The Problem

When you have an identity plate with an image of any color, you have to PERFECTLY align the identity plate on the stage. Easier said than done. In most other Adobe products, you get an align tool or a feature that snaps things to grid when you get close. Not the case with this feature in Lightroom. I found it literally impossible to perfectly align it, always leaving small slivers of white. Click the image below for an example.

The Solution

The only way I was able to solve this problem was to save my fine art print setup as a Template and then edit the template file.

1. Create a fine art print setup by following the steps in my previous post.
2. Save it as a Template by clicking the + sign in the Template browser panel, giving it a name and clicking the Create button.
3. Now’s the semi-tricky part. You need to locate that template file on your computer. In Windows Vista your templates are located at the following directory by default: C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\ Lightroom\Print Templates. If you are on a Mac or Windows XP, you’ll need to consult Lightroom help for the proper location. Also, you may have saved your presets in a different folder (in the Catalog settings)- if so, look there instead.
4. Open the file of the appropriate preset name with a text editor. On Windows, you may need to right-click and choose Open With… and specify a program like Notepad.
5. Scroll through or use the search feature to find any line that shows identityPlatePosH or identityPlatePosV. You’ll want to set the number on the right side of the equal sign on that line to .5 for each. They are probably close to .5 already – but it needs to be exact. See the lines I highlighted in the screenshot below for an example. I changed the values here and in one other place in this file. This is actually easier than it sounds. Once the file is opened, the lines are pretty easy to scan through.

1. Save and close the file.
2. If Lightroom is still open, close and re-start it. If already closed, go ahead and start it up. When you go back to the Print module and click on your preset, you should see that the Identify Plate is perfectly lined up.
3. Repeat for any other fine art print templates you want to create. For example, I created one for portrait-oriented pictures and one for landscape-oriented pictures. The identifyPlatePosH and identityPlatePosV should be set to .5 in every case.

Lightroom’s printing capabilities are amazing. Its ease of use and variety of features blow me away! One of the things I like about it is the ability to create a fine art print, like the one shown above.

Outputting Your Fine Art Print to an Image – Finally!

Version 1 allowed you to send a fine art print to the printer, but if you wanted it in an electronic copy for e-mailing, sending to an online printer, or for posting on the web, you had to use another method, like Photoshop. Lightroom 2 changes all that. It now allows you to export the fine art prints you set up in the Print module directly to a JPEG.

Changing the Background Color of Your Fine Art Print

One thing that Lightroom 2 doesn’t allow you to do directly, though, is change the background color of the fine art print. It is always set to white. If you use the right steps, though, you’ll be able to create something with any background color you’d like. The rest of this post provides steps on how to change the background color of your fine art prints directly in Lightroom 2 and then export them to a JPEG (the color changing techniques will still work in Lightroom 1, you just won’t be able to export it to a JPEG).

How to Do It

We have 2 things going on here. First, we need to change the color of the background of the fine art print. Second, we need to output it as an image. Several steps require that you create an image outside Lightroom. I use Photoshop in the examples, but you could use any similar image editing program.

How to Change the Color

1. Determine the size you want your final fine art print to be. I find that an 8×10″ provides a nice size, especially when posting on the web or e-mailing. Any size could be used, though. You’ll also want to decide about how much area will be taken up by the photo and how much will be color and/or your logo or descriptive text. I choose to set my fine art prints to have more space around the image than others do.
2. Open Photoshop and create a blank document at the size you chose in step 1. If the fine art print will be used for the web/email/etc., set the resolution to 72. If you’ll be printing it, I recommend setting it to 300. Click OK.

1. Fill the document with the color that you’d like the background of your fine art print to be. Also, place any logos or other text in the document. Make sure to place them in areas that won’t be covered by a picture in the final fine art print. Most people place the logo/text directly below the image area.

