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Photographer Ben Long shares iPad photography workflow advice
Photographer Ben Long has put together an informative and detailed article for photography aficionados at Creative Pro on using the iPad for post-production while in the field or traveling for a shoot. For Long, taking a 13-inch MacBook Air into the field carries a lot of negatives in comparison to an iPad. Overall, Long says the iPad is a more resilient piece of kit in harsher environments, but of course, it doesn't offer the same kind of power that a MacBook Air does. Long notes that when the iPad first arrived, it offered an exciting, lightweight alternative for photography out of the studio, but the apps supporting a pro-level workflow did not yet exist . But over the last few months, Long notes that a few new apps have arrived on the iOS App Store (particularly Snapseed and Photos Info Pro), which offer "some important new post-production capabilities." Meaning, depending on what kind of shoot you're doing, you may be able to get away with just your camera and an iPad. For Long's workflow with an iPad, and his take on the apps he uses, do check out the article here. [Via The Loop]
Photoshop Automator Action Pack updated to version 3.5 with CS3 support
I have rekindled my love for Automator and all things automation lately. If you can find any way to fit these tools into your workflow, I highly recommend exploring your options - including Ben Long's just-updated Photoshop Automator Actions pack. This collection of 86 actions has just hit v3.5, bringing support for Photoshop CS3 and a fresh batch of new features, such as: New Auto Color action - executing Photoshop's Auto Color command which puts the control in Photoshop's hands, but allows you to pass the image(s) along to another process without interacting with any kind of dialog or making manual adjustments by hand Add Watermark can now center and rotate watermarks Saving TIFF files now includes all the standard compression options bug fixes and more Mr. Long also notes that he hasn't included new actions for any of Photoshop CS3's new features - those are coming in a future release. The beauty of this pack of Automator actions is that they bring Photoshop's automation abilities into the rest of Mac OS X, allowing you to create workflows that pass anything you do in Photoshop on to another app. For example: you could build a workflow that grabs a folder of 200 images, auto-color correct them in Photoshop, add comments and metadata, import them into iPhoto, upload a copy to Flickr and then archive them all to a CD or DVD. All with a mere double-click. Ben Long provides his actions as donationware and asks for a very basic set of optional information to help gauge his audience and where he should take development.[via PhotoshopSupport]
