Microsoft Surface Pro for the Photographer

It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s finally here.  The Microsoft Surface Pro is on the market and I’m lucky enough to have spent the last week setting mine up and using it for my photography tasks.  That’s right.  A tablet form factor running Lightroom and Photoshop!

For 7 months I got to read editorials saying things like: “It’s too heavy. It’s too expensive.  There’s not enough available storage.  The battery life is horrible. The wide screen is awkward. The kickstand isn’t adjustable. Who uses a pen anymore?” Blah, blah, blah, blah!

Now that I finally have it in my hands, here’s my response: “WHO CARES!”.  Yes it’s a tablet and if that were all it was the naysayers may have valid points.  What they were all overlooking, however, is that this is also a fully functional Intel powered laptop!  I’m running Adobe Lightroom 4, Adobe Photoshop CS 6, Microsoft Office 2013, Windows Media Center, no compromise web browsers and on and on and on.  In short, I am PRODUCING content and not just consuming it all on a device slim enough and lite enough to slide into my messenger bag with my Nikon D300s and my work HP EliteBook laptop.

With all of that being said, here are a few of my personal observations for those of you who may be considering your own Surface Pro now that stock is beginning to be replenished.

• Windows 8 –  I’ve been using the new OS on my work computer for a while, but on a touch-based device it really comes to life.  Forget about the Start menu and embrace the efficiencies of the new design.
• Tablet Experience – The screen is incredible. A visual treat with a very responsive feel to your touch.  While there is definitely still “app discrimination” when compared to the iPad and Android markets, things are coming around and I’m confident that the Surface will help accelerate the pace. One area that did catch me off-guard was the fact that so many magazine publishers only allow Amazon to cater to iOS and Android.  For example, Outdoor Photographer is available via Zinio, but you won’t find it on Amazon.
• Desktop Experience – Having used Windows 8 for awhile now, the only challenges to using the full desktop environment on the Surface have been 1) Getting accustom to the Type Cover and, 2) text scaling.  I have purposely limited myself to he Type Cover so that I’d become more efficient. I’ll be honest, I won’t win any typing contests, but it’s still better than being limited to an on-screen version (new wireless keyboard and mouse arrive for my desk today).  The text scaling comes into play when connected to an external display.  Out of the box, the Surface Pro is set to scale your text to 150%.  That’s a good size when you’re packing 1920x1080 pixels into a 10” space, but not so great on a 24” external display.  It’s a shame text scaling isn’t display independent, but I’ve found what works best for me is to default back to 100% as most of my desktop experience happens on the external display.  On the occasions where I only have the 10” display, a few keystrokes (namely Ctrl + ‘+’) allow me to zoom in at the application level.
• WiFi Only – I tend to be where the WiFi is so the lack of a cellular radio doesn’t impact me all that much.  If I must, must, connect, there’s always the option to tether to my phone.
• Storage – I’ve done a few proactive tasks here to help make my 128GB go as far as possible:
  • New Lightroom Catalog – I’ve backed up my old (and somewhat bloated) Lightroom catalog to my external drive and started over.  Well, I imported my keyword hierarchy, a few other preferences and of course my “best of the best” photos, but otherwise it was time for a clean start.
  • “My Documents” on “D:” – I popped in my 64GB microSXDC card, formatted it with NTFS and changed the default location for the “Documents” library to point to this new drive.  From what I’ve read, you cannot install applications on external devices so reserving space on the C: drive for apps is something to consider up front.
  • Available Space – I’m still at 66GB free with Lightroom, Photoshop CS 6, Photomatix, Topaz Adjust, Word, Excel, OneNote, Chrome, Kindle, Live Writer, Movie Maker, Media Center, Total Theater, etc……  I am not loading my music library as I already have it on my phone and any movies (which look awesome on this display, btw) or other large files go to the external drive.  This leaves me with ample room for the photos I’ve yet to take and process.
  • Backups – I have a few OneNote docs on my SkyDrive for convenience, but limited to satellite internet at home prevents me from overusing cloud-based services.  I do, however, backup EVERYTHING to my Windows Home Server each night.

Oh, and that pen thing…. It ROCKS! While I’ve used it occasionally in OneNote, its value to me is inside Lightroom and Photoshop.  Yeah, editing photos on a 10” display isn’t something you’ll want to do everyday, but when you have detail work to do with that pen, it blows away my old Wacom tablet.

