The Online Photographer: Ctein

Ctein

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Product Review: Epson SureColor P800 Printer

Written by Ctein

[Note: This is going to be longer than your usual TOP post. There's a lot to talk about. If you feel it's “longior, non legi,” don't say I didn't warn you!

P.S. Two important illustrations were missing from the first post of this article (under the nighttime snow photograph). If you didn't see'em before, refresh and scroll down. —Ctein]

The new Epson SureColor P800 printer (currently specially priced at $995 from B&H Photo after the mail-in rebate) is the 17-inch wide model in Epson's new line of printers that run from 13-inch wide through 44-inch wide. The print quality should be similar or identical on all of them. I reviewed the P800 because it's the direct successor to my current standard printer, the Epson 3880.

The big deal about the Epson SureColor P800 (hereafter simply referred to as the P800) is Epson's new Ultrachrome HD ink set. It's the same set of colors as in the x880 series—MK,PK,LK,LLK,LM,M,LC,C,Y—but they've been reformulated for an increased density range. More density range means richer blacks, more tonal range to work with in the print, and higher maximum saturation in the colors. This, of course, is what got me most interested in this printer. More on this anon; much more.

There are couple of other new features to the printer that I liked. You can tether it to your computer with the standard ethernet or USB cables, or it can connect over your Wi-Fi network. I didn't relish stringing another cable across my office, so I gave the Wi-Fi option a try. All of my testing was done on my 27-inch 5K retina iMac running the most current versions of Mac OS X (Yosemite) and Photoshop CC (2015). Wi-Fi worked perfectly. I performed the usual setup dance: first install the printer software on the computer, then turn on the printer. I next selected wireless connection from the touchscreen on the front of the printer. The printer looked for the Wi-Fi network, configured itself appropriately, and that was it! The printer was installed on the iMac and also accessible from any other computer in the house that was on that network. Easiest setup I've ever had.

Another feature I especially liked was that you can tell the printer whether it should be able to automatically switch between matte black and photo black inks depending on the print medium, or whether it will require you to manually initiate the switch (in which case the software will prompt you that the printer needs your attention). Why do I like this? Because I have, on occasion, accidentally chosen the wrong print medium, or decided to, say, print out an invoice that just came in while I'm in the midst of working on photographs, forgetting I'm set up for the latter. With the “convenience” of automatic ink swapping, I am rewarded by wasting five or more minutes of my time switching between inks, not to mention a few dollars worth of ink going down the drain. The first time I made this mistake with the P800, which happened pretty quickly (in my defense, I was making a lot of test prints under a lot of different conditions) I switched the printer over to manual. It's pretty good proof against the particular kind of fool that I am.

No doubt that there are a bunch of other features that will matter to other people. I didn't use them, so I won't report on them.

One negative change: the printer ships with smaller starter ink cartridges. Oh, they're not a whole lot smaller, probably 20%. The printer seems to require less ink to charge the system initially, so I'm likely getting close to the same amount of usable ink from the cartridges that ship with the printer as I did with the 3880. But, really, it feels kind of cheap on the part of Epson—would it have killed ya to have given me the full 80 ml cartridges? Really?

There, I got in my gripe. On to the prints, which is what we all really care about.

Print quality
The first thing I looked at was the ink droplet pattern, because that was really easy–– one test print. I was curious to see if the P800 was a big improvement over the x880 series the way the x900 series is. The pattern didn't look substantially different from the 3880, not in the league of the 4900. But, my particular review unit checked out at the high-end of the quality/uniformity range of 3880 printers that I tested a while back.

The dot pattern was very uniformly spaced, invisible to my eye even under the closest inspection. That is not true of my 3880, which falls in the middle of the quality distribution. I don't know if this is typical of the P series or if I just got lucky on this test unit. This could be a case where “your mileage will differ;” no way I could say without testing a couple of dozen of these printers. The P800's sharpness was slightly better than 3880, but that might just be due to more uniform dot pattern. (Any Epson people reading this, feel free to chime in with observations, on or off the cuff. Hint, hint.)

So much for ink droplet patterns and print sharpness. Let's talk about density range, what the fuss is about.

The short version: it is consistently better on all papers, both matte and gloss/semi-gloss, than the 3880. I don't have a reflection densitometer; to my eye it looks like about a 0.2 density unit improvement in the shadows. There is distinctly better separation in the lower tones (below value 20) but pretty much no difference in the midtones and highlights. It's an extended shadow range.

This is my standard grayscale test target:

You can download a variant of this for your own tests.

The following illustration shows an enhanced version of the lower half of the rightmost column in my test prints, which prints values from 0 up to 32, just the darkest shadows. I kicked the brightness and contrast way, way up in the scanner software, so there are lots of scan artifacts and blotches.

These comparison prints, on Canson Baryta Photographique (my preferred paper) give you an idea how much further down the blacks extend with the new printer. The black arrow shows the matching steps between D-max on the 3880 print and the P800 print (around value=15). The darkest steps, down to the last 2 or 3, are visually distinguishable in the P800 print under strong illumination, even though they merge together in the scan; the printer does hold separation in the shadows.

The improvement in density is especially noticeable with a paper like Epson Ultra Premium Matte, a lower grade matte paper with relatively weak D-max. A P800 print on this paper has better blacks that a 3880 print on Epson Hot Press Bright, a much better quality of matte paper. Of course, a P800 print on the Hot Press looks better still, but this printer is a great equalizer among matte papers.

What does 0.2 d.u. mean, visually? With a semi-gloss paper like my Canson, a typical high-end inkjet print has about the same density range as a high-quality darkroom print. A dye transfer print, the gold standard, would typically have 0.4–0.5 d.u. more density range than the best darkroom print (that can vary). The P800 pushes well beyond what one can get in a conventional darkroom print; it's about halfway to the density range of a dye transfer print. It's going to encourage me to try digitally printing some of my photographs that simply don't print well without the density range I could get out of dye transfer, notably my "Jewels of Kilauea" series.

I'm jazzed.

The higher density range also means you can print richer colors and a larger color gamut. The maximally saturated primaries can get more saturated. Understand that this does not mean that your print, overall, is more contrasty or more saturated. It's about the range you have to work with. Think of it as like getting a new digital camera with a longer exposure range than your old one had. Your photographs aren't more contrasty, overall, but you can capture more of the extreme brights and darks.

Will you see this in your prints? It'll depend upon the kinds of photographs you make. The improved density range has only a minimal impact on photographs that don't have important shadow detail. If you mostly photograph high key, you'll never see a difference. Similarly, unless your photograph has colors that push the limits of the color space or of saturation, the extra range this printer provides will be less important. In some of my photographs, I could see very little difference between the 3880 and the P800 unless I looked very carefully. In most there was some improvement.

In some, the difference was profound. Photographs like this one:

and especially this one:

...printed much better with the P800. When I made that series of nighttime snow photographs, I remember telling Mike that I had to work very hard to hold separation in the shadows and still print the photo down dark enough that it looked like a night scene. I was hoping that future printers would let me do a better job. This printer does. I was satisfied with the rendering I achieved on the 3880, but I like what I can do with the P800 a lot better.

These two scans enlarge a portion of this photograph near the right edge:

I've brightened the image and enhanced the contrast the same way I did with the gray scale scans, so you can see the difference in the shadow rendering between the 3880 (upper) and P800 (lower) prints. That is a subtle improvement in the print, but it makes a big difference in conveying the fine detail and producing a sense of depth in the shadows.

Am I going to go back and reprint my whole portfolio now that I have a better printer? Hell no. Better may or may not be the enemy of good, but it is certainly the enemy of deadlines and of making new work. I'll be selective. But, I will be reprinting some of my portfolio. It's worth it.

Now I move on to a more controversial subject (cue ominous music):

Color management and profiling
The main reason this review took so long to get done is that Dave Polaschek, Andrew Rodney and I continued our investigation of color management and profiles, and it turned out to be rather more complicated than expected.

Well, some weeks and well over 100 prints later (whew!), I've reached my conclusion. Printer-managed color is the way to go with an x880 or P-series Epson printer running under Mac OS. A majority of the time it produces better results than Photoshop-managed color with a good custom profile. Sometimes it's massively better. Otherwise, it's usually a tossup. A very small fraction of the time, the custom profile works better, but never fantastically better.

Why is this so? I have no idea. I can spout all sorts of logic and theory that says this should not work anywhere as well as it does. But as I repeat, ad nauseum, “Data trumps theory.” I've got an awful lot of data now.

If you're really obsessive, I suppose you can run out a bunch of test prints of each and every photograph you do, to compare printer-managed color to custom profile color (remembering that you need to try out both relative colorimetric and perceptual rendering intent). Am I going to do that?

Naaah. It'll be printer-managed color and that's that, unless I look at the print and decide something is wonky.

I will likely explore this topic in more detail next week in a column. I would prefer to not, repeat not, argue about it in this one, especially if it's a rehash of what we discussed before.

