Parametric workflows, like those available through Adobe Lightroom, Express Digital Darkroom and Apple Aperture are clearly the way of the future and offer huge productivity advantages over one-image-at-a-time, pixel editing workflows like Photoshop’s. While photographers switch to parametric applications, Photoshop will continue to be an excellent application for non-photographers like designers, architects, 3D professionals, etc.

Happy birthday Photoshop, you have been great. Let’s take a fun ride down memory lane. But let’s not reminisce and look to the past for too long. Let’s stay focused on the future, which for most photographers, lies elsewhere. The future is great – and it’s all parametric.

Update: The iPad background image is licensed from RIchard Misrach. (via Mark Menjivar)

People often ask “what makes the stars go in circles?” when they see this image. The answer is simple: the Earth’s rotation. Star trails are one of the many phenomenal aspects of night photography that we cannot experience with our eyes during the moment. Interested in night photography? Consider joining Lance Keimig and I at one of our night photography workshops in West Texas or California.

This workshop will have both field and classroom instruction. We will be in the classroom each day from noon until we leave for the field before sunset. When out in the field, participants can stay out shooting as long as they, or their camera’s batteries, hold out. In the classroom, we’ll critique and develop our work as well as study the work of historical and contemporary night photographers. We will examine a parametric workflow using the latest tools for night photography, from high quality digital image capture, RAW file processing, image stacking and HDR imaging. Light painting, multi-hour exposures, film technology, color management and equipment recommendations will all be discussed. Because this workshop has two instructors, each participant will get lots of attention. Participants should expect to share some of their images for review, as the goal of this workshop is to enjoy the creative process and be inspired to make great images.

Night Photography Book

A copy of Night Photography: Finding your way in the dark (by Lance Keimig with Scott Martin, 2010 Focal Press) is included in this workshop. The 240 page book combines a wealth of information from our 15 years of teaching night and digital photography workshops. The book also includes contributions from Dan Burkholder, Shawn Peterson, Christian Waeber, Steve Harper, Tom and Troy Paiva and others. In this book you’ll find history, theory, and lots of practical instruction on technique, all illustrated with clear, concise examples, diagrams and charts that reinforce the text, plus inspiring color and black and white images from the author and other luminaries in the field.

Target Audience

This workshop is specifically for digital photographers who want to learn night photography techniques. Night photography beginners who have a sound understanding of basic photography principles, advanced amateurs, and seasoned professionals looking for a fresh approach will all benefit from this workshop. Newcomers and workshop alumni will both be catered to, as much of the material and approach will be new this year. Participants will leave this workshop with the knowledge they need to photograph at night by natural and artificial light, and how to optimize their files for printing.

About the instructors

Lance Keimig is a Massachusetts based photographer and educator who specializes in night photography. Lance studied Night Photography with Steve Harper at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University in the late ‘80s and cofounded The Nocturnes Night Photography Workshops with Tim Baskerville in 1997.  His new book, Night Photography: Finding your way in the Dark will be published in August 2010. Lance’s prints are held in numerous public and private collections including The Boston Public Library, The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, MA, Fidelity Investments, and many other corporate collections. He has been teaching photography workshops for over 12 years and this will be his 6th workshop at Mono Lake.

Scott Martin is the owner of Onsight digital imaging, which is a capture-to-print training and consulting business that helps digital imaging professionals optimize their workflows for quality and efficiency. Scott works on location with photographers, pro labs, artists, designers, prepress professionals and software developers perfecting the techniques and color management needed for top notch work. Scott holds the first ever known degree in Digital Photographic Imaging, is an Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert, and serves on the board of the Texas Photographic Society. His grand format fine art prints are shown in galleries and included in many public and private collections. He has been teaching photography workshops for over 15 years and this will be his 3rd workshop at Mono Lake.

Getting There

The Eastern Sierra is isolated. The closest major airport is Reno, NV-140 miles away. Driving from Reno is about 2 1/2 hours. San Francisco is about a 5 hour drive through Yosemite National Park, and Los Angeles is about 6 hours away by car. It’s well worth the effort to get there. If you are interested in carpooling or sharing a rental car from Reno or the Bay Area, let us know, and we will try to connect you with someone.

