The Daily Thing

Recently I finished a web site for a friend of a friend. The project wasn’t too difficult, take his already made website and code it so he could use WordPress to edit the pages. Since my friend is also a designer and very knowledgeable about the web I left many of the pages with place a basic framework and place holder images so they could add more current information. Checking back to make sure the site was working OK as they are filling in new content I noticed a problem, the site is taking a long time to load the gallery. The culprit? Non-resized images used as thumbnails.

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G. Dan Mitchell, we’ll call him Dan, likes to take photos. Oh how he LIKES to take photos and they are some seriously awesome photos (checkout his work at gdanmitchell.com). Dan and I have been talking back and forth on Twitter about things we’ve noticed in the latest version of Apple’s OS X operating system Snow Leopard. I haven’t really noticed anything weird, well except for mail being REALLY stringent on authentication, but then I read Dan’s blog post this morning. He can’t print.

This is a minor problem for most people but when you’re a photographer or a designer, well printing is something you just can’t live without.

The first problem I encountered was that the Epson 2200 sitting next to my computer no longer appeared in the the printer dialogs in Photoshop. Knowing that Snow Leopard supposedly will add new drivers as needed I tried to use the 10.6 preference panel to add drivers for the 2200. No luck – the system didn’t even see the connected printer.

I finally went to the Epson web site and followed their instructions which include:

Install Rosetta from Apple install disk.
Download the most recent pre-10.6 drivers for my printer and install.
Download and run their updater for drivers under 10.6
Done. Now I can see the printer via its Firewire connection… but not, as far as I can tell, via its USB connection.

So, I fire up Photoshop and try to make a test print using a black and white image. Things seem to be going more or less OK as I work my way through the usual setup and print process: Photoshop manages colors and all. But the print emerges looking very green and way too dark. I attempt to download and reinstall the Epson profile for the Epson Premium Lustre paper I’m using at the moment. Installer downloads… but won’t run.

I do a restart and try the profile installer one more time – still no go. Since the photo was one that I had not previously printed I decide to remove one variable and instead print a color image that I had successfully printed right before installing the update to OS X. Again… very greenish and far too dark. (G. Dan Mitchell)

One of the things that I’ve noticed is FTP droplets from Transmit no longer work. Not sure if this is because Transmit is still 32bit or if the protocol is being blocked or what. The droplets open and act like they’re transferring but nothing gets moved to the server. Mail is also constantly warning of certificates, even after you hit OK and can’t figure out which mailbox to send through if you have multiple (even with a default set).

Hopefully Dan will get his problems worked out soon. Until then there is no way I’d recommend installing this on a production machine, which I already have. Wait a week or three until all the quirks and bugs are worked out.

If you’re lucky enough to have been an SBC or Verizon internet subscriber who gets Flickr free then it’s time to dig out your wallet. Yahoo! (current owner of Flickr) has decided that one way out of it’s ailing monetary troubles is to begin charging people for Flickr who had previously been receiving it free as part of their higher-end internet service package.

Flickr: AT&T and Verizon Internet Services have reworked their broadband packages and will no longer be offering Flickr pro to subscribers after January 31, 2009.

Don’t panic! None of your photos or videos will be deleted, but if you have a free account you will be subject to a few limits. If you upgrade again, all of your photos will be waiting for you. Any of your sets that disappear will magically reappear when you renew or upgrade.

If you decide to upgrade to Flickr Pro at the regular price of $24.95, you’ll also get 2 more months at no cost.

Unfortunately I think this tactic is going to have the reverse effect on Yahoo! and we’re going to see a mass migration from Flickr as accounts begin to expire. I, myself have been worried about the state of Flickr and the fate of my photos should Yahoo! decide to pull the plug.

So Flickr has changed their deal with AT&T and Verizon for internet subscribers, no more free Flickr Pro accounts. Ok, I can deal with that. But the other day I got a Flickr mail saying my account was about to expire… in 2010! 

Flickr says my account is about to expire...in 2010

Seriously, is Yahoo! this desperate for money that they’re going to start using nagware on people whose accounts are paid in full for 2 years? Google, please by Flickr. You deserve my money more than Yahoo!. They’re obviously too stupid to know that alienating customers is not a good business practice.

