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Posted by on Sep 19, 2012 in Photography | 51 comments

How People See Photos Differently


I was in the studio yesterday and today (and probably tomorrow too) recording some new classes for Kelby Training. So it’s been hard to carve away time to post. But an interesting topic came up the other night while I was looking through 500px. I came across the photo here (the one you see above) by
Tobias Richter. I didn’t just want to take the photo from the page, so you’ll have to actually click on the link to see it larger on 500px. But click on it now. Head over to 500px and take a look. Don’t read on because I don’t want to spoil it for you. Just form an opinion about the photo and whether you like it or not. Then read on to the rest of the post…

Okay, you’re back and hopefully you have an opinion on the photo I mentioned above. To me, this is an incredibly stunning photo. The greens, blues, warm colors, sun, rocks… everything about it. I love it! I want to be there and I wish I had this photo in my portfolio. So I’m sitting next to my wife and I say “Wow, that’s amazing!” and lean over to show it to her (I was on my iPad). The reaction I got from her was the last thing I expected to hear. She said (and I’m not kidding here), “Ewwww, that’s creepy!”.

What!!?? Creepy? That’s the last word I thought I’d hear. Of course I asked what was it about the photo she thought was creepy, and she said she saw this screaming painful face in the middle bottom area of the photo. I don’t even want to circle it or draw attention to it because I’d love to know if anyone else saw this.

The point is that it’s really interesting to see how different people see different photos. Of course I knew this before this situation ever happened, but still. How could I think a photo was absolutely stunning, and my wife be immediately creeped out over it? It’s not like I said “I love it”, and she said it was “pretty good” or, “kinda ok” or something like that. She immediately saw something that took me a few minutes to see even after she pointed it out. Heck, it even took me a minute to find it again tonight when I was writing this post.

So the question(s) to you are: What was your first reaction to the photo? Do you see the face that she was talking about? Did you see it before I pointed it out?

Have a good one!

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Posted by on Sep 18, 2012 in News | 42 comments

5 Random Thoughts About Google Buying Nik Software


If you haven’t heard the news, Google announced yesterday that it acquired Nik Software. Now, most of you reading this probably know Nik Software for it’s Photoshop and Lightroom plug-ins. And of course, I’m sure you’ve probably heard of Nik’s Snapseed (which won the App of the Year for 2011). But my guess is, you still know and like them just as much (if not more) for their Photoshop/Lightroom plug-ins.

Well, most of the websites I’ve been reading about this acquisition on, are writing about how Google really wants Snapseed. They’re reporting that Nik Software says Snapseed is used by 9 million people. So of course that’s the product that’s making all the news. Now…I personally don’t know the numbers so I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Silver Efex Pro or Color Efex Pro don’t have 9 million users :) The plug-ins are really geared for the “pro” right? (yes, that’s you – even if you’re not a professional photographer making money at it every day, you’re still considered a pro, to most casual iPhone shooters out there). That’s usually a much smaller audience, so the plug-ins haven’t been talked about as much since the announcement. Anyway, figuring most of you either use, have used, or are thinking of using their plug-ins, I figured I’d write 5 quick random thoughts on the whole topic.

  • 1. I tend to agree with the masses that a big part of this acquisition had to do with Snapseed. I’ve seen a lot of people afraid that their favorite plug-ins will now fall by the wayside. But here’s the thing… Nik Software wasn’t just about Snapseed. They have a long history and many years of great plug-ins, so I have a hard time thinking that Google is just going to throw Snapseed into Google+ and call it quits on everything else. I mean, why not just buy Snapseed from Nik if that was the case?

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  • 2. Going on the previous point, Google is into photography. As my friend RC pointed out, both Sergey Brin AND Vic Gundotra dig photography. So, again, I have a hard time thinking they’ll just abandon all of the great software that Nik has created over the years.

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  • 3. In the short term, I don’t think anything changes. Your Nik plug-ins will continue to work as the same plug-ins that you purchased when you were happy to purchase them. Nik isn’t known for updating their plug-ins every year. So most of them are fairly new in their life cycle, and I’m not sure we would have seen any huge updates in the near-term anyway. I do think that unless Google or Nik come out and say something about what the future holds, it’ll definitely hurt future sales. When I was at Photoshop World the other week, I had a ton of people ask me if they should buy Nik’s Silver Efex Pro or onOne Software’s new Perfect Black and White plug-in. In the short term, with no clue how the software will be supported in the future (even though lots of people think it will still be supported just fine), this acquisition makes their decision pretty easy.