1. Save the document as a .jpeg or .tiff file.
2. Open Lightroom and go to the Print module.
3. In the Layout section, set your margins and cell size as needed to have your image fill the fine art print as much/little as you’d like. I also typically check the Zoom to Fill option in the Settings panel. It makes sure that the image fills the entire available area. You can click/drag the image to position it as needed in its assigned space.

1. The key to changing the background color is to change the overlay. In many cases, this is used to simply place a logo or other text on the image. Go ahead and check the Identity Plate option and click the down arrow just below that setting and choose Edit. Click the Locate File… button and choose the file that you saved back in step 4. Once chosen, click the OK button.
2. Make sure that the Opacity and Scale sliders are both set to 100%.
3. At this point, your image may be hidden by your new frame. To move it behind the image, click the Render Behind Image option. You can click/drag on the background to position it correctly. [Update - positioning it exactly can be very difficult. Read this recent post on how to get it exact.]

1. Your fine art print is now ready to export as an image.

Output the Fine Art Print as an Image

Now that your fine art print is built, you can export it as an image.

1. Go to the Print Job panel. Select JPEG File from the Print to: drop-down.
2. Set the File Resolution to 72.
3. Set the appropriate JPEG Quality – I find that 80 is a good balance between quality and file size.
4. Set the Custom File Dimensions to the size of your document. Mine are set to 8×10″.
5. Set the Profile to sRGB, which is the preferred color profile when viewing your image on a monitor.
6. Once done, click the Print to File… button. Give your image a name and save it to a location on your computer.

That should do it. Hopefully you now have an image of your fine art print, with a different background color. I would recommend saving this as a print preset, which allows you to easily re-use it in the future.

A reminder of the final image…

One of the cornerstones to studios and the focus for today’s post is choosing studio lighting. It’s time to decide what lights should be used. We’ll consider several options. Other aspects, like light modifiers, backgrounds, etc. will be examined in future posts in this series.

How to Decide

When deciding what type of studio lighting you should use, you’ll want to consider several questions:

• How much $$ can I spend?
• How much light output do I need?
• How flexible do I want my choice to be?
• How hot can the lights be?

Some Options

You’ll have several different options, depending on how you answered the questions above.

Continuous lights provide always on light, allowing you to see exactly how the light will fall as you set it up. Lots of options here. Tungsten are popular and can produce a decent amount of light (still less than pro-level strobes though) but get VERY hot. That was a deal breaker for me – I do a fair number of children portraits and the heat thing was a problem.

You can also do fluorescent continous lights, which run MUCH cooler, but you lose quite a bit of light output. If you’re interested in continuous light, check out a great description of popular continuous lights by Scott Kelby here (picture shown above).

If needed, this can be the cheapest way. As long as you get the same type of lights you can often get away with cheaper workshop-type lights from a place like Home Depot. Just make sure that you don’t mix different bulb types – like some fluorescent and some tungsten – each often outputs a different light color cast and you don’t want a little of both.

Entry level strobes are a great way to get into the strobe world at a reasonable price. They provide a reasonable amount of light output and some decent features (like adjusting the output, modeling lights, etc) without breaking the bank. They also run much cooler than continous lights. I chose an entry level strobe – see that section below.

Professional level strobes provide high light output, lots of flexible features (like remote controlled settings and more). The catch? The cost. 1 professional level strobe can run you $1000+. That’s without stands, soft boxes, etc. (see a picture of a strobe to the right).

A Mixture: Depending on your budget and needs, you may choose a combination of these. For example, you might choose strobes when you need higher light output and flexibility for outdoor portrait sessions. You might have another continuous light setup using fluorescent bulbs for indoor product shoots (when you don’t need as much light output and it helps to see exactly where the light is falling as you setup the lights).

My Choice: Elinchrom D-Lites

Choosing which strobes I wanted was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in a while. I visited online retailers (like B&H Photo), searched on Google, read discussion boards and more. None provided a clear choice and why, especially in the entry-level ish price range. I knew Scott Kelby used Elinchroms, but his particular models are pro level and cost pro $$.

