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Naming and shaming

/in , , /by

What’s your opinion?
I think this is miles and miles too far. And yes I’m a parent too. It all depends on the way someone is shooting. In this case no problem. It’s going to be different when one child is being picked out and focussed on. For me that would be creepy.

Very wrong signal a celebrity is sending. Public places means people are allowed to take photos. Maybe 1% or less of the photographers have bad intentions. Why let the rest suffer.

I mostly just introduce myself when I’m in a situation like this and tell them or show them what I’m doing and hand out cards where they can get the shots for free. Take out the “threat” before it becomes one.

But this reaction is wrong on every single note
Also seeing the police doesn’t want to do anything I would say to the photographer. Now it’s time to take action. Sue her for every cent she got for naming and shaming which is a criminal act. So he has every right to do that.

Hilary Duff Calls Photographer ‘Creep’ for Shooting Her Kid’s Soccer Game

Adobe bashing….

/in , , , /by

I was thinking about this…
Is it smart to post this, or should I just keep quiet…..
Well I think it’s not smart to do this, but I’m doing it anyway.

Recently on Petapixel there was an article that discussed the Creative Cloud.
As many of you know Adobe switch over to a subscription based system a few years back.
For me as a pro this has a lot of benefits.

More upgrades, more free apps, fonts, brushes etc.
And of course cloudstorage.
All for a very reasonable price of on average 10.00 a month for the photography plan.
When it was announced at Photoshop World most responses were very positive.

 

Now don’t get me wrong
Although I’m an Adobe influencer (let’s get that out of the way immediately) they don’t own me or my words, so everything I post here is 100% my own personal opinion, not sponsored or even asked for by Adobe, in fact I don’t even think this article will ever be read by someone with Adobe.

Let me start by saying that although I love Photoshop and Lightroom I’m also (like many of you) sometimes frustrated by the speed of Lightroom. I’m running a very fast PC (and before that Mac) and Lightroom Classic is faster than before but building a 1:1 preview is still a lot faster in Capture One. Also I think it’s just plain “dumb” to not support Sony for tethering. Also the hotfolder solution if you want to use Lightroom for tethering is very slow and in fact unusable.

That being said.
Lightroom has gotten a huge performance boost a while ago that made it a lot faster on my machines, it’s not Capture One fast, but it now at least is not a waiting game anymore. But there are also bugs, and with a suite as extensive as Creative Cloud and also the development of their apps it’s impossible to have a bug free environment, that’s why it’s always wise to just wait a few days before upgrading to a new version.

Let’s look at what I use and love.
For me working with Lightroom CC is a dream.
We travel a lot and I also love to use my phone for photography, with an unlimited dataplan on my phone Lightroom CC is awesome. Everything you shoot is in the cloud and can be edited on my iPad or in Lightroom CC on the desktop, but (and a lot of people don’t know this) you can also sync Lightroom CC in classic, in a separate folder. So what I do is upload everything on the road in the cloud and edit, when I’m home I start Lightroom Classic and get all my images including adjustments into my catalogue, you don’t want to know how I love that and how much time and hassle that saves me during travels. In fact the last year we started travelling with a laptop but just an iPad pro, what a delight and only possible thanks to the Creative Cloud.

Now I earn money with photography so paying 10-40 a month is something that is tax deductible and in essence it costs you half as an entrepreneur.

Now pricing
Is it really expensive?
No not really for what you get.
We pay more for our accounting software on a yearly basis than for the complete creative cloud, and creative cloud at least is fun.
Also when you would switch to capture one (what a lot of people seem to think about), let me start by saying Capture One is awesome, previews are amazingly fast, we have focus overlay and tethering is stable and fast and supports a lot of cameras, but…. (and I always say everything before but is BS) you also pay a subscription if you want to stay up to date or you pay a considerable amount of money each year for your upgrade. What you get is a very solid and stable software solution, but it’s very crippled compared to lightroom for catalogue work (smart albums, map module (yes I use that all the time for travel stuff) etc.) for retouching it’s slightly better than Lightroom but cloning is more confusing.

Meaning when you want to do real work… well both lightroom and Capture One are nothing compared to Photoshop.
Now if you have hours to spend, sure you can do it without Photoshop but I’m at least 5x faster in Photoshop than in both Lightroom and Capture one, plus smoothing a background is impossible in Lightroom or Capture One without a very frustrating and time consuming process, in Photoshop I can do it in under a minute via layers and selections.

So let’s see if we compare CC photography to Capture One we end up at around the same yearly costs, if you want to stay updated, and you better because you can bet your life on it that when you buy a new camera in 2-3 years time it’s not supported by the 2020 version of Capture One or Lightroom. So in the end you have to anyway.

Research and development
Often people forget this, but it’s vital.
When you have a steady income revenue you are able to progress in your research and development, plus if everything is in the cloud, updates can be pushed to the consumers every second instead of once a year or a semi update every 6 months. Remember this? paying 600.00 for an in-between update? but if you didn’t you would pay full price by the next release ?