HDR does to photography what Thomas Kinkade did to painting. The majority of what you see is over-saturated, poor examples of people not knowing how to use their equipment. I mean, c’mon, grass is NOT supposed to look like that. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good HDR images. I think knowing how to use your camera in the same situation would have yielded a much better result.

I’m not going to show an HDR image with this post because I don’t want to hurt any particular persons feelings but you can check some out on Flickr.

J.D Power and Associates has released a new customer satisfaction survey of digital SLR users with some surprising results. Nikon not only captured the top spot with a whopping 822 out of a possible 1000 points but was seconded by Sony, a relatively new arrival in the DSLR market.

Nikon tops SLR customer satisfaction survey | Underexposed – CNET News.com: “‘It dominates in digital SLRs,’ Steve Kirkeby, executive director of telecomunciations and technology, said in an interview.

Sony scored 793. At 788, third place went to Canon–the top seller of digital cameras in general and of SLRs specifically–followed closely by Pentax at 787 and Olympus at 783. The survey didn’t rank Panasonic, another new entrant, or Samsung, which today sells Pentax SLRs under its own brand.

SLR cameras, expensive but high-performance models, are at the center of a fiercely competitive and increasingly crowded marketplace. Canon is the top seller worldwide, with Nikon in second place.

The scale is weighted to favor the factors customers find more important, so image quality has a bigger influence on overall score than camera style, for example. And customer satisfaction has an import influence over future purchases: 36 percent of camera buyers ask for others’ recommendations, so happy camera users are good advertising.

‘Satisfaction leads to intention to recommend,’ Kirkeby said. ‘Intention to recommend–word of mouth–is something sought by camera buyers.’”

Nikon yesterday released the all new D300, a pro-sumer model aimed at the intermediate level shooter.

The new camera boasts a 12.3 effective megapixel CMOS sensor with a new 51 point autofocus system and large 3″ screen for reviewing your images.

Nikon: “The ultimate blend of image quality, quick response and go-anywhere mobility. A new 12.3 effective-megapixel DX-format CMOS image sensor, Nikon’s original EXPEED digital image processing concept, Scene Recognition System and the new Picture Control System advance all aspects of system performance. Setting the standards for the next-generation, the D300 achieves the best overall system balance of any DX-format D-SLR.”

Even though it boasts impressive speed, unless the price point is REALLY enticing I’m going to upgrade to last years D80. An impressive intermediate level camera that offers the best of consumer and professional options. It may not have the d300’s 3″ lcd but, I’ve never been one for chimping.

DigitalGrabber.com has a great article on taking photos at night. This is definetly something the aspiring photographer will want to read as it highlights some of the basic concepts of night photography as well as some very helpful advice.

Digital Grabber.com: “Plan your photos before you shoot! While it is always a good idea to study an area first, this is crucial if you are planning on snapping photographs around dusk! You will not have much time to plan, and if you spend five or ten minutes just getting a perfect angle or framing the perfect shot, the overall lighting will change as the sun slowly sets. And of course, remember when composing your photos that the sun sets in the west.”

If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Apples Aperture photo management and editing program then ArsTechnica has some advice for you, wait a while longer.

ArsTechnica:
It saddens me to say that Aperture’s innovations are only skin deep. If it could deliver on the promise of being both fast and produce flawless results, it would be the dream package. At this point it is an expensive and questionable alternative to Camera Raw, a free extension to Photoshop, and Adobe’s Bridge which can batch produce better quality images in arguably less time. For US$500 (Photoshop itself retails for US$750), there is no excuse not to be aware of professional needs like a high-quality sharpen tool, DNG exporting or more basic things like curves, a sampler tool for RGB pixel readings, or retention of EXIF data on output.

[Go there now]

Christmas time is here and with it scores of people shopping online. But if you’re shopping for a new camera this holiday season it’s buyer-beware as this blogger found.

Thomas Hawk: “I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again.” “I’m an attorney, I will sue you.” “I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call.” “I’m going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you.” “You’d better get this through your thick skull.” “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”

These are all direct threats that I received today from an individual who identified himself as Steve Phillips, the manager of PriceRitePhoto in Brooklyn, New York when I called to inquire about my order with them. My crime? Telling him that I planned to write an article about my unfortunate experience with his company regarding the camera order I had placed with him yesterday.

Be sure to read the rest of the article. It’s very interesting. The operator of the business in question has even taken it upon himself to call the bloggers boss.

[Go There Now]