Computing – Page 10 – Richard & Caroline's Blog

October 27, 2016October 27, 2016

New Apple MacBook Pro Released

Tonight here in the UK we had the Apple Press conference streamed. I was expecting Thunderbolt 3 and was not surprised to see four TB3 ports on the mid and high end models and two on the low end. I was also pleased to see the headphone socket retained. What I was sad to see was the loss of the MagSafe port for charging and also the lack of HDMI and USB3 or Ethernet. Now we need to carry more dongles until the rest of the industry catches up.

Its also given Apple a bit of a problem with consistency, the iPhone headphones are now Lighting port but we have no Lighting port on the MacBook Pro, so you cannot use the new headphones. If you just bought a iPhone 7 you cannot even plug it in to your shiny new Mac to charge or sync with iTunes but are limited to syncing over Bluetooth.

I had a quick look on the WEX Photographic website for CF and SD card readers for TB3 or USB-C (its the same port), they had USB 2, 3.0 and TB2; so more dongles to carry.

I have to admit there nice machines but for me i’ll keep using my old laptop for a while longer until TB3 and USB-C get more common and Apple sort out their inconsistencies with the iPhone.

If I did need a laptop for light work I would buy the bottom of the range 13 inch MacBook Pro, while it just has the two TB3 ports it would work ok for light work.

September 27, 2016

Apple Watch

I am now an Apple Watch owner, in the end I went for the Gold coloured aluminum model. Its proving to be a fun device, definitely not a must have but a nice to have.

If your mildly into fitness and have other Apple devices its a useful device, but for more keen fitness fanatics then a more dedicated device such as a fit bit may be better.

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016

MacOS Sierra

Last week Apple released the latest version of OS X, now renamed to MacOS. My old laptop is now too old, there are ways of forcing it on, and I may try that but without Bluetooth v4 and Wireless AC you miss out on a lot of the cool features.

Luckily my desktop does support the OS and the cool new features.

Being a photographer I have too many devices that need testing to just jump ahead with the upgrade so I have been doing a little research first.

As far as I could find everything should work, the only worry was my i1 screen calibrator and my printer, while Epson listed my scanner compatible with MacOS the printer only had the previous version of OS listed.

With that being the case I downloaded the new OS and installed it on a spare external hard drive and booted my MacPro desktop from that. First I did a clean install and downloaded the Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom to test, then my Wacom tablet. That all worked fine.

I then tested Apple’s migration assistant and pulled over all my data and applications and settings from my Time Machine backup disk.

I tested Photoshop and Lightroom again and the tablet. Then I tested my scanner and finally I tried some prints from Lightroom to my printer.

I am pleased to report that everything works, so once MacOS 10.12.1 is released I’ll risk upgrading.

September 13, 2016September 18, 2016

iOS 10

Here in the UK iOS 10 was released at 18:00 on Tuesday night. I was looking forward to this more then the new iPhone, my iPhone 6 Plus is still going strong with no issues, I skipped the 6S and will skip the new 7.

I was not at home when it was released but had my laptop, iPad and iPhone with me and internet access. I had made sure that my iDevices were backed up, but also before updating I checked out the forums to see what issues people were having. Lucky I did as the OTA (over the air) update was corrupt so many users ending up having to restore their phones. Apple quickly resolved that and once the reports looked good I upgraded my phone. When I was happy with that I then updated the iPad.

Once again iOS10 is more polish and has changed a few things including getting rid of the iconic swipe to open. Overall I like the changes.

September 9, 2016September 17, 2016

Apple Watch – Will I, Won’t I

I am having a really good look at AppleWatch OS3 and the new devices.

It’s one of those devices that I want but do not need. Like the iPad I waited until an app appeared that would make the device useful for Photography, with the watch I’ll be spending the next week looking into the apps to see if its a device I can truly get something out of. So fitness, walking and possibly sailing, kayaking and swimming. I can also think of a few uses for work.

If I decide to get one then which model. I should get the sport model as its the cheapest but I do really like the black stainless steal but I’ll find it hard to justify the cost, so might just go with the black sport model.

September 8, 2016September 26, 2016

Apple Press Conference- iPhone 7 & AppleWatch S2

So there we have it, the new iPhone 7. I actually found it quite impressive, better colour gamut for both screen and camera, colour management, and the ability to shoot in RAW using Adobe DNG, not a proprietary format like Canon and Nikon.

With phones now getting this good, the small sensor compact is dead.

The watch also I thought was a good improvement, thinner screen, 30% bigger battery, nearly twice the performance. With waterproofing and gps, I can now log my walks, runs, etc without having to carry my phone and not worry when I swim, kayak or sail.

July 26, 2016July 31, 2016

Leica Q Firmware v2.0

So that was quick, only yesterday did I mention rumoured firmware for the Q, SL and M and today Leica go and release v2.00 for the Q.

You can download it here.

The big thing for me is DNG only mode, which can help your workflow when working with mobile software like Adobe Lightroom Mobile on the iPad.

July 18, 2016July 20, 2016

Busy Apple

We had a new iTunes update, OS X and iOS update this week, seems Apple are being busy bees at the moment. I am looking forward to the new OS X being released under its new name macOS Sierra but it may not work with my laptop. Though with Lightroom Mobile now supporting a pure RAW file workflow, I may finally retire my laptop once it gets to old, at over eight years old its doing well.

July 14, 2016July 20, 2016

Adobe Lightroom Mobile Update – RAW Support

We had another update to Adobe Lightroom Mobile and this time they seem be indicating that we now have RAW support for the Mobile version.

This was a big thing for me as I have blogged about in the past. Though Lightroom Mobile already supports DNG, I do want Nikon NEF support.

So I just had to give it a go. I use Lightroom Mobile often to do a quick edit from when I am street shooting using my Leica. The edits are usually just quick adjustments and crops. This time the test was very simple I just grabbed my Nikon D800 and shot a few snaps of the dog and a few flowers in the garden.

So after a few quick snaps I grabbed my iPad 9.7 Pro and imported the RAW files. All looked good and this worked without issue. I then dived onto my Desktop computer and checked out the ‘From LR mobile’ Collection set.

There I saw my photographs arriving. The question was what format? Lightroom reported them as RAW and I also browsed to the file location in finder to confirm and there my files were. So we now have full RAW support in Lightroom Mobile, thanks Adobe.

July 5, 2016July 9, 2016

Photoshop CC 2015.5 – Face Aware Liquify

Adobe released Photoshop CC2015.5 recently and as I had a few portraits to edit I gave it good trial.

The first thing that threw me for a while was the selection tool, this has changed quite a bit.

The second which was very cool is the new content aware face aware Liquify filter. On most images it will detect the face and enable you to tweak the eyes, nose and lips with ease.