“HDR” image from the apartment window

“HDR” image from the apartment window

Originally uploaded by Ian Fuller

I’m not much good at this HDR stuff. I see some amazing pictures on Flickr but I have not had much success at creating anything interestng myself.

I played around with Photoshop CS4 and twelve images shot with the Canon EOS-30D at 1/3 stop increments between +2 and -2EV. This was the most pleasing result, helped with a little Channel Mixing. I kept my hands off the Seim Effects: all my own work.

Shortly afterwards the skies opened and the rain pelted down. I had to rescue my camera from the balcony before it got soaked and ruined.

Photoshop.com Doesn’t Want You to Leave

Please Don't Leave!

If you try to close your browser window or the tab when Photoshop.com is running it puts up this warning. That seems a little fussy.

Pictures from Photoshop.com

Well, that was a bit of a workup. I tried an experiment posting a picture of a bunch of coconuts on a tree from my new photoshop.com account to this blog.

I thought it would post a small picture and a link to the big one like Flickr does. But no – it posts a link to a Flash based embedded player and publishes the entire album, not just the picture I selected. Good job all the pictures were harmless. That was not what I expected and I think it could cause problems by disclosing more pictures than the user intended.

Also – I don’t like “post this” tools that publish the item immediately (no option to save as a draft). Flickr does that too. At least Flickr gives me the option to add text to the post before publishing.

I like the way Photoshop.com says it does not save your login information. All these links between domains with my login and password stored heaven knows where are a bit worrying. But I lose the convenience of one click publishing: Flickr does keep that login info so the experience is simpler.

Last night I tried linking to my Picasa Web Album but I could not get it to work. I had to tell Picasa that api.photoshop.com had permission to access my account. But then I went back to photoshop.com and it asked for permission again. Something did not stick.

Adobe AIR

rich Internet applications | Adobe AIR.

I found that Photoshop.com has its own photo uploader. But to get it I must install something called Adobe AIR.

Adobe AIR, Google Gears, Microsoft something-else. I guess these are all frameworks for doing something similar (running local apps “in” my browser) and the big guys are fighting for space on my machine.

Sorry, I rebel. Time was many years ago when I’d install any and all new frameworks, environments, middleware and the like. Then I spent more time updating and facing bugs than I did doing the thing I wanted to do in the first place.

This business is still sorting itself out. I have resigned my role as unpaid tester. I’ll upload photos to Photoshop the old fashioned way for now.

I should change my name to Carl Fredricksen.

Photoshop.com

Online Photo Editing, Online Photo Sharing | Photoshop.com.

I must be a bit slow – I didn’t know that Adobe have an online photo editing and sharing service at Photoshop.com.

I signed up for an account using my existing Adobe ID (you need this for support and downloads). Adobe give you 2GB of storage with a free account. That is the same as PicasaWeb from Google.

Flickr is different – 200 pictures (I nearly said images) and 100MB a month upload. Maybe the pressure from others will make Flickr relax that limit. Remember the old days when free email accounts had storage limits? I think Google broke that one with Gmail a few years ago and now all the major email services offer unlimited storage.

Anyway … I thought I would give Photoshop.com a try and see how they’ve implemented online photo editing. Is it from the Photoshop School, the ACR / Lightroom School or something new?

The signup process was a bit painful. Even though I had an existing Adobe ID I had to respond to a confirmation email. Then I needed to type my user name and password three times before I was set up. That is an unnecessary pain. Once should be enough Adobe!

Also – having a user id as my email address is silly.

OK, it is easy for the user to remember but people often change their email provider. My original Adobe ID was tied to my email provider from years ago – concentric.net. I stopped using it maybe five years ago. But when I wanted to buy Lightroom online they sent a confirmation email to that old address. I had to email Adobe order processing and ask them to cancel the order, then I had to establish a new Adobe ID so I could interact.

I bet lots of people use their work or college email and when they change jobs or graduate, it’s gone. It would be different if Adobe provided email service like Yahoo or Google. Then it makes sense to use an email address as a user’s primary id. But not for a separate company like Adobe.

So with that off my chest, I signed on. I should have expected it – photoshop.com uses Flash. After all Adobe bought the company. I am set up as bkkphotographer.photoshop.com.

I would have thought that Adobe would provide an uploader from Lightroom to Photoshop.com. As far as I know they do not. I guess it is because they’re aimed at different markets. LR is an enthusiast / professional tool. Photoshop.com is for amateurs (in the original best sense of the word).

Google provide Picasa as a desktop application and it is well integrated with Picasa Web. I used to use it before I centralized everything around LR with Jeff Friedl’s upload plugins.

