philfx

<p>Its software, just use both and see what makes sense to you. Lightroom has some options perhaps the other doesn't, and maybe even vise versa. Try both, and report back.</p>

<p>I build my own, and I use PS/LR daily.<br>

I like wired, and I would get a Logitech G500 or one that you can spped up the mouse and slow it down for fine tune edits.<br>

6Core may help if you do any LRoom work. If you have the $, why limit yourself. You used the same rig for 7years! So might as well.<br>

I agree with another, get all the ram you can for those large layered files before it hits scratch.<br />Get 2 SSD's. Large for OS, and a small for scratch.<br>

Watercooling I like(and need for my usage), but if your ambient temp is controlled and it doesn't get hotter than 75-77max, you should be OK.</p>

<p>I store my images on NAS RAID drives for 3+1, so if a drive fails, I'm still up until I replace. If you don't have more than 2-4TB of data, a single backup would do. As mentioned try and get a internal Black WD drive for the image storage, with another external for back up.<br>

I like small and light cases...LIAN LE 90 small tower is all you need.</p>

 

<p>If you have PS setup to lots of History points and lots of layer use, along with other apps open, you can easily tap out 16GB and hit the scratch disk. Get as much RAM as possible. SSD is a must.<br>

You can have ibuypower build it along with a bunch of other shops that will do a great job. Anything Dell sells will have a limit to expand as they are made with limitations. I stopped buying Dell when the MoBo on my XPS that cost over 2K would not take more ram due to the Foxcon specification. Then the power supply is proprietary($$$$), so I got rid of that rig and built my own.</p>

<p>My setup now is pretty much same as Hector Javkin's, but I do feel it can be faster. BUT if your images are stored on a regular harddrive, that is where the bottle neck will be. What you can do if you have extra money....Buy ANOTHER(other than OS, other than scratch, other than OS PageFile) and have a "staging" SSD drive (along a NAS). You ingest all the files to the NAS, but copy the files you're working on to the SSD stage drive. Then when finished dump them back onto the NAS. This is too much back and forth for me, but some users may find it worth while.</p>

<p>I have my images on a NAS/Raid3+1 and if you have lots of images things get sluggish when LR writes to the NAS. My NAS is average 40MBps, and on other transfers 60MBps.<br>

I don't need access from 2 points, but...<br>

I post this response to consider catalog size and RAM size on your machines and maybe want some real world speed feedback. <br>

My catalog is at about 250K images and things ARE sluggish in LR. I don't know much about the ISCI and such, but my OS/LR drive is SSD, my Photoshop scratch is on another SSD (as well as my OS Page File). Ihave 16GB RAM, and not sure what else I can do to speed things up myself.<br>

If you can live with the sluggishness, or have a small catalog, I don't see why you have to trick anything for LR.<br>

My NAS is simply mounted, and I can access the images no problem. The catalog which is on the OS, I think is portable, maybe having a swap of it on a ThumbDrive USB might help? I didn't read your other links, but hope this can help. </p>

<p>I guess the answer to this is in general a "No".<br>

Anyone know of a site that has done some side by side comparisons with the same source file?<br />(I can understand some nuance adjustments done for the characteristic of the individual printers).<br>

I know there used to be that one pay site that does all the printer testing, I forget the name, Famm or something?</p>

<p>Depending on your needs, check out the Asus tab/laptop options if you want more portability.</p>

<p>Check the default gamma of your systems. I think there was a change from XP to W7. Also check if you are using the same parameters. Check the settings output on your video cards.....<br>

Aside from the obvious of calibrating the 2 computers in the same manner under the same gamma output.<br>

But, now that I realize you said same monitor.....<br>

How did you calibrate for one system using the monitors onboard settings, lets say the XP. Then when you switch to the W7 computer, made the calibration adjustments.<br>

My question would be, how do you change the monitor adjustment to the calibration setting you made for each?<br>

<br />You see when you calibrate your screen, you would likely have made changes to the monitor under XP. Different changes would need to have been made using a differnt computer with different video card, and as mentioned earlier, I think W& changed gamma settings (1.8 vs 2.2? something like that)</p>

<p>Try to narrow down your variables. </p>

 

<p>Yes, I know, I have anopther site that is HTML5, SGrinder says it has option to create non Flash.</p>

<p>I don't understand why Flash took such a bad turn? Couldn't they just update their security issues? haven't they already? The things you can do with flash, its a shame really.<br>

