Watermark and copyright notices are something that everyone should use, especially if you are on Flickr. Naturally you want to put copyright information in the files themselves too. I haven’t been putting this information on my images in the form of a watermark until now because I didn’t know of an easy way to incorporate this into my workflow.

Lucky for me I recently came across Timothy Armes’ LR/2 Mogrify plugin for Lightroom 2 (it works on Windows and Mac). In order to use this on a Windows machine, you also need to download ImageMagick, a useful program I have used in the past in a LAMP environment for web applications. Lastly, you need a transparent PNG image to use as your watermark. The image I used for the photo above is at 30% opacity in Photoshop. If you don’t know how to create a transparent PNG image in Photoshop for watermarking purposes, I highly recommend Heather’s Watermark Tutorial.

My images typically start out between 7-9MB in size. Typical dimensions are 3648×2736 in size. Because of this, and wanting to ensure the watermark was visible, I made my watermark 200px tall. YMMV, but this works for me. If you are exporting to Facebook with the Friedl Plugin, you will likely need to adjust your settings substantially from what you use for Flickr. Just make sure you use Presets to save your settings for each type.

Once you have the file completed, it is a simple matter of using the plugin via Lightroom (after you have added it of course). The plugin gives you 9 base reference points you can anchor the plugin to, and then you can offset the placement in both the vertical and horizontal planes. You will have to experiment for a bit to see what works for you. One option you will see is whether or not you want to put the watermark on the image before you create any borders, or after. If you aren’t using borders, you can ignore this. I have seen some examples of incorporating the watermark/ logo into the border. Take a look and see if you like it.

Adding borders can be a bit confusing the first time you do it. At least it was for me. I thought that as you add numbers, you were working from the inside out. This means that the highest number would be the innermost frame, at least in my mind. It didn’t turn out to be the case though. Border 1 is always the innermost border. For my standard template, Border 1 is 15px all the way around and black. Border 2 is also 15px all the way around, and is white. Border 3 is the big one, at 30px all the way around and black in color. To me it gives images a nice framed and matted look. I only do this for the photos that get uploaded to Flickr and Facebook. Anything going to photos.chesterbullock.com (Zenfolio) gets no treatment, as I want the prints to be printed in original form without the borders and watermarks.

One thing to be careful of with the LR2/Mogrify tools - if you export later for a different purpose, make sure you disable the LR2/ Mogrify plugin. It stays on by default all the time in the Export window, and you could export something with edits you don’t mean to.

I truly wish I had come across this useful utility sooner. I am just very thankful I came across it at all.

This weekend I decided it was time to build the homemade softbox featured in my article of Do It Yourself Ligh Modifiers. With shopping list in hand, Natalie and I went to Michael’s to get everything we needed (and a craft for her to do at the same time).

Once we were at Michael’s, I had to make some substitutions. They want $35 for a piece of mat board, so I opted instead for a 3 pack of white poster board pieces. Also, the staff there had never heard of mylar drafting film. Wasn’t totally sure what to do, but as I was walking down the drafting/ needlepoint supply aisle, I spotted something called “plastic canvas”. I grabbed a couple sheets of varying sizes and hole densities and figured that would work.

Than I got into the construction phase. Cutting the foam was pretty straightforward (the authors tip about using a thin sheet of plywood for a cutting board was perfect). Then I started cutting the posterboard. In the authors revised directions, he indicates you should leave extra around the edges (on the trapezoidal pieces). I did this, but I am not sure what function that serves. As I was finalizing construction, These oversized pieces were difficult to work with and I still don’t see the point. Somehow I managed to get it all together though.

Since I wasn’t using the drafting mylar (I’ll check Hobby Lobby next time), I needed a different way of adhering the diffuser. I used 12 velcro squares and cut them all in half. I then mounted the hook pieces to the 1″ strips of foam on all the sides of the box. I glued two pieces of the plastic canvas together (hot glue is awesome) and trimmed it to fit the opening in the softbox. Next I mounted the loop parts of the velcro on the plastic canvas to match the locations on the softbox frame. Pressed it all in and voila - softbox done.

The photo above is one of the sample pictures I took. The photo at left is another. Since I was using the flash off camera with my Cactus remote trigger, I had to fiddle with the flash settings a few times. The photo at left is still overexposed, but a quick treatment in Lightroom makes it suitable, as you can see in the photo at right.

