"California Earthframes" as printed hardcover book for sale now

"You and Bettina should be very proud of this work. The images are truly beautiful. I think the arrangement in the book is excellent -- the facing images complement each other very well." Mark Saperstein 1/11/2006

Our brand new E-Book: The Art of Digital Fine Art printing     

4/1/2006 Portfolio Invitation #13: Urban Abstracts Color (submission ends 4/15/2006 8am PST)

3/31/2006 Aperture 1.1 to ship in April (source Rob Galbraith)

3/30/2006 Canon releases trio of camera firmware updates (Source Rob Galbraith)

3/28/2006 Workflow Session 2006-01

We plan to post more workflow sessions in the near future where we show how we created some of our portfolio images. Right now we work mainly on two portfolios:

• California Oak
• California Dunes

3/28/2006 Don't miss our Summit 2006

The 4th Photography & Fine Art Printing Summit will take place November 10th to 13th, 2006, in Page, Arizona. Seats are limited. In addition to studying color management and color spaces, we will also do field photography in stunning locations such as Antelope Canyon, Lake Powell and Horseshoe Bend, as well as study Raw conversion, Photoshop processing, image optimization, printing.

3/27/2006 Updated B&U Steinmueller Portfolio: California Oak

3/27/2006 Contest #19: B&W #2 (6 of 8 entries posted)

We know this is a high frequency of contests but we did not have any for quite a time. We will slow down soon and then plan to have about one contest per month. If you have ideas for good contests please drop us a note.

3/26/2006 Contest #18: Tonality Recovery #2 closed (8 of 8 entries posted)

That was fast, hardly one day!

3/26/2006 Adobe Creative Suite 3 due in second quarter of 2007 (via Rob Galbraith)

Normally PS had a new release about every 18 months. This would now be two years. The main issue is clearly the Adobe/Macromedia merger and its consequences for the suite. This also means that we have to wait that long for a Macintel version of Photoshop.

3/26/2006 Contest #16: IR to B&W Conversion #1 now closed (8 of 8 entries posted)

3/25/2006 Contest #18: Tonality Recovery #2 (8 of 8 entries posted)

We know that this picture is muddy. This contest is about bringing it to life.

Here is a new contest for your weekend. Check also out our previous Tonality Recovery Contest #1.

3/24/2006 BreezeBrowser Pro 1.4.2 now also supports Canon 30D

3/23/2006 Aperture Library Spanner (source Rob Galbraith)

Spanning Aperture libraries can be done even without Apple changing Aperture itself. We recommend to test this free tool before using the new library in production.

3/22/2006 HDRSoft: Photomatix Tone Mapping Plugin

See what a HDR tool can do for your normal non HDR images.

3/22/2006 Qimage v2006.250 released

3/22/2006 Fotoespresso 1/2006

Our first Fotoespresso for 2006. This time we feature:

• Adobe Lightroom Beta 1
• Ring Arounds and Variations

You also may want to have a look at the earlier issues of Fotoespresso.

3/21/2006 New Portfolio Invitation #13: Urban Abstracts Color (submission ends 4/15/2006 8am PST)

3/21/2006 Portfolio Invitation #12: Motion (voting till 3/31/2006 8am PST)

3/20/2006 New B&U Steinmueller Portfolio: California Oak

For many years we love the oak trees in California. We recently shot some color and IR B&W photos near our home in San Jose. Winter and storms are a good chance to take these kind of photos.

3/19/2006 Olympus E-330 EVOLT review (source Phil Askey)

3/19/2006 P45 – Top commercial shooters can afford it, landscape photographers deserve it (by Markus Zuber)

Thanks to our reader Markus Zuber we got an early reader review of Phase One's P45 back. Check your bank account before you read :-).

We will have the P45 back featured at our Summit 2006.

3/18/2006 Contest #17: Tonality Recovery #1 (7 of 8 entries posted)

We know that this picture is muddy. This contest is about bringing it to life.

Sun creates a too high contrast and overcast can produce dull low contrast images. This image presents a challenge as we have some sun over snow and the green hill in strong overcast. We would like to learn what our readers do to recover these types images.

