Numerous Way Of Shooting

The ultimate battle ensues for the top drawer in my toolbox: presets versus actions. What’s the difference and what are the pros and cons according to Elizabeth?

First the basics: Presets are Lightroom’s way of applying many changes to a photo in one click. They can be made by you for a way in which you commonly treat a photo and would like to apply your own recipe in one click. Alternatively, they can be the recipes of other photographers which you purchase from them as .lrtemplate files to import into your lightroom catalogue of presets. Even better, some photographers give their presets away for free! Keep reading for those.

Photoshop’s one-click version are called actions and they work in the same way. Scroll through the effect names, choose one and click. You then see your photograph go through a makeover in a split-second. Again, you can record your own action sequences or buy them as .atn files from other photographers.

I prefer LR presets. I’m a control freak (big time) and I want to have complete, effortless control over every last pixel of my work. I appreciate the foundation that presets can lay in my editing process, but I never click once and move on. I always then play with the sliders to make every last element of my photo exactly what I want it to be. With actions, I feel that I lose control and unless the one click produces exactly what I had in mind (it never does), I don’t prefer to use them. The few times I’ve used actions, they always end up being from Florabella because she makes them work with a variety of layers which you can then tweak. But still, I don’t feel that I have enough control.

So what actions/presets do I love? My first love came from the ‘Lightroom Killer Tips’ website. Matt gives utterly amazing LR tutorials and gives his presets away for free. He even invented a preset extractor program which extracts LR setting from photos on Flickr and that is free as well. Genius! For actions, I use Florabella. She is the love of my textures life and also makes smashing actions. Another place for free actions and presets is CoffeeShop. For presets, my loves are Rebecca Lily and One Willow’s ‘Retro Candy’ presets with delicious names like ‘cotton candy’.

Keep in mind that most presets are created to work on RAW files, so if you’re not shooting in RAW yet, look into starting that before using presets. If you’re not sure about RAW vs JPEG, read this.

Which method do you prefer? Who are your favourites?

Popularity: 6%

Today, we will review a photo that have handles a difficulty that everyone with go over : Low Light photos and motion.
Well, let’s say it right away, this subject depends a lot of your camera. Some cameras are able to handle correctly low light situation and short shuttle speed, some other no. We will review all the camera variables that makes it easier or harder.

Location
This photo has been taken at a Tango Event : Festival of Tango 2008 : Princeton. The cool thing with being a photograph is that you are invited to many cool events.
The event took place in many close rooms with low lights. In order to preserve the romantic and sensual aspect of tango, lights where especially low.

Situation
Well, I was warned before though. But I never though that I would have been that low. So, a flash (and many extra batteries) is necessary.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t authorized to use the flash in the direct light mode. I had to bounce it on the wall or something like this.
But, the ceiling was too too too high so that the light coming back from it was to low….What a day!
Finally, I was authorized to use the little card of the flash to get some more lights while it is bouncing on the ceiling.
Another difficulty is that people were meant to move (they are dancing ) a lot. I had to adjust my shuttle in consequence.
So now, the only way that I can have a good photo was to play with the ISO. Here is the tricking thing : If put a high ISO, you can have a short shuttle speed (catch motion) but you might have some noise.
The dominant noise in the lighter parts of an image from an image sensor is typically that caused by statistical quantum fluctuations, that is, variation in the number of photons sensed at a given exposure level; this noise is known as photon shot noise.
You understood it, the quantity of noise depends on the sensor that you have, hence the camera.
Test you camera on different situation, and you will be able to know its sweet point. My camera was a k10 D, Pentax and its sweet point was ISO 800.
I also increased the intensity of the flash and put a diffuser (sometime) and a bracket.

PostProcessing
The post processing part of this photo was very important : Noise reduction programs are essentials. With that, I used some sharpening and some sepia effect.

Critic
This photo leads the viewer to the couple. THe wide space around them makes it easier to spot the jump.
The colors puts the viewer in a genuine atmosphere of Tango.

Your comments are welcomed.

