O'Reilly Digital Media

Over on O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony blog, 3D audio developer Keith Weiner describes what happened when select Second Life players got hold of his positional audio technology: They used it to perform live music for each other.

I’ve been involved in developing this technology for almost 10 years. I know intimately its architecture and components. I worked through the process of integrating it into Second Life. But on that virtual beach in this online virtual world, I forgot all this.

Because of the guitar.

We often hear that the future of music is in touring, as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sell CDs. It will be interesting to see if artists are able to support themselves through virtual tours. Making online concerts and open-mic sessions more immersive is a fascinating first step.

(Image Copyright 2007, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Grant Richter of modular synthesizer manufacturer Wiard has called for the module-buying public to become less conservative about the kind of front panel material used. “If the public could change their perception of how a synthesizer module must be constructed, we could have a renaisance unlike anything in the past. The single most expensive component in a synthesizer is the aluminum faceplate. There is only one source for turnkey faceplates in the US and they are obscenely expensive. I pay $70 each for 1200 series faceplates.”

Some folks like the blinkenlights, some like the telephone switchboard effect, and a lot of people are still caught in the moment of seeing their first Moog modular, with the wood and metal and knobs and sounds: even nerds could be hippies. Now of course many module purchasers or DIY makers are augmenting existing rigs, they need durability and design consistency in order to maintain their resale value, which may become an consideration as vintage moves into antique.

But for the rest of us, Grant is entirely right, but it is more than just the cost, it is also the time delay and logistics and also the lack of flexibility that causes users problems. Why is it that we currently have the several dozen different form factors for synthesizer modules?

I think there is another way to approach the issue that solves several other problems, especially for the new and DIY maker: adopt A4 (the paper size used outside North America and the Philippines) as the standard size for module front panels. 210 x 297 millimeters or 8.27 x 11.69 inches.

The first question that probably will pop up is Rick are you insane? A4 is about the same size as US letter paper, surely that is way too big? Plus it isn’t an even multiple of any of the current standard sizes…what gives?

Well, lets start off by redefining the problem. DIY people need to buy the expensive panels because they don’t have the skills or tools to cut and make decent panels themselves. But buying in a good-looking panel has a hidden cost: it makes it difficult to evolve and experiment with the module, in particular with anything that requires new knobs, lights or jacks: so new functionality has to go into a new module, which then needs a new panel. Plus if spend your cash on panels, you don’t have a brass razoo for other modules: there is a substitution cost. So Grant is right that the cost of panels is a disincentive to purchasing panels, but it is also a disincentive to incrementally evolving them.

(Update) And high panel costs are a disincentive to make larger panels and more integrated modules, too. It promotes atomism to bring down the price of single modules, but this increases the total cost to users because they have to get more modules for a given purpose. Think of mult modules: the price of these is insane: they have no PCB or circuitry to speak of….a larger panel size with space to space would provide them a free (or at least pre-paid) home.

So how would A4 panels help this? Well, for a start, lets get a view of what I am proposing in more detail, There is some history of larger size panels: the Roland 700 modular had 11″ panels, Serge systems came on 7″ by 11″ panels, and many Buchla modules are quite large. More to the point, the Oberheim SEM modules were 10″ wide.

Larger panels have several advantages. First, trivially, you can fit more into them. You can make different kinds of modules, and pre-patch them, to further save on production cost. Of course, some things need more space: drum machines, equalizers, and so on. I think there is room for a form factor larger than the current modules, but smaller than the 19″ rack size; if the size is accompanied with cost savings and construction benefits.

What started me on this was figuring out the design idea behind the ETI International 4600 synthesizer panel. It is a large wide panel, and I ultimately figured out that it was the same size as four A4 sheets side by side. (Perhaps the transfer for the panel was made on an A1 sheet cut lengthwise?) It is a pretty convenient size, and I have followed the 4600 design in adopting a 5×5 grid. Have one A4 module, and you have about the size of an Oberheim SEM; put two together, next to each other, and you have about the size of a VCS-3, and something that can fit into a 19″ rack with a couple of inches to spare; put three of them together and you have Minimoog width (but longer height); put four together and you have the size of the ETI 4600 or the never released EMS VCS-4, which will match a modern 4 or 5 octave keyboard controller. The Memorymoog is a pretty good example of a synth made from four sections wide enough for five knobs each (the middle two being continuous, and only four rows.)

So why A4? Well, the answer comes down to three things: product availability, development flexibility, and cost. Going to my local art supplies store today, I was struck by the number of products available ready cut as A4: perspex sheets, foam board, plastic, laser transparencies, and all kinds of paper in different finishes. Adopting A4 as the form factor for our DIY modules makes a huge range of possible panel solutions available and inspectable close to hand, and pre-cut.

Of course, we still need to make the holes, but we get a great benefit: because of the lower cost we can be more caviillier about adjusting the layout. We can start with a sparsely populated panel and add more holes as they are needed. Because we are using standard print sizes, we can just print off a new front panel face to suit the new components. When we are finally satisfied that no more changes are needed, then perhaps we could invest in an aluminium front panel, but one reason that metal panels are popular is because of long-term durability (they don’t get ragged) but adopting A4 gives another solution to the problem: it makes renovation easier because making a new set of panels before selling becomes cheaper and more trivial.

Now, of course, you may have access to a nice set of anodized aluminium sheets, along with cutters and drills and so on. But for the rest of us, I think this idea is worth thinking about, because it reduces the complexity of construction. You don’t need to trim anything, you can upgrade and trial designs, you can spend your money on components rather than panels: indeed, because the larger panel size may encourage you to incrementally upgrade modules, it may save you on the cost of sockets too. For example, rather than one small panel each for a VCO, CGS waveshaper, and synced slave VCO, which you habitually use together, you may instead put them all into a single panel, as a super VCO, and save sockets. Or you may put all your VCFs into a single panel with a pig fat switch to select between them.

Here’s the kind of thing I am thinking about: imagine a case wide enough to fit four A4 panels, with top and bottom wooden rails with velcro strips to hold the panels for easy removal, and braces for panel edges so they don’t buckle, if they are made from material that can snap or buckle. A panel might be made from, A4 foamboard covered with A4 vinyl and with an A4 decal applied and acriillc coated. Or it could be clear perspex with an undersheet with the label printed. Initially, it could just be plain printed paper glued to cardboard, even! The equipment cost would be a quarter inch leather punch for the knobs and jacks, and perhaps a 1/4 inch punch for smaller components. No fancy tooling, no precision cutting or bending. You would get something a little like the ETI 4600: this picture shows the kind of size: in particular the oscillators at the far left form five rows of five knobs which is exactly the kind of form factor for one panel.

Via Tim O’Reilly’s blog I come across San Francisco Chronicle publisher Phil Bronstein, predicting layoffs and saying the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it… And if any other paper says they do, they’re lying.”

Meanwhile, according to a Zogby Poll I find in the Financial Times, “Newspaper editors are overwhelmingly optimistic about their businesses, despite uncertainty about future business models, according to a new global poll of newsroom attitudes to the rapidly changing industry.”

Which is it? Both, I’d say - it depends on whether you’re an “er” or an “ee”.

YouTube has just launched its new TestTube site, which allows you to test out beta features that haven’t been fully deployed. One of these new features is “Replace Audio”, allowing you to sub out the audio track of your YouTube video with a licensed track.

Here’s how to do it:

As the newest addition to the Inside Aperture team, one of my primary focuses will be sharing ideas about what to do with your images once you have imported them into Aperture. I’ll look at a photo workflow that revolves around getting images out of Aperture and into your other projects on your Mac. From my experience, working with Aperture users on a daily basis, most don’t realize the the types of easy workflows that this integration makes possible.

For example, Aperture’s Web Journal tool is great for laying out a website with no knowledge of HTML or CSS. But consider the photographer who is traveling abroad on a shoot and wants the ability to post sample images and entries to a blog each day. For this, iWeb really shines. To see how, first be sure you’ve run Software Update and updated both Aperture and all the iLife apps to their most recent versions. Also, if you want one-click publishing capabilities, I recommend purchasing a .Mac membership - otherwise you’ll need to deal with uploading your site to the server that your web host provides.

Now launch iWeb and create a new page based on one of the Blog themes. Add a new entry and click the Media button to bring up the iLife Media Browser. You’ll see that your entire Aperture library - including Projects and Albums - is available for drag-and-drop into iWeb. Drop an image onto the placeholder, enter your post in the text box (replacing the default text), and click Publish. That’s it… iWeb takes care of building the page and managing the back-end engine that organizes your entries. After the page is published you can visit the site. You’ll also see that iWeb builds a homepage for the blog with recent entries and an individual page for each entry. It also builds an archive page for older posts.

This Aperture/iWeb integration is made possible by the fact that Aperture generates high-quality JPEG previews of your images that are available through the iLife/iWork Media Browser and through drag-and-drop portability. You don’t even have to be running Aperture at the time. As Aperture continues to mature and competition increases from Lightroom and other third-party apps, this integration will continue to be a major benefit of Aperture.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more ideas on integrating Aperture with iLife and iWork. I’ll also look at getting images into Final Cut Studio for more advanced slideshows and DVD authoring.

Since the new CS3 software collection was announced a few days ago and the smooching at the Photoshop Love Fest (Photoshop World Conference & Expo) will commence in a few more days, I thought this might be the appropriate time to take a look at the Lightroom vs. Bridge CS3 debate.

If I sound a little cynical or even slightly bitter in this article, sorry about that, it must be because I was (once again) not invited to participate in the big annual Photoshop Love Fest. Maybe someone will get the hint and invite me next year.

http://www.photoshopworld.com/

Anyway on to the big question of the day. Is there any specific advantage for a photographer to use either/or or both Bridge CS3 and Lightroom? The standard answers tend to be one of the following.

1. Bridge is meant for photographers and graphic artists who use other Adobe graphics applications in addition to Photoshop, and need to share and combine files from all the applications they use. (Adobe CS3 applications)

2. Lightroom is meant for photographers who shoot large quantities of predominantly RAW format photographic images, and wish to import, sort, edit and output those images in one smooth seamless series of non-destructive actions.

To complicate matters Bridge (and Adobe Camera Raw) is included with Photoshop and very few photographers (who shoot large quantities of RAW images) are even going to consider not buying Photoshop. Not buying Photoshop is sort of like not buying a lens shade (for most pro level photographers it would be out of the question).

But even Adobe seems to still be apprehensive about making a definitive statement about where Lightroom really stands in their product lineup. When Adobe recently attached the Photoshop name to Lightroom, I think a lot of us assumed that this meant that Lightroom would somehow be shoehorned into the CS3 group of products, but that assumption turned out to be either false or premature.

There is now a CS3 product group for graphics design professionals, website design professionals, media production professionals, and a monster package (for dentists, doctors and lawyers?) but nothing specifically aimed at photographers.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/

The Adobe Photoshop Family page (on the Adobe website) now features the new Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended packages in a box by themselves, with Photoshop Lightroom on the same level but outside the box as a product on it’s own. Photoshop Elements is so small on the page I did not see it until I had looked at the page a second time.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/

You were probably hoping that I would provide some sort of answer in this blog posting, but instead all I have done is thrown out more questions. I will tell you this though, I personally will never give up using Photoshop, no matter how powerful Lightroom becomes and I do on occasion use the Bridge and ACR functions in Photoshop. Why not?

One of the most time-saving features of Lightroom is Presets. Presets are very much like Macros or Actions in Photoshop. Lightroom lets you create two different kinds of Presets: Develop Presets and Metadata Presets. I’ll do an upcoming blog about the value of Metadata Presets. This Blog is about Develop Presets. Much like a Photoshop Action, Develop Presets let you record any series of adjustments that you’ve done on a given image as a Preset that can then be applied to any other image(s) with a single click.

When you click a Preset, it’s effect is added to that of any adjustments or Develop Presets you’ve already applied to that image (unless one of the Adjustments in that Preset happens to be As Shot, which simply removes all the Adjustments that have been made to that file to date). When you’re in the Develop Module, you can preview the effect of any Preset in the list simply by placing your cursor above it. The Preview will change as fast as you drag your cursor over the Preset names.

Ruth Knoll is presenting a Soup2Nuts session on Adobe Lightroom at next week’s Photoshop World. Ruth has put together a fairly amazing group of gurus for this four-hour session, including a hands-on workshop conducted Adobe Evangelist and Lightroom Iceland Adventurer, George Jardine (whose image of an Icelandic beauty will grace the Lightroom Adventure book cover). Also scheduled to be on hand will be Andrew Rodney, Thomas Knoll, Jeff Schewe, and Katrin Eismann, to name a few. (Is it too late to change my Tuesday flight to Boston to a red-eye?) This year’s Soup2Nuts is also honoring digital guru Bruce Fraser; the proceeds from this event will go to a charity chosen by Angela Fraser in her husband’s memory. The session takes place from 1:00-5:00 on Pre-Con day (Tuesday, April 3) at the show. Check out the Photoshop World site for info on how to register.

Adobe’s Pro Photo Evangelist, aka “Mr Lightroom,” George Jardine’s photo graces the cover of Adobe Lightroom Adventure by Mikkel Aaland, coming soon from O’Reilly. Mikkel tells a great story of how this cover came to be.

