Where is the mobile photography workflow?

On my Workstation at home I use Adobe LightRoom for all my post-production editing.  Ideally it would be great if I could work away from home on my photos without adjusting my current workflow.  The choices are simple.  I could either go for a full fledged version of LightRoom running on a PC or Mac Laptop or a Android or iPad tablet with an equivalent application like adobe Revel.  

Hardware

When it comes down to deciding on hardware the first deliberation is weight vs cost.

Device	Type	weight	Cost
iPad 2 - Wifi 32GB	Tablet	613g	£479
Asus Transforme Prime 32GB	Tablet	586g (Tablet only) 1123g (with Keyboard Dock)	£495
MacBook Air 11" 64GB	Laptop	1008g	£849
Asus ZenBook 11" 128GB	Laptop	1100g	£849

So as we can see with the laptops you are doubling the price and the weight.  On the plus side you are getting a powerful machine and get to use a full copy of Adobe LightRoom.

Tablet Software
While tablets are becoming widely available there is still a noticeable difference in the quality of applications when compared to the former laptop.  While Adobe's Photoshop Touch offers nice functions and features it still has limitations in photo resolution and format that would not make it part of a workflow.  Adobe Revel (Formerly Adobe Carousel) is currently only available for Apple products and is the first table app that I have seriously looked at.  The first thing that caught my eye was its LightRoom photo processing capabilities, integration and unlimited cloud storage.  This however is not a cheap option with a monthly fee of $5.99 (annual $71.88).  Other aspects that disappointed me about this software was its current lack of support for RAW files and its inability to transfer images from a cameras memory card to an iPad.  This means that if on a shoot I would have to wait until I accessed a workstation before I could manipulate the images on the table.   There may be a way around this by using a multi-card reader adaptor and would need testing, but this is a large oversight from Adobe as I would want to be able to start my work on a tablet straight away.

If I was Adobe...
It was with this thought I came up with my ideal photo workflow app for a tablets. Lets call it "LightRoom Mobile"
The main aim of the app would be to process the first steps in my post shoot workflow like the catalogue, flagging, rating and then basic processing of white balance, exposure, saturation. These processes do not require large CPU power and I don't expect a tablet to do everything that LightRoom does.  So far this is exactly what is available with Adobe Revel and what I love about software. But lets look at what it lacks in upload and RAW support.
The main question I asked myself was this. "Do I need to work on RAW images?"  "I do" I thought as I want the best available quality on all of my photos. After some thought I rephrased the question. Do I need to start my workflow with RAW images"  and for this the answer is "No".  
Let me give you a scenario for example. Lets say you are out and have a wi-fi enable camera or maybe an eye-fi SD card. With my Nikon D7000 I have two memory card slots and can shoot in RAW+Jpg and send all jpg images to an eye-fi card where they would be instantly transfer on to a tablet device while the large RAW images remain on the camera. After the shoot I could pick up the tablet and instantly view, catalogue, flag, rate the photographs using only the jpeg files. I could also start to crop, white balance, exposure and maybe a few other tweaks that the tablet CPU and jpeg files can manage.
Now I have edited all my jpg and completed half of my workflow for that project/assignment; Hurray! But wait!! I don't want to do this all over again with the RAW files. What if the application enabled me to  sync all the amendment that was made to the duplicate jpg's on the tablet with the RAW images from the camera once uploaded to a PC/Mac. I would then have all my RAW files calalouged, cropped and edited and ready to continue the remainder of my workflow on a PC with the grunt for the retouch work.

The waiting game
With this all off my chest all I can do is wait for light laptops to become cheaper or Adobe to make the tablet app of my dreams.  Until then I would like to know what you think and if you use laptops or tablets in your editing workflow.

G+ is a good grade to social media

G+ is a good grade to social media

What can I say; I am a Googler.  Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar, Google reader, android, you get the picture.  I was quite excited and apprehensive when last year an early invite landed in my mailbox from a friend to try the newly hyped service of Google+. My apprehension came from Google previous attempt at social networking; Buzz.  This was Google’s bland attempt to get in on twitter styled status update service, which was dull, lifeless and has since crashed and burned.

With my G+ invite a click away I moved my trackball and began.  I was instantly faced with a stream of media trickling down the middle of my screen from random strangers as well as my one and only friend (on G+. I do have more than one in real life)..  “Oh” I thought “This is not much of a threat to Facebook”  I played with a few of its early basic features, read some posts, watched some animated gifts of people getting hurt,then got bored and went back to Facebook to see what my friends were doing.

