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Fall Photography Program at Tremont in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
2007-09-18 01:02:00
Here's a good deal on a photography workshop coming up next month. I learned about the Tremont program through Todd Moore, a friend of mine who leads some of the Wildlife Photography sessions. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it this fall, but don't feel too bad: I can't go because I'll be at the Bengals v. Steelers game at Paul Brown Stadium!(And, though I'm hoping for a Bengals win, last night's debacle versus the Browns is not exactly a confidence builder! I did notice that the practice field was empty when I drove past this afternoon - I hope to see the Bengals' missing defense out there tomorrow...)Anyway, the workshop is a great deal: $520 gets you in from Friday evening through mid-morning on Monday & includes your lodging & meals! Todd warns that the lodging is more like summer camp than a Holiday Inn, but that doesn't really matter - there's a very busy schedule.They run a program in the Fall and Spring. For more info, check out the web site: Fal...
More About: National , Mountains , Great , Park

Alicia in the Studio
2007-09-15 16:12:00
Here's a photograph of Alicia , a Dayton-based model (IIRC) who visited the CCofC for the monthly "studio night" in August. Alicia has gotten a few gigs in the Cincinnati area and most recently she was featured on the cover of the Fall 2007 Cincinnati Taste magazine. The photos in that article, by the way, are expertly done - I'll have to double check on the photographer's name, but the lighting, sets, and poses are incredible.Anyway, here's my pick from the evening:Alicia in the Studio Canon 30D w/ 24-70mm f/2.8L @ f/7.1Negative SpaceI was drawn to this image by the negative space that Alicia is looking into on the left. I think it works pretty well to add more interest, especially after I've used a little dodge and burn to add some variance to the background seamless.RetouchingIf you mouseover the image, you'll see the original shot (after the crop) before I've done any retouching. Since "studio night" at the club consists of a dozen people shooting similar images, I alwa...

Krohn Fall Floral Show: A Garden Mosaic
2007-09-11 23:11:00
I received an email today tipping me off to the upcoming Fall Floral Show at the Krohn Conservatory that starts this Friday, September 14th. Here's some of their description of the show:A Persian form of art that dates back to the fifth century B.C. influences A Garden Mosaic , the 2007 Fall Show at the Krohn Conservatory. Early nomadic sheepherders began weaving carpets out of necessity, to keep them warm as they slept on the cold ground. ... The floor plan of this show includes cotton plants that are used to make the warps and wefts, or foundation, of the carpets; dye plants such as madder, indigo and vine weld that are used to color the wool; and lotus, willow, and roses that are often used as symbols in Persian carpets.Sounds like a chance to see some things that you wouldn't normally expect to see.Fallen Petals; Ault ParkI've mentioned other shows at Krohn before, such as the recent Gardens of Jamaica exhibit. These are always great opportunities for photographers; just rem...

Learning the Art of Dodging and Burning
2007-09-11 12:29:00
There's a good tutorial written by Steve Paxton on how to use the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop to add some dramatic lighting effects to your nature & landscape images. Some may look at this as making a "fake" photograph, but in reality it's no different than what would have been done in a master printmaker's darkroom back in the days of film. I recently had an extended debate with some friends on this point; many who feel that an image is "fake" if its not "straight out of the camera". That's silly (though they're entitled to their opinions)! My take on it is that you need to accomplish as much in the camera as possible: set yourself up for success. Pay attention to your backgrounds, get your composition right, achieve proper exposure, and above all - capture the moment. But even after all of that, you can go from good to great by learning how to work in the digital darkroom of today: Adobe Photoshop. PS sometimes gets a bad rap, but just because PS is involved doesn...
More About: Learning , Burning , The Art , Earning

