I think most everyone has heard about the upcoming Worldwide Photowalk put together by Scott Kelby. July 18th will be the second annual event and more than 17,000 photographers will be attending photowalks all over the globe. Photowalks are a wonderful social event for photographers and can also be very beneficial from a networking perspective. Here are some ideas that I have come up with that you can do to ensure you get a lot more out of the photowalk than just a fun time.

1. Come up with some topics and subject ideas prior to the event so that you are not wondering around trying to come up with an idea when you could be shooting. You can even pretend that you are going out on assignment to capture a specific theme. But don’t get too engrossed in this as then you will not be taking advantage of the social aspect of the event.

Look at some photography books and magazines prior to the event to help you get some ideas on things you want to try shooting...

2. Carry some sort of business card with your name, email address, and links to any of your websites or social networking sites. If you don’t have a business card then make a small piece of card stock paper with a printed sticker or hand writing with your information on it. When you talk to people at the photowalk, give them a card! Remember, this event is more of a social event so be social and pass out your information!

This may be a good time to create that Twitter account or Facebook page that you’ve been thinking about…

3. Ask other photographers what it is they see in a scene they are shooting. Everyone has a unique perspective on how they see the world… try to broaden your own vision by asking others what their vision is. I have found that artists love to share how they see the world. So ask! You never know… someones answer may change your own view and put you on a path to great things!

Don’t talk just to your friends… talk to photographers that you don’t already know! Get their perspective and their ideas...

4. At the end of the event, talk to the other photographers and set up a photowalk for August. After the last Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk we set up four or five photowalks in the area and kept most of the group together. Don’t limit the fun event to a single day… let this event grow into a monthly fun event where you and your new friends get together to share in your collective hobby.

5. After the event is over, get your best images processed and uploaded to the Worldwide Photowalk site to try winning prizes from the event. Many people in the walk I was on last year didn’t submit any photos and miss out on their chance to win anything. Even if you don’t have any great images, upload them anyway so the other photographers on the walk with you can see them. Maybe one or two of them will contact you with some ideas on how to improve your ability.

Now may be a good time to create that Flickr account that you’ve been thinking about setting up…

6. Write up your thoughts about the event and post them on a blog, forum, or community website with some of your images. This is just another way to network and socialize after the event is completed. If you have your own blog or website, post it there. If you don’t, post it on the NAPP forums or any of the other photography communities out there.

If you want a blog, talk to Vanelli at Exposure PAS. He creates and hosts blogs for other photographers!

7. Once all is said and done… go back and re-walk the same path again either alone or with other photographers. Take the things that you learned from the first walk and apply them on this walk. I am sure you will have one or two places that you want to shoot again to try a different technique or angle. Learn from your past mistakes and take a second shot at it… you’ll be glad you did!

Anyone else have any ideas on how to get the most from the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk? Leave them in a comment so everyone can benefit!!

Are you attending Photoshop World 2009 in Las Vegas, own a website or blog, and want to display a count down timer to the keynote address of Photoshop World for both you and your readers to enjoy? Kinda like the count down timer you see below? Then look no further!

Ok, so my sales pitch isn’t all that great… but then I don’t really need a sales pitch because this counter is free to use. I am even going to host it on my site for you! Why is that a good thing? All future updates to the counter will automatically show up on your page without you having to do anything. Sweet, huh?

There has got to be a catch, right? Wrong. The flash file contains two links; one to the Photoshop World website and one to this post so they can get the counter for their website too. No cost to you at all. If you feel the need to contribute money for using the counter, please make a donation to the Springs of Hope Kenya Orphanage that Scott Kelby raises money for. Read posts about the orphanage on Scott’s blog HERE.

There are two main ways to embed the timer on your page if you’re using a WordPress blog…

1. If your blog theme is set up for widgets (any good theme is) then add a text widget wherever you want it to display and paste the code below into the text portion of the widget. Click save. All done!

2. You can put the code below directly into your theme PHP file where you want it to display.

Here is the code you need…

<object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0″ width=”300″ height=”100″ id=”pswcounter” align=”middle”><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”sameDomain” /><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”false” /><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.tkrphoto.com/apps/pswcounter.swf” /><param name=”quality” value=”high” /><param name=”bgcolor” value=”#ffffff” />    <embed src=”http://www.tkrphoto.com/apps/pswcounter.swf” quality=”high” bgcolor=”#ffffff” width=”300″ height=”100″ name=”pswcounter” align=”middle” allowScriptAccess=”sameDomain” allowFullScreen=”false” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” /></object>

Although the counter is working just fine on my blog and a few others… I still feel the need to state that I am not responsible for any issues you have using this counter. Just the usual disclaimer that my imaginary lawyer told me to post.

