Here are the Lightroom and Photoshop updates from The Lightroom Queen
https://mailchi.mp/lightroomqueen/newsletter-2026-11?e=04189f0b10
No, I haven't reviewed the details I'm just passing along the information.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Let's Talk About Metering Modes
What metering modes are available on your camera?
Which one do you usually use, and why?
More importantly, have you taken the time to learn how each metering mode evaluates a scene and how that affects your exposure?
Here's something to try:
Go back through some of your past photographs that didn't turn out as you expected.
Look at the lighting and the exposure. Would a different metering mode have helped? Why or why not?
Remember, the goal isn't simply to know what metering modes your camera offers. It's to understand what they do, when they might be useful, and how they affect your photographic decisions.
Learning how your camera works gives you another tool in your problem-solving toolbox.
Comments and experiences are welcome. Let's have a discussion!he Modes
What metering modes are available on your camera?
Which one do you usually use, and why?
More importantly, have you taken the time to learn how each metering mode evaluates a scene and how that affects your exposure?
Here's something to try:
Go back through some of your past photographs that didn't turn out as you expected.
Look at the lighting and the exposure. Would a different metering mode have helped? Why or why not?
Remember, the goal isn't simply to know what metering modes your camera offers. It's to understand what they do, when they might be useful, and how they affect your photographic decisions.
Learning how your camera works gives you another tool in your problem-solving toolbox.
Comments and experiences are welcome. Let's have a discussion!
My Skool Community
I have a Skool community with a named Photography & OM-D/OM System create a free Skool account and join me there.
Although this is the URL the name has been changed to Practical Photography Larry
3 AI Model. 3 Different Results
Steve Kickert created a YouTube video on his channel where discuss AI and how he uses it.
Watching that video I wondered if I use the same prompt are they different? All use Large Language Models, LLM, different implations. Following are the prompts and their responses.
"Compare and contrast the free Gemini, chatgpt and Claude AI. rate them"
"at the celery fields in Sarasota Florida offer locations of photos birds using my camera other than RRBW. Also recommended lens I currently have, times of day between October 2016 and April 2027. also consider the sun direction"
No one is incorrect. The responses vary largely.
Do your own tests with your promptes.
What’s the Interest
When you’re scrolling social media or judging a photo contest, what actually stops you?
Is it #1?
“Cropping in slightly can help as the coma or distortion effect isn't an issue in the center.”
“...didn't follow the rule of thirds.”
“...it's not tack sharp at 200%.”
Or is it #2?
A clear center of interest
Strong contrast
A genuine emotional spark
How long before you move on to the next photo? From my research, the average is less than 2 seconds.
Whether it's a casual scroller or a judge looking at a contest grid, both make that split-second decision based on #2.
They stop for immediate visual impact—not pixel-peeping.
What makes you pause?
Computational photography & Photoshop
Yes, computational photography in phone cameras is similar to stacking, blending, and applying adjustment layers in Photoshop, but it's an automated and integrated process that happens instantly when you take a photo.
What is Computational Photography?
Computational photography is a broad term for techniques that use software algorithms and powerful processors to enhance a camera's image, overcoming the physical limitations of small lenses and sensors. Instead of a single image, your phone often takes a burst of multiple photos—sometimes even before you press the shutter button—and then intelligently merges them.
Common computational photography techniques include:
High Dynamic Range (HDR): The camera takes several photos at different exposures (lightness levels) and combines them into one image that has detail in both the bright highlights and dark shadows.
Noise Reduction and Low-light Photography: By stacking multiple images captured in low light, the phone can average out the random "noise" (graininess) in each frame, resulting in a cleaner, more detailed final photo.
Portrait Mode: This feature uses algorithms to identify the subject and separate it from the background. The software then applies a selective blur (bokeh) to the background to simulate the shallow depth of field of a professional camera with a large aperture lens.
How it Compares to Photoshop
The processes used in computational photography are essentially automated versions of what a photographer would do manually in post-production software like Photoshop.
| Computational Photography (Phone) | Post-Processing (Photoshop) |
| Automatic Multi-frame capture | Manual photo stacking |
| Built-in algorithms | Manual blending and adjustment layers |
| Instantly processed | Requires time and manual work |
Think of it this way: your phone is doing the work of a skilled photo editor in a fraction of a second. While you might use layers in Photoshop to blend a perfectly exposed sky with a detailed foreground, your phone's HDR algorithm does the same thing automatically without you ever seeing the individual source images.