Accommodations

Workshop participants stay at nearby resorts, hotels or campgrounds in or near Lee Vining. We recommend the El Mono Inn or Murphey’s Motel in Lee Vining. Links to other hotels in town, as well as general information about the area can be found at the Mono Lake website. Plan to arrive on or before the 22nd, and checking out on or after the 26th, and the workshop begins at noon on the 22nd. As everyone will be very tired after staying up each night, we encourage everyone to have a day of rest after the workshop before heading back home. Participants are responsible for booking their own accomodations. We have reserved all available rooms at Murpheys, and several at The El Mono for the workshop. The accommodations in town are almost full already, so you will need to request one of the rooms reserved for the workshop when you register, or reserve a something independently as soon as you confirm your spot in the workshop.

Meals

Morning coffee is at the wonderful Latte Da Cafe at the El Mono Hotel. They serve up homemade muffins and strong coffee to get us off on the right foot each day. If you need a bigger breakfast, there’s always Nicely’s, an old fashioned coffee shop. There are a couple of markets in Lee Vining if you prefer to picnic, but most people eat at the fabulous Whoa Nelly Cafe at the The Tioga Gas Mart in Lee Vining. Sounds strange, but this place serves excellent food – everything from omelets, gourmet pizza, and barbecue, to fish tacos, seared tuna, and herb crusted pork loin!

Registration

The price for the workshop is $950. Workshop alumni that have taken either of our workshops in the last two years (we know who you are) are eligible for $100 off the normal price. Transportation, lodging and meals are not included. For a workshop with two great instructors and a small number of participants, we hope you’ll find this to be an excellent value. The workshop is limited to a maximum of 16 students. To reserve your place, make a $300 deposit using the button below. Payment is due in full by July 1. If you prefer to pay by check, send Lance an email for further directions.

Use the button below to reserve your space with a $300 deposit. Your card will be charged immediately.

Once you secure your spot by paying the deposit, you will be contacted with detailed information about the workshop. Refunds, less a $50 cancellation fee are available until July 1st. After July 1st, the cancelation fee becomes $300. If the workshop is cancelled for any reason, you will receive a full refund.

All photos on this page are copyright Scott Martin, Lance Keimig and Shawn Peterson. Thank you, and we’ll see you in Mono Lake!

As a fine art photographer I know the challenges involved with making creative images while simultaneously mastering the technical aspects of workflow, exquisite printmaking and the polish of final packaging. I strive for an even balance of these qualities in my own work, and I enjoy helping others achieve better equilibrium between inspiration and presentation. Sharing my passion for photographic excellence has been driving my training business for over 16 years now.

In addition to on-location training and group workshops, I’d like to start encouraging a third option – private, one-one-one workshops in my printmaking studio. The range of printing equipment, papers, lighting, color management tools and atmosphere provides a training experience that I can’t quite bottle up and take with me to my client’s studios or location workshops.

Private training in my studio isn’t anything new for me, I’ve been offering it since 1999. But the studio has grown and matured over the years. The studio has three main areas – a digital darkroom main room for image development and small format printing making, a larger area for 60″ grand format printing, and a large warehouse area for spraying and packaging final prints. Solux, daylight, incandescent and viewing booth light allows visitors to compare prints under a variety of light sources and grasp the importance of high quality lighting. A range of the latest wide format printers up to 60 inches wide, combined with a variety of papers and media to choose from allows us to produce gorgeous prints that participants can take home with them. Spectrophotometers, colorimeters, RIP software, refreshments, an espresso machine and nearby macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant are all window dressing for this experience.

These private sessions are for intermediate and advanced photographers looking to perfect their process and final product. It’s a great opportunity to work side-by-side on your own images, discussing every aspect of the process and leave with a beautiful print. Email me with your particular needs, thoughts and requirements and I’ll prepare a customized training session for you.

Penny De La Santos, Lynn Johnson and Scott Martin are combining their talents to present a seven day intensive photography workshop in Austin, Texas overlapping with the South by Southwest Festival. Austin is located at the edge of the Texas hill country and is known for it’s live music scene, progressive atmosphere, swimming holes, green spaces and inviting South Congress neighborhood. The South by Southwest festival is a unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. This week is an ideal time to see Austin through the lens. Temperatures should be perfect ranging from the mid 50s to the mid 70s with moderate to low humidity.

