For those of you who cannot afford a $90 monitor calibrator, you might want to give this little app a try.
Super Cal is a small program designed to help you calibrate your monitors. There is no device to buy… you just use your eyes (not the best calibration devices, BTW). But, at they say… some calibration is better than no calibration at all.
Take a look at this video and watch the magic. This is very interesting to me now as I’m sitting here retouching shots of men that I photographed recently. My agency requested that I get rid of facial moles. Is this about making things look real and giving them personality or about creating generic, idealized people?
What’s your take on this?
PC Mag.com has posted a fairly decent review of Epson’s new scanner, the V750-M Pro (the “Pro” stands for “Expensive”).
The great thing about this scanner is that it has the ability to scan large transparencies using what is called a “fluid-mount kit.” This is something that you find with high-end drum scanners. PC Mag explains:
“You’ve probably noticed that some scratches—on a polyurethaned wood floor, for example—disappear when you wet the floor with a cleaning solution, only to reappear when the floor dries. If you took a photo of the floor when it was wet, however, you wouldn’t see the scratch. The fluid-mount kit works much the same way. Put the mounting solution—available from Aztek—on the mounting kit’s glass plate, place the negative on the fluid to fill in the scratches, and put a few more drops on top of the film, a piece of Mylar (also available from Aztek) on top of that, and scan.”
Go over to PC Mag.com and read the full review.
[By the way, if anyone gets a chance to test out this scanner in person, please email me the results so I can post some samples here. Thanks]
Amazon has a great deal on some pretty good recordable DVDs. Click here to get 100 Memorex DVD-R, 16x printable discs for only $28. And, if you can wait a few days, the shipping is free.
I just bought the same thing at Comp USA and it cost me exactly twice as much. These are great disks and they have worked for me in every DVD burner I have.
Deke McClelland, the Photoshop Man, has posted a little video tutorial about how to scan money into Photoshop.
Those of you in the know will know that starting with Photoshop CS, you were unable to scan, or open any scans, of many different currencies. This was Adobe’s way of telling us that we were not allowed to do with money. Well, Adobe is full of s–t! We are allowed to use images of currency in our artwork as long as it conforms to the usage rules posted at the Treasury Department’s website (or, for other countries, look here).
Anyway, Deke has discovered a nifty little run around so that you can get Photoshop to open images of currency. View it here.
Adobe has posted an update to its camera RAW plug-in for Photoshop as well as an update to its DNG (Digital Negative) converter program. Download it thru Version Tracker. Here are the details of the update:
“Support for the following cameras has been added. Visit the Camera Raw page for a complete list of supported cameras.
Canon EOS 30D
Leaf Aptus 65
Leaf Aptus 75
Olympus EVOLT 330
Olympus SP-320
Pentax *ist DL2
Samsung GX-1S”
If you want more details about the DNG format, you can find them here.
Here are the instructions for installing the new Camera RAW plug-in for Photoshop CS2:
1) Exit Photoshop CS2.
2) Open the Finder.
3) Navigate to Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS2/File Formats.
4) Move the existing plug-in to another location (for example, a new folder on your desktop). Ensure you keep this version in case you need to revert back.
5) Copy the Camera Raw plug-in, Camera Raw, from the download into the same folder as in Step 3.
6) Launch Photoshop CS2 or Adobe Bridge.
Sorry about the headline but I thought it would get your attention.
This is a handmade camera belonging to Czech photographer Miroslave Tichy. Here’s a brief from the gallery representing his work:
“Tichý is truly one of the great ‘finds’ of an unknown artists who worked on the outside edges of the art world. Following the communist takeover Tichý spent some eight years in prison camps and jails for no particular reason other than he was ‘different’ and was considered subversive. Upon his release in the early 70’s, Tichý wandered his small town in rags, pursuing his obsession as an artist with the female form by photographing in the streets, shops and parks with cameras he made from tin cans, childrens spectacle lenses and other junk he found on the street. He would return home each day to make prints on equally primitive equipment, making only one print from the negatives he selected.”
Go over to the gallery to check out his work.
So you want your DVDs to outlast you. Well then, you need gold.
Kodak has announced their new Preservation series recordable DVDs and CDRs which both contain 24 karat gold within the discs to make them archival. According to Kodak’s product info:
“Gold promotes longer disc life. Gold does not oxidize or break down; therefore data is preserved longer. Kodak Preservation CDs and DVDs use only 100% 24-Karat Gold.”
Delkin Devices also has recordable optical media called e-Film (enough with the “e’s” and “i’s” already!) which also contain gold.
I’m not so sure about this gold standard for archiving purposes. The discs are much more expensive than regular discs and the chances are high that the discs themselves will outlive the optical drives used to read them. But, I suppose if you’re really wanting the most stable optical disc, gold might do it for you.
Plus, they sure look purdy.