Road Runner Turbo now available in Cinci
2007-09-09 20:40:00
I just upgraded my internet service to Road Runner Turbo , which promises 15mbps down and 768kbps up. While this is still a horribly slow upload speed, it's a bit better than my previous 384kbps.Adding on the service was relatively painless, especially considering how terrible Time Warner's customer service usually is. In this case I feel like I got off easy: only once during the first attempt did I get bounced back to the beginning of the phone tree ("press 1 if you're reporting a problem, etc.") while in the middle of working with a CSR. That's not bad - really - I typically get hung up on once or twice & have to call back in! awesome.Anyway, once I confirmed the price ($10) I went ahead and added the service. ...Well, once I successfully turned down the option to "bundle" with an Internet Phone service. I explained that I already had VOIP Service from ViaTalk and that I was perfectly happy with them (and their price), but she went ahead and priced it out anyway. Not surp...
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Adobe Design Center Video Workshop
2007-09-09 02:02:00
Today I was working on some websites and was interested in some of the new features of Dreamweaver CS3. After browsing the help a bit, I stumbled across a link to the Adobe Design Center Visual Workshop .On that site you'll find a ton of useful video tutorials demonstrating a variety of new features and concepts in the Adobe CS3 suite. There are a ton of quick tutorials on the site covering the entire CS3 product lineup.Of particular interest to photographers will be the videos highlighting the new features of Photoshop CS3. These videos, combined with some of the great photography podcasts out there will help you to get the most out of Adobe's software. Do you back up your docs & photos? I use and recommend Mozy for automatic online backups.2GB free or $4.95/month for unlimited, encrypted storage.
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Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery, Puerto Rico
2007-09-07 05:15:00
Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzi s CemeteryCanon 24-70mm f/2.8L | 1/400s @ f/8.0 | 30D @ ISO 200The first photograph from the trip to Puerto Rico came off the printer this evening. This is an image of the historical Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery near the San Felipe del Morro Fort in Old San Juan.It is a colonial-era graveyard and the final resting place of many of Puerto Rico's most prominent natives and residents. Construction began in 1863. Do you back up your docs & photos? I use and recommend Mozy for automatic online backups.2GB free or $4.95/month for unlimited, encrypted storage.
More About: Santa , Santa Maria , Meter

Cincinnati Restaurant Week: Pho Paris
2007-09-06 04:16:00
Just returned from a great meal over at Jean Robert's Pho Paris in Covington, KY, a participating venue in this week's "Restaurant Week " festivities.Popular in larger cities, Restaurant Week is a set week where local restaurants offer 3-course meals at a value price of $25.07. Well, I suppose that "value" is a relative term, but considering that some of these joints are pretty high end places with gourmet food $25 is a helluva deal!There are 25 restaurants participating in this year's event (hence the $25.07... get it? 2007?) and all are a part of the Greater Cincinnati Independents. The lineup includes:Andy’s Mediterranean Grille, Behle Street Café, Bella Luna, Brown Dog Café, Daveed’s at 934, deSha’s American Tavern & Grille, Encore Bistro & Bar (three locations), Hugo, Jag’s Steak & Seafood, Jean-Robert at Pigall’s, Jimmy D’s Steakhouse, Kona Bistro, Mesh, Mike & Jimmy’s Chophouse Grille, Nicholson’s,O’Bryon’s Irish Pub, One Restaurant & Lounge,...

Back from The Cape...
2007-09-04 02:40:00
Tree near MarinaWell, I'm back from a nice trip to Boston and Cape Cod. I was more or less unplugged while out there (well, I had my Blackberry, but I didn't use it much!) so now I'll be digging out from a backlog of email for the next few days.It'll be a while before I get to process much of the photos I took in the past couple of weeks. Here's a quick one to pass the time... Do you back up your docs & photos? I use and recommend Mozy for automatic online backups.2GB free or $4.95/month for unlimited, encrypted storage.
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Which Photo Lab will use this amazing new tech first?
2007-08-30 05:18:00
[Possibly my last post for a few days as I'll be traveling through the long weekend. Go outside and take some pictures; summer is almost over! -RRD]Watch the video below to witness the most amazing thing you've seen in digital imaging technology since the Targeted Adjustment Tool.Recently revealed at SIGGRAPH, this new algorithm by Dr. Ariel Shamir allows images to be repurposed (resized and reshaped) by a computer without distorting the important details. While I'd encourage watching the video for the full story, basically the program finds "seams" in the image (connected areas that run non-linear paths through the image) of low importance (low contrast) and either removes them to shrink an image or duplicates them to enlarge it. Because these low contrast areas do not contain much important detail, the size and shape of a photograph can be modified while retaining the subject detail.Got a 4x5 and want a pano? Just go ahead and drag out the side until it's 4x15 - the software ...
More About: Photo , Tech , Amazing

