Archive for the ‘Digital Photography’ Category
List of Canon SLR error codes
Filed under: Cameras, Digital Photography | Tags: Canon, error
Leave a Comment The Tallyn’s blog has posted a list of error codes you might see in Canon digital SLRs:
Canon Error Codes Revealed
What, no Error 99? (Actually, the post says the list is for the 5DMkII and later models.)
Adobe Bridge: Workspace not saved on Mac OS X
Filed under: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Creative Suite, Apple, Digital Photography, Mac OS X |
Leave a Comment You want to save a workspace in Adobe Bridge in Mac OS X, but it won’t “take.” The next time you start Bridge, the workspace isn’t available or doesn’t apply when you select it. It just does nothing.
The fix is to open Apple Disk Utility, select your startup volume, and click Repair Disk Permissions.
Now, I know that in theory, repairing permissions shouldn’t fix it. You can count me among those who think that repairing permissions is generally voodoo and that you really oughta be going down other roads first, to fix a problem. But for this particular problem, repairing permissions has worked every time. One time a person walked up to me after one of my conference talks and asked this question and brought the laptop on which it was happening. We tried deleting Bridge preferences and all the other usual troubleshooting techniques, but saved workspaces simply didn’t work until I repaired permissions. It doesn’t make sense, but hey, don’t knock it if it works, right?
I know this is true for Adobe Bridge CS4 on Mac OS X 10.5. I’m not sure if the problem exists or if the solution works on other versions of either software.
Canon announces PowerShot G11 and S90 compacts
I don’t write about every camera announcement, but these two are noteworthy. While Canon announced six new compact cameras on August 19, there were two in particular that I knew my friends and I would be interested in. The PowerShot G11 is the successor to the G10, a rather large compact with professional features. The PowerShot S90 resurrects the S-series that had more manual control and capabilities that most other point-and-shoots. These announcements affect me since I’m in the market to replace my 5-year-old Canon point-and-shoot, but there’s also quite a bit of intrigue behind this particular set of upgrades.
Please note that this post is not a review, but a commentary on the announcement. The cameras will be available in September 2009.
The Megapixel Wars: Over?
For several years, Canon ratcheted up its megapixel counts like all the other camera companies: 12 megapixels in the G9, 14 megapixels in the G10. But photographers increasingly complained (and rightly so) that not only did more megapixels not guarantee better images by themselves, in some cases they hurt image quality through increased noise. And at the same time making file sizes larger, which reduced the effective capacity of memory cards, hard drives, and CPUs.
Then last year, Panasonic came out with the Lumix LX-3. Many were surprised that it held the pixel count to just 10 megapixels while all other companies raced upwards. That, and the fact that it has a relatively fast lens, may be the reason it also produces images that are thought by many to be better than the G10 in low light. It also has a wider wide end than many compact cameras, which makes it more useful for indoor use. For these reasons plus its raw output capability, many photography enthusiasts embraced the LX-3 and it’s been back-ordered for many months. I thought it would be my next compact camera, but I can’t get one. The specific improvements to the Canon PowerShot G11 and S90—faster lens, better low light performance, more reasonable megapixels, and a shocking drop down to 10 megapixels—resemble the strong points of the LX-3 so much that one has to ask: Did the apparent popularity of the LX-3 make it enough of a threat for Canon to have to defend against the LX-3 directly? Did Canon believe that they could not continue to maintain image quality from such small sensors if the pixel count went up further?
I think there may be more to it than that, since Canon also decided to bring back the swivel screen to the G series and the raw format to the S series. Now that more people use their camera phone as their point-and-shoot, did Canon feel they had to provide (or restore) more value in the compact range so that serious photographers would have a reason to buy a camera between a JPEG-based point-and-shoot and a digital SLR?
Comparing the PowerShot G11 to the PowerShot S90
With all that context in mind, you might want to compare the G11 and S90 since they’re so curiously similar. These two cameras use the same extended dynamic range sensor and new Digic 4 processor going up to ISO 3200, and both can save in raw format. Here are a few of the important differences between them.
Reasons to get the Canon PowerShot G11 (list price USD$499) over the S90:
- Hotshoe that supports Speedlites (and hopefully wireless triggers)
- Longer telephoto range
- Slower lens (f/2.8)
- Better face detection
- Closer focusing distance (1cm)
- More ISO steps
- Shutter speed up to 1/4000
- Slightly faster frames-per-second burst rate
Reasons to get Canon PowerShot S90 (list price USD$429) over the G11:
- Smaller size is a lot more pocketable
- Faster lens (f2) for better low-light shooting
- Slightly bigger LCD screen (same number of pixels, though)
- Interesting control ring around the lens to which you can assign a function, such as ISO speed
The Canon Shell Game
With their point-and-shoots, Canon has a really annoying way of taking features away and adding them back in a later version with no apparent rhyme or reason. As the G series progressed, people noticed that the swivel screen went away. When the S80 came out, raw format support disappeared. Now both are back. The swivel screen has returned in the G11, and the S90 brings back the ability to save images in raw format.
