Access Digital Photography

Welcome to Access Digital Photography, a site for digital photographers hosted by award-winning photographers, and best-selling authors Ken Milburn and Doug Sahlin. Collectively we have more than 80 years of photography experience. That’s right, we’ve shot film. But we embrace the digital technology and our digital darkrooms. We’ve written books and articles on digital photography, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and other applications we use to edit our work.

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As we write our magazine articles and books, we learn more information about digital photography, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and Adobe Photoshop and the other applications we use to edit our work. We share the information with you on this site. We also feature software reviews, and reviews about digital cameras and lenses. To see a categorized list of posts we’ve already created, click the Sitemap link. You can also find specific information by entering a word or phrase in the Search box, which appears with each post, and on the Blog page. You can also view posts made in a specific category by clicking a link in the Categories section of the sidebar. We also have a photoblog where we post our most recent work. To learn more information about your hosts, click the About Us link. Our most recent posts about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop CS3, digital cameras, lens, product reviews, equipment reviews, articles about digital photography and so on are listed below this post. You can view previous posts by clicking a link in the Archives section of Click a link to visit the site.

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Significant new developments in digital cameras seem to be popping up by the minute lately. I’m looking forward to the day when all of the following features will be incorporated into one rock-solid but easy-tote-digicam. Actually, I’d like two versions: one a very compact-looking APS-C size sensor rangefinder-type “street camera,” the other a super-high resolution electronic viewfinder “DSLR” type camera…preferably full-screen. So here’s the list:

1. High def electronic live viewfinder–SLR is dead.

The Panasonic G1 and itís offspring introduced an electronic viewfinder with very high resolution. The definition is so fine that even the smallest details are clearly delineated. There are several benefits: (a) You see the preview of the exposure and depth of field before you shoot (b) The camera can be much smaller because you don’t need a mirror and pentaprism (c) The lens can be much smaller for the same reason–and it can be much closer to the sensor plane. (d) You always shoot in live view, so you see 100% of what youíre going to get and thereís no ìblackoutî at the precious moment. (d) You can put such a viewfinder into a very small housing  that can be attached to the cameraís hot-shoe. You can then tilt and swivel it so that you can see perfectly if you have to shoot  in a direction other than the one youíre facing in order to distract attention or to bend way down if you have to shoot a close-up. Yes, it takes some getting used to, but there are no read advantages to the ìold fashioned way.

2. Tilt & Swivel high definition live view LCD monitor.

All the advantages of the above, except you can clearly see what’s on the camera when you’re face is away from the camera. Then you can study the live scene at the same time youíre composing. With a 3″ screen and more than half a million pixels and a protective overlay that kills glare, you can even see what  you’re doing in fairly bright light. You can even “hood it” if need be–ask Hoodman. One of the really big benefits that few realize is that you can turn the monitor inward when you’re not using it, thus protecting it from cheek grease and shirt button scratches.

3. Universal Hot shoe.

That was SOP for ALL 35mm cameras and their offspring until Minolta tried to “improve” on the security of contacts for the hot shoe by re-designing it to be totally proprietary. Sony carried on that tradition when it bought Minolta. You can’t use any of the flash equipment made by competitors…and you probably already own several, right?  Other manufacturers have been very good about adding “privatized” contacts that will support extra features to a hot shoe that will let you attach and synchronize most anyone else’s flash gun, so you have your choice of which way to go and if you don’t need those special features you can use a generic flash that costs half as much.  There are also plenty of adapters that will allow you to plug a studio flashís pc connector into these hot shoes so that you can fire them as well. If you donít really appreciate how important this can be, read Joe McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries.

4. Interchangeable lenses w/ large choice to grow with.

Look for ways to work around having to use proprietary lenses.  Why? Their extra cost doesn’t often bring extra benefits. In fact, most “proprietary” lenses are actually made by the big name independent lens makers because they have more expertise and more specialize and efficient production. So it’s cheaper for the camera makers (and most all do it) to buy a better lens from Tamron, Sigma, or Tokina and have them put their label and mount on it than to build it themselves.

