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Tips & Tricks: A Survey of Iconic Family Lifestyle Photography

06 Oct

Family lifestyle photography is a unique and incredibly exciting subsection of the photographic field. This is a method that is widely practiced, though to be done right, one needs to properly understand its history, its limitations, its necessities, and how it can be executed to get the most incredible and poignant photos possible. First, defining lifestyle photography is imperative: here, Continue Reading

The post Tips & Tricks: A Survey of Iconic Family Lifestyle Photography appeared first on Photodoto.

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Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC

06 Oct

The post Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

PhotoWorks is an image editor with a fresh, clean interface and a set of tools that work intelligently to get the best from your photos. It helps you turn drab files into spectacular pictures within a few clicks – sometimes only one! The software’s Portrait Magic technology uses face recognition to add expert retouching edits to your photos. A host of other handy features make the PhotoWorks photo editor for PC an enticing proposition.

The histogram is a constant when you edit in PhotoWorks. It’s good to see a program that knows its value.

Who’s it for?

Automatic photo editing is the forte of PhotoWorks, but the software doesn’t do everything. It doesn’t offer the huge toolbox that many other programs do, with so much thrown in that you have to rummage endlessly to find what you want. It’s designed for ease of use and speed, which will appeal to beginners and casual photographers but might catch the eye of a few veterans, too.

The clean, minimalistic interface of PhotoWorks. All edits are memorized by the software, so they’re non-destructive.

In this review, I’ll look at everything PhotoWorks has to offer. I feel like I’ll enjoy it because this photo editing software for PC isn’t an unwieldy monster with innumerable needless features. PhotoWorks seems knowable from the first time you open it. You can jump in without facing a steep learning curve, though there are good tutorials available online if you need help. Let’s see what it can do.

Opening raw files

Raw files are always an obvious place to start when reviewing a photo editor for PC. Can PhotoWorks handle them? It’s not billed as a raw processor, but it does open most proprietary raw files in addition to Adobe’s standard DNG files.

When you open raw files in PhotoWorks, you have the option of applying one of six profiles to them: Default, Auto Enhancement, Landscape, Portrait, Sunny Day or Black & White. With the Default profile, all the settings in PhotoWorks are zeroed when you open the file, whereas the others are Presets with adjusted sliders.

photoworks-photo-editor-for-pc - raw conversion

You’re presented with six starting points when opening raw files. The default conversion opens automatically on the page.

PhotoWorks is really a pixel editor. It converts individual raw files quickly and the quality is okay – good, even – but problems like chromatic aberration (CA) and chroma noise are present if you examine images at 100%. Should you view images at 100%? Only if you’re creating big prints or trying to impress third parties with technical quality. And if you’re doing that, you may not belong to the target market for this software, though PhotoWorks has potentially wide appeal.

PhotoWorks does not currently fix chromatic aberration or purple fringing. If you’re the type of photographer who scrutinizes image quality and needs impeccable files, you could run them through a dedicated raw converter first.

By pairing PhotoWorks with a separate raw processor (e.g. RawTherapee, Darktable), “serious” photographers could have the basis of an efficient workflow. That’d be good for, say, wedding photographers, who would also benefit from the software’s intelligent retouching capabilities. We’ll look at those in more detail later, but for now, it suffices to say they’re good.

Saving the PhotoWorks way

Not long after firing up PhotoWorks, you’ll notice there’s no way to close images. This is unusual, to say the least, but it’s another form of streamlining. You can save edited files and move onto the next image. Your edits are stored, even if you move on without saving, and you have the option of resuming them or starting afresh when you go back to the file. This is true even if you close the program. Edits are non-destructive.

Both Save and Fast Export let you export a separate copy of the edited file in the format of your choice, the main difference being that you choose the format beforehand with Fast Export. You can select from JPEG, TIFF (8-bit compressed), PNG and BMP.

Enhancement

The Enhancement tab is where you make changes to color and tone in your image. It includes an Auto Correction feature that aims to transform your photos in a single click, but you can alter its effect if you want. For instance, let’s say you’re already happy with the tonal range but would like more color, you could switch off the dynamic range and add vibrance to Auto Correction. Plus, there’s a slider that adjusts the strength of the auto effect.

PhotoWorks includes a blue sky enhancement, which makes it easy to deepen the blue of the sky whilst also warming the photo up. Those two edits are normally at odds with each other.

Most of the color and tone sliders you’d expect to find in top-end software are in the Enhancement section of PhotoWorks under the Main tab. They give you as much manual control as you want. The workspace is so tidily laid out that it puts some established photo-editing brands to shame. The design is thoughtful and user-friendly, and it makes you want to linger. You even get to suggest features you’d like to see.

Two more tabs under Enhancement are Colors and Sharpness. The first lets you adjust hue, saturation, lightness (HSL) and color balance. The Sharpen tool is basically an unsharp mask, and there’s a blur section where you could create dreamy soft-focus effects or counteract over-sharpening. It’s all useful stuff, and the confusing terminology is notably left out.

photoworks-photo-editor-for-pc-sharpening-the-blur-tool

A slightly de-sharpened image focuses attention on form rather than detail. That’s where the PhotoWorks Blur tool is useful. It works well with busy compositions.

Tools

Move along to the Tools tab in PhotoWorks and a carefully selected set of powerful tools reveals itself to the right of the screen. There are not a hundred little tool icons as with complex programs. Some of the tools, like Curves or Tone Mapping, offer an alternative and perhaps more advanced way of working with your pictures. Seasoned photographers will be familiar with these features.

Crop

The PhotoWorks crop tool includes a modern set of aspect ratio presets that fit today’s devices or social media pages perfectly. Of course, you can also use the original aspect ratio, choose a different ratio or crop the photo freely. There’s nothing much missing here. You can rotate the picture, which helps get horizons level or to achieve the most effective composition.

AMS Software, the creator of PhotoWorks, also offers a choice of grid overlays to assist you with composition when cropping. For example, you can choose a Rule of Thirds or Golden Ratio grid to help you decide what to include and where. My only slight gripe here is that the grid lines are often a little hard to see: maybe a different color or opacity control would help.

The Golden Spiral crop grid in PhotoWorks.

