Lighting Mods

Stolen Camera Finder, Helps You Find Your Camera

Just came in touch with this great new webpage Stolen Camera Finder, it's a very interesting idea done by the programmer Matt Burns on a two-year project that has just seen the light.
If you ever lost your camera or you have it stolen you will know that retrieving it becomes little short of a miracle. This online service aims to help you somehow to try to locate it.

The idea is to use the serial number that many cameras embedded in the EXIF data of pictures. You just need to drag a photo from your computer into the browser to automatically search the web for the serial number. It only works if the photo you are dragging is originally taken from the camera and not one you already altered.

There are two search engines, one uses the API to Flickr to crawl the site and a database of images that will appear to grow as volunteers help create the plugin for Chrome, which records all that information in the background without interfering with your navigation.

The idea is very good but it has some drawbacks. We must use a JPEG straight from the camera, unprocessed, to keep the EXIF data (and the person using our camera has uploaded a photo in the same conditions). You can consult the list of compatible cameras but I hope that you never feel in the need to find a camera lost or stolen.

Hope this would help ou out on finding our stolen cameras.

LR Preset: Pro Styled - Herb Ritts

Black and White were never my strong. Even on the film days I tried the the best I can but color was always more appealing to me.

A lot of you been asking for LR Presets for the Black and White and I found that X-Equals got, this week, an excellent Herb Ritts simulation so I decided to share it with you.

Hope you like them.

Herb Ritts – Pro Styled

The first and most impost step in emulating any photographer’s style is to study their work. You can start by viewing the gallery presented on Herb Ritts’ website. Further studies can be carried out by viewing his books such as Pictures, Duo, Africa and his other works.

Study the poses, look at how light and dark interplay with the human form. Note his use of lines and curves, and how they are used to guide the eye. Look at how he uses both balance and imbalance in his images. Try to unlock how all these come together to create the image. Spend some time exploring Ritts’ body of work and get a feel for his photographic eye.

Once you are comfortable with your understanding of his works, start thinking about how you would recreate the effects on your own.

Do note, most of Herb Ritts’ style is produced in camera, as with many other great photographers. You really need to focus on getting your images as close to the desired goal at time of capture, you simply cannot rely on post processing to accomplish the feat of simulating his unique style.

A few tips you may want to consider:

* Use a yellow filter to view your subject before shooting. Visualizing your shot through a yellow filter helps you see the difference in tones in your subject, eliminating much of the color.
* When shooting outdoors, go ahead and put that yellow filter on your lens. Since our target image will be a black and white image, the yellow filter will help by eliminating excess blue light, which will level out skies and bring a better balance to your image.
* Shoot both High Key and Low Key images, but be sure to have good contrast when doing so. Especially with abstract shots of parts of the body, you will want to consider a bright overall image with deep darks in the subject or vice versa. Use your environment and subject to your advantage.
* When shooting with your full dynamic or even high dynamic range, focus on a good balance of dark and light with good, but not extreme contrast. Look for emotion in your subject for these shots and pose for either strength or vulnerability depending on your specific goal.
* When shooting with natural lighting, think outside the norms of photography. Put the sun at your subject’s back, or shoot at high noon, and kick up the contrast wih filters or post processing.
* When using studio lighting or strobes, use some extra lights on a light back ground for High Key images. Or shoot on a dark background and focus more light on your subject, enhancing contrast.

These tips are just the tip of the iceberg, and you will have to experiment with them and your own ideas to find what works right for you. But to help you along, here are some presets we designed to help you get the final look a bit quicker.

These presets are designed to allow you to quickly take your image to one approximating the style of Herb Ritts. Be warned, these presets can be a bit heavy handed, so don’t be afraid to make some fine adjustments to what they generate. The presets included in the download are as follows:

* PS Ritts Curve 1 – This preset contains a fairly conservative Tone Curve, designed to enhance contrast, while maintaining the general brightness of the image. It has a moderate increase in Clarity to get a bit more pop.
* PS Ritts Curve 2 - Another custom curve, this time shifting the Tone Curve much darker, while retaining a high level of contrast. Also maxes out Clarity to enhance fine detail in darker images.
* PS Ritts Curve 3 - Again, a custom Tone Curve, dramatically brightening the image, with a minor kick to Clarity, creating an overall high-key and soft effect.
* PS Ritts Mix HIE - A customized version of the Cold Storage Kodak HIE infrared preset, providing a palette suitable for Ritts type work.
* PS Ritts Mix Pan-X - Another customized film emulation, using Kodak Panatomic X as its base.
* PS Ritts Mix Plus-X – Customized Kodak Plus-X preset for a more natural appearance.
* PS Ritts Mix Tech Pan – Kodak Technical Pan emulation tweaked for Ritts style use.
* PS Ritts Mix Tri-X - Tri-X as well, of course.
* PS Ritts Punch – A preset that endows a bit of surreal realism to your image. Brings out detail using Recovery and Fill Light and brings it back to Earth with a hit of Blacks adjustment.
* PS Ritts Yellow Filter – A preset that adjusts White Balance to emulate a yellow filter being used. Not for every photo, but can drastically lighten many.

