LION OR IS IT A STRAY ALLEY CAT

I usually upgrade my operating system soon after a new version has been released and the discovery of any problems have been reported. Even so, I did have a problem with Snow Leopard OS 10.6 because the install instructions failed to warn users to turn off Time Machine before installing and my result was a burned out Mac and external hard drive. Apple replaced the Mac, but I am still inclined to upgrade to at least keep up with my readers, or ahead of them. But with Lion after reading all of the Apple documentation as well as respected expert commentary, I am not going to upgrade to OS 10.7.

I think I have good practical reasons. One is that most older software applications without Intel processor support that rely on Rosetta to run, may not be useable; and even many more applications may have serious problems including quite a number of Adobe recent versions, not to mention problems even with Microsoft’s Office Suite for the Mac. The second reason is that Apple’s obvious interest and OS design of Lion was to integrate iOS for iPhones and the iPad and the desktop computer system. Well that makes business sense because that would make an Apple desktop computer a lot friendlier and more attractive to the millions of iPhone and iPad users. Interestingly as iPhones and iPads are becoming more popular in business use, experts in the IT industry are writing the most favorable comments about the Lion 10.7 Operating System. My third reason is that many of the internal utilities in the new Lion OS 10.7 are radically changed and more like their counterparts in the iPhone and iPad. This is superficially sensible, but does Apple Mail need to be made simpler and less useful compared to the current 10.6 version users. And finally, do I want or need the navigation “style” of an iPhone that favors use on the run, when my computer never leaves my desk? No I don’t want to re-learn the navigation habits I have refined over the last 20 years.

The one exception of course is if you need to purchase a new Apple Mac you will get Lion like it or not. But there are some reasons then to like it because all the performance advantages in Lion like the more efficient Thunderbolt connectivity system are supported by new hardware improvements that make Lion more truly an advantage.

But still, the majority of iPhone and iPad users are a younger population then the more established Apple desktop computer users. So, is a marriage between a 20 year old and a 40 year old a good match for a happy, stable life? No, it’s even a cultural mismatch. There used to be obvious generation gaps between the young and the old, but that conflict has disappeared because today each generation lives in a different universe.   

WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPHY TO YOU AND ME?

I have a book of essays by photographers about photography in my library that goes back to the early 1890s. Since then numerous photographers and scholars have attempted to define what photography is including Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Susan Sontag, Marshall McLuhan, Roland Barthes and many more; none of which are in agreement. So there really is not a universal and accepted definition of what photography is. I can only speak of my own understanding of what what photography is through what photography has been to me.

Of course half a century ago when I was beginning my life’s work as a photographer I looked to others for guidance and acceptance. But more than once I was confronted by the old axiom “Art is in the eye of the beholder”, which at first I took as an insult and later realized is an excuse for the observer and says nothing about your images. Yes, I participated in shows and exhibitions in my early days seeking recognition, eavesdropping on the comments of my audiences, and I began to realize others do not recognize anything in common with the images of the world I see. Little by little I gave up showing my work, and I sometimes wonder why my colleagues keep showing theirs.

Of course I publish some of my images within the articles I write about photography, but they have a practical purpose of illustrating graphically what the story is about. What are the results of my tests of tools photographic. So of course I choose those images pragmatically for what they display of what has been done technically. They do not represent what I choose to photograph to express what I see of life and this world.

Upon reflecting on over a half century as a photographer I have come to realize for me photography is my way of engaging life, of connecting with people, places and events. So my photographs are reflections of what I see and recognize in this world that has meaning for me. That others have quite different visions is not a surprise to me, we each live in our own worlds of experience. Sure we share mutually recognized elements, as everyone does except those sad few who hate people and this world we live in. We each have our own strengths in how we engage as we all have different talents and sensibilities. Isn’t that what is expressed in the diversity in all the arts. They express the fact we are all individuals separated from each other by our own uniqueness. But shouldn’t that provide a good reason to appreciate the expressions of others and treasure its diversity? If we all made the same images, spoke the same language, sang the same songs, danced the same steps, life would be an appalling bore and not the exciting challenge to engage that it is. 

WHAT’S UP? SOME NEW LCD DISPLAYS GOOD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY

For quite some time after the “prints too dark” problem erupted several years ago, there have been few LCD displays available ideally suited to doing digital photography computing. The first affordable break with this normality was the Dell Ultrasharp U2410 I reported on a few months ago.

Not long after I learned of a new 24 inch wide color range LaCie 324i, currently priced at $1099. So recently I got brave and ordered one for myself. Take a look at http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10524. I did a brief preview of this new LaCie , and am now working on a more detailed report for Shutterbug. 

Since then roaming the internet I have found that NEC has an even newer 24 inch Spectraview II 24 Inch LCD display replacing the recent NEC LCD2490W2-BK-SV model. This new NEC Spectraview model is PA241W-BK-SV with a list price of $1249. And it too has a wide color range reproducing 98.1% of Adobe RGB color. The detail information about this new display can be found at

http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa241w-bk-sv

This time I was looking only for 24 inch LCD displays. The one 22 inch with standard 1680x1050 resolution I have reviewed I found does not compare with the 24’s 1920x1200 resolution in reproducing fine photographic detail, and there just isn’t that much higher cost in today’s new 24 inch displays. So lets take a look at the top company of the pro-graphics displays in Eizo Flexscan models. I worked with one 22 inch Flexscan for some time and the color was good, but it also has the 1920x1200 resolution of a 24 inch.

The newest Eizo Flexscan 24 inch is the SX2462W, also sporting 98% Adobe RGB color range. This new Eizo also provides what they call more effective software calibration. In addition Eizo has its own EasyPix version 2 software for their SX displays, and an Eizo EX1 Color Sensor is available with their software.

Of course you can go further with Eizo and consider what a few of my readers have purchased, an Eizo ColorEdge model, and there is much to choose from including 3 different 24 inch versions. The information on them is extensive on their web site at http://www.eizo.com/global/products/coloredge/index.html

Some of my readers have suggested they would like to actually see the displays I talk about. With Eizo for instance you can get a list of dealers on their web site. If you live in the northwest, one dealer, Chromix.com has a lot more than hardware to offer, it is also a reservoir of expert color management help if you go to their web site and click on ColorWiki you will find a library of expert knowledge on the subject. So they do more than sell the best in Eizo displays. But check the dealer list there may be a dealer not too far away.

If you would rather shop for the best price, one place you can check out is Amazon.com, they have listings for both NEC Spectraview II displays as well as Eizo Flexscan and ColorEdge models. More shopping choices are available on the Google Shopping site including listings of the LaCie 324i, as well as the NEC and Eizo models I have mentioned above. Digital photography editing and image adjustment is done entirely by your perception of the image on screen with your computer. So give your eyes a break and provide them with the best image quality you can.

YES, THE LACIE 324i IS AN LCD DISPLAY FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Again my curiosity got the upper hand. I had to try another LCD display to see how well it would work for color-managed photography editing. For a poor writer it was a big gamble at $1099, and I’m a lousy one at wagering. This time it was worth the price.

The specifications give just a few hints that the LaCie 324i will provide the performance a photographer needs in a computer display to do color and brightness match screen for printing. One is that it has a wide color range of 98% of Adobe RGB. Otherwise it is a 24 inch display with  a 1920x1200 pixel resolution. The screen is P-IPS and has 10-bit gamma correction to reproduce smooth tones. It also has all the contemporary connection interfaces like DVI, HDMI and Display Port. 

What I found that is not very evident, is that besides the usual manual adjustments of brightness and contrast, the LaCie 324i also has a backlight level control. This I found working with the set-up, adjustment, calibration and profiling to be a most valuable variable. Although I had to get to my ideal adjustment by trial and error. For some reason, although I have asked, there is not a scientifically based way to configure a displays adjustment in terms of brightness/contrast balance, although some display companies provide software that does it for you, if that is something you want to afford. They won’t help if you have a display that requires manual adjustment. I’ll let you guess what the reason is for being secretive and not offering any technical advise.

Anyway, after three tries I obtained a balance of brightness, contrast and backlight settings that resulted in a very good Delta-E feedback from ColorEyes Display Pro software using an X-Rite iOne Pro spectrophotometer to calibrate and profile the LaCie 324i. And I’ll keep my settings confidential too, as I have no basis other than my own experimenting that they would work as well if generally applied.

But the color is great and images are reproduced with good detail at all levels of brightness including highlights and shadows. Color saturation is high but not at all exaggerated almost perfectly matching the Adobe RGB gamut. So it is a pleasure to use and a refined tool to precisely adjust and edit photographic image files. I was also surprised that the 324i’s standard resolution in a 24 inch display reproduces detail sharply enough to make doing fine clean up and people retouching easy and almost a pleasure. Well for me it is a pleasure to make an images reproduce the subject to advantage, maybe even a little flattering.

The bottom line is that I am now confident I can put the LaCie 324i near the top of my list of recommended LCD displays for color-managed photography computing. It’s a bit expensive, but not at the top of the price list for pro-graphics LCD displays. You can get more details from the LaCie web site at:  

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10524 

A COMPUTER FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

First of all, what does a computer do? In our world today the word compute |kəmˈpyoōt| means to make a calculation, especially using a computer: modern circuitry can compute faster than any chess player. So is a photographic image made by a calculation of number values? Yes, to some extent with a digital camera. But graphics, an image on-screen was a side effect of computing, a part of the in and out communication with a computer. It was not what the computer did but how it communicated its answers after the question were typed into a computer with a keyboard. A monitor was just a convenient way to make a computer respond so its output could be read by human eyes.

In the 80’s when personal computers began to be common all they had was a keyboard and a monochrome display that reproduced text and numbers. During the same period Apple computers were used to begin the desktop publishing revolution, probably the first popular use of computers for graphic purposes. Today with computers reproducing all kinds of media and being used as a communications and entertainment device, a computer’s original function and an understanding of how they worked has been lost to all but the few who used computers over a generation ago. We all take them for granted. One of the earliest and most common uses of a PC was to run a cash register in a store.

Today when a photographer begins shopping for a computer there aren’t any that are designated as digital photography models. Nearly all personal computer today can deal with photographic images to some middling effect, and none are attributed with any special photographic abilities. Maybe that is just as well because a photographer shopping for a computer maybe should be looking for the one key part of a computer system that is “graphic”, and that is its display. LCD displays that are designed and made for graphics computing are few, rare and relatively expensive models.

So, a photographer looking for a computer to do digital photography should first select the best graphics LCD display that can be afforded, and it may cost more than you need to pay for the rest of the computer system. Then get a personal computer to run the display. It can be quite modest  because digital photography processing and editing involves very little “computing” because photos are not the result of a calculation. The only factors in the computer that are important to photography are a good quality 2D video (card), and the addition of as much RAM as can be afforded.

This may sound like a radical idea from a computer geek’s perspective, but it works for me and many other photographers. What few people realize is that there are hundreds of millions of computers used in offices, institutions and now most homes have a computer or two. But the number of people who are serious digital photography users can be counted in the thousands. That is a radically small part of the computer market, too small to even be considered a niche market. There aren’t any computers made especially for digital photography, so do it yourself. 

Which LCD displays should a photographer shop for. Well I have written about the few I can recommend in past articles in Shutterbug, as well as mentioned in my Digital Help column and this blog. But I am currently considering adding another make and model, but also dropping one model from my list. So keep tuned in, that update will appear soon.  

“TAKING THE DIGITAL OUT OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY”

What does the quoted title of this blog mean to you? Does it mean you as a photographer don’t really want to do photographs digitally, but do? Does it mean photographers using digital photography don’t understand what digital means? Or does it mean you need to buy a product that makes digital photography look like film photography?

Today digital photography is primarily color imaging, so I must ask another question. Did film photographers of the past using color films really understand the color photography process, or was it done for them without their attention? I think for many the latter is true. If that is the case it’s because photographers used labs to process and print color photographs, so rarely did processing and printing themselves and the result was they did not understand the color photography process. So with digital and a computer photographers have access to the color reproduction process yet few understand how it works. And to some extent because their photographs are on their computer’s they feel they must deal with them. But if they do not understand either the film color photo process or its digital correlate, they want someone to make it easy without having to learn anything. Am I guessing right or wrong?

I am a professional and was taught how both the black and white and color photographic reproduction process works. But honestly after getting out of photo school I did not process my color film, nor did I make my own color prints because it was very difficult, time consuming and required experts doing that work every day to get good results. Although there were exceptions most of my colleagues used one of many pro color labs in my city during the film era. So maybe many of those who did not get a photography education in the days of film may be a bit short on understanding how the photographic process works. However, the basic principles of the photographic process are fairly simple and have not changed because we moved from film to a digital sensor, so why not learn what was missed?

When the first affordable color monitors became available I got a new PC as I had been using a computer on loan from my magazine company. So I was already a bit computer literate in ’89 when I started to explore and understand color imaging with a computer paint program. I gradually learned that digital imaging is simple and predictable because it is all numerical and logical. That was so unlike the complicated endless variables of the film photography world when each make and model of film reproduced reality differently, and each film emulsion batch too; and even though pro labs were good they would also vary on some days and if someone had a bad hangover it was a goof-up time you couldn’t get done over.

So why anyone would prefer the old film world photography and want to avoid digital makes no sense to me at all.  Computer editing has made photography for me so much easier, simpler and predictable. I enjoy the art and craft of making photographs so much more since I began doing it digitally because I now get the image I intended and hoped for but often missed at least by a bit on film. Now I can fix that, and find I am a better photographer than I thought I was in the past. 

I CHANGE MY MIND OCCASIONALLY

I have gotten into numerous discussions about how to securely save digital image files. My method of using gold-gold CDR discs for this purpose has not altered, I have an established system  so making a change would not serve me well. But the only alternative in the past I could recommend were then expensive RAID-1 mirrored hard drives. They are now affordable, so are a reasonable alternative. This came to my attention in a MacWorld report I received via e-mail, featuring  a Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini 640 GB external drive for as little as $180.

So first of all I should explain what a mirrored RAID-1 external hard drive is and how it works. In this instance it is actually two 320GB hard drives in a single enclosure. So you have two identical hard disk drives that total 640GB. When in mirrored RAID-1 mode any data files saved to the system is stored twice, identically on each separate hard disk. This provides the security  that if one drive fails, it can be replaced physically with a new one, then all of the data on the remaining drive is copied to the new one. The chance that both RAID-1 drives would fail at the same time is very remote, so you have a good assurance that your data will remain secure.

Although the source for these Mercury Elite drives is Other World Computing, at www.macsales.com, and is an Apple related hardware and software supplier. The OWC web site indicates the Mercury Elite drives are both PC and Mac compatible. These drives have FireWire 800 and 400 connections, and in this interface are Bus powered, as well as USB 2.0 and eSATA, with an input for DC power when the bus powered FireWire interface is not used.  A selection of five different sized and configured RAID-1 drives are listed by OWC with combined capacities of 640GB to 2.0TB with prices listed from $180 to $319.

So today if someone asks me for a way to safely store digital photo files I can give them a choice of affordable RAID-1 drives or gold-gold CDR discs. Personally if I were beginning now I might very well choose a RAID-1 drive. But I will go along with that old saying, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. My old gold-gold CDR system still works fine for me. 

COLOREYES DISPLAY EZ HOOD

I don’t know about you, but I often relied on sunglasses, “shades” when I was driving west in the afternoon. They helped a lot to see the road clearly reducing the extraneous direct light from the sun obscuring my view. The same idea applies to your LCD display. If you keep it shaded from extraneous light in the room where your computer is set-up you will see the image on screen more clearly and free from different and conflicting strays of light. Even in my north-facing room that’s dedicated as my lab, even with special Fobsun LED  lamps for my environment lighting, and with a hood protecting the screen, my new Dell Ultrasharp U2410 has a cleaner, brighter screen image now that it has shades.

After receiving quite a number of e-mails from readers that have gotten this new Dell LCD display, a couple included a question, is there a hood made for this LCD display? All I could immediately think of is the EZ Hood ColorEyes began offering not long ago. However I have not used this EZ Hood, so I sent for one. I got it and found it only took about 20 minutes to assemble and install it on the Dell U2410, and it fits very nicely. Immediately I noticed my screen image looked clearer and a better reproduction of what I was working with on the computer. So, even in my rather idealized lab, the advantage of the EZ Hood was apparent. If you have a more typical room where your computer is located, I would suspect you would benefit more from the stray light protection of the EZ Hood, and your display will look even better.

From what I understand the EZ Hood was designed to fit recent Apple iMacs, so it is constructed to fit several sizes including both the 22 inch and 24 inch LCD displays I have recommended. It is made from a black plastic double sided corrugated paneling, so it is both rigid and very light, the shipping weight is just 3 pounds. ColorEyes price is $49.50 which is a lot less than I have paid for hoods for displays, although today few display companies offer hoods custom made for their displays, with the exception of LaCie.

So if like most of us and your computer work area is a compromise and stray light falls on the display surface, you will get better performance from the display with a hood. It is a very effective add-on accessory. So go to www.integrated-color.com, and take a look for yourself.

NEW EPSON R2000 INKJET PHOTO PRINTER

Almost every day I see announcements of new stuff, and I just pass along because it’s not anything I need. Better quality and more efficient printing of my images will stop me in my tracks. Specially when this new Epson R2000 is an improvement on the Epson R1900 the printer I use most. 

It doesn’t look all that different, a box with a paper input on top and output in the front. But although this new R2000 has the same inkset colors that to me are the best for reproducing the kinds of photographs I make, it has a new printhead like its bigger pro brethren, and larger ink cartridges. Yes its a 13 inch wide printer and designed to handle all types of media including printable DVD and CD-R discs, with brilliant long lasting pigment colors.

I’ve been a very satisfied owner of an Epson R1900 printer, so in a way a new replacement model could be a scary proposition. Does this new R2000 do everything my R1900 has done for me? One new thing that has been added is besides the usual wire USB and ethernet connections is you can now print with the R2000 using a WiFi 802.11N wireless connection. So since many of us with broadband use a wireless router we can connect with this new R2000 with WiFi making where we locate this printer easy and convenient.

Some may question my interest because the R1900 and R2000 do not have support for B&W printing, but I have been able to print grayscale images quite accurately simply by changing the file mode to RGB that does support a color managed print that is quite neutral gray, or I can add a sepia tint if I like. And with Epson;s Ultrachrome Hi-Gloss2 ink I am not concerned the neutrality of the gray will shift because of any ink age effect. The R2000 prints should be as archival as any digital photo print can be.

At a $499 list price this new Epson R2000 should be the most affordable access to professional level inkjet printing of the highest quality that will be available. But I will not know that from experience until I receive an R2000 from Epson to use and test for my report on this new product in Shutterbug. 

