O'Reilly Digital Media

Good article in today’s NY Times about the One Laptop Per Child initiative.

“Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as “a really wacky idea.”"

Check it out!

—-
BTW, you don’t need the OLPC laptop to check out one of the cool applications that will be shipped with it. eToys, based on Squeak, can be downloaded and executed on your Fedora installation. See the eToys page on the OLPC Wiki.

The Squeak VM and Etoys are packaged as RPMs. Easiest way to get them:

wget http://etoys.laptop.org/olpc-etoys.repo
cp olpc-etoys.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/
yum install etoys

Related links:

Nice introduction to Squeak
Doom on the OLPC hmmm… probablly will not ship with unit :-)

Technorati: olpc etoys

Last week I talked about persevering with your projects. Continuing last week’s post, after getting a flurry of rejection letters from publishers about my proposed book, Empty Sky: The Pilgrimage To Ground Zero, I tried a different way of approaching my publishing problem. The late Susan Sontag lived in my building. She was connected to photography through her seminal volume entitled: On Photography. She was also an opinionated and well-known New Yorker. I thought that if she would agree to write a forward for this project, then maybe book publishers would take more notice of the work.

So I got the doorman Ralph Garcia to get my book dummy to her, which he did. The very next day I got a call from her assistant telling me how busy she was and it might take a few months for her to even look at it. I mentioned that I had extra copies and no expectations; I really just wanted her to see the work, and he promised me that Ms. Sontag would see the book dummy. That was that.

Months passed, I continued to seek a publishing deal, but kept getting rejection letters. I never heard back from Susan Sontag or her assistant. But one day I did get a call out of the blue from a photographer named Andy Levin, who told me he was looking at my work from Ground Zero, and that he liked it very much. He told me that he had purchased a book dummy of my work from a guy who sold it to him on Seventh Avenue in New York, for four dollars.

“What? Who are you?” I asked.

He went on to tell me that the guy who sold him the book dummy, plucked it from Susan Sontag’s garbage! I don’t use explanation marks often, but this was a lot to take in. Andy Levin told me about his friend at Life Magazine (Barbara Burrows) who was publishing a commemorative volume of images post 9/11 that would be published on the one-year anniversary and asked if he could show her the work. To make a long story shorter, Life’s book, The American Spirit, with an introduction by George W. Bush–published 8 pages of my work from Ground Zero. I got my biggest paycheck since moving to New York in 2000, and with the credibility of the Life Book, I was able to find a small publisher in Montreal who published Empty Sky-The Pilgrimage to Ground Zero.

I don’t know if Susan Sontag ever actually saw the book dummy, but that’s okay. In my acknowledgements I thanked all the players in this story, including a fellow named Steve in my building, who often sets up a stand on Seventh Avenue to sell the stuff that people throw away. I had done all the right things in trying to find a publisher, but it was a recycling bin in my building that lead to my biggest success in publishing to that time. The moral of the story for me was that if you truly believe in what you are doing, things will work out. You never know where your next success will come from, so don’t give up. Get the word out, and keep the faith.

Susan Sontag’s Recycling Basket

A new book: Heroines & Heroes: Hope, HIV and Africa by Steve Simon
(Designed in Aperture)
Book Launch & Lecture, December 1, World Aids Day
7pm, Barnes and Noble, Chelsea, 675 6th Avenue, New York City (Corner 21 Street)
http://www.stevesimonphoto.com
Heroines on the Time.com site

I see TIME has a breath-takingly stupid list that pupports to be “the greatest and most influential records ever.”

Not one non-English-language record. Not one record from continental Europe. Not one from Africa. Not one from South America. Not one from Asia (I don’t think the Plastic Ono Band counts). Australia/Pacific gets one for AC/DC. Only four non-US artists in the last twenty years? Only one album vaguely related to dance music?

When I listen to the radio, 50% or more of the material has a Kraftwerk infulence. On the list? Nope.

I suppose “the greatest and most influential English-language records that made it to America” doesn’t have the same zing.

I spent the last month making my own home-made USB control surface: a Velleman USB IO board, a multiplexor board of my own, some home-made pressure pads/ribbon controllers, and various pots, switches and plugs for external pedals and controllers. Looks good in a brown leatherette upholstered box. I’m working on programing the USB to MIDI software so that it can be an input for VSTs. Lots of fun.

