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'We have received this note from Kevin Roberts, who has been a cameraman at the BBC for 30 years - I happened to mention to him that I had once misfiled an important tranny when I worked in the stills department of the BBC:

"I had to laugh when you said that you had misfiled something at the BBC. A few years ago the video library at BBC news could not find any footage of the S.A.L.T Talks (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) They were vital for a piece for national news.
They eventually turned up filed under Food & Drink.
That is a true story."

Thanks for that Kevin - it's great to have a laugh! Joan'

Mr Site
Webmaster, Graeme Wolfe, took a look at Mr Site, - ‘Everything you need to get the website you want online.’
For those of you looking for an easy entry into website design, there’s a new product on the market, which does what it says on the label! For the first-time web owner, Mr Site speaks for itself - an easy way to put your photographic skills online - or any other skills, interests etc. for that matter. As advertised, the package offers all you need to set up your own online presence from your own Domain Name (the .com's, .co.uk's, .net, .org etc!) to an online shop to showcase and sell your work. You do, however, have to register an account online with Mr Site to proceed, but from then on your new site will be built and hosted on Mr Site's servers; all of which is perfect for the novice - no complicated coding etc to worry about! Mr. Site uses PayPal for online transactions and accepts major credit cards. All you have to do is set up your own PayPal account and then use that with Mr Site to set up your own online shop.

I have looked at several sites created with Mr Site and found that they range from the simple to the fairly sophisticated so there should be something to suit nearly everyone's taste. As with all such web design packages there are limitations but none that should deter someone wanting a quick, cheap way of getting their own website live on the internet - complete with bells and whistles! With a price of around £30 in the big stores it has to be worth a try!

I thought I’d have a go myself, being a computer illiterate, and must confess that I found the first page as scary as any other new programme! I shall be sticking to Graeme’s services, but for those of you who actually enjoy messing around on computers, this could be fun!

Was PTO 08 be one of the best ever?

Now in its 21st year, Photo Training Overseas returned to Lanzerote last January 24th – 31st 2008, for a week of winter sunshine packed with ideas, inspiration and motivation. Just look at the powerful line-up of speakers and supporting acts on the PTO website – certainly one of the strongest groups of workshop leaders, lecturers and technical experts ever assembled for a PTO.

Have Your say:

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Alan Hawkins
lives in the Wirral and is determined to progress from part-time to full-time photographer.

This year he ccompanied me on several weddings, making the long journey to Somerset each time, and captured some great shots.

Alan would also like to meet up with any other members in his area—contact him at alanhawkins
@btconnect.com to arrange a meeting or social get together.
See More

'We have received this note from Kevin Roberts, who has been a cameraman at the BBC for 30 years - I happened to mention to him that I had once misfiled an important tranny when I worked in the stills department of the BBC:

"I had to laugh when you said that you had misfiled something at the BBC. A few years ago the video library at BBC news could not find any footage of the S.A.L.T Talks (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) They were vital for a piece for national news.
They eventually turned up filed under Food & Drink.
That is a true story."

Thanks for that Kevin - it's great to have a laugh! Joan'

Mr Site
Webmaster, Graeme Wolfe, took a look at Mr Site, - ‘Everything you need to get the website you want online.’
For those of you looking for an easy entry into website design, there’s a new product on the market, which does what it says on the label! For the first-time web owner, Mr Site speaks for itself - an easy way to put your photographic skills online - or any other skills, interests etc. for that matter. As advertised, the package offers all you need to set up your own online presence from your own Domain Name (the .com's, .co.uk's, .net, .org etc!) to an online shop to showcase and sell your work. You do, however, have to register an account online with Mr Site to proceed, but from then on your new site will be built and hosted on Mr Site's servers; all of which is perfect for the novice - no complicated coding etc to worry about! Mr. Site uses PayPal for online transactions and accepts major credit cards. All you have to do is set up your own PayPal account and then use that with Mr Site to set up your own online shop.

I have looked at several sites created with Mr Site and found that they range from the simple to the fairly sophisticated so there should be something to suit nearly everyone's taste. As with all such web design packages there are limitations but none that should deter someone wanting a quick, cheap way of getting their own website live on the internet - complete with bells and whistles! With a price of around £30 in the big stores it has to be worth a try!

