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Rangefinder Magazine
January 2003

Digital Photography: by John Rettie
Bright Lights, Scanning and Photo Rescuing

FOR THE PAST TWENTY YEARS Comdex has been the one “must-attend” computer show for those wanting to keep up with the latest innovations in the computer industry. A couple of days spent at the annual convention has proven to be valuable time spent seeing trends for photographers interested in digital imaging.

Judging by the downsized Comdex held this past November in Las Vegas it may well prove to be the last ever Comdex, as it was literally one-third the size of previous years. Many exhibitors said they’d attend the Consumer Electronics Show in January instead. I guess this means that computers have finally and irrevocably become just another consumer product, rather than a specialist product.

The few trends I observed at Comdex included the continuing proliferation of LCD screens. Sadly the majority still fall short of being really useable for photographers who care about seeing accurate colors on their monitors. Nevertheless there are signs that improvements are working their way into a larger number of monitors on the market. Those who yearn for a decent LCD monitor such as Apple’s 23- inch HD Cinema display should not have to wait too much longer for prices to come down and quality to go up.

One peripheral that did catch my eye were the newest color laser printers. Although they’ve been around for a few years they were expensive and incapable of producing images anywhere near good enough to be called photo quality. Judging by the output I saw on some new printers around the $2000 price mark they could be used for proofing and quick printing of photographs for client approval etc. I am even hoping to be able to try out a laser printer that costs under $1000 to see if one can be useful for photographers.

A sad aspect of Comdex was seeing the warring factions on the recordable DVD front. There were two distinct camps for the DVD-R and DVD+R formats. Although the DVD-R format has a major head start and is more compatible, the opposing faction seems determined to establish its format as the standard. In the meantime it’s confusing for users as one has to make sure one buys the correct blank discs for the writer. Sony has the right idea as it has introduced a DVD writer that can write to both formats. The company has obviously learned its lesson and instead of backing one format over another it’s hedging its bets on both sides of the fence.

Verilux’s HappyEyes desk lamp provides natural daylight spectrum lighting for improved viewing.

HappyEyes Lamp
This is not the type of product I would normally review but it is certainly a relevant product for photographers. Ambient light plays an important role when viewing photographs. We all know how important it is to set up a monitor to display accurate colors. It is also just as important to make sure that the color temperature produced by the lighting in a studio or office is appropriate. While the human eye is very good at accommodating inaccurate lighting it is all too easy to get a false picture of what a photograph looks like when the ambient lighting is wrong.

How many times have you wished to have bright, natural daylight right in your room on your desk? A company called Verilux has a lamp, called HappyEyes, that closely simulates the balanced spectrum of daylight.

The lamp produces glare-free light for “indoor sunlight” wherever it is needed. The energy efficient bulb produces flicker- free, instant on, bright white light that shows true colors, eases eyestrain and saves money. I have been using a HappyEyes desk lamp now for a few weeks and the bright white light is certainly beneficial. Some would say it’s too bright but it certainly is more accurate than the fluorescent light and halogen lamps I have been using previously in my office. I cannot claim it’s improved my health or mental attitude, but you never know. According to Verilux, the 5000- hour energy-efficient compact full-spectrum 27W bulb (equivalent to a 150W bulb) lasts five times longer than an ordinary bulb. The desk lamp sells for under $100 and is available through mail order and selected stores. The company also produces bulbs that can be also be used in regular light sockets.

	SanDisk’s ImageMate FireWire card reader comes complete with a cable and carrying bag for transportability.

SanDisk FireWire card reader
Most photographers I know use a card reader to transfer images from a storage card to their computer rather than relying on a direct connection. It’s faster and more convenient as long as you are using a FireWire connection. For the past year I have been using a Lexar FireWire card reader. It’s worked fine except that it only operates when connected directly to one of the ports on the back of a computer. The same problem also afflicts my Nikon scanner. Consequently, with just two FireWire ports on the back of my Mac G4 I have had to switch cables to use both peripherals as I use one port to permanently daisy chain an external hard drive, a CD-R writer and a hub.