For now, that’s all.  Is the Surface Pro the holy grail of all computing devices? Probably not.  If you asked me what I’d change, however, I’m not sure I’d have much in the way of answers.  It’s the form factor I’ve been waiting for to provide the ultimate in portability which, in itself, asks for compromises.  The selling point for me was the fact that I can be productive wherever and whenever and in that space, I have not been disappointed in the least.

Update: This morning I had the opportunity to test drive the Type Cover.  As I was never a very good touch typist and with productivity being my aim, I’ve made the switch.  For a few bucks more and a couple of extra millimeters in thickness, I can now proclaim that I’ve relinquished the “Backspace” key as my favorite key.

The Making of “Still Watchful”

Yesterday I shared a reprocessed version of a photo I took this last summer of a juvenile bald eagle.   While I loved the original image, I wanted this version of the image to really accentuate the magnificence of this bird and convey a sense of loss that I felt when I learned of its demise.

Here is a copy of the original image.  The eagle is perched among the tangles of a dead branch in the morning sun.  There is a nice catch light in its eye as well as nice lighting on is head and stomach with a strong shadow cast by an out of frame branch across its chest.  As many of the branches are without bark the light is reflecting and appears a little hot, detracting from the main focus – the returned stare of this incredible bird.

With that in mind, I wanted the background to disappear.  The branch in the foreground was important to convey the surroundings of this wild bird, but I wanted to make it gradually fade into the background and leave you with that incredible expression. 

Here are the steps I took to reprocess the image:

1. From within Lightroom, right-click on the image and “Edit In > Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS6…”
2. Ctrl+N to create a new layer positioned above the original image.
3. Shift+F5 to fill the new layer with solid black
4. Add a new “Reveal All” Layer Mask to the new black layer
5. With the Layer Mask selected, reduce the opacity until you’re able to see the original image through the black layer.
6. Set the foreground color to black and then select the brush tool to begin painting the bird at 100% opacity as well as some of the foreground branches.
7. As you paint, you’ll see more of the background show through the black layer.  I paid particular attention to the edges of the bird to be sure I didn’t allow any of the green foliage to show through.
8. When I had most of the image showing through the layer mask I then reduced the brush opacity to around 30%, set the brush color to white and changed the opacity of the layer mask back to 100% before tracing around the edges of the subject.  This allowed me to “clean up” any areas where I was too aggressive and made for a smooth transition from black to the colors of the subject.
9. Using this same technique, I made multiple passes along the tree branches, especially toward the ends where I wanted the branches to fade to black, until I was satisfied with the results.  If at any point I got too “heavy handed”, I simply changed the brush color to black and “undid” the wrong.
10. When I was happy with the results, I saved the file and returned to Lightroom where I applied some additional exposure adjustments and used the spot removal tool to eliminate a few more hot areas in the branches.

And that’s it.  The end result is what I feel is a much more dramatic and compelling image without the additional clutter.

What do you think? Which of the two images do you prefer?

The Making of “Around the Bend”

If you tuned in earlier in the week you may have seen the image I posted titled “Around the Bend”.

Of course this is EXACTLY how it looked straight out of camera too. Alright, not really.  Despite being out in the country there was actually a fair amount of traffic on this road.  Somehow, standing in the middle of the road on a blind corner for extended periods of time didn’t seem like a real good idea so I “shot and ran”.  Here’s the REAL out of camera shot.

Here’s a quick rundown on how it got from A to B.

In Lightroom …

1. Crop and straighten the image.  That “blah” sky has got to go and we can leverage that double-yellow as a leading line to pull the viewer into the photo.
2. Now for the exposure. What a mess.  Looks like a good candidate for HDR so I focused my efforts on exposing the road properly with the original cropped image and then made 2 virtual copies.  I set the first virtual to an exposure value 2 under my original and the second 2 over.
3. Selecting all three images I sent them out to PhotoMatix Pro (right-click, Export) and applied the default enhancer template. Looks good to me. Reimport to Lightroom.
4. At this point, everything is looking good except for what I kept of the sky. Still “blah” and in need of an overhaul.  Lucky for me I had a shot of a nice crisp blue autumn sky just a few shots further into the collection.  Selecting both my new HDR image and shot of the nice blue sky, I right-clicked and selected “Edit In …” and then “Open as Layers in Photoshop…”.