I thought I’d have a go myself, being a computer illiterate, and must confess that I found the first page as scary as any other new programme! I shall be sticking to Graeme’s services, but for those of you who actually enjoy messing around on computers, this could be fun!

Was PTO 08 be one of the best ever?

Now in its 21st year, Photo Training Overseas returned to Lanzerote last January 24th – 31st 2008, for a week of winter sunshine packed with ideas, inspiration and motivation. Just look at the powerful line-up of speakers and supporting acts on the PTO website – certainly one of the strongest groups of workshop leaders, lecturers and technical experts ever assembled for a PTO.

Have Your say:

Email us

or

Login to post a Blog

Alan Hawkins
lives in the Wirral and is determined to progress from part-time to full-time photographer.

This year he ccompanied me on several weddings, making the long journey to Somerset each time, and captured some great shots.

Alan would also like to meet up with any other members in his area—contact him at alanhawkins
@btconnect.com to arrange a meeting or social get together.
See More

'We have received this note from Kevin Roberts, who has been a cameraman at the BBC for 30 years - I happened to mention to him that I had once misfiled an important tranny when I worked in the stills department of the BBC:

"I had to laugh when you said that you had misfiled something at the BBC. A few years ago the video library at BBC news could not find any footage of the S.A.L.T Talks (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) They were vital for a piece for national news.
They eventually turned up filed under Food & Drink.
That is a true story."

Thanks for that Kevin - it's great to have a laugh! Joan'

Mr Site
Webmaster, Graeme Wolfe, took a look at Mr Site, - ‘Everything you need to get the website you want online.’
For those of you looking for an easy entry into website design, there’s a new product on the market, which does what it says on the label! For the first-time web owner, Mr Site speaks for itself - an easy way to put your photographic skills online - or any other skills, interests etc. for that matter. As advertised, the package offers all you need to set up your own online presence from your own Domain Name (the .com's, .co.uk's, .net, .org etc!) to an online shop to showcase and sell your work. You do, however, have to register an account online with Mr Site to proceed, but from then on your new site will be built and hosted on Mr Site's servers; all of which is perfect for the novice - no complicated coding etc to worry about! Mr. Site uses PayPal for online transactions and accepts major credit cards. All you have to do is set up your own PayPal account and then use that with Mr Site to set up your own online shop.

I have looked at several sites created with Mr Site and found that they range from the simple to the fairly sophisticated so there should be something to suit nearly everyone's taste. As with all such web design packages there are limitations but none that should deter someone wanting a quick, cheap way of getting their own website live on the internet - complete with bells and whistles! With a price of around £30 in the big stores it has to be worth a try!

I thought I’d have a go myself, being a computer illiterate, and must confess that I found the first page as scary as any other new programme!

I shall be sticking to Graeme’s services, but for those of you who actually enjoy messing around on computers, this could be fun!

Digital Photography  -  Technobabble with Phil Flowers

PART 1

About Me

So, who am I? Well about eight years ago I had the chance to see what I felt was the future with regard to the photographic Industry. I had a chance to play with a small and pretty useless digital camera, and a glimmer of the potential started to grow. At the time, I had my own darkroom and was wholly analogue (film) based. Also, the studio had a couple of decent PC’s and flat bed scanners.

I chose to use Fuji cameras because the flesh tones were very close to what we were producing in the lab. Now some four years later the studio is totally based on digital in every respect. It’s a well developed transition that uses PC’s for production, Internet for sales, digital previewing, new digital products and a professional lab for final print production with the odd inkjet and colour laser printers for point of sale material.

The learning curve to integrate this into the business has been steep, exciting and, most importantly, financially rewarding. The commitment to produce professional results was intense and had me setting aside 1 to 2 hours in the morning every day for years.

I hope, in this series of “How to” articles, help those starting out, those already committed to digital and the evangelists amongst us all who believe the future is here and in its infant years and look forward to the inevitable maturing of this creative medium.