This is a new kind of photography workshop that will help you shape and share the story of your mission whether that is your work, your passion, or your life. We invite you to come to Austin and learn from three photographers with 75 years of combined experience in newspaper, magazine, freelance photojournalism, documentary and fine art photography. Our world is visual. Although we are surrounded by images, using those images to clearly convey your message is a fine and complicated art form. For social organizations and non-profits, the power of your message to the outside community can make all the difference in whether you broaden your scope, building capacity that will serve donors and beneficiaries alike.

This workshop, that will include a week of photography, honest and in-depth critiques, workflow training using Adobe Lightroom, meaningful speakers and (in the tradition of Austin) fabulous food, will help anyone, whether a total beginner with a point and shoot camera or advanced photographer with a bag of lenses and experience, be a better communicator of their mission. Think of this workshop as a photographic and spiritual tune-up; a week of creativity, inspiration, reflection, and engaging discussions about photography in today’s changing media landscape.

About the instructors

Penny De Los Santos is an award winning documentary photographer known for her evocative photo essays, food, travel, and landscape photography. She has spent the past seven years photographing the Latino movement on the Texas-Mexico border which was featured in National Geographic. De Los Santos’ career launched when she was selected for the World Press Master Class in Amsterdam and a position at National Geographic. She has been a featured speaker at industry workshops and Universities nationwide. Her clients include Saveur Magazine, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, Latina and Texas Monthly.  She is based in Austin, Texas.

Photojournalist Lynn Johnson is known for her intense photojournalistic work. Dividing her time between assignments for National Geographic and various foundations, Johnson has traveled from Siberia to Zambia photographing celebrities like Tiger Woods, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mister Rogers and the entire Supreme Court. Her vision is subtle. She invites the viewer to find the meaning in the frame. Her shooting style is equally low key allowing her subjects to reveal themselves to the camera. The photographs she strives for are compassionate. After 30 years of practicing photography, she sees her personal work moving from that of an observer to advocate. Johnson earned a B.A. in Photojournalism from the Rochester Institute of Technology and was a Staff Photographer at The Pittsburgh Press for seven years. She is currently represented by the National Geographic Image Collection.

Scott Martin is a fine art photographer and digital photography consultant. As the founder of Onsight, he has been working with digital photography since the 1980s and has been training photographers one-on-one and leading photography workshops since the early 90s though organizations like the Texas Photography Society and the Santa Fe Photography Workshops. With full-time devotion to on-location consulting for over a decade, his experience with a wide variety of imaging equipment, papers, inks and applications allows him to consult with some of the most demanding photographers, pro labs, artists, designers and prepress professionals in the business. His classes are packed with enthusiasm and real-world suggestions.

Target audience

Professional photographers, serious amateurs and those wanting to make photography a passionate part of their lives. A working knowledge of computers and photography is required. An appetite for creative excellence is a must.

Location

Casa De Los Santos (click for map)
1504 Treadwell Street
Austin TX 78704

Meals

We feel that inspiring food feeds the inspired mind. Roughly half of the meals will be catered to this workshop and are included with the price of tuition. Participants will be on their own for other meals. Austin has a lot to offer in this respect and we will encourage visiting a variety of exciting nearby restaurants.

Registration

The price for the workshop is $995 plus lodging. For a workshop with three great instructors and a small number of participants, we think you’ll find this to be an excellent value. Space will be limited to 15 participants. Although this workshop is still in the planning stages, please email us if you would be interested in attending this workshop.

Accommodations

Workshop participants encouraged to stay at nearby hotels or B&B’s in Austin. We recommend the San Jose, Embassy Suites, Hyatt Regency and the Radisson which are are all nearby. Plan to arrive on or before the evening of the (TBA), and checking out on the (TBA).  The workshop begins with a dinner social at 6pm on Sunday the (TBA). Participants are responsible for booking their own accommodations..

What to bring

Workshop participants should bring their their cameras (film or digital), a tripod, and computer to develop images with (if available). An open mind, willingness to learn, hunger for great food and a great attitude.

Thank you, and we’ll see you in Austin!