So what’s missing? Both cameras are capable of only 640×480 30fps video, a strange underachievement in an era of at least 720p HD video on competing cameras. One imagines that video will get a boost in the next generation, but that Canon might once again take away something useful in exchange. Maybe one day Canon will put out a compact where all of the right features actually exist in the same model, but that hasn’t happened yet.
The Details
I’ve only talked about the aspects of these two new cameras that I found to be a notable departure from Canon’s usual pattern. For full details, check out the info at the Canon USA site:
Voting with Dollars
Which one will I choose? Good question. Canon now has two cameras which in theory should keep people from going over to the LX-3. But in addition to the fact that we should wait for the reviews to roll in, the LX-3 is a year old now, and with all the fall photo expos just around the corner, is Panasonic about to play their next card?…
The good news is that with the expansion of choice, it’s now harder to pick the wrong advanced compact camera.
Epson inkjet printers: Printer preset forgets settings
Filed under: Adobe Photoshop, Digital Photography, Epson Stylus Pro 3800, Mac OS X | Tags: 3800, epson, preset, Printing, settings
Leave a Comment If you use an Epson Stylus Photo/Epson Stylus Pro printer in Mac OS X and you save printer settings as printer presets (a recommended practice), there may be times when you choose a preset and realize that some of the settings mysteriously deviate from the way you saved them. For example, you might swear that you saved the Printer Color Management setting as No Color Management, but it somehow turns itself back on when you apply a preset. Other symptoms are finding the wrong paper type or color settings selected. And even more mysteriously, you might notice that sometimes it does remember the same settings that it forgot on another occasion.
I don’t know if this applies to all printers in OS X, but presets for Epson photo printers are quite sensitive to the conditions under which they were created—and unexpectedly, this can include the state of settings that are outside the Print dialog itself. Pay particular attention to the settings in the Page Setup dialog box.
For example, I once discovered that reason my Epson 3800 printer presets would not remember my color settings was that the current paper source did not match the paper source that was in effect when I created the preset! I’ve had to make two versions of my favorite presets: One preset for when I’m using the automatic paper feeder, and another for when I’m using the manual feed slot. The settings saved in each preset are exactly the same; the only difference is which paper feed is selected when I save each preset. Of course, I have to mention the paper source in each preset’s name, so that I know which one to select.
I have not yet tested if this behavior is the same in Windows.
This interaction between paper source and printer presets is yet another reason to make sure you always check the Page Setup dialog box before you print, and especially before you print a Photoshop document for the first time. In Page Setup, the selected printer, paper size, and paper source affect what you get to do in the Print dialog box. If you don’t get Page Setup right from the beginning, you’re setting yourself up for confusion when you print.
Lightroom. If you’re trying to get Epson printer driver settings to stick in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on Mac OS X when you save a Lightroom printer preset, the trick is to not use the Epson printer driver presets. Instead, leave the printer preset set to Standard, make the printer driver settings, and then save the Lightroom printer preset.
Epson inkjet printers: Solving paper feed problems
Filed under: Digital Photography, Epson Stylus Pro 3800, Printing | Tags: 2200, 3800, epson, error, feed, paper
Leave a Comment If paper doesn’t feed through your Epson printer, look out for the following:
Leading edge problems. If there’s anything wrong with the leading edge of the paper (the edge that goes in first), the printer may not be able to load it. Check for creases, folds, tears, or other damage. Proper loading depends on the leading edge being perfectly even, so that it goes straight into the rollers. If the leading edge is damaged, you can flip the paper around and load it the other way. If you can’t flip it around, do your best to smooth out the edge. This problem is more likely to happen with paper you’ve reused or damaged.
Paper curl. If the paper curls the wrong way (outward compared to the rollers), the printer may not be able to grab it. Remove the paper and see if it has a curl. If it’s printable on both sides you can try printing on the other side so that the curl goes the other way. If it’s coated on only one side, you’ll have to carefully try to de-curl it. If it’s expensive fine-art paper, use great care to avoid creasing it or leaving fingerprints when you try to remove the curl. The expensive solution is to use a deroller; this is typically used by people who buy paper in rolls since that tends to make the curl quite persistent.
