First of all I'm not sure I can put my hand on my heart and say I won't buy a Canon 5D mk3 when it comes out. Trey says he won't buy any more DSLR gear because this 3rd gen thing is coming in the next couple of years. I agree with his timescale - heck I think 3rd gen cameras are good enough NOW and I said so last year. I'm serious about picking and buying into a system like micro four thirds. But I think I'll need to get comfortable with that before I let go of my DSLR. Aparrently I lack Trey's bravery. ;-)

The other point where Trey and I differ is on the subject of time spent in Lightroom. He quite rightly says that in future our cameras will be able to shoot many more frames quickly and we'll be able to pick the good ones from perhaps 200 instead of 20. I fear he's right about that but I won't be thanking Nikon or Canon for the extra post processing work. I teach photoshop and lightroom so you'd expect I love doing that stuff but what I enjoy is shooting and making great images. Picking through a big batch of pictures is to find the ones I want to keep is work to me. It's not much fun. Once I've found that one I want to work on - THAT'S the fun part. So honestly I think he's right that we'll shoot many more pictures and have to spend time picking out the good ones. But Trey says he enjoys sitting in Lightroom and picking the winners. He's clearly derranged. (Just kidding Trey - you rock man).

It's simple supply and demand really. There's much more great work being produced for much less money now. In short, you people are getting too good at taking petter pictures and processing them to a professional shine. This is as a result of the rapid educational possibilities of the internet and technology advances that have put in the hands of the masses the same creative tools that were formerly available only to a few. And, shock horror, it turns out that there were loads more talented people out there who previously wouldn't have had the education and tools needed to produce competitive quality work.

Ironically Photoshop is a great example of one such tool. Look at the amazing wealth of superb quality photography on Google+. Even 5 years ago the typical standard of photography I saw online was markedly lower than it is today. And tools like Photoshop are partly responsible. People have always had talent but, today, more than ever in the past they also have the knowledge and tools they need to produce the images they envisioned.

My worry, though, is that Photoshop is returning to being a tool only for the 'elite'. I got a lot of feedback for my article Wave bye bye to Photoshop. Most of that feedback was agreement but of the few that disagreed the majority were basically saying,

"Photoshop *should* be expensive because it's a professional tool and there are lesser tools for the plebs who can't afford the good version".

In essence they were saying that because they could afford it they quite liked the idea of locking everyone else out - everyone else can use the less good tools that produce less good results. This is plain and simple elitism of the most unattractive kind.

The joke is on Adobe and the big media content producers, though, because this problem is going to solve itself. If Adobe don't sell a product that people can afford then smaller, hungrier companies like MacPhun, Coppertino, Realmac Software, Pixelmator and many others will just steal their lunch. The same is already true for the creative work producers. Big stock agencies are already feeling the pinch from micro stock sites like iStockPhoto. And in the music world too with millions of independent producers making and selling music direct to their fans without ever signing a record deal. Google Music is all set to capitalise on that gold rush.

The message for Adobe, Hollywood and the big content producers is simple. Make your product available to people where they want to buy it (online) and make it affordable. Cause one thing is for sure - we masses aren't going to go back to making crappy quality work. The competition is here to stay.

A cursory inspection, especially by a non-professional, might conclude that the iPhone is nearly as good as the SLR - in some cases the exposure looks better on the iPhone. So should pros be considering iPhones as a valid alternative to their SLRs?

Sounds like an idiotic question doesn't it and, sure, you obvisouly won't want to shoot a wedding with an iPhone where looking like a pro is as important as shooting like one. But I'm not so sure the answer is as clear cut when you're just shooting for yourself.

Camera phones haven't got the pixel count or flexibility of an SLR, yet. And it'll be a while yet before they get full manual controls, large sensors, RAW recording or interchangable lenses.  But if all you want are snaps that you'll only ever view on a screen or print small then they're more than good enough - and getting better all the time.