We'll look at Adobe Photoshop and its Actions, batch processing and picture packages for the ‘new to digital’ level. While you are waiting for next month, take a look at the Actions palette in Photoshop. The first tip is that actions can call other actions, you can copy and move actions around a set of actions, and you can batch your actions to work on a whole set of files.

For the experienced amongst you, there will be a little diamond of a utility that lets you create your own printer profiles in Photoshop, which gives you the chance to use anyone’s inks and papers for proofing. If you cannot wait, then check out and download the program “Colour Darkroom” from www.antelligent.com . Print the manual out and do a bit of studying. Be warned! If you use it, you are changing the fundamental printer profiles, so use with care and save all your originals to CD.

PART 2

The Dreaded Pixel

Having attended a couple of "Colour Management" Seminars and seen the glassed look come over the delegates’ faces as they listened, I have come to the conclusion that the subject presents the same slippery problem as, say, fill flash ratios. So I thought I would have a go at making it simple. Let’s explore how electronic devices see our world.

The dreaded PIXEL in simple terms.

Digital images are made up of Lots on singular Pixels. Film is made up of singular grains of light sensitive crystals.
Pixels hold data about the colour it sees as an 8 bit series of 0 or 1's. On or Off. Film sees colour using 3 colour masks in 3 layers, when developed, graduated opaque to clear. A Pixel has to see all the colour in the world as a number and in primary Red Green and Blue, and mixtures thereof. Film Grains see the world as graduated shades of grey with their masks of C M Y K. (We are talking negative here).

OK - so what? Well, for an electronic device to represent the colour world it is restricted a maximum of 255 numbers for each colour of Red Green Blue.
That’s R255 x G255 x B255 = 16581375.

In other words, 16 million data points represent our colour world. Correct? Well, no not really because, to represent white, all R G B channels are set to 255 and for black all channels are set to 0, so it’s the combination of 3 colours with values of either 0 - 255 that represent our colour world!

PART 3

Adobe Photoshop

The cornerstone of being an efficient digital photographer is the ability to wholly or partly automate repetitive functions. You will be handling hundreds of images - as an example, last month our studio shot, in October, 2071 images, all of which have to be archived, turned into previews for the internet and the studio, thumbnail sheets printed for the client and any orders processed, sized and sent to the lab for printing. In any month we have to handle our images five times in various forms, so for October that’s 10,000 plus unique processes. I use Photoshop only at the last stage, i.e. the preparation of the final image. Other programmes designed to handle bulk images are used for the preliminary functions - they work better and faster.

The power of Photoshop is in its ability to automate common actions. With this, you can prepare images to resize, turn to black and white, colour correct etc., in bulk.

So this is how it’s done.

Firstly, all our images files are kept on working hard drives and are archived to CD (not DVD), in folders with a structure as follows:
Drive/imagedumpfolder/clientfolder/image.jpg
Before archiving, the source files are renamed in bulk and left as they were shot, without amendments (no amendments at all!) The software I use to download the images from the card reader to the hard drive automatically sets the folder name with the date, I just have to add the clients name so it looks like this:
04-10-12 Mrs XYZ(visitno).

This puts all the folders in date order in the client dump folder. Next I rename the files from the DCSF No’s to the client’s initials and visit number. So a valid location for an image is as follows:
C:\imagedump\04-10-12 SmithD4\SD4001.jpg.

It’s unique to the day, month, year and the client. This structure has proved itself time and again e.g., - when Mrs Tina Brown wants a re-print from 4 years ago at her May visit, I’m best part of the way to finding the files in the archive. Look up May 2004 BrownT and there is her file.

Setting Photoshop actions.

Next month we will look at setting Photoshop Actions, and how to streamline the manipulation of an image for the lab.

In preparation for the exercise, set down on paper what you do over and over again - it may be adjusting the image for contrast and brightness levels, colour, crop to size, save etc. That’s a fair set of actions we can work on. We will then need to divide our actions into sets - let’s say Correction, Cropping, Saving. In the Photoshop action palette, create these three sets in the action menu and save them. We will now select the saving set and create actions in there for saving our prepared files.

