I’ve heard it said that the process of creating a photograph isn’t complete until you’ve made a print.  I don’t know that I’m in complete agreement but I will confess that I derive tremendous satisfaction in the art of printmaking.   In a blog post I wrote last year tittled “Pixels vs. Prints” I wrote about how viewing a photograph on a monitor and in print are two wholly different experiences.  A master printmaker I am not.  I’ve only been making my own prints, on an Epson Stylus 2880 printer, for a little over a year.  But, I’ve learned some lessons in that time that I’ll share here with the hope that your own foray into the wonderful world of printing may be a bit less intimidating.

Printer Selection

There are three primary manufacturers of printers capable of producing fine art photographic prints: Epson, Canon and HP.  HP printers use a dye-based ink while Epson and Canon both use a pigment-based ink.  I don’t have the time to fully discuss the pro’s and con’s of each, but you’ll find a good basic explanation of each here.  Most photographers I know, including a few who are master printmakers, use pigment-based ink printers.  The primary point I want to discuss here is selecting printer size because yes, size does matter.

I can make prints up to 13″x19″ on my Epson 2880.  This was fine for a few months but once I got the hang of things I quickly discovered that I wanted to print bigger.  How much bigger?  I’d like to be able to print 24″ wide prints.  So, I’m now saving my pennies to buy a large format printer.

My advice to you is to give serious thought to how big you may want to print one year from now, when you’ve gotten past being overwhelmed with the whole process.  Generally speaking, most professional level printers on the market today come in one of four sizes: 13″, 17″, 24″ and 44″.  There are even bigger printers but seriously, who has enough space to park a car-sized printer in their home office?  If you’re inclined to go with a 13″ printer, it’s worth noting that there isn’t a huge difference in the physical size of a 13″ and 17″ printer.  There is, however, a significant price increase.  Jumping up to a 24″ printer requires a sizable chunk of real estate in your office.  These printers usually ship with their own stand and typically weigh in at over 150 pounds!

Some additional thoughts: Consider how large you are able to print based on the camera you use.  If your primary camera is on your iPhone it’s probably a waste of money to buy a 24″ printer.  That’s an extreme example but you get the point – don’t let your ambitions overreach your abilities.  As printer size increases so does the size of the ink cartridges they require.  Larger cartridges are expensive but they contain significantly more ink, which means that your per print costs decrease with larger printers.  Larger printers require larger media (paper) and you’ll need a place to store it all.

Paper Selection

This is the fun part.  There are dozens of media types to choose from and they’re all unique.  Matte, luster, glossy, metallic, canvas – the list goes on.  And, just because you’ve got two papers that are both matte doesn’t mean they’re going to print the same.  Oh no, one may be warmer or thicker or more or less matte than the other.

How do you choose a paper?  Order a few sample packs and start making prints.  Seriously, it’s such a subjective thing that you’ve got to make prints on a bunch of different papers before you can start to develop a taste for what you prefer.  I like matte papers, so I knew going into it that I didn’t need to experiment with anything else.  But, there are so many manufacturers making matte papers that I had to order a few sample packs and make a bunch of test prints before I found a favorite – Moab Entrada Rag Bright 190.

Here’s a few manufacturers to consider whose papers are well respected: Moab Paper, Red River Paper, Canson-Infinity, Hahnemuhle and Ilford.  Epson, Canon and HP also sell their own branded papers.

The Myth of the Perfect Monitor to Print Match

Many novice printmakers are quickly frustrated when they find that their prints don’t match the image on their computer monitor.  Your first few prints are usually darker and less saturated than intended.  This is common. Very common.  Don’t lose your cool, you probably aren’t doing anything wrong.

