PixelatedImage Blog

Manfrotto School of Xcellence, Monday Oct. 24, 2011. 2pm – 3pm PDT
More information on the Manfrotto site HERE

On Tuesday morning I jump in the Jeep and drive down to Syracuse, NY to join Jeffrey Chapman for some spectacular Cambodian/Thai food before we jump an early morning flight on Wednesday to Oaxaco, Mexico for our Oaxaca Within The Frame, Day of the Dead Adventure. Very excited.

Tomorrow (Monday ,Oct 24, 2011), I’ll be on the air at 2pm PDT / 5pm EDT for the Manfrotto School of Xcellence (don’t get me started on alternate spellings. Just plain goofy.) giving a free one-hour webinar presentation about Building Better Photographs. The presentation is largely based on the principles of the newest book, Photographically Speaking, though in a much distilled form. I’d love you to join us. These presentations are always fun (read: fraught with tech issues) and I’ll be glad to have some friends in the audience. Join us! (Follow the link at the top to the Manfrotto site)

Manfrotto School of Xcellence, Monday Nov. 21, 2011. 2pm – 3pm PDT
More information on the Manfrotto site HERE

Next month, same time, I’ll be doing another one called Confessions of a So-Called Pro. Here’s the blurb: When professional photographer and best-selling author David duChemin left a 12-year career in comedy to pursue his first creative love, photography, he tried very hard to be the “professional” he thought he was meant to be. What he discovered along the way was that being a productive photographer that loved his craft had nothing to do with getting paid. More than that, he learned many lessons about the craft of photography that apply to everyone, from so-called amateur to so-called pro. Join David in a candid discussion about the journey of photography.

I’d love you to join us for that too. Between now and then I’ll be in Oaxaca shooting the Day of the Dead, and on Roatan, Honduras, doing nothing at all. The last trip I went really light, this time I’m taking a Nikon D3s, Sigma 20/1.8, Nikon 24mm PC-E, and Sigma 85/1.4. 4 batteries, no charger. 2 x 64 GB SanDisk cards. Gitzo Ocean Traveler tripod, and a couple Singh Ray filters. It’s a fraction of what I once carried but already it feels like I’m packing for an expedition! I’ll carry it all on my back in a Think Thank Photo Airport Acceleration, until I get there, when I’ll pop my working gear into a Think Tank Retro 30. Wow, that was a lot of gear talk in one paragraph. Let’s move on.

Lastly, Photographically Speaking is now shipping and I’m getting really beautiful early comments and reactions. Thank you again for the support! I think this one is the strongest of the so-called vision trilogy. If you haven’t got one yet, you can do so on Amazon.com HERE or Barnes & Nobles HERE. If you’ve already got yours and don’t mind leaving a quick review on Amazon, I’d be grateful.

Will try to check in from Oaxaca and Roatan and send postcards! See you when I get back!

Two years ago I wrote and published my first eBook. One book turned into two, two became four, and soon there were other authors and this thing we called Craft & Vision. We’ve now got 30 eBooks in our library and while I’m still kind of shaking my head at the whole thing, and we’re celebrating two great years, we’re not sitting still. The times? They are a changing.

Today we’re announcing the launch of the Craft & Vision Community, a subscription-based membership to a year of great photographic education and inspiration.

One of our big questions has been: How can we add even more value to what we do? The first thing we realized is that C&V is not about eBooks. It’s about educating and inspiring. eBooks are just the way we’ve done that until now. And we’ll keep doing it that way; we don’t want anyone’s current experience to change just because we’ve added this. So if all you want to do is keep buying exceptional eBooks for $5 each, you can keep doing that. But we think we can do more. We think we can be engaged on a deeper level. The Craft & Vision Community was created for just that.

C&V PODCAST!

The first thing we wanted to add was a monthly podcast. If you ever saw my old Within The Frame podcast, you’ll have some sense of what I want to do with this, except it’ll be audio only. It’ll be hosted by the inimitable Matt Brandon, and me, and each month we’ll do a great show that includes an image critique chosen from among images our readers submit, and there will be guest spots with other C&V authors, and discussions about issues relevant to becoming stronger photographers. It will also be refreshingly free of talk about the latest DSLR or tripod composite material. We will not talk about hyperfocal distances, and it’s likely we’ll mis-pronounce the word “bokeh” if we ever use it.  The C&V Podcast is about photography, not camera-collecting or pixel-peeping. This will be a monthly audio podcast and it’ll be accessed exclusively from the blog.