In Photoshop…

1. First thing is to position the layers so the HDR is on top and the blue sky image below that.
2. With the HDR layer selected, pick the “Select” menu, use the “Color Range…” option and change the “Select” option to “Highlights”.  Just like that the crumby sky, including the difficult to select area between the pine tree branches is selected.  For good measure, I saved the selection using the option at the bottom of the “Select” menu. Just to be safe, I expanded the selection by 1 pixel from the “Select…Modify” menu to prevent any “white lines” between my sky and trees.
3. With the HDR layer selected, add a new “Reveal All” Layer Mask.
4. Select the new Layer Mask, set the brush tool, color set to black and a 30% opacity.
5. After adjusting the brush size to be able to accommodate the height of the sky selection I make my first pass over the selected sky.  Still a little blah so I made one more pass.  There. That’s better.
6. Grab the “Move Tool” and select the layer containing the blue sky.  Move the sky layer left/right until the clouds are positioned to complement the scene.
7. Save the file and exit back to Lightroom.

In Lightroom…

1. The light on the pavement in the foreground is still a little “hot” so add a new brush using the “Burn (Darken)” effect to paint the bright area until it no longer detracts from the scene.
2. Add keywords, additional metadata and share.

Compared to the amazing effort put forth by Mother Nature to provide the fall colors, the few mouse clicks were a small price to pay to help the image along a little.

Have you leveraged HDR techniques in any of your fall photos?  Have a link or two to share?  Use the comments section below to share.

Photoshop Panorama

From an early age I can remember always wanting to “challenge” a new piece of knowledge once acquired.  For example, I recall coming home with a really cool “Indian spear” from the gift shop of one of our summer vacation stops.  It had a long bamboo shaft with a rubber spear tip attached.  Attached to the toy was a label exclaiming that bamboo was “unbreakable” so of course we had to challenge the new knowledge.  My younger brother and I ran off to our favorite rock pile fort where he was kind enough to take a few whacks at a boulder with my new treasure.  Turns out bamboo isn’t “unbreakable”. Lesson learned.

So, when I recently acquired Photoshop CS6, of course I had to try out the “Merge to Pano” option.  It was there wasn’t it?  During a recent fall photo outing, I took a series of 12 landscape orientated (portrait orientated images would have been better – another lesson learned) and ran straight home to the “rock pile” to see if I could “break it”.

Turns out it actually does work and so well that it’s nothing short of MAGIC!  When I took the photos I made sure to include about a 25% overlap from one frame to the next.  After offloading the images into Lightroom I selected the 12 shots, right-clicked and from the “Edit In…” context menu, selected “Merge to Panorama in Photoshop…”.  Photoshop launched, asked me a question about my preference for stitching the images together and then went to work.  I went to eat diner.  When I came back about 90 minutes later, there it was!  A rather awkward, but accurately stitched together, autumn panorama!

After reimporting to Lightroom I had to crop a little from the top and the bottom to remove white space, but there it was.  All 1.2 gigabytes of it!  I could zoom in to any portion of the image (wait… wait… wait…) and “WOW”, stunning detail like the deer grazing in the field.  It really is “unbreakable” (at least with this series of photos).

Anyone know where I can get a 3’ x 35’ frame?

Plugins. Lightroom or Photoshop?

 VS  

Since acquiring the latest version of Photoshop, I find myself with a new dilemma. When purchasing 3rd party processing add-ins, what platform should I choose? Lightroom or Photoshop?

I have a LONG way to go before I’ll feel proficient in Photoshop and still do the majority of my post processing within the confines of Lightroom.  From that respect Lightroom feels like the right choice.  Most of the the plugins I’ve seen, however, seem to be developed for Photoshop first.  By that I mean every LR plugin I use exports the image out to a separate interface used by the plugin.  My perception is that there seems to be tighter integration within Photoshop so you don’t necessarily need this “export” step.  Is that correct?

If you are both a Lightroom and Photoshop user, which platform do you purchase plugins for and why?

YAKB: Yet Another Kelby Book

In my quest to keep the Kelby children fed, I recently purchased yet another Scott Kelby book titled “The Adobe Photoshop CS 6 Book for Digital Photographers”.  That’s right, I’m anxiously awaiting the delivery of my copy of Photoshop CS6 and to help pass the time I thought I’d order a book from one of my favorite photography authors.

I’ve barely scratched the surface and am currently reading about Camera RAW.  As an avid Lightroom user, I’m wondering if I’ll ever use it, but there’s still some helpful post processing tips to be found there as well.  In fact, now I’m wondering how long it will be before I bite the bullet and order Scott’s updated Lightroom book for version 4?