Geometry (correcting perspective and distortion)

You can correct the perspective of architectural photos using the Geometry tools in PhotoWorks. Like in most photo editors for computers, there’s no auto adjustment, so you have to alter the vertical and/or horizontal perspective yourself using the sliders, but this is generally an easy task.

In this pic, you can clearly see the effects of lens distortion on the window frame. In the inset, I’ve corrected it using the distortion slider.

Correcting optical aberrations such as pincushion or barrel distortion is also possible in this section. Some programs will do this for you with the help of lens profiles, but you can do it easily yourself with the assistance of the included grid and distortion slider.

Change background

PhotoWorks makes it easy to change the background of your photo, so if you want to transplant a better sky or create a composite picture, you can. The process of separating the subject from its background is simple. You draw a green line with the object brush, a red line with the background brush, and then you let the software work its magic. Typically, you need to refine the edge a bit using the same brushes, which could become labor-intensive with intricate subjects. For many photos, the process works fine. There’s even a choice of free-to-use pictures you can add as backgrounds, or you can upload your own.

The Change Background feature in PhotoWorks separates subjects from their background with ridiculous ease. I’m not sure there’s enough finesse for complex selections (e.g. fur or fine strands of hair), but there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Vignetting

The vignetting tool lets you correct vignetting that occurs naturally with your lens. You can brighten edges and corners for even exposure. It also lets you add a vignette as a creative effect, focusing the viewer’s attention more on the subject of the picture. This photo editor for PC provides all the controls you need to fine-tune this edit.

3D LUT Color Correction

Color LUTs might just as accurately be called “special effects” since they remap the color of your photos to create a different look. PhotoWorks offers a nice built-in selection of them as well as letting you upload your own in the form of cube files. You can’t save your own LUTs within the software, hence you can’t preview them either, but I’m glad to see this feature in PhotoWorks.

This is the “Drama” color LUT. Interestingly, it compresses the tonal range. In doing so, maybe it makes the viewer feel more hemmed in and on edge.

Tone Mapping & Curves

PhotoWorks includes tone mapping and curves tools for controlling color and tone. Tone mapping lets you overlay a color or texture. You could apply a color to a black-and-white image here for a duotone effect. The curves tool adjusts contrast, changes color temperature, and tint and even corrects color if you use the individual RGB curves.

A black & white photo turned into a duotone (i.e. a mix of black and blue) using the Tone Mapping tool in PhotoWorks.

Noise Reduction and Grain

There are tools for reducing digital noise or adding film-like grain in PhotoWorks. This photo editing software for PC doesn’t separate color noise from luminance noise, which would be a nice feature for more advanced photographers. But it will smooth and improve the look of high ISO photos.

The film-grain effect is generally better looking than digital noise in photos. You can add that to give your photos an authentic retro look from the days of analog photography.

Retouch

Some of the headlining features of PhotoWorks fall under its Retouch section. The software harnesses the power of face recognition technology to automatically enhance portraits. You can use its Portrait Magic or Face Sculpt technology to retouch faces and show your subjects at their best.

Portrait Magic

A remarkable feature of PhotoWorks is its Portrait Magic feature, which lets you automatically or manually remove blemishes and enhance portraits. Its toolset includes the following:

Skin smoothing
Control over redness (improve blotchy skin)
Skin tone
Eyes (sharpness, contrast, remove dark circles)
Eyebrows (sharpness, contrast)
Lips (sharpness, contrast, hue, saturation, luminance & glare)
Teeth (whiteness)

It may be hard to see the difference here, but Portrait Magic is good at damping down glare on the skin (aka “face shine”). There are many quick fixes to choose from as well as full manual control. (Image: Pexels)

Even if you know how to fix these things already, this technology saves time. It’s easy to imagine it being useful to pro portrait and wedding photographers. The best results are achieved by addressing issues one-by-one, but there’s a set of quick-fix buttons available to speed things up. You have to be careful with it because the software isn’t infallible. For instance, a pair of glasses get in the way of removing dark circles accurately.

Portrait Magic is so good that you could buy this software for that alone. It’s a great photo editor app for pc or laptop.

Face Sculpt

Just when you thought you’d seen amazing things with Portrait Magic, along comes Face Sculpt. Move a slider and watch the software identify and alter a specific part of the face. You can do these things manually in Photoshop using warp tools and the like, but boy is it easy with PhotoWorks: a deft picture editor and retoucher in one.

I’ve done nothing to this photo except turn a hint of a smile into a stronger hint. Like Portrait Magic, Face Sculpt is a powerful tool that can totally transform a portrait. The technology behind it is remarkably precise. Subtle edits often work best. (Original image: Pixabay)

Maybe we should all just accept the way we look, but contrary to popular belief, the camera does lie. It’s easy to take an unflattering portrait because of technical reasons, whether it’s an unflattering camera angle, harsh lighting, poor timing or lens distortion. PhotoWorks lets you remedy such problems.

Face Sculpt enables you to reshape or resize eyes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, and the face itself. You can even turn a frown into a smile. Used subtly, it creates different versions of the truth rather than outright lies. And if it helps the subject feel good about themselves, that can’t be a bad thing.

Healing and Cloning Tools

Healing and Cloning tools in PhotoWorks are also first rate. The clone stamp auto-samples from a similar area and gives you the option of changing the sample location. It’s quick and efficient, and no intervention is usually necessary. The Healing Brush is even faster for fixing small blemishes (e.g. dust spots).

Adjustment Brush

There aren’t any layers in PhotoWorks, but you can carry out local edits with the adjustment brush. Users of Lightroom will be familiar with the concept. Color, tone, and sharpness can all be selectively adjusted anywhere on the image. You can also deal with chromatic aberration by brushing neatly over edges and turning Saturation down, though a dedicated tool would be better.

It’s out of fashion, I know, but here’s a quick demo of selective coloring with the Adjustment Brush on PhotoWorks. This Lightroom-style feature offers infinite possibilities without being as daunting to beginners as layers are.