Popularity: 6%

For some reason, just about everyone I know, from mail man to my cleaning lady, thinks he or she could and SHOULD do my job (Photography is not an art for them … ). I’m okay with that, but if people are going to go pro, I want to give them some tips to make sure they start out on the right path :

1. Have a plan.

If you start ANY business without a business plan, it’s bound to fail. Business planning is an art. And you may want to consider doing a formal, extensive business plan. But at least have a marketing plan or a road map of some kind. If you don’t have a plan, you won’t be able to gauge your progress.

2. Have a style or a vision.
What makes you unique or sets you apart is all that you really have for sale in the competitive world of professional photography.

Be a marketer first and a photographer second.
The truth is, if you’re going to be successful, you need to budget 80% or more of your time for marketing and sales and the rest for the actual work of making photos.

Start small.
If you can work at another job while launching your pro career do it. Any business, let alone a competitive one like photography, has a tough time getting those first customers and profits in the doors. Give yourself a cushion. Don’t quit your day job right away. Or, have some savings you can live on for at least a full year before depending on photography as your primary income source.

Do it right.
Be sure to get all the required licenses and tax permits issued by your city, county and state. It would also be a good time to work with an accountant and/or attorney to set up a legal business structure. Lastly, get insurance for your new business and your gear. Your old homeowner’s policy won’t cut it any more.

I could add 400 more items to this list and just scratch the surface. But everyone has to start somewhere. Hopefully these five points will get you thinking about the other things you need to do to succeed as a professional photographer.

Popularity: 7%

Hello everyone,

Along with all the books that I have and along with my experience, here are a collection of illustrated composition tips that you should try. Still they are not rules but guidelines that, I hope, will help you to have the necessary bases to ignore them. Read them, appreciate them, try them and you will definitely have better photos. Depending on the shot, your composition is 80 % of your job.

1. Who or What is the Subject? Be clear about it

Choose your subject and be clear about it. Is it the two people or the building ?

2. Draw Attention to your subject

Here for example, I used lines, color and the 3rd rule to draw the attention toward the couple. You can use light, color, blur, motion blur, 3rd rules ……. what ever works. This can be done by simply getting closer, by using selective focus, by using color, by lighting just the subject, by framing the subject in a doorway or window, etc.

3. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

The more simple, the better it is. You may have heard this tip before, but I think we never insist enough. It is true that sometime we can’t do more simple, but try to make it clean, without anything that might put your photo onto the snapshot stack.
Here, as you can see, we have just the see, the surfer and its instrument.

4. Check your negative space

When composing a piece of artwork, we generally work with three elements: the frame, the positive space, and the negative space (also called white space). The frame is the bounding size of the artwork, the positive space is the subject, and the negative space is the empty space around the subject. The more you put, the more emphasis you put on the smallness of the subject. If you put too much, we loose the subject.

5. Fill the Frame

Time and time again I’m approached by people to look at their photos and time and time again I’m amazed that people continue to take shots where you almost have to squint to make out their subjects because they are so distant.
While empty spaces can be used effectively in photos to create stunning results (we’ll cover this in a future tip) you’re much more likely to get a ‘wow’ from those looking at your photos if your shots are filled with interest.

6. Check the Edges of a frame

In order to do more and more simple and to remove everything that may distract the eye, check the edges of your photo. Do take anything that you thing that is unnecessary.
In this photo I removed the street and the people.

7. Check for Intruders

Reduce the elements is a way to make it more simple. Don’t hesitate to trash out. If you are not working in a Studio, it might be difficult to remove a building only for the shot . But you can always blur out some parts or don’t take at all, or even post process it in you favorite dark room software.

8. Creativity by the POV – Point of View

Try different POV. For example don’t just take a flower from the top, but try to knee down and take it horizontally from the same level.

9. Use the rule of a third

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. This ration respects is based on the golden ration.

10. Portraits : Keep the eyes sharp

In a portrait, the most important parts are the eyes. Keep them as sharp as you can.