We can help ourselves here before we start by having a file structure that we can use over and over again on our hard drive. So if we are resizing, we need a common folder that has all the sizes we make -let’s call it This week. To make it easy to find let’s make it from the root of our hard drive, so C:\This week would be good. So in windows explorer, create a Thisweek folder, then subdivide it into folders for each print size (e.g. passport: 4x3: 5x4: 6x4: 7x5: 8x6: 10x8: 12x10: 12x14: 20x20) which you regularly produce. Next, copy that folder set to another folder - C:\temp\Thisweek - and now, each time you do a print run, all you have do is copy the this week folder back to the root of your hard drive after renaming the original to say WK24A. You now have a common structure for your printing files so the action you are about to make will always save the prepared images to the same place.

PART 4

Following Steph Burnett’s question on what to look for when starting out in digital photography, I grilled our digital guru to get some answers to specific questions. The session went like this:

Q. What should I look for when choosing a digital camera?

A. Several criteria should influence your choice.

1. Can I use my own lenses? If there is a digital version of your film camera, you may be able to use the same lenses, and so only have to purchase a body. Remembering however that, if the digital CCD is not full frame, you will find yourself with, e.g., a 35mm lens instead of a 28mm – thus narrowing the widest angle you can shoot.

2. Look for the camera which gives the flesh tone of your choice, straight out of the camera, without any corrections (assuming you are a wedding and portrait photographer) This will simplify your workflow, eliminating the need to correct images because of failings in camera colours. You should be able to get sample prints from manufacturers.

3. Budget – because of changing technology, spending more than £2000 could be wasting your money – cameras within this budget are capable of giving excellent results in the wedding and portrait market.

4. Look for a camera which will give you about 4000 pixels across the horizontal edge of the CCD. (Q - So why not ask for mega pixels? Apparently this is where printing at 250 dpi makes an entrance. Divide the number of pixels by 250, and you arrive at the ‘native size’ your camera will produce. E.g., in the case of 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels, the native size at 250 dpi is 16”x12”. ) Once again, the manufacturer’s blurb should give you this information.

Confused? It took me a little while to get my head around it!

Q. Why should I worry about pixels and dpi’s?

A. Unlike film, where the smaller the print, the more the information is compressed – in other words all the grains are printed but in a smaller area – when you reduce the print size, the programme discards data in order to keep the dpi (dots per inch) at 250.

So if you reduce the above example to 6”x4”, you reduce pixels to 1250x1000. On the other hand, if you increase the size, the programme will add information, by interpolating. So that if you increase to 20”x16 “, you then have 5000 pixels by 4000 pixels.

Q. Help! What’s interpolating?

A. This is the means by which the programme (or application, as the professionals call it) adds data to keep to the 250 dpi rule. It interpolates in one of three ways –

1. Bilinear – which means that the pixels build up in as series of lines, something like a television.

2. Nearest neighbour – in which information is formed from the nearest pixel and copied.

3. Bicubic – which uses a grid of 5 pixels from a surrounding area to guess what should be interpolated.

Bicubic is the most common way of interpolating.

I think I’ve got it Phil!

Q. Should I shoot RAW or JPEG? In fact, what’s the difference?
(Phil’s language needs to be modified here – he has strong views about shooting RAW)

A. If you shoot RAW, the camera records dots and dashes (in basic terms) without any software modification. If you are unsure of exposures, RAW allows you to rescue badly exposed images. By shooting JPEG, you reduce the amount of post capture manipulation, but badly exposed images can’t always be rescued. So if you are sure of your exposures, shoot JPEG.

Q. What type of flash gun should I use?

A. A dedicated flash gun, either manufacturer’s own or good independent brand, with a good matrix metering system to give more control of mixed lighting.
Use slow shutter speeds to capture ambient light – it is possible to hand hold a digital camera at slower speeds than conventional film and still get sharp results.

Q. Anything else I should look for in a digital camera?

A.

1. Batteries – are they easy to replace, manufacturer’s own or of a common size (e.g. AA).

2. Idiotproofing – e.g. will the camera allow you to take photographs if there is no card loaded?

3. Durability – cameras are no longer a long term investment, but you will still need a camera that feels like it will stand up to heavy usage.