This video provides an overview of how computational photography is changing the way we take pictures.
Computational photography and phone cameras. What is reality?
It’s Not That Simple: Why There Are No Absolutes in Photography
It’s Not That Simple: Why There Are No Absolutes in Photography
Friday, July 7, 2023 Rewrite in 2025 Dec. 23, rewrite on July 14 2026
It’s Not That Simple: Why There Are No Absolutes in Photography
Pressing the shutter button is the easy part. Everything else—the knowledge, the timing, the experience, and the physical effort—is where the real work happens.
Most of what you read, watch, or hear in modern workshops suggests a "do this to get a perfect image" approach. But in photography, there are no absolutes. There are only guides. To truly improve, you have to step away from the tutorials, get out into the field, take the shots, and honestly analyze your results.
If I had to name the only true "absolutes," they would be composition, focus, and what Matt Kloskowski calls "The Why." Why did you take the photo in the first place?
Beyond that, everything is a compromise. You are balancing a puzzle of technical, artistic, and emotional variables. The moment you treat a rule as an absolute law, it stops being a guide and becomes a pair of training wheels you've forgotten to take off.
Here is why the most common "rules" of photography always come with a giant "BUT..."
Part 1: The "Buts" of Camera Settings
Every setting you dial into your camera is a negotiation. To gain one thing, you must give up another.
"Use Aperture Priority for landscapes..."
BUT if anything in your frame is moving—the wind in the trees, rushing water, or clouds in the sky—you must consider shutter speed. If your ISO is fixed, your camera will chase a "proper" exposure by dropping your shutter speed. If it drops too low, you lose that critical sharpness.
A good handheld rule of thumb: Keep your shutter speed at least 1 / \text{focal length} to avoid camera shake.
"Use Shutter Priority to freeze motion..."
BUT remember that your camera will aggressively adjust the aperture to compensate for that speed. If you are shooting a landscape at 1/600\text{s} on a windy day, your camera might open up to f/4. Is your background still in focus? Maybe, maybe not. You've solved one problem only to create another.
"Use a low ISO for a clean photo..."
BUT don't be afraid of the dark. Modern sensors are incredibly powerful, and modern software handles noise beautifully. I would hands-down prefer a sharp, well-exposed shot with a bit of noise over a "clean" shot that is completely blurry because the ISO was set too low. Get the shot first; clean it up later.
"Never use AUTO..."
BUT AUTO is a fantastic tool to find a quick exposure baseline when you're struggling in tricky light, or when you're handing your camera to a friend to snap a quick photo of you. The camera doesn't care about your pride, and the result is often perfectly acceptable.
"Use JPEG..."
BUT remember that a JPEG is like a wrapped deli ham sandwich. You can unwrap it and add some mustard, but it’s always going to be a ham sandwich. It is perfectly fine for an immediate social media post, but your editing options down the line are severely limited.
"Use RAW..."
BUT know that RAW files will look flat and uninspiring on your LCD screen. The magic is entirely in the post-processing—where you get to take those raw ingredients and turn that basic ham sandwich into a toasted turkey and ham panini. RAW isn't a finished photo; it's the raw data to make one.
"Use a fast shutter speed to stop blur..."
BUT is that actually what you want? Photography is an artistic choice. Do you want to freeze a bird in flight like a static museum specimen, or do you want to show the beautiful, dynamic motion of its wings through a touch of intentional blur?
"Aperture controls Depth of Field (DoF)..."
BUT it is far from the only factor. Your sensor size, your physical distance from the subject, and your focal length often dictate your depth of field far more than your lens's f-stop.
"Use Evaluative/Matrix Metering..."
BUT remember that your camera is a computer trying to turn your entire world into 18% middle gray. Whether you use evaluative, center-weighted, or spot metering, the camera is just performing math to find that average gray. You have to decide if that gray matches the mood you actually want to convey.
