Copyrightimage

Client Notice - Caution with new interface colours in Photoshop CS6

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:27:00 +0000

Click to enlarge

Which image on the left do you prefer?
Is it the bright one at the top which appears to have more contrast to either the middle or lower one?

As you may have guessed, all the images are exactly the same its just the surrounding interface colour that has changed. Its a known fact that the surroundings of an image can affect the perception of the image itself

Photoshop CS6 ships with the new darker interface colours as standard and as a result of this there will be lots of people disappointed with dark/flat prints from images worked on in CS6.

When preparing images from repro I regularly view each image against light grey (default) but also against black then white.

Viewing an image against black is a quick way to visually check that shadow areas are not too light or too dark, viewing against white shows how the image will look when surrounded by white paper, this last step is critical in getting a perception as to how the image will look when printed.

I suggest you set Photoshop to default to the older light grey interface colour, I know its boring in comparison but your image adjustments will be easier to view.

To set the interface colour go to Preferences: Interface and select the lightest grey to the right.

If you want to judge shadows then press the F key to switch screen mode and right click on the grey area surrounding the image and select "Black", to see the image against white press F again and this time select custom colour and choose white (top left hand corner of the colour picker), from now pressing the F key will cycle you through light grey / black / white. (Press the F key till you get back to light grey when your finished).

This tip is an example of the kind of practical Photoshop training I give to people who want to work to professional standards, its the kind of tip that is not in the manual but is important if you want to get things right. If you think you would benefit from some one to one training then give me a call.

Stephen

Photoshop CS6 retail code

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:48:00 +0000

I have just installed Photoshop CS6 from the retail release here at Copyrightimage.
Just a couple of points to help out any clients making the upgrade:

1. If you do have the beta of CS6 already installed then completely uninstall it first before installing the retail code. If you have Photoshop CS5 or earlier installed then dont uninstall it just yet.

2. There is one change since beta that annoys me - when using the zoom tool there are image measurements displayed at the edge of the zoom boundary box. This is very distracting to me, if you also find it annoying then you can turn it off by opening preferences and selecting "none" in the drop down menu of the "Show Transformation Values" in the Options part of the Interface section.

I found the beta faster and nicer to use than Photoshop CS5 so Im hoping the retail code hasn't changed this too much. If you are still using CS4 or earlier it may be time to think about swapping to a 64bit operating system and using CS6 in 64bit mode.

Any queries - get in touch,

Stephen

Lightroom 4 now available

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:31:00 +0000

Adobe have today released Lightroom 4 to market.
I have just ordered an upgrade copy on-line as I was pleased with the new functionality of the beta version.

The upgrade price (£59.09 inc VAT) is lower than previous versions and the retail price for the full product (£103.88 inc VAT) is also much less than previous versions. Adobe have reduced the price because of market competition from software such as Apple Aperture 3 which is priced at £54.99 for a new licence. A pity there is no competition for Photoshop.

You can read about Lightroom 4 here:
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

If you decide to purchase I recommend requesting the box be sent to you, there is free shipping till the end of the month. The software download version costs more money and means no physical media to reinstall from, you will however be supporting the Irish Governments attempts to get the country back from the brink of economic collapse (the higher VAT rate Adobe charge for software downloads from Ireland are the reason for downloads costing more than shipping physical product). Its your call.

Windows 8 Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:03:00 +0000

I have installed the public beta version of Windows 8 onto my main machine as a boot option in order to assess its suitability for my imaging clients.

First impressions are not good, the touch interface may work well on a tablet but as the default for a standard PC + monitor its hopeless.

The rest looks to be Windows 7 with some changes to the interface. It took me 5 minutes trying to find out how to restart the machine since all the usual desktop controls are not there any more and Microsoft are not giving the user any clues.

Clearly Microsoft wants Windows 8 to be hip but it ends up looking like an old fool, I just hope they can drag this one back from the edge as it currently looks like a slow motion car crash.

If your planning a system upgrade in the next 12 months then specify Windows 7 (preferably 64bit - give me a call if you have any queries.)

I will persevere with Windows 8 to check out Photoshop/Lightroom/Wacom/Xrite interoperability but I'm not looking forward to it.

