Ethical / Natural grading and retouching services – Photoshop and Lightroom training – Imaging workflow design and advice
A rare break between jobs at the moment so:
Im reconfiguring a server here in the office over the next few days, this may impact website availability for short periods of time.
When finished I will have better ftp availability and disk space will increase for image database trials. Just got to sort out my bandwidth bill and I will be finished!
Stephen
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
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
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
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)
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
Teriffic news for all clients using my custom actions to prepare Getty legal files from their Master tiffs. As of the first of this month you no longer have to process the resulting Getty tiffs to Submission Jpegs using the Prelight tool.
This change means that I can now edit your actions to create Submission Jpegs directly and therby eliminate the last manual step.
There is a new version of Prefilght you can download which just checks that certain aspects of the submission files conform to Getty requirements, feel free to download this from Getty.
Until I get round to you please carry on with the current workflow (this is still ok with Getty).
Hooray!
According to PDN, Getty is having a think about itself:
PDN
I wonder what it is thinking? It is a profitable business and it does provide an income for myself and other photographers so lets hope its thinking happy thoughts.
With the cold season still upon us and the banking industry admitting its hopeless at handling money (again)its not a good tiime to make rash descisions.
Stephen