Then, one day, the Strobist ran a contest and was giving away Elinchrom D-lites (entry level models) as a prize. He gave them a general thumbs up. With that recommendation and the fact that Scott Kelby uses Elinchroms, I was sold.

I purchased them a few days later – my full review on them as my choice will be posted in the next installment of this series.

Studio Strobe Terminology

Flash Tube: The fancy ‘light bulb’ that creates the actual flash.

Modeling Light: Light bulb that sits near the Flash Tube. It can be turned on/off as needed and is used to get a feel for where the light will fall (it isn’t nearly as strong as the Flash Tube, but can show where shadows, etc. may end up). It also helps provide light prior to the full flash so that your camera’s autofocus has enough light to work.

Watt/Seconds: The power output of a light source. Every time you double your Watt/Seconds (from 400-800, for example), you get one stop of light. Luckily, both strobes and always-on light sources are measured in Watt/Seconds, allowing for easier comparison.

Continuous Lights: Lights that are always on. The bulbs are typically tungsten, but are more frequently fluorescent.

Monolight: The strobe plugs directly into the wall like any other electrical device.

About six months ago, I decided to step into the land of the home studio, which for me, included strobes. At the time, I did some research to try and find the best equipment, setups and general knowledge about using strobes. I found varying amounts of information, but still struggled getting a fairly comprehensive view.

That’s what this series intends to help with. I’d like to share the information, resources and experience I’ve gathered and worked with. I may not have the 20+ years plus experience, but I hope to help others just starting out with a guide on how to proceed with Studio Strobes.

This series will last several days (I’ll post most of the series back to back) and will include the following topics:

• Choosing your strobes. Which strobes did I choose? Why? My review of the options I selected.
• How to trigger your setup.
• How to effectively use the strobes for different lighting effects.
• Backgrounds. What are some options and what are the advantages/disadvantages of each.
• Challenges of the in-home studio.
• Various resources for studio lighting.

Check back tomorrow for the first installment – Choosing Your Strobes.

Only show your best photos! It’s that simple. But, it’s a practice that many amateurs don’t follow. Oftentimes, when starting out, someone wants to show off ALL their photos. All the shots from their recent vacation, all the shots of the new baby (I know how the urgings for that go), all the shots from their son’s football game. What’s the problem with that? Simply put, most of those photos aren’t very good.

Even the pros take lots of okay or even aweful photos. But, you say, that can’t be the case. You only see their great photos. That’s because that is all they are willing to show you.

When you are willing to only show the very best, you are able to automatically elevate your work to the very best it can be – and as an extension the people that see your work will think you are a better photographer. When you show just ’so-so’ pictures, just because you took them, you are allowing youself to be a so-so photographer.

Now, this can be challenging. After all, you took the photos, so you NEED to share them. Resist the urge. Prior to sharing any photos, you should do an initial sort, then sort them again, then again, leaving only the cream of the crop. Scott Kelby brings up this point in his Digital Photography Book, Volume 2 and has a great line. He say “Just ask yourself what you would rather see–80 pretty good shots, or 10 outstanding shots.”

What’s My Percentage?

As an example, since our most recent daughter, Isabelle was born about a week and a half ago, my wife and I have taken around 300 photos of her. How many have I shared with others? 2 on my blog and about 8 total. That includes family and friends – I want to look as professional as I can with them as well. So, in this case, I’m only sharing about 2.3% of my work.

So, there it is. Elevate your work without changing anything about how you take your pictures. Just make sure you are only showing the very best.

What’s Your Percentage?

With that in mind, what is your %? How many photos are excellent vs. the number you take?

I was looking out my front window as I turned on my porch light at dusk last night and saw a red fox across the street. Normally, that isn’t all that unusual (we have a large rabbit population in the area, and an occasional fox trotting down the street is common). I noticed, however, that it was playing with another fox – and a third jumped in! I ran and got my camera, popped on my 70-200 (this is the longest lens I have – I wish I had one just a bit longer) and snuck outside. Once outside I noticed that I wasn’t the only one with a spring baby. There were 5 fox pups playing in the yard across the street!

