Google Map Lightroom Web Gallery

Now that Lightroom 4 is here geocoding is suddenly centre stage and images don't feel properly filed unless they have a set of co-ordinates attached to them.  Whilst LR4 offers many features that are needed to handle geocoding and maps, it is noticeable that the web module does not offer the facility to export these pictures in a map format.

As part of the redesign of my site I decide that it might be nice to create a photo gallery driven entirely from a Google map and produced from Lightroom.

For those who just want the goodies

• Click here for an example of a site generated using this plug-in
• Click here to download the web gallery as a zip file

`To install the web gallery

1. Extract the downloaded zip file.
   
2. Copy the archive contents to one of the following destinations, depending upon your system. If you have not already done so, you will must create the Web Galleries folder manually.
   
   Mac
   Users/username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Web Galleries/
   Windows XP
   C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Web Galleries\
   Windows Vista/7
   C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Web Galleries\
   In Windows XP, the “Application Data” directory is usually hidden. The same may apply to the AppData folder in Vista.
   
3. Open Adobe Lightroom and access the Web module. In the upper right, under “Engine”, you should seea new gallery called Shepherdpics Map.
   

For those who want to know how it works

To borrow some text from Joe Colson:

This information is intended for plug-in developers and those intrepid souls who want to understand what lies beneath the surface of a Lightroom gallery engine. It isn’t my intention to make this series of posts a definitive guide to Lightroom gallery engine design or anatomy. Instead, I’d recommend starting with the Lightroom SDK 2.0 Programmers Guide and Lightroom 2 SDK available from Adobe. The Adobe guide is a good starting point, but you can learn even more by dissecting an actual gallery engine, including those that are included in the SDK.

As per usual I am standing on the shoulders of giants here and in this case the whole thing is based on this article from Sitepoint and some code from Joe Colson's article on a geocoding plug-in.

The first problem to solve was how to generate an xml file of co-ordinates.  To do this I added the following code to the manifest.lrweb file.

AddGridPages {
filetype="xml",
template="markers.xml",
rows=1000,
columns=1
}


this uses the index page markers.xml to generate the xml doc

<markers>
<lr:ThumbnailGrid>
<lr:GridPhotoCell>
<marker>
<name><% =image.metadata.title%></name>
<thumb>content/bin/images/thumb/<%= image.exportFilename %>.jpg</thumb>
<desc><% =image.metadata.description%></desc>
<largePage>source/<%= image.exportFilename %>_large.html</largePage>
<lat><% =lat%></lat>
<lng><% =lon%></lng>
</marker>
<% end %>
</lr:GridPhotoCell>
</lr:ThumbnailGrid>
</markers>

Which just builds up the xml file from the details of each image. The only tricky bit is converiting the coordinates to decimal degrees which is achieved by this bit of code

<%
local gpsData = image.metadata.GPS
local lat
local lon

if gpsData ~= "" then
local iter = string.gmatch(image.metadata.GPS, "%d+")
lat = iter() + (iter() * 60 + iter()) / 3600
lon = iter() + (iter() * 60 + iter()) / 3600
if string.find(gpsData, "S") then
lat = -lat
end
if string.find(gpsData, "W") then
lon = -lon
end
%>

Then it was just a question of modifying the javascript to pickup the values from the generate xml file. Using JQuery this is easily achieved like this:

var name = $(this).find('name').text();
var desc = $(this).find('desc').text();
var largePage = $(this).find('largePage').text();

The rest of the code is pretty standard stuff from the SDK.

I hope you found this of use and please leave a comment if you use the code anywhere, I love to know who reads this stuff

Mike Otley is photographer of the month for April

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Think Tank Streetwalker Hard Drive Backpack

At the beginning of the year I was fortunate enough to spend nearly a month in New Zealand.  It truly is a wonderful place for photography and I will at some point be posting some of the pictures on this blog.

Whilst planning the trip, it became obvious that I did not have a camera bag that would be suitable for taking as carry-on luggage.  Being a fan of Think Tank bags I took a look at their range for something suitable.  I looked at their Airport roller bags first (thanks go to Bob Johnson for letting me look through his vast Think Tank range).  Whilst the rollers were beautifully made, like everything Think Tank do, they were not really ideal as fully loaded I would easily go over my carry on weight allowance and more importantly once I was in NZ I would need a rucksack or camera bag as well for use on the actual shoots.

After much looking round the web at various reviews I decided on the Think Tank Streetwalker Hard Drive Backpack :

Photo by ThinkTank Photo

A few points attracted me to the Streetwalker Hard Drive:

• It's from Think Tank - their products just ooze quality.
• Carry on luggage size
• Laptop slot - to save hassle at Airport Security.

