I left my heart in Santa Barbara

So as some of you know, I went to school in Santa Barbara.  I loved my time at UCSB.  The people, the school, the location... all great.  One of my favorite things to do in school, besides studying of course, was going to basketball games.  The Thunderdome has to be one of the most fun and exciting places to watch a basketball game.  So when my friend asked me to come back to Santa Barabara for the Alumni basketball game I decided to throw the family in the car (I literally picked them up and tossed them in the car) and head down for the weekend.  Well, I'm sure you wondering how the game was, right?  The highly anticipated match up between UCSB and Cal Poly was a bust.  Totally sucked.  The Gauchos lost and we all went home not understanding what we just witnessed.  The good news is that we had been drinking at one of the local student hangouts before the game, so the truth is I was too drunk by game time to even know who was playing. ;-)  So we went back to the hotel after the piss poor, giant ball suck of a basketball game and drowned our sorrows in italian food from the restaurant across the street.  It was at that point that I realized that i was going to have to do something to cheer me up, so I decided I was going to get up at sunrise to shoot photos down at the beach.  I loved the beach when I went to school... even taught scuba diving, so I figured it was a great place to get up and make some pictures.

So at sunrise I jumped out of bed, put my 24-105 lens on my Canon 5D and headed down to Stearns Warf which is down near East Beach.  It was great.  Totally beautiful, quiet and peaceful.  I was in jeans and a t-shirt at 6:00 in the morning.  Considering what the rest of the country is dealing with right now on the weather front, it was a pretty spectacular morning.  

My first few photos were taken right as the sun was coming up.  I set up on my Gitzo tripod and used a pretty long exposure to get the following shots.  There was very little wind, so that paired with the long exposure gave me a really nice look in the water and the light starting to shine on the wharf made it glow.  When I saw the sunrise in college, it was usually for a complete different reason and was a totally different experience.  One of the weird things about taking photos at the beach in Santa Barbara is the geography is totally confused.  As you can see from the photos, the sun rises over the ocean and for those of you who paid attention in class, the sun rises in the east.  Well unless that's changed, Santa Barbara is on the west coast, so this is totally messed up!  The sun is rising in the west, right?  I mean you can see it in the freakin' pictures!  Well it turns out that because of the way the land curves around at this point on the coast, you're actually facing south east when you look out at the ocean.  I know, totally crazy, right?  I took me a while to convince myself I wasn't just hungover from the previous night at the basketball game, but this weird sunrise did make for some really nice photos.

 

I planed to play a little with HDR while I was there, so I bracketed five shots at -2, -1, 0, +1 and +2 exposure.  When I got home a messed around with Photomatix Pro and got these results.  Honestly, I like the non-HDR shots best, but I thought these were interesting.

So at this point it was about 7:30am.  The nice thing about taking photos at sunrise in the winter is that the sun rises much later than in the summer.  So while I had to get up at 4:00am to shoot the sunrise in the Grand Canyon in July, I only had to be at the beach by 6:50 to get the sunrise last weekend.  So, my choice was now  to go back to the hotel and stare at my family sleep, or take a walk and take more photos.  So walk it was!  I headed down to the marina and shot along the way.

Now it was about time to head back to the hotel.  I'm sure you know why, right... It was almost 8:30 and I missed my family... couldn't wait to see their happy faces as I walked into the room, coffee in hand and ready to start the day.  Right, who was I kidding.  The Niner game started at 10:00 and I didn't want to miss any of it, so back to the hotel I went.  On the way I noticed a new addition to the Santa Barbara waterfront since I last was there... a skate park.  So before heading back I cranked up my shutter speed, put on my 70-200 lens and I shot a few images of the little hoodlums.  This place was really sweet and I'm sure if it was here when I was in school I would have been more of a skater instead of the world class surfer I was.  Okay, I wasn't a surfer either, but I tried it.  Most exhausted and cold I've ever been.  I was more of a TV watcher in college, although I did jog once or twice. :-)

I call this one "What the hell am I about to do?"

Twas the Season for Portraits

Twas the season and twill is!  Hi everybody!  Happy New Year and welcome back to the blog.  For the four of you keeping track, I've been gone for the last two weeks.  I was spending the holidays with my in-laws.  Now before you make a lot of in-law jokes, I really like mine and the family and I had a great time.  Lots of food... lots of drinks... and lots of food.  Also, did I mention there were drinks?  One of my favorite parts of the break was all the photos I got to take.  I took photos of the dogs, photos of the kids, photos of strangers... photos of stranger's kids.  I even got up for a few sunrises and took some really cool pics of my favorite bridge in Auburn, CA.

However, my favorite photos were the portraits I took in my make-shift photo studio I created in my in-law's garage.  I decided the holidays were a great time to bust out a bunch of my lighting and photo equipment and take portraits for whoever wanted over the time we were on vacation.  If you know my in-laws, you know that there are about 400 different parties and dinners over the break, so I thought this was a great opportunity.  Usually the light, background, room, subject or something isn't ideal for a portrait, so I figured I'd just make it perfect with a really controlled environment.  I started with a background of white seamless paper.  I then put a stool a few feet away from the background which would allow me to light a specific area and then keep people coming to the same spot... it was far enough away from the background to help keep shadows off the white paper.  I put an "x" with tape on the floor right under the stool, so if there were groups, or tiny people, we could shoot knowing the exact same spot without the benefit of the stool..  I then placed two soft boxes about four feet in front of the stool and about three feet off to each side.  Each soft box had a Canon 580ex II speedlite in it and there was one additional flash on the ground, behind the stool, aimed at the background.  Why?  Well, if you know about the principles of light falloff (lookup the inverse square rule), you know that with the subject a few feet away from the background, the light would falloff before reaching the white paper, causing it to look gray.  Now, that's okay and I wanted it that way in some of the photos, but in others I wanted a pure white background, so the additional flash was needed.  The speedlite on the right was at about 1/8 power and the one on the left was about two stops less.  This made for some interesting shadows on the subjects, even though they were lit from both sides.

Here's what the setup looked like without anybody standing in for a photo.  Keep in mind that in this photo I haven't yet placed the flash behind the stool aimed at the background.  You can see it all ready to go off to the right on the floor, but that's not the place where I used it.

So now we were ready to go.  I set my ISO at 100, my aperture at f/5.6 and my shutter speed at 125/sec.  That would give me sharp photos with just the amount of depth of field I was looking for.  I was shooting in manual cause I didn't want any of my settings to change.  I used a light meter to get the proper exposure for the flashes and then I was good.  I knew that as long as my subjects were roughly the same spot and if the lights didn't move, I would have the same, perfect exposure every time.  If I wasn't shooting in manual mode, the camera would automatically change it's settings every time somebody moved or the lighting changed.  This allowed me to keep control and keep everything constant.  

It was a lot of fun and I think the photos came out really well.  Everybody had a good time and I don't think that had anything to do with the alcohol being served.  Okay, maybe a little.  Some of my favorite photos can be found below.

Happy New Year!

Holiday Family Photo Tips!

The other day, a friend at work asked me for a few tips for taking better family photos during the holidays.  Since I hadn't taken any photos this week,  thought I would highlight what I told her in this blog post.  There are tons of tips... too many to talk about here, but there are a few that I think will make a big difference.  The holidays are a great time to take pictures, so why not try and make them the best you can.  Everybody will be glad you took them and you'll look like a hero.  You can thank me later.

I'm going to focus on a few things that I think will make the biggest difference in your photos.  If you want to talk about exposure, shutter speed and stuff like that, read some of my earlier blog posts.  Today's post will highlight simple things you can do to make a big difference in your family photos.

1) Rent a bunch of models and pretend they are your family.  This will not only be a lot of fun, but the models will appreciate a paying gig and don't worry... they won't eat a lot. With this option your photos will look beautiful and you'll have really fond memories to look back upon years from now.  Now I already live with models (hey, I'm no dummy... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) but if you're not as lucky, search Craigslist and look for attractive, inexpensive, experienced models who want to work during Christmas.  I'm sure there are tons... Good luck with that.

