Pro-Tip #13: Get Creative

I recently read an article on the web projecting the number of photos to be taken in 2014, and the numbers are so large its hard to wrap your mind around them. It is projected the world will take 880 billion photos in 2014. The world has definitely embraced the digital image revolution and most of us always have a camera with us these days. We are also sharing many of those photos on-line, Facebook gets 208,300 photo uploaded to it every minute and Instagram receives 27,800 per minute. In a seemingly infinite supply of images how do you make yours standout in the over crowded cyberspace?

Creativity is the answer. The vast majority of the 880 billion image to be taken in 2014 will likely be done by raising the camera to eye level set on auto and pressing the button. No thought, no creativity, no one will notice them. If you want to get your images to standout from the crowd than you need a more creative approach. The following fixes are simple and easy to do but you just have to think about them before you press the button. I put these creative fixes into four major catagories:

1. Camera Position - After you snap that eye level shot ask your self if a higher or lower camera position might improve your photo. Perhaps you can move left or right for a better composition. This is the simplest of actions to do and can take a very unnoticeable image to one that gets noticed because its different than all the rest.
2. Angle of View - Is the scene before you best shot with a wider than normal view or perhaps a narrower angle of view.  You don't have a zoom lens, zoom with you feet. Most any camera can take a panorama these days for an ultra-wide angle of view. Wide angles are great for showing the grand scenic view and allows you to include a close foreground through distant background and introduce some depth into your images.  While a telephoto excels at isolating your subject and compressing distances.
3. Exposure Settings -  I am not talking about getting the correct exposure--that's a given, but adjusting your shutter and aperture creatively to enhance your image. Will the subject before you benefit from a fast or slow shutter? Do you need to isolate your subject with a narrow depth of field or do you need to maximize what's sharp from near to far.
4. Timing - Are you at your location at the optimal time? This may be out of your control but I am talking about what is going on with the light and weather. Can you come back at sunrise or sunset? Perhaps a night time shot that includes the moon or the Milky Way would likely be  less common than the standard day time shot. Do you have clear blue skies, then come back when some clouds are out--clouds make most any shot better with their presence.

There are many other ways to get creative but these are the simplest and easiest to implement and only require a little bit of quick thought before pressing the button.  Anyone can do them but most will not.  So when you do them, your photos will standout that much more the eye level no thought photos making up the majority of the 880 billion photos competing for attention.

Topaz Star Effects on SALE for $14.99

Turn an ordinary sunset into an extraordinary sunset with Topaz Star Effects. Apply brilliant light rays, add dazzling sun flares, and create the best star and lighting effects you've ever seen. Make your photos exceptional with Topaz Star Effects.

I like the sun star effect, as you can tell if you have ever browsed through my on-line portfolio at www.gregclurephotography.com, which is basically a form of lens flair that looks good versus the kind of flare that can ruin an image. Creating this effect in camera is often difficult and sometimes impossible depending on the ambient light conditions and requires a lot of trial and error to get just the perfect amount of flair. Topaz Star Effects takes all the guess work out of creating the perfect sun star effect in your images with precise and intuitive controls. You choose the number of star points you want, the length of each flair, the color scheme, the amount of aura desired....I think you get the picture! But don't take my word for it, download a free 15-day trial version and try it out on a few of your own images.

Get everything you need to craft beautiful star and light effects in your photos:

• Select stunning effects you won't find anywhere else
• Auto-detect light sources to accurately apply in a single click
• Customize and tweak your effect until it looks perfect

Not every photo needs or looks good with light effects, but the ones that do simply look phenomenal. Use Star Effects to easily apply these to your own images, and get 50% off with the coupon code "decstar" until the end of the year! Regular price is $29.99, SALE price is just $14.99.

Pro-Tip #12: Shoot in RAW

On my photo workshops I conduct regularly, I always run into someone not shooting in RAW. Typically, they’ve recently stepped-up to a DSLR from a point-and-shoot camera that did not have this file format or they don’t understand the benefits even though they have heard over and over that you should be shooting in RAW. But do you know why it’s so important? And what it really means for your images? Let’s sort it out!

First off, what is RAW? RAW is a file format that captures all image data recorded by the sensor when you take a photo. When shooting in a format like JPEG image information is compressed and lost. Because no information is compressed with RAW you’re able to produce higher quality images, as well as correct problem images that would be unrecoverable if shot in the JPEG format.

And happily many cameras these days shoot RAW, including some point and shoots! So even if you’re using a little camera, you might still be able to take advantage of the RAW file format (just check your camera manual to see!).

So, the benefits. Let’s look at the big ones…

1. Get the Highest Level of Quality

This is one of the biggest benefits. When you shoot in RAW you record all of the data from the sensor. This gives the highest quality files. And when it comes to your awesome images, you want high quality.Look at it this way: all cameras technically shoot RAW. Yes, it’s true.The difference when you shoot in JPEG format is that the camera does it’s own processing to convert the RAW information into a JPEG.