Part 2: The "Buts" of Field Craft
You can master every camera dial in the world, but editing is a topic for another day. Before you ever sit down at a computer, you have to get the image in the camera. That is where field craft comes in—the physical effort, preparation, and quiet patience that happens before you press the shutter.
"Just use a long telephoto lens to get closer..."
BUT a longer lens is no substitute for patience and positioning. Field craft is about understanding your subject—whether it's the flight pattern of a bird, the trajectory of a rocket, or the angle of the sun hitting a building. If you don't know how your subject behaves or how the environment moves, a massive lens will only help you take high-resolution photos of a missed alignment. Stealth, patience, and anticipating the moment will always out-perform focal length.
"Rely on the lens zoom to frame your shot..."
BUT zooming with your fingers on the glass is lazy. True composition happens with your feet. Moving just six inches to the left, or dropping your tripod a foot lower to the ground, can completely change how a foreground element interacts with the background. Field craft means physically working the scene, finding the angles, and choosing the exact spot where the elements of the puzzle lock together.
"Use a sturdy tripod for everything..."
BUT sometimes a tripod is just an anchor that locks you in place and makes you rigid. If you are tracking fast, unpredictable wildlife or reacting to rapid changes in the field, hand-holding your camera or using a monopod might be the exact compromise you need to stay fluid and mobile. The best support system is the one that allows you to react to the scene, not the one that keeps you trapped in one spot.
"Just show up and start shooting..."
BUT the best shots are won before you even pack your gear. Field craft is studying the weather, mapping the terrain, calculating where the light will fall, and setting up your physical environment days or weeks in advance. The actual photo is just the final 1% of a long-term plan.
Part 3: The Ultimate Myth
"A new camera will improve my photography..."
NO, it won’t. If you are taking bad photos now, a more expensive camera will just take incredibly high-resolution bad photos. New gear might offer faster autofocus or cooler menu systems, but it cannot make you a better artist. Learn your current gear to its absolute physical limits before you blame the tool.
The Bottom Line
There is no single "secret" to being a better photographer. It is a continuous, messy puzzle of compromising variables.
Whether you are shooting on a cell phone or a dedicated mirrorless body, you need to know your tool so well that you can adjust it without looking. If you have to stop and think about which button does what, you aren't looking at the light—you're looking at a machine.
To paraphrase President Kennedy: We choose to become better photographers not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
The Great Sharpness Lie (And Why Your Prints Don't Care)
The Great Sharpness Lie (And Why Your Prints Don't Care)
Go to any online photography forum or gear review site, and you’ll see the exact same obsession: people zooming in to 400% on a digital monitor, hyper-ventilating over a slightly soft corner, or arguing that you must stop down one full stop to hit your lens’s clinical "sweet spot."
I’m here to tell you that the obsession with hyper-sharpness is a trap. It’s a distraction from what actually makes an image great, and frankly, it's overrated.
When you step away from the glowing screen and look at how photography works in the real world, the technical argument for sacrificing physical light just to chase micro-sharpness completely falls apart.
Here is why the "sharpness lie" is ruining your peace of mind—and why you should stop worrying about it.
1. The Monitor Trap vs. Normal Viewing Distance
We’ve been conditioned to judge our work from six inches away from a high-resolution LED panel. But nobody looks at art that way.
At a normal viewing distance—whether an image is framed on a wall or laid out in a book—the human eye physically cannot resolve the microscopic difference between a "tack-sharp" shot taken at a stopped-down aperture and a slightly softer shot taken wide open.
Your viewer doesn't care about the resolving power of your glass in the extreme corners. They notice impact, emotion, light, and gesture. If a photo makes you feel something, a tiny bit of optical softness isn’t going to ruin it. If a photo is boring, making it hyper-sharp just makes it a sharp, boring photo.
2. Print: The Great Equalizer
The ultimate proof that sharpness is overrated happens the moment you transfer your work from the digital screen to the physical world. The printing process inherently changes the nature of image detail—and it destroys the sharpness issue entirely.
When ink hits paper, a beautiful, natural transformation occurs:
Dot Gain (Ink Bleed): Microscopic droplets of ink hit the paper and naturally spread into the fibers. This tiny, organic bleed instantly smooths out the harsh, clinical, jagged edges of digital pixels.