Here are the settings you need to know. When you pull up the printer control panel, choose “Printer Manages Colors” under Color Handling. Then click Print Settings… . Select the Color Matching submenu and click “Epson Color Controls.” Click the Printer Settings submenu and under Color Mode choose “Color Controls > Adobe RGB.” Choose the paper type that most closely matches the one you're using (it doesn't matter if there's an exact match—I rarely use Epson papers).

I reprinted one of my recent favorite photos on the P800 using printer-managed color. This photograph looks great with my usual custom profile on the 3880, but it's got a lot of out-of-gamut color (including pretty much the whole “sun” lamp) and it pushes the brightness range per print. Wow, was there ever a difference! It's hard to find a way to put into words (and it is, of course, impossible to illustrate here) but the P800 print is much more alive. The color is more accurate, there is separation and texture in the extremes of tone and color that's missing in the 3880 print. The latter looks flat, compared to the new print. I loved the old print. I love the new print.

Printer-managed color won't be good under Windows. Windows limits you to sRGB color space when printing in this mode, and that's just not enough. Stick with custom profiles for Windows. What about other printers, models and makes, on the Mac side? I have no idea; you have to run your own tests. Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

Conclusion
I've put in a request to buy my review unit. Not because I'll necessarily save much money buying it that way, especially with Epson's current $200 rebate through the end of October, but this printer is performing well and, noting my earlier comments on product variability, I'm getting a nice tight dot pattern out of this printer. I don't want to leave that to chance. And I don't want to have to pack up and return a printer and then unpack and set up a new one. Because, really, I am replacing my 3880 with a P800 either way.

Don't misunderstand; there is nothing wrong with the 3880, and if the P800 hadn't come along I'd still happily continue to use it. If you can grab one (new or used) for, say, 50–60% of the price of a P800, do so. Otherwise, there's no question in my mind that the P800 is worth the extra money.

Ctein

[The P800 from B&H Photo is currently $995 after the mail-in rebate. The smaller 13-inch P600 is around $570 with the rebate. IMPORTANT! The P800 rebate offer is good through October but the P600 rebate offer ends September 30, so you've only got a week on that one.]

Ctein is TOP's Technical Editor and a longtime professional custom printer.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill Mitchell: "What is 'printer managed color'?"

Ctein replies: Bill, when the Print Settings control panel in Photoshop comes up, under "Color Management" there is a "Color Handling" setting. You can choose either "Printer Manages Colors" or "Photoshop Manages Colors" The latter lets you (well, requires you) to use a printer profile selected from the menu below that. The former shuts down Photoshop's control of the color and leaves it all in the hands of the Printer Control panel that pops up when you click "Print Settings...". In other words, it's a completely intuitive interface. Not.

Craig Arnold: "A wonderfully timely post. I've decided it's time to retire my older Canon dye printer. As my favoured print size is A3+ I don't have to have the P800, but it's not much more than the P600 and the bigger ink tanks make it a bit silly to go for the P600. However I am somewhat conflicted over the choice between the P800 and Canon Pixma Pro 1. Do you have any experience of the Canon?

"Also, there is much Internet angst over 'pizza wheel' marks on the P800 prints. I presume this is only with certain papers, but have you seen such a thing?"

Ctein replies: Craig, Sadly, no recent Canon experience. However, I just made a usage agreement with them for four of my photos, so I'm hoping they'll send me sample prints over time.

I've not experienced pizza wheel marks with any of my 3880's or the P800. I'm pretty sure the technical explanation is that the gods favor me and punish others because they are not so pure of heart and noble of spirit as I.

Posted on Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 09:18 PM in Ctein, Digital Techniques, Photo equipment, Printers and Printing | Permalink | Comments (42)

Sunday, 06 September 2015

How Do You Fix Aliasing in High-Res Camera Photographs?

Written by Ctein, TOP Technical Editor

(Author's note: Please read the already-posted responses before commenting. Thanks!)

I am mining the group-mind that is the all-knowing TOP readership.

If you're using a camera that lacks an anti-aliasing filter and if you've had to deal with aliasing in any of your photographs, how did you deal with it?

(Okay, I mean aside from deleting the photograph.)

You've got this photograph you really like. It's exhibiting annoying aliasing. How did you fix it in Photoshop or whatever?

This question comes out of a conversation I had with Richard Anderson a few days ago. I was explaining to him why I was leery of any of the new non-anti-aliased cameras because I'd already had enough problems with aliasing in my photographs from working with them in the past. (If you've never had such problems, I'm happy for you, but that's not relevant to me.)

He thought there were Photoshop techniques for fixing this. I didn't know of any, and we couldn't find them with Google or Adobe Help searches (unfortunately "aliasing" has a strong attractor having to do with rendering type and vector drawings).

I turn to you. Are there post-capture techniques for fixing this? If so, it could change my mind about considering such a camera in the future.

Tips on printing
Totally different subject (well, not entirely): Pascal Jappy in France just posted a very nice interview he did with me by phone about printing. It even contains a useful tip or two that I haven't written about before that may be helpful to folks who've been unsatisfied with the quality of their digital prints. Check it out.

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor

UPDATE, Monday: Well, that got resolved faster than I expected!

A couple of points of note: it's hard to get the answer to a question if you don't know how to ask it. “Alias” as a search term is a big fail. “Moiré” works great. But if you (like me) think in terms of the former rather than the latter, it's a stumper.

(Not the first time I've encountered that problem. I still haven't mastered writing macros in Excel because Visual Basic uses such a radically different vocabulary that I can't even figure out how to phrase some questions. Instead of being able to search for specific points that stymie me, I'm forced to read whole chapters of books in the hopes that the information I need will fall out.)

Something else—the moiré adjustment brush setting isn't available before Process Version 2012. The files I was looking at with this problem predated that. They opened up with PV2010 as their default in ACR. No moiré adjustment! It's a good argument for converting to PV2012 on raw files that haven't been massaged into their final form. There'll be tools you didn't even know existed. (Important note: don't do this if you've got a raw conversion in pretty much final form, because there are no exact equivalencies between a lot of the functions in PV2010 and PV2012. The latter is superior, but it's different.)

As for the moiré tool itself, I'm lukewarm. In the real world (as opposed to studio) subjects where I see the problem, it's in areas where there's lots of fine detail of high contrast. When the tool is applied to those areas, it fixes the aliasing, but it also wipes out saturation and flattens out the color overall within the brush radius. Sometimes this isn't a problem; other times it's a big one. I know, I'm preternaturally sensitive to color. Well, that's who I am. For me this is a half-fix.

Still, that's an improvement. It only leaves me half-leery of these cameras instead of totally leery.

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Posted on Sunday, 06 September 2015 at 09:43 PM in Ctein, Digital Techniques | Permalink | Comments (32)

Tuesday, 01 September 2015

Peaking Photoshop Performance

Not enough RAM and a conventional hard drive will cause
performance to slow down just a tad.

Written by Ctein

[Author's note: I'm hard at work on the third edition of my book Digital Restoration from Start to Finish. It'll be out sometime early next year (I think). Meanwhile, here's an excerpt for your enjoyment and edification.]

Whether you're using Photoshop or some other image processing program, maximizing its performance is especially important when doing photographic restoration. It's easy to generate huge files, bigger than what you're likely to be working with from a digital camera. For example, an 8x10 photograph scanned at 600 PPI in 16-bit color yields a 30 megapixel, 180 MB file. I'll be talking about Photoshop, specifically, but if the image processing program you're running can make use of a scratch disk when it runs out of RAM, the same general advice will apply.

Here's the non-technical version: Stuff your computer with as much RAM as it will support. RAM is cheap. Less than 8 GB will badly cramp your style. Working on a large and complex restoration, double that is barely adequate. My 27" i7 Retina iMac has 32 GB of RAM, 24 GB of which are allocated to Photoshop. You want to leave enough RAM free for other machine functions so that they don't choke—75% is a safe amount to give Photoshop. I can still run out of RAM in Photoshop on occasion…but it's a lot less common now than it was on my old system, which only had half as much memory.

Next, after maximizing your RAM, get an internal SSD (solid state drive) and use it for your operating system, applications including Photoshop, and the scratch disk. You should also put the photograph you're working on there. That doesn't require a very large SSD. A 256 GB SSD will handle this with plenty of room to spare. You can put all your data files and photographs that you're not working on on a different drive. Of course, there's nothing wrong with getting a big one and putting everything on it, including all your data files, but they're a lot more pricey.

A hybrid or “Fusion” drive doesn't really cut it for photo restoration. They marry a small solid-state drive to a conventional hard drive. That speeds up activities that demand accessing only a few gigabytes of data, like launching and relaunching applications, working with text and spreadsheets, and so on. The thing is, the scratch files that your image processing program will generate when it runs out of RAM are huge. They'll swamp the solid-state part of the hybrid drive, and then it performs no better than a conventional drive. Don't get me wrong; they're a distinct performance improvement over a traditional hard drive—but nowhere near what you'll see with a pure SSD.

Practical comparisons
Now I shall get geekily specific. Those of you who don't care, you can skip to the end. You won't miss much.

