Mac Photography Tips

RAM it up! October 30, 2008

Filed under: Beginner Tips, Computer Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 10:18 pm

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to admit the obvious, but I’m going to share this anyway for other Mac photographers like myself who are slow to get a clue.

I finally got around to adding four gigabytes of RAM (making a total of six) to my Mac Pro this morning. And damn it sure has made an epic difference in performance. I knew I needed more RAM/memory, but I kept thinking 2gigs should be sufficient, not realizing that the more I opened up and used memory hungry applications like Photoshop and Aperture–while running several other smaller applications in the background–the slower my computer navigation would be.

No matter what I tried to, including restarting the computer and larger applications, I kept getting the spinning beach ball of death every time I switched between applications. So having tried other ideas, I drove out to Fry’s Electronics and ended up purchasing 4 gigs of RAM, on sale for $159.00. The price was good and it matched what I had researched on the net. In fact, I had intended only purchasing 2gigs, but they only had 4gig kits. So that was even better.

Still trying to understand the role RAM plays in computer performance, I did a little more research before writing this. I came across a 2006 Macworld article titled “Upgrading RAM: FAQs: the ultimate Mac tuneup”. The article explains how to use the Activity monitor in your utilities folder to help find out if you need more RAM.

Another very handy resource, which I found a couple of weeks ago, is “99 Speed Tips for a Fast Performing Mac.” Rather you do a RAM upgrade or not, these tips will help de-clutter your Mac and increase speed. But again, nothing seems work like adding as much RAM as you can to your computer. Over the next year I’m going to try to increase my RAM to the total of 16GB simply because in the long run I think it will provide a significant production boost that will save me time and money overall.

Finally before I close, I also want to recommend a little application called Mactracker, which I found out about from the Macworld article referenced above. This is freeware application is great. It gives you all the information you will need about your Mac computer. And it provides detailed information about every Mac computer ever made.

Mactracker can help you figure out how much RAM your Mac model can take, especially if you’ve lost the paper documents that came with it. You can also click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac to quickly find out about how much RAM you already have installed.

Well, it took me a while to realize the obvious, but as the saying goes, it’s better late than never.

 

My Experience with FotoMagico October 28, 2008

Filed under: Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips, Software, Video Blog — bakari @ 8:01 pm
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This past week I started using the pro version of the slide show application, FotoMagico.
I downloaded the application over a year ago, and have read some pretty good reviews about it, so I thought give the latest update of the application a try.

I’m going to share my experiences so far with application by providing both video tips about the application, and also by comparing and contrasting it with other Mac slide show applications. One of the reasons I’m sharing the tips because the how-to documentation for the application is not good as it could be. One photographer offers a set of DVD tutorials about using FotoMagico. The videos are little expensive in my view, but you may give them a try if you’re looking for something more extensive.

My tips will assume that you have some familiarity with the application already. It’s not an overview of the application as a whole.

This first tip deals with simple but useful feature in FotoMagico called the Black clip. To view this post better, click on the title of the post to view on a page by itself.

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Poladroid Brings Back Old School Photos October 24, 2008

Filed under: New Application — bakari @ 8:14 pm
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One of the first things I do in the morning is check my RSS feeds. The news and articles are plentiful, but sometimes I get a treat that just makes my day. Dave Caolo on the Unofficial Apple Weblog wrote up a short piece about a new application out of the UK France, called Poladroid.

I immediately download the free application, but couldn’t play with it until I got back from a short group portrait shoot I had this morning. When I opened Poladroid for the first time, there were no instructions or confusing buttons to learn. No instructions are needed. In fact, the interface for the application is nearly invisible. Simply open the application and a nice size icon of a Polaroid camera appears and tells you exactly what to do.

The developers of this application got everything right. When you drop a photo on the icon, you get the shutter sound of photo just being shot by a Polaroid camera. And guess what, the photos are produced like a Polaroid, except there’s no paper involved.

Now in the digital age, we want things instant. Even two seconds is too long. Well, if you remember, a Polaroid photo takes time to develop, and so do Poladroid images. You see them develop the analog way, and that’s a good thing. Each image takes about a minute to process, and like a good old Polaroid camera, the images can be a little different each time.

I’m seriously amazed by this application. It’s fun, creative, and thoroughly easy to use. Can you image what you would have to do in Photoshop to get the same effect.

Here’s the final jpg version of the above photo.

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Poladroid is in its BETA version, which means there’s a lot more to come from this awesome application. And a Flickr group called “be Poladroid !” already has nearly 600 members.

Not everyone will appreciate Polaroid style photos, but for those of us that do, Poladroid is a welcomed treat.

