Quick Hit Monday: Royal Wedding Print Critique; Wireless iPad Shooting Update; and Lots of Photoshop Freebies

Good Morning Everybody,

We've been spending a relaxing few days in the great state of Texas before kicking off the week bright and early at 8:30 a.m. We landed safe and sound on Friday, got settled in and caught up with a few friends but mostly relaxed over the weekend. By Saturday evening almost 1/2 of the instructors had arrived and Texas School kicked off the week long festivities with a casual get together and dinner at the hotel.  I'll tell ya', it's like the "Who's Who" of educators around here.  I said a quick Hi to my PSW co-star, Julianne Kost who was sitting with Mr. Wow, Jack Davis.

Also present was Larry Peters and son-in-law Brian Killian. Larry is one of the most successful high school senior photographers in the country.  This is his 21th year teaching at Texas School! Lighting master, Tony Corbell was also present and it was good to see him again.  Greg and Lesa Daniel, great portrait artists from Florida arrived safely as did our friends Don McGregor from Canada, Hanson Fong, Michael and Tina Timmons, just to name a few. Our good friends, Ralph and Cindy Romaguera, and Ralph’s son Ryan, were also at the dinner.  Cindy is one of the honchos at Texas School and was running around like crazy to be sure everything was running smoothly.  I linked to everyone mentioned here.  If you want to view some very inspiring photography, be sure to check out all the links.

Yesterday was registration day where the 1,050 photogs and vendors came together to meet and greet instructors, enjoy a barbeque party hosted by Full Color Labs, and then off to class at 8:00 p.m. The rest of this week will be jammed packed with learning and fun.  We are in class all day and then there's a dinner and/or party every night! So how much does all this fun and education cost the students? - about $500 for the week, and that includes all the evening meals and parties.  Factor the $105 room rate into that and you have one of the best photographic educational bargains of the century!

LaDawn and I are looking forward to the week.  I have to confess and say, I'm not looking forward to the lack of sleep that comes with teaching a week at Texas School ;~)  Although it will certainly be fun catching up with old friends and making new ones during the week.  I'll keep you posted as how the week progresses, assuming I can find time to get the blog up each day - like I said, a week with little sleep.  Hey gang, time to get on with today's Quick Hit Monday - let's get going.

Royal Wedding Photos - A Quick Critique

OK, the biggest and long awaited news event that happened over the weekend was the Royal Wedding of Prince William and his lovely bride Kate.  Over the weekend, the official wedding day photographs were released.  How did they look?  Here is the link to a nice collection of images right here. 

I liked how the story paralleled the images of Price Charles and Dianna 30 years earlier.  I think I really would have enjoyed photographing William and Kate's wedding.  They both are not only a gorgeous couple but just look like they really enjoyed the festivities and celebrations. I love the spontaneous expressions official photographer, Hugo Burnand captured.  The wedding party photograph says it all.

In addition, look at the lighting used on William and Kate's wedding.  Hugo had a nice soft directional light coming in from camera left which created a nice roundness and sense of dimension to the images.  I wonder if he was using one of my Zumbrellas in his lighting set up ;~)  Anyway, the lighting was nicely created.

Now look at the image below.  Look at the lighting in the royal wedding party image taken 30 years earlier.

The official photographer at Charles and Dianna's wedding, Patrick Lichfield, used a completely different lighting set up.  He used two large light sources, one coming in from camera left and the other from camera right in effect, cross lighting the wedding party.  I have seen other photographers use this same kind of lighting pattern much to the detriment of the final photograph.

OK, you may be asking yourself, "How does Ziser get away with criticizing the royal wedding pics of years ago?”  Hey, I’m not criticizing the wedding photos, just the lighting used to take them.  I mean, just take a look at William and Kate's wedding party image compared with Charles and Dianna's. One has depth and dimension and the other is clearly flat and two dimensional. 

So what am I saying?  Mr. Litchfield was just trying to kill all the shadows in his photograph - it seemed the "safe" approach to guarantee he obtained the shot.  But using "cross lighting" is really akin to just using on-camera flash.  The lighting in both instances is flat and non-dimensional. Mr. Burnand's lighting, on the other hand, renders rich, warm, nicely dimensional wedding party image.  What a difference the lighting makes.  Hey, I'm teaching Royal Wedding lighting all week here at Texas School.

Oh, one question I'm still wondering and that seems to be pondering the internet - I wonder if Mr. Burnand is designing an album for the newlyweds or just giving the wedding couple all the images on a DVD ;~)

Quick Update On Shooting Wirelessly into the iPad

Since me reporting on my shooting experience into the iPad at Photoshop World, a few folks have gone out and purchased the very hard to find radio transmitters for the Canon cameras and have emailed me with how to set it up. I have to tell you, set up is not for the faint of heart.  It's a 50 step process and you really have to keep your wits about you when working through all the steps. 