2) Okay, let's assume the model option is out of the question.  One of the best things you can do to improve your photos is to consider the environment and your background. Whether your shooting outside or inside you need to watch out for objects in the background appearing to sprout out of the heads of your family. Now if someone in your family actually has something protruding out of their head, you can forget this tip.  Inside it might be a lamp, a plant or that machine you have for making meth at home, while outside it’s often trees, street lamps, signposts, or that machine you have for making meth at home... outside. Have a good look around the scene before you take the shot and if necessary move the offending article, recompose the shot or find an alternative location.

3) Another thing to consider is the inside light. Most often, in the winter, there's not a lot of light inside and by the time everyone is ready to eat, it's often dark.  One thing to consider is just to go outside.  There’s much more light outside and provided you pick an over-cast day, there should be good, even lighting. Alternatively, if you want to shoot at home, try pushing up your camera’s ISO and use a flash or two with the light bouncing of a white ceiling or wall to help spread it out and give soft, even coverage.

4) "Aunt Johnny's eyes were closed!" Something you've probably heard before cause there always seems to be one person with their eyes closed in every picture. The worst part is it's usually the picture that you like the most and everybody looks perfect except Aunt Johnny's with her eyes closed. One solution to this particular problem is to get everyone to close their eyes and then open them when you give the signal – just as you press the shutter release. Of course, you might wind up with some strange, wide-eyed expressions, but that’s part of the fun. Another approach is to take plenty of photographs in the hope that there will be some in which everybody has their eyes open.  I usually choose a combination of both approaches. 

5) My final tip I've said many times... Make sure you're in some of the photos!  Nothing's worse than looking over your photos with the family and realizing that you're not in any of them.  Now, maybe you're really ugly and have something sticking out of your head like I mentioned above.  In that case it's perfectly fine to keep yourself out of the photos.  Assuming you're relatively normal and don't have a plant permanently sticking out of your head, you'll want to be in some of the photos.  Get your camera all set up and let somebody else take some, use a tripod and a timer, whatever it takes... just get in some of the photos.

That's it.  I'm off to spend the next two weeks with family.  Wish me luck! Over the next few weeks have fun, take some great photos (send me the ones with the models) and have a Happy Holidays!

Day at the beach

So last week I talked about the HDR photos I took during a portrait session at the beach two weeks ago.  Well, as cool as those photos were... and they were pretty cool if I do say so myself, what about the portraits I took?  Good question... I'm glad you asked.  You did ask, right?  If you didn't this is going to be really awkward.  I don't want to push these on you.  Okay, I'm just going to pretend you asked and go from there.

So two weeks ago some good friends asked if I would take their family photo, and they wanted to do it at the beach.  No problem I said... then i thought... problem.  Well, it's not really a problem as long as you think about what you want to do and what you want to get ahead of time.  First question I had to ask was "what kind of photo do you want."  The thing about taking photos at the beach is that if you want the water in the picture, you pretty much have to be standing facing east.  Now I know there are inlets, jetties, outcroppings (I don't even know what those things are), etc. that let you get the beach in your shot without facing east, but pretty much you have to face east, with your backs facing west.  So the reason that's a problem is what if they don't want a sunset, or the colors that go along with one, in their photo.  Maybe they don't want to be lit by flash, which you'd pretty much have to do if you're taking a portrait at sunset.  So that means no photos after about 4:00pm.  So they decided that they didn't want sunset and they did potentially want some black and white photos, so we decided on as early as they could tolerate in the morning.  That ended up being about 8:00am.  Remember, the best light in the first part of the day is around sunrise.  Now, I couldn't convince them to get up that early, but I figured I could work with 8:00.  Now since we were facing east, with the ocean behind us, that meant that the sun could potentially be in their face.  We dealt with that by blocking the sun when we could and when we couldn't, I let them close their eyes until right before I was ready to take the shot.  1... 2... 3... OPEN!!  That worked pretty well, but I did have to discard a bunch of photos where eyes were closed or they were making mean faces at me for making them look into the sun.  