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  • 4. I’d love to hear Adobe’s thoughts on all this. Were Nik’s plug-ins going to ever overtake Photoshop and/or Lightroom as the king of editing apps for photographers? They seemed to be creating products that worked “with” Photoshop and Lightroom, rather than in place of them. But Google on the other hand… this could get interesting. Could this eventually turn in to a competitor to Photoshop or Lightroom?

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  • 5. I’ll finish with this thought. On the home page of Nik Software it reads “On Sept. 17 2012, Nik Software Joins Google”. All I can say is this. That strikes me as a company that’s happy about it’s move. I personally know a number of people at Nik Software. They’re passionate photographers and very committed to their software. I could totally be wrong here, but the message on their home page and the level at which I’ve seen the folks at Nik operate make me think this could be a good thing. Personally, I’m excited to see where it goes.

    • Question: What’s your thoughts on the acquisition? Good? Bad? Or you just don’t care?

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    Posted by on Sep 17, 2012 in Lightroom | 9 comments

    Lightroom Presets – Desaturated Sports Photo Presets


    Not a great sports weekend here in Tampa. The Giants beat the Bucs. Even though I’m from New Jersey, I’ve been in Florida long enough (over 20 years) that I consider the Tampa Bay Bucs my home team. Sadly, my USF Bulls lost to Rutgers the other night too (yes, another New Jersey team). Oh well… :)

    Anyway, now that you have your sports update, let’s move on to the presets. Last week, I released some sports photo presets that I used on some football photos I had. Usually whenever I post new presets, people who read the blog send me examples of what they’ve done with them. Well, I looked at one of the examples from last week, and saw something different. To me at least, their photo looked a little desaturated. I thought, “Hey this looks cool!”. It seemed to add to the drama that the effect has. So I went in and tweaked the presets from last week to have a kind-of desaturated look to them. I think I may even like it better than the other presets on some photos.

    Here’s a Before/After (btw… the differences show up more when you see the photos larger):

    Just like last week, there’s 3 different versions (Light, Medium, Strong) so you can pick your level of edginess/desaturated-ness for the photo.
    Enjoy ‘em and please let me know what you think!

    Have a good one!

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    Posted by on Sep 13, 2012 in Personal | 9 comments

    World Series Of Poker… Here I Come!


    I’m sitting at the Kansas City airport waiting for my flight back to Tampa, and I have some new reading material. Why? Because I have some of the coolest seminar attendees ever. See, I taught my Lightroom seminar yesterday in Kansas City, and after the seminar a guy came up to me with 3 books. He said that he’d heard me mention, on one of my shows, that I like to play poker (Texas Hold ‘em). He said (in a very nice way of course), “I take a lot of money from guys like you” :)

    His name was Paul, and we joked around for a few minutes about poker. He gave me some tips and then laid 3 books down on the desk in front of me. He told me exactly which order to read them in. He also gave me his email address in case I ever have any questions. How cool is that?!

    I do love to play poker. I’m actually looking for a poker coach but they’re hard to find in Tampa. I don’t play nearly enough so I don’t expect to get much better because, like anything, you need to practice to improve. But hopefully my schedule will lighten up a bit and I’ll get some more time to hit the tables. And while everyone in Kansas City didn’t bring me books at the end of the day, I have to say that I received the absolute warmest welcome there for my Lightroom seminar. I even made it out for some Jack Stack barbecue (mmmmm) with my HDR guru buddy Blake. Have a good one!

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    Posted by on Sep 12, 2012 in Personal | 1 comment

    Thanks St. Louis… Now, On To Kansas City For Some Lightroom


    Just landed in Kansas City for my Lightroom seminar later today. I came from St. Louis where I got to walk around the evening before the seminar and do some shooting (hence the photo above). Nothing too crazy and they’re mostly just snapshots. The sky was pretty much cloudless, but I’d never been to St. Louis before, and I felt the need to grab the obligatory photos of the Gateway Arch. The weather was beautiful and it was just a great way to clear my head for the next day (plus I got to hang out with my buddy Jeff who I hadn’t seen in a while).

    (Here’s another quick snapshot with the arch reflecting in the nearby pond)

    I probably sound like a broken record, but I’ve been very fortunate to continually have awesome crowds for my seminars, and St. Louis was no exception. So I wanted to say thanks to everyone who came out yesterday. They were all psyched about learning Lightroom, had really insightful questions throughout the day, and made me feel right at home (some one even brought me Pi pizza for lunch – mmmmmm).