However, your camera is nowhere near as smart as your brain, nor is it as powerful as your computer. When you shoot RAW, you’re able to do that processing yourself. You can make the decisions on how the image should look, and produce way better results.

2. Record Greater Levels of Brightness

Levels of brightness are the number of steps from black to white in an image. The more you have, the smoother the transitions of tones. Smooth is good.

JPEG records 256 levels of brightness, and RAW records between 4,096 to 16,384 levels! This is described with the term “bit”. JPEG captures in 8bit, and RAW is either 12bit or 14bit.

The effect this has on your images is huge. Those additional steps of brightness let you make more adjustments (exposure, black levels, mid-tones, recovery, contrast, brightness) to your image without a significant reduction of quality, because there’s more levels to work with!

It’s also easier to avoid or correct posterization in your images when you shoot in RAW. Posterization is the banding that you often see in bright skies, which really doesn’t look good in prints!

3. Easily Correct Dramatically Over/Under Exposed Images

Obviously you want to get the best exposure in camera, but sometimes things move fast (especially with wildlife!) and you wind up with a dramatically over or under exposed image.

With RAW you have additional information in the file, so it’s much easier to correct the image without a drastic reduction in quality. You can also recover more blown highlights and clipped shadows. Good stuff.

4. Easily Adjust White Balance

When you shoot JPEG the white balance is applied to the image. You can’t just easily choose another option. With RAW the white balance is still recorded, but because you have way more data, it’s easy to adjust.

Great white balance and color are essential to an awesome image, and shooting RAW lets you make the adjustments easier and faster, with better results.

5. Get Better Detail

When you shoot RAW you have access to sharpening and noise algorithms in a program like Lightroom that are way more powerful than those found in your camera.

Plus, these sharpening and noise algorithms are always improving, so in the future you’ll be able to re-visit your RAW files and take advantage of these improvements.

6. Enjoy Non-Destructive Editing

When you make adjustments to a RAW file, you’re not actually doing anything to the original data. What you’re doing is creating a set of instructions for how the JPEG or TIFF (another file format) version should be saved.

The awesomness of this is that you never ever have to worry about ruining an image, accidentally saving over, or being unable to go back and make changes. You can always reset your adjustments, and start over again.

JPEG files lose quality every time you open them, make adjustments, and save again. True story. It’s what is known as a “lossy” file format. So if you’re making edits to JPEGs you always have to be duplicating the image and saving out a new version if you don’t want to lose file quality. Hassle.

7. Get Better Prints

Because of the finer gradation of tones and colors you’ll get better prints from RAW files. Even though more and more people are shooting digital, great prints are as important as ever (maybe even more so, due to their relative rarity!)

8. Select Color Space on Output

Color space is a bit of a complex topic, but here’s a quick tip. With RAW you can choose from any color space when you are exporting it out, so you can adjust depending on the situation!

Is the image going on to the web? Then output in the sRGB color space to ensure maximum compatibility among web browsers.

Are the files heading to a client? Save it in the common Adobe RGB (1998) color space.

Do you want the widest color space possible? Use ProPhoto RGB.

Basically there are different color spaces that work best for different situations, and when you shoot RAW you can export a single image in multiple spaces! Sweet!

9. Have an Efficient Workflow

It’s easier to work through large batches of images when you’re using a workflow centric program like Lightroom or Aperture. They’re designed to easily process groups of RAW images. Photoshop is not meant for that kind of thing, it’s built to handle one image at a time. In order to take full advantage of all the benefits of Lightroom and Aperture you should be shooting RAW!

10. It’s the Pro Option

Professionals should be providing their clients with the highest quality possible. Issues like banding and blown highlights are big deals when you’re offering your clients printed products. Achieving proper color balance, and choosing the right color space for the situation are critical as well.

By shooting RAW you take control, and are able to manage these problems to create the best results possible. Now that some point and shoots are capable of shooting RAW, most everyone can take advantage of this pro level option, and get better files and prints! Good deal.

Downsides and Solutions

Now, there are always pros and cons to every option, and RAW does have a few downsides. We’ll chat about those, as well as some potential solutions!

Need To Be Processed

A common argument against shooting RAW is that because the files need to be processed, it takes more time to shoot RAW than JPEG. If you don’t do any processing to your JPEGs that might be true.

However, most photographers do some level of processing to their JPEGs so already the argument is getting flimsy.

Then, when you add in the fact that adjustments like white balancing, and recovering highlights and shadows are way faster with RAW files, and it actually begins to look like processing RAW can be faster than JPEG!!

Then, with RAW, you can easily export to JPEG, as well as convert to various sizes (like web res) at the same time. If you really wanted you could even shoot RAW + JPEG simultaneously!

