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PhotographyBB Online Magazine – 21st Edition

October 23rd, 2009 No comments

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 21

Oct 23rd, 2009 – VANCOUVER, CANADA – PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the 21st edition of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. The PhotographyBB Online Magazine is a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshopâ„¢, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroomâ„¢.

The October 2009 edition oppropriately features Halloween themed tutorials such as “How to Photograph Ghosts” and “Digital Pumpkin Carving in Photoshop.” Additionally this issue explores a sneak peak at the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta release, and some of the exciting new features that Adobe has to offer.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“I’m really proud of the work that our team has done with this issue. In addition to our regular photography and tutorial columns, this month we have a special feature – a sneak peak at the new features in the Lightroom 3 (Beta) release. Readers can check out these new features, then download their own beta copy from Adobe Labs and try it out for themselves. Additionally, since this month typically lends itself to gorgeous outdoor fall photography, we are also looking at outdoor portrait shooting techniques. For Halloween, we’ve even got some themed tutorials to really get out readers into the Halloween spirit. Couple that with the FAQ series where we answer questions from our readers, and the continuation in our popular HDR series, and I feel we have a special issue this month.

In our Photography Around the World feature, we’re whisked off the Ireland for a spectacular photographic view of the countryside, mountains, churches, and forts.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004).
For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/photographybb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photographybb

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Now Available

October 22nd, 2009 No comments

lr3

New Lightroom beta delivers faster performance, refined image processing and streamlined publishing

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 22, 2009 —Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 3 beta software for Macintosh and Windows®, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom is the essential digital photography workflow solution, helping serious amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, enhance and showcase all their images from one application. Available as a free download on Adobe Labs, Lightroom 3 beta delivers a preview of new tools that will be in Lightroom 3, including more intuitive importing, unparalleled noise reduction and sharpening tools, enhanced slideshow capabilities and direct publishing to online photo sharing sites like Flickr®. Adobe encourages photographers to test this early selection of new features and provide the product team with their feedback.

“We are extremely fortunate that a strong community of photographers have rallied around Lightroom, helping to evolve the application and making it a meaningful part of their photographic workflows,” said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for Professional Digital Imaging at Adobe. “While we’re still hard at work on Lightroom 3, we recognize the value our customers bring to the development process and want their input so we can deliver the best final product possible.”

New in Lightroom 3 Beta
Lightroom 3 beta has been completely redesigned with under-the-hood efficiencies to better handle growing image libraries and improve responsiveness with a higher-quality processing engine. In the Library module, a rebuilt import system makes bringing photos into the software more intuitive. Users can easily specify the source and destination of their images, and save common processing, metadata or destination settings as easy-to-reuse presets.

The Library module also includes new capabilities to publish collections on popular photo-sharing sites. Flickr users now have direct access to their accounts from within Lightroom and can drag and drop images directly into their Photostreams. Flickr Pro account users can automatically synch their images and even view comments made on Flickr directly within the Library. This functionality can be extended to additional sites by adding them as new plug-ins once they become available.

In the Develop module, an overhauled processing engine allows users to create the highest quality images. Improved Capture Sharpening and Color Noise Reduction tools provide superior results while still preserving an image’s edge detail and contrast. A new Grain tool adds a film-style grain to images, and two new Vignette modes help photographers get a more natural look.

Lightroom 3 beta also offers advanced output options, including the ability to export slideshows as videos with audio and title screens that can be posted to video-sharing sites or optimized for mobile media. New watermarking capabilities enable photographers to embed text or graphic information directly on an image and then adjust the size, position and opacity. In addition, photographers can customize print layouts and save settings for future use, giving them refined control over their images.

Adobe Photoshop Family
Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended software are at the heart of the Photoshop family, joined by solutions for users at every level who want to bring out the best in their digital images. Photoshop Lightroom addresses the workflow needs of serious amateur and professional photographers, helping them manage, find, enhance and showcase images in impactful ways. Adobe Photoshop Elements software provides exciting tools and sharing options for photo enthusiasts. Lastly, snap shooters can access Photoshop.com for free to simply fix and enhance photos, and quickly share those images on Photoshop.com or on social-networking sites.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta is available as a free download to anyone on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Visit to learn more and download the beta. Feedback can be submitted on the Lightroom forums: http://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom. Users also can connect with Adobe at www.facebook.com/lightroom or www.twitter.com/AdobeLR, and can add the tag #AdobeLR3beta to tweets about the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Categories: Lightroom, News

Lightroom 2 vs Bridge CS4 / CS3

May 15th, 2009 4 comments

lr_vs_psIs there really any difference between Lightroom 2 and Bridge CS4?
Being a user of both Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 with Adobe Bridge, I often get asked what the differences are, if any, between the two programs and why one may be better than the other. If you are trying to make the decision between Lightroom 2 or Photoshop CS4, there are few differences between the actual capabilities of these suites, however, those differences may be a big factor in the decision on which software to go with.