“If you want a fully color managed workflow I don’t think any silver halide process will provide that” – anon

Safe to say I’ve implemented fully color managed workflows with every silver halide machine on the market. It’s totally doable and has been for many years, but unfortunately some exceptional know-how can be required. Some lab owners don’t have the patience to get there and settle with “good enough”.

“Having tried soft proofing with our Lightjet & Noritsu printers, it just doesn’t reflect what the finished print looks like” – anon

Getting an excellent screen to print match is harder than just buying a calibration package and hitting the calibrate button. Understanding which calibration package to get, the intricacies of the process and grasping the role of high quality lighting all go into this. High quality lighting is the most commonly overlooked aspect, IMO. Some brands of profiles really do allow for better print to screen matching than others. One of my long-time clients (15 years), digitalprolab.com is bold enough to have a print to screen match guarantee and supports it with on-location lighting and display calibration training for their customers.

As for profiling silver halide machines there are several unique challenges that aren’t found in other printing processes. Achieving optimal linearity prior to profiling, black point handling (which varies per profile creation software), front end integration (with products with Labtricity and DP2), machine color handling variations (different model Noritsu’s manage color differently for example), and process control are all issues to understand.

>In addition, some silver halide machines implement a Grey Component Removal (GCR)-like technology in their RGB profiles, believe it or not!! To elaborate a little; if you expose your red laser at it’s max calibrated level you get at great red without light bleeding. If you expose maximum RGB light to achieve max black there is so much light that it bleeds which results in color fringing on prints (especially with less expensive thinner papers). For this reason some manufacturers use a RGB version of GCR technology to cut back on light exposure in the shadows, but not for solid colors. This one issue has been my biggest challenge for many years now as there aren’t any profiling packages on the market that will implement this (currently). I use a technique on Noritsus where I insert my own profile and let Noritsu apply the RGB CGR on top of it.

Let’s look at achieving optimal linearity prior to profiling. One would think that you could just perform the printer’s on board calibration (linearization) process and then print your profiling target. Some machines actually have several ways of performing a calibration and some are better than others. On some machines if you perform this process several times in a row you’ll get a better calibration than it you had run it only once. These systems create curves to neutralize the grayscale and while some processes simply tweak the previously made curves, others start from scratch to make a fresh set of curves. Understanding these differences can make the difference between being able to make gorgeous, perfectly natural looking B&W prints and making disappointing ones. It’s essential that one get an excellent calibration prior to the printing of profiling targets. If an iterative profiling process is implemented it’s important to work quickly before the machine starts to drift.

Some silver halide systems calibrate for maximum black density sacrificing black neutrality, while others prioritize black neutrality over density. DIfferent profiling packages handle what I call black point handling, differently so one’s choice of profiling software can produce surprisingly different results in the shadows and blacks. ProfileMakerPro and EyeOneMatch use a relative black approach which doesn’t attempt to neutralize the blacks at all, which can be a problem for silver halide processes that have a colorful DMax. MonacoProfiler (MP) will attempt to neutralize the blacks, sometimes sacrificing density. MonacoProfiler can only go so far with this black correction so sometimes profile editing (as much as I hate it) can be in order. There is new profiling tech that isn’t to market yet that will handle this better and help avoid editing (thank goodness). For now, Monaco Profiler’s RGB profiling process the real champion for silver halide profiling. Their perceptual rending is particularly notable as it renders better skin tones than PMP/EOM’s pink skin tones, and the gray balance is a tad warmer which I found to be universally preferable. Monaco Profiler lets you choose between a 1 step or iterative 2 step profiling process and it’s important to know when which process should be used.

As for front end integration, this is where the color management handling comes in. Most of these systems rely on front end software like DP2, Labtricity, Darkroom Pro, or their own custom software to perform color management. While some newer Noritsu systems will do this internally, older Noritsu’s won’t. Putting a front end between your customers files and your silver halide machines has, for a long time, been the answer to implementing color management in a photolab. Having your customer convert their images to print space profiles in Photoshop before sending files to the lab is a lousy workaround that’s loaded with problems! So, it’s important to be familiar with these front end solutions and know when to recommend one over another.

