I’ve worked hard to make Power Workflow the set of presets that sets the gold standard for LR presets. PW3 has been out for almost nine months now and has been a home run so far. Well 3.2 just went out, free for you PW3 owners. This update includes some new presets, including a few cool ones dealing specifically with dynamic range. There’s also lots of little tweaks to make the collection more powerful than ever. You can find a list of the changes in the Tips & Info page of the download.
If you own PW3 you should already have an email with your new download. You can simply delete the old ones and install the new. If you didn’t receive them, shoot me an note (effects@seimstudios.com) and I’ll hook you up. And if you don’t own PW3, you’re missing out. Give them a try and if you don’t like them, I’ll give your money back. I can tell you that’s something that happens very rarely.
You users been asking about these for a long time. The truth is I’ve avoided it because I really like teaching photography workshops in person, and for some, like my Lights & Shadows workshop, it’s the only way to fly.
But reality says I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve that I can teach online. With that in mind I’ve decided to stop resisting it. Coming soon is an all new series of digital learning workshops. Separated into bite sized chunks, inexpensive, live and online.
It’s going to start with a Lightroom Power learning series. Workshops that start at basics and work into very advanced editing skills. You can pick the sessions you want based on your current skillset. Cool part is these will be about 90 minutes each and will only cost about twenty dollars. Spend an evening at the live online workshop, then take time to let is soak in before the next one.
After Lightroom I plan to take it further. I may even do a seasonal series. Focused workshops on things that seem simple, but can go so deep. Burning and dodging, cloning, prepping files for print. I’m getting excited because with this online format I can host a workshop on nearly anything, no matter how focused, because there’s no travel and no venue overheads to take into account.
Stay tuned for more details. Registration for The first webinars will be opening soon… Gav
You can follow the Facebook Page. All workshops will be announced there. You can also join the newsletter over in the sidebar >>
Lightflow for Aperture is an ultra refined presets toolkit for photographers that’s based on many years of digital editing experience. I like to give away freebies and samples from every full collection I release and LightFlow this is no exception. Below you can download the sampler pack that includes 6 great effects from LightFlow, including one of the new Super Series auto correction presets.
I’ve put loads of refinement into LightFlow and I think you’ll love them. I hope you’ll also check out the full version because with over 55 presets, it takes Aperture workflow and creativity to new levels. And like other Seim Effects tools, LightFlow is guaranteed to please.
The freebie pack includes the following presets. You can find a full description of each in the presets list on the main product page.
Super Hero.
Super Simple.
Color Dance.
Faded Glory.
Simply Silver.
Dusted Warm, Tone.
Download via the link below. No strings. Also if you’d like to keep up with my future releases and freebies, you can sign up for my newsletter right over there >> in the sidebar. Enjoy… Gav
by Gavin Seim: Updated 11/22/12. There’s a lot of confusion out there about resolution as it relates to making prints, so I want to help clear it up. I make mostly large prints and spend quite a bit of time studying factors that effect my image quality. Often I use a 5D MK II, which is 21MP. I also use 4×5 film because of it’;s vastly higher resolution. It scans in at closer to 200MP. But to start with lets use an average 18MP file as our example.
First let me say that digital has a long way to go in terms of resolution. Today’s camera’s are amazing, but lets get a perspective. Ansel Adams did much of his work on 8×10 sheet film. It’s hard to compare film to digital exactly, but using a good film he probably would have had a rough equivalent of around 400 million (mega) pixels. This makes our digital cameras look pretty paltry at times and it’s one of the reasons I’ve started working with 4×5 film for some of my projects, as it can give me 200+ effective megapixels when scanned (more of that on my pictorials website).
Say we have a full size file from a Canon 7D. The resolution of that file would be 5184×3456 pixels. About 18 mega pixels (roughly 22x less than that 8×10 film). Our file comes in at just over 11 x 17 at 300 PPI. Note that PPI and DPI refers to Pixels Per Inch or Dots Per Inch (a printing term). For today’s purpose I’ll refer to it as PPI as it’s becoming the more common term.
First and foremost, PPI and actual file resolution (or pixels) are not always the same. For example I could take our file in Photoshop and set the size to 30×20. Unless I told PS to Resample (or increase the resolution) of the file, the computer would now see this file as a 20×30. Only now it would show as being just over 172 PPI instead of 300 because the pixels have not changed or increased, which means there must be less pixel per inch when printed at that size – It’s still an 18MP file. I’ve just told the computer it’s larger in physical print size. What really matter however is if you have enough overall resolution. Here a screen capture to show how I was changing PPI. The PPI on each is different, but the pixel quantity is the same.
So what if I printed this file as a 4×6. I’m not sure why I would want a print that small (see the wall portrait article), but bear with me. At 4×6 our 18MP file would print out at just over 860PPI if we left it at full resolution. That’s a lot since most human eyes can’t see any difference above 300PPI. Bottom line, my file has more than enough pixels. Printing with that extra PPI won’t hurt anything. Though depending on the printer, all that information may not be used.
Why does all this matter. Well mainly so you don’t get confused. PPI has relevance in sizing and printing because it can quickly tell us something about how good our print will be. That brings us to larger prints and how this all relates.
Click for larger view – Gavin’s 30 inch canvas, Bull of the Mist. This a medium sized print. Taken in early morning at ISO 3200 made the detail on this slightly less, but it was needed for shutter speed. As you can see, the detail is good, but not flawless. The canvas helps give it an organic art feel. This was made from a file that was 5464 x 2732 pixels. It was up converted to 9000px wide before print. More about this image here.
Resolution VS Large prints.
This is where things get subjective. I’ll speak from my own experience as I regularly produce prints 40 inches and beyond. With our 18MP file we know we have plenty of information for a baby print. What about a serious print meant for the wall. Lets look at that 20×30 again. Lets go into the “Image Size” box of Photoshop and changing the file dimensions to 20×30, without altering the resolution as I did above. I left Resample un-checked which means I changed the print size but not the amount of pixels in the file. We’ll now have 172PPI at a print size of 30×20. Are you getting it? This is telling us how much information we have to lay on paper in terms of real life printed pixels – 172PPI is not bad. Most peoples eyes can probably see a bit more detail than that, but the print should still be good.
by Gavin Seim. So I’ve planned another road trip, along with Spring workshops. I’m hitting the road early April with my little family and heading to SF area for two workshops in Oakland. I’m stoked. We plan to spend about a month on the road in the RV. After the workshops, we may head up towards the Grand Canyon as I hunt for stock and landscape images, then who knows. Here’s the workshop lineup. I hope you’ll help me spread the word and I hope to see you there.
April 16-17 is my Lights and Shadows workshop. This is a fresh 2 day event that covers HDR and beyond. It’s an intimate workshop limited to about 20 people. We’ll be doing work in the field and editing back at the home base. More info here. There’s also a Facebook event page.
On April 18th is the Lightroom Power workshop. This has something for everyone. We’ll cover basics, but also get deep into power user stuff. It’s another fun hands on workshop, so bring your laptops with LR and prepare to think differently about your editing. More info here, and the Facebook event page here.
I’m also working on setting up something for Fresno. Still working on the details of that, but stay tuned to this post or the Seim Effects FB page for details. I’ll also update the workshop pages if a new location is added. Hope to see some of you there… Gav
