When I think of a good photo, I think there are four C’s that make the quality of the photo ( much like the 4 C’s of diamonds, but you can’t make your own diamonds – easily, at least ). Let’s review these 4 C’s to get a better idea of how they impact the aesthetics of our images :

#1 Color

Good color can make or break an image. Unfortunately, humans like to see dense rich colors in images ( color images at least ), and nothing is less appealing than photos that either represent colors incorrectly or represent them poorly. Let’s look at a quick example. In photo 1 below, we have a pretty interesting shot, but something’s not quite right. It lacks the pop we’d expect from a good photo – and the whites are a little dull and gray.

Now that we see the photo needs some work, let’s bring the whites back to white and pop the colors to bring more interest to a potentially powerful photo.

Now we have a photo that might actually get someone’s attention!

#2 Clarity

Sharp images get noticed, period. Of course, it depends on the subject and the overall mood of the photo – since soft focus/blurry images can make for powerful photography, but especially when you’re talking about landscapes, still life and macro, sharp images make the subject stand out. There are some easy ways to make sharp images – here are a few tips :

1. use a tripod : this is the best way to avoid camera shake.
2. shoot at high f-stops : this will allow your depth of field to remain sharp in front of and behind the subject. For landscapes, this is often critical. f/16 and up are good places to start.
3. shoot at high shutter speeds : unless you’re trying to exaggerate the subject motion, shooting a high shutter speed can almost always guarantee that if anything is moving, it won’t appear to be in your photograph.
4. use the sharpest lens you have : sharp glass begets sharp images – capturing a sharp image on the first click will save you heartache once you get your images back to your computer for processing.

#3 Contrast

Contrast is one of the most important aspects of a good photo. The human eye detects more levels of contrast than your camera is capable of capturing, but in spite of that, contrast still matters in photography. Contrast can bring greater interest to a photograph, it can also turn a good photo into a boring one because there’s just no *pop* to the image – and this is the pop that includes, but goes beyond the color pop we talked about above. Many times, you may have to re-evaluate contrast after the shot is taken and add a little more contrast to the image if the light did not provide it for you when you shot the original photo.

#4 Composition

It goes without saying that a good composition can make or break a photo. Good composition comes with practice and following your instinct. Using the Rule of Thirds is always a great place to start, but learn to break that rule – shoot out of the box, experiment, play – learn to construct a good shot regardless of what rule you’re using or breaking. Remember, the key to composition is making the components of the photograph intersect with an aesthetic of your choosing. And don’t forget the 5th C, which is rolled into the 4th : Crop. Good cropping is about good composition – they go hand in hand in making a more effective photo.

Many folks in class are likely going to get Photoshop Elements or her big sister, Photoshop. Some people have been asking about how to learn the tricks. Well, getting a good book is one way, and as suggested before, take a hike to your local library or bookstore and snuggle up to a few. Buy the book that feels the most usable and understandable. Next, trek over to the magazine rack and pick up a few, see if there are any techniques you’re interested in that are covered in this month’s issue. If so, pick up those.

For the aspiring Photoshop’er, there are two magazines you might be interested in :

Photoshop Elements User

• gear towards the Photoshop Elements enthusiast
• this is a new magazine and hopefully fills a real need

Photoshop User

• geared towards the professional, but accessible enough for the enthusiast
• Photoshop only, but many tricks apply or can be adapted to Elements
• you have to be a member of NAAP ( the National Association of Photoshop Professionals), which is $99/year, but you don’t have to be a “Photoshop Professional”, anyone can join!

Good luck, and keep clicking!

I’ve been searching far and wide for a “smart” way to store and easily access archived data. In the past few years most of my data has been stored on 3.5″ internal hard drives and I’ve been using an enclosure made by Vantec called the EZ-Swap. Great product on serveral accounts – the most interesting being (1) locking on/off mechanism, (2) fan, temperature and disk hours usage information, and (3) lower cost. The downfall of the Vantec enclosure for me : (1) doesn’t fit in any standard external 5.25″ enclosure – the back is too big! Until recently this wasn’t a problem since the enclosure was mounted internally on my PC or a large chassis with room enough for the back.