From an interview by Barbara Diamonstein with Gary Winogrand:

BD: I’ve often wondered how a photographer who takes tens of thousands of photographs — and by now it may even be hundreds of thousands of photographs — keeps track of the material. How do you know what you have, and how do you find it?

GW: Badly. That’s all I can say. There’ve been times it’s been just impossible to find a negative or whatever. But I’m basically just a one man operation, and so things get messed up. I don’t have a filing system that’s worth very much.

BD: But don’t you think that’s important to your work?

GW: I’m sure it is, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s hopeless. I’ve given up. You just go through a certain kind of drudgery every time you have to look for something. I’ve got certain things grouped by now, but there’s a drudgery in finding them. There’s always stuff missing.

What If…

His color work is not as well known. The cover from his book, 1964; published long after his death.

I have always been a fan of the late, great Mr. Winogrand, and after seeing this 1982 Bill Moyers Video Clip, I thought about his work, and wondered what digital photography and a program like Aperture would have done for his work process. Imagine an organized and keyworded archive? Not that his process wasn’t working for him in most other ways however.

In fact, he likely wouldn’t have wanted to spend time in front of the computer. Colleagues, students and friends talked about him as an obsessive picture-taking machine. And the thrice married (with two children) Winogrand confirms:

“I don’t lay myself down on the couch to figure out why I’m a photographer and not this or that. Whatever it is, I can’t seem to do enough of it. It’s a pleasure. What I found out, over photographing a long time - the more I do, the more I do. ” said Winogrand.

Shoot, Shoot, Shoot

If you want to become a better photographer: shoot, shoot, shoot. There is no substitute.

Gary Winogrand was all about the shooting. When he died of cancer at the age of just 56, he left behind 2500 undeveloped rolls of 36-exposure 35mm film (mostly Tri-X), 6,500 rolls of developed, but not contact-printed film and another 300 apparently untouched, unedited contact sheets. That’s a staggering number of images shot.

You can only imagine how a power shooter like Winogrand could have embraced the digital tools of today, and Aperture’s processing and archiving possibilities. But Winogrand almost never developed his film immediately. He was in no rush to edit his film, and he makes a strong case for it. He said he deliberately waited a year or two in order to lose the memory of the take.

“If I was in a good mood when I was shooting one day, then developed the film right away,” he told a class, “I might choose a picture because I remember how good I felt when I took it.” “Better to let the film ‘age,’ the better to grade slides or contact sheets objectively”. (From a Frank Van Riper Piece, see below)

Gary Winogrand’s Leica M4, definitely “used”.

More pearls from the Van Riper piece…

“Again we come to technique. Photographer and editor Mason Resnick recalls taking a workshop with Winogrand in 1976, ten years before the photographer died, and marveling at how Winogrand worked. He shot prolifically, Resnick recalled, often shooting an entire roll of film in the space of only one block, never breaking stride. And he was fearless, often standing in front of people to make their picture, yet always smiling or nodding at them, making contact, however brief, with his subjects - who amazingly, never seemed annoyed.

[An object lesson to all street shooters: engagement with a subject is always - always - better than, in effect, taking something without permission. Winogrand was a master at gaining this subtle, yet all-important, access.]

I’ll leave my contemplation of what a photographer like Winogrand who never lived to see the paradigm shift to digital would have done with it, with this last powerful idea to think about when you’re on your next shoot.

“I learned a long time ago to trust my instincts. You see? When I’m photographing, I wanna — if I’m at the viewfinder and I know that picture, why take it? I’ll do something to change it, which is often the reason why I may tilt the camera or fool around in various ways.”

“You don’t learn anything from repeating what you know, in affect, so I keep trying to make (the process) uncertain. The nature of the photographic process - it is about failure. Most everything I do doesn’t quite make it. The failures can be intelligent; nothing ventured nothing gained. Hopefully you’re risking failing every time you make a frame.”

Aside from this video, much of the information on Winogrand posted here is from a great article by Frank Van Riper.

The video and the transcript from the piece can be seen @ 2point8, Michael David Murray’s blog on Street Photography.

Click here, for a more comprehensive look at the life and work of Gary Winogrand.

I’ve been happily downloading different versions of Lightroom from the Adobe site for the last year and a half. But then last week a friend told me he had actually purchased the software and IT CAME IN A BOX!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of meeting the blogger known as Bagelturf. Bagelturf, known more formaly as Steve Weller, runs a blog and for the past year or so has been posting some pretty interesting articles and tips related to Aperture. The site, simply titled, Bagelturf, is a favorite read of mine and so while I was in California for the week, I took the opportunity to meet with its author.

Somewhere deep in the heart of Mountain View, California, Bagelturf and I had lunch. We began by talking about the blog, how it got started, and how Steve Weller, a software engineer at one time in his life, became known on the internet as Bagelturf.

Well, he told me that the name is essentially meaningless. He thought it up in a brainstorming frenzy while looking for names that were available on .Mac. I sort of believed him. I mean, it had to come from somewhere, right? We went on to talk about the development of his Aperture Plugin called Random Wok, available as a free download here. Random Wok, is a interesting utility plugin which allows the user to rename files randomly on export. In Weller’s own words:

Random file names are useful if you want to hide the sequence or meaning of the file names or if a random ordering is needed for a program that displays them in alphabetical order. The length and type of random name is selectable and you can also provide a prefix and a postfix strings that are applied to the ends of the random part of the name.

What is probably more interesting than the plugin itself is how well documented its development has been on Bagelturf’s website. If you click here, you can go through the entire process. Although he has released version 1.0 of the plugin to the public, the blogging process is still in progress. Weller admitted to me that this is simply how he likes to work; working through the idea, writing up the post, and then taking some time to read through his work to make sure everything sounds okay. I wish more bloggers would do this!

Weller’s Aperture articles are also very helpful and insightful. While not a professional photographer, Weller says he found Aperture when his digital image collection started to pile up, and just thought it would be fun to write about his experiences. After a while he noticed that he had a pretty good collection of tips, tricks, and thoughts on the software. You can see a nicely organized listing of these articles at his site, here.

Lunch with Bagelturf lasted about an hour. The discussions ranged from the difficulties one can encounter when trying to be a freelance photographer (my side of the conversation) to the intricacies of Objective-C (his side of the table).

If you are looking for a great resource having to do with Aperture, Cocoa programming, or Pigs with Lipstick, Bagelturf is certainly a great resource.

Most synthesizer module circuits have much of their real estate occupied by a few common functions:

• Power supply regulation and decoupling components
• Input buffers, using op-amps, perhaps with AC coupling components
• Output buffers, using op-amps
• Signal converters: dozens of kinds of voltage-controlled resistor-ish functions (for example, using transconductance amplifiers, diode or transistor configurations, vactrols, etc.), and voltage to current converters which may also perform linear-to-exponential conversion (usually transistor-based)
• If there is to be computer control, then DACs and analog switches

Indeed, the functional core (what is left after the common peripheral functions) can be quite small: the oscillator, waveshapers,filters and logic proper may be less than half the module’s circuits. I see Ken Stone at Cat Girl Synths has this week started releasing some utility PCB designs for some of these common sub-modules.

Its not an entirely new idea: Tellun have their Multi-Use Universal Buffer board.

It is, in a sense, the opposite approach from that taken by ARP in their 70s synths: they bundled their functional core circuits into sub-modules that plugged into a product-specific carrier board which had much of the periphal circuitry: CMS has act-alikes for exponential converter, op-amp, VCO, VCA, VCF, ADSR, noise, balanced modulator, and sample and hold. I am not sure what the design reason really was for these: the sub-modules could be shared between products which would help agility and lower design costs, the sub-module could be swapped out which would help maintanance and upgrades, the sub modules could be potted in acrylic or resin which would help keep competitors eyes out and perhaps have some temperature coupling property, and some components that required matching transistors/diodes/resistors could be built and tested independently of the ultimate product which may help manufacturing and QA.

So CS3 is official, and the first thing anyone familiar with Photoshop is going to notice is that the interface has changed with this version. Our own Deke McClelland, of Photoshop One-on-One fame, has graciously stopped by with some interface wisdom to help you get your bearings. For the full Deke experience, be sure to pick up your copy of Photoshop CS3 One-on-One coming next month. (You can also catch Deke waxing poetic about what’s new in CS3 next week in Boston at Photoshop World.)–cw

Perhaps the most obvious change to Photoshop CS3 is the new interface. (Adobe has actually revamped the interface across the all the CS3 applications, so once you get used to it in Photoshop, it will make sense in InDesign, Illustrator, etc.) If you’ve been using previous versions of Photoshop for a while, the new interface may seem a little jarring at first, but generally it turns out to be a very good thing.

Probably most readers know about how RSS feeds can save time and make it easier to follow a blog like this. For those who don’t read on:

Web pages which frequently publish new content usually support RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary). When a visitor subscribes to a feed via a Feed Reader, the program can check if new content has been published and therefore makes it easy to follow many pages without visiting them periodically to check for new content. Reading content with a feed reader is a similar experience to reading your mail.

When visiting a page with a RSS feed a small icon like this is displayed somewhere in the browser (in Firefox it is in the address input field on top of the page and can be clicked to subscribe): O’Reilly Digital Media site has also feed links to the right under Site Feeds.

My reader of choice is Google Reader which is web based and there are many other good readers out there.

I therefore encourage readers to check it out and publish to this or other pages which are visited regularly, it saves so much time and gives better overview.

Hello everyone! Allow me to introduce myself, Josh Anon, and my mother, Ellen Anon. We’re the newest members of the Inside Aperture blog, and we’re excited to be posting here.

In case you’re not familiar with either of us, we co-authored the book Aperture Exposed (Wiley, 2006) and are both (primarily) nature and wildlife photographers. In fact, Ellen is the co-author of Photoshop for Nature Photographers (Wiley, 2005, with an updated-for-CS3 version coming this June). We’re also both instructors at www.BetterPhoto.com, a great source for online photography and digital imaging courses. If you’re really curious about us, feel free to read our bios here or check out our websites at www.sunbearphoto.com and www.joshanon.com for expanded bios and samples of our images.

To kick things off, I’d like to share three really useful tips I’ve found while working in Aperture. I hope that you find them useful, too!

1. Come Hither, Loupe
I leave the loupe detached from the cursor, so that I can leave it somewhere and make adjustments to the image, not worry about bumping the mouse, etc.. When I want to move the loupe, I don’t want to have to go pick it up, drag it, and drop it to the new location–that’s annoying. Thankfully, Aperture has a great solution! Move the mouse to where you want the loupe to move and press and hold the ` key. The loupe will slide to where the cursor is, no clicking or dragging required.

2. Hide the Viewer When Browsing For Images
I’ve found that when viewing images, I really prefer to work in full screen mode. It lets me focus more on the image with no distractions. However, since you can’t switch projects or albums in full screen mode and because the film strip is small (which makes it hard to browse large albums), I really like using the browser to locate images. To get the best of both worlds, I hide the viewer window by pressing the v key. In addition to giving more screen space to the browser, making it easier to locate a specific image, I’ve found that Aperture runs faster with the viewer hidden, especially when toggling in and out of full screen mode.

3. Removing Keywords from Multiple Images
As much as I try not to do dumb things, I sometimes mis-label animals and plants in groups of images or misspell keywords. If you look under the menus, the only “remove” commands for keywords will either remove the keyword if it’s in the current keyword set or remove all keywords from the image. It’s possible to remove individual keywords from individual images by using the “Keywords” button in the metadata inspectur, but It’s not very clear how you can remove one specific keyword from multiple images, without first adding it to a keyword set. However, there is a way to just remove 1 keyword:

1. Make sure the keyword controls are visible
   • Show the control bar (Window > Show Control Bar)
   • If the keyword controls aren’t already there, select Window > Show Keyword Controls. If that option is grayed out, you’ll need to show the viewer first, then show the keyword controls, and then re-hide the viewer (this seems to be a bug).
2. Select the image(s) with the keyword to remove
3. Type the keyword to remove into the text field in the keyword controls
4. Press Shift+Return, and Aperture will remove the keyword from the selected image(s).

One of the memes that’s been going around the circle of photographers that I chat with is that the better your original RAW files, the better your final files. The whole idea of “Fixing it in Post” is somewhat flawed from the the word go. Sure, you can rescue a bad shot to some degree, but if you start out with great data, you’ll end up with a better final result. There’s a corollary meme that I’ve started hearing a bit about, and one that I’m really going to start preaching: If you shoot less pictures in the field, you’ll have less work to do in post. After all, you might like working in Aperture, but you’d probably like to spend more time behind the camera, wouldn’t you?

The problem is that we regard the act of taking a picture with a digital SLR as being “free”. The problem is that it’s not. Every RAW file consumes disk space, but more importantly it consumes time. For a while as I’ve been shooting various conferences, I’ve been trying to shoot fewer—and better—frames. The reason for this is that when I get to the end of a day and I’ve still got hundreds of photos to chug through, I usually get really grumpy. The prospect of working for hours on end after everyone else goes home just isn’t appealing.

This was driven home to me today while shooting at the 2007 O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference in San Diego. For the first time in my event photography career, I have an assistant on site. It’s a wonderful experience to have a capable assistant to help out with things. Things are moving nicely and I might just be able to be asleep before midnight tonight. As nice as it is to have somebody else to help with the mass of images moving through the pipeline, watching and guiding somebody through the process of winnowing down my photo collection is making it even more apparent that I should concentrate on getting the right shot while behind the camera rather than snapping off a few of a bad shoot hoping that one might just come out anyway. It’s the kind of thing that you can ignore when it’s just you dealing with things, but when you watch somebody else deal with the mass of images, it becomes even more apparent how even just immediately deleting a bad shot on screen can add up when multipled by tens or hundreds of bad images. It’s like torture by water drips.

