My Vermont Photo Made MCP's Blog Post Today

My photo that I submitted to MCP Action's blog for "autumn theme" photos made it to the blog post today. Go over and check it out! I forgot to put my logo on it though, darn it!

CLICK HERE

RAW Digital Workflow for Weddings and Portraits with Canon's DPP

Two photography tutorials in 1 week. Wow, but I did learn some interesting things tonight. From PhotographySchoolhouse.com, I participated in the "RAW Digital Workflow for Weddings and Portraits with Canon's DPP" free webinar. I learned a shortcut method for copying and pasting recipes (group of settings applied to RAW images) that should save me a lot of time in my workflow (rt-click, copy recipe to clipboard, close file, highlight all thumbnails to which you wish to apply the recipe, rt-click, paste recipe, and VOILA). I also learned about it's efficient and useful renaming tool (Tools, Start Rename Tool).

Canon's free RAW editor isn't as good as Lightroom, but it sure is better than nothing. Lossless recovery of not-so-great photos is such a great thing!

External Flash Tutorial

Click here to read a great external flash article.

Color Management for Digital Portrait and Wedding Photographers

I just attended a free webinar by Photography Schoolhouse entitled, "Color Management for Digital Portrait and Wedding Photographers". It was a great discussio on ICC profiles, color spaces, and device calibration. If you're not a member of Photography Schoolhouse, this is a great forum to join just for the informative, and free, webinars that they offer. Click here to see their current offerings.

What did I walk away with?

• It's highly recommended to perform monthly monitor calibrations using a monitor calibrator
• Kerry Allan has used both the Spyder and the EyeOne and had some difficult with both. He recommends purchasing one in the $250 price range for good quality.
• Kerry Allan uses the Samsung 226 CW Syncmaster (22" monitor at 1680x1050 res that sells for around $300) and has been very pleased with the color range it provides. He does note that CRT monitors still can't be beat when it comes to color accuracy and range.
• Always install the device drivers with your monitor and printer. They contain the ICC profiles for these devices which are needed to accuracy represent that you think you are seeing on the screen.
• Kerry Allan recommends DryCreekPhoto.com for downloading various ICC profiles and for tutorials on Color Space Management.
• Make sure you properly set up your Color Settings in Photoshop (for PS7, select Edit >> Color Settings) to save in the color space that your intended printer requires (most print houses will provide recommendations for what color space to use).
• You can assign a printer profile in Photoshop to ensure that the correct ICC profile is used (for PS7, select Image >> Mode >> Assign Profile).

Maternity Shoot

I had a really busy schedule last week. Three photo shoots in three days! No wonder my arm was sore after shooting with my 70-200 three straight days in a row. But, it takes some awesome pictures.

Here's a few images from the maternity shoot. She's due sometime in the next two weeks. She was a great sport through the entire shoot - even laying down on the cold concrete in my garage for the high-key shots!

It's Official...

We officially found out that we're having a girl! So excited! I've already been scouring the web for newborn photos for inspiration in March. Now to start working on a birth announcement...

A Love of Letters

A friend and I were talking about a photography project that included creating your name out of letters that you find in the surrounding environment. I thought we were being original until I came across an article in Better Homes and Gardens about a company called Create Sticks and Stones that sells this very thing (for $130). To do this fun "I Spy" project yourself, you can visit their alpha gallery to get some ideas and how to start looking for the letters in your name around you.

This is going to be one of my challenges while I'm at the beach. I'll post the results sometime next week of what I'm able to captures.

Softball

My husband has played on two city leagues this year, and I finally decided to take my camera with me to one of the games. Since the sun sets shortly after 6pm now, the light changed on me when the field lights were turned on resulting in a color shift. Hopefully, I removed this with Digital Photo Pro (came with Rebel XTi). I used my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens mostly at 2.8 and 200mm from where I had to stand (hubby wouldn't let me on the field while carrying Baby Cooper). Enjoy!

Fresh Look

If any of you have visited www.caseycooperphotography.com lately, then you will notice a fresh look on the site. I've finished writing the html code for my website, but I still need to select photos and upload them to the pages. Either way, many thanks to my talented sister, and freelance graphic designer, Anna Hatcher. She designed the circling Cs logo and the fresh new look. Feel free to head over to her portfolio or blog for more of her wonderful art.