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Backup Media Card Tip October 22, 2008

Filed under: Beginner Tips, Camera Tip, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 4:40 am

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I feel compelled to write about this camera tip–the first one for this site. Sadly, on two recent occasions I left my house without a media card in my camera. Now as a wedding photographer, it’s typically unlikely to ever leave 4-8 media cards at home. Those cards usually remain in your camera bag ready to go.

But on two occasions, I have grabbed my camera without the bag and headed out the door, only to discover that the media card that was previously used in the camera was still in the media card reader in my office.

The first time it happened was on a small freelance job that I was asked to do at the last minute. I ended up shooting the event with one 128mb compact media card, for my 35mm camera, I had in the truck of my car, and with my Canon Powershot G9. I had shot for the clients on my occasions, so they were very cool about it. Especially since they did call me at the last minute.

I thought I had learned my lesson, but not so. Again about two weeks later, I took my camera out on downtown shooting event. But this time it wasn’t a paid gig, thankfully. I really needed my Canon 30D for some shots, but again ended up having to shoot with just my G9.

So at the end of the event, I drove straight to the camera store and purchased a 1gb media card. And when I arrived home, I put it in the media card holder affixed to the camera strap. Needless to say, that card will remain in the holder no matter what. If I need to take it out to import photos, it will immediately be put back into the holder. In fact, I might even purchase another card to put the car.

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So that’s the tip. Get a backup card and keep in a card holder that can be attached to your camera strap. You never know when you will need it.

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Aperture 2.1.2 Update October 21, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 5:45 pm
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According to Apple: “The Aperture 2.1.2 update improves the printing quality of books, cards and calendars ordered through the Aperture printing service. The update is recommended for all customers using Aperture 2.”

I’m working on a Aperture book now, so maybe we’ll see just how much this update improves the print quality. From my experience with iPhoto and Aperture books the printing is okay but not outstanding. I think a little color saturation is lost in the printing, and the quality of paper for the books is not very high.

But overall, the ability to do book layouts in Aperture is still very convenient and pretty easy to do.

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Using Automator to Import Photos into Aperture October 11, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Automator workflow, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 7:08 pm

I’ve written several articles about Automator, and so here’s one more that Aperture users might find useful.

Here’s how I use it: I recently wrote a blog entry about using Eye-Fi for uploading Wirelessly. Though I could use this device to upload directly to Aperture, I typically discard most photos and choose only a few from a particular shoot to import into Aperture. The process of dragging selected photos into a selected Aperture project is not that difficult. But an Automator workflow makes it even easier.

This workflow simply imports selected photos into Aperture and applies an assigned keyword to them. For my particular purposes, I’m doing two daily photo projects in which I have to import photos into Aperture everyday so that the processed photos can be posted on my Flickr account after processing.

For one daily project, here’s the workflow set up I created. It’s very simple and straight forward.

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Both workflow actions can be found in the Photos actions library. I saved this workflow as an application and put that application into the Eye-Fi folder where my daily photos are imported to. Photos that I want imported into Aperture are simply selected and dragged on top of the Automator application. When it runs, it labels the selected photos with a keyword and imports them into the selected project. It’s a great little time saver. Anything that can reduce a few clicks on in the process is cool with me.

Automating Aperture Website
By the way, Automator is a great program, but if you want to get a little more power in your automation, Applescript is the way to go. I just discovered this useful site devoted automating Aperture using Applescript. It includes a AppleScript for importing photos into Aperture.

 

Aperture for Approval v1.5 October 10, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 5:19 pm

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Last night I went over to the Apple site to check to see if there were any new plug-ins and application for Aperture 2.0 and I was pleased to see an updated version of Publish for Approval. I downloaded the application a while back, but I think it required a costly third-party application to run it. But this updated version is a very easy way to upload photos from Aperture 2.0 to your built-in web sharing abilities of your computer. When the photos are posted, clients can select and approve which photos they like. After they click the submit button, the selected photos will appear in a smart album that you create for uploaded photos.

This is a really nifty, powerful (and free!) AppleScript application that you wish were built right into Aperture itself. I’m not sure who the developer is, but I want to thank him or her for developing this application. I uploaded 200+ photos for a client last night. By having her make selections, it will save me time in doing the same work for creating her wedding book. This process is a great addition to the Aperture workflow because it means you don’t have to use another application or service to get the process done. Clients don’t have to send you a list of file numbers of the photos they like, and their selected photos appear in a smart album ready for you to process.

 

Black-and-white Presets in Aperture 2.0 October 8, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 6:18 am
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When I started using Aperture, I struggled to find a good greyscale or monochrome mix for my images. While there are tons of Photoshop approaches to black-and-white (greyscale) conversion, I rather use Aperture to make the conversion.

Ways to Mix
For those of who don’t know, there are few quick ways to create a monochrome conversion in Aperture. After doing initial exposure adjustments and enhancements, here’s three ways to do monochrome conversions in Aperture.