Some big name manufacturers are even getting a bad rep for buying “kit” lenses that are so cheap they start falling apart in a few months. Also some camera makers don’t even make their cameras compatible with all their own lenses.

5. Interchangeable Sensors:

The day when you had to go buy a whole new camera every time you want to take advantage of a new sensor upgrade should have passed. It’s time for Panasonic, Pentax, Olympus, Sigma, and/or Sony to make a big inroad into the market by providing a camera that can change sensor size, resolution, and type. It’s going to become more and more true that different types of sensors will be better for different types of photography. Don’t worry, sensors will still be versatile, but a camera that can change sensors would let you choose between resolution and noise, for instance. Or switch to dedicated infrared or choose a sensor that’s especially designed for HDR.

6. 4/3d or larger sensor…bigger is better, even in smaller cameras.

That idea has been taken for granted for DSLRs, but now there are a growing number of “rangefinder” or “street” cameras that have larger sensors (including the new Leica M9, which has a full frame sensor.) Imagine what it would be like to have a Panasonic GH1 or GF1 with a full frame sensor. Even the 4/3ds sensors that those cameras have can easily produce and exhibition quality 20″ X 30″ print as long as the ISO is kept below 400.  The Leica M9, with  its full frame sensor, is said to be able to produce exhibition size quality prints at ISO 1600, so shooting nighttime city streets and nightclubs hand held with no flash shouldn’t be much of a problem. Maybe somebody else will make one that doesn’t cost $8,000?

7. 2-stop per step bracketing.

HDR is here, folks. The layer matching capabilities of Photoshop and Photomatix and some others has gotten good enough that (especially with image stabilization), it’s pretty easy to hand-hold an HDR shoot. You can do it if your camera brackets enough shots a half-stop or so apart, but why waste all that space on your card? Besides, the whole sequence happens faster if you’ve only three frames to shoot and that much less of the stuff in the picture is likely to move, too. Believe me, once you’ve done it, you’re addicted.

8. Fast sequence shooting (4+ fps).

It’s no news that the faster you can shoot sequences, the better your chances of capturing  “the moment” in a sport or other hi-speed situation…such as water splashes. The good news is that double and quadruple processors and faster circuitry is making it faster and cheaper.  So you can expect to see more and more of it at more affordable prices.

9. Spot, centered, many segment matrix metering thru lens.

This is pretty much de-rigueur these days amongst all but the cheapest DSLRs. But the matrix metering is getting progressively better with more cells in the matrix to be able to help determine the best overall exposure for very complex scenes with lots of hotspots and shadows.

10. Fast focusing and multiple focusing types — especially spot.

If your camera has spot focusing, you’re much more likely to get focused on what you want if you have to shoot through a busy foreground, such as tree branches and leaves or a chain-link fence.  There’s a bit of a conflict here, as EVF cameras wil eventuallly replace DSLRs, but have to use contrast-detection focusing, which is slower. ..though Panasonic and more and more other makers will keep improving on that as there are and more EVF-only cameras. Oh, and BTW, though some DSLRs give you a choice of live-view through the viewfinder, the EVF alternative on most of those cameras is, so far, very slow to focus and of much too low resolution. It is, however, full of future potential for users to whom weight and size isnít a main concern and versatility is. Itís especially going to be more welcomed as making movies with a still camera becomes more and more practical.

