200301 D.c.w

ALL-NEW 3D CAMERA TOURS 2 £65 OF SOFTWARE

2 CDS

NEW!

The definitive guide to better photos

132 pages of image editing tutorials, kit reviews and more!

GET THE MOST FROM PAINT SHOP PRO NEW SERIES! Expert tips and techniques to help you create better digital photos

HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH LANDMARKS Tips for buildings, architecture & statue shots

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6 BRAND-NEW IMAGE EDITORS COMPARED PHOTOSHOP …and the winner isn’t what you think!

ELEMENTS TIPS

‘IMAGES FROM NATURE’ CREATIVE PROJECT Discover how to combine & resize images, and alter colours for a fantasy effect

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CAMERA-ENABLED MOBILE PHONES The next big thing or useless gimmicks? We test 5 of the latest

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6 CARD READERS TESTED Discover the best memory card reader you can buy

card gives you Take our reviews down the shop! Each verdicts & more! pictures of each camera, specifications,

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In depth review of this tempting new Compact

EXCLUSIVE! 5 CAMERA REFERENCE CARDS

£4.99

NIKON COOLPIX 4300

2 What light works best for different subjects 2 Common mistakes and how to avoid them 2 How to use contrast, intensity & angles for top results

JANUARY 2003

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We reveal whether Canon’s latest camera is for you

Simple ways to use light & shadow to improve your people, landscape and still-life pictures

9 771479 001003

CANON IXUS ON TRIAL

GET LIGHT RIGHT!

PRINTED IN THE UK

British Landmark Series The Millennium Dome, London.

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Nick Merritt Managing Editor Nick’s background is technology and image-editing related. He’s launched, managed and built some of the UK’s leading publications in these areas.

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Dylan Channon Senior Art Editor Dylan is a keen amateur photographer and sits on the advisory board of Somerset College of Art and Technology.

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Roddy Llewellyn Art Editor Roddy studied photography at university and is PPA Designer of the Year for his work on Cre@te, a magazine for creative professionals.

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Tim Daly Photographer and writer Tim is one of the UK’s leading digital photography experts. He’s written numerous books on the subject and his photographs have been exhibited across Europe.

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Steve Bavister Photographer and editor Steve is one of the UK’s best-known photographic writers, having edited and published Practical Photography in the past. He now writes for a variety of photography mags.

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Steve Jarratt Photoshop expert and editor Our other Steve is one of the UK’s top magazine journalists. He is currently group editor of Computer Arts, the UK’s leading image-editing title.

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Ed Davis Photo retouching expert Ed is a commercial photographer of many years’ experience. He is a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

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Aidan O’Rourke Technical expert Aidan is a contributor to the Manchester Evening News. He lectures on digital photography around the UK.

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MEET YOUR TEAM

STARTHERE

Happy New Year! T

he problem with editing this magazine is that I want all the kit we review each month but can’t afford it. Of course, it doesn’t help that Christmas is just around the corner – traditionally a time when sanity is straitjacketed, put into a little reed basket and floated down The Thames. Christmas is for kids but it’s us adults who have the cash and I intend to spend it! (Until interest rates rise next year and the house is repossessed.) So, egged on by the three spirits of Christmas – Argos, Dixons and Jessops – my thoughts have turned to what digital camera I’m going to buy. But the options are endless! There’s so much nice, shiny metal and lovely, glinting things, I hardly know where to start – and this is my job. I do know I want quality and control. I want lots of megapixels and versatility. And I want to keep the price reasonable – I’m not taking more than £600 out of the kids’ college fund. Ideally I want a brand name, and a certain amount of future proofing – I don’t want to have to upgrade my camera just because Microsoft decides USB is rubbish and its fancy new spoon-based interface is the way forward. Time’s up and I still don’t know what to do. I’ll stop my tortured rambling and let you know what I decided next month. Happy New Year!

Nick Merritt, Managing Editor [email protected]

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Our promise to our readers

Every month we will show you how to capture and create better pictures, give clear, independent buying recommendations on the latest kit, and deliver two CDs packed with the best PC software. We use boxes, tips, quick fixes, quality photography, walkthroughs and diagrams to show you how to improve your photographic and image-editing skills We have a cast-iron policy of editorial independence. All our kit is reviewed assold. We discourage our journalists from accepting gifts from advertisers. We welcome your opinions on the magazine, ideas for articles, photography, thoughts and questions. Send them in today – see the email addresses below.

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Departments

We want your letters, ideas, photography, articles, tips and more! Write in today to the following areas: Issues with your discs [email protected] Your letters [email protected] Photos for our galleries [email protected] Events, ideas, places to visit [email protected] For help and advice [email protected] Articles/ideas for publication [email protected] Visit our website today! www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

In issue 4, we show you how to take superb portrait shots. Catch us on sale on 16th January

Are you an editor, deputy editor, art editor or designer working on a photography magazine? Then turn to the back page now!

ISSUE 4 ON SALE 16TH JAN DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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Contents DCM#03 What’s hot inside your magazine this January

GET LIGHT RIGHT! All the tricks you need to create light and shadow in your people, landscape and still-life photographs. We reveal what light works best for different subjects, when in the day to shoot and much more Plus, discover how to add light to your images in your image-editing program

STARTS PAGE

16 PAGE

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Getup&Go The best places to visit for great canalside, birds, industrial and London landmark photos. Includes 9 top tips!

Fantastic flash We show you how to use your flash for impressive, creative effects

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DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Complete guide to Paint Shop Pro Discover the features you can use to improve your digital images in our essential new series

PAGE

PULL OUT SECTION – FIND IT AFTER p50

72

2 Kit reviews The UK’s definitive reviews package every month

FOREST LIGHT PAGE 18

SUNSETS PAGE 20

2

Your 2 coverdiscs

CANON IXUS PAGE 28

PAGE

SmartPix Manager

122

Helps you find your archived pictures in seconds! COOLPIX 4300 PAGE 30

PLUG-INS PAGE 40

Every issue we bring you not one, but two CDs – each one packed with exclusive full software. This month, enjoy SmartPix Manager, Dreamy Photo, A SmallerImage and File Recovery 3.0 – all to keep! ON DISC 1

CARD READERS PAGE 42

IMAGE EDITORS PAGE 45

Your images 22 pages of image-editing tips

FULL SmartPix Manager 4.3 TRIAL SmartPix Manager 6.0 TOURS 5 x 3D tours TEST SHOTS for each of our main cameras

PHOTO FIXES PAGE 68

20 ELEMENTS TIPS PAGE 76

SOFTWARE IN TOTAL!

FULL A SmallerImage FULL Dreamy Photo TRIAL PhotoImpact 8 FREEWARE File Recovery 3.0 FREEWARE 9 more tools PLUG-IN AFH Beveler

PLUG-IN AutoEye 2.0 PLUG-IN India Ink 1.7 PLUG-IN Light 1.0 PLUG-IN Ozone PLUG-IN PhotoGraphic Edges 5.0

Regulars EYEWITNESS Hotshots gallery Frontline news Camera phones

ABSTRACT EFFECTS PHOTO PAGE 58 RESTORING PAGE 64

£ 63 OF FULL

ON DISC 2

YOUR PHOTOS & LETTERS Reader profile Trailblazers Day in the life Viewfinder OFFERS Subscribe! Software upgrade offers

p06 p12 p14

p10 p50 p52 p54

p80 p122

HELP AND ADVICE Photo Clinic Your questions answered

p64 p90

FOLD-OUT SECTION AFTER PAGE 50 9 architecture photography tips Capturing mood UK canals photos & maps London landmarks Photographing birds Industrial landscapes DEALER BANK Pages

BETTER COMPOSITION PAGE 86

THIS ISSUE WE SHOW YOU HOW TO…

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CAMERA-PHONES PAGE 14

RED ARROWS PAGE 52

p101-121

TAKE BETTER PICTURES Understand lighting angles, contrast, colour and intensity 16 Create different moods 18 Use a reflector 19 Improvise overhead cover 19 Capture a great sunset 20 Use the different levels of natural light 21 Use your camera’s white balance controls 24 Use the rear-curtain sync technique 85 Get more from fill-in flash 85 Understand symmetry 86 Use the rule of thirds 87 Prevent parallax errors 88, 93 IMPROVE YOUR IMAGE-EDITING SKILLS Use the lighting controls in Photoshop Elements Cast a ‘sun through window pane’ light across an image Use Photoshop’s colour gradient tools Resize an image Colour-correct an image Edit colour and contrast Fix highlights Crop and frame Get more from Photoshop Elements 2 USE YOUR PC BETTER Email an image Create a gallery website Calibrate your prints Retrieve a deleted digital photo

24 25 61 68 70 72 74 79 76

96 98 100 125

HOTSHOTSTURNOVER Every issue, we print the best digital photography we can find. Turn over now and see some of the shots that have inspired us this issue…

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Hotshots Images with impact

SHOT OF THE MONTH WASP KLAUS HERTZ-LADIGES “Shot on a Nikon Coolpix 5700 in macro mode, holding a 2x magnifying lens in front of the camera. The image was then colour managed and sharpened in Photoshop.” [w] www.pbase.com/kchl/europe [e] [email protected]

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NAOMI ROAR The Walcot Studio “Shot in the studio for a recent Diesel clothing advertising campaign.” Nikon D1X, Studio lighting [w] www.thewalcotstudio.co.uk

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THESE BOOTS Barry Jackson “Three photos turned into something surreal.” Read the full story in our next issue… Fuji 6900z [w] www.etherealme.com

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HOVIS HILL Julian Jefferson “Gold Hill, Shaftsbury; scene of the classic Hovis TV adverts. Taken just after rain, hence the sparkle. Offending estate agent’s ‘For sale’ signs removed in Photoshop.”

NEXT MONTH

Pentax Optio 430RS [w] www.pembrokeshireimages.com

We give you all the files and techniques you need to create this stunning image

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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Preserve your Memories on CD or DVD

From your camcorder…

From your digital camera…

From your PC…

…to your TV.

The fun and easy way to share your home movies and digital photos on CD and DVD • Capture from digital cameras and camcorders • Photo and video manipulation tools • Create motion menus • Automatic slideshow creation • Automatically fit your slideshow to your music • Automatic label creation

For more information call us on 01895 424228 or visit us at www.pinnaclesys.com/expression/digicam www.pinnaclesys.com

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MATTY MOFFAT Michael Chiu “The vivid colours in this shot and direct eye contact with the boy make for a mesmerising image.” Sony DSC-DF707 [e] [email protected]

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STATE CAPITOL Melanie Kipp “West Virginia State Capitol Building, August 2002. I shot it in colour and converted to B&W, then added the Sepia in Photoshop 6.” Minolta Dimage 7 with a Hoya IR72 filter [w] www.caughtintimephotography.com

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FROGS Bob Garas “There’s no digital trickery at work here.”

Canon G1 with White Lightning 1200 strobes [w] www.geocities.com/bgaras2001

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2ProfileMe and my camera Bob Jones

CONWY, N. WALES www.bodafon.com Based in Wales, Bob has been a keen amateur photographer since he was a boy and takes particular pleasure in capturing the stunning scenery that surrounds him. Bob went digital in 1999, shelving his 35mm gear in favour of a Kodak DSC240z, but now mainly uses a Canon EOS D60 – which is quite a jump in technology by his own admission. Bob tells us: “Without a doubt, the main benefit of digital photography for me is the ability to see my results almost instantly and the control I have over them when modifying the images on my computer.”

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He concludes: “I feel my photography has come a long way since my 35mm days. I genuinely love digital photography and would not return to film if for some reason I could not continue with digital.”

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NOW SEND US YOURS!

Email us a 100K JPEG thumbnail of your best shots! The best wins a 128Mb Crucial CompactFlash card each issue.

