Peter Cook: Photography

Make Keyword Assistant work with newer iPhoto versions

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 04:04:31 GMT

Keyword Assistant (KA) for iPhoto received a 9/10 MacOSXHints rating back in August 2004 as a Pick of the Week. It's been a great productivity enhancer, until iPhoto was updated past 6.0.2 -- Ken Ferry has not updated KA since then, and he designed it to limit KA's features when an iPhoto version beyond 6.0.2 was installed.

This was terrible for me, since I depended so much on KA -- I emailed Ken several times to no avail -- and then browsing VersionTracker's comments one day, I noticed this suggestion by editcandy:

Link to Story | Source Home

O'Reilly's "Inside Lightroom" Armed and Dangerous

Fri, 19 May 2006 03:12:03 GMT

Inside Lightroom is a new O’Reilly site loaded with tips and techniques for mastering Adobe’s breakthrough photo workflow application. Start by listening to an audio interview with published author Julianne Kost as she discusses Lightroom’s impact for digital photographers.

Then go the the Adobe Labs page and download the latest version of the public beta. To help you get comfortable quickly, also download our free 22-page “getting started” PDF by O’Reilly author, Ken Milburn, titled From Darkroom to Lightroom.

We’re firing up the blog posts too. For example, do you know how to add music to a Lightroom slideshow? Check out this slideshow tip to get the scoop.

Lots more to come… stay tuned.

[Via Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: MacDevCenter.com]

Use advanced Red-Eye and Retouch tools in iPhoto6

Wed, 10 May 2006 02:39:22 GMT

Use this super-secret method to access some super-secret advanced editing modes in iPhoto6.
[Via macosxhints]

Digital trend challenges camera makers

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:08:52 GMT

Recent retreats by leading brands underline how the industry has turned upside-down
[Via The Globe and Mail - Technology News]

"Camera buffs were stunned in January when Konica Minolta Holdings Inc., which traces its roots to 1873, said it was quitting the camera business altogether — digital and film — and selling its digital assets to rival Sony Corp.

Nikon Corp. said the same month it would stop making seven of its nine film cameras and concentrate on digital models.

Fuji Photo Film Co., which plans to cut 5,000 jobs, changed directions last month announcing it would spend nearly $8.5-million (U.S.) to diversify into pharmaceuticals.

Europe's biggest film maker, Germany's AgfaPhoto GmbH, couldn't adapt at all; it's now bankrupt and liquidated.

Meanwhile, Antonio Perez, who is leading Eastman Kodak Co. through a four-year digital remake, has warned that Kodak, the pioneer of point-and-shoot photography, is now "at the worst possible place" after a $1.03-billion third-quarter loss."

Great Prints from your Mac

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:53:20 GMT

Producing good prints that even come close to what you see on your computer monitor is still the most frustrating aspect of digital photography. It doesn't have to be, however. Just remember these three steps: calibrate your screen, image edit your photo, and configure your printer.
[Via Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: MacDevCenter.com]

Review: Nikon D200

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:44:58 GMT

Until now, the Canon 20D was the leading candidate to become my next digital SLR. But the D200’s higher scores for color quality and exposure accuracy make it a tempting proposition as well.

Nikon D200 (4.0 Mice) Best Current Price:$1699.99 (via ProductFinder)
[Via MacCentral]

Photocasting: Serve the Right Picture Size

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 04:31:23 GMT

iPhoto 6.0.1 has refined its ability to publish images in your library via RSS. And it works great -- in some ways almost too well. You need to be aware of the resolution you're sending out to control bandwidth requirements and how your images can be used.

[Via Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: MacDevCenter.com]

Secrets: Cleaning your digital-camera sensor

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 20:48:53 GMT

When you switch lenses on your SLR, it’s possible for the camera to collect small specks of dust on the sensor—the light-sensitive silicon chip that samples incoming light. Even without changing lenses, you can collect dust when shooting in dry, dusty environments.
[Via MacCentral]

Just posted! PMA 2006 Final Show Report

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:29:29 GMT

PMA 2006: We've just posted the final version of our PMA 2006 Show Report. The show report covers 19 stands with over 230 images and 2,880 words (all produced and posted live from the show floor). In the five days of the show we received over 3.8 million visitors who read 14.6 million pages. We've also compiled our top ten new products (a few of which will probably come as no surprise). Overall we found this PMA to be a busy show with plenty of interesting news and a much more positive vibe in 'backroom' meetings. It was a noticeable step up from last year and bodes well for the year ahead and Photokina in September.
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

iPhoto 6: Good, but Not Ground-Breaking

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:29:20 GMT

Let's look at some of the slick new features in iPhoto 6, which fall into two main categories: editing and sharing capabilities.