Another thing to consider is the colors your subject are going to be wearing.  You don't want them to be a miss-match of colors and textures so they look more like they came out of a clown car rather than preparing for a photo shoot.  Try things that are not too distracting.  Trust me, if you have a portrait of a family and one of the members is wearing bright yellow shirt, that's ALL people are going to notice in the photo.  If you have somebody in stripes and somebody else with circles, that will look weird too.  So consider things that don't scream for attention and make sure they all work together.  They don't all have to be the same color, as we had for this day, but complimentary colors work great.  All earth tones are one of my favorite looks for photos outside, but there are lots of options out there.

Below are some of my favorites from the day. Hope you like them! In fact, let me know what you think at mattshellphoto@gmail.com

 

1... 2... 3... OPEN YOUR EYES!  That's a great trick to use when your subject have to close their eyes because they're looking into the sun.

Don't forget, all your photos don't have to be in color.  Try experimenting with what works in color and what might make a bigger impact in b&w or even as a duotone image like this one.

Try to shoot all your portraits both in landscape and portrait orientation.  You never know which you'll end up liking better.

Sometimes over or under exposed shots with the sun behind your subjects can make for a really interesting photo.

Sometimes black and white makes for a more interesting photo with more impact.  Take the color out takes out some of the reality.

Don't forget to have fun!!

Life's a beach... in HDR

So I think I mentioned that last weekend I spent Sunday at the beach doing a portrait session for beach loving family.  Well, I decided to get there early and do a little HDR as I thought the situation and the environment really called for it.  So what is HDR?  Now I'm not asking for me, I know what it is-- it's a rhetorical question.  It would be weird if I asked what it was while writing a blog entry about it.  Now if I say "so what is nuclear embryonic fusion" then I'm really asking... cause I have no idea.  Is it even a thing?  I don't know, but I digress.  Let's get back to HDR.  So, what is HDR (there I go again)?

High-dynamic-range (or HDR) is a set of techniques used in photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of light than possible using standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. HDR images can represent more accurately the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, from direct sunlight to faint moonlight, and is often captured by merging together multiple shots of the same image taken at different exposure levels. Usually a minimum of 3 shots but as many as 9 or more can be used.  Cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, resulting in the loss of detail in bright or dark areas. HDR compensates for this loss of detail by capturing multiple photographs at different exposure levels and combining them to produce a photograph representative of a broader tonal range. Make sense?

Here is a image made up of five separate images, combined in Photomatix Pro and finally processed in Lightroom

So, what the heck am I talking about.  Well, take a look at the first five images below.  The first is way under exposed and the last is way over exposed.  The five images each differ by one stop of exposure.  The darkest shots have the lightest areas properly exposed and the lightest shots have the darkest images properly exposed.  The five shots are merged together using HDR software to give us the final image.  This final image has a much greater dynamic range so all the areas of the image are exposed "properly."

The first of five images.  This one is two stops underexposed.

Here is the second shot, one stop underexposed. 

Here is the third image.  This one is "properly" exposed according to the camera.  However, there are still deep shadows and blown out highlights.  This image will definitely benefit from HDR.

Fourth shot, one stop over exposed.

Fifth shot, two shots over exposed.  Almost everything is blown out in this image except the deep shadows.

Here is the final image.  The five previous shots were combined in Photomatix Pro and then processed in Lightroom.  Notice how even the areas that were  under and over exposed in the previous five images are now all exposed properly, colors are richer and more vibrant and the image is much more interesting.

So, how does one create successful HDR photos? It’s a question that is older than time itself.  Cave men argued about it and the battle continues today.  HDR photography is one of those never ending battle grounds in the photography world. Much like the Windows vs Apple battle of the PC world, or the Lady Gaga vs. P!nk of the music world, HDR vs non-HDR is a battle that continues to stir the pot.

