Yes that's right. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is now available for public beta testing at Adobe Labs.

And it's very cool.

For those of you who don't know, Lightroom is literally a digital photo darkroom.  Where Photoshop has many workflows - digital imaging, creative design and pre-press - Lightroom has a truly singular workflow: digital photography.

It combines many features of Bridge, Camera RAW, and digital image correction/enhancement in a very slick package. It also offers multiple output workflows: slideshow (with music, even), print (single images and packages) and web (photo galleries and direct to flickr upload).

If any of this has piqued your interest, be sure to drop by Adobe Labs for the beta, and to watch some excellent Lightroom 3 videos by Julieanne Kost

My photos are now online from the camping trip with Tom Green and sons.

I shot approximately 600 images, and have edited them down to about 240, using Adobe Bridge as my primary tool.

I experimented with slow shutter speeds on many water shots this year and also made a conscious effort to find scenes which I thought would translate well into black and white. In fact, you'll get a first-hand look at how I created the black and white images on flickr in my latest tutorial, which is running on Tuesday of this week.

I've also included a few panoramics from the trip as well, including the one of the campsite.

I hope you get a chance to check out the photos. Feel free to comment on them; I love to know what people think.

My new book, Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4, is set to hit shelves in early January 2009. We turned in the final manuscript this past week. It's been an interesting journey, and I'm already collecting notes for a 2nd edition (if we're lucky), and possibly another book altogether.

We took the approach of going from concept to execution, hoping for a more holistic way of creating composite artwork. The goal was to help people understand that creating works, especially very realistic or goal-oriented pieces, is not something that can be done by piling up tutorial after tutorial. In fact, we rarely discuss specific techniques. Instead, we take the reader from concept development on up to the point of starting actual work, but not much further.

So, early on, we worked at guiding the reader towards having a vision in place, and working on elements along the way that support the vision. Planning, photography, sketches, notes, etc. are all wrapped up in the process of managing the vision. With any luck, there will be a supporting website to handle specific techniques and challenges, some of which will be brought to CMX as articles and tutorials. Keep your eyes peeled!

There is a bill which passed in the US congress which is H.R. 5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. I'd contacted my congressman about the bill and my concerns over the bill. I've received a reply which I would like to pass on here:

A week in the Canadian Wilderness.

With Tom Green.

Actually, it was not as scary as it sounds. I recently spent a week near the eastern shore of Lake Superior with Tom and his son, Rob. We had a great time, camping, hiking and canoeing and treating ourselves to some most excellent camp chow and some of the most spectacular scenery one could see and still be within walking distance of a hot shower. A mere 12 hour drive from Toronto, our base of operations was Obatanga Provincial Park. At just $25 a night for peace and quiet and gorgeous views it was worth every penny.

I made many pictures that week (well over 400), some with the intention of turning them into panoramics using Photoshop, or combining images using Auto Align and Auto Blend to make the perfect exposure and still others just for the sheer joy of capturing the moment, like this one:

Still others were just for fun and for future plans, such as the pixel dump station:

For the edited (under 300 images) version and to see some great scenery - and some pretty cool panoramics (all hand held, I would add) - make sure to drop by my flickr site, choose slide show, sit back and enjoy.

I just completed a 9 day trek deep into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, where many interesting things may be seen. I'll spare you the usual tedious mountain peak shots and proceed directly to an amazing phenomenon rarely caught as an image.

Below is a photograph of the elusive mountain ape in its natural surroundings (Evolution Lake in this case), where you can clearly see three prime specimens "displaying" for the females. What superb luck to witness it!

The females appear to be using body pigments of some kind (perhaps colored mud), revealing a hitherto unsuspected sophistication. Do the males wash off this pigment as part of the display? Alas, I arrived too late to view the early part of the ritual, and was soon compelled to retreat due to the risk of being discovered myself.

Exhausted by the exertions of the trail and the giddy excitement of my discovery, I had to rest upon a high slab near Muir Pass.

Next year I hope to return and learn more about these magnificent but endangered beasts. Until then...

Toronto Star Interview on Digital Photography

I'm a big believer in post secondary education and have been working with Centennial College as a teacher for many years. Recently, thanks to the Centennial College press contact, I was interviewed by the Toronto Star to share my thoughts on Internet resources for digital photography.

I thought I would post this here because both myself and another instructor supplied several links about digital photography. If you've got a digital camera - or even a film camera - you might find some of the links in the article helpful. 

As you may have noticed from my recent articles, I've been on a bit of an organizational kick. It all started (or became more focused) when I downloaded the LightRoom beta from Adobe. Pretty cool software which I am still playing with.

Ironically, playing with LightRoom got me thinking more and more about Adobe Bridge, and its functionality. While not near as sexy as LightRoom, Bridge is packed with functionality that can really help to streamline your workflow and business.

I've been using Bridge for quite some time to add Metadata to all my images before they are burned to CD and/or shipped to the client, or even uploaded to my flickr site. But lately I've been experimenting more with the search, keyword and rating features. This experimentation has resulted in a series of articles about Adobe Bridge. So far, Parts 1 and 2 are online. Parts 3 and 4 are completed and will be hitting cyberspace some time soon.

The Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge Series:

• Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 1: Batch Renaming
• Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 2: Working with Metadata
  

Coming Soon! 

• Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 3: Keywords and Searches and Collections - Oh My!
• Getting Organized with Adobe Bridge - Part 4: Rating and Labelling

I didn't begin writing about the Bridge with a series of articles in mind. However, the more I played (and found cool things) the more I thought about sharing those discoveries with you.

I'm not sure if I have any more Bridge articles up my sleeve, but as I continue to work with the application, the muse may slap me upside the head yet again. Part four was a bit of a surprise even to me. I hadn't even thought about going over these features until I realized how often I use the rating feature myself.

I'm also finding this information to be very useful to my current students. This semester, I am teaching photojournalism and photography to students in two different journalism programs at Centennial College.

One core component of the courses is Photoshop instruction, but it occurred to me recently how valuable the Bridge can be to these students and how important it is to instil good organizational habits early. This is of particular relevance to my photojournalism students, because Bridge works with XMP data and follows IPTC standards for data storage/input. The type of information you can include/embed with an image file will become part of their photography workflow when they enter the profession.

Adobe has also acknowledged and embraced this technology with the creation of their XMP toolkit and the extended capabilites of the File Info feature.

For those of you who are not photographers, Adobe Bridge works with multiple image formats, not just photographs. Whether you have a collection of PNG designs for a web site, or a bunch of animated GIFS, Bridge can help you get - and stay - organized with those files as well. So if you haven't had the chance yet, be sure to take a peek at these articles.

Anything you can do to make your life easier is a good thing, in my view.

As Adobe continues to develop its myriad product lines, I hope to see Bridge capability or integration with other programs, too.

Well my Fuji s9k is back in my hands after a brief visit to Fuji Canada. A few weeks ago, the capture mode just suddenly shut down. I tried changing batteries, but it still wouldn't work. So I hand delivered the cam to Fuji, and picked it up early last week. As it turns out, they could find nothing wrong with it other than possibly dirty battery contacts.

It's working fine now, as you'll see if you drop by Flickr to see some new images.

Being without the Fuji didn't stop me from shooting, however. I have my D70 and it was quite nice to re-aquaint myself with that camera. It really is an excellent piece of equipment. Because it is a true DSLR, the lenses are removeable, so there is always the risk of dust on the sensor. I have to get into the habit of blowing out the interior of that cam before I use it, whether it needs it or not. Inevitably, if I *don't* do this, something ends up on the sensor and I find myself in Photoshop or Fireworks doing some clean up work. (As a side note, the Healing Brush and Spot Healing brush have become *very* good friends of mine.)

The weather is getting nicer so I find myself travelling around more often. For quite some time, I wasn't shooting for myself. I never realized how much I missed doing that. How relaxing and exciting it is at the same time. I've been shooting for myself  much more over the past few weeks and it feels great. A nice break from parking my butt in front of my PC all the time and it also helps sharpen my visual design skills. I have plans to go with a friend to shoot a wind farm that is about 2 hours outside of Toronto. We're aiming to shoot either early morning or dusk (for the added drama). I can't wait to see what we come up with. 

I took a drive up to Gravenhurst on Monday to see what becomes of the Muskoka Steamship fleet in the winter. I was in for quite a surprise, to see both the Segwun and Wenonah II "ice-locked" at their moorings. I don't know what I was expecting, but the sight of these beautiful ships from yester-year, trapped in the ice until the thaw, sent shivers up my spine.

It was a beautiful day to make some photos; blue sky, bright sun, brilliant snow covered Lake Muskoka. I even ventured out onto the ice a bit for one shot. Feel free to drop by my flickr site and peruse the latest. If you live somewhere warm, the shots of the the steamships ought to cool you off a little. :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jim_babbage/

As bizarre as this may sound, I just recently discovered flickr.com. I found it by seeking out a disheartened poster on another newsforum. Some of the other posters had been giving her a rough and rude time because of her frustration with a new digital camera. Well I know ALL about that! Anyway, I found a link in one of her posts to her space on flickr and went a-lookin'. What I found - aside form some great images of her dogs and local scenery - was how dang easy flickr was to use! I htink that very afternoon, I set up my free account and started uploading images.

Flickr is a boon to me, becasue I've plum run out of room on my own web space for posting images, and I didn't really want to buy more disk space right away.

The software for uploading files is dead easy to use; you can even download a system-resident app that will help you find, size and upload your photos. It's like the iTunes of photo gallery apps.

 I'll soon be buying a pro account, which is only $25/year and gives me a huge amount of uploading bandwidth, including the ability to store my hi-res images. Possibly a great option for backing up my files, but I'm still looking into that.

Anyway, feel free to drop by and see what I've got on display at my flickr page. Don't forget to say hi!

For those of you using Picasa, here's official notice that Google has released an upgrade. Make sure to drop by and download it.

