What Photography Software do you use? Adobe announced Lightroom Classic CC vs Lightroom CC for 2018. Is there a right choice? What's your best option?

Visit the show notes at:  https://williambeem.com/episode97

Adobe announced Lightroom Classic CC vs Lightroom CC for 2018. Is there a right choice? The new product has the old name, the old product now sounds like poor marketing, and you may end up paying more for storage. What's your best option?

Lightroom Classic CC vs Lightroom CC – Why Did Adobe Do This to Us?

I know what you're thinking. Adobe hates its customers. What other reason would a company have for taking one of its most popular products and giving its name to a new product, and then saddling the old product with a “Classic” name?

Now we have Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom CC.

This is just incredibly stupid product management. Assigning the product name to a new product just causes confusion among customers. Yes, I'm sure Adobe can explain it, but I look at it from a blogger's point of view.

Over the years, I wrote articles on Lightroom CC. Now when people use a search engine, what product results will they get? The new product or the old product?

Both have the same name! Even the logos are similar, using the same combination of letters. The only difference is the color of text and the curved border.

Lightroom Classic CC

The product you previously knew as Lightroom CC is now Lightroom Classic CC. It's sort of like what happened to Coca-Cola years ago.

Coke decided to change its formula to make it sweeter, which gave us New Coke. People didn't like that at all, so Coke came back as Coke Classic. Both were on the market at the same time. So something that you knew as Coke wasn't really coke. The Coke you knew was now Coke Classic.

Now Adobe made the same blunder. The Lightroom CC you knew is now Lightroom Classic CC. A pretender wears the Lightroom CC label.

With Lightroom CC Classic, you get exactly what you had before – a file based system to use on your local PC or Mac. It has all of the features that it had a couple of weeks ago, but now we're promised that it's faster.

Again.

How many times has Adobe promised us that Lightroom got faster? Adobe promised us speed improvements by using the GPU chip and other methods. No doubt those tricks improved some operations. Yet the obvious truth is that Lightroom is dog-slow for photo management.

It makes me miss Aperture for photo management.

Now we're told that you can move sliders and brushes faster. Excuse me while I contain my enthusiasm.

Another new feature is Range Masking for selections. The good news is that it works. The idea is that you still create your mask with the traditional tools – brush, gradient, etc. Then you can choose either a Color or Luminance masking option. Put an eyedropper on the area you want to select and it adjusts your mask to match.

I tried it and it works, so this is a useful new tool.

Lightroom CC

Old name, new product. Lightroom CC is for the mobile generation. It's a cloud-based tool, much like Apple's Photos and iCloud service. It's about as deep as Photos, too. This product – Lightroom CC – is NOT what you expect from Lightroom. In fact, it has a long list of features from Lightroom Classic CC that don't exist in Lightroom CC (New Coke).

* Apply preset on import, add metadata

* Smart collections

* Slideshow

* Prints and photobooks

* Geotagging map

* Tone Curve

* Split Tones

* HDR merge

* Panorama stitching

Perhaps we'll see some of these features added in Lightroom CC in the future. My gut feeling is that this product wasn't ready to launch, but here it is.

Lightroom CC works on desktop, smart phones and tablets.

Adobe Lightroom is great photography software. My Lightroom editing workflow may help you get better results and save time.

Visit the show notes at:  https://williambeem.com/episode65

This is a replay of an earlier podcast episode.

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Transcript

THE PHOTO FLUNKY SHOW:  Episode 65

You can find links to this episode and all of the other ones at photoflunky.com and of course if you’d like to subscribe, we would love that.  Go to at williambeem.com/itunes or williambeem.com/googleplay or williambeem.com/stitcher or even williambeem.com/blubrry

William: Thank you very much for joining us on the Photo Flunky Show, episode sixty-five.

Today we are going to be talking about your Lightroom editing flow.  How do you select your best photos, how do you import them to Lightroom and make them work? What really works best for you?

Thank you so much. My name is William Beem.

Lee: Hi, my name is Lee Beem.

William: And of course, welcome to the Photo Flunky Show.  You’re going to find show notes are going to be available for this episode at williambeem.com/episode65.  There is a transcript of the show there for free and, of course, you can find links to subscribe there.  Or you can check out all of our episodes in the past at our dedicated player at photoflunky.com

Before we get started I also want to tell you I’ve got a free ebook for you called Creative Portraits. It kind of goes over the emotional and visual and artistic side of portrait photography, rather than the technical side. It is free. It’s available for you. You can download it at williambeem.com/freebook  or if you’re on the run and you’ve got your mobile phone with you, not a problem. Go ahead and send a text message: CPBOOK to 33444.  You’ll get a response and it will ask you for your email address. You just type in the email address where you want the book sent to you and it will send the PDF off once you send that in.  So that is text: CPBOOK to 33444.

