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One Hour Street/Travel Photography and Lightroom 4 Video Available
In February, 2013, I made a one-hour Lightroom tips and street photography webinar replay video available to my newsletter subscribers.
To receive a link and password for the video, just sign up to receive my newsletter (also includes 12 tips from my book, 301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques, a free PDF Resolution Chart for determining sizes for printing), by entering your first name and e-mail below (if you already receive it, the system will let you know right away). Please be sure to confirm your subscription (a confirmation e-mail will arrive in your in-box) after you subscribe. You will then receive an e-mail with the password, as well as a link to the page where you can view the Lightroom video.
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Facebook Improves Timeline Post Viewing on Facebook Pages
I woke up this morning, posted something to my Facebook Business Page, and was happily surprised. After expressing my thoughts on Facebook and some blogs about a little blue box that would “hide” recent content on my Page (see screen shot below), all of my recent posts and images that I now see on my Page are lining up nicely, and all older stories are loading nicely as I scroll down the page. Hooray! This is just my observation and your milage may vary. However, I checked a few other Business Pages and they appear to have the same updates and functionality.
This is a screen shot of my original post that expressed my thoughts on the old Facebook Page format:
The previous Facebook Timeline layout would "hide" recent posts behind a small blue button that read "See More Recent Stories.".
This is important to me (and I would guess many others), because it was so easy to just skip over that little blue box, thus missing out on many stories, links, etc. from the recent past. In essence, the old approach made me feel as though I was wasting my time sharing information about which I was passionate.
Thanks Facebook. I’d like to think I was part of this decision, but it really doesn’t matter who gets credit for it (maybe Mark Zuckerberg has me on his “must read list.”) This may just inspire me to upgrade my personal page to the Timeline format. But wait, I may not have a choice, as per this Techcrunch article.
If you’d like to see what I’m seeing now on Facebook Fan/Business pages, feel free to visit my Page. My Facebook Photo and Printing Tips Page has over 1000 posts on the topics of Photo and Printing Tips, links to images that impress me, photos from events I attend, and more. You can find it here: https://facebook.com/andrewdarlow.
And if you’d like to receive 12 tips from my book, 301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques over the next 12 weeks, plus updates and information about workshops, exhibitions and more, sign up to receive my free newsletter below:
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Hands-on Review: c’t Digital Photography Magazine
A few months back I was sent Issue 7 (Spring 2012) of c’t Digital Photography magazine to review. The magazine’s tagline is “The in-depth quarterly for the photo enthusiast,” and I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a very in-depth magazine that reads almost like a series of well-written and illustrated “mini books” by people who truly know and take time to research the topics they cover. The magazine is published quarterly by Rocky Nook and is available in print form, as well as via an iPad app and Zinio.com.
Below are just a few of the topics that are covered in detail in Issue 7 with some of my comments below in quotes. You can see a full overview of the issue (and all of the issues printed to date) on the company’s website at https://www.ct-digiphoto.com, or in its entirety in low-res prior to purchase via its iPad app or on Zinio.com:
Portfolio: Martin Stranka: “An outstanding body of work by Martin Stranka, and a great Q&A with the artist.”
The Making of Times Square by Bert Monroy: “I had a chance to see the 300 inch wide (7.62 meters) Times Square backlit print at PhotoPlus Expo in NYC in 2010 that took Bert Monroy four years to produce. It was output on an Epson Stylus Pro 9900 and Epson’s DisplayTrans film. Jaw-dropping is the description I would use for the amount of detail and clarity in the image, not to mention the scale of the piece. Many short video tutorials by Bert Monroy, showing examples of how different sections came together are also on the issue’s DVD.”
Gigapixel Images: “Just an incredible overview of gigapixel photography, from double-page spreads of amazing imagery, to techniques and equipment (some affordable, and some costing as much as a car!)”
Your iPad Assistant: “A very-well written overview of a very complex topic. I’ve used an iPad as a wireless “Polaroid” and it is amazing once you have the right SD card or other wireless transfer solution, once all the right apps are downloaded, and once all the settings are properly set on the iPad.”
Pseudo DRI and Pseudo HDR: “Another incredible article that digs deep into a complex topic. I was truly amazed at how much information was included on how to get amazing detail from a single exposure. Shooting tips and specific step-by-step tutorials for the Photomatix Lightroom Plug-in and tips for using Adobe Photoshop’s CS5/CS6’s HDR tool were also covered. They even included some presets for Photomatix on the DVD, which will be welcomed by anyone who owns the application.”
Light Art Performance Photography (LAPP): “This was over-the-top amazing. If you’ve ever wondered how people create spheres of light or other amazing effects with light on film or by using digital cameras, Joerg Miedza and JanLeonardo Woellert, co-authors of the book “Painting with Light” go into detail about how it’s done, including specific information about what lights work particularly well, and how to build a “Performance Stick.” Also, the imagery in the book and in the e-book is stunning; even if you have no interest in learning the techniques, you should take a look at the images.”
System Camera Test: “I’m sure that this in-depth review of high-end and mid-range mirrorless cameras took a lot of time and effort (when you see the charts full of specs you’ll see what I mean!). I think they did a fantastic job testing these five cameras: The Nikon 1 V1, Olympus PEN E-P3, Nikon Coolpix P7100, Sony SLT-A77V and the Sony NEX 5N.”
Free RAW Processing with RawTherapee: “This was an impressive overview and tutorial of a free piece of software for converting RAW images.”
The Lightroom Workflow: “An excellent guide to getting started in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, with many tips for importing, organizing, developing, exporting and presenting your images. Lightroom 3 is used since that was the shipping version when it was written, but the vast majority of the information will pertain to Lightroom 4.”
I found something of interest in every article, and thought that the e-book alone that is on the enclosed DVD for Issue 7 entitled Painting with Light (Rocky Nook, 2011) was worth the $14.99 cover price (US/CAN) or $9.99 per issue for the iPad version. The DVD download for each specific issue is also provided when you purchase the specific issues via the magazine’s iPad edition, and according to the information on Zinio.com, “As of Issue 8, the free DVD supplied with the print edition is available for download to purchasers of the Zinio edition.”
I highly recommend c’t Digital Photography magazine and will be subscribing soon (probably to the Zinio edition, but the printed edition looked so good that I might go for the ink on paper option instead). Decisions, decisions…