THE BEST IS ON ITS WAY

The other day a reader was asking which brand/model display measuring device he should get, indicating he wanted the best. That was when I was getting the first news of X-Rites new iOne Pro line of color management tools. That’s the best of what the world’s largest color management company has to offer. But because only a few of my readers indicate they can afford the best regardless of cost, I usually do my work with tools the majority can afford. But this reader said I needed to do a shoot-out of all display color management makes and models. To me “shoot-outs” are just too deadly, so here I am settling for a little less.

I have not yet received a loan of the new iOne Photo system from X-Rite, but do have one that is a couple of years old.  So I decided to measure my personal displays with its i1Pro spectrophotometer and the ColorEyes Display Pro software I usually use to adjust, calibrate and profile my displays, and then see if there is a difference in the result I usually obtain with a colorimeter. I started with the Dell Ultrasharp U2410 I reported on in the current issue of Shutterbug. And I followed up adjusting, calibrating and profiling my Eizo Flexscan S2242W. So did the X-Rite I1Pro spectrophotometer improve on my past results using a much less costly colorimeter?

The wider color range LCD displays I have recently been recommending for computers to do serious digital photography editing reproduce over 95% of Adobe RGB (1998). I use the Adobe RGB workspace profile in Photoshop to do editing and my digital camera is set to output Adobe RGB, as well as my scanners; so it is the color range standard I want my display to emulate. As the 2D Apple Colorsync profiles I have included, the top one illustrates the profile made with the Dell U2410 display using the X-Rite i1Pro spectrophotometer, the one under it is a 2D graph of the Adobe RGB (1998) profile. My new display profile is a close match, and to me that’s ideal for my workflow. I also use my other LCD display, they are only about five feet apart I my lab, and the Eizo Flexscan S2242W profiled with the i1Pro spectrophotometer was just as close a match with the Adobe RGB profile.

So if you are like the reader who wrote me and was interested in the best, I hope to be working with X-Rites new iOne Photo system before long, and I will continue to report here in my blog about that experience as it develops. 

IF YOU HAVE EYES BELIEVE IN THEM

Besides photography I enjoy music and just saw an interesting documentary made for PBS called Music Instinct: Science and Song. It was about how the latest in scientific investigation using brain activity scans is indicating humans are wired for sound, that musicality is something that comes with being human. I think the same thing can be said about art, making pictures has been recorded as a human activity way back in pre-history with cave paintings and hieroglyphs embedded in stone cliffs.

In today’s modern civilizations people believe only a very few gifted individuals can learn music or any of the arts. But I think you will find in the literature describing simpler pre-civilized societies everyone participated in what we call music and art. Of course some individuals achieved more than others, but that did not preclude the rest from being involved and contributors. 

Today we live in the most informed of all societies ever. We have the Internet, TV, Radio, Cell Phones, Newspapers and Magazines, and of course millions of Books. In our country most people get a lot of their information from television. But what does TV tell you? That you have colored teeth so get whiteners, that you don’t dress cool so get the newest fads to wear. That you are too fat, so get thin using whatever. That you don’t have big enough muscles so got to Joe’s gym. That’s just the ads, so turn to the news, and you find out people are at war, they kill each other, they gang-rape children or they are starving to death in Africa. So you turn the station and you get a misanthrope telling you that you should hate all other people not like yourself. No wonder we are a nation of people who have no self esteem, no wonder as children grow to become adults too many find the only answer ahead is suicide.

This is supposed to be about photography, not the problems of the modern world. But some of the same enters our little escape from the rest, making pictures. In the last decade making pictures got a lot more predictable and better because you could change the result endlessly with a computer. The recent digital cameras are an amazing assemblage of what has been for a long time and what digital technology can enhance and improve. But most camera users never think that with a digital camera they are focusing millions of light measuring cells on a subject to record its reflectance of light exactly, and I mean exactly. The results are so close to perfect only our self-serving perception finds fault.

Most every circus has a side show. And of course their reputation for selling you something that really does not have any value is boundless. The old propaganda maxim persists, the bigger the lie the more people will believe it. Regarding the digital photography circus the big side show lie is that the digital camera is not very good and you need to buy Dr. Hokums elixir to make it right. That’s a really big lie, so don’t buy it, you will just make someone rich who doesn’t deserve it.

I will assume most of my readers use a computer to look at and edit digital photographs. Well if a picture doesn’t look the way you want it to, then there are simple tools to change the brightness, contrast, color, every attribute of an image to be the way you want to see the picture. If you believe in yourself you can believe that is possible and you can make it happen. So don’t believe anyone who says your digital camera is wrong, its not; so just believe you can make it right for you because you can. In other words believe in yourself and that you have a good digital camera, but don’t believe anyone trying to sell you a fix for something that works amazingly well.

DIGITAL SCANNERS & CAMERAS ARE MUCH ALIKE

Thanks to a remark made by Ansel Adams in the late 80’s to an interviewer, regarding his overseeing the printing of one of his books of photographs that was reproduced by scans of his images, Ansel stated he was impressed that digital editing could accomplish adjustments to images he could not make in his own darkroom. For me that was handwriting on the wall, that the future of photography was in digital imaging. During 1989 I began my shift from analogue film photography to digital. It went slowly and haltingly, there weren’t many products that supported digital imaging with computers. But little by little more and more scanners became available, as well as software to edit images with a computer. So I learned mostly from personal experience using scanners and software and talking with a few colleagues on internet forums about how a scanner worked and the beginnings of image editing with a computer.

How does a scanner work? It has a set of CCD cells arranged in rows with an adjacent light source to illuminate either a print or film that is to be scanned. This bar of sensors is moved very precisely along the length of the area to be scanned by a finely threaded screw. The scanner user controls the size of the area to be scanned and the number of pixels high and wide that will be reproduced as a digital image file. What that setup accomplishes is a virtual matrix or graph of the area to be scanned, projected onto the scan surface breaking it into small, square segments. Once the scan is begun each of these segments is read for brightness by the CCD sensor and that reading is translated into an R,G,or B value from one to 256 for that pixel XY location.

Once a file is made it can be opened and reproduced on a computer display as a picture. If you select a small section of that picture and then zoom in on it to fill the computer display screen the individual pixels will be big enough to see clearly. And what you see is a matrix or grid of different colors and brightness for each pixel. You should also notice that each pixel is evenly filled with a uniform color and brightness value. Each pixel is all the information an image sensor records, its just a kind of light meter, and with colored imaging there are three kinds of sensors, one each for red, green, and blue. However in the final output image each pixel has all, a red, green, and blue value. This is accomplished by the interpolation of the color values from laterally adjacent pixels which is done by the A/D firmware processor, a small limited function computer chip built into the scanner’s hardware. 

