Sharpening and Noise Reduction in Lightroom
A methodical approach to optimizing noise reduction and sharpening can go a long way to creating better baseline defaults for use in Lightroom and CameraRAW.
Building a Hyperbolic Resolution Wedge in Illustrator
In another article I described and made available my camera acclimation target. In the process of building that I ended up having to sit down and build from scratch what I’ve frequently seen described as a hyperbolic resolution test wedge. If you’ve ever used an ISO 12233 resolution chart, or looked at the resolution charts […]
DisplayCAL and Argyll CMS: Quick Start Guide
DisplayCal is a free, open source, color management system that’s as capable as high-end commercial offerings. This article covers the basics of getting DisplayCal installed and using it to make your first color profile.
Lightroom 8 Years Later: An Introduction
It’s been just almost a decade since Adobe released Lightroom, their digital asset manager (DAM) and non-destructive raw image editor. In that time, Adobe has made a number of improvements in many respects, from improving the raw engine to adding new processing features, to finally adding GPU rendering support. However in many ways Lightroom hasn’t […]
Getting 5D Mark 3 Images into Lightroom 4
The 5D mark 3 will be the first time I’ve ever pre-ordered a camera, and along with that I’m finding a number of somewhat amusing and frustrating teething issues that come with the territory. Among the nagging issues is the lack of a simultaneously released battery grip (supposedly won’t be available until the end of […]
Profiling Photoshop Scratch Disk Performance: Stitching a 45MP Panorama
I’m taking a quick break from the strictly photographic stuff for a moment to look at a computer issue that’s near and dear to our hearts, Photoshop performance. One “optimization” I see trotted out a lot when people ask about Photoshop performance is to move the scratch disk to another drive; worse yet, make a […]
Focus Mask, the New Blinkies: Phase One seems to think so.
Phase One brings 3 new medium format backs to market with innovative multi-touch controls, crazy high resolution, but more importantly an innovative way for photographers to quickly review where focus is placed in images—a feature every camera should have.
Flash, Photography, and Copyright Infringement
I’m not sure what the attraction to Adobe’s Flash is with photography sites. It’s not the most useable, accessible or even necessarily the best technology. Flash can easily hamper usability, and become a security and privacy nightmare for users, isn’t indexed by search engines, and on top of all of that simply isn’t supported or […]
Fixing Frozen Wacom Tablets in Windows
For about as long as I’ve been using Wacom tablets, I’ve encountered a rather rare phenomena where my tablet (which I also use as my mouse) will crash and burn causing my mouse to freeze. Other than this occurring in both Lightroom (2 and now 3) and Photoshop, and with both the pen and mouse, […]
Lightroom 3 Beta 2 – One Week Later Review
Impressions of Adobe’s Beta Release of Lightroom 3 after a week of use.