Then, I return to the office this week only to discover that while I have been away, our friend Gilles from Cordanova had popped over from France to Sydney to deliver a Cordanova VMX Studio MIDI/USB control surface. Gilles used to work at my office when he started designing the VMX, so it was interesting to see which of the ideas that people had floated about had made it into the final design: I had suggested that it should have at least one big knob and a slider so that it could function as a DJ control surface as well as for synths and mixing, and also have a variety of switches and knobs, and I am happy these made it through.

But it is embarrassing to see how much better build quality the commercial product has over my home-made one.

With the Aperture 1.5 update came an additional feature within the Loupe tool called “Centered Loupe”. The original Aperture Loupe tool was, and still is an excellent way to check focus and detail on images of any size, including thumbnails, but the Centered Loupe is more flexible and it feels more natural to me (more like a real loupe). It can serve as both a focus check tool as well as a “before and after” window for edits made in the adjustments HUD.

Following are a few tips and suggestions for using the Centered Loupe option. I recommend following along with your images. For the purposes of this tutorial, I will call the Loupe, when in non-Centered Loupe mode, in “original Loupe” mode.

GETTING STARTED

1. First, display the Loupe tool in one of the following four ways: Under View>Show Loupe; by pressing the ` key (the key is in the upper left-hand corner of your keyboard and that’s my preferred way to access it); by choosing the Loupe icon in the top right corner of the browser (it looks like a gray circle); or by ctrl/right clicking-then choosing “Show Loupe.” The Loupe will appear in original Loupe mode, unless you had previously changed it to Centered Loupe mode. Aperture remembers the last state the loupe was in. While you are in original loupe mode, another option when ctrl or right clicking is to choose “Detach Loupe from Cursor (shortcut is the ~ key).” This makes it similar to the Centered Loupe tool. However, I much prefer how the Centered Loupe functions.

Next, enter Centered Loupe mode (while still in original loupe mode) in one of the following ways: Select View>Use Centered Loupe; Use the keyboard shortcut: Cmd + ~; or Ctrl/Right Click and choose “use Centered Loupe.”

2. You can then display color values (RGBL), which will change as you hover over different areas of your images. There are three ways to do this: The first is to select View>Show Color Value in Loupe; the next is with a keyboard shortcut (Option + ~ ); and the last is by Ctrl/Right Clicking and choosing Color Value in the contextual menu. This tool is especially helpful for determining blown out areas (RGB values of 255), or very dark areas. However, the box can be distracting, so keep in mind that you have another RGBL readout at the top of the Adjustments HUB that serves the same purpose.

3. Next, decide at what size, zoom level and in which position you want the Centered Loupe to be. This will change from image to image and will depend on the subject. The size of the “magnifying glass” can be adjusted easily by clicking, holding and dragging on the bottom right of the tool (white area). The small contextual menu (see fig. 1 below) makes it easy to adjust the zoom percentage. There are other options in the contextual menu as well. I generally use 100 and 200 percent to judge image sharpness.

fig. 1: The Loupe tool in Centered Loupe mode with the contextual menu showing.

If the Centered Loupe tool is sized down to a relatively small circle, the small arrow in the corner that displays the options will disappear (see fig. 2 below). Just click in the bottom right gray area, and hold the ctrl key (or right mouse click) to access the contextual drop down menu. If you place your mouse over the magnifying glass area of the Centered Loupe, the scroll ball on the Apple Mighty Mouse, or scroll wheel on most mice will cause the center area to increase or decrease in zoom level. Like most things in Aperture, there are also shortcuts for zooming and for adjusting the size of the Centered Loupe.

fig. 2: Centered Loupe mode shown when it is too small to display the small contextual menu icon.

4. Another great feature of the Centered Loupe option can be accessed by clicking and dragging inside the Centered Loupe (see fig. 3). This will temporarily create a circle in the center of the Loupe surrounded by a shaded area based on the zoom percentage you have selected. And at the same time, while you are choosing the “focus area,” the whole tool can be moved around the screen. When you release the mouse button, the area in the center will enlarge to the zoom percentage you specified.

fig 3: Clicking and dragging inside the Centered Loupe.

5. Now for the real fun (drumroll, please). If you are in Centered Loupe mode, any adjustments made using the Adjustments HUD (for example, White Balance or Edge Sharpening) can be seen inside the Centered Loupe area, which makes it an instant before and after comparison tool. Just click on and off the HUD adjustment item or items to see the before and after effect. Depending on the system you’re using, and the adjustments you choose, the adjustments may take a few seconds to redraw.