There are software makers that promise free updates life long.
Please, wake up, this is not possible.
No company can run without income.
At one point the market is saturated with that first boom/explosion of sales. Of course the first year they sell a boat load of software, but the second year it will level out and the third year only a few people will buy it, so how can you promise LIFE long upgrades if there is no income from that software anymore? Maybe they will add some bug fixes but figuring out new RAW conversions or adding new features all take hours and hours of work done by a whole team… and how do you pay those people without income, and also crossplatform, wow I would love to see their predictions for the future, but I think it would mean don’t every upgrade your device or camera and we make sure that what you have now keeps working. What would mean that in 3 years time android, iOs, Windows and Mac are on a different OS and your software still runs fine… but not on the new hard/software. But at least your bugs are fixed right?

It’s not that rosy as you think, and trust me I’ve seen it before with software like Lucis Art where I shelved out a considerable amount of money for life long support (and we talk about a lot of money) only to be greeted 1 year later with the message, “we will not support 64bits systems, just stay at 32 bits” excuse me….. so that was money down the drain. But to be expected, but I’m never gonna fall for that again.

 

Some remarks
Now my views are my views but I do want to address some things I saw in that post that really make me sick to my stomach.

“I only edit jpgs and don’t need all that BS that Adobe forces down my throat”
Well simple, don’t use pro software if you don’t need it, there you go free advice.
You can use Gimp, Photoeditor from Windows or Mac there are plenty of free solutions.

“I lost a years work thanks to Adobe”
No you are to blame and it’s ridiculous to blame a company because YOU forgot to make backups. Adobe is NOT responsible for your own stupidity if you don’t backup, it’s the first thing you should do, everything you want to save or keep or love, backup.

“I work on a sat connection and uploading every image before I can edit it takes forever and kills my data, plus I can’t open Photoshop without logging into CC, plus sometimes I have to wait for hours because Adobe automatically updates”
You wonder if they even have CC?
Or just love to hear themselves talk.

First off all, you don’t have to (and never had to) upload images before editing, that’s just insane and ridiculous to even think that, even when using Lightroom CC you don’t have to. You can edit your images without any internet connection, now if you want to do it crossplatform yep… now you need internet. But if you work with Photoshop there is nothing you have to upload, we often travel and my laptop is often without internet and it always worked flawlessly with the complete suite.

Also there is no automatic updates, updates you can find in the CC app, and YOU can choose when or even IF you update, some people stay on the old version for weeks or months, Adobe doesn’t force you to update, it’s all up to you when.

 

There were a lot more but most are just bashing the writer and adobe.
Guys it’s very simple.

Why?
Why?
For the price of one starbucks visit a month you have cloudstorage, Lightroom CC and Photoshop. The industry standard with loads of mobile apps, weekly updates (if you chose to), loads of videos online to learn and very active forums.

If you don’t need pro software, don’t use it, it’s simple
I think however that a lot of the hate comes from people that used to have pirated copies of Photoshop which now of course don’t work anymore, or they bought second hand software which is now outdated.

I’ve visited all the Photoshop Worlds and saw all the Adobe keynotes and can only say one thing, for the price you pay you get a boat load of features and support and they keep adding new things, think about the growth Lightroom CC on iOs and Android has made, from useless to fully replacing my laptop when travelling. And look at Photoshop for iOs, at the moment it’s very fast and stable, but lacks a LOT of features, however I think it’s very smart to do it this way, learn to use it as it is, and add feature by feature this way you learn with progress and most importantly for the development team it stays much easier to not build on bugs, by releasing small updates in cycles it’s easier to find and kill bugs before they become part of the program and you have to make solutions around it, it will take longer but I think in 2-3 years we have a much better Photoshop on iOs than if it would have been released all at once.

If you want to be angry at a company be angry at for example dropbox.
Where adobe keeps adding things dropbox literally destroyed part of my workflow. We have a large dropbox because we got a lot of friends in and for years this was our main hub, without any form of “you have it you keep it” they switched to 3 devices max, which is incredibly stupid seeing most people already have more (laptop, desktop, tablet, phone) so dropbox is forcing you to get a subscription that (again) is more expensive than creative cloud, and with CC you already get cloud storage.

For the love of whatever, I really can’t see why Adobe is overpriced for 10.00 a month, really I can’t.
For us
We use photography and video on a daily basis.
Thanks to lightroom Classic I’m able to find images really fast thanks to smartalbums and keywording.
If I want to know where I shot something I love using the map module.

Photoshop makes it possible to edit my images really fast and is compatible with all the plugins I love like Exposure software, Luminar, Imagenomic, Topaz and DxO

Lightroom CC is becoming my favorite over the last few months for everything mobile.
When it was Lightroom Mobile I never really used it for longer periods, but since CC works different (and we now have steady and fast internet) it’s now becoming my main hub for travelling and when I want images from my mobile device to the PC/Mac.

Cloud storage is enough to cover a full two weeks travel with photos, meaning I don’t have to worry about backups anymore.
Thanks to Adobe and the connectivity I don’t have to drag my laptop with me anymore and everything is automatically backupped and ready for me edited and all when I’m home, just drag it to the right folders on my DAS and I’m done.

Is it perfect, heck no.
Lightroom CC misses the rename functions which I still think is insane, but I do understand why it’s not working (cloud syncing would be needed when renaming images), but at least give the option when importing images.