Friction with other sheets. If you’re loading multiple sheets at a time, the frontmost sheet may not drop into the rollers if it sticks a little to the next sheet in the stack. Try jostling and fanning the paper stack to loosen them up. This is more of a problem with papers with specialized coatings and textures.
Dirty rollers. On an older printer, paper dust or house dust can accumulate on the rollers, making it harder for them to grab the paper. If a cleaning sheet is available for your printer you can try that. If you don’t have a cleaning sheet, as the print job starts try holding the paper and give it a slight nudge as it loads.
Skinny paper. On the Epson Stylus Pro 3800, the manual feed slot doesn’t like paper that’s much narrower than a US Letter sheet. You’ll have to feed it through the automatic feeder. But the automatic feeder may have trouble with paper smaller than 4 x 6 inches; you may have to keep it straight with your hands as it drops into the slot.
Black area of paper. On the Epson Stylus Pro 3800, there’s an odd issue where the Epson 3800 may not sense the paper correctly if part of the paper is already covered with black. Read about that here.
I’ve only used Epson printers, but those tips may also apply to other brands of inkjet printers.
Camera Raw: Detailed image inspection with one key
Filed under: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Digital Photography |
Leave a Comment Camera Raw 4.1 and later add a very useful feature that appeared first in Lightroom. If you want to inspect an image closely for dust or other defects that need retouching, the Page Down key takes you through the entire image, from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. Here’s how it works:
1. In Camera Raw, zoom to 100% view or higher.
2. Press the Home key to view the top left corner of the image.
3. Press the Page Down key to move down one screen.
4. Press Page Down again to move down another screen. This is the cool part: If you hit the bottom of the image and press Page Down, Camera Raw automatically jumps to the top of the image one screen to the right! This means that all you have to do to check the entire image is keep pressing Page Down, until you reach the bottom right corner of the image.
On notebook computers without separate Home, End, Page Up, or Page Down keys, remember that they may be available as second functions on your arrow or other keys. For example, on Mac notebooks, these four functions are overlaid on the four arrow keys, and invoked when you also press the Fn (function) key. So to use Page Down, you’d press Fn+Down Arrow.
Open Raw files in Adobe Camera Raw by default
Filed under: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Photoshop, Digital Photography | Tags: Adobe Camera Raw, camera raw, file type, Photoshop
Comments (3) If you use Adobe Camera Raw as your raw converter for digital camera raw files, you might want to be able to open your raw files in Camera Raw when you double-click them. For most files, you would do this in your operating system by changing which application opens the camera raw file type.
But with Camera Raw, there’s a catch. Camera Raw is not a standalone application, so you can’t associate it directly with a file type. It turns out that this is not a big deal, because Adobe Photoshop must open camera raw files in Camera Raw anyway. So the solution is to associate camera raw files with Photoshop. I show the steps below for Mac OS X; the steps for Windows are similar.
1. On the desktop, select a raw file of the type you want to open in Photoshop. I’ve selected a CR2 file from a Canon digital SLR.
2. Choose File > Get Info (Command+I).
3. From the Open With pop-up menu in the Get Info window, choose the version of Photoshop that you want to use to open your raw files.
4. The file icon updates to indicate that Photoshop will now open it.
5. Click “Change All” so that your change applies to all files of the same type. Other file icons may not update immediately, but the change has taken effect. From now on, when you double-click that type of a raw file, it will open in Photoshop, which will then open it in Adobe Camera Raw.
Because the file association is tied to a specific file type, making this change affects only the file type you’ve changed. You’ll need to associate each different raw file type separately. For example, if you made this change for NEF (Nikon) raw files and then you later work with some CR2 (Canon) raw files, you’ll have to associate the CR2 files with Photoshop too.
(If you’re having trouble getting Camera Raw to see your raw files in the first place, try updating Camera Raw. Support for new cameras is added several times a year. Either download the latest version from adobe.com, or run the Adobe Updater utility that came with Photoshop. Note that the current version of Camera Raw may not work with older versions of Photoshop. If you are trying to edit a new camera’s raw files in a version of Photoshop that’s too old for the current version of Camera Raw, you should either upgrade Photoshop or use the free Adobe DNG converter to convert raw files to the DNG format, which older versions of Camera Raw can edit.)
Thanks to Céline C. for asking this question!
Apple keyboards are now safe for calibrated Apple LCD monitors
Filed under: Adobe Photoshop, Apple, Apple Hardware, Color management, Digital Photography |
Comments (1) If you’ve carefully calibrated your monitor and you use the white Apple keyboard that came with the iMacs and Mac Pros, you may have encountered that nasty surprise when accidentally pressing the F14 and F15 keys: They change the monitor brightness.
