12 handy photographic rules

12 useful facts, formulas, and photographic rules. Some of them are less relevant these days, what with digital usurping film so thoroughly, but they’re useful to know none the less.

Detailed article on Lightroom’s new sharpening & noise reduction

Martin Evening, author of the seminal Adobe Photoshop for Photographers, has an incredibly detailed article on Lightroom’s new (v1.1) sharpening and noise reduction features. This is an update for his latest book, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers.

Lightroom Updated to v1.1

Update: Computer Darkroom provides comprehensive coverage of the new features.

James Duncan Davidson has a good overview of the new features in Lightroom. Mikkel Aaland also summarises what’s new. I’ve just had a play with the new sharpening option and it’s much, much better than version 1, here’s hoping the other tweaks are as good!

You can download the v1.1 updater here.

5 ways to speed up Lightroom

The O’Reilly Digital Media blog has some good tips to speed up Lightroom. For instance, rendering 1:1 (and standard) previews after import makes a huge difference, it’s well worth doing this first rather than having Lightroom compute them on the fly, as otherwise you’ll be constantly waiting for the app to catch up.

Neat Lightroom trick for cloning out dust

A neat Lightroom trick for cloning out dust:

Zoom in to 1:1. Starting at the top-left of the image, press the “page down” key. The window will move down the photo until it gets to the bottom… and then jump across and up to the next previously-hidden part of the image. This’ll repeat until you end up at the bottom-right of your photograph. Fantastic!

It’s the perfect way to quickly scan for and spot out dust; you can tell these guys are really passionate about a great user interface. Via an interview with Mark Hamburg, founder of Adobe Lightroom.

New version of Menalto Gallery

The popular web-based photo album organiser “Gallery” released version 2.2 today.

Great sequence image of last night’s eclipse

Alastair Houghton has a great sequence image of last night’s lunar eclipse.

Adobe store’s downloads cost more than the boxed product

What the hell? I just checked Adobe’s online store with a view to buying Lightroom. They offer two different options: download or shipped box. Guess which one’s cheaper? Nope, the download is almost a fiver more! Same with Photoshop: £569.88 for the boxed version, £586.85 for the download. Apparently, not providing a CD or printed manual at all — these cost extra for the download option — is more expensive than manufacturing & shipping them to you. Or is it that Adobe feels that they can scalp their customers for the “I want it now” factor? That’s pretty reprehensible.

Getty Images buys WireImage

Getty Images buys WireImage. Makes sense seeing as everyone seems to be obsessed with celebrity these days.

Canon announces EOS-1D Mark III

Canon announced the EOS-1D Mark III last week. It sounds vaguely like a spaceship from the classic computer game Elite but is in fact their flagship digital camera, designed primarily for sports & wildlife photographers. Specs of note include a 10.1 megapixel APS-H size (1.3x) CMOS sensor, 10FPS with a 110 large-JPEG or 30 RAW image buffer, overhauled 45-point AF system with 19 cross-type sensors, a live-view LCD and an integrated cleaning system. If you know what all that means, you no doubt want one — I know I do — but the estimated £3050GBP price tag might put you off unless you really need it.