Paper Texture: Whether you print on a heavy matte, a fine-art rag, or a textured canvas, the physical medium breaks up pixel-level micro-detail. The paper itself becomes part of the image structure, adding a painterly depth that no digital screen can replicate.
Reflected Light: You are no longer looking at light blasting directly into your eyes from pixels. You are looking at light reflecting off a surface. This creates smoother tonal transitions and naturally masks minor optical imperfections.
The Real Trade-Off
Think about the physics of capture. If you stop down your lens by a stop just to chase a theoretical "sweet spot" on a chart, you are cutting the physical amount of light hitting your sensor exactly in half.
To get that brightness back, you either have to crank your ISO at capture or drag the exposure slider up in post-processing. Both moves force a digital multiplier onto your data, amplifying the electronic noise floor and adding ugly shadow grain.
Why sacrifice clean, physical photons and risk digital noise just to fix a "softness" that disappears the second the image is printed?
The Bottom Line
Keep the light. Shoot wide open if the moment or the exposure demands it. Stop pixel-peeping at 400% on a monitor, and start judging your work by how it feels when it's printed, held in your hands, or viewed from a reasonable distance.
A technically "imperfect" image with soul will always beat a sterile, hyper-sharp test chart.
The Great Sharpness Lie (And Why Your Prints Don't Care)
The Great Sharpness Lie (And Why Your Prints Don't Care)
Go to any online photography forum or gear review site, and you’ll see the exact same obsession: people zooming in to 400% on a digital monitor, hyper-ventilating over a slightly soft corner, or arguing that you must stop down one full stop to hit your lens’s clinical "sweet spot."
I’m here to tell you that the obsession with hyper-sharpness is a trap. It’s a distraction from what actually makes an image great, and frankly, it's overrated.
When you step away from the glowing screen and look at how photography works in the real world, the technical argument for sacrificing physical light just to chase micro-sharpness completely falls apart.
Here is why the "sharpness lie" is ruining your peace of mind—and why you should stop worrying about it.
1. The Monitor Trap vs. Normal Viewing Distance
We’ve been conditioned to judge our work from six inches away from a high-resolution LED panel. But nobody looks at art that way.
At a normal viewing distance—whether an image is framed on a wall or laid out in a book—the human eye physically cannot resolve the microscopic difference between a "tack-sharp" shot taken at a stopped-down aperture and a slightly softer shot taken wide open.
Your viewer doesn't care about the resolving power of your glass in the extreme corners. They notice impact, emotion, light, and gesture. If a photo makes you feel something, a tiny bit of optical softness isn’t going to ruin it. If a photo is boring, making it hyper-sharp just makes it a sharp, boring photo.
2. Print: The Great Equalizer
The ultimate proof that sharpness is overrated happens the moment you transfer your work from the digital screen to the physical world. The printing process inherently changes the nature of image detail—and it destroys the sharpness issue entirely.
When ink hits paper, a beautiful, natural transformation occurs:
Dot Gain (Ink Bleed): Microscopic droplets of ink hit the paper and naturally spread into the fibers. This tiny, organic bleed instantly smooths out the harsh, clinical, jagged edges of digital pixels.
Paper Texture: Whether you print on a heavy matte, a fine-art rag, or a textured canvas, the physical medium breaks up pixel-level micro-detail. The paper itself becomes part of the image structure, adding a painterly depth that no digital screen can replicate.
Reflected Light: You are no longer looking at light blasting directly into your eyes from pixels. You are looking at light reflecting off a surface. This creates smoother tonal transitions and naturally masks minor optical imperfections.
The Real Trade-Off
Think about the physics of capture. If you stop down your lens by a stop just to chase a theoretical "sweet spot" on a chart, you are cutting the physical amount of light hitting your sensor exactly in half.
To get that brightness back, you either have to crank your ISO at capture or drag the exposure slider up in post-processing. Both moves force a digital multiplier onto your data, amplifying the electronic noise floor and adding ugly shadow grain.
Why sacrifice clean, physical photons and risk digital noise just to fix a "softness" that disappears the second the image is printed?
The Bottom Line
Keep the light. Shoot wide open if the moment or the exposure demands it. Stop pixel-peeping at 400% on a monitor, and start judging your work by how it feels when it's printed, held in your hands, or viewed from a reasonable distance.
