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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
09-22-2009, 01:35 AM
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well, I liked your joke - it just made my day a bit better, so, thank you imtheguy.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-20-2009, 12:25 AM
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-16-2009, 12:22 AM
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Graphicgr8s is right Alohadave - law or not, I guarantee you that big mac in the picture is NOT what you get when you order one.
Marketing today is art of deceiving and imposing artificial needs, so much, that it often feels like being raped.
Sad part is that it achieved its goal and made people numb and unaware of whats really going on.
hey graphicgr8s, what's the other thing?
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-15-2009, 02:53 AM
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GREAT thread!
It seems that I agree with almost everything that was said - I can see where different viewpoints come from and I can relate to all of them, from Bens original post to the last one (Dryfire's). As I'm in similar situation like Dryfire, I would really like to hear many different takes on how Art school Photography course should (in your opinion) look like. Hopefully, I'll enrich my views and broaden horizons so as to become as good teacher as I am able to. I'm at the very begining of that journey and open to any advice I can get. So far, this thread already is helpfull - it shows that things are not much different in other parts of the world. Here we also have many courses (on everything and anything) that teach dry set of rules "as gospel", without understanding on THEIR part, let alone encouraging creativity in students...We also have very young Art school that's strugling to evolve and mature.
Thanks everybody!
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-15-2009, 01:32 AM
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I'm no food photography expert but I'll try to help: dishes prepared for eating often look less good when photographed - you can get much better shots with dishes that are only "half" cooked or combined "cooked/half cooked/raw" elements of the dish, because many diferent kinds of food look much better when raw - vegetables for example. Of course, the "photo meal" has to be realistic representation of "real meal" but some "freedom of interpretation" is allowed (especially if you succeed in "improving" the looks of the food).
There are also many tricks that food photographers use - glycerin on the fruits and vegetables for the glow, small glass bubles in the drinks acting as air bubbles on the surface, tea or water soluble colours instead of real drinks to get that backlight translucent effect, lighter fuel instead of the cognac in the flambee food because alcohol has very thin and pale flame, artificial ice etc. That food that looks so good on the photos is actually not edible at all!
Good luck, and report back! I'm very interested to see how it went.
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
08-03-2009, 05:54 AM
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tr13, my eternal gratitude goes to you, for your unselfish efforts.
Unfortunatelly I'm designer, not programmer, and can't help you directly.
If there is anything else I can do to help "our cause", let me know.
Thanks again and good luck!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
06-30-2009, 05:20 AM
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Maybe that one photo, but for the majority in that web gallery there is no way they are coming out of camera like that. I can see whole lot of heavy PP in there, layers blending modes, selective dodging/burning, selective blurring/sharpening and probably many more other PP procedures which necesitate precise control obtainable only through software interface.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-30-2009, 04:36 AM
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Photosensitive material in CD-R and DVD-R discs is actually organic and not very longlived. I read about some archive that readily jumped on the "new technology bandwagon" when CD-Rs became popular - they digitized/scanned complete archive and stored all of it on CDs. Some BACTERIA attacked the not so properly stored CDs and ATE their data...
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-30-2009, 01:44 AM
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Regarding file type, I supose it would be best to convert PEF to DNG in order to maximise future compatibility. I have a question about DNG and Lightroom, maybe slightly OT, maybe not.
I'm not sure if I understand this, please correct me if I'm wrong. It seems to me that this is very important for all of us.
When in PEF format, all changes to raw file made in Lightroom are stored in something called sidecar file. (where are they located?)
When in DNG format, changes are stored inside the actual DNG file but separately from original data which is still preserved intact (as in PEF+sidecar version).
Is this true or false?
If true, does this happens automaticly when you convert already PP-ed PEFs to DNG, or you have to follow some procedure to acomplish this? Or maybe, when you convert to DNG after PP work on PEF, you loose all the PP work? (I have lots of PEF files and would , obviously, like to convert to DNG, without losing work already done, and then continue by converting imediately on import from camera and use PEFs only in camera 'cause they are smaller then in camera DNG).
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-18-2009, 02:57 AM
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OT
Scientific research concluded that inaudible very high frequencies have significant impact on our perception of reproduced music - we may not "hear" them consciously, but they still affect us. Same goes for many instruments (violin, for example, produces a lot of sound outside of standard human hearing range).
Sorry, couldn't resist, but in a way it's not completely OT - it shows that things are not allways so certain allthough WE ARE certain about something. YMMV, my reccomendation is drawn from my recent experience and with prices of RAM I think he has a no brainer. Vista really breaths COMPLETELY different with 8 gigs...
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-02-2009, 12:16 AM
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Get yourself some second hand CRT for PP-ing at home (and for checking PP you did on the move).
