Since I’ve been missing in action for the last month here are two tips for the price of one. At the end of the post there’ll be a few recent images. This, after all, is a photo blog 
Tip #5 – RAW vs. JPEG
I thought this was very basic but after meeting several photographers in the field, the questions comes up time after time. The short answer is RAW. About the only reason I can think of to shoot in JPEG is to have smaller files and therefore be able to fit more photos on your digital card. The reasons to shoot in RAW are numerous.
i’m going to try and keep this short. You can always send a comment and I’ll answer your question in more depth. JPEG is a highly compressed file and raw isn’t compressed at all. This gives you all the pixels your camera captured. Your aim is to get the best exposure possible when you capture the image but RAW gives you much more latitude to make corrections. RAW files will always be available for future RAW converter improvements. I’ll guarantee there will be better converters down the pike even though the ones available today are excellent.
These are just a few advantages of RAW. There are several more. Don’t be intimidated. RAW only requires one additional step to process your photos and that’s putting it through a RAW converter.
Tip# 6 – Keyboard Shortcuts
This tip is intended to speed up your work flow a bit. Rather than always using your mouse to pick tools, try learning some keyboard shortcuts. Here are some of the ones I use constantly.
B to bring up the brush
Brackets [ ] to increase and decrease the size of the brush
Q for Quickmask mode (learn how to use quickmasks and you’ll be able to dramatically improve your images)
Shift Control I (Shift command I on Mac) to inverse your photo
Control J (Command J on Mac) to duplicate layers
V is the move tool
Control/Command D to deselect
Control/Command E to merge layers
D to change foreground and background colors to default
X to reverse foreground an background colors
F to toggle between screen modes
There are so many more but these will get you started. If you’d like to learn more about how to use these shortcuts, I’m available for private lessons.
I’ve been very busy over the last 2 weeks and haven’t been able to devote time to the blog. My computer went down after the power supply died, so had to wait for the new one to arrive and install it. After that, with a little detective work on my part, I had to replace the cable that runs from the computer to the monitor. Needless to say, I lost several days. I learned that, at least for me, it’s near impossible to process images on a laptop. What normally takes 5-7 minute was taking over 10. That’s unacceptable! Finally something good, my new Canon EOS ID Mark IV arrived. What a camera!
This is supposed to be about photo tips so here goes. This one came as a special request from a good friend. If you have a question, send it to me and I’ll see if I can help.
The question: “I started in Lightroom and straightened my image or so I thought. When I moved my workflow to Photoshop I realized I needed to straighten the horizon a little more. What’s the easiest way to do it?”
Here’s the answer: Go to the eyedropper tool and find the ruler tool beneath it by right clicking (Photoshop CS4. As I recall, earlier version might have the ruler tool in another place). This is with a 2 button mouse. For you Mac users I’m not quite sure how to do it but I’m sure you do . With the ruler tool open, draw a line along the horizon line or beneath a duck on the water as another example. Next go to Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary and click OK. This will straighten you photo but you’ll have to crop away the white areas that are created. Of course this all could be avoided if you get it the way you want it on the original crop. In both Lightroom and Camera Raw, it’s a very simple task. After you make your crop move the cursor outside the cropped area and you’ll see a curved arrow replacing your normal cursor. Just move it up or down and your image will begin to rotate. Lightroom even brings up a grid so you can see straight lines to guide you.
This one came up today. I’m currently organizing a program that has to be done by Wednesday the 27th. On that date I’m giving a slide show presentation to the Sierra Club’s Photo Club. It will be held at the St. Paul the Apostle • 405 West 59th St. • 2nd floor • New York, NY (1½ blocks west of Columbus Circle, between 9th and 10th Avenues) Suggested donation $5.00. Doors open at 6pm, the show begins at 6:30. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s proceed with the tip.
I had 75 large format tif files in a folder that needed to be converted to 1000 x 667 jpegs. Of course it could have been done one by one, but talk about tedious. If you ever run into this situation or one like it, here’s what to do. Create a new folder on your desktop or a location of your choice and move all the photos into it. Now, create another folder on your desktop and name it something like “photos small” or whatever you want. Open Photoshop and go to File > Scripts > Image Processor. In the first box choose the folder where the images are. In the second box choose the folder you created (photos small) and in the third box choose the file type you want, in my case JPEG, the quality 5 -8 is good for email or the web. Check “size to fit” and put your largest dimensions into the boxes. For the web or email check “convert to sRGB. Click on the RUN button and watch the magic begin. This is an extremely useful feature of Photoshop and really saves a lot of time.
