Category Archives: Computers and Software

Aperture 2.1 & The Plug-ins

Posted on August 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’ve been a big fan of Apple’s Aperture software for around two years now. I started using it (and switched over to the Mac platform because of it) when the software was on version 1.5.

A lot has changed since then with version 2 and now 2.1. The program runs a lot faster and has made big advances in editing speed. Even on my tightest deadline I use Aperture without hesitation. Its elegance, speed, robustness, full control over RAW and jpeg editing and its digital asset management have me completely hooked.
One of the biggest things is that the program now has a plug-in structure which allows Aperture to use third party plug-ins. Apple provide their own plug-in for dodging and burning.
I’ve been using two of Nik Software’s plug-ins; Viveza and Silver EfexPro. I’ve been using these for a couple of weeks now and I’m very impressed. They have now become part of my workflow.
Viveza’s user interface.
Viveza is absolute genius. In Aperture you click edit with Viveza which creates a copy of your original (it keeps your original file as it was and is non destructive, exactly like Aperture) and opens it in its own window. In a nut shell, you click on control points and select the area of the image you need to change.
Viveza can show you a before and after of your image. The control points are shown by the little dots on the image.
The control point then gives you a set of sliders which choose circle size, brightness, contrast and saturation. By clicking on the colour you want to change, it only makes these changes to that particular hue and the surrounding area of the same value, within the circle diameter you choose. Very easy, fast and accurate. Its much faster and more elegant than exporting into Photoshop.
Silver Efex Pro is equally amazing and is by far the best monochrome converting software I’ve come across. You export to it in the same way as above. It has a series of pre-defined B/W styles on the left side and the control point system on the right hand side of the user interface. It also allows full control over brightness, contrast and structure. On top of this, it also has a set of commonly used B/W filters which you can click. It gets even better though as it lets you vignette and burn in the edges of your image (addressing each edge separately).

You can get trials on all the software and I definitely recommend giving these a go.

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Posted in Computers and Software, Photography

Broadband – Are We Getting What We Pay For?

Posted on July 24, 2008 | 14 comments

I’m probably one of few who have two ISPs. I have Demon ADSL using copper wire and Virgin Media using Fibre Optic for my broadband at home.

I took out the Virgin Media because as a bundle with cable TV it was working out cheaply.

I just did a speed test at 4.30pm and the results are astonishing!

For Demon, I pay for an 8Mb connection but get 0.52Mb download. Upload was 0.36 Mb.
For Virgin Media, I pay for a 20Mb connection and get 17.98Mb download. Upload was 0.7Mb. To get these speeds with Virgin you need to make sure you’re in an area that has fibre optic; don’t go for the copper wire ADSL as it’ll be just as slow as everyone else’s.

This isn’t Demon’s fault as its the technology which is terrible. Using copper wire has many drawbacks; distance from phone exchange and number of people using the pipe. Most ISPs have a 50:1 contention ratio. Fibre Optic doesn’t have these issues.

In this day and age of doing almost everything via the computer these slow speeds are crazy! Naturally for us upload is often more important and I use Virgin when filing from home or doing off site backups. Its so much quicker. As “Cloud” services begin to grow and we’re beginning to use off site virtual storage providers, internet service providers really need to start looking at raising these upload speeds.

Copper wire is dead; bring on fibre optic for the masses.

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Posted in Computers and Software, viewpoint

Apple iPod Touch and iPhone Version 2.0 Update

Posted on July 23, 2008 | Leave a comment


I’ve written about my fondness of the iPod Touch before, so I won’t be going over those comments.

What I did want to share though was the amazing Version 2.0 update. I don’t have an iPhone yet, so my comments are from experiencing the update on the Touch, but the same should hold for the iPhone.
I upgraded around a week ago and I must say its turned my unit into a completely new piece of kit, making it even more useful than ever.
The most obvious change is the “App Store” which can be accessed either from iTunes or the iPod Touch itself. There are already loads of applications available, ranging from utilities to games.
I’ve installed a few things:
1-File Magnet which allows you to transfer files across from your computer.
2-Vicinity which finds your location using WiFi triangulation and lets you know where nearby places are, including banks, bars, hotels, convenience stores, hotels, restaurants, taxis etc. Absolute genius software.
3-Google Mobile App which works like Spotlight for the unit. Superb.
4-Backgammon which has got me hooked, and
5-Super Monkey Ball which is a very entertaining game where you control game play by tilting the unit! Very novel!

One of the other big changes is “Mobile Me” which is the new name for “.Mac”. This “pushes” changes to your calendar and phonebook straight across to your unit (its having some teething problems and doesn’t happen immediately yet) and also pushes new email to the unit without you having to do this manually.

Just moving away from the iPod and iPhone, the “Mobile Me” service works perfectly with your other Macs. I now have all my Macs fully synced automatically. Its absolutely superb!

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Screen Calibration

Posted on July 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

This is such an ignored practise that its astonishing!

