I know many people who have not used Flickr in years, but it still remains one of the largest photo libraries and communities on the web. Since taking over Flickr Yahoo has not done much to improve the service, with exception to the recently released mobile apps. But new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been really turning things around at Yahoo (too little too late?) as of late. Could this be what we have all been waiting for? Is Yahoo finally going to focus some resources on Flickr and try to resurrect the photo giant that once ruled the market?

Only time will tell, but rest assured we will be here to report any Flickr related news on Monday afternoon.

My Thoughts

Flickr has long been my favorite photo community. 500px is great as well, but they are two different beasts in my mind. Flickr is aging in its design and features, and if these rumors about updates are true then maybe we will see Flickr attempt to regain some of the popularity that it has lost wile Yahoo all but put out to pasture.

I am excited and hope that Yahoo is finally taking Flickr seriously and planning to spend more time developing and bringing Flickr into the modern era – lol. Things on the top of my list as far as updates I am hoping for are:

• Updated layout and design – Lets face it. Flickr’s current design and layout is so 2002, lets get that updated and bring Flickr into the web 2.0 era. Im thinking responsive design, clean interface, simple and effective yet pretty to look at. 
• Customization of profiles/portfolios (a’la 500px)
• Improved search and navigation, making it easier to find images from people you are not friends with.

What are your thoughts? Is Flickr a lost cause? Are you excited about a possible Flickr update? Let us know in a comment below.

The post Yahoo trying to Resurrect Flickr? Media Event Scheduled for Monday appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.

The First and The Last

The very first photo shoot of the tour also became the last image to be released. But we are definitely glad we waited. The photo was based around Belgium Retouch Artist Chester Van Bommel. I can only image the pressure of retouching a portrait of a professional retoucher. It is a fine art that goes far beyond technical skills of the average Photoshop user.

“I learned through this process that it wasn’t about the new techniques, about which buttons to click. What really mattered was the vision behind it. As a creative, you want people to hire you because you are an artist, not because you are a technician.” ~ Von Wong

Behind the Scenes – Bringing Dreams to Life | The Mind of a Retoucher

Setup and Post-Processing Retouch

The more work done in camera during the photo shoot, the better chance you will be able to realize the image during the post-processing phase.

When shooting a large space, avoid distortion created by wide-angle lenses by stitching together several shots using a prime lens. For this image, Von Wong used a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 on a tripod with his Nikon D700 . This allowed the vastness of the space to be communicated without making it look malformed.

When a space has a lot of natural lighting, from say – missing a roof, additional lighting can be accomplished fairly easily. Here you see a pair of speed lights in a soft box as a backlight and an umbrella as front fill to light the subject. Additional frames were taken without the subject with the speed lights on the floor to light the arches for more definition and depth.

But that is only the beginning. After 60 hours of retouch work and a massive 8Gb+ Photoshop file, the concept was built piece by piece, literally. The results – dreamlike.

To see more from this photo shoot, click here.

For the Gear Heads

Nikon D700
Nikkor 50mm f1.8
SIRUI T-2205X (Lovinpix.com)
Pixel Pawn
Explorer Mini Battery Pack by Innovatronix
SB-900
SB-700

Photography and Retouch: Von Wong and Chester Van Bommel from Artsome
Video: Erwan Cloarec – Visuals

Until Next Time . . .

Stay Inspired ~ Jules

CREDITS: Photographs by Von Wong have been used with permission for SLR Lounge. Do not copy, modify or re-post this article or images without express permission from SLR Lounge and the artist.

The post Behind the Scenes | Retouch Art and Bringing Dreams to Life with Von Wong appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.

In this video from our Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop on DVD, we will demonstrate how to use the Sync and Auto Sync functions to batch process images in Lightroom 4.

Batch processing is essentially copying settings from one image and then applying those same settings onto other images in the catalog. Batch processing can save you a lot of time in post production, allowing you to spend more time behind your camera!

Watch the video and continue reading the article below.

Watch the Video

How to Select Multiple Images

First, select an image to use for this tutorial and make some significant adjustments to it. For our example, we will make some adjustments in the Basic Panel (press “Ctrl + 1” to expand this panel). Next, we are going to make a selection of images in our catalog. Hold down “Shift” on your keyboard and click on the last image of your selection to make a selection order. If you want to select non-sequenced images, then hold down “Ctrl” on your keyboard and then click on each individual image. For this tutorial, we will simply hold down “Shift” and select the first 5 images in the filmstrip of our catalog.

Once we have selected multiple images in our catalog, the bottom right panel button of Lightroom has changed (we still have the Reset button). Now, we have the options for Sync or Auto Sync.