Tips for creating the best HDR image

While it’s always fun to add fuel to the fire from time to time, let’s put the argument of whether or not it’s a valid form of photography aside for a minute, and simply focus on how to take the best image.  If not done tastefully and not done to extremes, it can be wonderful form of photography and can help you make stunning image with great impact.  However, just search for "bad HDR" on Google and you can see evidence for the other side of the argument.  So, how does one take good HDR photos?

1) Use a tripod

A tripod will not only allow you to stabilize each individual image (some of which may be fairly long shutter speeds), but in order to capture the full dynamic range of the scene you will need to take multiple exposures with your camera and it’s vital that these frames line up perfectly. A tripod will ensure that each frame you capture is identical to the previous one, with the only exception being the exposure times.  It is not an absolute requirement as HDR images can be made while hand-holding your camera, but it will help tremendously and make for a much easier experience.

2) Know when to walk away... know when to run

Some people use HDR for every photograph they take. Don't do this! People will probably make fun of you and you'll be know as "that stupid-head HDR guy."

HDR stands for ‘high dynamic range’ so if you’re photographing a scene where the lighting is fairly even from shadows to highlights (the scene fits nicely on the histogram, with nothing clipped at either end of the scale) you don’t need to do HDR. Your camera is capable of pulling out enough detail from the highlights and shadows to cover the scene in its entirety with one exposure. It’s also probably not worth it to try capturing moving objects or people in HDR as they typically don’t look right when they get processed.

So when should you use HDR?

If you're taking someones portrait inside, don't use it.  If you're taking picture of a flower outside, perfectly lit by the sun, don't use it.  Use it during sunrise or sunset, especially when you are photographing into the sun. Use it for a photograph taken during the middle of the day, when your image has deep shadows and strong highlights.  When you have a really contrasty image, it's a great time for HDR.  It's great for landscapes, buildings, etc.  Experiment!

3) Use great software

Once you capture your bracketed set of photos you’re going to want to put them together in the best way possible. There are a ton of great programs out there to do this.  Currently I'm using HDR Soft’s Photomatix Pro and I love it.  They have a fully functional, free demo and if you decide to buy the program it's really reasonable at under $100. There are even free alternative out there, but I find they don't do as good of a job.

4) Don't go crazy with it

This is where HDR really becomes a touchy subject. Some people say that it’s their style to create over the top, surrealistic style, HDR photography and other’s say that they are destroying the world of photography by creating these highly saturated and oddly lit photographs.

It’s easy to get carried away with the processing of your images, but if your goal is to recreate what you saw, the best way to do this is to remember to tone it down a bit before you press that process button. 

So that's about it.  It's certainly not everything there is to know about HDR photography, but it should certainly get you started.  The best way to learn about it is to go out and try it.  Go find a nice location outside and frame up a shot with a lot of contrast.  Take 5 shots, stick 'em together and see how it goes.  The worst thing that happens is you have a crappy image that's an embarrassment to all mankind.  

If you have more questions or are totally confused about the process of HDR or the software, send me a message.  Happy to talk about it.

50% Off Perfectly Clear for Black Friday!

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There are a lot of great sales to be found over the next few days, but I bet none of them will help your photography as much as this one.  Remember my blog a few weeks ago about Perfectly Clear.  The 1-click, easy photo-post-processing software.  If you don't remember, go back and check out the post from about 4 weeks ago.  It's awesome software and for the next few days they're offering it for 50% off.  If you've been considering buying the program, now's the time.  You can always download the free trail, check it out for a few days and then purchase.  Anyway, 50% can't be beat and I promise you'll never find it cheaper*.

* My lawyers are requiring me to say that I really have no idea if you'll ever find it cheaper.  I'm basically just saying now it's really cheap, so you should jump on it, but I don't make any guarantees... except the guarantee that it's awesome sauce and it will make your photos look better!

What The Heck Is Squinching?!

It's the newest phenomenon... Better than planking, more exciting than Blue Steel and it makes gangnam style look like the macarena.  It's called squinching and it will help you take better, more powerful portraits.  One of my favorite headshot photographers, Peter Hurley, was on Good Morning America this morning talking about it.  This video will help illustrate.  I'm squinching right now... in fact, I can barely read this post cause my eyes are squinched and look so awesome.  Check it out people... It will definitely leave you saying SHABANG!