A few weeks ago I saw a tweet from a photographer about seeing a car accident on his way home and he was torn between whether to jump out with his camera a shoot some frames of it or not. This is something that I have thought long and hard about in the past and have seen a lot of other photographers post questions about it as well. His tweet got me thinking again on the topic and now I am going to share my own thoughts on the ethics of photography. This is not a post about the ethics of using Photoshop to manipulate photos or touch up models in your photos. There are a ton of blogs that have already covered this topic in great detail. A good discussion is taking place in the comments section of RC’s LayersTV blog post about it if you’re interested in that sort of thing. What I am going to talk about is the ethics relating to when and when not to shoot.

I will admit that this topic is not an easy one to figure out. On the surface many things look pretty cut and dry… drop the camera and save lives you twit! But in reality it is not that clear… in fact it is a very complex subject and the right answer differs based on the situation and your exact position within the events surrounding you. Because of that, no one can give you the right answer to guide your actions in the future… that is something that only you can determine in the moment but you should really think about it in advance so you do not end up with either a legal problem or a personal conflict in the future. For example, Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Price for a photo he took of a dying girl in Africa with a vulture in the background. But the effects of his actions eventually resulted in him committing suicide. So keep that in mind as I go through some examples that I have either experienced myself or have heard of from other and discuss them from an ethical standpoint.

The Life Threatening Tragedy

We all know of examples in this category… car accidents, terrorist acts, results of crime, and so on. Basically, any situation that one or more lives are at stake. Again, on the surface the answer seems pretty clear… drop the camera and save lives. But there are a lot of variables we have to look at here…

1) Do you have any medical training and does this event contain a situation in which your training can be applied to save lives?

If the answer to this question is yes, then drop the camera and save lives you twit! Most people with this kind of training never think of the camera in the back seat when they come upon an event like this. Medical training, like combat training, is something that is practiced until it becomes muscle memory… so you react without thinking and usually don’t have to worry about this type of internal ethical conflict.

2) Is there something you can do to save a life that does not require skills that you do not have?

If someone is trapped in a burning vehicle that you could extract from the vehicle and carry to safety then the ethical action is again to focus on saving lives rather than shooting frames. Another example pertaining to car accidents is protecting lives by placing your own vehicle with flashers on in front of the accident to block oncoming traffic if you are there before the police. Again, no special skills required but you are still saving or protecting lives and that should take priority over shooting frames.

3) What are the laws of the country or state that you are in pertaining to the situation you are in and do you care?

There are some places that require you, by law, to do anything in your power to save lives. There are other place, like Florida for example, that have Good Samaritan laws to protect you if you make a mistake while giving medical treatment to someone and cause more harm than good (don’t take this at face value; there are catches to this that a lawyer could explain better than me). While these types of things may not play a direct role in determining the ethics behinds your actions they do shape the actions themselves if you are one to believe that laws are absolute.

4) Is the event something that is world changing with significant historical value?

For this point just look at 9/11. If you were on the streets below the Trade Centers and you had your camera, what would your choice be? Personally, I believe that saving lives takes precedence over an event of significant historical value. Others may disagree with me on this one and I understand the reasons why… but my opinion still stands. I watch the video shot by the news media that were there on the street and I find that the anger I feel is directed mostly at the terrorists but there is a little reserved for the news media. They are filming fellow human beings that are struggling to stand up and continue moving to safety and they are doing nothing to help them. In fact, they are taking advantage of these people to further their own sense of self importance. Now if these camera men had the camera running while they were running from person to person helping them up and getting them to medical personnel then I would call them a hero. But due to their actions I just call them douche bags. Don’t let yourself be blinded by what you believe your duty to capture history to be and make sure that you put your duty to save the lives of fellow human beings first! You can shoot frames or video with one hand while you are helping to carry the injured to safety with the other. Also in this case you have to take #1 and #2 above into consideration as well.

Non-Life Threatening Events

This is where things start to get a little easier… lives are not at stake so some of the complexities are removed. This is where your own personal morals and job description comes into play. I read a long forum thread a few years ago that was posted by a girl who was shooting as a photojournalist for her college paper. Many of her friends were involved in some school related competition (the exact competition was never specified) and they had been preparing for many months for the event. She was assigned to cover the event for the paper. Her friends lost and she was torn between being a photojournalist by shooting frames of her friends crying after the event or being a sensitive friend and not capturing their despair. She decided to be the photojournalist and shoot frames and because of it she lost a lot of friends. This is a good example of ethics in photography because it involves the ethics of her job position and also those of being a friend.

