More on Adobe Lightroom

As I was saying, this program does some sweet things instantly. Check out how it made this photo I shot yesterday 'pop.' You can apply your changes to all photos in your folder in just a few clicks. I like to shoot my photos a bit flat and slightly underexposed then spruce it up later. The buttons on the left are preset effects which you can tweak on the right with the levels and curves. So far I'm diggin "direct positive" and the medium tone curve with a slight bump in brightness. While I'll still be using Photoshop for my more important pictures, this is nice for some quick fun pictures like for blogging. I haven't figured out the healing tool yet.

Cool Artsy Photo of the Week

Cool artsy picture of a wall in Laguna Beach. It was this reflective tile that caught my eye.

Update: Even cooler image :)

Laguna Beach & Adobe Lightroom

As mentioned, I'm staying in Laguna Beach this week, a very popular spot for photographers. I spotted this photographers class/workshop shooting a model today. The guy who owned this Ferrari allowed them to shoot their model with it.

Also, I got a chance to play around with Adobe Lightroom and it's fantastic. It speeds up post processing by a ton. You basically work on one photo then copy and paste to the rest of the photos, it literally takes seconds. It's even faster than running actions. I love a side-by-side with the original while you're working - very sweet. Apparently, it's pretty great for a RAW workflow, but since I shoot jpegs I don't know. I'll be getting a new computer soon to put it to the test. These photos weren't done entirely on it though, I also used MS Digital Image Pro for the border. Overall pretty nice so far.

Happy Lunar New Year!

This is the year of the "Golden Pig" - oink oink. Some of you (like me) will get some red envelopes filled with everyone's favorite present (money!) for luck. Also, I'll be staying in Laguna Beach this week so those of you interested or know someone who's interested in taking some pictures at a popular photo location, contact me (johnnyfuzzy@hotmail.com). Hopefully the weather will be nice.

Cool Pic of the Week

I usually don't take artsy shots but this one is pretty cool. This was a door at the HathKwan studio (in 1024x768 wallpaper size).

Hatha Kwan Yoga:Martial Arts open house

Today was the grand opening open house of Hathakwan martial arts/yoga/kickboxing studio in Long Beach co-owned by Kris. Everything ran really smoothly except for the printer that didn't like Macs, which said if you're using OS X, call tech support (closed on the weekends, doh!) . I got some shots of the lessons taught by Master Lee and some of the students that should be used in the website some time in the future.

Mmmmm slideshow (of Silas)

Beef's 30th Birthday

We celebrated my friend Beef's (center) 30th birthday last night at Houston's (yummmm). Here are a couple of pics. (That's me on the left) Those gift certificates were their Christmas gifts from me :) Obviously it didn't pay for the whole meal but it helped.