Graduated Filter and Radial Filter

The Graduated Filter and Radial Filter offer alternative ways of making local adjustments to one or more parts of an image. Whether it’s tone, color or sharpness you’re adjusting, these retouching tools make it easy to emphasize your subject. You can also even up your exposures (e.g. the classic dark foreground and bright sky) and bring out shadow detail. Characteristically, these features are neatly designed and easy to use in PhotoWorks.

Two graduated filters are in play here – one to brighten and warm up the lower half of the photo and another to reduce exposure in the sky a little.

Special Effects

With over 150 special effects to choose from, PhotoWorks gives you plenty of ways to interpret each photo. In the Special Effects section of the software, you can add any effect you like and then adapt it to suit your tastes if you want. Hitting the “Apply” button takes you over to the Enhancements area of the software, where you can tweak color, tone, and sharpness.

Image: A quite pleasing special effect to my eye (Faded Photo -1) and one of over 150 special effect...

A quite pleasing special effect to my eye (Faded Photo -1) and one of over 150 special effects available in PhotoWorks.

I personally like adding textures to photos, so it was good to find a few textured effects among the collection. There is also a Quick Enhancements selection, which gives further opportunity for one-click fixing. You can favorite effects so they’re easy to find later on.

A Photographic Films section attempts to replicate the look of various classic films. It’s fun to play around with these effects, which you could find yourself using again and again in some cases.

Captions (add text and stickers)

Whatever you normally do with your photos, there might come a time when you want to add text to them. Maybe you’re making a Christmas card or designing a flyer. You could be creating memes for social media and entertaining your friends. PhotoWorks photo editor app for PC includes a versatile set of tools to help you create the text you want in the font, color, and style of your choice. A sticker collection lets you add cartoon-like captioning for extra fun.

Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC

Conclusion

Beneath the minimalistic surface, PhotoWorks offers a powerful set of tools that are easy to use regardless of your level. The way the software exploits face recognition technology is magical, indeed.

There are a few nuts-and-bolts things I would like to see in PhotoWorks, such as chromatic aberration removal, more nuanced noise reduction and an exposure warning to help with histogram adjustments (aka levels). The ability to export 16-bit TIFFs would be nice. At some point, though, if you keep adding stuff, the program ends up complex like many others and loses its streamlined appeal.

Design-wise, PhotoWorks positively gleams. It has a beautifully clean interface, uses simple terminology that everyone can understand, and gets a lot of work done with minimal effort. Whether you use it alone or alongside other photo editors for PC, it’s definitely worth a look.

You can download a free trial version and explore the features of the program yourself. Or use the exclusive coupon for dPS readers to purchase PhotoWorks at a 50% discount now!

Disclaimer: PhotoWorks is a paid dPS partner.

The post Review of PhotoWorks: a Fresh and Fast Photo Editor for PC appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW

05 Oct

The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video tutorial, Nemanja Sekulic will show you how to make some dramatic editing changes to your RAW photos using Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW.

During the process, you will learn the following in Lightroom (which you can also translate to Photoshop Camera RAW):

How to use the Basic Panel including the Exposure Slider, Highlight Slider, Shadow Slider, Color Temperature Slider,
The shortcut for viewing before/after (\)
How to use the Radial Filter tool – how to make multiple radial filter selections, reposition, and make adjustments to the selection.
How to use the Adjustment Brush Tool – including changing your brush size, flow, and feather amounts.
How to use it to make selective adjustments in your image, including color, temperature, exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity, etc. to fine-tune your image.
How to use selective color with your Adjustment Brush.
How to make new Adjustment Brushes to fine-tune the details in the eyes.
How to use Hue and Saturation Panels as well as the Split Toning Panel.
How to add a vignette.
How to go back and readjust any of your Radial Filter, and Adjustment Brush settings.

You can apply these techniques across any image you choose, or you can download Nemanja’s image file here.

You may also find the following helpful:

Photoshop vs Lightroom – the Power of Photoshop
Four Lightroom Tips to Enhance Your Landscape Photos
Lightroom Texture Slider vs. Skin Smoothing
Lightroom Shortcuts Every Photographer Needs to Know
10 Tips to Make Lightroom Classic CC Run Faster

The post How to Make Your Photos Awesome in Lightroom or Photoshop Camera RAW appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles

05 Oct

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

This week’s photography challenge topic is TRIANGLES!

Chris Lawton

Following along on our shapes theme for the past fortnight, this week is Triangles. You can see triangles in flags, sails, architecture, windows, rooftops, in patterns and shadows, etc.

So go out and capture anything that has triangles. They can be color, black and white, moody or bright. Just so long as they have triangles in them! You get the picture! Have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Bambi Corro

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freddie marriage

Check out some of the articles below that give you tips on this week’s challenge.

Tips for Shooting TRIANGLES

Embracing Shadows in Photography – A Lesson for Light and Life

How to Tell Stories with Architecture Photography

9 Creative Architecture Photography Techniques for Amazing Photos!

Tips for Different Approaches to Architecture Photography

How to Understand Light and Color to Improve your Photography

Top Tips for Photographing the Best a City has to Offer in 48-hours

Weekly Photography Challenge – TRIANGLES

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites – tag them as #DPStriangles to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Triangles appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

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Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

04 Oct

The post Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

Following the release news of the Canon EF 11-24mm F/4L USM Lens, came countless sleepless nights of research and reading reviews. At the end of that process, all I could safely decipher was that it was the new dream lens of the landscape photographer in me.

Canon 11-24 mm F/4L Lens Review

The build

The moment you pick up this lens, the weight surprises you. It’s quite hefty and you notice every ounce of the approximate (just over) two-and-a-half pounds. The entire build of the lens screams quality too. Like other Canon lenses, the manual focus and zoom rings move smoothly and feel natural. Not a lens you want to be cumbersome with, so this was an important feature for me when working with such weight. You can make easy focal adjustments, as the zoom moves through the entire focal range with a small turn. When behind the lens, the AF/MF is also easily accessible.

Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

The bulbous front element blooms with authority and still makes me nervous enough to cover it almost immediately when not in use. I am not reassured by the presence of the fixed hood that is meant to protect the imposing glass. However, I am glad it is there. The signature red ring around the front always sets expectations of promised image quality and Canon has delivered.

Image: Size comparatives from left to right: Canon 85mm F/1.2 L, Canon 11-24mm F4 L, Canon 135mm F2...