This is a perspective issue. When I look at an iPad I see a much more limited version of my desktop computer. I think about all the things I *can't* do with it. When I look at an iPhone I see a much more limited version of a point and shoot camera. But young people don't see limitations - they see opportunities. Young people didn't look at a mobile phone and think, "I'll never be able to type on that". They just used what they had and got really good at it.

And in just the same way young people will use these new tools to make genuine art. They will become skilled in ways that we don't appreciate. We always say, "it's the photographer, not the camera", don't we? And while they're making art those "lesser" tools will improve until they're nipping at the heels of our "proper" gear. We can see that improvement happening already. That's what that The Guardian's comparison article is all about.

We have to be honest with ourselves about the state of technology or we'll end up being one of those old guys still buying 33rpm records and complaining that we don't understand how people can put up with the dreadful quality of those awful CD things.

Despite this Photoshop has been seen as the defacto photo editing standard for years and for good reason - nothing else can do what Photoshop does. But I teach a lot of photoshop and photography courses and the dirty little secret is that a great many people using Photoshop do so illegally. Why? Because it's way too expensive. Among those that do have legal copies it's very normal for people to be one or two versions out of date.

Cue the recent announcement from Adobe's David Wadhwani that to qualify for Photoshop upgrade pricing you'll need to be on the previous version. So you'll need to own CS5 to qualify for an upgrade price to CS6. As far as I'm concerned that's putting a gun to Photoshop's head and pulling the trigger.

Until now you've been able to upgrade Photoshop from any of the 3 previous versions. Many of the people I teach who own Photoshop rely on this and upgrade every second or third version - particularly because each product version tends to add comparatively little that's compelling to the feature set.

Adobe's answer is that you can subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud which gives you access to all their creative suite apps plus some other products and services that you didn't know you needed, all for the low low price of $49.99 per month. Yes month. And here in the UK that'll probably £55 per month if Adobe's previous over seas pricing is anything to go by. Well it's the wrong side of the line for me. It's just too much and I won't pay it. I don't like software subscription services at the best of times but this is extortionate. And I'm pretty sure most of the people I teach would just laugh at the price.

Adobe seems to be moving in completely the wrong direction here. They should be giving those huge number of pirate users out there a way to go legal and stay legal. Everyone else seems to have figured out that if you make your software cheaper then you make more money. But Adobe is so caught up in corporate sales that consumers are being priced out of the market.

Time for some video reviews of affordable Photoshop alternatives.

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

Throughout the course of this tutorial we'll take a single image from the original RAW through to a finished image. This video is one part of a multi-part free video tutorial and review. You can find the other parts at photowalkthrough.com/tutorial23.

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

Throughout the course of this tutorial we'll take a single image from the original RAW through to a finished image. This video is one part of a multi-part free video tutorial and review. You can find the other parts at photowalkthrough.com/tutorial23.

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

Throughout the course of this tutorial we'll take a single image from the original RAW through to a finished image. This video is one part of a multi-part free video tutorial and review. You can find the other parts at photowalkthrough.com/tutorial23.

So without further ado, below is my NaPodPoMo podcast for today which contains your first assignment - "Squares".

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

Throughout the course of this tutorial we'll take a single image from the original RAW through to a finished image. This video is one part of a multi-part free video tutorial and review. You can find the other parts at photowalkthrough.com/tutorial23.

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

Throughout the course of this tutorial we'll take a single image from the original RAW through to a finished image. This video is one part of a multi-part free video tutorial and review. You can find the other parts at photowalkthrough.com/tutorial23.

View all 6 chapters of this free tutorial here

In this first chapter we look at Color Efex Pro 4's integration with Lightroom and examine the user interface before using the Skin Softener filter. This is the first chapter of a multi-part tutorial. Find all the chapters and loads more free video tutorials on Photoshop and Lightroom at www.photowalkthrough.com

Colour Splash Studio is one of an emerging breed of photography applications that aim to do one task well and that are priced very affordably. Colour Splash Studio is for photographers wanting to make black and white photos with selective colour elements in the style of the movie Pleasantville.