[email protected] 01

COLD LIGHT OF DAWN

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Olympus E-10 with a light Tabac gradient filter

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CHURCH IN THE SEA Canon EOS D60 with a grey gradient filter

SWEET PEA! Canon EOS D60 in macro mode

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SEASIDE PANORAMA Olympus E-10, stitched together digitally

Frontline

It’s all gone quiet on the camera front as manufacturers ready their 2003 ranges…

Casio hits 5MP… and sporty types too Active lifestyles and high-end photography are both catered for as Casio launches two new cameras at different ends of the market

THE 2MEGAPIXEL GV20 IS SHOCK, IMPACT, DUST AND WATER RESISTANT. AND HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY CONSTRUCTED FOR OUTDOOR USE

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asio’s newest creations are a 2-megapixel GV20 and the 5-megapixel QV-5700. The GV20 is shock, impact, dust and water resistant so you can shoot your surroundings – wherever you are. It has been designed to comply with the IEC 60529/IP 66/IP 67 standards of protection (find out what levels of protection those numbers afford – ie, whether you can safely drop it in the bath – at www.lighting4sport.com/iprating.htm). The GV20 also has several features that are designed to help less experienced users take better pictures quickly, via a number of special program modes. Expect it to retail for around £300 from Jessops and the Casio store on Carnaby Street in central London. The QV-5700 is a more powerful affair and marks Casio’s first foray into the increasingly

competitive 5-megapixel market. Sitting at the top of Casio’s range, it can capture 2,560 x 1,920 pixel images which, Casio claims, puts it on a par with film-based cameras. With a selection of manual controls, from exposure settings to light metering, it should offer enough for experienced photographers, while other modes make it easy to capture good results if you’re a less experienced user. Its Best Shot option enables you to get good results simply by selecting the image type on the camera’s main menu. There’s also a digital soft focus effect supplied. Although well known for its Exlim range of products, Casio has had trouble shaking off its old-fashioned image, so we look forward to getting our hands its new cameras – look out for a full review of the QV-5700 in next month’s issue, on sale on 16th January.

CCD 1/1.8-inch CCD; 5.0 million effective pixels Still images JPEG, TIFF, DCF standard, DPOF compliant Movies AVI (Motion JPEG) Memory CompactFlash Type I/II; Microdrive compatible Image sizes 2,560x1,920 pixels, 2,544x1,696 pixels, 1,600x1,200 pixels, 1,280x960 pixels, 640x480 pixels Lens F2.0 to 2.5 (34mm–102 mm 35 mm equivalent) Zoom 3x optical zoom, 3.2x digital zoom Focusing Contrast-detect multi-area AF, manual focus, spot AF mode, macro mode, infinity mode, focus lock Approximate Focus Range 30 cm to infinity (normal) Light metering Multi-pattern, centre-weighted, spot Exposure Full auto, program AE, aperture priority AE, shutter speed priority AE, manual Exposure Compensation -2 EV to +2 EV (1/3 EV units) ISO sensitivity Auto, ISO50, ISO100, ISO200, ISO400, ISO800 Recording modes Single-image, Continuous Shutter, Movie, Panorama, AEB, Self-timer, Macro, Best Shot Shutter speed 60 second to 1/1000 second, BULB Aperture F2.0, 2.3, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0 White Balance Automatic/fixed (4 modes), manual switching Flash modes (auto, on, off, red-eye), range 0.5-3m

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5-MEGAPIXEL CASIO

SMART DISPLAYS

SPIDER-MAN SNAPPED!

Cutting-edge technology from the makers of the Exilm S2 ■ See below

The wireless PC tech that enables you to see your pictures anywhere ■ See opposite

The world’s biggest superhero is finally caught on camera! ■ See opposite

QUICK SHOTS UNDERWATER MINOLTA Fans of the Dimage X and Xi digital cameras who want to use their camera underwater, can now use Minolta’s new Marine Case. It also protects the camera when used for snowboarding, rock climbing, kayaking and more, and provides waterproof access to all the camera controls. More info at www.minolta.co.uk

MMC CARD SHRINK One of the standard memory sard formats for digital cameras, MMC, is to shrink by approximately half. Each card is now 14mm less wide than previously. The new format means the card format will fit mobile phones as well as cameras. Whether introducing a new standard is enough to improve the take-up of MMC cards remains to be seen.

NEW COMPACTFLASH CARDS What is claimed as a faster CompactFlash card, has just been introduced by Delkin. According to independent tests, the eFilm PRO set the fastest read/write speeds. The card is available in 128MB-640MB sizes. More info at 0844 477 0121.

Canon’s New Year cheer Looking for a late Christmas present for a fellow camera fiend? If you are, Canon might have a couple of options for you. If you’re buying a Canon Zoom CAMERAS compact worth over £100, from the SureShot or IXUS ranges, there’s a backpack in it for you. Or if you’re buying one for under £100, you’ll get a hip bag. Both bags are available via redemption, from now until the end of January 2003. If, instead, you’re in the market for a direct photo printer, Canon are bunging in enough paper and ink for 72 photos for anyone buying their CP-100 unit. This connects directly to Canon’s digital cameras, meaning you don’t need to mess about with a PC to output your images. More information on this promotion can be found at www.canon.co.uk, or on 0870 770 0648.

2 3 Best sellers Information supplied by www.dabs.com

BEST SELLER Fujifilm FinePix A202 £128 SUB-£100 Mustek Gsmart II Mini £45.82 SUB-£300 Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 £257.32 SUB-£800 Canon Powershot G3 £598.07

Displays go portable Don’t stay bound to your PC, go walkabout instead Professional and a wireless card, and are expected to cost around £1,000. Find out more at www.microsoft.com/ windowsxp/smartdisplay

New plug-in improves JPEG colour-matching Elements and Photoshop plug-in delivers more accurate printed colours If you’ve been following our series on printing, you’ll know getting the best quality images SOFTWARE can sometimes be more effort than it first appears. A new plug-in from Epson aims to change this with its new PRINT Image Matching (PIM) II plug-in for Photoshop 6-7, and Elements 1-2 for both Mac and Windows PCs. It enables you to import PIM II or EXIF 2.2 Print JPEGs and print them accurately on a PIM II

Wait long enough and surreal events can simply turn up on your doorstep…

printer, and it’s available as a free download. PIM II optimises digital photos from compatible cameras, offering noise reduction and custom scene settings. It supports both the TIFF and JPEG file formats. So far, around 20 manufacturers have supported PIM technology. You can find out more about PIM at http://support.epson.com/webadvice/ wa0310.html, including a PDF manual, some details and useful links to the download for Macintosh and Windows.

The time: 25th Nov 2002. The place: River Thames. Last month, we featured a chap who climbed tall buildings without any ropes. This month, the real Spider-Man (or at least, a giant inflatable replica) swung in to take his place. He’s but the latest in a line of giant figures towed down the Thames for various elaborate reasons. The most famous previously was the giant statue of Michael Jackson to promote the launch of his modest HIStory album. This year, to mark the release of the DVD of the successful film, it was the turn of a giant inflatable Spider-Man to be wheeled – or rather, floated – out by the movie’s PR agency. Captured by Nils Jorgensen, a staff photographer at the Rex Features picture agency, they show the huge Spider-Man figure crawling along the length of a Thames narrowboat as it sails past Tower Bridge. This already slightly surreal effect is further amplified when juxtaposed against the destroyers in the background (top picture). Most of the time, distorting scale is a case of positioning small objects in the foreground so they look bigger than they actually are, and adjusting your camera’s settings appropriately. For once, this is the real deal.

WIDEANGLE

What’s happening around the world (but shorter) USA

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND… Direct printing from digital cameras will grow to nearly 12 billion a year, by 2005, according to a new study. This is up from 4.5 billion prints now. Printing via the net or high street will account for 47 per cent of all prints by then. JAPAN

NEW TOSHIBA SAYS SORA Toshiba has announced a new digital camera, the Sora PDR-T15, which has a customisable panel like a mobile

phone’s. Apart from that, it’s a standard slim 2-megapixel unit. But we’re sure that panel will make all the difference… USA

IT’S A FRAME-U Digital frames (photo-sized LCD panels that display digital photo slideshows) are increasingly popular in the US. Ceiva in the USA has created a net-connected frame that enables family members to upload pictures to frames remotely. For more information head along to www.ceiva.com

Behindtheimage

A new type of wireless display technology has just been released by Microsoft which enables users HARDWARE to detach their screens from their PCs and carry them around the house. These Smart Displays are aimed at various types of user, including digital photography enthusiasts who want to show images to friends and family without forcing them to cluster around their PC. Smart Displays work by broadcasting images from PC to screen using radiowaves. Users can access information on their PC via these screens, using a virtual keyboard or pen tool. Based on the Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) networking standard, they enable connection without wires up to 100m away from the PC. Sadly the displays aren’t cheap with a full kit comprising a Smart Display, copy of Windows XP

Nils Jorgensen/Rex Features Ltd 2002

TALKBACK

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Tell us what you think! Our website forums at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk are just the place. Add your comments, ideas and more and join the Digital Camera club!

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Contact

Price

www.nokia.co.uk

Nokia: 0870 500 3100

£600 (without contract)

£230 (with contract)

t’s the phone you’ve seen on all the ads: the Nokia 7650 was one of the first mobile phones to feature a digital camera – this one’s capable of pictures with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, which you can view on the 4,096-colour screen. The phone enables you to either MMS or email your images, so you’re not limited to sending pics to other people with MMScapable phones, though you won’t like the battery life, which is just two hours of talk time. It’s a chunky beast, too, and hi-res pictures take ages to capture and send.

NOKIA 7650

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ong gone are the days when mobile phones were the size of bricks and the preserve of the yuppie. Over the past five years, Britain has gone through a communications revolution, and the fuel for change has been the mobile. But the revolution is maturing to evolution, with more and more features being packed into these miniature devices, such as diaries, internet browsers and now digital cameras. Words have been joined by pictures; fun can be had by simply snapping a scene

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Price

www.sonyericsson.com

Sony Ericsson: 0870 523 7237

£320 (without contract)

£100 (with contract)

lthough not a camera phone in its natural form, this model from Sony Ericsson can become one by plugging a camera module into the base. This module is free with most contracts, which is a boon. Like most of this type of colour phone, you can assign images you’ve taken to people in your address book – a boon if you have trouble matching names to faces. It’s comparatively long in the tooth now, but this phone is still a cracker, and comes in at the cheaper end of the market.

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SONY ERICSSON T68i

and sending it via MMS (multimedia messaging services) – which is far more expressive than a simple text message or a garbled phone call. As interesting as these are, don’t believe the TV adverts – the pictures produced are either too small or low res to even approach being useful, or at higher resolutions take ages to capture and send (and still lack quality). As second cameras, these still have some way to go. But as a pointer to one future for photography, they’re very interesting indeed.

The newest phones can capture and send photos up to 640 x 480 pixels in size. Paul Pettengale asks if they’re the next big thing

Talking pictures

GADGETS PHONE-CAMERAS

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Price

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We reveal the best PDA-cameras on the market

www.panasonic.co.uk

Panasonic: 0870 010 0464

£500 (without contract)

£250 (with contract)

he Panasonic camera-enabled phone is a beauty, featuring a clam-shell design and a wonderful, 65,000 colour screen – that’s way more than the Nokia and Sony Ericsson models. What’s more, it’s GPRScompatible, so you can surf mobile websites quickly and easily, as well as send photographs via email. Of course, MMS (i.e.. picture) messaging support is there, too, if you have friends with other MMS-capable phones. Again, like all the phones here, low-res pictures are so small they’re hardly worth it and hi-res take absolutely ages to send.

PANASONIC GD87

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Price

www.o2.co.uk

O2: 0870 850 0202

£500 (without contract)

£200 (with contract)

vailable exclusively on the O2 network (that’s the one that used to be called BT Cellnet), the slinky little GX-1 from Sharp has one of the best displays going, which can show up to a massive 65,000 colours. The phone’s camera is a powerful – it’s capable of five exposure levels and possesses a two-stage digital zoom for close-ups. There’s enough memory for 80 images in total, each at a resolution of 640 x 480. Of course, email and MMS support enable you to send your pictures. Not bad for a phone that weighs just 110 grammes…

O2/SHARP GX-1

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FEATURE

HOW TO USE LIGHT YOUR GUIDE STEVE BAVISTER Steve is a photographic journalist and freelance photographer. He is editor of The Photographer, a leading magazine for pro photographers, and author of ten books on photography including Digital Photography and Take Better Family Photos

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO STEVE BAVISTER

Get light right! Many photographers take light for granted, and don’t give it a second thought. But, says Steve Bavister, learning to make use of its many moods is the key to taking great pictures

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t’s a common misconception among photographers that certain kinds of light are ‘good’ while others are ‘bad’. They’ll often glance out of the window, decide the weather isn’t suitable, and pack their equipment away for another day. But all light is useful in certain situations – and the secret of success in photography is simply a matter of matching the right subject with the right light.

