tim_smith3

Just a quick addition on the 12� powerbooks and ibooks. Although I should add that this information is about 4 months old so my apologies if there have been new models out since then. I looked very seriously at the 12� powerbook but discovered that it has the same screen as the ibooks rather than the better screen of the 15� and 17� powerbooks. Personally I didn�t find the screen adequate for critical photoshop work, it just wasn�t sharp enough. But then again if you intend to hook up to an external monitor then that is a different story.

Hi. So yes, here is the way I have found works for me. Say for example that I have completed a one day shoot project where I have used several CF cards then I will start by creating a master folder called, for example Wine Feature. Within it I will then crate the following sub folders �

 

 

Wine Feature Raw - In which I will directly copy across the contents of the CF card.

 

Wine Feature Best Raw - Using Capture One I will copy the best shots, maybe 10% of them, into this folder.

 

Wine Feature Processed Raw � I will process and develop the files I want to work up using Capture One (changing white balance etc.) and output them into this folder

 

Wine Feature in Progress � After working on the files in photoshop I will save them in this folder as work in progress (even if I think I am done with an image I will probably save it here with all layers etc. intact before coming back to it with fresh eyes)

 

Wine Feature Complete � I think this is probably all quite self explanatory. In here I will save the photographs once I am happy they are complete. If possible they will still be 16bit, un-cropped and their full data size.

 

Wine Feature resized and sharpened for x (where x is the client or output) � In here I will save all the finished files in the format they will be delivered to the client/printer/internet.

 

 

Then once I have finished the project I would keep and archive Wine Feature Complete and Wine Feature Best Raw (and double check Wine Feature Raw for any good shots I may have missed). I would then delete the rest.

 

 

I think everyone has their own preferred method but I do think it is essential you have a very clear working practice if you are going to be undertaking a lot of projects and a good turnover of images. I feel it helps in not just with the organisation of your current work but makes the process of archiving a lot simpler and more efficient.

 

Tim.

Hi. Can I just tag a question onto the end of this thread. My workflow is to convert my adobe RGB images to sRGB before saving as a jpeg foe the internet or to email. Then if I open the same image in photoshop and in internet explrer it looks a lot more washed out in interent explorer. I know that different software will display images slightly different but if I open the same sRGB image in Photosho, IE, Windows picture viewer and Irfanview then all but photoshop looks significantly less satuated.

 

I have profiled my moniter with the Eye one display. When I start up my computer I see the desktop screen shift in color and luminosity which I assume means the profile is kicking in there. And then in control panel/ display/ settings/ advanced/ color management I have my eyeone profile selected.

 

Should I really be seeing such a dramatic shift in colors. It is as if I am viewing a fresh print in photoshop and then one that has been sat around in the light for twenty years in the other software. Is there any chance that I have photoshop double profiled or am doing something else wrong with my color management.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tim...

Hi,

 

I don�t know which category to put this in so I will try here.

 

Can anyone recommend a good and consistent lab for Fuji Frontier in

Shanghai? I am on Gao an Lu in the French Concession, so one in that

area would be fantastic.

 

Also I�d be interested to hear of any good labs here for Lightjet

prints.

 

Cheers.

 

Tim...

Hi John. I�ve not tried printing any of the images yet but I have viewed it on about 4 separate monitors so far and it is visible on all of these. I will keep you informed if I find out any more.

Hi John,

 

Wish you were warm! Unfortunately I can see the banding in the Raw file, the Tiff (once I have converted it in capture) one and the Jpegs as converted in photoshop 7. The more I process the image (levels, curves etc) the more I see the banding but it is there in the raws too. Also I have viewed the raws in both capture one and canons file viewer utility.

 

Also I have ticked the disable sharpening box in capture ones preferences (Am not at my home computer just now and can�t remember the exact name of the preference but it is to disable any of the settings in the focus tab of capture one).

 

I think I am right in saying that by shooting camera Raw there will be no in camera sharpening?

 

Tim.

And the second photo....<div></div>

Hi. This is all proving interesting. Both shots were shot at iso 100 and with good window light.

 

I've only ever used the camera in Raw mode.