At this point, you might be asking yourself why I put Moose in the title. I live in the Denver metro area – seeing an actual Moose in town isn’t likely. But, as I was sneaking outside, a recent class at Photoshop World taught by Moose Peterson came to mind. The focus of the class was how to get close to wildlife – which seemed very applicable at the moment!

I pulled out my notes from Moose’s class and provided a summary below. I used most, if not all, last night. Thanks for the tips Moose!

Moose’s Tips for Getting Close to Wildlife

• Invest the Time: This was the number 1 tip. Be ready to invest some time. Getting close to animals is easy, if you are willing to take a nice slow approach, stopping when necessary so that you don’t frigthen them. You might also need to find out where they are and just wait. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait – and wait – and wait.
• Go Where They Are: This may sound simple, but it can be very important. Find ou the places the animals you want to shoot are at. In many cases, that includes going to where their food is at. At times, this can be easier than expected. Moose pulled up a great example of shooting some pelicans at a local pier because they were used to getting fed in a particular place. No swamp hiking was required in that case.
• Don’t Get Low: For many animals, getting low makes you look more like a predator. So, a lot of the time, standing works just fine.
• Respect: Always make sure you respect the creatures you are shooting – make sure you provided the lowest possible impact on them and their enviornment.
• 60 Feet or Less: Most shots can happen at 60 feet or less. At first I was a little skeptical of this one, but last night the Foxes let me get within about 40 feet before they started getting nervous. If you follow the other rules, this one can be very true.
• Be Ready to Get Skunked: Moose is one of the country’s best wildlife photographers and he readily admits that he goes out and comes back with nothing regularly (around 50% of the time). So, don’t get discouraged if you don’t get the shot you want. Just keep trying!
  

The most important part of these techniques is that you shoot with your left eye to the view finder. If you shoot with your right away, the techniques won’t work. So, what if you are a right-eye shooter? Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ll do some research and try and provide a companion post in the near future – in the meantime, you can try switching eyes. Also, if you shoot with a Point and Shoot camera, a few of the steps won’t apply. A few will, though, so make sure you still read on!

You can refer to the technique shots at the bottom of the post for visuals on how the various steps look.

Also, as an interesting note, several of these techniques are quite similar to shooting a rifle. I’m not much of a gun enthusiast, but I did shoot a .22 when I was younger and a lot of the skills transfer over (stabilizing the gun against the body, pressing the trigger when exhaling, etc.).

Step 1: Left Hand Should be Under the Lens

It is critical that your hand is under the lens. It helps support it and the camera and is very valuable in reducing camera shake. When using a long, heavy lens, this is much more obvious as you nee dto support the weight. But, it is equally important with smaller, lighter lenses because it helps get your hands in the correct position.

Step 2: Position Your Feet and Body

Your left foot should be in front of your right foot at a reasonable distance. The exact amount varies, but the point is to provide a solid, balanced foundation.

It also allows you to position your torso so that your left shoulder is slightly forward, providing better positioning for the camera and to prepare for step 3.

Step 3: Curl Up and Rest Your Camera in the Nook of Your Shoulder

I’ve always followed steps 1 and 2. Prior to the class, though, I hadn’t done steps 3 or 4 – and believe me, they’ve made quite the difference.

The idea is to tuck your left elbow against your body and curl up enough to rest your camera body against your shoulder. This is much easier with a larger body or with a battery grip. But, it is possible with a standard body. The pictures shown are with a Canon 40D, which is only a little larger than the Rebel series. When using a shorter lens, you may be able to continue wrapping your hand back around to where your right hand is – you won’t have much room to get your left hand directly up under the lens.

This WILL FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE initially. The difference it makes is definately worth it though. It provides remarkable stability. It also gets you in the stable mindset. I found myself propping up against walls, etc. much more often after starting this technique just because I was thinking about being stabilized.