To convey to you a sense of just how much difference sufficient RAM and an SSD can make, I ran a set of benchmark tests using Lloyd Chambers Photoshop benchmarking actions. They're designed to stress the heck out of Photoshop. For these tests, I used the medium scale benchmark, diglloydMedium, because the small one simply ran too fast on my new machine to do accurate timing, and it didn't push huge amounts of data to the scratch disk.

I first ran the benchmark with Photoshop allocated its full 24 GB of RAM. That's enough RAM that Photoshop didn't have to use the scratch drive. It ran diglloydMedium in a little over 11 seconds with a maximum CPU usage of over three cores (300+%), and it ate up about 15 GB of RAM.

Good enough. Then, what happens when Photoshop runs out of RAM, as it will on an under-equipped computer? I cut the Photoshop allocation back to 4 GB of RAM and ran the same benchmark with the iMac's internal SSD as the scratch drive. Even though data transfer to the scratch disk peaked out at over 900 MB/sec, the time to execute the benchmark almost tripled, to 30 seconds, and CPU usage barely exceeded 100%.

Next I took the SSD out of the picture. I changed the Photoshop scratch disk to a fast external conventional hard drive. This, by the way, is the way you should be running if you don't have an internal SSD as your system drive. If your system drive is a regular hard drive, putting the scratch files there only sets you up for what's known as “drive thrashing.” The disk head has to bounce all over the place to keep up with the competing demands from the OS, the running programs, and the scratch space, and that slows things down horribly. Not a problem with an SSD.

With 4 GB of RAM and a conventional hard drive disk, performance just cratered. The runtime was two minutes with a peak data rate of 150 MB/sec to the drive. CPU usage barely got to 30%.

In summary, running with insufficient RAM and a conventional hard drive slowed the benchmark by a factor of ten!

'Nough said?

Ctein

Photo-writer, sci-fi novelist, photographer, and physicist Ctein is TOP's Technical Editor.

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Posted on Tuesday, 01 September 2015 at 08:45 AM in Computers, Ctein, Digital Techniques, Software | Permalink | Comments (25)

Saturday, 08 August 2015

Oh, Tea! (OT)

~ written by Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

Folks, it's been a long time since I've regaled you with tales of tea. Partly, it's because I haven't written lately. Partly it's because Mike felt I'd hit that topic enough for a while. Oh, those perfidious coffee-drinkers.** But, here I am in the driver's seat of this jalopy, so…

The first tidbit is a fine little hack I came up with last year. You will all remember (of course) how much I love my Paio Infusion Tea Pot.

(photograph courtesy of Amazon)

It gets used every single day (well, any day that I'm not making macha, which is most of them). After a couple of years of use, the very fine screen on the bottom was getting pretty badly clogged up. The pot was draining slowly. With some very fine greens, it was hardly draining at all.

Scrubbing it with a toothbrush didn't work; the screen was way too fine and I couldn't get to the underside of it. I tried soaking it repeatedly in hot baking soda solution, which dissolved all the tannin but didn't clear out most of the holes in the screen.

I thought on it. Okay, dissolving the tannin isn't working. There's clearly bits of tea leaves clogging up the holes. What would dissolve organic-matter clogs?

Put it that way and the answer is obvious. Drain cleaner! At least, so long as it doesn't dissolve the infuser. I knew it wouldn't attack the screen or the stop valve ball, which are stainless steel. (You don't want to try this on aluminum––it will dissolve!) I didn't know about the adhesives or plastics.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I poured a few ounces of liquid plumber stuff into the infuser, pressed the ball valve button to allow some of it flow through the screen, and let it sit for 10 min.

Success! My infuser came out looking practically like new.

Kids, if you do try this at home (with or without adult supervision) I make no promises about what will happen to your particular tea strainer or infuser. You're on your own. Do remember to rinse it out very thoroughly when you're done. Lye tastes yucky.

~~~

When Jon Singer and I visited my friend Bill Waddington, the owner of TeaSource in the Twin Cities, in June he introduced us to two extremely unusual teas. I've never had anything like them before, and they're both wonderful.

The first is a white tea called Silver Bud or Ya Bao. This is a winter pick–– the leaves haven't even started to come out of the buds and the pick is of the entire bud.

(photo courtesy of TeaSource)

You brew it with boiling water. No kidding. Half-fill the pot with buds; they are very fluffy. Try a two- or three-minute brew time for the first infusion. The brew is very very pale, nearly water-clear. It has a lovely floral aroma and extremely light and delicate flavor. It's almost all in the nose.

You can get up to four infusions if you increase the brew time by about 50% on each successive pot. It doesn't get bitter, it just takes longer and longer to pull enough flavor and aroma out of the buds into the liquor.

It's surprisingly inexpensive––$10 for 4 ounces, and that will fill up a quart-size jar with buds.

The website says that it "Can also be aged, as a puer." How strange! I've queried Bill about that; I'll let you know what he says.

The other tea he served us is a new puer that he'll be stocking in September. What makes Long Run Puer unusual is its brew time–– 15 seconds with boiling water. Yes, really, one-quarter minute is enough! It produces a lovely brew. Not smoky nor heavy, but still very full-flavored. I suspect it will tolerate a lot of infusions. Bill thinks it will also age exceptionally well, although we won't know for years to come.

Enjoy your weekend and have a nice cuppa on me.

(** And now that treacherous swiller of java tries to bury this column with posts of his own. An unsavory lot, those bean-sippers.)

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

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Posted on Saturday, 08 August 2015 at 02:57 AM in Ctein, Off-topic posts | Permalink | Comments (21)

Thursday, 06 August 2015

My Shiny Retina iMac

~ written by Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

Blog317figure1

I tend to buy computers towards the high end of the scale and keep them for a long time. I don't know if it is, in fact, more economical than buying towards the low end and getting a new machine every two years, but I find it a lot less annoying.

Both the laptop and the desktop machines here have been approaching the replacement point. My laptop is particularly long in the tooth. My 15" MacBook Pro is a 2007 model. I've upgraded it several times along the way, but one can only push so far. It runs a lot faster than when I bought it, but I'm doing more complicated things with much bigger files than I was eight years ago.

I have, without question, been salivating over the retina MacBook Pro. True 24-bit color, close to sRGB right out-of-the-box, that's a real nice thing to have a laptop. Plus, it's an incredibly powerful machine. It'll handily outperform our 27" 2009 iMac, which is still a satisfactory work machine. Pump that MacBook Pro up to 16 Gb of RAM, add an Adobe RGB external monitor, and I'd be a pretty happy camper.

The thing that's kept me from moving to a new laptop is that my e-mail program and a couple of other business-critical programs I use won't run under anything later than OS X 10.6. A new machine means a new OS, which means a new e-mail program, etc. Insert any number my previous rants about planned obsolescence here. You can Google for them. Adapting to new software, especially a program I'm using many times a day, is not my idea of fun. Still, the laptop was high on the replacement list.

Until this spring. The graphics card went out in the 27" iMac. Down it went to the Apple Store. Turned out the graphic card is a separate component, so it wasn't going to be an expensive repair. Whew! Only problem is they had to be able to find a graphics card. It took Apple over a week to come up with one because, you know, like, six years is old, dude. Insert aforementioned rants.

The iMac was out of the house for almost 2 weeks. Thank heavens, it happened during a rare window when I really didn't need it for anything. I can't count on that kind of luck, and I can't afford to be down for two weeks. That kicked replacing the iMac to the top of the list.

(The critical difference between my MacBook Pro and my iMac is that my MacBook Pro is 100% user-serviceable at my level of technical skill. I can easily get parts for it on the used market, and there's nothing in here I can't replace if I have to. The iMac is nowhere so accessible.)

The day the advance for the novel landed in my bank account, I was online ordering a new 27" retina iMac.

Dave Polaschek, of Adobe, was the one who convinced me that a retina iMac would matter to me. I'd been thinking, “I'm not doing 4K video and stuff like that, so why should I care about a 5K display? It's not like I can see the pixels in the standard display at normal working distance?”

Photoshop has a quirk. OK, it's designed in there on purpose, but it looks like a quirk. When you're running at screen magnifications of 50% or less, it cheats on the rendering, doing calculations in 8-bit color to speed things up and subsampling the image. This massively speeds up performance, so you can see near instantaneous real-time updates of what your file looks like even on a (relatively) slow system. if you've had the experience of working at the lower magnifications, jumping up to 67% or 100% to look at some detail and noticing that there's a visible lag while the screen updates, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

This has a downside. Screen renderings become inaccurate in annoying and sometimes really obstructive ways. View a stitched-together panorama at lower magnifications, and you'll see seam lines between the segments. That's an artifact of the subsampling, and it's only a minor annoyance. A major one is the banding and contouring that appears if you're working with adjustment layers that do any degree of substantial correction. I have that a lot, especially in my restoration work. the contouring isn't real, it's an artifact of each of those layers getting calculated at eight bits per channel. It can make it very difficult, sometimes impossible to accurately see (and work on) a full photograph.

The 27" retina display doubles the size of the image I can see the entirety of at 67% magnification and higher. Now my 12 and 16 megapixel photographs fit on the screen. It makes working on my photographs and restoration jobs a lot more comfortable and a lot faster. Plus, it's just plain nice to be able to see all that detail in the photograph without having to print it out

Dave was right. It was what I needed.

There are other ways I like my new iMac better. The newer thin-edge design is about 10 pounds lighter than the old machine. Not a big deal, except when you're trying to rearrange your office and lugging around a very awkward hunk of metal and glass. Apple eliminated the air gap between the glass and the screen that was on the older iMac and they substantially improved the anti-reflection coatings. I am no longer bugged by reflections from the glossy screen.

The color quality and brightness are better. Actually, I have way more brightness that I need. The color gamut of the retina display is a very close match to sRGB. My machine, out-of-the-box, was almost dead neutral and an exact match for sRGB. I did run a custom profile for the display, but other than opening up the shadows and linearizing them very slightly, I couldn't see any visible difference. If it weren't that I prefer a monitor calibrated to D50 then the iMac's native D65, I'd have been happy with the out-of-the-box display.

There was one unexpected bit of joy. Migrating from the old iMac to the new one was pain-free. I really wasn't expecting that. After all, I was jumping four generations of OS. A lot more stuff should break than did. Following Apple's instructions I hooked up my Time Machine backup from the old iMac, told it to migrate everything over, and let it run overnight. The next day the new iMac looked just like the old one… except better. I launched every single app — only four of them had broken, and only one of those was unexpected. That was solved by minor version upgrades, plus I needed a few new drivers for my printers.

I expected it to take days to get the machine configured. It took less than one.

You can get a basic 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display for $1,900. It's not the machine I would recommend if you're serious about Photoshop.

It'll have a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, a 1TB 7200 rpm drive and an AMD Radeon M290 GPU (2GB) graphics card. 8 GB of RAM is going to have you caching to disk pretty quickly in Photoshop, and then a rotating hard drive is going to be a real performance bottleneck.

The first thing you want to do, maybe the only thing, is max out that RAM at 32 GB. Don't buy the RAM from Apple; you'll save yourself $300 buying it from Other World Computing. It is the one part of an iMac that is user-upgradable.

I went for the whole-hog maximum machine: 4.0GHz QC i7 Turboboost 4.4GHz CPU, 1TB flash drive, and the AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB graphics card. Just because. The graphics card is the least important upgrade; there are some Photoshop operations where you may see an improvement because of it; it won't be much. It's more important if you're doing AV work or running multiple monitors. The better processor does produce a noticeable pick-me-up in a few circumstances. Both of these together add about $500 to the cost of the machine. Upgrading memory's far more important and cost-effective.

Then we come to that blasted drive. Apple has this thing called a Fusion Drive, which is a very, very smart hybrid drive. In a lot of circumstances it will substantially speed up performance. Photoshop is not that kind of circumstance. Especially not if your cache file and your photographs are on the same drive. What you want, what you need is 100% flash.

That'll cost you. Well, it cost me–– a $1,000 upgrade. All told, my maxxed-out configuration cost about twice as much as the baseline machine I linked to at B&H Photo. Oof.

Lastly I added an OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock so I could continue to use my existing peripherals.

Oh my, does this machine fly. What difference does a flash drive make? For illustrative purposes, I copied a multigigabyte file folder from a subdirectory to the desktop. That meant I was “simultaneously” reading and writing from the same drive. Think of it as a stand-in for the worst possible Photoshop scenario, where the program is trying to simultaneously cache states, save a file, and load chunks of code.

On the old iMac, this read/write operation ran at about 40 MB per second. If I copied the folder to an external FireWire 800 drive, I could get it up to about 70 MB per second, because the drive head was no longer thrashing back-and-forth doing reads and writes on one drive.

On the new flash-equipped retina iMac? 400 MB per second. I don't know if would be even faster going to an external drive, because I don't own an external flash drive. Ask me if I care. 400 MB per second is good enough for me.

All in all, it's quite shiny. Even two months later. Still smells like a new computer.

Comments? Questions? The floor is yours.

Oh yeah, with one qualifier: if you're inclined to comment with a rant about PCs vs. Macs or Windows vs. Mac OS vs. UNIX, just don't go there. Save yourself the time and effort of composing such a dismissive missive, because I am simultaneously pre-bored and annoyed by such. They will be malleted.

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

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Posted on Thursday, 06 August 2015 at 04:02 AM in Computers, Ctein, Photo equipment | Permalink | Comments (47)

Sunday, 02 August 2015

Thoughts for Your Sunday ~ Making a Left Turn at Albuquerque**

Written by Ctein

First, a Short Public Service Announcement.

By now, all of you who ordered Kate Kirkwood prints should have received them (with the possible exception of a few international orders). If you have not yet received your print order, regardless of where you live, please e-mail me ([email protected]) so I can pay special attention to the tracking on those orders.

If I don't hear from you, I'm going to assume you received your order and it was in good shape and you are happy with the print.