 

I will attach the full images of both tests. I have massively compressed these so you probably won't be able to see the banding on them, it is just to show what percentage of the picture the original files were.

 

My canon 50mm 1.8 mark 2 has fallen apart else I would test that, I will take a look to see if I have any Raws shot on that lens.

 

Sounds like I might have to get in touch with Canon.

 

Tim.<div></div>

And the second image attached....

 

Also, having seen the first image online I should add that the banding is more defined when I view it on photoshop.<div></div>

Hi.

 

I am getting some slight banding in the shadow areas of images taken

with from my Canon d10.

 

Has anyone else seen this problem, is it a one off with my camera or

is this just how it is?

 

I have attached two examples. Both are from Raw files that have been

converted with capture one then worked on in Photoshop 7. The two

shots are taken with different lenses (test 01 with the sigma 15-30

and test 02 with sigmas 24mm prime). Test 01 was underexposed so I

added about a stop and a quarter exposure compensation in capture

one. Test 02 was correctly exposed. I have other images that are also

showing subtle banding, always in the shadows. I don't know if it

would effect banding or not but both these images were shot with the

aperture wide open.

 

You can see that the banding in test 01 is a lot more significant

than in test 02 where it is subtle but still there.

 

I tried converting the same images with Canons file viewer utility

and the banding was still there.

 

I am a little disappointed to see that I am getting this banding and

searching the web have not heard of anyone else encountering a

similar thing. Do I have a defective 10d or am I asking for too much

from it?

 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Tim.

 

P.S. I should mention that test01 is compressed at jpeg 75 to keeps

the file size down so this has very slightly exaggerated the banding,

but test 02 is at jpeg 100.<div></div>

Stefan. A week ago I brought a Sony Vaio GRT715M for photoshop work (on files from 6meg to 130meg) and a bit of video editing. I spent a long time researching the different options, looking at both mac and pc�s (P4,s Centrinos, and a whole range of different manufacturers.)

 

I can not comment on your laptop choice as I am not sure what your needs are (price/power/portability etc.) But I will say that the Sony has an outstanding screen. It is a Black Onyx screen and I think there are only three Sony Vaios that have this screen. It is very bright, very sharp, and has a comparatively good viewing angle for a laptop. I saw the screen alongside a few different lap tops in different shops (including non black onyx Vaios) and it was a clear winner (but I didn�t get a chance to compare it to the G4 powerbooks but I imagine it at least equals them). One thing it has that some might find annoying is a slight sheen, almost as if it is gloss finish rather than Matt, but it hasn�t bothered me at all (some, I think, would love it for the gloss look). It�s not the highest resolution in the world (1024 x 768) but plenty for me and it will run dual monitor if needed. My desktop has a Lacie electron Blue 19�, the two monitors have different feels but I do not think my photo editing will suffer whilst using the Vaio screen.

 

If you have any questions about the laptop itself I am only too happy to help.

 

Cheers.

 

Tim....

Hi. I have just brought a Canon 10D and a sigma 15-30 lens.

 

I am interested to know if there are any tests I should be doing or

faults I should be looking out for with this kit? I have heard that

the quality of the sigma lenses vary from model to model, but is this

true of the camera also.

 

Cheers.

Michael, you probably already have your answer but I�ll add another anyway. I have a Canon FS4000 and now scan full frame having filed out the neg carrier. I�ve been going through my negatives shot with an Eos Elan iie (50e in UK, in fact I am in the UK but happened upon a 2nd hand US version!) and an Eos 500n. I have noticed that the two cameras have a slightly different exposed negative size, the Elan iie being slightly smaller. Therefore I tend to get a larger black border with the Elan iie and would probably have gotten away without filing out the neg carrier had I not also been scanning in neg from the 500n.

 

The test photos on my log-in were scanned with the cut out neg file on my fs4000 if you want to see how the border compares with a full frame dark-room print. Generally three of the edges have the bruised, rough look and one is straight. The straight edges are the edges of the scan area and the rough edges are the filed down neg carrier. I�ve not been able to position the negs accurately enough to get 4 rough edges but am not overly concerned about this.

