Camera Review: Canon PowerShot G1 X

“The 14.3-megapixel Canon PowerShot G1 X is one of the best compact cameras I’ve ever shot with, though calling it a “compact” really is a bit of a stretch. This sucker is big. And heavy. Not to mention, Canon’s latest “flagship” PowerShot is expensive too. For just a little more money than the $800 you’d pay for the G1 X, you could get the Rebel T3i, Canon’s second-tier up digital SLR along with an 18-55mm kit lens.

But, of course, you don’t want the Rebel T3i or its mediocre kit lens since you likely already have a bigger and better DSLR/lens set-up that does all the professional heavy lifting for you. The G1 X, on the other hand, is what I like to call a “project” camera, as in, you might have a particular project you’d like to shoot that calls for a smaller, less expensive, more discreet camera. That “project” could be anything from photographing dishwashers in Indonesia to capturing candids of your kids on holiday in Florida.

The point is that your big DSLR or medium-format camera feels like work. A camera such as the Canon G1 X and the many competing high-end compacts out there are designed for looser assignments, even if those assignments include a personal project you come up with on vacation.

And in that way, the G1 X succeeds, big time. Its image quality is on par with most entry-level digital SLRs, in part because it’s equipped with an image sensor that’s almost the same size as what’s in those cameras.

But it also has a very good zoom lens: a 4x optical (28mm to 112mm equivalent) with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 and image stabilization. The fact that it sits on the front of the camera like a giant metal doughnut is a bit distracting but only further emphasizes the seriousness of the big sensor inside this camera.”…..MORE from By Dan Havlik on this special camera

Photoshop CS6 Beta: A Quick Look

By Jason Row at Lightstalking

We teach the basics of Photoshop on our Introduction to Photoshop and Photoshop Elelments Course so it doesn’t matter a great deal which version of the program you use, but new updates keep coming.

Very quickly Photoshop CS5 has been superceded by the new version CS6. It is not available to buy yet but you can download the Beta versions and use this as a fully functioning program until it is properly released when you will have to hand over some money, well probably quite a lot of money. This is some of what Jason has to say about CS6

“As with other recent incarnations of Photoshop, Adobe have released a beta version of their latest image editing software. You can grab yourself a copy from Adobe here http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/photoshopcs6.html If you don’t have one, you will need to register an Adobe account as once installed the software will connect with Adobe via the internet. The beta is an unlimited fully functional version that will only expire once the testing is complete and the final product is released. So what are the headline features in this new version of Photoshop.

The first thing that will grab your attention is the new “dark” interface. This is radically different than previous versions and in my opinion a welcome change, the images seem easier to look at and adjust out of the darker grey. The interface is also customizable, allowing you to create a look that suits your workflow. Another obvious change for Mac users is that images are now loaded fully in the interface and not as separate windows, although one of the less advertised changes is that it now does not support 32 bit Mac systems anymore, as it is fully 64 bit application. Another, under the hood feature is the introduction of an autosave facility. This will regularly save a version of your image in the background and is invaluable if you have taken the wrong direction whilst editing and have no way back. This is customizable from saving every 5 minutes up to every hour.

One of the headline new features is content-aware patching. Many of us use the patch tool, to remove unwanted elements from an image such as people in the background or dust spots. The new version of this tool adds to Photoshop’s range of content-aware tools first introduced in CS4. The new patch tool allows you to select the unwanted item then drag it into the area you wish to replace it with. The new algorithms blend the surrounding pixels effectively removing the selected item. From my initial tests this is a clever and valuable tool.”

New look interface on CS6

Read the full article here Click Here: Photoshop CS6 Beta: A Quick Look