X-Equals – image, workflow, technology, business

Luminance – Hue and Saturation’s Step Brother

There has been a lot of talk about the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (HSL for your cool types) panel lately, so I though I would take you through an example of how I use the lesser known Luminance (L) control to solve issues that oftentimes I see folks attack with the Hue, Saturation, Exposure, or [...]

continue reading ...}

Lightroom Preset – Warm Storm

We had initially released this preset on Presetsheaven.com – but as promised we’re releasing it here on our site … as always … for … FREE. But we’ve added even more to this download! In partnership with Mike Gray of LifeInDigitalFilm, and riding on the heels of his fantastic piece on migrating your presets to Adobe Camera [...]

continue reading ...}

Presets and Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) – A match made in Heaven.

Options are good, especially when said options are free. Lightroom users have the option to use a multitude of presets to enhance their images – and most Lightroom users also have the option to use Photoshop and its native RAW processor, Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). However, not many Lightroom users are aware that they can convert their [...]

continue reading ...}

Digital Asset Management – The X-Equals Way – Part 4 of 4

And here we are … the last part of our series on Folders and Filenames. It’s been quite a journey! We’ll put the last piece of our workflow in place by discussing how to handle derivative files. At the end of this post, we’ll offer a download of our structure for stress testing and commentary from all [...]

continue reading ...}

Lightroom Preset – Polaroid 669

Wayyyyyy back in February 2008, Polaroid announced it would cease production of all instant film. The New York Times recently published a piece on the legacy of the Polaroid – and it was with this that the reality of the situation took hold. And … unfortunately, our favorite Polaroid instant film of ALLLLL TIME – Polaroid [...]

continue reading ...}

Digital Asset Management – The X-Equals Way – Part 3 of 4

Continuing on from Part 2 of our series, we’ll now begin to tie all our concepts together along with some automation to streamline the workflow for a sample project. Once the Lightroom Import dialog and file naming parameters are set, it’s a snap to introduce subsequent jobs into our system. For future reference, you can bookmark [...]

continue reading ...}

Digital Asset Management – The X-Equals Way – Part 2 of 4

Continuing on from Part 1 of our series, we’ll use our data definitions and storage considerations set forth in Part 1 to build a flexible and easy to manage folder structure … We’ll also get into some of the file naming conventions that we put in place for naming folders, although we’ll be getting into more [...]

continue reading ...}

Digital Asset Management – The X-Equals Way – Part 1 of 4

We have been asked hundreds of times, to define our model, or a model, for file naming and folder organization for photographers. We’ve been consulting on the setup and ongoing use of these systems for a number of years and I thought it was a good time to distill many of our findings into a [...]

continue reading ...}

Digital Asset Management – The X-Equals Way – A Prelude

We’re going from start to finish in this series, and in part 4 we’ll offer a download of our structure for stress testing and commentary from all of you out in the field. You’ll get detailed descriptions of why, how, and when we do what we do when setting up the core system for managing [...]

continue reading ...}

Lightroom Redux

I thought it would be a good time to post our favorite Lightroom tips, tricks, and just plain killer techniques for making your life … and … your workflow faster. Let’s get right to the goods! +LIGHTROOM 2.0 SHORTCUTS – CHEAT SHEET Our most popular download next to our presets. Memorize these, and you’ll cut your editing time [...]

continue reading ...}