RAW gives you way more options, and can be processed just as fast, if not faster, than JPEG.

Takes Up More Space

Since RAW files have more uncompressed information they can be 2-3 times larger than JPEG files. This is definitely a concern for many shooters, especially those who create a lot of images.

But over the past few years, the cost of hard drives has really dropped, and they’re incredibly affordable!

Let’s consider a 1TB hard drive.

• A 1TB drive costs about $55
• If a large JPEG file is about 8MB, you’ll fit 125,000 images on the drive, at $0.00044/image
• If a RAW file is about 30MB, you’ll fit 33,333 images on the drive, at $0.00165/image

Obviously you can store fewer RAW files, but the number of images that you can cheaply store is so large for both formats that it’s not really an issue! It’s also probably a good idea to not place so many images on a single hard drive. Don’t put all your photographic eggs in one basket!

Memory cards are the same deal. They’re constantly dropping in price. Remember when a 2GB card was over $200?? Nowadays you can hardly even buy one that small, and 16GB is as cheap as $15. Madness!

Yes, RAW files are bigger and take up more space. But that’s because they’re of higher quality. Go with high quality for the extra $0.00121/image.

Slows The Camera Down

RAW files are larger than JPEGs, so they’ll fill up the buffer of your camera faster. The camera will still shoot the same frames per second, regardless of whether it is RAW or JPEG, but you may have to wait for the camera to write to the memory card if the buffer fills up.

If shooting fast sequences if critical for you, and you want to shoot RAW, you can purchase faster memory cards, or a more expensive camera with a larger buffer.

In A Proprietary Format

RAW files are often recorded in a proprietary format, which means that the camera manufacturers haven’t officially disclosed how the raw data can be converted. Companies like Adobe either need to license software to decode the RAW files or reverse engineer how the files should be converted. (For Canon cameras the RAW format looks like .CR2 and for Nikon it’s .NEF).

The problem here is that you can’t be certain that in 5, 10 or 20 years you’ll be able to easily open that RAW file if you don’t have the proper software to decode it!

A open source RAW format has been developed in order to overcome this obstacle. It was developed by Adobe and is known as DNG (Digital Negative). Using a program like Lightroom, you can convert your proprietary RAW files into the open source DNG format. It’s an extra step, but it will ensure your files are readable far into the future!

Already the Leica M9 shoots in the DNG format, so look for more camera manufacturers to support this open source format in the future!

Wrap It UP!

Hopefully this look at RAW and it’s benefits has cleared things up a bit! Suggestions that RAW takes too long, or is too much work, don’t really hold water anymore.

These days, it’s super duper easy (and fast!) to process RAW files, and you’ll be able to get the absolute best quality out of those images that you put so much time, effort and love into!

Topaz Complete Photography Collection SPECIAL

Black Friday, Cyber Monday Special 

The Lowest Price of the Year!

Regularly $379.99  

SALE $199.99, use code "blackfriday2013"

Topaz Labs plug-ins are among the hottest Photoshop add-ons and best overall deal right now, for the following reasons: 64-bit-compatible, low prices, unique and useful effects and very active participation by the developers in the user community. The developers are constantly updating and improving the products, and upgrades are free for existing customers!

You can save a large amount of money by opting for the Topaz Complete Collection at $199.99, normally $379.99, a $570 SAVING, over buying these 14 plug-ins/apps individually. This is THE BEST PLUG-IN DEAL in the industry, considering the wide range of image effects and enhancements they make possible.

You get all 14 plug-in packages for one amazing low price! Here's what's included:

Topaz ReStyle is the newest addition to the Topaz line-up. There are plenty of tools that help you achieve a specific look in your photos. But Topaz ReStyle is different – it gets you results that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise. So next time you're staring at an image after making some minor adjustments and it's just not quite there, try using ReStyle to jump-start your creativity.

Topaz Clarity lets you spend more time shooting and less time post-processing by applying one of over 100 presets. These one-click effects were specially developed and fine-tuned for specific types of photos. Instantly add extra depth to your architecture images, wedding photos and everything in between.

Topaz B&W Effects takes you beyond traditional black and white conversion methods by integrating unique features like a 5-in-1 selective adjustment brush, adaptive exposure, quad toning, historical processing collections, creative effects and more.

Topaz Adjust is the easiest way to make your photos pop. Perhaps the most popular plug-in in the industry right now, Adjust optimizes image exposure, color, and detail strength for stunning image results. Quality exposure adjustment in Photoshop is cumbersome and sometimes frustrating. Adjust makes this process simple, fun, and highly rewarding. Other developers charge up to and over $595 for this type of plug-in, and they offer far less functionality!

Topaz ReMask is the fastest way to mask and extract your images. ReMask harnesses the latest in image extraction technology to make masking intuitive and powerful. Unlike Photoshop's sometimes clumsy and hard to use extraction tools, ReMask makes photo extraction and masking easy and sizzling fast.

