Finding out your shutter count is one of those crazy things that photographers like to do, because most digital SLR’s will record that information internally. The problem is manufacturers don’t make it easy information to access. However, knowing your shutter count can let you know whether it’s time to get that camera serviced or not, before it breaks down.

For Nikon owners (and I understand this also works for Sigma and Fuji), there’s a handy tool out there called IExif from Opanda. While Opanda specializes in retail EXIF reading/editing software, the basic IExif application is freeware, and you can download it from here. IExif will let you open a JPG and read it’s metadata – which in and of itself is not terribly impressive (most image editing applications will let you do that), but it will show you the stuff that most other applications will not, including all the non-documented EXIF values.

Lots of this stuff is encrypted and won’t mean anything to you, unless you happen to know what 00A8 is referring to on a Nikon D200. However, it will let you see the shutter count for that image. It will only do this for JPG files unless you pay for IExifPro which can open Raw files.

Opanda also has a plugin for Firefox that will let you right click on an online photograph and view its EXIF data, assuming it still has any. You can download the free Firefox plugin here.

For Canon owners, it seems that Opanda doesn’t really decrypt the EXIF tag for shutter count, so you’ll need to look elsewhere. CanCount is an application from a German software maker which will show you the count on 1-series cameras. I also understand that Photomechanic will read some lower end Canon shutter count information, but if you know of something more concrete, let us know.

There is a popular plugin for Photoshop called LucisArt which lets you enhance details in bright and dark areas of an image simultaneously. It’s a look that is best exemplified by their Whyeth effect, which looks almost like a what happens to an image when you apply an HDR (or High Dynamic Range) technique.

While nothing can match the real deal, you can do a good job of reproducing the LucisArt Whyeth look in Adobe Lightroom. Bring up a picture into the Develop view and perform the following steps on it.

Remember to trust yourself… this will look ugly before it looks good.

• Under Basic adjustments, slide Recovery to 100%
• Fill Light up to 100%
• Blacks to about 20-50, will adjust more later.
• Contrast to 100%
• Clarity to 100%
• Vibrance to 100%
• Now drop your Saturation to -20 and bump it down as needed to get rid of some of the gaudy color we’ve introduced.
• Go back and play with adding some Blacks and adjust Exposure as needed.
• If one particular color is overpowering, you can visit the HSL palette and adjust it’s saturation.

At this point, you can continue manipulating it by adding noise reduction or some lens correction to add a nice vignette. You can also adjust the Saturation and Vibrance sliders to get the right amount of color. Because this is an artistic look – there’s no right and wrong way to adjust the settings, but like with any effect, too much and you can overdo it. Use some restraint and find those pictures this looks best on.

Photoshop is still the defacto photo editing application for many people, despite the fact that Lightroom and Aperture have stolen some of its thunder in the photography market. If you use Photoshop to edit pictures, you may be interested in a few of these shortcuts which will save you some time and effort when performing some of the most common tasks.

While Photoshop may still be the “industry standard”, Adobe Lightroom is quickly making inroads and also has a few quick keys that may make working on photographs a little easier.

Photoshop

• Pressing Space Bar will get you the Hand Tool while you hold it down.
• Pressing Tab will make your tool palettes disappear/reappear.
• F will toggle between standard, maximized, and full screen mode.
• Holding down the Alt (or Apple) key will let you zoom with the scroll wheel.
• [ and ] let you increase or decrease brush size. Holding down shift while you use [ or ] let you do the same with softness.
• 1->0 will let you change opacity on a tool starting with 1 (10%) up to 0 (100%). Quickly following it with another number will let you fine tune the opacity change.

Lightroom

• 1-5 will let you set a rating for the photograph.
• P, U and X will let you set flags. P for Picked, U for Unassign Flag, and X for Reject. (see here)
• Tab will show or hide the display panels.
• L will toggle through Lights Out mode, first a dim background, next a totally blackened background.
• G will take you to Grid mode.
• E will take you to Loupe mode.
• ~ will toggle between Loupe or Grid mode.

Learn them and use them, they’ll save you a ton of time when working on images.

It might seem like 64-bit computing is a huge step up in performance, but is it really…?

It’s been over three years since 64-bit processors entered the marketplace, followed shortly by operating systems that took advantage of them like Windows XP 64-bit, Vista 64, and most recently Mac OSX 10.5 – otherwise known as Leopard.

But the adoption of 64-bit has been slow, at best, even within the circle of pro digital photographers – users who tend to stay near the bleeding edge of computer technology.

