Getting Started with Lightroom

You can have a rocky start with Adobe Lightroom if you don’t prepare first.

• Read the questions and watch the videos about Lightroom below. Answer each question as you go to best prepare yourself for starting out with Lightroom.

• What is Lightroom? (Watch this Video) • Will Lightroom be a useful tool for your photographic practice?

What to think about before you start using Lightroom:

1. What computer is your “main” computer? Desktop OR Laptop or Both? It is strongly suggested to choose to have one main External Hard Drive to start off with in order to use LR on one or both computers (must be a large External Hard Drive such as a Terabyte Drive or start with 500GB and gradually move-up as you need more and more storage space for your library of photos).  This means your Lightroom Catalog File (info. about your photos … see below for definition) & Library of Photo Files will be stored on this External Hard Drive.
2. How much storage space do you have available on this External Hard Drive? You will want to think about how many photographs you intend to import into your Lightroom Catalog in the future.  Do you shoot RAW and have very large file sizes? You will want a LOT of space on your “main” External Hard Drive or you will want to figure out if you need to get a new larger external Hard Drive.  A mirrored Hard Drive is not a bad idea (automatically copies your files to a second drive when you save them onto the “main” External Hard Drive).
3. What will your file Backup system be? Will you use a mirrored Hard Drive like I described above? Will you use a website that you pay a fee to as a way to store the second copy of your images on a remote server service somewhere?  Will you make DVDs with important images to store in a third location?   The rule is to have your files backed-up in at least three locations with the 3rd location being off-site.  Your Hard Drives will fail sooner or later. ASMP’s 3-2-1 Backup Rule.
4. What will your file/image cataloging system be? A main PHOTOGRAPHS FOLDER > 2010 FOLDER, 2009 FOLDER, 2008 FOLDER (with subfolders of photos inside titled by the date, location, OR subject).

• Lightroom 3 Setup and Catalog Creation (Watch this Video)

• Single or Multiple Catalogs in Lightroom? (Watch this Video)

Name one special instance where you might use two catalogs.

Lightroom Files:

• Catalog File: is a database that tracks the location of photos (where your folders of photos are located) and information about them such as how you edited the photo, cropped it in LR etc…

• Folders of Photographs: stored in folders somewhere on your computer Hard Drive or on an External Hard Drive.  If you don’t define where your photos are saved on your computer, they will automatically get put (MAC: Pictures Folder – PC -Pictures Document)

Example:

—-

FAQ (Answers from: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/333/333736.html):

How can I use my catalog on multiple computers, such as a laptop and a desktop?

Keep your catalog on an external drive and set the preferences in Lightroom to use the external catalog. If you keep your photos on the same external drive, you can edit them in the Develop module as well as use them in the rest of the application. If your original photos are not available to Lightroom, you can use all modules except the Develop module.

Can I store my catalog on a network?

No. There are too many variables in a network configuration to guarantee that the catalog will not become corrupted.

How many photos can I have in a catalog?

There is no specific maximum number of photos you can store in a Lightroom catalog. Your computer might run out of address space for your photos between 100,000 and 1,000,000 photos.

How do I transition from iphoto to Lightroom?

This is video tutorial: Moving from iPhoto to Lightroom 3.

Lightroom Resources:

• Adobe TV Lightroom Videos
• The Lightroom Lab

Evelyn: Nothing Fancy – Photo/Video Piece – Showcased on Burnmagazine.org

Evelyn: Nothing Fancy by Lesley Louden

See Essay & Comments on:

www.Burnmagazine.org

Great Post about Lenses – Which lens to use when???

What Lenses to Use When – Guest Post with Thomas Lester

Society for Photographic Education West: Student Scholarships for 2010 Conference

CALL FOR SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS: STUDENTS AND ADJUNCTS for SPE West Conference 2010, San Diego

All Submissions Due: September 19th, 2010

The conference invites image-makers, theoreticians and historians to propose papers or workshops that consider the notion of site as a place of contestation, collaboration or mediation today. The body as site, burial sites, fake sites and new landscapes, identity as site or border sites represent just some of the ways in which the theme of New Sites can be interpreted. The conference also invites educators to propose workshops or discussion groups on topics not specific to the theme. All proposals are peer reviewed by the SPE West Board.

Competitive scholarships waiving the registration fee will be awarded to undergraduate and graduate students and to adjunct lecturers. Please see application submission information below.

SUBMISSION FORMAT: Scholarship Applications ~ The conference registration fee will be waived. Please submit as ONE PDF document – the following information:

• Name, address, phone, email, and status (undergraduate, graduate, adjunct)
• A 250 – 500 word artist statement and a 50 word biographical summary.
• A portfolio of images ca. 10 – 15 images (video artists please submit screen captures and a link to an online video file). Please keep your image files small – recommend maximum width 1000 pixels @72ppi.
• Please submit all submissions and address all questions to Melody La Montia. Please include the word SCHOLARSHIP and your name in the message field. Email: SPEStudent@earthlink.net

Co-chairs are Julia Schlosser – who is a lecturer teaching photography and the history of photography at California State University, Northridge – and Connie Begg – who is the Associate Director of Fine Art in the Graduate School of Photography at the Academy of Art University.