Over the next few months I would remember on occasions that I has this new social network at my disposal and would occasionally dip my toes back in through technical curiosity.  I’d see a few new people I knew (see! more than one friend), checked some posts in the endless thread and then went back to Facebook.  The need for this site was growing less and less as I could not see any use for what the media dubbed a a Facebook alternative.  I then came across a blog talking about Google+ Features and how powerful it’s search function is. “Search... hmmmm, this is something Google knows about”  I pondered. With the motivation of nothing better to do and slight intrigue I therefore logged in. and searched on a single word that interested me; Photography.  Bam!  Reams and reams of wonderful photos from professional and amateur photographers alike.  The more I read the more I was adding people to my newly created circle of acquaintances, (to class them as friends at this point seems to be a bit desperate). Without any additional motivation I became an active member to the G+ community.  I found a subject I loved and a stream of people who also shared in my passion.  As I floated down the stream I would come across amazing photographers combined with vibrant discussions and insightful articles that kept me wanting more.  No offence to anyone but this was a far cry from my Facebook friend posting a picture of his full English breakfast. As you have probably gathered by now I am a photography nut. I love learning new styles, technology, what people are doing, how they do it, the whole kit and caboodle. I was officially hooked in to what G+ people had to say and was even inspired to participate more myself.

One day I remembered how I use to search the Internet jumping between different photography forums and blogs to learn what’s new or on how-to’s.  On these sites I would sometime register (if I could be arsed) and leave comments.  These would either go unanswered or sometimes get lost in a stream of chit chat from a close knit community. It suddenly dawned on me that Google+ was not trying to be the New Facebook as the media described it and was in fact being a dynamic cross of search, blog and forum.  The combination of searching on subject matter and picking and circling the interesting people from that search allows you to customise your view down to a very specific set of people.  It also enables you to fire off any questions you have to a selective set of people too.  I currently have have over one thousand people and around 20 circles.  The beauty of grouping people in circles is that it allows you to filter and group people through shared interests.  For example for photography I have one general circle containing everyone (over 1000 people), This same group of photographs is then grouped into smaller circles for landscape, portrait, wildlife photographers, and others.  For those photographers that I have found are geeks like me, I also add them into my geek circle so I can share with them when some new gadget is released.  A new feature since writing this blog as been a slide bar you can set to say how much priority each circles has in your general news feed.  With all this awe and praise to Google they do still need to look at better ways of streaming feeds. As you can tell with over a thousand people posting sometimes if you see and message and then lose it after scrolling it could be lost forever.

Wherever you go on this Internet there are nice people and there are douches, that is just the way it is.  I have found that in the world of Google+ I have managed to meet, or should I say select some very nice people.  Most of my activities on Google+ include checking out the latest eye candy (photo’s not women... OK sometimes the photo’s are of women) and +1 the ones I like (it is the equivalent to the Facebook Like button), leaving comments and questions to the photographer to get further insight in to how the shot was achieved.  I am also co-curating a weekly themed photo thread that works in the same way as twitter hash tagging.  This is another amazing addition to G+ that was ripped from the beating heart of Twitter.  So if you do decide to venture in then you can search on #StreeetArtSunday and say Hi.  I’m also throwing my own images on to Google Picasa so they can be shared and critiqued.  As someone who uploads photos’ a lot I have to mention how was amazed I was at the improvements Google introduced around Halloween to their photo service.  They call it the creative kit and it allowed a vast amount of adjustments and effects that has basic layering capabilities.  That’s right layers!!.  It is seriously a powerful free photo kit that should be checked out.

Some of these functions are nothing new in themselves and I have been a member of sites like Yahoo’s Flickr for a while.  While Flickr offers a rich bed of content and functions I have often found it like a gallery;  Lots of things to see, but very few people want to talk.  This is my opinion and I can admit that my own lack of inspiration to interact may have been to blame, but that is partly my point.  Google+ and its community have inspired me.  While the social side to Flickr, was one of nice and friendly yet sporadic comments and sometimes an elitist atmosphere. Since Google+ replenished my thirst for discussion I feel I owe it to Flickr to revisit its community and give it one more chance before any final judgement.

So; there you have it.  As I said at the begin this maybe a one sided argument for me, but if you take anything out of this is to realise that Facebook and Google+ have suprisingly different agendas and can be both used for your needs.  Facebook’s for who you like, Google+’s for what you like.

The Start of a Blogger

This is it.  I now have a blog site.  Now what???  To be honest I did not see and still have a slight sceptical view to the world of blogs, do people actually want to hear what drivels out of my brain on to a keyboard? 


So why? I hear you cry.  A good friend told me to; is the short answer.  If I want to be a photographer and get myself known then I need to start blogging, tweeting, Facebook and all that virtual social stuff.  This confused me and I wondered why I can't just put everything in one place?  To answer this I started from scratch and decided to see see what the oracle Wikipedia says about a blog.

A blog (a blend of the term web log)^[1] is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Fair dues; With this description, Facebook and all the other mob of social networks fall under this umbrella.


It was not until I had realised that most of my favourite technology, science, photography and news sites were effectively blogs.  This may be blatantly obvious to some, but a revelation in understanding for me.  It was with this in mind that I realised that I could contribute in my own way with a simple task of letting people behind the scene of my photography.


With everything social there has to be a code of conduct and for this site to get of the ground and for people to know where I'm coming from I will follow three golden rules I have set for myself.

• Be helpful
• Never hold back on what "drivels" out of my head.
• Have fun

With this precedent set let the blog begin.......