[UPDATE:  Text message service no longer exists.

Today we are going to be talking about Lightroom editing and we’re not talking about post processing when we talk about editing. This is kind of like after you’ve gone out and you’ve done your shoot. How do you cull through your photos and pick your winners from your losers and which ones? Really, what’s your process for going through and selecting your best photos?

Lee and I have different ways of doing this. Both of them work for us and maybe one of them will work for you or maybe you’ll get an idea of your own, but Lee,

Detail photography is easy to overlook. Imagine a trip without photos of the food, or a wedding without a photo of the rings. Your detail photos are essential story elements.

Visit the show notes at:  https://williambeem.com/episode96

Detail photos are often easy to overlook when you travel, but they often convey some important part of your story. Imagine a trip without thinking of the food, or a wedding without a photo of the rings and preparation before the ceremony. Your detail photos are essential story elements.

What Are Detail Photos?

I often talk about photography as a form of story telling. Stories come in all sizes. Some are tall tales. Others are short stories. Other stories are epic, filled with chapters as the hero moves from one place to another, collecting experiences along the way.

Your travel photography can be any of those types, but it takes a collection of photos to create an epic tale of your adventures.

Notice that epic tales don't feature action in every chapter. Some are thrilling and others draw upon different emotions. Your travel photos need to do the same thing. A travel epic tells the story in all of its elements, from big to small.

When we talk about detail photos, it doesn't mean you need a macro lens or you're photographing a tiny subject. While those can be detail photos, the concept of a detail photo in travel photography is taking a small element in context to a larger story.

Details fill in the blanks. The provide additional information to fill out your story.

How to Look for Detail Photos

When you think of travel to an exciting place, we often latch on to the major subjects or events. If you go to Paris, you want your photo of the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe.

If you go to Washington, D.C., you may want photos of the White House, the Washington Monument or the U.S. Capitol building. Those are the big parts of your story (if you're doing the typical first vacation to the city).

There's more to the story than just a shot of the building, though. Perhaps you want to show items inside the building, like this statue of astronaut Jack Swigert in the Capitol Visitor Center.

Perhaps you want to share what it's like to look up in the Capitol Rotunda.

There are other types of detail photos, also.

Brand Names

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are a big part of my life. My father used to race them at Daytona when it was still half on the beach and half on the road.

I've owned a few of them (including this FXDF model) and taken some long road trips. My friends and I spent a lot of time in Daytona for Bike Week and other events on these bikes.

This gas tank and badge are details that identify both a motorcycle and, to some degree, a lifestyle for me.

Hands and Tools

If you're photographing someone at work, get shots of their hands and tools at work. It could be a guitarist, a cowboy, a painter or someone rolling tobacco leaves into a cigar.

You can take a photo of the person at work and it tells part of the story.

In this photo, you see the emotion on the performer's face. It tells you something about his work and how it makes him feel. Of course, you can change the story when you get closer.

Now you have a much more intimate look at the performer's work. There are no expressions to color your view of the performance or the photo. Getting closer gives something of a “you are there” feel to the experience.

Detail photos show you stories within stories.

Dramatically improve your photography by avoiding these 10 photography mistakes. These are common errors and I've made every single one of them.

Visit the show notes at:  https://williambeem.com/episode95

You can dramatically improve your photography by avoiding these 10 photography mistakes. These are common errors and I've made every single one of them.

10 Photography Mistakes You Can Easily Fix

All of these photography mistakes have something in common. They are easy mistakes to make, and they are all easily preventable.

Why do we make such common mistakes over and over again? Either we've never been told why these issues are mistakes, or we simply forget when we're in the excitement of taking photos.

The easiest way to prevent mistakes is to slow down, pay attention and make deliberate captures. No more spray and pray.

I can't help you if your forget, but I can at least lay out some common errors and how you can prevent them. Let's get started.

1: Wrong White Balance

Let's start with an easy one. Forgetting to set your white balance causes color casts on your photos. They may be too blue or too orange. Skin tones look awful.

We're often reminded that you can easily fix this if you shoot in RAW, and that's mostly true. Of course, that doesn't mean it's always easy.

The easiest way to fix white balance in post processing is if you have a photograph with a neutral grey color in the same light. Then all you have to do is grab the eyedropper tool in Lightroom or Photoshop boom – you fix your white balance.

Of course, not every photo has a perfect neutral grey color in it. So we click something that we think looks close to a neutral color and then that's close enough. Maybe.