Size comparatives from left to right: Canon 85mm F/1.2 L, Canon 11-24mm F4 L, Canon 135mm F2 L

What works

The Canon EF 11-24mm is benchmarked as the widest ultra-wide rectilinear lens compatible with full-frame DSLRs, since the Sigma 12-24mm F/4.5-5.6 lens. Thus barrel distortion is minimal throughout the range, and straight lines in your subject are not compromised (and appear straight). The most distortion you would find occurs at around 11mm and 12mm and compared to any other lens at this focal range, it is minimal. Of note, distortion seems non-existent between 15-24mm.

Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

By comparison, yes the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye is wider, but as is the signature of fisheye lenses, it outputs barrel-distorted images and your straight lines curve. The exception is if your line is directly center of your frame.

The lens is quiet and focuses quickly. Most impressively though, it is super sharp, even at the corners! Added to sharp images; the contrast is nice and balanced. If you have used other ultra-wides, you will admire the difference in the output. The image quality is simply amazing!

Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

The angle of view on a full-frame, coupled with the minimal distortion, makes it great for indoor architectural spaces. The need for a lens like this to be F/2.8 eludes me, as F/4 feels more than adequate.

What could be better

If you are looking at this beauty, the two major drawbacks may reside in price and weight. It is an expensive lens and certainly not in everyone’s price range. However, it’s a great investment if you do professional architectural and landscape photography. In these areas, the minimal distortion works in your favor. There is no other lens that performs like this lens at the wider end.

Canon 11-24 mm F/4L Lens Review

It is a large, heavy lens that will make you think twice before packing it for travel – you know you want it with you, oh but that weight! Even worse, it is front heavy, so you will want to be extra cautious when out in the field.

The front cap feels inadequate, as it struggles to cover the hood. There are also spaces where it clasps (when aligned) that leave room for dust to get into the front. After all the time they spent on this lens, the front cap feels like an afterthought.

Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review

There is also a noticeable amount of vignetting at 11mm and also some color fringing. Both are easy to fix in post-processing, without loss of your image quality. For an ultra-wide lens though, the falloff (or darkened corners) is negligible.

Conclusion

The Canon EF 11-24mm F/4L is a truly magnificent lens for a landscape or architectural photographer. It is well-built, heavy, sharp, quiet and expensive. One thing for certain though, it is the only one of its kind and a signature Canon lens.

Have you used this lens? What are your thoughts? Share with us in the comments.

The post Canon 11-24mm F/4L Lens Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Nisha Ramroop.

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How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

04 Oct

The post How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

The job of a camera lens is straightforward: it bends and focuses light, and it does so through the use of several curved pieces of glass that move back and forth. It sounds simple but is actually a lot more difficult than it might seem. Byproducts of all that glass are anomalies such as chromatic aberration and barrel distortion which can mar an otherwise beautiful image. Lightroom can fix these on its own to a degree, but to really take control of your pictures you can use the Manual Lens Correction panel to fine-tune your image until it’s pixel-perfect.

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

Understanding Chromatic Aberration

Before wading too deep into manual lens corrections, it’s important to understand what causes issues such as chromatic aberration in the first place. Different colors of light travel at different wavelengths. As a result, when the glass elements of a lens bend the incoming light, it can be quite tricky to make everything line up properly on the camera’s image sensor. This is especially prominent when shooting at the widest possible aperture since it gets really difficult to get the light to behave properly when you let so much in at once.

The result is purple and green fringes when you see hard edges in a picture. It can also produce distorted images that look either squished or puffed out in the middle. Cheaper lenses, or lenses with very wide apertures, don’t have as many glass elements to correct for these issues. It’s also why lenses like the Nikon 105 f/1.4 or Canon 85mm f/1.4 cost (and weigh) so much! They have a lot of special glass inside to correct for the problems that often happens with their less expensive counterparts.

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

If you don’t have a few thousand dollars to spend on ultra-sharp lenses, you can fix these image issues in Lightroom.

When you shoot in RAW, you can use the Automatic option. This does a fine job of removing purple and green fringes and fixing barrel distortion based on what it knows about the characteristics of your lens.

Image: Click these boxes to have Lightroom automatically attempt to fix lens-related picture problem...

Click these boxes to have Lightroom automatically attempt to fix lens-related picture problems.

Nine times out of ten it does the job quite well. However, sometimes you will want to tweak things for yourself or just do the entire operation on your own. This is where the Manual option really comes in handy.

Manual Lens Correction

The Manual Lens Correction panel contains three options, each of which you can control separately.

Distortion lets you re-shape your picture so it’s less puffed-out in the middle.
Defringe deals with purple and green fringes at areas of high contrast, particularly with a lot of backlighting.
Vignetting is for lightening or darkening the corners of a picture.

The Manual Lens Correction option gives you full control over lens corrections.

Distortion

This is a common issue with many lenses that isn’t always very obvious. However, once you notice it, you’ll start seeing this phenomenon all the time. Fortunately, the fix is simple. It’s usually just a matter of dragging the Distortion slider to the left or right.

Image: Something’s not quite right here. The composition is fine but the middle is bulging out...

Something’s not quite right here. The composition is fine but the middle is bulging out like a balloon.

As you drag the slider, you will see a grid appear over the picture which can help you get just the right value. Look for straight horizontal or vertical lines in your picture, and drag the slider until they line up with the grid.

The roof of the building gives a nice guide when correcting for distortion. It’s not quite lined up with the grid yet, but pushing the distortion slider a bit more will fix the problem.

The Constrain Crop option makes sure the final image stays within a square or rectangular boundary. If you adjust the slider too far to the right, the image can get a little too warped. However, checking this option will fix this by essentially zooming in on the picture as it’s being adjusted to avoid an extreme pincushion effect.

Manual-Lens-Correction-in-Lightroom

Final image:

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

Defringe

This is where you can easily correct purple and green fringes that can show up on your pictures. You can adjust the sliders manually, but my preferred way is to use the eyedropper tool to select specific areas of purple and green fringing that you want to remove.

