BUILDING A WORKSTATION AND TRANSFERING FROM YOUR CAMERA/PHONE IMAGE TRANSFER BUILDING A WORKSTATION AND TRANSFERING FROM YOUR CAMERA/PHONE

IMAGE TRANSFER One thing that has changed a lot in the last few years, is that more image editing applications (PHOTOSHOP) take advantage of the extra processing power that can be provided by a video card. The video card in your computer provides the interface between the computer and your monitor, and these cards often have their own dedicated graphics processing computers onboard. GPU’S (graphics processing units) can provide an extra processing kit for those programs that exploit them. The latest versions of Photoshop can exploit a GPU to improve performance.

IMAGE TRANSFER RAM is also important when working with digital images. When editing with Photoshop, it is recommended a RAM size equal to two to three times the size of your typical image. It takes 24 bits – or three bytes – to store a single color pixel in an 8 – bit, uncompressed image.

RAM EFFICIENCY If Photoshops efficiency drops below 100% you know that it can no longer keep all of it’s image data in RAM. Keep an eye on the efficiency gauge, it is a good way to determine if your system could use more RAM (Random Access Memory) Efficiency gauge also shows image size as well.

EFFICIENCY GAUGE

STORAGE The bad news is that digital images can take up a lot of space. The good news is that hard disk storage is CHEAP. 500 gb. Drive is usually a good amount of space when editing with Photoshop.

STORAGE External USB-2 and Fire Wire drives make excellent storage add-ons for backup or additional workspace. Smaller drives can take their power from the same cable that is used to connect the drive to the computer, making them much more convenient. Larger drives require a separate power source, but offer much larger capacities, and better price per gigabyte.

USB-2 / FIRE WIRE

SOFTWARE People who have never picked up a digital camera will speak of images being “photoshoped” Although it’s true that good image editing software is essential to a photographer’s toolkit, corrections and adjustments are just one part of your post production process. Sorting, organizing, and selecting your choice image is often a bigger choice than any type of special effects or digital correction.

TWO APPROACHES TO WORKFLOW When it comes to choosing software you have two choices. 1)Manual process that uses a few different applications in conjunction with your computer’s file manager. – here are the steps needed to complete this process. Copy images to your computer Organizing images by placing them in folders Use browsing software to view thumbnails and previews of all images Launch images from your browser Output your images and then back up files

TWO APPROACHES TO WORKFLOW Alternatively you can use a dedicated workflow application. Adobe Photoshop, iPhoto, Apple’s Aperture can take care of importing and organizing, editing, backup, and more. These programs also include image editing features.

BROWSING AND CATALOGING APPLICATIONS While your file manager might provide good tools for copying, moving, deleting, and organizing files it probably does not provide much of a facility for previewing images. A browser application has a folder of images that are saved as thumbnails. These Thumbnails can sometimes be made larger or smaller.

BROWSING AND CATALOGING APPLICATIONS If you don’t want to commit to a workflow application like Lightroom or Aperture, then a browser program will be an essential tool for viewing, sorting, and launching images into your image editor. ADOBE BRIDGE: Offers all browser features you’d expect , wrapped up in an interface that integreates seamlessly with the other apps in the Adobe Creative Suite. CAMERA BITS PHOTO MECHANIC: Provides most of the features you’d want in a browser including capturing, renaming, raw conversion, metadata editing, and much more.

BROWSING AND CATALOGING APPLICATIONS Cataloging application – allows you to create a catalog of any folder or volume. Since you may end up with more pictures than your hard drive is able to hold, it is vital to organize images onto different hard drives or recordable disks. Cataloging applications, typically provide extensive mechanisms for editing the metadata of images.

BROWSING AND CATALOGING APPLICATIONS EXTENSIS PORTFOLIO: Offers excellent features including the ability to view full-screen previews of any cataloged image, support for dozens of raw formats, batch file conversion features, one click –CD archiving, folder syncing, and excellent web publishing features. PHASE ONE MEDIA PRO: Offers excellent features, superb web out put, very speedy performance, and the ability to create stand alone viewer documents. CANTO CUMULUS: High end cataloging system that offers a sophisticated client/server architecture that is ideal for workgroups and large publishing organizations.