Stephen

Canon 5D MKIII a bit of a disapointment

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:06:00 +0000

The extra 1mp resolution is not going to be visible, (its a 22mp camera).
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/03/02/Canon-5D-Mark-III
Improvements to focusing etc are welcome and it will no doubt be a slightly better camera than the Mark II but it wont be significantly better. If you have lots of Canon lenses then its an option, if you can start from scratch then Nikon are where things are at these days.

Update: Canon are pricing the camera at £3,000 in the UK some £600 more expensive than the new Nikon D800 with its leading edge 36mp sensor. Even without the sales tax the camera is still far more expensive than in the US market.

Canon have also release a wifi transmitter for the camera at £790, yes, £790 for a box of electronics that cost at most $40 to produce, clearly Canon are not planning on selling too much kit in the UK from now on.

Nikon ups the ante with 36MP Dslr

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:41:00 +0000

Exciting times in Nikon land with a new record for 35mm Dslr resolution of 36MP.

The Nikon D800 has a maximum resolution of 7360 x 4912 pixels meaning an uncompressed 8 bit tiff size of over 103mb!

Read about it here:
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikond800/page2.asp

Link to sample images: http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d800/sample01.htm

Image quality looks to be somewhere between current best 35mm Dslr and Medium Format digital, so not quite Hasselblad quality but not that far off and a lot cheaper/easier to use.

Some samples with a wide angle zoom show that the limiting factor is the lens resolution itself.
Perhaps this has occurred to Canon who may bring something out to match it, they have started to revise their lens designs to improve performance: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/02/07/Canon_24-70mm_F2p8_II_24mm_f2p8_IS_28mm_f2p8_IS

Clearly Nikon are on the front foot with this especially at the price point of £2,400 for the version with an anti alias filter, (for some reason the one without the filter is more expensive)

Compared to 21MP cameras like the Canon 1ds MKIII these files will require an extra 70% more disk space for raws and master tiff files. Working with the 103mb file is interesting, it takes quite a few stokes with a wacom pen to move around the canvas even on a very high res 30" Eizo screen, its like going back to 8MP images on an old 1024x768 screen.

Interesting, what do you think Canon?

Client Story: Doug Allan

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:23:00 +0000

The cameraman Doug Allan is a well known name in the world of wildlife documentaries and I help Doug with the stills side of his business.
Doug asked me to get involved in the preparation of the images for his first book "Freeze Frame" that is just about to be released.
Some of the images date back to the early part of his career so care was needed to reduce grain and get the images looking as fresh as the day they were taken, CMYK files were prepared for the books designer Simon Bishop.

Simon has just let me know that the printing at Butler Tanner and Dennis in Somerset went well and he is very pleased with the results of the two days of printing on the new Heidelberg press there.

Copyrightimage Ltd will also be handling book distribution so Jennie will be sorting on-line orders for the book.

Book details:
"Multi-award winning wildlife photographer and cameraman Doug Allan, of the BBC’s Frozen Planet now turns the focus on himself in his first book “Freeze Frame”!

Having worked on Blue Planet, Planet Earth, Human Planet, Life, the recent Ocean Giants and the sensational Frozen Planet, Doug brings together a collection of astounding anecdotes and breathtakingly beautiful photographs from the remotest places on Earth.

Have you ever been watching one of the BBC’s groundbreaking wildlife documentaries and thought “How did he get that shot?!” – well now you can find out the incredible stories behind the images in Doug Allan’s début book.

Braving the elements and depths of the Antarctic and Arctic Oceans, Doug has produced a fascinating 240 page book filled with exceptional photographs and secrets of life behind the lens, giving you a peek into the often hostile yet inspiring world of a wildlife cameraman

This book is so much more than a collection of superb images. Doug started life as a research diver in 1976 at Signy Island, Antarctica. Now with 35 years of experience in the Antarctic and Arctic, the stories that accompany every picture in this book tell of Doug’s astonishing adventures and encounters, his insights and emotions, his deep understanding of the biology of the animals and the psychology of film-makers.

Following a foreword from friend, Sir David Attenborough, the book is split into six sections; with many stories from Doug’s unique polar experiences and Arctic field craft, highlighting the challenges - and frustrations - of filming the animals themselves.

