ugh, why do they make it so complicated....

So tonight... I'm a little tired, shot a 10 hour wedding but need to import and back up files before bed.

I open lightroom 1.4 and need to export my images from the engagement session( in main catalog) and create a catalog with their engagement images and of tonights wedding. Easy right?

Not when your tired...

So I goto to the folder I wanted exported> right click>export this folder as catalog

A dialog box opens up. I tell it where I want it and also what I want to name it. But!!! Below that you can check or uncheck 2 boxes, export negative files and include available previews.

Export negative files? What's that mean? I look it up and it tells me:
"“Negative files” refers to the original files that were imported into Lightroom."

HUH? I think I know what that means but wasn't a 100% sure.

So I did some research which took me a minute or 2, but most people said the same thing as adobe. but then I finally understood!

Why didn't they find an easier way to say, "move your original files with catalog"

So If I was trying to export it all onto backup hard drive I would check the box. But if I wanted to keep it in the same place but create a catalog with those images I would uncheck it.

Why make it so complicated?

Color Management in Firefox 3.0

I haven't finished telling my story of my color management woes but I thought I would share this since it was part of my solution.

I wanted to let you know that Firefox 3.0 is now color managed. By default it is turned off. Follow the link below and it will turn color managment on!If you have any questions turning it on please email me(It took me a minute to figure it out myself)

Click here and follow the directions

Assign or convert....

What a rough week... Heck it hasn't ended yet.

So it all started this last week after I shot engagement images. I imported the images using Lightroom 1.4 and then looked at the images in Adobe Bride. I adjusted all my images using Camera Raw 4.0 and then converted all the images to tiff (Adobe 98, 16bit). I did all final adjustments in Photoshop. After I'm done I always add a copyright to all the images and "convert," in this case "assign..."(oops) to sRGB and make it Jpegs for the online gallery. Sounds simple enough (I used an action to do all this).

After I was done I looked in PS and they looked fine, built my gallery, and uploaded to my server and checked it. This is when it went down hill. All the images were over-saturated. So everything came spiraling down.... What happened? What did I do wrong? Was it my monitor? Did I do something wrong when changing the profile to sRGB? Was it out of my control?

I had to go through multiple steps to find a solution. Below is the first step to finding it:

I don't know why I never thought about it, but why is there two ways to get a profile on an image? I vaguely knew it was there but always thought they were the same thing.

So do you "assign profile..." or "convert to profile..."?

Well in short always "convert to profile" when you are going from one profile to another. Why you ask? Then read on!

Assign profile only changes the preview while convert changes the values in the actual file.
Also if your file is untagged you can use assign profile.

This is not saying that sometimes you can't break the rules and be creative but if you are just trying to go from one color space to another use "convert to profile."

So lets "convert to profile..."

You have a dialog box open up with a few options...


This perplexed me.... Not only does it ask me what profile I would like to use but what rendering intent I wanted to use and what engine. That freaked me out. In my world when I thought about rendering intents I thought printing profiles.

But once I relaxed, I started to think about it.
Think about it as your output. Whatever that output is, whether printing, or web page.

SO that also got me thinking don't ever change a profile until you have to and if you don't, don't. It hurts the file, you lose data. For example, (not the same but will give you the idea). Would you go from a tiff to a jpeg and then convert back to tiff or worse yet resave the jpeg? No! because you know that once you lose data its gone!! It can't come back.

When you go back to a larger color space, all it does is put the same information from the small color space under an umbrella that is bigger than you need now.

Now when you convert you get the opportunity to change the profile using different algorithms, most of the time Perceptual or Relative, or do you? When converting from a working space to working space(simple matrix profile) the only intent it will use is Relative Colorimetric even if you choose perceptual. *This doesn't apply to printing profiles.*

Also, what engine get used? Adobe(ACE (Adobe color engine)) or Microsoft ICM (or if you use a mac you will have their option.) Choose Adobe(ACE)! From my understanding Abode(ACE) has enhanced support for black point compensation(another topic all by itself.)

by default black point compensation(BPC) and dither is checked. I always leave them checked because in this example it uses Relative Colorimetric to convert the profile.


But to help clarify:
"Use BPC" should be used for relative and not for perceptual. This isn't a hard fast rule, though. You can make your own decisions. Perceptual already maps the white and black so you typically don't need it.
"Use Dither" is only an option when changing color space in 8 bit not 16bit. It helps keep the colors image transitions smooth.

