What would you like to ask Tim Grey?

Question

UPDATE: Thank you to those who submitted and voted on questions; I got in touch with Tim and sent him the interview questions, so a blog post will be coming soon.

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I met Tim Grey, a photographer, author and educator a few weeks back, and he expressed some interest in this site. He makes a living teaching people photography, so I had initially thought it might be fun to do a chat event with him - a sort of live Q&A that also allows for some tangential conversation, but since this community is scattered across the globe, finding a time to do that would be difficult.

My current plan is interview him for the Photography Blog Overflow - but since this is a community site, I'd like it to be a crowd-sourced interview.

(Note: I'm not sure whether this will be an email interview or a phone/Skype interview that I can put up a recording and written summary of. Either way, I'd love your questions.)

Tim's books are mostly about Photoshop and Lightroom, but he also seems interested in color and lighting.

So: Do you have any questions you would like to ask him? Either about photographic editing/post-processing, photography education, earning a living from teaching photography, or anything else?

Let me know in the answers below. (Ideally, I'd like all the questions by March 9. :)

Answer 1

I have considered converting my image library of around 100,000 RAW files to DNG. My main goal is forwards compatibility and long term storage of my original files. Would you be for or against this conversion?

Answer 2

What workflow recommendations do you have for someone with color blindness? In my case, I have significant deuteranomaly and have trouble with green. I have found correct white balance to be my biggest challenge.

Answer 3

I have always been told to sharpen my photos as a last step in my workflow after resizing and editing has been done. If I am working in Lightroom, is this still necessary or is Lightroom able to determine the best order and handle that for me upon export?

Answer 4

Do you see a trend toward professional and amateur photographers giving CC BY-NC license to their images? Do you think that the trend is more toward free usage and sharing? How do you recommend that photographers both professional and amateur license images?

Answer 5

What are some ways to quickly strengthen your skill in panning and subject tracking with continuous autofocus?

Answer 6

What are some of the best techniques and tool settings to sharpen landscape photos for web and print? To sharpen bird and wildlife photos?

Answer 7

Is there a way to add face recognition to Lightroom beyond a workaround using picasa described here?

Answer 8

With the rising popularity of Pinterest and the building concern amongst photographers for posting images there, how do you recommend that photographers use it?

Answer 9

How do you feel about long term image storage on blu-ray? A previous question on the site has been asked about this, but I was wondering if you had any current knowledge or recommendations on this option.

Answer 10

How do you produce photos with that "professional" touch...that indistinct but very apparent difference between a photo taken by a novice amateur photographer, and a skilled veteran photographer?

An example comparison between some photos of amazing aesthetic appeal, with similar photographs that are just lacking...something:

• Stunning
  • http://1x.com/#!/photo/42119/portfolio/82912
  • http://1x.com/#!/photo/41717/portfolio/82912
  • http://1x.com/#!/photo/32602/portfolio/15805
• Good but Lacking
  • http://my-shots.deviantart.com/art/Ice-Snow-and-Sunset-5-285593154
  • http://my-shots.deviantart.com/art/Ice-Snow-and-Sunset-6-285738150
  • http://my-shots.deviantart.com/art/Saint-Petersburg-25C-12-284881647

The first set of photos are stunning. They have a very professional quality, "something" that I can't quite put my finger on exactly that makes them actually have the solid aesthetic appeal that draws viewers in for a long look.

The second set of photos are good, but obviously lacking the quality of the first set. They are shots of roughly the same kind of thing, but they do not have that professional quality. You look at them for a moment, an think that must have been beautiful...but you don't quite get the sense of the photos being beautiful themselves in teh same way.

I would really love to know exactly what it is that sets the first set apart from the second. How does a photographer develop the skill to consistently produce photos of stunning artistic and aesthetic appeal to draw in viewers and potential customers?