Each person has to determine their response to the situation above based on their own morals and ethical belief. Personally, I think she did the right thing by doing her job and shooting the event. Yes, the paper published photos she took of her friends crying but is that really so bad? That is just standard human emotional response. As a photojournalist you may be placed in situations a lot worse than this so you should come to grips with this before you decide to pursue that line of work!

Other Things to Consider

1) Ethics are different for every person so only you can determine what your answer is regarding the action to take in any given situation.

2) In many life-threatening situations you will not have time to think about what the right thing to do is… so make sure to think about this topic now so you do not make quick decisions that you won’t be able to live with in the future.

3) There will always be someone that will criticize your actions no matter what they are; it is impossible to make everyone happy.

And finally, I will leave you with this…

Whatever you choose to do is something that you will have to live with for the rest of your life! In many situations it may not be that big of a deal. Other situations, like the one Kevin Carter found himself in, it is a huge deal. So do not think about your career or your populatity when you make a decision to act; think about how you will see yourself once the act is done.

Jason, the man behind Canon Blogger, asked me earlier via Twitter how someone can get started in programming. This got me thinking a bit about how programming has aided me in my photography and Adobe Photoshop pursuits. Believe it or not, there is a lot of cross correlation between the two! For starters, I tweak the coding behind my WordPress blog theme constantly to change things up, make it more efficient, or add new features. Then there is the fact that I am currently in work on a web application that will benefit a lot of photographers in the near future (at least I hope so or else I am wasting a lot of my time). Let’s not also forget that you can write plugins and much more advanced Photoshop and Lightroom actions using their programming / scripting interface. So yes, there are many ways that programming can be incorporated into your photography profession.

Decide What You Want to Program

The first step in learning to program is not picking a language. This is where a lot of people make a fundamental mistake… they hear something cool about a specific programming languauge and dive in. The first thing that a person should do is to determine what it is they actually want to program. There a few main categories to this…

1. Low-level embedded applications that run on microprocessors (the software inside of your digital camera).
2. Desktop applications that run on a PC, Mac, or Linux desktop computer (software like Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefox, and such).
3. Web applications that run… well… on the internet in some form or another (websites and WordPress are a few examples).
4. Extending one of the above through the use of scripting.

Number 4 above may seem a little weird to be included there but I think it is important to group it as such because if all you want to do is write Photoshop scripts then you will take a whole different path than you would if you were doing any of the others.

Decide What Language You Want to Learn

Once you determine what you want to program you can now choose a language to learn. There are many different languages available to you and I am not about to cover all of them. What I will do is give my opinion on what languages you should look into for each of the categories above… now I know that there are people out there who will disagree with me on my recommendations and they are free to write their own blog about it…

For programming low level embedded software like what controls every aspect of your digital camera you are going to need to learn Assembly and C/C++. Java has been making waves in embedded programming (pick up almost any current day cell phone and you see Java in action) but I come from a hard real-time embedded OS background and you’d get laughed at and fired if you even hinted at using Java in that environment.

If you are looking more at programming desktop applications then you’ve got a little bit more variety to choose from. The big players on desktop applications are C++, Java, and Objective-C (Mac / iPhone only). I’ve done a lot of programming in both C++ and JAVA and I think I like C++ a bit more than JAVA. But to be honest, I would recommend Java for a beginner to desktop programming. First off, it is easier to learn in my opinion. Secondly, Java is very easy to make cross platform (meaning you application will work on Windows, OSX, and Linux without changing the code).

Web programming is where the world really opens up as there are a ton of languages available to the web programmer. Regardless of what you are going to do you will have to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Those three languages are seen on every web platform. Then you can move on to a more powerful language for generating dynamic content and web 2.0 applications based on what server you will be running your application on. If you are running on a windows server you’ll want to look into ASP. The lesson to learn here is to not run a windows server. Just my opinion of course. If you’re running on a Linux server then you’ll want to learn PHP. If you’re running on a Java based server (like Glassfish) then you’ll need to dive into J2EE which is made up of many different technologies and all combined make up the most powerful of the whole bunch. You will also want to learn a bit about database technologies like SQL or MySQL.