It’s not that 64-bit operating systems aren’t there, or that people don’t have 64-bit processors, but the third party support for 64-bit drivers and software is slow in coming. Though there are performance increases when running 32-bit applications on 64-bit hardware, the real benefits come when matching 64-bit software with 64-bit hardware.

It’s only when they are matched up like this that the OS can take advantage of storing data in more than 4GB of memory. Currently though, most computers don’t come with anything greater than 2GB, and some powerhouse systems are upgraded to 4GB, but very few have more. Developers and hardware manufacturers seem to know this.

None of the big photo editing applications (Photoshop, Lightroom, DXO, Aperture) are designed to take advantage of 64 bits at this writing. However, it’s definitely a question of when, and not if. So while 64-bit across the board is inevitable – it’s just not quite there yet, so for most people it’s unnecessary, unless you plan on upgrading your computer anyways, in which case going with a 64-bit rig is likely smart.

Having trouble defining a certain “look” for your photos? You might want to try experimenting with the Lightroom editing technique outlined in this tutorial video.

The effect adds an “edgy” and “surreal” quality to your images, and it’s really easy to do (especially with Lightroom’s presets). It’s definitely not an effect for everyone, and certainly not for every photo, but it might open up some new ideas and give you some new inspiration. (Thanks, Garrett)

If you use Adobe Lightroom to edit your pictures, and Flickr to share them with the world, there’s a nice way to combine the two into a single workflow using the Flickr Uploadr – a tool from Flickr that (on its own) helps automate the process of sending pictures to your Flickr account. You just need to set it up with your account information, and away you go.

This little trick works on both Windows XP systems and in OSX almost exactly the same way, you just need to make sure the shortcut (or alias) gets into the right location.

Follow the steps provided below and you’ll be uploading to your Flickr account in no time.

Windows XP

After installing the Flickr Uploadr, you need a copy of the shortcut to it. You can either create one by right clicking the Flickr Uploadr in the Program Files folder, or copy the shortcut if it made one on your desktop.

Place the shortcut in the following folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Export Actions

Now simply go into Lightroom and when you highlight an image (or multiple images) and click EXPORT, you will have a brand new option in the Post Processing portion of the Export dialog box.

You can select it and when you finalize the export, Flickr Uploadr will launch and automagically bring in that set of pictures for you – ready to be uploaded to your Flickr account.

Mac OSX

Find your installation of the Flickr Uploadr (should be in the Applications folder) and make an alias of it. Take this alias and move it to the following folder:

Users > [YOUR USERNAME] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Lightroom > Export Action

Now, just like above, when you go to the EXPORT option in Adobe Lightroom, one of your post-processing options is “Flickr Uploadr”.

Many of the photographers I speak to utilize some sort of software to help them keep their photographs organized. One of the best software packages out there to help you do this is Adobe Lightroom. Still, even the best software needs guidance, and when you come back from a shoot with 100 or 1,000 images – you’re always faced with the inevitable task of sorting through your shots for the keepers.

A great system for helping you wade through this process is built right into Lightroom. It’s a system which they call PUX. The essence of PUX is to use flags to get the job done.

The ‘P’ key sets the flag to Pick. Those are keepers. The ‘X’ key set it to Rejected, and those ones are sequestered. Once all of your pictures are sorted through, you can then revisit your rejected (X’ed) pictures and use the ‘U’ key to remove the flag for re-assessment. This is nice because you don’t have to worry too much on your first run through… and you can leave the decision making to your initial gut reaction.

The PUX system makes it much quicker and user friendly when you’ve got a lot of pictures to catalog. It’s an intuitive way of thinking when deciding which ones stay… and which go. The process can be streamlined even further by filtering, and Pix Veritas goes into detail about how to do just that. [Link] (via Gene)

There are a ton of photo browsers on the market these days. Some have some pretty unique editing features (like DxO Optics Pro) and some are more standard (Picasa, Lightroom, Aperture). Every camera company usually bundles a photo browser and editor with their cameras (Nikon’s PictureProject, Canon’s ImageBrowser) as well as RAW editors. It’s easy to feel that Pictomio may get lost in the shuffle amongst all these competing packages.

Pictomio, however, is a photo browser whose main difference is that it uses your 3D graphics video card to accelerate your viewing and display your slideshows. You need to have a video card with at least 128mb of RAM onboard to use the software (which, incidentally, is free). The other thing that sets Pictomio apart is the ability to edit you EXIF data… a function usually reserved for third party software specifically built for that purpose.

The downside to all this is that Pictomio is (currently) only available for Windows XP/Vista and does not recognize RAW files. It’s a great choice for someone who is fed up with their current software and wants to get more creative with slideshows or displaying pictures.

Visit the Pictomio website for more, or to download the free software.