l i n k s

Software tools

I consider Vuescan to be essential equipment for the anyone who owns a scanner and wants to scan their own negatives or transparencies. Vuescan is produced by Hamrick Software and is everything a scanning utility should be: affordable, well documented, extremely powerful, all in a very compact executable file. But more than that, Vuescan is superior to the scanning software supplied by most manufacturers -- in terms of image quality, stability, and ease-of-use. Download the free trial to see for yourself.

It's an expensive, but indispensable, tool for digital image processing. It has everything needed to prepare a RAW file for printing. In fact, Photoshop has so many features that most people (including professionals) will never know the existance of many of its functions.

A powerful piece of software that is an image viewer, RAW file converter, and slideshow program with a host of very useful built-in features. In my opinion, the batch file renaming, batch EXIF time/date adjustment, and EXIF shooting data viewer are worth the price of admission all by themselves. But this program does much more at a very reasonable price.

By the makers of Breezebrowser, this program is designed to streamline the task of downloading image files from your camera's memory card to your computer's hard drive. You may be asking "Why do I need to buy a special program to do what I can with nothing with my computer's operating system?" For starters, this program allows you to automatically rename and organize photos in a meaningful way as they are downloaded. File and folder names can be assigned automatically based on data contained within the images files (such as date, time, camera model, exposure number, etc.). Once you choose your preferences, you simply insert your memory card into your computer's card reader, start Downloader Pro, and click "download". Downloader Pro is an extremely valuable timesaver.

IMatch 3 by Photools is a very powerful image management tool. At its core, IMatch is an image-based database program. I did an extensive search of available programs designed to help a photographer manage and organize his or her collection of images and IMatch is the one I have chosen. It will catalog every image file (in specified folders) on your hard drive including most RAW file types. It also gives you the ability assign each image to multiple categories, such as "Subject" and "Location". IMatch is fairly user friendly for beginners, and also very powerful for advanced users with its built-in scripting capability. This program is very fast even with my image database of over 7000 images. The program includes a useful web gallery creation function with a variety of templates. At under $50, this software is a bargain, and a free trial is available.

Hardware links

Anyone using a digital SLR camera is probably familiar with the susceptibility of the these cameras to dust. Any dust present on the surface of the camera's CCD or CMOS sensor will be visible on every image captured by the camera until the sensor is cleaned, especially when the lens is set to small apertures. Because the internals of the camera body are exposed to the environment every time you change lenses, it is impossible to prevent dust from accumulating on the sensor. (Dust has a way of accumulating on the sensor even between lens changes!) For a while I have been cleaning my cameras' sensors with the products and techniques presented at CCD/CMOS Cleaning Tutorial. While this "wet swabbing" approach can be effective, it requires practice, and even then is often difficult to get the sensor complete clean.

I have recently adopted the techniques recommended by Visible Dust. The sensor cleaning approach outlined on their website is now my preferred tactic. While their products seem comparatively expensive, they have eliminated most of the frustration with sensor cleaning, and permitted me to get the image quality that I expect from my dSLRs.

Simply the best way to use your super telephoto lens on a tripod. When is the last time you heard of a photo hardware manufacturer that will allow you to try their product in the field before even paying for it? Wimberley is so confident in their product that it offers just such a trial program. And I'll wager they don't get many people that try and don't buy.

This apparatus weighs just a few ounces, folds down small enough to fit in your pocket, and effectively adds 2-stops of addition flash power. By focusing the light energy emitted by a standard flash unit into a narrow beam, the Better Beamer puts extra light on distant subjects, or saves battery power for closer-in subjects. The Better Beamer is only suitable for use with camera/lens combinations with an equivalent 35mm focal length of at least 300mm. Available from numerous sources -- just google "Better Beamer" and you'll have your choice of suppliers.

Image processing techniques

Tim Grey is an expert on a wide variety of digital darkroom issues including color management and optimizing images for printing. Tim has authored (and co-authored) numerous books and dozens of articles that collectively address virtually all aspects digital darkroom techniques. Tim also offers a daily e-mail service called DDQ (Digital Darkroom Questions) in which he answers subscribers questions on a wide variety of digital darkroom questions. In DDQ, Tim regularly discusses the pros and cons of various software and hardware devices involved in digital image processing, and I find his recommendations to be extremely valuable timesavers in today's confusing marketplace.

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