Khaled Meshaal & George Clooney

Is it me or they look like twins or what? (Production still taken from Syriana movie)

Pictures taken from CNN and Oz Defense site.

Your internet providings…

from Jimmy’s blog. what a hoot.

Eva Longoria – Never seen before

1. Go to to http://www.iwanexstudio.com/
2. Click ‘Portfolio’
3. She’s on the bottom row, 5th picture from the left
4. Roll your mouse over the picture
5. Woah

Wes

Canon 1Ds mk III and XP workflow

Before I start, let me state that the point of reference for comparison is the 5D camera, vs the 1Ds mk 3. My main computer for processing files is a AMD 4400+ x2 (2.42Ghz) 2Gb Windows XP machine that runs rock solid. I am using CaptureOne 3.7.7 and Photoshop CS2. I am writing this short essay to find out what it will take to maintain the speed of my current workflow if I should purchase the 1Ds mk III. I am not planning to buy it but I like doing the math.

There are 3 main areas that the increased file size will have an impact on:

1. Storage
2. Raw processing speed
3. Photoshop CS2 speed

Let’s see how we can do to maintain the current pace of the work flow:

Point 1: Storage is getting cheaper by the day, so using an eSata enabled motherboard with an eSata HDD enclosure will give the same data transfer speed compared to an internal HDD. An external HDD is good if more HDDs cannot be added to the PC.

Point 2: My XP machine will take the 20sec x1.67 = 33.4sec to process each file. If I want to decrease processing time, I will need to get a faster processor. Apparently a quadcore doesn’t help speed up processing, I have experimented timings with a friend of mine with a quadcore machine, timings are similiar with 2 or 4 cores with same proc speed. Raw processing is a batch process, meaning the machine can be left to do the processing overnight.

Point 3: This is potentially the biggest issue, I will explain why in the last paragraph – In order to take advantage of the new 14bit color, we will be working with 16bit files for maximum flexibility. The 1Ds 3 files are 72.6Mb (in CS2) x1.67 = 121.2Mb, meaning that Photoshop will need anything from 3x to 6x (727.6Mb) of RAM to make sure it doesn’t hit the scratch disk*. In my case, I usually open at least 3 files in CS2 for adjustment layers, comparing, etc. So I will need 2.2Gb of RAM dedicated solely for Photoshop use. Photoshop CS2 in XP has a limit of 3Gb RAM as described in this Adobe tech document. This means that I will need a minimum of 4gb ram in the machine to post process 21.1Mp files nicely (XP uses 1Gb for system). Unfortunately, 4Gb RAM is the max RAM XP can run. So for the next 2 years, although XP will work great with the 1Ds mk 3. Just barely. yay.

BUT if I need more RAM, I’ll need a 64bit OS (eg Vista, XP64, OS X), this is likely going to be a big issue. Why? Although I consider myself PC tech inclined, it will be ROYAL pain to shift to over to 64bit Windows. Because it’s likely to involve upgrading a lot of software plus drivers, etc. It’s not as simple as spending more money, there’s a whole new learning curve involved. Worst, Vista is not stabilized and it’ll take 1 or 2 service packs render it useful. At present, there are still hardware/software incompatibilities NOT yet ironed out. Looking at Microsoft’s track record with Windows 3.11, 98, 2k and XP histories, they will make it stable, the only question is ‘when?’.

Wes

*Note: Hitting the scratch disk on HDD is not good, because it really slows CS2 down and in my case, it disrupts my creative flow, so the aim is to avoid hitting the scratch disk on HDD.

Heroes – More Hiro

They’re heading to Spore (Vivocity) and Paris. woohoo!

Wes

What I learned this month

I haven’t been reading/catching up about printer/printing/photography software for 3 to 4 years. But since I had to do some serious research on digital b&w printing, I have been trawling umpteen sites for info, etc. Here’s some observations:

1. Digital b&w archival prints are achievable. Meaning it’s possible to get b&w digital inkjet prints to last > 50 years without fading or changing color. There are still many issues to work out and it takes a lot of time & effort to get the workflow right, from capture, to processing and to print. It’s surprising, but hardcore digital b&w printing is still a niche thing, even among photographers. There dozens of new inkjet paper types in the market with many types of carbon inks. Some of these system can replace the original insets in printers. And like the new west, some works and some doesn’t.