~~~~~~

So… you know those two black-and-white photographs I posted a few days back? They're not isolated cases. Since the beginning of last year, despite the insanity of my recent life, I've added 50-odd photographs to my portfolio. (No, they are not up on my website; I haven't had enough time to do everything else and update that. Real Soon Now.)

Two-thirds of those photographs are black and white.

Since the beginning of this year, 80% of what I've printed has been black and white.

I haven't done that much black and white work, relative to the color, in over 40 years. For the past two decades, up until very recently, my work (film and digital) has been between 95% and 100% color. It wasn't part of some strategy, it was simply that whenever I would decide to go out photographing my muse would be strongly, almost universally, inclined to choose color over black-and-white.

Something is different. The numbers have grown to be more than a statistical fluke. It might be passing fad or fancy. It might be because I find black and white easier and more relaxing to print than color, and I have been overworked and exhausted for too much of the past couple of years. It might be that I am totally infatuated with infrared black and white, but that like most infatuations, it will pass. It might be true love, a genuine secular change in artistic direction for me.

Honestly, I don't know. Mind you, I don't really need to know. I will find out in due time.

(I do find some modest amusement in the notion that, given the several left turns my life has taken of late, in 10 years people might be saying, “Oh yeah, Ctein. The novelist. He does B&W photography too, you know. … didn't he used to do color or something?”)

So, what's new and different in your life, of late?

(**Thank You, Bugs Bunny)

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

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Posted on Sunday, 02 August 2015 at 03:22 PM in Ctein, Photographic aesthetics, Print Offers, Reflections | Permalink | Comments (20)

Monday, 27 July 2015

Where Can You Buy Custom Profiles?

Folks, I'm spinning this off as a separate topic.

The title pretty much says it all. If you are using custom printer profiles and you're not rolling your own, who's making them for you these days? I used to recommend Cathy and Eric but they've long been out of the business. (That's “long” as measured in Internet-years, which is a lot like dog-years… except faster.)

Readers, what are your recommendations? Inquiring minds want to know.

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

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Posted on Monday, 27 July 2015 at 02:33 PM in Ctein, Digital Techniques, Photo-tech, Printers and Printing, Software | Permalink | Comments (25)

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Are Profiles Obsolete?

Greetings, all! Here's the quick news wrap up, before I get into the topic of today's column—

• For those of you betting on what new camera I'm going to get, so far I haven't decided to get anything. On the other hand, I have fallen in love with the Tesla S (I got to drive a friend's).

• Tragedy has struck! My SuperFocus glasses have developed a leak! I am not at all sure Howard Davidson and I can repair the leak, in which case they are shortly going to become useless. The alternative, Adlens' Focuss, aren't in my area yet, plus they are the devil I don't know. I've been scouring the Internet for a pair of frames I could buy, but I haven't found any. If any of you folks with better search skills than I have can locate one, please email me directly at [email protected].

[Update — the search is over. A kind and generous reader has provided me with two pairs of frames. I can't believe it. I am a very thankful and very happy camper.]

• The early-October book tour for Saturn Run is being finalized as you read this. John Sandford (John Camp, here at TOP) and I will only be hitting a limited number of cities—Scottsdale, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Houston (John only). Sorry if that doesn't include your city, but that's where the publisher deems we will do the most good.

Oh yeah, and we just got a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Yay for us.

• I am well along on working with/testing the 27-inch Retina iMac and the Epson SureColor P800 printer. Proper reviews will be forthcoming over the next week, but for now I can tell you I'm mighty happy with both of them. It's these tests that lead me to this column's topic. So without further ado…

Custom color profiling has two main roles in ensuring you get as faithful and accurate color as you can. First is monitor profiling. You only need one monitor profile for each color temperature you work at. Much of the world goes with D65, which is the display manufacturer's default. I prefer D50 for all my personal work-- it's a better match to how prints look. Monitor profiles are something you make for yourself, with a gadget like ColorMunki (which I use) or Spyder.

The remarkable truth is that if it weren't that I wanted a monitor calibrated to D50, my retina iMac wouldn't need profiling at all. At the display default of D65 it's damn near perfect sRGB out of the box. I created a custom D65 calibration and the colors didn't shift one visible bit between the system defaults and my calibration. The grayscale got slightly more linearized in the shadows, which are a bit more open with my custom profile. It is not a large difference.Without switching back and forth, I'd never notice.