The book contains 70 long and short stories under the following themes:
• Camerawork
• Polar Heavens
• Ice & Snow, Cold and Colder
• Shots to Remember
• Near Misses
• Characters I Have Known
• Turning Up the Heat

From being pulled under water by a walrus, to the cunning and predatory Orca whale’s hunting skills. Doug invites you to learn about and discover the awe-inspiring nature hidden within the polar wastelands. Often exciting, sometimes humorous and always revealing and refreshingly honest, this is a uniquely personal portrait of the polar environments and the animals that live there, written by the man who’s spent more time there with a camera than anyone else.

“Every picture tells a story. I’ve just given the ones in this book a chance to tell theirs.”
- Doug Allan

Doug has won four Emmy and four BAFTA awards, as well as several Wildscreen Pandas. With Freeze Frame Doug gives the public a chance to step into his frozen world – without the frostbite!

Freeze Frame will be available from February 2012 pre-order here or at www.dougallan.com

You can pre-order Doug Allan's new book "Freeze Frame" in hardback here (for buyers in the UK):
£25 + £6 P&P

Getty upload site tip

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:38:00 +0000

Quick tip if you upload images to the Getty site-
I'm uploading clients images to the Getty upload portal, and as usual its like wading through treacle.
Multiple text fields with only a selection needed to be filled in and an irregular acceptance of text in each field means lots of extra work to get the data to stick.

The solution - Use the tab key starting at the top field, just tab through the fields you don't need to fill in, the data sticks each time doh!

Backup Compact Camera (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:23:00 +0000

I know several clients who use Canon G10/11/12 cameras as a lightweight addition to their dSLRs. Very handy for capturing pictures adhoc when taking the usual kit out would be a pain or draw unwanted attention.

It has been possible to get the best of these images through Getty quality control but a lot of the time image quality can be an issue.

Canon have announced a possible solution. Its a little larger than the older G series (only a bit), but the sensor inside is 6x bigger. This will mean less noise on the 14MP sensor. Its on pre order at the moment and will cost approx £700 inc VAT.

DP have a review here

No sample images as yet but if your about to buy a G12 you may want to wait and see.

Update
Things are looking good, early pre production sample images are available here:
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/albums/canon-powershot-g1-x-preview-samples

Not quite Canon 1Ds MkIII / 5D MkII quality but pretty impressive for a small 14mp compact, particularly at high iso. Nice.

The HD video samples look very fragile with quite bad moire, lets hope this improves on the production model, less important than the stills quality though...

Lightroom 4 Public Beta

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:50:00 +0000

Looks like Lightroom 4 will be a worthwhile upgrade when it appears later this year.

You can preview the new functionality yourself by downloading the beta from Adobe.

For me the biggest changes are the new develop settings layout, soft proofing for your different printer profiles and the map function will become of interest when more cameras contain gps circuitry.

On a more "Ed Reardon" note Adobe have "kindly encouraged their programmers to get their fingers out" and burning images to DVD is now supported in the 64bit version of Windows 7, something they should fix in Lightroom 3 but have not.

UK upgrade price will no doubt be the same price as the US plus a special supplement to pay for a new Adobe executive aircraft.

Ed

Adobe create problems for their users

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:43:00 +0000

It has been brought to my attention that there are some problems with creating ePUB documents with Adobe Indesign 5.0.

Apparently Adobe have fixed the problems but rather than allow users to receive an update they are telling them to upgrade to 5.5 to get the fix.

Is that a fair thing to do? Im sure there are people who happily pay for new products when the ones they have are faulty but it doesn't seem right to me.

More to come
Adobe also plans to radically change the system where users of their software could upgrade to the latest version of the program for an upgrade fee. In the past you would have paid something like £160 ($248.00 US) for an upgrade from say Photoshop CS2 to CS5. Now the planned upgrade version to CS6 is only available if you own the previous release meaning that if you have missed out on the upgrade to CS5 but wanted to upgrade your CS4 ,3 or 2 to CS6 you will need to pay the full price of the program again.

This will mean that someone moving to Photoshop CS6 will have to pay the same as someone who hasn't paid Adobe in the past. Currently Photoshop CS5 sells on the Adobe store for £548 excluding sales tax (VAT) - that is $851 US.

Clients who are not VAT registered will need to pay £657 or its equivalent for the upgrade (that's over $1,000.00 US) when moving to Photoshop CS6 and assuming the price remains the same as current.

Adobe have offered a time limited plan for users of CS2,3,4 to upgrade to CS5 at 20% less then pay the separate upgrade to CS6 when it comes out, very generous of them to offer this?

