© Stuart Little 2009 - Click Image for Larger Size on Flickr

I shot a wedding a couple of weekends ago and my good friend and fellow photographer Tony Barr kindly came along as 2nd shooter for the day. This shot of Tony was taken whilst we were checking out locations for the wedding couple the day before. So I got Tony to pose whilst I fired off a few shots with my new eZybox.

© Stuart Little 2009

Off Camera Flash Info:

Nikon D700 with Pop Up Flash (Commander)
Nikon 50mm F1.4 – 1/5000th @ F4 ISO 400
Aperture Priority -2EV Exposure Compensation.
1 X SB900 – Camera Right Shot through the diffuser and a 60cm Ezybox with +1.7EV flash compensation.

The light is in a similar position to the shots I did of Jools, couple of weeks ago. But the main difference is that even though it was a cloudy grey day. There was sunlight coming from camera left so I used that as my fill light. However when you get the eZybox in nice and close it gives a beautiful wrap around lighting anyway.

If you want to find out more about Lomography then check out the wiki

Finally…

As promised in the screencast. I have created a lomo effect action based upon my own settings and these will give you a good starting point for your own images.

DOWNLOAD ACTION

In return all that I ask in return is that you post an image with the effect applied onto our Flickr Group Pool, so that we can see the cool ways in which you are using the “Lomo Effect”. Enjoy! >

Swatches Panel

Its an unassuming little panel that we dip into now and again for choosing a colour or two when maybe working with a little text. But chances are, if you do not do that many graphics. You probably don’t use the swatch panel very often. Well, thats about to change as we go about pimping your swatch panel, so that it makes sense to you as a photographer.

Swatches Panel Sub Menu

Firstly, if you do use the swatches panel, you probably use it in the “default” view which as you can see from above is the small thumbnail panel. Generally this is fine but as a photographer, sometimes picking a colour from such a small little thumbnail does not really help as much and that is why mostly we use the colour picker from the foreground and background colours on the tool bar and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact I do it every day, but what happens once we select a colour and we may want to use it again. This is of course when the swatches panel comes into play and we are going to make it a little more exciting, descriptive and easier to use. (If you are a photographer that is…)

Swatches Panel Sub Menu

Now, if you currently do not use the swatches panel but have maybe loaded some of the other swatch palettes from the list in the sub menu. You may want to reset your swatches, so that your just working with the default palette. But please be advised that if you have ever created any custom colours that you use regularly then this is a fast track to deleting them. So make sure you save your swatches first of all much in the same way you save your actions. Other than that you can reset your swatches but do not “append” the palette, just replace it.

Swatches Panel Sub Menu

Next, you are going to make the change that makes the difference for us Photographers. Go back into your sub menu in the swatches panel and change the view from “small thumbnail” to “large list” view. This is the one change that makes all the difference and now takes your swatches from a boring set of thumbnails to a list of descriptive colours that as a photographer will now mean so much more to you.

Swatches Panel

As you can see from the screen shot above, we now have a list of greys and for example you can see at the bottom “50% grey”. Now in photography this is a midtone grey and from a retouching point of view this and the other greys either side of it are now more useful purely because you know the percentage. This is faster because rather than sampling a grey to get close to 40% for example you can now nail 40% exactly within 1 click. Pretty Cool eh!

Swatches Panel

You will also notice from the other screen shot above that a lot of the other colours now have a more descriptive name that as a photographers, we can visualise and thus make a better choice for composites, colour toning, and many other techniques, a lot of which you will see in the coming weeks on this very blog.

Yes, I know its a bit more scrolling, but the power you gain in the way the swatches are now presented makes up for the extra scrolling that needs to be done.

Swatches Panel in Large List View

Here’s another cool thing you can do with your swatches in this layout. Divide them up! Note how I have a divider called “All My Browns”, how did I get it there? Simple. You can double click on any swatch name and rename it whatever you like. So, with this in mind all I have done is added a new swatch by making sure my foreground colour is white, yep, white. It will appear as “Swatch 1″ in the panel and all you do is rename it, so that it divides the colours – e.g. “All My Browns”.