Can anyone out there recommend other good Photoshop CS6 books for “newbies”?

Hello Photoshop!

I’ve been on the fence forever. 

“Should I? Shouldn’t I?  It’s so darn expensive!  I already have Photoshop CS. How different can it be?”.  Well, all along I knew the answer was “Yes, you should.” as the latest in Photoshop technology has SO much to offer our post processing efforts.  It was just difficult to swallow the price tag.  That is until a friend helped to give me a push right off the fence!

That’s right. A discount code from Amazon for $400 off the full version CS6 price!  At that price I have money left over for a couple of year subscription to Kelby Training to learn how to use it!

Thanks again, Mark. 

Snapseed

On Monday I asked what some of your favorite applications were for stylizing your images on your computer, tablet or phone.  One such application gaining popularity is Snapseed by Nik Software. 

With desktop versions available for both Mac and Windows and mobile versions for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and an Android version in the near future, there's something for almost everyone and every device.  You can check them out at www.snapseed.com.

Why I Love Lightroom and the Digital Darkroom

... or at least just one of many reasons digital processing is so cool.

Last week I mentioned my little "Photoshop project" and I thought some of you might enjoy sharing that little trip so here goes.

As you may or may not know, Facebook changed its page layout (again) at the end of March.  One of my colleagues in the marketing department at my "day job" asked if I had any interesting shots that showed our company logo and could be used for the new Facebook page header image.  While I had a few snapshots, nothing stood out as something I'd have even been comfortable offering up.  Luckily, my colleague had a concept for a shot that he was happy to share and I agreed that it would make a good image if I could pull it off.   The concept was a "point of view shot" as one exits the elevator in our Wausau office. 

Step 1, dust off the wide angle lens, grab the camera and try to get the center of 3 elevators to open up and let me on so I'd be lined up with the shot when I arrived on the 4th floor.  Just when I was beginning to think my 1-in-3 odds were never going to happen, my car FINALLY arrived and up we go.

Step 2, try to keep the door open long enough on the elevator to take the shot.  After several pushes of the "hold the door please" button and some annoying "beep, beep, beep" warnings, I had grabbed a half dozen shots that would set the rest of the experiment in motion.


Here's the original image. I thought the idea had potential, but obviously there's a few elements that needed some help.

• While we're all happy for the fire extinguisher mounted to the wall (left), it doesn't help this image.  It will have to go.
• The stainless steel elevator certainly helps provide that "point of view" feel to the image, but the reflections of the logo on its sides are distracting.  They'll have to go too.
• There are only 4 floors in this building so when you reach the top floor, the elevator makes the reasonable assumption that the car will be traveling back down and indicates that via its directional light (top right).  Helpful information, but something in my mind says there's a negative connotation here.  We want to be moving up, not down.

Step 3, "blemishes" removed.

That's right, no formal Photoshop education here.  Still, I thought my "skills" were good enough to allow it to pass a cursory glance inspection.  Being privy to what was edited in the image, however, helps support my claim of being "Photoshop challenged".

While I was pleased with the end results, I had a concern about the purple wall in relation to the rest of the company Facebook page.  After sharing the image with our marketing group they had the same concern.  "What if we replace just the wall with a shot from one of our other offices - one that isn't purple?".  Well, we could try that, but for some reason I like the lighting in this shot.  The logo is well lite and is casting some great shadows to provide depth.  How about ....

...or...

...or...

And THAT is why digital processing is so cool!  Not only can you clone out the unwanted, but to be able to take a VERY purple wall and change it's color to something more appropriate just by moving a few hue or saturation sliders.  To me, that is truly magic!

Until next time, keep click'n.

-Ken

Photoshop Challenged

This past week I worked on a project that required a fair amount of Photoshop work, cloning out unwanted reflections and obstructions.  Let me go on record as saying it was a frustrating experience at best.  I would love to commit the time to becoming more proficient, but my excuse has always been "wait until you buy the current version" (still using CS), which is followed by another excuse, "boy, Photoshop sure is expensive".

As I'm not eligible for upgrade pricing coming from CS, NOW I'm watching for a release date for PS6... and continuing to save my pennies.

Anyone else find themselves in this boat?  You recognize the power of the tool, but haven't been able to get yourself to invest the time or money necessary to realize it's potential?

