john_vance

Your style is a reflection of your own taste and natural instincts. If you just try to do what others have already done or are doing now, you are only trying to mimic someone else's style.

I am using the newest Lightroom 2

 

Is it possible to import new photos into existing collection and if so how?

 

I do not see any option in Lightroom for doing this, nor have I been able to find any information on it in my

Lightroom books, video tutorials or on the Adobe website.

 

It seems like this would be a pretty common sense feature to have built into a program like this, rather than have

to import new photos, drag and drop them from one folder (created while importing) into a specific collection

folder and then have to go back and delete the folder created while importing in order to not create duplicates of

photos in so many stray folders.

 

Thanks in advance for any info, tips etc., related to this.

Hi,

 

since the cards are only storing numbers (0s & 1s), which are later translated into an image, I would say no, there is no influence on image quality. The cards can only record what the camera sees and the quality of that depends on the skills of the person taking the shot and their camera.

Hi,

 

any lab worth their salt would have asked you up front what colorspace you are using and then told you which ones they support. I get my larger prints done at my local Costco and they always ask me that question up front, as well as if there are any other adjustments I might like them to do. Besides good service like that, I also really like the job they do on my prints.

My local Costco does a great job and they're very inexpensive. I'm not sure if other Costco stores elsewhere do it or not.

Black felt is also good, reflects even less light than velvet and you can't beat the price.

Why not try it both ways and then see what results you like best.

<I>"I want a program that is not overwhelming to learn. I want to be able to do minor tweaking and some adjustments." </I>

 

How about a program that is for photography instead of mostly graphic arts applications like Photoshop and Elements are. Adobe Lightroom is strictly for photography and very easy to use, since it is not packed with gimmicks like the other two are.

 

You can download a full working 30 day trial version of Lightromm 2 at the Adobe website, plus they also feature some very well done Lightroom tutorial videos on the site.

Curious; have you worked on and saved the JPEG image a few times?

 

JPEG is a compressed file format that discards information and every time a JPEG is re-saved is gets compressed again and discards even more information to the point that artifacts begin to show up in the picture.

A strategically mounted umbrella maybe?

I have a D-50 and a D-300 with the Capture NX2 too. I prefer using Adobe Lightroom 2 for photography over Capture NX2 and Photoshop. For me Lightroom is much more intuitive, less clunky and cumbersome than Capture NX2. I found Photoshop to be bloat-ware, since it's mostly packed with too many gimmicks that I have no need for at this time. Now if I were a graphics artist Photoshop would fit the bill well, but Lightroom is specifically for photography only and that's all I'm interested in. On the Adobe site you can download a full working 30 day trial of Lightroom 2 and they feature tutorial videos on the site as well.

 

If you haven't already; check out your big book store in your area for Magic Lantern books by Simon Stafford. There is a recent one specifically for the D-300 that makes the Nikon manual seem like it's written in another language and the loosely translated back to English.

http://www.amazon.com/Franz-Joseph-Haydn-The-Creation/dp/B000003CYA

 

maybe???

Hi,

 

do a Google for,

 

formalistic abstract art images

Here is another freebee that works very well.

 

http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

Stores like Hobby Lobby sell frames in sizes that fit the 3:2 range, while there is also custom size framing it can be pretty expensive. Using a matte that just fits the photo, with only bit of overlap and then a frame that fits the matte is what I do most often. Compared to the older standard Prior to 35mm film, the 3:2 range is like modern day wide screen TV. --- Mike

To me the first photo has a kind of murky cast to it as well as what looks like a bit of vignette on the corners. Was a polarizing filter used on the first photo? The sky and water are darker in color than they are in the second photo, but there is more sky above the trees and more water below the trees then there is in the second photo. The colors of the trees and water in the scene are kind of bland, but the reflection of the trees in the water is sharper.

 

The second photo looks a bit over exposed, but the colors still look more natural, especially the greens of the trees, which are a lot more variegated, highlighted and natural looking.

 

I would have liked to seen both photos taken the same way, from the same distance for comparison purposes.

Just a couple more cents.

 

If you are good with what you have and are better than those who have better, then buying newer, bigger, better just because someone else has it isn't always the answer or at least not something to rush into full steam. Some of the best photographs in existence were taken with cameras that very few would be seen in public using these days and the images still sell very well today. I tend to believe that the end product is what will impress people more, especially those who are paying for the photos and who care about what they are paying for.

Hi Tom,

 

You don't edit RAW files, they are only information files, not image files. What you are working with on screen is a virtual image constructed out of the information in a RAW file and that becomes an editable, (if needed) image file after you save\export your work to whatever file format you choose.