Alas, I’ve *finally* found THE solution for this problem – the IcyDock External Rack. Interestingly enough, the IcyDock uses the SAME tray enclosure as the Vantec or visa versa ( I can’t tell who makes the original product, or if even a third vendor supplies these to IcyDock and Vantec ). The nice thing about this fact is that all of my IDE-based Vantec drives will fit into the IcyDock enclosure without me having to buy a new tray. The cooler thing is now I have the freedom to move to SATA drives, which are faster, more reliable and cheaper than their aging IDE/ATA brethren!

Way to go IcyDock! Thanks for building a smart enclosure for my archives – and my existing Vantec tray enclosures to boot!

Check out the IcyDock review that tipped me off here :

IcyDock MB452 eSATA/USB2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure Review – PCSTATS.com

As a follow on to the previous post, attached is a little primer on metadata.

It should provide a sound foundation for covering the basics and getting you started. If I get a chance, I’ll cook up a screencast example of how PhotoInfo works. For now enjoy the article :

“Metadata 101 : Create Image Metadata With Ease in Windows XP” [pdf:835K]

K:M

In class last week, we talked about photo metadata and editing it. I have a primer prepared and will have that up later in the evening, but for starters visit Microsoft’s page for the tool :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfo.mspx

If you want to get started directly and install the application, click the link :

Photo info download ( click to go directly to the download page )

Look out for an update this evening!

The question comes up often in class “What options exist for storing my images when I am away from my computer for long periods of time, but don’t want to lug around a laptop?”  The answer? …
Your options are really good, actually, and there are a number of devices on the market. There are three categories of these devices : record-retrieve, record-retrieve-review and multi-function. record-retrieve devices will download the images from your media card and provide no functions to review your image from the device. Once connected to a PC, the images can be copied onto your PC or reviewed the computer while still on the device. record-retrieve-review devices will allow you to review the images on the device themselves. These may also allow you to playback slide shows on the device and will allow you, once connected to a PC, to review and retrieve the images to your computer hard drive. The last type, the multi-function devices are more likely to allow the reviewing of images and video, playback of video and sound, playback of mp3 music files, and support a number of different formats for image review including RAW images and histogram data.

SmartDisk

Smart Disk Photo Bank, and the

Flash Trax XT.

Epson

Epson P-3000

Epson P-5000

Vosonic

VPS8360

VPS8390

Digital Foci

Media Buddy

Picture Porter

Picture Porter Elite

Image Tank

Image Tank

In the last class ( 4/17 ), questions came up about how to make sure your images are stored in a way that they’re going to last a long time. I’ll describe a few possibilities, provide some things to think about and then let you decide.

First, all media fail. Whether they are CDs, DVDs, hard drives … at some point these media fail, and they fail for a variety of reasons, some having nothing to do with anything. You have a lot of options, but the three big ones are HARD DRIVES, ARCHIVAL DVD/CD and ONLINE storage.

HARD DRIVES

Hard drives are great. They’re inexpensive – at the time of this writing anywhere between $.20 and .30 per Gigabyte(GB) , they easy to install and they’re FAST. Hard drives, can also fail and are prone to random failures, sometimes without warning or symptoms. Don’t trust long term data, one of a kind data, or data that is not hard copied or transferred to another media on a hard drive, period. If it is critically important, you should have a copy of it somewhere else – and NOT on the same hard drive.

ONLINE STORAGE

There are tons of services now getting started that will allow you to upload 100s of megabytes and even Gigabytes of data for free or very cheap. The only problem is these services are all new. How large will the list be in 10 years? It’s still a bet at this point, but if you really want to feel more secure about having your data somewhere online, go for it. Just read the privacy policies and if you can you should either encrypt your data before uploading it, or get a service that will do it for you. I personally like the offerings of streamload and box.net, but there are some really good offerings out there – here is a list to get you started.

ARCHIVAL CDs and DVDs

There are a lot of debates about how long CDs and DVDs will last. Your best bet with these media is to buy the best “archival” type you can. And if it is really important to you make two copies (my policy is to record one to DVD-R and one to DVD+R)/ Many manufacturers now make archival CDs and DVDs. Two that stand out are Verbatim and Maxell :Verbatim Archival DVDs

• Verbatim DVD w/ Videogard ( scratch resistant and archival ) DVD+R and DVD-R
• “UltraLife” DVD-R only
• You may have to go online to get hem

Maxell Archival CDs and DVDs

• CD-R Pro are used in the recording industry, these are excellent discs
• DVD-R Broadcast Quality