11. Strive for balance

I am not only talking about symmetry. Balance reaches a wild range of variables like color, weight of objects, dispositions, focus, light, … Trust your feeling for that. Is red heavier that green ? Yes, of course.
Don’t forget that the eyes first attracted by the heavy and light parts of your work of art.

12. Lead the eyes

In your mind, try to make a path for the reader eyes. Entry point, second point, and leaving point.

13. Add some depth

Play with light, lignes and colors to add some depth to the photo.

14. Try to shoot vertically

Try different positions.

15. Use patterns

Patterns can also be a subject.

16. Use Lines

The lines that can be found in images are very powerful elements that with a little practice can add dynamic impact to a photograph in terms of mood as well as how they lead an image’s viewer into a photo.

17. Right before you make the photo take a second, look up, look down, look all around and make sure there’s nothing you’re missing.

Conclusion
Anyone who has an interest in improving their pictures would do well to go through this section and use the tips and hints it contains in their photography to see if their pictures improve.

By religiously observing the principles of composition, they will become firmly cemented in your mind. Employing them will become second nature to you. If you don’t find there is an improvement in your pictures and people aren’t commenting on how great they look, we will be greatly surprised.

Once you have the rules of composition down pat, experiment and break a rule here or there when you feel the image will work better without it. That’s called individual style, and the creativity that stems from it produces some great images. The point is that you will know when to break a rule of composition once you know what the rules are and how they work.

Popularity: 30%

I wanted to talk a little about a different kind of exposure for your photography, the kind that results in more people seeing your work. I have had a lot of people ask how to get their photos seen and many believe that simply posting photos to a site like Flickr is all they need to do.

If you are taking the time to create something, I think it is important that you also make the effort to have it seen. It will help you grow as an artist and may lead to new opportunities you didn’t expect.

Here are some tips I recommend for getting your photos out to a wider audience

• Find a website where to show your work :
  You can opt for a personnal website, a gallery or even a shop. I have seen more and more blogs pop up that post a variety of content, including art… all of those sites are a great place to submit your photos to. If you specialize in a certain type of photography (landscapes, portraits, macro, whatever), do a little searching on the web to try and find websites that might want to use those types of photos. They probably won’t pay for the images, but you’ll get credit for the work and you will probably get a link back to your gallery or website.
  http://salim.elakoui.nway.org is an example of that.
  http://www.nway.org also.
• Make your photos useful :
  Try and think of creative uses for your photos that will increase their value (and potential views) beyond just showing them in a gallery. I know others who take and share photos specifically to be used as textures.
  Images can be made useful in a variety of ways. Figure out the one that works best for your work and you can bet that it will bring in a whole new audience to your photography.
• Business cards for your website :
  When photography comes up in conversation, I will usually mention that I have a website where people can view my work and give them a card printed from Moo.com. It doesn’t have to be a traditional “business card”… usually mine are just a photo on one side with my name, website and contact info on the back. Any type of business card will work, as long as it has your site’s URL included. People are much more likely to remember to check out your stuff if they have a card, so remember to carry a few with you when you can.
• Social networking :
  It probably goes without saying, but using services like Twitter and Facebook to show your work is an extremely effective way to expose more people to your work. I generally make a post on Twitter during a shoot and then I will put up another message when those finished photos are uploaded. It’s a great way to let people know what you are working on and where they can see it… it is also a nice way to attract new viewers to your photos.

Popularity: 51%

It has been a long time since I didn’t post a photo. Here come the time to make it up to you. This photo represents a type of portrait that anyone can do. No fancy lightening, or expensive gears are required, here is how.

Location
During one of my hikes in paris, I went to les “Butes de montmartres”. It is famous in paris. Located in the quartier’s oldest house, the Musée de Montmartre guides visitors through the neighborhood’s history, embellishing local stories with drawings, letters, and relics. The house was built for an actor in Molière’s company, Roze de Rosimond, who, like Molière bizarrely enough, died onstage during a performance of Le Malade Imaginaire. Painters Raoul Dufy, Auguste Renoir, Maurice Utrillo, and conductor Gustave Charpentier also called the place home; the museum hosts their original work and personal relics in an upper room.
You can witness one of the most prestigious view of Paris. But this time, the subject was an artiste that was posing in the street. He was wearing old fashion clothes on a classic background. I have waited until the sun get on this left and took this shot.