Finally, when asked what camera he uses, Phil replies that he has chosen, from the beginning, to use Fuji – S1, S2 and now S3. I myself use Canon, and I know of others who use Nikon and Kodak. We all have our own preferences; armed with the above advice, you should now feel more confident about choosing a digital camera.
In the next part– what to look for in a computer. Phrases like ‘Dual processor Pentium in standard Pentium architecture’ explained!

PART 5

How To Choose a Computer

Or, as Phil puts it, ‘where to spend your money’.

With practically every computer you see on sale nowadays having gigabytes of RAM, wifi connection, and all sorts of gizmos, you would think that you couldn’t go wrong whatever you buy. Unfortunately, I found out the expensive way, that it’s still a minefield which needs careful exploration.

Having decided that I would like to produce wedding DVD’s for my clients, I purchased what looked like a good deal from Time – mail order – only to find that the DVD writer was the wrong kind! It writes positive instead of negative, or is it negative instead of positive? Either way, apparently that’s not suitable for your average DVD player. Not usually given to swearing, I found it the only way to let off steam over the stupidity of a system which allows such anomalies – well, I wasn’t to blame, was I? How should I know there’s two ways of writing a DVD?

Eventually I gave up trying to sort out the computer and provided my customers with CD’s, written on my old computer, which is getting very bunged up with all my work because I’m finding it difficult to adapt to the new programmes on the new computer, which won’t write DVD’s anyway and has even got a problem with writing CD’s. I give up – do I really have to have a computer?

Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’, so when I buy my next computer, here are the salient points I need to look for:

Processor speed (about 3 Ghz) – typically now a Pentium V with HT technology.
RAM – about 2 Gb.
Hard drives – have two distinct hard drives of about 200 Gb each – one for programmes and operating settings and one for digital data, such as photographs.

Graphics card – approx 256 Mb (ATI) to enable the uploading of each photograph. With a dual head, you can run two screens.
The largest CRT screen you can afford/accommodate. A flat screen, whilst looking modern and saving space, usually doesn’t have enough colour control or sharpness to provide you with a true likeness of the print you wish to produce.

That’s a pretty simple list of guidelines. What about printers?
Leave the final prints to the labs who have the expensive equipment to produce proper photographs from your files. Printing on inkjets is time consuming and expensive in comparison. (I would say with one exception, Phil – I like the effect produced on watercolour paper, or other textured papers, which you can’t achieve from lab prints. There are specialist printers who will provide this service, but I derive a lot of fun from seeing my prints coming off the printer with different effects).

The final point is a word of warning – it’s safest not to connect your photographic data computer to the internet, incase of corruption of files. Get a separate, cheaper computer if you want to go on the world wide web. I asked Phil how many computers he has and, counting up, they total seven – the main digital processor, an office and internet computer, dealing with online communications, one in the studio for the preview system, one for order checking, a laptop, one for a multimedia device (I think Phil’s cheating here, as this is nothing to do with photography, but everything to do with his Karaoke sideline) and one for spare. How does he get time for Karaoke?

** To read about Phil’s new service for the Guild, the Digital Helpline - Click here.**

Next, For those of us who are computer illiterates, Phil outlines here how to calibrate your monitor using simple techniques.
The colour balance on your monitor is important of course if you are going to achieve the colour print you require!

PART 6

Calibrating your Monitor

The most accurate calibration of your monitor is achieved by using a commercial unit such as a Spyder. If you have any spare Christmas money, I recommend you invest in one. But, if this isn’t the case, then here’s the procedure to follow:

If you use a laboratory to print your photographs, send a file to them for printing and compare the resulting print with your monitor. If the print is the correct density and colour balance, you will then adjust your monitor to match it, but if the print is not to your satisfaction you will need to make the necessary corrections and send a new file to the laboratory. Make several files, all with slightly different corrections, and choose the best print to match the monitor to. Make sure you match it to the correct file!

To adjust your monitor, using the buttons, within the menu are options to adjust colour and density. Using this facility, you can now visually adjust the screen to match your chosen print. Wherever possible, view print and screen in daylight colour temperature (approx 5000 degrees K), but always in the same light.

A Spyder will do the job for you with greater accuracy of course—get one with your Christmas money—approx £130.