I think the most useful for the photographer audience, in terms of web application languages, would be to learn PHP and MySQL. All the big name open source web applications (WordPress for example) are mostly all PHP and MySQL. Oh, and HTML, CSS, and a form of JavaScript called AJAX too…

Ok… at this point your head is probably spinning because of all the acroyms and stuff I have been throwing at you. Jason said he wants to learn how to program desktop applications and web applications. So my advice to him is to start with the core Java language. This will include JavaScript since it is usually always taught near the beginning of Java courses / books anyway. Once he gets the core language down then move into J2EE which will teach JSP, JSF, Beans, Web Services, and other technologies that are very useful for web application programming. I would also recommended learning PHP and MySQL along with J2EE just because of how common it is on the web. In addition, Photoshop scripting can be done in 3 different languages likes I said above but only JavaScript will work on both Windows and Mac… so in my opinion writing Photoshop scripts in JavaScript is the only way to go!

Another reason I would recommend Java to a beginner is because there are some great free IDE’s (Integrated Development Environments) for Java that really help make programming easier. An IDE is an application that you use to write your code in. The IDE is coupled to the compiler (what turns your code from what you wrote into 0’s and 1’s the computer understands) so writing, building, and testing your application is a simple process. Eclipse is one of the free IDE’s that a lot of people swear by. I use NetBeans a great deal which comes in the Java download package.

Book Recommendations

I would recommend any of the “How To Program” books by Dietel / Dietel for whatever language you want to learn. These books are used in a lot of colleges and they are what I learned C++ and Java from. They provide a lot of examples on each learning topic and discuss each line of code in the example so that you fully understand what they are talking about. I also like the Core Java books by Sun Microsystems for learning Java. I think the Dietel books are better for absolute beginners though as they walk you through getting things set up and configured properly in a lot more detail.

Conclusion

Programming seems like a very complex and tedious task. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. I think it all depends on the person. I started programming when I was 5 years old on a Commodore 64… back in the very early days of MS-DOS and BASIC. Yeah, I am lucky… I just missed the old punch card days!! Once my family got its first PC I moved on to Pascal and then to C. Now I cannot even count how many programming languages I know… it just comes second nature to me… I know I was going to be a computer programmer when I was a young kid… well, my top pick was a F-16 Fighter Pilot but getting glasses in 9th grade kinda ruined that one. Long story short… programming isn’t hard… just take it one step at a time and build a strong foundation in the core part of the language before moving on. You won’t be making super sweet applications with bleeding edge user interfaces anytime soon… but you have to start somewhere!

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with Vanelli and Jeff King talking about camera gear. Jeff is the king (pun intented) at customizing camera gear and re-purposing non-camera gear for use in a photography related way. During our gear conversation we got to talking about camera straps and how over the shoulder single point straps are WAY better than around the neck straps. Jeff and Vanelli both have Black Rapid’s R-Straps which is something that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for awhile. It is a single point strap that you wear across your shoulder instead of around your neck. I looked at their straps and asked a lot of questions about them and I found out that they both had two complaints about the RS-4 strap… the bulky shoulder pad and the connector. I thought the padded shoulder strap would be nice but both said it was just added bulk and not needed. The connector wasn’t all that secure and after some internet searching, I found quite a few stories about cameras hitting the deck due to it not closing securely. It is important to note though that I have have no experience with the RS-4 strap so this is purely what I have heard and read about it. It is also important to note that Black Rapid is now shipping their straps with a new connector, the RS-2, which is supposed to be much more secure.

Anyway, this is not about the RS-4 strap… as I said, I don’t have any experience with it and I do not want to talk bad about it since I could be way off base. What this post is about is the custom strap that I put together using COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) parts. Jeff had mentioned wanting to order a single point rifle sling to use instead of the R strap. He had a few reasons for this… first being it wouldn’t have the bulky pad and the second reason is because many of them have a short elastic piece near the connecting point that would be very helpful for a camera. I took the idea to heart and started ordering the pieces I would need to make it all happen.

Single Point Rifle Sling

Have you ever dealt with a company and from that first dealing you just knew they were an awesome company? That is how I feel about Talon Arms. I’ve dealt with them many times in the past and I’ve found them to be some of the most helpful people when it comes to anything related to firearms. They even recommended that I NOT buy something from them in the past because it wouldn’t have done what I was wanting it to do. They are a great company and I highly recommend purchasing from them if you are going to buy the strap that I got (or anything else for that matter)!