Are You Editing RAW Files?
As far as RAW photo editing capabilities, both Bridge and Lightroom 2 offer the same controls in the “Develop” module when it comes to the various sliders for controlling exposure, hue, saturation, curves, etc… But the similarities for the most part, end here.

Lightroom 2 is really meant as a standalone application for the “busy” digital photographer. The organizational capabilities of Lightroom through the use of catalog databases and collections makes Lightroom much easier to work with and organize large volumes of photos QUICKLY. If you are the type of photographer who does not spend a whole lot of time post processing or doing digital artwork conversions, then Lightroom is the tool that will get the job done. Lightroom works best for photographers who shot several hundred (or even thousand) photos per shoot, and need to get the editing done quickly. As a standalone application, it is much more affordable than Photoshop CS4 and Bridge (which are bundled together), but of course, the editing and digital filtering capabilities that Photoshop offers are not present in Lightroom. You won’t be able to clone people out of an image with Lightroom or turn photos into painted works of art, but you will be able to do any adjustments to exposure, colour, saturation, contrast, sharpening, blemish removal, vignetting, and more (yes, you can still do these same things in Bridge, but at a much higher cost for the software).

Lightroom 2 also gives you the print, web, and slideshow modules making these tasks quite pain-free for the photographer who does not like to spend a whole lot of time on the post processing end of things. The slideshow module is excellent for giving presentations of your work to a prospective client, or even to show proofs to a client whom you’ve already shot for.

Photoshop Magic?
Photoshop on the other hand, has it’s place too. If you are the type of photographer or digital artist who needs full control and ability to make drastic and lengthy edits to an image, then there are few applications that can rival the editing capabilities of Photoshop. Photoshop does have a much steeper learning curve than Lightroom, and the ability to work on images with layers can be invaluable for certain types of editing and special effects work.

It’s a tough decision to make, but I would say that if you are a busy photographer who needs to quickly retouch and finalize large volumes of images, then Lightroom is a better choice. If you enjoy creating something in your images that was not there when the camera snapped the photo (and that includes things such as “smoother skin”), then Photoshop would be the way to go.

But hey, if you can affford it, then why debate the choice? Get the best of both worlds and you’ll sure to be happy!

PhotographyBB Magazine – Issue 12 is Here!

January 26th, 2009 1 comment

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 12

 

VANCOUVER, CANADA  - PhotographyBB announced today, the release of the twelfth edition of the PhotographyBB Magazine Online. The PhotographyBB  Magazine Online is quickly becoming a leading resource in the future of free information distribution, offering our readers: Digital Photography tips and techniques, DSLR camera function training, and image post processing tutorials in Adobe® Photoshop™, and RAW processing in Photoshop Lightroom™.

The January 2009 release features digital photography articles with tutorials to help digital photographers to learn new techniques for achieving both better photographs as well as leaning post processing skills in Adobe’s Photoshop® and Lightroom®.

Editor in Chief, Dave Seeram had these comments regarding this recent release:

“This release marks our twelfth issue for our magazine. We’ve come a long way over the past year, and the magazine has grown considerably in popularity and readership. We are happy to say that we will be continuing our tradition of free monthly releases of the magazine for the coming year, with some pleasant surprises in store for our readers. Our January release features articles lending tips on taking better architecture photography, small set photography, a trip to Las Vegas, the Top Ten Lightroom Library Module tips, and much more. We’ve also got a fascinating look at how photographers are making use of social networking sites to promote themselves and their photography businesses.”

By way of download in either PDF or ZIP formats, PhotographyBB continues its trend through the future of free downloadable magazine distribution. In a completely ad-free format, each issue contains informative and educational tutorials for amateur and intermediate level photographers.

In addition to articles which aide photographers in getting the most from their DSLR cameras, the PhotographyBB Online Magazine also features useful and applicable tutorials on how to use post-processing tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom, to build on digital photography post-processing skills.

PhotographyBB Online Magazine is available for free download through the PhotographyBB Website at: http://www.photographyBB.com/magazine

PhotographyBB was founded in Oct, 2006, and is a division of PowerButton Central (2004). For more information, visit the PhotographyBB website at: http://www.photographybb.com or by email at: magazine@photographybb.com

Lightroom Preset Freebies!

December 30th, 2008 2 comments

Thanks to our good friend Jon (aka Bossman) who’s provided us with a link to a Lightroom Presets pack containing over 600 free Lightroom Presets. These presets can be easily loaded into Lightroom all at once and will provide some useful photo effects and time savers. Download the preset pack through this link here: Lightroom Presets

Categories: Lightroom, Photography

PhotographyBB Magazine: Issue 11

December 15th, 2008 No comments

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 10 Cover

HOT OFF THE PRESS – A COOL WINTER ISSUE!

The PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #11 for December is now available for download!

The holiday season is upon us and what better way to celebrate than to grab a cup of hot chocolate, kick back, and enjoy the December Issue of the PhotographyBB Online Magazine. This month, we head back to Moscow where Jon Ayres gives us a look at how the holidays are celebrated in Russia. We’ve also made some slight changes to the magazine to include more “how-to” style articles. Check out this month’s issue for:

  • Night photography techniques – Part II – Painting with Light and Holiday Lights
  • Best Shooting Gear for the Holidays
  • Better Portrait Posing Techniques
  • Mastering Photoshop Brushes
  • Pro Retouching Techniques
  • and more!

Head on over to the PhotographyBB Online Magazine page and download your copy today!

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 11 Release Date

December 12th, 2008 No comments

With the busy holiday season upon us, we are just about ready to release the highly anticipated 11th issue! Issue 11 for December 2008 will be available for download on Monday, Dec 15th. This month’s issue is perfect for the holidays, where you will find:

  • Better Portrait Posing and Lightroom 2
  • Skin Retouching Techniques with Photoshop
  • Night Photography for the Holidays
  • The Best Gear for Shooting During the Holidays
  • And More!

Be sure to come back Monday and download your copy, there’s some great stuff you won’t want to miss!

PhotographyBB Christmas Gift Guide – Day 3

November 26th, 2008 No comments

Welcome back! Today we are going to look at some of our favourite digital photography and Photoshop books. Whether you are a complete beginner, or a seasoned professional, there is something for everyone in our favourite’s collection. Let’s have a quick look at our top picks for 2008.



The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world’s top
shooters
By far this is one of the best photography books in existence. Both a coffee table photography book, as well as a guide on shooting better photos, Joe McNally takes you through several photoshoots explaining each image as he goes along. Stunning imagery, combined with excellent narrative makes this one a winner!


The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2
If you are just getting into digital SLR photography, then this is
the perfect book for you. Scott Kelby walks you through short, simple
steps for shooting in a variety of situations. Imagine having a seasoned
pro with you on a photoshoot, and rather than explaining the theory, he
just tells you what settings to use in the given situation. Great book!


The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers
Another winner by Scott Kelby! In this book, Scott takes you through
the Photoshop CS4 steps and techniques that are mainly applicable to
digital photographers. You’ll learn retouching and processing techniques
with ease. Excellent step by step examples with lots of images make this
one our top Photoshop pick! There are also similar titles from Scott for
previous versions of Photoshop (CS3, CS2…)


Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and
Retouching Faces and Bodies
If you are interested in
fashion photography and want to learn more about lighting techniques
along with processing techniques for retouching skin, eyes, glamour, and
model photography then this book is for you. Excellent photographic
examples with clear step by step instructions for achieving different
looks. This one should be the first book in your collection if you are a
portrait or model photographer (aspiring or otherwise).


The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
One of the best Lightroom 2
books available! Scott Kelby shows you step by step processing
techniques using Lightroom 2, using real world photographic examples.
Excellent explanations of library management, collections, metadata, and
of course beautiful photographic examples of processing images in the
new Lightroom 2.


The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG
Artists +DVD
Here’s a great handbook if you are just getting into the world of
HDR photography and processing techniques. Here you’ll learn not only
the basics, but also some advanced HDR processing techniques too. A must
for HDR enthusiasts!

That concludes today’s choices for Christmas gear. Come back tomorrow for some more interesting Christmas gift ideas for this holiday season.

Tutorial: Working in Adobe Camera Raw CS4

November 20th, 2008 No comments

ACR Tutorial

Here’s a fantastic tutorial brought to us from our friends over at PhotoshopSupport.com.

“Adobe Camera Raw is the gateway for opening Raw images into the main editing space of Photoshop, but Adobe Camera Raw is also a great space for optimising images quickly and easily. Many of the basic tasks such as straightening and cropping images, correcting exposure and adding a vignette can all be achieved faster and more easily than performing these same tasks in the main editing space of Photoshop. If you have not yet explored the ACR interface or are having trouble breaking old habits then the following tutorial is designed to make you think again.”

Click here for the full tutorial and helpful tips.

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 9 – It’s Here!

October 22nd, 2008 No comments

PhotographyBB Magazine Issue 9 Cover

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

The PhotographyBB Online Magazine Issue #9 for October is now available for download! This month we’ve got another fabulous issue packed with photography tips and processing techniques. This month, we take a deeper look into flash photography by examining the benefits of strobe photography and home studio lighting. We are also celebrating Halloween this issue, with some great photography tips from Jon Ayres on photographing cemeteries and ghosts! John Ogden also shows us a spooky Photoshop tutorial to get us in the Halloween spirit.

Head on over to the PhotographyBB Online Magazine page and download your copy today!