Clearly we are in an unhealthy situation where Adobe are feeling strong enough to milk their customers. Once dominant companies such as Quark have in the past also gone through such a stage.

In a competitive market this does not happen, market failure is causing Adobe to move to a place it should not be. In the future we need to be cautious with dealing with this ugly aspect of the company, this means expecting the software to function as specified, if we are to pay (much) more then we need to demand more.

Here is the statement from a serious user of Adobe software who was kind enough to write to me detailing her story:

I was using InDesign CS5 to create an ePub of my new book, The Global Indie Author: How anyone can self-publish in the U.S. and worldwide markets. (I am both a writer and a photographer.) The export to ePub utility in CS5 is full of bugs that are program-specific, meaning they are not the result of unforeseen issues with your OS or in conflict with another program. It was clear InDesign CS5 had been released prematurely: there was no way the programmers didn’t know about these bugs. To add insult to injury, Adobe didn’t release any patches; they simply “fixed” the problems for CS5.5 and told consumers to upgrade. It was outrageous. The analogy I made was to a car with a manufacturing defect: the company is forced by law to perform a recall; they can’t just say, “Oh, we fixed that problem in the next model; just go buy a new car.” Yet this was precisely what Adobe was doing. So I complained both publicly and directly to Adobe and they offered me a free upgrade to CS5.5. I have no illusions it was to neutralize the threat I posed, and fair enough. But I hope others will realise that Adobe is not so big that they are impervious to consumer ill-will.

Michelle Demers

Client Story: Random House / BBC Books / Frozen Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:27:00 +0000

With the exciting BBC Frozen Planet series due to be aired on TV this month I'm pleased to reveal my work on the accompanying book of the series.

I was asked to prepare all the images for the book. I worked closely with the designer supplying colour managed and exactingly sharpened CMYK images from supplied RGB originals.

The most important part of the work was to ensure tonal and colour consistency between series of shots. As often happens sequences were filmed with multiple cameras and bringing together their disparate shots can reveal quite major exposure differences that spoil the consistency of the scenes portrayed, it was my job to provide a better visual match whilst retaining accuracy and the integrity of the shots. Such as sequence in the book is in chapter 5 covering the hunting of bison by wolves.

There was a variety of sources for the images from high quality RAW files to HD screen grabs that needed careful interpolation and sharpening to work on the printed page.

In TV and Film production the process of colour balancing images in sequence is called "grading", what I offered was the stills equivalent and was very pleased to receive an email from the authors Alastair Fothergill and Vanessa Berlowitz thanking me for doing the work. This meant a lot to me as is so often the case I found myself immersed in the subject matter and wanted to get the best possible results.

If you have an important book project and want the very best results from the images then please feel free to contact me, its not a costly process given the difference that good grading and preparation can make.

The Frozen Planet book is now available and can be purchased on-line, here is Amazons page of the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frozen-Planet-Alastair-Fothergill/dp/1846079624/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1319471881&sr=8-3

Client Story: Hard Rain Project

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:28:00 +0000

HARD RAIN: What'll You Do Now?
at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew till 25th September 2011

Mark Edwards has used his original Hard Rain Project set of images as the core element of a new project that considers how we can as individuals and as a society can move towards a sustainable future for the Planet.

This powerful exhibition is currently on show at Kew Gardens in London, you can read all about the project and the exhibition here:
http://www.hardrainproject.com/

Kudos to the management of Kew Gardens for allowing some "difficult" images amongst the beauty of the gardens, in my opinion this raises their profile as a conservationist organisation and the garden location is exactly the right place for thousands of people each day to consider the issues raised.

Photography is at its best when it combines passion with meaningful subject matter and this exhibition has plenty of both. I recommend you visit the site or exhibition as it travels the world.

My involvement
I have worked with Mark to help prepare the images for printing for both this outdoor exhibition as well as for the book and Audio Visual uses.

Careful colour grading and consideration of Marks preferences for tonality means that the exhibition has a consistency of vision in the printed results.

Image restoration was part of the work undertaken to allow for the enlargement of low resolution images to 1 meter or more, I was always careful to keep the veracity of the underlying image and keep the image pure whilst reducing noise, chromatic aberration and other artifacts that would have impeded the message or meaning of the image coming through.

