Photo Taco: Quick photography tips

In October of 2023 Apple updated their extremely powerful line of MacBook Pro computers with M3 Apple Silicon. The size and design of the MacBook Pro is mostly unchanged, and Apple didn’t directly compare the M2 to M3 much, but early testing has shown about 20% improvement. Let me tell you what photographers should upgrade when buying an M3 MacBook ... The post Photographers Buying Guide – M3 MacBook Pro appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Adobe just finished up their annual MAX conference where they demonstrate the latest things their software can do to help content creators. This usually includes major updates to all of the products in their Creative Cloud suite, including Lightroom and Photoshop that photographers tend to care the most about. One of the features included in the latest release of Lightroom ... The post HDR Editing in 2023 Using Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Should photographers spend the time and money to print their images themselves rather than sending their images out to printing labs? Here are 5 decision points photographers should consider when making that decision. If you are a photographer considering getting into printing yourself, you are not alone.  I think my personal photography journey is very similar to many photographers and ... The post Deciding to Print Yourself appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Right up front I want to set some expectations on the speed of DeNoise AI. Even on the best of computer hardware here in early 2022 DeNoise AI is not “fast”. The fastest I was able to get raw images to be processed in DeNoise AI was about 6 seconds per image. 6 real seconds, not the amount of time ... The post Making DeNoise AI Faster appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Hard Drive Space Problems for Photographers Let’s talk about the problems that photographers face with hard drive space.  The more technical term for that is “storage”.  Don’t confuse this with “memory” or “RAM”.  Memory is a form of storage but it only stores information while your computer is on.  Memory today comes in sizes like 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or more.  ... The post Help With Drive Space and Backups For Photographers appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

What Dimensions and Quality Should Photographers Use When Posting To Social Media? Nearly a constant debate online, I constantly get questions on the pixel dimensions, quality setting, and DPI that photographers should use when exporting out of Lightroom and Photoshop for posting the image on social media. The answer may change over time as the social networks make constant changes ... The post Dimensions and Quality For Social Media Photo Sharing appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Common Lightroom Problems Lightroom is really complicated software here in early 2021. Not complicated as a tool that can help photographers get the most out of their photos. Complicated in that so many things can go wrong we couldn’t possibly list them all here. Lightroom problems can range from seeing strange artifacts on the screen, to performance issues, to system ... The post 13 Steps To Troubleshooting Lightroom Problems appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

What Is Diffraction In Photography? Let’s start off by very briefly defining diffraction.  I want to encourage all of you to go and check out the video recently released over on DPReview where Don explains diffraction really well using some simple visual experiments. https://www.dpreview.com/videos/0286755323/dpreview-tv-understanding-diffraction As a very simple explanation, your camera has to bend light to take a photo. Just ... The post Find Your Lens Diffraction Point appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

This post was heavily influenced by and will reference an excellent two part article that the great Roger Cicala published at DPReview.com in 2020.   Difference Between Sample Variation and Bad Copies Part 1 Difference Between Sample Variation and Bad Copies Part 2 Why Lens Variance vs Bad Copy? I get the question very regularly, probably about once a week, of ... The post Lens Variance vs Bad Copy appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

The details of how I created a picture of a full moon that includes a foreground and looks more like a sunrise than a moonrise The Creative Vision Your chances of creating a good photo increase dramatically when you start out your shoot with a creative vision. Having a good idea of the image you want to create and then ... The post Fire Full Moon – How I Shot The Moon With A Foreground appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

No doubt you have heard that Apple made big news at their annual developer’s conference (WWDC) announcing they are moving from long-term partner Intel to using custom built processors they are calling Apple Silicon. What does this move to Apple Silicon mean for photographers? Apple switching from Intel to Apple Silicon should mean faster Mac computers with longer battery life. ... The post What Does Apple Silicon Mean For Photographers? appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Puget Systems Lightroom and Photoshop Benchmarks Before we tell photographers if AMD or Intel runs Lightroom and Photoshop better, it is important to know why it is Matt Bach from Puget Systems is so qualified to speak to the topic. In 2019 Puget Systems began offering a suite of tools that are extremely helpful for testing the performance of creative ... The post AMD vs Intel For Lightroom and Photoshop With Puget Systems appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Can the relatively inexpensive and tiny form factor Intel NUC be a good photo editing computer? The PC counterpart to Apple’s Mac Mini, this is the first in a series of videos taking a look at the Intel 10th generation Next Unit of Computing (NUC) to see how well it can run Lightroom and Photoshop. What Is an Intel NUC? ... The post Intel NUC – Inexpensive Photo Editing Computer appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

How To Make Lightroom Classic Import 90% Faster This is not a new topic here on Photo Taco.  I have talked about this magical process, something Adobe calls the Embedded Preview Workflow (added to Lightroom Classic back in Oct 2017), here on the show before.  I did an episode called Lr Embedded Preview Workflow back in April 2018, so about ... The post Slash The Import Time Of Lightroom Classic By 90%! appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Episode Sponsors Phlearn – When Phlearn reached out I was really excited because my friend Aaron Nace and the folks over at Plearn.com produce video training for Photoshop that I can’t recommend strongly enough. It is incredible. Aaron has forgotten more Photoshop than I have ever learned.  A huge portion of what I know about Photoshop has come from video ... The post Topaz DeNoise AI vs Lightroom and Photoshop appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Note: If you just want to skip straight to the results go to 43:19 in the episode! One of the questions I have had asked hundreds of times over the past few years is how photographers should setup their catalog and photos using external drives. Does it matter if the external drive is an SSD, or are spinning drives good ... The post Performance of External Drives With Lightroom Classic appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Create Photography Retreat I am so excited to be presenting at the Create Photography Retreat again in 2020.  It is being held in beautiful Greenville South Carolina October 15-17 when all of the fall colors will be breathtaking.  Come join me and others from the Master Photography Podcast network in interactive, hands-on sessions and make some serious progress towards mastering ... The post Photographer’s Checklist For Sharper Photos appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Water Droplet Refraction Photography I am sure you have seen photos featuring water droplet refraction, but you have to check out some of the images Don has on his website over at http://www.donkom.ca/category/macro-water/ under the Macro Water menu.  There are a number of images there where Don has done an incredible job of creating images that emphasize the beauty of ... The post How To Do Water Droplet Photography With Don Komarechka appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

What and Why of Lens Filters Every photographer, no matter the genre of photography they enjoy and do the most, should have a neutral density (ND) and circular polarizing (CPL) filter for the camera lenses. Photographers should skip the ultra-violet (UV) filter and may want to skip the graduated neutral density (GND) filter. Read on or listen to the podcast ... The post Photography Lens Filters Explained! appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.

Lightroom Hardware Testing Project Update Still working on this.  I know that is disappointing to many of the listeners because it meant I didn’t get an episode out in August 2019.  I really thought I would be close to finishing up the testing I am doing of the Develop module in Lightroom and what the impact of hardware is on ... The post Best Background for Composites appeared first on Photo Taco Podcast.