Category: Uncategorized

Review of: “Accurate Color” Audio Video Text Book by Herb Paynter

Posted on by Nick Roberts

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I’m always looking for more information on the subject of color in photography. Recently while wandering around in the “rabbit hole” of the web I came across Herb Paynter and his blog “The Way Eye Sees It”

http://thewayeyeseesit.com/

I read a couple of posts and found his writing to be fresh and informative. I downloaded a free eBook of his titled “The Elements of Digital Color Photography” and saw right away that Herb had done a great job explaining some of the fundamentals of how and why we photographers use color in our work. With simple language and excellent illustrations he covered a lot of ground and clarified a few things I wasn’t aware of.

After reading the free eBook I decided to read another of his books “Accurate Color” which is a much more in depth exploration of  the processes involved in color photography and the whole process from camera to final output of the image . Herb explains how the various systems in photography and printing interact and why they respond as they do. His descriptions and illustrations make the material easy to comprehend while also being entertaining.

The version I have of the book is titled ” The Enlighten Project: The Accurate Color Interactive Audio Video Text Book”. It has the complete text of his text book by the same title with the additional features of an audio feature that provides narration of the instructional pages and chapters and 1.5 hours of animated visuals and illustrations that further explain the concepts he talks about. There are review questions after each chapter to help you check yourself to see if you have gotten the info as well as a list of the top ten takeaways from each chapter.

I recommend that anyone who wants to improve their photography get a copy of “Accurate Color” and learn the fundamentals of accurate color and how to achieve the best results when applying the basic principles of the digital photography process from beginning to end. I know that I’m glad I chose to read these books and that I added to my knowledge of digital image making.

Here’s a link to the book:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

Wacom Tablet Learning Curve

Posted on by Nick Roberts

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Yesterday I started trying to learn how to use my Wacom Intuos4 tablet. Like anything new there’s a learning curve but I’m sure if I stick with it I’ll be glad I did. I have had the tablet for at least a year but for whatever reasons I have avoided tackling using it.

The impetus was a sudden flareup of carpal tunnel that started when I spent an entire day editing photos with my mouse. I had never experienced carpal tunnel but as soon as I realized what was happening I started apply ice packs to my forearm. I also got out my Wacom tablet and decided this was the time to get used to working with it. Experience is such a cruel master; it gives you the answer first then you learn what the question was.

The stylus and pad does take some getting used to but already I’m learning that it really does make editing easier. My only complaint is that I chose the medium size tablet. I think that I would rather have the smallest tablet since the track pad is directly related to the cursor’s screen positions. I think that the larger Wacom tablets would work well for illustration because when I’m drawing I want to use my entire arm and shoulder to move the stylus. On the other hand when I’m moving around the desktop it would be nice to be able to keep movement to a smaller space.

Be back soon…

Posted on by Nick Roberts

I’m waiting for a new hard drive to arrive so I can get back to work. I have filled my 1TB to overflowing and due to the age of my iMac I needed one with firewire ports. I found one yesterday at B&H Photo and they shipped it this morning.

When you overfill a hard drive it becomes very slow and that drives me crazy. As soon as I get it I can transfer my library and get back to work. It’s frustrating but that’s what I get for procrastinating about getting the new one.