11. In-body Image Stabilization (3-way).

Now, I say this with some warning. First, the good part is that it works with every lens you put on the camera. I’ve been using it on two different brands of cameras for the better part of two years. It only comes on three different brands of cameras so far: Olympus, Sony, and Pentax. I’ve had all three brands with the feature because I love live music and love shooting rock stars while they perform and they hate having flashguns going off in their eyes while they’re performing. Besides, it makes them ugly, more often than not, and most know that. Frankly, the first time I tried shooting hand-held at a 10th of a second, I was amazed at the quality of the stage lighting and the fact that at least a third of the images were sharp. I then combined it with sequence shooting and almost never “missed the moment.” That was because I could hold the camera much steadier if I didnít have to punch the shutter button. I’d always stayed away from IS before because it was more financially practical to spend $150 on a good tripod than $300-1,000 more for a lens. I did have some problems with an older Sony whose sensor shook loose on bumpy roads, but have never had anything like that happen with my Pentax’s.  To Sony’s great credit, they did repair the camera under warranty and itís been great so far.

Canon and Nikon both have huge incomes from the sale of IS lenses, so I don’t think we’re likely to see in-body IS there any time RSN. It would be really desirable to have the choice of three-way (wiggle, pan, and tilt) stabilization, I suppose. I haven’t yet experienced it. Neither have I ever had a problem when I had the IS on and was panning or tilting to keep a subject sharp while wanting to blur the background. However, if I knew I had the option, it would be good to be able try it either way. Being a photographer really makes you appreciate flexibility.

12. Water/dust Proof (Weather Sealed) Body.

Now this is a really big deal. I travel a lot. You never know what’s going to happen next. Furthermore, if something does happen to your camera your chances of being able to replace it before you get home are “slim to none.” When are you ever going to be able to replace what you shot on that journey? Never. And, in fact, no matter who or where you are, you’re never going to be able to replace what you could have shot at any given moment. Of course, if you have to pay $3,000 to $8,000 more for a weather-sealed body, which has been the case up until Pentax started doing something about it, you’ll probably just buy a second body instead. I’d still rather be doing that just so I could have two different lenses mounted and ready to shoot at the same time.

13. PC connector for studio strobes.

All studio strobes and many external portable flash guns expect to connect to a PC connector on the camera body, rather than a hotshoe. The cost of including them is pretty minimal. Yet they seem to be showing up on fewer, rather than more cameras. True enough, you can put a hot-shoe adapter that has a pc-connector built into it onto everything. However, you end up with more “tangle” hanging off your camera and the danger that you could get voltage ‘kickback” from a flash that was more powerful than the camera was designed to handle.

14. Self timer.

A self timer lets you set a time delay (usually either 3 or 10 seconds) between pushing the shutter button and firing the camera. This is pretty commonplace. Ever since camera manufacturers gave up including a connection for a cable release, which costs them about 15 cents, in hopes that you’d pay for an electronic remote, it’s been difficult to fire the camera without wiggling it. Just a tiny wiggle can cause a “soft” enough image to make even the cheapest lens look good.

15. Cheap remote.

Electronic remotes have been made to be necessary because you can’t charge much more for a traditional cable release. Besides, they’re really great when you donít want to be near the camera when it fires.

16. Bulb setting.

The original (and still a good) reason for providing this setting was so that one could “light the night” from different positions without having to synchronize the flash. Itís still very handy for shooting photos in complete darkness using extremely long exposures. Won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t have a tripod or some other handy means of keeping the camera absolutely ìrock steady.

17. Grid on preview monitor.

My favorite is a “rule of thirds” grid, but any grid is better than none. Not only does it help remind you to use the rule of thirds when composing, it’s also a great way to make sure that the shot is level because one of the grid lines is parallel to a vertical or straight line.

18. Level indicator in viewfinder.

This is a very logical alternative to using a bubble level in your hot-shoe (which doesnít work at all if you’re using the hot shoe for connecting a flash. At least one of the new cameras that uses in-body IS will auto-level the image if it’s already almost level by tilting the sensor itself by a few degrees. Don’t know, though, if that would interfere with the image stabilization.

19. Great noise removal software for shooting at high ISO.

In camera noise removal is getting better and better. If you don’t have that, there’s also the noise removal in Lightroom/Camera Raw and some third-party noise removal programs. I hope to do a comparison of those here sometime in the near future.