Most people are happy working at D65. If you are, and your retina iMac comes out of the box looking as neutral as mine did (there's some manufacturing variability, there) you're done. You don't need a custom calibration.

Of course, this is going to vary with make and model of computer or monitor, etc. But, it's noteworthy that there are any circumstances where I wouldn't see the need for monitor profiling. It indicates the direction things are moving.

Then there's printing. For printers, you have a custom profile for every paper you use, although you can often get away with one profile for each category of paper (matte, canvas, glossy, etc.). You can make them yourself with the right gear or send calibration prints to a service that'll make them for you.

I wrote two years ago about the problems I had printing this photograph...

...with a custom profile, and how much better it worked letting the printer manage the color, sans profiling. Getting this photograph right is a corner case, but it stands as an example where a custom profile couldn't do the job.

Dave Polaschek had been telling me that there are newer printers for which paper profiles are simply obsolete. He's convinced the most recent generations of printers can do a better job of rendering color all by themselves than handing the problem off to an external software profile. Some of you will recognize Dave's name from reader comments. Dave is way, way up the Photoshop engineering food chain. He's the guy who is responsible for the printing engine within Photoshop. It's just possible he knows something about printing.

We really are talking about “printer-managed color,” as Photoshop refers to it. Profiling is turned off entirely. No custom profiles, not even the canned profiles that get installed with your printer software. You're letting the printer engine do it all. It works fabulously well. Dave's right about this.

There are many caveats. This is going to depend upon your model of printer, the image handling software you're using, and your operating system. I'm using Photoshop, under Mac OS X, with Epson 3880 (a 6-year old design, it's worth noting) and P800 printers. I make no claims for any other setups, especially older printers. If you want to know if printer-managed color will work better on your system, you'll have to run some test comparison prints yourself. Here are some test files I use for ferreting out weaknesses in printer renderings. They're not a substitute for printing a suite of your more difficult real photographs, but they're a helpful addition:

http://ctein.com/TOP/cropped_gray_gradient_test.tif
http://ctein.com/TOP/color_gradient_test.tif

I did extensive tests of my best custom-made paper profiles (which may not be the best in the entire world, but they are pretty damn good) against printer-managed color. The printer won. There was never a photograph where my custom profiles for either printer produced a better print than the printer could do by itself. Sometimes my custom profiles did just as well. Sometimes they did worse.

The conclusion? For me, custom printer profiles are a thing of the past. I'll keep using the ones I generated for my Epson 3880 for existing prints, simply to ensure the prints look exactly the same as what I've already decided I like. For new work? It's all going to be printer-managed color.

For those of you running a setup like mine, here's the settings you need to know about. When you pull up the printer control panel, choose "Printer Manages Colors" under "Color Handling." Then click "Print Settings…". Select the Color Matching submenu and click "Epson Color Controls." Click the Printer Settings submenu and under Color Mode choose "Color Controls > Adobe RGB."

(Note for Windows users: currently you don't have an Adobe RGB option; you'll have to make do with sRGB. You may find it's good enough; I don't have a standalone Windows environment I can test this under. You're on your own.)

