Topaz Infocus Review

Cool! Check out my full Topaz Infocus Review. It’s the latest from that company, and you can grab it right from Topaz Software.

Finally! I think it’s been about four months since I posted a new software review. I do try tons and tons of software, but I only review stuff I actually use. It keeps things simple, and I figure you don’t have a lot of time to read reviews anyway. I could write up big reviews of all the stuff I don’t like and I don’t use (e.g. the Promote Control – I don’t like using that thing… but that’s just me… I know others do and that’s cool). Anyway, that is a bit of an aside there… a long way of saying this is why you don’t see a new review every few days!

In this photo from Notre Dame, I really wanted to accent the details of these incredible colors and shapes in one of the rear rooms. I couldn't get them right until I started experimenting with all the sliders until the right mix was achieved.

Daily Photo – The Prison of Marie Antoinette

What an amazing (and somewhat eerie) place this is! You all have heard of the famous Marie Antoinette and know of her fate… but maybe you’ve never seen her lavish French prison? It’s called the Conciergerie, and now it’s on my must-visit list! I got the hot tip from one of my workshop students in London… an unexpected find. Okay… I’ll be quiet and just let you enjoy this photo.

P.S. This was made from a single RAW… it was handheld.

Filed under the categories: France, Paris, Travel

#1 Question about the Camera App

Thanks for all the feedback on 100 Cameras in 1! Just wait till you see what secret stuff is coming in the NEXT version. You’ve given me amazing ideas — so thank you!

The biggest question I get is “Is it coming to Android?” The answer is YES! It’s in development right now, but it will take a while. Personally, I have an Android phone, so I’m very excited about it too. It’s actually pretty hard to develop for Android…harder than the iPhone.  Actually, none of this stuff is easy or cheap (hmmm… college fund for the kids, a mid-sized German car, or an app? Let’s bet the farm honey! hehe)…

Daily Photo – The London Underground – Piccadilly

Piccadilly Circus is one of the most popular places in London for tourists. I don’t like to always hit all the obvious places, but, then again, I kind of have to hit the obvious places, yes? So, when I went to this famous spot, I tried my best to find some interesting angles and compositions.

This was a standard HDR shot – five exposures from -2 to +2.  To fix the ghosting problem with the people, I did the same thing I always do!  I think that’s on page 2 or 3 of the HDR Tutorial…  (maybe that is the #1 Question about HDR!)

Filed under the categories: England, London, Nikon D3X, Travel, UK

Brain Pickings!

You guys know I only recommend stuff if I think it’s awesome.  Life is too short not to focus on the awesome!

One of the accidental things I have found is called “Brain Pickings”, and you gotta see their end-of-the-year redux for 2010 – amazing stuff they found last yea!.  I found them because we were both featured on FlipBoard, and it looked kinda artsy.  And then I got in deeper, and saw that the woman that curates Brain Pickings is my kinda gal!

Besides the link above, also see their “10 Most Popular Articles” – it’s a good sushi sampler from the chef, Maria Popova.  Also, it’s one of those sites that lives off donations — so maybe you are feelin’ internet-generous.

iPhone App Updated

Our team cranked away and put in a ton of new features and updates, so thanks to everyone! You can download 100 Cameras in 1 pronto.

Here are some of the new features and updates:

➤ Option to disable sound & music
➤ Added option to dramatically increase resolution in cropping phase for each iPhone model (e.g. for iPhone 4, which is 2592×1936 pixels — the square is cropped to 1936×1936)
➤ Added ability to turn on/off cropping after you take the photo or select from Library
➤ Three new Achievements
➤ Upload to Flickr, Facebook, Twitpic at maximum resolution for your given iPhone (in square format)
➤ Even more features added! See all of them on our 100 Cameras in 1 page.
➤ (shhhh… and many more currently in super-secret development for next update… shhh)

New Video – My One Student Interview for the Year

Hehe… well… I explain the title of this early in the interview. Here are a few things that are discussed in the video:

• The business side of Stuck In Customs
• What my wife does (and other personal questions… *ahem*
• My thoughts on Getty licensing and what a RIP OFF model they have
• My thoughts on micro-stock photography (I’m sure people won’t like what I say)
• My thoughts on contests and judges and how silly contests can be
• My thoughts on using a lot of lights in your photos and what happens by accident
• And a bunch of other BS. But – well… all kinds of stuff… hehe.

Daily Photo – The New of Old China

I found this place near the one of the old Imperial rice barns that had been converted into an opera house.  It’s a hard-to-find but charming area of the city.  Not even my driver or assistant could find it, and they’ve lived in Beijing their entire lives!

To find out more about other things found amidst these hidden gems, see “Amazing Opera Discovery in Beijing“.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Travel

HDR Tutorial – Reminder

We have the HDR Tutorial in four languages and more coming soon! I recently did some evolutionary updates on the tutorial to keep things fairly current. Enjoy!

