‘Digital Darkroom’ Archives
RAW vs. JPEG Redux
We are shooting RAW+JPEG and with out current workflow we are using the JPEG files as the primary source. The RAW files are only for archive. [Read More]
Final Verdict on Adobe Lightroom 2: YES!
We are trying to improve our digital photography workflow. I already tried Apple Aperture 2 for one month, but rejected it for several reasons that I outlined in this article: Final Verdict on Aperture 2. So now I have completed my evaluation of Lightroom 2 on a Macintosh [Read More]
Instant JPEG from RAW Utility
Here is a great little utility program for photographers that shoot using the RAW format. It is called Instant JPEG from RAW, or IJFR. What it does is extract the native JPEG image that is embedded in camera RAW files. Most digital cameras embed a JPEG image inside the RAW [Read More]
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 HOW-TOs
Here’s another book from Adobe Press that covers Lightroom 2: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 HOW-TOs by Chris Orwig. This is the second Lightroom 2 book I have used, and so far I like this book the best. Chris Orwig is a photography instructor at Brooks Institute of [Read More]
Book: The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book
Adobe has made available a free 30-day trial of Photoshop Lightroom 2, the image management and processing software for Macintosh and PCs. To make best use of the trial, I recommend getting ahold of a how-to book beacuse there are way too many features to figure it all out [Read More]
Popular Fauxtography Magazine
Digging through our files we found this early magazine that was devoted to the digital darkroom–Popular Fauxtography from January 1995. It had articles and tutorials devoted to computer image processing. At that time Photoshop 3.0 had recently been released, which [Read More]
Free Trial of Apple Lightroom 2
Adobe Lightroom 2 is the latest version of Adobe’s photo editing and management system. It competes with Apple’s Aperture 2. The retail price of Lightroom is $299 which is $100 more than Aperture. Before buying, you can try it out. They let you download the full [Read More]
Kodak PhotoCD
I was digging through out media vault the other day and found a box of PhotoCDs from the 1990s. (The Media Vault is where we store all our media “assets”–negatives, slides, 16mm movie negative, etc.) From 1993 until about 2004 we used PhotoCD extensively [Read More]
Division of Labor
Nowadays every photographer has Photoshop on his computer. It is the digital darkroom. It is now possible for photographers to do all the color correction and retouching, i.e. the entire post-production process. But the question each photographer should ask is do you want [Read More]
Nikon ViewNX
Here is a great free program for Nikon Shooters. ViewNX from Nikon is a browser for Nikon NEF format files, which is Nikon’s RAW camera format. The program is basically a viewer, but it can do many things like correct exposure and color balance. But the most important [Read More]
Final Verdict on Aperture 2
My free trial of Aperture 2 has expired. My goal is to streamline and generally improve our Camera RAW workflow. After using Aperture 2 for a month, I decided not to purchase the program. We won’t be making it a permanent part of our workflow at this time. Overall I [Read More]
Camera RAW Developers Graycard Test
I tested four Camera RAW Developers: Nikon D700 In-Camera, Adobe Camera RAW 3.7, Aperture 2.1.4 Trial RAW Developer 1.8.5 The Test The test was very simple. Shoot an 18% grey card that was properly exposed and see what kind of results each RAW developer produced. Each [Read More]
Fix It In Post
This cliche is a standard joke on every set. The joke is that there is some problem that is being left for someone else to deal with. Two Steps: Production/Post As I have written elsewhere, there have always been two steps to photography: negative/print, production/post, [Read More]
Evolution of the Photo Studio, Part 2
In Part 1 I wrote about how my role as a photographer was to deliver a good negative or chrome. Someone else, either the finishing lab or a pre-press house did the post-production work. Kodak PhotoCD and Photoshop Photoshop came out around 1990. We started using Photoshop [Read More]
Aperture 2 Showstopper
I am trying out the trial version of Aperture 2, Apple’s photo editing and organizing software. To cut to the chase, despite being an outstanding program, it does not work for us. We have been using Adobe Bridge from Adobe CS2 to work with Camera RAW files. (See Our [Read More]
Free Trial of Apple Aperture 2
Aperture 2 is the latest version of Apple Computers photo editing and management system. The retail price is $199 which is a bargain considering everything that it does. But right now you can download the full version and use it for 30 days for free. Apple makes tons of [Read More]
RAW versus JPEG
Photos courtesy of Amazing Travel Photos A photographer that recently switched from film to digital writes: I just got my fancy new digital SLR. Should I shoot Camera RAW or JPEGs? Ever since August 2002 when Adobe released Camera RAW 1.0 plug-in, this question has come [Read More]
Evolution of the Photo Studio, Part 1
As mentioned in a previous article, there are two steps to photography: Production and post-production which correspond to Ansel Adam’s iconic books The Negative and The Print. The output of production is the negative, which is input to post-production. (The is [Read More]
I See Everything Twice!
In the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, there was a soldier that would always scream, “I see everything twice!” I don’t recall exactly why but maybe he was trying to make the doctors think he was crazy so he would get excused from combat. This phase always [Read More]
