I've been blogged....

Got an email from Ted Waite over at Peachpit Press this morning, letting me know about a blurb on their blog about my new Digital Photography book, along with some stats. Check it out by clicking here.

"What the Duck!" Rocks

"What the Duck" is a very, very clever comic strip that Moose Peterson turned me onto, that is created by artist Aaron Johnson, who says he's "40% photographer, 60% Photoshopper" and his strip totally rocks. I'm really impressed with the quality, quirkiness, and design of the strip, and if you haven't seen it (apparently, I'm among the last to find out about it), you've got to check it out. Daily. You'll find it at http://www.whattheduck.net/

Last of the Daisies

Here's the final daisy shot I'm going to post, and then it's time to give the daisy's a rest. I might to have buy some Calla Lillies now. ;-)

Photoshop TV Featured on PodFly Today

PodFly.com, the popular Podcasting Website, features Photoshop TV as their front page feature story today. Check out their coverage of Photoshop TV by clicking here.

I started out shooting more daisies...

...but the light was so wonderful that I convinced my 2-year-old Niece Sarah to let me take a few shots. I could only get her to pose for literally two minutes, but I got this shot that her mom really loved, as it captures her sweet and shy nature. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Did you notice....

...that Adobe Lightroom had a name change? It quietely slipped by a lot of people, but if you go to Adobe's Website, you'll see that the official name is now "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom" and if you dig a little further, you'll find an Adobe press release (released this week at Photokina in Germany) with the headline "Adobe Brings Lightroom into Photoshop Family with Introduction of Beta 4." Personally, I like the new name because it helps associate Lightroom with Photoshop as a complimentary product that is integrated with Photoshop CS2.

New Daisy Shoot

Here's one from yesterday's shoot. I got a number of emails (and posts here in the blog) about how the shoot was set-up (gear, etc.) so here's the scoop:

(1) The photos (including the photo of Sarah) were taken on my front porch using nothing but natural light (I didn't have anyone available to hold a reflector, so I just went with the directional natural light). I waited until 6:30 pm at night to get softer, better light, and the front of my house faces north, so I got to use my favorite northern light.

(2) The background I used for the first shoot (Monday before dusk) was a simple white foam core board I bought at Office Dept for around $3. I put the flowers in a vase, and positioned them on top of the empty box my daughter's new car seat came in, then I taped the foam core board to the back of the box. Pretty high-tech, eh?

(3) On the second day, I remembered that at the office I just bought a new Westcott Illuminator Background, but I hadn't used it yet. I bought it after seeing Monte Zucker use it in his seminar as a quick background for on-location portraits. It's offically called "Westcott Masterpiece Collapsible 2-in-1 Illuminator Muslin Background - 5x6' - Black/White" (it sells for $176.15 at B&H photo. It's part number: WEBGIBW56), and I bought the super light-weight background stand to support it (For an additional $68.95). They're both worth every penny---it sets up in seconds, weighs next to nothing, folds up into a little circlar pouch, and is black on one side, and white on the other.

(3) On both days, I shot with a Nikon D200, using a Nikon 70mm-180mm Macro zoom. It's an amazing lens, but Nikon just discontinued it, but you can find used ones out there no problem. Again, worth every penny. By the way, I also shot the portraits of Sarah with it---its super shallow depth-of-field makes for some really dramatic portraits.

(4) To get maximum sharpness, I shot on a tripod (A Slik carbon-fiber with a "Really Right Stuff" BH-55 Ball Head). I also used two other critically important features for additional sharpness: I used Mirror Lock-up, and a cable release, to minimize any camera shake.

That's it. No reflectors, no flashes, no lights. Just natural light. A white foam core background for the first day, and a pop-up Westcott background for the second day. The most important tip is to shoot when the light is great. Not at 2:00 pm. About an hour before sunset (the light gets better a half an hour before sunset, but it'll take you a half an hour to get set-up and "in the zone" so when that magicial light happens, everything else it tested and in place.

Flower Shoot, Part 1

I was ordering some flowers this week, and while I was at the florist, I had them send me a fresh batch of Gerbera Daisies so I could shoot some at home that afternoon (I know--it sounds like cheating---ordering flowers from a florist to get perfect flowers, but hey---it works). Here's one of the shots from my shoot yesterday, taken with a Macro zoom.

Apple Releases Free Update to Aperture

Apple just released a pretty significant free update to Aperture (bringing Aperture to version 1.5). This update adds a long list of tweaks, and eight major features. One of those feature addresses what many thought was Aperture's main weakness, and that was in previous versions you had to import your photos into Aperture's central library (and once they were there, they were pretty much trapped there), but now you can choose to reference the photos in their current location, rather than importing them into the central vault. This is a big move in the right direction for Aperture, and should remove an entire layer of criticism from users and reviewers. For the full list of new features and enhancements, visit http://www.apple.com/aperture/new features/index.html

COOL STUFF: Photoshop Matte Painting

I saw this on the Creative Guy's Site and I wanted to turn you on to it, because it's pretty darn cool. It's a link to an artist's site who has a semi-tutorial on how to turn a regular photo into a realistic Matte painting (like you see in the movies). His technique is really great, however he pretty much assumes that everyone is an airbrush artist, so in some of the steps he says stuff like "draw some scary looking trees." Bert Monroy might read that and say "Oh, no sweat." I look at that and think "Yeah, right." He does give you the "out" of finding a photo with scary trees (try scarytree photos.com) so you're not totally out of luck, but either way, it's still a fascinating article. Check it out by clicking here.