My buddy and right hand tech assistant, Damien Tepe, not only researched the process for several hours and got my camera up and running at Photoshop World last month, he also has formalized the entire process in an 8 page PDF with screen grabs.  My buddy and top school photographer, Ralph Romaguera, gave the procedure it's first run through on Saturday.  Ralph and his team of tech gurus spent hours figuring out the process their first time around.

Ralph and I sat down - he worked the camera and I read off the 8 pages of directions and we had him up and running in about 20 minutes.  Damien's set up procedure worked like a charm!  High fives to Mr. Tepe!  During the run through, we found just a few points that need a small bit of clarification.  I've made the notes and will forward them to Damien so we can get the finished document finalized.  I hope to have it posted at DigitalProTalk after we return from Texas School next week. 

Like I said so many times, way cool shooting into the iPad.  Here's a link back to my post with several ideas on how to make it work for you.  Be sure to read the comments too for a few more ideas.  BTW, if we hit 20 good suggestions in the "Comment" area, I give the author of the best idea a copy of my very popular “Captured By The Light” 14 hour DVD [link] set worth $59.   Please don't post your comments on Facebook - our DPT readers can't see them there.  If you want to be eligible for the big prize, they have to appear in the "Comments" section of my previous post right here.  Get those creative mind juices working as I hope we collect several additional good ideas.

And From The World Of Freebie Photoshop

I'll tell ya', this is becoming a regular part of Quick Hit Monday.  I love finding Photoshop tips and tricks I can pass on to our DPT readers.  And, there seems to be no shortage of website and blog posts offering up those little gems.  I've got a 7 more for you this week.  Here's the listing.

1. 30 Best Adobe Photoshop CS5 Video Tutorials [link]
2. 15 Photoshop Lighting Effects Tutorials [link]
3. Useful Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Abstract Backgrounds [link]
4. Top 15 Websites to Download Free PSD Files [link]
5. 30 Free High Quality Marble Textures [link]
6. How to Use Smart Objects in Photoshop [link]
7. 50+ Tools & Techniques to Remove Image Backgrounds in Photoshop [link]

All these links should keep you plenty busy on the next big rainy day - Enjoy!

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  Class starts in just a few and I've got to run.  I hope to see you tomorrow for another fantastic Technique Tuesday episode, that is assuming the parties don't run too late this evening ;~)

See ya' then,  David

Business Day Thursday: 5 Ways To The Ultimate Client Sizzle! Sedona Experience Update!

Good Morning Everybody,

Wow!  Was yesterday a kick or what?  Even with the early morning wake-up call, I think everyone had a great time at my Early Bird shoot.  We had good looking models, great weather, and a fantastic location. What could be better? Yes, that’s me on the floor getting that last terrific shot you see below.

Even the techie side of the shoot went perfectly.  Once again I was shooting wirelessly directly from my Canon 7D into my iPad so the class could see the results within a few seconds. I was using the Canon WFT-E5A Wireless Image Transmitter [link] to transmit directly into ShutterSnitch [link], a $15.99 app for the iPad. The 7D was set to capture in RAW and Small JPEG – it was the very small JPEGS I was transmitting over to the iPad.  Because of their small size, only about 800k, the transmission time was about 2-3 seconds – really fast!

DAZNOTE:  The secret to seamless transmission is to set the camera and iPad NEVER to shut off.  That way the channel of communication is never broken and never needs to be reset during the shoot.  It took me three tries before I figured that one out.

I have to tell you, it was one fine way to teach and the class loved it.  Talking about my thoughts and what I was planning to create the image, shooting the image, and then seeing it pop up on the iPad 2 seconds later ramped up the learning experience for everyone. That, by the way, brings us to the topic of today’s post.

The Ultimate Client Sizzle!

Ok, having described what I did yesterday with my class, I want you to think of the real world studio possibilities for your own client’s photography sessions using this technology – the possibilities are endless and exciting.  Let me share with you 5 suggestions.

1. Using the same set up described above I could shoot directly into the iPad at a wedding.  I would suggest two ways of doing this.  Shoot the entire wedding to the iPad.  That way you would have ALL the images ready for a slide show later in the evening during the reception – way cool.

Now even a more way cool application – shoot the reception images directly into the iPad connected to a data projector via the iPad projector connector.  Now the bride and groom and guests will see the excitement of the evening unfolding in real time right before their eyes! The long range transmitting capability of the Canon wireless unit will assure seamless transfer for the duration of the party.

