Hard Core Monday

Here is the Techno-Geek Alert. Those not interested in Lightroom... Cya tomorrow!

If you are still here this is a process in Lightroom that has similarities to iTunes library and play lists. You can look at this way. The Library is the database holding all the information about the contained images, The folder is physically where the images are stored. The Catalog is like the iTunes Music Library, it's all there, you just don't necessarily know where and what you have unless you look through all the stuff. Collections on the other hand are very much like the play lists in iTunes. The hang up is how to get rid of bad images when you are never going to look at them again. Read on!

What we have here is what Lightroom looks like just after an import from a card.

You can see that 13 images have been imported in the Previous Imports Catalog. This is the ideal time to go through the images and do your picks and rejects, keyword, and possibly rate the images.

Once you have made your picks and rejects you can go to the Photo menu and select Delete Rejected Photos, or use the keyboard shortcut of Command-Delete (Ctrl-Del on Windows) and accept the Delete from Disk option. The images are removed from the drive and sent to the trash. It does not however remove any files from you backup folders. That can be another post all together.

Like I said, that is the ideal way to take care of house cleaning. All too often though we make an import to get the images onto the drives and come back later to work with them. From here on we will cover deleting images after a successive import has occurred. Below you can see the Para Glider Collection has been crearted with 13 images. The same 13 images that are in the Previous Import Catalog.

This next scree capture is simply to show that once an import has been accomplished, the Previous Import Catalog is cleared and the new imported images have a temporary place to live. Notice the 1 in previous Import and 13 by the Para Glider Collection!

Now we are picking, rejecting, rating, and color coding our images in the Para Glider Collection. Here is where Lightroom gets a little funky. Flagging only resides in the current Catalog or collection. You can see in the two images below how this is reflected. The upper is the Collection and the lower is the All Photographs Catalog. Notice how the star rating and color coding transfer but the picks and rejects flags do not.

SIDE BAR

If you try to Delete Rejected Photos while in the Collection it will only remove them fro the collection and not the disk.

The next tow screen captures illustrate the quickest way that I have found to delete images from the hard drive when originating in a Collection.

1. Open Collection
2. Flag images to be deleted and rejects (X)
3. Filter for Flagged as Reject (the black flag)
4. Select ALL (Cmd-A)
5. Change to All Photographs Catalog
6. Flag images to be deleted and rejects a second time (X) as these images should already be selected.
7. Delete rejected photos (Cmd-Delete)
8. Accept Delete from Disk

The selected images in step 4 above remains selected when you change to the All Photographs Catalog.

Every application has its quirks and idiosyncrasies but Lightroom is just a dynamite application for image management. Possibly Adobe could add one option in the removing from a catalog dialog window. My vote is for what you see below!

Cya.. Doug

Finalized Friday

Here are some more images from my venture downtown Grand Rapids Michigan the other evening. This structure is attached to the Grand Rapids Museum (AKA VanAndel Museum). Yes there is a Merry-Go-Round in the building. But it is an old one!


[Just after posting this I noticed the spot up by the top left of the image. That is usually sensor dust but I checked the camera and it was not there. Must have been a spot of something on the UV or Polarizer filter!]

The sun was really starting to fade so I had decided to pack it up. WHen I turned to take the camera off the tri-pod a building across the river had presented me with this wonderful reflection.

I thought the was a really nice color in the windows. Not that much of a building to look at but the reflection was really cool. The light was not completely gone so I left my camera on the right seat of the car and took off. To get back on the high I had to take the following route.

Only when I was going north about to turn east I saw the Amway Grand Plaza tower glistening in  the subdued and vanishing sunlight. I then knew where I had to go to get the shot but I only had a few minutes. Minutes that traffic was not cooperating with. There is a hotel right at the off ramp of northbound 131 that I ducked into and just stopped. I jumped out of (ok, I got out of) the car and positioned myself against a light pole because I knew I did not have time to pull out the tri-pod. For my efforts I was rewarded with the following shot with spectacular light.

It was a very pleasing feeling getting that one last keeper!

Have a great weekend all. Cya... Doug

The Rest of The Story

This is the back story or as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story. Yesterdays post Getting A Jump, I know why do I have a hyperlink to a post you can just scroll down to?Answer; What if you were at this post by another link. Hmm... Anyhow it had a lead in to how and why I got these shots.

First the why. I had left the Interstate in search of a location referred to by one of those brown historic site signs. Just exiting a town in western Maryland, I was crossing a rather high bridge and noticed this train yard below and though I might stop by on the way back to the Interstate.

I did make it to the rather anticlimactic "historic site" and headed back and did make it to the turn-off to what was a truck staging area for coal delivery. It looked like it had been some time since coal had actually been exchanged so I pulled into the staging area. With camera in hand, I made my way over to the tracks and started grabbing some shots. 