The Best Camera Is The One You Have With You!

There is an old saying that the best camera is the one you have with you.  Well, I definitely believe there's some truth to that.  Therefore, the best camera for about 99% of people these days is the one on their cell phone.  Ever since phones starting shipping with built-in cameras the number of photos taken every year has increased to the hundreds of billions. Facebook alone recently reported approximately 300 million photos added every day during months in 2012. Instagram boasts 45 million photos per day and 16 billion photos shared.  So lots of people are taking photos and lots of people are taking photos with their cell phones. But if you’re frustrated with taking great shots of sunsets, or just want some ideas to improve your cell phone photos, take a look at these tips.

1. GET YOUR SUBJECTS IN THE LIGHT!

Now this doesn't mean to tell your subjects to go "into" the light.  That's totally something altogether different.  Smartphones and cheaper digital cameras are notorious for having lenses and image sensors that just don’t capture light as well as professional systems. The answer is, simply, to move your subject into better lighting. Who ever said you have to take a photo exactly where your subjects are standing? Move them around, arrange them closer to light sources, or turn on any available lights nearby. A window, a room light, heck, even a flashlight can work in the right situation.  The right light can make all the difference.

2. Avoid Squinting Eyes

When you are outside on a bright day, don’t have your subject facing the sun. If you do, they’re likely to be squinting. And, sunglasses don’t always make the best portraits. Unless, like mine, your sung less make you look like Maverick in Top Gun.  If you're that cool... and I am, sunglasses can work.  If sunglasses are not adding to your photo, and they're probably not, turn your subjects so the sun is to their side (not back), and, if you can, use flash to soften the shadow since most phones these days have a flash of some sort.

3. Shoot On Cloudy Days

When you get up and see clouds outside and you know you're going to be taking pictures, don't worry, cloudy days make for great photos!  When there is cloud cover, you essentially have an enormous soft box above your subjects. Cloud cover can create nice even lighting free of harsh shadow areas. Even cheap, or, eh, inexpensive cameras can take great pictures in even lighting.

4. Change Your Image Quality

Your phone should let you set the image quality of your photos. Look at the settings for your camera and set to the highest quality resolution you can. When you increase the resolution, you’ll use up the memory on your phone a lot quicker. But if you want higher quality images to work with, and possibly make prints from, you’ll want to max out the camera’s capable resolution.

5. Make Sure Your Image Is In Focus

Now I'm about to share a tip with you that will change your phone photography life.  This is a doozy that most people don't know.  It will, without a doubt, help you take better pictures and let you know why some of those photos that you love aren't turning out.  Now this is true on the iPhone, but I can't guarantee it's use on other cell phones.  On the iPhone, your camera is taking the photo when you take your finger OFF the shutter button, not when you initially push it.  That means to take a faster, in focus photo, you can put your finger on the button and then release it when you're ready to capture the image.  The camera will respond much faster, take the exact image you want and it will most likely be more in focus because you won't have moved your camera thinking the photo was taken when you initially pushed the button.  Unless you’re looking to create moody, Impressionistic types of images that lack detail, you’ll want to be sure your camera is in focus before taking the shot. Watch the LCD display. Wait for the subject to be in focus. Then take the shot.

6. Download A Camera App

I counted... there are officially 1,352,746 camera apps available in iTunes.  Many of them are garbage, but a lot of them can really help you take your photos to the next level. Apps can help you selectively focus areas in your image, control exposure, color balance, and even make your subjects look like cartoons, if for some reason you wanted to do that. I’ve messed around with several for the iPhone including Camera+, ProCamera, and even the program I talked about last week, Perfectly Clear, has a iPhone version that is really good and can really do wonders to your photos.

I hope these tips give you some ideas. If you’ve got additional questions on taking better photos with your smartphone, send me an email, otherwise, get out there and take some photos... with whatever camera you have with you.

Perfectly Clear is perfectly cool!