Another "Topazed" Example

Several weeks back I posted the image "Windows to the Soul" after rediscovering Topaz Adjust.  The above is another example of just how much of a transformation you can achieve with a few simple mouse clicks.  Compared to the original photo below, the difference in the color and clarity of Mwanga's plumage is simply incredible.

What are some of your favorite "topazed" images?  Please feel free to share some links below. 

Until next time, keep on click'n.
-Ken

Topaz Adjust Revisited

I like to consider myself rather proficient in Lightroom 3.  As you know there are a plethora of plug ins on the market offering the ability to apply countless effects to your images - most of which I've always been convinced could also be done using only the tools provided in Lightroom given enough time and knowledge.

...and then I downloaded a trial of Topaz Adjust 5.  From the very beginning of my photography journey I've been a fan of that vibrant, over saturated, "pop off the page" style and was floored when I took the processed image on the left, applied one of the standard presets within Topaz Adjust, and ended up with the amazingly detailed and color-rich version you see on the right.

(Click for larger image)

This isn't my first exposure to Topaz Adjust. Way back in September 2010 I fooled around with a trial version and for whatever reason failed to put my money on the table.  Looking at the above comparison and what you're able to do with a simple click of a button, I'm not walking away this time :).  Even if you could replicate the results using the standard Lightroom tools, I'd rather be spending that additional time behind my camera.

Way to go Topaz!  Are you using this amazing application?  Share a link to your favorite "topazed" image using the comments section below.  We'd love to see it.

Until next time, keep on click'n.
-Ken

Creative Effects Using a Layer Mask

Last week I posted the image "Loner" and had a few people ask me how it was processed.  While it is possible to pull off this effect entirely in Lightroom (See "Fun with Bamboo"), the detail work involved in revealing the green needles of the pine tree was easier to accomplish in PhotoShop. 

Here's how it was done:

1. First, the image was processed in Lightroom as a black and white (See the section "Converting to B&W")
2. A virtual copy was made of the image and processed in color.
3. Both the black and white and color copies were opened in PhotoShop as layers.  Black and white on the top, color on the bottom.
4. From the Layers menu, I added a Reveal All Layer Mask to the top black and white layer.
5. Using a "grass" type brush, I selected the layer mask, set my brush color to black, 100% opacity and set to work maticulously painting the needles of the pine tree.  This allowed the green of the second color layer to show through the black and white top layer.
6. When completed, I imported the image back into Lightroom, made a few additional adjustments and then cropped the image for the final result.

Again, there are various ways to complete this effect with just Lightroom, Lightroom and 3rd party plugins like On One's Perfect Layers, or the grand daddy of them all, PhotoShop.  Whichever tools you use, the effect is always fun to try and usually leads to pretty unique images.

Until next time, keep click'n.
-Ken

Loner

Life finds ways to thrive in the strangest places.  This lone pine tree clings to the cliff face above the Yellowstone River. 

Thanks to my wife for pointing this shot out and allowing me to shoot over her shoulder.  I processed the image as a black and white and then used a reveal mask in PhotoShop to bring out the green needles for contrast.

Giving "Old Mother" a Facelift

If you caught yesterday's post featuring the image "Lunar Assist", you may have thought the title referred to the moon providing a helping hand to the lighthouse in illuminating the rocky shallows - and you'd be correct - at least in part.

For those readers who appreciate the technical aspects of photography, you may have already surmised that there is more to this image than meets the eye.  In the interest of full disclosure, here are the technical stats for the image - 10mm, ISO 100, f/20, 30.0 sec. 

If you've ever tried to "shoot the moon" (or any other bright glowing orb), you can appreciate what effect a 30 second exposure will have.  As a result, "Lunar Assist" also refers to my post-processing intervention.  Below is the original image.

THIS is what the moon looks like at 10mm after a 30 second exposure.  I still like the shot, but I wanted for the viewer to be able to identify that star burst as the actual moon.  That being said, I pulled out the other camera, zoomed out to 200mm and took another shot of the moon which I later overlaid on top of the "star burst" using PhotoShop.

Then I started to scrutinize the composite image.  Does the reflection of the moon still match up with the "upsized" version?  Do the wayward "beams" around the moon raise suspicion?  In my opinion, the scene still seems natural and, while maybe a little more exaggerated than "actual size", a more accurate representation of the scene I was shooting that morning.

The ultimate test is with you, the viewer, however.  What do you think? 

