james_trory

<p>Hi all, thanks for the responses. I am using a Mac with the printer so I'm not sure how I'd go about trying to do what those of you suggested doing on Windows. I did go into the Printer preferences through System Preferences but all I could see in there was to be able to set the 3880 as the default printer instead of my old 3800, which I don't think is related to the problem as I had this happen once or twice on the 3800 too.</p>

<p>I have doubled, triple, quadruple checked the media type and it says "Cold Press Bright", Matte black ink. To be honest I am coming to the conclusion that perhaps it is a quirk of Epson printers and that there isn't much you can do about it. I have never been entirely fond of the quality of Epson printers themselves, I think they're badly made and quite terrible really, but they make nice prints when they work :)</p>

<p>This used to happen on my Epson 3800 sometimes as well, but I literally just unboxed a brand new 3880 and I've already encountered this incredibly frustrating problem. I am printing on Epson Cold Press Bright which is a matte paper (an Epson one no less!) and I have the correct paper selected in the Photoshop setup as well as the correct profile. Under the paper type, where it says Cold Press it also says "Matte Paper" which is grayed out because it is auto selected and not changeable, as it should be. I even manually switched from Photo to Matte black as soon as the printer was ready to avoid any confusion. I did one test print that was fine, my second EVER print and it auto switched from MK to PK for no reason. When I cancelled and tried to print again hoping the printer would auto switch back, it proceeded to again try to print using PK on matte paper. I switched manually again and this time it printed on the matte paper without auto switching.</p>

<p>What gives? I contacted Epson about it and as I had imagined they would, they said "we don't know, you must be doing something wrong, it only switches if it's told to". Well I'm NOT telling it to. It's a massive waste of ink and money to be switching needlessly like this and I really don't know how to stop it. It also means I have to keep one eye on the printer to make sure it's not switching inks so that I get a bad print and therefore waste even MORE ink. For an expensive printer like this it's pretty inexcusable, and from what I've read I'm not the only person with this problem. Unfortunately though I've also found no fix. Anyone? Thanks.</p>

<p>Quick update, I tried reinstalling not only the Spyder software from the disc rather than the website, but also the drivers as well. I did not update the software from 3.0 and the tray icon is back but I still don't get anything on the screen at startup saying that Spyder has loaded profiles. However the profiles do seem to load correctly for both monitors, that is until I change the setup.</p>

<p>Also I found this - if you go to the install directory of Spyder there is some software in there called Profile Chooser. This will quickly allow you to assign profiles to each monitor and in my case, if I go from dual monitors to only a single monitor, to switch profiles when Spyder apparently fails to do so (eg. if I go from the ASUS being primary to the Sony, Spyder won't make the profile switch for me but I can do it easily in Profile Chooser).</p>

<p>Anyway, I have emailed Datacolor about this problem and will let you know if they have any thoughts. But for now I think the issue basically is in making any kind of monitor change, whether that's from dual to single monitor or from one primary monitor to another, the Spyder software and the Windows LUT do not make the profile switch automatically, all I can do is put up with having to do it myself manually. And no combination of Spyder or Win LUT seems to work, I've tried using only one or the other and neither handles it correctly.</p>

<p>William, no I don't get anything from the Spyder software, it doesn't show anything in the tray or on startup. And it still does not load profiles correctly when I switch between displays, today for example I was using both monitors then switched to only the ASUS. When I switched back to dual, the Sony one was using the ASUS profile and it would only run the Sony profile if I opened the Spyder software and then closed it. I really don't know why the software isn't working, I might email Spyder directly to see if they can help.</p>

<p>Thanks Phil and William.</p>

<p>I think I've discovered the problem. When I had calibrated the two monitors I did them separately, ie. did the Sony then switched to the ASUS. Today I had them set to dual monitor, with the Sony being my primary, and when I opened Spyder it said it had detected a second display (ASUS) and that it wanted to calibrate it. So I let it do that, then I went into the Win7 display setup and told Win7 which profiles to load for which display. After a reboot the two profiles seem to load correctly. The issue I guess was that Spyder wasn't aware of there being a dual monitor setup, I simply assumed it would assign each monitor a profile automatically but it won't unless you calibrate with both monitors on in dual mode.</p>