Situation
Why waiting that much? I wanted to have a side lightning, harsh but no too much. Here is the main ingredient to a low key portrait.
When we read how to make high key and low key portraits, the instructions tend to say: “For high key, have the model in light colors in a light tone area and overexpose. For low key, use dark colors in a dark setting and underexpose.” These conditions are fine when working under highly controlled studio conditions, but this can be a bit intimidating for the amateur working in his or her living room.
The aim here is to emphasize a part of a subject and keeping the rest in the dark. Post processing is more than important.

Post Processing
This step is really important. I selected dark tones and I make them even darker. Then the background became really dark.
I selected high tones and I let them unchanged while I reduced the mid tones.

Critics
Without pending anymore, the subject fits the message that I wanted to broadcast. A holy person meditating is standing, posing and give us some creeps down our back.

Any comment is welcomed.

Popularity: 42%

Posting photos in microstock agencies is quiet different from the photos that you deliver for a wedding job or so. Some microstock websites have very strict standards when it comes to image quality.

Here are some tips that you take as rules taken from these agencies :

1. Look at your image up close. It’s very important that you take a really close look at your photos during the editing process. Zoom in to 100%, and sometimes even 200% and scroll around the image to look for things like artifacting, chromatic aberration, noise, sensor spots, etc. Image inspectors will do this as they check your images, so it’s important to make sure that you clean up the photo as much as possible before uploading.
2. Check your focus. Proper focus is really important with commercial stock photography. If you are photographing people or animals then you want to be sure that the focus is on the eyes. You also want to make sure that you have a clear focus point in your image, regardless of the subject. If your focus is slightly off but is not extremely blurry, sometimes it’s acceptable to down-size the photo before submitting to the microstock site.
3. Don’t over-sharpen. If you need to do any sharpening, do it selectively to areas of the image that really matter. Adding too much sharpening to your image is a surefire way to get a rejection, since over-sharpening can cause unwanted artifacts and haloing in your image.
4. Watch out for chromatic aberration (CA). Chromatic aberration, also known as “purple fringing”, is usually going to show up in areas of the photo where there is a lot of contrast. You will want to scan the edges of items in your photos and look for discolorations. It’s not always going to be purple-colored; sometimes it is cyan, or even red. If you have a small amount in your image it is usually pretty easy to eliminate (here’s a link to a video tutorial to show you how).
5. Don’t over-process. It’s okay, and expected, that you will need to do some processing (like levels, curves, HSL) to your images, but don’t push the processing too much. There is no solid rule on how much to do (or not to do) you really just need to pay attention to the image as you are making changes to be sure that you aren’t taking away too much detail. With tonal adjustments you need to be sure you aren’t clipping your whites and blacks, and with color changes (especially with the saturation slider) watch the color to see if it starts getting “neon” looking or blocky; if it is then you need to tone it down a bit.
6. Cropping is okay … but don’t over-do it. It’s important to remember that a lot of the customers of microstock sites are designers, and oftentimes they like to have some copy-space surrounding the subject of an image. If you crop too tight then it can limit the image’s use, but it doesn’t hurt to crop a little bit. Ultimately you need to find the balance between cropping so that the image looks good, and leaving enough room for a prospective designer to use in many different ways.
7. Keep it simple. Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, along with many other software applications have a lot of great plug-ins and filters that really do amazing things to images. The thing is, when you are selling microstock you want to provide a nice, neat, clean image to your customers. There are some exceptions to this, but in general you don’t want to play around with wild filters and plugins for the images that you upload to be used as microstock.
8. Noise reduction. It’s okay to use noise-reduction software on your images, but, once again, don’t push it too far. Over-using noise reduction can make the image look “mushy”. It’s best if your images are already shot at a low ISO to begin with (like ISO 100 or 200), but if not and the image is worth saving then apply the noise reduction on a separate (duplicate) layer and reduce the opacity.
9. Clone out logos. Logos and trademarked shapes are a big “no-no” with microstock photography. It’s important that if they are in the image that they are removed. It’s best to try to limit and control the appearance of them as you are taking the photo, but sometimes it’s impossible to keep them out, or you don’t notice they are there in the first place. Just be sure to check over your image and clone out as much as possible.
10. Save your JPEGs at the highest quality setting. When you are editing your images, make sure that you try to only save the JPEG one time, and always save it at the highest quality possible (level “12″ in Photoshop). Re-opening and saving a JPEG over and over will compress the image and degrade the quality by introducing artifacts to the image, so do your best to only edit it one time and be done with it.