Shoot less. Produce better images quicker. That’s my mantra for the next few days.

By the way, if you’re interested in seeing photos from ETech, you can check out the Etech Flickr set as it builds up over the week.

This past week I have participated in several forums and speed issues with Adobe Lightroom was a hot topic. It seems many are finding Lightroom to be very slow which I found rather curious since I have had the opposite experience. So for this weeks blog post I thought I’d offer up a few insider tricks that will help speed up Lightroom.

1. Hard Drive and Scratch Disk Space
First off, check to see that you have at least 50% of your hard drive space on your computer available. If you are working with a hard drive that is more than 75% full (i.e. you only have 25-25% of your hard drive memory left) that can slow down all applications and especially Lightroom. And of course a fast computer is also a major factor, but Lightroom will work on any computer with Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Also, increasing the amount of RAM on your computer will greatly help out as well.

2. Render 1:1 Previews After Import
Make sure that you render the 1:1 previews after importing images into Lightroom. It doesn’t happen automatically and this will greatly speed up everything in Lightroom. This is a little known key point to a fast workflow in Lightroom and I suspect the major cause of many folks finding Lightroom slow.

To render the 1:1 previews first select all of the images in the folder, then go to Library > Previews > Render 1:1 Previews. Of course you should also check the Render Standard-Sized Previews in the import box so that those are created as you import images.

3. Set Your Preferences
In the preferences panel (Lightroom > Preferences), under File Management, you can adjust what size standard previews Lightroom builds from 1,024 pixels to 2,048 pixels depending on your monitor size. You can also adjust the Preview Quality (High, Medium and Low).

By adjusting these toggle boxes you can optimize Lightroom for your computer and monitor. As you can see below, I have Lightroom set to create 2,048 pixels for my large Apple Cinema Display and I’ve also set the Preview Quality to high so that I can see the best quality preview as I edit images. Since I have my preferences set to the higher settings it slows Lightroom down just a little, but with 4.5 GB of RAM in my Apple G5 it is a small difference and I prefer the higher quality previews.

4. Optimizing the Lightroom Cache
If you have your Lightroom cache on an external hard drive (USB or Firewire) this can massively slow down everything in Lightroom as it is limited by the connection speed of the hard drive. I would suggest putting the cache on a faster drive with a SATA connection if need be or better yet leave it on the computers internal drive.

5. Embed Metadata and Keywords on Import
In my workflow, I have found that Lightroom works very well with Metadata and Keywording but if you need to alter large groups of images the software can drag a bit as you try to type into the metadata fields. The fastest method I have found for importing metadata and keywords is to do it as you import the images.

In the import dialog box there is a field for typing in keywords and the toggle just above allows you to create custom metadata templates. I have several metadata templates I use. If all of the images are of the same person, scene, location and sport then I create a custom metadata template with all of the metadata in it so once the images are imported the metadata and keywording is finished. If I am importing a group of images with different people, locations or sports then I will just use my basic copyright template during import - along with generic keywords. Once the images are imported I’ll select groups of similars and type in the metadata for each group.

Review
If you don’t render the standard-sized or 1:1 previews then Lightroom is constantly trying to build them as you edit your images resulting in very slow performance. And if your Lightroom cache is on an external USB (1.0 or 2.0) or Firewire hard drive this to will handcuff Lightroom - just as working with an internal drive that is almost full will. Adapt these tips to your Lightroom workflow and you will be amazed at how efficient and fast Lightroom can be. And if that isn’t enough, buy yourself a serious amount of RAM and then Lightroom with really start to motor. I recently worked on a friends brand new Apple MacPro with 9 GB of RAM and Lightroom never hesitated for anything. Even exporting 100 images took very little time.

That’s it for this Monday. I look forward to hearing your comments…

Adios, Michael Clark

Las Vegas was far more interesting tonight because WPPI put Art Wolfe on stage to share his adventures from Travels to the Edge, a public television series that offers unique insights on nature, cultures, environmental issues and the new realm of digital photography.

Art’s photography exists on the “margins of the day.” He’s up before dawn and out after sunset with his tripod mounted Canon capturing light as it emerges and descends. As a long time Fujichrome shooter, Art Wolfe emulates the look of that emulsion in post production of his digital shots. He has 11 staff people to keep things moving along as he travels to every corner of the world 8 months out of the year.

His favorite lens? He likes the 70-200mm f-2.8 with the 24-70mm f-2.8 a close second. And yes, he does use autofocus to help keep his shots tack sharp.

Art offered other shooting tips too, such as his secret sauce for capturing aurora borealis: Set the ISO to 400, mount the camera on a tripod, set the shutter for 30 seconds, and open the aperture to f-2.8. He suggests that your prefocus the lens while there’s still light in the sky because once it’s dark, accurate focus can be difficult.

Over the last decade of his photography, Art Wolfe has taken up the quest to help educate the public about the importance to caring for the earth. He supports many of the environmental organizations, including Conservation International.

One of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I looked at his spectacular images… this is a photographer willing to work hard, stay disciplined, and extend himself to shoot the best images possible. It’s true, not everyone has Canon and Microsoft as sponsors (supporting the Travels to the Edge project), but Wolfe is the guy who crawls out of his sleeping bag at 5am on a mountain top to get the great shot. And he was doing that long before he had sponsors footing the bill.

In case you hadn’t heard, Starbucks launched its own record label about 10 days ago; it will be an extension of their Hear Music brand. The first artist they’ve announced signing is Paul McCartney (for a one album deal distributed both through Starbucks and through regular retail channels). This move towards creating their own label wasn’t particularly a surprise to me; seems it was almost inevitable given how successful Starbucks has been with its compilations and ‘lifestyle’ affiliation sales of CDs; in the past few years they’ve moved literally millions of CDs aimed at a savvy, reasonably affluent audience that they readily influence.

Given the dominance of its baby boomer-based clientele, it will be interesting to see if the initial thrust is on signing legacy artists who would kill for the reach (and who the audience would naturally resonate with, like McCartney) — and/or how much influence Starbucks will exercise in pushing the discovery of rising artists — if that’s indeed part of their strategy. And of course another initial question I have is whether this may also lead to a Starbucks-branded online digital download store (vs. their deal with iTunes) — and/or in-store download ‘kiosk’ stations so you can burn tunes while waiting to pick-up your coffee.

I have to admit that until recently I was not much of a fan of the Quick Develop panel in the Library module. I figured, what the heck if I want to develop an image I will go to the Develop module.

Recently I have started to see the light though. Since all the editing is non-destructive anyway, why not for instance have a quick look at the image in Grayscale, and just as quickly change back to Color.

The quick develop panel is sort of like using a Polaroid on a film camera used to be, only instead of checking the lighting and exposure before committing to film, you are checking your developing intentions before making the move to the Develop module and bringing out all the heavy tools.

No matter what you do the Reset button always allows you to start over from the Default Setting anyway, so I use the Reset button a lot to start over from scratch, it makes it very easy not to worry about overdoing it with any setting.

Individual settings are just as easy to reset, by just clicking on the name of the setting. For example if you have overdone it on the Fill Light setting, just click on the word Fill Light.

The Synch Settings button is also very useful in that it allows you to transfer the settings of one image to a large group of images, and like all Develop or Quick Develop tools it is a completely non-destructive action and can be reversed at any time.

So have fun with the Quick Develop tools, you can’t do any permanent damage, no matter how hard you try.

I received this email from Joe Schorr about a Raw image decoding review by the Aperture engineers. Since you’re a member of the Inside Aperture community, you might want to contribute. Here’s what Joe had to say…

——-

As part of Aperture’s ongoing development, the team at Apple is continuing to gather images that represent the biggest RAW decoding challenges and illustrate the particular areas where you’d like to see improvement. Any image content you send will be used for internal testing purposes only. None of these images will be distributed to the public, used in any marketing capacity whatsoever, or included in public demos. They will be used exclusively to test and evaluate RAW image processing, with the goal of delivering even better RAW support for your camera in the future.

If you would like to submit a set of sample images, here is what we would like to receive for each image:

1. The original, unmodified RAW image. Please specify the camera model used to create the image.
2. A 16-bit TIFF version of the image created with Aperture using all default settings (no adjustments, no Auto Exposure or Auto Levels).
3. A 16-bit TIFF version of the image created with the RAW decoder of your choice, also using default settings. If using the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in, make sure all the “Auto” checkboxes have been turned off.
4. A 16-bit TIFF version of the image after you have applied adjustments using the RAW decoder of your choice, showing how you feel the image should look when processed and adjusted correctly.
5. Any notes or commentary you wish to provide regarding whatever weaknesses or strengths you see in the decode provided by Apple’s software. When possible, point to specific areas in each image that you would like us to examine. Also include information about the camera, computer, and software used to create the image.

Please put all related files together into a single folder, then upload via FTP to the following server:

FTP Site: privftp.apple.com

username: proappcustomer

password: media

After posting your files to the server, please send an email to aperturefeedback@group.apple.com to notify us that the files are available.

(NOTE: For security reasons, the above FTP site is set up as a drop box with write-only access, so other users can not view or download the images.)

Thanks for working with Apple. The feedback that we’ve received from the pro photo community over the last year has been extremely helpful, and we look forward to continually improving image handling in the future.

I’m always leaving my polarizing filter in the wrong camera bag. Yet I live in West Marin County…one of the nicest places on Earth for taking nature pictures. Given all the lovely sunny days we’ve been having lately, however, with no polarizing filter it’s way too likely I’m going to get boring, washed-out skies. Well, if you’ve got Lightroom, that no longer need be the case. It only takes about two seconds to darken most any sky. The process is totally non-destructive, so you can change the color and tone of the sky any time you want.

I recently did a commercial job which had a precise schedule over two days. I have done this kind of event photography before, but this time using Aperture, I planned on cutting my post processing time, with some pre-production work in Aperture; and it worked like a charm.

I had the schedule of events for the day’s shoot. In all, there were ten components that needed to be covered during the day. I created a project called Wednesday (I’ll keep the real project name secret to protect the innocent) and then created an album for each of the sessions I would cover. Thankfully I only needed to create one metadata pre-set that I would use for all of the day’s shoot, with caption and keyword info, but if I needed to, I could have created a different set of metadata for each session.

I wasn’t sure how efficient this would be and wondered if I would have time to import each sessions’ take before I had to start shooting the next one, but it all worked out great. By the end of the day, I had my shoot, neatly organized into individual session albums with all the metadata and key-wording done!

This sped up my post processing and let me quickly find particular images that I needed to email ASAP for the client’s website.

The WhiBal Card

Another way I sped up my “aftershoot”, was to use a WhiBal Card, as a white balance reference that would save me buckets of time later. The WhiBal Card harkens back to the day, when 18 per cent gray cards were used for accurate reflective exposure readings with our cameras. But this one is for white balance, and it’s just as simple to use.

You photograph the card in the same light as your subject, making sure the card is positioned to minimize glare. This is easy to do, since the WhiBal people have included a highly reflective black sticker on the card that is easy to angle for minimum glare.

Since I was shooting speakers at the podium in available-light, as well as flash; I took WhiBal Card shots of both lighting scenarios.

With a click of the dropper on the gray area of the card, the white balance is accurate and the color looks natural.

In Aperture, I clicked on the white balance dropper, activate the loupe to make sure I hit the gray area of the card, and I’ve corrected the white balance. I then “lift” this white balance change, select all others shot in similar lighting, and “stamp selected images”. The card is small enough to take anywhere, and I plan to do so and use it whenever I can. Less computer time = more time for everything else.

Like any new application, Lightroom 1.0 is going through the “introduction” phase, and there are some misunderstandings about what it can and cannot do.

Here is my ever-growing list:

Adobe Lightroom (excuse me, “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom”) has some features I’d really like to have in Aperture, such as the Recovery slider, which lets me do highlight recovery without affecting the midtones and shadows in an image, and the Vibrancy slider which provides a great way to boost saturation while protecting skin tones.

That said, I still greatly prefer Aperture for its overall lack of modality, and for its far superior organizational tools. Lightroom’s Collections don’t come close to Aperture’s Project structure in terms of creating robust, flexible organizational schemes.

Nevertheless, I still find that Folders confuse a lot of Aperture users because people don’t really understand “where they go.” A folder is nothing more than an organizational structure that you can use to contain other elements in your library. Folders can go inside of projects, or outside projects, at the Library level. The idea with folders is simply to provide a way for you to reduce the number of entries in the Project pane, so that you can see more of them on-screen at once, and to ease navigation.

For example, last year I went to Death Valley and did some shooting. Upon my return, I created a “Death Valley 4-2006″ project and loaded my images into it. Last week, I went back to Death Valley and so came home and created a “Death Valley 3-2007″ project and loaded my new images into that. Next, I created a Death Valley folder and put both projects inside. I now have one Death Valley entry in my library - a Folder - that can contain every Death Valley project I ever shoot. (To create a folder at the Library level, you must click on Library at the top of the Projects pane, before you choose File > New Folder.)

In one of my projects, I created several different web galleries. I can create a folder inside that project to contain all of my web galleries, just to keep the project itself better-organized.