Okay, let me start out this post by saying I'm still totally in love with Adobe Lightroom.  If it were senior prom time, Lightroom would definitely be my first choice as a date.  My feelings for her, uh, I mean it, haven't changed.  It's still my favorite photo processing tool and I don't see myself giving it up for anything.  I probably use it more than 60% of the time and use Photoshop probably 5% of the time.  Now for you math wizards out there, you know that leaves somewhere around 35% unaccounted for.  That's where this new girl, uh, I mean software, comes in.  Today we're going to talk about Perfectly Clear.  Although the technology in this product has been around for a while, it's primarily been licensed out to other companies to incorporate into their own products.  However, their standalone products, phone apps, and plug-ins for Lightroom and PhotoShop are becoming more and more popular.  I finally decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did.

The photo on the left is a raw photo unprocessed and the photo on the right is using Perfectly Clear... One click!

The photo on the left is a raw photo unprocessed and the photo on the right is using Perfectly Clear... One click!

So let's take a step back.  For me, I focus my time differently on different photos.  Some I spend a lot of time on and others, not so much.  Let's look at two examples.  Let's say you go and do a portrait shoot of a family and you take 200 photos.  Now of those 200, let's say 20 are really good and ones you want to post process for this family.  You bring 18 of them into Lightoom, do a great job and two of them you REALLY like and you take those into Photoshop to really focus on them and make them perfect.  There you go.... 200 photos total, 20 good ones, 18 processed in Lightroom and 2 in Photoshop. That means there was 180 that you didn't even touch.

Now let's go to a different scenario.  Let's say you're taking photos at a family birthday party.  Grandma and Grandpa are there... Aunts and Uncles... even that crazy Uncle that nobody in the family talks about.  They're all there.  Let's say again, you take 200 photos.  But these are 200 family photos and although all aren't great, you'll want to process and share all of them with family and friends.  So what do you do?  Process all 200 in Lightroom?  Well, that's what I would have done previously, but let's be honest, that could take a long time, but that's why we're talking about Perfectly Clear.  A week or so I did a shoot that included a whole bunch of different people and I didn't know who would want photos of themselves and who wouldn't, so I wanted to process all of the good photos, which ended up being about 150.  Now if I was to spend the time to process all of these photos in Lightroom, it would take quite some time.  Even if I spent only a few minutes on each one, which is definitely possible, that was more time than I wanted to spend on these photos, considering I didn't even know most of the people.  So, I downloaded the free trial of Perfectly Clear. With Perfectly Clear  you simply load the Plug-in and your selected photo(s) are corrected automatically, with literally one click. By applying over 15 patented corrections and 10 years of research, Perfectly Clear saves time and produces accurately beautiful photos.  So what's the catch?  Well, you don't have a lot of control.  In Lightroom you can control color, crop, temperature, shadows, highlights, do tons of local corrections and adjustments and lots more.  Perfectly Clear is kind of a "one-click pony," but it does a great job.  When you just want a bunch of your photos to look great, but not spend the time or be as specific in your corrections as you would when using Lightroom, use Perfectly Clear.  You just select the photos you want to process and open them with Perfectly Clear.  They're almost instantly color corrected and processed and more often than not they look really, really good.  You do have some options as to personalizing Perfectly Clear's correction.  You have sliders that will allow you to make changes to the exposure, tone, highlights and a few others, but not nearly the control you have in Lightroom.  Now this program absolutely won't replace Lightroom.  For photos I really like and want to look their best, there's no replacing the control and accuracy that Lightroom provides, but for those photos that you want to look good, but just don't care as much about, try Perfectly Clear.  I'm using the 30-day free trial now, but imagine I'll end up buying the software when the trial runs out.  It's more expensive than lightroom, about $199, but if you use the link below, you'll save 20%!  Give it a try... I'm sure you'll like it!

Perfectly Clear is one stop-clicking for clearer and cooler shots. If you go to this page, hosted by Rick Sammon, one of my favorite photographers, you can save 20% on this plug-in that can turn flat shots to fab shots, with a few clicks of your mouse.