Click "Save" and "Print," and wait for your results. If you do this test, please report back here and let us know what you find. It would be nice to have an assemblage of information on which printers work better with printer-managed color and which don't.

~~~~~~~

Follow-up: All right, there was a big flaw in my methodology. My test files were created in Adobe RGB color space. Now, there's nothing wrong with working in Adobe RGB space, but digital cameras can produce colors that fall outside that space (which is why you want to do your RAW conversions into ProPhoto RGB), and good printers can render colors outside of Adobe RGB space. You can argue about how significant that is in practice. Mathematically, the printer gamut looks much larger than Adobe RGB; perceptually, I would describe it as being only a little larger. The impact on the vast majority of photographs is subtle, in my judgment. But it's not nonexistent.

I don't see anything wrong with working in Adobe RGB space (although I don't normally, myself, not when working with original digital photographs). It's not quite as good as ProPhoto RGB, but most of the time you'll be hard-pressed to see any difference. Had I limited myself to discussing working in Adobe RGB, I'd stand by my assertions. There, I really haven't seen any evidence for the superiority of custom printer profiles, to date.

But I didn't. I made a blanket assertion, and it was wrong.

Ctein, Technical Editor

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Posted on Sunday, 26 July 2015 at 07:14 PM in Computers, Ctein, Digital Techniques, Printers and Printing | Permalink | Comments (46)

Experiment

So it looks like we're going to try a little experiment these next two weeks...I've given Ctein Admin status (called "Guest Author") here on TOP, and he's going to be posting several columns and moderating the comments to his own posts while I'm away moving. Note that the pace might be quite different from the usual—he's likely to write fewer posts, albeit substantive ones, perhaps to include his review of the new Retina iMac.

I haven't explored these options before. There's also a status called "Junior Author" (an unfortunate term, since it's sort of automatically belittling) which allows other authors to create their own posts which would then await my final editing and approval before posting.

That sounds a lot like the almighty Ed. is jealous of control, but not necessarily. Any publication has what's called a "style sheet," meaning all the standard ways that the myriad usage, punctuation and formatting issues that come up in written language are consistently handled. For instance, to name just a few out of hundreds, we follow classical American typesetting in using commas and periods inside quotation marks, "like this," instead of the European style which is "like this", and, in quotations, I allow British spelling but I regularize punctuation to site style.

Allowing "Junior Authors" to write their own posts to await posting by me would allow me to apply site style to all the posts, keeping the publication as a whole consistent despite having different authors.

I might try this when I get set up at TOP Rural Upstate World HQ. Could be fun.

Mike, who is on vacation and isn't supposed to be posting

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Posted on Sunday, 26 July 2015 at 11:57 AM in Blog Notes, Ctein | Permalink | Comments (2)

Saturday, 20 June 2015

Ctein Camera Watch and Other Tales

As you know, our old friends Ctein and John Camp a.k.a. John Sandford have written a book. Scheduled for release in early October, you can pre-order Saturn Run and read the first two chapters here.

For the book, John was paid a niggle, a pip—a palt, you might say, which would be the noun form of the adjective paltry—and Ctein was paid infinity dollars. The amounts were the same in U.S. currency, but that would be an inaccurate way of looking at it. As Albert Einstein—not the physicist, the bartender at Al Einstein's Smoothie Bar—liked to opine, "everything's relative."* John's palt and Ctein's infinity dollars are the relative amounts.

My guess. Version II. Before this date in August.

Being a scientist myself**, I've decided to sit back and merely observe. Because, with infinity relative dollars now burning a black hole in his pocket, Ctein can afford any camera. No, not the Softwood Box or the Ur-Leica, but any consumer digital camera. He has an Epson 99999000000000 which is approximately as long as a medium-range U.S. Navy cruiser; but his current camera of choice is an Olympus OM-D E-M5. I hypothesize (we scientists start out with hypotheses) that this will not be the case for long. I could be wrong. (Scientific hypotheses can always be wrong.)

So the current question of scientific not to say philosophical inquiry must be, what does a great printer with a great printer buy when he can buy anything? A Leica S? A Canon 5DS R? Something else with an "S" in it? How about a Sony a7R II or something else with a "II" in it? The Nikon D810 or D750? Something else with a "D" in it. (Probably not. No diss to Canikon, but "D" is getting to be an old letter...stale and unfashionable. Ctein, who contrary to rumor is not an alien but rather a Chinese immortal, is also old, but neither stale nor unfashionable—just look at his glasses. "S" and "X" are cooler letters than "D" now, although "X" is looking distinctly faddish. See how easily I can get off track even in the short stretch of a blog post?)

The watch starts now. We are taking bets on a.) how long, and b.) what. (We scientists always place bets on outcomes. Did you know that? Remember I might be wrong.)

How to spell Berekeley
Just put an "e" between all the consonants. There are all sorts of tricks I could give you to help you become a better speller.

Why you haven't read anything on the blog for a while
Because I'm working on a post about all the new cameras. Each increment of halfway to finishing takes just as long, and thus, theoretically, I can never finish. Science is hard. I think I'll quit being a scientist now.

Mike

*Actually he said "every-f---in'-thing's relative," but we observe middlebrow conventions of propriety here.

**Satire alert. I got A's in Biology, Oceanography, and Paleontology, though.

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jim woodard: "I'm pretty sure based on Ctein's scientific interest and knowledge and his interest in solar astronomy he will most likely buy the full lineup of Hasselblad Stellar, Lunar, and Lusso!"

Roger Bradbury: "I read the first two chapters of Saturn Run, but now I have to wait until October? Aaaaaaaaargh! I've been reading Sci-Fi since 1972 or so and I know the real thing when I see it. This is the real thing. I'm looking forward to reading the rest."

Alan Fairley: "I am particularly interested because Ctein is a printer (and one who knows how to get all of what is in a file out of it), not a pixel-peeping web poster."

Gabe (partial comment): "I somehow don't think Ctein will splurge...doesn't fit my perception of the man. Here comes the big HOWEVER, however. If I was in his position, and in spite of having read his thoughts on how many (few) pixels one really needs, I'm thinking of a once-in-a-lifetime treat. And to me that means Leica S and a couple or three lenses, and minor accessories. Either that or a nice Porsche Cayman.

"In any case many kudos to him...well deserved!"

James Sinks: "I can't imagine Ctein buying a DSLR. He's referred to the prosumer size cameras as boat anchors in the past and seems quite happy with the tiny mirrorless setups. Also, don't forget that Ctein took a Phase One MF system out for a test drive at one point and decided it wasn't for him. If he gets a new camera, my first bet would be that he just moves up to the latest and greatest M43 body. If he jumps systems, I think the Sony A7R II would be the logical place for him to land, and if not that, then the Sony A7S (or even one of each)...but at the same time, the Sony compressed raw format might be a deal killer for him. I think the only thing that would move Ctein to buy a DSLR is if he suddenly decides to embrace studio shooting and he wants a dedicated camera to leave sitting on a tripod 24/7. The 5DS might be tempting at that point, but probably not."

Posted on Saturday, 20 June 2015 at 12:52 PM in Cameras, new, Ctein | Permalink | Comments (41)

Sunday, 14 June 2015

Ctein and Clichés (Visit to Ctein Part II)

So I promised you a picture of Elmo the African Gray. Here he is with his [choose one: a.) pet human; b.) "friendbeast," in the words of The Oatmeal; c.) doting owner]. Who knew that a parrot would kiss on request? But only if he feels like it.

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, we looked at many pictures. In a hurry, because I was trying to miss rush hour. (Or rush fivehours, which is what they have in San Francisco—two rush fivehours with a small window in between of traffic that's merely heavy.)

Something that struck me as I was looking at Ctein's prints is that two of them—which he's looking at in the photo above—are forthrightly of subjects that were on our list of The Worst Clichés the other day. I'm sure somebody mentioned sky pictures with plane wingtips in them (a genre of which I never tire personally, not that that matters), and another person mentioned single leafs. But consider Ctein's:

Ctein, Sun Country Wing

Ctein, Browning Oak Leaf

Don't you love that spectral "S" on the winglet? And the colors in the leaf are very rich and variegated in the print. Both pictures have greater presence in the prints. Both are very Ctein-like treatments.

These are perfect examples of "the cliché exercise" I suggested days ago, of making a list of clichés and then working away at it until you're able to make pictures of each subject that are truly "yours." So, see, this is exactly what I was talking about. You make from clichés the opposite of clichés.

This brings to mind a great quote from Elliott Erwitt another reader supplied, but I can't find it. I'll insert it when I manage to find it again. [UPDATE: It was Dave Jenkins who sent the quote, which I posted here. Erwitt said photography "has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."]

The way back
Ctein, Paula and I had a nice lunch in Pacifica, I got a nice tour of the splendiferous new lower level of No. 42, and he and I talked TOP business for a while. I hadn't been at his house since either '94 or '96 (quoth Ctein, "I could figure it out if it was interesting enough, but it isn't"). Then I got back in the rental Jetta and headed innocently home.

I say innocently, because I was unconscious of my coming fate. But then, I was much younger then.

O mortal Wisconsinite, O piteous Cheesehead; abandon hope all ye who enter the wait for the Bay Bridge. As I approached the Bridge, first traffic began to slow, then Time began to slow. At first I was content to measure my progress in whole blocks—then car lengths—then feet—and finally in mere thoughts of movement, for those had become rare. The Universe poised still and in perfect equilibrium as I attempted to get through simulacra of traffic lights: unmoving traffic filled the far side of each intersection until the light turned red, at which point the traffic on the far side would move slowly forward creating room for a few more cars, then traffic from the side streets would fill in all the available space and the light would turn green. The intersection transmogrified into a perfect Kafkaesque stymie of neverending green-yellow-red, green-yellow-red, green-yellow-red until I began to forget my credit card number, my phone number, and eventually my name and age and all the things I once hoped to achieve.

Siri kept flashing never-before-seen things like "Road on route has now closed; tap to dismiss," and "You should have kept going straight at the last intersection, it's now four hours faster than turning right; but too late." Later she began reflecting on her good fortune in neither being human, nor actual or real. I crept closer toward not caring whether I was.

The sky darkened. Night fell. I began to get disoriented from hunger and dehydration; at two in the morning, with Venus and Mars shining pitilessly from the bright black sky, Siri began listlessly quoting long sections of Kierkegaard. I passed car models long out of style with the bleached skeletons of San Francisco drivers festooned fantastically in grotesque positions on the rotting drivers' seats. My regrets in life began to flood my thoughts. And then we hit the bridge and traffic started to flow fine again and I got back to Berkeley.

At home, our host said, "Oh, you got caught in traffic? How long? Only thirty-six hours? That's nothing. That's nothing. Some people take that long to get home every day." With a dismissive wave of his hand.

It was not nothing. It was a stretch of my youth I have lost eternally.

So, Northern California, on the good side: delightful food; fantasyland landscapes; moderate temperatures; laid-back citizens; social consciousness; friends; lack of insects. On the bad side, a wee tad of traffic from time to time that can make watching plants grow seem helter-skelter by comparison.