Finally, thanks to Smart Albums, I can automatically culls the best images from both projects, allowing me to keep a running tally of all of the selects from each project. I place a Smart Album configured to cull 3-star images, and place that in the Folder. Note that the Folder automatically constrains the reach of that Smart Album to just the projects contained within the folder, making it simple to create Smart Albums that search only a specific selection of projects.

So, everything you need to know about Folders: they can go inside or outside of Projects; they exist simply to help you organize other elements in your Library; they allow you to constrain the effects of Smart Albums to a select group of Projects.

Still want that Recovery slider, though…

One of the brilliant things about a TiVo is that it watches all that TV for me that I intended to watch but never got around to sitting down to view. (Some people call this the “TiNo” phenomenon.) It’s very comforting to know that my PVR took the time to record those shows because it demonstrates what excellent intentions I had as a person. I have a season pass to Friday Night Lights that I consistently fail to watch–but my TiVo does. Somehow this makes me feel like a better, more cultured person.

And when my TiVo runs out of space, it kindly deletes all those back episodes for me and I have the satisfaction that the shows aren’t cluttering up my unit’s hard drive forever.

iTunes is another matter entirely. I’ve downloaded all sorts of crap shows–from that Danny Bonaduce one to “My Bare Lady” (thought it would be a giggle) to “Learn with Sesame”–thinking that I or my husband or my kids would eventually get around to watching them. And we don’t. We live in a BSG-Heroes-Spongebob-Mythbusters world, and there never really seems to be any time to catch up with the “maybe I’ll try out an episode” shows that iTunes offers for free every Tuesday.

So on Sunday, I was backing up my computer and I really took note of all those gigabytes of iTunes unwatched freebies, as well as several shows that I downloaded and paid for because I’d missed them on TV and wanted to catch up on, but didn’t really feel like watching again.

I have no problem tossing magazines. If I pick up a magazine to read at lunch or on an Airplane or while waiting at a Doctor’s office, I don’t mind throwing away the $2.00 or $3.50 I’ve invested after finishing reading it. Sometimes I let it age on the coffee table or in the bathroom for a few weeks, but it still gets tossed or occasionally bundled up and donated to the local pediatrician’s office.

So why did I feel like a murderer on Sunday when I trashed that episode of Bones where Brennan gets blown up after dancing in Bones’ apartment? And all those free, unwatched garbage shows that I deleted? (And yes, I’m looking at you, Real Housewives of Orange County.) Why did I feel I was doing something wrong and irrevocable.

Somehow it seems to be an iTunes thing. When I buy music at the Zune store, I know that my license extends to 3 or 4 more downloads of the same item. I don’t need to keep copies on my computer unless I want to. But Apple’s somewhat draconian “download it once and then it’s all your responsibility” approach to digital purchases makes me want to hang onto certain items with more vigor than they’re really worth.

Sure, Apple will replace your entire library in the event of a catastrophic loss. Once. And should such a day happen, my Housewives of Orange County, and my Danny Bonaduce, and my “My Bare Ladies” will be there, ready to come back to life in the worst zombie fashion, ready for me to stake them through the heart once again. But are these items and even more worthy items like “Bones” worth keeping around on recordable DVDs or hard drive storage? Probably not.

My problem is that I have to start thinking about these digital assets like like my TiVo. My TiVo knows when to trash those old episodes of Friday Night Lights. It doesn’t hang onto them saying, “I’ll get around to watching them eventually because the show is really, really well made.” I’ve got to learn that lesson. Certain digital assets–family photos, movies, recordings over the baby monitor of my kids singing their ABCs in bed–are forever. The pilot of that awful Vampire series “Blade” is not.

I just finished breezing through Kendall Gelner’s 87-page Aperture Adjustment Tool Guide, which is a downloadable PDF that you can grab for free, and if you find it useful, then make a donation. Kendall has put a lot of work into this guide, and I found it to be quite comprehensive.

One of the things I especially liked about this PDF was the many illustrations with callouts. Photographers tend to be rather visual creatures, and Kendall’s approach seems right in step with that. It’s a helpful document, and certainly worth a look.

I think it’s important to give pictures unique file names at the beginning of the workflow to avoid possible confusion up the road.

A typical file name from digital camera looks something like this: IMG_1700.JPG. The number used in the file name is a counter which goes from 1 to 9999 and then starts again at one. This file naming convention allows only 10.000 unique file names and as that is a figure most photographers reach rather quickly the problem starts with photo number 10.001. That photo will be the second file with the name IMG_0001.JPG, so one might within one year have 3 different files with the same name.

When I import pictures from a memory card into my computer, I use the rename feature in Lightroom which makes it easy to create a custom file naming conventions, and it is a good idea to decide on one file name structure and keep that for future imports.

A unique file name structure can be very helpful when sending digital files to clients, family, friends etc. or when pictures are put on the net. People will base their request upon the file name and if more then one file has the same name the request will be difficult to fulfill, unless you have mind reading capabilities in addition to your photographic prowess.

I therefore use a file naming convention which starts with the date taken and add the file number generated from the camera as suffix. The above file name (IMG_1700.JPG) which was taken on the 18 of mars 2007 will therefore be named:

20070318_1700.JPG

This convention makes my pictures unique as long as I don’t take more than 10.000 pictures in one day, and I doubt that day will come anytime soon. Well it might happen if I decide to buy a camera like the new Canon 1D Mark III which shoots 10 frames per second :-)

In the import photos dialog there is a combo box to select the predefined naming template to apply to the imported photos:

Select Edit… from this combo box to define a custom file naming template. Here is the template with the settings I use in my workflow:

The file name template is very flexible. It is possible to refer to EXIF data (almost all EXIF info populated by the camera can be used in the file naming;ISO, Focal length, Lens, Shutter time etc.) or write your own text (adding W for weddings, F for Family and so on). When my girlfriend and I are shooting with different cameras on the same day, I sometimes add the camera model at the end of the image name to make sure that dublicate file names will not be a problem.

I think this is a flexible and powerful function in Lightroom, and I highly recommend it.

For a variety of reasons, some of which I’ve posted about on this blog, I use referenced images, available in Aperture as of version 1.5. There are many advantages and disadvantages to using referenced images as opposed to a managed library, but for me the biggest advantage is that I can have other applications work with files in a referenced library setup. Another advantage is that you can keep the bulk of your image library on external drives that are larger than what may be available to you on the computer that is with you. This is especially handy for when you are working on a big shoot on assignment and only have a little bit of free space on your laptop hard drive.

The best part of this strategy is that you can still do quite a bit of work on your images even when your large external drives aren’t hooked up. You can’t make image adjustments to your photographs, but you can keyword and rate. This means you can edit your shoots down to your selects without the master images being available. And, you can also figure out which images should be rejected and deleted out of your image library forever.

For example, here’s a snapshot of my Aperture library with some images that I ranked while the external disk that the master images are on was offline, indicated by the icon on the lower-right of each image.

Being able to edit a take of images without plugging in a hard drive means that you can work on your images in places where it might be inconvenient to plug in, such as on an airplane or train. And, it means that you’ll be able to get a bit of work done on your images when you’re waiting at the car repair shop or at the dentist office. Then, once you hook back up to your master library, you’ll be able to take advantage of that work and can get right down to doing image adjustments to your selects.

In my last newsletter (Winter 2007) I wrote an editorial on “Getting back to Photography”. After three or more years of trying to stay on top of the latest workflows, new software releases and digital techniques I feel like I can finally concentrate on photography again and I consider Lightroom to be a big part of that feeling.

As a side note, I produce a quarterly newsletter that is emailed to my clients and anyone wishing to receive it. Any and all are welcome to sign up for the newsletter. If you’d like to sign up for it please just drop me an email and I’ll add you to the list. If you’d like to take a look you can download back issues of he newsletter on my website at:

http://www.michaelclarkphoto.com/backissues.htm

The reason I bring up the feeling of getting back to photography is that the photo industry has been in a huge upheaval as both photographers and clients get educated about the whole digital process. I’ve talked with quite a few of my colleagues who feel the same way - that we have finally gotten to the place where editing our images and processing them isn’t as slow or as painful as it has been in the past. Most, if not all of those photographers I’ve heard this from have embraced Lightroom as their image editing and RAW processing tool of choice.

I think as photographers we have been yearning for software like Lightroom which is a streamlined application tailored to our specific needs. It speeds up the entire workflow so that we can spend more time behind the camera instead of in front of the computer - or at least that is the hope. As I write this I have three stock shoots that I have been waiting to process for the last two weeks but my assignment and work load hasn’t allowed me to get to them yet. Nonetheless, just knowing that the process of editing and working up those images is a relatively quick affair makes the job an enjoyable experience instead of a chore.

In my last blog post about the Targeted Adjustment Tools, I wrote about how those tools allow us to concentrate on the image and not struggle with the user interface. I also wrote about this in the Lightroom vs. Aperture comparison article (in the user interface section) and this week as I have been working up images I’ve found my conclusions reinforced. It is such a huge pleasure to be able to concentrate on the images again as it was with film, and not having to constantly deal with a complex workflow anymore.

I’m not saying Lightroom is perfect, there is much that can be improved but Lightroom allows us to concentrate on our images so we can worry about how good our images really are, not how we are going deal with them. It might sound like a small issue to write about but I can finally start to see the light at the other end of the “digital” tunnel. And that is a very good thing.

That’s it for this Monday. I look forward to hearing you comments…

Adios, Michael Clark

The description in the press release for this gadget was so bizarre that I immediately requested photos. Can you guess what it is?

Hint: The SRS button “creates a wide and full sound stage with deep rich bass and adds a definition control for realistic clarity and significantly enhanced sound quality.”

Hint 2: Here’s another photo, showing accessories:

The eyedropper tool in the White Balance panel of the HUD is a handy way to automatically adjust an image’s color balance. Find a neutral area in the image, click on it, and you’ll receive Aperture’s recommendation for adjusted color correction.

But there’s an additional trick you might not know about. When you use the eyedropper, keep your finger on the mouse button and slowly move the pointer from one area to another. Aperture will update its white balance recommendation in real time. Once you discover the look you want, let go of the mouse button, and the correction is applied.

You can always undo the adjustment by clicking the arrow icon in the White Balance pane of the HUD. If you find something you really like, the use the lift and stamp tool to apply to the rest of the images in the stack.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Napster Freebies. These un-DRMed MP3 files are free for a limited time and can be downloaded from just about any country. Enjoy!

“Time2hitdaclub (Explicit)” by 8Ball
Representing half of legendary Memphis rap duo 8Ball & MJG, this 8Ball solo outing does the legend proud. All downtempo boom, hairy synths, and lyrics devoted to everyone’s favorite activity after a long week, it’s a track tailor-made for your TGIF moment.

“September Falls” by The Little Heroes
Often compared to groups like The Stills and Death Cab for Cutie, these alt rockers are making a name for themselves thanks to their lush melodies and radio-friendly sensibility. Hear for yourself what the fuss is about with this track from their new album, Cinematic Americana.

“Congratulations (Explicit)” by Defari
With a love for both music and education, this former high school teacher with a master’s degree in history has appeared on albums by Xzibit, Tha Alkaholiks, Dilated Peoples, and Dr. Dre in addition to three albums of his own. This is the latest single from Street Music.

“Get Steady” by Jonny Lives!
Jonny Dubowsky is an NYU literature and philosophy grad. He also fronts a rock band that’s knee-deep in the same music scene that spawned The Strokes and Interpol. Today’s download is the single from their debut album, Get Steady.

“Into Pieces” by Roark
Though he’s worked for a Fortune 500 company, this singer/songwriter from New Jersey says he’d rather be a struggling musician. Good choice, considering he’s got perfect pitch and well-honed melodic instincts. Today’s download is from his debut album, Break of Day.

“Roll to Me” by Jeff Baker
Hailed as an “important, emerging new talent” on the All About Jazz site, Jeff Baker won the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival’s vocal soloist competition when he was only 16. Get a taste of his wide-ranging talent with today’s free download.

“Burn” by Amber Rhodes
“Country music is all about the stories,” says this 25-year-old crossover artist, whose writing reflects her Lexington, Kentucky roots as well as time spent honing her skills in the Big Apple. Hear the result on this track from her album, Goodbye Yesterday.

This is probably the biggest question I get from Lightroom users. How do I create multiple Libraries on different external hard disk drives? And how do I move from one library to another on different hard disk drives, while using the same portable computer, in my studio or office and on location?

Well the answer is actually quite simple.

1. Open the Preferences - Select General - in Default Library click on Load most recent library (which when selected will always use the most recent library, unless you hold down the option key during startup, which will allow you to select a library) and change the setting to Promt me when starting Lightroom.

2. The Prompt me when starting Lightroom selection brings up the Select Database dialog box at start up, which allows you to chose from the library databases available or to start a new library database.

3. Enjoy.

I love the Game Developer’s Conference! the lights, the cameras, the action, all the best and brightest coming together for meets and greets and foods and drinks, it’s exciting, exhilirating, and completely exhausting!

This year, the conference was SO HUGE! two expo floors, a gajillion sessions and keynotes and special guests and parties and awards shows and demonstrations and booth crawls and games games games games games, i found it impossible to keep up. it was enough just to go with the flow, hang out with the cool kids, and soak up as much as you could (and even then, i missed out on a bunch of stuff).

