The Digital Photo Guy

Seems my best MMT topics come from readers’ questions. Last week’s MMT about creating a “poor man’s macro lens” created more questions. The most popular question was about the macro focusing rail I mentioned at the end of the article.

Today’s MMT covers macro focusing rails and how to use them. While they look deceptively simple, knowing how to use them ahead of time will make life a lot easier.  As always, the full MMT is located here. If you need a password, register for my MMTs to receive one via e-mail.

About 60 MMTs have now been uploaded as well as about 11 videos. Once all previous MMTs and videos are uploaded, I’ll be able to concentrate on producing more new material. In the meantime, keep sending those questions because they’re the best source of ideas for me.

This is the first Monday Morning Tip to be published strictly via blog. I sent out my usual MMT e-mail but only included a short synopsis of today’s MMT. To read the full MMT, you are directed to the MMT page on the Tips & News page where you’ll need a password to access all the MMTs. Not all MMTs have been uploaded because it’s so labor intensive but, when I get them all uploaded, there should be over 80 short articles covering various aspects of digital photography.

Today’s MMT discusses how to make a “Poor Man’s Macro Lens” by connecting two inexpensive lenses in reverse. I cover the details including what lenses to use and how to connect them. There are also examples of macros created with this setup. In future MMTs, I’ll cover other low-cost ways to get into the exciting world of macro photography. I’ll also tell you which methods to avoid and why.

To get the password, you must be registered on this site. It’s also helpful to set up an RSS feed so you know as soon as I post new information. The easiest way to set up an RSS feed is to create a My Yahoo! or Google account and click on the RSS link on my home page. You can also use the RSS feed to collect information from other sites that offer RSS. The advantage to you is that you don’t have to check your favorite sites daily or hourly. Whenever new information is posted, you’ll be notified.

On Saturday, March 21, I presented a Photoshop Elements retouching presentation to the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego via webcast. The group was meeting at UC San Diego while I was at Joshu Tree National Park leading a spring wildflower workshop.

I showed how the following photo from the 1950s or 60s can be quickly and easily restored with a few basic tips and tricks. Click the thumbnails to see the BEFORE and AFTER photos.

I then applied virtually the same techniques to another photo and demonstrated how these steps can be used to restore ALL faded, skewed, poorly taken photos.

The next photo was more challenging because of its age and damage. I didn’t fix the entire photo because, as I explained to the audience, much of this is just tedious and time-consuming. The only reasons one would have for spending time on restoring such a photo would be 1) it’s a labor of love involving a photo of a loved one or, 2) you’re getting paid gobs of money.

Here, I demonstrated making a copy of the right eye, flipping it over to match the left eye, moving the catchlight to the correct side and “nudging” the pupil to the right to match the right eye. I also used a gaussian blur to smooth and repair the skin on her left cheek.

You can see a recording of the presentation here. If the audio and video get out of sync (narrative and cursor don’t match), click on the progress bar along the top and drag it back back a few seconds.

Does anyone remember the unfulfilled promises of the “paperless office?” Do you recall how life was supposed to be in a world where all communications and information would be electronic and paper would be forever banished to the dust bins of history? Well, citizen, it ain’t working out too well. If you’re like me and get most of your information from the web, it’s getting more and more complex to find the right information at the right time in the right format. You can simplify some of this by using a technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which “pushes” only the info you want to you as it is posted on the web.

If you’ve ever read newspaper columns like Ann Landers or op ed pieces by George Will or cartoonists like Scott Adams (Dilbert), you know how sydication used to work. In the good old days, a writer or cartoonist would produce a piece and send it to many newspapers for distribution. Each newspaper paid for the right to reproduce that piece. As you can imagine, managing all those subscriptions and sending all that paper and keeping track of all the payments and royalties was a real pain in the “you-know-what” (rhymes with gas). RSS is the same idea but at a much more proletarian level. Sure, there are big sites like CNN and MSNBC that use RSS but the technology is so simple that even numbskulls like I can deploy RSS.

There are two parts to RSS. First, you need an RSS-enabled site that publishes information that you want to see such as my site. After all you’re reading this drivel so you must be interested. An RSS enabled site will have an RSS symbol like this:

That icon tells you that you can subscribe to have the site notify you whenever new content is added to the site. Some sites have many RSS feeds covering different aspects of the site. For example, CNN might have RSS feeds for World News, US News, Politics, Sports and every other major subject they cover. Other sites, like mine, have just one feed because it’s not that difficult to keep up with everything that happens here.

The other half of the equation is an RSS Reader. There are many different readers so I’m only going to cover the 2 “biggies” and a directory of other readers. Google Reader and MyYahoo! are two ways to get feeds directly from my site. You need an account with either Google or Yahoo! to use either but most people already have a “junk e-mail” account with one or the other so that shouldn’t be a problem.

With Google Reader (below left), click Add Subscription (1) and type my URL http://www.thedigitalphotoguy.com to add it to your list of subscriptions (2) and show you the first few lines of each entry (3).

With MyYahoo! (above right), click Add Content (1) and the entire dark menu will appear. Click Add RSS Feed (2) and type http://www.thedigitalphotoguy.com/feed into the dialog that appears.

For those who want a stand-alone reader that doesn’t need a Google or Yahoo! account, check out this page for a list of 3rd party readers.

It may not be very useful if my site is the only one you want to track but if you’re like most people, you can add any site that uses RSS. All your daily info fix will be in one place. You can also make a Favorites entry so you can easily see all your feeds with one click.

Once most of my readers start using RSS, I plan to discontinue the weekly e-mail blast which has become a major PITA.

I’m writing this update from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park where I’m getting ready to go look for wildflowers. Yesterday, on my way back from Arizona, I stopped by Joshua Tree NP and drove as far north as Conttonwood campground. There are definite signs of a spring wildflowers but they’re still pretty scrawny. The desert lupines are sparse and standing about 4″-5″ tall where past displays have been thick and lush, standing 10″-12″. There were lots of chia that looked as if they had been killed by a frost and the live ones seemed pretty forlorn.

A weathered, leathered desert rat of the female variety flagged me down and told me the road ahead was washed out. She and her older but very well maintained RV were camped just outside the south entrance to Joshua Tree NP. By her reckoning, the full spring wildflower display wouldn’t happen for for another 2-3 weeks.

To the east of JTNP, below 2000′ elevation, the bloom was in full swing. Along the freeway, I could see bladderpods, brittlebush, sand verbena, chuparosa, desert lupines, California poppies (in AZ they’re called Arizona poppies, duh!) and other SCBs (small colorful bushes).

Here are some lupines I found just outside my RV this morning as I made photos of the sun rising over the mountains to the east. The sand verbena and desert gold were along Henderson Canyon Road in Borrego Springs.

I removed a dead stalk in front of the lupines using the Clone Tool and cropped to remove the RV parked next to me. Otherwise, I just adjusted Levels. I didn’t even have to remove dust bunnies. The sand verbena and desert gold were cropped, levels adjusted and sharpened.