Category: Computing

There are three pieces of advice I can give you for scanning.

• Scan Once
• Cleanliness
• Treat as a RAW file

So what do I mean by this.

Well scanning is time consuming so do the proceedure once at the highest native resolution of your scanner.

Clean your scanner plate with a soft cleaning cloth then clean your slides/film. Once mounted in the frame clean again. Don’t be surprised that after the scan you made need to clean again and rescan.

Maximise the quality of the scan. Your not after something that looks fantastic that’s your usual editing softwares job. You are after a flat low contrast file which you can work with in a flexible way.

As you can see from the histogram this image is finishing at 232 not 255 so adjust the sliders to maximise the scan over the images histogram range.  I also give the mid tones a slight boost and also turn off sharpening and noise reduction.  Our third party tools offer far better quality and options then what comes with the scanner software.

I quickly flick through all my images in the slide/film holder setting the histogram appropriate for each image.

I then select batch scan; I scan to a folder which I set as a watch folder in Adobe Lightroom, once each image is scanned it gets auto imported into Lightroom with my default copyright and develop settings preset I have created for this.

 

One of the things I was pleased to see about my new scanner was that it included a copy of Silverfast Scanning software.

As usual I downloaded and installed the Epson drivers then downloaded the Silverfast software and installed it.  It was at this point I hit a problem.

When I entered the license key it would not accept it.  You had to have installed from the CD.  So what if you have a very modern computer.  My Mac is seven years old and has a CD drive, but my wife has a modern Mac with no drive.  My work laptop is a new Lenovo machine which like a lot of current machines also has no CD drive.

Well Epson did include a note with a URL to go to if you have a machine with no CD drive, unfortunately the URL did not work.  After a little digging I found that if I registered the serial code listed on the CD of the Silverfast software I could then request a CD less upgrade code.  This I did which then meant I could register the software and start using it.

In this day and age where people are moving away from physical media they really need to make this easier.

Over the last few year computer and computer accessory companies have been getting better. Clearer instructions and simpler more straight forward software. 

Epson printers have for many years been excellent products but with poor instructions. Of late and certainly with my Epson 3880 they were much better but it seems the scanner department still have some way to come. 

Lots of bits of paper but no real single simple setup guide. 

I was very pleased to see as well as the Epson software a copy of Silverfast and iOne profile targets. 

As is usual for me I ignored CD’s and downloaded the latest versions from the web. This led to other issues which I’ll detail later in the week. 

Collections in Lightroom are very useful ways of collating photographs together, I have various studio shoots, Black & White collections and family holidays all as various collections.

One of the very useful options is Smart Collections.  You can define a rule, e.g. a studio shoot on a set date and have all flagged photographs automatically appear in a Smart Collection.

I was using this the other day to help me sort a studio shoot and wanted to potentially fine tune the sorting the following day if I had a few spare moments.  I knew I would not have my laptop with me but I would have my iPad, so I looked for the sync option.  Imagine my surprise when it was not there.

It turns out you cannot sync smart collections only standard collections, so I had to create another collection and copy the contents of my smart collection over to the standard collection to get them to sync across to the iPad using Lightroom Mobile.

The problem now is that tomorrow night when I flag up some more photographs to make final selections from, while they will automatically appear in my Smart Collection they will not appear in the sync’ed collection.

Come on Adobe, you have added some great new features in Lightroom CC, please add the ability to sync Smart Collections.

On Tuesday night as I mentioned yesterday, I installed Adobe Lightroom CC.

Unfortunately I could not get it to launch on one of my computers.  A quick reboot, uninstall and re-install. I even tried a permission repair on the boot drive.

Then I remembered the last time I had an issue with an Adobe CC app. Log out of Adobe Creative Cloud and the log back in. Voila it now works.

At first it was rare for memory cards to be bigger then 4 GB.  In fact my Leica says that cards bigger then 4 GB will not work.  I now have a selection of cameras and digital backs from about 2006 to today.  With cameras like the Nikon D800 at 36 MP a 32 or 64 GB card is essential.

So recently I decided to buy some new cards, and went for some 64 GB CF and 64 GB SD cards, but what would they work in?

Well I was quite surprised.  Since V2.0 firmware I knew my Leica would word with the new SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) as I already had some of the new 16 GB SDHC cards, but what about SDXC (Secure Digital eXtended Capacity).

Well the old Leica M8 with the latest firmware 2.024 worked fine with the 64 GB SDXC cards.  The 64 GB Compact Flash cards and SDXC both worked fine in the Nikon D800, and the CF cards worked fine in my digital back.  So far so good, everything was working fine, but then I tried my Nikon D200’s, these did not recognise the 64 GB CF cards, which surprised me.  I have a look to see if there is a newer firmware update for them.

With Lightroom, I have the application on my internal SSD, the database on the internal SSD and the Cache on the internal SSD.  The photographs I am currently working on the internal SSD whilst completed images are on external hard drives.

Now that I am looking a getting a new computer, one of the options is to use my old laptop for occasional light use, my wife’s laptop for heavy use when I need power and portability; and the new computer for maximum power and colour critical work together with the Adobe RGB monitor.

This will entail moving between Lightroom databases, possibly having a master Lightroom database on the main computer and a working database that gets moved between the other machines.

While Lightroom works well with importing and exporting databases into other databases, one of the options I have been testing recently is putting the working database and photographs onto an external drive, possibly an external SSD.