Exploring Local Adjustments in Lightroom 3

We've been exploring the Adobe Lightroom 3 Develop Module for some time.  Up until now the tools discussed have all had a "global" impact on your images.  In other words, when you move the Exposure slider in the Basic panel, you are adjusting the exposure for the entire image.  Today we're going to introduce the "local" adjustment options and then cover them each in more detail in the coming weeks.

The local adjustment tools can be found in the toolbar immediately below the histogram.  Clicking on any of the options causes a "fly out" menu of additional options for that feature to appear below the toolbar.

The options found here are (from left to right):

• Crop Overlay - This feature not only allows you to crop your image, but provides tools to straighten and constrain the crop to specific aspect ratios.  Press the "R" shortcut key for quick access to the Crop Overlay feature.
• Spot Removal - Unwanted "blemishes" in your photo?  Whether it's dust spots or any other distraction in your image, Spot Removal can quickly and easily make them disappear.  Press the "Q" shortcut key for quick access to the Spot Removal feature.
• Red Eye Correction - Who hasn't turned a cute little kid into a possessed, red-eyed demon with a misplaced flash?  The Red Eye Correction tool does exactly what it says.
• Graduated Filter - This amazing tool performs the same job a graduated filter would in the field, but in post production.  Is the tonal range in the image too much to overcome with simple exposure adjustments? You'll be amazed at what this feature can do. Press the "M" shortcut key for quick access to the Graduated Filter.
• Adjustment Brush - Remember the power of the sliders in the Basic Panel?  With the Adjustment Brush tool, you decide EXACTLY to which areas of your image you apply those adjustments.  It's like precision surgery for your photos. Press the "K" shortcut key for quick access to the Adjustment Brush.

Don't let the small toolbar fool you.  These tools provide some of the most powerful features within all of the Develop Module and allow you to really transform an image using precise, localized adjustments.

Next week we'll take an in-depth look at the Crop Overlay tool.  While you may think, "Eh.. I've cropped an image before. Big deal.", cropping an image can be one of the most dramatic ways to impact your photos and Lightroom provides you with a whole host of incredible features to help you get maximum results.

Until next week, keep click'n.
-Ken

HDR or not? You Choose

I mentioned at the beginning of the week that I found some time to get out and shoot last weekend. While post processing "keepers", I decided to take a few minutes and turn out a couple of single-shot HDR images as well. By "single-shot HDR", I'm referring to taking a single frame, making a couple of virtual copies in Lightroom exposed both over and under the original and then processing them in Photomatix Pro 4 with some final touch up in Photoshop. I keep forgetting I can auto-bracket now :-).


RAW Image



HDR

I'd really appreciate some feedback on the output.  Which do you prefer? HDR or RAW?

Stop back on Monday for another HDR landscape and in the meantime, have a safe and happy weekend.

Advanced Lens Correction in Lightroom

Last week we started to review the Lens Correction Panel in Adobe Lightroom 3.  Most of the time, simply clicking the option to "Enable Profile Corrections" is enough to counter any lens distortion in your image.  On occasion, you may need to work a little harder so this week we'll look at the "Manual" options to help you get the most control possible in your assault on lens issues.

This is an image I took in the predawn hours of the Cana Island Lighthouse in Wisconsin's Door County Peninsula.  It was taken with the old model of the Nikon 18-200mm lens (one I rented) and shot at 18mm.  If you refer to the lighthouse against the edge of the frame, things aren't looking too bad... until you look at the horizon line and see that Lake Michigan is running uphill.

This screen capture shows I've selected the "Enable Profile Correction" option.  While it's attempted to correct for the barrel distortion, you can see the horizon still angles up to the right.  By positioning your mouse over the Distortion slider in the Lens Correction Panel, the grid overlay will appear over your image which makes it very easy to identify the horizon issue.

At this point, I could select the Crop option from under the histogram (or press the "R" key) and then use the Angle tool to mark the horizon line to straighten the image.  As we're talking about the Lens Correction Panel, however, let's look at an alternate method.

