Ask Ryan Brenizer

• Question: Like your work Ryan. Smart shots. Which camera profile you use in LR? ACR is not always accurate and sometimes I use Camera Portrait to accurate get colors right. I tried Colorchecker Passport but the colors take me back to ACR, it seems. I also find the Nikon colors a bit on the green tinge, how do you compensate for that? Thanks - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I am not a fan of how LR treats NIkon files. I’ve managed to get it back more or less where I want it by extensively modifying some VSCO presets, ironically, to make them look more like my digital camera actually captures, not faux-filmy.

• Question: Hi Ryan. You mentioned before that you use ProPhoto 4 but how do you create the story board look to the photos within your posts? A third party action? or do you design from scratch each time yourself? Thank you! - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I used to design my posts like an album in Aperture, sized to my blog size. Now I just use this: http://www.codeandhustle.com/products/storyboard/

• Question: Are you gonna post that Brenizer method photo you made at your wppi platform class :) - stewartuy
• Answer:

  Ask and ye shall receive…

  

• Question: Hi Ryan, I am a HUGE fan out of Ontario, Canada. I just wanted to know about DNG files. I heard DNG files are show better than JPEG in terms of quality for Facebook. What are your thoughts about this and how do I get a DNG file? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I think you mean PNG files. You can save things as PNG in Photoshop or many free apps, like Mac Preview.

• Question: You've mentioned a few times that you have a custom tone curve in camera, could you elaborate on that a bit? I've never heard of someone doing that and frankly I didn't realize my camera was capable of such features. - Anonymous
• Answer:

  Absolutely — you can do it in View NX, which is free. There’s a module in it that lets you create custom curves and then upload it to your camera via card. More info here: http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/microsite/picturecontrol/application/application.htm

Apparently the sun also rises. Excited to be headed back to Vancouver. (at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR))

• Question: How many folks do you have working for you? (Public relations/Emails, second shooters, maybe an editor?) Do you do most of the editing yourself, part, or all of it? - finkphotography
• Answer:

  One full-time employee, who is awesome and worth the Manhattan assistant prices. I generally have one photographer as contracted help at each wedding (usually picked from workshop attendees as I know their personality and abilities), and sometimes two if the couple has paid for extras or we’re having a big wedding with a photobooth. All of the editing is done in-house between Wendy and I.

• Question: Hi Ryan, do you leave the default sharpening in acr then output to a jpeg, then use unsharp mask? Or do you zero out any raw default sharpening first? Then use unsharp mask? Thanks. - Anonymous
• Answer:

  Sharpening is always the very last stage of an image, when you know it will be output to a certain size and medium. If I’m outputting my regular files straight from Lightroom I use the normal settings. If I’m making a print I use settings for the size of print and the material. And if I’m outputting to web size then I have photoshop presets for that.

• Question: Hi Ryan. Do you use LR & Photoshop? If so, what are your thoughts on the Adobe CC? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  Abstractly, I appreciate the karmic elegance. adobe is doing this to combat piracy. They can only pull off a move like this because they have a monopoly. But they have a monopoly BECAUSE of piracy. It makes an interesting narrative. 

  But of course it’s one I’m caught up in. It makes me less likely to upgrade for a while, and especially I know I won’t start using InDesign for albums any time soon. 

• Question: I know you have amazing second shooters that work for you, but, if you could pick any photographer ( dead or alive ) who would you choose and why? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I’d have Platon run the photo booth.

• Question: How many views does your website have & how many mails you get per average per day? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  A lot. I haven’t checked my web site recently because I’ve had hosting issues (which I’m fixing today, huzzah!) but I have a well-paid full-time employee whose primary role is to manage the e-mail stream. 

• Question: How do you keep track of all your social media sites? Denise - Anonymous
• Answer:

  http://ryanbrenizer.com/socialmedia

  Thanks for the reminder to update that with this Tumblr!

• Question: Hey Ryan. I've noticed your photos look sharp (but not too sharp) and often not very compressed on Facebook. How do you prep an image for uploading to Facebook? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I don’t know if this actually helps, but I upload images at 960 pixel PNG files. I do whatever I can to keep Facebook from hacking my shadows and tones apart.

• Question: After I shoot a wedding, get home and try to sleep I find myself staying up late getting mad on shots that I forgot to take. Thinking," why didn't I do that?!? How did I forget to go to that location?! Or why didn't I use that technique!?" Does this ever happen to? Or am I just being to hard on myself? Thank you, Joey, CA. - Anonymous
• Answer:

  Well without being so mad at yourself, this is a good process. Review the day and see if there is anything you could do differently next time. Just working a lot won’t do much for you — there are plenty of people who have done 700 weddings and are shooting the same way as their seventh wedding. The important part is learning as you go.

• Question: What is you fave lens of all and why? - Anonymous
• Answer:

  I don’t really fetishize gear very much, but there is something special in my heart for the Nikon 58mm f/1.2. I have to keep selling my copies because I’m a user, not a collector, and know I’m going to quickly destroy them.