And just because Apple doesn't want to license it for reasons besides security? I'm not sure about the details in all that, but I heard Apple didn't want to pay for Flash licensing,i and they made the security issue the reason for not supporting it. And Flash is an ADOBE product, which is also odd for Adobe not being willing enough to work things out with Apple as they have a history with design applications. But I guess with more PC users of design apps, Adobe didn't see Apple being much a threat? Odd thing is they didn't consider the iOS/iPad/iPhone market strength?<br>

Is that what happen?<br>

Anyway, good to know , and most importantly, hoping to know about SiteGrinder.</p>

 

<p>Has anyone used Sitegrinder?</p>

<p>If you have, what can you tell me about it?</p>

<p>I own v2, and was wondering if I should invest in the time to rework my exisiting Flash website.</p>

<p>I am limited in doing Flash, and only know a few things. I know Photoshop well, but I don't know if SGv2 to v3 is worth doing as I am not sure if I want to invest in the time to learn AND design my new site, vs hiring someone to work with me and get my site up. I have made 5 sites already by hiring someone, for myself and clients, and they roughly run $300 to 1K at most (working from a existing temp).</p>

<p>Any experienced feedback, work related or personal account would be appreciated!</p>

<p>ahh, I'm on PC W7 x64bit OS, and I have had lots of issues with Bridge. I certainly won't be moving back to Mac OS since I have already made the migrattion out of it and very happy for the most part (besides these issues of sw).</p>

<p>For practical purposes, out of the top brands like Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Samsung (never had a Samsung drive) I advise to buy the drive with the longest warranty. At least in a RAID5 setup with a 1 drive failure, you will be able to send it out for replacement without data loss.<br>

Right now I have WD Caviar Blacks, and Hitachi Deskstar in my servers. I have 24 drives total. Slowly I plan to upgrade the 2Tb to 4TB and lessen the bulk.</p>

<blockquote>

<h1 >HDR- Is realistic Imaging Boring?</h1>

</blockquote>

<p>I guess if you just discovered HDR</p>

<p>I had used Corel for over a decade. Specially when it had the integration of Paint with the spary hose/nozzle. It is a super application and supports 16bit, and many of the pro/high demand dfeatures as Photoshop. As soon as my PS craps out, it would be all I need and then some to edit my images beyond LR. Although I wasn't aware it did RAW conversions!<br>

I did purchase a program called AfterHSot Pro to test out, but it didn't support IIQ files, so I didn't get further into it. It looked like a nice clean interface from the couple times I gave it a spin.<br>

<br />I have used ACDSee for many years as well. The Manager is probably one of the best programs you can get. I did eventually get a couple Pro/Raw dev licenses as well, but it TOO doesn't support IIQ files.<br>

So I use it as a Browser/Batch Editor(resize with adjustments). Mainly as a Browser, as I find LR's Export pretty complete for most tasks.<br>

Also to note, if you move things in your files outside of ACDSee Pro 6, it simply gets buggy and starts crashing, and I can figure out a way to resolve it. So I have started to ween my way OFF of ACDSee for this reason. Windows 7 preview (SUPPORTS IIQ) features have allowed for this to happen, BUT cannot replace ACDSee Pro for many reasons W7 cannot fill.<br>

ACDSee as a Raw dev, I do like it, but most of the sliders for my needs are not "fine" enough. They need more gradual steps. The adjustments I make are choppy, and sometimes it is more like a novelty and not as a well oiled developing machine as LR.<br />(funny as LR for some reason, is sluggish for me right now, while ACDSee is rather snappy)</p>

<p>Perhaps you can look at the situation as driving different vehicles on different roads. For some you may need to use 4x4, You might want to know how to distribute the weight in the car on that roadwith specific tires. For other flat roads without slicks you wouldn't be moving too far too fast. ...Maybe a boating analogy may work better, at least the waves/weather is always changing :-)</p>

 

<p>Save you some time....It would be smoother with more images</p>

<p>I have Photodex Pro (Yet to use and give feedback on user experience). It sounds really good and have seen some great examples, and why I purchased it.</p>

<p>Geoff,<br>

Extremes are just that, extreme situations.<br>

The article explains 47c shouldn't be exceeded. This is not hard to achieve in a enclosure on a spinning drive in a relatively warm room(27C+ room). In the summer time with a somewhat warm room, very easy for a drive to exceed that. Keep in mind the drive is recommended to run around 27C+. If your room is 27C or more, rest assured your drive is hotter.<br>

"Each drive has a specified lower and upper bounded operating temperature. In addition, drives that constantly run relatively hot, i.e. near the upper bound of the operating temperature are thought to have a reduced lifetime.<br>

Inadequate ventilation, especially during the summer months, can cause a drive's temperature to exceed safe levels. In desktops, this can be handled by ensuring that a <a title="w:computer fan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/computer_fan" target="_blank">computer fan</a> is installed near each drive to move hot air outside."<br>