You can get some high quality CRT-s for cheap now, since they are not "sexy" anymore. And they are waaay better for PP then LCDs in every aspect.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-01-2009, 12:28 AM
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Try Genuine Fractals Print Pro (PS plugin).
As any other upsample procedure, it can't create data that is not there, but Print Pro manages to retain overall sharpness of the image.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-27-2009, 11:46 PM
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I'm testing trial version of software called Icemark which is able to embedd invisible watermark in the picture. You write some text, Icemark embedds it in the picture and afterwards you can extract that info from the photo as a proof that photo is yours.
I supose it would be best to use it together with some ordinary, visible watermark, to let people know that photo is your property.
If someone is aware of some other such software or even better Lightroom plugin I would like to try it.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-24-2009, 11:31 PM
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I've had luck with ISOBuster (trial works fine).
It was case of DVD gone bad, not deleted SDHC card, but I think it should work on that too.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-20-2009, 07:00 AM
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Aaaand...nothing hapenned.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
05-20-2009, 06:51 AM
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I'm in Croatia (GMT +1) and it says 8 minutes...
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-08-2009, 03:48 AM
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This is really interresting theme and I would like to get it to move...
It is valid observation that variable light conditions conflict with the purpose of calibration, but, it would be nice to know that camera LCD color is in sync with desktop screen color (under same ambient light). That would give us a bit better chance to properly evaluate our shots in the field and lessen confusion (which color management is full of, at least to me).
Given that K20D has some functionality for adjusting the cameras LCD color rendition, I think that OPs question about the method for calibrating it is really interesting and worth delving into.
Do we have color management expert/profesionall on the pentaxforums?
If we don't, we should get (at least) one.
;)
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-08-2009, 01:30 AM
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Great, I like your panos, thanks for sharing people!
Panoguy, did you really do a 360 degrees HDR pano ("Inside the rocks")? How many frames? I like reflexive sphere in the middle!
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Forum: Pentax DSLR Discussion
05-07-2009, 03:16 AM
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I'll just say: because of honesty.
In today's corporate world (as in "world run by corporations"), honesty is getting scarcer by the minute and Pentax is one company that struck me as being honest to their customers.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-04-2009, 06:33 AM
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Same question bothered me recently.
I did some research and just upgraded a week ago and this is what I did
(given very limited finances) :
Motherboard - Gygabyte MA 770-UD3 (long lasting capacitors)
CPU AMD ATHLON X2 7750 (Phenom cores in Athlon package - better)
RAM 8 Gb standard edition DDR2 800 Mhz
Vista x64 + Lightroom x64 + Photoshop CS4 x64
Believe me, 8 gig RAM IS NOT overkill.
RAM is one most important factor in processing large picture files in Lightroom and Photoshop (research paid off this time).
The moment the computer fills up RAM and starts to scratch on hard drive like crazy (virtual memory) is the moment when productive and comfortable work ends and slow motion movie begins, probably ending in freeze up.
It does not matter if our files are far smaller than 8 or 4 or 2 Gb, there are numerous reasons why so much RAM is needed: for holding large photo library and being able to normaly browse and work in it (in Lightroom for example), for holding all that OS needs (so it uses virtual memory as little as posible), for Photoshop + some plugin needs (some filters/plugins need large amounts of raw RAM to do their work and refuse to do it when RAM runs out).
So, if you add all that up - Vista (resource hog - can't wait for 7) + Lightroom (with large catalog) + Photoshop (with his scratch, layers, history and plugins) - very large amount of RAM will be eaten right at start just to have everything in it. Then you still have to have enough free RAM to comfortably work in.
When doing panoramas I feel that even 16 Gb could be put to good use while stiching
RAW files pano from K20D in full resolution - those can get longish - 5, 6 meters - I just don't have money to print them =((
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-04-2009, 05:23 AM
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Thanks ntx,
my workflow is similar (RAW, fixed setting for aperture/shutter speed...), but parallax gave me real headache - even after repeated shooting session with DIY pano head I had some problems, but admittedly fewer and much less severe problems (so I managed to repair them manually).
This was unpleasent surprise for me, cause in the past, I had zero problems (but then again I did not shoot indoor pano with such large and demanding subject - modern art exhibition - think floor to ceiling exhibits in small rooms).
Anyway, thanks to all of you, and again, I would really like to see some of your work, I'm sure I'll learn a lot...
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
05-03-2009, 12:58 AM
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Thank you, everybody.
I wasn't able to overcome the parallax (even with smartblend), so I quickly DIY-ed pano head out of some L shaped steel and few parts from old tripod.
It's not adjustable - at the time being it's only good for one lens I used but it worked.
Precision is not absolute but for time and money invested it really is great, because - it works!
Most important thing is to precisely determine the distance from the front of the lens to the pupil and to make your pano head accordingly (it must rotate around the pupil).
Panoguy, thanks a lot for your generous offer!
Where can I see some of your work?
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