Swatches Preset Manager

The trick is being able to move the white divider up, so that it does actually divide the colours. How you do this, is via the Presets Manager!

Swatches Preset Manager

Edit>Preset Manger and once you have opened it go to “Swatches” and once you are in there, change your view to match the “large list” that you use in the panel. This can be done by clicking in the sub menu icon on the top right. (Black Arrow in a Grey Circle)

Swatches Preset Manager

You can now grab your divider and drag n drop it between the colours in the same fashion as you would move an individual action in the actions panel or a brush in the brushes manager. At this point you can start to modify and customise your default panel. Also, its a good time whilst in the preset manager to save the new colour palette of swatches to somewhere on your computer, so that they can be re-installed at a later date.

Swatches Panel

Finally, as well as being able to name, and move swatches. If you hold down your (Alt) PC or (Option) MAC key whilst hovering over a colour. You will see your cursor change to a pair of scissors. Then all you have to do is click on the colour you wish to delete. Job done! Remember to save it again…

You now have a more descriptive, easier to use and organised panel of colour swatches more suited to a photographer using Photoshop and you will see me using my swatches in future screen casts and training dvd’s. Enjoy! >

Dell Precision T5500

So, I started to look at what was out there and like many people I headed for the Dell website. Now, the first thing that struck me about Dell, was how dull the computer range looks. Yes, they have come along way from the beige/cream towers of old, but the black and sliver did not exactly get me turned on visually. But I thought this would at least be a good place to flesh out a spec that I could recommend for a photographer using a PC.

Once I had clicked select and then the customise button. I was faced with a multitude of choices that I knew were going to drive the price up higher than the £1,079.00. Now I am tight Scotsman so seeing that as my starting price scared me somewhat, but this is what Dell suggest be bought for graphics and video work with the other computers in their range being used more for office and internet browsing.

Anyway, to make things a little less confusing I found the icon view for “Building My Dell”. I must say I went into this with an open mind and I buried my feelings for all things Apple at this point. So lets begin with the processor! No, sorry I have got to pick my box first…

Ok, I am going for the Standard Mini-Tower because its included in the price. Now, we can choose the processor. Ah, first mistake the standard box does not come with firewire and I know I am going to want to add a firewire external drive so I need to go for the Standard box with Firewire which is an extra £36.

Sub Total = £1,115.00

Dell Website

At this stage its asking me what operating system I want? Well, MAC OS X Snow Leopard is not on the list, so I guess it will have to be Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. I have no idea whats in it, but it sounds good and 64 bit computing has got to be good. Right? Oh! and its included in the price.

We are onto software and its asking me if I want to add Microsoft Office Professional and because as well as being my graphics workstation it is also my business computer then yes I will have that thanks. You know for the accounts and for doing seminars, emails, letters etc…

Sub Total = £1,420.00

Now we get to pick a processor

I am going to go for the one thats included in the price as things are starting to get a little steep! So its an Intel Xeon Processor 2.13Ghz. Well that seems ok! On to the graphics, which as a photographer is pretty important. I am choosing the 512mb Nvidia Quadro FX 580. Its DVI and included in the price.

At this point its asking me whether or not I want my hard drive partitioned. Which I find a little strange as I have not picked the size and type of hard drive I want to have installed. Generally, I would not partition a main drive because if it fails, then chances are the whole thing is going to go belly up. So partitioning for me is a false sense of security. Therefore I am skipping this option.