3/18/2006 Hahnemuhle Announces "FineArt Pearl" Paper

At PMA this new paper did not even have a name. Now it is called FineArt Pearl and should be available late April 2006. We will get soon some first samples and will then publish our findings.

3/16/2006 Canon DPP 2.1 available

3/16/2006 LightZone V1.2

Always found it hard to work with layers and layer masks in Photoshop? Read our diary about LightZone.

3/16/2006 Realviz Stitcher 5.1 released

3/15/2006 Adobe XMP Toolkit Version 4.0 Prerelease 1

We also would like to learn from other RAW converter developers why they are not using XMP for their own side car files? If all RCs would use XMP the handling of metadata in other tools would be quite a bit easier.

3/15/2006 Eizo introduces 21" ColorEdge CE210W and the 24" ColorEdge CE240W

We plan to check out the 24" model soon.

3/14/2006 GretagMacbeth posts Eye-One Match 3.6 (source Rob Galbraith)

3/13/2006 Joseph Holmes Chrome 100 color space

3/13/2006 Contest #16: IR to B&W Conversion #1 (5 of 8 entries posted)

This time we want to learn about good ways to convert a digital IR photo to B&W. Have fun!

3/12/2006 Moments: Snow over Silicon Valley

3/12/2006 Mamiya launches ZD camera (Source DPReview)

Any European readers with hands on experience out there who would like to share their first findings?

We try to get a rview sample but assume it will take some time.

3/11/2006 A Modest Terminology Proposal (source The Online Photographer)

With all these many multipliers (1.3, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0 ...) we think the proposal by Mike Johnston makes a lot of sense. 24mm means a 24mm focal length and the multiplier does not change that. But on a camera with multiplier 1.5x this lens has the same field of view as a 36mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera. Let it from now on call 36mm-e.

3/11/2006 RAW Developer 1.4.6 available for download

3/10/2006 Canon joins for the Summit 2006

At our summit in 2004 we had one of the first Canon 1Ds MK. II available. This year is again Photokina and the chances are good that we may see the next generation of Canon's flagship camera at our Summit. It is also likely that we can use a new Canon pigment ink printer at this years summit.

3/10/2006 OpenRAW RAW Survey now closes earlier at 2/15/2006

An International Study of the Experiences, Requirements, Preferences, and Concerns of Photographers regarding RAW Imaging Technology. The goal of the survey is to help all photographers working with RAW images. OpenRAW wrote us "...so far we have more than 18,000 responses, which is quite a impressive number. This is also the reason that we decided to close the RAW survey ahead of time, at March 15th, 2006 instead end of the month as initially planned..."

3/9/2006 Micron Technology to acquire Lexar Media (source DPReview)

3/9/2006 The Photographer as Artist and Entrepreneur

3/8/2006 Portfolio Invitation #11: Reflections #1 results posted

3/7/2006 PTLens version 6.7 released

From the press info: "...The latest version executes 1.5 - 3 times faster than the previous releases. On a 3Ghz dual core machine corrects distortion on a 12mp image in less than 2 seconds! ..."

3/7/2006 Uwe Steinmueller presents at the COBA Meeting 3/8/2006

We present:

• Brief PMA 2006 overview
• Our book California Earthframes (you can buy signed copies at $40)

3/3/2006 Our brand new E-Book: The Art of Digital Fine Art printing

Finally we finished our book on fine art printing using today's inkjet printers.

3/3/2006 Tonality & Colors in Photoshop and Raw Converters

Creating the right tonality for any given image is an essential task. Unfortunately we may encounter an unwanted interaction between tonality and colors. We show a technique that gives you more control.

3/2/2006 A View of the Photographic Industry From 30,000 Feet (source Luminous Landscape)

Well written article by Michael Reichmann. His conclusions are nor real surprise to us but still a nice summary of the photographic industry in 2006.

3/2/2006 Portfolio Invitation #11: Reflections #1 voting closed

3/2/2006 Canon DPP now in version 2.1

We reported 2/9/2006 that DPP 1.0.3 had a bug. Canon announced that this bug was fixed in DPP 2.1 (delivered with the new 30D). We hope DPP 2.1 will be soon available for general download.

3/1/2006 Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 Hands-on (source DPReview)

3/1/2006 PMA News 3/1/2006

• Summary
• Apple Aperture 1.1 announced for March