To enable Auto Sync, flip up the switch next to Sync. Once you flip up the switch, the Auto Sync Button will appear. The Auto Sync and Sync buttons do different things, which we will discuss in the next sections of this tutorial.

The Sync Button

First, flip the switch back down to turn off Auto Sync. Once you flip the switch down, the Sync Button will appear again. When you click on the Sync Button, this will bring up the Synchronize Settings Dialogue Box. Here, you can choose exactly which settings you want. First, click on “Check None” at the bottom left of the dialogue box. Since we only made adjustments in the Basic Panel, we are only going to check the boxes next to “Basic Tone” and “Clarity” but you should feel free to check whichever boxes you need to!

In addition however, be sure to check the box next to “Process Version” because that we are using the same Process Version on all of the images selected in our catalog, and we don’t want to accidentally get bumped back to one of the older process versions. Once you are done selecting all of the develop settings, click on “Synchronize” at the bottom right of the dialogue box. This will take the settings from the main highlighted image (the one currently displayed) in our selection and automatically sync those same settings over the remaining images selected.

The Auto Sync Button

When we enable Auto Sync, any adjustments we make to our main image in the selection will automatically be applied to all of the remaining images selected. (With the exception of brushes and gradients; these will not be applied to all subsequent images and must be Sync’d manually.)

With Auto Sync enabled, we are basically batch processing all our selected images simultaneously! For example, if we adjust Exposure down to -4 on one of the images, the remaining 4 images in our selection will also have an exposure of -4. As you can see below, all images in our selection have an exposure of -4. If we click on the Reset Button, next to the Auto Sync Button, this will reset the settings on all of the images in our selection.

When is Auto Sync Useful?

The Auto Sync feature is just another way to batch process images inside the Develop Module in Lightroom 4. If we have a handful of images shot in the same scene with the same camera settings, we can enable Auto Sync, make all of our adjustments at once, and then un-select the group and make any final individual changes separately.

As always, our goal with post-production is to minimize repetitive adjustments.  If you need to make the same adjustment to multiple images, you should always avoid making that adjustment twice!  Just perform the adjustment once on all the images using Auto-Sync, or perform the adjustment on a single image and then sync it to every other image that needs that adjustment.

Conclusion & Learn More!

There are several different ways to move develop settings from one image to another. In our “How to Use the Previous and Reset Buttons in Lightroom 4” tutorial, we demonstrated how to batch process using the Previous Button. We can also use the Copy/Paste Buttons, demonstrated in our “How to Use the Copy and Paste Buttons in Lightroom 4” tutorial, to batch process our images as well. The Sync and Auto Sync Buttons we discussed in this tutorial are another great way to batch process images.

There are all sorts of different options out there when it comes to batch processing, so customize and use whatever system works best with your workflow. At Lin & Jirsa Photography, we typically apply settings to a specific image in the scene and then use the Sync feature to sync across the entire scene. The rapid efficiency of these batch processing techniques allows us to cull and edit over 1,000 images an hour in Lightroom 4. We then make minor adjustments as we go through each image independently.

We hope you enjoyed this article and video excerpt from the Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop on DVD. Stay tuned for our next article and episode!

The Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop on DVD is a 14 hour video workshop turning any Lightroom novice into a complete master of Lightroom 4 in no time! The Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop can be purchased by itself, or within the Lightroom 4 Workshop Collection which also contains our award winning and industry standard Lightroom 4 Preset System, as well as the Lightroom 4 Workflow System.

The post How to Use the Sync and Auto Sync Functions to Batch Process Images in Lightroom 4 – From the Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop on DVD appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.

From a Photography standpoint a lot of these same principles apply to still photography, just without the physical movement. So like when he is talking about shooting from below or above the subject, take out the movement part and that emotion is still conveyed through a still image. So it is still a great video to watch if you are looking to improve on your perspective when shooting.

[via the Slanted Lens]

The post Learn to Create Emotion in your Videos with Camera Movement appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.

Prize Giveaway

A $50 gift card to the SLR Lounge Store will be given to our top pick in each episode! If you are the winner of this episode, please send an email to contact@slrlounge.com and we’ll hook you up! Click HERE to visit the SLR Lounge Store. (Watch the video or scroll down to see who won the gift card in this episode!)

The Weekly CC Video

The Images

Little Angel by Brown Cardinal

DJ Portrait by Sairo

7 Second Window by MZGloves20

New Puppy by dretket

Soft Focus Portrait by Simon Wantling

IMG 9260 by Marcel Lr

The Winner

And now, this weeks’ CC prize goes to…

1st Time Posting Before and After by Htran5

The post More on Portraiture – Constructive Critique Episode 20 appeared first on Free Photography Tips Tutorials Reviews and Wordpress Themes.