It seems that the key to getting performance out of Lightroom is raw processor power.  As long as the application is on the internal SSD, and the Lightroom Cache is on the internal SSD then the database and photographs work quite happily on a external drive, either FireWire 800, ThunderBolt or USB3 (USB2 not quite so well).

The camera RAW cache settings depending on Lightroom version is between 1 and 5 GB.  This is far to small.  For a laptop 20 GB was recommended, and 100 GB for a desktop, since Lightroom V4 Adobe have changed the cache format so 20 GB may be enough for both laptop and desktop use, unless your catalogue is particularly large.  If you use DNG or convert to DNG, then its also important you have fast load ticked.

For now, I am going to create a new Lightroom database on a LaCie external drive that is both FireWire 800 and USB3 and keep switching between my laptop and my wife’s laptop and see how I get on.  If its works well I may invest in a G Tech ev drive and dock.  The dock can be left connected to the desktop I buy.

The announcement of the new Macbook was interesting but as a photographer its not the machine for me.

Ideally I would love a MacPro, but that is more a video and sound machine, despite the growing image sizes of SLR’s and digital backs its overkill.

So with us well into the new year and my seven year old Apple Macbook Pro starting to struggle with rendering full size 36 megapixel RAW files, its finally time to think hard about my next machine.

First thing is its going to be a MAC.  Whilst I have nothing against Windows (I run several virtual windows machines on my MAC), its not for me for general use.  I just prefer the OS X experience and the underlying UNIX of the MAC operating system.

Many people would now dive in and start looking at the best spec machines, but first lets thing about what this machine is for.  For a start, my old mac is fine for office work, email, web browsing etc.  The battery is getting a bit weak but its fine as a general laptop.  The purpose of the new machine is going to be Photoshop and Lightroom, so what are their requirements.

Lightroom

• Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support (well thats all Mac’s)
• 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB recommended (lets read between the lines and say 8 GB is going to be required)!
• 3.2 GB of disk space
• 1024×768 display (1280×800 recommended)

 

Photoshop CS2014

• Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
• 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB recommended (lets read between the lines and say 8 GB is going to be required)!
• 3.2 GB of disk space
• 1024×768 display (1280×800 recommended) with 16-bit colour and 512 MB of VRAM (1 GB recommended)**

**3D features may be disabled with less 512-MB of VRAM

So Lightroom and Photoshop are broadly similar.  As a photographer I don’t tend to use the Photoshop heavy features so the VRAM does not concern me too much.

 

So lets think about models:

• MacBook Air 11 inch (1366×768 display), 2xUSB3, Thunderbolt2
• MacBook Air 13 inch (1440×900 display), 2xUSB3, Thunderbolt2
• MacBook 12 inch, USB-C (does not really have the connectivity I need)
• MacBook Pro 13 inch (1280×800 display but of the older Intel Graphics 4000), 2xUSB3, FireWire 800, Thunderbolt
• MacBook Pro 13 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• MacBook Pro 15 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• Mac Mini, 4xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt

Now I need to consider that I will be using this with a large external monitor so Thunderbolt uses up a port for that, I also have external storage which can use FireWire or Thunderbolt, so I need either one Thunderbolt port and one firewire, or two Thunderbolt; without spending cash on a Thunderbolt hub.

All of the above with relevant adapters, hubs and external monitors will do the job, but a few do standout.  First the new Macbook 12 inch with the single port.  Hubs are not yet available so its not really an option.  The MacBook Pro 15 inch high-end model with the 2GB of VRAM would really hit the spot but is the most expensive option.

• MacBook Air 11 inch (1366×768 display), 2xUSB3, Thunderbolt2
• MacBook Air 13 inch (1440×900 display), 2xUSB3, Thunderbolt2
• MacBook 12 inch, USB-C (does not really have the connectivity I need)
• MacBook Pro 13 inch (1280×800 display but of the older Intel Graphics 4000), 2xUSB3, FireWire 800, Thunderbolt
• MacBook Pro 13 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• MacBook Pro 15 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• Mac Mini, 4xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt

So looking at the display and the ports the 11 inch Air and 12 inch MacBook go first.

The consideration is now whether I want high end Photoshop ability.  If I do then I need the graphic capability of the MacBook Pro 15 inch.  If not then any of the remaining will do the job.

All of these are laptops with the exception of the Mac Mini, replacing my laptop with another laptop does mean I have a spare laptop, having the Mac Mini gives me a fairly good office machine, neither the Air or the MacBook Pro none retina can go higher then 8 GB.

If I want real portability the 13 inch Air is the one to go for.

If I want something that will last a little longer then I need to go for a machine with 16 GB of RAM.  If we go for power then that leaves us with three.

• MacBook Pro 13 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• MacBook Pro 15 inch retina, 2xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt
• Mac Mini, 4xUSB3, 2xThunderbolt

It might also be worth mentioning that the Intel built in system graphics can now dynamically allocate up to 1.5 GB of system memory to video, so even the lower spec models may handle Photoshop better then you think, but if your laptop only has 8 GB, that quite a chunk to loose.  Many Photoshop professionals consider 12 GB to be Photoshops sweet spot.

So after all of this what do I think.

Well if your after real portability, the 13 inch Air is hard to beat.

If you want a desktop then its the Mac Mini and with 16 GB of RAM and the lastest Intel Graphics its a good performer.

You want power and portability then its the top of the range MacBook Pro 15 inch retina.

So which will I choose?  Well that would be telling.  Just to confuse you some more though, I can get a discount from Apple and that makes a top spect MacBook Pro 15 and a MacPro less then £200 different.

Lots to think about.