SO here are some random thoughts that passed through my sensory-overloaded brain as i attended sessions and talked shop with my friends and colleagues:

What I love about the Lightroom’s Print module is you are not limited to sending one image at a time to your printer. With a click of the print button you can send your entire Library to the printer, or if you want, or just one image at a time. Ready-to-use presets turn your selected images into a variety of sizes including contact sheet size. You can also create your own custom presets as well. I also find its color management relatively straightforward and easy to use. Let me explain.

I was lucky enough to be present last night at the Northern California Chapter of ASMP’s (American Society of Media Photographer’s) meeting at which Tom Hogan of Adobe and Joseph Schorr from Apple each presented their views of Lightroom and Aperture. Since each was given only 30 minutes to present what they considered to be the best of what their program’s did, it was significant that a large part of both presentations had to do with how quickly and accurately a busy photographer could get rid of the photograph’s the photographer didn’t want the client to see.

It’s important to note that, at least where Lightroom is concerned, you always have the choice of whether to eliminate an image permanently or temporarily. So, for instance, if you’re collecting photographs for a special purpose or audience, you can still eliminate excellent photos that just don’t pertain… and you haven’t really lost them. On the other hand, if the objective is to get rid of stuff that would simply embarrass your reputation, poof!… gone forever!

One way to really speed up winnowing is to do it while importing automatically from your camera or card. Lightroom shows preview thumbnails of all the images as soon as it recognizes the import source. By default, there are checkboxes in each thumbnail and they’re all checked. So you can very quickly scan the thumbnails and uncheck anything that’s obviously out-of-focus, out-of-frame, blank, or is an accidental shot of nothing important (such as your foot). The unchecked shots won’t be imported and will disappear when you reformat the card.

Another instance in which you’ll probably want to eliminate obviously “missed” shots is when shooting Action sequences (as in X frames per second). The technique works equally well if you’re just shooting fast to try to catch poses, angles, or facial expressions. In choosing which images to eliminate, focus and timing will be equally important in making the decision. So Tom suggested editing these in the Library by using the Loupe view in full frame.

You have to try this and practice it a couple of times and you’ll suddenly wonder how you lived without it: First, you scroll through the Filmstrip and find the first shot in the sequence. Then you click the Loupe icon and press Shift + Tab to get rid of all the Panels and menus, so that the entire screen looks like a slide show. Then press L twice to “turn out the lights.” Then you rapidly push the Right and Left buttons to move through the sequence and press Cmd/Ctrl + Delete any time you want to brutally eliminate one of the frames. If there’s any doubt at all about whether one of the frames is sharp enough or not, just click once near the center of the frame. Boom! You see the image at 100-percent and you can scroll around it just by pressing the Spacebar. When you want to go back to the full frame, just click again. When you want the Panels and Tabs back, just press Shift + Tab again.

The timing was perfect. I was in the middle of post processing a commercial job with Aperture, when the courier shows up with a brand new, USB connecting white Aperture Keyboard from LogicKeyboard ($99USD), which they sent me to test out.

Great, I can get to work right away to see how life changes with this new device, and I can tap out my blog-post on its pristine, soon to be dirty keys.

Aperture is pretty self-contained, and there are not a lot of accessories that will change your life with the software short of new faster machines, giant monitors and expensive graphics cards. It’s a good idea to invest in books and courses, but what about a keyboard designed to make life easier with Aperture?

Well, it’s just a keyboard, an actual Apple keyboard exactly like the one I had plugged into my monitor before, so there’s nothing unfamiliar about it. It just has some of the keyboard shortcuts for Aperture, clearly marked on 39 of the 109 keys.

Will the Aperture Keyboard have you blazing through Aperture like this Taxi flying through the streets of Buenos Aries? Couldn’t hurt, and it gets better gas mileage. ©Steve Simon

I’m loving Aperture, but I am sometimes frustrated with the speed at which it works on my “not-the-latest-greatest” machine. But I know how to remedy this problem and I will, in time. With any new software program there is a learning curve, and my process involves a combination of popular keyboard shortcuts, a customized tool palette, and the usual trial and error along with my electronic manual and the Long/Luna Aperture 1.5 book.

So, the bottom line after playing with my new tool for a half-hour? Yes, I like it. For those of us not on the Aperture engineering team who probably see the world in keyboard shortcuts, I think we can benefit by having it, at least until we memorize them all.

I speak some French and the experience with this keyboard reminds me of the difference between thinking in a language or translating words from one to another. I know the 3-key gives me three stars, but when I see it, somehow that works better. I guess it’s a visual thing. The same holds true with one of only two color keys on the board (”E key” for Red Eye Tool is the other); the dreaded big red X, living on the “9 key”. Reject!! It shouts out typographically.

Aside from the ratings keys my top five Aperture shortcut keys in no real order are:

1. The “`” or loupe key.
2. “F”- for Full Screen.
3. “V”- which shows and hides the viewer.
4. “H” - for Adjustments HUD
5. “Z” - which zooms to 100 per cent.

I will no doubt be using a few more since they are now right in my face.

You will spot me decreasing and increasing the ratings using the “dash” and “plus” keys.
If you watch me closely you will notice I press down on the “O” key to activate the Lift.
I have been playing with the Straighten Tool (G Key) and Selection Tool (A Key) and though I don’t generally crop my personal work, I do often hit the C Key when making my shots for clients just right.

The Aperture White Keyboard is kind of classy looking.

This Aperture Keyboard does seem to have a positive affect on my workflow and I’m looking forward to taking more shortcuts in the immediate future. There are still some lonely keys yet to be honored with an Aperture Shortcut. I just hope these fast keys don’t change too much in future versions of Aperture, but I’ll be ready.

The keyboard-inspired “Shortcut Key Of The Week” is “H”, to activate the Adjustments Hud.

If you’ve just discovered Lightroom or you just haven’t had a chance to get in there and start working with it, check out the Getting Started section of Inside Lightroom (over there on the right). We’ve put a bunch of handy articles and tutorials there to help you get going. When everybody around you (well, around me) is already drilling down to nuanced effects and features, it’s nice to know there’s a place to “start at the start.”

New this week is an excerpt from Mikkel Aaland’s Photoshop Lightroom Adventure that shows you how to set your Identity Plate. Nothing like seeing your name or logo at the top of the window to really make you feel like you’re taking charge of the environment. It’s great for identifying your work in slideshows and on web galleries too.

The latest (and final Tiger update) contains a boatload of benefits for Aperture users. New Raw support for over a dozen cameras, changes to Core Image that improves Spot and Patch correctness, and improved RAW file format compatibility for the Canon Digital Rebel XTi / 400D / Kiss X Digital, Nikon D80, and Pentax *ist DS. The update also tackles that pesky “lines sometimes appearing in images exported from Aperture” problem. You can read the official Apple release for complete details.

Micah pointed out to me that there’s still no support for the Leica M8, although Apple did add the Digilux 3.

I downloaded Mac OS X 10.4.9 via Software Update for both my MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4. So far, everything is running fine with no issues to report.

Podcasting Hacks author Jack Herrington turned me on to a bunch of excellent interview podcasts that I’ve been following ever since. One show in particular, Morning Stories, has a lovely informal feel, and part of the secret is the clever recording technique host Tony Kahn uses. Instead of jabbing a giant mic in the interviewee’s face or forcing him to hunch over one in a studio, Kahn uses a tiny lavaliere mic taped to the brim of a baseball cap.

Morning Stories’ Gary Mott and Tony Kahn record a relaxed conversation at WGBH thanks to their hat mics. Kahn’s initial inspiration was wanting a mic setup that would let him put his feet up.

As Kahn explains in this YouTube video, the hat-mic trick also allows interviewer and interviewee to relax and use body language, producing a more natural conversation.

Podcaster Adam Weiss, whose helpful tip on mic placement I covered recently, lists four more advantages of hat miking on his blog. That prompted me to head over to the Giant Squid Audio Labs site to check out its lavaliere mic selection.

Let’s face it - organizing photos today by location, subject, keywords, people etc. can be a cumbersome task. A photographer must be a very organized to stay on top of these tasks, especially when assignments include different locations, subjects and etc.

In my iView collection (still haven’t moved all of my images to Lightroom), I have about 120.000 pictures and probably only around 20-30% of them are organized (by keywords, collections and person), and I consider myself a fairly organized person. I try my best to organize my pictures after importing, but sometimes I skip that part when I’m in a hurry. I have recently been working on a large book project with a group of people and a part of my responsibility has been to collect pictures from photographers of landscape from specific locations. This has been surprisingly difficult because almost none of these professional photographers seem to have their pictures organized, and they need to go through their collection manually to find pictures we can use. A tool like Lightroom will definitely help keeping all the workflow from importing to output in one application which simplifies things incredibly.

Although Lightroom does a lot to simplify organizing the pictures in keywords and collections, it is still a very manual task, and I think in the next few years we will get some automatic tools to help us keeping our pictures organized. Two of these things are GPS (Global Positioning System) in cameras and face recognition. Face recognition will probably soon be viable option for DAM (Digital Asset Management) programs and will be incredibly helpful when the technology will find its way into everyday software. Imagine making a batch run on all your pictures, in my case around 120.000, and let the program automatically organize by people on them.

I will be very disappointed if GPS will not be a standard part of cameras in a few years time. External GPS systems have come down in price and JOBO has announced an external device for around $150 like John Nack of Adobe pointed out in his blog. If an external device like this is used, photos have to be synchronized in computer afterwards so programs like Lightroom can see the GPS value. Nikon offers a GPS adapter to their top end cameras which connects to the camera and enables the camera to write into each picture the coordinates into EXIF. When GPS have been recorded into pictures most DAM programs should be able to display the coordinates and many online photo sharing sites like SmugMug support showing the pictures on a map via Google maps. John Nack also pointed out that Lightroom supports clicking on the arrow beside the GPS field in the EXIF panel (only displayed for pictures with GPS recorded) to open up the location in Google Maps.

I think that programs like Lightroom will have a built in module or something that shows maps like Google Earth, and you can easily browse your pictures by selecting them on maps. It will also be interesting how sharing pictures on the net with GPS locations recorded will evolve in the next few years - I think Google will be a major player in that evolution.

Microsoft is also making interesting things with its Exploring Photo Collections in 3D which looks stunning. The program maps photos from photo sharing sites to a 3d model of location and viewpoint and displays them in a very interesting and original manner. It is hard to describe in words so I suggest people check out the Microsoft site for more info.

The next few years will be very interesting in the field of photo organizing and sharing, and I’m sure that Lightroom will play a big role in the evolution.

After spending a week comparing Aperture and Lightroom I realized something; I need to get my archive organized. Ever since I started using Aperture, about a year ago, I have been paying special attention to how I organize my work. However, everything leading up to that point is still largely unorganized. As I have mentioned in previous posts, before Aperture came along I was mostly using a combination of PhotoMechanic, and iView Media Pro to edit and archive my work. Well, let me clarify a few things here. I was basically only scratching the surface of digital asset management back then. I used PhotoMechanic to import, caption, and edit all my images after a shoot, sending selects to Photoshop CS2 for image adjustments, and I was using iView later on (sometimes much later) to keep track of where I stored all my files. Well, that is where my organization ended.

I rarely added my own keywords, unless a client requested it, and I lost most of my tagged images (a PhotoMechanic way of filtering your selects) during the import to iView. So, needless to say, finding images from long ago is always a challenge. I mostly have to rely on my memory and figure out “when” I shot something in order to find it.

With Aperture those days are over. Not only am I adding keywords and star ratings to images as I edit them, but I am also keeping similar images together in stacks, as well as all of my various versions of the same master. Life is good.

So, I have decided to investigate a little further and try and make some more comparisons regarding Aperture and Lightroom. To do this, I plan to create side by side image libraries of my entire archive. This archive consists of about 80,000 original and edited images. The images span the years 2002 through the present and were shot on a variety of digital cameras in both Jpeg and RAW formats. The end result will hopefully be a pretty neatly organized and useful library of my work in both Aperture and Lightroom. So in a nutshell, this is going to be a close examination of the Library portion of both applications.

To start things off I will once again disclose some key information. Number one, this isn’t going to be a benchmark type of testing scenario. I may time things here and there, but I make no claims that anything I do here will be very scientific. The equipment is the same as before, my 15″ MacBook Pro CoreDuo, with 2Gig Ram, a 7200RPM 100Gig drive, and the upgraded video card.

I am storing all the image files as referenced masters on a USB LaCie 500Gig external drive, but Aperture’s and Lightroom’s library files will reside on the laptop’s hard drive. Hopefully I won’t run out of disk space!

To be fair, I am going to start things off by simply importing all the master image files into both applications. Since I have been using Aperture for the last year or so, I will be ignoring all the versions, and metadtata that I have accumulated up until now. At the end of this little experiment, I will try and merge the old Aperture library with this new one, bringing all that Aperture data along in the process.

In my archive of master image files the only added metadata that exists is any IPTC information that I wrote using PhotoMechanic. I have never used XMP sidecar files, so they won’t be an issue. I think there may be a small set of PSD files in the heap, as well as a shoot I once did in the DNG format.

The images on my LaCie hard drive are filed into folders according to their EXIF date. In fact this is the normal way I store my master images, with the folder structure built by Aperture. For your information, I use the Year–>Month–>Day folder structure to organize the pictures. These all sit under a top level folder I named PhotoWork.