20. High Definition Movies.

Now that processing is getting faster, definition higher, and memory is getting cheaper, it makes a lot more sense to shoot pro-quality movies with your pro-quality still camera. You never know when the motion in a scene will convey just the image that illustrates the point and makes a great web ad, QuickTime movie, podcast illustration, or hot-selling stock shot. But what good is it if you don’t have the right camera in your hands when that event happens?

Okay, now it’s your turn. How about giving me 5-20 more features you’d like to see widely adopted?

One of the most annoying problems in digital photography, especially if you intend to sell your work is noise in the image. In the old days, we used to call that “grain.” It originates for many of the same reasons. With film, we got grainy pictures when we used too small an image size, used very high speed film, or tried to “shoot in the dark”. To do those things we had to use high speed film, “over-develop” the film, and, often, enlarge it for publication.

Here’s how you can keep noise to a minimum when you’re shooting digital: Use as large a sensor as is practical and within your budget, shoot at the lowest possible ISO, expose for the shadows, keep your exposures as short as possible, and (if the subject isn’t in motion) shoot multiple exposures that you can combine into one “HDR” image.

If you memorize the above list, you’re way far ahead. I’m going to explain the “why’s and wherefore’s” of each of those things because there’s more to them than you might suspect.

Use a Large Sensor

The biggest difference in noise you’ll see in your shots is if you take one picture with a compact camera and another with a DSLR. DSLR sensors come in two sizes: 35mm and APS-C. APS-C size sensors generally “cram” more individual sensors into a given amount of space…even when the larger sensors have more individual sensors. The more individual sensors (a.k.a. sensor cells), the higher the image resolution. But the closer they’re crowded together, the more noise they make. If you have a compact camera with more than 10 megapixels, you’ll probably get lower actually resolution due to noise than if you had 10 or less megapixels. Now, it’s true that the further the technology advances, the more pixels it’s practical to put in a limited space. However, that’s all relative and it will always be true that larger sensor will give you less noise and much higher resolution.

One of the best ways to judge that is to look at the number of pixels in a square centimeter (pixel density) of a small compact, slightly larger sensor compact, typical APS-C 12MP sensor, and a full frame 35mm sensor of twice the resolution of the APS-C sensor:
Canon Power Shot A100 12MP = 43MP pixel density
Canon Power Shot G11 10MP   = 23MP pixel density
Canon Digital Rebel T1i 15MP  =  4.5MP pixel density
Sony Full Frame A850    25MP =  2.9MP pixel density
Think of it this way: A DSLR has about 10% of the pixels per square centimeter as its compact small- or large-frame counterpart! To put it another way, you get about the same amount of noise at about ISO 1200 from the highest resolution full-frame camera as at ISO 100 on the larger frame compact cameras.

Shoot in the RAW
Bet that caught your eye, but all kidding aside, a RAW file has about 10 stops of brightness range instead of the approximately 4 stops of a JPEG. So if you lighten your shadows in a RAW processor, you’ll see much less noise and more local area contrast.

So if you lighten your shadows in a RAW processor, you’ll see much less noise and more local area contrast. And when you do expose for the shadows (see below), you’ll have a lot more ability to recover detail from the over-exposed highlights (but not as much as if you’d shot RAW and underexposed for the highlights because they were more important to that particular shot than the shadows).

Shoot at a Low ISO

Just about any camera will keep noise low enough to get an decent 8 X 10-inch print if you’re shooting at ISO 100. Noise acceptability will “max out” on most compacts at about ISO 200 if they’re more than 10MP in resolution. If you have an APS-C or 4/3ds size DSLR, ISO 800 will probably be tops (give or take). Believe it or not, you can double that for a full frame camera. (I want one, dammit)

Expose for the Shadows

Much less of the dynamic range of a digital image is given to the shadows in an image than to the shades above medium (50%) brightness (“gray”), so if you’re shooting an image in which the areas of most interest are in the darker tones (and especially if the brighter highlights aren’t too important), simply over expose the shadows and then darken the image when it’s processed. You’ll be amazed at how much less noise and how much more detail you’ll see in the shadows. You do, however, have to expect that your highlights are going to blow-out, so best if they’re either not in the scene or simply not of any interest or can be cropped out.

