Viewing photographs on the iPhone 4’s 326dpi “Retina” display is absolutely incredible. It’s a 1990’s era dream come true. Text is easy for any display to render sharply but rendering fine photographic detail is quite another story. For many of us, phones and iPads have become portable portfolios that are fluid and easy to show people while on the go. Apple’s new iPhone 4 takes portable image viewing to a new level, but there are some details towards getting optimal results that are worth mentioning for demanding users.

In the past, zooming in on iPhone images led to disappointing results because it just an enlarged low resolution photograph, kinda like zooming past 100% in Photoshop or past 1:1 in Lightroom. When you sync a high pixel count image to an iPhone, iTunes “optimizes” images for the phone by lowering the pixel count and re-saving a unique JPEG for the phone. This process can lower the image quality and sharpness significantly thus many pros have been disappointed with image viewing on previous iPhones. It felt low resolution to begin with and even worse when zoomed.

With the release of iOS4 came a new iTunes image optimization routine designed to improve image viewing especially on the iPhone 4. From my tests it appears that iOS 4 now stores images at 1920×1280 pixels with a medium amount of JPEG compression. If images are even just slightly larger than this pixel count iTunes will resample images which results in a loss of image sharpness. If images are lower than this pixel count they will appear pixelated when you zoom in on them.

For photo geeks wanting to get the very best image quality on their iPhone 4, I suggest (more…)

Liberty Bar has been a fixture in San Antonio for 25 years, an unlikely and magical convergence of red neon lights, hipster waitstaff, loyal clientele and owner Dwight Hobart’s “serious food” all gathered inside a tipsy 100-year-old building. Last night was Liberty’s last before they move to their new location in Southtown, where they will reopen Wednesday the 26th.

The last image in the above group titled “Liberty’s Final Hour” was a one hour exposure taken from 9:30pm to 10:30pm May 17th. I’ve also compiled a time lapse video of this final hour plus a half hour after closing time during which people shuffled out and the lights and fans were turned off.

(with comparison to Epson x900 and HP Z3200 printers)

Canon’s latest generation of large format printers offer an exciting mix of refinements. The 44″ 8300, 24″ 6300 and 6350 (which includes a hard drive) are referred to as the “x300 printers.” I’ve had the pleasure of testing both the 8300 and 6300 printers alongside others as they’ve come to market. Instead of writing a super long in-depth review, I’d like to offer this relatively brief and to-the-point synopsis of my own findings of these printers. I’ll spare the details as to what comes in the box and focus on the points that experienced users are probably looking to hear.

Before I begin, I should say that I get my hands on a huge variety of printers in my work traveling around as a color and workflow consultant. Not only do I own Canon, Epson and HP printers in my own studio where I print my artwork that I show in galleries, I oversee a large base of clients all over the world that use everything from Durst silver halide printers to 20 foot wide Scitex solvent printers. I’d like to think I’m in a decent position to have a bird’s eye perspective of the industry as a whole and I strive to be as unbiased as I can with my observations. I choose to appreciate the differences between different products and try to avoid the type of brand loyalty that seems so common in our industry.

New inkset improves gamut substantially
The most significant improvement with these printers lies in Canon’s new Lucia EX inkset that increases the color gamut by about 20%. All 12 of Canon’s inks are newly formulated with smaller pigment particles and increased polymer encapsulation. The smaller pigment particles reduce reflection (more…)

Dan Winters’ unique ability to sculpt with light has long been a personal inspiration of mine. Now more than ever his work is everywhere. He’s won more awards and contributes to more magazines than I can list. When I was in an airport a few weeks ago I glanced across a wide walkway full of people and caught a glimpse of this Time magazine cover of Tom Hanks on a newsstand. In that split second from some 80 feet away I just new it was Dan’s image. His lighting is so dramatic, so distinct (yet never the same) I just knew it was his.

Austin American-Statesman photographer Jay Janner recently made this portrait of Dan in his Driftwood, TX studio – the first of it’s kind in front of Dan’s handcrafted photo booth in his Driftwood, Texas studio.

FLYP magazine published a great article on his work and career. Highly recommended viewing. Included in the article are two videos where he talks about his devotion to photography and what makes a great portrait.

If you haven’t already I’d encourage you to spend some time at Dan’s website. Better yet, order his book Periodical Photographs from Aperture.

I’ve always been a fan of high-end displays like those from Eizo, Barco, Quato, NEC and the like. At the same time I recognize that these pinnacles of technology are hard for most people to justify. I love discovering displays that are affordable yet meet the demands of the most finicky printmakers. Simply put, some ~$800 displays hold up darn well against $2000+ displays when they are well calibrated and it’s this “best value, high quality” category that I get excited about and often recommend to my clients.

All of these displays use an LED backlit lightsource, IPS LCD panels and eco-conscious materials. These first two technologies are crucial for demanding professionals. The LED lightsource provides consistency across the screen, a boost in color gamut, power savings, lower heat generation and can achieve the lower luminance (brightness) levels that print professionals need. The IPS LCD panel provides a wide viewing angle so that the viewer doesn’t experience the density shifting that’s become so common with laptop and most LCD displays today that use the less expensive TN LCD panel technology. A lot of companies (more…)

My Texas Love Bus image has been selected for the 2010 TPS print program. Those joining at the $225 and higher levels can choose to receive a 17×22 print of this image. If you want a different sized print, you know who to talk to.

LR3beta2 is out! Here are some noteworthy points:

• • Speed is greatly improved.
• • Importing has been improved and refined.
• • Tethering for popular Nikon and Canon cameras is now supported.
• • Watermarking is improved (although still not ideal).
• • Luminance Noise Reduction has been added to complement the new demosaicing and color noise algorithms.
• • New Vignette styles.
• • Adjustment Brush and Gradient tools can now be stacked to strengthen the effect.
• • New Print Layout capabilities with Rotate to fit and Rotate Cell options.
• • Video files can now be imported from DSLRs along with still images.
• • The X key conveniently toggles the orientation in the crop tool.
• • Perspective Control and Soft Proofing are not in this beta (but are in development for future release).
• • While LR3beta1 catalogs can be updated for use in LR3beta2, LR2 catalogs still cannot be. This is after all, a beta release that is not intended, nor recommended for production work.

Commentary
The biggest thing for my own workflow is the speed and overall responsiveness of this release, which is better than any 1.x or 2.x  release. When I upgraded to the 21mp Canon 5Dmark2 I’ve been frustrated with the responsiveness of Lightroom ever since – until now. It’s pretty hard to go back to 2.6 for production work. On high resolution 20+ megapixel files, LR3beta2 is far, far faster – sometimes more than 20 times faster when lots of localized adjustments are used. (more…)