How to Optimize Lightroom Classic for the Best Performance

One of the consequences of reviewing computers for PetaPixel and running benchmark after benchmark is that you learn a thing or two about working in Lightroom. From weird quirks to the optimal performance settings for import, export, and editing, there are a few key changes you can make to coax a little more speed out of Adobe's Raw editor.

My Visits with Ansel Adams

In the 1970s, I was seriously pursuing my hobby of black and white landscape photography with a 4x5 view camera. My prints were being sold by the Image Gallery in Palo Alto and the Focus Gallery in San Francisco and by me at occasional street fairs. Selling prints never generated much money, but I appreciated the acknowledgment of my work.

A Water Bell System for High-Speed Photography

Each year I update experiments in the collection of the High-Speed photography lab at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). One of this year’s additions is an air-powered water bell.

Regarding Photographs: Reading Photos I

This is the third essay in this series, and it begins a smaller sequence of notes running over the ways we as viewers make sense of pictures. We spend, I think, too much time thinking about what happens before and during the making of a picture, but not enough on what happens when someone actually looks at it. For most of us, for most pictures, surely this is the most interesting time?

Overcoming My Harshest Critic: Self Sufficient to a Fault

We were several weeks into the lockdown. My optimistic attitude told me that it was the perfect time to write a book. Commercial shoots canceled, personal engagements canceled, nothing but time at home for the foreseeable future. How hard could it be?

Photographer Catches Magical Sunset Proposal… But it Was a Posed Shot

Photographer Denise Cottin accidentally captured a magical moment. On the left side of the picture was a man on bended knee, proposing to his partner. The couple was perched on the top of high rocks in silhouette against a pink sky that was dissolving into yellow with the waves in the foreground catching the golden sunset's glancing rays of light.

Apple ProRAW Review: The Best Way to Shoot RAW on an iPhone

Earlier today, Apple officially released Apple ProRAW via iOS 14.3. This new hybrid image format claims to give you the best of both worlds: AI-powered computational photography on the one hand, and the flexibility of a 12-bit RAW file on the other. But does it deliver the goods? In a word: yes.

Apple’s Highly-Anticipated ProRAW is Now Available

Apple's combination of RAW and computational photography into a single DNG file that it calls ProRAW is now available for the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max with iOS version 14.3.

When Bokeh Isn’t Best: Appreciating a Deeper Depth of Field

Recently, the more I study my photographs, the more I feel that bokeh is cheating me out of a more substantial image. I really like photographs with a lot of visual complexity -- well presented, not chaotic, but a clear arrangement of multiple elements.

The Tilt-O-Matic is a 3D-Printed Tilt-Shift Adapter

I’ve been making tilt-shift lenses for a while now, and they’re a bunch of fun to make and shoot with. I don’t think I need to sell you on the creative possibilities of this type of photography and videography.