German software developer Jürgen Habenstein has devised two new user configurable operating systems for digital cameras. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: AppCam OS-I & OS-II
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Iridient Digital has released RAW Developer 1.9.4 for MacOS X. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: Iridient RAW Developer 1.9.4 for Mac The Epson Stylus Pro 3880 Signature Worthy Edition combines the 17-inch Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer with six Epson Signature Worthy papers. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: Epson Stylus Pro 3880 Signature Worthy Edition NAVTEQ have issued a statement revealing that map and location data for the built-in GPS unit of the Olympus Tough TG-810 digital compact camera are supplied by them. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: NAVTEQ Supplies Map & Location Data for Olympus TG-810  Recent versions of Photoshop have an automatic Red Eye Removal tool. But what do you do when that tool fails as it does all too often with people, and always with pets? Here’s one technique that I like to use. I’m going to illustrate it on a pet photo featuring “green eye”, but the same trick works on people with red eye, too. 1. Zoom in on the eye of your subject 2. Get your Paintbrush (Keyboard shortcut B) 3. Set your foreground color to black 4. In the options bar, set the brush mode to Color, opacity 100% By painting with the brush in this mode, we will desaturate the area that we paint. 5. Using a small brush with a medium-soft edge, paint the mis-colored part of the eye to desaturate it. Since all we are doing is desaturating, this leaves the highlight and other gradients that reveal the shape of the eye intact. If we simply painted black we would destroy these details that make the eye look realistic. After desaturating, all we need to do is darken the pupil. 6. Get the Burn tool 7. In the options bar, select Midtones, Exposure 20% 8. Paint gradually in the pupil to burn (darken) the Midtones By restricting our burn to the Midtones, we avoid destroying the highlight in the eye or darkening that natural rim around the eye. We only affect the middle gray that was originally colored red or green. 9. Darken the pupil to a reasonably dark gray (not pure black), and you’re done! Of course, this technique won’t work in every case, because there are a lot of different types of “red eye” in people and animals, but it’s usually my first go-to method for tough cases. To see a free video which includes this and several more techniques for difficult cases, visit SteeleTraining.com. About the Author : Phil Steele is the founder of SteeleTraining.com where you‚Äôll find free tutorials on photography, Photoshop, Lightroom and more. This article is based on an excerpt from his video training course “Photoshop Basics for Photographers” . Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Photoshop: Red Eye Fix for Difficult Cases in People and Pets . . . → Read More: Photoshop: Red Eye Fix for Difficult Cases in People and Pets The video on top shows a funny and not so technical comparison between the Panasonic GF2 vs Canon 600D . M43photo.blogspot (Click here) posted a more detailed GH2 vs GH1 video quality comparison: “ One could be tempted to think that the GH1 gives better video quality, due to the twice as high video bitrate. But the GH2 has other advances…it is reasonable to guess that it samples more pixels as a basis for the video output…the GH2 gives somewhat better contrast and sharpness. The GH1 has slightly washed out colours and that the compression algorithm is better. My conclusion so far is that the GH2, even with lower bitrate, gives slightly better video quality .” GH2 direct links at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . One more thing…two lens reviews: Zeiss (Rollei) 50mm F1.4 tested on the GH2 at EosHD (Click here) . The Zeiss is only available on eBay (Click here) . Panasonic 8mm Fisheye Review at E-P1.net (Click here) . Check price and availability of that lens at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . . . . → Read More: Panasonic GF2 vs Canon 600D — And Panasonic GH2 vs hacked GH1  Photographing a large group of people can be something of a challenge – in this video Jared from Fro Knows Photo shares how he approached it (including how he post processed the shot and how he’d approach it differently next time). Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Photographing a Large Group of People… With the Fro . . . → Read More: Photographing a Large Group of People… With the Fro > > View all Gone in the blink of an eye but captured by the release of a shutter, Stephan Tillmans ‘ photographs of Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) televisions powering down are unexpected and elegant; analog moments preserved by digital trial and error. Through tedious, button-pushing coordination on both TV and camera, Tillmans has perfected a surprisingly difficult task. It turns out photographing CRT image decay and making it look like art is as hard as it is strange. “Capturing the same picture twice is almost impossible. Timing really would have to be perfect,” says the German photographer, who is based in Berlin. “Not only does the moment the TV is switched off and the moment I take the picture matter, but also the duration of the TV being turned on. I take the pictures manually and Iʼve never shot two images alike.” To complete the images for his