WHY WE CHOSE THIS PICTURE Natural back-lighting creates a subtle glow around the hair Refected light creates an attractive sparkle in the eyes Lighting from one side adds contrast and highlights features

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It’s not an exaggeration to say that light is the single most important element in any picture. In many ways it’s our raw material. You can have all the cameras, lenses and accessories in the world, but without light you won’t get very far. The word ‘photography’ derives from the Greek work, meaning ‘painting with light’ – which, even in this digital age, is an accurate way to describe what it is we do. One of the best ways to develop and deepen your understanding of light is to pay attention to the many moods of daylight. You can do this at any time – not just when you have your camera with you. You might find yourself noticing how beautiful the light is on the shady side of a building, coming in through a small window, or dappled by the foliage of a tree. Store that awareness and knowledge away for when you’re out taking pictures in the future.

Understanding angles The most fascinating thing about light is its sheer diversity. Contrast, intensity, colour and angle are the four attributes of most interest to photographers, and it’s the ways in which

they combine through the day and in different weather conditions that gives choice and control. One of the principal things to understand in relation to light is that quality is far more important than quantity. More doesn’t mean better – in fact, the opposite is often true. More evocative results are achieved when the light is subtle and directional rather than intense and overwhelming. While bright sunny days have a lot going for them – with the high levels of light giving the option of fast shutter speeds and small apertures – the fact that everything is lit fully means the picture lacks shadows, which can bring subjects to life. This is particularly true around noon, when the shadows are not only short but also heavy. That’s why, whenever possible, you should avoid the middle of the day – shooting instead early in the morning and late in the afternoon, when the

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LIGHT FANTASTIC Different light levels will produce different moods. Take meter readings from different parts of the scene to see how the mood changes – and remember to jot the best ones down

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a lower angle of the sun produces longer, more photogenic shadows. In winter months, the sun sits low in the sky all through the day, producing a characteristic ‘raking’ light, which is ideal for bringing textures and patterns to life. This is particularly true of buildings and architectural details, which are great subjects for the winter months, along with the more barren landscapes you get this time of year with no foliage around. The way in which the light strikes the subject is also important. The narrower the angle, the more detail is revealed. Another point to bear in mind is that the colour of light around lunchtime, although generally neutral in tone, can sometimes suffer from an unpleasantly cool, blue tint, especially in the shade. The nearer you are to sunrise and sunset, the more orange, and more attractive, the light will appear, which helps subjects such as stonework look their best.

Photographing people Where you place people in relation to the light is extremely important. If you put the sun behind you they will often end up squinting, while the shadows under their eyes, nose and chin will be rather unattractive. Placing them sideways to the sun is often not much better, as one side of the face will be in the shade. With either option, using some kind of reflective material to bounce light back into the shadows will give a more balanced result. The great thing about using a reflector is you can see precisely the effect it’s having. As you move it around – going in closer and pulling away, lifting it up and down and taking it to the side – you can see shadows change. Most of the time you want the reflector as close as possible to the subject without actually appearing in the picture. With portraits, it will tend to be tipped back at an angle of 45 degrees. If you’re on your own, and taking head and shoulders portraits, ask your sitter to

THE KELVIN SCALE

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The colour of light is described by what is know as the Kelvin Scale, which goes from red at one end to blue at the other, with white light in the middle. While you might think it’s only of academic interest to know what temperature the light is, it can be useful when you want to compensate for it – and some cameras do feature Kelvin correction scales. You probably won’t want to change the colour of a sunset, though, as that’s what makes it appealing. KELVIN 10,000K 7,500K 7,000K 6,500K 6,000K 5,500K 4,500K 4,000K 3,5000k 3,000K 2,500K 1900K

SOURCE Blue sky Shade under blue sky Shade under cloudy sky Deep shade in daylight Overcast weather Noon daylight/electronic flash Afternoon sunlight Fluorescent tube Morning/evening sunlight Sunset Tungsten household lamps Candlelight

hold it in their lap just out of view. It also gives them something to do with their hands. With portraiture, the rule about quality being more important than quantity is particularly important, and the most flattering light for taking pictures of people is directional but diffuse – the kind you get on a sunny day with wispy clouds or indoors through a large window covered with a net curtain. Subjects are fully illuminated but the shadows are soft. However, the conditions under which we have to take photographs are seldom ideal, and the results can sometimes disappoint. If the light is too harsh, one option is to find a shady area, perhaps under a tree or canopy, where the pictures can be taken. Cutting out the toplight means you don’t end up with shadows under the eyes, nose and chin, and the result is that all the light comes in from the front and side, producing a really attractive effect. That may not, however, be convenient, and another option is to improvise a little overhead cover by getting someone to hold a blanket or sheet of card above the subject for a short while. Another option is to find a building or wall in front of which you can shoot. Because the illumination in such spots is reflected, indirect, it’s wonderfully soft and gentle, and ideal for most kinds of portraits – although if you want a ‘masculine’ character portrait a more contrasty treatment will be necessary. Diffused lighting is great for close-ups, where you want to preserve the maximum amount of detail. Garden photographers, for instance, tend to avoid sunny days in favour of more cloudy, overcast conditions. Some even like to shoot when it’s raining!

You can capture long rays of sunshine by positioning the sun behind a building or other object so the rays fan out in a star shape. Use a narrow aperture setting and watch through the LCD to capture the moment when the light fans out

2 CANDLELIT PORTRAITS A great way to produce a romantic portrait is to use candles as illumination. The warm, soft, wraparound glow they produce is wonderfully atmospheric. Obviously, the more candles you use the brighter the light will be – and the places you can put them in order to give the best effect. If you have the option of switching off your camera’s white balance it’s a good idea to do so – otherwise all that attractive mood will be removed.

Still-life photography This is a great time of year to improvise some still-lifes – by gathering together a number of related or contrasting items. Items of food can make up an appealing theme – bread, fruit, vegetables – or you can have a go with objects such as tools, crockery and jewellery. Simply find a suitable spot outdoors, spread out an old piece of material or sheet of card from an art shop, and arrange your things on it in an interesting way. When it rains, of course, or the mercury in the thermometer starts to drop, you’ll find it more comfortable shooting indoors. Here your choice is between window light; flash and ambient lighting; and room lighting. Of the three, window light is most likely to give you the best results because it’s the most controllable. You will, however, need a tripod or some other means of support to avoid camera-shake. Using windows is a great way to learn more about light, so experiment with various rooms and different times of day. Large windows give a relatively soft light; with small windows it’s more contrasty. If you’re into portraiture, try photographing the same person in a range of settings, altering their position in relation to the light. Or set up a still-life next to a patio door, and see what impact it has when you move things around. It can also be fun to explore household lighting, which generally features tungsten bulbs. Most digital cameras will compensate for the orange light these give by using the white balance. Ceiling lights rarely produce

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SUNSETS With its warm orange light and long shadows, sunset is the perfect time to capture architecture, landscapes and people. You’ll have to hurry though – as the light never lasts long

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g Raking light When you find it: Early morning and late evening on a bright, sunny day, and in winter when the sun doesn’t get as high in the sky. What’s good? It’s a photogenic light that produces long shadows that give a strong sense of depth to a picture. Adds mood to many types of photography, and is excellent for bringing landscapes to life. What’s bad? Although not as extreme as harsh light, raking light is still too contrasty for some subjects, especially people. Most suitable for: Texture and patterns, architecture, landscape, nature, sport, travel. Not recommended for: Portraits, glamour, close-ups, weddings, fashion. Making the most of it: The earlier you go out, and the later you stay out, the longer the shadows will be – and the longer the shadows, the more dramatic the shot. Top tip: Be on the look out for pictures where the whole point is the shadow.

If you are photographing a sunrise or sunset, and want the sun in the picture, make sure you take a meter reading of a sunless patch of sky – otherwise you will underexpose your picture. And never view the sun directly

2 STILL-LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY The soft tones and shadows of diffused light are ideal for close-up pictures where they expose every inch of detail (top photograph) and can be used to create a more dreamy ambience (bottom photograph).

Bright light with shadows The cool blue light of the evening sky is the perfect foil for the orange glow of the floodlit cathedral and streetlights attractive results, but give them a try and see what you think. If you’ve got a number of table or standard lamps, you can arrange them as a mini ‘studio’ around your subject to create some great compositions. Although it’s quick and easy to use, the built-in flashgun is probably the least satisfactory approach from a lighting perspective. There’s plenty of light, but since you have virtually no control over it, the quality is poor. All you can do is vary how far you are away from the subject, but as the illumination will always come from the front and be a neutral white, there’s little in the way of shadow or colour to add interest.

Know your light Harsh light When you find it: Between 10.30am and 2.30pm on a bright, sunny day without clouds. What’s good? Bright sunlight brings colours to life and provides plenty of illumination to allow use of small apertures and fast shutter speeds. What’s bad? With the sun’s high in the sky and very intense, contrast is extreme, and too great to be able to record all shadow and highlight tones. Shadows are shallow, but very dense. Most suitable for: Architecture, travel, landscapes, textures and patterns, sport. Not recommended for: Portraits, close-ups, weddings, glamour, white subjects. Making the most of it: Don’t set up with the sun behind you – the shadows fall away from you and produce flat and lifeless pictures. Shoot side-on, or into the light, to get more modelling. Top tip: When photographing people in this light, either shoot into the light, or side-on with a reflector or flash fill-in to soften the shadows.

When you find it: On a sunny day with light cloud.. What’s good? Although still contrasty, it produces softer shadows, and a tonal range that can be accommodated. It’s bright enough to allow small apertures and fast shutter speeds for maximum creative control. What’s bad? Nothing really – it’s one of the most versatile kinds of light there is, though it doesn’t perhaps have quite enough ‘bite’ for some subjects, where a hard-edged treatment is more appropriate. Most suitable for: Architecture, sport, textures, portraits, nature, close-ups, glamour, landscape, fashion. Not recommended for: Suits most subjects. Making the most of it: This is light that it’s hard to go wrong with. Remember, though, it’s still reasonably contrasty, so you may need reflectors when photographing people. Top tip: Get out and make the most of this light.

Diffused light When you find it: On a day when the sun is covered by light to medium cloud, in the shade of a building or under a tree on a sunny day. What’s good? It’s soft, even in tone, but still produces soft shadows that give some sense of depth. What’s bad? Light levels are lower, restricting shutter speeds and apertures unless you are using a tripod. Most suitable for: Portraits, still-lifes, white objects, flowers, weddings, close-ups, glamour, fashion. Not recommended for: Texture and patterns, landscapes, architecture, sport. Making the most of it: This is great for photographing people. They won’t have to squint, and there are no nasty shadows under the eyes, nose and chin. Top tip: Diffused light can sometimes be slightly blue, so you might need to warm up the image later.

Flat lighting When you find it: On an overcast day, when heavier clouds fill the sky. What’s good? Lack of contrast means tonal range is easily handled, so no detail whatsoever gets lost. 8

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FEATURE HOW TO USE LIGHT

2 YOUR CAMERA’S WHITE BALANCE CONTROLS Pete Bobb reveals more about your camera’s white balance controls:

A major advantage of digital photography is being able to switch film types and invent brand new White Balance settings for every picture taken. Whether you want to create a golden glow by shooting your incandescently-lit subject with a ‘full sun’ white balance setting, or you want accurate colour capture, the control is in your hands. The first six settings (below) are factoryinstalled settings. The seventh and eighth shots use custom White Balance settings. Typically, a custom White Balance setting is created by filling the camera view field with a white surface such as a piece of paper. Then the CCD measures the light so that it knows how to record white light correctly. However in this case, instead of using white paper to fill the view field of the camera, the CCD was ‘tricked’ by using first, a green sheet of paper [7], and for the second custom setting, a blue sheet of paper [8].

