kja

PhotoRescue might help If any mods come across this thread (or the one a couple of weeks ago) a list of these types of things as a sticky would be grand!

Adobe is looking for people to help them out - click here for details You'll have to do it now as I think signup ends in a few hours (it's US based, but that shouldn't matter to participating)

FWIW keeping your file sizes to around 100kbs really helps those on slow connections. Most of my images - always resized to 650 pixels longest side - are between 50-150kbs (that's pretty big and I try to keep those to a minimum), with the majority being 60-110kbs.

Lightroom also has adjustment tools - you can use gradients or brushes to apply tweaks exactly where you want them and can control how much very easily. I just found a reference to this new (well, to me) FREE application that is like a Jr Lightroom or Lightroom Lite - might be of interest to some. Heck, it's free, can't hurt to try it! RAWTherapee You can also get fancy schmancy and use external/off camera lighting to highlight your subject and darken your background.

Going for fun and family. I can be trusted to come back in a timely manner

FWIW I'm off to the US in November And I adore my IS. I can handhold my 70-200 down to like 1/30 @ 200 and I suck at hand holding

If you are printing you can put what they call an identity plate over the image with your copyright etc. I've never dealt with text in Lightroom and I don't think it's a feature that they've really incorporated (at least so far) as that's not really what lightroom was built to do. The best way to do it that I've found, is to create the watermark you want in photoshop and then import it into Lightroom as a droplet. So when you are done with an image or images in Lightroom you can export at any size or resolution, choose this watermark from the drop down export menu and hit one button. LR & PS automatically deal with applying it and saving the output in the correct folder at the correct size/settings.

LOL I have the 100mm macro, too, it's awesome Same with the 40D, 70-200 2.8 IS, 10-22 (love this!) That 24-105L gets excellent reviews. I have a couple of friends in the US and Canada who have this permanently attached to one of their 40D bodies. Surprising how fab it is really...I've been tempted more than once, too! Looks like a lot of good gear - don't know about the prices but y'all can check those before buying of course. Don't knock third party lenses - you can pry my Sigma 17-70, Tokina 10-17 & Tokina 11-16 2.8 from my cold dead hands when I die

Awww, Dora's coming along there!

terra - cool cameras

OK, I tried to think about this concept while I was underwater yesterday. Shooting photos underwater is always all about painting with light because if you get the light in the wrong place, even on a very clear day, you'll get all sparklies and crap lit up between you and your subject or in the background - it's called backscatter and it is the bane of underwater photographers everywhere. But, I wanted to try something even more "radical" than I usually do. I started playing with these ideas again last weekend and kinda liked those results. So I tried again yesterday on some scenes that didn't have built in light blocker/funnelers (hehehe I am SO technical). It was harder to make the light only land where I wanted it as my strobes cast a pretty wide angle & I had nothing to snoot them with etc, so there was some cussing uw involved. The concept isn't fully realised - and some of my fellow uw togs HATE it - but I'm having fun ;) edited to put the right image in

Glad you found a solution That was my next suggestion - when in doubt, pull all the power and start over :p It's my mantra with computers and all things electric hehehee

Two things 1 - make sure the little ON lever is flipped all the way up. If it's in the middle on some models you cannot change aperture. 2 - if that isn't it, does it do it on all of the lenses? Sometimes a lens won't mount properly and this can cause the problem. Let us know...

Wow, you guys are rocking this challenge already and it's only day two!! Can't wait to see more!

In a word, excellent.

Expose for your subject first and foremost. Then if you can't live with the blown sky, try to work it in Lightroom or even do a sky replacement in photoshop (I've been told it's not that had but wouldn't have clue how to do this, one of the PS guys here should be able to point you in the right direction). Lightroom's gradient tool is a dream as is its adjustment brush tool. You can also purchase filters to add to your lenses so you can expose for a wider range of brightness on the spot. I don't actually even own any filters - I either blow the sky, use a flash to fill the subject or expose as close as possible for the subject and then tweak in LR. Usually LR tweaks take about 30 seconds. HTH

That last one is really surreal - nice

LOL it's not the no comments - I don't expect those, it was that everyone stopped posting images!! I felt like I had done something way bad so, now I've put my birds in flight up I hope everyone else puts lots more up after me, too, so I don't get all irrationally emotionally overwhelmed and think that the world is against me again

That'd be cool if you did let us know, I'd love to see what you come up with. FWIW there are about ten zillion images if you follow the link in my signature LOL

You're welcome to sketch any of my dogs from any of my doggie shots - have fun!

Ooops, sorry, didn't mean to kill the thread!

Oooo, extra tips from a friend who just passed them on to me... 1) these calibrations can be very useful in toning down the tacky orangey make-up that some insist on wearing 2) they can also be helpful when removing the nasties when you shoot high ISO and kind of fuff the exposure (use the green sliders in calibration). Haven't tried them myself, but good to have more options in the arsenal!

LOL I'm guessing it happened during one of Adobe's stupid updates that I didn't stop in time How scary is it that I am the LEAST nerdy of all of my friends (by miles!) LOL

OK, I admit, I only use the features I need and there is SO much more to all of the software I use that I am really a total newb when it comes to getting the best out of it. The other week I noticed something funky was happening to my photos when I imported them - they'd show up in the preview and then BANG change dramatically. I still don't really know why it changed, but I think I now know what's happening. For some reason Lightroom is applying ACR 4.4 at import. What the heck is ACR 4.4 you ask? All I know is that a software program has to have some sort of a baseline for displaying photos (calibration). ACR 4.4 is one of those preset standards that Lightroom can use. Lightroom will actually let you tailor this baseline for each camera you use in its Camera Calibration menu (very bottom in the Develop module) or you can use the default (what I have always done and is now ACR 4.4 on my system) or you can choose one of the preset options. Setting up a separate calibration for each of my cameras always seemed too complex and time consuming to me so I've never bothered and not had any trouble. Even this recent "switching" isn't really a problem, just annoying sometimes. In fact, I'd never even bothered to look through this menu before this past weekend! But when I did, it was pretty cool. So, here's an image SOOC and run through Lightroom with each of its preset Calibration choices. Some have dramatic differences, some are more subtle. I can see uses for virtually all of them in the variety of things I shoot. So, what does this mean to you? I have no idea But it can be a super quick way to tweak a photo without having to do much more to it or it can land you in the ballpark faster, making your processing even faster for some images. It's just another tool and one that I overlooked for a long long time.

I have a movement photo!! Nothing like a little whale snot frozen in time