We all put a great deal of effort in getting to the right place at the right time, take our pictures making sure they are technically correct, download the images to our computers and then completely mess up the colour on an uncalibrated monitor!
Every single monitor, be it a separate screen or a laptop’s screen behaves differently. No two are identical. Each one shows a completely different tone to the colours we see on screen. On top of this, we change the brightness on our screens (especially on laptops) depending on the ambient light and then proceed to change levels, curves and saturation settings on our images.
These are then saved as jpegs and sent to the office where someone on a calibrated screen proceeds to try and correct our mistakes and as a result the image becomes degraded.
One of the most important things in image processing is to start by having a calibrated screen. For those who have never tried this, it seems a scary and expensive prospect. Surprisingly, its both easy to do and relatively cheap.
You can pick up a good screen calibrator from around £150 up. My personal calibrator is a Gretag McBeth Eye One Display 2 (now owned by and rebadged X-Rite). This came with its own software which was pretty decent. However, I discovered something called Color Eyes by Integrated Color which gives even better results and supports a host of calibrator pucks. You can download a free trial and compare it to the results you get from the supplied software that came with your system.
I’ve used this on Apple 30″ Cinema Screens, an aluminium iMac (which doesn’t calibrate perfectly as its screen is way too bright) and several MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air (which calibrated perfectly).
Go on, invest a little money and get your screens set up properly; you won’t regret it!

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Posted in Computers and Software

400Gb Optical Storage….on one disc!

Posted on July 7, 2008 | Leave a comment

Pioneer have developed a 16 layer optical disc which will hold 400Gb on a Blue Ray disc. This is obviously great news for archiving pictures. However as with all things optical, its going to take a while to find out what the longevity of these discs will be.


As a side line, my advice is back everything up on at least two hard drives and then optical media. Also, look into “cloud” services like Amazon S3 (Using Jungle Disk) or Apple’s “.Mac” (soon to be relaunched as “Mobile Me” for virtual storage space on remote servers for important files.

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Posted in Computers and Software

Does Size Matter?!

Posted on June 1, 2008 | Leave a comment

Ok, I’ve done the unthinkable! As photographers we need the most powerful laptops we can get our hands on so we can edit quickly in the field. So, what possessed me to leave my super fast Apple MacBook Pro at home and decide to take the MacBook Air on my assignment to France (mentioned in an earlier post)?

Well, it was all down to weight. I wasn’t sure what the level of access would be on the job, or how much trekking would be involved. On the camera equipment front, I decided to take the bare minimum, so I packed a couple of 1D MkIII bodies, a 16-35mm F2.8L MkII, a 70-200mm f2.8L IS, the 50mm f2.5 macro, a 15mm f2.8, a 580EX II flash and a couple of teleconverters. I really wanted to take the 300mm f2.8L IS, but decided that as I was going to be on foot and in the mud, it would’ve just slowed me down and brought excess fatigue. Anyway, the 70-200 and the x1.4 converter are a superb combination.

I’d originally packed my 15” MacBook Pro, but after I lifted the backpack (a ThinkTank Photo Ultra Light and Artificial Intelligence laptop sleeve) onto my back, it was just going to be too heavy to carry all day.

I’d originally got the MacBook Air to use as a laptop for holidays and to have with me on days off (I always have some camera gear with me). I’d played around with Aperture 2.1 on it and it worked fine, but was slower than my other Macs. I decided to risk it and packed the Air instead.

I was really glad I did! As it turned out, I only had around a mile of trekking to get to and back from the site, and I did this a couple of times a day. But having less weight to carry, really helped. As it was, after filing throughout the day and then late into the night, sleep was usually around four hours; so, anyway to cut down on fatigue was welcome.

We’d found a lovely little cafe in Romelles and this turned into a media office for our stay. The battery power on this tiny machine is amazing. Using it full on, I was getting over three hours of power. The single USB slot was a bit annoying, but usable. I do wish it had a Firewire 800 port as this is what I normally use for importing images. So, my workflow was to plug in the USB 2 card reader, import into Aperture 2.1, edit and prepare the images for FTP. Then I’d plug in the 3G modem, wire and unplug. This was followed by plugging in an external portable hard drive and backing up all images.

The only problem was that the machine was noticeably slower in use as I was editing hundreds of RAW images, however it was useable. Aperture’s minimum requirements are 2Ghz processors and the Air has 1.8. Also, not having a dedicated and powerful graphics processor is also an issue. But, as I mentioned, it did work and I didn’t miss any deadlines. As the assignment finished three days later, I evaluated my choice, and considering that there was a fair amount of trekking, I decided that the choice to bring the Air was the correct one. My back was certainly thankful (as were all the locals and other journalists who couldn’t believe the MacBook Air’s size!).


One thing I forgot to mention; I’ve got the 64Gb SSD version and I’ve never seen any computer, on any platform or any price point, boot up, start programs or shut down as quickly as my Air! Also moving files around either from the Air, or onto the Air is seriously quick too.

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Posted in Camera Equipment, Computers and Software