Shoot Multiple Exposures

Scenics are often the big problem because we generally want to make larger prints and to stare at them for a long time to study all the details. So shooting for the shadows seldom works well. You should thank heavens for HDR technologies.

Keep Time Exposures Short

If you’re going out to shoot a 30 minute exposure between moonset and sunrise, best to rent a full frame camera if you’re not ready to make the 2-8 thousand dollar investment in one of these. Either that or accept the noise as part of the “artistic feel” of your shot. In fact, the longer your exposure times, the more noise you’ll get. If you’re using a DSLR, though, it’s not likely to be all that objectionable until the exposure gets to be several seconds long.

The longer we live with digital imagery, the more amazing the opportunities become to turn photographs into more abstract and subjective imagery than the “objectivity” of pure, untouched photography could ever provide. Now, we have more and more powerful stacking algorithms, layers and smart layers, automatically masked adjustment layers that can be painted, and can combine artistic effects…to mention only a fraction of the power in our hands.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photographers embrace technology. Most of us use digital cameras and rely on technology such as Lightroom, Photoshop, and plug-in filters to bring our work to the light of day. Technology, however, can be a daunting mistress. Just when you think you’ve got all of the equipment and software you need, new equipment or new software is available. And the new is often a quantum leap forward.

Recycling Old Technology

Digital cameras are a perfect example of changing technology. I use an EOS 5D MKII for my professional work. My previous camera was the first iteration of the EOS 5D. I loved that camera, but when Canon announced the EOS 5D MKII, I knew I had to have one. With nearly double the megapixels, a new sensor capable of capturing relatively noise free images at high ISO settings, and built in high-definition video, this camera was definitely a quantum leap forward. I did not want to finance this purchase, so I did some Spring Cleaning and found lots of technology that I wasn’t using; but technology that still had value. I put the old technology up for auction on eBay. When the auctions were over, I had over half of the purchase price of the new camera. So I bought the new EOS 5D MKII, and put my old camera up for auction on eBay. When the auction ended, I received enough money to completely pay for the new camera with a bit left over for my savings account. I was quite pleasantly surprised at how much of my original purchase price I received from the eBay auctions. You can’t get that type of return on investment for other technology, for example: a car or truck.

Digital point and shoot cameras are another example of technology that’s run amuck. About a year ago, I purchased a Canon G10. I thought it was the ideal solution for a daily shooter. It was small, lightweight and had professional features. I liked the camera, but was never crazy about the idea of cramming 15 megapixels on a miniscule sensor. Something else that was lacking on the G10 was a swivel monitor. Canon listened and recently announced the G11. The new G11 features a swivel LCD monitor and the ability to capture 10 megapixels on a CCD sensor. That’s right; Canon took a step backward and put fewer megapixels on a better sensor. In my opinion, 10 megapixels is just fine for a point and shoot camera. Early reviews indicate that the camera will produce images with less noise at higher ISO settings, just what the doctor ordered.
Buying a New Digital Camera without Breaking the Bank Read the rest of this entry »

Image Doctor 2, from Alien Skin, is actually five Photoshop-compatible plug-ins in one package that are meant to “cure what ails” your “almost great” images. All of these utilities depend on your making a selection with any of the Photoshop selection tools first, then using one the five sub-programs to fix a specific type of program: Blemish Concealer, Dust & Scratch Remover, Skin Softener, JPEG Repair, or Smart Fill. Of course, you can use any or all of these on the same image, should you need to.

Smart Fill

If you’ve had any experience at all with retouching, you know how time-consuming and tedious it can be. If you’re a photographer competing for money in the real world, you know how important it is to get it right.

