I've got a bone to pick, and this is about as good a time as any (and it gives me a good excuse to use this nice photo Ed Zurga shot of me!). Does it ever seem that most people preaching workflow want to teach you the most complicated version they can come up with?

Continue reading "Masters of Workflow (?)" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, I'll admit it - I'm spoiled. When I'm working in my office I've got two laptops, and each is driving a big screen that's almost 2000-pixels wide. So when I travel, being forced to work on one small laptop screen puts me in screen withdrawal. Not anymore.

Continue reading "Screen for the Road" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 06:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I spend a lot of time talking and teaching about digital workflow. And when I'm out shooting, I try to live what I teach. If you follow my blog entries, you'll know that this is the time of year I do one of my larger jobs, and workflow is the key to it.

Continue reading "It's all about the Workflow" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, it's December 22nd, and if you're not done with your Christmas shopping, time's running out. You can either join everybody else fighting the traffic and crowds, or sit comfortably at home. Your choice.

Continue reading "Last Minute Gifting" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 01:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How many of you guys are old enough to remember making test strips in the darkroom? That's how we used to figure out print exposures. We'd tear off a piece of print paper, put it under the enlarger, hit the timer, throw it in the developer and see how close we were. It might take two or three tries, but eventually we got close, and only then did we risk a whole sheet. It saved money and avoided wasting materials, and I still do it today. Only now I'm doing it with inkjet printers.

Continue reading "Modern Day Test Strips" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 12:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

My niece is a beatiful young woman, and people often ask her if she does modeling. After several years of hearing that, she decided to give it a try. First thing she needed was some shots for the application, so she called me.

Continue reading "Model Shoot" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you haven't tried making your own photo book yet, you're missing out on a lot of fun. Apple made it easy at the consumer level through iPhoto several years ago, and then a bunch of other companies jumped in to serve the non-Apple user. The result is that we have a lot of choices now, and it couldn't be easier.

Continue reading "Book Publishing" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Since the introduction of Aperture, and then Lightroom, I've been following the development of these tools that I refer to as "super browsers." Geared to solve a number of problems many people had with their workflow - especially if shooting RAW files - these program showed a lot of promise, but I had some issues with them as well. With Lightroom, it was how difficult Adobe made it to open an original RAW file from Lightroom with anything but their software. That's now changed with the release of Lightroom 1.2.

Continue reading "Kudos to Adobe" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For nearly eight years I've been working out of a home office, and only recently has it been a comfortable experience. I've gone from sharing a spare bedroom with my wife and kids' computers to a space of my own in the basement. And thanks to the wonders of modern computer technology, it's become a great place for me to work. My wife jokingly calls it "The Command Center."

Continue reading "Command Center" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 02:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I received a note last week from a student who was on a photo trek to Tucson with me this spring. His images look different depending on what software he's using. It's a common problem, and involves color management, or the lack of it. Todd was kind enough to let me use his note and photos for today's post.

Continue reading "Different Apps, Different Color" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I recently wrote about creating slideshows, which, as I said, is one of my favorite ways of sharing pictures. It's tough, though, to beat a good print, and with 13-inch and wider printers common today, going a step further and creating a photo collage is a fun project..

Continue reading "Photo Collage" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I've been running Vista Ultimate for a couple of weeks now, and so far so good. Thought I'd write a little bit more about the software I'm using and my experiences.

Continue reading "Vista, Part II" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We regularly get questions from people about how to deal with color space choices, both in the digital SLRs we use and in our editing software. I recently received a question about using a Nikon D70 and Photoshop Elements together, and thought it would make a good blog entry.

Continue reading "Elements and Color Modes" »

Posted by Bill Durrence at 11:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I'm sure that all of you have heard about Aperture (from Apple) and Lightroom (from Adobe). Some of you have certainly used the beta of Lightroom (now shipping the final version, with an initial price of $199). And I'm also sure that some of you have bought Aperture. For those who haven't had hands-on experience with either of them yet, the question I hear most frequently is, "What are they?" It's a good question, since I don't think even Apple and Adobe are sure what they are yet. Download tool? Image management system (with strong metadata features)? Editing package? Print and web gallery tool? All-in-one?.

Continue reading "Lightroom and Aperture" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 04:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Ever since I first read about infrared photography, many decades ago in high school, I've been intrigued by the idea. The images produced by it are otherworldly and I wanted to try my hand at it. Unfortunately, my attempts back then always ended in failure, not in small part due to the difficulty of using and processing infrared film. Thankfully, times have changed, and digital's taken film out of the equation.

Continue reading "Digital Infrared" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 06:40 PM | Permalink

Bill: I've attended several of the workshops in Orlando and this last one you went over some of the photo organizers such as the Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer, but if I remember correctly, this only gives a thumbnail of the image and does not actually say exactly where an image is located, such as on an external drive or CDs, etc. Which one(s) did you say will accomplish this more detailed organization of describing where the image is actually located? I want to use this kind consistently once I know which one to use. Thanks again.

Continue reading "Keeping Track of Images" »

Posted by Bill Durrence at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Occasionally I write stories for Lexar's web site, in the digital photography tips section (http://lexar.com/dp/index.html). I had a note from a reader of one of those stories asking for help getting his prints sharp. He had all the right settings on the camera, and a good printer (Epson Stylus Photo R800) but still wasn't getting prints as sharp as he expected. The answer was in how he was handling his images after shooting them.

Continue reading "Sharpening" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had an email from a friend recently asking how I keep my files organized. With the coming of the new year, what better time to look at the system you use to manage your images and see if there might be a better way.

Continue reading "Resolve to be Organized" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently went to a friend's wedding and took along a little point-and-shoot I could carry in my pocket. When it was all over I had a nice set of photos, and wanted to share them with the family. Rather than send a bunch of small prints, I wanted to give them one large print to commemorate the day. My favorite way of doing this is by using the Free Transform tool in Photoshop, and this can be done with either full-blown Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (I used version 4).

Continue reading "Easy Photo Collages" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)