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martin_howard1

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Posts posted by martin_howard1

    New PC

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>I would say building PC's has got easier, no more fidling around with jumpers on the motherboard!<br>

    Seriously though it isn't that hard and you can cherry pick the components you want, although retailers like Dell do offer good value for money, it's hard to put together a i7 system for the sort of proces they sell them for.<br>

    If you plan on overclocking the system (easy and relativley low risk with modern CPU's), it's worth noting the likes of Dell lock out all the overlocking ability in the BIOS.</p>

     

    Does Lightroom run faster on a PC?

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>Very few applications are designed to make use of multiple cores efficiently (yet), most developers have only just got to grasps with dual core architectures.<br>

    Certainly in a lot of cases a higher clock speed vs more cores (with the same processor architecture) will win the benchmarks.<br>

    It's a hard one to call though, and is certainly not really down to mac/pc differences, that would account for very little in these sort of cpu intensive operations.</p>

    Will a 64-bit, 12GB computer help with big tiff files in PS?

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <blockquote>

    <p><em>Also note that since Adobe hasn't tested CS4 on a 64-bit Windows system, it has disabled the OpenGL settings. Thereby negating the benefit of a powerful graphics card in a Windows 64-bit system (although they tell you how to turn it on... at your own risk). All-in-all, it's rather confusing if you ask me. 32-bits gets you 4GB. 64-bits gets you (theoretically) 128GB if memory serves! But then Photoshop doesn't thoroughly support 64-bit Windows</em></p>

    </blockquote>

    <p>I've had zero issues running CS4 on vista x64, GPU acceleration works very nicely.<br>

    Not sure how <em>Photoshop doesn't thoroughly support 64-bit Windows?</em></p>

    Will a 64-bit, 12GB computer help with big tiff files in PS?

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>Yes a switch to 64bit OS (I would recommend Vista over XP anytime having used both), 8GB+ of RAM <strong>and Photoshop CS4 </strong> will yield a nice performance boost.<br /> However with CS3 which is not native 64bit the results will not be as noticeable.<br /> I currently run Vista x64, 8Gb of Ram & PS CS4, it handles large scans and multiple photo comps with ease.<br /> Certainly if I were to recommend a new system, go for an i7 based machine with 6Gb of 12GB of Ram.</p>

    Canon EOS 500D , 15mp camera announced

    in Canon EOS Mount

    Posted

    <p>The release pricing ($799 / €799 / £869) put's it above the entry level somewhere between the 40D & 50D, in terms of features it's and odd mix of all levels full 20fps 1080p HD in a plastic body and 15MP.<br>

    I would guess it is intended to rival the Nikon D90 which also has (720p) video recording</p>

    Computer upgrade for Canon 5D MKII

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>I would echo some of the replies above and urge you to look at upgrading to Photoshop CS4, runnning the native 64bit version with lots of RAM (6/8Gb+) will provide a nice boost even on modest hardware.</p>

    <p>Processor wise at a minimum a fast dual core will get the job done (look for the E8500 or E8600 processors).</p>

    <p>The i7's are the cream of the crop, although they represent a big price hike over their predecessors. I'm personally not sure the price difference represents the perfrormance difference yet, in time the prices will drop.</p>

    <p>For a budget system the newer AMD Phenom II's are getting quite good reviews, although not quite as powerful clock for clock as Intels 45nm Quad core parts, they can be overclocked pretty easily for a cheap performance boost. (the intel parts can be as well of course)</p>

    <p>RAM, for a 64 bit OS running DDR3 Ram, 6GB is the realistic minimum, 12GB would be nicer. For a system running DDR2, 8GB is the sweet point, and also the maximum a lot of consumer motherboards permit.</p>

    <p>Some features in CS4 software can be offloaded to the graphics card, anything from a Geforce 8600 upwards will be able to make meaningful use of this feature. Although I think some of the features in Premiere & After effects can only be offloaded to Quadro cards.</p>

    <p>nvidia tend to play mind games with their card designation sequence, the second digit is the one to look for, the higher the number the more powerful. i.e a 8800gts has more oomph than a 9500.</p>

    <p>Hard Disk wise a minimum of 2 drives would be wanted, 1 as a OS/apps drive, the other as a scratch & storage drive. 7,200rpm SATA drives are fine for most photo work. Although again with the advent of 64bit native Photoshop the scratch disk is less important.</p>

    <p>Video puts special demands on Drives, 10,000rpm velociraptor drives are one option, a dedicated SAS controller card with RAID is another (albeit expensive). I would shy away from motherboard based RAID solutions, they can be finicky and a pain when they go wrong.</p>

    can a psd. be opened without photoshop?

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <blockquote>

    <p>Don't want to take the time to save all the images without a copyright in jpg at a low resolution so I wanted to send them the psd with copyright.</p>

    </blockquote>

    <p>You need to make more time, setting up a batch process as mentioned above is the easiest way and is making the computer do the work. Sending PSD's to a client is not good practice, use low res JPEGS until you have a cheque in your hand.</p>

     

    What is your digital processing computer hard disk array??

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>I have OS & Apps on single 7200rpm SATA drive</p>

    <p>2 x 320GB SATA drives in RAID 0 for scratch</p>

    <p>1 x 320GB SATA drive for storage + plus various external drives.</p>

    <p>IMO RAID is really worth it on motherboard based systems, especially with a 64bit OS & apps with a decent amount of memory (>4Gb). I previously had 3 drives in RAID 0 until 1 started misbehaving, luckily as I was only using them for scratch nothing was lost. I would certainly not put my OS on a RAID 0 setup.</p>

    <p>For things like video editing where you need to stream large amounts of data in and out on a regular basis then yes RAID 0 on a dedicated SAS SCSI controller is probably the way forward.</p>

    <p>I do not see a huge amount of HD activity on my system which is running Vista x64, CS4 64bit & 8Gb of RAM.</p>

    <p> </p>

    5D In-Camera Sharpness Setting question?

    in Canon EOS Mount

    Posted

    <p>Unless you are not doing any post processing on your images I ould set it to 0. Sharpening should always be carried out at the end of the image workflow and is defined by the output medium. The sharpening tools in photoshop are more sophisticated than those built into the camera, or carried out during raw conversion.</p>

    are TN panel monitors really that bad?

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    <p>As a long time user of TN panels beforeI recently upgraded to a H-IPS panel, I can say that it is not impossible to do photographic work with a TN panel (especially if calibrated), however it does present a few issues.</p>

    <p>The most serious is the colour shifts that are perceptible if you move you head in relation to the screen, also most TN panels are 6 bit, meaning that they make up the full 16.7m colours of 8bpp images by dithering colours. Most of the time this is not noticeable however in large areas of gradually changing colour (such as the sky) it can produce a quite pronounced posterized effect.</p>

    <p>Take a look at the <a href="http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/382087-382087-64283-72270-444767-3648442.html">HP LP2475w </a>as well, it is about the same price as the Dell, but has a <a href="http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2008/review-hp-lp2475w.html">H-IPS panel</a> which is a step up again from the S-PVA panel the Dell uses.</p>

    <p> Dont forget to budget for a calibrator (or borrow one), most monitors ship with settings that require sunglasses.</p>

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