News

Thought for the day

Yesterday I was finishing off a large poster job in Photoshop, I had just started Photoshop when I was met by an onscreen dialogue I hadn’t seen before.
I didn’t write it down but it was something along the lines of “cannot verify license, Photoshop is quitting” It then quit. I was in a bit of a flap because I needed to get the job finished to a deadline and I know my license for Photoshop is rock solid. Fortunately restarting Photoshop a few times made the warning go away and I was able to complete the retouch.

Perhaps next time it wont let me restart? there is now doubt and uncertainty that my Photoshop will now start up as expected. Its clear from this that the inbuilt digital rights management is a bit flakey. Of course if I had purchased a copy for £5 at a computer fair this wouldn’t have happened, it seems its only legitimate users that suffer from the Adobe DRM. Its not as if its effective anyway (otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to buy copies for £5).

First they milk their market then they provide flakey DRM. The sooner Adobe get some real competition the better for everybody.

OK rant over! I guess this could be useful to clients just in case they get the same problem, looks like a busy machine can stop Photoshop checking its license properly and a few restarts will solve it. You wont hear this message from other Photoshop consultants who are in Adobe’s pockets! Im happy to be independant.

Wild Photos Conference

I will be speaking on imaging related matters at the Wild Photos conference again this year on Saturday 27th October.

The conference was held in Bristol last year and was a very enjoyable occassion and a great place to meet some very talented photographers as well as some very passionate people who are active in preserving the nature around us.

I can really recommend a visit. Details are here: http://www.wildphotos.org.uk/.

Although I will be doing the talk on Saturday I also plan to be around all day Friday to catch up with some friends and attend the other talks so please feel free to say hello and introduce yourself.

Stephen

The amateur spirit

Following some recent enquiries I’m happy to confirm that my workshops are open to anybody, not just professional photographers or Imaging staff.

I started in photography as an enthusiastic amateur and have always supported and encouraged people to get the most from their photography. Some very important imaging related programs were written by enthusiastic amateurs (I’m thinking noise reduction here) as well as team members of initiatives like ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick.

So you don’t need to be a professional to come to on my courses, just the desire to learn. All workshops are charged on a fixed hourly rate and if you wish you can bring a friend to share the cost with you. If you would like to take your photography and imaging to the next level then contact me now.

Stephen

New resource

 

 

I have installed an Epson 3800 printer in the office for use in workshops. The original reason behind the purchase was so I could make some A2 proofs for a local client.

 

Not too much call for A2 prints otherwise but Im hoping the economy of the larger ink cartridges will make running this printer cheaper than my A3 Epson 2100.

 

Clients attending a workshop are free to make use of this resouce at cost, ink and paper. Bring your own paper if you prefer, Im currently experimenting with Permajet papers.

 

Im looking to make a set of my own profiles for the printer as Im keen to get a good one so that I can get some accurate press proofing ability.

 

Having just spend £700 on an A3 viewing box Im not too keen on finding out how much A2 ones are, oh well…

Capture

 

I recently purchased a 10 megapixel Canon 400D camera for home use. This camera cost less than 1/10th the price of my 11 mp 1Ds body and is just 1/3 the weight of the 1Ds.

I didnt expect too much of it but it has certainly surprised me with its quality, the ease of use and weight means I take it out with me much more often than if I had to lug the 1Ds.

On the way home from the Cromer carnival recently I wanted to capture a shot of the sea and fair in the dim evening light, it meant hand holding at 1600 asa. The resulting image is sharp and detailed. If I had tried to do the same shot with film the quality would have been much worse with a heavy overlay of grain, to acheive the same quality I would have had to use a slow film and tripod with a long exposure, what a pain!

I think digital makes photography fun again.

 

Stephen

Canon 1Ds MkIII (updated)

 

 

Well it had to happen didn’t it?

 

Canon have released details of a new flagship camera that can produce a native file size of 60mb with its 21.1mp sensor. The 1Ds MkIII will be available later this year, (read: early next year).

 

To make your images suitable for submission to Getty from this camera you would have to reduce the image size to conform to the 48-52mb limit. It does however open up the possibility of cropping images slightly and still hitting the required file size.

 

I’m not expecting a 1Ds MkIV anytime soon after as a 21mp sensor means even the expensive L series lenses are not going to give the detail the sensor could capture. There are not many image samples out at the moment , the only one I could find was a studio portrait shot at f1.8 and can be found here:

 

 

The image looks to be a bit noisier than an equivalent medium format shot would be so I think Hasselbad are still safe, though at 1/4 the price of a H3D they will feel the chill from this camera.
It looks like Canon have weakened the AntiAlias filter slightly (notice the moire on the tip of the dress), I wonder if there are no more samples because they show moire and Canon are still working on the camera, there is speculation that the details were released now as a spoiler for the upcomming Nikon D3x….

 

You can read about the MkIII here: