Photo.net Newsletter: July 20, 2010

Hi %%First Name%%,

News flash, news flash: Photo.net is rapidly approaching 4 million images in our database. To celebrate this fact, we decided to have a small contest with a lifetime subscription to photo.net as the grand prize. See below for details and start uploading those images you’ve been hoarding on your hard drives.

If that’s not enough to keep you entertained, take a break from homepage photo watching/uploading and dive into the editorial articles we’re featuring this month. Harold Davis continues his Advanced Photoshop Tutorial series with HDR in Photoshop CS5, Theano Nikitas reviews Lightroom 3 and presents a tutorial on Noise Reduction using Lightroom 3, Patrick Lavoie shares tips on Retouching a Studio Backdrop, Gary Miller presents the second in the lighting kits series: the Intermediate’s Guide to Lighting Kits and the Gizmos and Gadgets column is back with a short and sweet review of the Lensbaby Fisheye Optic.

Don’t miss the deals and discounts from Adorama (scroll down) including a new FREE SHIPPING coupon for Photo.net members. Also, share your thoughts about editorial, community, photography, and anything in between on the Facebook Page, Photo.net Blog, and Twitter Feed.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to us directly at contact@photo.net. Enjoy the newsletter!

Sincerely,

Hannah Thiem, Managing Editor, and Josh Root, Chief Admin, Director of Community, Mop & Bucket Man

4 Millionth Image Contest

What’s happening: Photo.net is rapidly approaching 4 million images in our database. To celebrate this fact, we decided to have a small contest. The person who uploads the 4 millionth image is the winner. A “you should have been here yesterday” prize will also be awarded to the person who uploads image number 4,000,001.

How to enter: Easy, just upload images.

Who is eligible: Any photo.net member.

The prize: A lifetime subscription to Photo.net for the user who uploads the 4 millionth image. A one-year subscription for the user who uploads image number 4,000,001 (see fine print for details).

Where is the upload counter located: Front and center on the home page.

More info and rules, click here.

Editorial Highlights

Editorial this month covers a wide range of topics: from Photoshop Tutorials to software reviews to lighting kits to Gizmos and Gadgets. Dig in.

HDR in Photoshop CS5 Tutorial

“HDR—High Dynamic Range—imaging is a technology, concept and aesthetic that has developed in the digital era in answer to the problem of the limited range from light to dark that can be captured using a single exposure.” (Harold Davis) There are a number of different software options out there for applying HDR during post-processing. The latest and newest is actually a feature included in Adobe’s latest version of Photoshop: CS5. In this tutorial, Harold explains how to use Photoshop CS5’s new feature Merge to HDR Pro, and walks us through the steps in an easy-to-follow tutorial.

Read HDR in Photoshop CS5.

Lightroom 3 Review

At first glance, Lightroom 3 may not seem like a major upgrade to its predecessor. The application maintains the same look and feel and continues to offer the tools photographers need to quickly view, organize, edit and export their images. There are no real mind-blowing new features like Photoshop CS5’s Content Aware fill, although the new noise reduction tool comes close. As a whole, however, the updates to Adobe Lightroom 3 are impressive and what we consider a “must-have” upgrade for current users. If you’ve wanted to try Lightroom, there’s no better time than the present.

Read the Lightroom 3 Review.

Retouching a Studio Backdrop

If you’re shooting in a studio but don’t have time to clean that white backdrop, much less give it a new paint job, here’s a quick and easy tutorial for using Photoshop to digitally alter the backdrop. Patrick Lavoie walks us through the steps to get a crisp clean white backdrop without any manual physical labor, just some quick keystrokes on the computer prior to retouching the images.

Read Retouching a Studio Backdrop.

Intermediate’s Guide to Lighting Kits

Hopefully, since reading the Beginner’s Guide to Lighting Kits featured a few months ago, you’ve had some time to get your feet wet with studio lighting. We’re continuing our Lighting Kit series with the next step up, intended for advancing photographers: for one reason or another you have decided to build on your initial investment of photographic lighting equipment. The reasons for doing so usually is the desire or need to do more professional (as in income-producing) work, wanting to expand your capabilities for artistic reasons or (like many of us) the desire to play with fancier toys. Which kits are the best for an intermediate-level photographer? What are your options? Gary Miller offers tips on what you should add to your lighting kit bag, whether you choose to go with hot lights, speedlights or monolights.

Read the second in the series Intermediate’s Guide to Lighting Kits.

Gizmos & Gadgets: Lensbaby Fisheye

Any hobby or pastime can get stale after awhile without new challenges or ideas to excite you. The folks at Lensbaby have built their company around providing equipment to help photographers get out of a rut. They continue to expand their optic-swap system and now have a fisheye optic to go along with the rest of the line. It’s wide, it’s distorted, it’s fuzzy and sharp at the same time and might be just what you need to create some images to help get you excited about your photography again.

Read Gizmos & Gadgets: Lensbaby Fisheye

Special Editorial Feature of the Month

Johnston on Photography (formerly ‘The Sunday Morning Photographer’)

From 2002 to 2005, Mike Johnston wrote a popular column called ‘The Sunday Morning Photographer’ that appeared on four major photography sites: Photo.net, the Luminous Landscape, Steve’s Digicams, and the Polish-language site Fotopolis. The column came out intermittently—sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. Along the way it was translated in brief bursts into five different languages: Polish, Portuguese, German, Italian and, very briefly, Croatian. At its peak it was seen by some 80,000 readers a week.

In 2008, we revived Mike’s column as an exclusive feature on Photo.net. Called simply ‘Johnston on Photography,’ the new photography opinion column appeared monthly. Its content is wide-ranging, including everything from philosophical ruminations to product reviews, with a distinct emphasis on discussing fine photographic camera lenses. As before, it is directed primarily at passionate amateurs, and is concerned first and foremost with how we all have fun with our interest in photography.

Johnston on Photography

• Maturity in the World of Digital Photography
• An Optical Paragon: Discussing the Pentax DA 35/2.8 Macro Limited Lens
• Reserving Judgment: Discussing the Sony Alpha A900
• To Converge or Not to Converge: Discussing the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D Mk II
• The Digital Camera Clock:Examining the Lifespan of a Digital Camera
• That Sinking Feeling: Discussing Prevailing Assumptions about Photography
• Viewing Distance: The Overlooked Aspect of Print Size
• Cooking Vegetables: Processing an Image without Overdoing it
• Fourteen Tips for Photographing in Public

The Sunday Morning Photographer Archives

View all archives for Johnston’s articles published on Photo.net from 2002-2005: The Sunday Morning Photographer Archives (scroll down the index page to view the archives list).

Free shipping coupon from Adorama

Photo.net subscribers will now see an option in their “workspace” area to claim an Adorama coupon for free shipping on purchases over $150. To claim, simply click on the link and you’ll be sent to a page showing your coupon code. Also, the code will show up in your workspace in place of the link that you previously clicked on.

More info and rules, click here.

Community News

YOU can support Photo.net!

Server space, programmer time, hours and hours of customer service all cost money. Photo.net is a business and we have to keep our head above water. How can you contribute to make sure that Photo.net keeps growing and improving? Here are four easy ways.

How to help support Photo.net

Top 10 Deals and Discounts from Adorama this Week

Note: these specials have a limited availability and tend to fly off the shelf quickly.

1. Kodak Zx1 Weather Resistant Pocket Digital Video Camera
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3. Westcott Photo Basics 40in 5-in-1 Collapsible Reflector Kit
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4. Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 DI-II for Nikon (all Tamron lenses have a $50 mail-in rebate offer)
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5. Smith Victor ImageMaker, Fluorescent Light Tent Kit
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6. Manfrotto MDeVe Carbon Fiber 2 Stage Tripod with 50mm Head
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7. Flashpoint SoftBox, 70 watt Fluorescent Light Unit with Built-in Silver Soft Box, and Adorama 9.5’ Light Stand
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8. Picture Keeper 16GB USB Drive
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9. Nikon D5000 Refurbished DSLR with 18-55 kit lens
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10. Flashpoint 39.5in x 59in Collapsible Disc Background
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Find great deals on thousands of other products at the Photo.net Adorama Store.

What’s Happening In Our Forums

• Off Topic (23 Responses) What did you do on the longest/shortest day of the year?

Last month’s community question: Monday, June 21 was the longest/shortest day of the year depending on which hemisphere you reside in—it marks the beginning of summer for the northern hemisphere and the beginning of winter for the southern hemisphere. What did you do to celebrate?

Steve Gubin: Photographed one of a seemingly endless series of severe thunderstorms that keep rolling through the Chicago area. As a wannabe storm chaser it seems lately that the storms are coming to me!

James Johnson: I spent the day in the sweltering heat wishing for the cool days of Autumn and the Outdoor photo opportunities it offers! I found it hard to really enjoy my hobby with the sweat rolling down my face into my eyes whilst looking through the viewfinder.

JDM von Weinberg: It was also the hottest day of the year so far here, so we skipped the usual sacrifice of a virgin (he had moved to Cleveland anyhow).

It was also one of the first clear nights we had had for a long time, but my efforts to see the McNaught 2009 comet were foiled by the very earliness of the dawn. By the time the comet (not very bright) would have been in view, the rosy fingers of dawn were already grasping. The moon was already out of the picture, but just not good viewing in the direction of Capella where the comet was that day.

Add your thoughts to the longest/shortest day of the year conversation thread here

What’s happening in some of the other forums?

• Digital Darkroom (14 Responses) Monitor calibrator - luminance?
• Nikon (64 Responses) Need help to decide a lens for a once-in-a-lifetime holiday!
• Nikon (16 Responses) Nikon D200 metering with non CPU lenses
• Canon EOS (19 Responses) 7D experiences/tips/advice under heavy rain.

Go To Photo.net Forums. »

Monthly Project: My Family (Our World #6) – HELD OVER THROUGH JULY -

Due to some confusion last month, we have held the June monthly project open through July. -Josh

This is the sixth of six months worth of themes that will attempt to give Photo.net members the opportunity to share the world around themselves with the rest of the Photo.net community. We are a worldwide community, but we really have a lot in common. We all sleep somewhere every night, we all have friends and family, we all have somewhere we call “home”. These themes will break those things down into simple statements that we can photograph: room, home, family, city, and so on. The idea is that the simplicity of the themes will be impressive when brought together by a group of people.

June’s theme is “My Family”. We’ve all got family. You, me, the pope, the lazy slacker smoking on the corner, the guy cooking your breakfast at the deli, all of us. Now, family can mean your blood relations, or it can simply mean those people who give you the love and support that makes life worth living. Nobody is going to be too specific on the definition. So please take this chance to finish out the “My World” series and share images of your family with the Photo.net community.

See all of the Monthly Projects (and submission instructions) on the Monthly Project Index page. We’ve had a lot of great images uploaded to the “My Family” project so far. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Editors’ Picks

And this month’s editors’ picks is… Digital Art Photography.

Samples:

Also, take a look at what the Editors found visually interesting in the previous months—perhaps one of your images has been selected…

Also, take a look at some of the most popular Editors’ Picks from previous months:

• Tattoo Photography
• Baby Photography
• Travel Photography