Lightroom 4 Is Out

Updated March 23, 2012

We have added a third Lighroom 4 Workshop, this one between Savannah & Her Lowcountry and Charleston, a Southern Belle photo workshops on Saturday, April 7, 2012.

No, this isn’t exactly new news.  After all, Lightroom 4 was released earlier in the week when I first published this blog.

The new Lightroom 4, however, is amazing and light years ahead of our beloved 3.x release.  Adobe really went all out on this major upgrade.

With more sophisticated tools and sliders, Map (think GPS, in part) and Book modules, new channels in the Tone Curve, better and easier removing of chromatic aberrations, localized corrections that include noise reduction, and soft-proofing for printing, the Internet, and monitors, this only scratches the surface of what Adobe has incorporated into this new release of Lightroom 4.  I could go on and on and on, but …

Julianne Kost, one of the developers of the assorted versions of Lightroom, has done a video on some of the dramatic changes in this new upgrade.  Adobe really listened to us users.  What a concept!

But even though Lightroom has been out for a few days now, what is new is that we are adding at least two Lightroom 4 workshops to our calendar, one in Taos on September 15, 2012 before our Santa Fé & Taos, Land of Georgia O’Keefe photo workshop and the other on December 1, 2012 before our Death Valley National Park photo workshop in Stovepipe Wells Village.

I have to report that these are two fabulous areas to photograph, and with the new skills that you will gain in these Lightroom 4 workshops, you will have a blast, either at our photo workshops right after or on your own.

Meanwhile, I have been having a blast working in it, as has our west-of-the-Mississippi Lightroom 4 instructor, Dave Robertson.  Dave, who has taught many Lightroom workshops, has redone his presentation which debuted today at a Lightroom 4 workshop he ran.

Meanwhile, I have been preparing updates for our Lightroom blogs, redoing screen shots, etc., all in preparation for our upcoming photo workshops and east-of-the-Mississippi Lightroom 4 workshop(s).

And for our alumni, you’ll be happy to know I have updated Margo’s Tweaks.

The Glory of Black and White 2012-01

Over the weekend, I took time off from our regular work to do some black-and-white images.

Some people see in color, and some people see in black and white. Arnie and I see in both.

What it really is all about is seeing values. You know, that range from lights to darks. As did Arnie, I started out in black and white, but for me, it was with my trusty Brownie Hawkeye. Some of those images that I made when I was eight stand the test of time today. But that’s not the point of this blog except that I have been around black and white for a very long time. Even when I was shooting mostly color, I was also admiring the black-and-white photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Curtis, J. Walker Evans, and a plethora of others.

There were some images from Death Valley that I knew at the time would make good black and whites.

As those of you know who follow this blog, we ran into the sand/dust storm of all storms in Death Valley last month. Locals hadn’t seen anything like it in decades. While it was challenging to keep the camera safe, it was also great for photographs. The one above was made when the storm was beginning. The valley floor was still clear, but the mountains and hills were being obscured as the storm got lower and lower.

I didn’t want to lose that feeling of the storm lurking above the desert floor. I had already processed my color image, but after I took it over into nik Silver Efex Pro*, I brought it back into Lightroom to complete my tweaking. In this case, I wished to maintain the subtle outline of the mountains across the desert floor, so I darkened the exposure in that upper part of the image and brought out a little more detail in the salt ridges in the foreground to contrast with the storm.

Very often, I vignette by darkening the edges to draw the eye into my subject, but in this case, I actually lightened the edges a tad to lessen the impact of the salt lines as they drifted out of the frame.

In the next image, there were signs of the storm in the distance. The “scooty” rock in its setting was my subject, which meant that I could not allow the mountains to intrude too much.

Again, I took my image over into nik for my base black-and-white conversion, did my normal tweaks there, then

Hard Drive Health and Maintenance

or, The Care and Feeding of Your Hard Drives

Updated January 29, 2012 in Italics

Before I address the subject of this blog, let me introduce you to part of my workspace. It is a stand-alone garage, about 50 feet behind our house, that we converted into a wonderful office for me. With his office inside our house, Arnie quips that he gets to stay at home, while I have to go off to work in the morning! And yes, I pass by those two faces in the banner several times a day as I trek back and forth on the stone path between the two buildings.

Along with the normal photographer’s fare, my office is filled with framing materials, bookcases full of fiction, non-fiction, and reference materials, and special things gathered from life and travels. Here is where I spend most of my time when we’re home. Here is where I do the bulk of my computer work.

There’s a little Pussy Willow mouse, tail wrapped around a feather and hanging over the monitor. The Raven that Arnie found for me in Bryce Canyon keeps quothing, “Nevermore.” A little box under the monitor to the left is one I decorated at age eight as a present for my mother. It has an enameled copper plate on the lid. And that little red racer with the feather (I collect special feathers) is a Ferarri given to me by a Porsche friend. The two little birds were created from branches by another friend who gave them deliciously irreverent names.

There is the Bermuda Sea Garden paper-weight that my parents brought back when postage there was a mere ha’penny. My great grandmother’s Birds-eye Maple stamp box sits in front by one of my mugs (ginger-lemon tea within to be replaced later by a nice glass of red wine delivered by Arnie). A real boomerang from Oz perches over the door. (Yes, I have flung it, and yes, it returned to me!)

It is a great place to work, and six-plus years after its completion, I am still really happy with my design.

Over the years, a number of our alumni have asked, “What do I do when my hard drive(s) get full?”

Excellent question, and one easily answered, but please don’t let it get to that point. And before you tackle anything to do with the hardware, check with your computer guru to make sure it makes sense for your computer. The age of the computer, the operating system, the processor, and a host of other things can determine what is best for the health of your computer.

• defrag (defragment) your hard drive(s) on a regular basis. This is important for PCs. Macs are based on a different system, so they work differently. That process cleans up deleted-file areas. Think of lifting the plant off the porch railing. It leaves a residue. Yuck! But when you get out the heavy-duty cleaner, poof! All gone! Everyone has her/his computer set up differently, but check with your help file, Google defrag computer, or ask your computer guru to help.
• Avoid letting your hard drive(s) get more than