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Lightroom 4 – Lightening the Background
Have you ever shot a portrait on a white background that wasnt pure white and wanted to brighten it up? In this video, I show you the tips and tricks you need to get those results pretty easily but doing a few very specific things with adjustment brushes. This video is for intermediate and advanced Lightroom users, but don’t be shy if you’re a beginner – there’s plenty of nuggets for you to pick up from this.
Please subscribe and leave your questions and comments below.
Adobe Lightroom 4 Develop Module
I had a chance to spend a little time in the Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta and wow am I impressed with the new Develop Module functions. Right off the bat, you can see how more refined the Develop Module tools are. The adjustments are more subtle, yet robust. Gone is the super-harshness of mid-tone blow-up with the clarity tool and now with individual adjustments for Highlights, Shadows, White Point and Black Point, we have a lot more flexibility to get our images just right.
Also, there are now some great improvements to the adjustment brush module. It now mirrors the Develop module with the same adjustments and functionality and more! You now can locally make White Balance adjustments to specific portions of the frame – wow! There are noise reduction and moire adjustments as well for those of you who use that stuff.
Photography Tutorial – How to take Ice Hockey Photos
Ice hockey is one of the hardest sports in my mind to try and photography. It was my first passion as a photographer and though many photographers tried to steer me clear of shooting it, I stuck with it and felt like I got as close to mastering it as possible.
There are a lot of factors you need to take into consideration when you are shooting ice hockey. You have to think about the basics like what should my ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture be but than you also have to think about what will make for a good image. That is where a lot of people get lost when it comes to sports photography. You see a lot of images of players standing around because action shots tend to be more difficult.
Lightroom Workflow Basics – Keyboard Shortcuts
A lot of you guys are looking for ways to improve and streamline your workflow in Lightroom. Whether it be finding a killer tip or trick or learning some of Lightroom’s hidden nuggets – Lightroom is very robust and powerful and full of hidden nuggets.
In this video, I discuss the advantages to using keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom to enhance your workflow. In my day-to-day computer usage, I try to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts whenever possible and Lightroom is no exception. There are keyboard shortcuts and keyboard combinations that will save you lots of time and allow you to stay focused on your task without having to spend extra time navigating menus.
Intro to Off-Camera Flash Photography – Polaroid Photo Shoot
In this video, I mix things up a bit and combine new and old technology. This is a quick self-portrait photo shoot using a 40+ year-old Polaroid camera while syncing 2 modern speedlights.
I will show you guys how to simply connect a modern flash to a vintage camera via the PC sync port. I will also trigger a second flash via optical remote sync to add a little backlight or rim light.
This is a very simple lighting technique and easy to set up. The cool thing is that we’re using a vintage film camera with modern flashes and doing everything manually.
If you have any questions of comments, please leave them below or email adamlernerphoto@gmail.com
Super Secret Project Focusing Mode Explained
How many of you have trouble understanding which focusing modes to use and when? There a few different modes in our cameras that do need a little explanation to fully understand what they are doing. Some are simple but others when you are just starting out make less sense.
Let’s start out with the basics, in many of todays newer cameras like the Nikon D3100 and D7000 you will see modes like AF-A, AF-S and AF-C. AF-A stands for AF auto, which means the camera is going to chose the focusing mode based on what it thinks is best. AF-S stands for Single Focus, meaning when you press the shutter button half way down as long as your finger stays down on the button your focus will not change. AF-C stands for autofocus continuous, as long as your finger is pressed half way down it is gong to continue to focus on what ever subject is in the focusing square.
CLICK MORE to get detailed info on each focus setting (more…)
Digital Photography Lightroom Editing Tips
Here we are again editing another user submitted RAW file, remember that neither Greg nor I took this picture and it was submitted by a reader of the web site.
This weeks image was captured with the Nikon D3000 and Nikon 55-300 VR Lens. It is a great capture of a blade of grass with water on it. I was really surprised to see how sharp the focus was on the blade of grass and water.
When I was editing it I took the approach of making it pop as much as possible but making it seem a little darker. If you remember the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids a lot of the movie is filmed in the grass and it just seemed darker when you were on that level. That is why my image looks darker, i figured if your on the level of the grass its probably in the shade and should take on a darker quality.
Greg decided to try to very different edits this week, one a little warmer and the other a little colder. This excursive week in and week out shows you different ways that images can be edited, Always remember that photography does not stop when you press the shutter button, it continues into your post processing.
If you would like to submit a RAW file for us to edit please e mail FroKnowsPhoto@gmail.com
Jared’s Edit
Greg’s Edit #1
Greg’s Edit #2
Lightroom Catalogs
As you take more and more pictures and your lightroom catalog starts to fill up with thousands of images what should you do?
What Greg and I do is create multiple catalogs to house different years of images. For example I have a catalog that covers just 2008. When I need to go back and find images from there I just switch catalogs in Lightroom. In a matter of seconds you are back to work with all of your old collections and photos that are in that catalog.
You can continue the conversation over at the forum http://froknowsphoto.com/froknows/ If you have any questions please post them there and Greg will answer them
