Moving from Flickr to SmugMug

Over the last couple of years, I've been storing my photos online @ Flickr. But I fear that time has come to move forward. Forward to another service for the next couple of years. The main reason for moving is that Flickr doesn't seem to innovate. No innovation basically means going backwards, in these days.

Flickr is a WYSIWYG environment. What you see is what you get, and not in the way this term is usually used on the Interwebs. There's no way of changing the coloring or appearance (white only). No way of integrating into another website (e.g. changing the URL).

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Geotagging Nikon P7000 RAW files (NRW)

PhotoLinkerI tend to geotag most of my photos. This way I have location information with the photo for future reference. It's also a neat feature that you might exploit when creating photo albums with e.g. iPhoto. The GPS coordinates in the images creates the option to create maps in iPhoto albums.

I use geotagging in two different ways. I use the jf Geocoding plugin in Lightroom and the PhotoLinker application. Both have their (dis)advantages. Something I won't go into in this post.

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Lens and Focal Length Statistics

Have you ever wondered which lens you used the most? Or what focal length is your favorite? The results of these queries can be used to decide what new lens to get; a (ultra)wide-angle, normal, or telephoto lens.
Well, there is an answer for both questions. The first (which lens) is relatively easy when you're using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Just select the metadata filter in the library view and examine the results.

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Adobe Lightroom Quirks

The reason for using Adobe Lightroom is mainly because of the tight integration with other Adobe products, and a little legacy from my Microsoft days. So I had no real reason to look at the competition (Apple Aperture).... Until now (I guess).

The biggest drawback is that you can't open multiple catalogs at the same time. Something like having multiple personal folders within Microsoft Outlook. You can open them, access the content and if you want you can detach it again to save resources.
So opening a catalog means that you can't access photo's in other catalogs.... Therefor I use one (large) catalog. Mainly because I can't be bothered with the whole exporting and importing scenario to move (or copy) images between catalogs.
By the way, I suggested such functionality to Adobe (along with some other improvements regarding the syncing of catalogs). Now let's hope that they will implement this in version 3.0

This feature is something Apple Aperture since version 1.0 (if I recall correctly), and I get the feeling that I'm near the how far I can push Adobe Lightroom.

For the last couple of days I get the strangest behaviour from Lightroom. Importing photo's normally means you can add tags, and select a way of storing them on the hard disk. Lately it seems that Lightroom is having a mind of its own. Photo's end up all over the place. Tags are getting lost.

These problems are most likely cause by two factors in my opinion;

1. A relatively large catalog which I browse a lot
2. A lot of processing power going to other applications while browsing/editing photo's

I can accept that Lightroom is getting slower with thousands of photo's, but it shouldn't get a mind of its own when my iMac is busy doing all sorts of things.

5 Years of Photography

I started out with a Nikon D100, and grew to a Nikon D300 in those 5 years. The Nikon D200 was in my possession only about 6 months or so. Man, the noise on that body was humongous.

The Lightroom library shows me that I started (semi-serious) with photography about 5 years ago. 2005 was a bit of a slow year though.

It seems that the number of photo's I make grows exponentially.

At this rate, my Drobo wil run out of space in about a month or so :)

Nik Sharpener Pro for Lightroom

Sharpener Pro is a piece of software to sharpen the photos just before printing/publishing. Different formats require different types or levels of sharpening. As you can imagine a 4x6 image requires different sharpening parameters than a life size poster.

Nik Software provides the tool for doing this relatively easy. Custom user pre-sets can be made. So you've got easy access to the settings you use most.

After making Nik Color Efex Pro and Siver Efex Pro Lightroom compatible, Nik Software released an Adobe Lightroom compatible version of Nik Sharpener Pro (which also works like the 'old' Photoshop plugin). Just as the other two pieces of software this one is also an update which can be downloaded from the Nik website.

After installing the software, a name and serial number are required. Just use the serial number of your original (v3.0) software to register the software.

Nik Software for Adobe Lightroom

A while ago, Nik Software released the Nik Color Efex Pro plugins for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (or so it seems :) ). Now they also release the awesome B&W filters Silver Efex Pro plugins for Adobe Lightroom v2.3.

No need to open the images in Photoshop for the Black and White conversion process. Just do it from within Lightroom.

Nik Silver Efex Pro 4 Lightroom

The new installers (either Silver Efex Pro or Color Efex Pro is nothing more but an small update of the original software with the added support for Lightroom. The update is free for registered users. New users pay $199,00.

Downside (apart from the price for new users) is that the custom templates created under the Photoshop CS version are not directly accessible under the Lightroom version.
Another point of attention is that a new copy is created every time you open the photo in the Lightroom plugin. This copy isn't removed when you press cancel in the Nik plugin. This behaviour was also present in the earlier Lightroom versions when you editted a photo in Photoshop. So I hope that this (bug) will be gone with a new release of the NIK software.

Here is the information supplied with the Color Efex Pro for Lightroom installer (the Silver Efex Pro text is basically the same):

Installation Help for Color Efex Pro^TM 3.0
For Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom®
© 2009 Nik Software, Inc.

Installation for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

1. Start the installer utility by double clicking on the Color Efex Pro 3.0 Installer file.
2. After you read the Welcome Screen and Read Me and accept the license agreement, the Color Efex Pro 3.0 installer will automatically install into the appropriate location.
3. Click the Continue button.
4. Enter your user name and password and then either select Begin 15 day demo and click on the Demo button or select Enter Product Key and Activate, then enter your name and product key and click on the Activate button.
5. Select whether to automatically register Color Efex Pro 3.0 as an external editor with Lightroom.*
6. Complete the installation.
7. The next time Lightroom is opened, your new software will appear under the Photo > Edit In menu.

Minimum Requirements
Operating System:
• Mac OS X v10.4 or later

Processor:
• Macintosh-PowerPC® G4, G5, Intel Core^TM Solo, Intel Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Xeon®

RAM:
• Minimum: 1 GB

Image Editing Application:
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

*The option to automatically register Color Efex Pro 3.0 as an external editor for Lightroom is only available if Lightroom is detected during installation. Color Efex Pro 3.0 can be manually added as an external editor to Lightroom with the instructions below.

Adding Color Efex Pro 3.0 to Lightroom as an External Editor

1. Open the Preferences in Lightroom.
2. Click the External Editing tab.
3. In the Additional External Editor section select a desired File Format, Color Space, Bit Depth, Resolution, and Compression.**
4. Click on Choose to select an application. Navigate to the location of Color Efex Pro 3.0.
5. Select the Color Efex Pro 3.0 file and click Choose.
6. Under the Preset drop-down menu select Save Current Settings as New Preset... and name the Preset.

**Color Efex Pro 3.0 only supports TIFF files (8-bit or 16-bit) with No compression or LZW compression.

Color Efex Pro 3.0 can then be accessed under the Photo menu as an external editor.

v Color Efex Pro 3.000LRmac

Lightroom 2.2 Released

Adobe just released Adobe Lightroom 2.2 with Panasonic Lumix LX3 support.
Finally, I'm able to import my Lumix LX3 photos directly into lightroom :)

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