Memos From The Digital Darkroom

Two separate clients recently contacted me regarding unusual problems they were experiencing. Though one person was having a problem with Lightroom and the other with Photoshop, it turns out both problems had the same solution. Here’s the story:
The first client had recently purchased a new computer, installed Lightroom 3 onto it, and then transferred her [...]

Since the release of Photoshop CS5 I’ve been contacted by different photographers who were experiencing the same problem. When using a brush-based tool, such as the Clone Stamp or the Brush tools, in Photoshop CS5 the brush’s cursor begins to disappear incrementally  as the size of the brush increases. The figure below illustrates what they [...]

Though Adobe made significant improvements to Photoshop’s HDR processor with CS5’s Merge to HDR Pro, I still find Photomatix Pro to be my HDR software of choice. I’m able to get the looks I like - from natural to artistic - more consistently  with Photomatix Pro. Sometimes, though, I need to use Photoshop to prepare [...]

(This is a article I wrote for the Portland Metro Photographic News website. )
The first time I saw Adobe’s Lightroom, while it was in its earliest beta version, I wondered what the point of it was. I could already do everything it did in Photoshop. Why did I need to learn a new way of [...]

In earlier days of digital photography, the primary approach to organization was to organize files into specific folders based on image content. This system can lead to some problems. A much better system is to use keyword tags to identify and filter for specific image content.

You can quickly navigate through files in Lightroom or folders in Bridge using the back and forward buttons on your mouse.

When I sit down with a new client, I ask them a series of questions that are designed to help me understand their level of workflow skills and knowledge. I’m often amazed at how often people who seem to be Photoshop savvy seem to get sharpening wrong. I ran into this twice last week so [...]

This article is related the the Customizing Cursors in Photoshop article. I thought of mentioning it in that article, but I get so many calls about this problem that I felt it was best to discuss the issue on its own.
Has this ever happened to you: You’re merrily working away in Photoshop when your normal [...]

Last week a student in one of my workshops asked me how she could determine exactly which part of the image her Photoshop tool would affect when she clicked. The reason she was uncertain was because she was using Photoshop’s Standard cursor display.
The figure to the left shows the Brush tool with the Standard cursor [...]

Creating an Action to Add a Copyright Symbol
This exercise details how to create an action that can be turned into a droplet for use in the “Using Photoshop Actions with Lightroom” article in the June 2009 issue of After Capture magazine. Be sure to see that article to learn how to use this action in [...]