project, Leuchtpunktordnungen ( Luminant Point Arrays ), Tillmans set up a tent in his apartment to avoid getting dust or hair on the TV screen. His images are so precise that it’s almost impossible to retouch any stray elements after the photo has been taken. The tent also provides complete darkness and eradicates reflection. Sitting in his apartment, in his tent, between TV and camera, Tillmans would keep one hand on the TV power switch and the other on the shutter release. “I stayed like this for a couple of days, trying out different TVs and camera settings,” he says, “It can take up to 800 pictures until you get a sharp, crisp and good image.” One of the biggest hurdles was perfecting the depth of focus on the camera lens to find the exact plane on which the desired activity existed. “The TVʼs tube has a certain depth, which makes it difficult to focus on the right layer. If you set the focus of the camera to the fluorescent screen for instance, you also have to catch the light on that particular layer. But when the light is deeper in the tube you may have focused on the TVʼs shadow mask, but not on the light.” As the project progressed, Tillmans improved his timing and would use single frames instead of continuous shooting. He describes each unique arrangement of light as a “breakdown of reference.” “I press the release when the picture breaks down,” he says. “If I took the picture earlier, you would still see an image. You would see noise or even a signal. I am however interested in the moment these indications disappear and when the photo turns from referential to non-referential and from abstract to concrete.” Photos: Stephan Tillmans – – – The work of Stephan Tillmans and eight other photographers will be on show at The Goethe Institute in Washington DC, June 9th – Sept. 2nd. The exhibit Gute Aussichten: Young German Photography 2010/2011 showcases the award winning photography of German graduate students. . . . → Read More: Analog TV Quirk Made Into Art Through Tedium So this week we boldly go back into the camcorder trenches; having checked out ways to display our video we must now look at how to gather it. And we kick off our look with the Panasonic HDC-TM90K, a substantial but pricey model that will go a pretty long way … . . . → Read More: Panasonic HDC-TM90K Camcorder Review–Pricey But 3D Potent Flip Video has announced an update to its FlipShare software, and launched a suite of FlipShare Mobile apps for Android, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Read more and comment . . . → Read More: Flip Video Updates FlipShare, Launches FlipShare Mobile Apps  A Guest post by Phil Steele from SteeleTraining.com The Curves Eyedropper technique provides a fast way to simultaneously correct color and fix exposure problems in your photo all at once. That’s a lot of benefit for just a few clicks. Here’s how it works. 1. Open a photo that you think needs correcting. Our example photo suffers from a blue-green color cast, and it is also a bit “washed out” i.e., lacking contrast. 2. Create a Curves Adjustment Layer by clicking on the Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers Palette, and then choosing Curves from the drop-down menu. 3. Near the bottom of the Curves Dialog, you will see a row of three eyedroppers. From left to right they are used to set the Black Point, the Gray Point, and the White Point. 4. Ideally you should set specific color values for each of these droppers (although you can skip this step and try it with the default values if you like). Double-click on the Black dropper to open its settings, and in the R,G,B values enter 20, 20, 20. For the Gray dropper: 128, 128, 128. For the white dropper: 240, 240, 240. Now we will simply click once in the image with each of the three droppers to correct color and contrast all at once! 5. Click on the black dropper to select it. Your cursor now looks like the dropper. Click the dropper once in the darkest part of your image. You are telling Photoshop “This spot should be black.” In our example image, this is the hair beside the model’s head. 6. Now click on the White Point dropper to select it. Click with the White dropper in the lightest part of your image. You are telling Photoshop, “This spot should be white.” 7. Now comes the tricky part. You need to use the Gray dropper to select a spot in your image that should be Neutral Gray. This does NOT mean a gray that is exactly halfway between white and black. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that the gray be neutral in color (i.e., its RGB values should be equal). It could be a very dark gray, or a very light gray, so long as it is neutral. Perhaps it does not not look neutral in your photo due to a color cast, but you know it should be neutral in reality. This can be challenging, unless you have an object in your photo that you know should be gray. For example, in our photo, there is concrete near the model that I know is gray in reality. Click and I’m done. The shadow on a white object can also make a good neutral gray. But what if you don’t have a gray object or a white object in your photo? There are various tricks for trying to find neutral gray numerically (such as using the Info Palette and looking for pixels with near-equal RGB values) but these suffer from the flaw that a neutral gray in your image may be already skewed by a color cast. Picking such a point will simply introduce a different color cast. In the end, sometimes the best you can do is pick points by trial and error