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’d like to reiterate :

• DO NOT TRUST HARD DRIVES FOR LONG TERM storage
• Make 2 copies of the important stuff onto the best media you can afford
• Be diligent about properly storing your media away from excessive heat, light and moisture ( i.e. put them in a safe )

You’ll be lucky to have a drive last 4 years, some people report hard drives lasting up to 8 years ( a rare event indeed ), and some people have had drives go out in the first 12 months. While drive stability has come a long way since the 90s, this is a media that is prone to many different kinds of failures. Don’t trust your ONLY COPY of anything on a hard drive for long. The moment you think nothing could go wrong, it does – I’m sure you’ve heard enough horror stories.

DVDs and CDs do go bad – and the cheap ones go faster than you can imagine. So check your disks every once in a while and if you spot problems, start migrating them to the best media you can quickly … I’ve had cheap discs go bad rapidly . Handle your discs carefully and avoid scratches, exposure to sun and other elements. Treat them well and they’ll probably last.

A SIMPLE STRATEGY

A simple strategy to employ is this :

• put short-term photo storage on hard drive ( up to 6 months )
• put mid-term storage on enterprise class hard drives and/or online storage
• put long term important storage on archival DVD ( up to 20 years )
• very long term storage for extremely important/rare photos : print them at a pro lab and put them away in a safe deposit box ( ~80+ years )

There are more complex strategies to employ. Email us for more information.

FAQ

Q: What is an “Enterprise Class Hard Drive”?
A: These are hard drives that are tested to undergo more extreme use in terms of hours and mode of operation. They’re often times rated to have fewer failures per thousands of hours of use, and many times have longer warranties than your average consumer class hard drive. They’ve been tested more thoroughly and some manufacturers put additional guarantees on error recovery and shock protection should you drop the drive ( though don’t expect miracles, dropping a hard drive is a traumatic event and can render any drive, consumer or enterprise, useless ). Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital all make these drives.

Q: What is “archival”?
A: Archival refers to the longevity of a media, given some ideal conditions and then some not so ideal conditions. What you need to remember here is that if archival isn’t mentioned in product, it’s probably not archival. Gold CDs and DVDs are generally considered archival, but you need to get the hard-coat as well to avoid any scratches from damaging the surface. You can expect at least 50 year life expectancy, probably 2x to 3x that much in reality.

In last session’s class, we talked about changing the default program when you connect the camera to your computer.

This screencast will show you how to do that and something even cooler!

Running Time – 0:05:51

As we talk about the amazing capabilities of digital, around the world many people interested in these things are asking questions about whether digital is revolutionizing photography, or if it is a mere evolution. Whether you’re a revolutionist or evolutionist, there’s no doubt that the average person is now capable of taking great photos of anything and everything important to them – as most of you found out in class, and some of you will find out when you take our class.

At the fore of this change is what happens to photography now? How does “professional” photography change? What is the line between amateur and pro, now that digital is ubiquitous and allowing people to learn the principals of photography at an accelerated rate? The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland, is asking these questions and more in their “We Are All Photographers Now” Project ( http://www.allphotographersnow.ch ).

What they’re doing as described from their website :

Cell-phone imagery, digital camera pictures, sharing sites like Flickr and photolog, amateur agencies like Scoopt and Splash, individual blogs, electronic scrapbooks, hotlinking, ‘citizen photojournalism’, professional photographs showing amateurs at play, new printing opportunities, and historical precedents going well back to the 19th century… all are fodder for our electronic experiment. This is the first major museum project to undertake a comprehensive overview of the digital revolution as it impacts on everyone.

How can you participate?

A hundred images every week will be chosen at random by a computer and printed on HP paper, so as to ensure the highest standards of archival quality. These pictures will then be shown as such for a full week before being replaced by the selection from the following week, and be subsequently archived in the permanent collection of the Musée de l’Elysée.

Now get to shooting and uploading!

K:M

In class we showed the Photographer’s Edge cards – they were the card stock custom cards with quotes and a window for a 4×6 horizontal or vertical photo. We almost forgot to post these on the site, but the great people at Photographer’s Edge have a fantastic product, which can be found at :

Photographer’s Edge
1-800-550-9254
www.photographersedge.com

They’re located in the Springs, so turnaround time is usually a few days to your door, almost usually within the week you order the cards.

K:M