This tool is especially helpful when reducing chromatic aberration in RAW files. The adjustment for chromatic aberration in the HUD is called Chroma Blur (under RAW fine tuning and circled in red in fig 4a (top). Fig. 4b (middle) shows an area of a RAW frame with some chromatic aberration, and fig. 4c (bottom) shows the same image after applying a Chroma Blur radius amount of 3.3.

fig 4a (top), fig 4b (middle) and fig 4c (bottom)

6. If you choose “Focus on Cursor” from the contextual menu, instead of Focus on Loupe, the tool works in a very similar way, but the center of the loupe will sow the areas where your cursor is hovering. This is not as good a choice for checking before and after adjustments (as described in Tip 5) because there will be no image visible inside the loupe while making Adjustments. I find the Focus on Cursor option ideal for checking focus on thumbnails.

I hope that these tips help you to get the most from the improved Loupe tool. The real power of the tool comes with experimenting with it until it becomes second nature. I look forward to hearing how you use the new Loupe features.

All demonstration images ©Andrew Darlow. All Rights Reserved.

Is there anyone out there in reader-land who has a PC, a Zune, a USB Sniffer and some development experience? I’m dying to see what’s going on during a Zune sync so that I can figure out how to simulate that with the Mac/Linux command line.

The addy as always is erica@mindspring.com.

Thanks.

Browsing through my Funny folder today, I came across this bizarre press release from 1999:

TOKYO — Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. will market a digital still camera that supports the 340-Mbyte Microdrive introduced by IBM Corp. earlier this month.

Microdrive will enable a digital still camera to store over 10,000 frames of VGA pictures, or 7.5 minutes of JPEG video at 15 frames per second in VGA quality, or 18 minutes in quarter-VGA quality. For audio, the Microdrive is able to store 12 hours of 8-bit 8-kHz sound.

Imagine how it would feel to listen to 12 hours of that!

• Eight is Enough (176KB AIFF)

(You can hear the original 16-bit, 48kHz file in Mark Nelson’s review of the Edirol R-09 recorder. I crunched this one down with SoundHack.)

I use Aperture almost daily. I have found that it satisfies 95% of my digital imaging needs. And I appreciate the fact that Apple has made tremendous strides with Aperture. In less than a year, Apple has ramped up to version 1.5.1. The company has continually worked to improve the application’s performance, value and extensibility. But there’s always room for improvement. And just as programs like Photoshop have been improved over the years, I have no doubt that Apple will work diligently to improve Aperture. So I’ve decided to help.

In no particular order; Five things that I think Apple could do to improve Aperture…

At nine feet long, the IK Multimedia StealthPlug guitar-to-computer interface is possibly the skinniest way to go digital. The StealthPlug is a cable with a USB plug on one end and a quarter-inch guitar plug on the other. In between, there’s a little arrowhead that converts the analog guitar signal to digital and the computer’s digital signal back to analog so you can hear it.

The arrowhead also contains a headphone jack and volume up/down buttons, making the StealthPlug an improvement on the slightly cheaper SoundTech LightSnake. And the StealthPlug also comes with a much better software bundle, featuring a slimmed-down version of IK’s AmpliTube effects processor; the full version of Mackie’s well-regarded Tracktion audio/MIDI sequencer; IK’s SampleTank 2 SE (a software sample-player); and 500MB of guitar, bass, and drum grooves from Sonic Reality.

It wasn’t clear whether the StealthPlug’s headphone output has the option to mix in the direct signal for zero-latency monitoring, but early buyers report that the latency through the software guitar effects is as low as 5ms. The StealthPlug supports both ASIO and Core Audio.

I first saw the StealthPlug at NAMM last January, so presumably IK spent the last ten months polishing it. If the StealthPlug upholds IK’s tradition of good-sounding plugins, it should be a terrific bargain—not to mention a compact, easy way to get your guitar and computer talking. It sells online for as little as $99.

Do I use Curves or Levels first? O’Reilly author Ken Milburn got an email from a reader asking about his magically layer-creating action for Photoshop that he describes in the second edition of his book Digital Photography Expert Techniques, and I thought everyone might like to share. You can apply this action to any file you’ve just opened for processing, and you’ll have an ordered framework of layers for making your initial adjustments according to the good workflow procedures Ken outlines in the book. Here are the instructions Ken sent that reader for creating the action yourself:

1. Create a new action in Photoshop.

2. Create a new layer and name it Spotting, Retouching, or whatever. Have it selected when you’re spotting and have the “Sample All Layers” box checked.