 

Also worth pointing out is that in the darkroom I had only one cut out, slightly large neg holder. Because of this all my prints had similar looking borders. I know I could have cut out a range of holders but never got round to it. With the scanner you have 6 possible cut outs depending which frame of the neg holder you use, and therefore more variety. A small point but useful.

 

Cheers.... Tim.

Hi. I am about to buy a Canon d10 and am after some advice on wide

angle zooms. My current lenses are a Canon 50mm f1.8 mk2, a Sigma

24mm f1.8 macro EX and an old Canon 80-205 ( I think, I very rarely

use it so can�t remember exactly.)

 

My plan is to get a wide angle zoom and use my 50mm and 24mm (as 80mm

and 38mm with 1.6 conversion) as either portrait lenses or when I

need a fast standard lens (or for the macro capabilities of the

24mm). At some point in the future I�ll add a tele zoom but at the

moment use one rarely so will wait on that.

 

The thing is I am on a bit of a budget (am buying d10, laptop, memory

cards, new camera bag, spare battery etc.) and can�t afford the Canon

17-40 at £800.

 

My choice then would appear to be the Sigma 15-30 f3.5 � 4.5 EX at

£500 or the Sigma 17-35 f2.8 � 4 EX at £350.

 

I have been looking for a comparison of the performance of these two

lenses on the d10. I like the faster speed of the 17-35 and it�s

portability (400g to the 15-35�s 615g) and price. I have a little

more thinking to do but think I am happy with its 17mm at its widest.

 

I will be using it mostly for street photography and photo-

journalism. As such I will be using it fairly wide open most of the

time and am interested in how both lenses perform two stops down from

wide as well as at around f5.6/f8

 

Also I would be interested to hear how these lenses perform on 35mm

film cameras as I will also still be shooting a bit of film and also

am hoping the lens I get will also suit any full frame DSLR I might

get in the future.

 

I know these lenses have been talked about a fair bit but I can�t

seem to find anything that compares them for the d10.

 

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

Tim....

Thanks everyone. Yes, it is a tough decision. What with planning on getting a 10d, 16-35mm lens, memory card, new camera bag, usb hub, card reader, etc. I am on a fairly tight budget and it is difficult to decide when or when not to extend it.

 

Looks like from what you are all saying that the ibook is out but I should consider an earlier G4 15.2�. Thing is where to find one.

 

I can get the 12.1� 867GHz (256 ram) for £1300 (plus I guess £50 for an extra 256 ram) or I have found a 15.2 867GHz (256 ram) for £1600. The 12.1� was really at the very top of my budget so the 15.2� is quite a stretch. If I could find somewhere in the UK selling a slightly older model as Erik suggested that might be perfect but I have not come across anywhere yet.

 

If I do stick with the 12.1� I will either get the superdrive version and regularly burn completed projects onto DVD or get an external hard-drive and stick to backing up on CD (about 70% of my output will be from the much smaller file size d10 so this may not be such a bad thing). It�s really an either or so I have to figure which is best. If I went with a 15.2� I would just have to back up onto CD as there would be no budget left for anything else!

 

It is a tough choice. Last night I re-sized my desktops Photoshop window to 12� and changed the screen resolution to 1024 x 768 to give me an idea of the sizes I would be working at. It was far from ideal but just about workable. The question is where to make the compromises. I think Scott is right, the thought of a 12� screen is cringe-worthy but might be necessary in order to have a powerful laptop.

Hi. I am thinking of buying a mac powerbook G4 12.1� ( 867MHz, 256mb

Ram and upgrading with another 256 to 512mb Ram, 40GB, DVD/CDRW) and

have some questions if anybody out there is able to help.

 

Essentially I want to go Mac but have only a limited budget. I will

be using Photoshop 7, and a little bit of Final Cut Pro (but mainly

Photoshop). I will be on the road a fair amount. I am planning to

work on 120 meg rgb 16bit files from a Canon FS4000 scanner and 6meg

raw files from a to be purchased Canon Eos d10. I also want to use it

to print on an Epson 2100. At some point in the futures I will add an

external hard drive.

 

Unfortunately I have not been able to see a G4 12.1� demo with

Photoshop.