Is it solvable?
Well it wasn’t until I contacted the guys from filebrowser on iOs and they listened to what I think a lot of people wanted and they added within a few weeks a batch rename function. In combination with the new iOs13 “open” structure (talk about not delivering what you promise Apple) it’s a very workable solution. It’s not perfect but at least it’s better than dragging my laptop with me just for renaming files.

 

In conclusion
Why hate on a company that delivers PRO software for 10.00 a month?
If you don’t need it… don’t use it.
If you can’t afford 10.00 a month….. you probably also can’t afford that new lens that retails for 1000.00 but is only slightly better than the one you already have.

Look I get it, trust me (I’m Dutch)
I HATE paying money for software or subscriptions, in fact it took me a while before we subscribed to Netflix, but it’s the best thing we ever did, we now even have prime and disney+ it’s a mindset thing.

Adobe in my opinion delivers more than you pay for (A lot more), is it perfect…. heck no (tell me one company that is)
If you don’t need it, don’t do it, but please stay reasonable.
Loads of people couldn’t afford Photoshop when it was sold for 1000.00 and up, now for 10.00 a month they can and they even get a lot more extra.

Yes I know it’s frustrating that Lightroom isn’t sold separately anymore, but again 10.00 for the photography plan is about 120.00 a year.
Lightroom was priced I believe just under 100.00 (don’t remember) thus for 20.00 more you now have so much more.
Of course you can “complain” about everything and luckily we live in a free world.
But I also wanted to write this to maybe shed some more softer light on it.

KEEP IT CIVIL in the comments.

Tethertools air direct

/in , , , /by

I love to shoot tethered, and to be honest I strongly believe that if you run any kind of studio tethering should be something that is key for a good photoshoot.
The main advantage is of course that your client (and you) see the images on a big screen, this makes it much easier to show the results, check lighting details and of course focus.

Normally I shoot with an USB cable like probably most of you.
It’s very simple, connect to the camera, connect to the PC/Mac, start software and go….
Well it’s not that easy sometimes but in essence it is.

Now in the past I’ve tried several solutions that promised wireless tethering, and let’s set them next to other to start.

 

First we have the internal cards
You probably all have seen some of those in the past, and they are still being sold.
I can be very short about this solution, I’ve tried 3 different cards and they all ended up being returned.
yes it worked, kinda
Sometimes the connection was rock solid, to be very flacky the next day, and not working at all a week later. And it’s quite easy to understand why, especially after reading solution number 2.

 

Second we have the build in wifi
Most new cameras have some form of wifi build in, and also my Sony camera has this option.
Now in the case of Sony they actually have a really good solution (so far the best I’ve seen), it works great in our studio, solid connection up to let’s say 15 mtrs away from the tablet and images come in almost as fast as via USB. Now don’t be fooled by this remark…. when you shoot with the Sony software you can select to send over the RAW files which takes forever, or a preview JPG, this preview JPG is very lightweight and is 2MP, so this goes through the air pretty fast. One could say… why not use this Frank?

Yep, I understand that question.
Well first off, the solution was pretty basic a few years ago. You could only use it as an app that you started on the camera and the viewfinder and some other things didn’t work anymore, so you could use your phone or tablet as viewfinder or the LCD on the back of the camera, not a big thing but I like the viewfinder. Luckily in the modern Sony cameras we now have the wifi build in the real camera OS, so you don’t need to take any sacrifices in viewfinder or other settings. However….

This works like a charm in our studio.
When I test it in a hotel it works like a charm.
But I’ve actually only had 2-3 workshops where the solution really worked as it should, in all other situations the connection was very slow (20 seconds for 2MP raw), very unstable (sometimes 1 seconds sometimes 20 seconds) and in some situations I couldn’t even walk further away than 1 meter from my tablet.

The reason is pretty simple to explain.
The wifi signal uses 2.4GHZ and 5 GHZ, but both bands can be pretty busy and overcrowded, especially in event spaces or for example in a cellar with a lot of iron it’s not an ideal solution for a weak wifi signal. And that weak is key. When we look at what the camera transmits it’s of course a lot weaker than an external solution. Meaning it might work, but there is a huge risk that in other location it won’t. In all honesty it’s a risk I can’t take, and shouldn’t either.

 

Third we have the external solutions
This is where the fun starts.
Today we take a look at the brand new Tethertools Air direct.
I do have to say right from the start that Annewiek and I are the Dutch distibutors for Tethertools, but… that won’t hold me from being 100% honest in this review, so I’m not going to sugarcoat anything what I write down is something I stand 100% behind.

The first wireless solution from Tethertools was the case air, and although that one was working great for almost all cameras there was still that issue that haunts me… no Sony support. And you see this with a lot of devices or solutions that use tethering and as a Sony ambassador that drives me nuts, why not just give the SDK to manufacturers so they can make devices that don’t just work with Canon and Nikon, I just don’t get it. Yes we can tether in Capture One, but I also like to use Lightroom or smartshooter… and you guessed it… they support the files but no tethering, but ok let’s not get too much off topic.

The case air was awesome for people that needed a small, relatively fast and most of all easy to use wireless tethering solution.
But if you want something a bit more professional and supporting Sony… well now we have the Air Direct and it’s a pretty awesome solution that checks almost all the boxes.