When you first open an image with Colour Splash Studio it'll immediately turn your image black and white. You can now use the brush tool to paint back areas that you want in colour. The brush is edge detecting, which makes the process easier and faster and you've got control over the size, softness and opacity of the brush which combined with zooming the image to full size means it's pretty easy to paint in a good selection quickly. Once you've painted in your selection you can tweak the colour and greyscale areas separately with brightness, contrast and blur controls. Sadly there's no local contrast control but on the colour layer you can also tweak saturation, hue and exposure. I found these sliders a little harsh in their operation - fine tweaks were not at all easy and of course they apply to the whole image so there's no opportunity for tweaking just a portion of the image. There are also no controls for crop or rotation and very few options for getting more creative with colour (cross processing or split toning, for example) or black and white (dodging and burning, for example). I was very pleased to see support for my Wacom tablet. Pressure can be used to control brush size. I would have preferred it to control opacity but this is a good start. I was also very pleased to see standard Photoshop keyboard shortcuts working such as [ and ] for brush size and spacebar for dragging around the image while zoomed in.

It's clear that Colour Splash Studio is trying to do just this one thing well and I can respect that but for an app that concerns itself *only* with turning your image black and white there is one glaring omission - the lack of ability to control the black and white mix. Any photographer that is serious about wanting their image to look just a certain way is going to expect to have much tighter control over the black and white conversion process by being able to dial in brightness values for red, green and blue or at least by choosing from a selection of black and white filter presets.

As it stands right now this is a fine app for one simple task that does an awful lot right. I believe they've gone a little too far with simplifying by not including a black and white mix option and they should look at making fine control of those sliders easier. In a perfect world I'd like to see some dodge and burn options to further improve the black and white control. The quality of the application's results is excellent, however, and if you only want that simplified, limited set of options then Colour Splash Studio might be just the app for you.

So far so good right? Right - I love innovative ideas and I'm delighted to see Nikon coming up with some creative new features. but I can't help feeling these cameras aren't aimed at me. For starters there's the 10 megapixel resolution which is a good bit lower than I'm accustomed to. Even camera phones are getting close to the 10 megapixel mark (the new iPhone will likely have 8 megapixels). Also the on-camera buttons and controls have been pared down to something similar to a point and shoot. No scroll wheels under your fingers here. Not even any dials for selecting aperture priority, shutter priority or manual mode - even on the big brother V1 model. Then there's those new shooting modes. Do I really want to fill my memory cards with motion snapshot video? Do I want to go through the process of picking the best shot out of 5 when I take a picture? Now I think of it those seem like they'd be more useful on a consumer focussed camera.

But then they also seem to be lacking consumer features. Neither model has a touch screen so there won't be any touch to focus or expose and neither model has a fold-out screen either. The V1 is also lacking a pop-up flash though an optional hotshoe flash is available at extra cost. They're both also very expensive compared to consumer cameras and then there's the extra expense of interchangeable lenses. They're also both lacking a built-in GPS, which is becoming an increasingly important feature. So if this camera isn't aimed at pros and it's not got the features of a consumer camera then who is it for?

Ironically it might be the video guys that find this first crop of Nikon 1 cameras most appealing. The V1 has a mic input and both cameras can use the 10-100 PD-Zoom lens with variable speed zoom. There's an optional add-on That 1080p video with great quality Nikkor lenses might be very appealing indeed.

"Rebellion is the root of all creativity." - @SallyHogshead

Back when I entered the workforce with my 3rd class degree and a very limited idea of what I was good at I took a personality test. You know the sort - the ones where you read a bunch of statements and say how much you think each one is like you. One of the traits measured on that test was "creativity". I scored pretty low. This fit with my belief at the time that people were either science types or arty types and that it was nigh impossible to be both. Creativity was, obviously, an artsy person's trait. We scientists dealt in cold hard facts. 