2. HP, Canon and Epson are slugging it out on the professional graphic art printer market. Seems Epson is still ahead. Coz I still can’t find Canon or HP high end printers in local and online shops. Still, HP and Canon are giving Epson a serious run for their money in the US.

3. Raw Developer – Newish raw image developer that’s very interesting. I think it’s a no frills raw developing software (unlike Aperture or Lightroom), it produces images that are film like, in terms of grain quality and sharpness. And it does excellent b&w conversions with lots of control. Alas, it’s Mac only.

4. CaptureOne – Speaking of b&w conversion, I have been reading and trying couple of conversion methods (Greg Gorman, etc) and software. They were either ‘actions’ or plugins within Photoshop and I couldn’t really get the tone I wanted. I stumbled on the ‘Phaseone – BW profile’ while fiddling with color output in CaptureOne. Turns out this was the best find of the month. B&w tones can be adjusted with color temp, contrast, saturation, tint. 2 great things:
a. the preview image adjusts automatically to the changes.
b. working direct from raw means that there’s more info in the pixels to play with.

5. Colorburst, Colorbyte – RIPs (Raster Image Processing) programs/hardware were used for processing postscript files for printing. Nowadays, although they don’t necessary do that, they are still used to take over the Epson/Canon/HP drivers for high quality prints. They are used mainly in the biggie > 24″ printers. Back in the old days of Epson 2100, it was near impossible to get neutral b&w prints, but ImagePrint from Colorbyte made it possible. Prices vary from US$600+ to US$3k. The RIPs will generally give better workflow, gradients & tonal range, eliminate metamerism. Quadtone RIP is a cheaper alternative if *only* b&w is needed, it’s US$50 if you decide to keep it. Only problem is that it’s super technical, I am still figuring out how to linearize the printer. Why linearize? So that it’s possible to get consistent and accurate color. All are available in PC & Mac. That said, the new Epson 3800 has better hardware and software that brings color prints pretty close to RIP prints.

6. Bill Atkinson’s Profile Targets – If you think 918 patches were good enough for printer profiling, Bill’s got 1728 (matt) and 4096 (glossy) patch versions. Do we need it? It depends on how anal one gets. It’s about you being 200% happy with the prints.

7. Found a 1st class technical paper on preparing files for prepress (meaning brochure, book, etc) use. It deals with mainly converting RGB to CYMK for the printers, but the paper also contains many interesting points about workflow from color correction to final deliverables, a seriously good read nonetheless. There’s one caveat though, I have heard that most commercial printers in Singapore don’t stick to CYMK printing standards. Someone please correct me if that info is wrong. The author of this paper is part of PixelGenius that developed PhotoKit Sharpener.

8. PTlens -Really good software that eliminates distortion, vignetting based on camera/lens profiles. Yay! Coz Canon wide zooms are industry standard. Not.

That’s it for now…

Oh ya, one more thing, Adobe=Microsoft. Well, almost. Info about Adobe Acrobat 8 upgrading , CS3 programs, Adobe Master Collection costs £1000 more in the UK and Adobe pricing.

:-)
Wes

We loooove peanut butter

Jo

Adobe CS2, XP, > 4 cores

Well, what d’ya know. It seems that Win2k and XP doesn’t use > 4 cores for CS2, this link will help. CS2 multi processor support for windows

Came across this from Paul Butzi’s blog (http://photomusings.wordpress.com/). Btw, he’s a photographer that’s on both film and digital. 8×10s and Epson 9600.

Wes

Silver iMacs – Before you jump in…

take a look at the Apple Discussion forums, there’s condensation in them screens.

Discussion on screen condensation thread and pix

And iPhones are having problems with dead spots on screens and batteries. :-(

Discussion on dead spots on iPhone screens

Ze cutting edge bleeds. Don’t touch ‘em rev A products son.

Wes

Desperation is the Mother of Invention

Epson Super A3 cardboard box = 50 cents
Double sided Scotch tape = $2
Black paper = gift from friend

 

Effective LCD Shade = Cheapness