There are several things you can do to combat this problem.  First and foremost, you should be working on a properly calibrated monitor.  If you aren’t, I probably wouldn’t even bother buying a printer.  Next, you should always soft-proof prior to printing using the appropriate ICC profile.  Wait, what?  In very simple terms, soft-proofing allows your monitor to simulate as closely as possible what your image will look like on any given paper using a profile designed for that paper.  It isn’t perfect, but it’ll get you pretty close.  Here’s a great soft-proofing tutorial on the Luminous Landscape website and another more in-depth one on the Cambridge in Color website.  Finally, until you learn how each paper prints you’ll save yourself some headaches by making a small (8″ x 10″-ish) artist proof before making your final print.  Is your artist proof too dark?  Use a curves adjustment to lighten it up.  Not saturated enough?  Add saturation to compensate for the loss when printing.

Care and Feeding of Your New Printer

Just a few years ago a common problem with inkjet printers was clogged printhead nozzles.  Newer and better technology has mostly eliminated this problem although it does still happen from time to time.  One of the main reasons for this is lack of usage.  Luckily, there’s an easy fix: use your printer!  Make a couple 8″x10″ prints each month and you probably won’t have to worry about clogged nozzles.

Don’t leave your paper in the feeder tray or on the roll when not in use.  Dust may settle on the paper, which can fall off after you make a print, leaving small areas that are void of ink.  It’s best to store paper in a dust-proof environment, such as the package in which it was shipped.

While we’re on the topic of dust, keep your printer covered when not in use.  Most printers have custom fitted dust covers available at minimal cost.  Buy and use one.  Dust inside your printer can cause the same problems as dust on your paper and even bigger issues as it works it’s way into the sensitive internal mechanisms of your printer.

You’re going to burn through a lot of ink, especially in the first couple of months.  I keep three extra cartridges of each color on hand because I don’t want to get caught without it.  If you run out of just one color of ink, you’re done making prints until it is replaced.  I order all my ink through the good folks at Atlex, which is also a great place to buy your printer.  I bought my printer through B&H but my next one will most likely come from Atlex.  They seem to consistently offer the best prices and occasionally they’ll throw in extras (like a complete set of inks or a couple packages of paper) to sweeten the deal.

Sharpening for Print

Sharpening images for presentation, whether on the web or in print, may well be the cause of more gray hairs than anything else in photography.  It doesn’t need to be.  There are old pro’s who still insist on manually sharpening their images using the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop or the sharpening tools in Lightroom.  I’m not one of them.  I cheat.  I use Nik Sharpener Pro 3 for all my sharpening needs.  I couldn’t be happier with the results and it’s incredibly easy to use.  You simply open the image you wish to sharpen in the Nik Sharpener Pro 3 software and make a few selections.  The software does the rest and it does it beautifully.  I recommend that you download the free 30-day trial, try it out and when you’re ready to purchase, use coupon code “BEDGE” for a 15% discount.

When viewing your newly sharpened image on-screen it will likely appear over-sharpened.  Fear not, the printed image will look just fine.  This is true whether you use Nik Sharpener Pro 3 or some other software like PK Sharpener, or you manually sharpen the image.

Other Considerations

You may need to trim the edges of your beautiful new prints to create even borders all the way around the image.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to use a high quality rotary trimmer.  I use a Dahle trimmer and couldn’t be happier with its performance.  They aren’t cheap but they will make trimming your prints completely hassle free and the edges will be nice, crisp and professional looking.

Unless you’re fortunate enough to sell every print you make you’ll want a place to store them.  I use an underbed box with a lid to store the prints flat.  If you roll them and keep them in tubes they’ll be a pain in the neck to share or eventually frame.  The underbed box also does a nice job of keeping them dust free.

I hope you find these tips to be useful.  As I said, I’m not an expert and am still learning as I go but these tips should help you avoid some of the common headaches.  I invite anyone with additional thoughts, suggestions or tips to please leave a comment below.

Tonight I was doing my normal nightly routine and scanning a couple of the internet forums I frequent for interesting topics.  I saw one on the Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers forum that piqued my interest titled “Nik Silver Efex – Is It All That?“.  No one who has been here for longer than a week will be surprised to hear me make this admission: I’m a Nik Software fanboy.  I love their stuff.  I do.  I preach about it on my blog, at my workshops and to my private guided clients.  I sing their praises on Facebook and twitter.  I use Nik plug-ins in the development of every single photograph I make.