Understanding machine color handling variations is another issue to look at. Noritsu’s have historically have two modes: QSS mode and Net Order mode. The QSS mode allows operators to stick a memory card or CD directly into the machine and make prints. While this process wasn’t color managed with ICC profiles it did implement some pretty impressive color corrections to the image with served the same purpose and worked surprisingly well. Unfortunately, checkboxes like “apply digital camera correction” often confused operators and the final results weren’t always optimal. NetOrder mode is the mode one puts the machine in when a front end package is sending files to it. NetOrder mode doesn’t alter the color at all as long as the channel corrections are zeroed out. NetOrder mode turns off color management and color correction so that the front end package (DP2, Labtricity, etc) can handle the color space transformations. Todays Noritsu’s have a new front end called EZ Controller that has it’s own ways of handling color management that I won’t go into here. Newer Noritsus can also make their own ICC profiles onsite by printing out color patches and reading them. They are pretty complex and extremely smooth profiles that include this RGB CGR tech. Although the tech usually does this, anyone can do this. They also have a second set of files that are called “profiles” that shouldn’t be confused with ICC profiles. Their real ICC color profiles don’t use the ICC or ICM extension but my NDA prevents me from saying more about them or where they are located. Noritsu understandably doesn’t want their customers hacking around and calling them for help when they mess up their system. If you haven’t worked with a newer Noritsu, you’d be impressed with how much work they’ve done recently. They have two way communication with 3rd party front end software that tells it what paper is currently loaded in the printer so that the software can select the appropriate profile. Noritsu has some “big deal” stuff in development right now that’s going to make lab-wide color management a lot easier for a lot of labs soon. And FWIW, Fuji minilabs are now just repackaged Noritsu machines.

Process control is the last aspect to address. Silver halide machines are subject to drift due to temperature, paper and chemical variation. All of these systems have a built in calibration process that corrects for this drift but not everyone is good about knowing how often it needs to be performed. One simple process control method is to print an evaluation print immediately after profiling. I encourage labs to store this “reference print” for future comparison. If a new operator prints this same evaluation image at the interval of his or her choice, s/he can can compare it to the reference print and get a feel for that device’s drift characteristics and timeline. With this knowledge s/he can determine how often they need to calibrate the machine. With process control one can profile once, and calibrate often to maintain consistency. For those that don’t like the thought of process control, calibrating silver halide devices every 8 hours is a decent rule of thumb.

Those are some of the issues I’ve learned to address when color managing silver halide machines. As you can tell the “color management landscape” is complex here and it’s understandable why a number of labs don’t have the patience or expertise to tackle these challenges. It can be done though, and the results and print to screen matching can be fantastic. Labs can have dozens of different silver halide machines printing to different papers and color management can be implemented to manage it all automatically. Inkjet’s can also be made to match the silver halide gamuts when needed.

Knowledgeable color managed labs can accept files in any color space and will handle the print space conversation at the lab. There is a growing number of labs that are at this level and the knowledge is there to help the rest, as long as their customers request/demand it.

2 ) Ignore the midtones when adjusting Exposure and consider only the white clipping point. One must ignore the midtones as they will be adjusted via Brightness later in the workflow. If some whites are clipped at 0, option/alt drag the Exposure slider to the left until all colored pixels are removed.

3 ) Skip or be modest with Clarity. While lots of clarity creates a look that’s trendy right now, you might be surprised at how poor it can look when printed and compared to other images. I find that small prints (4×6, 8×10, etc) don’t need any clarity but larger prints (20×24, 60×94, etc) benefit from greater amounts. It’s worth considering scaling the amount of clarity with the size of a print.

4 ) In HSL, adjust Luminance first, Saturation second and Hue last. Be modest with adjustments and zoom to 1:1 looking for problems along edges.

5 ) Don’t skip correcting for Chromatic Aberration in the Detail panel! Chromatic Aberration is one of the most overlooked features yet it can easily improve the sharpness of an image in addition to removing unwanted color fringing. Hold down the Option/Alt key and look at the corners of your frame at 1:1 while adjusting chromatic aberration.

6 ) When applying a dark edge vignette, use a Post Crop vignette with a feather amount close to 80. The default feathering value of 50 is too low.

7 ) Pro users should consider making custom DNG profiles for their camera(s) with the XRite ColorChecker Passport. If not, the “Adobe Standard” is more likely than the other profiles (Camera Landscape, etc) to render pleasing results with a wider variety of images.