Joe McNally Profiled on Apple.com

Our buddy (Photoshop World instructor and world renown photographer) Joe McNally has a major feature on Apple's Website, and it's definitely worth checking out. The article is a fascinating insight into Joe and his work, and his images are just stunning. Make sure you take a moment to check out this inspirational feature at http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/mcnally/

Adobe Release Lightroom Beta 4

This morning Adobe released Lightroom version Beta 4 for Mac and Windows. Besides lots of little tweaks and improvements throughout (including some nice interface enhancements) what Adobe has done to the Curves and Histogram in Lightroom Beta 4 is absolutely revolutionary, and makes task of correcting images much more intuitive and easy than ever. Adobe gave a quick sneek peek of these new Curves features during the Photoshop World keynote, and everybody was just blown away. If you haven't downloaded Lightroom (you can download it for free during this Beta testing period), you've got to give it a try---you'll love it! Visit "Adobe Labs" to download this new Beta 4 version.

Catch my interview on "The Digital Photography Show" radio podcast

If you get a couple of minutes, check out an interview I did this week on "The Digital Photography Show" radio podcast. We talked about my new book, and I gave a couple of simple tips from the book. You can listen to the show, hosted by photographer Scott Sherman, from their Web site, or by subscribing (it's free) through Apple's iTunes store.

What I Learned at Photoshop World

Photoshop World is a crazy busy time for me, but every once in a while I get to sneak into a session or two, and I absolutely love that because I'm guaranteed to learn something new. This time, I went to David Ziser's "Live Wedding Shoot" pre-conference session, where we rented a real church, and hired bride and groom models, so David could teach how to shoot a wedding live on location.

First, let me say that I learned just a ton. David is an amazing teacher, and his direct, and often humorous teaching style was absolutely a pleasure, and the whole crowd was ooohhing and aahhhing as he would shoot and wirelessly transfer the images to a projector and screen set up in the church, so we could see live as he tweaked his lighting (one off camera flash, and one on camera to trigger it). One of the shots I took during the class is shown above---click on it for a larger version. Anyway, David was brilliant, and for me his class was one of the highlights of the entire conference. If you get a chance to catch David's nationwide "Digital Wake-up Call" tour, don't miss it!

COOL STUFF: Build Your Own Custom Concert Tickets. Free!

Check this out: it's called the "Concert Ticket Generator" and this free site lets you create your own custom one-of-a-kind concert tickets (just for fun), and lets you save them to your hard disk as a low res JPEG (see the fake ticket I generated above). It's really pretty darn clever, and it's a no-brainer to use. You can even choose the ticket color, if you want a watermark, and you even get to choose the price, seat numbers, sections---the whole ball of wax. Try it for yourself by clicking here. Kudos to Desktop Tools Monthly, who ran a blurb about the CTG in their latest issue.

Photoshop World Photos Now Online

We just posted a number of shots (2 pages worth) from Photoshop World Las Vegas. If you want a look at what the show was like (this year's theme was a "Photoshop CSI" theme), check out the Photoshop World Photo Gallery. The photo pictured here shows Adobe's John Loaciano and Kevin Conner during a sneak-peek of the unreleased Beta 4 of Adobe Lightroom (which was totally amazing by the way. Wait until you see what they've done with Curves and Histograms in Beta 4---it will blow you away!).

Adobe Updates Camera Raw

Adobe today released a new free update to Adobe Camera Raw (the plug-in for Photoshop that lets you open and process digital camera images shot in the Raw format). The new update supports a number of new cameras including the new Nikon D2Xs and the Sony A100 (however, it does not yet support the Nikon D80, or the new Canon Rebel XTi--but according to Adobe's John Nack, they have accelerated the release of the next update to supports these cameras).

You can download the update for Mac here, or Windows here.

Free Photoshop Actions!

If you're into automation (and using Photoshop Actions), here's a site you'll want to check it. It's called "The Light's Right Studio" and they've got a pretty decent collection of free actions you can download that do everything from converting your color photos to B&W, to reproducing "digital Velvia" (you landscape shooters know what that's all about). Check it out at http://www.thelightsright.com/photoshop-tools.htm

Review of my New Digital Photography Book

One of my friends just let me know that my new book, "The Digital Photography Book" was just reviewed on the news blog of legendary wildlife and nature photographer Moose Peterson. Go check out Moose's review at http://www.moosepeterson.com/moosenews/

NEW: Here's also an in-depth review from Jason David Moore at the Photoshop and Photography blog: http://jasondavidmoore.blogspot.com/

Photoshop World; A market indicator?

This is pretty wild: Yesterday a tech market Analyist for investment firm PiperJaffray issued a note to it's customers on Adobe's outlook based on record-breaking attendance for Photoshop World in Las Vegas, and from his personal research of attendees at the Photoshop World conference itself. Read the full story at http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2057

I'm Off to Photoshop World in Vegas, baby!

Yippie! It's finally here---Photoshop World Las Vegas, and I'm heading out tomorrow!!! As you can see, I'm pretty psyched!!! Besides the keynote, I'm teaching three sessions:

(1) Photoshop Killer Tips for Photographers
(2) The Lost Art of Typography
(3) Designing with Type

I know, two type classes at a Photoshop conference, but photographers really need this stuff, because bad photography and bad design can ruin a great photo. In Miami, I had nearly 800 people in my "Designing with Type" session and it was standing room only, so I brought back my "Lost Art of Typography" session by popular demand (really).

If you're going to Photoshp World, make sure you say "hi," and if not, you can see photos from the event posted daily at the Photoshop World Web site.

Also, my new book "The Digital Photography" book debuts there as well. It's currently ranked as the #3 bestselling of all computer/internet books at Amazon.com, so help me get it up to #1 by buying a copy (or two) by clicking here (hey, it's only $13 bucks on Amazon. Cheap!).

Well, gotta run. I gotta get all my outlines printed up, I've gotta pack, back-up all my stuff, etc.

Have a great week everybody!