SO now that I know that I need to convert a profile and how! I can create an action and have correct color output, but darn if I didn't run into more problems.

I will delve into my solution or at least what the problem was next week. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this with me please call or email.

printers and humidity

A few weeks back I was asked about clogging issues, so I thought I would address it here as well.
If you have an Epson you have cerainly encountered clogging. It can be horrible.

A few things I do to help the situation:
1>Keep the office dust free(Air purifier)
2>Do a nozzle check at least once a week
3> ideal humidity

Most people that I have talked to don't think about humidity but this can be a the biggest factor in clogging. I am in Colorado and it is dry!

Epson recommends:
Epson 4800 -
Operating: 20 to 80% relative humidity
Recommended 40 to 45%

Epson 3800 -
Relative humidity 20 to 80%
Operating 40 to 50%

Black and white- Wow missed that...

I was use to the old days of using channel mixer to convert my stuff to black and white and have been somewhat resistant and apprehensive to use the new Black and White... adjustment layer because it looked big and scary.

A couple of tricks with channel mixer first because it still does do the job.
When I am deciding on black and white I always go to the channels palette and look over each channel see to see which one looks the best and the worst





After looking at each channel I would open up Channel mixer adjustment layer and put in the amounts accordingly (total 100 or it will change exposure.) Don't forget to turn check the box for Monochrome.
for example:

Most of time I mask together multiple different black and whites using channel mixer to make a perfect black and white...

But what if it was easier.( thank god for CS3)

So I finally starting playing with the Black and white... adjustment layer. The last few months I have been using the presets and just using the one that looks the best. BUT then I'm not the one controlling the look or being an artist and always would turn back to Channel mixer until....

I happened to move my mouse on the image and noticed that it change to an eye dropper, SO being a curious photoshop user, I click and saw that it turned into a slider hand. I moved it back and forth and noticed that it would change the area of the image I clicked on (most of the time). I can't always get it perfect with one adjustment layer but I can get it closer and usually can do it in 2 Adjustment layers and mask appropriately.

©2008 Weinrauch Photography llc


Give it a try. Its amazing how powerful it is. If you have any questions email me!

Lifesaver- RESET

I always forget about one of the best shortcuts in Adobe products "reset." I have been having problems with missing items under the tools menu and every time I would change a preference in Bridge it would crash. I tried un-installing and re-installing but to no avail. And then while looking for another answer to another question in NAPPs forum I found it: Reset all Preferences.

So if you have problems with Photoshop or Bridge try resetting the preferences by using the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift(Windows) or Command+Option+Shift(MAC) immediately after you start Bridge or Photoshop.

Actions... wedding albums

So a good friend of mine gave me this idea and have incorporated it into my workflow.

I design my own albums and don't want to create a template everytime. Last week I created a file using the dimensions but I can also add guides to the template and now I have a template that has trim and cut lines. I will add metadata to these files as well and can incorporate that into the action. Sometimes I want to be able to find the album quickly in lightroom as well as make sure that I have my copyright on these images because I upload this to my wedding album company and want to make sure no files get confused. I will show some examples of how I do it.

Last week I created a file with all the info, color space, size, resolution, bit depth. So I will do that again but this time adding the the guides and the metadata (you can also add the metadata qucikly in Lightroom and Bridge after all the files are created for the purpose of getting comfortable with actions why not do it this way and if I can do it all in one step...)

So as the image shows I have now created an action with guides.

Lets add some Metadata to the File. file>file info...

Pretty simple. I have found that all actions are like this. I just need to pay attention to what I do so that I can realize I can create an action to make my life easier. Sometimes I will add another step in the above action and make it specific to that wedding album. Don't forget you can copy that action and change or take out specific steps in any action. For instance I will create a duplicate of the above action, run it, and then delete the "Set file info" in that action and then click the record button and add in additional info or change it for a specific wedding(don't forget to stop recording after that step). After completion of that album I will delete the copied action.

There is a million ways of doing this, so find out what way is comfortable for you.

I have created an album. I have 20 files @ 16 bit and all tiff images. Most album companies don't want huge files so we have to create an action so it will take all those files and flatten it and change it to the format they want. But that will be next week, that one can be a bit trickier.