 

My questions are:

 

1. Is this set up powerful enough to deal with the 120meg files, I am

actually used to an 800mhz durron pc desktop that takes about 6

seconds to open these files so am wandering how the powerbook will

compare.

 

2. Is it ridiculous to be working up photos on a 12� screen? I have

sat in the shop trying to figure this one out.

 

3.I understand that the ibook G3 900 14� is pretty much not an option

for Photoshop work but the 14� screen and increased durability are

tempting. Am I right to discount it?

 

4. Am I going to regret that it has no pcmi slots? I was planning on

getting an usb card reader for downloading the d10 files.

 

5. Am I right in saying that I can easily plug the G4 into my Lacie

electron 19� blue and have a dual monitor set-up. (Regardless of this

90% of my work will be done on just the G4�s screen.)

 

6. A long shot on this forum but is the G4 any good for finalcut-

pro?

 

7. And can anyone recommend a good UK outlet to purchase from (this

is my first move into the world of Macs!)

 

Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

I am not sure I have this all straight in my head and have a few questions. Hopefully this thread is not too old for these to get lost!

 

1. If you make two copies of the same image and in the first go into levels and adjust the black point input level to 10 and then in the second copy go into curves and adjust the top of the curve so the input value is set at 10 and the output value is set at 0, are you essentially doing exactly the same thing and having exactly the same effect on the image?

 

2. If in Levels you bring the black point up and the white point down the resultant histogram becomes stepped. I presume this is because photoshop is not interpolating (and you would not want it to do so). Therefore am I right that even though this will achieve a greater amount of darker tones and lighter tones in the image (and the corresponding greater contrast) you are also going to have a coarser gradient of tonality?

 

3. Lets say you have a portrait shot that has a shadow area on one side of the face with a level value of 10 and a catch-light in the eyes of a level value of 245 and you want to increase the contrast to bring the shadows to black and the highlights to paper white. What would be the best way of achieving this increase in contrast without overly increasing the stepiness of the tones .Essentially how do you crush the blacks and stretch the whites without sacrificing the smoothness of the mid-tones?

 

4. Is it best to do all your curves adjustments in one go? Say you were making a global curves adjustment and you did it once and were close but not happy, kept the initial adjustment, did it again and were nearly there, kept that and made one final tweak, are you going to end up with coarser tonality than you would have done had you done it all on a single curve.

 

5. I am using photoshop7, is it possible to work on a larger curve window. Am I alone in finding the window a little small and fiddly?

 

6. And finally sneaking in a question about 8 bit vs 16 bit. Am I right that if you were working in 16 bit and making significant global level adjustments you will end up with a smoother tonality and a less steppy histogram than if you were I 8 bit. And if so why when there are still only 255 levels in both bit rates?

 

Many thanks for anyone that picks up any of these questions, I know that I have been a little greedy with my search for information here. Hopefully I have not missed the point and asked some ludicrous things?

I am looking to buy a 24mm prime and am interested in the Sigma 24mm

F1.8 EX and the Sigma 24mm f2.8. Second hand the 1.8 is around £200

and the 2.8 is around £100. I was wandering if people had any

thoughts on these two lenses. I am shooting on a Canon eos élan IIe .

 

The extra stop on the 1.8 would be useful, as I shoot a lot of

street/reportage, but not essential. I would also try and shoot from

at least the often recommended two stops down to get the maximum

quality out of the lens. So essentially I am asking if one has better

optics/ is better quality than the other.

 

Also I know that Sigma has a reputation for not the most durable of

lenses and was wandering if one of these is more durable than the

other.

 

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks.

 

Tim......

Hi. Two questions if I may?......

 

1. This is probably a really simple question but one that is

puzzling me a bit. When using Adobe Gamma to calibrate my monitor (I

can't really justify the cost of a hardware calibrator at the moment)

I am having problem on the gamma screen. Where you have the sliders

it says to adjust them until the center box fades into the patterned

frame. Now either I am doing this wrongly or there is something wrong

with my monitor because the center box never actually fades into the

outer box. The relative intensities of the boxes do change

significantly between the extremes of the slider positions but to

chose a point where I could say that the center has faded into the

outer box seems impossible. Every time I have tried this on separate

sittings I have ended up with a different setting that gives the

screen and consequently my files a different look. As such it is

obviously difficult to establish the true rendition of my photographs!