I ordered the Command Arms Accessories One-Point Sling from them for the main strap. The current price is $27.99 which is 20% off the normal price. The sling is made from 1.5″ nylon webbing and has a large hard plastic quick detach buckle on it. The lower part of the strap where it connects to the camera is more like a nylon rope that gives a little elasticity. It doesn’t stretch much, hardly at all, but it does make a nice buffer between the non-yielding nylon webbing and your camera. The connector that connects the sling to the mount on the camera is a high quality self securing buckle similar to what you see rock climbers using. It is tough and meant to hold heavy tactical rifles so it can hold up a camera with a long lens just fine. There is also a nice sheath that moves down around the connector that keeps the metal from scratching or marring your camera.

Final note… all Command Arms Accessories products come with a lifetime warranty. They stand behind their products and I can see why judging from the quality of the strap. Also do not forget that this strap is in use by the military and law enforcement officers and has held up under severe combat environments. So why should you care? Because there is nothing that you can do to this thing with your camera attached to it that would come close to those conditions… unless of course you don’t care if your camera ever works again!

Camera Attach Point

I thought long and hard about what I was going to use to attach the sling to the camera itself. Vanelli has a tripod mount that has a small ring attached to it that he uses. My tripod mount has a small plastic ring on it and there is no way I am going to trust my camera to a small plastic loop. So I starting thinking about making a connecting point myself out of aircraft grade aluminum or stainless steel on my fathers lathe. Making the attach mount itself wouldn’t have been hard at all but getting a ring to secure to it in a way that I would trust thousands of dollars worth of camera and lens was a whole different story.

Then I looked at Black Rapid’s FastenR-2. They are selling exactly what I needed for $12! I could have made it cheaper and might have gotten the same quality but for $12 I was not about the reinvent the wheel. The FastenR-2 has a very low profile, very solid construction (made from 304 stainless steel), and has a high grade rubber compression washer to ensure a snug, positive connection with your camera. Don’t forget… this bad boy is made in Seattle so your money is going to a US company! Take a look at the image above in the sling section for a close up of the connector on my Canon 5D.

I also feel the urge to mention that the packaging of the FastenR-2 is pretty bad ass… they did a great job on the design. It has a tactical military feel to it that I really dig. Hey, its the little things that count, right?

Final Words

Adding up the cost for the sling, the FastenR-2, and shipping on both items comes out to be just under the cost of the RS-4 R-Strap from Black Rapid. So putting together a custom strap setup like this really wasn’t about saving money. It was about getting what I perceived to be a better camera strap based on what I have heard from friends and what I have read on the internet. From my experience I know that 1.5″ nylon webbing is comfortable even when there is dead weight hanging from it. The strap isn’t bulky where it rests on your shoulder and doesn’t get in the way when you shoot landscape or portrait. The connector on the strap is high quality self locking and made to support heavier weights in combat environments… so you know it is going to hold up and not fail at a critical moment. Finally, the FastenR-2 is high quality, low profile, and helps even more at keeping the strap out of your way when shooting portrait. You really cannot go wrong with this setup!

Oh, and maybe it is a Marine thing but I just think it is downright cool to say that my camera strap is tested true in extreme combat situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So order your straps now before the strap envy sets in and be the coolest photographer at every photo walk you attend!!

It’s been a little while since I’ve talked about free resources for Photoshop… I have quite a few good links in my blogroll for sites that have free tutorials but how many people actually look at the links in the blogroll? So, here we go… some good links for some good free stuff on Photoshop… and I know how much artists and photographers like free stuff!!!

First one on my list… Photoshop User TV. This weekly show is hosted by the Photoshop guys… Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, and Dave Cross. Each episode contains Photoshop related news, three Photoshop tutorials (one from each Photoshop guru), interesting links, and some pretty damn funny commercials for Kelby Training. Trust me, don’t skip over the Kelby Training advertisements!! If you haven’t seen episode #190 yet, go watch it! I am pretty blown away that they gave me a shout out in it… they even called me a friend… even considering the fact that I am…… (go watch it to hear how that sentence ends)!

The second site on my list… Planet Photoshop. The brain behind this one is Corey Barker. If you haven’t seen Corey’s tutorials before then click the link and prepare to be amazed. He has done a lot of tutorials lately showing how to create some of the most popular graphics seen in box office hit movies. Even if that sort of thing is not in your bag, the skills you learn from watching what he does can be applied to many other things that are in your bag.

Next up… Dekepod hosted by the one, the only, Deke McClelland. The first thing I have to say is the same thing that is said at the beginning of each podcast… this one is not for children. But it is for those that want to learn some killer Photoshop skills and laugh hysterically while doing it. The videos are available as a podcast on iTunes and I think they are on YouTube as well. Good stuff here. Oh, and Deke is going to be instructing at Photoshop World 09 in Vegas this year… Sweeeeeeeeeeet!