In use it proved an excellent bag, it's clean lines meant it fit exactly under the seat in-front on Singapore Airlines.  Allowing me to access to all my kit through out the flight: for photos from the airplane windows, reading material or even the carefree 5 hours I spent keywording the 9500 images I took.  The only photographic items I put in my suitcase were my tripod and my pro-speed belt, as removing that keeps the bag nice and square for storing in airplanes, etc

Rather than lug a laptop everywhere I just used a tiny netbook, which meant the laptop slot had room for magazines and other A4 documents that I wanted to keep flat.  This slot makes the bag worth buying on it's own with dead easy access to your laptop or documents in seconds.  Security scans in airports ask for laptops to be scanned seperatly and the access in this bag made it a doddle.

Packed for travelling between hotels in New Zealand The first aid kit came out for flying as it upsets the security guards The gap bottom left contained the Canon G9 that took the photo.

Travelling between hotels I could fill it with all my camera and computer gear, without worrying about damaging them and being able to grab my camera easily as we reached another "WOW" bit of scenery.  The distances in NZ are really short but it took ages to get anywhere as I kept having to stop and snap the scenery.

Big clear pockets in the lid make finding things really easy.

For Morning or evening Landscape sessions I could strip out the bag and just leave in my camera, lenses and filters.  Then once the tripos straps are attached I could fix the tripod to the back of the bag and I had a great landscape photographers rucksack.  For daytime expeditions I would leave the tripod behind, bung a rain jacket in one of the empty slots and a couple of bottles of water in the expanding side pockets and it was comfortable for very long walks.

For more dynamic trips I used my pro-speed belt and the Think tank modular system to allow me to have access to lenses as quick as possible.

A fair bit of gear for one bag

 So what did I put in it:

• Laptop Slot
• Asus Netbook
• Amazon Kindle
• 2 Magazines
• Travel Documentation
• Main Compartment
• Canon 5DmkII
• Canon G9
• Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L Lens
• Canon EF 17-40 f/4 L Lens in Think Tank Modular Pouch
• Canon EF 300mm f/4 L Prime Lens in Think Tank Modular Pouch
• Canon 1.4x extender
• LEE Filter Holder
• 2 x LEE filter rings
• 3 x LEE Soft Grads
• 3 x LEE Hard Grads
• LEE Big Stopper 
• 8 SD Cards
• 2 Cardreaders
• Portable harddrive
• 2 x Spare Batteries
• 2 x Battery Chargers
• 3 x Cleaning Cloths
• 2 x Power converters
• Netbook power supply
• Power lead for battery chargers
• Waterproof cover
• Lid Pockets
• 3 x iPhone power cables
• Kindle power cable
• 2 x remote releases
• HDD Cable
• Tripod straps
• Front tripod Pocket
• Trek Towel for those damp days
• Side Pockets
• Nothing!

David Langan is photographer of the month for March

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Coltrane Koh is photographer of the month for February

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Lightroom Configuration Backup

The other day I hadn't noticed that the power lead had dropped out of my laptop when the battery was already virtually empty.  It had so little power left so that instead of hibernating, it just died on me.  In the middle of a Lightroom session.

The problem came that when I restarted Lightroom was not in a happy state.  It had returned to default and had forgotten all my presets, plugins and export settings.  Luckily I could drag them back from a backup but it was a bit of a pain.  So I was interested to find this Lightroom configuration backup plug-in, which creates a zip file of all your settings and can be setup to do it automatically.

Another feature of it is the ability to zip up your catalogue backups,  which if you combined it with my tip on how to automatically delete old backups could really save some disk space.

Outdoor Photographer of the Year 2011

Since knowing I was shortlisted in the Outdoor Photographer of the Year Competition a few people have enquired how I got on.  Well it appears that I will have to settle for shortlisting only this year.

The strange thing about the system is they tell you that "one or more" of the images you entered has been shortlisted which means that between 4 and 12 of my shots were shortlisted.  Here they are in all their glory - I'll let you decide which ones were shortlisted as your guess is as good as mine:

Category - At The Waters Edge

Isle in the Storm

Leigh Creek

Snaking Ashore

Category - British Landscapes

Curbar Gap

Start Point Light

Ashness Landing

Category - Dawn To Dusk

Gull Rock Blues

Coniston Sunset

Morning Mist

Category - On the Streets

Lunchtime

Looking at Legs

River Pheonix

Peter Simonides is photographer of the month for January

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Lighten the land, don't darken the sky

A while back I was teaching someone how to use ND grads and I was explaining how putting the dark area of the grad over the sky has the effect of making the land lighter. They looked at me as though I had gone mad!

Eventually they began to understand that you are not really darkening the sky, you are in staid lightening the land/  The key is to think that you are using the graduated filter to reduce the exposure range into  something the camera can cope with so that you don't end up with blocked shadows or blown out highlights.

I said I would create an example for them to show the effect of using a graduated filter.  The below images show the rather subtle effect of a 0.6nd grad in use.  Moving your mouse over the below should show the effect of inserting the filter:

Mouse over to see before and after

ND Grad Position

The angle of the grad filter was to match up with the way the early sunrise was lighting the land from one side. Although it is usual to use grads in a more upright position it is important to pay attention to balancing the position as well as the intensity of the light.

Here are the before and after images in case the mouse over doesn't work for you.  Try opening them in seperate tabs of your web browser & switching between them.

Before - No ND Grad

After - With ND Grad

Can I call you a cab sir ?

The lovely people at http://www.heathrowairportcarsuk.com/ are now using my image of Tower Bridge as the header image of their website:


The Original image of tower bridge can be found here.

Tower Bridge

Gary Horner is photographer of the month for December

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Black and White Photographer of the Year 2011 Comp

Quite a few people who knew that I had 3 pictures that were shortlisted for "Black and White Photographer of the Year" have asked how I got on in the competition.

Well I didn't win,  you can see the winners here.  Congratulations to Binh Trinh and the other winners.

I was pleased however to get one shot recognized in the "Shots we liked but didn't quite make it" section featured in this months magazine and was chosen to go on the welcome page of the magazine.


I'm taking that as pretty much a second place in one of the categories - which is nice. I am also really proud that the shot in question is of my beloved Smudge,  a dog with more personality than a little dog should have, who unfortunately passed away exactly a year ago.

Below are the three shots that were shortlisted:

Gormley Towers

Smudge

Lunchtime

A hard case for the LEE Big Stopper

The LEE Big Stopper is fast becoming one of the most popular filters in photography today. The ability to setup the shot with other filters then slide in the 10 stopper at the last moment makes it much easier to use than the screw in filters.

In fact the only real problem I have found with the Big Stopper is the absence of a hard case for it. The soft pouch they come in is great for stopping it getting scratched but if you are as clumsy as me they offer little protection against snapping the thing. The filter is actually as brittle as cinder toffee, so if you are not careful your £100 filter will end up looking like mine:

Luckily when I explained my predicament to the good people at LEE helped me out with a replacement filter really quick.  Fantastic customer service from LEE, I'm never buying filters from anyone else.

So - how to keep my new filter from the same fate?  It was time to investigate a hard case option.   LEE don't make a hard case and a search on the web drew a blank too.  It was time to make my own.

If you are old enough you may remember that before downloads, music used to come on a physical disc called a CD. I happen to have a fair few of these archaic things laying around the house and they are almost exactly the right size to be a Big Stopper case.

Conversion from ancient recording technology to modern filter storage is simple:

1. Take out that old Steps CD and chuck it in the bin
2. Pull out the bit the CD was laying in throw it away.
3. Tape the LEE exposure table to the inside of the case so you can find it easily
4. Cut two pieces of lens cloth to fit the inside of the case and fix them using double sided tape.
5. Cut a thin layer of packing foam the to fit the inside of the case.
6. Cut a filter sized hole in the foam and fix it into the the case with double sided tape
7. And your done.

Please let me know if you decide to make a similar case & if you find a better way of doing it.

Nigel Wilkins is photographer of the month for November

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Where are we going

The other week I was chatting to a good friend of mine and he started ranting about the photography he sees on many of the photography websites. How many of the popular shots seem to owe little relationship to the real world and seem to suffer from cartonification.

I suggested he put his thoughts down and make a blog out of his thoughts. Below is what my friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, came up with.  I hope you enjoy reading his thoughts on the state of popular photography today.

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The Basics of Photography


A few years ago I enrolled on a one year course to study photography. One of the first lessons I learnt was that 'photography' meant writing or painting with light, the ability to capture a moment in time with the prevailing light was the essence of photography. Little did I realise then what could be achieved without such illumination.

I feel a photograph should represent what the photographer saw at the time of capture, using the skills he has learnt and fashioned to manipulate the camera by adjusting exposure or shutter speed and balancing light by using filters. Gaining a fundamental knowledge of these tools of the trade, with equal importance to how light interacts with the equipment, will lead to better and more honest results. In a recent internet forum thread, about this very same subject, one photographer alluded to better photography results would be achieved with "patience, planning and understanding in the field in the right conditions" I fully endorse these comments.