Al Feuerbach: From Shot Putting to Sound Recording

This piece was an example I created for the “This American Life: Photo-Audio Story” Workshop.

Images from Night Photography Workshop @ West Valley College

North Beach - Photography by Ian Healy

We photographed at both Moffett Field & North Beach in San Francisco.  We had a blast!

To see more:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/wvcphoto45/

Photography at Moffett Field by Lenny Greenwald

Photograph in North Beach, SF by Maki Oshiro

Photograph from Moffett Field by Alex Baranda

Trying to Keep Some Truthful Records: Photojournalism’s Photoshop & Captions Questioned

Ben Curtis/Associated Press

January 3, 2010, 9:30 pm

It Was All Started by a Mouse (Part 1)

By ERROL MORRIS

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/it-was-all-started-by-a-mouse-part-1/?emc=eta1It

Questioning behind whether or not this mouse stuffed animal was placed in the middle of the street by the photographer or whether it was found there or even ‘photoshopped’ in is the first point of discussion in this article.  Then the captioning of journalistic images is challenged.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

ERROL MORRIS: There is a selection process. And where there’s war, there’s controversy. I’m sorry to say that it was through your Mickey photograph that I first became familiar with your name.

BEN CURTIS: Here, I just looked up my photo of the Mickey Mouse on the archive and the caption reads:

A child’s toy lies amidst broken glass from the shattered windows of an apartment block near those that were demolished by Israeli air strikes in Tyre, Southern Lebanon, Monday, August 7th, 2006.

Which I stand by. The toy was there when I arrived. My caption doesn’t imply what happened, whose the toy was, whether there were children killed. Keep it neutral. Keep it neutral, and only say what you know and that you can verify. And I can happily stand by that caption. I can say every element of that caption was true, and I know it to be true.

ERROL MORRIS: One question that immediately comes to mind: Was your photograph the first of the published toy photographs? Did other photographers say, “Ah, he sold that photograph. Let me see if I can produce a similar one?”

BEN CURTIS: I don’t know when those other photographs were taken. When you’re covering destruction, you’re always going to focus in on details, rather than general views of destroyed buildings. You see similar pictures during a conflict like Lebanon; you see similar pictures over and over. When you come across an interesting detail in a scene . . . . But I didn’t say in my caption that children were in that apartment when it was bombed, that children were killed. I don’t know that, so I don’t say it. But if you look at my picture without the toy, you don’t know what those buildings are. It could be an office block. It could be anything. So, the inclusion of the Mickey Mouse in the picture adds an element of humanity to it. You get a feel of what was going on, what type of area it is, and that gives you a bit of a context to the fact that there have been recent air strikes in that area.

Article about Photojournalism Student from Foothill in San Jose Mercury News

Photo by Patrick Tehan

Foothill College Photo 63 Photojournalism Student Featured in San Jose Mercury News

Tragedy propels Sunnyvale engineer to assist the homeless

By Sharon Noguchi

Foothill College Photography student, Rafi Litmanovitz, was featured in the Sunday, Jan. 3rd San Jose Mercury News regarding his photographic and philanthropic work with the San Jose homeless.  Rafi participated in Keith Lee and Lesley Louden’s PHOT 63 Photojournalism course last quarter at Foothill.

Article:

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14103457

NYTimes: Where Photography and Technology Meet

This is a great sequence of inspiring international images that each utilize technology in some way in their photographic work.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/04/arts/conway120509_index.html

Photographic Artist Beate Gütschow of Germany combines hundreds of images digitally to create dystopic concrete jungles of architectural dimensions.

More works online by  Beate Gütschow:

Exhibition @ Museum of Contemporary Photography – Chicago

Book from Aperture

More works on Artnet

Clone Stamp Tool vs. Healing Brush – Introduction

Clone Stamp Tool vs. Healing Brush

Clone Stamp tool lets you clone exact pixels from one part of your image to cover another part of an image.

Healing Brush (not spot healing brush which does not need a a target set) clones pixels but then helps your new cloned area blend those pixels with the pixels you are cloning on top of with its surroundings.

—-

The Clone Stamp Tool: can copy a portion of an image and reapply it repeatedly to cover an unwanted portion of the image.

The Healing Brush Tool: By sampling the surrounding area you can blend the imperfections into the rest of the image – blends pixels.

Tips for Cloning and Healing:

• Make sure you are selected on a copy of the background layer/image layer (not an adjustment layer or dodge/burn layer) OR be sure you are selected on the layer that you want the tool to alter (can be another image layer and not just the background layer).
• Change the size of the “Clone Stamp Tool” brush (from options bar, just like a paint brush) to be just the size of the are you are cloning and hardness should be on 0% for soft edge
• Reset “Clone Stamp Tool” target point often
• You can change the opacity of the cloning from the options bar for areas that don’t need 100% cloning
• Hold down the Option Key (MAC) or Alt key (PC) to set the clone target area

View these Tutorials & Practice Clone-Stamping on faces or any other part of an image needs some retouching.

Clone Stamp Tool Tutorial

Video Clone Stamp Tool Tutorial

View these Tutorials & Practice Healing skin areas and part of image that need spotting and stamping

*not Spot Healing Brush tool but the Healing Brush

Healing Brush Tool Tutorial

Video Clone Stamp Tool Tutorial