 

Air direct
Let’s see what the air direct does in the boxes that I want it to work.
First off all, the Air direct makes tethering possible to the desktop for almost every camera including : Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic LUMIX, Phase One, Hasselblad, Leica models with USB tether. It’s of course not designed for non-supported camera models in your software.

All devices (semi check)
One of the things that I find essential is that it should work with both mobile devices (Android and iOS) but also with the desktop on both Mac and PC, and that last one is a huge thing. On location I shoot mostly wireless to an iPad pro with a laptop as backup if the wifi doesn’t work but in the studio or when I want to also retouch images it’s important to also be able to shoot tethered to a desktop, and preferably to my own software.

Well the Air direct does it all, and with some cool tricks.
First of all when you use a Canon or Nikon you are able to use the Android/iOS app.
When you own a Sony… well not yet. But Tethertools confirmed that a Sony solution is coming on the Air Direct, so I’m pretty confident we will see that soon/semi soon.

And the mobile app does it “all”
As they say themselves:
“Go Mobile with Air Direct’s robust app for instant image visibility and intuitive camera controls. Change settings, set timelapse and Bracketing, Shutter Release, movie mode and more with Canon and Nikon”

All software (Check)
Oh this is so cool.
I’ve only seen one other device that can do this and it’s such a great solution that when you once used it you don’t want to be without.
On the PC/Mac you can install a small app called ADU, now if you don’t read the manual, you can download it from https://www.tethertools.com/adu
You just run this app in the background, connect to the wifi of the Air direct and after that you can start with your favorite software, do beware… that software should support your camera via USB, you still can’t shoot tethered into lightroom when the camera is not supported.

Software supported by ADU :
Phocus, Capture One, Smartshooter, Lightroom Helicon remote, Canon Eos utility, Nikon Camera control 2, AstroDSLR, Darkroom core
And probably a few more.

In essence the software just sees your camera as if it was connected via USB, pretty cool especially if you don’t want to change your workflow. Oh and don’t worry if your camera is not supported in Lightroom, as always you can use hotfolders in Lightroom and shoot tethered that way.

RAW and JPG or…. (check)
Well this is real biggy.
Sending over RAW files via Wifi is not my hobby, and I can already tell you that if you expect that to work fine…. well stop reading sorry buddy not going to happen soon.
RAW files are awesome but also very large and Wifi is just not able to send 10 RAW files over the air in 2 seconds like a USB cable can handle easily. That being said, when you shoot wireless there are other solution that work “great”. You see me using quotes and that’s because this is were you HAVE to make a sacrifice in your workflow (later more on how they could solve this a bit).

With the Air direct you can filter out the RAW files on the mobile app and send JPGs to the mobile device and leave the RAWs on the card.
On the desktop site we don’t have that option and you have to set this up in the camera.
On the Sony you can easily set it up to shoot RAW+JPG but only send the JPGs to the computer, a small disadvantage is that Sony only allows 2MP JPGs to be send over, unless you also want the RAWs there, which in this case we don’t want to. So we have the RAWs on the card and 2MP JPGS going through the air with a pretty fast speed, in fact it’s almost faster than my RAW files via the cable (nice). Disadvantage is of course that you have the RAWs on the card so if your client gives stars it’s on the desktop not on the RAWs, but that’s easy to fix.

First off all make sure all file names are on original if possible in your software.
Just give stars, ratings whatever.
Now import your RAW files next to the JPGs and sort on date/time, now you see your selects next to the RAWs, just select the RAWs and star them, now you can delete all the JPGs. Even if you can’t use the same names this method works like a charm unless you shoot a million images in burst mode and have to select 1000 I would not want to do that, but for a normal session with let’s say 200 images and 20 selects it’s easy peasy.

 

Connection to a router (Not yet)
When you are using wifi with a wireless solution it’s often a 1:1 connection (direct connection) this means that you sacrifice the wifi from your desktop or mobile device for the connection to the wifi transmitter on the camera. Now in most cases this is absolutely no problem. But in our specific case it did give me a challenge. We also use chromecasts in our studio for display on the big screen tv’s and well those are also on Wifi and you can’t connect to them via a wired PC in most cases if the wifi is in other subnet (like with us). Luckily the Chromecast Ultra also has a wired option, so in our case it was a matter of just using a network cable to the chromecast to make it connect to the wired subnet. Again in most cases this is not a real problem (also not for us). However…. when you are able to connect to a hotspot in your room/studio it does maximize your range, now we can get app 30mtrs away from the PC before the connection is lost, which is pretty good seeing that puts about 2 walls between me and the desktop, but I’m 100% sure that if we connect to our wifi network in the studio I would have 100% connection even when we walk around the studio outside. so that would be cool.

Our contact at Tethertools confirmed this is on the roadmap, so that’s pretty awesome.

Battery life (check, check double check)
Oh this is a problem.
Up till now if you want to shoot a whole day you better prepare for some frustrations or external battery solutions like a powerbank, and I hope for you that the USB input isn’t shared with the USB to the camera because than you also need a hub, and let’s be honest the camera is big enough right?

This is also something the Air Direct tackles beautifully, yep I’m getting excited.
Now this is something that a lot of people won’t get why I get so excited about this, but trust me you will.
The Air Direct uses standard Canon batteries as powersupply. In real life this means you can just switch batteries when it dies (charger is included) and Canon batteries can be bought for next to nothing if you are willing to go for third party brands. Now don’t worry about weight too much, normally you have the battery inside, now it’s outside so in weight it really doesn’t make a huge impact.