Topaz Detail gives full control and precision over all aspects of detail manipulation without creating any edge artifacts or halos. Unlike Photoshop's detail enhancement techniques, Detail effectively accentuates three levels of detail without the slightest trace of artifacts or haloing.

Topaz Simplify provides creative simplification, art effects, and line accentuation for easy one-of-a-kind art. In contrast to built-in artistic filters in Photoshop, which are limited to certain specific effects, Simplify creates a wide range of stunning artistic effects in a simple, intuitive, but powerful interface.

Topaz DeNoise offers a complete noise reduction solution that removes far more noise and preserves far more detail than other solutions. Noise reduction is one of our core competencies, and DeNoise displays that brilliantly. Use state-of-the-art noise reduction abilities to make your formerly noisy photos clean, clear, and crisp.

Topaz Clean provides unique smoothing and edge stylizing capabilities not found anywhere else. It can quickly add interesting flair to photos and can be used to both smooth out detail and stylize edges. Use Clean for exceptional results on portraits, weddings, and other people photos.

Topaz DeJPEG drastically improves the quality of web images and other compressed photos. Although Photoshop includes a simple JPEG fixer, it doesn't preserve as much quality as possible. DeJPEG makes sure that any compressed image looks as good as it possibly can.

Topaz InFocus is the comprehensive solution for your sharpening and deblurring needs. Infocus recovers lost detail, refines with micro-contrast enhancement and restores clarity to blurry images. Unlike unsharp masking, InFocus sharpens without distracting high-contrast edges.

Topaz Lens Effects simulates realistic lens, filter and specialty camera effects.

Topaz Star Effects creates unique star and lighting effects by manipulating and enhancing the appearance of various light sources found within your image. With a variety of fully-customizable effect options for modifying light sources, you can easily add a creative or dramatic flare to lights or reflective surfaces to focus more attention on those point.

Topaz photoFXlab With instant access to all of the Topaz plug-ins, photoFXlab easily connects you to all of your Topaz effects in a searchable library. Featuring a layered workflow with masking capabilities, selective enhancement brushes with edge-aware technology and a fun new way to InstaTone your images, photoFXlab"! is the new way to experience Topaz.

Tray Radcliff of Stuck in Customs, says these plug-ins are the secret sauce that makes his images pop and saves him loads of time in post production. Join the pros with professional creative results when you start creating and stop processing by employing these cutting edge plug-ins. What are you waiting for, give yourself the gift of time by using these plug-ins for creating results you never knew were possible. 

Topaz B&W Effects 50% off SALE

Save 50% on Topaz B&W Effects, Novemeber 5 - 19, 2013, with code "novbw". Regular price, $59.99, SALE price, $29.99.

You've probably seen or maybe even created a black and white image that just didn't have the impact you expected. Without color, creating a striking image can be a challenge. When you remove color you eliminate an aspect of detail. So with black and white photography, the details, textures, lines and composition of your image take on even more importance.

Topaz B&W Effects helps you bring out these essential features, while balancing the range of gray tones, adding dynamic contrast and selectively enhancing the tonal range of blacks and whites in your image.

• Unique Effect Collections with historical, traditional and stylized looks
• Over 200 presets included for a quick and creative 1-click workflow
• Adaptive Exposure integration for dynamic detail, contrast and tone
• Edge-aware selective brush for quick and easy selective detail and color
• Authentic grain engine developed from real film scans
• Creative Effects integrated from Topaz Simplify, Adjust and Lens Effects
• Split-screen preview options for easy before and after comparison
• Stage-based interface layout for a simple and streamlined workflow

Topaz B&W Effects includes over 200 presets that can be applied to your image with aclick. These effects make your black and white conversion process quick and easy. After applying a preset, you can tweak the adjustment settings to develop your own unique look and then save these new settings as your own preset.

The presets included in Topaz B&W Effects are organized into 8 collections, each offering a different style of effects from traditional Silver Gelatin to stylized. Unique to Topaz are the Van Dyke Brown Collection, Cyanotype Collection, Opalotype Collection and the Albumen Collection, which all simulate historical printing processes. This allows you to give your images an authentic look and feel. 

Topaz B&W Effects is easy for new users but powerful and flexible enough for advanced pros. It features a stage-based interface layout that organizes all your conversion, enhancement and finishing tools into manageable steps to help ease you through the editing process.

There are 4 main adjustment tabs for each stage of the workflow and each contain sub-tabs with your individual adjustment tools. Disable or enable the preview for the sub-tab to see your image with or without the added effects.

As with any Topaz product you can try it before you buy it, download a free 30 day trial version to see if B&W Effects is right for you.