The picture below is straight out of the camera with no lens correction applied. Notice how the edges of the bench have what appears to be slight purple and green outlines. These are caused by the light being bent and shaped by the camera lens. Once you know to look for these sorts of issues, you start seeing them all over the place!

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

Here’s a close-up view of the same picture. Notice the purple curve at the base of the seat and the green edges at the knurled edge that goes horizontally across the frame.

Manual-Lens-Correction-in-Lightroom

To manually correct these instances of chromatic aberration, Lightroom needs to know what range of colors you want to remove. Use the eyedropper tool to select either a purple fringe, a green fringe, or both, and then fine-tune by adjusting the sliders for Amount and Hue.

Manual-Lens-Correction-in-Lightroom

After selecting your purple and greens with the eyedropper tool, Lightroom will do its best to remove those specific colors around any high-contrast edges. You can fine-tune the defringing by adjusting the Amount and Hue sliders, but I usually find that Lightroom does a fine job just with a few clicks of the eyedropper.

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

When viewing the full image, you can see these instances of chromatic aberration are now gone, and the picture is much more pleasing as a result.

How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom

This operation can be extremely useful with portraits, which are often shot using larger apertures. Even if you don’t shoot close-ups for a living it’s nice to know that this simple, fast fix is available to you.

Vignetting

This option works much like the regular Vignette tool in Lightroom. You can use it to make the corners of your picture lighter or darker, depending on whether you drag the slider to the right or left.

Nearly all lenses exhibit some degree of vignetting, especially when using their widest aperture, but you can easily correct them using this tool.

Original image, straight out of the camera.

Sliding the Amount all the way to the left darkens the corners of the picture. It’s subtle but effective at drawing the viewer’s attention to the subject in the middle.

Vignette amount -100

Conversely, sliding the Amount all the way to the right makes the corners lighter. This is often useful to correct for the vignette that is inherent in many lenses at wider apertures.

Vignette amount +100

Conclusion

While you can use Lightroom’s automatic lens corrections, it’s nice to know how to correct for things like chromatic aberration, distortion, and vignetting on your own using manual lens correction. The best part is that none of these edits are permanent and you can undo your changes any time due to the non-destructive nature of Lightroom. So if you just want to try these out and see what happens, go right ahead!

The post How to Make a Manual Lens Correction in Lightroom appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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How to Take Epic Sunrise Photos with a Zoom Lens

04 Oct

The post How to Take Epic Sunrise Photos with a Zoom Lens appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

Taking a beautiful sunrise picture might seem simple: just point your camera or mobile at the sun as it creeps over the horizon and you’re good to go. While this can certainly result in an interesting image, you can take sunrise pictures to a whole new level with a zoom lens and a bit of camera knowledge. If you have a lens with a longer focal length that goes to 200 or 300mm, you can get some epic sunrise pictures with a zoom that showcase the majesty of nature in the morning.

200mm, f/11, 1/500 second, ISO 100

Seek the sun

Before you can take a good sunrise picture, you need to do a bit of planning, so you know when the sun is going to come up. It also helps to know where to look so you’re ready when the moment hits. A quick internet search with your location and the words “sunrise time” will help you know what time to take pictures. As far as where to look, that’s up to you.

Of course, the sun always rises in the east, but it’s necessary to know exactly where it will come up relative to your specific location and time of year. To get the best results, you want to snap your pictures right as the sun appears on the horizon. If buildings obstruct your view, you’re going to need to find a location that offers an unobstructed view in the right direction.

To show how precise this process is, look at the picture below. I shot it as the sun was coming up, but the result is boring, bland, and entirely unremarkable.

200mm, f/6.7, 1/500 second, ISO 800

This was shot precisely one minute and 48 seconds before the picture at the top of this article. Why is it so boring? The answer is a simple truth of the business world: location, location, location. While I looked east for the sun, I didn’t realize it had already crested the horizon behind a grove of trees. I was able to take a vastly improved picture just by repositioning myself 100 meters from this point.

When you go out to take sunrise photos, make sure you can actually find the sun!

Expose for the sun

Nailing the exposure on a sunrise picture is quite tricky. Imagine taking a picture of a flashlight in a dimly-lit room. You’ll end up with one of two results:

The room will be properly exposed while the flashlight is super bright.
The flashlight will be properly exposed while the rest of the room will be entirely dark.

It’s nearly impossible to get a properly-exposed flashlight and a properly-exposed room.

Image: 200mm, f/8, 1/30 second, ISO 280. Aside from being hidden behind the trees, this is also a po...

200mm, f/8, 1/30 second, ISO 280. Aside from being hidden behind the trees, this is also a poor shot because the sky and sun are just too bright. The foreground is fine, but all the color detail in the sky is mostly gone.

That is precisely what it’s like to take a picture of the sunrise, especially with a telephoto lens. What you want is a picture where the bright parts (i.e. the sun and sky) aren’t too bright, and the dark parts (i.e. the foreground) aren’t too dark. Basically you want an HDR image, but rather than shooting on a tripod and combining multiple exposures in post-production, you can do it with a single image by shooting in RAW.

Since RAW files capture much more picture data than JPEG files, you can fix many issues in Lightroom, Photoshop, Luminar, and other editing applications. The trick is to make sure you don’t lose any data to clipping, which happens when bright things are so bright that it doesn’t record data. The same can happen with dark areas too, but it’s usually not as much of a problem.

Image: 200mm, f/8, 1/1000 second, ISO 280. Exposing for the sun gave me a lot more wiggle room to fi...

200mm, f/8, 1/1000 second, ISO 280. Exposing for the sun gave me a lot more wiggle room to fix the darker areas of the picture in Lightroom.

There are a couple of ways to expose for the sun so it’s not too bright. You can set your camera to Center-Weighted metering, which ensures the middle of your picture is not too bright or too dark. Another method (and the one which I prefer), is to have your camera evaluate the entire scene but use exposure compensation to under-expose by roughly two stops.

Regardless of how you meter the scene and set your exposure, the end result is the same. In your resulting image, you want the sun to be visible and not too bright. This means the foreground will be dark, but remember that you can recover everything you need when you process the RAW file.