This tip is easy to do but somewhat difficult to explain. For you seasoned veterans, nothing earth shattering here, but a good tip nevertheless. Let’s talk about the “Fade” command. It is used when there is no layer involved and you want to reduce the opacity or use a blend mode. Let’s say you do a “Shadows/Highlights” adjustment found under Image > Adjustments. A sometimes very useful adjustment but once it’s done, it’s done. Well not so fast. Immediately after doing it press on a PC Control/Shift/F or on a Mac Command/Shift/F and the fade control will appear. Adjust the opacity and or blend mode here. Remember, this is a one shot deal. If you make any other adjustment prior to the fade it will be unavailable. I hope this makes sense because I know I use it all the time and it really improves the image. If you have any questions, I’ll try to answer them. These are the types of things I can teach you in my private lesson sessions. Top image has a shadow/highlight adjustment. Bottom photo is exactly the same but with a fade of 65%. The effect is subtle but makes the subject look more natural. Click on each image for a better view.
Hi everyone. As promised I’m starting a new feature of my blog. There will be one simple Lightroom, Photoshop or photography tip given every week or so. So without further ado, here’s the first one.
If you’re like me you want your workflow to move along as quickly as possible. When I’m culling images in Lightroom, because I shoot so much, I tend to go through the photos very fast and place a mark on the obvious clunkers with the “X” key which is “mark for deletion”. The default for Lightroom is to use the arrow key to move to the next shot. There’s a better and quicker way to get through your photos. Go into the Library module and then on the drop-down menu under “Photo”, put a check next to Auto Advance. Now when you “X” an image it will automatically go to the next photo. After you check Auto Advance it will work in the Develop module as well.
Let me know what you think. There will be tips for Lightroom, Photoshop and general photography in future weeks.
The month of December has been one of the slowest for me that I can remember. On the first I went down to Cape May with David Speiser where we met up with Kevin Karslon. We were all there to shoot the “famous Cape May Ivory Gull”. Another full week passed and I went out to see Artie Morris’ talk at the NWPLI in Bayshore. Arrived early and had the pleasure of photographing Redheads both male and female. That’s it folks. Not another day with the camera out. Not happy about that at all. It’s like a junkie going through withdrawal. Last Thursday I came down with a very violent case of food poisoning or maybe a stomach virus. Either way it lasted close to a week. Please no sympathy cards .
Starting next week I’m going to start something new. It’s going to be called “My tip of the week”. Nothing earth shattering but little tricks that might save you some time, give some insight or just something to remind you. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Here are some of the images I referenced above. Let me know what you think of the images or the idea of having a tip of the week. I look forward to your feedback.
I’ve always said that Cape May is either feast or famine. I’ve been there in both conditions many times. A good friend went there the beginning of last week (Oct. 4th-6th) and called to tell me what a tough time he was having. This was strictly from a photographer’s point of view. He mentioned there were birds coming through but too high to shoot. That’s the famine.
I received a call from Kevin Karlson telling me it was time to come down. This was Wednesday the 7th. If you remember, the winds were 40 MPH gusting to 60. While driving down the Garden State Parkway I had to hold onto to the steering wheel pretty tightly the whole 130 miles. Arriving at 4PM, I met up with Kevin and a few other friends and we tried to take some shots of Merlin. Those birds are so fast to begin with imagine when they have a 40 MPH tailwind. Needless to say, I came away with nothing. Fortunately I really went down for Thursday’s possibilities and wasn’t disappointed.
At 6:30am I met up with a group of friends who just happen to be some of the finest photographers around. Besides Kevin, some of the others were Scott Elowitz, Jim Zipp and Jim Neiger to name a few. As soon as we got into our camouflage drapes the birds started coming in. Early in the morning is the time to shoot perched birds. There were a few times when we had 3 Cooper’s Hawks sitting right in front of us. We shot until 9 and then it was time for flight shooting. We didn’t stop until 6PM and all had a great time. Other than Cooper’s Hawk, we also were able to shoot Sharp-shinned Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk and Northern Harrier. Strangely, there were very few Merlin which were expected in the late afternoon, but all in all I’d say we had our feast.
In my last post I used the word “pathetic” to describe the current songbird migration going on in the NYC area. I’m sure there are a lot of birders out there who would disagree with that assessment. However, I’ve spoken to a lot of experienced, long time birders and we all agree that this might be the worst we’ve seen it in many, many years. Sure, you can go out, and if you work really hard, you can probably fill your day list with a decent amount of species. The problem is, with few exceptions, most species are seen in ones and twos. Back to the title of this post, from a photographer’s view, not being concerned with birds high in the treetops, the migration has been almost non-existent. Considering we’re into October, I have very few images to show for my time in the field. What’s most discouraging is not the lack of photos, but the severe decline in numbers of individual birds. Hopefully the birds have found other migration paths. Here are a few photos I’ve been able to get. I hope you enjoy them.