With the best scanner driver software like Lasersoft Imaging SilverFast the user can obtain a low resolution raw preview image from the scanner. Then that image can be used to perceptually adjust the values of the image to first optimize the raw scan tonal range to fit the 256 level output gamut, use the histogram to adjust the image brightness/darkness, then use the gradation adjustment to balance the highlights/shadow levels of an image, and there is a global color balance adjustment, as well as a selective color adjustment to adjust individual colors, and finally a selection of sharpening options with USM to provide a side by side perceptual magnified windows to select sharpness perceptually. All of these adjustments can be made serially and are additive, put together to provide the scanner driver a model of how the scan output should be adjusted as part of the scan process. By this method you obtain a finished ready to use image file from the scan that requires little or no post-scan editing.

How does a digital camera differ with a scanner? Although a digital camera uses digital sensors just like those used in scanner, they are arranged in a lateral area array instead of of a lineal array that moves to read the subject.  With a camera the lens focuses and frames a subject and responds to the light reflected from the subject. Other wise both scanners and cameras work alike, both project a virtual grid or matrix on the subject to be sensed. So lets take a camera, a modern 12 megapixel model framed and focused on a subject 30x40 feet in size. So each pixel is measured as a virtual square: 0.12 X 0.12 inches in size, and the sensor makes an average light measurement of everything in that virtual square of the subject, so any detail within that approximate 1/8th inch square is lost within that averaged light reading. In other words a digital camera of 12 megapixels is really a light meter with 12 million sensors making individual averaged light readings of 12 million segments of the scene the camera exposes when the shutter is released. These light reading are then sent to an A/D microcomputer chip where they are laterally interpolated so each pixel has all three of the RGB color values.

Unlike scanners most digital cameras do not take a raw preview which can then be adjusted with software so the finished file produced can be pre-edited ready for use. But there are exceptions to that, high end dSLR models like Canon and Nikon, as well as most of the medium format digital cameras, can be controlled by a tethered connection to a computer with software much like a scanner driver’s that captures and displays a raw preview that can be edited. Then the software can fire the camera to expose the image to the pre-edited requirements and you get a finished image file output just like I described from a scanner. In other words a high-end dSLR camera can be used just like a digital scanner.

However, most photographers use digital cameras much like they used film cameras, setting camera controls that essentially edit the exposure. For instance with my last dSLR, a Canon 5D, I could select one of several Picture Styles before shooting that would direct the camera to edit the exposures to suit a selected type of subject. This kind of camera pre-editing applies directly to what the camera micro-computer outputs in JPEG format, or if Raw is selected that Raw image file data is accompanied by metadata files that describe the editing the Raw data should receive as part of conversion to a standard image file format like TIFF. But among the selections of different Picture Styles a user can also select Natural that applies no sharpening, contrast, saturation or color balance adjustments to the Raw data and the user gets just what the sensor records and A/D outputs. Many times I have suggested dSLR users should try shooting with a “natural” Raw output and see how that Raw image actually appears displayed by an application like Photoshop. None of these correspondents have replied that they have done what I suggested. And I know of only two colleagues who set up and shoot to get unadjusted Natural Raw image files. In fact most photographers apparently use 3rd party software to convert even though only the camera manufacturer software can actually read the copyrighted metadata. So most photographers only obtain a simulation of what the metadata contains in image attribute adjustments.

CHIPS OF CHANGE, TIME DEMANDS THE FUTURE

A newborn child in Egypt was recently given the name Facebook. In the last few weeks, not to mention last year in Iran, there have been popular expressions of unrest. If there were no cell-phones, no internet , no TV, even radio, would the changes we have read about in the news these last few weeks and months seen on TV have occurred as they have? But the news of the world is not my beat, however what is new and how that technology changes our interest and involvement in photography does concern me and will affect everyone’s interest in photography at least slightly or maybe a lot. Every day I read the technology news of the day and it paints a very different scheme of things compared to what was familiar last year,the year before and would have been unrecognizable and unimagined before the year 2000. 

The clock ticks and now it seems to be reeling off the seconds, minutes and hours full of things that make today a different world from yesterday. A very long time ago I was just beginning in photography barely knowing what I was doing. But I did learn little by little and realized you have to know and understand the tools you are working with if you want to have any control over what they produce, whether the image you make is a success or a mistake. Maybe I concentrated too much on how it works and how to use a camera and the photographic process, because today I am not known for the images I have created but for my understanding of the process. But that too may be the result of my own choices going after the challenges I was best suited to meet.

These days I am kept busy helping others stay ahead of the game, and as fast as new technologies emerge and are spread around the world now, more and more photography enthusiasts are being overwhelmed in dealing with the tools and processes before the next upgrade and the last has left them little room to maneuver. Just looking at all of the details, news about yet another version of the iPad or iPhone or a tablet from HP and a new Amazon movie internet service may seem overwhelming, and it is even to someone with years of gathering information like myself. But what keeps me grounded and able to deal with it is the fact that the core processes of photographic reproduction remain intact, the new technologies are really just refinements and embellishments that if fit into place have made it all easier. I would not trade my computer for a wet darkroom of the last century, no way, no how, for any price.

But if for some reason I wanted to resurrect my old darkroom and do photography as I did 20 years ago, the challenges involved in doing so today would be enormous, and the costs unaffordable. Making the clock stop running and going back to the past has an emotional appeal, but the comforts it afforded 20 years ago would be gone because almost every tool and supply you would need would be hard to find if available at all, so whatever comfort you remember from those old days would be replaced with a myriad of irritations and frustrations. For the very few meeting such challenges has its own rewards, and I give much credit and admiration to those who devote themselves to preserving and keeping the past alive. But I don’t think most of us are cut out to be antiquarians, and I for one am too curious natured to not be fascinated by what the next day will bring and what new world the imaginative has waiting for us to explore.

If there is a conflict between the fast moving future and the past, it may be interesting to consider and understand, but there are bridges between the past and future, and they aren’t always recognized and valued. In the last decade or so, I have been receiving and answering mail from Shutterbug readers, and a very large number are from older photographers, some just about to become a part of the senior society, and many already there. A very large number of these readers apparently recognize some distinct digital photography advantages that the format offers, easy storage and duplication so the images they have from their past can be duplicated inexpensively and easily and conveniently shared with relatives and friends. In other words one of the more frequent subjects on reader’s minds is scanning their old slides and negatives as well as prints, so they can easily be stored, reproduced and shared with others. Interestingly, this interest involves one of the universal human values people have in family, which is common to almost every ethnicity and culture in this world. In other words a basic human value overrides the difference between new technology and the past, and allows the past to have a renewed life as part of our history of our own lives, family, friends as well as the events and places in our and our family.

