***The following has nothing to do with pipes, tobacco, or pipe smoking***
Early morning ramblings after returning home from vacation. Smoking Capstan Blue in a small billiard while typing.
I have been been using Adobe Lightroom Classic since version 1.0. I was even a certified Adobe instructor for Photoshop and Lightroom at one time. At the peak of my photography side business, a few years ago I had many hard drives and adapters, dongles, FireWire 400, then 800, then esata, off-site backup, rotating drives, you name it. It was a job just managing the backups. Then I broke my back and had surgery and spent months in rehab learning to walk without a cane (that’s when I started pipe smoking btw). When I started back to photography last year I was amazed at the leaps in technology, noteably the Mirrorless cameras with small lightweight lenses. These systems changed my life, literally. I could now carry lightweight rigs without hurting my back. And the joy of making pictures has returned.
But, I was dumbfounded how quickly and profoundly I lost many of my Photoshop skills. It was like I forgot how to even make a layer mask. And in my time away, Adobe went and made it even more complicated by making two versions of Lightroom, classic and CC. Like many others I completely resisted the CC version due to its minimalist technology. I went back to my old hard drives and clunky adapters (yes, the world upgraded to USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, we’ll forget for ancient 3 year old FireWire 800 tech). But at least I new how to use the trusted clsssic software.
This past week I was on vacation and in a place that required many pictures and documentation shots. But also requiring I travel very light and with minimal gear. So I made the jump to Lightroom CC to use the cloud storage because I only had an IPad and iPhone. Well, wow! I am completely hooked on the new platform now. It is so modern, you simply upload the raw files to your iPad and bingo, the pictures since to the cloud and are immediately available on all your devices. I am now able to do 80% of the work from my mobile devices, even basic edits like crop and healing brush and markups without waiting until I get back home to my main computer. And when I did get home the raw photos were there on my computer and my calibrated monitor waiting for me. So cool.
Change is difficult, especially when it involves your work flow. But this change, for me, is certainly a good one.
P.S., I still use Photoshop and Lightroom Classic for important photos that will be printed. Nothing can replace the king that is Photoshop. I just wish I hadn’t lost so many of skills and workflow tricks during my time away.
Early morning ramblings after returning home from vacation. Smoking Capstan Blue in a small billiard while typing.
I have been been using Adobe Lightroom Classic since version 1.0. I was even a certified Adobe instructor for Photoshop and Lightroom at one time. At the peak of my photography side business, a few years ago I had many hard drives and adapters, dongles, FireWire 400, then 800, then esata, off-site backup, rotating drives, you name it. It was a job just managing the backups. Then I broke my back and had surgery and spent months in rehab learning to walk without a cane (that’s when I started pipe smoking btw). When I started back to photography last year I was amazed at the leaps in technology, noteably the Mirrorless cameras with small lightweight lenses. These systems changed my life, literally. I could now carry lightweight rigs without hurting my back. And the joy of making pictures has returned.
But, I was dumbfounded how quickly and profoundly I lost many of my Photoshop skills. It was like I forgot how to even make a layer mask. And in my time away, Adobe went and made it even more complicated by making two versions of Lightroom, classic and CC. Like many others I completely resisted the CC version due to its minimalist technology. I went back to my old hard drives and clunky adapters (yes, the world upgraded to USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, we’ll forget for ancient 3 year old FireWire 800 tech). But at least I new how to use the trusted clsssic software.
This past week I was on vacation and in a place that required many pictures and documentation shots. But also requiring I travel very light and with minimal gear. So I made the jump to Lightroom CC to use the cloud storage because I only had an IPad and iPhone. Well, wow! I am completely hooked on the new platform now. It is so modern, you simply upload the raw files to your iPad and bingo, the pictures since to the cloud and are immediately available on all your devices. I am now able to do 80% of the work from my mobile devices, even basic edits like crop and healing brush and markups without waiting until I get back home to my main computer. And when I did get home the raw photos were there on my computer and my calibrated monitor waiting for me. So cool.
Change is difficult, especially when it involves your work flow. But this change, for me, is certainly a good one.
P.S., I still use Photoshop and Lightroom Classic for important photos that will be printed. Nothing can replace the king that is Photoshop. I just wish I hadn’t lost so many of skills and workflow tricks during my time away.