The Photoshop Automator Actions v5.0.5 Updater is now available. This is an important update for all users of the package. It turns out there was a gnarly bug in version 5.0.4 that affected the Open action. That’s all fixed now, and the Convert to Profile action has been put back in the package (I accidentally left it out of the last rev).
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Nikon Capture NX provides a complete editing environment and workflow tool, all built around Nikon’s exceptional raw converter. A complete, non-destructive image editing system, Capture NX also uses Nik software’s uPoint technology for selective editing. This gives you incredibly powerful editing without having to hassle with masks, keys, paths, or any other traditional selection tools. You can learn all the ins and outs of this great image editor in this new five hour and forty minute course at Lynda.com. Watch it now right here!

The Photoshop Automator Actions v5.0.4 Updater is now available. If you’re not familiar with it, this is a piece of software that lets Mac users drive Photoshop from Automator, which allows you to create very sophisticated automated workflows. This is a very important update for anyone who’s currently using the package. With this release, the entire package has been ported to the AppleScript-Objective-C platform that Snow Leopard and Lion prefer. This offers much better stability, and possibly improved performance. Along the way, I also fixed a lot of bugs. Finally, with this release there is finally a Photoshop 5.5-specific version. You can learn more about the collection here. If you already use the collection, you can get an update here. Available for CS4, CS5 and CS5.5. CS6 coming soon!

Digital cameras offer tremendous convenience over their film counterparts, but one of the most dramatic changes opened up by digital imaging technology is the world that exists in low light. Whether you need to shoot an event in a dark auditorium, a landscape at night, or simply want to shoot in your house after the sun goes down, you need a particular skill set, and this Lynda.com course will give it to you. This four-hour course will walk you through all the details of preparation, shooting, and post-production for any kind of low-light or night shooting that you might be interested in. Watch it now right here!

It’s taken a while, but Apple has finally crafted a version of iPhoto for iOS. Of course, there are already lots of other image editing apps available for both the iPhone and iPad, so where does iPhoto fit in? This detailed review takes a look at iPhoto from the perspective of the more serious, even professional, shooter.

iPad-toting Photoshop users finally have an actual version of Photoshop for their tablets. Photoshop Touch offers layers-based compositing, masking and retouching tools, and color correction, all wrapped up in a touch-based interface. The question, of course, is what exactly it gets you in the way of a tablet-based post-production workflow. In this detailed review, I take a look at the app from the point-of-view of the serious, working photographer.

There’s a lot to know to be a capable photographer. Exposure theory, lighting, composition. On top of all that, there are all those buttons and dials on your camera. To help you understand exactly how your camera works, you might want to check out one of my camera-specific courses at Lynda.com. These courses will work you through all of the features of their respective cameras, and help you understand those features in the context of larger photographic theories. Courses are now available for the Canon EOS60D, the Nikon D7000, the Canon Rebel T3i, and the Nikon D5100.

In most of your image editing endeavors, you probably find yourself striving to achieve more contrast in your images. This probably leads you to crank up black points, and make sure your whites are as white as possible. There are times, though, when less contrast will give you a better image. I first covered this idea in 2005, in this article. Recently, the subject came to my attention again, as I decided that the best way to handle an image was to dramatically reduce the contrast. This time, I took a different approach to solving the problem.

Your digital camera is capable of producing incredible color images, but color isn’t always the best way to represent a scene. By choosing to express a scene in black and white, you’re stripping photography down to its barest essentials, and very often, you will achieve an image with more power than if you choose to capture rich, perfect color. This Lynda.com course covers every aspect of digital black and white, recognizing a good black and white scene to shooting, to black and white conversion and further retouching.

It doesn’t matter how technically perfect you are with your exposure, if you compose a boring shot, you’ll have a boring picture. If you find yourself shooting boring pictures, and would like to stop, you might consider checking out my Foundations of Photography: Composition course at Lynda.com.

The Photoshop Automator Actions v5.0.3 Updater is now available. This package updates delivers numerous bug fixes and tweaks, and adds Lion compatibility. Available for CS4 and CS5, the update is free to all users of both the free and Pro versions of the Photoshop Automator Actions Collection version 5. Updates are available here.

As amazing as current digital camera technology is, it can’t compare with those two squishy orbs in the front of your head. In addition to great autofocus, exceptional white balance, and amazing low light capabilities, your eyes also have tremendous dynamic range (that is, an ability to perceive an extremely wide range of dark to light). In fact, your eyes probably have almost twice the dynamic range as the digital camera you’re currently using.

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Like a lot of photographers, I like gear. Lots of gear. Sometimes I think that I like gear because buying new gear is easier than trying to take a good picture. But still, I buy more. But when it comes time to actually travel somewhere, all that gear presents a bit of a quandary. The sad fact is: while I like gear, I don’t like carrying it. When traveling, I used to carry a rather full kit – lots of lenses, flashes, anything I might possibly need. But these days, even for extended travel, I tend to go pretty stripped down. Usually just two lenses, no flash, possibly a lightweight tripod. On a recent 3-week trip to Turkey, I decided to go even more bare, and travelled with only a small backpack as my only luggage – both for clothes, and camera gear. Needless to say, this presented a bit of an issue in terms of gear choice.

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No matter how good, or how experienced a photographer might be, there will be times when they hit a slump. If you’ve been shooting for any length of time, you’ve probably experienced this – that feeling that there’s simply nothing that catches your eye; that there’s nothing worth taking a picture of. Or maybe you feel like you’ve already shot every potential picture that you see, or that it’s a cliché. If this happens to you, one of the best ways to get out of it is to go back to basics, and there’s nothing more basic than light. In this article I take a detailed look at what makes some light good, and some light bad, and then offer some light-based exercises that will help get you back to seeing compelling scenes.

In an effort to make the world less colorful, I recently produced a course on black and white photography for Lynda.com. That course is now live and, thanks to the incredibly talented Lynda.com crew, it looks great! They did a fantastic job of crafting evocative noirish sets using only light and shadow, all of which serve to reinforce the fundamental vocabulary of black and white shooting. Covering shooting, post-production, aesthetics, and how to “see” black and white images, the course is available for immediate viewing here.

Whether you’re an experienced Photoshop user, or a casual image editor, there will be times when you want to quickly and easily get a stylized look on an image. The Icon Factory’s Flare 1.0 is an inexpensive, capable little application that makes it easy to get stylized treatments and borders onto an image through a simple push-button interface. Check out my full review here.

If you’re not already familiar with Micro Four Thirds, you should be. A standard camera spec that offers a nearly perfect compromise between the size of a high-end point-and-shoot, and the image quality and shooting flexibility of an SLR, Micro Four Thirds might be the perfect companion for your SLR, or high-end point-and-shoot. (You can learn all about Micro Four Thirds – what it is and why you should care – here. The best way to find out if Micro Four Thirds is right for you is to try it, and that’s now easier than ever thanks to Borrowlenses.com, which now rents Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. Check out their offerings, rent a camera, and see if Micro Four Thirds is right for you.

Many of the creative options available to a photographer hinge on an in-depth understanding of lenses. Foundations of Photography: Lenses, will give you that in-depth understanding, as you learn how to choose lenses and take full advantage of their creative options. This 2.5 hour course covers fundamental concepts that apply to any camera, such as focal length and camera position, and shows how to evaluate and shop for DSLR lenses. The second half of the course focuses on shooting techniques: controlling autofocus, working with different focal lengths, and managing distortion and flare. You’ll also learn about filters, cleaning, maintenance, and more. You can find it all right here on the Lynda.com web site.