No matter how different today and the future may seem, there are bridges that connect them with what is important to us from our past.

ONCE OVER LCD DISPLAYS, LIGHTLY

1. I’m a bit lazy and often asked what LCD display makes and models I recommend. So here they are, all three of them that are under $1000. They all provide a high color range reproducing over 95% of Adobe RGB (1998) colorspace, so you see all of the color in a dSLR Raw image file reproduced in your application, whether iPhoto or Elements, Aperture or Lightroom, Photoshop CS or Corel Paintshop Pro.

The first affordable cost LCD in this category I reviewed is the NEC P221W Spectraview 2, which is a 22 inch LCD display with 1680 x 1050pixel resolution. The report can be read at: http://www.shutterbug.net/equipmentreviews/software_computers/0210nec/index.html

This NEC P221W LCD display has caused some confusion for buyers because the display can be purchased separately for under $400, and some have done that and found they also need the NEC Spectraview software MPN:SVIISOFT SKU#1187988, which is available for just under $100. And if you don’t already have a colorimeter, you may have to add that and the NEC Custom Calibrated Color Sensor for SpectraView II added to the software is called a “kit” that makes the cost of both just under $300. In other words the complete NEC P221W Spectraview II system minimum cost is just short of $700. And there is no way around this because the NEC Spectraview is proprietary it only adjusts, calibrates and profiles successfully using the Spectraview II software and a colorimeter supported by the software (some recent models of the Spyder3 and X-Rite iOne II colorimeters will work successfully with the NEC Spectraview displays and software. 

It should be noted that there are other, larger NEC LCD displays in the Spectraview II model lineup, but then with NEC Spectraview Kit included the price is over $1000.

2. The next LCD display with over 95% Adobe RGB color range was an Eizo Flexscan S2243W, that is also a 22 inch display but with the same 1920x1200 resolution as a 24 inch display.  I bought one and reported on it in my blog on May 16, 2010 in a post called Seeing The Whole Picture, URL - http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/seeing_the_whole_picture/ I purchased my Eizo Flexscan S2242W from a dealer in the region and delivered it was a bit over $800.

Eizo has an exceptional web site with just about every aspect and feature of their displays carefully detailed and illustrated. So rather that regurgitate their comprehensive coverage, please go to http://www.eizo.com/global/products/flexscan/s2243w/index.html

I have used my Eizo Flexscan for many months now and have come to really appreciate its features and performance. It’s a fairly substantial price for a relatively small LCD display, but it works exceedingly well for digital photography editing and processing. So it is definitely worth the investment. In addition I like the fact the Eizo Flexscan can be calibrated and profiled successfully using most of the popular software options and any colorimeter recently produced that will measure a wide display color range. In other words your not tied down to a proprietary software/hardware setup to color manage an Eizo Flexscan. So that may make the price a little less steep in the long run. Although I found I had to upgrade my Spyder3 colorimeter  to a newer model to obtain an accurate calibration and profile with the wide color range of the Eizo. 

3. My most recent find is a Dell Ultrasharp U2410 LCD display with a wide color range in a 24 inch size that has a list price of just $599. I did a preview report and posted it in my blog on October 17, 2010, go to http://blog.shutterbug.com/davidbrooks/preview_the_dell_ultrasharp_u2410_lcd_display/  A full report is in the process of being prepared for publication in a forthcoming issue of Shutterbug.

In the meantime the Dell web site has detailed information about this display at http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&cs=19&sku=320-8277&baynote_bnrank=1&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch

Shopping for an LCD display requires some searching on the web for the best source at a reasonable cost. Sometimes large, well known on-line stores like Amazon.com offer favorable prices and reasonable shipping costs. To look further you can try www.pricegrabber.com and lately I have found the shopping section of Google has extensive offerings at a range of prices, http://www.google.com/search?q=LCD+displays&hl=en&tbs=shop%3A1&aq=f, and some of the pro-graphics makes and models from NEC and Eizo also provide a list of their dealers on their web sites.Search Amazon.com for Eizo S2243W

IS TODAY BACK TO THE FUTURE

The other day I received an e-mail press news release about a new handheld light meter. I had not seen any news of handheld light meters in some time, so of course I read it. In style and content it was much like what I probably read twenty years ago. But what struck me strangely, now that virtually all cameras are digital, is the fact a digital camera is really just a light measuring device that records the light readings of millions of pixel sites and records them in an image file. Of course that does not preclude the value of a narrow angle spot or an incident light meter, they are useful in measuring the light on and from a subject to make an informed decision on making a photographic exposure with digital or on film. 

Soon thereafter I received a reader e-mail about a high-end digital P&S camera, so I looked at the manufacturer specifications and documentation, and strangely there was lots of detailed data about the camera but no indication whether a Raw saved file was in sRGB or Adobe RGB colorspace. In fact the information about the camera although extensive could almost be as if it were a film camera of a couple of decades ago.

My curiosity was piqued, so I rifled through a stack of recent photo publications to get the feel of what the writing was about. Yes it was about photography, but again other than articles specifically about software, what was being discussed were photographs, pictures and for that matter whether the original was  a digital camera exposure or an image exposed on film seemed to be of little concern. In other words much of photography todays seems to ignore whether the image is stored physically on film or is just a computer file of RGB/XY measurement values.

Is there anything wrong with treating all photography the same whether digitally derived or made using film? No, not really although assuming they are the same, and ignoring we are in a digital age can result in serious technical problems and consequences. Regardless the media used, to ignore its nature seems like a dangerous way to work and function. But for photographers who have recently decided to convert from analogue to digital, if digital seems like just another kind of the same photography, old thinking  will make it seem comfortable. At least until you have a technical challenge or problem to solve.

I recall about a decade or so ago around the change of the century, there were many boldly designed new digital cameras on the market trying to capture photographers interest. Some of them had really appealing features. Even so, apparently they did not sell very well, because today there aren’t any boldly futuristic camera designs, but multitudes of digital camera models that all look like film cameras popular in the past. Obviously photographers and even novices want a digital camera that looks familiar, the way  cameras have for much of the last half century. I was reminded of this by a comic strip inspired movie made in 2004. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, with Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie set in a make believe, futuristic 1940’s, with Paltrow playing a newspaper reporter with a camera, it was an Argus C3. Cameras in movies always have to be familiar looking!