8 ) Develop images in Color mode before switching the treatment to Grayscale. Not only will the final grayscale product look better but the image will be ready for color printing should you decide to do so in the future. After applying a Greyscale treatment, re-adjust contrast (if necessary) and use Grayscale Mix (in the HSL panel) to simulate in front of the lens filtration (yellow filter, red filter, etc). This greyscale procedure will yield better results than a haphazard one.

9 ) Use Snapshots to save different versions of your images (ex: grayscale and color, cropping for different aspect ratios, etc). Saving snapshots with numbers is quick and can show a progression of development (when appropriate). Example: 1, 2, 3, 4color, 4grayscale, Import.

10 ) Uncheck the “Apply auto grayscale mix when converting to grayscale” checkbox in Lightroom’s preferences under the Presets tab. Auto=Yuk.

11 ) Set the background to white. You can do this by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the background color around the image area when set to “Fit” to screen. While a white background may not be as pretty as the default dark gray, it will give you a better idea as to how an image’s highlight and mid-tone densities will appear when printed. A juxtaposition with paper white is critical. Toggle between white and dark grey if you like, but always view and adjust with a white background before printing or exporting.

12 ) Print! Image development can only be mastered by producing gorgeous prints. A lot can and will be learned along the way.

Fortune Cookie of the day: Moderation is good for all things in life, especially with clarity, saturation, vignetting and HSL adjustments.

In his own words these images are "Untouched by Mac hardware or Adobe software. It’s liberating in so many ways. For the first time we have both camera and darkroom in the palm of our hands." Dan has, at the moment, four "iPhone Artistry" workshops planned around the country that focus exclusively on iPhone based image capture and development. Visit iphoneartistry.com to see more images.

Dan is also credited for inventing the digital negative for contact printing process, pigment over platinum and pigment over gold leaf printmaking.

Ordering

For those of you in San Antonio I’d like to ask that you pick up your print at my studio Friday December 18th or by appointment. Please email me letting me know which prints you would like for me to have ready. Bring $200 cash for each print. For those out of town, email me with your order and send cash for $200 per image plus $25 for shipping and handling.

For future reference, all images are available in 4 standard print sizes: 17×22, 20×30, 36×54, 54×81. Email me for pricing and more information.

Limited Edition Portfolio Box

In addition to selling individual prints, I am making a few limited edition portfolio box sets with all 18 images.

These elegant, handmade 16×20 portfolio boxes will be availble for delivery in January for $2250 (shipped). You can place your order by sending payment (cash or check) by the end of the month. Thanks, I am very excited to be able to offer these portfolio boxes and prints this year.

Unlike the previously popular “Extract Monaco LAB” applescript, “Convert to MonacoLAB” is Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6.x) compatible. The Windows version is compatible with XP and Vista; it should also be compatible with Windows 7, though it has not yet been tested on that platform.

“Convert to MonacoLAB” uses a convenient droplet that allows the user to drag and drop a measurement file onto the droplet icon for processing. The processed measurement file retains the original file name and conveniently adds the “MP” suffix at the end of the filename.

You can read more about and download the Mac and Windows versions of Convert to MonacoLAB at Eric’s website. Here’s the direct link to the Mac download and the Windows download.

I’m a big fan of Bill Atkinson’s 1728 profiling targets and have been using Eric’s application in Snow Leopard to get measurement data into MonacoProfiler for generating printer profiles. I’m also a big fan of Eric’s work at Adobe. A big thanks to him for making this utility.

Tom Hogarty, Lightroom’s Product Manager, has lots to say about this beta in his blog. In it he says:

“We’re only halfway through our noise reduction efforts but believe that you will be very pleased with the results so far. We’ve actually disabled the previous Luminance Noise Reduction so that you can focus on evaluating the Color Noise reduction implementation.”

I’m finding a few reasons to actually increase luminance noise reduction on high res long exposures in low light, so I’m yearning to see these sharpening tool evolve a little further from where they are in this beta. But I’m impressed with the results so far.

Tom also points out that images previously developed in previous versions of Lightroom will initially appear the same in LR3 with a warning triangle that appears above the upper left hand corner of the Histogram. If this triangle is pressed, the image will be re-rendered using LR3’s new processing, including the new demoasiacing, sharpening and noise reduction algorithms. The screen grabs above were taken before and after clicking this triangle using LR’s detail panel defaults. It appears that LR3’s new process quality improvements are best seen on high ISO images, especially those from 20+ megapixel cameras files.