To get things going, this past weekend I spent some time importing my archive with Lightroom. Because Lightroom takes a pretty simple approach to referencing images, telling it to import 80,000 images, which live on an external drive was a snap. I just pointed to the top level folder and about seven hours later, the job was done. In Lightroom’s Folder panel I am now able to see the folder hierarchy and can easily find my way down to a days shoot.

During the seven hour import, I tried to do a few things in Lightroom. As my images began to appear in Lightroom’s workspace, I tried to scroll through thumbnails and open images in Loupe View. In Lightroom importing images takes place in the background, so I am free to peruse the new files. On my MacBook Pro, I was able to browse the thumbnails with ease, although on occasion the program had to pause to catch up. Displaying files in Loupe View was another story. While importing, Lightroom had a hard time displaying images full size. I wasn’t too shocked here. The application is doing quite a bit of work during import. Things seemed to get a little worse a few hours into the import, and I eventually gave up, allowing Lightroom to complete the task at hand.

The only other applications I had running during the import were Safari, iChat, Skype and Mail, so I will try and keep this the standard from now on.

At the end of the import (somewhere around 12:30am on a Saturday night!) Lightroom reported a list of images that could not be imported. I know for a fact that there is a good number of images in that archive which are corrupt due to a hard drive crash I experienced about a year ago, but I will be interested to see how Aperture handles these non-importable files.

In the end, Lightroom successfully imported 72,566 photos. The Lightroom folder (which includes Lightroom’s databse file and separate preview file) on my laptop is currently weighing in at a modest 3.10Gig, and I will continue to monitor this number as time goes on.

The next step will be to use Lightroom’s Collections to start organizing all of my shoots. I plan to use the Collections to sort of mimic Aperture’s system of Folders, Projects and Albums.

Next week I will talk about my experiences in importing the same archive into a fresh Aperture library. Hopefully by the time of my next posting I will have both applications essentially running neck and neck.

At this point in Aperture’s life-cycle, and with the release of Lightroom to stir up the pot, my thoughts have been turning more and more to things I’d like to see in the next version of Aperture. A few weeks ago, I blogged wanting live two way XMP support of IPTC metadata. It might be a bit ambitious, but it’s something that would be useful to me if all of my applications supported it. In the last week or so, there’s now a new feature has come to mind that would also be incredibly useful: Being able to export develop settings for a single file.

In Aperture 1.5, the best way to move photographs, their metadata, and their development settings such as Exposure and levels adjustments, from one Aperture library to another is to export a project. However, what if you want to export just a collection of your picks to another Aperture user and send along all of your image adjustments? Right now, it seems that the only way to do this is to drop them into a separate project and export that new project out. That sort of violates the grouping abilities that projects give you. It’d be much simpler if you could just export out a set of photographs, either individually or as a group, in a form that could be imported by another user of Aperture. Once imported, they’d have access to the full information in your RAW files, and they’d start out with just the adjustments you left off with.

I just posted a new photo assignment gallery from my virtual camera club, and doing so reminded me that sometimes you just have to add a little code yourself to create the features you want in Aperture’s web gallery. I use Aperture to create these assignment pages, and just love the functionality it provides… most of the time.

For example, when you click on any of the thumbnails in the gallery, the “view” page displays a bounty of metadata about the photo. All of that data is pulled from the Aperture library, and all I had to do was create a preset to cull the parts I wanted. This works great!

But on the Index pages I want to provide a hot link to the parent site, The Digital Story. I hadn’t found a way to create that link in Aperture (althogh maybe one of you know how), so I’ve been coding it myself after generating the gallery.

I simply open up the index pages (such as index.html) in Text Wrangler and add the follow code to create the link:

Buy adding my own HREF link to the Digital Story, I was able to provide a path back to the original site from the web gallery. Fortunately, most of the code that Aperture generates for its web galleries is easy to understand and alter. However, I don’t understand why they still use uppercase tags.

So if you’d like to add a function or two to your Aperture galleries, consider popping the hood and writing a little HTML. And if you have tips for making those additions an easier way, please share them in the comments area.

One of the most useful new features in Adobe Lightroom Version 1.0 is the Targeted Adjustment tool. While they have a whacky name, they are very easy to use. The Targeted Adjustment tool lives in the Develop module in the Tone Curve, HSL and Grayscale panels. They appear as a little target icon in the upper left hand corner of the panels as the red arrows point out in the screenshot below.

To use the Targeting Adjustment tool you simply click on the target and the tool icon changes into a target with arrowheads above and below as in the image below. Also, your mouse changes so that it has the same icon and a cross hair above it when you mouse over your image. To use the tool you simply choose the tone, hue, color or luminance that you would like to change in your image and move your mouse up or down to change the value. You’ll notice that simultaneously the sliders will move in the respective panels as you make adjustments with the Targeting tool. If you prefer you can also just click on a location and use the up or down arrow keys to make adjustments as well.

At first I thought these tools were a bit gimmicky, but I have since come to really love them because they allow me to concentrate on the image itself. With the Targeted Adjustment tools, I’m not looking at the sliders; I’m looking at my image and adjusting shadows, colors and saturation directly on my image. Once you start playing with them they will become second nature. I find myself using them a lot. And the great thing is that they allow me to adjust many different areas of an image all with the same tool.

The only other tool I know of like this is the U-Point technology in Nikon Capture NX. Whereas Capture NX allows you to limit the area that is adjusted, the Targeted Adjustment tools in Lightroom are global. It would be nice to have the ability to limit the area that the tool affects as in Capture NX, but for now it is global - maybe we’ll see that feature added to Lightroom in Version 2.0.

I find that by using these tools and adjusting my images with them I can take my images to places they might have never gone. I was recently working up some images I shot for Backpacker Magazine and I wasn’t getting the punch I really wanted so I clicked on a targeting tool and starting adjusting my image directly. The result was something I would not have come up with just by using the sliders. It seems I can fine-tune the image a little more with the Targeted Adjustment tools than I can just with the sliders. And on top of that it allows me to adjust my images faster as well. I would suggest playing with them a bit and see if they work for you.

That’s it for this Monday.

Adios, Michael Clark

This past week, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) announced its decision on internet radio royalty rates. In doing so, it chose to reject all arguments made by webcasters large and small & instead decided to adopt a ‘per play’ rate proposal presented by Sound Exchange (a digital music collection organization that the RIAA created during the last decade). There’s a well-written overview on rate specifics (retroactive to the beginning of 2006) and relevant commentary here; worthy of review.

Essentially the decision means that internet radio webcasters will have to pay for every song streamed through their servers. Webcasters large and small will feel the bite; the rates are not insignificant and they increase dramatically over the next couple of years. Ramifications of this decision are dire for internet radio should it take effect. Many of the best legitimate US webcast radio providers will be shut down as they simply won’t be able to afford to pay these rates retroactively much less in future.

This is not the first time we’ve been down this path — similar rate structures were proposed 5 years ago, but fell through. Webcasters of all sizes are rallying to defeat this current ‘decision’ before its too late.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Napster Freebies. These un-DRMed MP3 files are free for a limited time and can be downloaded from just about any country. Enjoy! In other news, ever hear of Michael Brennan? Nope, neither had I. Apparently eMusic had this contest where Mr. Brennan made their 100 millionth eMusic download. The Barenaked Ladies composed a song in his honor, which you can download for free from the eMusic site for the next month or so. Like the Napster freebies, it is MP3 without DRM. I’m not sure whether the download works internationally or not, so let me know in the comments.

“Different Than You” by The Exies
Formed in Los Angeles in 1997, The Existentialists have seen the ups and downs of the music industry from touring with Mötley Crüe to losing their record contract after returning from that very tour. Today’s download is a sneak peek at their new album, due out in April.

“Wouldn’t Wanna Go Without You” by Dalminjo
This Norwegian producer, who now has four albums to his credit, cites inspirations including the the synth sounds of Orbital and Masters at Work and the drum ‘n’ bass of 4 Hero. This downtempo track is from his current release, One Day You’ll Dance for Me Tokyo!.

“Ghostriders” by The Rewinds
After opening shows for established acts such as Snow Patrol, Eisley, and My Morning Jacket, this power-pop group from Birmingham, Alabama signed with Universal Records. Today’s download is from their recent self-titled album.

“Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame” by Sunny Sweeney
Country’s newest starlet realized her calling only after exploring a variety of occupations including dog walking, waitressing, and improv comedy. Hear her do what she does best on this track from her debut album, Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame.

“Feel the Sway” by Matt Wilson
A lifelong percussion student, this jazz drummer/composer has just delivered his seventh album, The Scenic Route. Wilson was recently voted Downbeat’s “rising star” drummer for the fourth year in a row. Download today’s track and find out why.

“Mojito” by Times 4
This San Francisco jazz quartet provides the perfect sounds to ring in the weekend with this dedication to their favorite libation. Today’s free download and other fresh modern jazz compositions appear on their sophomore album, Relations.

“When We Were Golden” by Crush Luther
Warped Tour audiences may already know the fresh pop/rock sound of this five-piece band from Toronto. With such unexpected influences such as Lyle Lovett and Tom Waits, their self-titled album is already a hit with critics. Hear for yourself on today’s free download.

Because Adobe Lightroom marketing has so far only been targeted at professional and enthusiast level photographers, the consumer can be forgiven for thinking that Lightroom is useful as an organizing, editing and presentation tool for photographers only. The slideshow and web modules in Lightroom seem to be designed with one purpose in mind and that is to present the photographer’s images to his image buying clients.

I discovered this week that Lightroom is also very useful as a presentation and marketing tool for other businesses, especially when the product description changes frequently or is never the same. An international artwork and handicrafts buyer client of mine approached me recently, to help him put together a system for cataloging and presenting a very large collection of various items that change constantly.

His biggest problem was that he needed to photograph a large number of items quickly and on the same day present them to his clients, who are located in various parts of the world. He had been using photographic prints and courier services, but he wanted to speed up the process, so that he could get an edge on his competitors.

Since he already owned a website, I suggested that he learn how to make web pages and upload the digital images to his website at the end of each day of photographing new items. Then he could call his client to discuss the items in question while they both look at the same images on the web.

He agreed that web pages would be the best solution to his problem, but he wanted one tool that he could use to organize his product images, correct bad exposures and crop the images, create the website pages, and send the web page to his website.

As you can probably guess by now, that tool turned out to be Adobe Lightroom. I was able to teach him how to import, organize, edit, create his web pages, and upload to the internet in one fairly long but easy training session. Now he is set up with a new sales and marketing tool that none of his competitors have, not until they find out what he is using and how easy it is to use.

In audio, as in the rest of life, the basics rule. For example, you can spend all the money in the world on great gear, but if your room is bad, you’re just going to end up with a great recording of a bad room. On the other hand, if you improve the room, everything else will sound much better. (This is a very useful heuristic: For “room”, substitute at will other basics such as “singer”, “actor”, “song”, “script”, etc.)

But sometimes you can’t improve the room, either because your housemate won’t let you or because you’re just visiting. One very clever solution: the Reflexion Filter, by SE Electronics. It’s essentially a miniature, curved gobo that mounts on a mic stand.

Last week in San Jose, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I had lunch with Lightroom’s father, Mark Hamburg, and three others from the LR engineering team: Kevin Tieskoetter, Donna Powell, and Bill Stotzner. LR marketing manager Jennifer Stern was there as well. Any technical question I had was quickly answered by irrefutable sources.

When I lamented that I couldn’t create an invert or solarize- effect tone curve in the Develop module Mark encouraged me to open my laptop then and there, on the lunch table. Within minutes he manually coded in x,y curve coordinates for the effects, and created a LR Develop preset which anyone can use. Watching him make the custom curves made me realize that it wasn’t that hard. Shortly I’ll show you how to do it yourself.

One of the nice things about Aperture is that once you’re using it, you can spend less time hassling with the Finder. Thanks to metadata and Smart Albums, you can organize and sort your images by metadata tags, rather than by simple file and folder names. However, there are users who still want their folder structure organized in a particular way, regardless of how things are arranged in Aperture. But, with Aperture 1.5, you can take advantage of a few features that allow you to let Aperture create a Finder-based folder structure for you. This trick will be especially useful for those users who are needing to migrate an existing library of images.

The following procedure will create an Aperture library structure and matching Finder folder structure. In Aperture, you’ll end up with separate projects for each year, and separate month albums within each project. In the Finder, you’ll have separate folders for each year, with subfolders for months. One note, this techniue requires you to create a copy of all of your images. However, if need be, you can perform this procedure in chunks. Also, you’ll lose any edits you might have made in Aperture. This process is really for an initial library setup, or for organizing images that you’re just now importing. Read through it before you give it a whirl.

First, import your existing images into Aperture as references. It doesn’t matter how you perform the import. If you want, you can even import everything into one project.

Next, click on Library in the All Projects pane and then create a Smart Album. In the Smart Album action menu select Text to add a Text criteria field to the Smart Album. Enter a year in the field, for example, “2004″.

This will create a Smart Album at the Library level, which means it will gather images from all projects within your library. It will populate itself with any image that has “2004″ in its metadata. In other words, the album should automatically fill with all images that you shot in 2004. Name the album “2004.”

Now create additional Smart Albums for all the other years in your library. When you’re finished, you should have a large collection of Smart Albums, each named for a different year.