Better yet, if you are new to Topaz, this product is included in their Complete Collection where you get all 14 Topaz products at a super discount, use my discount code, gclure and save an additional 15% off the Complete Collection.

Topaz ReMask on SALE

Topaz ReMask

On SALE (50% off) Octobeber 9 - 31, 2013.

Regular price $69.99, 

SALE price $34.99 with discount code: octremask

 

Fast, Easy & Good - The Masking Tool You Want

Anyone editing photos must be able to select the exact objects or sections, which is essential to improving your photos. This ability to select objects and cutout backgrounds provides greater flexibility to your post processing workflow - making essential editing tasks like background replacement, selective adjustments, repositioning and multi-layer compositions effortless.  With ReMask's powerful and controllable tools you can quickly and easily select any part of your image. Like a pair of digital scissors, ReMask allows you to define the edges of an object and intuitively cut it out - which as a photographer, saves you both time and money. Click on the above image to learn more.

ReMask Highlights:

• Simple approach to masking that's quick and easy.

• Powerful tools for complex masking and refining.

• Extract intricate image details like hair and fur.

• Cutout accuracy with flexible preview options.

• Replace backgrounds or isolate areas with a few clicks.

• Maintain transparency in hard-to-mask objects.

As with any Topaz product you can try it before you buy it, download a free 30 day trial version to see if ReMask is right for you.

Better yet, if you are new to Topaz, this product is included in their Complete Collection where you get all 14 Topaz products at a super discount, use my discount code, gclure and save an additional 15% off the Complete Collection.

Pro-Tip #10: Fall Foliage Photography

Here are some tips to help you as you venture out this fall in hope of capturing some autumn color:

Follow the internet fall color reports for the areas you plan to visit to help you arrive at peak color.  Every area with fall color will have multiple sites/blogs keeping you updated.

Research the weather; you are looking for calm days. Wind is the enemy of fall color shooters so go out on a calm day, you’ll get more keepers. Overcast days also make great days for shooting fall color as they tend to be less windy and less contrasty as nature provides the natural soft-box. Also, the wind tends to die down at the beginning and end of the day, not to mention the light is best for most any outdoor photography during this time. If you do find yourself stuck in the wind, don’t try to beat it, rather; accentuate it by using slow shutter speeds and make some dreamy abstracts. Moister will also help bring out the color saturation of the leaves, so look to shoot after a rain shower or in early morning fog that collects on the leaves, you will get richer more vibrant captures. Frost is common in the early morning hours this time of the year and can add an extra element of interest to your leaf close-up shots. Finally, if you are lucky enough to get an early fall snow that does not knock all the leaves to the ground consider it a bonus.

Pay attention to the direction of your light. Most trees will look great backlit which gives leaves a translucent quality and adds a nice rim light emphasizing their shape and form and helps separate them from the background as well as each other.

Use a polarizing filter to help darken your blue sky, saturate leaf color and reduce haze not to mention the removal of any reflective glare coming from wet or shiny leaves.

Look for complementary colors. Complementary colors work to enhance each other by making each appear more vibrant than they would alone. Think warm yellow/orange aspen leaves against a cool blue sky or bright red maple leaves against an evergreen backdrop.

Don’t forget to shoot the fallen leaves on the ground; these can be as colorful as those on the trees. Don’t be afraid to gather-up some colorful leaves and strategically arrange them on a foreground rock or log, the pros do it, you can too.

What setting should you use? You need to use fast shutter speeds to freeze motion and wide-open apertures to blur your backgrounds for those specimen shots. Try 1/250 or faster and f/2.8 – f/4. Of course, you’ll need to use a smaller aperture for those grand scenic vistas of mountain side color, try f/8 or f/11 for those shots where you are not including a close foreground element to maximize sharpness. Finally, when you are close to a foreground element you will need to go even smaller, f/16 or f/22 to maximize your depth of field.

Use these tips to help make your next fall foliage outing a success!

onOne Software Announces Perfect Photo Suite 8

Click on boxes to go to www.onOneSofrware.com for more information

Portland, OR – September 4, 2013 – onOne Software, Inc., a leading developer of innovative and timesaving solutions for digital photography, today announced Perfect Photo Suite 8—the photographer’s choice for photo editing. Perfect Photo Suite 8 is a full-featured, standalone photo editor that integrates seamlessly with Adobe® Photoshop®, Lightroom®, Photoshop Elements, and Apple® Aperture® and it includes all the best tools a photographer needs to create extraordinary images. Key new features include the Perfect Enhance module for essential photo adjustments, the Perfect Eraser with content-aware fill technology, the Perfect Batch processing utility for applying workflows to multiple images at once, and a re-engineered Perfect Effects module with twice as many filters, customizable presets, and integrated FocalPoint™ technology.

