Meet Liz, one of the voices behind the blog

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You may have noticed that there’s a new voice behind the Complete Digital Photography blog. Hi, my name is Liz LePage! Let me give you a quick introduction into who I am and what I do:

I’m a professional photographer, a creative retoucher, a dedicated educator and a life-long artist. I was lucky enough to be raised in an artistic household, with a father who loved photography and a mother who loved quilting. They both taught me to always try new things and to never let fear stop me from living. Their lessons have carried on with me and seep into every part of my life: I’ve never thought of myself as just a photographer. And I think that’s my biggest asset. I’ve tried everything from paper making to screen printing to oil painting, and I am constantly searching for new ways to express myself.

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In the Swimming Pool, by Maria Svarbova

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From In the Swimming Pool ©Maria Svarbova

Maria Svarbova’s In the Swimming Pool series is one of the most unique and beautiful photo projects I’ve seen in a while. Her mastery of light and color—reminiscent of Agfa’s classic slide films to me—and her attention to the pools’ symmetry and the swimmers’ forms make for stunning and captivating photos.

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Welcome to the new Complete Digital Photography

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This blog has been published in various forms since 2001. Ben started with hand-crafted HTML before moving on to the WordPress platform in 2004 (or thereabouts—our memories are hazy on these points), and I (Rick) have helped out here and there at various times over the years—and over on our dear, departed sister site, Printerville.

[If you’re interested, you can see the first version of the site over on the Wayback Machine, as well as some choice variations along the way. Be kind, please.]

Since the beginning, this website’s primary focus has been to support the various editions of Complete Digital Photography with example files and extra content, and that’s been our only constant since this site went live. The support page for the current 8th edition of the book is here; and you can still access the the 7th edition’s support page here.

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Bookmarks: Julieanne Kost’s Blog

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There must be a million websites devoted to photography (Google says as much), ranging from gear coverage to portfolios, photo news, opinions, business, learning, and more. Given the nature of this (yet another) photo site, I have to pay attention to more than I probably should, but most of you probably have a few that you check from time to time. If you work within the Photoshop and Lightroom post-production world, I have one that you should add: Julieanne Kost’s blog over at Adobe.com. Julieanne is an evangelist for Adobe, and her 2006 book, Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography & Creative Thinking, is a beautiful, thoughtful meditation on creativity, and one of the books I always have close to me for inspiration. It is unfortunately out of print, but you can still find used copies here and there, and, if you have an iPad (or Mac), you can purchase an ebook version for under $5. (She also recently published Passenger Seat, a tutorial-based book designed to help you develop your own photographic project.)

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Lumu Light Meter

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If you’re an old-school, ex-film photographer like me, you probably still have a fondness for light meters. These days, with everything being automated, most people don’t carry one around in their camera bag. Luckily, there’s an app for that! The Lumu Light Meter app—from Lumulabs—is well-designed, easy to use and extraordinarily useful. Lumulabs has thought of options that I could have never dreamed up, which help to make it the best incident meter of its kind.

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Fall Foliage Heat Maps

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Autumn is one of the best times to be a landscape photographer, with cooler weather, transitional light, and, of course, the amazing technicolor changes of the trees. The challenge is always in trying to time things so you’re in the right place at the peak of the foliage.

Luckily, the Internet is your friend: for the past few years, we’ve seen a few time-based “heat maps” that show the expected peak foliage colors across the US; the best and most reliable has been SmokyMountains.com’s Fall Foliage Map. It has a great map of the US, with a date slider that shows the anticipated foliage gradient (from minimal to past peak) across the country.

If you live in New England, the Disneyland of fall foliage, check out New England Today’s Peak Fall Foliage Map; it’s not as cool as SmokyMountains.com’s, but it does the trick.

[via Kottke]

Moab/Arches photo workshop Nov. 3-7

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©Hudson Henry Photography

Our good friend Hudson Henry is hosting a five-day photo workshop in Moab this November, and there are a couple of spots left:

There’s no place like Moab, Utah. This location has something for every photographic style and taste. In this small (10 person) workshop we’ll split time between exploring this epic location and honing your photographic skills and creative vision through classroom training, shooting, editing and critiques.

Moab has it all. Epic desert vistas with deep canyons and otherworldly rock formations, incredible trails for hiking and mountain-biking, bright starry nights with low light pollution, and it’s all within easy striking distance of this great little town with good food and friendly locals.

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The Best Printing Apps for Your Phone

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In the last decade, printing your images out on real paper seems to have fallen out of fashion. As digital has conquered the world of film, many photographers–professional or personal–no longer print out their photos. Whenever I tell people about printing out my images, they act confused; “Why would you print them out?” Yet every time I give physical photos as gifts, my friends and family absolutely love them.

Many people don’t have photo printers at home, as they can be pricey to buy and stock regularly. That’s why I’ve fallen in love with the world of printing apps; why pay bucket loads for special paper and expensive ink when someone else can send you gorgeous prints with no hassle?

There are a lot of printing apps popping up, so I’ve compiled my favorites to help you choose the best option for you.

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Photoshop Automator Actions updated for CC.2017

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DECEMBER 2020: The Photoshop Automator Actions do not work with recent versions of macOS, and are no longer available. [RobotPhotoshop.com has since gone offline.]

We recently updated our Mac OS X-based Photoshop Automator Actions to Version 5.0.8, to include support for Photoshop CC 2017.

Built-in to Mac OS X 10.4 and later, Automator makes it simple to create sophisticated, complex automations. Out-of-the-box, Automator can’t control Adobe Photoshop, but with the addition of this Photoshop Automator Actions collection, you get everything necessary to drive Photoshop using Automator.

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Quartz Mountain Lightroom workshop, Oct. 5-8

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If you’re thinking that it’s time for you to really learn Lightroom, Ben is teaching a Lightroom Deep Dive workshop in early October at the Oklahoma Arts Institute’s Quartz Mountain facility:

While “Photoshop” has become something of a generic term for image editing, these days, most digital post-production is centered around Lightroom. Offering all of the essential image editing power of Photoshop, Lightroom also provides all of the image management and cataloging features that you need to keep your ever-growing archive organized and searchable. In this intensive workshop we’ll go deep into the bowels of this product and explore how you should configure your system to get the most from Lightroom. Lightroom’s editing toolkit provides all of the essential controls you need to make sophisticated tone and color corrections and we’ll look at how to get the most from these controls. Along the way we’ll cover organization, backup and geotagging as well as how to merge Photoshop into your Lightroom workflow. Finally, we’ll go deep into Adobe’s latest addition to the Photoshop/Lightroom family and dive into Lightroom Mobile, which allows you to easily integrate your iOS and Android phone camera images into your regular workflow. Because you’ll need some imagery to work with, and because we’ll want to get out of the computer lab, we’ll be taking time to shoot in the surrounding towns and landscapes. There’s something in this class for anyone who uses Lightroom, regardless of your current skill level, and in this workshop we’ll have a lot of fun exploring those things.

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