The Photographer’s Introduction to Video in Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6: Now available!

Have you upgraded to Lightroom 4 or Photoshop CS6 but are still not quite sure how to start working with video files from your cameras? With The Photographer’s Guide to Video in Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6, you can begin to realize the full video potential of the software you invested in. You’ll get the most out of this eBook if you’re a still photographer starting to integrate video into your workflow.

The Photographer's Introduction to Video in Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 cover

Why I wrote this ebook

While Lightroom and Photoshop can work with digital video files, they’re designed to streamline very specific photographer-oriented video workflows. In addition, what they can do is different in scope than what you’d be able to accomplish if you were using a professional digital video editor such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. I wrote this ebook to help you understand when Lightroom or Photoshop is the right choice for your video project, and how to use them.

The book assumes you already know how to use Lightroom or Photoshop in a still-image workflow. I wanted to build a bridge between what you already know about your cameras and your Adobe software and the new challenges of organizing, managing, and creating output from digital video.

How to learn

Download and read The Photographer’s Introduction to Video in Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 as an ebook in multiple formats, including Kindle, PDF, and  iBooks. Here are some links to get you started:
Amazon.com for Kindle
Peachpit.com for Kindle/MOBI, ePub, and PDF
iTunes store for iOS devices

More info

Below is the publisher’s marketing copy if you want to learn a bit more…

Use the image tools you already know as a photographer—Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6—to edit HD video from your DSLR camera or smart phone. This ebook will help you make the transition from still to motion, learning how to organize, edit, export, and upload your HD video. Take advantage of the advanced features in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and bring your work to life.

Highlights of this ebook include:

  • Understand which software application is right for your project
  • Get tips on planning, shooting video, and recording audio to make post-production easier
  • Organize and prep your video clips by taking advantage of metadata, filters, and using Collections
  • Prepare still images in Lightroom for video
  • Learn about the Photoshop Timeline, making basic edits and cuts and creating transitions and fades
  • Color correct your video files and adjust audio
  • Create a video slideshow of your photographs
  • Fully grasp all the concepts and techniques as you go with step-by-step instructions

Protect your images on social media with Photoshop and Lightroom — CreativePro.com article

Protect Your Images on Social Media with Photoshop and Lightroom on CreativePro.com

The same Internet that makes it easy to promote your work to a worldwide audience also makes it easy for others to download and reuse your work without permission. What can you do in your photography workflow to deter unauthorized use and also make it easier for potential clients to contact you?

In this article for CreativePro.com, I suggest practices that can help safeguard your work. I then step through how you can quickly use Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Bridge CS6, and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 to support this goal by limiting pixel dimensions, embedding copyright and contact metadata, adding watermarks, and doing it efficiently as part of your image exporting workflow.

Click the link below to read the article at CreativePro.com:
Protect Your Images on Social Media with Photoshop and Lightroom

Updates: Adobe Camera Raw 7.2 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.2

Lightroom 4 icon

Adobe has released Camera Raw 7.2 and Lightroom 4.2 with the same raw processing updates for both, and with a corresponding DNG Converter 7.2 update. All are free updates for current licenses of the software. The updates include the usual bug fixes and add support for a long list of new cameras (including the Canon EOS 650D/Rebel T4i, Panasonic DMC-LX7, Pentax K-30, and preliminary support for the Nikon D600) new lens correction profiles, and more details that you can read about in:

Remember that if you have versions of Photoshop and Lightroom that are too old for these updates, you can use the latest DNG Converter, which is free, to convert raw files from new cameras into the DNG format that older software can read.

Lightroom performance: Improved?

Many people have been experienced slow Lightroom 4 performance. While Adobe doesn’t mention specific performance fixes in their release notes, Lightroom guru Laura Shoe says that changes have been made to Develop module display updates that should result in more responsive performance. You can read about it in Laura Shoe’s blog post about Lightroom 4.2.

Back In Lightroom 4.1, I did experience delays when editing images. After working with Lightroom 4.2 for a bit, going from image to image and switching between Loupe and Develop does seem much more responsive now (almost instant) for images where previews have been built. And this is on a first-generation Mac Pro, which would be considered “old hardware” by now. Nice! I’m not sure how much faster it updates the preview while editing in Develop, but that’ll become evident the more I use this update.

How to update

To download the updates, go to:

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/

(Although Camera Raw hadn’t shown up yet when I posted this article.)

or:

To update Photoshop and Camera Raw directly, start Photoshop and choose Help > Updates.