Now, for the memory. Well, at this point I would love to put 12gb of memory into the computer but at an extra £325 for it I am going to give it a miss. But what I will do is choose the 4gb option which breaks down to 2 X 1gb and 1 X 2Gb strips of RAM. This will leave room for expansion at a later date. Plus its included in the price. UPDATE: (Tom has informed me that when you are getting RAM for this kind of logic board and Processor combo make sure you run with equal amounts of RAM. In other words 3 X 2GB’s is good – 2 X 1gb and 1 X 2Gb strips of RAM is bad! and would slow things down. So thanks to Dell for giving us a choice that would slow the computer down before it even comes out of the box!)

At this point I tried to move onto the choice of hard drive, but the Dell website did not want to play ball and I had to start this process all over again. So, 3 minutes later I am back at the stage above choosing my memory! Now, remember how I said the 4gb option above was included in the price. Well, this time around its an extra £24 which I found really strange… I will leave you to ponder that one as well.

The sub total at this point has also changed to £1460.00 + VAT, so I am guessing something else that I had picked earlier is also now not included in the price. This is well fishy! but don’t take my word for it try it yourself.

New Sub Total = £1,460.00

At this point the Dell website crapped out again and I was left to go through the whole process for a third time. Sod that, I am just going to add up the remaining bits and pieces to the £1,460.00 that we were last at.

500gb Hard Drive is an extra £20

New Sub Total = £1,480.00

Add a 2nd drive for image data and you an a further £81 to the total.

New Sub Total = £1,561.00

16X DVD-ROM and 16X DVDR+/- is included in the price.

The logic board is equipped with built in sound but from experience and especially if you do slideshows or video, your going to want an independent sound card. So the Creative SoundBlaster X-FI is included in the price. Why they make it an added option if you are paying for it already I have no idea!

Also, it beggars belief that they actually give you an option for 3.5 inch floppy drive, but they do also give you an option to fill this slot with a media card reader which is a welcome choice.

So there you go! all done and here is a run down of the spec…

2.16ghz Intel Core Duo 2 Processor
4gb Memory (RAM)
512mb Nvidia Quadro Graphics Card
2 X 500gb Hard Drive’s
16X DVD-ROM and 16X DVDR+/-
Media Card Reader

Keyboard
Mouse

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
Microsoft Office Pro

Dell Total = £1795.15 Inc VAT

Now, I know what your thinking and I am thinking it too. I could buy all the parts and build a cheaper computer myself. And YES! you are right, but my point is a lot of photographers that are not PC savvy would do exactly what I have just done, then warm up the Master Card for a not so priceless purchase.

So at this point, I would love it if you took my suggested spec as a starting point and posted in the comments your own suggestions and maybe a link or two to guide your fellow photographer to a better choice of PC, that is surely more cost effective. We have not even discussed external drives, graphics tablets, software, monitors, printers or USB hubs etc.. Which you will no doubt need and use with your new PC.

Personally, I think the best PC you can buy is an iMac. Sorry, but the minute is long since up and its time to put my MAC-head back on.

Check out this spec for a 24 inch iMac!

Apple 24inch iMac

Configuration:

2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
256mb Nvidia Graphics
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
1.0TB Serial ATA Drive
Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard
Apple Remote
iWork ’09 preinstalled
Apple Keyboard

It all costs £1440.00 Inc VAT and Free Shipping!

Now, before you hit back with “its got a smaller graphics card and your short on drive space by 1tb”. Well yes, but it has a faster processor and an extra external 1tb drive costs £80, plus the graphics card is optimised for the 24 inch display that is included in the price. In fact thats the whole machine! It not only looks better than a dell or any other PC, but it just works and once you get past all the myths of why a MAC is supposed to be rubbish compared to a PC then you will find out how cool it really is…

Anyway, the point of this post is not to get into a MAC vs PC war, but to flash out a spec that a photographer should be using for running Lightroom, Photoshop and these days some video editing software for their hobby or work. This gives you a starting point and also both sides of the debate. I will leave it up to you to which way you go. Generally though the higher the numbers the better your computer will be, but one final tip!

If you are running Adobe Photoshop CS4, then make sure the graphics card you buy runs “Open GL” for smoother CS4 operation. Enjoy! >