3. Create another new layer and name it “Burn and Dodge”. Put that Layer into Overlay mode. Then choose Edit > Fill Layer and fill it with 50% Gray. Later, you will use the Brush tool with the default White and Black colors at about 8% opacity to do your burning and dodging. It acts more light Fill Light than the burn tool, doesn’t throw out anything, and you can restore the original by painting in 50% gray or simpling re-filling the whole layer and starting over. You can even make several of these layers…each to burn and dodge different parts of the image at different intensities. Talk about control!



4. Make a new Levels Adjustment Layer. It will label itself. After you’ve created the Action, follow my instructions in the book for adjusting Levels channel by channel first (which also color balances), then adjust over-all exposure with the RGB channel.

5. Make a new Curves Adjustment Layer. It will label itself. Change the mode for this layer to Luminosity (keeps your adjustments from affecting color balance). After you’ve created the Action, use this layer for overall adjustment of the contrast in the image for specific levels of brightness by adjusting specific portions of the curve. Later in the workflow, you can do the same for specific physical areas in the image by pre-masking them using any of the selection tools and then feathering the selection so that it blends.

6. Make a new Color Balance Adjustment Layer. It will label itself. After you’ve created the Action, follow my instructions in the book for adjusting Levels channel by channel first (which also color balances), then adjust over-all exposure with the RGB channel.

The image shows how the layers palette will look after you run the action. For more on the actual adjustments that take place at each stage, check out Ken’s book.

A week and a half ago, Derrick mentioned that he was testing out a SmartDisk FireLite 120GB hard drive with Aperture. Since I do so much of my photography and processing with Aperture on-location at events, it’s important to me to have lots of storage at hand, and to be able to carry that storage easily. This means that small, lightweight, bus powered hard drives are perfect for the job. I have a few of these drives, all FireWire 400, but I’ve lately been running a bit tight on space. So, Derrick’s post prompted me to keep my eyes open for a new drive.

The other day, I ran across another drive that fits the bill perfectly. It’s the LaCie Rugged All Terrain 100GB drive. It sports a 7200RPM disk and a FireWire 800 connection, both of which will be welcome features when working with Aperture and RAW images.

On MacBook Pros and PowerBooks that have both FireWire 800 and 400 connections, hooking the drive up to the FireWire 800 port will leave the FireWire 400 port free for a second drive without requiring a separate FireWire hub to carry around. Enticed by a portable 7200 RPM FireWire 800 drive, as well as the option of easily having two portable drives hooked up on-location so that I can make a duplicate backup of my images onto a separate drive after pulling them off of a CompactFlash card, I picked one up for use with Aperture.

With this new drive, I’m going to try a slight change to my mobile Aperture workflow. Instead of having a fully internalized library on my laptop’s internal hard drive and using the external drive just a backup device, I’m going to start using Aperture’s new ability to store master images outside of the main library and store them on the new FireWire 800 drive. This will accomplish two things: First, I’ll be able to test drive this feature before possibly using the strategy on my main desktop library. Second, I’ll be able to flip through pictures, rate, and keyword them without connecting up the external drive while sitting on an airplane or at a cafe. Of course, I’ll make sure to back up my images to a second FireWire 400 drive and to roll them up to my home machine’s master library.

As I work through this new, at least to me, style of working with my Aperture library, I’ll report back on how it works over the next few weeks.

In case you missed the news, a few months ago Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) split into two groups. The digital group moved to the Presidio facilities in San Francisco under the ILM banner, and the physical production group stayed at its home port in San Rafael & was subsequently renamed Kerner Optical. I recently visited a colleague of mine at the Kerner offices, Roger Nelson, who is part of the newly renamed Kerner team. For special effects fans and film buffs, a visit to the Kerner facility is truly a magical experience. You never know what you’ll find during a visit there — they could be building the Black Pearl pirate ship for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy, or an ark for “Evan Almighty”, or blowing up a galaxy on the back lot. It’s truly like going to the Wonka factory (in more ways than one).

Tucked away in a group of unmarked buildings in an industrial part of San Rafael, the Kerner offices house full wood and metal shops, huge warehouses to build full scale models, plenty of open space for blowing stuff up — and they even build their own cameras on-site. It’s quite a self-contained facility.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Kerner game plan — and seeing some cool photos, check out this article on Kerner Optical. It’s worth a peek into this world of wonder; a playground for some truly talented adults. Serious fun!

Device Certificate after the jump.

