After building my new computer, I spent some time reloading all the apps and thinking about how I was protecting my “assets” – the still and video files that are the core of my business as a stock photographer. I’m also a technology consultant (in my spare time) and so I have those files as well to think about. I maintain a system where things are reasonably well structured across various hard drives, the core of which is: Storage structure...
Way back in 2015, I built my last computer and while it was pretty good for the time, I’ve become frustrated by Premiere in particular when working with 4K videos. The playback within the app seems to have been getting worse and I started using proxies for editing and color correction, but of course it takes minutes sometimes to create the proxies from the 4K video in the first place. So with expectations of a tax refund from the IRS...
I do wonder if this is “fiddling while Rome burns”, but Luminar 4 has a new update (4.2) which has added some interesting features to the base program – particularly in terms of adding things seamlessly to the sky that you may have just replaced. I’ve written about my experiences with replacing skies in previous posts. I played with it a little and added some clouds to an otherwise blank blue sky in this image (together with some sun flare...
I don’t know if I am happy or sad that most of my predictions in the earlier posts have come true. I hope you managed to create some suitable images and have got some traction. I must admit to a big failure on my part. I created a few using my face masks ordered from Amazon, but then went off on an overseas trip and have spent much more time working on processing those images and videos than I have...
Perhaps the funny “featured image” will give the game away, but after buying a drone in December (a Mavic 2 Pro), I’ve been working on a double track – learn how to fly it safely and take some interesting photos and videos and secondly, learn all about the law and regulations around flying a drone commercially in the USA. Using the images and videos from a drone on stock agencies is definitely counted as commercial use and while I’m sure...
I think I’m already a bit late with this one, but I have a feeling (and a big worry) that it will turn into the biggest story of 2020. As such, it could generate a demand for a whole range of illustrative images and videos. I’m talking about the corona virus epidemic in China. First, I suspect it is a lot worse than we know, and if it spreads in another country, it will be the subject of endless discussions...
I received a question in the Ask Steve a Question post about my workflow for video. I’m not sure if I have ever written about this, so here we go. First, the question: I know you dealing with both photography and Videos …and you mentioned that you use Ligthroom as your main program for photos – viewing and sorting ect – my question is how do you treat video ?? I mean do also use LR for viewing video ???...
Taking a break from some of my other work (and I did finish all my uploads of Portugal yesterday!) and so I decided to look at some of the questions I received but haven’t answered yet. The first one was via the contact page on my site and was: Thank you very much for your website, which is very useful. I wanted to ask you two questions. Bigstock belongs to Shutterstock ?. In the list of StockSubmitter agencies are separated....
After much effort, I have completed the updating of my eBook – Getting Started in Stock and published the 2020 edition. I’ve extended the title a little for this edition – adding the word Photography to avoid it getting mixed up with books about stocks and shares on Amazon! The book has been brought up to date and I’ve added my latest thinking throughout the book, including a new chapter on what to take and what to think about when...
I wrote about Luminar 4 and its AI driven sky replacement capability a couple of weeks or so ago and have been playing around with it from time to time in between other tasks! I am thinking of applying to Archangel book images (I will write about that if/when I get accepted) and wanted some moody images to go with their general house style. Not sure these are “winners” yet, but the ability to quickly change the sky alters the...