So, what makes Nik plug-ins so great?  Is it because they can make a bad image good?  Or maybe it’s because they have powers far beyond those natively contained within Photoshop and Lightroom.  Nope.  Nik plug-ins don’t contain crazy voodoo magic that instantly converts an average photo into a masterpiece.  Truth be told, they don’t do anything that can’t be accomplished in the old fashioned digital darkroom using tried and true practices like layer masking, complicated selections, luminosity masks and blends, and other technical mumbo jumbo.

I’ve been using Photoshop since 2002.  That’s 9 years, folks.  The first 2 years almost don’t count since I was basically just floundering around in software that was way over my head.  I’m one of those freaks who would rather be outside playing than staring at a computer monitor.  Photoshop forced me to spend way too much time in a chair, at my desk, processing images.  Over the years I learned to navigate the myriad options pretty efficiently.  All was well and I was happy with my images.

Then one day, while guiding a client and talented photographer named Ray (who eventually became a friend), my eyes were opened to something new.  While hiking together in Arches NP he mentioned how amazed he was with these cool Nik Software Photoshop plug-ins he’d been using.  Ray told me how easy and powerful they were to use, and that he’d seen a dramatic improvement in the quality of his processed images.  A few days later, after Ray had headed back home to Texas, I downloaded a trial version of the Nik Software Complete Collection.

I was particularly interested in Silver Efex Pro for converting color images to black and white.  In all my years of using Photoshop and Lightroom I still hadn’t mastered the monochrome conversion.  In fact, I sucked at it.  I went to work on a few images with Silver Efex Pro and after an hour or two of experimentation, I was churning out pretty damn amazing black and white photos that made my previous attempts look like nothing more than sad, sad little pictures.

Next I tried Viveza 2, then Color Efex Pro 3.0.  They both rocked my socks off.  Dfine 2.0 for noise reduction?  Rocks.  Sharpener Pro 3.0?  Yeah, it rocks – especially if you’re new to printmaking, but that’s a whole other post.  The free trial offered by Nik lasts 15 days.  In less than a week I’d busted out my credit card and sprung for the whole enchilada.  That was over a year ago and never have I regretted that decision.  What’s so special about them?  I’m glad you asked.

Nik Software doesn’t make “magical” products.  That’s the domain of Apple.  The Nik plug-ins don’t allow you to do anything in the digital darkroom that wasn’t already possible within Photoshop and Lightroom.  What the Nik plug-ins do is flatten out the learning curve.  To become truly proficient with Photoshop takes months, at the very least.  For most of us it takes years to really attain a high degree of proficiency.  Here’s a bad analogy: Nik Software plug-ins are like the Slap Chop of image processing, but without the annoying infomercials.  Sure, you could slice and dice all those vegetables by hand with a knife but it’ll take a lot less time if you just Slap Chop them into juicy submission.  Nik plug-ins will save you time and headaches, and they’ll take you from a RAW un-processed file to a beautiful, finished image in a fraction of the time it would take using only the native controls in Lightroom and Photoshop.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’d rather spend more time in the field making new images and less time in the office staring at a computer monitor.  Thanks to the good folks at Nik Software, I’m able to do that now.  Every single image I process is touched at some point by at least one Nik plug-in.  Usually, I’ll use three of them: Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 3.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.  For black and white images I’ll use the freakin’ amazing Silver Efex Pro 2, Color Efex Pro 3.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0.  Nik plug-ins allow me to do more in less time.  They allow me to spend more time hanging out with my family, making new images, marketing and selling my work or napping in a grassy field filled with alpine wildflowers.  Only in the summer, though.  The bottom line is that Nik plug-ins allow me to spend more time doing anything else and less time tied to my desk.  If you’re content without them, good on you.  They’re not for everybody.  But if you want to go farther, faster – download the Nik Software Complete Collection 15 day trial now.  I promise not to say “I told ya so.”