Photoshop itself has three tools, called the Healing Tools, that make retouching much easier than in the “days of yore,” but Alien Skin’s Image Doctor has a Smart Fill feature that’s kind of like having a cross between the Spot Healing tool and the Patch Tool. You just select an area to fix it, click on the area you want to fix it and wham-o, you’re done. It not only works on portraits, but can be a great way to get rid of trash on a lawn or ripped posters on a telephone pole.

Here’s an amazing example of the Smart Fill Feature in Action. I loved the way the scavenger birds grouped themselves in such a compositionally interesting way, but that out-of-focus branch at the top of the shot really bugged me. So I selected it very loosely with Photoshop’s Lasso Tool, choose Exposure 2 from the Filter Menu, and then clicked on all the choices in the dialog, waited for a few seconds, and saw the result of that choice. When I saw what I liked most, I left it that way. What you see below is the before and after of doing that…plus copying part of the sky and tree to a new layer, flipping it, and dragging it to the other side of the tree to make the “stray” branches and leaves come to life.

What I should have done for this particular image was use the other tab,  Basic. Also, this works most easily if you’re getting rid of something that’s surrounded by a pattern, such as the grass on a lawn or clouds in the sky. So to get the result I got here, I did a bit of “edge touchup” with Photoshop’s Clone Stamp. Worked out pretty nicely, as you can see. Read the rest of this entry »

Exposure 2, one of Alien Skin Software’s excellent collection of plug-ins for Photoshop, is also one of the many ways I’ve been looking into to effectively “stylize” the look of one’s photographs. Enhancing the dynamic range, color range, and local contrast of digital photographs is a subject that has me nearly totally engrossed these days. You’ve probably noticed that my friend Doug is also entranced by what, for lack of a more generalized “industry-standard” name, I’ll call Image Stylization Tools.

IMHO, the “birthplace” of all these tools was Adobe Photoshop’s own HDR Merge command. Then along came HDR Software’s Photomatix, which suddenly set the world on fire with the extreme control it gives photographers for controlling dynamic range. In fact, if you have the time and the courage to push and pull enough combinations of sliders, you can probably make it do even the types of “special effects” image interpretations to both merged and individual images that Exposure can do.

Personally, though, I have and am grateful for both these tools (as well as a few others that I will cover later). Why? Because they can save me a lot of time and can, much more quickly, give me an overview of options that I can apply before I make a final choice. [Mention here the possibility of LR Virtual Copies for keeping these options organized and quickly presentable. Check out to see how compatible the filter is with LR and Aperture].

Chief among Exposure’s (currently version 2) benefits is the ability to instantly imitate dozens of film stocks.  Now, there are already many Lightroom presets that imitate film stocks. Exposure, however, manages to have just about everyone of the traditional favorites. Exposure 2‘s dialog has 5 tabs and the film interpretations are in the tab called Settings. Films are listed by categories: Print, Print w/ Grain Off, Print Low Contrast and Print Low Contrast Grain Off, Slide and Slide Grain Off. All you have to do to interpret your image as one of the films would interpret it is to click it’s name. I’m just going to give you a few examples of what one click can do. First, here’s an image that I processed in Lightroom and then tonemapped the single RAW image by exporting it to Fotomatix from Lightroom.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a big fan of Photoshop plug-in filters simply because they make the creation of a specific feat…especially having to do with special or photographic effects…so controllable and easy. Some folks consider this a cop-out because, let’s face it, if you have the time and the knowledge and the mental retention, there’s dang little you can’t do using Photoshop alone. Here’s the way I figure it: If the plug-in doesn’t save me enough time to pay for itself within a couple of months of use, don’t buy it. Whether this is true for any given product is going to turn out to be a different reality for different people. And that’s the nice thing about blogs like this: I can relate my experience and you can see if you can relate to it. This first experiential review is about a new filter from Alien Skin called Snap Art. It’s job is turning digital or digitized photos into “works of art.”