[Via TidBITS]

Coming Back Full Circle to Film and Paper

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:28:33 GMT

Much of the hallway talk around PMA has drifted to archiving, the permanence of prints from today's home printers, and what shape our images will be in 100 years from now. The growing distrust of optical media's archival ability combined with its lack of storage capacity for today's huge files has people wondering, "what should I use?"

Hard drives seem OK for temporary storage, as long as there's plenty of redundancy. But are they really practical over decades? Suddenly photographers are thinking about archiving to paper and film again -- printing on stable stock with long lasting dyes and migrating their most cherished digital images to back to film. When stored properly, this return to paper and celluloid makes a certain amount of sense... I think. Or does it?

[Via Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: MacDevCenter.com]

An issue which has to be dealt with by any medium which has made the transition from analogue to digital.

News: PMA: JustShowMeHowTo offers on-demand photo tips

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 18:28:11 GMT

JustShowMeHowTo.com is a new instructional video site that teaches about photography.
[Via MacCentral]

Clever

Kodak's digital sales overtake film

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 02:10:44 GMT

Kodak digital sales made up 54% of total revenue for 2005, marking the first time in the company's history that digital revenue exceeded film. The news came on the same day that the company reported that total losses for this year could top $1 billion, after the fifth consecutive quarter of losses - due mainly to the restructuring that the shift to digital required. On the positive side, sales of Kodak digital cameras are up.
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

Nikon to focus on digital

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:24:53 GMT

Nikon UK has made an interesting announcement titled 'Nikon prepares to strengthen digital line-up for 2006' that signals the beginning of the end of nearly 60 years of Nikon fllm cameras. Nikon Corp has made the decision to 'focus management resources' on digital cameras in place of film cameras, and is discontinuing most film camera bodies, manual focus lenses and accessories and all large format and enlarging lenses. In Europe only the flagship F6 film camera will remain on sale.
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

News: Canon offers new digital cameras

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 04:46:34 GMT

Canon introduced new pro-level digital single lens reflex cameras and new consumer-focused point and shoot models today.
[Via MacCentral]

Feature: Prepare your photos

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:34:00 GMT

Apple’s iPhoto 5 is anything but another ho-hum digital shoebox. You can use it to create an efficient workflow for managing all your pictures. Understanding and using iPhoto’s organizational tools will help you get the most out of the program’s creative side. We’ll show you how to enhance your photos, as well as how to use iPhoto to sort them so they’re ready when you need them for any type of output.

[Via MacCentral]

Canon launch beginner SLR site

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 15:10:39 GMT

Canon has today launched a new educational website called 'Enjoy! Digital SLR Cameras'. Split into five sections it contains a large range of tutorials covering everything from the familiarising yourself with the camera to selecting the right exposure, how to frame subjects more creatively and even printing. While the site is clearly aimed at users of Canon digital SLR's much of the material applies equally to all SLR users.
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

Fixing Snaps in a Snap

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:05:21 GMT

Charles Maurer (~2890 words)

I enjoy work. Like the narrator of "Three Men in a Boat," I can sit and watch it for hours. Whenever I have something that needs to be done, I work hard to find a way to put it off. Nothing, I have found, facilitates this job like fixing photos. It's easy and rewarding. It helps me to procrastinate for hours.

[Via TidBITS]

A fine –if fastidious – step-by-step approach to tidying up snapshots.