Back from Puerto Rico: One leg down... one to go
2007-08-29 07:11:00
I've just returned from the first leg of my trip - back in Cincinnati after spending a few days in Puerto Rico . The trip was fun & I was fortunate to have had a ton of good shooting opportunities. I also got to make good use of my new Think Tank Back pack - it was great both in the airport as well as in the field. I had it pretty loaded up and it wasn't much of a burden even given the 90 degree heat. Major improvement over hiking around with a shoulder bag.Lightroom is currently loading up many gigabytes of images as I write this post; I haven't gone through them at all, but I think there are a few keepers in the lot. At this point I'm really just clearing out the cards & getting the images backed up.Just for purposes of illustrating the post, here is one of the earlier shots that I took (as they are the only ones loaded up so far...) of the wall surrounding Old San Juan... Very cool place to visit! Stay tuned for more Puerto Rico photos once I get back from the second...

Lightroom Tip: Darken the sky with luminance
2007-08-23 12:16:00
Here's a quick way to add some drama and interest to gray, slightly overexposed skies using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom .In the Develop Module, scroll the controls on the right until you see the "HSL / Color / Grayscale" panel. Click the Lumi nance link to show the luminance specific controls - Luminance controls how light or dark pixels of a given color range are relative to their originally imported values.Now, click the Direct Adjustment tool (the small, target-shaped icon just to the upper left of the luminance sliders). This tool will let you click your mouse in areas of the picture that you wish to lighten or darken & dragging will move the appropriate slider(s) in the luminance dialog. Cool, eh? Note that many of the other "slider-based" tools have a similar direct adjustment feature.Anyway, now that we know how to darken specific color ranges of the image it's easy to see how we'll get a bluer sky. Just click & drag down with the tool in an area of blue sky & like mag...
More About: Mina

Model: Shauna on the runway
2007-08-21 03:03:00
On Friday I dropped a print in the mail to Shauna, a model in the Cincinnati area. It was from the Plum Diore Fashion Show that I shot earlier this year; Shauna is looking to build out her portfolio and really liked one of the photos I took of her during the evening.I certainly don't blame her - the look in this shot is fierce! Plus, since she's new to modeling she wants to show off the fact that she's got "it" when she hits the runway & can represent well outside the studio. However, before it was worthy of being in a portfolio some minor retouches were in order...I had not originally planned to shoot this show; I just happened to be there with a camera available, so I brought it out. Unfortunately what I didn't have was any lighting with me besides the 580 & the room didn't work well for bouncing. The one saving grace with the Stofen OmniBounce, which helped to take some of the bite out of the flash & provide a more evenly diffuse light. As simple as the setup was, ...
More About: Runway , Model

Second Life and Photography
2007-08-20 04:39:00
This is different. Tonight I went to a "virtual concert" this evening on Second Life at a club called "The Lily Pad". The artist was Craig Lyons, a singer/songwriter living out in L.A. who used to be here in the Midwest. In fact, I played drums for him when he lived in the 'nati so I was curious to hear his new stuff...If I take a snapshot of my view of a virtual world, do I own the copyright to that image?Would I need a model release for the commercial use of someone's avatar?!?Silly questions now, but we'll see a court case within the next 10-20 years.Totally bizarre?Yea - I agree. Kind of cool that I could see avatars of the other people tuned into the concert, but wouldn't a live video feed have been more interesting? ...Well, maybe.Second Life is essentially an internet chat program (like IRC) but you can wander around and "see" who it is that you're chatting with. ...On the other hand, it's a lot more than that. According to their stats there are 8.9 million "resid...
More About: Photography