I can’t yet say how much the battery life is, but I did a complete workshop with the Air Direct and right at the end was the first time I saw the red light coming on, so that would mean app 5-6 hours. And what if you have to change batteries? well it’s a hot swappable solution so no downtime, just take the battery off and put a new one on without losing connection. And if you don’t want batteries or you use a fixed setup… no problem just use a powerbank or AC power.

 

Speed (check)
Well it’s never fast enough of course, but the Air direct has everything covered to be one of the fastest yet.
You can use both 2.4GHZ or 5GHZ (switch on the side to select)
The Air direct also has 2 very high powered antennas inside to make sure you have the most solid connection and therefore stable and fast transfer speeds. Again you are not going to be able to shoot RAW if you need it fast, however when you are shooting still life or products it might be that the transfer speed is more than enough for you, there are so many situations where speed is no real issue and in that case you can finally just send the RAWs over the air without waiting for ages.

 

Cables (check)
One of the biggest frustrations for me is often that when I buy something I want to work with it right away and often when you get the device you find out that your camera has a different connection than the delivered cable… aaaaaargh.  Well the Air Direct has you covered, in the box are a few cables that will probably make 99% of the available cameras work right away. There is even a Phase One cable for sale (this one is extra).

 

Price (check)
Of course I’m Dutch so we always want it as cheap as possible.
Now the Air direct is not cheap, let’s get that out of the way.
But you do see check… so what’s the deal.
Well first of all this thing is a tank. It’s build to last.
Plus you have the external battery that is also supplied in the box, and that battery plus the charger plus all the cables all represent a value, and when I add this all together and look at the competition the price is actually pretty decent (even without all those extras) so Tethertools really made something interesting here.

 

Semi conclusion
Ok overall I think we checked my boxes, but seeing this is week 1 and a lot of stuff is still being worked on I called it Semi conclusion.
I strongly feel a Sony mobile app is a key element for a solution that I can support for the full 100% and seeing Tethertools confirmed it’s in the works I guess it will be here soon. And for now I use it on the desktop and laptop during workshops/demos. So don’t expect anymore cables on location.

For what it does at the moment I think when you’re a Canon or Nikon shooter you should absolutely check it out and get it.
For all other brands like Fuji, Sony etc. Your camera will work flawless on the desktop. You can tether like you normally are connected via a wire (only JPGs if you want to keep the same speed) and if you never use a mobile device to tether that’s it it’s awesome and fast. If you do want to be able to also use mobile devices (for me the iPad pro is very important) I would probably just wait a few weeks and see what’s going to happen, I don’t want to give you a “buy now” advise when I don’t have a working mobile Sony solution in my hands. As soon as we get a beta I will immediately update the review and social media. This is also why I’ll probably wait with the video review or do it in two parts. I really want to cover all bases.

For what it is now (one week after release) I can highly recommend the Air direct. It’s pretty unique in what it does and having that external battery is for me the main reason to choose the Air Direct over the competition PLUS the promised mobile app support for Sony that is.

Now when I posted some images online of how I mounted the Air Direct I immediately got some responses from people that claimed it was ugly, too big, etc. Well I have one very simple answer for that…  make it smaller and it won’t work as well. All wireless solutions with specs like this are big (even slightly bigger and heavier than the Air direct). But let’s just get the elephant out of the room, yes it’s big (not ugly) and yes you need to mount it somewhere on your camera and although it does have a hotshoe mount it doesn’t have to be on the hotshoe. We opted for the bottom of the camera. So on top is my remote for the hensel strobes and on the bottom is my tetherblock (which I normally use for guiding my tethercable and mount my camera on a stand) on the tetherblock we use another Tethertools product called the AD-Arka but there are many other solutions that makes mounting the Air Direct pretty easy and just where you want it.
Think about the following options:

This is the Rapidmount coldshoe.


But the Rapidmount also works of course


This is the AD-Arca that I use

And finally of course you can also use a L-Bracket with the AD-Arca

 

So what can be better?
Well I close with this because this is not just Tethertools but for all wireless solutions.

  1. First off all make sure you can set the JPG filtering in the app. Now you’re bound to what your camera let’s you setup and with Capture One I can’t get the images nice full screen (I can in Lightroom) this is a limitation of capture one by the way not Sony or the Air direct, but it would be nice to be able to send for example small JPGs that are larger than 2MP to the desktop with the Sony cameras. If you do the filtering inside the app like on mobile devices it’s much easier and more flexible. It’s not a deal breaker at all, but it would be handy.
  2. Stars are often given by clients or models during the shoot, this means an image is marked as “awesome” and selected. It would be nice if those stars SOMEHOW are also transmitted to the camera, I have no clue if that would be possible but it would be nice.