P.S. Your laboratory should be able to provide you with their ideal file and print to which you match your monitor!.

Adobe Lightroom

As is my wont in idle moments, I beta test software for manufacturers. Anyone can do this if they are so inclined—just go online and look for ‘Beta Testers Required’, in the programme you use.

I have been testing Adobe Ph with Lightroom in which you can adjust exposure, colour, cropping, rotating, and a host of other common adjustments, in batches. Once you have made your adjustments to your digital files as a group, you can export the results to a folder containing your newly corrected originals.

My initial impression, as with most ‘Adobe software, was that it is too complicated to be productive, but perseverance proved that the intimidating outer shell of the programme is worth breaking through.
The concept of Adobe Lightroom, which is primarily a programme for working on RAW formats, but works on any file, is a batching programme. It’s a very productive tool and I highly recommend those with time over the Christmas and New Year break to investigate it.

Windows Vista

Recently launched for businesses, I have been testing RC1—Release Candidate 1. New computers will soon be provided with Vista—it’s image and object orientated, which means that as photographers we will need less software from other manufacturers for workflow.
Windows Vista is capable of doing most admin jobs up to the point of working on a file in Adobe.
(Personally, as someone who has just become comfortable with Windows 98, ULead, Paint Shop Pro, and Adobe LE, I find the prospect of yet another new operating system quite terrifying!)

Microsoft have put a lot of energy into image and video handling and as a professional you can utilize it. BUT so can your customers and clients!

Digital imaging complications which we ‘enjoy’ as pros have been diluted by Vista so I recommend that you revisit your products. What was complicated is now easy, reducing their premium value. Now is the time to consider new products and services.

My favourite programme of the moment is PROSELECT, produced by ‘Time Exposure’ in Australia. View it and download from www.timexposure.com and we’ll look at it in greater depth later on.

Part 7

Online Shop

If you would rather handle the selling yourself—here are some tips on creating an online shop.
Selling product and services online can have major advantages leading to increased profitability and lower costs. The advantages over selling by conventional methods are numerous, but it can work best for you if you have

A Basic Online Shop

The requirements are fairly straightforward, allowing you to sell a small range of products, providing photographs, descriptions and prices as well as accepting orders online.
The equipment and facilities you will needed are

Using a broadband connection as opposed to dial-up will ensure fast connection to the internet. However, the ‘always-on' connection means you may be susceptible to unauthorised access. Having a firewall—which is sometimes included in operating systems—will prevent this occurring.

(If, like me, you are starting to feel faint at the thought of unauthorised access firewalls, you might like to wait for the Guild online gallery to do the selling for you!)

You will need a hosting package for your shop—there are many e-commerce web hosting specialists and it's worth shopping around for the best deal. Study the service level guarantee and the type of technical support on offer, and look for round-the-clock support.
The majority of customers shopping online will want to pay by credit or debit card. You can create electronic mail-order forms, using standard web authorising software, e.g., FrontPage or Dreamweaver. These order forms enable customers to email their orders to be processed offline. If you already have a website, software can add e-commerce functionality. Some companies offer this free, on condition that they receive a cut of future transactions.

A Basic site is low cost and easy to create for a limited product range (I doubt it, if you’re anything like me when it comes to computers!), but the design and functionality may be restricted and less secure than more sophisticated options.

It is possible, with the right e-commerce packages, to create Intermediate and sophisticated online shops. But whatever happened to all the time I wanted to spend behind the camera? All I do is look at a computer screen! But if you insist in going on with it, you will need to Plan your online Shop.

You need to work out how to

You need to consider how to

Your website will need a contacts page including

Regulations

The regulations and legislation governing selling online have been put in place to ensure that personal data customers provide is well protected, goods and services meet quality and suitability standards, and online contracts are legally binding.
The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates how you deal with personal information held about living people, e.g. in customer records. The Act affects information that you have on computer as well as some paper-based records. It means that you need to be open about how you use information and follow the eight data protection principles. Information on how to comply with the Data Protection Act can be downloaded from the Information Commissioner website.

The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 require you to give your customers specified information before they place an order, e.g. your full company name and address and a description of the goods or services. You m