Finday Market photo: Farmers Market Sign
2007-08-19 22:16:00
Farmers Market at Findlay Market1/125 sec @ f/8, ISO 20050mm f/1.4 on the Canon 20DWe went to Findlay Market this morning to pick up some fresh produce. They've got a huge variety to select from across the dozens of vendors offering up goods. This is an image of the shelter that divides the two halves of the parking lot at Findlay Market and is used by smaller vendors who set up tables full of fresh fruits and vegetables. In the spring, you'll even find flats of flowers and herbs to take home.This is the first of a series of photographs I shot this morning; something new I'm looking to do on this blog is to occasionally just post one photo at a time along with some commentary. I'll refer to this type of post as "Creating the Image" - a look at both the photographic techniques I used in the field as well as the post processing performed in Photo shop and Lightroom.Creating the ImageThis is a graphic, or at least geometric, photograph with the sign placed at the head of a vanishin...
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The Best of Photography and Film exhibit
2007-08-18 21:07:00
I got the following heads up in an email regarding a local exhibit. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds quite good...There is a great photography exhibit currently showing at the Speed Art Museum in Lousiville, KY. It runs through Sept. 16. It is called "The Best of Photograpy and Film " from the George Eastman House collection. The exhibit contains over 200 photogrphs from a Matthew Brady of Abraham Lincoln, through Dorthea Lang's "Migrant Mother" to Sept. 11, 2001."The Best of Photography and Film" from the George Eastman House CollectionJune 19 - September 16, 2007The Speed Art Museum2035 South Third St.Louisville, KY 40208 www.speedmuseum.orgMonday - closedTuesday, Wednesday, Friday - 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Thursday - 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.Saturday - 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.Sunday - 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.Tickets - $10:00 Do you back up your docs & photos? I use and recommend Mozy for automatic online backups.2GB free or $4.95/month for unlimited, encrypted storage.
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Best place to Buy a Think Tank Bag?
2007-08-17 12:33:00
As previously mentioned, I just got a Think Tank Photo Airport Antidote backpack in the mail. I've got it loaded up but haven't taken it out just yet... I'm probably shooting this weekend, so we'll see.What I had forgotten to mention in the earlier post was where I bought my bag! I'm always looking for a hot deal on stuff & this was a tough one: the Think Tank products are somewhat high-end & they don't have a omnipresent distribution chain behind them. You simply won't find one on a discount (bummer!).The best deal I could find was at Dury's. Their price was still the same $199 as everyone else's, but they offered Free Shipping. Considering that shipping was around $10-15 at other shops this was a good enough reason to buy from them. As an added bonus, I got the backpack in about 2 days, right in line with their UPS delivery map. Do you back up your docs & photos? I use and recommend Mozy for automatic online backups.2GB free or $4.95/month for unlimited, enc...
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A few tips on Fireworks Photography
2007-07-03 12:19:00
Well, it's that time of year again so I thought I'd throw a post online with a few tips on how to photograph fireworks.The image to the left was taken a couple of years ago - ironically not on the 4th of July, but during the 2005 WEBN Fireworks . Still, it illustrates several of the points made below.Fireworks Photo Tips Bring a tripod - This is probably the most important first step, since we're going to be dealing with some long exposures. Make sure that you aren't blocking anyone's view *and* that you aren't placing your tripod's legs where someone could trip over them in the dark.Find an interesting foreground. The building serves this purpose nicely in the photo above. While you may end up with a good shot or two of just a blast against the black sky, most successful fireworks photographs contain some other subject of interest...Use a medium-range zoom. Of course, this kind of depends on how close you are to the actual display. A zoom with decent range will enable a v...
More About: Photography , Graph , Ework

Lightroom 1.1 Tutorial
2007-06-30 17:16:00
Michael Reichmann and Jeff Schewe have released an update to their Lightroom Video Tutorial that brings folks up to speed on the new features of Lightroom 1.1. I'm currently in the process of downloading it, but if it's of similar quality to the original Lightroom Tutorial then it'll be worth your while to check it out. It's a free download, so go check it out.Jeff Schewe has a lot to do with how all of this functionality shakes out - you can't beat hearing straight from the source!In their announcement post, the LL editor included a link to a pretty useful overview of the new features on the Computer Darkroom site.
More About: Tori , Rial