Typical outdoor daylight or studio conditions can frequently be handled by the camera’s automatic white balance setting, but sometimes you need to take manual control over it. When you have night subjects illuminated with several different types of light, or unusual light, and none of the pre-set equivalents to the conventional types of film meet your needs, the ‘custom’ white balance setting can be used to adjust the camera to the available light. To use the ‘custom’ white balance setting, point the camera at a white surface illuminated with the available light so that the white surface completely fills the field of view. The CCD can then record the white light correctly. But using a coloured rather than white surface has an effect very similar effect to using a coloured filter on the camera lens.

8 What’s bad? It’s flat, with no shadows at all, and it can have pronounced blue bias. Lower light levels limit use of fast shutter speeds and small apertures. Most suitable for: Close-ups, details. Not recommended for: Architecture, weddings, people pictures, landscape, textures & patterns, sport, glamour. Making the most of it: The way to bring a picture to life under flat lighting is to use bright colours, which can reproduce as very saturated, especially if fill-in flash is used to increase contrast. Top tip: It costs nothing to take a few shots – get out and practice! 1

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2 FUN WITH WHITE BALANCE daylight to fluorescent. The resulting image has an eerie, ghostly quality with the pale, overexposed subject shown in stark contrast to the much darker background.

The first picture is shot normally with some fill flash. The second is overflashed, but the camera’s white balance control is also changed from

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Warm light When you find it: Late in the evening of a sunny day. What’s good? It’s a beautiful warm light that bathes everything in a golden orange. What’s bad? Light levels are often low, so care must be taken to avoid camera-shake. Most suitable for: Most subjects. Not recommended for: Subjects requiring long lens settings and fast shutter speeds, such as sport Making the most of it: Warm light sometimes doesn’t last long, and you have to race to beat the sun as it sets. Top tip: To enhance the effect, use increase saturation in the computer.

Cool light When you find it: After the sun has set. What’s good? Has a magnificent blue tone, giving an icy cast to all it falls on. What’s bad? Light levels are extremely low, often too low for hand-holding, and a tripod is required. The blue

Natural light from windows is one of the photographer’s greatest tools, creating warmth, highlights and interest to this long cathedral corridor light swamps all other colours. Most suitable for: Shots where atmosphere and mood are more important than in-yer-face visual impact. Not recommended for: People pictures, landscapes, sport, close-ups, nature, texture and patterns, glamour, architecture, weddings. Making the most of it: You need to choose a suitable location in advance. Top tip: The blue light period of dusk quickly folds into night – so illuminated subjects such as floodlit buildings can work well.

Indoor lighting When you find it: Inside buildings when light is low. What’s good? It’s better than no light at all! What’s bad? Often lights are on the ceiling, and the illumination is like that you get midday outside, producing hard, contrasty, downward shadows. Tungsten and fluorescent give orange and green casts respectively. Most suitable for: Can be good for close-ups and portraits if care is taken. Not recommended for: People pictures, sport, close-ups, nature, texture and patterns, glamour, architecture, weddings. Making the most of it: Adjust your white balance for Tungsten or Fluorescent – or use flash if it’s too unattractive. Top tip: If possible, switch off ceiling lights and use standard or table-top lamps instead.

FEATURE HOW TO USE LIGHT

Creating lighting effects in Photoshop Elements You can easily correct poor lighting by using the Adjust Lighting command in Adobe Photoshop Elements

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ON OUR COVERDISC

PHOTOSHOP 7 Although this tutorial is for Elements, you can use our Photoshop trial to perform the same techniques

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ost of us prefer to shoot photographs outdoors in bright sunlight because colours are richer and the sky is blue. And this is despite the fact that varying levels of bright and dark cause even the best digital cameras to make an exposure that compromises image quality – most digital compact light meters are influenced by the brighter parts of your subject and may not produce the kind of photograph you expected.

Help is on hand Two useful features in Photoshop Elements can help address this problem. Found under the Enhance8Adjust Lighting menu, Fill Flash and Adjust Backlighting work by selectively brightening and darkening down areas of your image. Although both commands can be applied to the whole image (which is useful if you’ve got a severely dark or bright result), they are best put into practice in small, selective areas.

The Fill Flash command is effective at lifting detail from deep black shadows caused by bright sunlight. The Adjust Backlighting command works wonders on pale, washed-out skies, making a darker and richer result in one, easy stroke. Below there are two examples of how to use Fill Flash and Adjust Backlighting to improve your pictures – one is shot against a bright blue sky; the other shot under tricky lighting conditions…

EXPERT TIP TIM DALY PHOTOSHOP EXPERT

APPLY A FILTER If you can’t get the pattern to blend in perfectly with a multicoloured photograph, apply the filter to a smaller area rather than the entire image.

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EXPERT TIPS

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ANALYSE YOUR PROBLEM

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SPOT THE ERROR

This image was shot against a bright blue sky and shows a classic exposure mistake. The camera’s lightmeter has been influenced by the dominant sky and has exposed it perfectly – but at the expense of the figure in the foreground.

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USE THE DIALOG BOX

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MAKE THE SELECTION

Apply the command to the whole image. Go to Enhance8Adjust Lighting8Fill Flash and make sure the Preview option is selected. Drag the dialog to one side, so you can see your changes and move the Lighter slider to the right until your image looks better.

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THE FINAL RESULT

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THE END RESULT

After a gentle application of the Fill Flash command, the final image looks better and detail has appeared in the previously dark shadow areas. Be careful not to overcook your image and keep your Lighter slider less than 20 steps.

TIM DALY PHOTOSHOP EXPERT

WARM UP AFTERWARDS After using the Fill Flash command over the whole image, the result may look slightly colder and less appealing. Warm your image up by choosing the Color Variations dialog box and the Decrease Blue option.

USING LEVELS Once you’re confident about using these two processes, try using the Levels dialog box to adjust image brightness within smaller areas. Drag the small grey triangular Output mid-tone slider to the right to make your image darker, and to the left to make it brighter.

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This dramatic rainbow landscape was shot under changeable lighting conditions, but shows a weak sky that fails to emphasise the rich colours of the rainbow. When working in a small area like this, you need to make a selection first.

Use the Lasso tool and draw a careful selection around the sky. Next apply a 30-pixel Feather to soften down the impact of the next edit. Choose Enhance8Adjust Lighting8Adjust Backlighting and move the slider until your image looks better.

After editing the pale sky, the final result shows a much more moody tone, which helps to concentrate your eyes on the centre of the photo. It’s a much better idea to darken down the edges of your photographs to help emphasise your main subject.

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LOOK OUR FOR OUR TOP FEATURE ON PORTRAITS, ON SALE 16 JANUARY

Using the Light! plug-in to create effects You can now apply a fascinating range of natural light patterns using a sophisticated plug-in for Adobe Photoshop – and it’s on our CD!

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hadow and lighting effects can turn even the most prosaic of shots into something much more dramatic and inspiring – and you don’t need a legion of pro photographer tools like gobos (black screens placed around a camera lens to keep out unwanted light) to help you achieve it: all you need is a little help from the Light! plug-in for Adobe Photoshop from Digital Film Tools. Reviewed in issue one, Light! has been built to work

as an additional filter option in Photoshop’s filter menu. The plug-in works by using a library of 60 predetermined light and texture files to add subtle daylight effects to your image by simulating how that light might fall onto your subject – such as when it passes through a latticed windows frame or set of shutters. Light! can even be used to simulate fog, mist and glow effects to help you add or enhance the atmosphere and ambience of landscapes.

The trial version – available as a free download at www.digitalfilmtools.com – comes with several sample pattern images that mimic the light from Venetian blinds, Georgian windows and shutters. To get you started we’ve put together a simple walkthrough to show you how straightforward and rewarding applying the Light! plug-in filter can be, although you can also easily achieve similar effects yourself using Photoshop’s own transfer mode and displacement filters.

OUR COVERDISC * ON LIGHT! Try these techniques for yourself with our Light! trial on CD 2

* WEB LINKS DIGITAL FILM TOOLS www.digitalfilmtools.com You can download a free trial version of Light! from the Digital Film Tools website on www.digitalfilmtools.com. Once downloaded, the application needs to be uncompressed using Stuffit Expander or WinZip.

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STARTING POINT

04

THE LIGHT AND MATTE DIALOG

This image is a rather bland still-life shot taken in the studio. It lacks any sensitive and atmospheric lighting, so the plan is to introduce a patterned window light to mimic the look and feel of a natural shot.

Find a way of blending the pattern with your original image. First, experiment with the blending options found in the Use drop-down menu in the Matte section. Choose the one that shows the pattern most without changing your original image such as Hue.

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OPEN THE DIALOG

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DEFINE THE SHAPE

Open your image and then go to Filter8Digital Film Tools. The Light dialog box presents you with a range of tools for blending, resizing and moving the light pattern within your image. Check the Output option, found at the base of the preview image window.

Next, use the tools found in the Shape section to manipulate the pattern shape to the size and position you require. Experiment with the opacity slider until it blends in with the surroundings. If it looks too sharp, apply a slight X and Y blur to soften it down.

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SELECT THE PATTERN

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THE END RESULT

Select the light pattern that you’d like to use. In the Shape section of the dialog, click on Select and pick one of the sample patterns. If you are not immediately pointed to the Patterns folder, you can find it in the Plug-Ins8Adobe Photoshop Only folder.

After much tugging and tweaking, the preview image has been perfectly tailored to fit in with the original background and the still-life object. This effect was applied to a single layer image, but you can also work on individual layers, too.

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SECTION #01

REVIEWS

Section highlights…

KIT REVIEW NIKON COOLPIX 5700 SEE PAGE 36

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KIT REVIEW CANON DIGITAL IXUS This swish camera updates the classic Ixus range but is it enough to extend its life?

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KIT REVIEW NIKON COOLPIX 5700 With its slick design and 5-megapixel resolution, this camera promises a great deal. Will it deliver?

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PLUG-IN REVIEW IMAGE DOCTOR A Photoshop-compatible plug-in that removes spots, scratches and unwanted scenery from your photos

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LAB TEST IMAGE EDITORS We reveal the best options around for an image editing program, in our comparative test

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Kit reviews The latest digital photo gear, reviewed and rated

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Contact our reviews team

Reviews you can trust! Our aim is to inform you fully about a product’s best and worst features. To this end, we guarantee each review is Independent: We have a cast-iron policy of editorial independence. Suppliers never see a review until the

magazine hits the newsagent Authoritative: Every review includes the manufacturer's range, other options, test shots, 3D tours, plus links to buy online Clear: We use diagrams and boxes to ensure each review delivers a definitive verdict

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If you have a comment about our reviews, or a product you would like us to test, please email us at [email protected]. Visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk for reader verdicts

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REVIEWS

2 MEGAPIXEL SUB-COMPACT CANON DIGITAL IXUS V2 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery Life Contact

£329 2 megapixels f2.8-4 2x zoom 8Mb CompactFlash 150 shots monitor on, 420 monitor off, 100 minutes replay Canon 0800 616 417 www.canon.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Canon Digital Ixus v2 You think small is beautiful? Then the Digital Ixus v2 will leave you agog, cramming some serious photographic potential into a super-slim body

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ON OUR COVERDISC

VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

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C WEBSITE OPINIONS & SHOPPING Post your views, see what other readers think then buy this camera! digitalcameramagazine.co.uk/ ixusv2

DIGITAL RANGE

CANON POWERSHOT S45 Price: £549 Megapixels: 4 DIGITAL IXUS V3 Price: £400 Megapixels: 3.2 DIGITAL IXUS 330 Price: £349 Megapixels: 2

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DIGITAL IXUS V2 Price: £329 Megapixels: 2

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POWERSHOT A40 Price: £230 Megapixels: 2

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hen the Digital Ixus first appeared, it was a revelation. Half the size of rival cameras, (measuring just 87mm x 57mm x 26.7mm), with a build quality that put the rest to shame, it was love at first sight. The modest 2-megapixel resolution and a comparatively high price tag were the only problems. A couple of years down the line, the Digital Ixus range has developed and grown, but the original model is still here, re-released in ‘v2’ form. The small but effective 2x optical zoom remains, as does the amazing build (feels like solid steel to us) and fine, positive switchgear. But in a market increasingly populated by jumped-up webcams and iffy imaging chips, is the Ixus in danger of dropping off the bottom of the picture quality ladder? It doesn’t take long to dispel that worry – just long enough to take one shot and examine it close up, in fact. Tiny though it is, the Digital Ixus extracts every last ounce of quality out of its 2-megapixel CCD, backing it up with accurate autofocus, excellent exposure control, great colour and top-drawer contrast and saturation. This is as good as 2-megapixel images get.