Use a small aperture

If you have a high-end zoom lens like a 70-200 f/2.8 or a 300mm f/4, you might be tempted to shoot sunrise pictures with the largest possible aperture. Blurry foregrounds and backgrounds are great, right? So why wouldn’t you shoot wide open?

Contrary to what you might think, smaller apertures are better when taking sunrise photos. First, it helps make sure your entire picture is sharp. Bokeh is great on portraits but not so desirable on most landscapes. A blurry foreground (thanks to a wide aperture) can distract the viewer and leave the scene feeling kind of mushy as a result.

200mm, f/11, 1/250 second, ISO 100

Another reason to use smaller apertures, like f/8 or f/11, is that it gives you more control over your exposure. Remember, the sun is really bright, so you don’t need to worry about not getting enough light in your picture! On the contrary, you actually want to limit the amount of light, especially since you want the foreground to be underexposed. A small aperture helps with this.

Use a fast shutter speed

The sun moves fast – really fast. Or, rather, the earth spins fast. That’s what is actually happening when you see the sun come up. And just like any time you want to capture motion, you need to use a shutter speed that’s up to the task. Slower values like 1/30th and 1/60th will not only make exposure tricky, but result in a blurry sun as it speeds upwards on the horizon.

200mm, f/2.8, 1/4000th of a second, ISO 100. I broke my own rule about small apertures here, specifically because I wanted the vehicle in the foreground to be out of focus. The trade-off for such a wide aperture was a very fast shutter speed.

I recommend a minimum shutter speed of 1/250th, and even faster if possible. 1/500th is even better. If you are exposing for the sun, you might even use ultra-fast shutter speeds like 1/1000th or more. Of course, the foreground will be dim, but that’s fine since you can recover those shadows in post-production.

One nice thing about this is it means you don’t need to use a tripod. So that means one less thing for you to bring with you to your sunrise photo shoots. Handheld will work fine, even when zoomed all the way in. That’s because you should have a shutter speed that will compensate for any motion blur due to camera shake.

Be patient, but act fast

Once you have the technical aspects figured out, and you know where you want to position yourself to capture a sunrise, the final piece off the puzzle is patience. I recommend arriving early so you can make sure everything is situated properly. Bring some music or a podcast because you might be waiting a little while. However, it’s better to arrive early than scramble at the last minute.

190mm, f/2.8, 1/180th of a second, ISO 250. The sun wasn’t up yet, but I really liked the rich purple and blue colors of the sky – an added bonus of arriving early and waiting. Note the large aperture. It was required to let plenty of light in since there just wasn’t much light available.

As soon as you start to see the sun peek over the horizon, you only have a few minutes to get your shots. Remember to use a small aperture, expose for the sun, and shoot in RAW, and you should be fine. Go ahead and snap a few pictures with your mobile phone too. You’ll be amazed at how much more dramatic and impactful your pictures are with a zoom lens!

200mm, f/8, 1/1000th of a second, ISO 100. The sun isn’t in this picture but you can clearly see the morning light on the clouds. I liked the silhouette of the tower against the glowing morning sky too. You can’t get this shot with a mobile phone!

Do you have any other tips for sunrise photos with a zoom lens? Share with us in the comments. Also, I’d love to see your sunrise photos, and I’m sure the rest of the DPS community would also, so please share them in the comments too!

The post How to Take Epic Sunrise Photos with a Zoom Lens appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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Why You Need to Know the History of Flowers in Art and Photography

03 Oct

The post Why You Need to Know the History of Flowers in Art and Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

Flowers have had a presence in art for millennia. In this article, we’ll have a look at the history of flowers and some photographic principals that can be drawn from the historical use of flowers in visual culture.

history-of-flowers-in-art-and-photography

Floral colors

history-of-flowers-in-art-and-photography

Over the course of visual arts, colors have become embedded with a rich symbolic history.

While red can denote love and passion, blue can imbue a sense of calm.

The pairing of colors and flowers in both nature and art has influenced the reading of floral imagery throughout history. For example, the Ancient Egyptians often painted artistic renderings of the blue and the white lotus. However, the blue lotus was used as symbol of rebirth whereas the while lotus represented innocence and modesty.

In Renaissance artworks, a red carnation was symbolic of love. A pink carnation, on the other hand, stood as a symbol of marriage or betrothal, while in Japan, yellow chrysanthemums have historically signified the Emperor and Imperial family whereas white chrysanthemums indicate purity, truth or grief.

Melding color psychology with floral symbolism touches on our perceptions of visual art history. This is especially relevant if you are presenting your images as a conceptual artwork or as a gift with a heartfelt message layered in meaning. If you are looking to convey peace or emotional depth, try photographing blue flowers.

Incorporating yellow flowers into a photograph stimulates an energetic reading and sympathy is conveyed with white floral blooms.

You can also alter the color of flowers completely in post production, or strip it of its colorful meaning by working in black and white. This draws greater attention to a flower’s form rather than its biological pigmentation.

history-of-flowers-in-art-and-photography

The language of flowers

Why You Need to Know the History of Flowers in Art and Photography

Over time, cultures have linked flowers with specific ideas as a means of communication. Flowers like the lily and rose are used as symbols in the Hebrew Bible. This is especially the case in the Song of Solomon.

An age-old art form in Japan, the practice of Hanakotoba involves the pairing of flowers with meaning in the hopes of conveying emotion without the use of words. And for the first half of the 19th century, floriography was hugely popular in France, Britain and in the United States. Although many floriography dictionaries differed in meaning, some consensus on particular floral associations has prevailed in Western popular culture today.

Red roses (and their thorns), for example, continue to symbolize the duality of pain and pleasure in romantic love. The red poppy has become a symbol of remembrance of the fallen in war and white lilies, often used at funerals, signify sympathy and purity.

By utilizing the popular associations of flowers in a given culture, you can communicate ideas to a viewer through the photography of floral blooms.

Physicality

history-of-flowers-in-art-and-photography

Physicality defines the physical features that make up a floral bloom. For example, the textural qualities of a bloom influence our ability to visually feel the make-up of a flower. Aspects like the heaviness of a flower head can add visual weight to an image and the direction of a bloom can convey movement.