The Craft & Vision BLOG.

The second thing we wanted was a blog, a place for you to get, or listen to, the podcast, fill in the gaps between the eBooks, read articles by Craft & Vision authors, and plumb the depths of issues relevant to anyone that loves this craft. The blog will be the heart of our community, and a place where you can interact with topics and let us know where you’re at, what you’re learning, and what you’d like to learn. Both the podcast and the blog will be available exclusively to members of the community.

12 GREAT eBOOKS.

We want to give you as much value as we can through this membership. So we put our brains together and here’s what we came up with. In addition to exclusive access to the blog and podcast, which alone is a pretty great benefit, you’ll also get 12 great Craft & Vision Books a year delivered to your inbox automatically. We’ve been working hard to bring you a great line-up, including titles from me. It’s going to be a great year!

MONTHLY GIVEAWAYS & MORE.

You’re automatically entered just by being part of this community, and the first one’s a doozey. If you join in September you’ll have a chance to win a gorgeous Gitzo GT 0531 carbon fibre tripod, worth almost $500 from our friends at B&H Photo in New York.

In addition to all that you’ll have full-time 20% discounts on the full Craft&Vision library, so all books will always be $4/ea, and you’ll get one free eBook of your choice from the library.

We were going to insert some slick copy about how this is a $150 value etc., but you know that from the start we’ve avoided anything slick.  Value’s a tricky thing and only you can tell us what a year of great photography education and inspiration is worth. But we’re hoping you think this is a pretty great value. So, how much? That’s what you want to know right? Access to all this is only USD$99/year, or $10/mo. But if you sign up before the end of the month, you can join for only USD$89.00 for the year, and you’ll get in on the first giveaway – a gorgeous Gitzo carbon fiber tripod. We’d love to have you be a part of this. We remain rabid fans of the amateur because we do this for the love of it too, and we’re committed to making this an inspiring year of photographic education. No gimmicks. No lusting after pricey gear. Just great photographs.

Most of you know I consider my manager and best friend to be a bit of a superhero. Dude just gets it, and gets it done. Without him I’d be floundering. What makes Corwin unique is his ability to understand – and operate on – the difficult bridge between creativity and commerce. While Corwin’s business chops are super-solid, he understands that as creatives our first task is to tend to the creative stuff. He knows the creative stuff is the fire in our souls, he knows it’s the only asset we have when it comes to business, and so he places the highest value on it. And where he sees a chance to take it up a notch, he does it- or makes me do it – without prejudice. He’s a little scary, actually.

So this month we’re releasing Corwin’s Your Creative Mix. I think you should buy it for the cheeky cover alone. The cover shot comes from photographer Martin Prihoda, and while it has little to do with the book (I just love the shot, and Martin’s a genius), it comes from a mini-case study in the book. Corwin not only wrote a book about creativity and collaboration and how that can help build both your art and your business, he did so creatively and collaboratively. This one’s full of stuff. We don’t make page counts a selling point anymore because, well, frankly, it’s not relevant, but also because we now paginate one full spread as one page instead of two. So, if we were still mentioning page count, and we aren’t, this one would be almost 80 pages on the old system.

The title, Your Creative Mix, comes out of the conference Corwin creates in Vancouver each year called Creative Mix. He brings in brilliant speakers to talk about creativity and community. Same thing in this book. Only then he adds photographs, rants, and a boat-load of great content and ideas.  If there’s a VisionMonger in you at all, or you’re interested in the power of collaboration to push your creativity, then you’ll get much more than your $5 worth out of this one. But then who are we kidding, we all know y’aren’t paying $5. See below for the discount codes. One last thing. Would you do me a favour? When we rebuilt the Craft & Vision site a year ago we made sure there was a way to give helpful reviews and comments. So if you have a moment, leave an honest comment or helpful review for this or any of the other C&V books you’ve loved? Those comments are helpful to others. Thank you!

Lastly, I’m a big fan of Todd Henry, the Accidental Creative, and because this book is about creativity, we’re giving away 3 copies of Todd’s great new book, The Accidental Creative, and bundling it with his Personal Idea Pad.  Anyone buying Your Creative Mix during the discount period will have their name thrown into the hat and we’ll randomly give these away as thanks to three lucky, random, readers.

Special Offer on PDFs
For the first five days only, if you use the promotional code MIX4 when you checkout, you can have the PDF version of Your Creative Mix for only $4 OR use the code MIX20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST July 23rd, 2011.

Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand, 2010

Tomorrow morning the Legendary H and I are exploring Doubtful Sound by Kayak for a couple days, so I’ll be off the grid for a bit, figured now’s as good a time as any to do this.

I’ve resisted the urge to fall in line with every other photography blogger on the planet this year and won’t be publishing a list of Hot Gifts or any of the usual stuff. Fact is, it just isn’t me. As a family we’re spending time together, will probably exchange a few books, and put the money other places. There’s some great stuff out there, I’m just not sure I’m the best person to point you to it. I might, at some point, do a list about my favourite bits and pieces of gear, but it won’t be Christmas related. I do want to point you to two resources, both undeniably self-promotional to some degree, so I’ll only do it once then go back to being quiet-ish on the matter.

Craft & Vision $20 Holiday Gift Coupons.
Want to give the favourite photographer in your life the gift of inspiration and education? Need to spend $20 on a Secret Santa gift but can’t bring yourself to buy a knick knack that’ll end up in a landfill site? Craft & Vision eBooks are a great deal (if I don’t say so myself, though I do…) Last year we had a lot of requests for an easier Gift Card. Here’s the easiest we could make it:

Buyers of the $20 Craft & Vision Gift Coupon will be issued one 6-digit code. The buyer can then forward that code to their chosen gift recipient, or write the code in a greeting card, etc. To redeem the gift the recipient visits CRAFT & VISION , adds 4+ PDF ebooks to their shopping cart, then enters their code in the Discount Code section of the shopping cart screen to redeem their Gift Coupon discount.

The gift coupon can be ordered HERE.

NOTE: Gift Coupons cannot retain any unspent value for future use; e.g., if someone redeems a $20 Gift Coupon on a $15 order total, the remaining $5 would be forfeit (this is why they are not call them “Gift Certificates”).

CreativeLive Year End Sale.
In August I spent 3 days in Seattle with the CreativeLive crew and together with the live and world-wide audience attending online we created a 3-day class in Vision-Driven Photography. I talked a lot. Was exhausted when it ended and then ran away to Iceland. I haven’t plugged it much, but like the other CreativeLive classes, it’s really amazing value, even more so when you consider all the classes aired free for everyone several times. Well now you can get them all for an amazing deal – that’s Vincent Laforet, Jasmine Star, Zack Arias, Tamara Lackey, and Jeremy Cowart, and myself – hundreds of hours of instruction, now over 55% off. Killer deal, and for a limited time only. More info, and to order, go HERE.

iPhone shot of dolphins swimming under the bow of the zodiac. Maui.

A quick note to say hello. Kind of feeling guilty for being here and not dropping a line. We’ve been having an amazing time here -yesterday I spent the day in a zodiac off the coast of Lanai, a small island itself just off the coast of Maui. Snorkelling, underwater sea caves, incredible weather, and – most amazing of all a chance to swim, unexpectedly, among a pod of hundreds of spinner dolphins. Can’t begin to describe the magic of it. I’m paying for my indiscretions today, though. Clearly I the sunscreen I thought I was applying liberally wasn’t as liberal – or effective – as I thought.

The festival kicked off last night with a reception, and this morning with a keynote. I spoke about Vision-Driven Photography and the need to discover and express our vision. Before that I spent three days relaxing, and chewing through Seth Godin’s book Linchpin which you should read. Run, don’t walk, to your local library or bookstore and get this book.

My friend Sabrina Henry told me I needed to read Linchpin and I resisted because while Seth Godin is a scary-smart guy he kind of writes like a grade 12 student and I find it hard getting past his writing to the wisdom beneath. Not so with Linchpin; it’s still not particularly brilliant writing as far as craft goes but the content is incredible. It’s been a long time since a book got so much of my attention, marginalia, and circles and arrows.

At it’s core, Linchpin is a discussion of the value of the artist in our culture, and the necessity of being an artist in this economy. It’s got lots of brain food in it, and it connected some dots for me, but it’s also profoundly pragmatic – especially for those in the creative arts who think they have to be less unique, and blend into the crowd, to be a commodity rather than a brand, in order to make it. It also, and here’s a difference, has a deeply human side to it. Anyways, Linchpin really inspired me and with it Seth Godin moved in my thinking from marketing guy to join the likes of Hugh MacLeod (Ignore Everybody),  Steven Pressfield (The War of Art), and writers like Anne Lamott whose combined voices all say that the hard work of art matters, that creation has value and that making a life and a living at this stuff is more likely the less we sell out.

