I’m a big advocate of shooting tethered into Lightroom. Great synergies result when I send images from my DSLR straight into Lightroom.  Even on location shoots, I’ll tie my camera into my laptop. Here’s a run down of the benefits of tethered shooting - for both photographers and their clients. [Read more →]

So you’re heading to Vegas for your first Photoshop World. Don’t quite know what to expect? Here are 10 tips to help you make the most of your first Photoshop World.

1. Rest up before you go - Seriously. Even if PW was held in El Paso rather than Las Vegas, you wouldn’t get much sleep. PW crams an amazing number of classes and fun events into a handful of days. (The schedule is here.) On Friday, for example, classes start at 8:15am and run into the early evening. Then, from 7:15-9:15pm, consider the panel discussion ‘The Art of Digital Photography‘ to be a can’t-miss session. And… if you’re really a night owl, get one of the coveted 200 tickets to Midnight Madness, which follows the panel discussion. [Read more →]

I have just merged one of my other blogs, Photo-Resources, into PixSylated. The original thought behind Photo-Resources was that it would be short posts on events and resources for photographers. As the lines between what should be on PixSylated and what should be on Photo-Resources have grown very blurry of late, I’ve merged all of the posts and comments into PixSylated. If you never visited Photo-Resources, you might want to cruise PixSylated’s expanded list of posts to see what’s been added. Onward!

SEO for photographers is critical to the success of a portfolio website. For almost a year, I’ve listened to what Rob Haggart at A Photo Editor says. He’s brutally honest, highly opinionated and knows a hell of a lot more about the editorial photo biz than I ever will. Rob recently launched A Photo Folio so that photographers can have websites that photo editors won’t hate. If I were looking to launch an online portfolio today, A Photo Folio would be the place I’d start.

For several years, however, I’ve been a relatively happy client of SiteWelder. So, when Rob did this blog post about how his Photo Folio site is tweaked to keep photo editors happy, I compared it to what I had going on my site.

Here’s how I hacked two of Rob’s great ideas into my SiteWelder site. The common theme to all of this is “Photo editors work at warp speed in an environment that constantly distracts them from your portfolio. A PE will give your site a handful of seconds. Don’t waste it.” [Read more →]

This is the 3rd (and last!) installment in the PixSylated series on Learning Food Photography. You’ll find several web videos of food shoots, blogs on food & food photography, links to the sites of food shooters and stylists, sources for supplies… and more. [I say "last!" only because these three posts have grown to epic proportions and it's time I move on to completing other PixSylated projects.]

In case you missed the previous posts, here’s a summary. In Part 1, I reviewed a long list of books on food photography and styling. In Part 2, I surveyed workshops, conferences, and trade associations for food photographers and culinary professionals. [Read more →]

It’s no secret that getting your flash off the top of your camera is the quickest way to improve your photography. Flash Zebra is a great, little (as in one-man-band) company that sells a wide range of solutions for getting some distance between your camera and your flash.

I originally found Flash Zebra when I was looking for a way to tie a Elinchrom Skyport (which I love) to my legion of Canon 580Ex strobes. Fortunately for me the $19 wired hot shoe on Flash Zebra was a heck of a lot cheaper that upgrading to the Canon 580EX II. If you’re a fan of Pocket Wizards, you’ll find that Flash Zebra can tie your PW to virtually any device. They also sell the handy PW caddy and many other cool items.

Beyond a great range of solutions, you’ll find that Flash Zebra has great prices. At first, I was put off by the difference in prices between Flash Zebra and larger sites. My first order put my concerns at ease. My items were shipped immediately. Upon arrival I found their quality to be top notch. Through several orders, I’m now able to tie my Skyports to everything from speedlights to monolights to studio packs.

Vincent Laforet, the energetic New York photographer who recently published an insightful treatise on the state of editorial photography (’The Cloud Is Falling’ covered here), has launched a blog. Vincent is just about to head to China to cover the Olympics for Newsweek and promises daily posts. Be sure the peruse the left column of Vincent’s blog. It’s a virtual treasure-trove of other great blogs and photographer’s sites. I’m certain that Vincent will prove himself to be as good a blogger as he is a shooter… which means that we are all in for great insights and commentary on a regular basis.

If you are looking to add RAM or upgrade the hard drive on your Mac, check out IFixIt.com. I have never found more detailed, free, online guides for such a wide range of Mac hardware. Following their well-photographed, how-to guide, I changed out the hard drive on my MacBook Pro in a few minutes this morning. IFixIt sells all the parts and tools you’ll need to repair or upgrade your Mac or iPod.

These guys have personality. Curious about what’s inside an iPhone 3G? Just prior to the worldwide launch, they flew from California to New Zealand to be among the first in the world to buy one. And then they disassembled it.

In Learning Food Photography - Part 1, I reviewed all the books in print (and a couple out-of-print) that cover photographing food and styling food for photography. [Click here if you would like to read that article first.] Being visual creatures, most photographers learn better by doing and hearing rather than by reading. So, in this installment, Part 2, I’ll cover a range of workshops, seminars and conferences on food photography. I’ll also run through a handful of professional associations for food photographers and stylists. In Part 3, I run through a number of food blogs, online resources (including some great YouTube videos on food photography) and sources of supplies for food shooters and stylists.

[Read more →]

Adobe has started shipping the 2nd generation of Lightroom (officially “Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2″). I’ll say it up front, “I love Lightroom.” As a commercial shooter, Lightroom has become the backbone of my post-capture workflow. In my studio, Photoshop now handles only those things that Lightroom cannot do… which is much less now that Lightroom can handle many localized corrections.

Is Lightroom 2 perfect? No. Is it the best software around for one-stop handling of ingestion, DNG conversion, keywording, metatagging, sorting, ranking, RAW processing, exporting in multiple formats, creating slideshows and web galleries? Definitely yes. [Read more →]