Still, it was great to see Ctein in his native environs. I hope to stop back much sooner than another two decades. Next time I should consider returning to the landward side of the Bay via San Jose.

Mike

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jsmidt: "Audio books were invented for Bay area traffic."

Bahi: "There's often a slightly otherworldly look to Ctein's work, I think, intended or otherwise. It's not quite Earth as we know it. Even though I'm not a fan of science fiction, I very often like his results. Both the leaf and the wing are good examples. For me, the latter is the view from a spacecraft assessing the surface of a potentially inhabitable planet that has clouds and potentially Earth-like terrain.

"In 2013, my car broke down in a car park next to a familiar-looking Scottish castle. It was only a few months later, safely back home, that I realised I own a fabulous Ctein print of that very same castle; Ctein's rendering appears, of course, as if from another green world, devoid of car parks and tourists and ignition wires that fuse together on a scorching summer's day.

"All of which to say that the mental state you experienced after visiting the great man, and which you describe so well, was entirely appropriate. I suggest taking exactly the same route next time."

Posted on Sunday, 14 June 2015 at 03:04 PM in Blog Notes, Ctein | Permalink | Comments (18)

Monday, 06 April 2015

Singing vs. Chatting

Written by Ctein

I'd say that Mike's experience with the iPhone closely parallels my film experience. In the '80s I got one of the compact 35mm SLRs (and later, high quality point-and-shoots) so I'd be surer of having a camera with me. I did a fair amount of photography with it. And, as Mike said, every so often the stars aligned perfectly, and probably a half dozen of the prints in my dye transfer portfolio are from 35mm (Mike could probably figure out which ones, 'cause he's got the eye, but no one else would).

But...I hit his "but." Those were rare alignments. Most of the time the pictures were just fine. And just that, nothing more. Photos I made in medium format sang. The 35mm ones mostly just chatted. The technical level just wasn't there to make me truly happy. So 35mm became the convenient fallback and I stopped even trying to use it for anything I might consider serious, because 90% of the time I'd be disappointed. As I said, this really closely parallels what Mike said about his iPhone shots.

The secondary message in this is that there was nothing wrong with 35mm per se. Most professionals found it entirely satisfactory. It just wasn't, for me. It is good. I needed more.

That's what I've seen with phonephotos. They are good, technically. Better, frankly than my quality 35mm point-and-shoot could produce, in all size enlargements. But that still doesn't make them (yet!) the match of a dedicated camera...most of the time...and our sensibilities have gotten ratcheted way up by the digital disruption.

No one should feel defensive if they find phonephotos completely satisfactory, and nobody should be telling them otherwise. But no one should feel defensive for feeling the need to move to a higher level, either.

Ctein

Californian Ctein is TOP's Tech Editor and former weekly columnist.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Eric Brody: "I share Ctein's frustration with 'everywhere' cameras. I've had many over the years, from film to digital. I have spent too much time agonizing over them. With each I have this hope that this will be the one with which I'll make that special image. When I look at the photos of which I am proud, it's uncommon for any to have been taken with the 'everywhere' camera. I should not blame the camera. My current one is a Fuji X100S, a capable tool to be sure. I just do not make many memorable images with it. I suspect it is a reflection of my photographic style, if I may glorify my photography such as to even hope I have a style."

Gato: "Interesting, as Ctein's experience is similar to my take on 35mm.

"Although I made my living with 35mm back in the day, most of my personal photography was done with 4x5. The quality of 35mm was fine for my pro work—mostly publicity and newspaper—but just not up to what I wanted for myself.

"I'm finding phone photos more satisfactory than I ever did 35mm, though I can't explain exactly why. I think it has to do with immediacy and less hassle with equipment combined with technical quality that is more than good enough for the kind of images I make with it. As for what others may choose, to me it comes back the old 'right tool for the job.' Find something that makes the kind of pictures you want and go with it."

David Boyce: "But chatting can be so much better than singing. So much more can be conveyed in a short chat than in a song. Metaphorically speaking."

Auntipode: "Most folks chat. Few sing well."

Caleb Courteau: "Chatting vs. singing. Wonderful analogy that really sums up the differences in format quality. Thanks Ctein for the thoughtful post."

Posted on Monday, 06 April 2015 at 07:20 AM in Ctein, Photographic aesthetics | Permalink | Comments (37)

Tuesday, 09 December 2014

Ctein's Remodel Report

[Note: Yes, I am having an Xmas Sale. Who isn't, these days? Skip to the end of this column for the full details. Some print availability is limited. —Ctein]

So...

What's been happening the last six-seven months? The downstairs remodel is finally finished. Only took three times as long and twice the money that was budgeted. Sigh. No complaints about our contractor, not a one. Tekhome is fabulous. They do real quality work. George Amarendos is wonderful to work with and handles every aspect of the remodel from permits and architectural plans through subcontractors through final inspections. He worked very hard to keep the costs under control and, so far as we are concerned, went above and beyond the call of duty to do so. It's just, sometimes, with remodeling, well, "things happen." Especially when you're talking about a 60-year-old house whose infrastructure was largely untouched since it was built.

I'm not going to take you through step-by-step. There are 600 photographs that do that. Here's a trio of very pertinent "before" photographs from last April.

The first one shows the (ex) darkroom, stripped of equipment and seeing the light of day for the first time since I moved in.

The second, the state of the unfinished garage after much cleaning and straightening up.

And the is third the location of the former unfinished storeroom (filled with empty bookcases, here).

What's it look like now? Here is the main corridor, where the unfinished garage was. Off to the side are doors leading to the new guestroom, library, Paula's den, utility closet, and the laundry room and bathroom. I'm showing you this because of the ceiling lights. They're 800 lumen 3000K 93CRI LED's that George found on his own. They are very, very fine, absolutely perfect for an artist like me.

These lights are available in both 800 and 1100 lm units. I can't find the datasheet for the 1100 lm unit (DMF's website is ridiculously hard for a techie to navigate) but here's a link to the one for the 800 lm lights.

Which gets me to my new 16x13-foot print studio, located where the old storeroom was. It's lit by five of the 1100 lm units. That's more enough to brightly and evenly illuminate the space. In fact, I have them on a dimmer, so I can reduce the light intensity in the room to more closely match real-world viewing conditions when I need to. (A classic darkroom mistake is having so much light over your print viewing area that you print too dark for normal lighting conditions).

You can get an idea of just how even the illumination is by looking at the 12-foot expanse of wall in the next illustration:

Keep in mind that photographs exaggerate broad brightness differences that are invisible to our eyes. Visually, that wall looks uniform from left to right. It'll be perfect for judging my large panoramas!

Not so by the way, my Epson 9800 printer survived being in storage for six months. I wasn't sure. I ruined a 2200 printer once that way—unfixable head clogs. Yeah, I used up about $50 worth of ink clearing the heads on the 9800, but that's nothing compared to the cost of a new printer.

All did not go entirely smoothly. Some of my negatives were damaged. I'm in the process of repairing them. That will be the subject of a forthcoming column.

• • •

So...as I said at the beginning, I'm having a sale, really great prices with shipping (anywhere in the world) and sales tax covered by me. U.S. orders placed by December 15 will be delivered before Christmas.

My most signature "Christmas in California" photograph is only $175, half its normal price.

I'm clearing out extra prints from one of my TOP sales of three years ago at $225, a savings of $125 over the normal print price...plus that no-shipping-cost-or-sales-tax thing. Availability on these is limited so you should order ASAP.

That's it. Over and out, until next time.

Ctein

Former columnist and master printer Ctein, who has been busy writing his first novel, is still friend-o'-TOP #1. He is heard from in these environs from time to time.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

The love you take is equal to the love...oh, never mind

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

David Miller: "Re 'Only took three times as long and twice the money that was budgeted. Sigh': This is exactly the final formula for each of the home additions and renovations I've undertaken in the forty years we've lived in our house. In the long run I'm sure you'll find it is worth the time and money."

MikeR: "I'm psyched on those LED lights. I see what you mean about their website—but it did lead me to a local distributor, who I have contacted to find a local electrical installer. Ctein, I like your style, and your thinking."

Posted on Tuesday, 09 December 2014 at 05:54 PM in Ctein, Photo equipment | Permalink | Comments (11)

Friday, 07 November 2014

Print Sale Update

Ctein reports that all 54 orders have been shipped for his "Bird Impression" photograph print sale. This sets a new land speed record for TOP Sale order fulfillment.

If you haven't gotten a confirmation e-mail from the Post Office for your order within 24 hours of this notice going up, please e-mail Ctein ([email protected]) and he will send you the particulars.

If you haven't gotten your print within 30 days, please contact Ctein.

As for our next Print Offer, in time for Christmas, I'll just drop a (broad) hint and remind you of this one. (We're doing another with Paul and John Paul.)

Many thanks for supporting TOP! And let us know what you think of the print.

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Carson Harding: "I just walked in the door five minutes ago to find the print and this post waiting for me! The print is excellent. Thanks very much."

Posted on Friday, 07 November 2014 at 06:19 PM in Ctein, Print Offers | Permalink | Comments (3)

Monday, 27 October 2014

October Print: 'Bird Impression' by Ctein

Ctein came across this remarkable find in St. Paul, Minnesota, last year, and made of it a photograph like none you've ever seen before. And seldom have we gotten more requests for prints than for this picture.

Unlike photographs that "project," you might find yourself having to explain to viewers of the print just what it is—the ghostly impression of the impact of a bird into plate glass, rendered on the glass in remarkable detail. It hints of violence as well as beauty, mystery as well as pain, and yet still possesses an undeniable gesture of grace. A collision, literally, of the manmade and the natural world.

For those who wish a closer look at the photograph before purchasing, Ctein has a larger JPEG on his own website: http://ctein.com/TOP/Bird_Impression3.jpg . The detail below (click to see it at ~100%) shows the exquisite detail in the dusty impression.

The photograph is printed on Canson Baryta Photographique paper with Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks. We're offering the print in two sizes this time—11x14 inches (9x12" image area) for $95, and 17x22 inches (15x20" image area) for $175. The prints will be signed and titled in ink on the front, dated and signed in pencil on the back.

Shipping costs are $20 for the smaller 11x14" and $25 for the larger 17x22" print, anywhere in the world. California residents must pay sales tax. The PayPal order buttons below reflect the total price, including tax and shipping.

Ctein has generously offered to donate a larger than normal cut of the proceeds to the "Help TOP Move" campaign, so orders help Mike too.

As usual, we accept orders for four days only. Sales close at noon Central Time on Friday. Then the prints are made to fill the orders we've received. Prints cannot be ordered past the close date.

HERE'S HOW TO ORDER

[Sale has ended, 12 noon 10/31/2014. Here is Ctein's email and his address is:

Ctein
42 Skyline Drive
Daly City CA 94015

should you need to contact him about your order.

