Stephen Johnson

Getty Upload Portal

The Getty upload portal is alive and working now.
I have been very impressed with the quality of the thought and functionality in the interface, there is no doubt that the team at Getty have done a good job.

A few related notes:

1. Clients can use Quality 12 Jpegs derived from the Getty tiffs workflow to upload to the portal instead of burning them to CD/DVD.

2. You will need to place a short caption in the headline field. In general this is usually the first sentence of the main caption.

As you know Im keen that your Master Tiffs collection use only Industry Standard IPTC so with this in mind I would advise that you change the keywords on the Getty tiff/Jpegs to reflect their need for up to 5 conceptual keywords but retain the full keywords in your Master Tiff files.

Retain you Master Tiffs but delete the Getty tiffs/jpegs once you have had the result of the edit.

Any questions? – get in touch

Imaging Workflow workshops

Im looking into the possibility of holding larger workshops to pass on my advice and tips on imaging workflow.

These workshops would be held in slightly more convinient places to get to than the North Norfolk Coast and would of course be cheaper for each individual as the costs would be spread over a number of attenddees. If you would be interested in such workshops then please let me know via emails so I could get an idea of numbers.

If you require a more 1:1 workshop in which I can review your pictures and offer more tailored advice then please get in touch to discuss requirements, I offer places for 1-3 attenddess in Sheringham so you can either come by yourself or bring some freinds and collegues and spread the cost between you.

Stephen

Connecting to UNIX shares from Vista

I have covered this before but because of recent changes to Vista (sp1) I have had to redo my LAN security to connect to shares on a local Buffalo Teratation. It looks like its these older devices only that are affected as my new Linux server and a new Terastation Pro 2 dont have this problem.

SO: If you have difficulty logging onto an older terastation with Vista try the following:

Click “Start -> Run.” Then, type in the Run field: “secpol.msc.” That will bring you to Vista’s security policy system. Once there, use “Go to: Local Policies > Security Options” and then find “Network Security: LAN Manager” authentication level. Once there, change the Setting from “Send NTLMv2 response only” to “Send LM & NTLM — use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated.”

Stephen

Adobe colour settings file for European Stock Photography (CS2/3)

This colour settings file will help you manage your colour workflow. It sets Adobe 1998 as your working space and if you ever need to supply a CMYK file for a generic European press using coated paper this will also set your default CMYK to a Fogra standard.

Download the zip file here (save it to your desktop then extract the settings file from the zip)

The colour policies are set to respect the colour tags of files not in Adobe 1998 (thus ensuring they display correctly though don’t forget to convert to Adobe 1998 if your agency requires it).

To load into Photo shop:
Start Photoshop and select EDIT:COLOUR SETTINGS. Click on the load button and navigate and select the downloaded file.

To synchronise colour settings throughout Adobe Creative Suit (If you have it!):
Do the same as for Photoshop above then:
Start Bridge and select EDIT:CREATIVE SUIT COLOUR SETTINGS.
And select European Stock Photography from the list.

Stephen

Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1

I have installed sp1 on my main retouching machine and have encountered no problems so far.
Improvements in network responsivness and file copying are certainly welcome.
The service pack is not in general distribution yet but may be available in the next few days. If I notice any problems I will report them here. Having said that your system will be in a different configuration than mine so dont assume that sp1 would do the same for you. Best to let the update mature for a few weeks so Microsoft can tune it.

As ever I need to be on the bleeding edge!

Stephen

Update Advisory – Outlook 2007

Unlike previous Outlook mail clients the new one in Office 2007 uses the dpi of an image when displaying it if it is embedded (rather than attached to) an email (Menu:Insert Picture).

Older versions used to just display across the pixel width of the image. If when using web/email sized images produced by my actions you find the image being displayed too small in an email then as a temporary measure use the handles to resize the image.

If I have written actions for you in the past and you have this problem then please email me your action file and I will update it at no cost to you.

Stephen

Monitor calibration advisory – Pantone Spyder products

The first monitor calibration device I owned was the original Optical Spyder, I think I had a “good” one as it did a reasonable job though I did hear there was variability in build quality and accuracy.
For some years now I have advised people to buy Gretag Macbeth calibrators as the results and consistancy were much better. For clients who already owned a Spyder I was happy to see if it produced a reasonable calibration (Im very sensitive to how my test images should look on a monitor).
However I have recently visited a few clients were the calibration was way out even though the correct perameters were used and the profiling process went without a hitch. Im taking here about a white point that was no where near 6500K and incorrect display of shadow detail. Pantone sell a range of Spyders from cheap to expensive – presumably the cheap ones are not as good as their expensive ones?

If you use a Pantone Spyder and you are getting poor calibrated repro/proof mismatches have a look at replacing it with a Gretag Macbeth Eye-one display 2.

http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1187&xSec=10210

(I have no connection with colour confidence so try a search on Google to check prices)

Getty Images sold

Well it looks like its finished thinking about its self and decided that a sale to a private equity firm Hellman and Friedman is the way forward. (Hell and Fried – man!), £1.2 billion is the price paid.

To be fair the firm does have an understanding of internet properties so it will be interesting to see what happens…..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7263856.stm

Stephen