If you are planning a book or exhibition and have material from multiple sources it will always pay you to have me look at the material and quote on preparing the files for greater clarity and consistency and give greater readability to the work.

Stephen

x-rite do the right thing for potential OSX Lion users

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:38:00 +0000

It looks like x-rite have decided to include support for their older hardware (such as the i1 display 2) in i1profiler software (specifically i1Basic) which is designed to run on OSX 10.7 (Lion).

They have done this after an outcry from users and suppliers who have rightly pointed out to them that not supporting their recent hardware is not the behaviour of a company that cares about its users.

So all very positive, though according the the table in the following link there will be a "nominal" fee if you bought your i1 display 2 before 2011, lets hope they drop the fee and just do the right thing.

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=264

September is still some way off so don't update to Lion till they release this, - a calibrated screen is far more important than sliding icons and App store jiggery pokery.

Stephen

Higher capacity Image Storage from Synology

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:35:00 +0000

For people who need greater digital image storage capacity than the current affordable 10.9TB Thecus then you may want to have a look at the following solution:

http://www.storagereview.com/synology_targets_photographers_new_ds2411_nas

I would estimate that filled with 3TB drives this should provide between 24-30TB of usable Raid 5 space (36TB unformatted). To put this in perspective thats enough for over 1/2 million uncompressed A3+ Tiffs or over 1 million camera raw images.

Synology have a good reputation for building solid kit so this look like a viable way to accommodate image collections. The 165mb/sec writing and 195mb/sec reading in raid 5 mode means that access to images is not going to be a problem.

As always - this is not a backup solution in itself, copies of all files must exist in some form as the device is a single point of failure (theft etc). What it does provide is fast and simple access to a large image collection.

Alert:Windows ATI Radeon 4870 video card / CS5 / CMYK / Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:16:00 +0000

A bit of an obscure one this as I know clients with the above graphics card either don't use Photoshop CS5 or never work in CMYK but I'm putting this information out there for people who may see the same problem.

With current and recent drivers switching screen mode in Photoshop (the F key) causes the display of a CMYK image to go saturated/incorrect.

I always advise clients the F key is a great way to view your images against black or white as well as the default grey surround. The display of the image against black allows you to spot weak / grey shadows and against white allows you to check highlight areas as they would print on paper.

Unfortunately with recent Windows ATI drivers and Photoshop CS5 *and* CMYK images the colours within the image distort in the different display modes. This does not happen with an RGB image!

Because I prepare images for rerpo I do need to have accurate CMYK previews so have invested in a Nvidea GTX 550Ti card with 2GB of memory, this card does not have the same problem and its extra memory is a real bonus when opening lots of images in Open GL mode. It also has the advantage that I can use the Graphics card processors (Cuda cores) to help calculate and apply noise suppression using the latest version of Neat Image noise reduction.

When I first started using Neat image it took up to 60 seconds to process an A3/300dpi image, now with the help of the new video card this is reduced to a few seconds.

Reading round the edges it would appear that Adobe engineers are using HP workstations with Nvidea graphics cards when developing Photoshop, the card I have bought is quite modest (approx £100) but is sufficient for Photoshop, clients using Adobe Premier will benefit from a faster Nvidea card that will aid real time video rendering.

All a little sad really as I was more than happy with my ATI card till now, but its more important that I can trust my screen and that's why I made the change.

Stephen

i1 display 2 support under Lion

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:05:00 +0000

There wont be any.

Well that's the short version. Since i1match software relies on the software transition layer called "Rosetta" to run on Intel Macs and "Rosetta" is dropped from OSX 10.7 (Lion) it is not possible to directly run the program on a machine running Lion without some very faffy workarounds.

The new i1Publish software does not support the older hardware but it does (surprise) support the new Xrite monitor calibrators they have just released.

Since there really is no compelling imaging reason to upgrade to Lion then I strongly advise that you don't, you will save money and be able to easily calibrate your screen for a colour correct workflow.

However! at some point an upgrade will become important (newly released software/patches etc) that need Lion or one of its successors; I will therefore be testing out the new screen calibrators in the near future and report back.