2. You’re out shooting a job on location – let’s say two small children.  You’re in the park shooting away and capturing some great images.  Sure, you can show mom the back of the camera occasionally and she’ll be excited seeing the small images.

Now let’s ramp up the excitement a bit.  Shoot wirelessly into the iPad with my set up and let her follow the shooting with the iPad right there in her lap. How cool would that be?

ShutterSnitch even has a Star rating system where your client could begin the selection process right in the field!

3. You’re shooting a high school senior in the studio, out of the studio – wherever. Shoot directly into the iPad and let your client follow the shoot.  You can preview shooting ideas with them right on the spot fine tuning the session with your client’s direct feed back. They’ll feel a greater sense of involvement in the session and their input should result in them liking a larger number of the mages.

4. You’ve got your mom’s excited, your high school senior clients excited, you’ve got everybody excited with your very cool wireless shooting set up. Wouldn't it be cool for your clients to post some of those images directly to their Facebook page right there on the spot during the shoot.  Shutter Snitch has that function built right into it – awesome!

5. Your working with a commercial client shooting product, food, interiors, etc.  Now they can have their own private iPad monitor to follow the session offering suggestions and tweaks along the way that enhance the finished result even more.

In conclusion

The bottom line to shooting success in all these instances is the “instant feedback” response going directly to the iPad. The screen is plenty large for several individuals to see the images popping to the screen on and how the image looks in real time.

It’s a win-win for everybody, including you, because the client can offer suggestions, tweaks, changes, etc. along the way that facilitate the best results quickly, effortlessly, and efficiently and at the same time kick lots of “sizzle” into the process!

I’d love to get you feedback, ideas and suggestions too.  Why not post them in the comment section below.  If I receive at least a few comments, I‘ll give the person with the best suggestion a copy of my very popular “Captured By The Light” 14 hour DVD [link] set worth $59.  Hey, you can’t beat that and it’s a great way to share with our DPT readers. I hope you’ll take a minute or two to participate.

Sedona Experience Update!

Hey gang, I just wanted to let you know that we still have just a couple of seats left for our upcoming “The Sedona Experience – A Private Workshop.”  [link] We are keeping the class size super small for maximum interactive benefit to our participants.

I figure we’ll be spending about 30 waking hours together for this intense, exciting, learning experience.  I have to tell you, the HIT of my Master Class last week was when I worked with each small group individually for about an hour at a time.  Now multiply that by 30 hours working exclusively in a small group (limit of 6) and you can see the real impact of this rare learning opportunity!

Give Jennifer a call at 800.292.2994 for more info.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  After our super long day yesterday – about 17 hours – I promised LaDawn a day off.  We’re heading out to see some of the sights today, even though we have gray cloudy skies and a few snow flurries falling. Ahhh, Spring in Banff ;~) Still, we’re looking forward to enjoying the break and the magnificent scenery of this beautiful country.

See everybody tomorrow,  David

Technique Tuesday: Trigger Happy Wireless Shooting On A Budget & Master Class Update

Good Morning Everybody,

The class got off to a great start yesterday with everyone showing lots of enthusiasm and energy.  We’ll see how that energy holds up today when we hit the road for our location shoots ;~)

Last evening LaDawn and I welcomed everyone over to our home for our Annual Welcome Party. The Welcome Party is always a good way to break the ice and allows  everyone to know each other from the start of the week. Najee was even impressing everyone with his card magic – that’s Peter, an alumnus from the Fall 2011 Master Class class, selecting one of the magic cards. It was a fun relaxed evening and despite the non-stop rain everyone had a wonderful time.

It's also a nice way for the class to see the behind the scenes operations of my studio.  My team gave all the attendees a tour of our production area  and was available to answer any questions.  By the end of the week everyone will have a thorough understanding of how my studio operates which should be a nice asset for when they return home to their own businesses.

We’re trying something brand new today.  For the last twenty years of my Master Class we've carpooled whenever we headed out on our location shoots.  Even with MapQuest and the new GPS units, it was not a perfect solution to moving the class from one location to another in a timely and efficient manner.

This year we've rented a bus to drive us around to all the locations.  The bus is also equipped with a microphone which will allow me to continue to teach as we travel from one venue to another. I’m looking forward to our new arrangements making for an even richer learning experience for the class.

Hey gang, time to get on with Technique Tuesday.  Let's jump right in...

Trigger Happy Wireless Shooting On A Budget

Before I dig into this week's lesson, let me say that I am a huge fan of the Quantum radio control units as they are my radio units of choice 99% of the time.  They're accurate, reliable, and versatile. 

