Night Photographers use a process called “image stacking” that allows us to (among other things) make extremely long, 1-8 hour exposures that would otherwise be impossible due to overexposure. We take several images that are “stacked” or combined into a single, composite image. Over the years I’ve used a variety of applications to stack these images together including Keith’s Image Stacker, Startrails,exe, LR/Enfuse, “Open in Photoshop as Layers” and older versions of Dr. Brown’s Stack-A-Matic script. Limitations of these processes were frustrating and super slow which made it difficult to teach at workshops.

A few months ago I emailed Russell Brown (AKA: Dr. Brown) with a list of (more…)

I’m huge fan of the hand-crafted print, and spent a lot of the 90s making digital negatives on imagesetters, as well as studying various 19th century printing processes. It was 1992, I was slinging images in Photoshop 1, cranking out imagesetter negs after hours at my local service bureau and taking them into wet photographic darkrooms to pursue that unique, and ever-satisfying handmade print. A few years later, I interned at Dan Burkholder’s studio and helped put together the first book on creating digital negatives for contact printing processes – a process that he deserves sole credit for pioneering. We were geeks, leaping tall technical hurdles with incredibly complicated workarounds that, surprisingly, made great looking final prints. It was so stochastic, man.

the first copperplate photogravure from a digital positive, 1994 © SM

Bostick and Sullivan moved to Santa Fe and their alt printmaking supply business sky-rocketed, as has the alt-process printmaking niche. Thank goodness. IMO, Dan, Melody (Bostick) and Dick (Sullivan) deserve the lions share of credit for the alt-process resurgence we’ve seen over the last two decades.

But digital negs for alternative printmaking processes don’t make good prints by themselves – you’ve got to jack with them. For twenty years we’ve created convoluted methods of making Photoshop curves (more…)

Q: “When I process a RAW file, I use the RAW image processor in Photoshop. I then save it as a TIFF file (and then to a JPEG for clients and stock agencies).  This already seems like so many steps. Why would I want to use Lightroom?”

A: Photoshop wasn’t designed to work with camera RAW files – it was designed to work with film scans. IMO, the Camera RAW plugin and Adobe Bridge represent an inelegant approach to modernizing an application based on 1980′s technology.

Lightroom is the new Photoshop written from the ground up with Camera RAW imaging in mind. It’s a paradigm shift. With it, we inch closer to a workflow that allows us to do everything (more…)

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…)

(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…)

I’ve been managing color on Lightjet, Durst, ZBE Chromira, Agfa, Kodak and Noritsu machines since the mid-nineties. As a color management consultant with a background in photo lab work, this is close to my heart and an area of specialty for me.  I’ve traveled across several continents consulting with some of the most demanding photo labs in the industry. I’ve also enjoyed a close relationship with Noritsu for over 10 years and have lectured, consulted and trained with them internally. So perhaps I am in a decent position to respond to some comments that I am surprised to hear people make on forums and elsewhere.

“If you want a fully color managed workflow I don’t think any silver halide process will provide that” – anon

Safe to say I’ve implemented fully color managed workflows with every silver halide machine on the market. It’s totally doable and has been for many years, but unfortunately some exceptional know-how can be required. (more…)