There's a whack of new features in this free imaging utility:

• Multiple languages Support 
• BlogThis! button allows you to post one photo at a time directly to the Blogger.com web editor
• Print CD covers 
• Improved RAW file handling - support for more makes and RAW file types: Canon (.CRW, .CR2), Nikon (.NEF), Olympus (.ORF), Pentax (.PEF), Kodak (.DCR), Sony (.SRF), Minolta (.MRW), and Fuji (.RAF).
  I'm hoping that it wil read the RAW files from my new Fuji S9000 camera. Of course, reading RAW files and being able to properly edit them are two very different things.
  
• Import from additional cameras
  

I find Picasa really helpful for sorting and viewing images as well as quickly creating quick web photo galleries. It has a decent range of built-in tools for fixing up images, including some nifty special effects. All in all, not bad for a freebie.

Picasa helps you find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open the app, it automatically locates all your pictures on your hard drive and sorts them into albums organised by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organised. 

It's a pretty cool image management tool and has one thing that FW has always been sorely lacking - an image browser. You can see thumbnails of your image files on screen, and either sort or edit them right within Picasa, or locate the file on the disc and open it within your favorite app - like Fireworks.

Unfortunately for the Macheads in the crowd, Picasa is only available for Windows users.

I bit the bullet about a week ago and purchased a new (like, released-this-August-2005-new) digital camera. I've been looking for something that I can use for multiple purposes:

• Vacation camera
• Back up camera for pro shooting
• Higher resolution
• Reasonable price

I own a Nikon D-70 for my professional work, and also owned a Fuji S602 Zoom compact camera. The 602 was my first purchase of a digital camera about 3 or four years ago and I was always impressed with it's quality, in spite of the fact it only used a 3 Mega pixel sensor.

After reading about the new Fujifilm S9000, I went to my local camera outlet and bought one. A very slick looking, light weight prosumer level digicam, sporting a 9 MB sensor and 10x optical zoom. For all the details, check out Fuji's site. I had visions of being very happy with it.

This past weekend, I took the camera with me on a trip to Niagara wine country (my in-house stock was getting very low). I made a whole bunch of touristy, post card type images. However, when looking thorugh the LCD screen after each shot, I coudln't help but think that the images were not very sharp. I chalked it up to the screen and planned to view them later in Photoshop.

Long story short, we had a really nice day in Niagara. The following day, I downloaded the photos to my hard drive and began opening them in Photoshop. My heart sunk further with every image I opened. They were all low in contrast, saturation and even seemed soft in focus.

Concerned about this new investment of mine, I hit the Internet, checking out more reviews of the camera and even logging into the forums at  www.dpreview.com

I found out through the forums that others were having the similar problems, while others still were perfectly happy and had some great photos to show. 

I also learned that there are some rabid defenders of almost anything. I got a few people telling me I was being too picky, that my concerns were - well - rubbish. And others who were saying the same kinds of things about the camera. As for me, I already own a D-SLR (Nikon D-70) and I wasn't expecting the same quality I would get from that type of higher end camera.

While I did glean some useful information from a couple informative users, I decided I had to do more testing. So I set up the camera on a tripod and did some basic copy work of the front cover of a magazine. I wanted to shoot something that I could gauge with my logical eye, rahter than emotional involvement. Locking the camera down on a tripod and shooting something that wasn't moving would tell me if the camera had image problems. I could inspect the sharpness of the text and so on.

Test results, in both jpeg and RAW, and at various contrast and sharpness settings, quickly told me there was a problem. Posting the images to the web for review by my forum peers reinforced this, to an extent.

I emailed Fuji and sent them the link to the samples. 

I contacted the camera retailer and spoke to my sales person about the image quality issues. I gave her the link to the sample images. About an hour later she called me back and agreed that the camera was not performing as it should and offered to exchange it for another model of the same camera or give me a full refund (I had 14 days in which to return the camera for my money back and I was at day 6). I decided to try again, hoping I truly did get a dud the first time around. Fortunately, I had hung on to all the packaging, right down to the plastic bags everything is wrapped in. You have to bring in everything for a full exchange. A day later and I was holding onto a new camera.

New camera in hand, I did the same tests again, using the same magazine and lighting conditions. The results were like night and day! The images were much sharper, with better color and contrast.

By this time, I had also received an email back from Fuji, asking me to email them a sample image for analysis. The defunct cam was back at the store, but I humored them anyway and sent a sample from the original testing.

The day after I did my "empirical" testing. I went out in the field for less objective - but equally important - evaluations.

This time, I was not disappointed. I experimented with both manual and auto focus, timed exposures, shallow depth of field, macro settings and the extreme focal lengths of the lens (28mm and 300mm). The detail was quite good in both the shadows and highlights. Images were sharp and photo quality. Color was rich without being over saturated.

The point to my rather long winded story is this: Don't "settle" for something if you think it should perform better than it is. Take the time, test the product and if you are still not happy, do something about it. Be happy and comfortable and confident with your new purchase.