I figure the easiest way to show you what the program can do is to take one photograph and then “re-interpret” in all the different styles the program can do. The photo I started with is the one above. I figured it was a great compromise between a color chart and a portrait. Read the rest of this entry »

Layers are undoubtedly one of the most versatile and (at least, somewhat) non-destructive features of most of today’s image processing software. This article introduces you to the various characteristics, modes and commands for layers.

Layers can help in many types of operations, and I’ll cover the most important of these here. I won’t have room, however, to cover every possibility. If you want to know even more, check out the Adobe site, AccessDigitalPhotography, and the many sites associated with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. At least this article will clarify the basics. I’d suggest printing it out and keeping it handy until you’ve pretty much got it memorized.

Note: If you shot in RAW mode (and there’s hardly ever a good reason not to do that), be sure to do as much of the processing as possible in a RAW processing program such as Lightroom, Aperture, or Camera Raw. Everything you do there will be non-destructive, you can make multiple interpretations from the same image, you’ll get perfect white balance, maximum image definition, and maximum dynamic range (4,086 shades of brightness/color vs. 256). Don’t worry: There will still be lots you can add in Photoshop and you’ll have lots more time to do it because you will have saved so much time getting the basic image to look just as you want it to look. Where Photoshop will shine is in highly “localized” and specialized types of processing.
What is a layer?
Think of a layer as a transparent sheet. Whatever you put on it becomes superimposed on the rest of your image. You want to put the image that belongs on top at the top of the stack in the Layers Palette. If you want to put the contents of one layer over another, just click on the layer’s name and drag it up or down…depending on where you want it to appear. The highest layer always affects all the layers below it unless you make it a part of a clipping path or layer group

The bug is a Smart Object on a Smart Layer above the horse. Note that each layer has been named for its purpose. Blend Modes are on the menu that says Normal. Opacity and Fill are on sliders when you click the arrow. The Eyeballs mean a layer is active. Click to turn it off. Smart Layers have a square taken out of the lower right corner. Commands are on the Layers menu that appears when you click the arrowhead at upper right. The icons in the lower row are: Link, Layer Effects, Mask, Adjustment Layers, Layer Group, New Layer, and Delete Layer. Read the rest of this entry »

Because I like to travel and shoot, I often find myself in situations where I need to take along a laptop so that I can stay in contact with the lessons I teach on line (8 digital photography courses at Sessions.edu), friends back in the States, and those I’ve met “on the road” who’ve moved on to other interesting locations.

Then a terrible thing happened. I was stupid enough to loan it to a friend and the lid got cracked, lots of my hard work was erased, and I had to replace the hard drive. Even after I spent $600 repairing it, I really couldn’t bear to use it and didn’t want to carry it anywhere. And being outside the States, I can’t find anyone who can fix the lid.

Then, one day, luck stuck. Doug called me and said he’d just seen an ad that a “going out of business” computer store was selling the 8.9” Acer One Aspire Netbook refurbs on a “close-out” for just a few pennies over $200. I’d been moaning and groaning for something I could take to a café or on a bus trip without feeling burdened. I wasn’t sure it would have the capacity to do what I needed, but for $200, I figured it would come in handy for something…even if I only used it for writing and teaching. Most Internet Cafes have wireless Internet and so do most hotels and hostels. So, at the very least, I could teach my classes and write about my photographic experiences. So I called the company that was selling them only to find out that, in two days, they’d already sold every one of them.

Then, half an hour later, the salesperson called back and said that they had some blue ones with more memory (2GB) and a larger hard drive (160GB) (exactly what I had been wishing I could afford) for only a few dollars more. Easy decision: The order was placed immediately. Now, I figured, if I could just see the screen clearly enough (due to its small size and my old eyes), I’d even be able to download my shoots on the road and do the basic photo editing and image management when I was waiting for a plane or hanging out in the hotel living room after dinner.

