How To Choose the Best Monitor for Photography

When you have a camera that can produce images of a really good quality then viewing those images becomes important. Many people buy the monitor that came recommended for their computer without considering if it is most suitable for viewing images. If image making is the most important thing you do on a computer then choosing the best monitor for your purposes and budget is extremely important.

Jason Row over at Lightstalking addresses this in an article here. Jason says: If there is one piece of equipment often overlooked by many photographers, it is the monitor. Whilst we may spend thousands on cameras, lenses and upgraded computers, we often “make do” with our computer’s screen or buy a cheap one to get a larger size…….buying a monitor should be given as much consideration as buying a new camera or lens. After all, why invest all those thousands of dollars in top photographic equipment, if in the end you are viewing the images on a poor, low contrast and limited gamut monitor? 

Perhaps we are blinded by acronyms when buying our screens, after all there are so many, LCD, LED, TN, IPS, the list goes on. So what should we buy to suit our needs. Well let start with screen type. The cheapest monitors are based on twisted nematic (TN). Whilst having a fast response time, they have limited color reproduction, poor black levels and narrow viewing angles. They are fine for word processing but not for serious photographic work.

For photography, the minimum level you should be looking for is an IPS screen..…..MORE

I use an Eizo Coloredge CG222W, although no longer available it was the best I could afford at the time, and it is excellent. I also have a monitor and printer calibration system. I bought all of this equipment from Colour Confidence Their website is perfectly laid out with a monitor showroom where you can choose between screens based on price and compatibility. If you live in the UK have a look at what they have on offer. They also give excellent advice so if you have doubts give them a call.

Click Here: How To Choose the Best Monitor for Photography

 

How to Keep Your Camera Running Perfectly in the Dead of a Cold Winter

I am sure today is the coldest day of the year here in Oxford, or maybe it is the coldest day of the week, whatever it is just too cold. Cold in Oxford is not like cold in other places where it can be really cold, our cold is just….well cold. Enough, shooting in the winter has it’s pleasures but for me mostly outweighed by it’s pain so getting yourself sorted and ready to go an shoot when it is cold is really important. Batteries have a much shorter life in the cold.

Jason Row at Lightstalking has an article on this here

For those of us that inhabit Northern climes, the winter is fast approaching. I am sure many may put their cameras into hibernation for the dark days, preferring the comfort of the digital darkroom to the harsh realities of the freezing conditions, for some, outside.

However, by putting your feet up and ploughing through the summers post production, you could be missing some of the most spectacular shots of the year. Time to wrap up warm, wake the camera from it’s well earned slumber and get cold, for today we are going to take a look at some tips for winter shooting. Click Here: How to Keep Your Camera Running Perfectly in the Dead of a Cold Winter

The Image Licensing Trap: A Short Intro for Photographers

From the excellent Lightstalking Jason Row writes about a problem many photographers face when placing their images into the stock image library market.

“With more and more people selling their images through stock agencies, it is important to understand the licenses that your work may be sold under. Stock agencies can broadly be split into two camps, Microstock and Macrostock. In general but not exclusively, most Microstock agencies sell images as Royalty Free where as Macrostock will sell both Royalty Free and Rights Managed. So lets start with the Royalty Free license:”..…MORE

Two shots taken the the same time in the same location. The first image would be acceptable as Royalty Free as no licenses are required. The second shot would almost certainly be refused unless you had permission from the ship’s owners as the company’s logo is clearly visible.

Click Here: The Image Licensing Trap: A Short Intro for Photographers

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