Photography has been a significant part of our cultural history for over a century. Still photography published in newspapers and magazines played a large role in picturing our country’s story through three major wars, and a host of other events caught on film. So how photography is thought of by almost everyone  is common knowledge that is not easily changed in philosophy and meaning by new technology. It should not be surprising that the newest digital cameras, look like cameras we have long found familiar sights. If they looked different would they be recognized for what they are and be purchased so readily?

We live in both the present and our past. But getting lost in the past sometimes makes the present a difficult puzzle to solve, so don’t go missing back in the future, its science fiction and surely not real.

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS ARE GOOD FOR EVERYONE

I posted a Blog on December 16, 2010 titled What Is Display Calibration & Profiling? There were a number of comments posted and several were questions. So I asked our blog expert if there was any practical way for me to obtain copies of the comments and the address of the comment source. The answer was no.

So in this case I think the comments deserve their own blog, which will follow. However I want readers to have an opportunity to have their comment response or questions answered. So if you want the same thing then:  COPY YOUR COMMENT INTO AN E-MAIL MESSAGE AND SEND IT TO DAVID B. BROOKS AT goofotografx@gmail.com. I will respond immediately.

COMMENTS:

Posted Fri Dec17, 2010, 1:29 PM — By Spyder3 Elite-Version 4

David, I have an 24 inch LG monitor and the Spyder2 colorimeter. Can I upgrade to a Version 4 or do I need to purchase a whole new Spyder3? Thank you Bert www.berthoferichter.com

Answer: Posted Thu Dec23, 2010, 7:00 PM — By David B. Brooks

Bert, If your 24 inch LG LCD display is a home/office model, then very likely the Spyder2 will work OK to calibrate and profile. David

Posted Tue Dec21, 2010, 3:22 PM — By DJ

I am glad you posted this...just starting to learn about calibration. Got a new computer & plan to do this for my monitor ASAP!

Answer: If you do digital photography an accurate adjustment, calibration and profiling of a display is essential. Many applications like Adobe’s, Corel’s, Apple’s are color managed so they depend on an accurate profile to display digital photos accurately.

Posted Wed Dec29, 2010, 11:41 AM — By ornanophy

Hi: I've been watching blog.shutterbug.com as being a lurker for some time now. I thought that I need to get involved and communicate with the individuals here. I'm hoping to connect with plenty of insightful people and discover some very good stuff. Hopefully this message is not in an inappropriate section. I am sorry if "Digital Camera Wish List" is unsuitable. - JAMAR MCDONALD Nuclear Fuels Research Engineer

Answer: Unfortunately the shutterbug Forum has not had much support. Personally I think it is because the magazine’s writers do not participate. Anyway my Digital Help function does require me to often continue extended e-mail conversations with interested readers. So be my guest, you are invited. 

Posted Wed Dec29, 2010, 7:31 PM — By Diedrik Müller

I like the no-nonsence calibration of the NEC spectraview and the Spyder3 Express as reviewed in Shutterbug. What would you recommend me to buy: the NEC Spectraview or Flexscan with Spyder3 Express? I like the higher resolution of the FlexScan.

Answer: Sadly, although the Spyder3 Express is inexpensive the software will not measure White Luminance so the display cannot be adjusted for brightness. You have to have the Spyder3 Elite to get that capability. I personally own and use an Eizo Flexscan S2242W, and enjoy its excellent performance. I did not purchase a NEC Spectraview II for myself because it is proprietary. In other words exclusive, the Spectraview II display will not work with any other software but NEC’s Spectraview models, and Spectraview will not work with any other brand of LCD display. For me that is too limiting.

Posted Wed Jan12, 2011, 2:59 PM — By Jerry

Have just acquired a new Mac Mini and the Dell U2410 monitor. I calibrated using the Spyder3 Express with no problem. My question is how do I go about calibrating the monitor brightness to the 90 CD/m2 with this combination? Will really appreciate your help, thank you, Jerry

Answer: Jerry, you have a great hardware combination, the Mac Mini, a Dell Ultrasharp U2410 LCD display and a Spyder3 colorimeter. The one thing you need to add is software to go with your Spyder3 colorimeter to do the adjustment, calibration and profiling. What I use that provides superb performance is the ColorEyes Display Pro software from www.integrated-color.com. Expensive but worth it.

For comment responses and questions answered, send comments to David B. Brooks at goofotografx@gmail.com

CES 2011 EVEN MORE BELLS & WHISTLES, OR?

Each year starts off these times with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the city of sad faces. Last year even CES was sad faces feeling the aftermath of recession and no one buying much of anything. But in 2011 after Apple dropped some bombs of super sales of iPhones and their new iPad, the rest of the flock was flapping their wings to catch up. But new 3D and what have you TV’s were still languishing, maybe everyone who can afford a big flat-screen TV already has one, and with TV getting worse every year with dumber and dumber ridicule and more ads....

So other than gadgets and gimmicks what else electronic is there? Computers, you know those boxes that compute things much faster than a human mind and hands. Yes, where would we photographers be without the computers that calculate the thousands of complex optical formulas that have made zoom lenses function  efficiently and accurately, with systems that calculate the motion of a camera and correct for it. The makers of the chips that do the calculation, the main processor in a computer, Intel and AMD had some very interesting news, Now after so many years, besides processors that compute they are now going to put graphics support functions in their main processors. I guess they cannot make them faster and better at computing to a degree anyone buying would notice or care, so why not something new, graphics processing? Well at least it serves me an advantage, regarding all of the computer geeks that give me a bad time because Apple Macs don’t have the biggest, fastest computer processors may now realize they have not made all that much difference to digital photography because there is little computation needed to process images, just graphic support and a wide data transfer bandwidth, and of course oodles of RAM.

Anyway Intel is calling this new graphics support processor family Sandy Bridge, and AMD is using the name Fusion. To describe how they are alike I’ll quote Mathew Murray of PC Magazine, “Both Fusion and Sandy Bridge chips represent a major new way of looking at the role of the processor within a computer. Previously, the individual elements—the CPU itself, the graphics controller, the memory controller, and so on—were all separate. This required lengthy communication between the various systems, which slowed down how fast the processor could do its work. Now, AMD and Intel are bringing the various subsystems together, on the same processing die (hence AMD's name, "Fusion"). This means that on-board graphics will now become more ubiquitous and powerful than they've ever been (though power users will still want to have discrete cards), but the everyday benefits are perhaps even more impressive. This makes passing information between them easier and quicker, which boosts performance in almost every application; it also requires less power, which translates to cheaper electricity bills and longer laptop battery life.”

