Tag Archives: process

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4

Adobe has announced the release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (which I will hereafter refer to as “Lightroom 4”), the newest update to the application. For many (probably most) photographers using Adobe tools for their photography, Lightroom is probably the best option. It provides quite a bit of image editing/processing power and flexibility, excellent tools for organizing large photograph collections, and a wide range of effective methods for outputting final images to the web, to video, to various types of print publication, and as photographic prints.

Depending on your situation, the update is available several forms:

(You may use these links to purchase from site-sponsor B&H Photo. Note: Links were broken earlier, but they have now been fixed.)

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

iPad Typing – It’s a Whole New Weird, iUh, I Mean World

You might have noticed a bit more “creative spelling” than usual at the blog this week. A bit of explanation is perhaps in order. I decided to try traveling with my iPad rather than my laptop, trying to reduce the weight and bulk of my luggage, especially since I am carrying a significant amount of photo equipment. In most ways this is working out quite well – I can handle most email and web work with its virtual keyboard, and it really is great to be able to use such a small device.

But about that “keyboard?” the iPad has an on-screen “virtual keyboard” that pops up on the screen when you need to type. Unfortunately it provides exactly no tactile feedback. The software attempts to compensate by “interpreting” my error-filled typing and automatically replacing gibberish with actual words. But not always the most appropriate actual words. For example, in one post my attempt to type “other” resulted in the word “mother” appearing in the text!

What about using the iPad to review and post-process photographs? That will br the subject of a later post, I think. For now I’ll just say that it is possible… but less than idea. I did magneto do some very basic editing of a few photos that I posted elsewhere, but the real work will wait until I’m back at my desktop computer.

( Just for fun, I left an iPad-ism in that last paragraph – did you “manage to” find it?)

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographic Myths and Platitudes – ‘Photographer’ versus ‘Photoshopper’

Read enough online stuff about photography and you eventually begin to recognize certain “common knowledge” assumptions about photography that are frequently repeated, quoted, and stated as truths. Unfortunately, quite a few of them are, at best, personal opinions rather than facts, and a good number are just plain wrong. I have a couple of ideas for a series of posts on this blog, and I’ve felt that occasionally dealing with some of these myths and platitudes might be one such thread. So, here goes — a new series: “Photographic Myths and Platitudes.”

I’ve seen writers attempt to draw distinctions between “photographers” and “photoshoppers” – in fact I just saw another today. The underlying assumption seems to be that if you are really a “photographer” you’ll be able to do everything perfectly in-camera and won’t have to do anything in the “post-processing” stage, and that “photoshopping” is a form of non-photographic cheating or tweaking that only has the purpose of making a poor photograph less poor. Further, quite a few who hold this view attempt to build their case on photographic history, often suggesting that “Great Photographer X” fully and accurately “pre-visualized” the image in its finished form, carefully calculated composition and exposure in such a way that the final print would be inevitable, pressed the shutter release, and captured a perfect image that could not be improved in any way by further work.

Of course, with the exception of a few genres of and approaches to photography, this is generally nonsense both as history and as a practical description of how photography is done. Continue reading Photographic Myths and Platitudes – ‘Photographer’ versus ‘Photoshopper’

How I Sharpen – An Overview

(I originally wrote this article way back in 2009. Some portions were revised in February 2019 to reflect changes to sharpening tools and some different ideas I have developed regarding sharpening settings. It was updated and modified again in 2023.)

I just posted something elsewhere about how I sharpen for prints and I figured I’d get some extra mileage out of it by posting it here as well. First, few disclaimers…

  • The title of this article originally referred to a “quick overview.” Clearly, it is too long for that! But there are whole books on sharpening, so by contrast I think this qualifies as a quick description. In fact, I’ve left a lot out of the description!
  • There are people with far more expertise on this topic than I have, and I have no illusions that this description represents the “right” way to do this, much less the “best” way!

The subject of how to sharpen photographs in post for print or electronic output is one that confuses many people… and a subject to which many books, online articles, and forums posts have been devoted. There are any number of ways to get the desired results via sharpening, and different techniques are called for depending upon taste, the nature of the image, and the final form of presentation: size? print? jpg? etc…

Here is a general description of what I do when I print. I’ve left some variations out of this description. The description also covers software that I use in my workflow — you might prefer something different, but you might still be able to adapt these ideas. You’ll note at least one controversial method later in the list, but try it before you dismiss it. The approach I use could well be “over-kill” if you just want to pump out a bunch of jpgs to share with friends and family or if you want to make some small prints — my end goal is good sized prints, and I work on each one rather carefully rather than mass-processing them and printing a bunch at one time.

And please understand that I’m most certainly not implying that my way is the right way. It works for me, and that people who view my prints often remark on their sharpness and detail. (And a few other things, too, I hope! :-)

Continue reading How I Sharpen – An Overview