<p>I'm not convinced though that Spyder is trying to do any of this profile loading itself, I have checked in MSCONFIG and Spyder is loading on startup but I never see any evidence of that. Nothing shows up in the system tray as it used to, and I've never seen recently a calibration warning although that is on and set to tell me once a month. I've reinstalled the software several times recently for other reasons so I don't know....</p>

<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>I'm afraid there might be a simple answer to this which is that you can't calibrate two different monitors without two graphics cards. I know that was an issue in the past, I'm hoping it's not now. If it isn't, since I use one graphics card with two monitors (a Geforce 670), here's my problem...</p>

<p>Having an ongoing issue with calibrating my two monitors (a Sony and an ASUS) on Win7 using a Spyder 3 Elite. When only one is plugged in Win7 loads the profile for that monitor fine. I have gone through the advanced LUT setup which forces Windows to load my desired profile. When both monitors are plugged in Windows does seem to detect that there are two separate profiles for the two difference monitors but the problem is that on startup it defaults to the secondary monitor profile (ASUS) and so my primary (Sony) looks all funky, even if the secondary isn't being used as an active display (ie. disabled but still plugged in). The only way I can get the two profiles to load correctly is if I open and close the Spyder 3 software. This same problem will happen if I have both monitors on together (either mirrored or side-by-side) and then switch back to only my primary - it will unload the profile and I have to open Spyder 3 again to load it.</p>

<p>I've also noticed that the Spyder 3 software doesn't seem to be running in the background anymore, it never reminds me that I need to re-calibrate which it always used to do and I don't think it is automatically attempting to load profiles as it should. But the software is as up to date as it can be and I don't see any settings anywhere to force it to monitor my profiles for me. So there is that problem as well that could be contributing.</p>

<p>Sorry this is so long but I'm trying to give as much info as possible. Tearing my hair out over here, thanks for any help!</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I will try out the blocking technique, I'll need some pretty big foam core for that but it sounds like it should work. And I'll pick up a copy of the book.</p>

<p>Would a polarizing filter help at all with these products, not so much for the reflections but for helping to keep the light a little more even? Or would it just flatten the image too much?</p>

<p>Right well the problem for me actually is that the client doesn't want any reflections but is also not willing to pay for the extra time that it would take me to completely remove them. So anything I can do outside PS to avoid all that post is ideal. Ultimately though I need to reiterate to them that it's going to be next to impossible to do what they're asking on the kind of budget they have. Typical photographer/client relations :)</p>

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I've been doing small product photography jobs for the last 6 months or so, here and there as I get them, and while I am getting better at it I am still finding it nearly impossible to eliminate the nightmare reflections that I get from shooting anything metal or even plastic. I'm required 99% of the time to shoot the products straight on, which means 99% of the time my camera or tripod or both are reflected in the surface of the product. I've tried moving the camera further away and that helps but still doesn't help enough. I've also tried shooting at an angle but that a) doesn't help much and b) tends to distort the image too much.</p>

<p>You can see in my example here that while the ugly reflection isn't necessarily identifiable it's also very undesirable. It's also too much for me to have to try and Photoshop it out because in this example alone I had to shoot 4 or 5 similar tins. That's for a job that was 90 products and I have enough editing to do already. So what can I do? Also what can be done about the big dark strip down the middle where the room I was in is seen reflected? I've been looking on here and searching Google for hours and can't find much help on this, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this problem. What's the best solution? Thanks for any help!</p>

<p>Sincerely, still life noob :)</p>

<p><img src="http://www.jamestrory.com/_MG_7592.jpg" alt="" width="667" height="1000" /><br>

