For those that have been visiting the blog, you know that Podpress, my plugin of choice for putting out podcasts has been broken for some time as the developer has not released an update that makes it compatible with WordPress 2.6 Well, since it has been several months now, I am officially parting ways with it as my method for publishing.
Thanks to the folks over at Blubrry, I have been successfully able to implement a new alternative to embed podcasts into the native feed that already exists for CanonBlogger. So, in the interests of getting the content posted to iTunes and to those feeds that had not been updated from web references, I am going to spend the next few days providing some video content updates. The expanding ease of the .mov format not only in this interface, but also for portability purposes also seems to suggest that I am going to stick to that format exclusively for the foreseeable future.
For those that had been coming to the blog for their content, you will already have seen this video, but for those who have been waiting on the feed for new multimedia, this will be new material. Today, I am re-publishing the tutorial on reducing noise in your images. Enjoy! For the rest of you, see if you can tell the differences between some clouds shot with and without a circular polarizer. Share your thoughts in the comments on which one is with and which is without.
Just a quick wrap up here for the week as the day is getting late, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. Um…yeah, okay, that came from a poem somewhere but I forget who wrote it or the title, so no credit line on that.
As we all know by now (unless you are in a cave somewhere in the Congo), Canon has released the 5D Mark II and the specs were posted here a few days ago. Forums and the blogosphere have poked and prodded at just about everything they can until the camera itself comes to stores in October. So, for the time being we will likely see just more pontificating. As for the content here at CB, I am probably gonna draw back a little and let others wax on about it.
In more current events, Adobe released the Camera Raw update for all your product needs. It’s now at version 4.5, and is available for Mac and Windows download free here: Camera Raw 4.5
What the Duck had a great week from the comedic standpoint, and I really can’t pick a favorite, so just go there and read through them all! Great stuff!
Nominations are now open for the Podcast Awards for 2008. They close at the end of the month, so be sure to stop in and let them know who you think is deserving of the awards for this year. I’ve also got a link to them on the sidebar with a suggestion for CB (hint hint: Education). There’s 22 different categories so be sure you’ve got the URL’s for all your favorites handy to plug in the appropriate content areas. Others that I would recommend for nominations include:
The list goes on and on, but there’s only one tech category and most of the blogs I visit fit that area. Although there is a People’s Choice category too. As for CB, I’ll stick with the educational theme. So, if you think I’ve helped with education in photography and photoshop at all, then add a kudo in there. Who knows – maybe I’ll actually make the top ten in that category! 🙂 (I doubt it though…but it never hurts to self promote, so there it is!)
Also, I’ve got a new poll up on the sidebar. After posting the features about the 5D Mark II, I thought it might be interesting to see what features people would like to see in their camera gear. You can pick any three, so let’s Rock the Vote (so to speak), and get those opinions in. I wanna hear from YOU!
Finally, I thought I’d share a shot I did kind of by accident. I was trying to do some night photography with HDR in mind. Nothing came out all that well so I just started trying all sorts of things. Came up with this:
3 of Me
Do you like it? Too much? Not enough? Is it too processed? I’m kind of biased, so rather than reveal my own thoughts on this, I’ll leave it to the readership to decide if this works at all. Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Okay, so much for a quickie! I’ll just leave it at that, and wish you all an excellent weekend filled with productive and creative results. Happy Shooting!
The cloud and haze of my head cold has lifted and I find myself able to think clearly for the first time in several days…almost a week. With the fervor and excitement of the 5D Mark II hitting the blogosphere, and the requisite discussions now settling to a dull roar, it’s time to get back to the business of blogging on everything photography!
To start, I’d like to call out for thanks fellow NAPP member Erik Bernskiold. Not only is he a talented Photoshopper, but he knows quite a bit about web design too (and he’s like 1/3rd my age!). Anyway, I was quite flattered when he asked me if I would be willing to participate in a short interview for his blog/website. Needless to say, I accepted. You can see the Q&A on his blog here. Talk about tutorials – he crosses outside of Photoshop and does a lot of Adobe tutorials, so definitely a good guy to watch. (Plus, he’s super-nice and always helpful.)
Next up, I’d like to also send out some thanks to Michael Johnston over at The Online Photographer who linked back to the blog here on his discussion of the Canon 5D. For anyone who has read CB for any length of time, you know that TOP is where I go for my daily read of insightful, educational and theoretical musings on the industry of photography. Always a cool thing to get a nod from one of the elite, so thanks Michael.
Finally, since yesterday I skipped over the “What’s This?”, there’s no better time than the present to insert another photo opportunity. It should be fairly easy, but you never know…so, what’s this:
That’s it for today. Happy shooting and we’ll see you here tomorrow.
Today is the latest installment of the Geographic Composition series from Jason Moore, noted photographer and Photoshop Pro over on his blog. I had the privilege of being a contributing participant again, so in lieu of the typical tutorial that is associated with Tuesday postings, here is the shot that I shared in the Geographic Composition series. The theme for this most recent series is Big and Small.