Already the Apple rumor-ologists are telling us Macs will soon be appearing with Sandy Bridge processors. That’s a logical because so much of Apple Mac computer business is used by high-end graphics creators, just about every magazine you read is produced by Apple Macs. With PC’s, users will have to really look at what each of a jillion makers are actually implementing on their motherboards relative to Sandy Bridge or Fusion processors. Are they really advantaging the new processor graphics support considering most PC’s are designed for business use and not graphics production? Who knows, and I am not about to investigate the speciousness of specs on different PC’s; but I am sure some will.

CES 2011 EVEN MORE BELLS & WHISTLES, OR?

Each year starts off these times with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the city of sad faces. Last year even CES was sad faces feeling the aftermath of recession and no one buying much of anything. But in 2011 after Apple dropped some bombs of super sales of iPhones and their new iPad, the rest of the flock was flapping their wings to catch up. But new 3D and what have you TV’s were still languishing, maybe everyone who can afford a big flat-screen TV already has one, and with TV getting worse every year with dumber and dumber ridicule and more ads....

So other than gadgets and gimmicks what else electronic is there? Computers, you know those boxes that compute things much faster than a human mind and hands. Yes, where would we photographers be without the computers that calculate the thousands of complex optical formulas that have made zoom lenses function  efficiently and accurately, with systems that calculate the motion of a camera and correct for it. The makers of the chips that do the calculation, the main processor in a computer, Intel and AMD had some very interesting news, Now after so many years, besides processors that compute they are now going to put graphics support functions in their main processors. I guess they cannot make them faster and better at computing to a degree anyone buying would notice or care, so why not something new, graphics processing? Well at least it serves me an advantage, regarding all of the computer geeks that give me a bad time because Apple Macs don’t have the biggest, fastest computer processors may now realize they have not made all that much difference to digital photography because there is little computation needed to process images, just graphic support and a wide data transfer bandwidth, and of course oodles of RAM.

Anyway Intel is calling this new graphics support processor family Sandy Bridge, and AMD is using the name Fusion. To describe how they are alike I’ll quote Mathew Murray of PC Magazine, “Both Fusion and Sandy Bridge chips represent a major new way of looking at the role of the processor within a computer. Previously, the individual elements—the CPU itself, the graphics controller, the memory controller, and so on—were all separate. This required lengthy communication between the various systems, which slowed down how fast the processor could do its work. Now, AMD and Intel are bringing the various subsystems together, on the same processing die (hence AMD's name, "Fusion"). This means that on-board graphics will now become more ubiquitous and powerful than they've ever been (though power users will still want to have discrete cards), but the everyday benefits are perhaps even more impressive. This makes passing information between them easier and quicker, which boosts performance in almost every application; it also requires less power, which translates to cheaper electricity bills and longer laptop battery life.”

Already the Apple rumor-ologists are telling us Macs will soon be appearing with Sandy Bridge processors. That’s a logical because so much of Apple Mac computer business is used by high-end graphics creators, just about every magazine you read is produced by Apple Macs. With PC’s, users will have to really look at what each of a jillion makers are actually implementing on their motherboards relative to Sandy Bridge or Fusion processors. Are they really advantaging the new processor graphics support considering most PC’s are designed for business use and not graphics production? Who knows,CES20 I am not about to investigate the speciousness of specs on different PC’s; but I am sure some will.

NOT UNDER THE TREE?

The holiday season this time provided me with some time to concentrate on personal photographs that have been on my mind, but only as ideas. This year I have not had any article projects pending or new products to investigate, so once in a very long time I am doing my own thing. And that has been digging out old film images and making new scans. The goal is to approach the image in ways that correct for weaknesses  and frustrations in what the photo was as a film image. Primarily it is much more than just physically scanning the film, but rethinking the image, applying a different sensitivity to what it is, and hopefully producing something both different and the same, but better than the picture I first saw in the viewfinder, and then as an image on film. The final step in this process is to make a test print to see if my on-screen editing actually results in a print that matches my expectations.

Although  some of my readers reveal what papers they use in the course of what they are doing when they ask for an answer to a question, inkjet printing paper never seems to be more than a whatever concern. Usually the long lasting cotton fiber papers which respond well to pigment inks are rarely referenced, and one Epson paper, PremierArt Matte Scrapbook Photo Paper  doesn’t seem to be known. Yet in a reasonable 205gsm weight for letter size, it is probably the best consumer paper available and at a reasonable cost. I thought it had disappeared but just recently I ordered and received a couple of packages of 8.5x11 inch from the Epson store (it is also available in 12x12 inch size). This Epson Scrapbook paper really is a hot press natural (no brighteners), smooth, firm finished matte paper that is also of the kind used by fine arts photographers in larger sizes. So it is an ideal test paper if images are being made for the best possible reproduction. If you use an Epson photo inkjet paper, the Premium Presentation Paper setting and its printer profile works very effectively with the Epson PremierArt Scrapbook paper.

So why not spend a few bucks and try it and if you like the prints, what do you get that is the same for larger than letter-size prints?

If you decide you like this paper, and I believe you should, what can you get like it in larger sizes? The company is Premier Imaging Products. The Premier product name is Smooth Hot Press Fine Art Paper, and it comes in four different weights, 205, 270, 325 and 500gsm. The 270gsm would be just right for 13x19 inch prints, but unlike the Epson Scrapbook and Hot Press 205gsm, it does not have both side printing surfaces. It is described by Premier as, “the best paper for prints that require Museum Grade quality, especially when Image Permanence is the critical factor.” Its features are, “100% cotton, acid and lignin free, alkaline buffered, OBA free, hot press surface, moulde made, high D-max, and exceptional print quality.”

Where can one find this Premier Imaging Smooth Hot Press Fine Art paper? One source I have used is www.inkjetart.com, and another that is well known is Adorama, www.inkjetart.com. But first try the Scrapbook version that is available from the Epson store, http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductMediaSpec.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&infoType=Overview&oid=-12346&category=Paper%20&%20Media/ its just a dollar a sheet for the best paper they have for consumers.