Here are the folder and device properties specifically for my Zune, plus its supported filetypes. I’m guessing the Sync partner is the one computer that my Zune hosts to. Biff is the meta-syntactic name I selected as my Zune ID. The Bytes/Free bytes are accurate. The Battery level seems low as it reads as fully charged on the device and has been plugged in for over 24 hours. When I mount the Zune on my PC, the disk name is indeed “Storage”.

The native playback is also interesting. I’ve found that I can sneak around bitrate limitations imposed by the Zune software, but more about that another day.

Special directories:
Default music folder: 0×05000001
Default playlist folder: 0×00000000
Default picture folder: 0×0500001a
Default video folder: 0×0500001e
Default organizer folder: 0×00000000
Default zencast folder: 0×00000000
MTP-specific device properties:
Friendly name: Biff
Synchronization partner: {303B6311-C247-4E9E-B9E6-E9B7AE437BC7}
Total bytes on device: 29806592000 (28425 MB)
Free bytes on device: 28740386816 (27408 MB)
Storage description: “Storage”
Volume label: “14badbab - 0aee704e - 80bd1ff8 - 8ee00652″
Battery level 93 of 100 (93%)
libmtp supported (playable) filetypes:
ISO MPEG Audio Layer 3
Microsoft Windows Media Audio
Microsoft Advanced Systems Format
Microsoft Windows Media Video
JPEG file

This one is really long, so I’ve hidden most of it behind the jump. Here are the Playable File/Object Types and the object properties supported for each one.

Supported operations:
1001: Get device info
1002: Open session
1003: Close session
1004: Get storage IDs
1005: Get storage info
1006: Get number of objects
1007: Get object handles
1008: Get object info
1009: Get object
100b: Delete object
100c: Send object info
100d: Send object
100f: Format storage
1010: Reset device
1014: Get device property description
1015: Get device property value
1016: Set device property value
1019: Move object
101b: Get partial object
9810: Get object references
9811: Set object references
9802: Get object property description
9807: Get interdependent property description
9801: Get object properties supported
9803: Get object property value
9804: Set object property value
9805: Get object property list
9806: Set object property list
9808: Send object property list
9101: Get secure time challenge
9102: Get secure time response
9103: Set license response
9104: Get sync list
9105: Send meter challenge query
9106: Get meter challenge
9107: Set meter response
9108: Clean data store
9109: Get license state
910a: Unknown(910a)
910b: Unknown(910b)
9201: Unknown(9201)
9202: Unknown(9202)
9204: Unknown(9204)
9212: Unknown(9212)
9213: Unknown(9213)
9214: Unknown(9214)
9215: Unknown(9215)
9216: Unknown(9216)
9170: Unknown(9170)
9171: Unknown(9171)
9172: Unknown(9172)
9173: Unknown(9173)
9180: Unknown(9180)
9181: Unknown(9181)
9182: Unknown(9182)
9183: Unknown(9183)
9184: Unknown(9184)
9185: Unknown(9185)
Events supported:
None.
Device Properties Supported:
0xd181: Unknown property
0xd101: Secure Time
0xd401: Synchronization Partner
0×5001: Battery Level
0xd102: Device Certificate
0xd402: Device Friendly Name
0×5002: Functional Mode
0xd405: Device Icon
0xd103: Unknown property
0xd211: Unknown property
0xd131: Unknown property
0xd132: Unknown property
0xd215: Unknown property
0xd216: Unknown property

USB low-level info:
bcdUSB: 512
bDeviceClass: 255
bDeviceSubClass: 0
bDeviceProtocol: 0
idVendor: 045e
idProduct: 0710
IN endpoint maxpacket: 512 bytes
OUT endpoint maxpacket: 512 bytes
Device flags: 0×00000000
Device info:
Manufacturer: Microsoft
Model: Zune
Device version: 01.01.00322.00-00309
Serial number: 14badbab - 0aee704e - 80bd1ff8 - 8ee00652
Vendor extension ID: 0×00000006
Vendor extension description: microsoft.com: 1.0; microsoft.com/WMDRMPD: 10.1; microsoft.com/WMPPD: 11.1; microsoft.com/WMPMCPREMCONT: 1.0; microsoft.com/AAVT: 1.0; microsoft.com/WMDRMND: 1.0; microsoft.com/MTPZ: 1.0;

US only. Napster Freebies Page.