The new tools and capabilities alongside Perfect Photo Suite 8’s eight modules—Effects, Enhance, B&W, Portrait, Mask, Layers, Resize, and Browse—allow photographers to enhance, retouch, and stylize images in a layered workflow, replace backgrounds, create high-quality enlargements, prepare images for output, and batch process workflows. The modules share a unified interface, each targeting a specific imageprocessing task. Each module provides only the tools necessary to complete the job at hand, eliminating
screen clutter and confusion for the user.

“We listened intently to the digital photography community about what they wanted for their image processing in today’s world of plug-ins, online apps, and subscriptions,” said Craig Keudell, president of onOne Software. “We made it a priority to respond quickly and design a cohesive new product that continues to focus on photography and is built for photographers of all levels, from enthusiasts to professionals. We’ve leveraged our extensive experience as a plug-in company and evolved the Perfect Photo Suite into a complete and powerful photo editor that, unlike existing plug-in collections, works as one, elegantly designed product that seamlessly integrates into any workflow.”

New in Perfect Photo Suite 8:

• Perfect Enhance module – Perfect Enhance provides essential tools for basic enhancements. Use it to adjust brightness and contrast, remove a color cast, remove dust spots and power lines, and add sharpening and vignettes. It is an ideal module to start with when using Perfect Photo Suite 8 as a standalone application or when quick corrections are needed.
• Perfect Eraser – Using content-aware fill technology and simple brush strokes, the Perfect Eraser removes objects and automatically reconstructs the image with realistic results.
• Twice as Many Filters – The Effects module now includes new adjustable filters including: HDR Look, Dynamic Contrast for tonal clarity, Vintage, Grunge, Antique, and more.
• Customizable Presets – All built-in presets included in Perfect Photo Suite 8 may be deconstructed by their filter settings and personally customized.
• FocalPoint is now in the Effects Module – The best parts of FocalPoint technology to create bokeh, tilt-shift, and selective focus effects after the shot, are now in the Effects module as the
• Lens Blur filter.
• New Browse module – Images can be browsed and directly accessed from Perfect Photo Suite wherever they are stored—on the computer, an external drive, a connected network, and even on a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Apple’s photo stream.
• Perfect Batch Utility – Powerful batch processing of actions from one or multiple modules, including the insertion of a watermark.
• Multiple File Handling: As a photo editor, you can now open and work with more than one image at a time. Move between images to edit or copy layers from one file to the next.
• Improved Masking Bug: Redesigned Masking Bug in the Effects and Layers modules make mask creation easier and more intuitive.
• Higher Quality Effects: Performance enhancements improve effects by minimizing artifacts without sacrificing processing speed.
• Improved RAW file handling: Open and process RAW files faster and with better quality. Support for new cameras also added.
• onOne Software Announces Perfect Photo Suite 8, a complete photo editor for every workflow

Availability and Pricing
The new Perfect Photo Suite 8 will be available November 26, 2013. Pre-orders are available immediately at www.ononesoftware.com/store. Perfect Photo Suite 8 is available in three editions: Premium, Standard, and an edition for Adobe Lightroom & Apple Aperture. The Premium Edition works with Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop Elements, and as a
standalone application. Owners of previous versions of Perfect Photo Suite Premium Edition can upgrade for $99.95. New users may pre-order the Premium Edition for $179.95. For a limited time, pre-orders of Perfect Photo Suite 8 Premium Edition will include a complimentary Essential Video Guide to Perfect Photo Suite 8, which provides a comprehensive collection of getting started training videos for Perfect Photo Suite 8 ($40 value).

Click on box to go to www.onOneSoftware.com for more information

Perfect Photo Suite 8 for Adobe Lightroom & Apple Aperture works with Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop Elements, and as a standalone application. It is available for $129.95 | $79.95 upgrade. The Standard Edition works as a complete standalone photo editor and is available for $79.95. New users who pre-order Perfect Photo Suite 8 will immediately receive a complimentary license for Perfect Photo Suite 7.5. Customers who pre-order Perfect Photo Suite 8 will receive all upcoming Loyalty Rewards that will be delivered monthly to owners of the Perfect Photo Suite 8. For those who have purchased Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 on or after August 1, 2013, onOne Software will issue a complimentary upgrade to Perfect Photo Suite 8 via download when it is available. For more information on Perfect Photo Suite 8, please visit http://www.ononesoftware.com.

About onOne Software
onOne Software, Inc., is a leading developer of innovative software tools and apps for digital photography and offers time-saving software solutions for photographers of all levels, from enthusiasts to professionals. Leveraging its extensive history as successful plug-in developer for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop
Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, and Apple Aperture, and continued development of cutting-edge technology, onOne publishes unified solutions that offer both full-featured photo editing capabilities and the flexibility of traditional plug-ins. Founded in 2005, onOne Software is a privately held company located in Portland, Oregon. For additional information, visit www.ononesoftware.com.