 

I too have Photoshop CS3 for doing all of the effects and other gimmicks with plug-ins etc., but I also have Adobe Lightroom 2, which I prefer to use with RAW files, when I don't feel like I need to do too much of anything else to something I am nearly satisfied with.

 

I recently downloaded and am in the process of 30 day testing out a program called SilkyPix, which so far seems to give me much better results than either Photoshop or Lightroom when working with RAW files.

 

I'm a member of a local camera club, (status novice) and I get to learn a lot from folks who have a great deal of experience, but for learning on my own time I found Lynda.com who offers a lot of training videos for all levels of photography and the few I have purchased so far have been very helpful.

 

Google - Lynda.com

"I shoot JPEG exclusively. If you shoot a proper photograph in the first place, all of that 'editing' (fixing) wouldn't need to be done."

 

On the surface that is a very logical sounding and often repeated statement, just like "Why do I need to lean algebra? I'll never need this."

 

The fact is: JPEG is a compressed file format and just like MP3 audio files; the output is lossy, meaning that information from the original source, (in this case what the what the camera's photo cell captured) is discarded and of course anyone who doesn't understand it won't miss what you never got to see.

 

Working with RAW files is not editing and fixing, it's simply doing the same thing the camera can do on it's own in a generic default manner. Shooting in and working with RAW allows one to choose for themselves and produce an image closer to what the photographer saw in the first place and attempted to capture rather than just settle for the camera's one default output.

 

What may cause some to come to the conclusion that shooting in JPEG exclusively is the way to go is that so many folks assume that converting RAW files to JPEG is the next logical step, so why bother with RAW in the first place. I agree; why work with RAW only to compress it down to a lossy, lower quality JPEG image file.

 

Converting RAW to a non compressed TIFF file format is the way to go for those who want to preserve all of the effort they invested working with the RAW file.

 

When it comes right down to it; it's a personal choice to do less work and save storage space or do more work and save quality with less storage space.

Hi,

 

maybe it's just be me, but I can not really tell what you mean going by the small size of the photos posted on a flickr site and I don't mean the thumbnails either, the photos are just too small.

 

You said; "I do know, however, that this has to do with how I focus (I'm practicing on that)"

 

Does your viewfinder (eye piece) custom focus to match your own vision? That helps each individual see with their own vision what they are trying to focus the camera on better? A friend of mine who doesn't even wear glasses kept getting all softer looking, not so sharp photos and once they focused the view finder their camera focusing problem was solved and her photos were much sharper.

 

Wish I had more than that to offer.

Hello,

 

I agree with Charles Webster and I'll add a tip that helped me learn to operate my Nikon D-50 and my newer Nikon D-300. Go to your local big book store and find yourself a -- Magic Lantern Guide, by Simon Stafford for your D-40

 

These Magic Lantern guide books make the Nikon camera manuals look like encrypted spy code in comparison.

Hello,

 

are you sure it's supposed to be a funny\humorous story? The example they gave you doesn't seem humorous, but more on a level of clever maybe. The assignment seems simple enough and I suspect your teacher is more interested in seeing how well you follow the directions rather than how clever or funny your end product is. Try to relax and don't take it too seriously like it's some sort of a competition to see who comes up with the funniest, most clever results.

 

I wish I could just type out some ideas for you, but it's your school project and it's up to you to come up with the idea. If I suggest what you should do then that's just cheating you out of figuring it out and learning how to do what your teacher is expecting you to do.

 

I'm sure you can come up with something and it will likely be better than you thought you could do, so just take it easy and think about it, but not too seriously. Good luck with it.

Hi,

 

here is the link to a good article on this subject in the "Learning" section of this site.

 

http://www.photo.net/learn/raw/

Note: symmetry can also look beautiful in a photo, depending on what the subject matter is and in this situation the rule of thirds is pretty much meaningless.

I though of something that might be important to Glen DeKlein (the original poster) and anyone else who might care.

 

You may not want to convert RAW files to JPGs if you plan to do any further work on them. JPG is a compressed format, which in order to compress has to remove some of the image information in a subtle way. So right away you are lessening the quality of your image and every time you resave a JPG after working on it you are compressing it once more and further lessening the quality.

 

I would suggest you convert your RAW files to a non-compressed TIFF format, which can be worked on and resaved with no loss, plus it can also be printed, which means you don't have to use the JPG format at all, unless you plan on emailing a lesser quality facsimile or preview of the image to someone else, then the smaller compressed file format size of JPG comes in handy.