<img src="ftp://jamestro@ftp.jamestrory.com/public_html/_MG_7592.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Thanks for the info everyone! Looks like the general consensus is CyberCommander...</p>

<p>Hello,<br>

I just recently bought 4 Alienbees 1600 studio strobes but am not at all familiar with the brand and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to what the best wireless trigger would be for shooting with a Canon 5D? Pocket Wizard as a brand is an obvious choice and I use those frequently as an assistant but are they suitable for AB monolight strobes? And what's a more affordable alternative to PW? I just sunk a small fortune into the lights, stands, diffusers etc so if possible I'd prefer not to spend $300+ on triggers. Thanks for any help.</p>

<p>Right, but it's just easier if the document they give me is in mm and at 150 dpi and I can put that directly into the crop tool without having to worry about goofing on the conversion, or forgetting to do it or one of a million things I could screw up. I have to get the work done very quickly and I'm constantly afraid that I might have not done something, so having to convert mm to px is another potential hazard. However, it's good info and worth knowing so thank you.</p>

<p>I mean to say, the client gives me a list of all the image dimensions but they are in mm. So I would have to figure out what each image had to be in pixels which would take forever if I had to do that 300 times.</p>

<p>Well that's the thing - they request the size in mm, not pixels, and at 150 dpi. And all the images have to be different sizes. So doing that kind of conversion would be incredibly time consuming. I do see what you're saying, it's just not practical in this particular case.</p>

<p>Anyway, it just so happens I figured this out not long after posting this message, which is pretty typical of me. I will spend days trying to figure something out, post a message, and within hours find the answer myself.</p>

<p>For anyone interested, it was simply that I hadn't noticed my crop tool somehow got set to pixels/cm instead of pixels/inch which is what it should always be on really. So it was actually tripling the size of the dots therefore tripling the size of my image.</p>

<p>I have a client who wants files sent to them as PNG-24 in very specific dimensions (mm) at 150 dpi. You would think it would be simple enough to do this using the crop tool in Photoshop, which allows you to set both dimensions and resolution at the same time.</p>

<p>This works fine until I save the file. Having done the crop, the resolution according to the "Image Size" dialogue box is indeed 150. But for some reason when I "Save As" to PNG and reopen the file to check that everything is okay, the dimensions are good but the DPI has been set to 381.</p>

<p>I know that using the "Save To Web" feature will automatically set the DPI to 72, but I am using "Save As". It shouldn't be changing the DPI to anything and I can't figure out why it does. There are no settings for saving to PNG other than to use interlace or not, and neither of those seem to make a difference to this problem. I have tried cropping and saving the file again as a TIF and the DPI holds up fine so it must have something to do with the PNG file format.</p>

<p>Does anyone have a clue what I might be doing wrong? I can't find any help online. I have this problem when saving to PNG from TIF and CR2. I thought that maybe I could just run a batch on all the images to convert them to 150 dpi but that will then also mess up their dimensions.</p>

<p>Yeah good point. It's for a non-profit, who I have worked for on and off for several years and have a very good relationship with. They would like me to take a lot of different photos for a new website they are building, which is going to mean several different locations and some long days. They came to me with the work, I didn't have to do anything, so all I am doing for them right now is putting together a quote so they know how much it'll cost them.</p>

<p>I suppose right now it's even hard for me to tell because they need to approve my quote first. They have always historically been very cagey about what they can afford, being a non-profit, but they did say that this time they have a decent budget for this project. So that's why I'm thinking it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest, as you say, a deposit. Assuming they approve my quote and we go ahead with my proposed budget, 10% would be adequate to at least offset the cost of most of the rental equipment. It's not that I can't afford the cost myself, it's just that as I said in my first post, October is looking like being a slow month and typically with any job there's the assumption that you won't see your check right away.</p>

<p>$200 to composite one image is crazy. Am I the only one that thinks that? A retoucher in NY gets between $25-$35 per hour, which means $200 is basically a day's wages. For one image that sounds like it would take an hour at most, that is completely nuts. I know whoever is organizing the retouching wants to make a profit, but for $200 they're making about 600%.</p>