A Pro Camera That Amateurs Can Afford

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 04:37:18 GMT

Digital single-lens-reflex cameras keep getting cheaper. Nikon's latest, the D50, brings S.L.R. quality into the $750 price range.
[Via New York Times: Technology]

TidBITS: Picking a Point-and-Shoot Camera

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 03:12:50 GMT

In short, as the market stands today, I can see buying a $500 camera, and I can see buying a $1,500 camera, but I cannot see buying anything in between.

A good overview of issues to consider when looking for a digital point and shoot.

Shooting in the RAW, Perfecting the Image

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 06:15:35 GMT

Selecting RAW changes how a camera saves an image, maximizing picture quality and giving the photographer more control over the way the pictures look.
[Via New York Times: Technology]
"The real trouble comes when you edit a JPEG - cropping it, for instance, or fine-tuning color and exposure. Each time you modify and save the image, more data is thrown away. And once the data you wouldn't miss is gone, the compression attacks more noticeable details. Save and resave and save again, and your image can become a blurry, blotchy mess."

Perhaps some day people will realize that the same problem exists with data compressed audio schemes such as mp3.

Less Cursing, Better Pictures: 10 Suggestions

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 06:11:30 GMT

A guide to things you should ignore and things you shouldn't.
[Via New York Times: Technology] Judging by what I see in the rss feed, NYT has a special section on photography today. Check out this article and more.

Which Camera Does This Pro Use? It Depends on the Shot

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 05:59:39 GMT

With four decades of war, sports and politics at hand, photojournalist David Burnett has had a lot of experience with a lot of different cameras.
[Via New York Times: Technology] "

On the screen was a wide overhead picture of a John Kerry rally last fall in Madison, Wis., which Mr. Burnett shot with a Canon 20D digital camera, the same camera used by thousands of other professionals around the world. Not surprisingly, the picture looks like thousands of others that were shipped around the globe during the campaign.

The colors are bright. Every part of the image is crisp, so crisp that just picking the minuscule figure of Mr. Kerry out of the huge crowd takes a "Where's Waldo?" moment.

And then Mr. Burnett flipped to a photograph taken seconds later with the ancient Speed Graphic. Suddenly, the image took on a luminescent depth. The center of the image, with Mr. Kerry, was clear. Yet soon the crowd along the edges began to float into softer focus on translucent planes of color.

The effect is to direct the viewer's eye to Mr. Kerry while also conveying the scale and intensity of the crowd. In accomplishing both at the same time, the old-fashioned photograph communicates a rich sense of meaning that the digital file does not.

The digital picture pretends to display raw reality. The analog picture is a visualization of human memory."

As an audio person it is fascinating for me to watch this happen in the realm of digital photography. We spent the last 25 years going through the same process. At first we were blown away by certain features of digital. But those who were really paying attention noticed a sound quality problem. This led to long arguments as many people attributed the defects to the wrong thing. Here we are 25 years later and what we have realized is what people in digital photography will soon know. Digital is the practical work tool a long time before it has quality surpassing analogue. But it does happen. Get the design of the cameras and their DSP away from the engineers and into the hands of artists, get enough 'bandwidth' and eventually you will find that film is used when a certain effect is desired. It will be a Photoshop 'plug-in'. Maybe it is already!

Canon posts three D-SLR firmware updates

Tue, 31 May 2005 14:26:40 GMT

Canon has today posted firmware updates for the EOS 350D (Digital Rebel XT), EOS-1D Mark II and EOS-1Ds Mark II. Each update addresses slightly different issues, in the case of the EOS 350D update this firmware includes a fix for 'extreme underexposure when using some lenses', an auto power off issue and an incorrect flash WB issue. The EOS-1D Mark II and EOS-1Ds Mark II updates fix a camera hang issue which could lead to a loss of buffered images (this appears to be the problem discussed in an advisory...
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

Lens five times thinner than paper developed

Wed, 25 May 2005 21:22:33 GMT

Scientists at Canada's Universite Laval have invented a lens that is five times thinner than a piece of paper and can zoom without using mechanical parts. The lens is created by adding a small quantity of photosensitive material to a liquid crystal cell. When a weak electrical current is applied, the crystals realign differently from those in the periphery and thus take on the shape and behavior of a lens. The researchers have been able to modify the lens' focal distance from 1.6 to 8 meters in a few...
[Via Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]