Changing the monitor brightness is obviously a big no-no if you’re maintaining a color-managed environment, because the monitor no longer represents the conditions under which it was profiled. Even worse, you may not notice that you’ve hit the key, or you may not know how far off you changed the brightness. All you can do is re-profile the monitor. The constant risk of accidentally hitting F14 or F15 and invalidating your monitor profile is an unusual misstep for Apple, which promotes color management as a Mac platform advantage.
There used to be no way to disable or remap the F14 and F15 keys on the Apple keyboard, but it looks like this problem will slowly fade into history. If you use the new slim aluminum Apple keyboard, you can make it so that you have to press Fn to set brightness with F1 or F1. If you have the older white Apple keyboard, you can take advantage of new keyboard shortcut editing options in Apple Keyboard Software Update 1.1 or later.
Changing keyboard brightness control with the slim aluminum Apple keyboard
The slim aluminum Apple keyboard introduced in 2007 puts the brightness keys on the function row along with the Exposé, Dashboard, and media keys. Why is this good? Because now you can bury the brightness function. To do this:
1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click Keyboard & Mouse.
3. Click the Keyboard tab.
4. Click to enable the box “Use the F1-F12 keys to control software features.”
5. Close System Preferences.
After enabling the “Use the F1-F12 keys…” option, you must press the Fn key (to the right of the Delete key) to use F1-F12 to use the alternate labels on the F1-F12 keys, such as brightness and the media keys. That means if you accidentally hit F1, you won’t throw your system out of its calibrated state.
If you still want single-key access to Dashboard and others, just redefine their shortcuts. You can do this in the System Preferences pane for each feature (such as Dashboard & Exposé), or in the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard & Mouse preferences pane.
Changing or disabling keyboard brightness control with the white Apple keyboard
It turns out that Apple Keyboard Software Update 1.1 or later adds a keyboard shortcut option to disable or change keyboard brightness control for the older white Apple keyboard. To do this:
1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click Keyboard & Mouse.
3. Click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
4. Scroll all the way down to where it says Displays.
5. Disable the check box for “Display” Or, if you just want to change the shortcuts, click in the Shortcut column and press the new shortcut. For example, if you change Increase Display Brightness to Shift+F15, you prevent unintended brightness changes due to accidental key presses, but by adding Shift you can still control brightness with the keyboard when you really intend to.
6. Close System Preferences.
Note: You won’t see the Display section if you’re using the slim Aluminum keyboard, only if you are using the older white Apple keyboard.
Photoshop: Preview checkbox shortcut in dialog boxes
Filed under: Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Photoshop, Digital Photography |
Leave a Comment One of my favorite new features in Adobe Photoshop CS3 is the new keyboard shortcut for clicking the Preview checkbox in dialog boxes. Just press the P key!
Adobe wisely brought in this shortcut from Adobe Camera Raw, and it saves a lot of repetitive mousing when you’re doing before/after comparisons. It’s one of those enhancements that’s so small nobody notices, yet has a large actual effect on productivity.
Bridge CS2: Renaming files with the keyboard, whether you meant to or not…
Filed under: Adobe Bridge, Adobe Creative Suite, Digital Photography |
Comments (1) To rename a selected file or folder in Adobe Bridge CS2 without using the mouse, press the spacebar, type the name, and then press Return or Enter. (For Bridge CS3 and later, see the note at the end of this post.)
If you pressed the spacebar without intending to change the filename of the selected file, your next keystroke will accidentally change the filename, and it will become permanent as soon as you click anywhere else. Once a new filename is committed, you can’t undo it. This can be a disaster if you never realize you renamed a file that was selected, and you go looking for it later without knowing that it’s under a new name. If you suddenly realize you’ve entered filename editing mode by accident, immediately press the Esc key to escape that mode without changing the original filename.
Pressing the spacebar to rename may not be intuitive if you’re used to pressing Return on Mac OS X to rename a file, but in Bridge, the Return key is already taken: it opens the file in the default editor for its file type. That use of the Return/Enter key is consistent with Windows.
Why would anyone have a reason to press the spacebar in a file browser other than to rename a file? Sometimes it’s because of the habits people pick up in other programs. Some people press the spacebar to get to the top of an alphabetical list, and others are used to pressing the spacebar in other Adobe applications to get a hand tool to pan a document in a window.
Note: In Bridge CS3, accidental renaming is much less likely because the renaming shortcut was changed to the F2 key. You can still click the filename after the file is selected; just don’t double-click the file or you’ll open it.