Varying dimensions of the flowers in Still Life With Flowers by Ambrosius Bosschaert cultivate energy and directionality, while the whimsical dimensions of the iris petals in Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises burst with movement and spontaneity. The repetition of Renoir’s Bouquet of Roses reinforces the soft quality of the rose heads, each vying for a place within the artist’s rendering, while Imogen Cunningham’s Magnolia Blossom features a single magnolia, emphasizing the delicate membrane of a lone flower.

Research into flower usage in art history will help you to achieve the right balance of physical characteristics within a floral photograph.

Abstraction

Why You Need to Know the History of Flowers in Art and Photography

According to Tate.org “abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colors, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect.”

Abstract flowers in art are exemplified by the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. A leading figure in American Modernism, O’Keeffe pushed the boundaries of art by combining abstraction and representation. O’Keeffe’s close-up paintings of flowers allowed viewers to appreciate intimate forms from a fresh perspective.

In the same way, photographing abstracted flowers cultivates a sense of intimacy. Abstraction provides the opportunity for viewers to experience the properties of flowers through the eyes of the photographer.

You can achieve floral abstraction through the use of various photographic techniques. Camera movement, cropping or creative macro photography are some of the ways a photographer can create intriguing abstracted floral imagery.

Conclusion

With thousands of types of floral blooms spread around the globe, flowers have caught the eye of artists for millennia. Familiarizing yourself with the history of flowers in art can be beneficial in a number of ways. A knowledge of colors and their use in conjunction with flowers is a useful tool in conveying emotional depth.

Knowing the history of flowers in art and culture can open more channels of communication between the photographer and the viewer. Training the eye to assess the physicality of different flowers allows for well-considered image-making.

And abstraction can introduce a unique perspective to your floral photography.

The post Why You Need to Know the History of Flowers in Art and Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

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Loupedeck+ Review – the Perfect Editing Companion for Lightroom and Premiere?

02 Oct

The post Loupedeck+ Review – the Perfect Editing Companion for Lightroom and Premiere? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

Loupedeck+ Review - the Perfect Editing Companion for Lightroom and Premiere?

There is something undeniably cool about Hollywood editing studios. I remember seeing one in a magazine as a child and wanting to play with it. Thinking how cool it would be to figure out what all the dials did and edit Hollywood Blockbusters. I never made it in Hollywood, but I can remember my first editing console. Purchased from the high street, it allowed me to link 2 VCR players and have a fade and wipe slider for video. It even had an audio fader that allowed me to (surprisingly) fade audio. At the time it was amazing! I made a lot of skateboard videos using that console.

Obviously we’ve moved to digital everything, but there is something about using knobs and dials to edit that I have always liked. So, when I was given the opportunity to try the Loupedeck+, I jumped at the chance to get hands-on with it.

What is it?

Simply put, Loupedeck+ is a keyboard-sized photo editing console. The main editing functions are controlled via a series of knobs and buttons.

Loupedeck started life on Indiegogo. The initial Loupedeck was marketed as a photo editing console just for Lightroom. With the Loupedeck+, however, it has become much more than that. The new version has support for several different software platforms too.

This device is still aimed primarily at Adobe users, with support for most of the Creative Suite. There is also support for Apple’s Final Cut and Aurora HDR and is also currently in Beta testing with Capture One Pro, which is my preferred choice of photo editor.

Out of the box

In terms of looks, it is beautifully packaged. However, that doesn’t mean anything if the product itself is not up to scratch. The Loupedeck however, definitely is. Although fully plastic, everything is solid and feels like it will survive long term usage. The only exception to this is the control dial, which does feel a little flimsy compared to the rest of the device.

In terms of the buttons, when making notes, I put down that they are squishy but solid. I still think that’s the best way to describe them. There is also a nice little detail for the cable to connect the Loupedeck. There are grooves that allow you to place it to work with how your computer is setup. It’s not a deal-breaker, but attention to detail like this tends to show the makers care about the end-user.

The Loupedeck+ is well built apart from the control dial. It just feels a little flimsy. However, in use, it has been flawless so far.

Getting set up

Once you have unpackaged your Loupedeck, the next stage is setting it up. To do this, you need to install the Loupedeck software. This is a simple download from the Loupedeck website, which then allows you to customize the Loupedeck to your specific editing preferences.

I have left it is standard for now, but I can definitely see me looking into this again to fine-tune it to how I edit.

Once you have the software installed, it is as simple as choosing which software you want to use the Loupedeck with and off you go. Loupedeck has a series of guides for each piece of software that it is compatible with. I recommend having these on hand, especially when using software other than Lightroom. Even with Lightroom though, it is worth having nearby to see what extras you may find yourself reaching for.

The fact that the user guide for Lightroom alone is 31 pages tells you what level of customization is possible.

Image: To get started with Loupedeck+ you need to download the software from the Loupedeck website....

To get started with Loupedeck+ you need to download the software from the Loupedeck website. Once installed, choose your software and away you go.

The learning curve

The learning curve is in two parts; getting used to the Loupedeck from your usual editing routine, and how Loupedeck reduces the learning curve of the software.

To test this, I got my wife to use Loupedeck to work on a wedding we had recently shot. She normally helps make picks, but she has very limited editing experience. She can just about manage to tweak exposure a little, but that’s it.

I put her at the Loupedeck and asked her to try and edit images she thought needed work. After about 2 minutes of me explaining the device, she started. Two more minutes passed before she explained how brilliant it was.

By removing the need to search through the menus (of Capture One in our case), she was able to edit photos easily and without needing constant reminders of the locations of buttons or sliders. It made her experiment more, and within an hour, she felt completely confident using the Loupedeck.

For beginners, this will make the process of learning to edit (especially in Lightroom) so much easier. Everything is at hand, and the layout makes it simpler for beginners to experiment. They can use more of the features of the program without the need to remember the locations in the menus.

For me, as a power user of Capture One, the learning curve was a little steeper. I’ve put this down to Capture One currently being in Beta testing. There are some quirks I needed to get used to when editing, such as using the color balance tool.

There is also the fact that when you use the software every day, you acquire muscle memory from the keyboard shortcuts you use most often. Moving to dials does take a while to get used to.

I do feel that even for Lightroom users (whom this deck was designed for), the change to Loupedeck will mean your editing is slower until you get up to speed. However, I am talking only hours here, not days.