A) Generally speaking, color negative (C-41) film is a dream to scan relative to transparency (E6) and black and white films. Color negative not only captures a huge dynamic range but compresses it to a very small dynamic range that’s easy for scanners to extract.  Color negative film allow allows the photographer to print in either color or black and white. Images can be scanned in color mode and in front of the lens filtration (yellow filter, red filter, etc) can be simulated during the process of converting the image to a grayscale mode. Fuji has concentrated recent efforts on tweaking their new color negative films to be even more optimal for scanning. Some B&W neg films (like TMAX 100) can be problematic because they can exceed the dynamic range of the scanner so you have to loose some of either the highlights or shadows.

Now, there are always exceptions. Some scanner software applications aren’t great at handling color from color negatives. Some drum scanner applications, for example, just don’t know what to do with the orange mask and it would take a super skilled operator to overcome the software limitations to get good scan out of it. Most drum scanning applications were designed to scan transparency films so you might hear an operator say E6 is best for scanning (at least on *his* scanner system). Finally, some people might prefer to shoot their favorite B&W neg film for the sake of the unique grain structure.

Imacon/Hasselblad and Nikon scanners are great for color negative scanning and with those scanners you’ll probably want to shoot color neg, especially Fuji’s latest flavors.

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Scott Martin and Andy Biggs join forces to present a rigorous five day photography workshop in Moab, Utah. Moab is the epicenter of red rock country with its famous arches, balanced rocks and spires in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. If you have never photographed in the Moab area, you owe it to yourself to witness some of the most famous geological formations in the American West. The area is also famous for mountain biking, motorcycling, and offroading. April is arguably the nicest month of the year to be in Moab and we have planned this workshop to take place after all the big offroading festivals that descend upon Moab in the spring.

These medium altitude, ~4000 foot (1.2 km) locations will be between 50F (10C)  and 80F (27C) degrees during the workshop. Combined with low humidity, we will be quite comfortable. If you’ve never been to this part of the world before, you are in for a surprise. Moab and the surrounding areas have far more then one can possibly experience in a weeks time.

This workshop will be packed with both field and classroom instruction. We will be in the field early in the morning and early in the evening to catch the dawn and dusk light with classroom time in between. We will have discussion and assistance while out in the field each day. Advanced techniques will be constantly discussed, demonstrated and put into practice. We will all work closely together, sharing our knowledge and experience. During classroom sessions we will focus on photography workflow from capture to print using Adobe Lightroom. Participants will be encouraged to perfect their workflows and incredible detail will be paid to every aspect of importing files, organizing them, keywording, image development and fine are printmaking. This workshop will be a great chance for photographers to fine tune their workflows while making new work. We will all work closely together, sharing our knowledge and observations. Each day will have a critique of the previous days work.

This workshop is specifically for photographers who want to learn photography techniques all the way from exposure to image processing and printmaking. Light, composition, equipment choices and subject matter are some of the specific things we will discuss. Everyone will have”exposure” with two instructors with complimentary approaches to photography. All participants will be able to work on their own images and will go home with a print of their favorite image from the workshop. We expect that amauters and seasoned digital imaging professionals alike will benefit from the course. Participants should expect to share some of their images for review, as the goal of this workshop is to enjoy the creative process, learn from each other and to grow as image makers.

About the instructors

Scott Martin is the owner of Onsight digital imaging, which is a capture-to-print training and consulting business that helps digital imaging professionals optimize their workflows for quality and efficiency. Scott works on location with photographers, pro labs, artists, designers, prepress professionals and software developers perfecting the techniques and color management needed for top notch work. Scott holds the first ever known degree in Digital Photographic Imaging, is an Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert, and serves on the board of the Texas Photographic Society. His grand format fine art prints are shown in galleries and included in many public and private collections.

Andy Biggs is an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. With a deep respect and understanding for African wildlife, Andy unfolds the world of the Serengeti onto our doorstep with striking emotional depth. His photographic safaris allow the traveler to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa’s beauty and culture. Andy’s photographic interests also encompass the landscapes of the American Southwest.  Andy makes it a priority to shoot when the light is most dramatic, notably the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset.