IMAGE EDITING APPLICATIONS PHOTOSHOP: this program is the standard-bearer for advanced image editors. Offers an enormous selection of tools, wrapped up in a very good interface, and all of it is built on top of an excellent color engine that yields professional quality results. The program has extensive web development features, prepress tools composting, and special effects

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS This is a stripped down, under $100 version of Photoshop that offers all of the essential photography features that you’ll need. You get all of the advantages of the Photoshop UI design, and most of the high end performance characteristics. Lacks the capability to work with CMYK images. Lacks the use of Element to edit and view individual color channels. Lacks high-end Masking and black-and-white conversion features and offers no automation capabilities.

NIKON CAPTURE NX Allows you to process Nikon Raw files , but also lets you work with TIFF and JPEG images as well. Provides all editing powers that most users will need, and wraps up this power in a unique interface that combines nondestructive editing with some unique selective editing tools. The biggest strength of Capture NX is that you don’t have to hassle with complex masking tools.

WORKFLOW APPLICATIONS Helps with the sorting , cataloging, organizing, and archiving of your images. Provides image editing tools of their own, and gives you a way to launch into the editing phase of your workflow. With a workflow application, you wont need a browser or cataloging application, and will spend less time in the file manager of your operating system.

ADOBE BRIDGE Offers a good browsing feature, allows you too copy and move files, see large previews, compare images, zoom in close to asses fine details, and much more. Ability to build virtual albums (a way to keep library organized as it grows) Also allows you to launch images into photoshop.

PHOTOSHOP LIGHTROOM Available form both MAC and Windows. Offers importing, sorting, comparing, organizing, key wording, editing, raw conversion, Web page output, and printing. One negative about lightroom is that it insist on managing your library for you, which can complicate the process of getting images into photoshop to edit.

APERTURE A MAC only product, that combines all of the expected workflow features, including non destructive editing, and adds book printing, automatic backup, tethered shooting, multicard importing, scriptability, and more. It’s biggest strength is it’s exceptional interface, which allows for fluid, ever changing workflow. Negatives are that it suffers from an enforced library, and getting images into photoshop.

IMPORTING IMAGES Every image you shoot is stored on your camera’s media card as an individual file. The file is a document just like you might create on your computer. IMPORTING is the process of copying the image files from your camera’s media card, to your computer. Two ways of doing this are connecting your camera to your computer, via USB or taking your media card out of the camera, putting it into a card reader, and connecting it to your computer.

TRANSFERING IMAGES TO WINDOW XP, OR VISTA COMPUTER XP and Vista will take care of a lot of image transferring hassles. The first time you plug a card reader or camera into Vista or XP, Windows may make some kind of mention of installing a new driver. On screen instructions will guide you through the process of getting the camera or card reader ready and thus choosing the pictures you want to upload.

IMPORT PICTURES Click IMPORT PICTURES, to copy the images on your card to a specific directory on your hard drive (documents, desk top, pictures) By default it copies into your “pictures” directory. Import pictures also gives you the option to add a text to your image. After Images have been imported, you will see them in the Windows Photo gallery.

VIEW(S) View pictures using windows: click this button to view images in Windows Photo Gallery, through this option you look through images through thumbnails. View pictures using Windows Media Center: This option lets you see the images on the card in the Windows Media Center. Finally notice the “Always do this for pictures” checkbox, it will enable you to specify default behavior for a card insertion.

RENAMAING AND ORGANIZING Depending on your workflow, your archiving scheme, and you final output needs, you may need to rename your image files. It is vital to name your folders so you know where you can find certain photos. Adobe Bridge, Nikon Capture, Apple Aperture, and Adobe Lightroom offer great renaming commands. Remember you can use both folders and SUBFOLDERS to rename your picture libraries.