Be sure to stop over at Jason’s blog to view the rest of the images (it’s an excellent resource to for creative juices and to see the latest trends in the industry. He’s in my blogroll to the right, but it bears sharing a link here as well: Jason D. Moore Photography
Earlier this week I talked about various ways to decrease noise in your images. While preventing and removing noise is something we typically do like to address in our work flow – there is also the flip side where noise or grain can enhance the quality of a print. All one has to look at for examples where noise can have an impact is in black and white photography. Grain gives an added sense of detail to black and white photos. The same can also be said for sepia-toned photos, those with a slightly yellowish, an “old-fashioned”, or “antique” look to them.
To give you an idea of how images can benefit from noise, take a look at the following two shots. First the color:
And how the black and white:
See how the grain from the image really accentuates his facial features? That’s one way in which noise/grain can enhance an image.
So, what about noise in your images? Do you like it or not? Got ideas for how noise can enhance your creativity? Sound off in the comments! Until tomorrow, happy shooting, and as always, keep watching those apertures!
Nothing fancy today – just something to whet your creativity – can you guess what this is? It took me a while to dig through my archive of images to find one that I could crop this way and effectively not give it away. The winner….well, wins! Good luck to all, happy shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
Oh yeah, don’t forget to vote in the poll – how much time do you spend shooting for your own projects each month?
Last week, I missed the 9th edition of “What’s This?”. On Wednesday the rather long previous day left me without the time to prepare for it, and on Thursday I was wrapped up in the Firmware Upgrade posting, that the weekly “What’s This?” just plain slipped my mind – like Denny Crane from Boston Legal, I must have Mad Cow Disease! 🙂
Rest assured, fellow bloggers, photogs, and CB readers all, I have remembered this week to make such a post. Since there is nothing to reveal from last week, I’ll just get right to it – here’s this week’s mystery shot. If you can identify it, then answer in the comments for:
What’s This? – Week 9
The first to get it right is the winner! Until tomorrow, fellow photogs, happy shooting and watch those apertures!
ETA: I listened to the latest episode of TWIP (over at www.twipphoto.com) and realized the Aperture Nature Workshop Contest is almost over. I hastily added my latest landscape image to the contest, and have virtually no hope of winning, but in case anyone else has time to upload a quality photo (or wants to stop in and vote for mine), the contest link to sign up for free and submit images (also free) is here: http://www.photrade.com/contest/aperturenatureworkshops
Went out this evening and caught a few nice ones. I’ll upload to the Flickr photo stream tomorrow evening with the weekly tutorial (upgrading your firmware – make sure you tune in for that – raw recording, no re-takes allowed!). But, in the mean time, here’s a teaser pic (probably the best one from the outing):
As readers have reminded me, I fell behind the 8 ball a little on sharing a “What’s This?” pic since we started our move from SC to CO. So, now that things are settling down again, the weekly photo challenge returns with gusto. See if you can decipher the object I’ve cropped down to this:
Any ideas? Feel free to share them in the comments section below. Correct guesses win…well, not much, just bragging rights. But bragging rights are better than nothing, eh? So venture a guess, who knows – you may get to brag!
In other news, the NAPP photowalk is coming up this weekend, so if you’ve not registered in a city near you, venture over to http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk to see if you’re near one that has any openings left – it should be a lot of fun, and that will have more than bragging rights for prizes!
I’ve not mentioned them in a while, so if you have 5 minutes to 5 hours availabe, stop over to 1001 Noisy Cameras for all the latest on camera news and information. They’ve got everything from reviews, to sales ranks, and links to relevant blogs and official rumors of upcoming gear. While they admittedly state that the rumor comes from DPReview, there is a suspicion that Canon will announce a 50D at Photokina this year!
As promised earlier this week, I finally have some photos to share. In the middle of the drive across country from SC to CO, I stopped a few times and saw some possibilities for panorama shots. Keeping in mind a couple tips, I switched my camera from landscape mode to vertical (a.k.a. portrait) mode, and captured several scenes on my 40D. Here is the first installment of my attempts at panoramas:
So, you’ll notice that the color on these is a little off, and the exposure is a little dark. I realized that I would have issues though, if I tried to expose for such a wide scene and range of colors across the entire panorama, most especially when trying to use the Photomerge function of Photoshop. So I set my White Balance to cloudy, my exposure to one frame, and just snapped across the image.
Here’s where it gets fun…I am running CS2 on my Mac laptop which cannot read my 40D files. My CS3 was set up on my Windows desktop. The Dell only has a 2.3 Ghz Celeron processor with 1.5 GB of RAM (I never got around to adding that last 512 before the move…). Needless to say, without being set up right, I really couldn’t process 8 shots each at 10MP (that’s a grand total of 80 MP in the final pano)! Even now with the portable AC on the Dell, it was screaming along as I ran the Photomerge utility through Bridge. Once I got the photomerge done, I stamped the layers (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) and converted to a smart object.
I then double-clicked the smart object to edit in it’s own window. This image file was now at 480 MB! Needless to say, I did some layer adjustments for exposure, and curves, then saved the file. I was now back in the full pano composite. I saved the full pano as a PSD file, then flattened before making some downsizing. For the curious, the full size pano is over 8000px on the long side. For the purposes of the web, I did have to downsize it a little. Clearly downsizing to allow the blog to show it would be out of the question, so here’s links to a large sized version (1600px long side), and a xl sized (3200px long side).