While I am talking about iTunes podcasts… if you want video tutorials then get on there and do some searching around! Check out Terry White’s Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast for all things Adobe (not Photoshop specific) and Matt Kloskowski’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips.

Forgot to mention the great RC and other contributors (like Corey Barker) that put together Layers TV. Another good video source but it isn’t specific to Photoshop. But there is a good mix of Photoshop in the videos there so do yourself a favor and check it out.

Next up, Robert Vanelli’s site Exposure PAS. Vanelli has done a lot of work with kids from local elementary schools to get them started with photography and Photoshop. He has a few video tutorials on his site and will be adding more as time goes on and they are all great for those just getting into Photoshop and wanting to learn the concepts behind the techniques others teach.

And the last site for Photoshop Video Tutorials on my list… Google. Not Google itself but searching on Google. The information stupid highway has TONS of great video tutorials on Photoshop and all you have to do to tap into them is to search for them on Google… that and pay your internet provider bill, have access to a computer, and a few other logistical things that we will ignore for all intensive purposes at this time.

Here is a quick video tutorial showing how to create a header background image for a WordPress blog using Adobe Photoshop. The tutorial is geared towards people who do not know any HTML or CSS programming as well as those that do not know anything about editing WordPress themes.

Just when you think you’ve pretty much figured out everything there is to something, someone comes along and proves just how wrong you are. That is the feeling I got after flipping through Matt Kloskowsi’s Layers: The Complete Guide To Photoshop’s Most Powerful Feature. I know, I know… this book has been out since Febuary 2008. So why the hell am I reviewing it now… more than a year since it hit the shelves? Because I really did think I knew pretty much everything about using Layers until I flipped through this book. I think what I really learned here is easier ways to do the things I’ve been doing the hard way for a long while now. Not only that but there are people just starting out with Photoshop at any given moment so even though it is an older book, it still rates high enough in my eyes to remain in the spot light a little longer.

I’ll go ahead and get my fan boy statement out of the way at the beginning… the Kelby Media team puts out very high quality books. I am mainly speaking about the physical product and the layouts here. The content is usually really good too but I will get to that later. Most of the books I have laying around that came from someone in the Kelby Media team were published by either New Riders or Peachpit Press. The quality just rocks. I said the same thing in my review of Joe McNally’s The Hot Shoe Diaries which I just posted a few days ago… The layout of the content is great, the quality of the paper and materials used is great, and the colors are great. So yea, when it comes to the physical quality of the books put out by Kelby Media… I am a fan boy. They beat the hell out of the black-n-white crappy stock paper that way too many books are being published on these days. Just in case you’re wondering how I could review a second book in such a short time, all I can say is look at the time this post was made. Yeah, insomnia really sucks.

On that note I have to admit that I haven’t read every single page of this book. I’ve looked at every page… but I didn’t read every page. I didn’t see any reason too. Each step that Matt covers is accompanied with an image showing what he is talking about. Knowing a thing or three about layers already, just looking at the pictures was enough to indicate to me whether I actually needed to read the text or not. When I saw something that I didn’t quite get right away I read through the text to see if I should read the whole section on that topic or not. I guess what I am trying to say here is that even a long time Photoshop user can get something out of this book without having to wade through all the basic stuff they already know. That to me is important as it saves time which is something I don’t have a whole lot of these days.

Onward to the book…

The book is applicable to Adobe Photoshop CS2 and above. Photoshop CS4 does have a lot of new features dealing with Layers but everything in this book is still applicable and easy to do on CS4. I experimented just a little to make sure of that.

• Chapter 1: Layer Basics
• Chapter 2: Blending Layers
• Chapter 3: Adjustment Layers
• Chapter 4: Layer Masks
• Chapter 5: Type and Shape Layers
• Chapter 6: Enhancing Photos with Layers
• Chapter 7: Retouching with Layers
• Chapter 8: Layer Styles
• Chapter 9: Smart Layers

The above chapter listing is pretty self explanitory. Matt takes you through each major concept of using layers by breaking each chapter down into a bunch of lessons each of which is shown step-by-step along with commentary about the step. Matt is not a robot author either so the parts that I actually did read (I know that sounds strange coming from a book review) were easy to read and process. This makes for a quick read so that you can spend more time playing in Photoshop than deciphering what the heck he was talking about. At the end of each chapter is a “How Do I” page where Matt answers various questions that may arise while working with layers on the topics he covered.