Press Contact: Amy Chan, onOne Software, achan@ononesoftware.com, 503-968-1468 x 137
General Press Inquiries: press@ononesoftware.com
onOne Software Announces Perfect Photo Suite 8, a complete photo editor for every workflow

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Topaz Adjust SALE - 50% off Sept. 9th - 30th

Dynamic Color, Detail and Exposure Control

Infusing your images with vibrant color and stunning detail has never been easier. From exposure and color balance to subtle photo pops, HDR effects, grunge style and more, Topaz Adjust’s intuitive and powerful tools make it easy to recover and enhance any image. With control over creative exposure, detail and color, Adjust is an essential part of every photographer’s toolkit.

This effect-packed Photoshop plug-in is is designed for photographers who want to achieve advanced color and detail techniques in less time and with half of the effort. Adjust also simplifies the HDR process, allowing you to instantly enhance local contrast, depth, detail and color - with just a single image.

The new Topaz Adjust 5 features productivity-increasing tools which allow you to be more effective, while streamlining your workflow. With the new local adjustment brush you can selectively enhance, taper or remove adjustments from any part of your image. You also have the ability to reduce the overall strength of your adjustments and stack effects - for a more comprehensive workflow.

• 107 new presets for an even faster and more creative workflow.

• Edge-aware selective brush used to dodge, burn, smooth and brush out effects.

• Ability to stack presets and effects via the new "Apply" button.

• Transparency Slider which controls overall strength of applied effects.

• Preset Collections which organizes default presets; includes a user collection.

• Integration of the new histogram and curve tools.

• Finishing Touches Tab with tools for diffusion, grain, borders, vignettes, tone adjustments and more.

Topaz Adjust is one of our most popular plug-ins and doesn’t go on sale very often, Topaz Adjust will be 50% off ($24.99) from September 9th through September 30th with this promo code: septadjust.

Better yet, if you are new to Topaz, this product will be included in their Complete Collection where you get all 14 Topaz products at a super discount, use my discount code, gclure, and save an additional 15% off the Complete Collection.

Pro-Tip #9: Expose to the Right (ETTR)

Normal Metered Exposure

ETTR Exposure of Same Scene

You have probably heard this expression bantered about in photography discussions or seen it in published materials, but what does this mean and why do you want to do it. I'll give you a short answer and a more detailed long answer.  This is for RAW image processing only, as it will not work with JPGs as these images have already been processed in the camera. The short answer is when you make an exposure you want your histogram data positioned as far to the right as possible so it is just kissing the right-hand side of the graph boundary, because it will provide you with the highest quality image possibles. That's it, that's  all you need to do if you want the highest image quality available from your camera. You need not read any further unless you want a greater understanding of why this holds true for digital images as I present the long answer.

The long answer requires some background information. As you may know, camera meters try to expose everything as an 18% or neutral grey scene.  This serves us well when we photograph average scenes as we get a good exposures in that we don't have blown out shadows or highlights, but the exposure may not be the best possible (more on this later).  And when we get into hi-key or lo-key situations the 18% meter reading is going to fail by under exposing the hi-key scene or over-exposing the lo-key scenes,  making our whites look grey in the hi-key scene and making our blacks look grey in the lo-key scenes, and making it very apparent that our exposure is noticeably off and we need to intervene. But why would we need to intervene in a situation where the metered reading results in a good exposure, the following explanation from Martin Baily's, "Why Expose to the Right", (Podcast 381), July 29, 2013, he explains the technical side of ETTR and why we should use this technique even for mid-tone scenes:

Camera sensors have to convert the light that is captured by the photo-diodes on the sensor to a digital value. Most cameras these days save this data for each pixel with 14 bits of data, meaning we can have up to 65,536 tonal values per pixel. Many cameras at the moment record about 12 stops of dynamic range [see www.dxomark.com], some more, some less, and this is the range between a true black and a true white, and with a 14bit sensor, this means we’d have 65,536 tonal values between the two extremes.

Think of this as gradually filling a bucket with water, or even filling a photo-diode on your sensor with light. A totally empty bucket would be zero, or totally black, and then as you pour water into the bucket, or light into the photo-diode, you gradually fill it until you hit the maximum it can hold, which would represent a pure white. Anything after that is just overflow. The white can’t get any whiter, and that pixel is now over-exposed.

Because digital sensors are linear devices, if you double the amount of light that hits the photo-diode, you double the voltage generated by the sensor, or the amount of water that we pour into the bucket. The result is that data is literally halved with each stop or EV (Exposure Value) that is recorded, so the brightest stop of light the sensor can record has to be double that of the second brightest. This means that to use the full 65,536 tonal values across the entire image, we have to half the amount of data that can be used for each exposure value from pure black to pure white. For a 12 stop dynamic range sensor, this means your data is broken up into 12 steps, as follows…

Darkest-------------------------------Mid Tones-----------------------------------------Brightest
EV	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
#Tones	16	32	64	128	256	512	1,024	2,048	4,096	8,192	16,384	32,768

This is why the darker parts of the image are more noisy than the brighter parts. The noise is always there, but because we have less data to record the darker areas of our image, the noise is much more visible. I’m sure you’ve noticed that even a nicely exposed image often has a bit of noise in the shadows. This is why.