It's much easier if you just set the correct white balance before you start taking photos. That gets you in the range.

If you want to be more specific, start carrying a grey card with you. I use the .  It has a nice white target printed in the center so you have some contrast to lock focus.

You can create a custom white balance in-camera using this grey card, or at least use it in post processing with the eyedropper. Just remember to set your white balance or take a photo of this grey card when you change lighting conditions.

2: Bad Horizon Lines

Nothing can ruin a travel, landscape or architecture photo faster than a horizon line that isn't level.

It doesn't matter whether you place your horizon high or low in the photo, but having a horizon that dips down to one side or another just screams amateur snapshot.

Your DSLR should have a mode to turn on an overlay inside the viewfinder. Most people use these for the Rule of Thirds. These lines give you a ruler to use for your horizon. Line it up. Make sure the horizon is level.

If you don't have the guidelines enabled in your viewfinder, check your manual.

At the very least, use the top or bottom of your display or viewfinder to get the horizon level, and then lower the camera until you have the composition you want.

Can you fix this in post processing? Sure. Lightroom makes it very easy. However, that will also crop out part of your photo, so be prepared to lose some detail if you wait until after the shot to level your horizon.

We have a lot of great tools at our disposal. There's no excuse for bad horizon lines. It's the easiest of photography mistakes to avoid.

3: Failing to Pay Attention to the Direction of Light

There are three aspects about light that photographers should understand:

* Quality

* Color

* Direction

You can't always change these attributes, but you can pay attention to them.

The Direction of Light ought to be the easiest one to recognize. You can tell if it's coming from the left or right, above or (oddly) below. You can see how the light falls on your subject and where it casts shadows based upon the direction of light.

So please, use that knowledge and observation to make better photos.

It's annoying for your viewer when you take a photo of a person and there is more light on an ear or shoul...

Social media is part of your photography marketing strategy. If you wonder why nobody sees your social media posts, It's because social media promotion is a rigged game.

Visit the show notes at:  https://williambeem.com/episode94

If you wonder why nobody sees your social media posts, it isn't because you're doing something wrong. It's because social media promotion is a rigged game.

Social media sites are rich with people who have the potential to like what you're doing. It's very tempting to want to promote your photos or business on social media.

Why Promoting on Social Media Sites is a Hard Nut to Crack

If you're just sharing things with friends, then you're probably in good shape. Social media sites want you to contribute to their environment, since that keeps other users on their environment.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram don't create content for us to consume. Instead, they build an infrastructure so you'll give them content for free. It's incredibly clever.

However, that desire to grow your audience or have people visit the site where you share your photos probably leaves you feeling frustrated. Why do some people seem to have a large following while others don't?

Success on social media is a tough business.

It takes a considerable amount of effort to develop new material to post on social media daily, if not multiple times per day. Even with automation tools that post on your behalf, it's still a lot of work.

Inevitably, all of that work only benefits the social media site. You see, their only goal is to keep users on the social media site.

Nobody Sees Your Social Media Posts Because Your Followers Aren't Your Followers

Years ago, anyone who followed you on social media would see everything you posted. Then we started hearing about changes to the algorithm. They told us these changes were to show you the things that were most interesting to you.

That's true in a manner of speaking, but it's not honest.

Social media sites show you things that are likely to keep you on their social media site. As a contributor, they want you to post photos, videos, text or anything else that users can consume on the social media platform.

The one thing they don't want you to do is post something that will take a user away from their platform.

That's where the algorithm comes into play. Post a photo or graphic and most of your followers will see it. When you post something with a link to a web site elsewhere on the Internet, then the social media algorithm severely restricts how many of your followers will see that post.

That's because social media sites don't want your followers leaving their site. After all, your followers on social media aren't your followers. They belong to the social media platform.

Buying Ads on Social Media

If you create posts on social media that have links, most of your followers won't see them. However, you'll likely see a note from the social media platform telling you that you can boost the number of people who see your message by paying for an ad.

Here's the deal. If you take visitors away from social media, it's a potential revenue loss for the social media platform. Buying ads offsets that revenue loss.

Facebook and other sites exist to earn revenue. One report I read claimed that Facebook earned about $8 Billion per quarter from digital advertisements.

Now take a closer look at some of the posts you see on Facebook or other social media sites. Notice how many times you see the word “Sponsored” under the person's name. Those are paid ads on Facebook because they want or need to reach you.

For some, sponsored posts help build business. Others claim it's a waste of money. They're probably both right, because every situation is different.

If you aren't buying ads, it's not a surprise that nobody sees your social media posts. The algorithms give preference to those who pay to play. It's a business.

Where Do You Want to Engage Your Visitors?