Final thoughts
When I showed the Air direct online one of the most heard questions was “why?”
And don’t worry I get it.
Why would you spend 300+ for a device when you can tether perfectly including RAWs with a cable.
Well you are 100% right, can’t say anything else. Tethertools deliver a whole line of products that are aimed at wired tethering and it’s awesome, I’ve been using their products since the company was literally a two man outfit (man have they grown) and I have no issues with wired tethering at all, I’m a HUGE advocate for it. However……

There are many many situations where shooting wireless is just plain awesome

Let’s just only think about

 

working on location
When I teach a workshop on location I had to bring a laptop (plus external powerblock), 15 mtrs of tethering cables, meaning also a repeater and two extension locks to make sure I don’t get any dust or water in my connections. And of course we also need a jerkstopper on the laptop and one on the camera. Limit… 15mtrs and every time we move location we have to take everything with us. Plus 15mtrs cables with locks take up some room and weight (when flying). Switching to wireless means no more wires but also no more laptop (when iOS or Android is supported). In fact I’ve done quite some workshops and demos wireless already with different solutions and working with an ipad pro wireless in the field is just…. well it’s awesome it feels like going from 1980 to 2020. Battery life is no issue at all, brightness outside of the iPad pro is so bright it blows away my laptop, plus we don’t need a stand and tethertable for the laptop anymore, just a small stand for the iPad pro, or someone just holds it. It’s not connected anymore so you can drag it where ever you want without disturbing the shooter. Also it’s now possible to just move around without thinking about cables.

Working on tradeshows or demos
Often it’s a matter of 5 minutes between speakers so you have to setup and get ready in less than 5.
With cables it’s doable but it’s a bit of a hassle, with wireless just connect the ipad pro to the projector and… well that’s it in essence you’re done. No more stress.
Also no more worries that when you demo on a booth people stand on your cables and cables get damaged, meaning end of the show or replacements, and do that a few times and your Air direct is “free”

In your own studio
When people walk around in the studio there is chance (huge) that someone stands on the cable, you don’t realize it and before you know it the camera is on the floor (yep happend to me a few times). With wireless no more worries.

 

Final Final thoughts (for now)
Working wireless does limit yourself.
No RAW files. You have to empty the card later and match the stars (if you don’t do that during the session, no issues what so ever, just delete the JPGs and copy the RAWs and start selecting).

But that being said, working with a device like the Air Direct the limitations are kept at a bare minimum. The device is built like a tank, it’s super fast (for wifi) and it connects to the software you know and love. Plus you have the option for mobile apps.

I can only say “highly recommended”
Now get that Sony app working fast. 😀

 

 

Adobe Photoshop on the iPad my opinion

/in , , , /by

We all were waiting for the release of Adobe Photoshop for the iPad. In all honesty the main reason for me to switch from my Android tablet back to the iPad pro was in fact the announcement of Photoshop for the iPad. Of course the Apple pencil is great and I love LumaFusion a lot but the main reason for the switch was Photoshop. So when it was released I was over the moon, but still a lot of people were not. In this blog post I’ll give you my honest opinion and also the worries I have and the future I see.

Lets start out simple.
Was it what I expected
Well believe it or not, a bit.
Ofcourse I hoped to see a full blown Photoshop with all filters there and smart ports to use my favorite plugins like Exposure software, DxO, Topaz, Imagenomic etc. But let’s wind back.

When I see a lot of the reviews and opinions online it feels a bit like people expected this, and let’s be 100% real, that can never happen. First off all iPad OS is a very different beast from Windows or MacOS, it’s much more limited and it’s mostly touch based, so porting a program as complex as Photoshop to a mobile device is a task thought off in hell probably and they moved it to Adobe because they couldn’t do it.

So first off all, let’s lower those expectations.
You will probably “never” get a 100% mirror copy of the desktop app on the iPad pro for the simple reason it’s not possible due to the interface and the fact that for example Topaz or Exposure have no intentions (as of yet) to port their plugins to the iPad (let’s hope that changes, but I asked them and for now the answer varies between “no” to “let’s see what happens” and trust me that last one is not a “we are working on it but I can’t tell you yet” answer. They are really waiting to see).

So when we tone down our expectations what can we expect.
Well for a first release I’m also a bit underwhelmed, but not in a way that I feel bad, just that I know I have to wait a little bit longer to do what I want to do.

At the moment Photoshop for the iPad is the frame work, and that frame work works like a charm, it’s fast, the new touchdot (as I call it) is awesome and the time I worked with Photoshop for the iPad it just worked flawelessly (after the help update).

Missing filters
This one has me puzzled and I think has a lot to do with the negative feedback online. I’m not talking about missing filters inside of Photoshop by the way but the message “not supported on this device” which is incredibly weird seeing I’m running the latest iPad pro and I would expect that this device would have everything enabled, on a phone or older iPad or even lower specked device I can imagine some things not being supported but on the latest (greatest) I don’t find this logical. However I feel this will be changed soon and it’s more like a placeholder for the moment, in other words the text “coming soon” would have been much better and probably would have caused less “hate” online.

That being said, man I miss “curves” and the options to do “frequentie seperation” also things like object selections would be a nice added bonus if it would be there fast.

 

Aggression
Now normally aggression is a bad thing, but when a company like Adobe talks about an aggresive upgrade path I’m all in. When Adobe changed from a fixed price (every year or so) to a cloud membership I too was a bit skeptical but after a quick calculation it already was very clear that the subscription was the way too go and would save us money in the end. Another benefit was that Adobe announced during the Creative Cloud keynote that updates would be much more frequent and over the board and more and more apps would be added and all would talk to each other…. and let’s be honest Adobe did keep their promise. So I’m confident that every review you see from Photoshop on the iPad will be obsolute a few weeks later because Adobe will be pushing out updates in a fast tempo, at least that’s what I understand.