David Martin's "A Frosty Morn"
2007-06-29 02:54:00
This morning I stopped by the Starbucks in Ft. Thomas, KY to pick up some coffee and spent some time looking at Davi d N. Martin 's A Frost y Morn series of photographs. Presumably taken during this past year's winter storm in Cincinnati, the gallery is a collection of snow and ice scenes which detail the weather's effects.I particularly enjoyed the three "Suspension" images which show a close up look at branches encased in perfect tubes of crystal-clear ice. Another favorite of mine was "By foot": a black and white snowbound environment where the only indication of city life is a pedestrian caution sign that pops up out of the landscape. Cool shot!David's gallery display reminded me of my own adventures in this past winter. Visit my previous blog post, Frozen Cincinnati 2007 to have a look at some scenes from the Spring Grove Cemetery and the Cincinnati Observatory.I'd encourage you to stop by and take a look at David's work, either on his MK Photography website or by visiti...

Lightroom 1.1 upgrade now available...
2007-06-27 04:07:00
Wouldn't you know it, just before I'm trying to go to bed I see that Adobe has released the 1.1 version of Lightroom ! It is currently upgrading my catalog, which I presume is their new name for the database...IMPORTANT: If you have a large library, expect to not see anything for quite a while after the "updating catalog" dialog disappears. Just go make some coffee & leave it be!! The process needs a lot of system resources (see below), by the way, so go ahead and shut down your browser, etc. before you proceed.I caught wind of the release via a thread on the Flickr Lightroom discussion board; it lists out some helpful links & I'll repeat a few here:Lightroom main siteLightroom 1.1 README File (PDF)Detailed article from Martin EveningAnother detailed articleLightroom 1.1 Memory Usage on Initial Load/ConversionMy database took around 20 minutes to update on my new photo workstation and another 10 or so for the initial load - must be some pretty heavy lifting going on! My library c...

Dawn in the Smoky Mountains
2007-06-27 01:38:00
This image is from a recent family trip to the Great Smoky Mount ain s National Park. It was a cold morning in early Spring - it actually snowed a bit. The early pre-dawn light was great for creating an image like this: just abstract enough that it really doesn't matter that there's no foliage on the trees.
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Building The Ascent
2007-06-25 23:54:00
As I was leaving the garage today, I noticed that the construction workers were about to place one of the large exterior panels on the peak of The A scent at Roebling's Bridge. The Ascent is a high-rise condominium tower with a unique spiraling, slanted design by Daniel Libeskind.Near the Roebling Suspension Bridge, according to the building's info page it will be the tallest owner-occupied residential building in both the State of Kentucky and the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Area when completed later this year. Just one of the new developments on the Northern Kentucky skyline - they're getting ready to give Cincinnati a run for their money.That's a long way up in the air; pretty cool seeing these guys place this panel like it's no big deal & that they aren't just one misstep away from game over!
More About: Building , Build

Recommended Photography Podcasts
2007-06-25 03:30:00
There are thousands of podcasts out there these days and many of them are about photography in some way, shape, or form. Here are a few that I've been listening to lately...On the Creative Process:Lenswork - Brooks Jensen, publisher of the excellent LensWork magazine shares his random thoughts on photographic art, printing, and the creative process. The magazine, by the way, is excellent if a bit expensive.Camera Position - Jeff Curto presents topics on the visual and creative process of photography, specifically staying away from technical discussion. I'm a new listener of this show, but it has promise.Martin Bailey Photography - Takes you on a tour of recent shoots and discusses the making of each. Typically a very interesting show and Martin's work is outstanding.Photoshop and Lightroom:The Radiant Vista - Craig Tanner and Mark Johnson have created a great community on their website - I've been checking out their forums more frequently. These guys produce a *lot* of cont...
More About: Podcasts , Comm , Graph , Casts