A technically "imperfect" image with soul will always beat a sterile, hyper-sharp test chart.
Let's Talk About Metering Modes
Let's Talk About Metering Modes
What metering modes are available on your camera?
Which one do you usually use, and why?
More importantly, have you taken the time to learn how each metering mode evaluates a scene and how that affects your exposure?
Here's something to try:
Go back through some of your past photographs that didn't turn out as you expected.
Look at the lighting and the exposure. Would a different metering mode have helped? Why or why not?
Remember, the goal isn't simply to know what metering modes your camera offers. It's to understand what they do, when they might be useful, and how they affect your photographic decisions.
Learning how your camera works gives you another tool in your problem-solving toolbox.
Comments and experiences are welcome. Let's have a discussion!
Monday, September 28, 2026
Your camera LCD is giving you a biased preview.
Don't Blindly Trust Camera Exposure
You dial in your settings, check your LCD, and the image looks absolutely perfect. The histogram agrees with your scene there isn't a "blinkie" in sight. You pack up, head home, throw the files into your editing software, and… wait. The shadow details are completely muddy, or worse, the highlights are permanently clipped.
What went wrong? You trusted your camera’s display.
Here is the hard truth every photographer needs to learn:
Your camera is giving you a biased preview.
The RAW vs. JPEG Disconnect
To understand why your exposure readings can deceive you, we have to look at how your camera processes data.
RAW Files: This is the pure, uncompressed data captured by your camera's sensor. It has massive dynamic range, meaning it holds a ton of hidden detail in the brightest highlights and darkest shadows.
JPEG Files: This is a compressed, processed version of that sensor data. Your camera bakes in contrast, saturation, sharpening, and a specific "Picture Profile" (like Portrait, Landscape, or Vivid), then discards the rest of the data.
Here is the kicker: Your camera’s LCD screen, histogram, zebras, and highlight warnings (blinkies) are NOT showing you the RAW file. Even if you are shooting exclusively in RAW, your camera has to generate a quick visual preview to show you on the back of the screen. To do this, it processes a miniature JPEG preview and applies whatever picture profile you have active.
Why Your Exposure Tools Deceive You
Because your exposure tools are reading the processed JPEG preview and not the actual RAW data, they often ring the alarm bells way too early.
1. The Deceptive Histogram
If you have a high-contrast picture profile turned on (like "Vivid"), your histogram will show clipped shadows and blown-out highlights. In reality, your RAW file likely has plenty of salvageable data on both ends. You might be dialling back your exposure to "fix" a problem that doesn’t actually exist in the RAW file.
2. Premature Blinkies & Zebras
"Blinkies" (overexposure warnings) and Zebras are incredibly useful, but they trigger the second that the JPEG preview hits maximum brightness. Because JPEGs have significantly less dynamic range than RAW files, your camera will tell you your highlights are ruined when, in fact, the RAW file could easily recover them in post-processing.
How to Get an Accurate Reading
You don't have to fly completely blind. You can set up your camera to give you a preview that is much closer to the actual RAW data.
Step Action Why it Helps
1 Switch to a Neutral Profile Set your camera's picture profile to Standard, Neutral, or Faithful. Turn down the contrast and saturation in the profile settings.
2 Expose to the Right (ETTR)Push your exposure as bright as possible without actually clipping the RAW data.
3Trust Experience Over Automation
Learn how much highlight recovery your specific camera sensor is capable of.
What’s your go-to picture profile for shooting? Drop your camera setup in the comments below!
The 20 GB hole
To learn more of the hole check the thread, in
Here are the steps to create your Discord account and join Larry's Photography Discussion.
Phase 1: Create Your Discord Account
1. Go to the registration page: https://discord.com/register
2. Fill in your Email, Username, Password, and Date of Birth.
3. Click "Continue" and check your email inbox to verify your account.
Phase 2: Join the Server
1. Once your account is verified, click the server invite link: https://discord.gg/A59KQY95FN
2. Click Accept Invite.
3. When you land in the server, look for a #rules or #start-here channel and read the guidelines to gain full access.
Let me know if you run into any trouble!
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