Eric Scouten: Blog

Lightroom Technique: How I Organize My Catalog and Why

Eric — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:50:25 +0000

In this article, I talk about the way I use Lightroom’s folders panel to organize my photos on disk. I talk about how I made the choices I’ve made, and some of the alternatives I considered and why I rejected them. In addition to my work on the Lightroom development team, I also like to teach [...]

New Northern Gardener Article

Eric — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:47:57 +0000

Those of you in and around Minnesota might want to wander down to your local bookstore in the next couple weeks so you can pick up a copy of Northern Gardener magazine. The September-October issue carries a new six-page article on landscaping technique written by my mother and photographed by yours truly.

PhotoCalc: A Nifty iPhone App for Photographers

Eric — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:13:13 +0000

Adair Systems has released a handy little calculator for photographers. I’ve just downloaded it and I can already tell it will be very handy. In addition to the calculators you might expect (exposure calculator, depth-of-field, and flash exposure), it can also tell you sunrise and sunset for your current location on any date (assuming you have [...]

Where in the World …

Eric — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:40:39 +0000

I love travel. I love maps. So here’s a map of where I’ve traveled: Create your own visited country map. A few details: I omit Norway since I’ve only been through the Oslo airport. IMHO an airport transfer doesn’t count as a visit to the country. I’ve visited every state in the U.S. and every province in Canada. There are [...]

Lightroom 2 Technique: Smart Collections and Worklists

Eric — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:56:32 +0000

Note: Last year, on the Lightroom Journal, I wrote about using worklist keywords to keep track of your keywording efforts. In this article, I look at some new and improved ways to accomplish the same thing with Lightroom 2.0. I use worklists to keep track of work I want to do on my photography collection. It’s [...]

iPhone App Store Gotcha: Syncing a Phone with Multiple Machines

Eric — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:28:51 +0000

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve been experimenting with downloading apps on my iPhone. Mostly it’s a good experience, although I’m looking forward to the apps maturing a bit. I got burned today by iTunes’ handling of downloaded apps and I thought I should share it with those of you who use multiple machines. I have two [...]

iPhone 3G: First Thoughts

Eric — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:13:28 +0000

A friend and I went to the Apple Store in Seattle on Friday morning thinking we could pick up one of the spiffy new iPhones. Us and many hundred other folks. (See photo of the line at right.) Rick and I both looked at each other and decided we weren’t that hard core. Rick is now [...]

New Look for Site

Eric — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:22:31 +0000

Last night I updated the look and feel of my entire site. I want to give a big shout out to Chris Pearson, who developed the excellent Thesis theme. The look of all three components of my site (portfolio, photoblog, and this blog) is based on Chris’s work. There are something like fourteen billion WordPress themes [...]

Why I Wish the iPhone Was a Flip Phone

Eric — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:57:46 +0000

So we’re on vacation in Fiji. Our flight gets delayed, so I called my parents (who were picking us up) to let them know the new plan. Hung up. Stuck the phone in my pocket. Went for a walk. Didn’t think about the phone for almost an hour. Pulled the phone out of my pocket. [...]

Day 1: Auckland

Eric — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:15:32 +0000

We arrived this morning in Auckland. Qantas made the flight about as pleasant as possible, given that it was a twelve-and-a-half hour flight. This was helped in part by having a flight that wasn’t entirely full, but also by the fact that Qantas’ international flight crews are among the most thoughtful I’ve encountered on any [...]