Click the "Manual" option from within the Lens Correction Panel to display a new series of Transform, Lens Vignetting and Chromatic Aberration sliders.  Both the Lens Vignetting and Chromatic Aberration sliders work pretty much as we discussed in last week's post, but provide you with some additional control.  For this image, we're going to focus on the Transform sliders.  Here's a brief description of their functions:

• Distortion - Just like the slider in the Profile options, the Distortion slider attempts to correct barrel and pin cushion (bend, bulge) issues in your image.
• Vertical - Imagine that a fixed axis runs through the horizontal center of your image.  Moving the slider left or right will vertically pivot your image on that axis.
• Horizontal - This time that imaginary axis runs vertically through the center of your image.  Moving this slider pivots your image on that axis.
• Rotate - Does exactly what it says.  This slider will turn your image left or right from a fixed point in the center of your image.
• Scale - Drag the slider to the right to "blow up" your image or to the left to "shrink" it.
• Constrain Crop - With this box checked, your image will automatically be cropped based on the selections of the other sliders to prevent uneven or warped edges.

Alright, let's get back to the lighthouse.  As we've already noted, we have a pretty obvious horizon issue.  Rather than jump right to the "Rotate" slider, let's try a less obvious option with the "Horizontal" slider.

As you can see from the screenshot, I've pushed the Horizontal slider out to the right which causes the image to "pivot" on that imaginary vertical axis running through the middle of the image.  If we compare the horizon line to the overlaying grid, you'll see that we're much closer to having a straight image.  The problem though is that when I select the "Constrain Crop" option, I'm going to lose a sizable portion of my image - everything in dark grey will be cropped at my original aspect ratio.  Let's attempt to fix this from another direction.  "Double-click" on the "Transform" label to reposition all of the Transform sliders to their default positions.

This time I pushed the "Rotate" slider a little to the right and you can see my horizon line has been corrected.  There's much less image loss (very little dark grey showing in bottom left), but the whole image was rotated... including the lighthouse which was originally pretty straight but now leans to the right.  Now what?  Rotate left to fix the lighthouse and we'll break the horizon line in the process.

By bringing the top of the image toward me using that imaginary horizontal center axis, I'm able keep my horizon line straight and adjust the angle of the lighthouse at the same time.  In addition to adjusting the Vertical slider to -6, I've also checked the "Constrain Crop" this time to show the final results of the transformations.

If you've never had the pleasure of trying to correct lens distortion prior to the introduction of these new tools within Adobe Lightroom 3, consider yourself lucky.  With a little experimentation and a handful of sliders, Lightroom can once again save an image otherwise destine for the Recycle Bin.

Do you have any images in your catalog that suffer from lens distortion?  If so, give these tips a try and let me know how things turn out.

Until next time, keep click'n.
-Ken

The Missing Piece - Topaz Adjust

A while back I mentioned that I've started to dabble in the world of HDR (High Dynamic Range) and tone mapping (See post "My First HDR").  I'm continuing on that journey and have spent a fair amount of time reading and studying other HDR processed images and wondered why I just couldn't quite get "the look" that I enjoy in some of the other work I've been reviewing.  After downloading a 30 day trial of Topaz Adjust, I think I found the answer.

Here are the images start to finish.

Original RAW photo straight from the camera.

Single image HDR produced with Photomatix Pro




Final image produced by Topaz Adjust (click for larger image)

  The additional exposure adjustments in the doors, pillars and stained glass window really sell it for me.  I feel another software purchase coming on in about a month :).

Meet Jeffrey Friedl

If you're an Adobe Lightroom user and haven't heard of Jeffrey Friedl, today's postis going to change your life.  Jeffrey is a very gifted software developer and photographer living with his family in Japan and spends his free time writing incredibly useful plugins for Adobe Lightroom.  Whether you like to share your photography on Flickr, Zenfolio, SmugMug, Facebook, etc., etc., Jeffrey has written an export plugin that will help you manage all of your published collections right from within Lightroom.  Yes, LR3 comes with a Flickr publishing service, but in  my opinion that plugin was added just as an "example" of what a publishing plugin might do.  Jeffrey's plugins actually provide the features and functionality that make them useful.
What's even more incredible, is Jeffrey offers his "Lightroom Goodies" as donationware.  That means you can download and install them, try them and use them as fully functional throughout the trial period. Once you've determined you love the plugin as I'm sure you will, PLEASE take the time to register and make a worthwhile donation to Jeffery.  Consider the amount of time required to develop all of these plugins, the fact that he is actively supporting every one of them via his blog, AND the amount of time his plugins are going to save you.   Don't mistake "donationware" as "freeware" or "cheapware".  Please consider how valuable these tools will be to you and donate with that in mind.
So, give Jeffery's stuff a look. You won't be disappointed!