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7 LENS The lens is a handy little beast, with a max aperture of f2.8 at the wide-angle end

Photographic options In a camera this small, surely something’s got to give? It’s not image quality, so maybe it’s photographic control? True, the Digital Ixus isn’t designed with professionals or even advanced amateurs in mind, but it has all the features that you’d expect in a decent midrange camera. In Auto mode, there’s very little to do except compose the shot and shoot, but in Manual mode you can adjust the white balance (you can even calibrate it manually), apply exposure compensation, use long shutter speeds, change the ISO rating and flash mode, apply image effects (Sepia, Vivid and Neutral colour, black and white) – the Ixus really is very well-featured. It even offers to auto-rotate portrait format shots for replaying on the LCD. For what’s essentially a snapshot camera, there’s

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

enough photographic control here to keep more advanced users happy, too, so the Ixus would make a good second camera for popping in a pocket.

Controls We’ve found that with other sub-compact digital cameras, ergonomics and accessibility sometimes suffer at the expense of image quality. This is not the case here. The Digital Ixus is a very small camera, but its rectangular design (no protruding lens barrels or grips here) means the surface area available for the controls is actually quite large. This means that the camera’s backplate isn’t really that cluttered – the controls are well-spaced, well labelled and crisp and positive to use.

7 BUILT-IN FLASH The Ixus’s integral flash includes redeye reduction and slow synch modes

7 SWITCHGEAR The shutter release, zoom control and the power switch are top-quality

They’re well-planned, too. If you want to apply some exposure compensation, for example, you just press one button and use the navipad to choose the level of compensation. This is in marked contrast to many other miniature digital cameras that offer the same features but bury them in the menus. The same button offers access to the white balance settings and photo effects (two presses and three presses respectively). Meanwhile, the navipad’s directional buttons double as flash, metering pattern, focusing and self-timer controls when you’re taking pictures. This duplication of functions isn’t confusing in practice, and makes the control layout both simpler and more direct.

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Canon Digital Ixus v2 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£329 2 megapixels f2.8-4 2x zoom 8Mb CompactFlash 150 shots monitor on, 420 monitor off, 100 min replay Canon 0800 616 417 www.canon.co.uk

KEY FEATURES

7 NAVIPAD

7 VIEWFINDER

The Ixus is tiny, but its optical viewfinder is one of the best around

7 LCD PANEL

It’s a small camera, but the controls are still wellspaced and easy to use

The LCD panel offers access to the camera’s various photographic options

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CANON DIGITAL IXUS V2 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

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Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

2 megapixel, 1/2.7-inch 2.1MP CCD Canon, f2.8-4, 2x zoom Auto, 10-57cm macro mode Program AE Evaluative, spot 1.5-inch 120,000 pixels +/- 2EV, 1/3EV increments Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL switchable AVI PC connected shooting, Stitch Assist panoramic mode MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300, 2MP

KODAK LS420 £250, 2MP

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £260, 2MP

This is still a miniature jewel of a camera When it first came out, the Digital Ixus had no rivals. Other makers are now producing excellent all-metal subminiature models, but the Digital Ixus remains a beautifully-made classic

CompactFlash Lithium-ion NB-1LH 3.7V Supplied 180g (without battery or CF card) 87mm(w) x 57mm(h) x 26.7mm(d) USB Windows 98/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 8.6-9.2, OS X 10.1

FUJIFILM FINEPIX 401 £350, 2.1MP

FEATURES

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IMAGES BUILD VALUE

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75% FINAL SCORE

Canon Digital Ixus v2

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CANON DIGITAL IXUS V2 PERFORMANCE

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VIEWFINDER The Ixus is tiny, but its optical viewfinder is one of the best around

Software solutions The Digital Ixus’s smart control layout is similar to that of other Canon digital cameras. Canon’s also assembled a good software suite to go with its digital models, including ZoomBrowser EX for browsing your images and carrying out modest manipulation. The PhotoRecord application, meanwhile, lets you assemble photos into albums for printing at specific sizes and layouts. One of our favourites, though, is the PhotoStitch panorama-creation program. This works in conjunction with the camera’s special ‘stitching’ mode (available on the Ixus). Here, the display changes to show a smaller version of the shot you’ve just taken so that you can overlap and align the next one in the panoramic series. Despite all these amazing qualities, though, it’s hard to recommend the Digital Ixus unreservedly. The two drawbacks to the original model haven’t

the same compactness and even pleasure of ownership, mind, but the fact is that the Digital Ixus isn’t great value by any standards. So what of its rivals? Kodak, Panasonic, Casio and Minolta have all had a bash at producing highquality sub-compacts, and the overall level of build quality in this market has certainly shot up. The Digital Ixus no longer holds the unassailable position it once did.

WORTH A LOOK

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2 megapixel, 1/2.7-inch 2.1MP CCD Canon, f2.8-4, 2x zoom Auto, 10-57cm macro mode Program AE Evaluative, spot 1.5-inch 120,000 pixels +/- 2EV, 1/3EV increments Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL switchable AVI PC connected shooting, Stitch Assist panoramic mode MINOLTA DIMAGE X £300, 2MP

KODAK LS420 £250, 2MP

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

LCD PANEL The LCD panel offers quick access to the camera’s various photographic options

Spend a little more and you can find even more tempting propositions. The £400 Konica KD-400, for example (reviewed in issue one) is scarcely any bigger than the Canon, and has an impressive allmetal construction to rival that of the Ixus. The main point being, though, that you get 4-megapixel

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-F7 £260, 2MP

FUJIFILM FINEPIX 401 £350, 2.1MP

images. That’s the difference between the 8 x 6inch enlargements which are as far as the Ixus can really go, and full-bleed A4 photos fit for hanging on the living room wall. But maybe the real competition comes from within the Canon’s own ranks. The 3.2-megapixel Digital Ixus v3 is otherwise identical to the v2, and costs just £70 or so more. Given that, the Digital Ixus v2 only becomes tempting if the price is right.

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Compact Flash Lithium-ion NB-1LH 3.7V Supplied 180g (without battery or CF card) 87mm(w) x 57mm(h) x 26.7mm(d) USB Windows 98/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 8.6-9.2, OS X 10.1

CON Exposure is sometimes on the generous side, so watch out for bleached-out highlights on skin

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

For what’s essentially a snapshot camera, there’s enough photographic control here to keep more advanced users happy too

CANON DIGITAL IXUS V2 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

NAVIPAD It’s a small camera, but the controls are still well-spaced and easy to use

changed, and although the Ixus produces great results, it’s still only a 2-megapixel camera. What’s more, wonderful build quality notwithstanding, it’s competing in price with higher-resolution rivals – for this money, you can get a 3.3-megapixel model or even a budget 4-megapixel camera. You won’t get

PRO Very good colour rendition is carried through into skin tones which look natural and healthy

7

Verdict

We also have to mention the camera’s optical viewfinder, which (we’ll stick our necks out here), is surely the biggest, brightest and best optical finder on any current digital camera.

5 6

This is still a miniature jewel of a camera When it first came out, the Digital Ixus had no rivals. Other makers are now producing excellent all-metal subminiature models, but this latest incarnation of the Digital Ixus remains a beautifully-made classic

5 6

PRO Great exposure control, colour, contrast and saturation. Excellent point-and-shoot results CON The short-range (2x) zoom means that long shots are out

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO Flash balances well with ambient light, and skin tones are reproduced well CON Watch out for red-eye in slow synch mode and camera shake when shooting in low light

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO If you were expecting quality compromises from the miniature design, think again CON The limitations of the 2-megapixel CCD mean that enlargements soon start to break up

FEATURES

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4-MEGAPIXEL COMPACT NIKON COOLPIX 4300 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery Life Contact

£450 4 megapixels f2.8-4.9 3x zoom 16Mb CompactFlash 90 minutes Nikon 0800 230 220 www.nikon.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Nikon Coolpix 4300 The new Coolpix 4300 is a compact camera with hidden depths. The trouble is, are they just a bit too hidden away?

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DIGITAL RANGE

NIKON

COOLPIX 5000 Price: £800 Megapixels: 5 COOLPIX 4500 Price: £600 Megapixels: 4

5

COOLPIX 4300 Price: £450 Megapixels: 4 COOLPIX 3500 Price: £350 Megapixels: 3.2

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he chief designer at Nikon must have very small hands. And a good manicurist. With your right hand holding the moulded grip on the right of the body, your fingernails are perpetually scraping the lens barrel. It doesn’t damage the camera, your nails or your photographic results in any way, but it’s just annoying. And it could put you in a poor frame of mind for judging the rest of this camera’s design. Even the most forgiving users are going to agree that the grey, rubberised finish of the buttons on the backplate is unappealing, and that the four-way navipad feels generally stiff and ‘dead’. However, it’s a body shape that Nikon has been using for some time (in its Coolpix 880, 885 and 775), so it must be popular. As you’ve probably gathered, it doesn’t do much for us.

1 3

Photographic results And that’s a great pity, because the first set of shots you take with this camera reveal that it’s a cracker. The lens and the 3.3-megapixel CCD in the outgoing 885 model seemed little better or worse than those in any number of other 3.3-megapixel digital cameras, but the swap to a 4-megapixel CCD in the 4300 has changed all that. Indeed, despite the higher 5MP resolution of the Coolpix 5700, also reviewed this issue, the 4300 produces the crisper shots. We know what you’re thinking: maybe the 4300 uses some kind of super-aggressive in-camera sharpening that also brings unwanted noise and edge effects? Not as far as we can see. Indeed, you can run a Sharpen filter over the 4300’s images and make them that little bit crisper still without the image edges breaking up unduly.

Everyday handling This outright image quality makes the Nikon’s handling problems even harder to bear. You have to shift your right hand away from the optimum gripping position to get your index finger on the shutter release. Whether it’s this, or the button’s fairly heavy action,

£

COOLPIX 775 Price: £280 Megapixels: 2

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DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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2

7 LENS The 3x zoom looks like that on the older 3.3MP 885 model, but the results are razor-sharp

we don’t know, but we got more camera shake with the Nikon than with any of the other cameras on test. Bright light won’t pose any problems, but when the shutter speeds fall to 1/60sec or below, you could face problems – camera shake will creep in before the Nikon’s auto-ISO function starts ramping up the CCD sensitivity. Round the back of the camera, things aren’t a lot better. The optical viewfinder does the job, but it’s not especially big and the same can be said for the 1.6-inch LCD. It’s crisp and responsive, though, and lacks the alarming reddish hue of the Coolpix 885. It needs to be good, mind, because the lack of a separate mono LCD status panel (more and more digital cameras are

7 HANDGRIP The 4300’s handgrip leaves your fingernails too close to the lens barrel

7 MODE DIAL Concentrates most of the 4300’s more advanced functions in the manual mode

dropping these now) means that you’ll rely on it for all the Nikon’s various settings and photographic options. And because this is a pretty sophisticated camera, there are a lot of settings.

