Clearing the BS about Adobe's Creative Cloud

Now that the dust is starting to settle after Adobe's announcement that Photoshop will only be available by subscription only, I think that it's time to cleanup much of the BS that has been flying around when talking about the Adobe's strategy.

It's a money grab

  • Yes. Adobe's responsibilities are about its own investors and about maximizing its own profit. That's the law. No kidding, if they don't, they most likely will be sued for not fulfilling their fiduciary duties.
  • Photoshop is the single most pirated software. It's not Windows, it's not Microsoft Office ...

Stop Stealing Photos

After a long hiatus, the “What The Duck” from http://www.whattheduck.net/ came back. Here is one of his latest.

What The Duck: photographers stealing photos

What The Duck: photographers stealing photos

We all heard about people stealing photos (excuse me “borrowing”).

How Tough is Your Camera?

I'm not sure that I would really want to test how tough is my camera, but some other dudes, at Digital Rev, tested the Canon 7D. Think of it as the “Jackass” movie but for cameras. For me it is much funnier since nobody gets hurt.

Lightroom 5 Beta: How Do They Test It?

By now, you must have heard that Adobe has released the Lightroom 5 Beta.

Q: What does alpha means in the software world?
A: When the software is in the Alpha stage, people/companies are checking that all the “required features” are included in it. We are talking pages and pages, by the pound, of documents that describe every feature and how it is supposed to work. Are they all included or has some stuff been missed, changed or improved? If there are, how do we deal with it.

Lightroom Terms

Lightroom has all kind of wordings, especially in the Develop module. Some of it makes sense, but some of it…

  • Exposure: sets the image brightness.
  • Contrast: Separates the dark and the light tones from the middle tones.
  • Shadows: Adjusts dark image areas.
  • Highlights: Adjusts light image areas.
  • Whites: Adjusts the white clipping.
  • Blacks: Adjusts the black clipping.

Going Out of Business

Until the 1990s, Olan Mills was the largest portrait studios in the world. At their peak, they had $900 millions in sales per year, and it was all build on a free 8” by 10” print. Competition had to come and Sears, Walmart, and Toys R'Us created their in-store photo studios. Cheap but… It wasn't Sears or Wallmart, nor Toys R'Us that ran the in-store portrait studios but a company called CPI Corp based in St Louis, Missouri.

Canon 7D — Focus Solution

Running dog almost out of focus, Canon 7D

Running dog almost out of focus, Canon 7D

I had problems with the focus for this image. We have a black 1½ years old dog, running at “full speed” toward me. His name is “Flash”. Almost all the photos are out of focus. Here is a sample at 1:1.

Lightroom 4.4

Today, 3-Apr-2013, Adobe has released Lightroom 4.4 as a free update. It's available at:

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/ Search for Lightroom and your platform (Windows/Mac). Lightroom is listed twice.

The Canon Timers

The Canon 7D has 4 different timers:

  • 4 seconds
  • 6 seconds
  • 10 seconds
  • 16 seconds

The 4 seconds timer

  • The LCD panel and viewfinder information display their information after the half shutter button press.
  • The review time for the photos. Configured through the Shoot 1 (red) menu as a 2 seconds (the default), a 4 seconds or an 8 seconds.
  • Exposure compensation after pressing the shutter button
  • Metering timer.

Improving Photos

I took the photo of this lady while she was using her Canon Rebel to take photos of the Sandhill Cranes. As you can see these Sandhill Cranes are pretty tamed. I feed them by hand, they eat the seeds from my hand (only during the winter and the early spring).

I took the photo of this lady while she was using her Canon Rebel to take photos of the Sandhill Cranes. As you can see these Sandhill Cranes are pretty tamed. I feed them by hand, they eat the seeds from my hand.So what's the problem? Almost all photos have an horizon, whether it is physically present or implied. If the physical horizon is not there, the implied horizon for people are the eyes.The lower the horizon, the less important the subject below the horizon. The higher the horizon, the more important the subject below the horizon.The Greeks and the Romans, from the antiquity, knew it just as well when they built their statues, high above.So back to my photo. The level of the eyes is on the upper third. I used my secret weapon, I have a single carpentry kneecap protector on my right knee. I knelled on the gravel without hurting myself. That allowed to make a better photo that standing up at eye level.Both the lady and the Sandhill Cranes become more important. She is the main subject, she takes the most of the space and the red shirt helps attract the website, then we look at what she is taking photos of.

Lady Photographing Sandhill Cranes

So what's the problem? She is pointing her camera down on the Sandhill Cranes.

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