Loupedeck+ and Lightroom

Obviously I wanted to start this test with Lightroom as this is really the program the device is designed for. Now I am not a Lightroom user, so having me use this is more like an inexperienced Lightroom editor versus someone who uses it every day.

I loaded up a selection of images into a catalog and began editing. Using the Loupedeck was completely intuitive. I simply started to edit images without the need to try and remember control locations. It was as easy as twisting the dials with the required name on them. In my experience, the Loupdeck+ and Lightroom work flawlessly together. There is no lag, and the degree of control with each twist feels perfect. Everything is at hand, and if you do find yourself needing something that is not here, you can customize the software until your heart’s content.

It made the process of editing in Lightroom a pleasure and, as a hardcore Capture One user, that is the highest praise I can give it.

It is easy to see that the Loupedeck+ is designed with Lightroom users in mind.

Loupedeck+ and Capture One Pro

Because I’m not a Lightroom user, I went down the road that is Beta testing to put the Loupedeck in my day-to-day editing software.

Now compared to Lightroom, I found editing in Capture One Pro to be a more clunky affair. The problem is that in its current Beta state, the Loupedeck doesn’t offer the same level of functionality. This is something that Loupedeck are working on and are currently looking for feedback from any Capture One users to help improve the experience.

The basic adjustments work perfectly well in Capture One. To adjust white balance and exposure is just as good as Lightroom. However, there are elements, such as resetting adjustments, that are not there.

The issue here is that the Loupedeck was designed with Lightroom in mind and Capture One works differently. The most obvious example of this is the P1-P8 buttons. In Lightroom, these assign to presets; however, in Capture One, they are simply not set up.

Shooting Fuji, I would love to map this to my film curves, where it would be great to choose the look of my image. However, at present, this is not possible. For more advanced editing, it can be frustrating, and I find myself reaching for the mouse and keyboard more often than I would like.

It’s not perfect by any means, and it does sound a little doom and gloom, but in terms of basic edits, it really did speed up my workflow. I have now edited two weddings with the Loupedeck, and it has definitely saved me some time. Also being super simple for basic adjustments, it really has allowed my wife to do basic edits for things such as exposure.
When editing a wedding, I reach for it straight away. It really is something that after using it, I wouldn’t be without.

The best thing about using Loupedeck+ with Capture One is that I know it can only get better from here. Once there are some more options added, and a few things ironed out from the beta testing, I feel this will be a powerful editing tool.

Loupedeck+ and Photoshop

This is where things start to feel like I was using the Loupedeck for the sake of it. When editing a RAW file, it was great, but after that, I really felt no benefit from using it. When editing in Photoshop, you tend to use your mouse or tablet much more.

You can use it for working with curves, but you need to work with the mouse too, and I found it just too clunky. Other things like zoom in and out, which are mapped to knobs, simply do not work as well as using the middle mouse button.

Unlike using it in Lightroom and Capture One, when working in Photoshop, I found myself using it for the sake of it, rather than reaping any real benefit. I do feel that the Loupedeck+ working with more software is good. However, I feel that, in some cases, it just feels like it is added for marketing over actual functionality.

Loupedeck+ and Premiere

The ability for Loupedeck to work with Premiere was something that I found myself excited to try. I am by no means a power user, but I know my way around Premiere and edit with it enough to consider myself proficient.

Using Loupedeck with Premiere, though, is where things go a little too far for me. When using it to edit a video, it was just too hard for me to remember what all the functions did. It could be due to my lack of time spent in Premiere, but I think it’s more than that. When photo editing, things like exposure, and contrast are the same no matter which program you use. Video editing, however, uses a completely different language.

It is not that you can’t learn how to use Loupedeck with Premiere. I think once you got used to what each button and dial was mapped to, it would really speed things up. However, as someone who uses the software occasionally, I would find it hard to remember the settings for Premiere.

I think the best way to sum it up is that if you are buying a Loupdeck+ solely for Premiere use, you may face a steep learning curve. For me, to have it as a bonus is nice, even though I can’t really see myself using it.

As you can see from the layout above, Loupedeck is not as intuitive in Premiere.

Conclusion

It’s hard to sum up the Loupedeck+.

Some may see this as a gimmick you will buy, only to put it in the cupboard after a few months to gather dust. But that really isn’t how it is. It’s a well-made, high-quality device that really is a time-saver, especially in basic edits.

I use the Loupedeck+ on every edit now. That must say something. It has sped up my editing (it needs to, I am currently behind on editing a wedding and am writing this article rather than doing that). However, I do still find myself reaching for the keyboard or mouse quite often. I think the best way is to give three different outcomes, depending on what software you use.

If you’re a Capture One user like me, you may find it frustrating. It is almost there, close to being great, but then there are silly little things that are really annoying! However, this is in beta testing, which means things are still ironing out. I am sure this is going to improve moving forward. It’s just a question of whether you are willing to pay for something that doesn’t quite work as you would like it to.

If you’re using this on Premiere or Final Cut, you will need to spend some serious time with the manual. It really is not intuitive in the same way it is for photo editing. If you are willing to put in the time, I am sure it will speed up your workflow. I do question how long it would take to get to this point though.

Lastly, Lightroom. This is still what they designed the Loupedeck for. If you are a Lightroom user, I would definitely suggest getting your hands on a Loupedeck+ – It really does make editing much faster. It worked incredibly well in use, and I enjoyed editing in Lightroom. This really is the highest praise I can give it.

However, where this console really shines is for new users. If you are new to editing, I cannot recommend this enough. I wish something like this had existed when I started editing. It makes the process of understanding how tools work so much more organic. Beginners will get a lot out of using a device like this – It just makes editing more intuitive. My wife managed to edit much better than ever before in minutes.

Moving forward, I will continue to use a Loupedeck+ to edit. Maybe it’s just my old ways. Maybe it means I get to pretend I am in a film studio editing suite. Or maybe, it’s something that I never really thought I would want, but now don’t want to stop using.

In all honesty, I think it’s all three.

The post Loupedeck+ Review – the Perfect Editing Companion for Lightroom and Premiere? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

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