload service as well. Be aware Backblaze does not backup your operating system or your application files. This means you cannot depend upon the service to get you totally back up and running in case of a complete failure. For that, you need to make sure you also save a clone of your hard drive. A clone drive is different from a backup in that it is a bootable hard drive. If you save a clone you don’t have to track down and reload all of your system and application files. You don’t have to rework or reload your preferences and software to which you no longer have access. If your OS drive — aka the ‘C’ drive on a PC — takes a dump you can replace that drive on your computer. Then copy your clone drive back into the newly installed blank hard drive. You’ll be back to work in a relatively short period of time. I’ll talk more about clone drives and the process for their creation in another post. Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
Stop comparing your photography to others - Stop comparing yourself. It’s hard not to compare our work with everyone else’s. We see it every day on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds. We can’t seem to ignore it or look away. The thing is, it’s not really helping you or moving you forward. I’m not good enough Comparing ourselves and our work to others only contributes to our own insecurities, you know we all have them. Questioning everything and making excuses for ourselves creeps in our minds and our work. We don’t live in an amazing place with epic landscapes, we can’t travel to all the good locations, and we don’t have the right gear or equipment. We haven’t learned how to create luminosity masks, we don’t have the right software and so on. Same old, same old Why do you want to create art that is already out there? There are billions of images of famous locations, sunrises and sunsets, at what point do they become boring? All the same? What makes them different? Why are they original or unique? In this day and age, it has become difficult to create unique images. So what do you have to do in order to do that? Be you. Learn from, don’t compare There are some good things that can come from looking at others’ work, but you have to be deliberate about who you follow and what you want to get from that person’s work. We can learn how to do something new, we can get ideas for our own work, and we can learn of locations that maybe we can travel to someday. If we can’t travel we can be inspired by those who do instead of being jealous and telling ourselves we’ll never be able to do that so we’ll never get the epic images. We can even be inspired to find the beauty in our own backyards. Be you Create your work, your way. Make images that tell the story of what you saw, how you felt and what moved you to create that particular image. Sure, it’s a pretty scene but what about that scene compelled you to click the shutter, compose it a certain way, post-process it the way you did? Start asking yourself these questions when you’re out with your camera. Why am I taking this image? Is this doing anything for me? What is it that I’m seeing that is speaking to me? How can I make it mine and different than the other images I’ve seen of the same area? Step back Take a step back for a few days, a week, a month. Reflect on why you are a photographer. Are you creating images strictly for enjoyment? Is it therapy for you? Sometimes it’s just the getting out and doing, not the final images that are our reason for picking up the camera. Are you creating a business, trying to sell artwork or teaching and mentoring others? All of these reasons go into the images you are creating. These are all part of your why — your story and what makes the photos uniquely yours. Be careful when comparing yourself, I’d say don’t do it at all but it’s human nature. So just be aware of it when you are doing it. Go easy on yourself, we are all individuals and what works for some doesn’t work for all. Go out, create your art for you, by you, of you. Do your best to put yourself into your work.