“Boy Soprano” by Xiu Xiu
Named after a late-’90s Chinese movie, these Northern California indie experimentalists continue to craft seriously offbeat but surprisingly accessible music, including this track from their new album, The Air Force. [Nov 26]

“Don’t Believe Everything” by Shane Bartell
Rereleased in 2006, this track from Bartell’s 2004 debut album, Too Soon to Say, pairs Cardigans collaborator Lars Göransson’s production with the singer’s moody yet sensitive lyrics. [Nov 25]

“Hold You Down” by Jon B
A veteran of the ups and downs of the music business, the smooth R&B singer/songwriter/instrumentalist brings a renewed focus to the music part, sounding fresh and relaxed on this new piano and acoustic-driven single. [Nov 24]

“Call Me Your Darling” by Thea Gilmore
After a 3-year hiatus, this UK singer-songwriter returns with her signature breathy style intact and a new batch of songs, including this first single from her new album, Harpo’s Ghost. [Nov 23]

“Crazy” by Darien Brockington
The resident crooner of the up-and-coming North Carolina hip-hop collective known as the Justus League delivers a stirring performance on this tale of heartbreak from his debut album, Somebody to Love.[Nov 22]

“That’s All I’ll Ever Need” by Jimmy Wayne
Having survived a childhood of abuse, this pop-country singer-songwriter seems determined to wring as much joy out of his music as possible, as on this appreciate-what-you’ve-got, live-in-the-moment anthem. [Nov 21]

“Better Part of Me” by House of Fools
Alternative Press recently listed this North Carolina folk-rock sextet among their “100 Bands You Need To Know.” Listen to this introspective, bluegrass-flavored number from their acclaimed debut EP and you’ll know why. [Nov 20]

“Nothing At All” by Wired All Wrong
First crossing paths due to an MTV mix-up, God Lives Underwater’s Jeff Turzo and Self’s Matt Mahaffey eventually formed the writing collaboration that became Wired All Wrong. But as a listen to this raucous single shows, they’ve definitely wired this one right. [Nov 19]

“Steal the Blueprints” by Plus/Minus
From their third full-length album, this track finds this indie dream pop trio at its jangly but still deeply textured best. Already a hit throughout Asia, these New Yorkers seem destined to attract a broader audience. [Nov 18]

I just uploaded a post over at the Mac Blog about using XNJB to see the contents of your Zune from a Macintosh.

Before I even start with this post I must make a disclaimer: The process I’m about to describe works great for me and I have had no problems as a result of using this process. …however I do not guarantee anything and you should back up your Aperture data before attempting anything in this blog post. I am not responsible for your data.

So, with that out of the way… A while back I found that I wanted to have a current copy of my Aperture library with me at all times in case I need to search for an image, send a sample image to a client or if I just wanted to upload some images to flicker. I also wanted to do all of my editing at my desktop machine.

Okay, I know this site is all about Aperture. I also know that Aperture is nothing without its images. These next two posts are about images and faith. Faith is an element of my photography that continues to surface, from project to project. Not only in the stories I choose to pursue, but also in my philosophy and approach to shooting.

What happened to me with my project Empty Sky–The Pilgrimage To Ground Zero, was an exercise in faith and belief in my work.

This story dates back to just after 9/11. I decided to do a set of pictures documenting the pilgrimage of people who felt compelled to go to Ground Zero, to see with their own eyes, the site of such unbelievable destruction. I wanted to do the project, partly to express my own grief and bewilderment after 9/11, but also because of the reactions I witnessed, which were very powerful and told a story about the event that was different from the photographs being made at the site itself.

After shooting more than 100 rolls of 35mm Tri-X during a three-month period from late September to Christmas 2001, I felt I had a series of photographs that would work well as a book. I created multiple copies of a book dummy and had done my research looking for publishers of photography books, whom I then submitted the work to. (Aperture is the easiest and best tool I have found for editing and creating a book dummy; more in a future post)

People React to seeing Ground Zero from the book Empty Sky. Copyright Steve Simon

Though the project was well received judging by the positive comments in some of the rejection letters, they were rejection letters nonetheless–many rejection letters. Photography is a great way for us to communicate what we think is important in life, or beautiful, or scary or is a problem that needs attention; in other words, it can be a very personal way to communicate. So when you are rejected, it can hit you pretty hard. But it’s important not to take it personally, and try and learn from it.

You may know this already, but it is extremely difficult to get a photography book published, since they are often expensive to produce, and have a limited market. So if you’re planning a book, expect rejection, and keep the faith, persevere. I believed in this work and did not give up on my dream of getting it published in book form, despite the many rejection letters. I learned from the constructive criticism the letters would often contain, and finessed the book dummy to improve it.

There are many, many more of these in my collection.