On the rare occasion when I want to travel really light I'll use my Nice wireless radio unites – yes, that really is the name of the units. Fellow blogging buddy Kerry Garrison at CamerDoJo.com turned me on to them.  They are extremely small and seem to work quite well in the situations in which I've used them.  You can actually pick them up at CameraDoJo right here. They’re less that $60 for 1 transmitter and 2 receivers.

One of those situations was just recently at LaDawn's son's wedding in Sarasota a few weeks ago.  I wasn't  the scheduled photographer for the event, as we had my buddy Al Gordon cover all the important ceremony and reception images for us, but I still couldn't resist getting out there and "playing" with my camera.

The wedding and reception was held at the Powell Crosley Estate with everything taking place outdoors.  Thank goodness for a BEAUTIFUL clear sky and gorgeous Floridian weather;~). Al knew that to get the best result at the Powell Crosley Estate he would need to have additional light firing for the reception coverage.  There just was not much ambient light in the terrace area to carry slow shutter speeds and high ISO shooting.

He set up a large umbrella on the balcony to supply the additional lighting.  I must say, that BIG light sure created a nice result in Al's images.

I was not trying to create what Al had going on, but I still thought I could get a better result than just shooting on-camera flash.  My plan was to use two Canon 580 EX2 flashes - one on camera and the other positioned high up the staircase leading to the balcony.  At the higher ISO I was planning to shoot, I thought the shoe mount strobes would work just fine.

I decided to use the little radio transmitter/receiver combo Kerry had recommended to me.  I have to say, they worked like a charm.  How about I show you what I was up too and the results I was getting with my super portable setup. I'll also show you Al's set up too.  Hit the PLAY button below and enjoy the show.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  Class starts in minutes and I can't wait to get behind the camera today.  We've got some new locations we'll be working in and some great looking models lined up to photograph. If the rain stops, and it is suppose to by late morning, ten it should be a great day.  I'll share a few images with you in tomorrow's post.   

See ya' then,  David

Wish List For Lightroom 4; Design Webcast 700 Strong, Don't Miss It; and Wireless Geeking Around

Good Morning Everybody,

I just received my USB booster cable and am planning to give it a try over the weekend.  I suspect it will work just fine.  After giving it some thought, I started wondering if anybody made a wireless USB adapter kit.  Wouldn't that be cool if I could just attach the USB transmitter to the camera and the USB receiver attached to the laptop with Lightroom 3 fired up on it.  One press of the camera, and presto, up on the screen the image would appear! I did a quick Google search and came up with a few options. 

The most promising option seemed to be the TruLink Wireless USB SuperBooster Extender for about $189.00 [link].  The specs said it had a 150 foot range and would work through walls.  Wow! This puppy looked like the answer to my dreams.  Also listed was a TruLink Wireless Adapter Kit [link] but the range was only listed as 30 feet maximum and that required direct line of sight. 

Uhmmm.... I gave tech support a call at Cables to Go and talked to Chris.  My terrific wireless idea was shot down pretty quickly.  The more expensive super booster model transmitted at a VERY SLOW USB 1.1 speed of 11 MB/sec. Right now with the direct cable connection to the computer it takes about 5-6 seconds before the image appears on the screen.  With this much slower connection, we both were expecting the worst.

You know, with Lightroom 3 offering such easy camera capture, this USB wireless idea seems like a good idea waiting to happen. Sure, the camera manufacturers have their wireless systems but those are fairly expensive solutions for the everyday photographer.  I’m sure something will pop up shortly, here's hoping.

Then I put my thinking cap on again. "Hey, if I shot JPEGs, the Super USB booster just might work.  I'm only trying to transmit about a 1 Meg file anyway." Now I have to decide if I want to shell out the bucks to give it a try. Maybe, maybe not, stay tuned ;~)

OK, enough of waxing fantastic over wireless shooting.  How about we get moving with today's post.

Over 700 Attendees Registered "Fast And Easy Album Design"

I  am completing the final preparations on my webcast, "Fast And Easy Album Design" today.  We have over 700 folks signed up for it already, so there are still plenty of seats avaialble.  Come on down and enjoy the show.  You can still REGISTER RIGHT HERE!

Remember, we are giving away over $1,000 in door prizes next Wednesday during the program.  

And I'll show you how you can get LumaPix: Fotofusion EXTREME, the absolute best software on the planet earth for creating collages and album pages for only $99.00 - it's $299 on line!!!

Oh,  by the way, the webcast is NOT software specific.  A lot of the webcast will be spent discussing the concepts we use in my studio to design albums, or any digital projects for that matter, that our clients love.  And part of the webcast will show you exactly how we design projects at my studio and the software we use to make the entire design process very fast and easy. I hope to see you there.