 

2. On a similar theme I am a little confused about the color space

settings. If I am working on a black and white grayscale image, go

into edit>color setting and swap between Grey Gamma 2.2 and dot gain

20% in the gray box then I see a significant change in the appearance

of the image. Yet as I understands it, in changing these I am not

altering the image pixels themselves but am just effecting the way

photoshop interprets them and therefore the monitor displays them. So

for example if I were to print from this file it would make no

difference to the appearance of the print should I have the color

space set at gray gamma 2.2 or dot gain 20% Have I got this right and

is there one of these options that gives you a true rendition of the

image to get me one step closer to a what you see is what you get

setup (or at least a what you see is pretty much what you are going

to get!)

 

Thanks!

 

Tim.......

Yes, great article, thanks Choen!

 

A quick question on the back of this thread. I am starting with RGB scans (of Black and white negs) in 16 bit mode, using the chanel mixer to get to a greyscale image and then having to change to 8 bit mode in order to use layers and a similar technique to the one listed. The fact that I am doing a lot of my levels and curves adjustment in 8 bit rather than 16 bit has been nagging me quite a bit and I was wandering in real terms what I am losing by having to do this all in 8 bit? My final output is A3 and A4 prints at 300dpi of the uncropped neg.

 

Thanks!

 

Tim......

Depends on if you are cropping. I print all my b&w work full frame. For this I took a file to the inside edges of my negative carrier leaving enough of the plastic to hold each side of the negative whilst revealing the edge of the negative outside the image area (the lab I use calls this the keyline, not sure if this is a correct technical term?). then when scanning (I use viewscan) I increase the scan area to maximum. This will give you a black border on all sides of the print and as the neg carrier was filed out it also produces rough edges. I have a couple of my early test scans posted on phot.net if you want to see the effect?

 

I've printed full frame for a long time now and am a great fan of the discipline, but also as a side note it was really handy when I was transferring to the digital darkroom as I knew that I would be printing the full size of my scanned images rather than having to crop an lose resolution.

 

If you are going to crop I have seen that sometimes on the disks they include on the front of magazines they include a variety different negative border images whereby you will get straight black lines, borders that show the film sprocket, negs with rough, bruised edges, that sort of thing and as I understand it you can cut and paste it over you original crop (but I guess have to have the crop at the 35mm dimensions).

 

Cheers

Hi, just a quick update for anyone that may have been following this thread. I've just received a box of Ilford galleria smooth pearl and having done a couple of test prints I thought I'd give my impressions. The bottom line is this paper does what I want and I shall be ordering more. In fact now that I have seen these prints I have allowed myself to get back to being excited about the 2100, and digital photography in general! This is not however because this is a stunning paper, but more because it is a paper that suits my purposes. The problem of this particular post was bronzing. Picking this print out of the printer tray and tilting it at an angle to hard and soft light shows that it bronzes significantly less than any other paper I have so far tried. It does bronze, but only very slightly and not in a way that I personally find distracting. Also it is important to remember that this is a pearl paper and it has a stippled surface, not dramatically so but when the light catches it you can see that it has stipples. Some people loathe them, and I am not a great fan of them either but with this paper the stipples appear at the exact point that the bronzing appears (which seems to be pretty much the same point that glare appears in a darkroom semi-gloss print). Now the upshot of this that the little bit of bronzing that is there is essentially disguised by or distracted by the stipple, or rather they happen simultaneously and essentially you just adjust your viewing angle to compensate (as you would again with glare from a darkroom print). So for me this is just a relief, I don't have to worry so much about the bronzing (it's still there a bit so I'm sure it will nag me occasionally, but really nothing to worry about!)

 

So how does it look, well I was sitting it side by side with Epson semi-gloss and permajet oyster semi-gloss (I can't remember if that is the papers exact name and don't have the prints with me just now). They all look different. First things first, and this was a little suprising, but straight out the box with no adjustments, printing as monochrome with the full inkset (Epson 2100) and using the Epson semi-gloss profile from the Epson driver the Ilford was by far the most neutral print. Where the other two had that familiar magenta cast to them the Epson was much closer to shades of gray. I haven't yet used the gray balancer yet but I guess this gets you in the right ball park for when you begin to go through this process. There is metamerism but not a dramatic amount (I haven't investigated it too much, it is not something that concerns me too much, and it has never seemed to severe to me.)