In the time since I made my original post, I think the author of the instructions for this softbox has made some revisions. I’d love to see more detail on why the trapezoids should be oversized, since it caused me problems. But overall, I am happy with the output from this box. I am actually going to be playing with it later today when I do “class photos” for my daughter’s small preschool class here in Lakewood. I’ll post up another time about how that shoot goes.

At first glance, this photo probably looks like any other tree picture, taken while standing up and shooting horizontally across the ground. That wasn’t the case though. I wanted the contrast of the branches and the snow however, so I stood under the tree and shot vertically into the sky. I then loaded the image into Lightroom and applied the Creative - Cyanotype preset to really add some flavor to the image. I am quite pleased with the result.

As previously mentioned, I took some time while in Durango recently and worked on my HDR images, specifically where real estate is concerned. I even followed the directions from the Photomatix people. While I actually took several HDR images on my trip, I was particularly pleased with the real estate ones.

The best one, the exterior shot above, is a combination of 4 exposures. I imported all of my images form the weekend into Lightroom, then selected them and corrected the white balance. I had shot them without resetting my settings from earlier experiments - thank god for RAW and Lightroom. I then took the 4 images and exported them using the HDRSoft Photomatix Lightroom export plugin. I then combined the images in Photomatix, adjusted the tone map until I had an image I liked, then saved it and went back to Lightroom.

I had some really bad converging verticals though, so from Lightroom I chose to edit the image in Photoshop CS3. Once in PSCS3 (say that 5 times fast), I used the Distort feature to straighten the verticals and make everything look proper. All in all, I am quite pleased with the outcome. I know there are free tools out there to generate HDR images, but none of the ones I tried came anywhere close to Photomatix in terms of resultant quality or ease of use. If you are seriously considering HDR photography, you really should invest in Photomatix.

A friend of mine recently had an impromptu family reunion photo shoot come up. Her background, like mine, is traditionally more of an artistic type of photography. She indicated that she had trouble switching to photographer from artist and wanted to know how I managed it.

I was a bit taken aback by this, as I don’t really see myself as being good at the portrait thing (although people are loving Megan’s senior pics - the photo above is one of them). But that isn’t very helpful to anyone, so I thought about it and gave her my gut reaction. I have since thought about it more, and my gut reaction is the same, so here it is.

The focus of a portrait should be the person/ people/ animal that the portrait is supposed to be of. This might sound obvious, but it isn’t always that way, especially in post processing. It is easy for creative people to start saying “what if I cropped here, what if I applied sepia there?” and pretty much forget about what it is they are there to do. When I was doing the processing of the Senior Pictures for my daughter Megan, I had to look at it from my view as a parent. I want a tasteful image that reflects who she is, and where she is the focus.

Another reality with portraits is that people are going to be less likely to have any custom framing done. As such, any cropping you do should have a resultant image in a standard “frameable” size. Not to say some people won’t do the custom thing, but since portraits get sent to a larger audience (parents, grandparents, etc.), it is more helpful if you can keep it standard.

One of the cool things I love about Adobe Lightroom is the easy ability to create and work with virtual copies of an image. This is great for portraits. If I see a shot that might look better with a certain crop, displayed in black and white or sepia, or any other artistic variation, I can apply it to the copy, and upload that with the original and let the buyer choose which they like better. These people are the art directors, not you, and you need to give them all the options. Some might sell, some might not, but at least they will know the options. And if they like it, they will buy it from you instead of trying to do it themselves with whatever photo site they like.

I do still think there is room for being artistic in a portrait situation. I think the example above highlights one such opportunity. As Megan was climbing out into the stream, I saw this shot in my mind. So I stayed put on the banks of the stream and took this shot from further out. Then I clambered into the stream and did the up-close shots before we called it a day.

So in a nutshell, I guess the answer to my friend’s question is “don’t forget that it is about the people and what they want, not necessarily your vision.” But if you offer options, you are that much more ahead of the game.

When you are shooting a room with a great view, it is a good idea to show that view, if you can. But that is more complicated when you think about the exposure levels outside versus inside the room. Since I was in an awesome location recently (the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek, Colorado), I decided to use the property to do some practice on. I have posted a few images from this test in the Photography For Real Estate Flickr group (yes, it is a Flickr complement to Larry Lohrman’s excellent site/ blog) and have received some useful feedback from it.
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All in all I have taken somewhere around 200 pictures of Megan in the last couple of months. We did it mostly in 2 location, Golden Gate Canyon State Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Of those photos, Megan and my wife narrowed it down to 24 that they really liked. Using the guidelines set forth by the Lakewood High School yearbook staff, I narrowed the field down to 6 images I thought would be suitable for a headshot for the yearbook. I then exported these 6 from Lightroom 2 into their own slideshow online (the first time I had used this feature, and it worked pretty well).