In the meantime you can read some detail here from Rob Griffith with a very kind offer if you bought your i1 display 2 from them recently:

<http://nativedigital.co.uk/site/2011/06/mac-os-lion-and-i1-match/?utm_source=Colour+Management&utm_campaign=77d2008833-June_2011_new_X_Rite_i1_Display_Pro6_27_2011&utm_medium=email>

Xrite are not kind, they could easily have supported the older hardware on the new i1 software if they wanted to, its the kind of rough behaviour that comes from dominating the market by buying your biggest competitor (Gretag Mackbeth)....

OSX Lion

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:58:00 +0000

Because of the way the new Apple operating system will work there are problems with older legacy programs including colour management programs from xrite such as i1match many of you use to profile your screens.

Until I have tested work arounds and solutions I don't recommend that clients upgrade to Lion just yet.

To be honest the upgrade looks to be less than compelling so you wont be missing much in the meantime.

Stephen

Advice: 2.0.9 Firmware update for Canon 5D Mk II

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:17:00 +0000

Canon have just released this update which when applied to the camera will improve performance with UDMA 7 type cards. There are other bug fixes too so its worth doing.

You can download the new firmware from here:

http://www.canon.co.uk/Support/Consumer_Products/products/cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_5D_Mark_II.aspx?type=download&page=1

(select the firmware button then click on either the OSX or Windows link that shows up)

Be sure to follow the advice given to the letter to install this, if in doubt add it to the list of items to do when I'm next onsite with you.

Stephen

Thecus N7700 Pro for Image Storage

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:28:00 +0000

I have used many NAS (network attached storage) devices over the years but I'm very pleased with the latest one to join the network here at Copyrightimage.

Like many of my clients I have a need to keep an archive of many thousands of images available for instant use and access. The major differences between this device and the more usual NAS devices are speed and capacity.

The N7700 Pro I have here is fitted with 7 x 2TB hard disks in RAID 5 formation which gives a single volume of 10.9TB of disk space, this means that I can hold large collections of images in one place which aids indexing and workflow.
The speed comes from its dual core processor which drives the controller and gigabit Ethernet to its full speed and so I can get real world transfer figures of 65mb/sec writes and even faster reads. This is over twice the speed of a USB2 drive connected directly to a host computer so its very impressive.

When dealing with large amounts of high res images this device would seem to be able to delivery speedy storage with the safety net of RAID 5 which means that if a disk fails I just need to swap it out for a new one (the image above shows the access door closed (left) and open (right) each disk is in a separate caddy.

The power supply to the device is a single point of failure however so its important I have at least one copy of every file on the device backed up somewhere else, as always, redundancy is the safety net.

Improved colour management software at Copyrightimage

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Thu, 05 May 2011 22:04:00 +0000

I'm currently building some test print profiles using the new i1 Publish software from x-rite in Germany. This is intended to replace i1Match that I have used up till now with my i1 Photospectrometer.

The advantages are starting to show after a very dodgy start when the program crashed on Windows 7 when building profiles and trouble reading dense strips from my Epson 3800 printer. I'm happy to report I have been working via a contact at x-rite to beta test changes to the software and they have been very helpful in sorting things out.

Its still early days and I'm not trusting the software with mission critical work just yet but I have been building some very usable and improved profiles for the papers I use. These early profiles show an improvement in gamut (wider range of saturated colours) and greater smoothness of gradients, much less cloggyness in the shadows also - closer to a high end RIP than you would expect a print driver to achive. Im particularly looking forward to building profiles to suit the lighting that the prints will be displayed in, something that was not possible with i1match.

The plot above shows my old Permajet 240 Matt profile in solid colour with the new i1 Publish profile overlaid in grid view, the projected gamut lines at the bottom show the larger colour space of the new profile.

I'm hoping the investment benefit all my clients who need the occasional print profile building or use my printing services for exhibition quality prints.

Stephen

Client Story: Look and Learn

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:02:00 +0000

Delighted to receive a book in the post this morning from Laurence Heyworth the managing director of Look and Learn.

Laurence through his http://art.lookandlearn.com website runs one of the largest online children's art competitions in the world. This is a sister site to the main http://www.lookandlearn.com site which mainly licenses images from classic children's publications from the 1960s and 1970s.

The book reproduces the winning images from a recent competition to create an image to celebrate the Queens 85th Birthday. Rather wonderfully Laurence has sent a digital photo frame containing all 14,928 entries from 64 countries to the Queen.

