herma

<p>All the legal mumbo jumbo aside, from an emotional aspect I can understand the groom (& bride's) position. Their wedding has meaning to them and by you splattering them on your website cheapens their experience. I imagine it made them feel exposed and exploited. I don't know how many you used but maybe if you had just used a few shots?</p>

<p>Why don't you make CS6 your external editor? Edit>Preferences>External Editing. Make it CS6. Make the color profile in CS6 Prophoto. If you are done with your LR editing portion, now click Photo>Edit in>CS6. It pops your photo to CS6, do you magic, hit File>Save (NOT save as) and your photo will pop back into LR as a TIFF. You can even tweak it some more. Heck, you can send it back again into CS6, and another version will be made. Now its ready to be exported with the rest of your pictures in sRBG. I have 2 programs as an external editor, I can send it through both programs and tweak away!<br>

Please let me know if this works. </p>

<p>You do not by any chance have the quality lever in export turned down?</p>

<p>You are lacking something wide. Buy a used 10-22mm efs, for around $500. You can easily resell it next year when you buy your FF camera and with all the money you've made, you can buy a real wide angle 16-35 2.8. (One of my fav lenses). The 28-135mm is one of the worst lenses Canon has made, slower than molasses. That is why you can easily find them for sale. Reception pictures require fast lenses. Also, you don't need to buy a 70-200 version II for $2500, you can find a used one version I for $1100-1300. I would buy a FF 5DII for all the money I've saved you.</p>

<p>Share how you were able to book all those weddings.</p>

<p>Is there a result?</p>

 

<p>That was way to much too read. Here is my small list of tips:<br>

1) Shoot the entire day, from the bride and groom getting ready through the bride & groom driving off. That way you have captured their story.<br>

2) Shoot, shoot and shoot with two bodies and different lenses. Take mundane details, kids, grandma, flowers, funny things, table settings, ANYTHING.<br>

3) A good time for you to take a break is when people are shoving food in their mouths.<br>

4) If you have no time to figure out creative settings, turn it to auto.... that will still be better then missing the shot. Make sure you know how long the ceremony is. I once took my sweet time and before I knew it, the ceremony was over and I barely had time to get the kiss.<br>

5) Cat-herding: Make sure there is time to take pictures of the bride and groom. Ask for 20-30 minutes exclusively for these shots. The bride spend money on her dress, make sure you capture it. Usually directly after the ceremony if they do not see each other beforehand. You HAVE to be scheduled into their timeline for their formals. Start with the biggest group so their attention is still fresh. 20 minutes for these formals, best time is usually when the bride and groom are done with their session or before you take the B & G on their solo session. Be prepared to take them away from the reception site. Try to take pictures they have requested: B & G with great-grandma, special aunt, etc. Have a designated person keep track of this list. Don't waste too much time on shots with either the bride and her family <strong>or</strong> the groom with his family. This is tiring and these family members want to take pictures later with the couple, not just one of them. <br>

Ok, that's enough for now. Let me know how you did. I think this is an excellent way to get experience. Looks like they know what they are getting into so their expectations should be accordingly. Maybe you will blow them away! They do NOT need to know how many pictures did not turn out. Keep that to your self.</p>

<p>I am sorry you are going through a rough time right now, but I agree with your therapist. You might not want to cancel your entire season, but maybe just the early ones. Contact a few other photographer you think might do a good job and see if they want to take over your contracts. If he/she can, run it by your brides. Do this in a non-dramatic, matter-of-fact way. I agree with Dave, they do not need to know the finer details. A medical matter? Family affairs? Also, I would suggest you do your first big wedding with a lot of help. Maybe a good friend or cousin can help you out on the day of, making your load a bit lighter. On the weddings you do take on this year, maybe you can cover yourself with a longer edit time. If your turn-around was 8 weeks, ask for 12.</p>

<p>In addition, actually having to go back to work might be therapeutic. Keeping busy might keep your mind of "the loss of your future as you had envisioned". Depression does get better. Just to keep in mind, February is by far the most depressing month of the year. Spring is just around the corner. I wish I could help you out. Hang in there!</p>

<p>Allan, I have wondered about your question myself. I enjoy making a book in LR since I use it for 95% of my editing. So easy to match color balance of photos that are side by side on a page. Blurb does not do flat laying albums and that is too bad.</p>

<p>Hollie, why would you export straight into PS if your images have already been edited in LR? This makes no sense at all. 90% of your editing should be done in LR, in RAW, those that need pixel pushing go to PShop (in RAW) via these menu buttons in LR: Photo> Edit In> CS. Of course you need to designate CS as your external editing software. You would do that via: Edit> Preferences> External Editing. I currently have 2 different external editing programs installed. CS5 and "something else". I can shuttle any picture over to CS5> tweak> "save". No need to hit "save as". It will pop up next to your Lightroom version as a Tiff. If you are this advanced, make sure you change your color workspace in CS5 to the same workspace as Lightroom, which is ProPhotoRGB. Let me know if this helps.</p>

<p>My Zenfolio account has been great! I send my clients a link, either fb, message or email, they can look at it on their smart phone. They do not even need an app.</p>

