A quick reminder: if you want to learn Adobe Lightroom, watch my Lightroom TIPS videos:

https://www.youtube.com/user/cameratraining/videos

Most videos on that channel are Lightroom Tips. You will no doubt find them useful.  Also, come to me for private lessons and setup (in person or via Google Hangouts, worldwide), if you want your PC or Mac set up right, once and for all.

Have fun watching!

Want my e-books on your iPad after you buy them?

There’s probably many ways to achieve that, but here’s how I do it:

1. Make sure iBooks is installed on your iPad. (free).
2. Install Dropbox (also free) on both your computer and your iPad.
3. Get a dropbox account (also free) and sign in on both devices.
4. On the computer, drag the PDF file into Dropbox.
5. On the iPad, open it.
6. Then click on the export icon (the square with an arrow emanating from it).
7. There, select “Open In…”.
8. After the choice is presented to you, select “Open in iBooks” or “Copy to iBooks”..

The file has now been copied to iBooks, and you can read it there any time, very conveniently (it has been formatted to be read easily on an iPad).

We spend a lot of time getting rid of, and better, preventing, “noise”. Grainy pictures due to extra amplification of signal that should not be in the image. Noise is worse at high ISOs and at low light levels. The signal-to-noise ratio is the important number, and exposing to the right, among other things, minimizes noise.

In fact, you can do a number of things to reduce noise:

1. Use a modern camera.
2. Use a large sensor.
3. Use low ISO.
4. Expose brightly (“expose to the right”).
5. Do after-the-fact noise cancellation using, for instance, Lightroom.

But is grain always bad?

Surprisingly, the answer is “no”. Film grain gives your photos that old film look:

If you view that full screen, you see that it looks like old Kodak Tri-X film. And that can add to the mood you want to convey. It is for that reason that Adobe Lightroom has “Grain” as an “effects” setting in the Develop module.

This type of grain also enhances apparent sharpness, and hides skin blemishes. So go ahead: if the mood calls for it, add some grain when you like.

So: do not obsess. Noise bad, but sometimes noise good. Often, noise is not as bad as at first we think.

Sharpening is often a mystery. And Lightroom does it very well.

You have four sliders: Amount, Radius, Detail, and Masking.

Amount determines how much sharpening you apply. I set this between 25% (hardly any) and 50% (a lot), usually,

Radius determines how close to the lines it is applied. 1.0 pixels is the system default: a pixel either side of lines. I usually leave it close to that default. Avoid going too high.

But sharpening means the introduction of grainy noise.  And the next two sliders have something to do with that. For these as well as the other sliders, holding down Alt-Option while sliding shows you the effect.

Detail means the amount of sharpening applied to the edges; in practice this also means “how much noise is introduced:”. I leave it in the 20-40 range, usually.

The image without sharpening:

Now with various amounts of sharpening:

Now some more, but with more of a mask, so it is not applied everywhere:

Masking means “where the sharpening is and is not applied”. White means “it is applied here”, black means “it is not applied here”. I leave this between 0 (everywhere) and “whatever is needed”. Press Alt/Option to set this so that the maximum is applied where the sharpening is needed, without adding noise to areas like the sky.

By judicious use of these sliders, especially the masking and amount sliders, you can apply sharpening just where it is needed.

The result: a very sophisticated sharpening tool, which equals what Photoshop can do.  Worth learning the details.

The best computer UI (User Interface) that I have ever experienced is that of the Compaq Concerto I used to own. This computer, which was decades ahead of its time, was powered by Windows for Pen computing and by, as I just found out, Wacom pen and screen hardware. Hardware that today looks like this:

Not surprising. The intuitiveness was amazing. I regret that this disappeared: we lost 20 valuable years.

But we are back: back to the future. The Wacom tablet I mentioned the other day gets me back there. The pen feels the same, and the functions are even better now than in the Compaq days. Like the radial menu:

I assigned this to a pen button, so now by clicking that button I get this menu (where I can set functions for each of the pie segments)—and what’s more, it pops up where my pen is at that time. Ridiculously simple, and such a time saver. I grabbed that picture by selecting the “Capture Selection” segments. That’s one way to have me remember those combined buttons (try to remember Command-Shift-$). You can even assign hierarchal sub-menus.

And what’s even more: the pen and button functions can be set differently for each application. The tablet senses which app you are in, and you get the applicable settings for that particular app.

I think it is a good bet you will be hearing more about this particular piece of hardware here.