Podcast: Embed
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Question of the Week:
- Alan asks “I'm thinking of branching out from printing merely on paper to printing on canvas and metal. Canvas seems pretty straight-forward, but how can one tell if a photo will look good on metal, short of ordering it? Not sure I want to invest the money if there's a chance it'll end up on a scrap heap”
- Michael Humber asked “I recall this being discussed before but did a search and nothing popped up. Does anyone know of a free software to recover deleted files from a compact flash card? I have a Sandisk card.”
- Jeff: Keep the boxes your memory cards come in, or at least find the code inside the pro level ones that gets you free access to a recovery tool. SanDisk has the code on a sticker stuck to the inside of the back of the box. Lexar has a little pamphlet insert with the code on it. If you can’t find one, and you need the software, might be cheaper to buy a new card just to get the code to the recovery software.
Main Topic:
- Only one, somewhat significant new feature – panorama merge boundary warp. Analyzes the image and auto warps the edges so that you don’t crop away a huge portion of the pano. Jeff tested it using a bunch of shots he took while snowshoeing last week and it works much better on multi-row panos, not so great on a traditional pano. Especially tends to make the horizon uneven.
- Supposed to do a much better job of “preemptively building” 1:1 previews, which means you shouldn’t have to do that on import anymore – the 1:1 preview will be done as you are zooming into photos and culling them. But I tested this by importing a set of photos and waiting for the 1:1 previews to be built in 2015.3, then going through them one at a time in the develop module as fast as I could but waiting for the “loading..” message to go away. Then I upgraded to 2015.4, deleted my Lightroom cache (to get rid of the 1:1 previews that were generated), and imported the same set of photos from a different directory. I didn’t get through the images scrolling through them in the Develop module any faster.
- Thumbnail updates do seem significantly faster. After you sync or paste settings to a lot of photos the thumbnail updating the view of the photo with the new settings applied was visibly faster. Didn’t time it, but it was a lot snappier.
Drones
- DJI Phantom 3
- Destination weddings.
- a cave wedding.. how in the world do you light that
Doodads of the Week!
- Jim: Atmosphere Aerosol
- Nick: Vallerret photography gloves
- Jeff (1/28): SteelSeries QcK Gaming Mouse Pad ($10)
- Jim 2: Glorious Extended White Gaming Mouse Mat
I appreciate the info on the best mice for photo editing, but just wondering if I am the only one who is using a trackball. No need for a mousepad, and once your thumb gets used to scrolling, everything is SO much easier. The magic mouse was driving me nuts, so I had to find another solution a couple of years ago. I also have a wacom tablet, but it’s going to take me a while to get used to it. In the mean time, it’s all about the trackball. Am I alone with this? I’m using the Logitech 570.
I’m a big fan of Recuva for free data recovery tool: http://www.piriform.com/recuva
I’ve had GREAT luck with it on all sorts of media and recommend it to my friends.
Hi Jeff,
I suffered wrist pain from using a horizontal mouse. I tried a number of potential solutions including a large track bad (Kensington Expert Mouse), a mouse with a trackball (Logitech marble mouse), a Contour mouse, among others. One mouse I am able to use pain free for extended periods of time is the Evoluent mouse (www.evoluent.com). They take a day or so to get used to but once you are used to it they are quite effective in reducing wrist strain. They also hold up well – I’ve dropped mine countless times. They would probably benefit from a nice track pad. Hopefully you are able to get your hands on one to try.
Doug
Great episode (I’m just catching up)! I noticed an absence of discussion on acrylics (when discussing metal v. canvas). Was that just a fad? Would printing on acrylics work for those darker, moody shots? Thanks for the review of the updates! I had JUST processed a five-day epic trip to the Isle of Skye where I had taken a ton of panoramas… and then got the update for Lightroom. But, hearing your discussions on the weirdness with the warping, I may wait to re-do the panoramas. Thanks again!
Acrylics are a great printing option. We just didn’t talk about them because the listener had only asked about metal and canvas.
Your sUAV decision for real estate photography is interesting. The FAA currently requires a Section 333 exemption to legally fly a drone for commercial purposes. Do you have your exemption and if so how long did it take to obtain? Flying for business w/o the exemption can lead to big fines. The FAA’s biggest leads for those flying illegally is the competition. A podscast discussion of the FAA exemption requirements and process seems the responsible thing to do.
Hi Carl – I thought I would note that Jim has already done a full article on this. Search Improve Photography Drone in google and his article is the first one that pops us “A Lawyer’s Guide to Drone Photography”. It is a great guide that I have personally followed to register my drone and file for the exemption.
In the discussion of previews in Lightroom, Smart Previews were not mentioned.
The previews that Lightroom builds during import are not used for the offline workflow as was indicated in the podcast. Smart Previews are required for an offline workflow and for syncing to Lightroom Mobile.
There is an option to build Smart Previews on import or they can be built later if required.
I appreciate the discussions on real estate photography. I have a full time job as a construction manager, but do photography part time. Over the past few years I have developed a nice Commercial Architecture portfolio. Since I am not full time it has been a 5-6 year process, but I have regular assignments now. The thing most notable from the Architects I work with is the speed at which I turn around work and the ease of working with me. I am a good communicator and I am very easy to work with on licensing. It helps that I also work with these same Architects while building their projects. I believe there are still viable ways to make money in photography and I am thinking about branching into real estate based on your podcast, I just have to decide if I want to make that additional time commitment. My weakness is utilizing flash for architectural photography. I work with natural light, but I am finding sometimes a flash would give me a better result on some interiors. Could you talk about this on an upcoming episode?
Great post! Thanks you so much for the share. It is indeed a helpful one.