To me creativity meant being able to invent something totally new. I knew that scientists always stood on the shoulders of giants and built on each other's work. I thought no idea could be truly creative if it was inspired by something someone else had done.

I hope the folly of my very narrow view of creativity is already apparent to you. It has taken me the last 20 years to slowly change my view to realise, first, that it is possible to be scientific *and* artistic. In fact I now realise that *most* people are both to some degree. But most importantly I've learned that creativity is so much more than just looking at a blank piece of paper and being able to pre-see the drawing you want to make on it. 

Creativity is quite simply the desire to create something - even if it's based on something you've seen by someone else. The very act of trying to recreate someone else's style is a creative act. By playing with a technique or approach you learn how it's done and in the process you inevitably put your own stamp on it. Maybe from there you find someone else's style that you like and work on emulating that. You learn a load more skills, but you don't forget your earlier ones. Without even thinking about it you combine the skills and styles of both and again you add a generous seasoning of your own taste and interest. Even just copying is a creative act. And of course the same is true in science and technology as well. Building on the work of others, adding to their ideas or refining them are all creative acts. Ironically, when I started my career as a programmer I was entering one of the most creative of all "science-types" professions. And I didn't even know it!

"Rebellion is the root of all creativity."

I saw @CC_Chapman tweet this quote by @SallyHogshead and my first reaction was to disagree. It suggests that to be creative you must buck the ideas of others and come up with something new. But I'm probably being too narrow minded again. Perhaps just wanting to create something, anything at all, is a small act of rebellion. What we're really doing when we create something is putting our heads above the parapet and trying to change our little bit of the world. Sounds like rebellion to me.

Experienced photographers are often still there to learn but it's also a wonderful forum for showing off their work and hanging out with like minded people. And if someone has done particularly good work (or if they're a great self promoter) then sometimes they can become a club "star photographer". Usually they're lauded and looked up to by the other members. Sometimes they become club leaders or competition judges. And of course members often try to emulate the star photographer's style in order to learn. But this is where it becomes tricky because members might start to compare all work with the work of those stars and pretty soon other styles are out of favour. Before you know it the club has it's own house style that is fashioned after that of the star members. In extreme cases you have to emulate that style in order to do well in club competitions.

This club behaviour isn't stupid or malicious. It's just an emergent property of having people wanting to show their work and others wanting to learn. It's natural but it's important for club leaders to see what's happening and encourage diversity. The same problems occur on photography websites and other photography communities as well. We all want to be the best photographer we can and we all want to have our own personal style. Emulating the work of people we admire is a big part of how we learn and how we develop our style but just try to be aware of your influences and be choosy about what parts of those you keep for the future. And if you feel you're getting stuck in a rut or your photography is becoming more of a responsibility than a pleasure then strike out in a new direction. Try something completely different to what you've done before. Show your club mates something they've never seen from you before in so doing challenge them to appreciate different styles and approaches.

“Become a more interesting person” – Jay Maisel responding to a student who asked him how to create more interesting photographs.

I want to tell you about the most important skill I've ever learned to improve my photography and I learned it from my dad. One of the things I most admired about him was his ability to talk to anyone, to show interest in them, make them smile and open up. In short he made friends and he made it seem effortless. But I've a suspicion, because he and I were so very much alike, that it wasn't at all easy for him as it isn't for me. Simply put, the most powerful photographic tool I have is the word, "hello". 

