I recently returned from a rafting trip with my son Jimmy on the Tatshenshini-Alsek River with the Explorers League out of Vancouver Canada. It was a wonderful two weeks with typical Alaska weather and as always great friends, new and old. There is not a lot of time to concentrate on photography on a raft trip but rafting is one of the best ways to see remote places. We certainly were blessed with and abundance of wildlife and scenic beauty. I posted a video of my son trying his hand at rowing on my flicker account. I carried all of my gear including my 500 f4. I’m not sure I would do that again. I had Pen camera envy by the end of the trip even though the raft acted as my porter most of the time. I have psoted a larger collection of images from the trip on my flicker account. These are especially for the folks on the trip. I have come to the conclusion that on a trip like this it is easiest to not worry about downloading images I simply bring enough cards and download when I get home. I kind of like it it has a similar feel to shooting film. You have to wait to see your results….. well kind of.

A child watching a ceremonial dance

I’ve been meaning to mention that the National Geographic Article on the Omo River Valley was published in March. I think it is worth the read. Randy Olson’s photography was exceptional.

Last Month I ran a photography workshop titled Urban Decay’ and I have posted images taken by the participants.  We spent one of the two days photographing inside the old Allentown State Hospital which as of this writing has be demolished. The other photographs where from work that the participants shot as part of an assignment…. to photograph their definition of ‘Urban Decay’.  I saw some excellent work including some dramatic work using HDR.  As a side note HDR has been greatly improved in CS5. Enjoy the images.

As a side note Community services for Children owned the building and graciously gave us permission to photograph there before it was torn down. They truly are a great organization and are doing a wonderful job helping children in the Lehigh Valley

I am hesitant to make comments about a Beta due to the fact that everything can change, so keep in mind that the Beta only gives you an idea of what Adobe is thinking about for the general direction of the new release.

Upon opening LR3 Beta for the first time, my initial impression was “So what.” Nothing really looked new. This is a good thing, as they have a terrific overall user interface and I would hate to see gross changes. However, once I started to import images – bang … a huge change: the import dialog box has been completely revamped! As it turns out, this is probably one of the hottest topics in the beta forums. More about the Import dialog later; let’s talk about some of the other changes.

First of all, the overall performance has been improved. Scrolling and changing between modules is faster, sorting has been improved, and backing up your catalog now happens when you exit Lightroom, as opposed to when you launch Lightroom. Come on, fess up; you know you click the skip button too frequently. Also, Filters are no longer sticky; they reset when you change folders. Hurray! That used to annoy the heck out of me. There is a new badge that indicates if a photo is in a collection, and CMYK files can now be imported into Lightroom. Lastly, though definitely cool, is the new ease of Publishing photos to online photo sharing sites such as Flickr. Flickr is set up as an example in the Beta, but more photo sharing sites are will follow when LR3 is finally released. This new feature is located just below Collections on the left hand panel and it makes publishing collections of photos a breeze. I have tried it and really like it. The sync is bidirectional: if I make changes in LR and then sync, the changes show up in Flickr; and if someone makes comments on a photo, they show up in Lightroom … very cool.

More importantly, LR3 is making changes that improve image quality. Anytime a software manufacturer makes changes that directly impact the quality of the image, I am all for it. The improvements to the way the RAW file is rendered is different enough that the engine behind ACR is now distinguished by a process version. When the final LR3 release comes out, any images you worked on in LR2.x will be imported using the Process version 1. New images imported into LR3 will use Process version 2. It is easy to update the Process Version. A warning triangle will be displayed in the top left of the Histogram palette; simply click on it to update.

Aside from an improved RAW processing engine, the new Develop Module has some enhanced features:

The Detail Panel

Sharpening and Noise reduction have been improved. Color noise reduction is better and luminance noise will be improved in the final release. A new edge detail slider has been added to help retain detail in high ISO images displaying lots of noise. You will now be able to preview images at less than 100% when using the detail tab. I don’t recommend you do so, however, as the preview window just isn’t big enough.

The Effects Panel

The Effects panel has replaced the Vignettes panel with added functionality. Not only did they improve the way vignetting works with a much more natural look and feel, and more control; but they added a Grain section. Yep, they added the ability to add natural looking grain back to our images. Who’da thunk that this would become so popular?

Some user interface improvements include:

The Adjustment brush and Gradient tool now have only the full list of sliders or the single drop down setting. It’s not a big deal; they just removed a feature we never used anyway. A new X through the color icon has been added so that you can clearly see that it is turned off. Lastly, when the Brush or Gradient tool is active, there is an indicator for show/hide pins in the toolbar.