<p>I'm wondering, is it acceptable to ask for an advance of a project budget to help cover things like rental costs and travel? I have a job that I think is going to cost me quite a bit in rental costs for about a week, and if possible I'd like to avoid having to throw down all the money myself because as we all know, I may not see a penny from them for months after all the shooting and editing is done.</p>

<p>If it is okay to ask, what do you think is a reasonable percentage? 10% would be great but I don't want to even mention it in case they're like "what did he just ask us?!" If it's not cool to ask that's okay too, I'll manage it somehow, but any $ help is welcome. Especially since October is looking like it'll be a light month.</p>

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>Last week I launched a photo project on Kickstarter.com and am trying my best to promote it in a way that is not too intrusive. This is the website for the project:</p>

<p>http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/338637167/american-vista</p>

<p>I'd really appreciate any support, either monetarily or simply in mentioning the project on your Facebook, Twitter, blog, whatever you have. There are some cool incentives for people who donate. I'm also offering 8x10 prints to anyone who mentions the project on any of their web thingamabobs, so make sure you let me know so that I can add you to the list of recipients.</p>

<p>Why has Adobe decided to reverse the shadow/highlight curve points on CS4 when working on a grayscale image? In CS3 in both grayscale and RGB modes the shadows were bottom left of the curve and the highlights top right. Now that's only true of color images. It's very frustrating because I am used to how CS3 handled curve adjustments, now I'm all thrown off whenever I start a curve in CS4.</p>

<p>Does anyone know how to set grayscale curves back to how they were in CS3? I can't find anything on Google about it or in the Preferences dialog for CS4.</p>

<p>I don't want to get too off the topic of my question, but what the hell is wrong with Adobe? I hate every major update they make to Photoshop because they always insist on doing things like this, throwing us these unnecessary curveballs that ruin our workflow. I would stick with CS3 but at work we updated to CS4 and I have no choice now but to use it.</p>

<p>Yeah they open in ColorSync, even the ones from the non-DCM folder. Which is why it's weird that the DCM work but the others don't.</p>

<p>Well I have "fixed" the problem, per se. On the website there are folders marked "3800pk" (meaning Epson 3800 photo black) and "3800pk DCM". I was downloading from the one not marked DCM, because I have no idea what that means. Apparently these profiles just don't work, at least not in PS. The ones in the DCM folder show up in PS, and look to be slightly different in their construction from the other ones.</p>

<p>I looked all over to try and figure out what DCM means but haven't got a clue. Anyone? I wonder why the non-DCM profiles don't work but the DCM do? I'm thinking it has something to do with a difference between using their profiles in and out of their RIP software?</p>

<p>They weren't in the HD folder, good point. But I moved them into that HD folder and restarted. Still won't show up. I notice even that a few other profiles in that folder that I'm assuming have been there a while also don't appear in the PS profile menu. I don't understand why most show up but some don't. Very weird.</p>

<p>I have a couple of ICC profiles that I downloaded from the website of a RIP I have that I wanted to try in PS CS4. I've put them in the Library/Colorsync/Profiles folder and the ApplicationSupport/Adobe/Color/Profiles folder and they won't show up in PS. I've put other profiles in the Colorsync folder before and they show up fine. So what's the deal, any ideas? Is it possible to lock ICC profiles so they'll only work in the RIP and not PS?</p>

<p>Michael, thanks a lot for sending me the email. Miraculously the Hasselblad website all of a sudden allowed me to download the PDF not long after I'd posted this, so I was able to do it that way. Thanks again for the help.</p>

<p>Incidentally, if anyone ever has the issue of faint banding on their scans when using an Imacon, it's the light tubes. After downloading the instructions on how to get the tubes out, I did so and gave them a good clean with a cloth, and now no more banding! Very easy fix, but I wasted several days trying to figure out the problem so maybe this info will help others with future headaches.</p>