Well, about two weeks later, my netbook arrived in Panama. It seemed like a dream come true. The screen was very clean and easy to read. Even photos looked good enough to edit, though it only had a reader for SD/XD-size cards. It does have three USB ports, so I can plug in a card reader for CF cards that one of my cameras uses.

I did have to train myself to use the keyboard and mousepad. Given the small screen, one of the big advantages is that you can use your fingers to zoom in and out on anything you’re working on, in any application. Trouble is, your thumbs are over the mouse pad constantly and an accidental bump could zoom your text to microscopic size or so big that you could only read two words. So it took a few days to train myself to be careful. The other thing I had to train myself to do was save the doc every time I finished a paragraph…especially if it had anything important to say. The most important part is to remember to hit Control + S at least once a minute. Then you can always just call up your document when the whole thing suddenly disappears.

Fixing that was just a matter of re-reading the manual a few times and being careful not to hit more than one key at a time. I also found that if I propped up the back of the computer, so the tiny keyboard was at angle, my typing speed nearly doubled. Then Doug told me there was a 6-cell battery available for another $60-bucks.  It weighs almost as much as the computer, but it’s so big that it perfectly props up the back of the machine. It has pretty close to 7 hours of battery life. If you take any time at all to talk to a friend or read up on what you’re writing about, that really turns out to be about 9 hours because the computer automatically puts itself to sleep. So I ordered the battery, which cost me about another $30 in shipping and duties. It took a couple of weeks of spread-out two hour away from home use to run it down to nothing so that I could “train”it, but now I can re-charge it any time I use it and it seems to regain its full battery life. The best part is, raising the back of the netbook really  made typing a lot easier. Also, I always bring along the original battery, so if I do need a little extra time after the big battery runs out, I can just swap it.

Another thing that made a big difference in “ease of use” was using a mouse instead of the finger pad. At least you know exactly what’s going to happen when you click a mouse button. Optical mice seem to be the only practical answer when working with unpredictable table surfaces and when you don’t want to worry about a mouse pad. The usual long cord, though, was getting in the way of other customers at the same table. I found this amazing mini-mouse from Discovery Labs and the cord automatically adjusts to being only as long as you want it to be:

Then came the big challenge: How to install programs on a computer too small to contain a DVD/RW drive. Well, it so happens that there are some very cool DVD drives that can do everything…including doing all their tasks…even Lightscribe disk labeling…by being powered by the USB ports on the netbook. The one I bought, pictured below, even writes to double-sided DVDs,  so I can get 9.4 GB of photos onto a single disk. So there’s hardly a day’s shoot when I can’t get the whole thing onto one disk. It reads and writes all the DVD and CD formats, too. Here’s a picture of it and the computer. It’s so slim that there’s just no problem at all slipping it into the same bag with the netbook.

Finally, I didn’t want to install the full CS4 version of Photoshop and all the plugins I used with it on the netbook. Photoshop Elements 7 and Lightroom 2.0 do everything I’m wanting to do  during my “waiting times”.  Lightroom does all the “exposure” adjusting, image management, and quick-turnaround slide shows. It also makes it really easy to send a client or compatriot a set of “preview” or quick publishing files, all pre-sized and in JPEG format. When I get back home, I immediately copy the DVDs I’ve made on the road to my big hard drive and it’s twin back-up drive. I even took the whole outfit to a party one night and did all the initial Lightroom work, got some outside feeback at the same time, and then loaded it all up to the iMac in the morning and went straight to work on the final tweaks on my calibrated monitor and did the final retouching and compositing in Photoshop CS4.

The last little part of my “workflow” is to copy individual articles, to do lists, etc, to a flash drive. Then I copy that to my  iMac. When I get a bunch of those on the netbook, I also back them up to a DVD and then erase them from the netbook so that there’s always room to do my next “on the job” photo-editing. Perhaps the biggest benefit of all in all of this is that if your editing work gives you some ideas while you’re on the road, you can probably shoot them while you’re still at that location.