 

Is it usable?
According to some you should run to Affinity Photo on the iPad for the full Photoshop experience, and in some cases I would say “yes” but with all due respect to Affinity (because they make some really awesome things) For me Affinity on the iPad pro would not be the reason to leave my laptop at home. Creating a panorama takes over 20 minutes from my drone while Lightroom Classic does it in a mere 30-40 seconds. Also working with layers can be confusing because sometimes the layers don’t respond the way you expect or when you do something else and come back to the mask I can’t get it to work whatever I do. I won’t say it’s buggy but there sure are some things that don’t “work right”.

But in all honesty Affinity Photo is very complete and is at the moment much more a replacement for the desktop Photoshop than Photoshop for the iPad, however….. at the moment Photoshop for the iPad works smooth and fast with layers and switching back and forth between tasks and going back to masking didn’t yet cause me any problems in Photoshop. So for now I would say that Photoshop (although having much less feautures) looks smoother and faster than Affinity. It’s now up to Adobe to build upon the framework they created.

For now I feel they rushed the release a little bit, but they had no choice, in all honesty I expected a release at Photoshop world or at the keynote from Apple and my final show was indeed Adobe Max where I expected it. Seeing how it looks at the moment I think Adobe should have taken a few more weeks/months and release it later. For me personally I’m very glad they did release it earlier because people can now grow with Photoshop for the iPad and become real experts at the software.

Now for people that find that strange, read this…
When you get an app that has a gazzilion options you very quickly get overwhelmed and can’t do anything because it just is too much, an app as complex as Photoshop is now in it’s bare basics on the iPad so now learning how to use it is pretty simple and easy, from now on every addition that Adobe makes will be a new learning point and I think in the long run you will understand the app better which makes your workflow more easy.

You could say I’m just sugarcoating it and you are right for a bit.
I’m a huge Adobe fan/supporter but I’m also 100% honest to you guys. I was always 100% Apple fanboy till they did things I couldn’t use in my workflow and I switched to devices/software that could. So don’t mistake me being optimistic for being a blind fanboy.

It just works
One of the things I absolutely loved about Apple, everything just worked and worked together. For me having a proper working Photoshop on the iPad is not enough. I need to get there and I need to get out of there.

The combination Lightroom CC and Photoshop would be killer IF Adobe makes it possible to go from Lightroom CC directly into Photoshop, something I’m 100% sure off will happen probably sooner than later. This would mean, doing your stuff in Lightroom CC and for the clone/healing/skin/compositing and whatever you jump into Photoshop in a PSD/TIFF 16 bits Adobe RGB format and do the work, and when you hit save it’s in Lightroom CC. Exactly like on the desktop. This way you can very easily backup everything when you’re home, or simply continue work on the desktop.

And there we go.
That’s the cool thing about the way Adobe is now putting everything together.

Lightroom CC
Work on ANY device and have your images ready to store, retouch on every moment of the day, being it in the plane on your tablet or behind the desk with a large retouch tablet like the surface studio or Wacom.

Rush
Start your video on your mobile device and finish it on the desktop in premiere.

Photoshop
One of the key elements for Photoshop at the moment is the cloud based PSD solution and I think a lot of people will benefit from this more than they think. I think that at the moment we can see Photoshop on the iPad more as a “companion” app an app that can open your Photoshop files and you can do some finetuning while on the road, make some extra adjustments to mask, composition, color etc. And save for final retouching on the desktop. This makes it possible to create ideas/sketches or finetune artwork anytime and anywhere without having to save to a single flat file and work on that later (if you for example use snapseed)

That being said, I’m 100% sure Adobe has no intention to keep it a companion app, but Photoshop on the iPad will probably grow the same way that Lightroom CC has/is.

Remember
Lightroom Mobile
What a joke some people will say, and I agree.
Man I was over the moon when they showed it to me the first time, this was ground breaking, awesome and killer. However my joy was quickly changed to uther disspear, the intergration with Lightroom classic was bad, without internet you’re lost and don’t even try to use different catalogues, in all honesty it worked… but it didn’t.

But that Lightroom Mobile is now Lightroom CC and to be honest I can’t life without it anymore, it’s on all my devices and it’s used daily. The camera inside needs a lot of work to support more lenses (on android I still can only use one lens) but the software itself is pretty complete, in fact I dare to say that at the moment for MY work I can do a more complete retouch with Lightroom CC than with Photoshop. Mainly because skinwork with the structure slider in combination with grain, clarity and dehaze gives the retoucher a pretty complete skin retouching solution, but cloning and healing is still a dissaster for that kind of work in Lightroom I think.

Intergration and workflow
For the moment I figured out a pretty good workflow to use Photoshop and Lightroom CC with each other. I do most of my work in Lightroom CC for skin and tinting, and when I’m satisfied with the look I go to Photoshop for the Cloning and Healing and I’m done. So in essence we can now do a full professional retouch job on the iPad pro. But it’s far from fast or perfect.