Anyways, love it here. If you’re here in Maui at the festival, please do introduce yourself to me. Corwin and I return to the mainland Monday morning and then the sprint to get ready for 6 weeks in Asia begins.

There are two organizations I am particularly excited to be involved with right now – one is Focus For Humanity which is an incredible initiative aimed at providing grants to photographers to partner with NGO’s, the other is the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers, an initiative aimed at breaking down stereotypes and opening dialogue between cultures. Both are a little counter-intuitive, both are willfully breaking previous molds of how these kinds of things have always been done, and both have some amazing people with big hearts and sizable brains behind them.

The IGVP has finally launched their website and I’d encourage you to head over to VISUALPEACEMAKERS.ORG and take a look, see if it’s something you’d like to get behind and be involved with. Focus For Humanity Foundation is HERE and you should make that your next stop. The IGVP and Focus For Humanity play nicely with each other and I like to think of them as a left hand and a right hand working together to similar ends. Huge kudos to Mario and Marco, and their respective teams, for putting their hearts and souls into these groups.

Craft & Vision is proud to be a supporter to both, and in the coming months we’ll look for new ways to partner together to build the community of photographers and visual storytellers who seek to use their talents and time for good (and not for evil.)

Good news for all my friends and students who have been eagerly chomping at the bit to get their hands on the Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizing filter: they’re back in stock. Now I know y’all don’t like these things, and I’m as guilty as anyone of struggling to learn to use this filter a little more judiciously. I also know not everyone is on board with the use of filters at all – last time I posted about this kind of thing someone accused me of lacking integrity – oddly not something I’ve been indicted for when using a 17mm lens or duo-tone treatment on the print. I know, Galen Rowell wouldn’t have done it this way, but then I’m not Galen Rowell. So I’m putting my armour on and cutting/pasting an article that Singh-Ray just released on their blog that has some of my thoughts on the creative use of filters in digital photography. Feel free to disagree if this is one of your weird little hobby horses, but let’s keep the ethical assertions to a minimum. This is art and if you can’t be an anarchist as an artist, you may as well get a job making motivational posters. You do things your way, I’ll do things mine

From his home in Vancouver, Canada, international assignment photographer David DuChemin roams the world specializing in humanitarian projects and travel workshops. He’s also the author of Within the Frame, a noteworthy book on his images and the thought process behind them. Here’s a brief example of that process as applied to his Singh-Ray filters. “I just got back from teaching workshops in Italy on the beautiful Ligurian coast, and then later in Venice. These workshops, whether in Italy or further abroad in India or Nepal, are often the times I learn the most myself. Nothing galvanizes what I’m learning faster than teaching it to others — and one of the things I am consistently asked about is my use of filters. I think the digital world continues to labour under the delusion that optical filters are a thing of the past and that most of the effects once possible with filters can now be done as easily in Photoshop. The more I show my students the filters I use and give them a chance to try them, the more certain I become that filters still have an essential role in digital capture.

“Photography, for most of us is not merely a technical pursuit, but an aesthetic one. If that is true then what truly matters is what our images look and feel like. Filters still enable an aesthetic that’s not possible through simple post-production, and in some cases not possible at all, even in Photoshop. The aesthetic they enable may be forcing a slower shutter speed to blur motion, or polarizing light to reduce glare, or knocking part of the frame down a couple stops to darken a sky or lighten a foreground — in each case the filter remains a mainstay in the photographer’s kit.

“The images that accompany this article were shot in Italy this spring. So much of my time is spent in the so-called ‘Third World’ that being in a place like the Italian Riviera and Italy was magical — so different from what I usually photograph — and with that difference came a different experience. When I looked for tools to help me express how I felt about the magical light in these places, the Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue, complete with un-corrected colour cast, was what I settled on for these images. Did it look like that? I’m not sure that’s the point. It felt like that and I’m more interested as a photographer in communicating my own very subjective response to places and moments than I am in pretending at objectivity.

“What the digital world at large has at times failed to recognize are two important understandings. The first is that every technical decision at the point of capture has an aesthetic implication and that means filters will allow you a significantly different look than a mere adjustment layer in Photoshop can replicate. The second is the importance of the creative process itself. Most photographers I know struggle to find a balance between the Artist and the Geek. Optical filters, used well, can meet the needs of both.