Mr. Yashuda, a very wise man I had met in Japan once told me, “if you’re trying to solve a problem and after giving it a good effort without success: STOP, go back to the beginning– and try a completely different approach or way around the problem.”

This is a philosophy I often apply if I get “blocked” in a shooting situation, or whenever I’m frustrated finding a solution to a non-photographic problem. In practical photographic terms, it may mean switching locations or lenses. If you’re in tight, it may mean backing far away. Applying this philosophy with regards to my book proposal worked, but not in a way that could ever be predicted, as you will see in next week’s posting. In the meantime, if there’s something that’s just not working for you, give Mr. Yashuda’s advice a try.

A new book: Heroines & Heroes: Hope, HIV and Africa by Steve Simon
(Designed in Aperture)
Book Launch & Lecture, December 1, World Aids Day
7pm, Barnes and Noble, Chelsea, 675 6th Avenue, New York City (Corner 21 Street)
www.stevesimonphoto.com

In my last post, I detailed some ways that you can rename your master image files from within Aperture (I also ranted and raved about why you don’t really need to to this if you’re an Aperture user, and got some very interesting comments from users who offered good reasons why I was wrong). Aperture philosophy aside, this week I’d like to offer an Automator-based solution for renaming your files.

It seems that a few users have already discovered Automator as an easy way to rename your files. If you’re running Aperture, then you already have Automator - it’s a stand-alone application that sits in your Applications folder. If you’re not familiar with Automator, take a look at this overview and tutorial to learn more about how Automator works and how you can use use it to simplify your post-production workflow.

For the rest of this article, I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with Automator, and the concept of Workflows and Actions.

Automator ships with a Rename Finder Items action that you can use to rename your images, but I prefer to use some actions of my own devising. If you download my free Photo Renaming Actions, you’ll have two new actions: Rename from EXIF and Rename from IPTC, which allow you to batch rename your existing images. In addition to allowing you to rename with new text, these actions can also automatically add EXIF and IPTC information from the images themselves to the image name.

Many photographers use their original camera names as part of a larger photo cataloging scheme. If you prefer not to loose track of the original names, both actions offer the option to store the original names in the Spotlight Comments field of each file. At any later date, you can use the included Restore Original Names action to automatically rename your files with their original camera-generated names. (Note that Rename from IPTC requires Photoshop CS2.)

When you install Aperture, a suite of Aperture actions are also added to Automator. You can use these in conjunction with my renaming commands to build a simple workflow that will automatically rename your images and then import them into any Aperture project.

Both of these actions pass on the list of renamed files to the next action in your workflow. So, you can create a workflow that first executes either of these renaming actions, and then executes an Aperture Import action.

One of Automator’s best features is the number of different ways that you can execute a workflow. You can save it as an application, a folder action, or a Finder action. With these options, you can easily drop files onto an app, or into a folder, and have them automatically renamed and added to a specific project. If you choose the Show Action When Run option for each action, then you’ll be able to configure both actions at run-time, allowing you to customize your naming options, and select which project you want to import into.

Finally, you can also include these actions in much more complex workflows that might do anything from automatically copying your renamed images to a backup server, burning a CD of them.

One of the first things Aperture 1.5 users will have to decide is whether or not they want to use the new image previews. These are not required if you don’t plan to do offline library management, if you don’t want to make slide shows, if you don’t want drag and drop jpeg support and if you don’t care about sharing images with iLife and iWork.

Beware that creating previews takes time. If you automatically create previews for all your new images, you’ll certainly spend some time waiting before you can access a large group of photos that you’re importing. I turned off the automatic previews, deciding that I will apply this feature selectively after I have made my pics.

By now you may have heard the news that Microsoft has struck a deal with the Universal Music Group (UMG) whereby Universal stands to gain $1+ on the sale of every Zune device. UMG will also receive royalties for music downloads purchased through the Zune Marketplace. Deals with the other three major labels will undoubtedly follow a similar path. This is an interesting if not an entirely unique scenario; earlier this year, Sirius agreed to pay the four major labels a fee for every S50 sold after the labels complained that a device allowing users to store music wasn’t covered under the fee they are paid for music played on satellite radio. It’s clear that the labels have experienced a certain amount of frustration in not being able to participate in sales of the devices their music is being played on — especially in the case of the iPod — so this is clearly a step forward for them.