First of all we really need that intergration between Lightroom CC and Photoshop because Photoshop does not yet open RAW files (which is not really necessary if Lightroom CC has the option to export to PSD straight into Photoshop) For now we can of course choose to export in TIFF but… wait a minute that’s only available on Android… I can’t find that in Lightroom CC on iOS, but I guess with iPad OS that will follow soon. And seeing Photoshop is only available on iOS this is a well needed addition to the export options for Lightroom CC.

At the moment Affinity Photo does open RAW files and can export as TIFF/PSD so for the moment one could opt for Affinity Photo in combination with Lightroom CC but the main problem in iOS is that Lightroom CC doesn’t export as highquality 16 bits files so we have a rather annoying bottle neck there, which can be solved rather easily I think when Adobe let’s Lightroom CC export in TIFF/PSD like on Android. For now we are left with a problem that is pretty serious.

There is no way to open RAW files in Photoshop
There is no way to get high quality 16 bits files from Lightroom CC to the filmrol or Photoshop (or Affinity for that matter), so I do understand a lot of the critical views on this release.

However, and just think with me…..
If Adobe just adds that option to work on 16 bits PSDs straight out of Lightroom CC and after retouching just puts them back into CC I think a lot of the issues would be gone, after that it’s simply putting out more and more updates to the Photoshop app to make it more complete.

My personal conclusion
Maybe it’s colored because I’m more in the Adobe camp but I really feel that Photoshop is a very smart release from Adobe, however it’s far from complete, but hey at least we have an undo option (something Photoshop 1.0 did not have).

Let me make my conclusion double.
First off I think it’s been released too soon, there is a framework that works like a charm and is smooth and it shows the potential, if there was no competition this would be labeled as a killer app, but in reality there is stiff competition from Affinity. And I really feel that although Photoshop feels a lot smoother than Affinity and feels also faster there is a LOT and I really mean a LOT that Adobe has to add to come close to a desktop experience, but do we really need that.

My personal opinion is that it really varies per person and what he/she needs to do if you can use software. Fresno is for example awesome for painters but for me… well it’s cool that I get it but in all honesty I don’t see me creating the nightwatchmen on it. ProCreate I doodled with a lot and absolutely love it, on the desktop I LOVE mangastudio which blows away anything I can do in Photoshop because it helps me as an inexperienced drawer. So if you are an artist that creates highly realistic paintings with a million layers and you need specialist brushes…. well maybe Photoshop on the ipad is not for you.

When I’m shooting street and travel photography I have to be honest that I hardly ever leave Lightroom, but when I’m retouching a model I really need more than Lightroom and (if that export is fixed) at the moment the combination of Lightroom CC and Photoshop on the iPad gets me pretty close to what I can do on the desktop, although I really miss my plugins like Topaz for that ultra sharp look, or Exposure for those cool film emulations, but most of these effects can be emulated with Lightroom CC’s structure and clarity and local adjustments, and of course curves/levels (RGB channels) in Lightroom CC and Photoshop on the iPad (levels).

So where am I faster?
At the moment I’m 100% faster on the desktop. But I’m used to the desktop. In fact my video editing has been much faster on the iPad compared to the desktop, so I have the full confidence that in the end my workflow on the iPad will also be closer to the desktop experience. And let’s look at it from an artists perspective, a Photoshop that is fully optimized for touch and pen is of course much better than one that is controlled by a mouse. And yeah I know most people use a Wacom tablet or Surface but I’m just saying, when Photoshop started out it was not working with the stuff we have now.

However, and this is where the power of the iPad comes in. How important is speed…..? when you take into account that with the iPad I can work in any location and situation. Yes I’m faster behind the desktop but I have to be behind a desk for that, and with an iPad or Phone I can work in the car, bus, plane, campground etc. and the battery runs for hours and the output is much higher which makes working outside much easier.

However some things we will probably not see soon, and that might even be something nobody thinks about yet….. when you hover over a Wacom or Surface product and don’t touch the surface you can see a pointer, for me this is super handy to make exact clones and healing actions, seeing there is no digitizer in an iPad (as of yet) you will not see anything untill your pen hits the glass, now the iPad doensn’t have a lot of paralax errors so in essence you will be ok, this is something that I miss. Add to this that Photoshop for a lot of people is not really Adobe Photoshop but more a mix of Photoshop as the centre and plugins that create their workflow it’s to be expected that people will have to change their approach and workflow.

Really the endconclusion
I was planning on a smaller piece, but I think you have to be complete with something like this, there are way too much people just bashing version 1.0 without thinking about the potential.

I think the first thing you have to do is be realistic.
Photoshop on the iPad is a first release, a version 1.0 meaning it’s the start and with software like this, things are added on a daily basis (at Adobe) probably even faster, updates will roll out continiously and what took Photoshop decades to achieve the mobile version will probably reach in 2-3 years. I’m ready for it, there is a load of potential out there with the Apple Pencil and the iPad pro series, let’s hope they add feautures very soon.

Personally in order of importance.
Export Lightroom CC to PSD or TIFF 16 bits
Intergration Lightroom CC to Photoshop and back
Photoshop Curves
Photoshop Frequenty seperation options

And finally open up Photoshop for intergration with third parties so they can create plugins. The future will tell what happens…. but at least we have the start and the start looks a bit pale but has a lot of potential.