To update Lightroom, start Lightroom and choose Help > Check for Updates. If you bought Lightroom through the Mac App Store, the update may take a longer to become available there because it has to wait for Apple approval.

Updates: Adobe Photoshop CS6 13.0.1, and more Retina display details

Photoshop CS6, Camera Raw 7, and Lightroom 4 icons

[Update, December 11, 2012: Photoshop CS6 13.0.2/13.1 and Illustrator CS6 16.0.3 now include Retina Display support. I’ve written a blog article with links and analysis.]

[Update, September 6, 2012: Premiere Pro CS6 6.0.2 now includes Retina Display support.]

Photoshop CS6 13.0.1 released

Adobe has released Adobe Photoshop CS6 13.0.1, which brings a security update and a number of bug fixes, including “31 crashing fixes.” You can read more about it on the Photoshop.com blog.

To download the update, go to:

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/

or:

To update Photoshop directly, start Photoshop CS6 and choose Help > Updates.

More details on support for the MacBook Pro with Retina display

When the MacBook Pro with Retina display came out, Adobe said that its software such as Photoshop would eventually support the high resolution of that display, also known as HiDPI, but they didn’t provide further details. Today Adobe provided more information about Adobe software support for the Retina display. In a post on their Creative Layer blog, Adobe listed software that will receive HiDPI updates “over the next few months.” Presumably, the applications that aren’t on the list are on a longer update timeline.

Digital photographers should note that Photoshop and Lightroom are both on the list. Some wonder why it takes so long, but keep in mind that assets like icons need to be updated (over 2500 according to Adobe), and any changes that affect the rendering of graphics and type need to be not only coded, but also tested and verified.

Canon EOS 7D firmware version 2 update (August 2012)

Canon EOS 7D product photograph, courtesy Canon Inc.

If you’ve got a Canon EOS 7D, you might have read Canon’s earlier announcement that they were working on a firmware update that would add quite a few new features to this good old workhorse. The final version of that firmware update is now available, and it’s called version 2.0.0. Download 7D Firmware Update Version 2.0.0 at Canon.com.

After you get to the Drivers and Software page choose from the Operating System and OS Version menus, and then you must click the Firmware heading to expand the listing. There’s no installer; as usual, you simply copy the firmware update to a compact flash card that you formatted with the 7D, and then use the 7D menus to load it from there. Detailed installation instructions are included with the download.

New feature highlights

Looking through the release notes on the Canon page, these new features jump out at me (not a complete list, see the release notes for that):

  • Shoot up to 25 images in raw burst mode, a nice bump up from the old limit of 15.
  • Maximum Auto ISO setting. This means I’ll finally be willing to use Auto ISO, since I thought the existing Auto ISO feature had a tendency to crank up ISO further than I would normally like.
  • Rating function. This could be great for marking images before I get them back to the computer. However, when I tried it, would not let me rate a raw image in camera unless I had captured it as Raw+JPEG. In other words, rating works with JPEG and Raw+JPEG, but not raw alone. This is possibly because it doesn’t want to write the rating directly into the raw file (Adobe has the same philosophy). JPEG is a standard format that can store the rating into an IPTC header. The rating I applied did successfully transfer to Lightroom 4.
  • Audio recording level manual setting. While most who shoot video for serious projects will still record to a separate, higher-quality audio capture device, being able to set a manual recording level will help simplify more casual video productions. I haven’t tried it out yet, but reports are that you can adjust the audio level only before you hit the video record button, not during recording. So make sure the audio level is correct before you start recording. I noticed that there’s also a “Disable” option in case you don’t want the camera to record audio at all.
  • Time zone function. This could be a good feature, although my understanding is that there is no industry metadata standard for recording the time zone. I’m still thinking of just setting all my cameras to UTC…
  • Support for the GP-E2 GPS receiver, if you need to capture location data.
  • In-camera raw processing and JPEG resizing, if you ever need to process images without a computer. Not a big deal to me.

The directions for installation are included with the firmware download. After this firmware update is installed successfully, the 7D will ask you to enter the date, time, time zone, and whether daylight saving time is in effect. This is probably because of the time zone feature.

Canon also recommends that if you’re going to update the 7D firmware, update your other Canon utilities too, from the same Canon EOS 7D download page.

That Canon would provide this level of support for a camera that’s been out for so long is commendable (new features for free!). But it might also be a sign that Canon isn’t going to replace the 7D any time soon.