Use discount code “BEDGE” to receive 15% off your purchase of Nik Software plug-ins at the Nik Software Store.

Delta Pool, Utah

Back when I shot Velvia I extended the very limited dynamic range of that beautiful but contrasty film by using graduated neutral density filters.  The digital revolution has all but eliminated GND’s from the backpacks of many landscape photographers.  I use to carry three of them.  I now carry only one, a Singh-Ray 3 stop soft-sep GND.  Why?  Blending two or more digital exposures together to create a single image with an expanded dynamic range allows much more precision and control over the final image.  If you’re like me, you’re a little bit intimidated at the thought of learning yet another Photoshop technique.  Don’t be.  I put it off for way too long and now that I’ve gotten more than a few blended exposures under my belt I almost never break out my GND in the field.  The tutorials below will get you started.

Exposure Blending in Photoshop – Sean Duggan
This might be the best place to start.  It’s an easy to follow tutorial and doesn’t delve into the more complicated aspects of blending exposures that might just confused a virgin blender.

The Basics of Exposure Blending – Sean Bagshaw
Here’s another excellent primer to get the virgin blender well on their way to exposure blending bliss.  I found this one to be particularly helpful.

Blending Exposures in Photoshop – John Williams
This tutorial not only walks you through how to blend exposures for increased dynamic range but also how to blend images with different focal points for increased depth of field.  A bit more advanced than the first two tutorials.  Very useful for landscape photography.

How to Blend Multiple Images Together – Kevin McNeal
If you’d rather automate most of the image blending process, this tutorial shows you how to use the Exposure Fusion function in Photomatix HDR software.

Merging Images: Landscape Photo Tip from NANPA Summit Presenter Jay Goodrich
Jay puts a different twist on merging exposures with regard to balancing the transition zone, which for most photographers is the most challenging aspect of blending exposures.

Blending Exposures in Photoshop Elements – Richard Bernabe
Here’s a fantastic tutorial for those who are using Photoshop Elements instead of Photoshop CS5, or one of it’s earlier iterations.  Very easy, very effective.

Guest Post: Exposure Blending – Younes Bounhar
This is the technique I use most often as it more or less automates the selection process.  Anything that makes my life easier is good in my book.

Understanding Digital Blending: Three Approaches to Extended Dynamic Range – Michael Reichmann
Even more ways to blend images for increased dynamic range with a thorough explanation of each technique.

Digital Darkroom: Graduated Neutral Density Filter – Jesse Speer
In terms of digital wizardry this tutorial from 2004 is ancient.  Nonetheless, the technique is still valid and is one of the simplest to master.

Hand Blending High Dynamic Range (HDR) Images Using Luminosity Masks – Tony Kuyper
I saved the best, and most complicated, for last.  Tony is a master of Photoshop and this tutorial will deliver the very best results possible.  If you expect perfection and you’ve got time and patience, Tony’s technique is the way to go.

Got a favorite exposure blending tutorial?  Feel free to leave a comment and a link to the tutorial.

Use the rubywhat?  The rubylith.  It’s a red, semi-transparent overlay that shows you the effected areas of a layer mask.  If you use Lightroom and have ever hovered over a local adjustment pin, you’ve seen a rubylith.  You can view your Photoshop layer mask as a rubylith by pressing the backslash key on your keyboard.  Voila – there’s a rubylith!

If you’re wondering why you’d want to use it in Photoshop, let me tell you how I use it.  Hand blending multiple exposures into a single image with increased dynamic range is a tedious but valuable technique for nature photographers.  I use brushes to paint over areas of images that I’m blending together.  Unless you’ve a much steadier hand than I, you’ll almost always have some spillover into areas you didn’t intend to include in your mask.  I’ve found the easiest way to find these accidental spills is to view the mask as a rubylith.  If it’s red, it’s being masked.  If it’s red and it shouldn’t be, it’s easy to erase.

That’s all there is to it.  Give it a shot some time, and let us know if you find it helpful.