Registration

The price for the workshop is $995. Transportation, lodging and meals are not included. For a workshop with two great instructors and a small number of participants, we hope you’ll find this to be an excellent value. Use the button below to reserve your space for the workshop. $995 will be charged to your card on April 1st, 2010, at which point it is non-refundable. Your card will not be charged until April 2010.

After reserving your space in the workshop, call one of the hotels mentioned below to reserve a room.

Accommodations

The workshop will be based in Moab’s nicest hotel – the Gonzo Inn (800-791-4044). Note: you must ask for the “BIGMAR” group code when reserving a room over the phone or through their website. The Gonzo is in the center of Moab and right around the corner from several places to eat and drink.  Workshop participants are encouraged to stay at the Gonzo Inn but there are several alternate options nearby.

Getting there

There are several ways of getting to the Moab area.  Those flying into the are should consider flying into Grand Junction (GJT) if possible, or Salt Lake City (SLC) if GJT is not an option. Here are route recommendations for those driving from Grand Junction, Salt Lake, the Bay area and Denver.

We are excited to offer this workshop again. Our 2007 Moab workshop quickly sold out and brought participants in from around North America and Europe and it’s easy to see why this area appeals to poeple from such far away places.  Please let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about this workshop or about traveling to this location. Hope to see you there!

All images on this page are © Scott Martin

In my day-to-day consulting I am seeing photographers struggle with organizing ever-increasing, huge amounts of images. To add to this, the “file browsing” applications photographers have been using are showing their age and Adobe Lightroom is emerging as a surprisingly powerful tool for not only image file management, but also as a total workflow tool.

This one day class will examine (in great detail) every aspect of file management in Adobe Lightroom. Streamlining the file import process, working with keywords and file naming conventions will be discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of the DNG Digital Negative format will be covered along with folder based vs. search based approaches. We will discuss a variety of scenarios including transferring images from a desktop to a laptop and back. This workshop is customized for ASMP’s Houston chapter and is intended for professionals, not beginners.

Image file management may not sound like the most exciting topic to examine for a day but it might be the most important one for your image library. This workshop won’t cover optimizing image development, web gallery generation or printing. This workshop is appropriate for new Lightroom users for seasoned Lightroom professionals alike. Handouts and lunch will be provided.

About the instructor

Scott Martin is a fine art photographer and digital photography consultant. As the founder of Onsight, he has been working with digital photography since the 1980s and has been training photographers one-on-one and leading photography workshops since the early 90s though organizations like the Texas Photography Society and the Santa Fe Photography Workshops. With full-time devotion to on-location consulting for over a decade, his experience with a wide variety of imaging equipment, papers, inks and applications allows him to consult with some of the most demanding photographers, pro labs, artists, designers and prepress professionals in the business. Scott used to sit on the edge of his seat waiting for each Photoshop upgrade but now does so for Lightroom. His classes are packed with enthusiasm and real-world suggestions.

Target audience

ASMP’s target audience: professional photographers. A good working knowledge of computers and photography is required. Those who are working with Lightroom and those who aren’t sure if it’s right for them.

Location

St. Dominic Village (map)
2401 Holcombe Blvd.
Houston  Texas  77021

Registration

Space is limited to 30 participants. Contact Scott Kohn at ASMP Houston to register for this seminar.

sRAW files aren’t actually true RAW files. The sensor’s true RAW data is demosaiced and rendered to a lower resolution file and saved in the YCC color mode. For this reason the final file size isn’t quite as small as one might hope (IE: quarter resolution sRAW files are about half the file size of a full RAW file). Unfortunately, when these files are currently converted to DNG, images are converted to less efficient RGB space and the file size increases – negating some of the file size and processing benefits.

The chart adove illustrates the file sizes of a full res (resolution) raw file, a half res sRAW1 file, a quarter res sRAW 2 file before and after conversion to DNG, and a full res large JPEG.

Perhaps the DNG file format will be updated to include YCC sRAW files at their smaller file size. In the meantime, if you wish to keep file sizes small when shooting sRAW, I recommend sticking with the proprietary sRAW format that your camera uses (CR2, NEF, etc).