Step 4: Roll Your Finger Over the Shutter When You are Exhaling

First, you should press the shutter release when you are exhaling. Remember that your body is acting as the stabilizing force and that breathing can affect the movement of your entire upper body. By pressing the release just as you begin to exhale, your body is moving the least amount possible.

Also, your finger should never leave the shutter. The slamming (or even tapping) action of your finger pressing down on the shutter can cause unecessary shake. Keep your finger on/just next to the shutter and simply roll your finger over it to press it down the needed amount.

Image 1: Bad Posture The left shoulder isn’t forward enough, the elbow is out and the hand is at the side of the lens (if it was a smaller lens, it would have easily been on top).

Image 2: Better Techniques The left shoulder is forward a little more – the elbow a little further in and the hand is underneath the lens.

Image 3: Best Techniques The shoulder is way forward and the camera is tucked up against it. As needed, the hand is still under and stabilizing. This provides a maximum amount of stillness in the shoot, especially when combined with Step 4 tips.

About Stringpods

I love tripods – I own several and always like to go and browse through others when at the camera store. Recently, one particular tripod has received a lot of attention. More attention that Gitzos (a particularly great brand) or any of the others. And, to boot, it costs about $2.

What are these popular little things? Stringpods. Recently, I’ve seen at least 5 or 6 articles on Stringpods, a small, very portable tripod-like device. All are DIY (do-it-yourself) products and involve a string, screw and washer-type object. You put the screw in your camera’s mount area (the part in the bottom where you would screw a tripod in), the washer under your foot, connect the two with the string, and pull the camera up until the string is taught. As a result, the camera is supposed to be much more steady, which can come in very handy. I’ve seen reports that it can give you an extra 2 or 3 stops of light.

So, if you are at your camera’s fastest aperture (let’s say 2.8) and your shutter speed is at 1/60 of second. Anything below that can often become blurry (unless you have very steady hands). By using the stringpod, you can handhold the shot all the way down to 1/30 without loss of sharpness. This could be very cool.

Stringpod Results

I decided to put it to the test and build my own. It cost about $2 and took a little over 20 minutes to assemble (I made several – after the first, they went even faster). I’ve tried a few shots and it definately feels more stable and does allow you to handhold at slower shutter speeds. I’m not sure about the 3 stops, but at the price and size, I’d recommend putting one together and tossing it in your bag.

Build Your Own Stringpod

The following are the steps I took when putting it together.

1. Collect your materials. I found all mine in the same hardware aisle at Home Depot. The total cost was about $10 and I was able to make 4 strinpods, and had lots of string left over.

Piece of nylon string. Cut it to about the same height as you are (so that when you pull the string taught the camera will stop around eye level). A little longer is okay – you can trim as needed.
1/4″ bolt with larger threads. Mine was 1″ long and seemed to work well. It also had a nice head at the top for twisting.
1/4″ Washer. This is optional I suppose – I wanted something that would snug up against the bottom of the camera to hold it in place a bit better. I chose one that had metal on side and rubber on the other.
Larger Washer. This is the piece you step on. I choose a $1 carabiner

2. Tie one end of the string to the bolt, leaving about 1/4 of the bolt without string on it. I used a special fishing knot, called the Snell knot.

3. Once tied, I trimeed the string and singed it, along with the other, untied end. It helps keep the string from unraveling. Nylon string singes nicely.

4. Place the washer on the bolt, pushing/twisting it down snugly to the string.

5. Tie the other end of the string to your washer or other item. I chose a carabiner for several reasons. First, it was larger – I played around a bit and had a tougher time stepping on a small washer. Also, it provides some more meat to wrap the string around for storage or to shorten the stringpod when holding the camera a little lower.

That’s it – your stringpod is now finished.

This happened to me a while ago and I really wanted to finish watching the movie (nothing worse than getting hooked and being cut off half way through). I was desparate and remembered a tip I’d heard about but never tried; toothpaste.