What’s less clear is how artists will get their slice of the pie and get paid on sales of these devices as well. UMG claims they will be paying their artists half of the fees they receive from Zune sales (though I wonder about how that will work out in practice given the accounting challenges artists have historically experienced with the labels around royalties). This is a very murky area. We’re not sure yet how successful the Zune will be vis-a-vis the iPod, it’s not clear how much of a cash cow this will be for the labels (let along for the artists) — that’s based in no small part on the global success of the Zune. But rest assured if the labels are making a sizeable chunk of change from Zune sales, the artists will be expecting to receive their fair share - and they’re likely to start getting much more vocal about it.

Beyond all of this of course, the next thing to watch is whether the labels are able to successfully negotiate somethiing similar with Apple on sales of the iPod when their contracts are up for renewal.

Aperture manages my main catalog of images, but I like to use iPhoto 6 too. iPhoto is much easier on my older computers — plus it has some great output options, and I like its casual workflow.

You can tap your Aperture library from within iPhoto. First, make sure you have the current versions of both applications. Then launch Aperture. Finally, launch iPhoto. In the File popup menu in iPhoto, you’ll see Show Aperture Library…

Note: You’ll only be able to use Aperture images that have previews. Also, make sure you have “sharing your previews with iLife applications” turned on in the Aperture Preferences window.

You can browse your images from your Aperture library in iPhoto until you find what you’re looking for. The browse window is adjustable, so feel free to resize as needed.

Now, all you have to do is drag the image you want from the Aperture Photos window into your iPhoto Library.

Great way to keep a master catalog and have fun with your pictures too.

The new 1.10 firmware update for the Edirol R-09 WAV/MP3 recorder reportedly makes it the world’s first SDHC- (SD High Capacity) compatible stereo field recorder. (See our review.)

SDHC memory cards break the 2GB barrier and offer increased data transfer speeds. Roland has certified the new Panasonic RP-SDR04-GJ1K 4GB cards for use with the R-09. 8GB cards are expected before long.

According to the press release, other enhancements in the free firmware update include faster data transfer, a longer power switch cut-off time, simpler file-naming, and improvements to the internal time-stamping feature.

Here’s a chance for you to learn from my mistake.

I was out shooting last Thursday night at my local airport just to work on my low light (or no light) technique. I was shooting with my Canon 30D and my 100-400mm IS L lens which is not what we call a fast lens (f/5.6 @ 400mm). So I set my camera on aperture priority (Av) mode and cranked it all the way open to f/5.6. Then I took a bunch of shots at various ISO settings until I was able to get a shutter speed fast enough to hand hold and get a decent shot. I ended up at ISO 1600 that night. I managed to get a few decent shots but not too many so I called it quits and headed home.

So, this weekend I went out to shoot a university level water polo tournament with the same body and lens. The light was not fantastic so I figured I’d better shoot in aperture priority, wide open to get my shutter speed up to the point where I can stop the action.

Funny comment over at the Analog Industries blog, where they delight in criticizing pretentious playing:

I think I will officially enunciate [Chris] Randall’s law:

I = 1/Cm

The interestingness of the music is inversely proportional to the complexity of the custom MIDI controller.

That cracked me up, but I’m always saddened by the vitriol in some of these critiques. Fortunately, another commenter adds, “While I am not a fan of his music, he at least created his own custom MIDI controller, which is inherently cool, even if it is a totally dorky MIDI controller.”

I’ll go further: If you’re having fun making music, don’t worry what other people think. And if you aren’t having fun, try something new.

If you use Aperture, you probably really care about your photographs. You might be a pro with a library that ranges into the 100’s of GBs, or you might be an amateur with 20GB of data, but you care enough to take the time to do the right thing with your images so that you can fulfill your vision of what those images should be. So you calibrate your display, right? And you do it frequently, right? If not, let me quote from Appendix B of the Aperture User Manual:

“Aperture is a powerful digital image adjustment application, but its power is limited to the accuracy of the devices that display and print your images.”

If you want to be able to work with your images on multiple machines, print them, or share them, then you need to be taking full advantage of the fact that Aperture is a color managed environment that uses ColorSync to translate colors to your monitor accurately. But, of course, ColorSync needs to know how your monitor displays colors so that it can do the math. This is why you need to make a profile for your display. Not have a ColorSync profile for your particular monitor means that you’re driving blind when you make adjustments to your images.

As important as it is, I know lots of people that are serious about their images that don’t profile their display. And I think there are two reasons for this: 1) Color management is a complex field and it’s full of lots of big terms and complex numbers; and 2) Good profiling hardware has typically been expensive. It’s been coming down in price over time, but still, to get the good stuff hasn’t been cheap. Combine these two points and most people, it seems, do nothing.