Dan Winters: Brand New Website and F/stop Interview | 
Travis Smith, Dan Winters' first assistant, emailed me last week to say that the website had been completely revamped. Where there were about 100 photos there are now around 500. Suffice to say this is probably more interesting than whatever you would have been working on in your cubicle for the next few minutes.
It gets better. Winters also gave a very good interview on The F/stop, in case you want a little more in-depth inspiration.
(Remember to look like you are working.)
-30- | | 9/9/2010 3:28:00 PM - Strobist |
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Westcott Does Us a Solid | 
Kelly Mondora started out with FJ Westcott as a temp in data entry 12 years ago. Now she's VP of the entire photography industry division.
Why? Because of stuff like what you see above.
Our go-to umbrella, the Westcott Double-Fold, is now crush-proof on the business end of the telescoping staff. A little backstory, a DIY workaround and a cool coupon code, inside.
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In March of last year, I went to PMA as a speaker and to check out some of the new toys. That's where I met Kelly, who has that rare combo of really caring about her customers at a ground level and being high enough in the company to do something about it.
We talked the near-perfect Westcott Double-Fold, and she quickly honed in on the "near" part. Small, light, cheap -- but crushable if you tighten down on the shaft with your umbrella swivel.
 9/9/2010 3:20:00 PM - Strobist |
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Photography Deals That are Worse Than They Look | | Photography: Thomas Hawk When Matt Pagel received an email from a publication he’d never heard of asking if they could use an image they’d found on his Flickr stream, he was flattered. The message was humble and even though the sender was only promising a credit in return for the use, Matt agreed, assuming that [...] | | 9/9/2010 1:35:12 PM - Photopreneur |
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What’s “Adobe Player for Embedding” & why would I care? | | You might have seen this name pop up recently among CS5 updates. “APE” is essentially WebKit (the open-source, HTML-rendering engine behind Safari and Chrome) plus Flash Player. Or, put another way, it’s Adobe AIR (which is WebKit + Flash) with modifications to support Suite extensibility (e.g. things like Configurator). In any case, you’ll want to [...] | | 9/9/2010 4:27:57 AM - John Nack |
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News Stuff Thursday | |
Hey gang, Brad here with the latest happenings and news. Just a few things to talk about today, but they’re some pretty cool things!
The brand spankin’ new iPhone Book (by Scott Kelby and Terry White) is now available! This fourth edition has updated info for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, including all [...] | | 9/9/2010 4:02:21 AM - Photoshop Insider |
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Photoshop World Reviews | |
“Scott Kelby Rocks!” by William Beem
You probably saw Scott’s recap of Photoshop World earlier this week, but we thought it would be nice to let you hear from some of the people who were there as attendees as well. Here are just a few of the people who have blogged about their experience in Las [...] | | 9/9/2010 4:01:53 AM - Photoshop Insider |
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(rt) Offbeat illustrations: Bears, bikers, & more | | “Sandwich Defender!” Bizarre, oddly charming plate illustrations. Terminator-style child care: Gotta love it when your motorcycle-enthusiast babysitter shows up wearing this. (Go Chris go. :-)) Rainn Wilson presents “The Greatest Portrait You Will Ever See.” Parenting advice for those too dumb to be parents. “Partay, Bitchezz!!” WWII on Facebook. [Via] | | 9/8/2010 6:44:17 PM - John Nack |
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Mad Men: Legless Before Lunchtime | 
Every so often someone sends me a gem of a PsD with a level of vagueness normally only associated with fortunetellers or income tax forms. So let's hazard a guess and say that this appeared on page 92 of the National Enquirer in 1875.
Thanks to Tobias! | | 9/8/2010 5:58:00 PM - Photoshop Disasters |
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Children Photography Quick Tip: Don't Focus On Your Subject |  This one's a quick tip that many of you may know, Still I thought it is worth mentioning for the sake of fun and anyone who does not know it yet.
You know they say that you must have the eyes focused on a portrait shot? You know how they also say all rules were meant to be broken? I'm about to combine the two. read more | | 9/8/2010 10:30:32 AM - DIYPhotography |
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It’s Guest Blog Wednesday featuring David Tejada! | |
FROM ROCKS AND TREES TO GUYS IN TIES
I’m thrilled and honored to be this week’s guest blogger. I’ve been a member of NAPP and a follower of Scott Kelby for many many years, and I can’t thank him enough for all the wonderful information he provides through his books and online videos.