Now you’re ready to create a Finder folder structure that mirrors these Smart albums. Click on the first Smart Album to view it’s contents. Select all of the images in the Smart Album by clicking in the Browser pane and pressing Command-A.

Choose File > Export > Export Masters. In the Save dialog box that appears, create a new folder on a drive that has enough space to hold a copy of your entire library. You’re going to save all of your master images into this folder.

Change the Subfolder format menu to “Image Year/Month”. Set Name Format to “Master Filename.” Now click the Export Masters button. (If you’ve edited any of your images, then you’ll also need to Export Versions of those images. Obviously, if you do this, you’ll lose editability.)

When it’s done, you will have a Finder folder for one year, with separate sub-folders for each month. Now perform the same export with all of the other Smart Folders that you created. This will create an organized Finder structure, now it’s time to match this structure in Aperture.

Select all of the projects in your library and delete them. Don’t panic.

Choose File > Import > Folders as Projects. Set Store Files to “In their Current Location” (if you import into the Aperture library, there’s really no reason to hassle with all this Finder organization). Click Open.

When the Import is done, you will have a separate Project for each year folder that you have in the Finder, and within that you’ll find separate albums for each Month subfolder. You now have an Aperture library structure that exactly matches your Finder structure. Now you can delete the original master images that you imported way back in the first step.

Note that you don’t have to create a calendrical structure if you’re willing to spend some time adding metadata. For example, perform your initial import, then tag all of your images with a keyword. Create Smart Albums that automatically grab all of the images with specific keywords, and then perform your export.

Obviously, the “killer features” that make this trick work are Smart Albums, and Aperture’s ability to export Finder folder structures. Using these two features, you should be able to come up with just about any Aperture/Finder structure that you can think of.

One thing I’m re-discovering as Lightroom makes maintenance chores easier, is the power of keywords when it comes to assembling candidates for a project-type, such as one-off books, greeting cards, calendars, and stock photo categories is the power of keywords.

Lightroom now “remembers” the keywords you’ve recently used most frequently. So, as soon as you find one image that meets the criteria, go to the Library module and enter a keyword for that criteria…such as greetings. At the same time, enter any other criteria that may pertain.

Now, here comes the magic part: In the Library panel, choose All Photographs. Now, both the Filmstrip and the Grid View will show all the photographs you’ve ever Imported into Lightroom. Now go to the find panel and enter the keyword for the category you’re looking for (in this case, Greeting). You’ll instantly see only the photos that you’ve given that classification. You can also have categories within categories by Finding two keywords, in this case, Greeting and Birds. So you could instantly collect all the candidates for Greeting cards that featured birds, trees, nature close-ups, flowers, etc. Pretty dang slick, don’t you think?

LogicKeyboard is now shipping three versions of a new custom keyboard specifically designed to take advantage of Aperture 1.5’s keyboard shortcuts.

This Danish company makes a variety of custom keyboards, including ones for Photoshop, but I’m anxious to get my fingers clicking on the Aperture keyboard as I continue to slide down the learning curve to master my workflow program. I don’t really see a down side to seeing the shortcuts to Aperture features on the keys themselves as a learning tool.

The company says: “Constant movements of the mouse to the menu bar in search for the desired function can be a real drag, slowing down the creative work process”.

I admit to forgetting my shortcuts if I’ve been away from my camera and computer for a few days. Maybe this keyboard will replace the Ginkgo Biloba supplements I should be taking.

They are selling different versions: a clean all-white version, one with a mix of white and gray keys, and a Keyset Kit if you want to save money and don’t mind replacing the keys that come with your compatible Apple keyboard.

LogicKeyboards are standard-issue Apple keyboards with the modified Aperture shortcut keys replacing the standard ones; and they come in USB or Bluetooth wireless models. Key-Set Kit is priced in USD plus shipping @ $59; $99 for the full keyboard USB version and $119 for the wireless Bluetooth Aperture keyboard. As soon as I get my hands on one, I’ll let you know if it helps!

Stephen Johnson checked in to say he was back from Antarctica, I went looking online to see if any photos were posted yet. (I’m partial to penguins.) But I ended up engaged by this report from the trip’s organizer Michael Reichmann about how various pieces of equipment fared under the extreme circumstances. I have a similar fascination with Derrick’s anecdotes about things he learnt the hard way. There’s something compelling about the vicarious adventure of these “from the trenches” reports.

I play far more music than games, but I always get great musical insights at GDC, the annual Game Developers Conference. I’m particularly intrigued by what game composers call adaptive music, soundtracks that change based on what the player is doing. The Fat Man likens composing this type of music to creating sculpture—your audience will be able to walk around it, move in, and move out, and each new angle will provide a new perspective. So instead of controlling the experience, you’re setting it up, creating a world of potential sounds to explore.

Last year’s IASIG party was a big success. If you’re at GDC on an Audio Pass, look in your attendee bag for an invitation to this year’s party, which is on Wednesday, March 6. In addition to networking with other audio pros, there will be over $2,000 in cool audio prizes from Creative Labs, BIAS, Wave Arts, Backbeat Books, and O’Reilly.

A few years ago, I joined the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG), which formed at GDC 12 years ago to “advance the art and science of interactive audio.” If you’ll be at the show, I encourage you to attend our annual Town Hall Meeting, in which we’ll unveil some of our projects and then turn it over to the audience to ask for future challenges. The Town Hall Meeting is

Friday, March 9, 2007
1:15–2:15 PM
Room 2007, Moscone West

Brad Fuller has compiled a list of other recommended sessions here.

Not able to attend GDC? Keep your eyes peeled for two free interactive audio resources we’re launching at the show.

First let me start by saying how much fun I have had on this project. I really was overwhelmed by all the comments and discussions that ensued after each post. I hope we can keep it going. So, last week I finished a week long comparison between Apple’s Aperture, and Adobe’s Lightroom. I tried to stay away from the technical details of each program, and just focused on how they fit the style of work I do.

Meanwhile on the Inside Lightroom site, Micheal Clark was essentially doing the same thing. We both came to this project with basically opposite perspectives. Michael has been using Lightroom for some time now, and I have been a big fan of Aperture for the last year or so. So, we both jumped in the water and tried to make sense out of things.

As promised, we have both published articles on our respective sites and you can view them now. Take some time to read through my synopsis of the Aperture Vs. Lightroom Field Test here, and when you are done, be sure to check out Michael’s article here.

Where do we go from here? Well, I am pretty happy with Aperture, but I have always been one of those people who loves to tinker with new toys and gadgets. So, I am sure I will be venturing further into the dark corners of Adobe’s Lightroom, and I’ll be posting anything that seems interesting. I’ve also got plenty more to say about Aperture, so, please continue to tune in.

Well, after a few weeks of comparing Lightroom and Aperture my final field test report is up on the Inside Lightroom website. For the last few weeks Micah Walter, on the Inside Aperture site, and myself have been conducting parallel comparisons of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture. It has been a very enlightening experience for me. I have learned a lot about both Aperture and Lightroom, including a few tricks that I didn’t know about Lightroom - and some that aren’t even in the user manual! Thanks to all of you who posted comments on my blogs and Micah’s.

My article is not so much a technical evaluation - save for the image quality and RAW conversion comparisons - but it is more about the usability of each application. I found Aperture to be a complex editing and RAW processing program compared to Lightroom. While I definitely came away from the comparison very happy with my choice of Lightroom for my workflow, I would suggest you give my article a read and then click over to the Inside Aperture website to give Micah Walter’s article a read as well. Between our two articles it should be a fairly balanced appraisal of Aperture and Lightroom.

I will confess that before the test I thought both applications were more than suitable for my workflow and I had very little bias between the two. But now, after the test, I have to say I am very biased towards Lightroom and I don’t think Aperture would work for my workflow. I’m sure I could make do with Aperture if I had to but thankfully I don’t. And I’m sure there will be quite a few comments on the article because of my findings, especially dealing with the image quality section. I have thick skin so have at it.

I will resume next week with my normal blog posts each Monday. Next weeks post will talk about the very useful Targeted Adjustment tools in Lightroom and how they allow you to work directly on your image.

That’s it for now. I’ll be out of the office all week on a backcountry ski tour in Colorado shooting for several clients. So if you post comments or questions here or with the article I’ll take a look at them this coming weekend.

Adios, Michael Clark

One of the annoyances of digital cameras with interchangeable lenses is dust on the sensor. The sensor can be like a magnet for dust when changing lenses and it needs to be cleaned from time to time. Some modern cameras have built in technology to avoid dust on the sensor but many cameras don’t (like my Canon 5D). This dust can then appear on the finished picture as a very distracting spots and is especially visible on clean areas in the frame like blue skies.

As spots on sensor are pretty common one of the most requested features of Lightroom in the beta program was a feature to remove spots and blemishes. It came as a late addition to the program in the form of the clone/spot and healing tool. It can be found in the Develop module (accessed in the toolbar below the image or by pressing N key). With this feature it is easy to remove spots by selecting an affected area and it is replaced by a sample from another area. The difference between spot and healing is (taken from the Lightroom manual):

Clone: Applies the sampled area of the photo to the selected area.
Heal: Matches the texture, lighting, and shading of the sampled area to the selected area.

When clone/tool has been selected the mouse pointer changes into a circle to select the area to fix - it is very convenient to use the mouse scroll wheel (if available) to control the size of the circle. When the area has been clicked a sample area is automatically selected which can afterwards be dragged to select another sample area. It is also possible to select an area to fix and click and drag to a sample to area to be sampled. The size and location of each fix and sample area can easily be changed afterwards with the mouse. It is very useful to press and hold the H key to hide other fix areas when selecting a spot (useful when many areas of the picture have been fixed).

As the spots are in the same location in the frame for a photo session the spot and healing settings for a picture can be pasted into other picture like other adjustments which is very convenient.

I have created a variety of views for the Audio sessions for this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (much faster than waiting for GDC's site). Even if you are not a composer or sound designer, there are plenty of sessions worth checking out:

• All Audio Sessions in chronological order
  
• Lectures
• Mobile Audio Sessions
• Panels
• Roundtables
• Sponsored Sessions
• IAsig recommended sessions (more about The IAsig)

Conveniently formated for printing and in other formats such as iCal.

And don't forget to stop by our panel on Mobile Audio Has Gone Bizerk. See you at the show!

(Dabble DB was used to create views from the GDC Audio Track)

I’ve written before in this blog about the importance of calibrating your monitor. The general message of those articles is: The calibration tool that you use is less important than the act of calibration itself. In fact, the only way to really know what you are doing when you are using Aperture is to use a calibrated display. If you’ve already spent the money on a computer, digital SLR, memory cards, and Aperture, then you really should get a calibration device so that you can get the most out of your system.

There’s something in those posts that I neglected to mention, however. And that is to let your monitor “warm up” for a while before calibrating it. Even LCD monitors need time to reach a steady state after you turn them on. I assume that the biggest reason you need to let them warm up is that the backlights take a bit of time to get up to their operating levels.

I experimented with this last night while setting up my trusty 23″ Cinema Display on my girlfriend’s new MacPro. She wanted to see how the 23″ Cinema display works out on her desk and, in exchange, I get to play with one smoking hot machine for a while. After placing the display on her desk and hooking everything up, I ran an initial calibration. In addition, I used a feature in the Eye-One Match color calibration software that allows you to set a target luminance. In this case, I set a target of 120cd/m2. As you would expect, after calibration, the colors on the display looked better and slightly more neutral.

Then, after leaving the display on for a couple of hours—I had to go into the Energy Saver preferences panel to keep the monitor from going to sleep—I re-ran the calibration. Most interestingly, when I checked the brightness of the monitor that I had carefully set to the target in the first calibration, it now registered almost 170cd/m2. So, I backed the brightness down to reach the target of 120cd/m2 again and re-ran the calibration. After calibration, I compared the two profiles. Two things about this comparison were interesting. The first thing I noticed was that the second profile was more neutral than the first one. The one made at the initial connection of the display was displaying colors quite a bit warmer than the second profile. The second thing I noticed in a ColorSync Utility comparison is that the second “warmed-up” profile had a slightly larger gamut in every direction.

In other words, as the monitor warmed up and the brightness of the backlights increased, the color of the display showed changed in cast slightly, and the overall gamut of colors that the display was able to represent increased.

Like exercise, calibration is good for you, but be sure to warm up first.

I find it very helpful to give yourself a photo assignment from time to time. Photo assignments can help you expand your skills and force you to step out of your comfort zone and work on your craft a bit.

Last night I gave myself the assignment to grab my camera, go in the kitchen and take a dozen photos.

The rules were:
1. No flash
2. Use whatever lens is on the camera
3. No supplemental lights
4. No tripod
5. You can take more than one photo of an object (and pick the best one), but pick 12 objects (and only 12) and shoot them all regardless of how difficult the subject is.

The only deviation from the rules should be in cases where it’s totally impossible to adhere to them, like in the case of my 30D it has my 100-400mm IS L lens on it … I don’t think my kitchen is big enough to use that lens at the minimum focusing distance … so I picked up the 20D instead.

I shot all my photos with a Canon EOS 20D and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. All photos were shot at f2.8 due to the very low light.

So try it yourself, Pick a room (or even better have your spouse pick a room for you) and go shooting and see what happens.

Until next time,

Keep shooting.