All credit to Laurence for giving children encouragment to produce artwork and giving them a solid platform to display their work to the world.

I helped develop imaging workflow at Look and Learn and have written custom Photoshop actions to make a variety of files from submitted work. It is the automation of file creation combined with tight network and web development by my colleague Edward Leigh that makes projects like this possible with minimal costs and effort compared to having to do things manually.

Client Advisory: Adobe release CS5.5

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:33:00 +0000

Adobe have decided to change the way they release products. Historically they operated a system of 18 months between major releases of the Creative Suite products but have now decided to change this to 24 months with a minor 0.5 release every 12 months.

Its all part of a plan to extract more money of course and Adobe have also decided to offer the option of a software rental scheme at the same time that enables you to pay for products on a monthly basis (no pay - no work).

There is no change to Photoshop software compared to 5.0 so no real reason to upgrade at present though the default Photoshop included in Suites is now the extended rather than the standard version which will be useful when CS6 is released in 12 months time (Update : Applies to the subscription version of the premium only - dash!)

Adobe had better get their pricing right on this, they have a reputation for being expensive, if they push too hard then it will be worthwhile for another developer to challenge Adobes monopoly. I'm not keen on monopolies and Adobe have a real monopoly on image editing software.

Client Story: Sue Flood

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:34:00 +0000

Congratulations to Sue Flood on her exhibition at the Getty Gallery in central London.

"Cold Places" Pole to Pole is a collection of Sue's work from the polar regions. Its sponsored by Canon and has attracted a lot of attention from the national media and I was particularly surprised to hear Sue talk about her work on "Woman's hour" on radio 4 which kind of gives away my listening habits! The exhibition was launched in the middle of March and runs till the 9th of April. Sue took the opportunity to launch her book "Cold Places" to coincide with the exhibition.

Gallery details are here: http://www.gettyimagesgallery.com/

Her book is available online from the usual suspects but you can get yourself a copy directly from Sue from her website: http://www.sueflood.com/

Sue was away for a large part of the time involved in producing both the book and the exhibitions so I helped out with the production. Because I keep high res copies of Sue's files I was able to prepare press ready CMYK sharpened files optimised for the print size of each image to pass onto the books designer Simon Bishop. I worked closely with Simon and the books printers to ensure that we got the best possible colour and tone on paper. I also prepared RGB print files to size and sharpened for print to Canon for them to make the exhibition prints. Mark Bennet at Canon converted the files to the printers colour space and the result was some very pleasing large format prints, nice to see Epson have some competition in the photographic quality printer stakes.

I also prepared and sent files for PR uses and serviced requests from the national newspapers.

The whole process involved a lot of intense work over a short period but I was pleased to help get Sue's work in front of a larger audience and help raise her profile.

In the past I have helped Sue with equipment choices and training as well as editing and retouching , Sue is an example of a client who uses my services is a holistic way which would normally require full time staff and the associated costs and responsibilities. By offering my services as a freelance I enable clients to tackle work projects to a set quality and budget.

Stephen

Client Story - Round the Island Race 80th Anniversary Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Johnson) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:31:00 +0000

Congratulations are in order for Karren May who with herculean effort and dedication has managed to mount a major exhibition on behalf of J P Morgan Asset management.

The exhibition covers the 80 years of the Isle of Wright race from some pioneering yacht photography captured with specially made large format plate glass cameras all the way to digital capture.

Karren asked me to help with "digital restoration" of a variety of images from aged plate glass to more modern images, my brief was to overcome any artefacts and present the images at their best.

It was important that the retouching was sensitive to the documentary requirements and ensure that only distracting artefacts were removed and to respect the underlying image. Careful tonal and colour adjustments were made to bring out the true image from the raw stock.

I was pleased to complete the work on time and within budget.

You can read about the exhibition here: http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/code/php/main_c.php?map=rir11&ui=rir2&style=std&override=&section=event&page=exhibition

Karren kept a diary of her work and its an interesting read here:

http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/code/php/main_c.php?map=rir11&ui=rir2&style=std&override=&section=event&page=exhibitiondiary

Karren owned and ran the Bluegreen marine stock photography agency, since selling the agency she has been helping a variety of organizations to present their work through a variety of projects from publications to exhibitions. I am happy to introduce Karren as part of a team of creative professionals who can handle a wide variety of image based tasks and projects.

Stephen