As for the content itself… I don’t like to talk about a books content in a book review. Again, I know that may seem strange but unless I just copy/paste parts of the book into this post then there really isn’t much more I can say about it. I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop since version 6 and I learned stuff from this book just by looking at the pictures and reading some of the text here and there. I was never really one to buy a periodical for the articles anyway! In the end I think the thing I got the most out of this book is new ideas for designs and how to accomplish them quickly. Come on… I am a photographer, not a graphic designer. I don’t have that innate ability to open up any group of photos and create something really bad ass from them. I struggle with presentation and design at times. So seeing all the really cool things that Matt did in this book gives me a lot of ideas on what I can do with my own photos to create better compositions to show them off.

So there you have it… my take on Matt Kloskowski’s book on Layers. It is best for a Photoshop beginner but even a salty old Photoshop dog can get a few good things out of it.

Unified Color released version 2.12 of HDR PhotoStudio last week with a lot of improvements and additions. I’ve been putting it through its paces for a while now and really like what they have done with the application. In fact, a few of my bigger complaints from the very first review I wrote on the application have been fixed! If you’re really interested in all the changes you can look over the release notes for this version since I will only be talking about what I see as important here.

All images in this post were shot in Saint Petersburg, Florida with my Canon 5D and either my Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM or my Cosina 18-35mm wide angle lens. I actually remembered my tripod for once so they are shot from a stable base. All images were merged to HDR and processed using HDR PhotoStudio version 2.12. Post processing done using Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Banyon Tree : HDR PhotoStudio : 9 Exposures

First and foremost, HDR PhotoStudio now supports the x64 platform natively and comes with an Adobe Photoshop 64-bit BEF plug-in. You know that old saying that size doesn’t matter? Well, as soon as you start talking about processor bit width it does. It’s the future people; upgrade your stuff! All I can say is this… if you don’t think 64-bits is all that big a deal then go back to using an 8-bit system because 32-bit’s isn’t a big deal either, right?

The next big change is something that didn’t affect me at all but I got a lot of email asking how to circumvent it… the camera settings profile feature. Its gone. Yes, you heard me correctly… they removed it completely and you can now merge JPEG or TIFF files to HDR without having to set up a camera settings profile. It never affected me because I always merge to HDR from the RAW files. I am sure I could come up with some really good engineering related reasons as to why but frankly it is because my photos are in RAW format and I am too lazy to go and convert them to something else just to merge.

Tree Man Yelling : Saint Petersburg, Florida : HDR PhotoStudio : 6 Exposures

Next on the list is major optomizations to the reduce halo option. There are now three settings; Fast, Optimal, and Quality. Now when I say major optomizations I mean it! What used to take 6 to 10 minutes for each change now takes anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds depending on which of the three settings you used. This is a really good fix for me as I love using the reduce halo option but I really hate sitting around waiting for it to process!

There were also optomizations made to the local contrast and shadow / highlight tools to make them run much faster. This significantly improves the flow in work flow. The reduce noise tool still takes for freaking ever to run but in all honesty I don’t use it anyway. HDR PhotoStudio does a very good job at keeping the noise to a minimum and I’ve never seen the need to actually use the reduce noise tool.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention a flipping sweet new operation Unified Color added to this version… Color Tuning. This tool allows you to select a color and then tweak it using a neat little color gamut interface. With this bad boy you can tweak any color in the image however you would like it. I love the ability to get that low level where I can easily tweak individual colors to make the resulting overall image blend better. This tool rocks! Use it sparingly though… unless of course you want to show everyone what most of the 60’s looked like to you.

Hallway : Saint Petersburg, Florida : HDR PhotoStudio : 9 Exposures

Lots of other little things fixed, tweaked, or added to the application. Again, read the full release notes when you install the new version if you’re really that curious. Still no Mac OSX version and I haven’t heard any news about it yet. This is the one thing that I am really dying to get a hold of. I don’t spend a lot of time on my Windows desktop so finding the time to use HDR PhotoStudio is tough. If it were running on my MacBook Pro then I’d be using it all the time.

Don’t forget, if you want to buy HDR PhotoStudio then use the discount code TKRPHOTO to save a few bucks.

A few days ago I finally got my hands on a copy of Joe McNally’s latest book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light From Small Flashes. I started reading it late in the afternoon and didn’t put it down until late that night when I finished it. I tried to put it down so I could go to bed early but couldn’t. There are a few reasons for this and I am going to lay them out for you in this review.