 

 

The problem, or at least the straight out the box possible problem is that the Ilford looks a little duller than the Permajet. Now I am still very much in the early days of digital photography so I am feeling my way in the dark a little but I have a feeling that this is something that can be helped by a good profile. It looks to me that it is not really to do with the paper but more how it picks up the tonality at different levels between black and white. The blacks are excellent, I really can't fault the blacks, it is just as if the lighter tones are compressed a little so where for example you should have 80% white you are in fact getting 75%white (just an illustration, not a measured fact!). So the result is that the image seems to lack a little contrast, i.e. is a little flat. I printed the two pictures I have currently uploaded on photo.net. If I look at the boys face in the front left hand forground of the group photo then in the ilford print it appears noticeably darker than in the permajet. The change in tones that are on his face seem to be the same , they are just a little darker. Another contributing factor may be that the base white of the ilford seems very slightly less intense than the base white of the permajet. This is only a difference that you can notice when you overlap the whiter surfaces but may well be contributing to the different looks. But yes, I think the next thing to find out is if anyone has a profile for the Ilford paper with the 2100?!

 

Another thing to note, the best print I have had so far is on fine art paper ( I have tried different samples, so this is a cross manafacturer comment!) . There is no debate for me. And it's not just down to a quantifiable difference, it is simply a different feeling, a different look. These are prints for putting behind glass and up on a wall, they are prints to take time over, prints to get something from in a lot of different ways. BUT, and this may seem a little bit of a contradiction, I'm not so bothered about getting the best print all the time (that is for sale work and exhibition work), the Ilford is perfect for my daily needs, i.e. this is my box of prints, take a look, what do you think. I'm not one for mounting and cataloging all my prints, I like them to be more everyday than that, just to be looked at, turned over and on to the next one. That's just my thing and I am more than happy to have boxes of Ilford inkjet 2100 prints knocking about the place to show people, well that is if I can now find the time to go through all the unprinted negs I now have!

 

Also cost. The Ilford paper is cheap, at 18p an A$ sheet and with the price of inks this is a good thing (I was thinking that I would have to be paying about 80p per sheet when I started investigating all this!

 

Also another note to those in the UK, I was looking into Pictorico paper availiability over here and although I can see no where that stocks it yet it seems that http://www.novadarkroom.com/ will start distributing the papers from the end of February. Good, so I can start the whole comparison process all over again!

 

Sorry, I seem to have gone on quite a bit! Tim.

 

 

Anthony, I downloaded Vuescan direct from the internet: http://www.hamrick.com/

 

It runs as a stand alone program, so just run it and follow the instructions, it will operate compleatly independently of filmget and of photoshop.

Hi.... As Bernhard Mayr mentioned, vuescan is faster. I was using the filmget software from within photoshop with usb2 and changed to vuescan. The result was a much faster scan speed. I've not timed them, but on my system I would guess that for 4000dpi scans vuescan is getting on for twice as fast as equivalent filmget. I'd also say that vuescan is giving me better quality scans than fimget (I should mention that I am working pretty much exclusively in Black and White) and allows me to edit images in photoshop at the same time as scanning.

 

Tim.......

Jack. I agree, excellent summation. Not that I've had any experience of anything other than the 2200 (and that only for a few days) but I have done a lot of research and question asking. Now that I've finally taken the plunge and brought the 2100, the glarring fact is that I am getting far better prints (especially in terms of tonality, sharpness, and detail) than I was in the darkroom (I am nothing more than an average printer) and that's why all this started (all this being the desire to get better prints, having had enough frustrating darkroom sessions and wanting to just get on with the process of taking photographs) Sorry, overly heavy use of brackets there. You said that "You will definately need good profiles to get good B&W results in the 2200". I was just wandering if there was a good source of profiles or are they homemade?

 

Thanks�� Tim.