When we are shooting hi-key scenes or lo-key scenes, we know the camera's metered normal exposure is going to be off and we can use exposure compensation or manually adjust our exposure to record the scene properly.   But what about the mid-tone scene that our camera can easily meter and record the full dynamic range of the scene? If we leave the exposure up to the camera, the camera will record the scene in the middle of the histogram, so you will essentially be recording your image with between  256 and 2,048 tonal values per stop as opposed to performing  ETTR and recording the scene between 4,096 and 32,768 tonal values per stop in the brightest end of the histogram.

When you capture more data the result is higher quality more date rich image files that will result in the highest quality images your camera is capable of recording and because we have more data noise will be less apparent adding to the quality of the image.

Topaz ReStyle, New Product Available Aug. 8th

Topaz ReStyle lets you explore new artistic and creative possibilities for your images and helps you achieve looks you might not have thought of otherwise. Transform your images with just one click using over a thousand easily searchable styles and looks.ReStyle offers inspiration through exploring the unending possibilities included in this product, and as a result, you can quickly achieve your vision or even extend and enhance the original vision for your image.

Here are some of the unique features introduced in Topaz ReStyle:

1. Breakthrough Mapping Technology. ReStyle introduces a cutting-edge process of mapping color and tone statistics from a selected style to a target image. This newtechnology creates high-quality transformations, even for dramatic styles and looks.
2. New Style/Preset Creation Method. ReStyle creates presets using a source image’s color and tones, allowing you to save your own unique styles to use later.
3. Blending Modes. With ReStyle, we have incorporated blending modes for the adjustment modules, essentially showing 8 different looks for each style preset.
4. HSL Technology in 5-Color Style Sliders. Easily enhance your selected style’s 5 dominant colors using the unique hue, saturation and luminance controls.
5. Advanced Masking Workflow. The masking module, attached to each adjustment tab, contains a comprehensive set of tools including an edge-aware brush, gradient mask, smart feather tool, color aware tool and more.
6. User Interface Design. With ReStyle, we have continued to develop a cleaner, more modern and efficient interface to improve usability, workflow and overall aesthetics.

Topaz ReStyle will release on August 8th and retail for $59.99, but will be on sale for $29.99 through August 31st with this discount code: restyleit. Click the "Get It Now" button at the top of this post and start downloading it now.

Better yet, if you are new to Topaz, this product will be included in their Complete Collection where you get all 14 Topaz products at a super discount, use my discount code, gclure, and save an additional 15% off the Complete Collection.

 

Pro-Tip #8: My First Rule of Creating Stunning Images (aka Composition)

Sunlight Ripples, Blue Lake -- © Greg Clure Photography

If you want stunning images you must go to stunning locations, if you are a landscape photographer. If you shoot portraits, a good location is great but you need good looking (stunning) people.  The same rule applies to any genre of photography, subject matter, matters!  Does the subject have impact? If the first thing someone says when they see your image for the first time is, "WOW, you took that?", you know you have captured something special.  That WOW factor or impact should be your number one objective to creating stunning images.  Many other compositional factors go into making stunning images but this one should always be at the top of your list. If I want to create stunning landscape images, I need to leave my backyard, not that I can't get some good stuff back there but it's no Yosemite Valley.  I do take images in my backyard, I call it practice. Just like any craft, sport or hobby, practice makes perfect and prepares you for the time you are in that stunning location or have a beautiful model to shoot.  I most likely will not be hanging any of my practice shots on my wall but I would rather experiment and hone my technique in my backyard so I know what to do without even thinking about it when the light is perfect in my stunning location.  The last thing you want to be doing is honing your technique when a spectacular event appears before you and quickly fades while you are still trying to figure out what the best settings are to capture the scene you just missed. Case in point, my "Sunlight Ripples" image featured in my Images of the Month gallery was a phenomena that lasted less than 30 seconds with the light peaking for less than 10 seconds. Had I been honing my technique I would have missed it, but what wasn't missing was the stunning location.  Blue Lake in the Eastern Sierras with dramatic storm clouds building, I was set-up in a beautiful location when the sunlight ripples appeared making this already stunning location even more unique with an event not likely to be repeated or captured by the next would be photographer who wonders by this location. Some might say you were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and I would agree had I not been set-up and taking shots and working the location to find compositions I liked for the two hours prior to this event. With weather, luck will always be a factor, but luck will always favor the prepared. Keep this rule top of mind when you go looking for your stunning location.