SanDisk, the originator of the CompactFlash card, has recently introduced a small card reader that works when connected through a hub or daisy chained to a port on the back of another FireWire device. It’s an attractive looking reader in a small round enclosure that accepts a regular FireWire cable that can be detached. The retail packing includes the cable and a wallet for carrying the reader, cable and cards making it an ideal solution for those who need to transfer images from a camera to a computer while traveling. That is as long as those computers shave a FireWire port, which all Macs and many PC laptops do nowadays.

Lexar Image Rescue
Lexar Image Rescue Loosing digital images on a storage card is every photographer’s worst nightmare. Lexar has now made available a rescue software package that can recover lost files on Lexar Compact Flash cards through a Mac or Windows computer. It’s a consumer version of the software that Lexar technicians have used for years to work directly on the file structure of a Compact Flash card. The reason it can work in many cases is that image files are not actually erased when they are “deleted” from a card. Instead only the reference to the file in the root directory is changed. As long as new images have not been added the original data is invariably intact – it’s just takes a program such as Image Rescue to access the undamaged files. The $39.99 retail software package also includes the unique Lexar Jumpshot USB card reader, which is required to run the program.

Image Rescue (left) and PhotoRescue (right) can read every sector on a Compact Flash card in order to retrieve lost files.

PhotoRescue
For those who don’t use Lexar storage cards there is another very similar rescue program on the market called PhotoRescue. It is published by a company in Belgium and is available for download through their web site. It works in much the same way by reading every sector on a card and extracting unaltered information. It works with different readers as well so it is more flexible in use than the Lexar program.

Both programs also include a feature for wiping a card clean. A normal reformat performed in a camera does not erase the data, only the file index. If you want to avoid the chance of someone extracting sensitive pictures or files off a card it needs to be wiped clean. It can also make the card operate more efficiently after being used and reformatted many times.

Nikon Scanner Updates
Nikon Scanner Updates Nikon was fairly prompt at delivering a new driver for its Super Coolscan 4000 film scanner soon after Mac OS X appeared. Consequently after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar I was disappointed and surprised that the scanner would not work. I had to resort to using OS 9 in order to do some urgently needed scans. Then I discovered that a third party scanner driver from Vuescan does work well under Jaguar.

	Vuescan offers a comprehensive array of features for Nikon’s Coolscan scanners, including a visual depiction of the infrared dust and scratch removal.

Vuescan has much more comprehensive controls than Nikon’s scanning software making it a good choice for those who do a lot of scanning. What’s more it only costs $40 and the author seems to keep upgrading it regularly without charging for upgrades.

Ironically days before I finished this column Nikon suddenly posted an update (Nikon scan 3.1.4) for its Coolscan driver that is compatible with Mac OS Jaguar. This means I now have two choices for scanning slides or negatives. As Nikon’s scanning software finally includes a plug-in for Photoshop 7.0 I find that is useful when I want to scan just one image from within Photoshop. Unfortunately the Nikon plug-in takes over Photoshop while scanning so that one cannot perform any other functions while it’s operating. Vuescan operatesoutside of Photoshop so it can be scanning in the background while one is working in Photoshop. Of course Nikon’s software can be run independently of Photoshop as well. It’s great to have choices on such an important piece of software.

Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is a useful book for those who want to maximize their knowledge of the workings of Apple’s newestoperating system.

Quick Book Review: Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
As its name suggests this is a book that anybody using OS X day in and day out should consider buying. In an hour of reading I was able to learn some useful keyboard shortcuts and how the Unix based operating system relies heavily on password protected areas. For those who want to get really nerdy there are several tutorials on how to do simple UNIX commands in the terminal window.

That’s not to say this book is for geeks. It’s for those people who want to maximize their understanding of the Mac operating system. Mac OSX: The Missing Manual, Second Edition (712 pages, written by David Pogue, published by O’Reilly & Associates), covers all aspects of OS X 10.2 Jaguar, which although only a small increase in version number, sports more than 150 improvements and changes.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 33 years, a computer for 23 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past ten years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.