Things were going quite well when I noticed what looked to be a semi-official looking truck approaching from down the way. For some reason the rail system people do not like people hanging around. Especially tyrannical biased photographers. I ran into the same thing out in Portland last September when an Amtrak guard got a little fussy about getting too close to the tracks. Oh well, I am not going to get bent out of shape over it so in this case I simply moved towards the car and stowed my gear. After all, I had gotten the shots I wanted.

I got back down to Columbus last night and it looks like I will be doing a couple portrait sessions while I am here this week. That should be fun!

Have a great Tuesday all... Doug 

Getting A Jump

Here is on for the road before the week even gets started. I will be busy today so I will just have a brief post today.

I found this image while unloading some cards that I had neglected to upload to the computer. It is one I took a couple of months back when I was driving home form Maryland after dropping my wife off to help out with our new grandson. I really had not expected to get this shot (or the one tomorrow if I use it) but I will leave that to Tuesdays post.

For now it is time to hustle and then hit the road.

Take care... Doug

Patterns

Repeating patters are sometimes the basis of art, other times they are simply the necessity brought by the designed purpose. In this case seats at an open air auditorium. Mor specifically the seating for the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois.

Shot a number of weeks ago on a photo walk with my brother-in-law. Actually there were four families there but the two of us went our own ways and hooked up with the rest for lunch later. We were just wondering and shooting what ever drew our fancy. This shot was with an EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens mounted to a Canon 40D. Details being 1/50 at f/9 with an ISO of 100, center weighted metering in aperture priority at 67 mm. Just some basic RAW editing in the Develop module in Lightroom.

I could have left it at that but Nooooooo! Not me, I had to go further. I was looking at a multi-color seating, possibble a bayer pattern (check it out on Wiki here), or a rainbow of rows. Once I brought it into Photoshop and realized the amount of work it was going to be, I shifted gears to a minimalist approach. The of wedding trick of colored flowers on a black and white.

Only this time it would be seats in an auditorium. To which I have aptly named...

The Red Zone

You see, I could have colored them blue, or yellow, or green, or really any other color if I had wanted to. Red simply was a more striking color than the others. Besides it honors the existence of the current red seat in the auditorium. Kind of a zen connection if you will.

Ok... Yadi, Yadi, Yadi! Bla, Bla, Bla! I'll give it up. Red just looked right... So there!

Take care all... Doug

Lazy Michigan Days

Summer is when West Michigan can really come to life. Many sunny days and cool nights, showers come and go but generally do not hang around for days. It does get a bit hazy though. This shot above was of Mill Pond in Irving Michigan shooting East.

The shot was take with an Canon 40D with an EF 24-105 f/4L IS lens mounted with a circular polarizer. Post was done in Lightroom (Duh! That's why it is called a Lightroom Series) with some selected edits that balanced the sky, water and tree line. The shooting specs were 1/80 second at f/11 with an ISO of 100 and the lens set at 2 4mm.

The day was beautiful and I was out on the motorcycle reconnoitering for portrait locations when I cam upon this view. I learned  a while back that you don't pass up the opportunity for the view.

Today we went up to Grand Haven with a repacked gear back that I put on a diet. I might just have to explore that for a post later this week.  For now though...

Cya... Doug 

P.S. Sorry Alli, I told you I would have a sky post up yesterday but that fell through.

Reflecting

I gotta tell ya, this was one of the most feature rich days I have had. At least photographically. Typically the Wrigley building is best shot from the east side of Michigan on Wacker Drive but this reflection in the Trump tower... Ok I'll say it, trumps that location.

If you get the chance to rome the streets of Chicago, don't be afraid to grab your camera, never once did we feel that others felt like we were being intrusive. In fact there were manny cases where people were trying to duck under of the frame out of respect. 

I had to finish up the week with one of the Fam. We are (sans yours truly) standing in front of the Cloud Gate as it is officially called. Generally it is just called the Bean. The bean was sculpted  out of huge stanelss steel panels by British artist Anish Kapoor. It weighs in at over 110-tons and is highly polished to hide the seams in the steel. 

Chicago contiues to be one of the most architecturally rich cities in the world and this form of sculpture doesn't hurt.

That should wrap it up for this week, so you all have a great weekend.

Cya... Doug 

City Falls

This image is one of my favorites form our photowalk in Chicago last weekend. It was shot from the base of the Aon building (the old Standard Oil building). We had just come out the north side of Millennium Park and I crossed the street to get a good perspective-lines image on the Aon building. When I got there I saw a fountain down some stairs, I took some shots but they were not keepers. Tech was fine but composition just didn't speak to me so they went into the bit-bucket. I turned around to go back up the stairs and saw the scene you see above. Vincent Versace has said it is not about taking photo, it is about being taken by a photo. Ok... A little Zen but it works, I was captured by what I was looking at and how it would turn out. I could not be happier as it turned our surreal, the building in the distance look almost illustrated.