Popularity: 39%

Hello,

In the long post, I will present you a professional workflow. I don’t want you to see it as the best way to work, but as a solid and reliable model that will allow you to get along with any photographic project (professional or not). Remember that tools are just a way to make our life easier, 60% of your work stays behind your viewfinder.

Tools :
My working tools are :

• Lightroom 2.5
• Photoshop CS 4 (It had cost me an arm though)
• Mac Book Pro with 4 Go of RAM

I have written another post about softwares. Remember though that having a 4 Go of RAM is important! Photos are digital medias that can weight until 4 Go each! (Cases of panorama). If you don’t want your computer to die, increase the RAM first.

Static Folders organization :
Let’s explain the structure of my folders :

• [Year] (ex : 2008)
  • [Year][Month][Day] [Title] – [Place] (ex : 20080302 Wedding of Janne – Paris) : It can contain other folders formatted the same way or photos (but not both)
• Just Imported : It can contain only photos
• Other
  • [XXX] (ex : anything)

I choose to organize my whole library as bellow in order to be sure that any photo could be in only one location. I put the date first so that It will be sorted the right way.
Be careful with the use of the folder Other. It has to stay exceptional.

The rating :
Let’s put some words on the stars :

1. star : The photo is awful, but I need to keep it for some reason.
2. stars : The photo is good but has some problems (not perfect focus, multiple subjects … ). I need to keep it because it has some value for me. This rating may describe also a personal photo that shouldn’t be published.
3. stars : The photo is good but still is a snapshot. It can be published on social medias but is not as work of art. Generally, it is a photo of people.
4. stars : This photo is a work of art and can published on the website, www.nway.org as well as on any social website.
5. stars : This photo is amazing and need to be captioned before posting. It is an awesome photo that makes me feel proud.

These ratings describe the quality of the photo, nothing else. I have chosen to separate the law point of view from the quality one.

The color labels :

• Red : The photo should not be published, on any media. Either I don’t have the right to do so, nor the willing. Red photos can skip any rating because they are just not photos to treat. (ex : They can be iphone photos or friends one)
• Yellow : The photo is good but I still need some permissions to publish it. For example, I still need to ask people if they allow me to publish it. The photo can be published on private social medias though.
• Green: The photo is allowed to be published anywhere.  All allowances (trends, monuments, people) are cleared.
• Blue : The photo still need to be post processed. It is a temporary category.

Be careful to make it good. It will avoid you a lot of issues. You don’t want someone saying to you that you posted a photo without his/her authorization ! I store every release model in a folder having the same path (but a different root). THe name of the last folder is the same of the concerned photo.  Indeed, a photo can gather more than one release model.

Picked flag :

• Picked : The photo has been treated fully.
• Rejected : The photo has to be deleted
• Not picked : The photo has to be treated.

This characteristic is the one that will allow the photo to be part of my process. It indicates the processing state.

Filenaming templates :

My requirement is that any photo have to be identified by a unique name.
All the files are named like this : se-YYYYMMDD-NUMBER.EXT. You can create your own naming templates in the import dialog.

Most of the time, the extension is PEF. Only some photos, taken during personal events, are JPG or PNG.