Tools and options The main mode dial is pretty straightforward to use, and hints at how this camera’s controls have been categorised for different types of user. In auto mode, for example, you don’t need to do anything except point the camera and shoot. The scene mode’s quite interesting. Most digital cameras have a small selection of scene settings for portraits, night shots, landscapes and the like, but the

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Nikon Coolpix 4300 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£450 4 megapixels f2.8-4.9 3x zoom 16Mb CompactFlash 90 mins Nikon 0800 230 220 www.nikon.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 MODE DIAL

7 NAVIPAD

Concentrates most of the 4300’s more advanced functions in the manual mode

7 LCD

A bit heavy and spongyfeeling, the navipad lacks precision

There are lots of buttons below to leave you flicking through the manual

1

NIKON COOLPIX 4300 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

4 megapixels, 1/1.8-inch 4.13MP CCD Nikkor, f2.8-4.9 3x zoom Auto, minimum 4cm in macro mode Program AE, scene modes, manual 256-segment matrix, centre-weighted, spot, AF spot 1.5-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/3EV steps Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL QVGA 15fps 12 scene modes KONICA KD-400 £400, 4MP

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C-4000 £450, 4MP

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

PANASONIC DMC-LC40 £470, 4MP

A good camera that’s spoilt by its handling Terrifically sharp results combined with great exposure control and photographic options – which is what makes the 4300’s unappealing finish and design even harder to bear

CompactFlash Lithium-ion EN-EL1 7.4v Supplied 230g (without battery or memory card) 95mm(w) x 69mm(h) x 52mm(d) USB Windows 98SE/Me, 2000 or XP, Mac OS 9.0-9.2, OS X 10.1.2

MINOLTA DIMAGE F100 £400, 4MP

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FEATURES

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Nikon Coolpix 4300

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TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

NIKON COOLPIX 4300 PERFORMANCE

2 SKIN TONES

1

5 6

3

7

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SHUTTER RELEASE The shutter release seems to leave the camera prone to shake at slow speeds

Scene modes are all very well, but keen photographers will want to keep a much closer tab on what the camera is actually doing, and that’s where the manual mode comes in. You can use the 4300 for point-and-shoot photography in this mode, plus you can apply exposure compensation, auto-bracket on your shots,

Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording

WORTH A LOOK

2

4 megapixels, 1/1.8-inch 4.13MP CCD Nikkor, f2.8-4.9 3x zoom Auto, minimum 4cm in macro mode Program AE, scene modes, manual 256-segment matrix, centre-weighted, spot, AF spot 1.5-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/3EV steps Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL QVGA 15fps KONICA KD-400 £400, 4MP

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C-4000 £450, 4MP

LCD There are lots of buttons below to leave you flicking through the manual

bracket for white balance and use Nikon’s clever Best Shot Selector. Using the latter, the camera keeps taking shots for as long as your finger presses the shutter release, then compares them all for sharpness and saves only the sharpest to the memory card, which is handy, given the

NAVIPAD A bit heavy and spongy-feeling, the navipad lacks precision

controls, the Coolpix 4300 really is a very good camera. But it all comes down to the handling and ergonomics, and this is where it starts to get very subjective. Compared with many of its rivals, the Coolpix 4300 just isn’t very nice to use. And although it’s a very powerful camera, its

Despite the higher 5MP resolution of the Coolpix 5700, also reviewed this issue, the 4300 produced the crisper shots high degree of camera shake we experienced with this camera. Your delight in discovering the 4300 has a full manual mode, where you can control shutter speed and aperture independently, might be tempered by the fact the lens has only two apertures – wide open and stopped down for maximum depth of field. With a range of metering patterns, focusing options and all its other advanced photographic

NIKON COOLPIX 4300 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering

7

Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

PANASONIC DMC-LC40 £470, 4MP

1

12 scene modes Compact Flash Lithium-ion EN-EL1 7.4v Supplied 230g (without battery or memory card) 95mm(w) x 69mm(h) x 52mm(d) USB Windows 98SE/Me, 2000 or XP, Mac OS 9.0-9.2, OS X 10.1.2

MINOLTA DIMAGE F100 £400, 4MP

options aren’t particularly easy to get at, and you’ll need to spend some time with the manual to be able to find your way around this camera in anything approaching a hurry. If this camera came from a less well-known or budget brand, we’d probably be a lot kinder about it. As it is, though, it faces tough rivals from big brands that are cheaper and better – notably the Olympus C-4000 and the Minolta DiMAGE F100.

Verdict

Hands on

CON Flash shots taken indoors can lend a slight magenta/pinkish hue to skin tones

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

4

Coolpix 4300 has no fewer than 12. These include portrait, party/indoor, night portrait, beach/snow, landscape, sunset… the list goes on. With each of these settings, the focusing, white balance, saturation and exposure are carefully set to match that specific subject. The scene modes offer an element of photographic control that is missing in simple point-and-shoot mode, but without requiring any real photographic knowledge. We have to say, though, that even with its 12 scene modes, the Nikon can’t come close to matching the amazing Casio QV-R4, which offers 33 scene modes, each with attractive thumbnail representations, brief notes/instructions and the ability to add your own modes.

PRO Accurate flesh tones outdoors, that are natural looking and have good tonal rendition

A good camera that’s spoilt by its handling Overall, this delivers terrifically sharp results combined with great exposure control and photographic options – which is what makes the 4300’s unappealing finish and design even harder to bear

5 6

PRO Contrasty, saturated and very sharp results. Good exposure control in varied conditions CON Prone to more camera shake than the other cameras, so low light brings a higher risk of blur

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO Quite good balance between flash and ambient light in slow synch mode CON The wideangle zooming isn’t that wide, so cramped interiors could prove a challenge

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO Shots are crisp and sharp and some the best we’ve seen from a 4-megapixel camera CON Not the steadiest shooting platform, so in low light think about using a tripod

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REVIEWS

4-MEGAPIXEL COMPACT PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LC40 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery Life Contact

£470 4 megapixels f2-2.5 3x zoom 16Mb SD 150min LCD on, 180min LCD off Panasonic 08701 505 610 www.panasonic.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Lumix DMC-LC40 Leica optics, 4-megapixel resolution, chunky design and in-depth photographic controls… but is this camera less than the sum of its parts?

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P

anasonic’s recent partnership with top photographic brand Leica has produced some interesting cameras. Leica has brought its optical expertise to the relationship, while Panasonic brings its experience in electronics. The result is that the Panasonic digital camera range sports Leica-branded lenses, and Leica has a new digital camera in the form of the £750 Digilux 1. We looked at Panasonic’s £550 DMC-LC5, reviewed in last month’s issue, and those who get the opportunity to compare this and the Leica side by side might decide that apart from some minor cosmetic differences, the two cameras appear nigh-on identical, from the lens used to the positioning of the controls. We couldn’t possibly comment. With this in mind, the DMC-LC5 looks a good deal at £550, but the LC-40 reviewed here is £80 cheaper still, despite sharing the same lens and 4-megapixel CCD. Does this make it the best bargain of all?

Design and usability

DIGITAL RANGE

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LC5 Price: £550 Megapixels: 4

5

LUMIX DMC-LC40 Price: £470 Megapixels: 4 LUMIX DMC-F7 Price: £260 Megapixels: 2

£

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LUMIX DMC-LC20 Price: £220 Megapixels: 2

Not necessarily. There are a number of factors to take into account when choosing a digital camera. Price is important, and so is the quality of the results. But you’ve also got to enjoy using it, and it’s this factor which can easily get overlooked. And while the LC-40 is refreshingly chunky in a market populated increasingly by sub-miniature cameras, it still manages to be a bit of a fiddle to use. The handgrip’s not quite big enough and, as with the Nikon Coolpix 4300, you find your fingernails scrunched against the lens barrel. The main mode dial is simple enough, though, and offers fast access to the principle shooting modes, but you can’t help feeling that if a couple of options had been dropped to make space for the playback and continuous shooting modes, you wouldn’t need the extra rotating collar mounted underneath. Things don’t get much better on the back. On a camera this size, there’s no obvious reason why the buttons should be so small and heavy, and the first

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

3

7 3X ZOOM LENS The Leica-developed lens offers sharp results and good lowlight performance

time you use the navipad and menu system, you think there’s something wrong with it. The navipad itself is very dead-feeling and unresponsive, while the menus respond with a sluggishness that makes you press the pad repeatedly because you think it hasn’t registered properly. However, there was nothing wrong with our camera. This is common to other LC-40s we’ve used and the LC-5 we reviewed last issue. It’s woolly, imprecise and you’ve got to get used to it. While we’re in moaning mode, there’s that novelty pop-up flash. Lots of other cameras have pop-up flashes too, and there’s nothing wrong with them. But on other cameras, the flash pops up automatically when you need it. Not here. On the LC-40 the flash isn’t going to

7 FLIP-UP FLASH The flip-up flash keeps the flash tube off-axis, but adds to the fiddle-factor

7 MODE DIAL With a range of scene modes, the LC-40 is well-specified for the money

fire unless you manually slide the switch on the side of the body. And once it’s up, there’s no switching it off until you click it shut again. You’ll get used to this way of working soon enough, but it’s a quirk which just seems a bit odd and unnecessary.

Features and results Handling is a subjective thing, and there may be many who love the LC-40’s looks and controls. In any event, there’s no arguing over its raw specifications. In particular, you get a very good lens for the money. The 3x zooming range is ordinary enough, but the f2-2.5 maximum aperture isn’t. This is the lens (it looks like it, anyway) fitted to the Canon PowerShot G2 under

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Lumix DMC-LC40 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£470 4 megapixels f2-2.5 3x zoom 16Mb SD 150 mins LCD on, 180 mins LCD off Panasonic 08701 505610 www.panasonic.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 MODE DIAL

With a range of scene modes, the LC-40 is wellspecified for the money

7 NAVIPAD

7 MEMORY CARD

The navipad and the sluggish menus are the LC-40’s Achilles’ heel

SD cards are still more expensive than their CompactFlash rivals

1

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC40 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

3.9 megapixel. 1/1.8-inch 4MP CCD Leica DC Vario Summicron, f2-2.5, 3x zoom Auto, 6cm minimum in macro mode Program AE, aperture-priority, shutterpriority Multi-pattern, spot 1.8-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/4EV steps Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL QuickTime Motion JPEG Voice annotations MINOLTA DIMAGE F100 £400, 4MP

CANON POWERSHOT G2 £650, 4MP

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LC5 £550, 4MP

Good value, but awkward despite the chunky looks You get a good, fast lens for the money, and results you’ll find hard to beat. The picture-taking experience is dulled, though, by poor design

SD Lithium-ion CGR-S602E 7.2v Supplied 400g (with memory card and battery) 105mm(w) x 77mm(h) x 65.6mm(d) USB Windows 98/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9, OS X

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C-4000 £450, 4MP

FEATURES

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LUMIX DNC-LC40 PERFORMANCE

2 SKIN TONES

1

5 6

PRO The Lumix’s slight tendency towards underexposure reduces burnt-out skin highlights CON Slightly granular rendition causes skin tones to look coarse at high magnifications

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

3 4

7

7

LCD PANEL It’s quite large and sharp, but the LCD panel is a bit dim in bright lighting

Why pay more? With its selection of scene modes (Macro, Portrait, Lanscape, Sports, Night shots) and its addition of aperture-priority and shutter-priority automation to the standard programmed AE mode, the LC-40 is

well-enough specified to give the more expensive LC-5 a run for its money. There’s no full manual mode, and you don’t get the LC-5’s colossal 2.5-inch LCD, but you do get auto-bracketing (over three or five shots), white balance control (ahem), a movie mode and everything else you’re likely to need.

WORTH A LOOK

2

3.9 megapixel. 1/1.8-inch 4MP CCD Leica DC Vario Summicron, f2-2.5, 3x zoom Auto, 6cm minimum in macro mode Program AE, aperture-priority, shutter-priority Multi-pattern, spot 1.8-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/4EV steps Auto, on, off, slow synch, red-eye NTSC or PAL QuickTime Motion JPEG Voice annotations MINOLTA DIMAGE F100 £400, 4MP

CANON POWERSHOT G2 £650, 4MP

MEMORY CARD Growing in popularity, SD cards are still more expensive than their CompactFlash rivals

or Canon’s PowerShot G2. You won’t necessarily see any improvement in image quality with these more expensive rivals, but you will find them easier and better to use. In this respect they have the edge over the LC40 – whose controls will annoy some users despite the quality of its prints. The

The menus respond with a sluggishness that makes you press the pad repeatedly because you think it’s not registered properly The LC-40’s pretty soundly made, it has a removable lens collar so that you can add telephoto and wideangle converters, and it does all this at a price that undercuts that of most serious rivals.