One of our most important jobs as photogs is to manage bad light well. — Joe McNally

One thing I realized a while back when I was having a conversation about Joe’s work is that I talk about Joe as if he and I are old friends. To be honest, I’ve only met him once and it was at Photoshop World Orlando in April 2008 and that was only for brief moment between classes. So why is it that I talk about him as if I know him well? Because Joe is not a robot. I could tell from reading his first book The Moment It Clicks that Joe is not a robot author… you know, the types who write their books as if each one is their doctoral dissertation that bores the living hell out of you. Joe doesn’t roll like that. So how does Joe roll? I really have no idea; remember I don’t actually know him. But he damn sure doesn’t hold back the sharing of his experience with lighting in The Hot Shoe Diaries.

‘Experiment’ is the watchword of digital photography. You are not burning film and money at the lab as in the film days. — Joe McNally

Ok, so lets talk about the book a bit… The book is divided up into four parts; Nuts ‘n’ Bolts, One Light, Two or More, and Lotsa Lights. In Part I, Joe talks about what gear he uses, why he uses it, as well as other nuggets of wisdom about color and other important topics. In the gear section he starts with information about cameras and progresses through flashes, lighting gear, gels, and all that good stuff. Finally he shows off what he calles Da Grip; his method of holding the camera that reduces shaking and opens the door to hand held slow shutter shots. It is pretty obvious what the other three parts are about based on their names… using a single speedlight, two or more speedlights, and enough speedlights to suck the paint off your house and give your family a permanent orange afro!

The moment is more important than the light. — Joe McNally

One thing to note about the hardware side of the book… Joe is a Nikon guy. He goes into a lot of depth on Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System) and i-TTL. None of that is applicable to using the Canon Speedlights. Canon has some of the same types of things with their Speedlights but they are not nearly as in-depth as Nikon’s CLS. The good news is that if you know how to use the Canon Speedlights then you can still apply everything that Joe talks about… but you cannot follow him step-by-step of make use of the Appendix covering the ins and outs of the SB-900 settings for wireless operation. I am a Canon guy myself and have a few Canon Speedlight 580’s… as I said, even us Canon shooters can still get a lot out of the book… we just have to read the manual that comes with our Speedlights. Bleh.

Back to the review…

Similar to The Moment It Clicks, each part of the book is filled with Joe’s images and the story behind each one. The main difference that I found between the two books is that Joe goes into a lot more depth about the lighting and camera settings in The Hot Shoe Diaries. His first book has a small “How to get a shot like this” section under most of the images but his comments about how to do it were brief. In this book he switched it up and really dove into the details. Not only does he give you the numbers (exposure settings, flash settings, etc) but he tells you WHY he used those settings. I have always found that to be of critical importance because no shoot is going to be the same… so if you only know the HOW then your ability to get a shot like what he has shown will be hampered when dealing with the uncontrollable variables that come into play the second you pick up a camera.

I already have too many variables rattling around in my head to allow the flash to have a mind of its own. — Joe McNally

So that pretty much sums on the content of the book… Joe’s knowledge in Joe’s own words. But what about the quality of the book itself? The Moment It Clicks was a pretty high quality book if you ask me. When I saw the how-to on “Pimping Your McNally” I was torn between how freaking cool it was and how bad it was to shred up such a beautiful thing. Same goes for The Hot Shoe Diaries; it is some high quality stuff. I personally think the interior layout of the content is better than his first book and the quality of the materials and printing are still just as good. This isn’t a book that you stick on a dusty bookcase when you’re done with it… you leave it sitting on your coffee table for all your friends to see!

Get the camera angle. I always advocate this as the first crucial step. Where you put the camera is always more important than where you put the light. — Joe McNally

I think the most interesting thing about this book and the things that Joe writes about is that I can relate to what he is saying. I’ve been in situations exactly like he describes in his book… you know, those ones where things are quickly falling apart and it is all you can do to hold it together. Hearing what he did to salvage his shoot really helps me so that when I find myself in that situation again in the future I have a better chance of coming out ahead instead of falling flat on my butt a second time!

On location, never go audible with your interior desperation. – Joe McNally

Finally, I just want to reassure everyone that this book is safe to read without carefully checking each page before diving in. I’ve been through it twice and can confirm that Joe is in fact wearing clothes in every photo that he appears in. Page 191 of The Moment It Clicks is still a little troubling at times… Just kidding Joe… you know we all love you… we just love you more when you’re wearing clothes.