1. Desaturate: If you want to quickly see how an image will look in black-and-white, simple desaturate it, i.e. de-colorize it.

2. Monochrome Mixer with Custom Filters: Select the Monochrome Mix with Custom Filter in the Adjustments Inspector. Click the Add Adjustment button at the top of the Adjustment Inspector, and select Monochrome Mixer with Custom Filters. Or better yet, use Control + M.  This mixer essentially desaturates the image. For me, the mix is rather cold and bland. But it does give you an idea where to begin. The mixer comes with additional presets that you can experiment with.

 

3. Monochrome Color: The monochrome color tool, accessed also from the Add Adjustment pop-up menu, is more interesting. It converts of course the photo to single mono color. You can certainly use monochrome color for special type of photo effects, and you can also experiement with the intensity of monochrome color conversion, creating a sort of split color or duotone effect.

4. Custom Mix: The best conversion is the one you customize yourself. The mix I finally came up with involves using both the Monochrome Mixer and the Sepia Tone.  

 

For the Monochrome with Custom Filter, I moved the red, green, and blue channel sliders to these percentages:

Red: 24%
Green: 59%
Blue: 11%

For the Sepia Tone

I change the intensity to: 0.2

I’m pleased with the results. Mixing in a touch of sepia provides warmer tone to my images. I saved both adjustments presets so that I can use them again.

For you Mac Lightroom Users, check out Christina N. Dickson’s, “Black and White Conversion – 3 Option in Adobe Lightroom” posted on Digital Photography School.

 

Keyword Control Sets in Aperture October 7, 2008

Filed under: Aperture 2.0, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 11:16 pm
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My posts are going to be pretty random because sometimes I will blog about tips and how-tos based on my day-to-to work. For this entry, I want to talk about the Keyword Hud in Aperture. 

We all know tagging photos can be a pain, but sometimes they help us quickly locate and organize our photoes, especially in Aperture. I use the keyword function in conjunction with Aperture’s smart albums. When I’m working on a wedding project, I simply create a smart album for each keyword of a client shoot. So I have smart albums for keywords lik, Bride/Groom, Group Portraits, First Dance, Details, etc. 

But up until recently, I noticed that I had too many keywords that I never ever used in a wedding project. I had too many categories that I would have to click through to select one keyword. So it dawned on me to start using Aperture’s Keyword Controls (Window>Show Keyword Controls), which consist of sets of keywords that you can access at the bottom of Aperture’s main frame.

The trick to using the Controls is to limit your sets to exactly the words you use most often. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out. Basically what I did is make a keyword set that reflects my typical wedding shoot. That set consist of exactly 14 keywords. With the size of my computer monitor, all fourteen of those keyword buttons can fit at the bottom of the application interface. Now I simply keep Keyword Controls open so that I can quickly label 1000+ photos I take on a typical wedding. 

I did the same thing for other photo projects I’m working on. With this approach, there’s no need to pull out the Keyword HUD to get at keywords. (By the way, if you want to delete keywords from a file or files, just use Shift-Option+9, or better yet create your special keyword combination for deleting keywords (Aperture>Commands>Customize.)

How to Create a Set
To create a Keyword Control set:

1. Click on Window>Show Keyword Controls.

2. Click and hold the last drop-down button in the Control set. There may be a control set that already exist. Select Edit Buttons. 

 

3. At the bottom of Button Sets, click the plus button and create a name for your set. If you know you’re not going to use the default sets in that already exist, delete them.

4. Keep your new set selected. Now go to the Keyword Library on the right side and locate the keywords you want to use in your new set. This is where you can also create new catagories and keywords.

5. After you locate the keywords, slide them one at a time into the Contents section in order to create your set. You can list them in order you like. I kept wedding list alphabetized for easy access. Try to fit as many keywords in a set as you need so that you don’t have to keep changing sets to access different keywords. 

6. Now click OK and you’re ready to start labeling your images faster. The wider you expand Aperture’s interface, the more buttons will show up.

 

Image Editing in Preview October 6, 2008

Filed under: Beginner Tips, Intermediate Tips — bakari @ 9:30 pm
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You ever have one or two photos that you need to do some quick image editing on, but you don’t want to open up iPhoto or Photoshop to do the work? Well, simply select your image file and open it up in Leopard’s Preview application. (Or just drag and drop selected images onto the Preview application icon in your dock, and they will open that way.)

From there, choose Option+Command C, and the image correction/enhancement tool panel will open up.

From there, you can make quick exposure adjustments.

You can also go to Tools>Adjust size, you will get a dialogue box in which resize the open image.

 

 

I will be doing a video tutorial that will go more in depth about using Preview.