So can you do better? If you’re looking at chunky 4-megapixel cameras with lots of photographic tools aimed at serious users, you’d also be looking at the LC-5 (£550 more)

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LC40 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

NAVIPAD The navipad and the sluggish menus are the LC-40’s Achilles’ heel

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LC5 £550, 4MP

1

SD Lithium-ion CGR-S602E 7.2v Supplied 400g (with memory card and battery) 105mm(w) x 77mm(h) x 65.6mm(d) USB Windows 98/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9, OS X

OLYMPUS CAMEDIA C-4000 £450, 4MP

Nikon Coolpix 4300 (reviewed on page 30), suffers similar drawbacks – it does the job but in a generally unappealing way. And all 4-megapixel cameras face a stiff challenge from an outsider coming up on the rails. The Minolta DiMAGE F100 doesn’t have such a fast lens as the Lumix LC-40, but it’s cheaper, smaller, better-made, and better-specified. That’s got to be worth considering…

Verdict

another name, where it performs very well – so, not surprisingly, the LC-40 turns in some very good results, too. Like the Lumix LC-5 reviewed last issue, shots are very crisp-looking, if a little granular when viewed close up. We doubt you’ll find a 4-megapixel digital camera which gives you significantly crisper results than this, and while the exposure system is inclined towards underexposure now and again, this will at least cut down on the incidence of blown out highlights – a general problem with digital cameras. Don’t be fooled by the slight yellow cast visible in our sample shots, by the way. They were taken before we spotted our test camera’s white balance was set to Cloudy (we checked everything else first, but not that – darn it!). Subsequent shots show a neutral colour balance and good saturation.

7

Good value, but awkward despite the chunky looks You get a good, fast lens for the money, and results you’ll find hard to beat. The picture-taking experience is dulled, though, by poor design. An older camera which stands up OK against newer models

5 6

PRO Punchy, contrasty, colourful results that will help to lift colours even on the dullest of days CON The Lumix underexposes a little too readily, meaning that many shots will need a little lift

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO The high sharpness and fast f2.0 lens make for good available light shots and still lifes CON The slow-synch mode gives too little emphasis to the available light

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO Excellent sharpness and contrast, in common with the LC-40’s stablemate the LC-5 CON Granular tonal structure at high magnifications, undermine the intrinsic sharpness

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REVIEWS

3.2-MEGAPIXEL BUSINESS-IMAGING DEVICE RICOH RDC-i500 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£610 3.2 megapixels f2.6-3.4 3x zoom 8Mb internal Not available Johnsons Photopia 01782 753 300 www.ricohcameras.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Ricoh RDC-i500 Do you dare to be different? Ricoh does with its radical RDC-i500. It’s not just a camera, it’s an interactive, connected, business tool…

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RICOH

RDC-I700 Price: £864 Megapixels: 3.2

5

RDC-I500 Price: £610 Megapixels: 3.2 CAPLIO RR-1 Price: £687 Megapixels: 4 CAPLIO RR30 Price: £280 Megapixels: 3.2

£

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CAPLIO RR120 Price: £200 Megapixels: 2.2

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icoh made a very bold decision a couple of years back. It saw the need for a new kind of digital camera – one aimed at busy business users rather than amateur photographers. It targets these cameras at users who need to take shots that fit specific briefs, can be taken in a hurry, and then uploaded to a website or sent back to the office straightaway. There’s only one snag with Ricoh’s vision of a connected mobile imaging solution: take a look at the RDC-i500’s small print and you’ll discover that although it has the firmware and software to do all this, you have to pay for a CompactFlash slot-compatible plug-in modem/communications card in order to be able to complete the connection.

2

Smarty pants On top of this, a study of the RDC-i500’s manual and online help reveals that its business tools, clever though they might be, are technically daunting. It’s probably for this reason that the RDC-i500 and its more expensive sibling, the i700, have failed to make a noticeable impact on the market. Which is a shame because it’s a great idea in principle – and not just for business users. If you’re on holiday, for example, what could be neater than emailing your holiday snaps back to your relatives, straight from your camera? It would certainly solve the problem of memory card storage – just upload your images to an FTP server, maybe using the web space allocated to you as part of your internet account.

Other options However, the i500’s solution isn’t the only option that’s available. If you’ve got access to a computer with an internet connection while you’re away, you don’t need the i500’s communication tools. And business users will almost inevitably have a laptop, which will provide both mobile storage space for all those digital images, plus a far more effective platform for mobile communications.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

7 LENS Boasts a maximum aperture of f2.6-3.4 and a 3x zooming range

But what about the camera? The i500’s design is certainly every bit as novel as its communications functions. Reminiscent of the old-style 110 cameras, its flat shape means that it will fit into any briefcase, handbag or coat pocket. In that sense it’s far more portable than the vast majority of digital cameras. This doesn’t really compromise its usability, either, and it’s a reminder that digital cameras offer scope for inventive design. It’s interesting to note that most manufacturers follow the design of conventional film cameras, which are hamstrung by the need to accommodate longer optical paths and bulky film transport mechanisms.

7 MICROPHONE The built-in mic can record audio memos and sound for movie clips

7 SHUTTER BUTTON The shutter release looks awkwardlyplaced, but it works well in practice

Like other digital cameras, you can compose images using an optical viewfinder or LCD panel. Although the i500’s optical finder is larger and better than on most cameras, you may find that the bridge of your nose scrapes the mode dial that’s positioned alongside it. The LCD is mounted on the top plate, and flips up to reveal a set of control buttons underneath. These feel a bit cheap and plasticky, operating through a single membrane overlay, but the LCD itself is a revelation. Measuring two inches across the diagonal, it’s larger than all but a handful of those found on other cameras, and with 200,000 pixels, it’s sharper and clearer, too. Images can be hard to see in bright daylight, but in all other conditions, the i500’s LCD offers breathtaking

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Ricoh RDC-i500 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£610 3.2 megapixels f2.6-3.4 3x zoom 8Mb internal Not available Johnsons Photopia 01782 753 300 www.ricohcameras.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 LENS

Boasts a maximum aperture of f2.6-3.4 and a 3x zooming range

7 BUTTONS

7 SHUTTER BUTTON

A rather naff set of buttons lurks under the LCD panel on a plastic membrane

The shutter release looks awkwardly-placed, but it works well in practice

1

RICOH RDC-i500 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Other features

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

3.24 megapixel, 1/1.8-inch 3.34MP CCD Ricoh, f2.6-3.4, 3x zoom Auto and manual, 1-24cm in macro mode Program AE Multi-pattern, centre-weighted, spot 2.0-inch 200,000 pixels +/- 2EV, 1/4EV increments Auto, flash off, forced flash, Slow synch, Red-eye NTSC/PAL switchable Voice memos, email and image upload capability RICOH CAPLIO RR-1 £586, 4MP

NIKON COOLPIX 4500 £600, 4MP

Movie recording Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

FUJIFILM FINEPIX M603 £600 3MP

The business slant disguises a very able camera The i500’s connectivity tools are complex, expensive and, without extra hardware, incomplete. Underneath, though, is a fascinating and capable camera

AVI Internal, Compact Flash Lithium-ion DB-20L 3.7V Included 295g (excluding battery) 141.9mm (w) x 78.2mm (h) x 30.3mm (d) USB Windows 98/Me or 2000, Mac OS 8.6-9

MINOLTA DIMAGE XI £350, 3.2MP

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FEATURES

81

IMAGES

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BUILD VALUE

57

1 1 1 1

73% FINAL SCORE

Ricoh RDC-i500

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Closeup

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Getup&go Where to go, what to shoot

THIS MONTH

January 2003

UNFOLD THIS 8-PAGE SECTION! ■ UK waterways ■ Top photo tips ■ Places to visit ■ Pocket guide

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

HOW TO CAPTURE E ARCHITECTUR Fold out this ts guide to find lo ! ps ti of top

UK WATERWAYS We cruise Britain s canals in search of misty towpaths and outlandish houseboats

WINTER WILDLIFE Geese in flight or the humble robin in your garden — you choose

London calling INDUSTRIAL Power stations cut an eerie figure but are transformed at sunrise and sunset

LANDMARKS Pete Martin gets out and about in the capital and assesses the view from the mighty London Eye ince it opened at the beginning of 2000, the London Eye has become a magnet for photographers, both as a landmark in its own right and as a platform for unique views across the capital. Its modern design provides a dramatic contrast to the surrounding classical architecture, and you ll get great photographs here at any time, night or day. Picture opportunities start almost the moment you exit the Underground at Westminster, with good panoramic shots of what from the Embankment. Distinctive landmarks in the foreground, like Cleopatra s Needle or Boadicea s

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LONDON LOCATIONS The London Eye provides great photo opportunities on and off the wheel Detach this section and take it on your travels!

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statue, help give a sense of place and add depth. Then cross Westminster Bridge to the South Bank for more intimate views from in front of the Shell Building, with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the background. From here you can also silhouette the wheel against the sunset. Close up, the Eye towers above you, stark against blue skies. Look for sweeping lines within the steelwork, as the capsules plunge towards you. Pick your time carefully to ride the Eye. Booking in advance guarantees a place but not good weather. Winter is a perfect time as the sky

is clearer, with less haze, especially after rain. Tripods are banned on board but the trip is smooth enough for handheld shots. You re free to move around, so get all the different views from the windows, then pull back to silhouette fellow passengers against the light, if you want. At night, longer exposures and a tripod will enable you to capture both the floodlit wheels movement and its reflections in the blurred water of the Thames. Overcast weather can be good for this, as the city lights reflect off the clouds to give more colourful night skies that contrast well with the blue lighting. If you want sharper images of the wheel, wait until after it has stopped, at about 8pm in winter.

GET SOME INFORMATION [w] www.londoneye.com The official site has a photo gallery of the Eye, plus booking information and behind-the-scenes info on the history and design

FOCUS IN ON DETAIL Use your optical zoom to pick out interesting items on the buildings you shoot, like stone gargoyles or architectural details.

■ Now send us your pictures! Email a small JPEG to [email protected] with your name and a few words about the shoot, and we ll print the best each month!

to fold this booklet: 8 How This is side A. Turn over for side B

Side A

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STEP 1: Detach sheet from rest of section

Side A

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STEP 2: Fold this side in half horizontally

STEP 3: Now fold around into a square

pitch up river-side, for the best shots of Britain s canal boat culture

give you a detailed route 5 We planner of the best places to ■ Detailed maps of how to get there

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WATERWAYS/ARCHITECTURE

COLOURED FILTERS

2 CANAL BANKS OF BRITAIN SIDE B: NAVIGATING THE

we reveal the ideal methods for fantastic architectural and statue photos

the best places to capture 5 Visit great photographs in London — ■ Tips ■ Equipment ■ Dos/don ts

WIDE ANGLE LENS TRIPOD

INDEX:

2 PHOTOGRAPH ARCHITECTURE SIDE A: 9 TIPS ON HOW TO

WHAT S IN THIS ISSUE

TOPICS COVERED >

EQUIPMENT: three items for better results

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FOLD ALONG THIS LINE SECOND

DETACH HERE

THINK ABOUT CONTEXT Here the old next to new tells a story of London s history. Be careful though — sometimes consistency is better than contrast.

If your camera supports it, consider filters. Use them either to correct colour casts, or to enhance lighting conditions on-scene.

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If your camera supports interchangeable lenses, try a wideangle so you can fill the frame. However be aware of the converging verticals problem caused by lens distortion. Alternatively, try creating a panorama and putting it all together in Photoshop later.

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Get a tripod out for the longer exposures you ll be using, because of your slow ISO setting.

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USE A SLOW ISO SETTING This enables you to capture lots of fine detail at a very fine grain. You ll need a small aperture to get the sharpest images.