Lightroom 4 - Wish List Friday

Can you believe it - Lightroom 3 has been out for less than two weeks and already folks are publishing their wish lists for Lightroom 4.  Hey, count me in on that bandwagon.  I want to say again, that I am a BIG fan of Lightroom 3.  The more I play with it , the more I like it.  But that said, the more I wish it offered another feature or two.

So, today, after working (and playing around) with LR3, here is my list for what I'd like to see on the next version.

Hit The "Read More..." link below for the rest of the story.

My Top 7 Requests:

1.  Network connectivity: This is far and away the MOST IMPORTANT feature that needs to be implemented in the next version.  Everybody was really disappointed when the original LR1 came out.  Most of us expected LR2 to have it for sure - NOT!  And now LR3 is network neutered too. 

What gives? I mean, Adobe is using a internal database called SQLite and it has only single user access.  The fact that Lightroom 3 is not networkable may not turn off the occasional shooter, but those of us who run multiple workstations in our businesses want the networked version for sure!

Remember, next week - Technique Tuesday: "How to Jailbreak Lightroom 3 To Run On A Network."  Problem solved.

2.  The Blur Slider: We have the Clarity slider. How about a Gaussian Blur slider on the Adjustment brush? Right now we have a quick action set up in Photoshop where we can easily apply a Gaussian blur to an image and then paint detail back in certain areas with an attached layer mask.  It works great for our portraits. 

It seems like such a natural adjustment brush addition for Lightroom.  Just blur the image slightly then erase the areas you want to be sharp.  That would just mean one less trip over to Photoshop.

3. Clone Tool:  Are you guys and girls over the Spot Removal Tool yet.  It reminds me of a nearly identical implementation I saw in ProShots several years ago. But that was back in the film days when the digitally scanned images picked up dust during the scan process.  We used the ProShots Spot Removal Tool exactly the same way. 

This is the age of "digital miracles" in large part thanks to Adobe. It seems to me that turning the LR Spot Removal tool into a Cloning Brush would be an extremely useful feature to add to the program and be much less “clunky” than the Spot Removal tool. Hey Adobe, while you're at it, why not add a healing brush too ;~)

4. White Balance With A Bias: The current White Balance tool just leaves things too cool for me and I'm even a pretty cool guy ;~) OK, bad joke.  But when I do use the White Balance tool, I ALWAYS warm up the image just a bit.  I'm a wedding/portrait guy - I like my images a little warmer. 

Back in the film days, many of us always directed out labs to print deep and warm.  Wouldn't it be nice if Lightroom offered the option to warm up or cool down by a few degrees Kelvin in Preferences.    Be nice if we could save it as a Custom White Balance brush too.

5. Skin Balance Adjustment:  While I'm on the subject of custom white balance brushes,  I'd like to see a Skin Balance brush offered.  One of my favorite Photoshop plug-ins is iCorrect Portrait by PictoColor.  iCorrect Portrait does exactly that - it gives the user the choice to balance to a neutral tone or a flesh tone.  It even gives you the option of saving out several custom flesh tones. I love this feature and use it all the time when using iCorrect Portrait.  This feature really helps in hard to balance mixed lighting conditions.

6. Auto Tone With Bias:  I'm pretty happy with my Import Preset I mentioned recently in my Technique Tuesday episode entitled, "Lightroom 3 Secret Settings" [link]. But even though most of the images look good, I wish I could bias the Auto Tone result with a + or - contrast and fill light adjustment. Maybe I'm being picky since I know I can tweak the curves to get the same result.

7. Lightroom Lite For My iPad: Yep, that's my last request for the moment.  I'd like to see Lightroom Lite for the iPad.  Boy, that would be the perfect solution for tethered shooting right into the iPad.  Come on gang, what do you think, good idea?

You know, a few days ago I did try to shoot tethered into the iPad.  I took my iPad camera adapter, plugged it in, attached the cable to my Canon 7D, added an empty card and fired up the camera.  It was a giant NO-GO.  The camera kept saying "BUSY". I guess because the iPad was looking for the images on the card.  Anyway, Lightroom Lite could solve that problem;~)

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  I hope to see a few of you this weekend in Lexington at our KPPA Summer School. Remember to keep your pixels smilin' and I'll see you on Monday.

-David

A Quick Follow Up on Eye-Fi

DPreview did an in-depth review of this fascinating piece of digital ingenuity. This is the little card that turns your camera into a Wi-Fi camera soon to be available in Compact Flash format too. Is it all that it's cracked up to be? You will have to read the review right here.