Surfing the Categories

There are a lot of daily visitors (thanks – I appreciate you very much!) but there are also some people that only pop in a few times a week.  To these people, you may like to know a navigational tip here on the site.  I “tag” and categorize everything.  These tags are at the bottom of the post.  If you want to see some of that particular location, just click on “France” for example.  It will show you the last 10-15 posts or so.  For many categories, you can also click “Previous” at the bottom of the page to see even more.

Daily Photo – Exploring the Cathedral

No tripods allowed. I think maybe it said this in French. Or English. I can’t remember because I ignored it. How are you supposed to get a decent photo inside Notre Dame without a tripod?

I spent this weekend processing a bunch of photos from France, and this is one that took quite a while. People often ask me, ‘How long do you work on your photos?” My answer is always a bit strange, since any time-allotment will not seem correct. The thing is… I’ve processed so many photos over the years — I’ve gotten very fast at it. I’ve got macros, keyboard shortcuts, etc etc. I think I might look like a Korean Starcraft player… I slow it down a lot for the tutorial and stuff. But, anyway, having said that, my answer is “anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours”. This shot in particular took a little over an hour. It was a hard one… I had to take a few breaks and refill the green tea a few times to work out some issues with it.

Filed under the categories: France, Nikon D3X, Paris, Travel

Painting the Monkeys

Erika Meijer, from Doetinchem, Netherlands, has taken my photograph of the monkey in the water from Japan and turned it into a painting! I get emails about this sort of thing quite a bit… rarely feature them on the website, but I should more! I think it’s great when people do this sort of thing. My work is Creative Commons Share-Alike (no commercial use), which means other artists are free to use them to do derivative works like this. Very cool!

See the Original Monkey Photo here.

Daily Photo – Sunset in the Hills

There is a long and somewhat barren road between Los Angeles and San Diego. It seems extra-barren because I was really thirsty before I entered the long-bit that had absolutely no place to stop for a drink! You know how sometimes you are driving along, kind of thirsty… not really being TOO picky, but kind of passing by places that look not-too-exciting? Well I did that one too many times then ended up having to drive for a lot longer before I found relief.

What compounded the problem (and made it better too) was that it was sunset time! That means I had to stop many times to drink the landscapes into the camera.

Filed under the categories: California, Nikon D3X, San Diego, Travel

Recap – Five Tips for Photographing People

In case you missed the piece a few months ago, you can always go back to read “Five Tips for Photographing People“.  I hope they help!

Canon Giveaway

You guys know I’m a Nikon man, but I still occasionally will let myself be seen with Canon shooters like Scott Bourne.  But only rarely, and if he buys dinner.  Anyway, Scott is running a contest over at PhotoFocus to win a free Canon 5DMKII.  Look at that picture on the page!  It doesn’t even have a lens… what a cheapskate.

Daily Photo – On Gossamer Wings

I had spent most of the day inside the Forbidden City, trying my best to find little bits here and there. Tiny discoveries, you know. I was pretty tired after a day of searching, but I still had barely enough energy to keep exploring into the night.  At that point, I decided to go to another, older area of the city.

There were hundreds of quaint shops, the smell of fresh food, families walking to and fro… it was all very nice.  I came to cross a little raised bridge, and I saw this woman standing there.  She was dressed in vintage Chinese grab and holding a delicate umbrella.  While talking with her friends, the light caught her umbrella just right, so I snapped a quick photo.

Filed under the categories: Beijing, China, Nikon D3S, Travel

Interiew with Fabien Barral

You guys know Fabien, yes? He’s the famous French graphic designer that I somehow convinced to help build this website. It went so well, in fact, that we’ve got a few other secret projects going on together! We cooked up some stuff when I went to go visit him in Nimes earlier this year.

Living Design recently interviewed Fabien all about design, his ideas, his thoughts, and this sort of thing. Go check it out if you want to learn more about Fabien!

Happy New Year!

I’m looking forward to spending this year with you! We’ve got all kinds of great stuff in store for you… I hope today’s photo is a good indication of things to come!

Daily Photo – The Gladiator Arena at Sunset

While visiting Fabien in Nimes, there was a bullfight going on inside this ancient Roman gladiator arena. The further south you go in France, the more likely you are to find the old influence of the Spanish bullfights. It’s pretty violent, yes? Yes. In fact, if you zoom in, you can still see blood that has been smeared across the arena by the smearing-truck.

Once the crowd started to clear out, a perfect sunset settled upon us. It was just Fabien, my wife, and I, and it was a very nice night. After the bullfight, we walked around to take a lot of photos of this amazing evening, Fabien took us to his favorite little secret French restaurant down one of the side streets. Perfect!

Filed under the categories: France, Nikon D3X, Nimes, Travel