I'm not sure if Bailey and I should be walking in the woods near our home any more. Just the other day I met a guy back there named Leo. This may or may not be his real name. He may or may not live on this planet.
Leo, medium-long brown hair escaping from beneath his bandana, wearing a small daypack and carrying a large, white, square-shaped water jug, was also carrying a shotgun. He carries it because there's a big cougar out there. I can attest to this. And Leo wasn't the first person I've run across toting a rifle in the woods; it's not strange and I'm not worried about that at all. So we talked about cougars and bears for a bit. Leo seems to be a bit of a "free spirit."

Then he tells me that just a couple of weeks ago he'd been talking with Don, "the old guy who walks the trails," in the patch of nearby redwoods (yes, we have a patch of redwoods on the Olympic peninsula--they were planted). According to Leo, Don was sitting on the little wooden bench that he'd built and placed there.

The problem with this is that Don died in August of 2012. He did build the bench but his daughters placed it in that patch of redwoods as a memorial.

And since we are in a new year I thought I'd remind you to create your 2014 copyright metadata presets for Lightroom or whichever program you use. Also be sure to change any copyright date information that your camera may add to your image metadata.

And speaking of 2014, the Olympic National Park workshop I'm co-leading with Don Mammoser is filling fast. That workshop is still over six months away and it's already over half full. So if you've been thinking about it, think faster. Better yet, just sign up!
And be sure to visit my Workshops Page for the full listing of 2014 trips.

I've had a chance to scan through Peter Krogh's new ebook, Organizing your Photos with Lightroom 5. This book really packs in a lot of information. And lots of videos. I picked a few sections at random and found the information to be first rate, as I expected. But what really impresses me are the videos Peter's included. They're relatively short and to the point. And they show you exactly where things are and how to use them. I've been using Lightroom quite awhile now and I've been learning new things with just about everything I look at in this book.
So this book is really for all types of learners. If you prefer to read on your own and try things out, you're set. If you're the type that learns best from videos or live teaching, the included videos have got you covered.
For instance, one section of the book is all about using Lightroom's Filter Bar. It's broken into sections like navigating the Filter Bar and using specific features. So one video takes a tour of the Filter Bar and how it works and shows you how easy it is to set and narrow down search parameters.
Another video dives into the Metadata Filter portion of the Filter Bar, which is a very powerful way of finding images.
In another video Peter talks about using the Ratings Pyramid, a way to use the Star Ratings in Lightroom that makes it easy to find your very best images. A lot of people use the star ratings willy-nilly, giving out 5-star ratings to any ol' picture. This makes using star ratings a useless endeavor. Peter gives some pretty good direction on how to best use this tool.

All in all, I'd say that the $34.95 price tag on this book is well worth it. Just the 7 hours of video alone make it worth the price. So if you've been struggling with Lightroom's Library module, or if you just want to learn more about it, this is a great book to add to your virtual bookshelf.

Along with my never finished office winter to-do list, I also have a yard to-do list. About seven years or so ago we replaced our dilapidated fence. As it turns out, trees living near the fence keep growing and their roots have a tendency to move things. Like fences.
We recently had a couple of these trees removed so I've been busy digging around the roots and cutting them out. Next I'll have to reset the fence posts so that they all lined up once again. One of these roots travels under a gate and has pushed both fence posts supporting the gate. To make it worse, the root goes under an area I worked hard at to lay down some concrete paving blocks. Now all that needs to come up so that I can dig and cut and straighten and add more concrete to return the posts to their former vertical happiness.

A friend of mine has been showing me some awesome macro pictures he's been making using image stacking techniques. They're really quite nice and makes me want to go get some flowers, break out the macro gear, and start playing. I've already taken the first step by downloading an image stacking program.
You may have heard of Helicon Focus? Well there's another program called Zerene Stacker that's been getting rave reviews. I've downloaded the trial version and plan on doing some playing, maybe even this afternoon if I ever get this newsletter out and can clear off a table to set something up.
You can see some samples of image stacking here. It's pretty amazing.

That's it. If I get a chance to play with some image stacking I'll post them on my blog as well as in next month's newsletter.

I hope you're all staying warm in the midst of the polar vortex. I feel pretty lucky living in the Pacific Northwest where all we have is a Gore-tex vortex.