I’ve been making my [...] | | 9/8/2010 4:01:34 AM - Photoshop Insider |
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Waiting for wireless tethering | | Could photographers be clearer in wanting their images sent wirelessly & immediately to iPads and similar tablets, turning these devices into extensions of the back of the camera? I seriously doubt it. At the moment you can kinda-sorta do some interesting things, as long as you have a traditional Mac/PC in the loop. Here’s a [...] | | 9/7/2010 10:47:46 PM - John Nack |
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Pixel Bender revised for CS5 | | I’m pleased to say that the Pixel Bender Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS5 has been revised to address a number of bugs discovered after the initial release. It’s ready for download from Adobe Labs. [Via Zorana Gee] [Update: Thanks to readers for pointing out that the package version number was set incorrectly. The team has re-wrapped/re-posted the [...] | | 9/7/2010 9:58:19 PM - John Nack |
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When is School Necessary for a Photographer? | | There are different schools of thought on this issue – while some people feel that education lays the foundation for success in any kind of profession, there are others who feel that creative jobs like photography don’t require a formal education and are best learned through experience and a good eye for detail. The jury’s still out on this one and I doubt there will ever be a verdict that’s unanimous; however, there are certain times when a formal education comes in handy when it forms a part of a photographer’s arsenal.
Sponsors of Epic Edits
| | 9/7/2010 9:15:48 PM - EpicEdits |
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Otto: Being Neither Fish Nor Flesh A Man Knows Not Where To Have Her | 
Hi, welcome to the Earthian Fossil Interpretation Center! I'm Zangotx P'Cha-K'cha and I'm going to be showing you what humans might have looked like before they were all wiped out over 250 million zontars ago. This is what we think a typical Earthian female might have looked like!
Thanks to RMF! Original is here! | | 9/7/2010 3:11:00 PM - Photoshop Disasters |
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Illustration: Fun with playground mishaps | | I began a solo week of Mr. Mom duty in the park yesterday, trying so hard not to be this guy: In six work days at Adobe, Margot has logged more miles than I have in a year; madness. Go get ‘em, champ. | | 9/7/2010 1:25:51 PM - John Nack |
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Report From Photoshop World Vegas | | Hi Gang: I’m back, and as you might imagine—I had just an amazing time! I met so many great people; I got to teach 4 sessions in the conference tracks, and three on the Expo floor, I had meetings, I went to parties, I got to play with my band, I stayed up way too [...] | | 9/7/2010 4:55:26 AM - Photoshop Insider |
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Webinar: “Photoshop From the Ground Up,” Sept. 23 | | From Adobe Creative Suite User Group of San Jose organizer Sally Cox: Join us online for our new webinar series, starting with “Photoshop: From the Ground Up – Part 1″ on September 23, beginning at 6 pm. All levels of expertise can benefit from this free series. These online meetings will cover all major aspects [...] | | 9/6/2010 6:00:55 PM - John Nack |
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(rt) Photography: Giant imaging, great silhouettes, & more | | Huge: British scientists are using a dried-out lake bed as a massive white balance card for satellites. “The Big Unit” is to become 7-foot-tall rock concert photographer. (Presumably it’ll go better than his career in the Audubon Society.) The Big Picture features a great set of silhouette photos. [Via] Telling a photographer that his camera [...] | | 9/6/2010 3:58:59 PM - John Nack |
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Poll: My Next Gear Purchase Will Be ... |  On our last poll, we asked a general (yet hard) question - what would you need to do in order to improve your photography.