that seem like good candidates for Neutral Gray, and just see what happens to the image. If it gets worse, Undo it. When you hit one that satisfies you, you are done. TIP: There is one trick for finding Neutral Gray in portraits that comes in handy when you don’t have any gray objects in the surroundings. You can sometimes pick on the whites of the eyes to find your Neutral Gray point. This doesn’t always work (some people’s eyes are whiter than others), but when it does, it can be a life-saver! In our example photo, one click on the white of the model’s eye perfectly corrects the color in the entire image! Her skin is warmed up and the blue-green color cast is gone. After you correct the color, you may want to tug up on the RGB line in the Curves graph to brighten the overall image. Compare the before and after photos, and it’s remarkable what Photoshop can do with three little clicks! You can watch a video version of this tutorial at www.SteeleTraining.com. About the Author : Phil Steele is the founder of SteeleTraining.com where you’ll find free tutorials on photography, Photoshop, Lightroom and more. This article is based on an excerpt from his video training course “Photoshop Basics for Photographers” . Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips . Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips , Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras . Color Correction with the Curves Eyedropper in Photoshop . . . → Read More: Color Correction with the Curves Eyedropper in Photoshop  Firefighter Zheng Zhanhong (entering water) attempts to rescue colleagues Zhang Liang (top left) and Han Xiao Xiong (top right). Zhang Liang went under the oil soon after this photo was taken and drowned. Zhang and Xiao Ziong were attempting to fix an underwater pump during the oil spill clean-up operations at Dalian’s Port on July 20, 2010. Photo: Lu Guang/Greenpeace Last July, while America was coming to terms with the fallout from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill , China itself was dealing with the largest oil spill in its history in the city of Dalian. During the disaster, a fatal act of bravery was caught on film by a nearby photographer. Assigned by Greenpeace to the area, Chinese photographer Lu Guang documented the environmental destruction and the clean-up effort in Dalian. While he was photographing the city’s harbor for his assignment, a 25 year-old firefighter named Zhang Liang waded into the harbor to clear a water pump but lost his footing. Despite efforts by rescuers, Liang drowned. With shaking hands, Lu Guang photographed Liang’s death on 47 digital files. The episode lasted less than six minutes. A second firefighter, Han Xiao Xiong lost consciousness beneath the slick but was rescued. The tragic series of photos later won third prize in the 2011 World Press Photo awards’ spot news category. “Had I not taken these picture of Zhang Liang, his sacrifice would have perhaps gone unnoticed and people would not have been aware of the extent of the oil spill,” says Lu Guang in Through the Lens: the Dalian Oil Spill , a short video produced by Greenpeace. The film aims to bring continued attention to the environmental disaster, pay tribute to Zhang Liang and give the photographer, who also photographed Liang’s memorial service, an opportunity to describe his experience as a witness to death. The spill started on July 17th, 2010, when two oil pipelines exploded in Dalian, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air. The pipelines burned for over 15 hours and released thousands of gallons of oil into the harbor and the Yellow Sea. Five days after the disaster the oil slick covered 165 sq. miles. The Chinese government reported the leak at 1,500 tons. Speaking to Greenpeace, Dr. Richard Steiner, professor at The University of Alaska and a specialist in oil spills, estimated the Dalian spill at 90,000 tons . Nevertheless, less than two weeks after the spill Greenpeace assessed the response by Chinese authorities and thousands of volunteer fishermen as “timely and generally effective.” As with the BP spill in the U.S., the long-term effects remain to be seen. – – – More pictures of the spill at The Big Picture. . . . → Read More: Photog Reflects on Images of Oil Spill Drowning What a nice Olympus XZ-1 review. I like that guy and I like the narrative style. In that video he compared the Olympux XZ-1 with the Canon S95. See the video to hear the conclusion! You can get the XZ-1 at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay (Click on shop name to visit the direct product page). For comparison. That’s the price of the Canon S95 at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . For the first time I saw a Rollei lens tested ona Micro Four Thirds camera. You might be interested to see the results at DC.watch (Click here) . They tested the Rollei Planar 50mm f/1.4 on the new Olympus E-PL2. That’s what I like most of Micro Four Thirds, the fact that you use almost any existing lens. Canon seems to not understand that (See MirrorlessRumors.com ). See the Rollei 50mm Planar lens on eBay (Click here) . Olympus E-PL2 price checks at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . . . . → Read More: New XZ-1 review at Digitalrev and Rollei 50mm lens test. Thanks Mike Kobal ! Goodgearguide tested the Olympus E-5: “ The Olympus E-5 is definitely a beast of a camera, but its low-light performance isn’t as good as its competitors, and overall its images look a little muddy (although