Grayscale is now labeled Black and White … hmmm … that really cleared things up. Syncing develop settings has been made a little easier by adding a switch for Sync/Auto sync to the button. The output modules have some new features, most notably the Print and Slideshow Modules. And finally, the Targeted Adjustment Tool automatically closes when you change panels.

The Slideshow Module is now much more functional when adding music; it is simple to sync your slides to the duration of the music. You can export an MP4 video file that can easily be shared on websites; this file would include your music track too if you added one. Also improved is the way music is added to the Mac version; it is no longer tied to iTunes.

Speaking of Macs, and this could be a biggie for some: LR3 will not support Power PC’s or Tiger. This means LR3 will support Intel chips and Leopard or Snow Leppard only!

The Print Module has had minor improvements, adding the ability to better customize print layouts with multiple images. It is a bit like a simple RIP. You can now change the background color on the printed page. Of course, the big talk/hope is still about the addition of soft-proofing to the Print Module. It has not been confirmed whether it will be in the final release. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed. This is as good a place as any to mention improved watermarking. You can now add customized watermarks similar to the way we can add identity plates so that text or graphic watermarks can be added in Export, Publish, Print and Web.

Okay, so let’s talk about Import. The Import dialog box has been changed dramatically and I expect it will change again before the final release, but looking at it here gives us an idea of the direction the Lightroom team is going. Overall, I think it is a good direction. However, I didn’t mind the old Import screen at all.

As you can see in this first screen shot, the import screen now follows the design and layout of Lightroom itself. There are panels on both sides and the center preview section shows the content or thumbnails for the images you are importing. If an image already exists in your catalog, it will be grayed out in this area – a nice feature.

The left hand panel lists the possible source files, the images you want to bring into your Catalog and possibly copy to a new location. Any connected hard drive will be in this list as well as connected camera card media as seen here. You can navigate through this list as you would in Explorer on Windows or Finder on a Mac. In the example above, I am importing a folder of images on an external hard drive. The images will not be moved or copied because I selected ‘Add” as my method of import, but my Catalog will now be able to track and manage these images. In the right hand panel, you can add keywords and metadata templates such as your contact information. The function of the new import screen is basically the same as before, but the user interface now flows from left to right and is more visual.

The Import screen changes when you move or copy files. The right hand panels now show you where your images are going. New folders will be in italics and have a small + sign indicating that images are being added The ability to rename images and organize folders is now available. I like to let Lightroom manage my folder structure on import; I select ‘By Date’ for destination and always import into the same image folder, just as I did in LR 2.5. For most users, you will only have a few ways that you bring your images into Lightroom and you can save these as presets. After you save presets for the methods you use for importing, it is convenient to use the compact mode for importing and simply select the preset you need. In the Example above, I created a preset to import from a CF Card by date into my pictures folder. For those of you who know me, you must be screaming “My pictures folder?” knowing full well I rarely do this. Relax, I am only creating this as a place to temporarily hold the images for my LR3 beta test.

The changes I’ve talked about above are the ones I found interesting and useful. Certainly I have not covered them all and I can only expect that Adobe will have many features not present in the Beta. The ability to track and import movie files is becoming critically important to a program like Lightroom, with so many DSLR’s now able to capture HD video and stills. Soft-proofing is such a hot topic that I would find it hard to believe that LR will not incorporate it somehow. The good news is that the Beta is in the early stages and there is time for lots of improvements.

Lastly, a lot of people ask if they should download the Beta. That really depends on you. If you like hacking around in buggy programs to see what is new and maybe even chime in on the Adobe LR3 Beta forums, by all means have at it. I recommend exporting images into a separate folder or folders,. Import these files into Lightroom 3 Beta to play around with them.

Photographically Ethiopia was a challenge. When visiting tribal areas, it’s not like you can control events so that they always occur in good light. Traveling in a new and exotic place it is easy to get overwhelmed and lose creative energy and direction. This certainly was the case for me the first time we witnessed the tribal dances in the Omo river valley in Ethiopia.

My first set of images felt sterile. I did not feel as if I was capturing the feel of the moment, the intensity of the dance at all.

However, after reviewing my photo’s I could see a trend developing that I liked. The dances were alive and I wanted to show that with greater impact. The images with slower shutter speeds where the movement was emphasized were enticing to me. This gave me renewed creative energy and direction for capturing future dances should I see them.

As other shooting opportunities came about I looked for stationary individuals amongst the dancers to provide contrast and balance in the image. In these moments I kept the camera locked on the tripod and let the movement of the subjects create the impressionistic effect.

Finally, I was seeing images that I liked on the back of my camera. I increased the effect by panning with some of the women which caused a greater blur effect with the women behind moving in the opposite direction.

These last few were the images that were most appealing to me. I only wish I had recorded the singing and chanting to go along with the photographs.