Maybe Adobe have integrated PS.com with Elements?

I found a list of other users’ galleries. They claim to have 117,326 galleries online. I guess that is the same as the number of registered users. That is not many for a service that has been around for a year or more. I tried searching for ‘Thailand’ and ‘Bangkok” and found zero galleries relating. At least I will be the first. I found nothing to do with ‘San Francisco’ either. Perhaps I was searching in the wrong place: the search box wants a photoshop.com user name (as if I know any). It isn’t a general search a la Google.

I’ll write more about Photoshop.com when I learn more about it. You can look at bkkphotographer.photoshop.com and see what I have done.

Not a Good day for Photography

Tuesday was cool (by Bangkok) standards, grey and it rained a lot of the time. Not a hard monsoon type rain; more like a London rain. I felt I could have been in England not Thailand, but of course the temperature was many degrees warmer.

I have sympathy for the workers who had to work outside today.

I did not take any interesting photos today. I posted the best of a lacklustre bunch on PicasaWeb here.

Tommorrow is a new day.

How I felt today

Lost in the Cloud – NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor – Lost in the Cloud – NYTimes.com.

This is an interesting article by Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain about cloud computing.

I’m not ready to entrust my photos to the cloud yet. Quite possibly I never will be. I use Flickr and Picasa extensively but they are not the repository for my pictures. They are on an encrypted hard drive and some other places.

Professor Zittrain makes good observations about the security and accessibility of the cloud. I don’t think they’ll ever be completely solved.

I’m old enough to remember programming using punched cards. In my first job in ITT Business Systems (IDEC) in Cockfosters, London they were starting to convert from punched cards for the source of our software to storing it in a library on what IBM called DASD – Direct Access Storage Devices – aka Winchester Disks.

I recall the old timers did not trust the new fangled online systems. They kept their source backed up on punched cards – boxes and boxes of them. The biggest incovivenience was that a lab of about 50 engineers had to share a few IBM 3270 terminals. We were still meant to give our source written on coding sheets to data entry operators and the shared 3270s were meant for minor corrections.

As a young know-it-all straight out of university where we has used an ICL online system and ample Teletypes, I scorned the old timers. One sprinkler leak would turn all their cards to papier- mâché I chortled.

Now I am about the age of those old timers. Mike Ritman and Dave Butler, where are you now? Hopefully in a happy retirement. But I’m wondering if my attitude to keeping my photos on a hard drive or DVD that I can see and touch is akin to their attitude, 30 years on?

Where I Went Last Weekend

I thought I’d try publishing the photo maps from my account on Picasa Web. They show where the pictures I uploaded were taken.

Here’s the one from Saturday, 18th July when I went by car from Bangkok to Sa Kaeo. I was able to get a good GPS fix from the front seat of the taxi so the route is complete.

Click to see the album on PicasaWeb

I returned to Bangkok on Sunday, 19th July. This time I was in the front seat of an Isuzu DMax light truck. The Nikon Coolpix P6000 could not keep a GPS connection so I only took a few pictures en route.

I think it is because of the design of the truck cab: I was further away from the windscreen. GPS signals seem to be able to penetrate auto glass but not a steel roof.

Click to see the album on Picasa Web

Nokia nosing closer to cameraphone convergence?

From dpreview.com. They have an interview with one of the product managers for the Nokia N86. He discusses the ways Nokia is working to improve the photographic performance of their phones.

I have not bought a camera phone, but maybe they are getting close to the point where I will consider one. I carry my Nikon Coolpix P6000 almost everywhere with me but maybe 30% of the time maybe I could get equivalant pictures with the N86. I expect it has integrated GPS so I’d keep my favourite  non-photographic feature.

Cleaning your own DSLR’s Sensor – the right way

Camera Dojo > Product Reviews, Shooting Tips > Cleaning your own DSLR’s Sensor – the right way > brush, camera, ccd, cleaning, DSLR, repair, sensor ».

This looks like good advice. I have been too scared to try cleaning my sensor myself and have taken my cameras to Canon Thailand in Empire Tower on Sathorn Road when they need it.

Their rates are reasonable but they are not quick. I think the last time it took them a week to clean my EOS-30D. Plus you often have to wait a long time to get served when you get to their office.

The 30D does not have Canon’s integrated cleaning system. I wonder how well it works. Kerry distinguishes between dry and sticky dust. I would think the integrated systems work OK on dry but not so well on sticky. But as I understand it they cannot expel the dust from the camera body: won’t it settle elsewhere?