some users may prefer this). It also takes a while to learn how to use it effectively. However, it is fast when it comes to sequential shooting as well as focusing, and it has a useful articulating screen and Live View mode. ” Get the E-5 at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3 Review ( Photographyblog ). March 11 Earthquake in Tokyo taken with the GH2 ( Vimeo ). Get the GH2 at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 / ZS10 High ISO JPEG Noise preview ( CameraLabs ). Panasonic GF2 review ( Fotopolis ). Get the GF2 at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay 3Dkraft tested the audio quality of the GH2 y doing a Bariton- and Sopran-Saxophon Live-cut. The quality is very surprising good and you should hear the video using good headphones! . . . → Read More: a little bit of everything…(GH2 does fashion!) It looks like the most popular Olympus camera is not a PEN and not a the E-5 but the Olympus XZ-1 . As you know it features also a PEN-type accessory port that can use PEN system accessories, including the clip-on VF2 EVF or the FL-14 and FL-36R flash guns and the external stereo microphone adapter kit (SEMA-1): “ Image files from the review camera were a cut above those from most other digicams we’ve reviewed, including those from Olympus. Files were clean and not over-processed and colour saturation was restrained for a small-sensor camera . Autofocusing was comparatively fast for a contrast-based TTL system and when face detection was engaged, the camera was able to pick up and track human faces almost instantaneously .”. The only real drawback is the video quality. The camera gets an oveall score of 8.8/10 which is pretty high! You can get the camera in Black or White at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay (Clcik on shop name to directly visit the XZ-1 product page). . . . → Read More: Olympus XZ-1 gets an “Editor’s choice” at Photoreview Australia. M43photo made a very interesting Tele Converter test on the GH2 and 14-42mm lens. The ETC mode gives a tele conversion of 2.6x when recording 1080 lines in and 3.9x in 720 lines (Video mode). As you can see from the image samples on the website: “ It appears that the video stream recorded using ETC has worse image quality than the normal stream, at all ISO values. There is some lack of sharpness and contrast, and more noise in the ETC video streams. ” M43photo explains the (little) quality loss with the fact that ETC recording doesn’t have the option of scaling down from a larger number of pixels (in normal recording mode the whole sensor area is used and scaled down). I suggest you to make your own tests. Let us know if you can confirm the conclusions from m43photo! Thanks! P:S.: GH2 direct links to Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . UPDATE: A good friend of us (and very good tester) said: The extender 2,6 function depends on the optic that is used. The Leica 45mm Macro [/shoplink] gives the same frame quality in extender mode as a HI Q optics . The same for 7- 14 mm . Both tested result! The 14- 42 is the weakest lenses in the Panasonic lens set . So the result can be right but the result is not easy to apply on other optics “ . . . → Read More: Does the GH2 Extended Tele Converter affect the video quality? Ansel Adams was one of the greatest photographers to have ever picked up a camera, and in this video, photographer Mark Silver is lucky enough to get inside Ansel Adams’ studio and even his darkroom, where he developed many of his world famous photos. The tour is accompanied by Michael … . . . → Read More: A tour of Ansel Adam’s studio Now here is a camera that isn’t for everyone, as it is hardly affordable, and made for deepsea divers. The Oceanographer’s Video Camera has marine-grade ABS and aluminum housing with a watertight seal that is good enough for underwater photography of up to 300 feet. As you can … . . . → Read More: Oceanographer’s Video Camera There are not many videos out there which have been shot with a f/0.75 aperture lens(!) and a Micro Four Thirds camera. The maker of the video is seelling that Kowa 44mm f/0.75 on eBay : “ This is a very unique and beautiful lens that produces a soft blur due to its fast aperture.I tried it also with the HD video mode on my Panasonic GF2 and the result was stunning. This lens can be adapted to almost any camera as far as you buy the right adapter for it, I previously used it on my Canon 50D and on a Sony NEX 5 . I can say that due to the sensor size and distance from the back of the lens, you will get better results with the NEX but any mirrorless camera (EVIL camera) is good to use with that ultra fast lens .” Click here to see the Kowa 44mm f/0.75 auction on eBay . That lens is very cheap compared to the De Oude Delft 50mm f/.075 which usually sells for over $2000 on eBay . You can’t find anything faster than that (there was once a Zeiss f/0.7 but that’s impossible to find). P.S.: Panasonic GF2 is in Stock at Amazon , Adorama , B&H , J&R , eBay . . . → Read More: Need for speed? Look what a f/0.75 lens can do on your Panasonic GF2 This video shows two Toronto-based artists that have a new form of art that is definitely, for lack of a better and less over-used expression: “more than meets the eye”. To the naked eye, these canvases appear blank, but underneath are a bunch of wires and circuits that can … . . . → Read More: Blank Canvas? Nope, it’s art that is only visible with a digital camera |
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