Tag Archives: Software

Commentary, Equipment, Technique

Quick Examples of iPad Photo Post-Processing

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I recently posted a report on my initial use of my iPad for photography (and other) purposes while traveling. (See “An Itinerant Photographer and His Ipad: A First Report.”) My general conclusion was that you can do some post-processing on the iPad but that – no surprise here – it isn’t exactly Photoshop.

But still… if necessary you can do certain types of real work on the iPad. One of the reasons I was in New York last week was to photograph ‘Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required’, an interesting combination of opera performance, opera rehearsal, and conversation about the work and its preparation that was presented at the Gershwin Hotel. (As an extra bonus, my wife was playing principal oboe on the first two nights, and her brother was playing bassoon!) You can see examples of the results at the oboeinsight.com blog, where initial photographs from the first night of  are posted. (Note that the last photo in the series was made on my iPhone and uploaded directly.)

After transferring my 5D2 RAW files to the iPad, I used the Photogene app to open the files, edit basic settings such as saturation, brightness, black point, curves, sharpening, and so forth. Then I cropped the files, reduced their pixel dimensions for web display, exported as jpg files, and uploaded them.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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Equipment, News, Software

New Drivers (finally) Resolve Mac OS X 10.6 Epson 2200 Printing Problems

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(IMPORTANT NOTE: I generally do not remove old articles from this web site since search engines and other links tend to point to them. This short article and link to Epson 2200 printer drivers was accurate when it was originally posted, but you should consult current information sources and perhaps contact Epson directly for update information. In all likelihood, based on my past experience, this printer and other older Epson printers will not be supported indefinitely by Epson. For my part, I would not get a 2200 at this point, no matter how cheap it was – and I have not owned a 2200 since perhaps 2010 or so.)

A while back I posted about serious problems with the Epson 2200 printer when used with Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6.x “Snow Leopard” operating system. I won’t recount the whole story here (that’s what links are for!) but the short version is that Epson had not updated their drivers when Apple released the OS update, and then Epson failed to communicate with their customers or update the drivers in a timely fashion – leaving photographers who used several of their printers including the 2200 “high and dry.”

The good news is that Epson did release updated drivers during the past week. The updated driver appears to resolve the very serious printing problems that rendered the 2200 essentially unusable for several months.

Technique

How I Sharpen – An Overview

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(I originally wrote this article way back in 2009. Some portions were revised in February 2019 to reflect changes to sharpening tools and some different ideas I have developed regarding sharpening settings. It was updated and modified again in 2023.)

I just posted something elsewhere about how I sharpen for prints and I figured I’d get some extra mileage out of it by posting it here as well. First, few disclaimers…

  • The title of this article originally referred to a “quick overview.” Clearly, it is too long for that! But there are whole books on sharpening, so by contrast I think this qualifies as a quick description. In fact, I’ve left a lot out of the description!
  • There are people with far more expertise on this topic than I have, and I have no illusions that this description represents the “right” way to do this, much less the “best” way!

The subject of how to sharpen photographs in post for print or electronic output is one that confuses many people… and a subject to which many books, online articles, and forums posts have been devoted. There are any number of ways to get the desired results via sharpening, and different techniques are called for depending upon taste, the nature of the image, and the final form of presentation: size? print? jpg? etc…

Here is a general description of what I do when I print. I’ve left some variations out of this description. The description also covers software that I use in my workflow — you might prefer something different, but you might still be able to adapt these ideas. You’ll note at least one controversial method later in the list, but try it before you dismiss it. The approach I use could well be “over-kill” if you just want to pump out a bunch of jpgs to share with friends and family or if you want to make some small prints — my end goal is good sized prints, and I work on each one rather carefully rather than mass-processing them and printing a bunch at one time.

And please understand that I’m most certainly not implying that my way is the right way. It works for me, and that people who view my prints often remark on their sharpness and detail. (And a few other things, too, I hope! :-)

Continue reading How I Sharpen – An Overview →

Equipment, Software

FocalWare Moonrise Calculator for the iPhone

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Andy Frazer links to a description of some software that is almost enough to make me buy an iPod Touch. (Not an iPhone – the monthly fee is too high for the way I use a phone. :-) FocalWare Moonrise Calculator for the iPhone.