Monthly Archives: September 2008
Tuesday Tricks
Orange Jason Moore has his bi-monthly Photographic Compostion posted today, so be sure to stop over there and see the others (I am sure they were more creative than the one I came up with at the last minute yesterday…) Rather than record a tip or trick for this Tuesday, I thought I’d share a few ideas and suggestions I’ve picked up from various magazines, forums, and photo communities for managing and handling your gear in the field. These things have become almost second nature to me now and I can’t tell you how helpful these tips and tricks have … Continue reading
Photo Galleries Galore
I’ve been playing around with the SImpleviewer Flash concept a little lately. In looking at how others are implementing it on their blogs, I was thinking that CB could use a dedicated photo gallery to share and exhibit some photos. Well, as a temporary release, I’ve put a few together using the Auto-viewer format. It has naturally been customized a little, but is up and viewable right now! Check out the images I’ve included here: CB Photo Galleries They are mostly images of colors and textures thus far with a few other test images thrown in to determine sizing. Hopefully … Continue reading
The Weekender – Web stuff and some thoughts on CS4
The last few days have been insanely busy with work and home obligations, so out of necessity I have not had time to devote to content for the blog. My apologies for abandoning the readership temporarily, and without warning. I’ll endeavor to give advance notice before that happens again. So, with that out of the way, I thought today it might be useful to get a wrap-up of what I have been seeing and reading around the forums, blogs, and internet that’s photography-related. Jeff Revell, who has become quite well-known for his photowalking blog made a few interesting posts recently. … Continue reading
What’s This? – Week 12
Here’s one for everyone…what’s this? I had to go through some archives to find one that fit what I was looking for this week, but I found it. This is a crop of a larger image. The only thing I did was a little levels adjusting, the crop, and then some sharpening. Can you identify this? Share your thoughts in the comments! The winner – wins! As always, happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
A few of the Creative Suite 4 Features!
Before the release of CS4 in Adobe’s announcement this morning, I happened to see a post in the NAPP member forums of someone thanking the Photoshop Guys for their top ten of the new features for the latest edition of Photoshop Creative Suite 4! So, for those who want the early bird news, here’s a hint of what Adobe will be talking about later this morning: Better scrolling with less jaggies as you zoom in and out of images. The Adjusment Panel – Adobe has added a dedicated panel for your layers adjustments On-screen image adjustments – you can now … Continue reading
Eureka! Tutorial Tuesdays Triumphant Return!
For those that have been visiting the blog, you know that Podpress, my plugin of choice for putting out podcasts has been broken for some time as the developer has not released an update that makes it compatible with WordPress 2.6 Well, since it has been several months now, I am officially parting ways with it as my method for publishing. Thanks to the folks over at Blubrry, I have been successfully able to implement a new alternative to embed podcasts into the native feed that already exists for CanonBlogger. So, in the interests of getting the content posted to … Continue reading
My weekend with Joe McNally
Well, it finally happened…I got my copy of The Moment it Clicks, by Joe McNally. Read through the entire book over the course of the weekend – twice. This guy continually amazes me, not only for what he’s teaching, but his matter-of-fact and down-to-earth approach to instruction. This book really and truly does live up to its reputation as THE book of the year. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and everything in between. I have not been prone to reading much lately that isn’t photography-technical jargon. What with the TOP Test being a project that is so … Continue reading
Friday Frenzy
Just a quick wrap up here for the week as the day is getting late, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. Um…yeah, okay, that came from a poem somewhere but I forget who wrote it or the title, so no credit line on that. As we all know by now (unless you are in a cave somewhere in the Congo), Canon has released the 5D Mark II and the specs were posted here a few days ago. Forums and the blogosphere have poked and prodded at just about everything they can until the camera itself comes to … Continue reading
I think I can…think, and thank!
The cloud and haze of my head cold has lifted and I find myself able to think clearly for the first time in several days…almost a week. With the fervor and excitement of the 5D Mark II hitting the blogosphere, and the requisite discussions now settling to a dull roar, it’s time to get back to the business of blogging on everything photography! To start, I’d like to call out for thanks fellow NAPP member Erik Bernskiold. Not only is he a talented Photoshopper, but he knows quite a bit about web design too (and he’s like 1/3rd my age!). … Continue reading
Hot off the Presses: Canon 5D Mark II announced late yesterday!!!