Allen Rockwell
Allen Rockwell Photography

I just recently purchased a new Core2Duo 15″ MacBook Pro to replace the CoreDuo 15″ MacBook Pro that I bought last year. While one could look at this as a testament to my pronounced level of nerdery, I prefer a different explanation: Aperture performance.

The MBP that I had before was one of the very first ones to roll off the line and it was extremely flaky. It had the noisy screen problem, exhibited really weird, random crashes, would wake up after I closed the lid, and on and on. It was also not a great Aperture machine. Though it had the exact same specs and video card as the 17″ MacBook Pro, as Derrick Story and I discovered one day, the 17″ machine was noticably faster when running Aperture. The most reasonable explanation that I’ve heard for this difference is that Apple underclocked the video card on the original 15″ MacBook Pro due to heat issues.

When the new machine came out, I was very excited to see both the faster processor, and an improved video card. Asking Apple directly if video performance would be better yielded very promising answers. So, I finally bought the new machine. So far, Aperture is indeed peppier than on the old machine, but I haven’t had the chance to take it out in the field for serious Aperture work.

However, in the process of upgrading, I did discover something about the Aperture 1.5 installation disk: it doesn’t include the camera updater that adds support for numerous cameras such as the Nikon D80. I found myself out shooting with a D80 and my MBP one day after I’d set up the machine, but with no way to view my images within Aperture.

So, if you find yourself re-installing or installing for the first time on a new machine, don’t forget to grab the updater even if you’re using a 1.5 installation disc.

You can now browse all plug-ins related to Aperture by visiting Apple’s new Aperture Downloads page. Not only can you grab the latest version of the application itself, you can peruse the bountiful menu of export plug-ins available. Plus you can see the top downloads (what is everyone else interested in?) and read more about currently featured software. Bookmark this page if you’re looking to integrate Aperture into your favorite third-party services.

Don’t miss a spot when you’re cleaning up a large photo with the Remove Spots tool in the Develop module. Rather than scrolling around randomly looking for dust spots, use this trick to make sure you’ve examined every bit of the photo.

In the Navigator panel, set the zoom level to 1:1. Drag the white frame overlay to the top left of the image in the Navigator panel. Repair any spots you see in the visible area of the photo. Then press the Page Down key on your keyboard to move vertically to the next unviewed area of the photo.

Here’s the kicker. When you reach the bottom of the photo and press the Page Down key one more time, Lightroom automatically jumps to the next unviewed area at the top of the photo. This automatic jump works the same way if you’re using the Page Up key to work through the photo from the bottom up.

Aperture has some pretty nifty slideshow features, but you have to navigate down to the “Edit…” selection on the popup menu to get to them. Alot of people think that they’re stuck with the stock options such as “Dissolve” and lose interest quickly. Remember, whenever you see a “…” after a menu selection, that means a dialog box follows. And with Apple, that usually results in good things.

Once you get to the slideshow dialog box, you’ll see that you have control over timing, duration, and quality. That’s nice. But the interesting stuff are the Rows and Columns where you can create multiple image frames on the display at once, and have Aperture cycle pictures through those frames. If you haven’t tried this yet, you’ve just gotta do it. I just created a 3-column slideshow of a basketball game I shot, and it’s fun.

I’d like to see more controls for authoring these presentations, and I suspect we will in the future. But the biggest drawback is the inability to export your slideshows to QuickTime for other uses outside of Aperture. Now, there are some workarounds such as exporting to keynote and exporting to iDVD. You could also record a screengrab movie using Snapz Pro X. The value of these workarounds depends on the requirements of your finished product.

But don’t forget the iPhoto to Aperture connection (as shown in the illustration). If you’ve generated previews in Aperture, then you can browse those in iPhoto and even copy an entire Aperture album into iPhoto. I usually make pretty big previews, so I have the option to use the Ken Burns effect in iPhoto if I want. And the best part is, I can easily export those iPhoto slideshows to QuickTime.

Regardless of which path you take, there are more slideshow options in Aperture (and Aperture to iPhoto) than initially meet the eye.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Napster Freebies. These un-DRMed MP3 files are free for a limited time and can be downloaded from just about any country. Enjoy!

“Love Fades” by Amnesty
Providing a counterpoint to early Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Sly & The Family Stone, this relatively obscure Indianapolis outfit’s previously unreleased early ’70s recordings, now available for the first time, bring a heavy funk all their own. Get a taste with this free download.

“Death of Me” by Tony Lucca
Despite being named the Best Male Singer/Songwriter at the 2001 L.A. Music Awards and opening for such acts as *NSYNC and Marc Anthony, this guitar-playin’ bard has kept a level head. Today’s free download is from his fourth album, Canyon Songs.

“Against Myself” by Joel Kroeker
On a quest to expand the boundaries of pop music, this well-traveled songwriter from Winnipeg has released his sophomore album, Closer to the Flame, which includes this insightful tune about seeking inner harmony.

“Magic City” by 2XL
This twin-brother rap duo has overcome childhood adversity and is now climbing the charts, thanks to this track produced by hitmaker Scott Storch. It’s the lead single from their debut album, Neighborhood Rapstar.

“I Love This Game” by Master P
If you’re a fan of professional basketball, you’ve definitely heard this ode to the game by the No Limit rap mogul, who also happens to be a former NBA player. Downloading today’s track will help you root for your favorite team between games.

“Peoples” by Sabotawj
Hailing from the rich and storied underground hip-hop scene of San Diego, CA, Sabotawj’s mission is to “bring the originality back to the culture.” Check out today’s free download from his new album Key 2 Da City.

“Getting Clean in the Dirty South” by Sparks The Rescue
These teenage phenoms have been rocking shows all over Maine and New Hampshire, sharing stages with contemporaries such as Hawthorne Heights, Saosin, and A Change of Pace. Today’s free download is from their five-track EP, The Secrets We Can’t Keep.

When I say all of us, I am of course referring to all of us photographers. I remember that even as far back as my early teens, I would anxiously await the latest copies of Popular Photography and Modern Photography magazines every month.

When the magazines arrived I would read them from cover to cover, to look for the latest cameras, lenses, light meters (the Gossen Luna Pro, my first light meter, first came out in 1963), general must have accessories, like Nikon exposure button extenders (remember those?), the newest films, and special effects filters (cross star and prism effect filters were big then).

I think I first visited Willoughby-Peerless in New York (then the world’s largest camera store) when I was about 9 years old. It was so huge and so over whelming, I will never forget that day.

For a number of years I made do with a twin lens Ricohflex that I was given on my 11th birthday, but at about age 16 I bought a Nikkorex F with a 50mm f1.4 Nikkor lens and the acquiring of camera bodies, lenses and other essential gadgets, has never stopped since. There have been an incredible number of Nikon, Bronica, Mamiya, Hasselblad, and even various Sinar camera systems that have passed through my equipment bags over the years.

As I grew older I also became more interested in film developing and photo enlarging so my closets were always filled up with half empty bottles of some very dangerous and awful smelling chemicals. The smell of D76, Rodinal and print fixer was permanently absorbed into all my clothes and probably came out of my pores.

So here we are now in the age of digital cameras and computer based darkrooms. The photo magazines have been replaced by photo websites (and blogs) and the mail order camera and equipment dealers have gone online. Our appetite for photographic gadget (hardware and software) news and acquisition, seems to have increased to an even a higher level than ever before.

For the last ten years or so I have acquired and discarded a large number of digital cameras and accessories from Sony, Canon, Olympus and Nikon, plus the ones from Konica, Panasonic, Samsung and Leica that I just borrowed for “review” purposes.

The darkroom equipment and photo chemicals have also been replaced by an endless succession of new computers and ever more powerful software. This is not necessarily a bad thing of course, technology is allowing us to do things with photography that we never even dreamed of before and the advances are real, not imaginary.

So the big question for this blog posting is, where does Adobe Photoshop (especially Photoshop Lightroom) fit into this never-ending gadget acquisition scenario?

I have personally been using Photoshop since 1988, when I was handed a disk with a pre-release (Beta) version of Photoshop, at a Seybold Desktop Publishing Conference, in Santa Clara, California. So I would have to say that Adobe Photoshop is one of those long term gadgets, that seems to have found a way to either adapt to the changes in the photo industry as they occur, or at times even to make them happen. Photoshop Lightroom is the most cutting edge gadget version of Adobe Photoshop at this time and it is making the changes happen right now.

You know how I am…I never recommend gear, I just wax all philosophical about theories and such.

However.

I am currently so stinking excited I can’t sit still!!!!

Don’t tell the other guys, we jam tonight, and I have a–no, no, not “A..”
no, I have THE–coolest secret weapon ever. I’m giddy.

It analyzes what your guitar is playing, and based on that, sings harmony with you. Correctly. Musically. Amazingly. This is not just a matter of breadboarding a circuit and shoving it into the market’s soft underbelly…this thing is WARM, musical, and Beautiful.

They call it the Digitech Vocalist Live 2. Yes, I know, the name is unspectacular, and yes, it looks like an even less spectacular ’80’s early digital crummy stomp box. But I’m tellin’ ya, this is a “push-one-button, sound-like-God” box.

Have I earned your trust by keeping quiet so long? It doesn’t matter. You can click on the demo, or you can miss out…

CLICK ON THE PICTURE. LISTEN TO THE DEMO.

I loved Mikkel Aaland’s piece on how to create a QuickTime movie with the Slideshow module. First, I’d been looking for a way to do that because I’d like to narrate and add music to some slideshows that talk about…well, more about that later. Mikkel’s blog also inspired me to do a piece on printing portfolios in the Print module.

Here’s the best part: You can print all your verticals in a project at one click of the Print button. Just select the verticals in the Filmstrip or in the Library module and then go to the Print module. Then you can do the same for all your horizontals.

The Print module is wonderful about doing lots of things, such as contact sheets and “job” sheets (multiple images on the same page). You can specify as many rows and columns as you like, so you can make big contact sheets or just select certain images in the Filmstrip and have them all appear on the same page. But that’s a topic for another blog…and it might even not be mine.

Okay, it’s a sad fact that photographers are often not the best editors. I think there are many reasons for this. For one thing, you were there when you took the picture. So often when looking at images, you remember and relive the experience, the light, the sound and the excitement you may have felt while taking the picture. I think that sometimes we tend to bring these remembrances into the editing process, and attacth the experience to the strength of the image.

We need to be objective, and if the images aren’t evoking the emotions we experienced than maybe we can do better.

We remember the experience of taking each picture, which is not always a good thing when editing.

It’s hard, if not completely impossible to be truly objective, and nor should we be. But I think it’s important to be realistic and it’s always a good idea to have a second set of eyes you trust, look at your stuff and give a detached opinion.

For years when I was a newspaper photographer, we looked at negatives through a loupe, and basically guessed what the eyes looked like in the positive, printed version of our photographs of people. In portraiture, the eyes are so important and I never felt it possible to really edit properly without seeing a positive version on either a contact sheet or print.

But Aperture is a photo editors’ dream. Using Aperture’s many and varied editing features like the amazing loupe, stacks, compare and select, ratings etc; in my opinion it is the best way to edit digital images; period. Here’s how I never miss a frame.

I like to use Stacks, which lets me edit in an orderly and comprehensive way.

I talked about my editing process before, that coveted first look and first impression, going through every frame and choosing the misses and the technically challenged and deleting them, then rating the keepers. But looking back at earlier editing posts, I realize my editing process with Aperture is fluid and changes with the assignment and as my experience with Aperture grows.

After my initial edit, I then move to my favorite way to really squeeze the best frames out of my rated images in Aperture: Stack Mode. This is where I will promote the three-star keepers to Four-star “Stars”.

Stack mode makes it much easier to squeeze the best frames out of every shoot.

I edit on one 23inch monitor for now, and I have customized my tool bar to include the following stacking functions: Auto-Stack, Stack, Pick, Promote and Demote. (I use the up and down arrow keys to move to the next stack or the previous stack). Eventually I suspect that I will be able to remember all the keyboard shortcuts, but for now I don’t mind clicking on the toolbar while editing.

I click on “V” to enable the viewer and then I click on Auto-Stack (in my new customized toolbar) and play with the timing to get the separation of images between stacks that works best. I then clean up rogue images by adding and extracting them to and from stacks by dragging and dropping.

Under View>Main Viewer I make sure I’m in Stack mode. I then press V again to hide the viewer and get back to the Basic view, and start to compare images in the Stacks. I sometimes work in Full Screen mode, but I do like to see a larger group of thumbnails in the basic viewer, where I can quickly drag images to promote or demote within the stack, which I like. My picks are rated 4-Star, which I would often move to a web gallery for clients or perspective clients to see fresh, new work.

As I’m working through this process I may click on the ” ` ” (upper left corner key) to activate the loupe or press the Z key to see a 100 per cent view to check for sharpness and other details within the frame. (By holding down the Shift Key in zoom mode, you can move both images at the same time, great for comparing similar frames).

Can the Stacks feature in Aperture make you a better photographer? I think yes. It’s very interesting to see your take in stack form–did you work it enough? Did you move around, move in tight and then further back, giving yourself some variety when it came time to edit? Did you miss something? By asking yourself these questions as you move through your shoot in Stack mode, you can learn much about the way you approach your work, which you can utilize next time out.

By looking at the way you approached each particular shoot, you can learn to do better next time out.

Look for a review of my book Heroines & Heroes in American Photo Magazine, March/April Issue, @ newsstands now.

Also @ Nikon.net