“When I made the transition to digital I sold my film gear and a box of filters, most of which I’d never use again even if I had them now. At the time I was told that, ‘you don’t need filters when you shoot digitally.’ I believed it for a long time until I began looking at the work of photographers I really admired – particularly those working in fine art and landscape disciplines. What I saw was a noticeable difference in the aesthetics of their photographs, and it pushed me into what is now nearing the end of a year spent learning about and playing with filters.

“I now carry 2- and 3-stop graduated ND filters (both soft transition and hard transition), a Gold-N-Blue and an LB Warming Polarizer. It’s a small set of filters, and it doesn’t take much room in my bag, but I no longer leave home without them. Together they allow me to capture a broader dynamic range of light, turn mundane light into spectacular light, take longer exposures, and deal with reflections on water. All of that without hours in Photoshop. In fact my images captured with the use of filters consistently need less work in post-production than others. But the biggest benefit my filters have brought me is in service of my creative side, the Artist.

“We all work differently but many of us seem to work dialectically. In other words we begin with A, we react to B, we get C. While this thought process can and does happen in the darkroom, it is much more powerful when used at the point of capture. When you put a filter on the lens you see the results immediately, you react to it, it gives you an idea, helps you see in new ways, and then you change what you’re doing, follow the muse. In my workshops, I’ve seen this process over and over again in my students. They’re shooting a scene, they look at what I’m shooting and exclaim, ‘Wait! How come that looks so different from mine?’ I explain, hand out my filters for them to play with, and watch them run off giggling. The key word in there is ‘play.’ Creativity is one big ‘what if,’ and the more we engage our craft with a sense of play, the more creative and unique our results. Engaging that sense of play is an important step in the creative process, allowing the filters to not only change the way the image looks but to change the very process, making these simple tools a catalyst to in-camera creativity — something Photoshop, for all its marvels, can’t do.”

The Singh-Ray blog is an excellent source of inspiration and information about the use of filters. Find them HERE. As an aside, the year I have spent learning filters has been an interesting one and I’ve waded through a number of frustrations about the differences in sizes and mount-options and it can be confusing at times. Not sure why there can’t be a little more clarity on all this, nor am I sure why some of the best lenses have 82mm threads while Singh-Ray’s screw mounts are sometimes only as large as 77mm. Anyways, I plan to address this kind of thing in an upcoming eBook when I return from Iceland and have a chance to shoot some images to illustrate.  Questions about filters – leave ‘em here.

Last January I spent 10 days on safari in Kenya. The second in our series, The Print & The Process, this Safari monograph is the work that came out of that trip. Like the first Print & Process book, VENICE, this one is split between the images themselves and then a long discussion about the lessons learned, gear used, and techniques I played with, including the duo-tone settings I used to create the toned images. I’ve also included a link so you can download the Lightroom preset for that split-tone look.

SAFARI is not really a book about how to shoot a safari, though you’ll certainly learn that kind of thing as well. It’s more like a “Here’s what I learned about photography while shooting a safari.” Every discipline has something to teach others, and my photography improved by having this experience. Join me as I unpack these images and the process that got me to making them.

We created this series as a way to show work and to have an honest discussion about the issues connected to the creation of that work. Some, like VENICE, will be more introspective, and some, like SAFARI, have a more balanced mix of the artsy fartsy stuff as well as a discussion of the gear I used and why.

SAFARI, A Monograph is a 62-page PDF available now for $5 on the Craft & Vision store but if you buy it now, or before 11:59pm PST on July 11th, you can get it for $4 if you use this coupon code on checkout: SAFARI4. Want more of the collection? Use coupon code: SAFARI20 when you buy 5 or more Craft & Vision titles and you’ll get them for 20% off. Just our way of sharing the love and thanking you for being on board. You can buy SAFARI now with the button below or head over to the Craft & Vision library for more.

I know I’ve been cranking these out like a mad man, but it won’t be long before I’m off to Iceland then Maui, and on to India, Thailand, Nepal,  New Zealand and possibly Africa all before December, so I’m making hay while the sun shines. We’ve still got a great line-up coming, including the 3rd in Andrew Gibson’s fantastic The Magic of Black & White series and Eli Reinholdtsen’s Chasing Reflections which is likely to become my own personal favourite in the whole collection. And we’ve got the new website to launch soon, and an iPad giveaway to celebrate, so stay tuned!