Stop the presses! No What’s This today! CANON ANNOUNCES THE 5D MARK II!!! Here’s the first pics Canon released. The specs are pretty impressive and pricing is already amazingly low! I saw this over on TWIP, and verified it on Canon’s site. Here’s everything about it, specs, pricing, and photos! I didn’t want to jump on the 5d Mark II rumor bandwagon, but with this being public, I must say…”Holy Crap!” There’s also links at the end of this post to some video samples with audio in 3 of them from the camera. They look and sound pretty darn good … Continue reading
Geographic Composition
Today is the latest installment of the Geographic Composition series from Jason Moore, noted photographer and Photoshop Pro over on his blog. I had the privilege of being a contributing participant again, so in lieu of the typical tutorial that is associated with Tuesday postings, here is the shot that I shared in the Geographic Composition series. The theme for this most recent series is Big and Small. Be sure to stop over at Jason’s blog to view the rest of the images (it’s an excellent resource to for creative juices and to see the latest trends in the industry. … Continue reading
Monday Morning News
To start off, I have a little housekeeping news to share. The feed is fixed! As you may or may not know, the podpress problems with the WordPress interface have also been creating feed problems too. So, for the time being I am probably going to refrain from trying to embed multimedia files within the posts. After going back and looking at some validation errors, I also re-tagged a few posts to try and clean things up. Well, the long and short of it is that feedburner is now working again, so feel free to go back to feeds as … Continue reading
Friday Follies
Another week in the record books, and the poll has changed out. Since the week pretty much consisted of discussions about noise in your photos, let’s see what people are using in the way of 3rd party plugins. So, take a moment to participate in the poll on the right. Thanks for all the participation last week – 29 people voted! Let’s see if we can crack the barrier of 30 this week! Today I thought it might be fun to share a few links to fun Photoshop resources – reasons to laugh and just take a break from it … Continue reading
Now the flip side
Earlier this week I talked about various ways to decrease noise in your images. While preventing and removing noise is something we typically do like to address in our work flow – there is also the flip side where noise or grain can enhance the quality of a print. All one has to look at for examples where noise can have an impact is in black and white photography. Grain gives an added sense of detail to black and white photos. The same can also be said for sepia-toned photos, those with a slightly yellowish, an “old-fashioned”, or “antique” look … Continue reading
What’s This?
Nothing fancy today – just something to whet your creativity – can you guess what this is? It took me a while to dig through my archive of images to find one that I could crop this way and effectively not give it away. The winner….well, wins! Good luck to all, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow! Oh yeah, don’t forget to vote in the poll – how much time do you spend shooting for your own projects each month?
Just under the wire…
enver did mighty fine yesterday in their handling of the Raiders, so hats off to them for getting the season started on the right note. Go Broncos! As you may have guessed from yesterday’s post, today is Tutorial Tuesday, and since time is ticking away from me here, I’ll get right to it. The tutorial today does a comparison of reducing noise from the built in settings inside Photoshop versus a third party plugin. Granted, I went through it pretty quick and didn’t go into a lot of detail on the various settings, but I did want to give you … Continue reading
Monday Musings – Reducing Noise in your photos
Before I even start on anything photographic today, this is a great day to be alive. Not only is it the first installment of MNF (Monday Night Football), but it is my own beloved Denver Broncos! Having been a fan since the age of 8, and cried through the first 4 Super Bowls in sadness, and then in exhilaration for the next 2 in happiness, let’s just say GAME ON as the season gets underway with us revving up against the Raiders (yes, I’m a Raider hater like nobody’s business!) tonight at 8pm! Okay, now having set the stage for … Continue reading
A change of plans
This week I am adding a new feature to the blog, in hopes of making things more interactive, and as a means of contributing market research for the field of photography as a whole. In all the blog posts I’ve done over the past year (we’re getting close too…), the content has really been focused on information I’ve put together that I thought could be helpful to others. Well, no man is an island, so I am going to start incorporating weekly polls for people to participate in. These polls are created by a company called VIzu that does market … Continue reading
Photography for Fun?
As I started a new job here in Colorado, I was actually quite excited to do so, because a fair portion of it includes some photography portrait work, event photography, and a lot of publishing in catalogs, brochures, and marketing materials. As a hobbyist photographer for going on 4 years now, I would guess that I am similar to many other hobbyists – I enjoy learning more about the field, and at some point, there has always been an interest in “taking things to the next level.” Today, my Thursday Thoughts revolve around that premise, and the age old adage … Continue reading
What’s This Returns again…
Last week, I missed the 9th edition of “What’s This?”. On Wednesday the rather long previous day left me without the time to prepare for it, and on Thursday I was wrapped up in the Firmware Upgrade posting, that the weekly “What’s This?” just plain slipped my mind – like Denny Crane from Boston Legal, I must have Mad Cow Disease! Rest assured, fellow bloggers, photogs, and CB readers all, I have remembered this week to make such a post. Since there is nothing to reveal from last week, I’ll just get right to it – here’s this week’s mystery … Continue reading
Updating Your Firmware
A few days ago I shared the story of how an IS lens on my beloved 40D was producing some odd noises and the resulting diagnosis was to update my firmware. Rather than do so immediately (as is usually the case for me), I decided to hold off and share it as a video tutorial of sorts on what the process is like. I share a few tips on things to do before hand and what to look for. Then, you see in real time, unrehearsed and unscripted, my firmware update. As the video shows, it’s a pretty painless process … Continue reading
Just a quickie…
Went out this evening and caught a few nice ones. I’ll upload to the Flickr photo stream tomorrow evening with the weekly tutorial (upgrading your firmware – make sure you tune in for that – raw recording, no re-takes allowed!). But, in the mean time, here’s a teaser pic (probably the best one from the outing):
Happy Labor Day
For all those in the U.S.A., especially those who have the day off: Happy Labor Day! Go out and shoot! For everyone else: Go out and shoot anyway! Today was a family day and I did take an hour towards sunset to go out and see what I could see through the lens. Got a few but not sure if I had all the dials and exposure settings right, so look for them in the post tomorrow!