John Shaw’s “Photoshop Field Guide” has been my bible for years.  So, when “John Shaw’s Digital Processing: A Personal Workflow Using Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4″ was released I purchased it right away at a reasonable cost of $25.  What follows are a few of my thoughts on what, at the time, was John’s latest e-book.  Note: he has since released “Using Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5″ ($15).  Both e-books may be purchased on his website, which earns you a PDF of whatever book you’ve chosen.

John clearly states on his website that neither of these titles are intended to be “how-to” books.  Rather, they are a rare glimpse inside the processing habits of a seasoned pro.  In fact, the highlight of the book for me were the examples where John discusses not only the step-by-step workflow used on each image, but his reasons for making each adjustment.  Truly invaluable material.

I’ve been using Lightroom since version 1 was released in 2007 (or maybe early 2008).  I’ve read and own a couple ”how-to” books, the best of which is Nat Coalson’s “Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process“.  It’s safe to say I’m no spring chicken when it comes to using Lightroom and Photoshop.  I mention this because I believe someone newer to working in the digital darkroom will find John’s e-book much more useful than I.

Having said that, here’s what I really like about John’s e-book:

• As usual, John doesn’t use technical jargon or geek speak.  His instruction is easy to understand and flows nicely.
• I’m glad he spent a few pages discussing the importance of devising a system for organizing your digital files early in your career.
• The short chapter on “Getting Started” touches on just about all of the most important aspects of configuring Lightroom for optimal performance.
• His thoughts on the initial edit of images after downloading them to your computer were helpful.
• Shortcuts!  Using shortcuts in Lightroom can dramatically increase the speed with which you are able to process images and John details the most used ones, even providing a handy cheat sheet.

What didn’t I like?  Really, it isn’t so much that I didn’t like certain things.  I just found that for me, as a fairly experienced user, some of the content was too basic.  By no means does that make this a bad investment.  If you are newer to using Lightroom and Photoshop, this may well be the best place to start.  If you’re an experienced user, you’ll benefit from the examples and possibly from one or two of the Photoshop tutorials on such topics as image blending or luminosity masking. 

The bottom line is this: you can’t write a fairly generic book and have it appeal to newbies and power users at the same time.  ”Digital Processing: A Personal Workflow Using Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4″ succeeds in keeping both sides happy about as well as can be expected.  Would I spend $25 on the book, if I had known then what I know now?  Yep.  Those examples I mentioned earlier are worth the price of admission alone.  Consider the rest of the content a nice bonus.

I haven’t yet purchased “Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5″ although I do plan to pick it up.  I’ll do a separate review on it at some point in the future.  If you’ve got either one, please take a moment to leave a comment with your thoughts and opinions on them.

It isn’t often that I get all fired up about software.  However, the announcement that Nik Software’s newest Lightroom and Photoshop plug-in, HDR Efex Pro, will be available for public consumption in October has me as giddy as a girl in a prom dress.

I’ve experimented with HDR in the past using what most consider the current industry standard software – HDRSoft’s Photomatix.  Frankly, I wasn’t terribly impressed.  Now, that isn’t to say that stunning images can’t be created using Photomatix, or for that matter, any other HDR software.  To the contrary, just read Royce Howland’s guest post on my blog last week, “Why I Love HDR - Part 1“.  Then pay a visit to his galleries to see some of the most amazing HDR landscape photography I’ve ever seen.  Clearly, Royce has mastered Photomatix.

After failing at HDR I went back to using filters to tame dynamic range.  Then I tried my hand at manual exposure blends.  While I love the control and final result of blending images by hand, I don’t love staring at a computer monitor for hours on end doing the tedious work required of the technique.  So, I’ve gone back to using filters.  Again.

Now, in walks Nik Software and their badass new HDR Efex Pro plug-in.  Okay, fine – I’m being a little sensationalistic.  I can’t really call it badass yet because I’m not one of the chosen few who was given a pre-release copy to run through the wringer.  But, if it’s even half as good as their other plug-ins it will in fact be badass.  Nik Software knows how to make software for people like me, who would much rather be outdoors photographing than sitting at a desk.  I have complete faith that HDR Efex Pro will allow me to create stunning, natural looking images in less time than blending by hand.  Naturally, you’ll all be the first to hear my initial impressions once I’ve had some time to spend under the hood with it.