<p>I have made books with Mpix Press edition, which is a version of ROES, and indeed it is a nightmare to work with. Recently I've used the Lightroom book module that uses Blurb: the best thing since sliced bread, the bees knees, why I EVER used anything else, I don't know. If you are already using Lightroom (and you should), making a book with Lightroom is so easy. Let me give you one simple example. Lightroom book module allows you to use your RAW images that you have edited, once you see two images side by side on a book page, you might want to make a color balance correction so that they look better together on a page. Before I would have to go back to my edited image, make the adjustment, re-export to the edited pictures, upload to the ROES images.... a major PITA. Now, if I want slight adjustment in one picture all I have to do is pop it back into the Develop module, tweak and go back to the book module.<br>

Blurb has 5 different papers. They do not have flush mounts books, but then I have never made one before. </p>

<p>Weddings in the bright sun are a challenge. Would you agree that in general, you would not have an "S" curve. Its frequently just oposite. Just sayin.</p>

<p>I used the Identity Plate for the custom text. (Any Style, any size, any location on image). The watermark can be placed as well. Many custom PNG logos can be uploaded.</p>

<p>The print module in LR is quite wonderful. You can make collages and a host of other things. Julianne Kost has a host of videos you can watch here:<br>

<a href="http://tv.adobe.com/show/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/">http://tv.adobe.com/show/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/</a></p>

<p>I have also enjoyed a downloaded template from Halinav.com. But you can also make your own.</p><div></div>

<p>I have not been on PN in a while so forgive me if this has been addressed (could not find it if it was). I have been using Lightroom since the birth of Christ. I can't remember when I upgraded to 4.4 but LR is running like a slug. Worse than I can<strong> ever</strong> recall. So far I have freed up over half my hard drive, defragmented my hd, optimized the current catalog. Increased the cache to 25 MB, rendered 1:1 previews (took for EVER), purged the cache. Toggled between the catalog settings>file handling>standard>1024>quality> medium and catalog settings>file handling>2048>preview>high. At the moment I am working in JPG for Pete sake! Lightroom becomes unresponsive at times, the crop tool takes forever to crop. My computer is the same machine I've worked on for the last 18 months: (HP h8-1110, 8 GB ram, <a href="mailto:i5-24@3.1">i5-24@3.1</a> GHz, 64 bit, Windows 7, I know, it could be better).<br>

I am so frustrated, I want to punch kittens. I am out of idea's. Am I missing something?</p>

<p>Thank you Nadine for all your advice here on photo.net. I feel so sad you are no longer able to talk to us. I will miss your calm voice on this forum.</p>

<p>Herma</p>

<p>Got the books back from Blurb. Used the Proline Pearl paper. Although it is not as sturdy as the Mpix stock paper, I am still very pleased. Mpix has more features such as frames and drop shadows and clipart, my feeling is that those decorative features might become a bit dated over the years, especially for a wedding book. But what ultimately sold me was the ability to make the book in Lightroom and as I placed photos on the pages, I was able to quickly make additional edits by sending the image back over to the develop module, tweak, and back into the book module. Saved me sooo much time.</p>

<p>What is GSM?</p>

 

<p>Well, let me just answer my own question... I knew it was dumb. I just added more images from the library into that book collection.... and voila...<br>

Since I now have your rapt attention: Anybody have any input on which paper to use? Proline uncoated or proline pearl?</p>

 

<p>I just finished putting my first book together in Lightroom Book module. (It was pretty intuitive and I loved being able to fine tune the images as I was placing them in the book). I clicked "Create Saved Book" on the top right. This created a collection of the used images. However I need to replace some images with ones I have not used yet, but I can't figure out how to get the unused images to show them selves. There must be such a simple answer....</p>

<p>@ Richard: It's an inflammatory arthritis, bone to bone rubbing and super painful. Eight steroid shots later, the shots just stop giving relief. In surgery the bone is removed and a part of the forearm tendon is spliced and basically "bacon wrapped" in place and then somehow pinned down. I am sure not everybody with a heavy mouse gets this, its probably familial since both my parents had it. </p>

<p>I am very worried about dropping my equipment because of loss of strength... maybe I should look into a Canon G12... haha. (sad face again)</p>

<p>My right hand CMC joint. I looked back in my posts because I remember posting about it. It was all the way back in September 2010. I believe it started with a cordless mouse (wired mouse is way lighter) that was too small and progressed from there. The heavy lenses just kill my hands. I need surgery on it and should be out of commision for 3 months.. :(</p><div></div>

<p>I have a full-time (non-photography) job. Funny thing: this job leads to a lot of photography work. Sometimes think about what I would need to do if I ever needed to rely on photography alone... that would be a totally different game. The outdoor photography season is only 3-4 months. I live in a small college town (50.000+) and there is a lot of rain. I would need to invest in some kind of indoor studio, I would need to advertise to reach clients beyond my current reach.... I would take a lot of effort...</p>

 

<p>Wow, that is a complicated workflow.... Why not export a folder with temporary low rez cropped? Why on earth would you show them 2 versions? What they don't know, won't hurt them. You probably have not been a bride... but too many options creates nothing but stress.</p>

<p>I need my daily dose of Lightroom...</p>