If you're a digital photographer, you've probably got lots of batteries. And hopefully, you're using rechargeables. The problem then becomes one of keeping track of them, and figuring out which ones are good and which aren't. No sense in charging all the batteries after every shoot simply because one or two might be done.

Continue reading "Batteries R Me" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

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)

This past weekend I taught a workshop in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and thought I'd have some free time to go out and shoot. With that in mind, I brought my infrared camera along to play.

Continue reading "IR in FL" »

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

Back in the old days (you know, when we were all shooting film) there was a time when I started doing fashion shoots for the newspaper I worked at. We were too cheap to hire models, so it always came down to the writer finding a friend to "model" for us. I remember how hard it was to get good photos..

Continue reading "In Praise of Models" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:05 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)

By now everyone's heard about Nikon's two new cameras, the D3 and D300. And you've probably heard they handle high-ISO noise better than in the past. That's an understatement.

Continue reading "A Whole New Wonderful World" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For any photographer who loves to travel, going on an African photo safari must be near the top of their wish list. I've been lucky enough to do that twice now, leading trips to Tanzania in 2006 and the other one a few weeks ago. Each was great in its own way.

Continue reading "African Photo Safari" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes an assignment is like a puzzle where you know what the final outcome looks like but you have to find the pieces that put it all together. Blue Pixel had an assignment like that recently.

Continue reading "Grammy Puzzle" »

Posted by Alex Stevens at 09:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A short time back I wrote about upgrading my Lenovo T61's hard drive to 200GB with a Hitachi 7200RPM drive. After that it was time to do the same to my Apple MacBook Pro, and I found some nice software to help with the chore.

Continue reading "It's the Mac's Turn" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier in 2007 I added a Lenovo T61 laptop to my stable of computers. It's been a very nice travel and office machine, but I wanted to add a larger hard drive and get more speed from it. So that's been one of my projects over the holiday break.

Continue reading "More Space, More Speed" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 07:02 AM | 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)

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)

We all know (or should know) that backing up our important photos and data is no longer an option. It's simply a question of how we're going to do it. In the last week I've added a new tool to do this, Windows Home Server.

Continue reading "Windows Home Server" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 12:54 PM | 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)

Having returned recently from a photo trip to Greece, I've been getting all of my images sorted and archived. At one point I decided to total the amount of hard drive space those photos were taking up, and it was something of a shock. Seven days of shooting resulted in 30 Gigabytes of images!

Continue reading "Size Matters" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As you know, I've been traveling overseas lately, first to Greece, then to India and now I'm in Thailand. When I'm on the road in the U.S., cell phones have made it easy to stay in touch with my office, friends and family. Leaving the country, though, had made that a lot more challenging.

Continue reading "Hooked on Skype" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes you get amazingly lucky, and then sometimes you don't. Kevin Gilbert and I just finished leading a photo trek of Greece for American Photo. We had a lot of fun with a great group of people, and everyone headed home with some new photos and new ideas for their photography. We started the trip in Athens, with an afternoon tour of the town and the Acropolis, who's most famous feature is the Parthenon, visible from much of Athens.

Continue reading "Parthenon at Night" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I was doing a bit of packing, as I was preparing to head to Greece to lead a photo trek for American Photo (www.mentorseries.com), where I am now. Yes, I know, tough life. I do a lot of travel, and am always looking for new ways to cut down on the amount of stuff I have to drag along. That's become even more important now that we take computers, hard drives and chargers with us.

Continue reading "Favorite Travel Tools (Toys!)" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I switched to Vista last spring, with hardly a look back. It's on both my computers, the Lenovo T61 and MacBook Pro. For those times I do need XP, it's still running on the AMD tower in my office. This fall, however, I'm doing workflow training for the Associated Press internationally, and need to do that running Windows XP. And the last thing I wanted to do was wipe a laptop and re-load XP.

Continue reading "Run XP inside Vista" »

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

A big part of what I do these days is teach digital photography, and lately I've been getting ready to start my sixth year teaching the Nikon School of Photography classes. So each of the past six summers much of my time's been devoted to creating two new, all-day programs for the schools. And each summer I'm struck by how much our profession continues to be changed by digital.

Continue reading "The more things change..." »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:08 AM | 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)

Over the years I've always had a camera or two I could take places where it might get beat up. Mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, winter camping and biking aren't exactly camera-friendly. Once I moved to digital, though, that became a tougher spot to fill. After all, digital cameras are anything but inexpensive, and not exactly rugged. Recently, though, I've had my hands on a little digital point-and-shoot that's almost indestructible.

Continue reading "One Tough Little Camera" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 05:27 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, it's that time of year again. Graduation time, that is. This year I was asked if I could produce a slideshow that would run during my daughter's 8th grade farewell celebration. No problem. After all, that's something I do on a regular basis.

Continue reading "Sharing Slideshows" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently received an email with some quesitons concerning autofocus. I thought the question and answer might make a good blog entry.

Continue reading "Autofocus Options" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | 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)

Later this month I'm taking a group of photographers to Peru for a photography workshop. Part of our preparation has been a little high-tech scouting using the internet.

Continue reading "Location Scouting from Home" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the challenges of being in the business of answering questions is staying out front with technology. We jokingly refer to it as living on "the bleeding edge." Because of that, I started using the beta releases of Microsoft Vista last fall, and last week decided it was time to install the final version.

Continue reading "Vista Success" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Part of my job is to stay up-to-date with changes in the field of digital photography. That includes many models of cameras, lenses, strobes, computers, operating systems, software, hard drives, printers, etc. etc. etc. As you know, that's a lot of information, so I'm always looking for better ways to accomplish that. My latest trick helps me do that during time that would otherwise be wasted..

Continue reading "Keeping up With Changes" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 02:59 PM | Permalink

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

Recently I received an email from someone who was part of a workshop I taught, and thought it might make a good blog entry: "I attended your two workshops in Berkeley last week, and didn't get a chance to ask my specific question. I'm leaving for an Antarctic peninsula cruise this coming week, and any suggestions for specific settings (e.g. White Balance) to try under those unusual lighting conditions?"

Continue reading "Arctic Suggestions" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:49 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'm just back from leading a photo trek to Maui for American Photo (www.mentorseries.com). I do about four trips a year like this, and we had just over thirty people joining us. The second day we spent driving and shooting along the road to Hana, and after dinner that night most of us headed to the beach for a little light painting.

Continue reading "Light Painting" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:26 AM | 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)

Occasionally we at Blue Pixel find ourselves being interviewed and written about, which was recently the case for myself and Alex Stevens.

Continue reading "Blue Pixel in Print" »

Posted by Kevin T. Gilbert at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the past several months I've been buried with projects, and junk has piled up in my home office. Add to that I've needed to make some major computer and networking changes, and that means it's time for a major office overhaul.

Continue reading "Fall Cleaning" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)