I had been trawling my way through various popular photography sites recently with a fairly glum outlook to the future of my beloved hobby. It seems an image has to go through a Photoshop metamorphous before it is appreciated and applauded. One such image so infuriated me it prompted this blog.

The image in question is from a popular photographers spot, shot many times, in fact I had been there recently, what grated me was not so much the photoshop manipulation, (well actually it did) but more the comments and accolades it received.

• "Lovely colours"
• "wonderful colours captured"
• " love the winter colours"

couldn't anyone see what I was seeing? The shot was straight out of a Pixar movie and nothing to do with real colours. It was a cartoon still, a make-believe impression from the time it was taken. No one mentioned manipulation, not one mention of

• "nice Photoshop work"
• "good use of the saturation sliders"
• "love the cartoon effect"

It certainly wasn't in the photographers' description. It was as if the image had the emperor's new clothes on and what pains me is this seems to be becoming the norm. With more and more images sent through the Photoshop grinder coming out appearing total unreal from the original "painting with light" concept than ever before.


A photographer I have huge admiration for wrote

I want to recreate the scene that you would have witnessed with your own eyes had you been standing next to me at the moment I fired the camera's shutter.

This is a poignant statement to those in the modern era of photography that the basic concepts of photography should be learnt and not everything should be resolved after the occasion via the PC.

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So, what do you think? Have we forgotten the essentials of taking pictures? Has manipulation taken over from craftsmanship or is it all part of a broad church called photography and everything is valid?

Black and White Photographer of the Year Competition 2011

For those that asked here are the three shots that were shortlisted.

Gormley Towers

Lunch Time

Smudge

Tm Daniels is photographer of the month for October

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Art Exhibitions in Suffolk this month

There are many great art exhibitions on this month - please click on the link for full details.

Check out all the latest SPECIAL OFFERS on the Suffolk Tourist Guide!

Find BARGAINS and sales from shops, inns, hotels, theatres and more!

Christmas Parties in Suffolk

It's never too soon to book!

Planning a Suffolk Wedding? Check out the Suffolk Weddings Guide!

Your complete Wedding Guide for Suffolk Venues, Receptions and Ideas

THE SUFFOLK VIDEO!

Click on the link to check out our new Video showing some of what Suffolk has to offer. Please leave a comment!

Things to Do in Suffolk This Autumn

Plan your days out and activities here!

What's on in Bury St Edmunds

Check out all events and activities on in Bury St Edmunds by using our month-by-month guide.

What's on in Ipswich

Find a month-by-month to events happening in Ipswich

What's on in Woodbridge

Find a month-by-month to events happening in Woodbridge

Summer on The Southbank

This summer London's Southbank centre has held a summer festival to commemorate 60 years since The Festival of Britain.  I managed to get down there a couple of times,  the atmosphere on a hot summers day was fantastic and the picture opportunities nuerous.

Here are a few shots from the festival, I seem to be in a B&W mood at the moment.  I hope you enjoy them.

Standing in the Rain

Mine all Mine

A snack on the steps

Monsoon Season

Prisoner of Love

Run from the Rain

Life Stories

Cathy Taylor is photographer of the month for September

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Dennis Bromage is photographer of the month for August

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Vision and Voice: Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - a book review

I have just finished reading Vision and Voice: Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom by David DuChemin and found it to be a generally excellent book.

The book is not a full blown guide to Lightroom, you won't find any thing about the library module, printing or slideshow.  Tthis is a book dedicated to getting the best out of your pictures using the development module. The book begins with some text which basically boils down to "develop a view of the world you want to communicate" and then it is straight into an overview of the development module.



The overview is then followed by the real meat of the book, where David takes 20 images and explores how to develop them in Lightroom. Each image starts with a zeroed raw file of one of David's shots,which you can download from the web so you can try the instructions out yourself. Once you have the raw file it then shows each of the steps David goes through to achieve his desired result. The style is always to talk about what it is he is try to achieve in visual terms and how to achieve it rather than to get obsessed with the options. It gives you a pretty good idea of what a slider does and why he decided to move a particular slider at that particular time.

What I really liked is the way he takes a raw file, which is already pretty good, and just tries to get the best out of it. There is no manipulation just for the sake of it or rescuing a poor image here, just the digital equivalent of developing a shot in the darkroom. As the lessons progress, he gives the Develop module a pretty good workout and took me in to areas like HSL & split toning where I had never really seen much point in going to before.

The only downside I could find with the book was that the lessons can get slightly repetitive as most pictures need the same beginning adjustments. But if you work along with each picture or try them out on your own images this is needed (and helpful) to make sense of the process.

Overall this is an excellent book and recommended for all those Lightroom users who want to get the best out of their images.