As with all our X-Equals presets, these are designed to be used in unison to create the desired effect. Also, be sure to try other black and white color mixes, such as the Curve presets from our own Cold Storage to open up a world of new B&W effects. After you get the effect about where you want it, adjust Exposure or Brightness to balance out your image.

Thank you X-Equals for having made this wonderful set.

Adobe Lightroom 3.4 & Camera Raw 6.4 RC versions are here

Adobe put up today 2 new release candidates for Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 are now available as Release Candidates on Adobe Labs.

The final releases of Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 may have additional corrections or camera support.

New Camera Support in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidates

* Canon EOS 600D (Rebel T3i / Kiss X5)
* Canon EOS 1100D (Rebel T3 / Kiss X50)
* Hasselblad H4D-40
* Olympus E-PL1s
* Olympus E-PL2
* Olympus XZ-1
* Samsung NX11

New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidates

Canon Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM
Canon Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8 L USM
Canon SIGMA 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM**
Canon TAMRON 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3DiII VC PZD B008E
Nikon Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
Nikon Nikon AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED
Nikon Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
Nikon Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR
Nikon SIGMA 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM
Nikon TAMRON 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3DiII VC PZD B008N
Nikon Leica APO-MACRO-SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/120mm
Nikon Leica SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/35mm ASPH.
Nikon Leica SUMMARIT-S 1:2.5/70 mm ASPH.

**These lens profiles were in the previous release but have been updated to address quality concerns.

Bugs Corrected in the Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate

The following bugs that were part of previous Lightroom 3 releases have been corrected. The team appreciates the very detailed feedback the community has provided on Lightroom 3 and we’re excited to correct a number of issues experienced by our customers. These issues have been FIXED

* Lightroom encountered issues presenting double-byte character metadata after the image was edited on Photoshop.com.
* Publish collections did not work properly if the sort order is set to descending. (“Z to A”).
* Using the up/down arrow keys or the mouse wheel to adjust a parameter while the graduated filter is activated caused increments of plus or minus 100 instead of 1.
* Interlacing artifacts, and a slight magenta cast in the deepest shadows could have appeared on some high-contrast edges of Canon mRaw files.
* A magenta color cast could have appeared on Nikon D7000 images if the multi-exposure feature was used with raw capture.
* Video files were allowed to be added to a SmugMug publish collection not capable of supporting video uploads.
* Folder creation caused an expanded folder hierarchy to close unexpectedly in the Library Module.
* Please provide feedback on your experience with the Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate Bug Report Form.

Camera Raw 6.4 Release Notes

* Camera Raw did not allow write-back capability for the EXIF GPS properties
* The DNG File format did not support XMP Media Management
* A JPEG file with a specific characteristic was found to have a pink cast
* The undo command (Command Z) was failing to undo crop adjustments
* Single images marked for deletion were not moved to the trash
* A magenta color cast could have appeared on Nikon D7000 images if the multi-exposure feature was used with raw capture
* Please provide feedback on your experience with the Camera Raw 6.4 plug-in and the DNG Converter on the Camera Raw User to User forum.

Direct Downloads:

Adobe Lightroom 3.4 Release Candidate information

For Win

For Mac

Adobe Camera Raw 6.4 Release Candidate information

For Win

For Mac)

2nd Strobist WS in Luxembourg - SOLD OUT

THANK YOU to everyone who will participate.

Both days are now SOLD OUT.

Just a reminder that the Workshop will take place on the 5th/6th March 2011 at Espace H2O in Rue Rattem - ‪Differdange‬.

This will be a full day with lot's of information about the gear you can use and also 8 models per day to photograph under 4 setups.

In the morning you can count with a more in-depth review of the gear and in the afternoon some setups would be build so participants can practice different lighting situations.

Also included are Lunch, coffee, soft drinks and some snacks so you won't miss anything.

For more information's you can contact me directly.

See you there.

Take a look at what happened last time.

Luxembourg 1st Strobist Workshop - 8 Jan. 2011

And a BTS video.

LR Preset: William Petruzzo Pack

Today I bring you a free Collection Pack from photographer William Petruzzo from Petruzzo Photography.

How many times you wonder, on your Adobe Lightoom photos, how an increment in Exposure or Fill Light would look like without having to move the slider up and down every time?

And how about the Blacks and Noise Reduction? Wouldn't it be good to have some presets that could help you visualize that, on the preview window, without having to move the sliders all the time?

Well maybe you have already thought about that but were too lazy to create them in Adobe Lightroom... well wait no more as William Petruzzo makes you life much easier on this subject.

Just take a look at this awesome pack I got for you today...

With this presets you can find some very useful tools, the Pack is a 3 folder content and you will find, on the first folder, a Common Basic Adjustments presets for the Blacks, Exposure, Fill Light, Noise Reduction and Recovery in increments. This could be a lot of help for those quick fine tunings you need on your images.