Of the 6, the image above is the one she wants to use in the yearbook. After adjusting some of the lighting levels in Lightroom, I took it into Photoshop to apply some effects with Portraiture. The end result is pretty good, and I am sure will look great when printed at 2″ x 2″, or whatever yearbooks are printing at these days.

In the coming months we will be taking more photos. Why? Well, since the bulk of Senior Pictures are sent out in the spring with graduation announcements, party invitations and so forth, we have some time yet to get more pictures in more surroundings at different times of the year. Besides, she is going off to college next year. As her parents, we can never have enough pictures when she is out on her own.

Outside of Tucson is this 300 year old Spanish Mission. More information about it is at sanxaviermission.org.

Based on the success of my recent sepia picture, I decided to treat this one the same way. Most historic pictures of the old west are in sepia, so it seemed appropriate. And it is an easy thing to do with Lightroom 2.

There are so many historical things to photograph out there. Some of it seems more timely than others. With the sabre-rattling going on over Georgia, perhaps a photo of this Cold War relic is a timely one.

This Titan II Missile is standing in a nearly complete missile complex in Tucson, Arizona. Decommissioned in the 1980’s, all but this one were blasted to a depth of 20 feet to ensure they could not be easily reused, and so that the Soviet Union could verify their destruction via overhead satellite passes. This one was spared, for historical purposes, and turned into a museum. They give tours ( http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/ ) which are interesting and very informative (AAA Members get $1 off the tour admission BTW). This was a fascinating place to me, having wanted to be a rocket scientist at one point in my life. We always joked with the ROTC students that they were just going to be “key turners” once they graduated (they all wanted to be pilots naturally). Mutually assured destruction seems like insanity to me, but it did keep both sides form using these destructive weapons.

Anyway, if you are in Tucson, this is one thing worth checking out. I got some other interesting photos while there, but most are just of the ’snapshot’ variety to show people what these facilities were like.

As for the photo, I cropped it, selectively reduced exposure in some areas, and then applied an “aged photo” preset, all in Adobe Lightroom 2. I love this program…

A couple weeks ago, Photography Director Rob Haggart wrote a blog post entitled “Here’s What I Think Of Your Pictures“. It seems to have struck a chord with a number of people, myself included. I am a flickr-holic, constantly browsing the recent uploads to see what is moving through there. Most of it is uninspiring. A lot of cutesy snapshots (not that I am above taking such images). Every once in a while though, I see an image that moves me, and I either favorite it, or sometimes go so far as to add the photographer as a contact. The timing of Rob’s post is interesting. It came right about the time I was editing the photo above. The original is in color, and the sky is horribly blown out. But because I shot it in RAW, and with the assistance of a friend and also Lightroom 2, I was able to selectively adjust the exposure of the sky, bringing out more detail. Then I went in a direction I don’t normally go.

Sepia has never done a whole lot for me. In my mind, it just made things look “antiquey”. But as I was floating over the presets in LR2, the preview of the Sepia version caught my eye. I applied it, and you see the result (after about 4 iterations of exposure correction, leveling the shoreline, etc - see the original color version). Now this photo talks to me. I am sure it is in part because that is “daddy’s little girl” in the picture. But for me, this was a rare instance where she was sitting idle, taking in the scene. None of it was staged, other than me telling her to sit on the rock so I could take some pictures. The rest was all her. I have some with her facing me, some with her back to me (such as this), but it was all her choice. The strap on her shirt off her shoulder, the hair, everything about it was as it happened. I didn’t do anything but take the picture. I have always said that I am more lucky than anything else - right place, right time.

I printed this image on the color laser at work, using HP Glossy Laser Photo Paper and have shown it to some people, looking for objective opinions. The reactions were all the same. This picture moved them. They all interpreted it differently, but the bottom line is that it moved them in some way. This is what Rob was looking for in his blog post. I feel fortunate that I was able to capture a moment that has moved some people. But I also know I cannot bask in the glory of this moment for long. There is no doubt that I will still get more snapshots than moving pictures. But at least I know I am capable.