Buddy

Manchester Central Library entrance

Nude

Reclining nude

Art Gallery steps

High Riser

Dog face

Dog in the park

Saw this on another site

Very clever face painting and photography

Night boat

Morris Traveller classic car

Young Boxer dog

Manchester Central Library

Market Street

Adobe CS3 prices leaked

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/adobe-cs3-pricing-leaked-by-amazon-247017.php

Paintwork

Unco-operative model

Smoke without fire

Got my new toy today - a fog machine. What a laugh! Who would have thought you could have so much fun. I can see a bubble machine being next on the list.

A must-read for artists-in-business

http://luminous-landscape.com/columns/Artist1.shtml
An easy article that covers the mistakes we all seem to make before we find some of the right answers.

If only it were that easy

Meg in the Park

Photo sequences

Are we going to see the end of the one shot sniper, to be replaced by the digital machine gunner? Judging from this thread, http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KMXW&tag=, it seems that more and more photographers will take the easy way out and spray and pray

Dessert

Adolescence

A Country Dinner

Free Lightroom presets

onOne Software has a set of free presets available on their website - http://downloads.ononesoftware.com/photopresets/PhotoPresets-ReleaseNotes.html

Adobe Photoshop news

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/ps_psext_info.html

Jill Greenberg video

Love her or hate her, she certainly knows how to get a lot of publicity - http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2007/01/jill_greenberg_2.php

An audience is always nice - isn't it?

Photo filter actions on video

This site - http://www.pfisterphoto-art.com/pjddrv2show/
includes a video that show some interesting filter actions applied to already good images.
It should spark a few creative ideas of how to add the finishing touches to your own work.

Model available

Will work for food

Ning sites

As part of maintaining a healthy web presence, I have started two rings on ning.com, one for general photography - http://manchesterphoto.ning.com/
and one for wedding planning and services - http://brides2be.ning.com

Wallflower

Fake Colour

Down the Centre

Down the canal

Sale Waterside offices

Sale tram station

Skyward

Walkies

Swinger

Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v.1.0

I've been working my way through the first release of Lightroom and I think I have learnt what it is all about. I've decided I like it. I don't think it is a replacement for Photoshop, especially not CS3. However, depending on the sort of photographer you are and if you spend a lot of time making the photograph right in camera or do work like stock photography that does not want a lot of post-production, you could do without Photoshop and go straight from camera to delivery in several formats by using Lightroom alone.

These are the note points I made as I found out good points and useful features about Lightroom v.1. -

• Lightroom can import files direct from the card, copy, rename and make backups in different formats and in different folders and drives, all at once
• It makes very strong use of presets and templates. You can make and save templates for all sorts of situations - printing, applying settings when saving, applying edits automatically on import
• Since it is database driven, it can be backed up reliably and efficiently and all the settings and effects applied do not permanently affect the original image but are saved with the file
  
• It can make virtual collections without moving files
• It has a lot of ways of filtering files by keyword, settings, rating, metadata etc.It can apply metadata templates to files and you can browse and select images by metadata
• You can tag (stamp) files quickly with keywords
• Keyboard shortcuts are plentiful and easy to use to speed up workflow
• Views are totally adjustable and interface panels can be folded up out of sight
• Files can be grouped and stacked
• There are several ways of viewing images together to compare them
• Virtual copies of an original image can have different looks and still be used together in groups, slideshows and prints
• The Print Module lets you preview different layouts interactively, zoom, change borders and stroke borders and you can print directly from Lightroom without saving the different formats
• You can save and swap your own templates and modules and it has a good range of proof and work templates to start with
  
• You can personalise the Identity Plate to brand the Interface, watermark the proofs and prints and add information to prints
• Lightroom can make slideshows quickly and use soundtracks from an Itunes library. PDF slideshows are exported without sound though.
  
• Presets can be previewed without being applied so you can swiftly cycle through the choice
• You can save snapshots
• You can make changes to groups and selections of images at the same time, replacing batch work
• The Dust Spot Tool is re-editable by going back to it at any time and it can be used as a clone tool
• You can copy and paste Develop settings between images
• You can nest collections
• You can nest keywords in a hierarchy
  
• You can organise images very quickly with filters and the thumbnail icons.

I would say that Adobe have done a good job of building a replacement for Bridge and I think that most photographers will prefer to use Lightroom just because it makes the production of deliverables so quick and easy.

Butterfly wings

Butterfly inside the window

I see too much of this

My monitor screen, photographed through a reversed 50mm 1.8 on extension tubes

Snowy the white cat

Shrine to Albert

Street lantern

Tram stop

Statues

Fountain backlit

Scaffolding

Street photography

Office blocks

Backstreets

Manchester Architecture

Church of England

Manchester Cathedral

Marketing 101

Moving to a new colour space.

After several happy years with Adobe RGB, it is time to move all my gear to a new colour space. It was a sudden decision, brought on by new information ( the release of Adobe Lightroom v.1 - http://www.adobe.com/go/trylightroom, which uses ProPhoto as the default space ) and no reason not to move quickly. From now on, I will be using the ProPhoto RGB setting for my digital photography.
You can read a good introduction to ProPhoto on the Luminous landscape website - http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml.
I never had any complaints about Adobe RGB, it was solid, reliable and trustworthy. But I have to keep up with the times and keep my options open, which makes ProPhoto the better choice for coping with and exploiting future calibration and printing advances.

Working the search engines

It’s hard work keeping on top of several blogs and making fresh regular online content but it pays off surprisingly quickly. We have only been pushing the re-branding as The Manchester Studio online since the end of last year. Already, we have the top place and three other listings in the Top 20. The discipline of providing fresh images means that we also have a good incentive to go out and find original photographs and to present them in interesting eye-catching ways, once we get them back in the studio.

Two new important links for digital artists

The first is John Derry's Blog - http://pixlart.blogspot.com/
The second is the website of the new free post-production magazine from the Rangefinder publishers, AfterCapture - http://www.aftercapture.com/

Stained glass window

from a local church.