Metadata presets :

• “Mine” Metadata Preset : It is a preset that is filling the copyright areas of the photo with the right values. “Salim Elakoui Copyright … “
• “Not Mine” Metadata Preset : It is a preset that is filling the copyright areas of the photo with the right values. ” …”
• “Location Unknown” : It is a preset that is filling the location variables with “unknown”

All these presets fill the location and the title with NONE so that I can filter them after. They may explain the word none that appears sometime in my photos.

Export Presets :

You can customize as much as you want. These are mine

• Nway : Didicated to nway.org – Special file naming – No watermark – medium quality
• Stock : Didicated to Stock photos : No watermark – high quality
• Facebook : Didcated to facebook (I am still using the old fashion way to upload photos on facebook) – With watermark, low quality

Filtering preference :

• To Process : Not rejected, and not red flagged
• Good photos : Not rejected, not red flagged and rating greater or equal to 4

Developing presets :

You can have any preset. For me thee presets are a way of playing with creativity. Indeed, you just need to hover your mouse on to see its output (on the top left of the screen). So keep them organized.

My Collections :

Collections are an amazing way to get really organized.

• To Complete :
  • To Caption : Picked, Not red, No caption, but rating equal to 5
  • To Locate : Picked, Not red, No Location
  • To Process : Not picked or  blue or …
  • To Rate : Picked, Not red, No rating
  • To title : Picked, Not red, Rating greater or equal to 5, no title
• Online
  • Facebook : Picked, not red, not blue, not with the keyword “online_facebook “
  • Nway : The same but we play with the keyword “online_nway”
• …

My workflow :

• Importing all the photos with the right naming conventions, developing preset (Sharpening , lenses correction) , Metadata presents and keywords in Just Imported.
• Create related folders and move them. They color label is set as Blue.
• I activate the Filtering preference “To Process”
• First Pass is to reject any very bad photos and put the red label on the ones that I don’t want to treat.
• Second Pass (without the one that I treated in the last step), rate them, stack them
• I activate the “Good photos” filtering presets
• Third Pass, On every photo, I crop them, I apply the right developping preset, I gather them in a panorama / HDR, I do some specific correction, I treat them in photoshop, …. as needed
• I activate the Filtering preference “To Process”
• I put a color label on them and I set them as picked
• I go into the collection “To title” and I complete the keywords first and then I title them
• I go into the collection “Online”, I send them online and I put the corresponding keyword

Rules :

• You only set a photo as picked when you finished with it
• When you move photos or delay the processing, label it with blue
• Be really careful with the color label, it will avoid you a lot of problems (Believe me)
• Don’t over process a photo

Conclusion :

As you may see, this workflow is strict but flexible. It covers all the range of possibilities. No matter what, I stick to it. It has been working for 2 years now. Now, you can modify it as much as you want, but as soon as you have it written, stick to it.

Your comments are welcomed.

Popularity: 100%

Let’s make it original. My purpose is to show you what you can do with your camera, in a common situation. What’s more common in taking the train hun?

Location
The train station of Grant Central is one of the most whopping one of New York. A regular day come with taking the train to New York. Don’t ever thing to make through all the traffic jam! The train remains the easiest way to get in the heart of the city.

Situation
In a train station, and especially in this one, millions of people get through a “main” hall which leads to the trains. A good opportunity to take a photo! Well, but how to express that feeling ? The idea is to catch the motion of a lot of people while some are immobile.
Indoor photos are difficult to made because of the low light. This time we will take advantage of it. Indeed, if you want to express motion, automatically thing about a long shutter speed. A long shutter speed with allow you to get these tracks of people, as if they were ghosts. Since the world is getting crazy about terrorism, using a tripod is not recommended, neither the flash. Well, don’t make me say that you should be desecrate. So find a steady spot to put your camera on and here you go.
The last and obviously not the least point, is to find immobile people. They have to be still enough to appear in focus during all the pose.  I must admit that I had to take dozens of shots in order to get this effect.
This shot has no more secret for you now.

Post Processing
I just put some more sharpening in the middle and a little bit more contrast.