All prints will be delivered before Xmas. You will receive a shipping confirmation email with a tracking number from the U.S. Postal Service when your print ships. All prints ship USPS Priority Mail. Also, there will be a notice posted on TOP when they've all shipped. Please allow 45 days after your order before inquiring whether your order has shipped.

Many thanks to all the buyers of this print!]

Mike

UPDATE: If you'd like to help with the problem of stressors and dangers to bird populations, reader GKFroehlich recommends this informational page from the American Bird Conservancy. See his full comment in the Comments section. —Ed.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Robert Hudyma: "I saw this image when Ctein visited in Toronto, and the web image displayed does not capture the subtle nuances that the Epson printer can render. The link to the higher resolution image is better. The original image will evoke an emotional response when you see it."

Jim: "Have you seen this, which was coincidentally posted today."

Darr: "I had a window desk on the fifth floor of a big office building once. The view was spectacular until one beautiful Spring day birds began flying into the windows and falling to their death. It was a traumatic experience because I never knew how those types of buildings could bring tragedy to the innocence of nature. I purchased this print in part to bring remembrance to the tragedy, and to share it with others. When I first saw this photo it reminded me of the feelings I had decades ago when I first read James Dickey's poem, 'Falling.'"

James Liu: "Nabokov's Pale Fire contains a 999-line epic poem that begins,

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

John Seidel: "Ah. This hit a nerve with me as well. It is beautiful and terrible at the same moment. GKFroehlich covered the problem well. I have noted the vast decline in birds over the course of my life. I'm 63 and the lack of birds now as compared to my childhood is striking. I would have been very pleased to have taken this photo and at the same time I still find it heartbreaking."

Kevin Purcell: "John Myers wrote in the Comments: 'Looks like a rock dove (urban pigeon) but how could such avian impact leave an image on plate glass?'

"Feather dust. Feathers wear and abrade in use. The edges tend to be the most fragile. When the bird hits the window the impact breaks the edges of the feathers leaving the feather dust attached to the window. Hence the ghostly outline of the feather edges. I think I can see the alula extended on the leading edge (together with the forward sweep of the wing through the primaries); I suspect this pigeon was in the process of taking off rather than colliding with the window while in free flight."

GKFroehlich: "For John Meyers (et al.)—this is a quote from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: 'Found only in certain taxonomic groups such as pigeons and herons, powder down feathers are never molted. Instead, they grow continuously but disintegrate at the tips into something like a fine talcum powder. The powder permeates the other feathers, presumably to provide waterproofing, although the exact function is not well understood.' Most (all?) of my images of bird strikes on windows are of pigoens and doves, of various species. I'm guessing a heron would leave quite an impression."

Aaron Britton: "There is a glass, Ornilux by Arnold Glas, that can help with bird collisions. Ornilux is a glass that has patterned UV coatings which are visible to birds but not humans. What you end up with is a piece of glass that looks like any other glass to humans but to birds they see a net type pattern. Interesting stuff."

Posted on Monday, 27 October 2014 at 01:00 PM in Ctein, Print Offers | Permalink | Comments (16)

Sunday, 10 August 2014

Ctein Paris Meetup UPDATE

Franck Dewannieux, Quai de Seine, 2005. Tri-X, Leica M6, 50mm Summicron.

The TOP meet-up with Ctein in Paris organized by Franck Dewannieux will take place tomorrow inside Café Crème around 7:30 p.m.

Café Crème is located at 4 Rue Dupetit-Thouars in the 3rd arrondissement (district) of Paris. The closest subway stations are Temple and République.

Anyone considering attending can also e-mail Franck at [email protected]; he will share any further update (and his phone number) via e-mail.

Big thanks to Franck for doing this!

Mike

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Posted on Sunday, 10 August 2014 at 05:31 PM in Ctein | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tuesday, 05 August 2014

Ctein Meetup in Paris France!

If Parisian (or visiting) TOP readers would like to meet Ctein at an informal (and Anglophone) get-together on the evening of Monday, August 11th, they can get in touch with Franck ([email protected]) and let him know they are coming (and how many they are). He will then confirm the exact location. The get-together will start around 7:30 p.m. or so and will most likely happen in the general area of Le Marais district.

Mike
(Thanks to Franck)

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Posted on Tuesday, 05 August 2014 at 04:08 PM in Ctein | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, 21 July 2014

Ctein in Paris

[Note: TOP's Technical Editor, Ctein, has not fallen off the face of the earth. He's just been very, very busy administering print sales for TOP, finishing up the novel he's jointly writing with John Camp, and dealing with the ongoing remodeling of the former darkroom and garage space. (He says the contractor's been telling him it'll be done in two weeks—for three weeks now!) Expect new columns from him in the fall. —Mike the Ed.]

Written by Ctein

In August, I'll be taking a well-deserved vacation with my frequent traveling companion Bayla Fine. The two of us will be in Paris on Monday, August 11. Yeah, one whole day in the City of Light. You take what you can get.

If some Parisian reader would like to organize a get-together with me for that evening, I'd be delighted to meet anyone who wants to come. I don't speak French, and can barely read it, so it will need to be an Anglophone gathering. (That shouldn't be a problem for anybody who can read this.) Any of you Parisians wish to volunteer to be the coordinator for this?

Now for the big question: if someone had one and only one full day in Paris, what would you suggest they do with it? Unfortunately I cannot magically exchange it for a week. It's one day or nothing. So, what should Bayla and I do with our day?

Ctein

ADDENDUM: P.S. It never occurred to me that the most popular suggestion would be to spend all day just walking Paris. It's a great suggestion; unfortunately, it will be impossible! Bayla gets around with a cane and cannot walk more than a few hours a day and needs to stop frequently to sit down and rest.

In that vein, the Batobus sounds simply brill. —Ctein

Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Pak-Ming Wan: "Argh! What timing—I'll be on holidays away from Paris for two weeks and on that day! (Otherwise, I would have put my hand up to organise that meetup.)

"August is a good time to visit because most people are away on holidays, so Paris is relatively empty. My last day in Paris would probably be Notre-Dame, around the banks of the Ile de la Cite, and Latin Quarter, Le Marais, Montmatre, and the canals Saint-Martin. Photography wise, I'd pack light to keep yourself mobile during the day. If you've got one day and you're going to be walking a lot, carrying water is probably more useful than a tripod. Enjoy your day in Paris!"

Bron (partial comment): "Learn a few 'politenesses'; I was amazed how far courtesy would take me, and I have a terrible accent."

Steve Rosenblum: "As you don't have much time and walking long distances is problematic I would suggest going to two or three places at which you can linger and enjoy yourself that are in close geographic proximity: 1. Musee D'Orsay. This will take a couple of hours. Then cross the bridge in front of the museum and spend some time at 2. The Tuileries Garden and surrounding park. The park also includes a photography museum. Then take some form of transportation the few blocks to 3. Ile de la Cite and the Notre Dame Cathedral. This will easily fill one day. Be sure to have breakfast in a nice outdoor cafe, and try interesting looking places for lunch and dinner."

Posted on Monday, 21 July 2014 at 09:12 AM in Blog Notes, Ctein | Permalink | Comments (56)

Sunday, 25 May 2014

Ed. and Tech. Ed. Get Together

My friend and co-conspirator Ctein*

Ctein and I had our annual meet-up in Madison this afternoon, which was great fun as usual. We went to our now-traditional Italian restuarant lunch spot along with his S.O. Laura, and then, back at the hotel where his conference is taking place, looked at cameras and pictures in equal proportions. I took this shot with the Olympus E-M1 and the Panasonic 12–35mm, one of several fancy lenses Ctein brought along to show me—I gather he had this one on loan from John Camp.

So, can't teach an old reviewer new tricks? Can't teach an old reviewer old tricks, hardly. Seems I keep having to learn this over and over again: you don't really know a thing until you try it yourself. I've read many times on Ye Tubes of Ye Internets that the older Panasonic 20mm lens (my "normal" on this camera) is slow-ish to focus on the newer Olympii and that a number of alternatives are faster. Well, I had no idea how much faster. The Panasonic 12–35mm zoom is blazingly fast on the E-M1; really surprisingly fast. Almost I-didn't-know-how-fast-autofocus-could-focus fast.

The bar keeps being raised. I loved the way this lens handles on this camera.

Ctein showed me a number of 17x22" prints, all taken with the E-M5 Micro 4/3 camera and all utterly putting to the lie the idea that Micro 4/3 is not capable of superb results on paper. Some of the new aurora borealis shots from Yellowknife are wonderful, and I particularly liked a delicate and incredibly sharp landscape taken from the plane. Almost hard to believe.

He showed me some B&W work, too, but something was seriously wrong with them—the tones were just not right. Maybe he has some sort of explanation for their weird and "off" look. Some sort of mystery if you ask me.

[UPDATE: Okay, I'll come clean—they were all infrareds. Ctein cheerfully accused me of having an antipathy toward infrared, and I guess I have to concede that.]

I got to try the Olympus 75mm lens, too—another beauty, although it's a bit too long for the way I see.

I'd sure love to have that zoom, though. (And no, those words from my lips are not actually a sign of the Apocalypse.)

Mike

*In case you might not know, it's pronounced "kuh-TINE" and it's his full legal name.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Stephen Scharf: "I have that 12–35mm zoom, and it rocks. It's on my E-M1 90% of the time. Pricey but worth it."

Nicholas Condon: "We'll know it's the Apocalypse when you use said zoom to take a color photo of a cat with flowers."

David Wilson: "The Panasonic 12–35mm ƒ/2.8 X zoom has become my go-to lens for Micro 4/3. Works great on all the Panasonic and Olympus bodies I have. It's almost like having a bunch of high performance primes in one lens, which I guess is the point."

ShadZee: "I'm still waiting for his final review of those glasses ;-)"

Mike replies: I don't think that's going to happen now, as the company that makes them went out of business. To Ctein's great chagrin.

Richard Alan Fox: "When using that lens on Olympus bodies do you use camera IS or lens IS?"

Mike replies: I had the body stabilization on and the lens stabilization off for the handful of shots I made with it. My understanding is that with Panasonic bodies that have IBIS (is it just the GX7, or are there more?), the lens IS always take precedence, but with Olympus bodies with IS, you can use either (or none). If that's not right I hope someone who is more intimately familiar with the issue will fill us in.

Posted on Sunday, 25 May 2014 at 01:55 AM in Ctein, News and Occasions | Permalink | Comments (16)

Thursday, 20 March 2014

Matrix Sale Update

On the subject of Ctein's recent dye transfer matrix and workprint sale, he reports that he has finished matching up people's requests with the available sets. He is happy to report that there were only two unresolvable conflicts out of some 160 set requests. He emailed those two readers and let them choose whatever they wanted from the unsold sets. So, everyone is going to come out happy.

If you haven't received yours by then, or gotten an email from the US Postal Service notifying you that your shipment is on the way, please contact him on or after April 1. (Please, he requests no April Fool's joke emails.)

Incidentally, if you missed the sale or you want to order a particular workprint and set of matrices from the ones remaining, they are available for viewing at Ctein's website. The price, of course, is considerably higher than it was during the sale, but you get your pick.

Our next TOP print sale should begin within a few weeks. As promised, it will have some very inexpensive options (along with some very expensive ones. And some in the middle).

Mike

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Posted on Thursday, 20 March 2014 at 10:53 PM in Ctein, Print Offers | Permalink | Comments (0)

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