"mostly flat failure rate at mid-range temperatures and a modest increase at the low end of the temperature distribution. <strong>What stands out are the 3 and 4-year old drives, where the trend for higher failures with higher temperature is much more constant and also more pronounced"</strong><br>

<strong>"We can conclude that at moderate temperature ranges it is likely that there are other effects which affect failure rates much more strongly than temperatures do.</strong>"<br>

Hot is not moderate. relatively speaking to "office like environments"(23C) hot is too hot.<br>

I am sure cool leaning to cold, enough to need acclimation is surely not a good thing.</p>

<p>True about the 2 screens Howard.<br>

I don't try and make them uniform. <br>

You can make differnt uses of the screens... 1 of the 2 screens can be calibrated to D50(or D60?) if I remember this right) prepress settings. The other for web or otherRGB.<br>

If you want them uniform, Given that you did the best calibration possible from a properly neutral calibration from factory(specifically LEDs).... One way to deal with it is to make prints(on a profiled printer)...various range of prints to compare and see if one of the screens is more accurate than the other. If so, one would think to try and adjust to match the "more accurate" screen.<br>

If uniformity across 2 screens is important to you, get the same model screen for dual monitors.</p>

<p>The Spectraview will claibrate supported models.<br />ColorEdge will calibrate its own supported models.<br />Yes, you have to install both.<br />When the profiles are made, they should be assigned to their respective hardware.<br>

A general calibrator like the Xrite i1 would do both using one software. I think the Spectra is based on the i1 but limited to NEC, same with Eizo. There is DataColor and they also have a calibration tool that does creates ICC profiles independent of monitor brand.</p>

<p>Aside from all the great feedback here, and as Alan mentions "COOK", heat is the number one enemy of just about any electronic device. HDD are very happy in cool places.<br>

The ambient room temp is inportant, and the case temp. It can be just a few degrees with continued spinning that can brick a drive in an overheated environment. I would also recommend at least a 5-15% buffer to the cooler side on specifications on drive heat tolerance.<br>

Another problem I have seen with external drives, in Particular I had picked up a 2 drive ThermalTake BlacX Duet with eSata, USB connection, and this thing never let the drives spin down other than full speed...ON, even when the system was asleep. The drives would just stay on and get hot. I tired it on a couple Win OSes (XP, Win7-64bit). Not sure who is at fault, the OS or the controller in the device?! (I think the Thermaltake device). I recommend testing for this before leaving drives in it. I still have a use for such a device, and I use a 8Bay SansDigital which does power down on the same OSes, but it has drive cages to screw them into.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>There's way more to this than wine:</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I know it :-)<br>

Some wonderful takes! It looks like a pleasure, making me want to be there. thanks.<br>

He is one of my top 5, maybe 3 favorite port/nude/B&W photographers. He has a unique sense of comfort and relaxed warmth in his images.<br>

But I must say...You have a better chance of asking for the file :-)</p>

 

<p>Did you take the workshop or setup his colors? Perhaps you know the wine list :-)</p>

<p>$4350, That better be some good wine!<br>

Funny, About a decade ago in Hollywood, I ran his own Epson 4000 for a few tests when he was looking to swap it out. I passed it up then :-) I think he is a top photographer... and just as much a businessman. <br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>Yes, the HP has print heads that need to be replaced from time to time. They actually last pretty long, about a year+ or so. They are priced less than ink carts, and can be found for discounted prices often. If an Epson head is damaged, you have to get your fingers dirty with good instructions and patients, or send it off. On a desktop size printer, I have replaced one before, and it cost $140 for the head(I think it was the 1280?). It ended up being trash not long after.<br>

I did a goog search for the image of Jeff Bridges from GGorma, and the largest I found was only 980pixels. :-/ </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks Andrew and Daniel. I guess I will hold off from Epson. While I think the image quality is still amazing, I don't think that HP and Canon fall much short (if any) from it.<br>

I do see a very nice deep rich black on this Epson sample with such careful toning as to bring the left cheek ever so slightly apart from the background(well done Gorman as well), I do think HP and Canon can do this as well (from experience of other prints with such details). The paper they have it on is the Prem Luster 260. Its got a slightly strong contrast/gloss to it with some fine texture. His shirt fabric sheen looks great on it. I do love the Pro Satin from HP. Less glossy very heavy weight paper. I can see how the Luster260's charactrics works so well with this image. Would love the large file to test out. Wonder if Gorman would "lend" it out ? :-)<br /><br /><br>

* I have yet to see prints made from these 3 brands using the same file.(all using the recent 12 ink systems with proper profiling).</p>