Nik is currently taking pre-orders  on HDR Efex Pro, slated for release in October.  Anyone who purchases the Nik Complete Collection after July 25, 2010 will receive HDR Efex Pro free upon release.  And, if you don’t feel like paying full price for any of the Nik plug-ins, you can always use coupon code “BEDGE” at checkout to receive a 15% discount on your order from the Nik Store.

Until October, tick-tock…

Are you excited to try out Nik Software HDR Efex Pro?  What HDR software are you using now?  Let us know in the comments section!  

Tonight I feel a bit like a mad scientist.  For some unknown reason I got an itch to try something totally new in Lightroom and Photoshop.  I made this image of bison grazing in the meadow at Mormon Row in the Tetons while there a couple weeks ago.  Straight out of the camera the image wasn’t terribly exciting but I felt it had potential.  Those of you who are familiar with my work know that my images are generally pretty straightforward.  I don’t apply creative effects and I process the images to look more or less like the scene did when I photographed it.  A little tweak of contrast here, add some saturation there, darken a sky now and again and do a little dodge and burning – voila, the final image appears.  I have nothing at all against images that have been heavily manipulated.  Photography is an art and we should feel free to create our art on our own terms.

Now, I have obviously taken some serious creative liberties with this image.  For starters, my camera doesn’t make square photos.  I used a fairly heavy digital grad filter to darken the sky with a heavy dose of clarity to give more separation in the clouds, added some global negative vibrance to mute the colors, made a curves adjustment to increase contrast, dodged the bison to make them stand out a bit more from the meadow, added a vignette and some “grain” – all in Lightroom 3.  I exported the image to Photoshop CS4 and experimented with different blurs using the gradient tool to keep the bison sharp-ish while blurring out the background.  I didn’t like the results of any of those efforts.  What to do?  Hmmm…

I decided to see what Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 could do for the image.  I used their “Classic Soft Focus” filter first, painting on the effects only where I wanted them.  I was getting closer but something was still missing.  I tried a few other filters that didn’t work out before discovering the “Glamour Glow” filter.  A very subtle application gave me the results I was looking for, again brushed on sparingly.  I used Nik Viveza 2 to add some additional global contrast and whiten the whites.  The final step was to use Nik Sharpener Pro to sharpen only the bison.  What you see here is the final result of all that wackiness.  Total processing time: about 35 minutes.

I think one of the greatest attributes of digital photography is that it has opened up a whole new world of creativity, both in the field and in post-production.  When it doesn’t cost a penny to click the shutter most photographers are more willing to try new things, experiment with composition and stretch the boundaries of what they’re comfortable with.  Things get even more exciting in the digital darkroom with panoramic image stitching, HDR, blended exposures, an endless variety of filters and plug-ins, not to mention what is possible with nothing more than Lightroom and Photoshop.  And, if you don’t like the results of your weird science, it’s real easy to go back to square one and start all over!

What do you think?  Some have said this image is “too flat”.  Some simply don’t get it.  That’s cool.  Certainly, this is not the kind of processing that is going to appeal to everyone.  I’m just really curious to hear your comments as I really stepped out of my comfort zone with this one.  Be as harsh and critical as you dare.  I’m a big boy and I can take it.  What have you done to experiment and broaden your creative vision?  Let’s hear some ideas!

I’ve been using the Nik Software Complete Collection set of Lightroom and Photoshop plug-ins now for about 8 months.  You may have read my short review of Nik Silver Efex Pro, their black and white conversion plug-in that makes it easy to create stunning monochrome images.  I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve negotiated a deal with Nik Software that allows you to receive a 15% discount in the Nik Software Store using coupon code “BEDGE” at checkout.