Put a small amount of toothpaste on your finger and gently rub it around the usable side of the DVD. Then, with a very soft cloth, gently rub it off. It fills in any of the scratches that may be causing the problem.

I’ve used the technique several times since then and it’s amazing how well it works on movies and on data DVDs.

I ran across a great image in Flickr one day that, as is often the case, inspired me to play around a bit. The photo I found was of a young girl laying down in a box with the illusion that her legs had disappeared – the photo displayed above was the final product in my attempt to recreate the Flickr photo (I really wish I saved that link – I wasn’t able to find it again – just my luck). It didn’t turn out quite as well as the one I saw, but it demonstrates the effect well.

I also did this because one of the models I use most often love to see her picture. After I showed her the picture, I think she liked it even more than I did! She got a big kick out of the fact that I could make her legs disappear.

This two part series will cover the process I used to create the photo. In this, the first post, I’ll review what I did during the shoot. The second post will cover how I finished the effect in Photoshop.

What You’ll Need

It doesn’t take a lot of expensive equipment to do this – at least on the camera side of things. I used:

• Camera – I used a Canon Rebel XT, but a point and shoot would work fine.
• Tripod (or a box, pillow, etc. to set your camera on)
• Box
• Clean space – the effect works nicely on a hardwood floor, but you could do it anywhere.
• Cute kid
• Elbow pads – this may not be necessary for everyone, but it took me a few minutes to get everything worked out and my model’s elbows started hurting.
• Lighting equipment. You definately do NOT NEED this. I placed a small hot shoe flash (Canon’s 430 EX, triggered by a transmitter on my camera) and an umbrella to her left to create some directional light. You could easily place things next to a large window or other soft light source.

The Shoot

The shoot was the easiest part of the whole process and took a little less than 15 minutes. You can reference a few of the shots directly out of the camera, shown below.

1. I started by taking a medium-sized box and pushing the inside flaps up inside the box. You can actually see one of the flaps behind her head. In retrospect, I should have cut that one flap off. Leaving the others is important, though, as it helps keep the box rigid and in a proper shape.
2. I angled the box appropriately, making sure that the back was not visible and that you couldn’t see through to the back of the box from the front (you would end up seeing the wall behind). At this point, it is important to make sure the box doesn’t shift through the rest of the shoot.
3. I placed the camera on a tripod about 8 feet away. I then composed the shot as you see. If you don’t have a tripod, you could easily use another box or other solid object. Like the box, you’ll want to make sure that your camera doesn’t move for the rest of the shoot (this backfired a bit on me – read on for more about that).
4. MY EXTRA STEP – I then set up my light/umbrella to camera left at about 45 degrees. If you don’t have an off camera flash, position everything near a large window.
5. First, I took several frames of the empty box (see Picture 1).
6. I then held my hand on the box (so it didn’t move) and asked my model to slide in, as shown in Picture 2. I took shots of several different poses with her in the box. Ideally, the two shots should be at the exact same perspective, zoom, etc. – one with the model in, one without.

   Unfortunately, while I kept the box still and had my camera on the tripod, I didn’t have a monitor for another young one wandering around the room, who bumped into my tripod in between shots. Normally, I would have started things over, but my model was done with it. I still had a decent perspective (the box is roughly at the same perspective). The shot was at a different magnification and rotation – two things I can fix it Photoshop. I don’t like to do that in most cases as it takes more time to do it in Photoshop than to get it right in the camera, but I really wanted to move past the shoot and see how it would turn out – the girl felt the same way. The two pictures should give a good enough idea of what this stage is trying to accomplish though.

That’s it for this step – now that we have these shots we can move to the computer. Stay tuned for the post 2 in the series for what to do next.

Picture 1 – Click for a larger view.

Picture 2 – Click for a Larger View
(Picture 2 should be the exact same as Picture 1, just with a person in it – see step 6 above to learn why they aren’t the exact same).