Critics
This photo expresses clearly its thoughts. You enter from the people in motion at the bottom left side and you leave the frame with the immobile people. The atmosphere is neutral and spark a sensation of dejà-vu in people. Stop the time to look around you, and you will notice that.

Your comments are welcomed.

Popularity: 42%

Some of the hardest questions I get asked about, as far as equipment goes, deal with computer hardware and software.  ”Which should I use? Do I need the best? Mac vs. PC? Aperture or Lightroom?  Do I really need Photoshop? etc…”

You will be disappointed , but I don’t have the answer to that question. It depends on :

• Your needs
• Your motivation
• Your money
• Your taste

However, I will lead you towards the right choice for you. So today we’ll look at the basics. I am not going to list all the software that photographers are using. It is just a little breakthrough of the most famous ones.

It is very nice to have a very fast machine with a truckload of memory and an thermo -nuclear plant to power it. Don’t you think that your gear cost you enough? I know that you want the best machine but do you really need the best?

If you’re a professional photographer you really do need top of the line equipment.  It doesn’t have to be the last Mac Book super thin, but it does need to be fast enough to keep you away from the desk and do what you have to do; marketing and photographing.

If you’re an amateur or semi-pro you really only need basic hardware.  You’ll want something that’s fast enough for fast loading and fast processing of your images with enough storage space for your image files.  Keep it simple, but fast enough.

The notion of “fast enough” depends also on the software that you are using. But most of the case, I will recommend to have at least :
Simple core at 3 GHz

• 4 Go of RAM
• 200 go of Storage
• An external hard drive  of 200 Go at least (very important for backups)
• A 15′ screen (too small is really annoying)
• Memory card reader
• An external mouse (for laptops)

I would like stress on the fact that having a lot of memory is important since you are processing photos from DSLR, which are quite heavy.

Mac or PC?

We can debate this until cow can fly.  Most often I’ll argue that you’ll want a Mac.  Apple has done a really good job of creating a computer that crashes less often, has less viruses/malware/spyware to worry about and deal with, and seem to last longer.  This equals less time in front of your computer and more time doing what photographers do.
This is from my experience, nothing more. I don’t have any stock option of apple.
Still, windows can do just fine. Windows has almost the same software as Mac. But it did the choice to use a PC, or if you are using a PC right now, put a serious stress on backing up data.

Aperture or Lightroom?

If you made the choice to use a PC, you wont have the choice. Since aperture is Mac only, you will have to use Lightroom or similar (Capture One is a nice one).
To tell you the truth, I was using aperture some while ago. I used it until I realize that, as much as you feed your computer with memory and processors, Aperture manage to take it all, making it slow again. Maybe it has changed now, or maybe I had a too big library, but It was too much for me…Now I am using Lightroom, faster but more complicated.
You heard me right, I admit that it is a little bit complicated to use, but as soon as you learned the basic shortcuts, it becomes really simple and FAST !!! I have something like 30 000 photos, and it is still doing fine.
So Lightroom or Aperture, once you make the choice, stick to it, because the migration between these two ones is a real stick in the neck.

Do you still need Photoshop?

It all depends on your needs. If you are a professional photographer or an amateur that would like to explore all the ways to improve his art, I would say yes.
Remember that this product cost an arm. Besides the fast that It will take you time to know how to use it, It take quite a long time to treat all your photos. Furthermore, your computer will suffer as much a shacked bottle of champagne.
Photoshop is a well integrated to Lightroom. Use two click or a short cut to edit your photo on it. Panoramas and HDR picture are just one click away.
Considering aperture, you will have to do some more manipulations.

Conclusion

I will conclude that you should listen to your … not your heart .. but to your wallet and agenda. I will explain in next posts my usage of Lightroom and Photoshop. By the way, I have :

• Mac book pro : Core 2 Duo 2.14
• 4 Go of Ram
• Leopard Snow
• 250 Go of HD
• 250 Go of External Storage
• Lightroom with some plugins (next post let’s keep the suspense)
• Photoshop with some plugins (next post let’s keep the suspense)

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