My workflow now makes regular use of Nik’s Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 3.0 and Sharpener Pro 3.0 plug-ins.  Viveza 2 allows you to easily and selectively control light and color in your images.  Color Efex Pro 3.0 puts 52 photographic filters and over 250 effects at your fingertips.  You can probably figure out what Sharpener Pro 3.0 does on your own.  I’ll just say that it does what it does very well and with the greatest of ease.  When needed, I also use Dfine 2.0 to reduce noise without compromising image detail.

The Complete Collection is available in two versions; the regular and the Ultimate Edition.  The regular version provides you with all of Nik’s plug-ins for Lightroom or Aperture.  The Ultimate Edition provides plug-ins for Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop.  I purchased the Ultimate Edition because I wanted the ability to selectively apply effects using the brush tool in Photoshop.  This functionality is not available in Lightroom or Aperture.

Here’s the thing with Nik’s plug-ins.  They don’t really do anything you can’t already do in Lightroom or Photoshop.  What makes them so amazing is that you don’t have to spend days, weeks or months mastering Photoshop to arrive at the same result.  They’re powerful and they’re simple.  I love the outdoors, not my office.  Nik’s plug-in’s allow me to spend more time outside making images and less time in the office processing them.  That alone is worth the price of entry.  And, Nik makes it easy for you to master their plug-ins with dozens of short video tutorials available on their site and free daily webinars.  Perhaps less tangible but equally important, Nik hasn’t forgotten that we the customer keep them in business and they provide top-notch service when you need it.

Now that you know how I feel about the Nik Complete Collection, why not visit their website and download a free, fully functioning 15 day trial so you can form your own conclusions.  I think you’ll love working with their plug-ins.  If you don’t, it doesn’t cost you a dime.  If you do, head on over to the Nik Software Store and use coupon code “BEDGE” to receive a 15% discount on your purchase.

Give the Nik Software Complete Collection a try, then check in and let me know what you think of it!

As you all know, I don’t often use my blog to pitch products.  In this case, however, I’m making an exception.  My good friend and workshop partner Nat Coalson’s new book, “Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process”, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.  This is Nat’s second book about Lightroom and if it’s even half as good as his first, it will be the best book you’ll read on using Lightroom to make your great images even mo’ betta.

Nat is an Adobe Certified Expert who knows his way around Lightroom and Photoshop.  More importantly, Nat is able to teach those of us who are not Adobe Certified Experts how to process our images in Lightroom 3 as if we were.  No fluff, no techno-geek babble.  Just the fundamentals and a little bit more, all laid out in an easy to understand and simple to follow format.

If you’re planning to upgrade to Lightroom 3 (I did) you owe it to yourself to buy this book (I did that, too).  In case you missed it the first time, here’s the Amazon link one more time.

Nobody enjoys cloning out dust bunnies from their digital images in Photoshop or Lightroom.  It pretty much just blows.  So if there’s a way to go about it more efficiently, you’d probably like to hear it, right?  This tip, from Scott Martin, will make your digital life a little less aggravating.  Thanks, Scott!       

“When I was a drum scan operator in the early 90’s I had to be systematic about cleaning dust on every single scan. In Photoshop, start by zooming to 100% (option command 0)and hit the home button to go to the upper right corner. Holding down the command key turns the page up and down buttons into page left and right buttons. That trick worked in Photoshop 2 and still works today. 

Lightroom improves upon this functionality nicely. Zoom to 1:1 and hit the home key to fill the screen with the upper left most corner of your image. Hold down the shift key while pressing the page down key. Not only will it act as a ”Page Right” key, it will take you to the next column once you’ve reached the right side, like an old typewriter would.  You can continue hitting Shift-Command-PageDown until you’ve spotted your entire image. It a systematic way of “combing over” your entire image without worrying about missing anything.”

Scott Martin is the founder of onsight, a capture-to-print training and consulting business that helps digital imaging professionals optimize their workflows for quality and efficiency.  I’ve worked with Scott at workshops in Moab and can attest to the fact that he knows his stuff, he’s a heck of a teacher and an all-around cool dude.