Canon 580EX Replacement Foot with Sync Port
2007-06-22 12:38:00
Many folks find this blog via my post on Adding a Sync Port to a 580 Flash. Well, my friend Lon has begun marketing a 580EX Replacement Foot with a Sync Port preinstalled through his FlashZebra website. Now all it takes to add a sync port to your Canon Speedlight is about 10 minutes and a screwdriver.The swap is simple and his product comes with a highly detailed & illustrated instruction set. I got to preview the instructions & watched as various members of our Camera Club followed them to see if they could successfully perform the swap. Everyone involved felt that the instructions were solid and that the actual replacement was a piece of cake.Even better is that if you return your original foot assembly in good condition FlashZebra will refund you a portion of your purchase price. This is a great way to get a sync port added onto your flash without having to break out a drill or soldering iron!FlashZebra: Canon 580EX Replacement Foot Assembly with Installed Mini Jack Sync...
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Relay for Life
2007-06-16 13:53:00
I briefly stopped by the Relay for Life last night to see my friends from Double Platinum Productions who were DJ'ing the event. Held at Shea Stadium in Norwood, the event hopes to bring together folks who have had cancer touch their lives in some way.Participants walk around the track throughout the night, taking in the hundreds of luminaries that each represent someone's struggle with the disease. Working in teams, the goal is to keep at least one member of the event on the course at all times.But, Relay is much more than a walk around a track. It is a time to remember those lost to cancer and celebrate those who have survived.

LCD Monitor Contest
2007-06-16 07:33:00
John Chow, one of the 'net's top bloggers is running a contest to win a 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor on his "make money" blog. All you have to do to enter is to make a post that includes links back to his site, the contest, and a company that is hosting Canada and other locations.Sure, it's a bit off-topic, but I would love to have a new monitor to go along with my Photo Workstation! All you need is a blog to play along, so feel free to enter - but remember me if you win...
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New Photoshop Workstation
2007-06-14 12:44:00
I had no idea what I had been missing!This week I've been working on setting up my new Photosho p / Lightroom workstation. It's a fairly high-end system and quite a step up from the 3 or 4 year-old Pentium 4-class system I had been running. I began the hunt a couple weeks back after importing several folders into Lightroom - the software ran fine with just a few thousand pictures, but it became virtually unusable when I grew the library to around 30k photos.Because of the never ending battle with storage and backup I had some current hard drives as well as a decent case on hand. So, I decided to buy individual components and assemble the system myself (as opposed to buying one from Dell). Here's what I ended up buying:ECS NF650iSLIT-A motherboardIntel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz CPU2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800MHz RAMEVGA GeForce 7300 GS 256MB Video CardI decided that I didn't need anything fancier for the video card since I don't plan on playing any games. The retail bo...
More About: Workstation , Stat

Safari 3 brings Color Managed Browsing to Windows!
2007-06-13 04:17:00
Posting has been light for the past few days as I'm busy building out my new photo workstation. I'll write more about the beast once I get everything set up - all I'll say for now is that it's pretty fast!IN OTHER NEWS: Rob Galbraith's site has an article about the Color Manage d Browsing (!) enabled by the new Safari 3 beta browser - which is available for Windows . Not only are us Windows folk getting access to a great browsing platform, but we'll finally be able to see images as they were intended to be seen (provided, of course, that they have an embedded profile).This site is a good place to read up on the topic and understand what a color managed browser is all about. My download of the Safari Beta just finished, so I'm off to install it and see how it works (not that I've profiled my new screen yet).UPDATE: Well, Safari looks great & the color management certainly seems to work the way it should. However the big question on my mind is: When will Color Management mak...

Camera Raw 4.1: new features and a preview of Lightroom 1.1
2007-06-10 20:50:00
Jeff Schewe has posted a great article on Photoshop News that details the new features of the Camera Raw 4.1 converter that is included with the Bridge 2.1 update. It's a great place to learn how to use the new sharpening features & a preview of what we'll see in the soon-to-be-released Lightroom 1.1.The sharpening enhancements are very cool and go from the basic (and lame) "Sharpness" slider to an array of tools that enable the Capture Sharpening portion of Bruce Fraser's Sharpening Workflow strategy. Once this makes it into Lightroom, I expect the search hits for Disable Lightroom Sharpening to drop quite a bit. This idea of applying a base sharpening (albeit of minimal amount) prior to retouching is a little new to me, but if Bruce thought it was a good idea then it's worth a look.Check out the details here: PhotoshopNews: Photoshop News and Information » Archive » About Camera Raw 4.1
More About: Preview , Features , Feat