Here are the camera specs. Canon 40 D with the EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens at 24 mm. Shot in aperture priority at ISO 100. Speed was 1/5th at f/22 aperture with 2/3 EV. Post was all Lightroom with some recovery, exposure, clarity, and sharpness.

I like it! Take care all... Doug 

Juxtapose

Something old and something new, and with the sky the way it was there was certainly something blue. So why the tie in to the the wedding tradition? Actually there is one. While walking around Millennium Park we noticed there was a couple getting married. Ok, so it was a lame connection. Anyhow, we started our trek north on Michigan Avenue and this composition struck me as a wonderful juxtaposition in photography. The older building is on the south shore of the Chicago River on East Wacker Drve while the new building in the background is the Trump Tower Chicago. There is so much mirrored glass on this structure it is just amazing.

The architectural diversity of the Chicago skyline is untouched by any modern city in the world. Ok that is my opinion and it might be bias because Chicago is... My kind of town! A few years ago we took the architectural boat tour on the river and it was very interesting. We plan on taking this tour again this summer.

If you are interested the camera specs for the image above is this; Shot with a Canon 40 D with a EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens fitted. Shot in Aperture Priority at ISO 100 and a focal length at 50 mm. The shutter speed was 1/50th at an aperture of f/13.

That should take care of today, I am at work in Columbus and have to run.

Cya... Doug 

Alley _______

Continuing with our Chicago Photowalk last Saturday, this location just grabbed my attention. We were walking South on Michigan Avenue on the West side of the road on our way back to the MetraRail Station. Thinking this would shed better afternoon light on the East side of the street, I was caught off guard when I saw this location on the West side of the street.

The natural lighting was just magnificent. The alley looked so clean as alleys go and the cars were really out of place with no visible means of access. I can only assume the access is from under Michigan Avenue as there are many subterranean streets in Chicago. As far as the light, it was being reflected off a building on the other side of the street. Some really cool patterns of the windows. Surely the right place at the right time.

In post a simple crop, exposure, and tone adjustment were made to give it a little darker look as one would think an  alley would be. The funny thing is that there are not many alleys in Chicago, especially on Michigan Avenue, and to find it so pristine. It reminded me of a TV set or something you would see at Disney World.

The only thing this alley needs, is a Cat!

Cya... Doug 

Chicago Photo Walk Series

This week is going to be dedicated to a trip we took to Chicago last Saturday. I had brought a full gear bag and some flash stuff for show and tell but was not going to even try to lug the back around the city all day. The 5D Mk II was out as I did not need to have the weight of the battery grip and any lens would go longer on the 40D. As far as a lens, here again I went with the less is more philosophy. It was going to be a one lens day. Options were EF 50 f/1.4 prime, EF 16-35 f/2.8L, or the EF 24-105 f/4L stabilized. Ok so it was a no brainer, hand held on the street, the stabilization was the clear choice. There were only a couple of times I would have liked the wider lens as the APS-C sensor was doing it's thing.

We had just finished a late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory at the base of the John Hancock Building and the sun was well on its trip to the western horizon. Walking south on Michigan avenue the sun hit may and I saw how it peeked around the building. I backed up, dialed in as small an aperture as I could and shot away. I took a number at different exposure levels but this was going to look good as a silhouette.

Camera specs on the original shot above were ISO 100 in Aperture Priority on a Canon 40D with an EF 24-105 f/4L IS lens. Shutter speed was 1/50th at f/22 with a focal length of 70 mm. I had a circular polarizer screwed on which pitched in a couple more stops. This is a screen capture of the RAW file and was a little flat as it is unprocessed for any useful purpose. Below is the Basic panel in Lightroom 2 showing the starting point.

Only four sliders were used in Lightroom; Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Clarity, and Vibrance. Obviously the Blacks slider was the heavy machinery for the silhouette. While the Blacks slider brought the sky down, the Recovery slider really separated the sky from the sunlight. Just a touch of fill light was used to bring the windows in on the left side of the building adding to the three dimension. I could not leave without a dose of Clarity and a shot of Vibrance.

That was really all I did. I might have touched the sharpens slider just a bit but not too much. If I were to send this for print I wad most definitely revisit the sharpness slider.

Hey, hope this will be the start of a really good week for you.

Take care... Doug 

Trek to the big lake...