    Anyway, I ain’t got much for today other then to say thanks. I had many friends of the blog come up and say hi which is an awesome feeling. And no matter where I go, no matter what city I end up in, every crowd I come in contact with is as welcoming as I could ever hope.

    Have a good one!

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    Posted by on Sep 11, 2012 in Story Behind the Photo | 6 comments

    The Story Behind The Photo (Week 7: Mesa Arch)


    This week’s story is about a photo that’ll go down as one of the coldest photos I’ve ever taken. It’s a sunrise photo and it looks much warmer then it really was when I took it (especially for this Florida guy).

    But First…The Story Behind, The Story Behind the Photo
    A while back, Scott Sheppard interviewed me over on Nik Radio. It was basically a 30-40 minute interview on how I got into photography and Photoshop, what inspires me and a bunch of other things. Here’s the link in case you missed it. Well, toward the end of the interview, we started talking about how the story behind the photo is sometimes as captivating or interesting as the photo itself. So it got me thinking about a possible series of posts here on the blog. Let’s get started:

    The Photo
    (click for a larger version)

    Location: Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah

    Date: April, 2009

    The Gear

    The Story
    I was co-teaching a landscape photography workshop in Moab and it was my first trip there. I got in late the night before to find that we would be leaving the parking lot at some ungodly hour (something like 3:45am) the next morning. Basically, the idea is to get to a location like this early. The sun was coming up fairly early. It was about a 45 minute drive along with a 10-15 walk, and it’s a spot that usually has a lot of photographers at it. So, if you want to get in a good location to take the photo at sunrise, you need to get up early. All of this adds up to waking up at a time that nobody should be waking at :)

    Why We Almost Didn’t Go Shooting That Morning
    Well, I woke up on time and made it down to meet the group in the parking lot at that ungodly hour I’m sure I mentioned before. As we stood in the parking lot, it started snowing on us. We checked the forecast and it was supposed to be a pretty ugly sunrise with snow and windy conditions. My friend, Neil Silverman (one of the co-teachers of the workshop), said something that, I’ve since, repeated many times when some one has tried to convince me not to go on a photo shoot. As everyone stood there shivering, trying everything we could to convince ourselves it would be okay to go back to bed and skip the photo shoot, he urged us to suck it up and go. That we’d be able to sleep later. We’d come this far, so why not just go out and see what we could get. And most importantly, he said that he’d woke up many times to miserable weather forecasts, only to find some of the most spectacular sunrises he’d ever seen. I knew he was right and so did everyone else. So we all stopped trying to convince ourselves it was okay to go back to sleep, and we packed up the cars with our photography gear.

    Getting There Early
    Remember how I mentioned we wanted to get there early because there may be other photographers out there. Well, apparently they were VERY successful in convincing themselves to go back to bed because they didn’t show up. It was just us there with about 1 hour left to go before sunrise. Crisis #1 averted! We wouldn’t have to compete with a bunch of other photographers for a good spot ;)

    And It Was Cold
    I mentioned that this was one of the coldest photos I’ve ever taken. The temperature was in the 20′s but that wasn’t the worst park. It was windy. It was one of those cold biting winds that just blows right through you no matter what you were wearing. You couldn’t keep your hands warm, your face, your feet… you name it. For about 1 hour we all stood there shivering, telling ourselves that this would be worth it.

    It Was Worth It
    Obviously I wouldn’t be writing this if it wasn’t worth it right? See, one of the key ingredients in a place like this is the sun. We started getting worried that we’d never see the sun though. But as the sun started coming up we could see some light clouds off in the distance but that was it. We started getting really hopeful. Clouds weren’t bad and it looked like we’d see the sun after all. And as the sun came over the horizon, things got really quiet and all you could hear were the clicks of the shutter… always a good sound :)

    How I Photographed the Scene
    Personally, I chose a wide angle lens and set my aperture to f/16 so I could get that sun-star shaped flare from shooting directly into the sun. I also made sure I chose a lens with Nikon’s Nano coating on it. When you’re shooting into the sun or using sun flare as part of the photo, that nano coating rocks. It helps keep the flare under control so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

    The Post-Processing
    Post-processing is important here. Since you’re shooting into the sun, the rocks up front don’t appear as bright in the photo, as they really were when you were there. So there was definitely some Fill light and shadow slider enhancements here. I also did some cloning and healing on the rocks, since some of the lens flare looked a little distracting. Then I just finished it up with a little sharpening and vibrance adjustment to bring out some of the colors.

    Lessons Learned
    Go out and shoot. You can always sleep later. Oh… and dress warmer then you think you have to.

    Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed the story. Have a good one! :)

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