These days we isolate ourselves a great deal. Nowhere I've encountered is more this way than London where simply making eye contact with some people results in fear and alarm. But if we really want to make more interesting photographs we have to talk to people, find out who they are and what they're doing. Showing an interest in what interests someone else is a powerful way to strike up a conversation as it was for me today when I was out seeking pictures for an upcoming tutorial. I was wandering through the car park of a local church when I saw two chaps with interesting looking boxes they'd just taken from their van. So I went over and said good morning. Once I was close enough I could see that the boxes contained pigeons so I asked about them and we struck up a conversation. I expressed interest in their hobby and a few minutes later they were only too eager to let me take pictures of them releasing the birds. I got a picture I'm really pleased with but more importantly I got to experience something I wouldn't have if I'd not had the courage to walk up and introduce myself.

As a child I wasn't the extrovert I am now. In fact, I wasn't really confident talking to people I didn't know until I started getting interested in photography. And it wasn't an overnight thing that changed. I didn't just flip a switch in my head and suddenly I could talk to everyone. I took it slowly at first, just saying hello to anyone that caught my eye in the supermarket checkout queue or complimenting someone on their fabulous hat. It all starts with eye contact and a smile. But pretty quickly I learned that despite initial fears, people quite like it when you show interest in them. Most people *do* like to make friends. All I had to do was make the first move.

I took this to it's logical extreme recently when I was shooting video at a baby expo in Birmingham. I'd been asked to film the show in order to make a promo video and to focus on getting film of babies and children playing and having fun. I was a little nervous about that - would I have a female chaperone? Apparently not.  I was uncomfortable being the male photographer filming people's kids and I was all the more nervous when they couldn't even promise me an official photographer pass. So I bought and wore a bright yellow hi-vis vest printed with "OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER" and I was carrying a *big* video tripod with a camera on top. There was no doubting what I was there for. Nobody could have accused me of hiding or being covert. When I wanted to film kids I would go over and talk to them and their parents first. I started by asking them about what they were playing with, what they'd liked at the show and *then* when I'd broken the ice I brought up the question of what I was obviously there to do. Out of the many people I spoke to and asked for permission to film their children not one person said no. There's so much paranoia about kids and photography lately. It was incredibly refreshing to discover that most people are very reasonable and respond well to an honest explanation of what you want to do and a polite request for permission.

I can't tell you how much of a difference being able to talk to people has made to my life overall. One thing is for sure, though, it's opened up a world of new photography opportunities.

Yay, my iPhone SLR mount from Photojojo arrived today and I've been busily playing with it all morning. This wacky device lets me connect my SLR Canon lenses to my iPhone. I know - crazy right? My first instinct was to try using the 100mm macro with it so I hooked it up and headed for the garden. You can see the best of the resulting shots here.

So what do I think? Well first of all, yes this thing is real. it works. You can attach any Canon EF mount lens to it (Nikon version available too) and yes you really can get shallow depth of field pictures using this system. The first thing you'll notice, though, is that the pictures are upside down, which makes aiming the lens very tricky indeed and you'll need to rotate the images in post processing. There's also a big problem with dust spots because it uses a focusing screen to project the image from your lens onto and then the iPhone shoots a picture of the focusing screen. The screen picks up dust very easily and is very fragile so cleaning it is best done very gently with a lens cloth or using compressed air. 

The other problem with the focusing screen is that you can see the ridges on the screen in the pictures.  Check out the large versions of my pictures to see what I mean. In some cases I reduced the effect and in others I emphasised it. But in all cases it was there and quite easily visible at full size.

The device comes in 2 main parts, the jacket that fits onto the phone and then the DOF unit that screws onto the jacket with a 37mm thread close-up lens in between. The whole system is designed for 37mm threads so you can take the DOF unit off and add your own 37mm lenses if you wish.

Overall I found this a fun little device. With pro lenses on it's ridiculous looking, of course, and if you're going to carry big lenses anyway why wouldn't you just use your SLR? Valid points for sure but if you're just looking for something that's a bit of fun and you have $250 (ouch!) to spare then go ahead and get one. Personally I'll be getting a wide angle 37mm lens to attach to mine and using it for video, a bit like an OWLE.

• Download my Flare Presets here