Last night, under cover of darkness, Adobe rolled out Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3. And there was much rejoicing. It was fun to watch people quietly realize it had been released, order it and begin to play with the new features. For the first time in my life I was on the inside of a secret little club, complete with NDAs and letters from lawyers and stuff, so that meant I could finally start talking about it. Phew. I hate keeping secrets.

I’ve been living with Lr3 in its various incarnations for months now because Vision & Voice, Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the third in the vision trilogy, is based on Lr3. So now is a good time to tell you what Vision & Voice is and is not and how it fits into your learning curve for Lr3.

First, Lr3 isn’t – on the outside – vastly different from Lr2. If you know and love Lr2, Lr3 will be an easy upgrade for you. That doesn’t mean it isn’t better. It is. It’s faster and leaner and the image quality, especially with noise, seems noticeably better to me. Most of the tools are the same, though the Post Crop Vignetting has been ratcheted up a couple notches, there’s Grain, and the new ability to remove lens distortion is going to rock people’s worlds too. Import is noticeably different as well.

So, is Vision & Voice the book you want to learn Lightroom 3?

Well, it is and it isn’t. Vision & Voice was written with Lightroom 3 in mind. The screenshots are all from Lightroom 3. But the purpose of the book was not to completely unpack the software for you. In fact I never once leave the Develop module. So Importing, doing slideshows, printing, and making fancy web galleries – you’re on your own and there are bound to be great books out there that teach you those things better than I could. Vision & Voice was written to discuss the aesthetics possible with Lightroom, to help you find a process that works for you but that begins with discovering and articulating your vision for the image and then using the best tools to get there in your workflow. I call it Vision-Driven Workflow. It’s not a system, just an adaptable process to refine your vision in Lightroom.

Will Vision & Voice work for Photoshop, ACR, or Aperture 3 users?

Well, I’ve never used Aperture 3 but like Nikon and Canon cameras have some differences but are essentially just cameras, so too I think are the leading post-processing programs. Basically it comes down to what they call the slider and how you accomplish one change or another, but if you are willing to do a little translation work in your brain, the principles I explore in the book are absolutely transferable. There’s a large-ish chapter in the middle about the specific tools in Lightroom 3 itself, but again I think you can read that with your preferred software open in front of you and get some good learnin’ in.

What about LR2? Surely you aren’t abandoning the Luddites?

Lr3 and Lr2 aren’t profoundly different in the way you do 98% of your development, and this book is all about development. Don’t sweat it. If you use Lr2 you’ll feel right at home with this book.

But I don’t need all this vision-stuff, I just wanna make my pictures look better, man.

This is where I began with this book. So many of us seem to approach our post-processing with the “just make it look better, man!” mentality. I pushed back and said, until we define what “better” means, I can’t help you and you can’t help you. You have to know what your own intent for the image is before you start heading in that direction. So I discuss that. And then we look at 20 of my own images, work through them together from beginning to end. I’ve provided 20 DNG files that you can download when you get the book and work alongside me from beginning to end.

Will we learn really fancy Dave-Hill techniques and Recipes for Awesomeness and the latest Un-Suck Filters?

No you won’t. Shame on you for asking.

When does the book come out?

It went to press last Friday. Should be in my hands by end of the month or the first few days of July. Then it’ll begin shipping from various retailers. Folks who pre-order through Peachpit’s website will get theirs first. Amazon orders will arrive after that.

What if I want to learn Lightroom 3 right now?

Well, my first stop is always the NAPP and that’s where I’ll send you. No doubt the blogosphere is about to explode with posts about new features and they’ll be great, but my go-to place for learning is Kelby and the gang. Go to the NAPP Lightroom Learning Center.

A couple months ago we released Andrew S. Gibson’s The Magic of Black & White – Part One, Vision. Andrew’s clear teaching and passion for his medium were accompanied with great images and it’s become one of the best-selling titles in our library. I’ve had a ton of emails asking when the second book is coming out and it’s today!

Part Two picks up where Part One left off and discusses converting the captured image into spectacular monochrome and toned images that really pop. If you’ve wanted to get more comfortable with the digital black and white darkroom, this is a great step. Clearly illustrated with more of Andrew’s great images, and well taught (Andrew’s a technical editor for the UK’s fantastic EOS Magazine), the second part of this series is a great addition to the library.

As always we’re doing what we can to share the love. So until end of day on June 01, use codes MAGIC4 to save $1 on the new book, or MAGIC20 to get 20% off all books when you buy 5 or more. Use the buttons at the bottom or click HERE to mosey on over to the Craft&Vision general store for all yer eBook needs.