There are some great responses there and thanks for everyone who opened up and answered this not-so-easy-to-expose question. Our of that question a few main groups were identified 1. I need more time 2. I need better skills 3. I need better equipment I have and will tackle all those issues on the blog, however this time I would like to focus on the third item - Gear. This poll has a simple question - What is the next piece of gear on your shopping list, and I am not talking fantasy list here, I am talking about items that you can actually afford to buy and plan on using in the short term period. It may be an item at the core of photography - a camera or a lens; A lighting aid like a strobe, flash or modifier, or something completely peripheral like a new computer or a new piece of software. Props, Straps, place, really anything that you feel will give you that push. While you can form the answers in any way you'd like see if you can answer those two questions: what is the exact item (bad: a new lens / good: a Nikkor 85mm 1.8 lens) and how it will help your photography. Please be as specific as you can. I'... | | 9/6/2010 6:57:06 AM - DIYPhotography |
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Happy Labor Day! | |
Today is Labor Day in the United States, and our offices are closed, so we’re taking today off here at the blog but I’ll be back tomorrow with some after-show coverage from Photoshop World.
By the way: I looked up Labor Day in WikiPedia, and here are a few interesting tidbits about this American Holiday:
Traditionally, Labor [...] | | 9/6/2010 4:26:48 AM - Photoshop Insider |
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On Assignment: Armed with Preconceptions | 
Planning ahead is a good thing, and I always try to pre-think a job before I head out. It gives me ideas to fall back on if nothing jumps out at me at the location.
But you can pre-plan things too far. So much that they blind you to better ideas and leave you banging your head against the front windshield even as you drive away from the assignment.
That's exactly what happened to me last week when I was assigned to shoot one of the coolest pieces of tech I have ever seen.
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You are looking at a real, prosthetic limb in the photo above. But not just any prosthetic limb, as this limb has quite a bit of special sauce.
For one thing, much like your own mostly-dark-meat arm it can move in 22 different ways -- brushless motors everywhere. It has a ton of processing power inside the hand. Not a lot of space there, but you want the thing to be modular with the smarts at the end. That means you can attach it to partial limbs.
Much like Popeye, this thing has its power in the forearm. That is where the user-replaceable, rechargeable battery is. And it has power to burn. It can curl 50 lbs. That's more than my arm will do.
Oh, and did I mention it is designed to be controlled by the human brain? Just like in Firefox, where Clint Eastwoo... | | 9/6/2010 12:16:00 AM - Strobist |
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Illustration: Art cars & great book covers | | Cover lovers: David Pearson spent a large chunk of last year working on a fantastic series of covers for Cormac McCarthy’s books. PSDTuts rounds up “50+ Kick-butt Book Cover Designs.” German wheels: Janis Joplin’s 1965 Porsche art car is far out. (And here I thought she was into Benzes.) Jenny Holzer comes, very oddly enough, [...] | | 9/5/2010 11:18:25 PM - John Nack |
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Jennifer: I'll Lease Ya! | 
Alicia Silverstone's career continues to enthrall the world. Her new thrilling (and probably illegal) link-up with Jennifer minimizing briefer marks an exciting departure into the racy world of dollar-store underwear. Two thumbs up!
Props to VRN! | | 9/3/2010 3:10:00 PM - Photoshop Disasters |
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How to set up a great Photoshop machine | | At Photoshop World this week, performance testing lead Adam Jerugim presented a performance guide with hardware recommendations and information about the CS5 performance preferences. I’ve put his notes in this post’s extended entry. Operating Systems: Mac OS 10.6.4 and Windows 7 64-bit CPU: Intel Core i7/Xeon or AMD Phenom II/Opteron with 4 cores. More than [...] | | 9/3/2010 2:10:33 PM - John Nack |
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Introducing Photoshop’s new PhotoBomb tool (parody) | | Heh heh. This is doubly funny as I watch this in a hotel room with the actual Bryan O’Neil Hughes. (Note: Contains some minor nudity & dirty hand gestures, in case that sort of thing offends you.) In case the embedded video doesn’t work for you, here it is on its original page. | | 9/3/2010 12:04:00 AM - John Nack |
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Bicycle Portraits – Part 2 | | Bicycle Portraits / Part II from Bicycle Portraits on Vimeo. I wrote about the “Bicycle Portraits” project a few months ago when they were trying to raise the initial $15,000 for their book project. Well, they met their goal and it’s on to part 2 where they need to raise an additional $7,500 by September [...]
Sponsors of Epic Edits
| | 9/2/2010 8:54:31 PM - EpicEdits |
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