Here is one to start the week off with. One last image from Fallasburg Park. This is an old covered bridge crossing the Flat River. As many of these small rivers go, they start some distance away. The Flat River gets it's origins in a little town called Six Rivers Michigan and comes out of First Lake which is fed from... You guessed it, the other five lakes. Some of which are fed by Black Creek, Stony Creek, and Townline Creek. Anyhow, the Flat River meanders through Entrican, Langton, Gowen, Greenville, and Belding Michigan before it makes it's way to Fallasburg Park. From here it goes into Lowell and finally feeds the Grand River for it's trek to Grand Rapids and finally to Grand Haven where it hits Lake Michigan.

Sorry for the geography lesson but everything and everybody has a history.

Have a great week. Cya... Doug 

Lightroom Series

This week I have introduced the Doug Peek Lightroom Series. These are images that are totally processed in Photoshop Lightroom. 

The rationale for this series is conceived in basic disk management. I could go into some green statement here but the bottom line is that I don't want to have to go out and buy a new hard drive every few months to store a bunch of psd files. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem firing up Photoshop to enhance, correct, or go artistic on a file if that is the direction I want to take it.

Most of the images are available for purchase as the work is complete on each of the images. The screen capture I use to generate the image for the blog is simply that. It is a low res (72 dpi) png file.

I hope all will enjoy this new series.

Cya... Doug 

When You Least Expect It

Photography is one of those elements in life that continue to surprise the participant. Just when you think you have what you came for, there is a little more there. It's the ten minutes after sunset when everyone has taken off that the sky presents its inner beauty. It's that moment that you remember to turn around to find the fabulous view you have been walking away from. These are the giving beyond the capture in photography.

I had two such events present themselves within ten minutes of each other. The first I explained in yesterdays post The Ride. The second opportunity actually happened before the first. I had gone up to Falasburg Park north of Lowell MI for some background shots only to find that the trees had not popped yet. Beautiful blue sky with a lifeless tree line. Sweet, perfect for some black and white images. But that is not the special event of the day.

I was sitting on a bench by the water with my 5D Mk II on a tripod spying a goose floating upstream when I heard a couple of geese honking and splashing further upstream. My EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens with the 1.4 teleconverter was mounted to the 5D2 so I pulled it off the tripod to take a  look at the commotion upstream.

Come to find out, the commotion was avian talk for a pre-departure briefing. They started moving and I stated shooting. The image below is the second of three that was of the takeoff run.

I really did not have the camera/lens combination for this shot but sometimes you take what you get and be happy with it. The 40D with this same lens combination would have made the 320 mm combination into 448 mm on the APS-C sensor. The high speed burst on the 40D may have provided a higher percentage of images to choose from but that was not to be the case.

The image below is just one of those images that pops from the screen when viewed in Lightroom. It say's, "I'm the one..." A touch of vibrancy (what a great slider), a tad bit of clarity, and poof, ready for prime time display. Ok some sharpening if it were going to print.

Well, it wasn't that easy. I had to do a bunch of spot healing as when I was zoomed in there were little white traces behind and below the geese. Take-off must exert a lot of strain on their system. Either that or it was extra thrust. Hmmm.

Hey that will wrap it up for today.

Cya... Doug 

The Ride

Last Friday I was finally able to get out on the Harley for a decent ride. I was out about two weeks earlier for a short ride but Friday was a good five hours being gone. I am now bringing my gear almost every time I ride. The gear back fits in the tour pack and my Enduro tri-pod in its case straps onto  cargo rack quite nicely.

Anyhow, back to the photo. I had stopped to capture some images and while walking back to the Harley I heard the throaty thumping of a group of bikers. I turned around and there were six or seven in a pack with one straggler. I got a number of shots but when cropped, this one just gave that classic rider on the sweeping turn look. 

Ok. I must admit to cropping now and again. Most everyone knows what cropping a photo is but there is a huge divide between the croppers and non-cropping purists. Yes cropping diminishes the resolution of the image, it does delete data, and OMG... It is changing the original image! Here is my argument for cropping.

Point one on diminished resolution. You have to think about how the image is going to be presented. Web, snap-shot photo, framed print, or large print each require a minimum resolution to provide a high quality print. In this case the image started out at 21 megapixel and 7 megapixel after the crop. This is more than enough for a good 13x19, so what's the big deal.

Point two regarding deleted data is true in Photoshop unless you have multiple copies. In Lightroom this is not even a factor as the original image remains untouched.

Point three concerning changes to the original image. Soooo What! It's art people. If the photographer is inspired to capture the image and then adjust, change, or even destroy it later it is totally up to the photog.

Bottom line is what ever you do to an image to make it more presentable and emotional is a good thing. If you can do this while maintaining a high standard of quality, that is even better. After all, we are creatives and in that light, we are dealing with photographic art.

Hey enough is enough!

Cya... Doug