Dos and don ts GETTING IT RIGHT: CAPTURING MOOD

Getup&go TEAROUT FACTSHEET NO.3 D JANUARY 2003

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FOLD ALONG THIS LINE FIRST

Getup&go HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH ARCHITECTURE

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of the picture is as fine as possible, so start with it as low as your camera will go. Use a large depth of field so that every part of the image is in sharp focus — use a very small aperture for this. However, a combination of slow film with small aperture means you ll need to take a longer exposure using a slow shutter speed. A tripod s a good idea

Just because the weather s taking a turn for the cold and rainy, don t put your camera away. The blitz of new architecture that s hit Britain over the last 20 years means there s a huge array of quality subjects to aim your camera at. And even if you can t get to London to photograph the London Eye or some of the more traditional landmarks like Westminster Abbey, there s still a range of easy techniques you can use around your own local architectural triumphs.

your image, which will need to be offset. Tungsten lights may introduce a yellowyorange colouration while fluorescent lights add a greenish tinge. Either use filters to warm up or cool down those colours, or post-shoot, use Photoshop or Elements to add colours via the Image Adjust, Variations menu option: add magenta to greenish images, and add cyan to orangy images.

in this scenario or some other way of securing the camera so that there s no vibration or wobble.

04 PHOTOGRAPHING INSIDE When photographing inside a brightly lit building, be aware that the nature of artificial lighting may introduce a colour cast into

to a specific part of the picture — shadows surrounding a highlighted object can often act as a frame.

LIT 07 CAPTURING BUILDINGS AT NIGHT As with the previous tip, a brightly lit building or statue against a night sky can produce some spectacular results. At ISO 100, try a second exposure with an f/8 aperture, or 1-2 seconds at f/5.6. Try capturing the same scene during the day and night for a bit of added fun.

ALL THE 05 USE ELEMENTS When shooting architecture, think about how you can use elements like roads, trees, doorways, arches etc. to make your eventual viewer read the photo in a certain way. For instance, bushes can be used to frame an image, keeping a viewer s eyes on specific parts of a photo. Or roads or footpaths can act as strong lines leading viewers eyes from the edges of a picture into the middle.

01 THE RIGHT CONTEXT

When photographing buildings, try to think about how surrounding scenery adds to or subtracts from the context. For example, when capturing an older structure, you may want to crop out the Burger King next to it. Alternatively, capturing a farmhouse would require some idea of the outlying buildings, animals and fields.

02 THE RIGHT SETTINGS

The best results will be obtained by using the slowest possible ISO setting — ISO 50 for example — so that the grain

03 UPGRADE YOUR KIT

For top quality pictures, you ll need a tripod. If your camera s got a zoom, you can focus on architectural details or flatten the perspective and pick out interesting patterns. If you re using a wide-angle lens, you may notice the edges of tall buildings becoming distorted. (See Q&A pages in issue 1). While this produces an eerie effect which looks effective on older gothic buildings, you can fix it by backing away from the subject or, post-shoot, using the Transform tool in Photoshop to stretch these converging verticals back into a parallel plane.

06 LIGHT AND SHADOW

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Shadow will help your images look moodier, while a shaft of sunlight makes them look more dramatic. Use this effect to draw the viewer s eye

08 FILL THE FRAME

When capturing smaller monuments, try to fill the entire frame. Simply aiming upwards will distort the result, so instead stand back a bit and use the zoom. If you can, try to elevate yourself by standing on a box, or on some steps so there s less of the gazing up effect. Or, if your camera has an LCD which folds away from the main body (like the Ricoh in this month s reviews), unfold it, and hold the camera up in the air looking up at the LCD to frame the shot.

HORIZON LINES

If you re capturing industrial buildings like power stations and want to get a horizon in the picture, try to ensure it s even and horizontal. Some cameras include a grid so you have a useful reference point.

LONDON

Getup&go to… CENTRAL LONDON

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LONDON EYE

AIM FOR LONDON

HOW TO GET THERE

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DETAILS

PICCADILLY The bright lights of the West End look great when all that neon reflects in the wet pavements of the city streets. Who said winter was all bad? BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

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By train: to Paddington or Victoria, then take the Tube to Waterloo or Westminster By coach: to Victoria then Tube as above.

OLD AND NEW

The traditional architecture of the older City buildings contrasts well with the stark, modernistic lines of Richard Rogers Lloyds Building

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WHAT IS IT? Apart from the more traditional sights of London, one of the greatest photo opportunities is the London Eye. It took seven years to plan and build on its South Bank site alongside County Hall. The 30 minute ride in one of 32 capsules whisks you 450 feet into the air above the Thames, offering a view across to St Paul s or the Houses of Parliament and beyond, as far as Windsor on a clear day.

ST PAUL S CATHEDRAL Eerily deserted night shots of St Paul s Cathedral can be made using long time exposures to ensure that any traffic passing through the frame disappears

NEAREST TUBE STATION? Underground to Waterloo or Westminster.

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HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Adult £10.50, child 5.00 OAP £8.50, Fastrack booking £30.

MILLENNIUM DOME

Despite proving a huge white elephant for the government, the Millennium Dome still makes for great pictures for the rest of us. For the best viewpoint head to the Royal Victoria Docks north of the Thames and shoot across the river in the late afternoon light

WHAT ARE THE FACILITIES? Caf facilities at the Booking Office, and at nearby County Hall or the Royal Festival Hall.

Manual focus: focus manually for views from inside the Eye to prevent the camera s autofocus from latching on to the glass. Polariser: a polariser lens will reduce reflections in the curved glass when shooting from inside the capsules. Be careful with flash, as it will bounce back off the curved sides and create hotspots. Set a fast shutter speed (125+) to reduce vibration — you may need a faster ASA setting to compensate for a polariser.

POST-SHOOT INTENSIFYING COLOURS

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Pete Martin specialises in photographing UK cityscapes

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EXPERT ADVICE

THAMES BARRAGE The Thames Barrage is Londons answer to the Sydney Opera House. Here, a long lens compresses individual structures into a tighter, dramatic composition

LEFT: THE LONDON EYE Londons newest landmark can t fail to deliver the goods. A variety of viewpoints of the London Eye enable you to capture all manner of picture angles and styles.

The pale steelwork of the London Eye is best photographed against a vibrant blue sky. You can intensify the latter by using a polariser as you shoot it, or by using Photoshop s Hue and Saturation controls. There are too many intricate parts to cut round, so instead select the sky by using the dropper tools in Colour Range, under the Select menu item.

OXFORDSHIRE DIDCOT POWER STATION

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IMAGES © JON BOWER

Getup&go to… DIDCOT

AIM FOR OXFORD By car: Follow A34 south from Oxford. After Abingdon take A4130 to Didcot.

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

© CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

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HOW TO GET THERE

LANDSCAPE TOWERS OF POWER o the casual observer, power stations are blots on the landscape, their towers belching forth toxic plumes, epicentres for the incessant rows of pylons marching across the land. But to the photographer, the juxtaposition of the harsh manmade form against the delicate beauty of nature can be compelling. To make the most of these icons of the industrial age, you need to pick your time. Winter s clearer atmosphere, combined with the strong sidelighting that exists much of

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the day, exaggerates the form of the curvaceous cooling towers associated with Ferrybridge, Drax or Didcot. The low sun also highlights the plumes of steam they pump out, creating striking cloud formations tinged with golden edges at sunset or sunrise. Longer exposures can smear these at times to great effect. Towering pylons are perfect for silhouetting against the setting sun. These shots always work best from a distance, using a long lens to compress the long rows of pylons and enlarging the sun.

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BLACK OUT Back-lighting creates this effect, while controlled lens flare adds a focal point

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STEAMY

Polarising filters deepens the blue of the sky to contrast with the steam

The low angle of the winter sun sidelights Didcot’s great plumes of steam

DETAILS

LIGHT FANTASTIC

WHAT IS IT?

The crisp morning sunlight softens the colours of the fields and cooling towers

Didcot A is one of a number of coalfired power stations around the UK. Commissioned about 20 years ago, it shares the same stumpy cooling tower design with stations such as Ferrybridge and Drax in Yorkshire. There are a number of classic views, mostly from across the water meadows to the north and west, with good potential for backlit shots. A recently inaugurated cycle path runs past the site perimeter. It s possible to tour the power station on occasional guided visits. Call for details.

It certainly pays to talk to locals to find out when the light is best. And despite increased security measures, it s always worth asking if you can get permission to come in close.

EXPERT ADVICE

Jon Bower s work as an environmental scientist takes his camera all over the world

TRUE BLUE

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Environmental scientist Jon Bower thinks power stations can be things of beauty

Exposure: expose for the ground to keep plenty of detail there, or take a reading from the sky, avoiding the sun, to make more of the plumes. A graduated neutral density filter will even out the exposure range between the two. Take your reading from the ground before fitting the filter, aligning its step edge along the horizon. Lens: use wide angle lenses in close to create a sense of space between structures and exaggerate the height of the towers. A telephoto, in contrast, will isolate details and pull elements closer together. Try using this lens from further back to magnify atmospheric haze and give softer, more muted colours. Polarising filters deepen the blue of the sky with the sun behind, creating greater contrast between sky and steam. They increase the exposure needed by a couple of stops, so you may need a tripod in low light, especially with longer lenses.

GET SOME INSPIRATION [w] www.ironbridge.org.uk This is the website of the Ironbridge Museum (an outdoor museum) all about the Industrial Revolution in the UK

LOCATION? Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 7HA. Tel: (01235) 512 291.

WHAT ARE THE FACILITIES? Visit www.oxtowns.co.uk/didcot for tourist information.

COST? Nothing.

PULLOUT NO.3

Getup&go... routeplanner UK waterways near you Our country is criss-crossed with canals which puts them in easy reach for anyone looking to capture some great photographs ip out to a canal on a fresh winter s day and you ll be surprised by the number of riverboats out on the water. But there s more to Britain s waterways than boating, with canalside walks, locks and riverside pubs to help you make a day of it. Knowing where to go to capture a good photo can often be a problem. Below, we ve reproduced a map of central England s main waterways (thanks to Lockmaster Maps) which show you where the best places to go are close to you, with particular areas of interest highlighted. Below, we ve included details of castles, aqueducts and museums you may encounte r

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Leeds and Liverpool

2 1 NORTH WEST LEEDS AND LIVERPOOL

Kennet and Avon Canal

At 127 miles, the Leeds and Liverpool is the UK s longest canal, linking the North and Irish seas. It mixes the industrial landscapes of Blackburn and the cotton mills of Burnley, with the beautiful countryside of the Pennines. Canal highlights: the Bingley 5-Rise locks around Bingley, West Yorkshire have just been restored and offer some dramatic photographic opportunities. (www.penninewaterways.co.uk/ll/ll37.htm). Or there s the village of Skipton — the canal runs straight through it. Check out Skipton Castle which is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in England. To get to Skipton, see www.skiptoncastle.co.uk/findus.htm Family friendly? Skipton Castle is open during the winter from 10am to 4pm. Admission for adults is £4.60 and £2.30 for children (under 5s get in free). The castle itself offers a banqueting hall, bedchambers and dungeons to explore, and there are woods and tea rooms to relax in afterwards.

Grand Union Canal

2 2 SOUTH WEST KENNET AND AVON CANAL 2 CANALS KEY Key explaining what type of canal is provided on the map

7 Narrow canals with locks 7 feet wide

7 Broad canals with locks over 7 feet wide

7 Non-tidal rivers 7 Tidal rivers

These are three of the biggest canals covering most of the country

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Opened in 1810, the Kennet and Avon Canal was restored and re-opened in 1990. It begins in Bristol at Brunel s Floating Harbour and ends in Reading, taking in 86 miles of waterway. Passing through Bath, a key point of interest is the Caen Hill system of 29 locks around nearby Devizes. These take over a day to navigate, if you re on the water. Canal highlights: there s the Dundas Aqueduct between Bath and Bradford-on-Avon which carries the canal over the River Avon, and the village of Crofton, which has a working steamboat engine. Dundas Aqueduct is a richly detailed piece of Georgian architecture which is falling into some disrepair; however it offers plenty of scope for some creative photography with its balustrades, and triple arch design. Family friendly? Museums and tours are closed over Christmas, but there are Santa Cruises over the Christmas period from Devizes (01380) 729489, Bradford on Avon (01225) 782080, or Hungerford (01488) 683 389.

2 3 SOUTH EAST GRAND UNION CANAL

Opened in 1806, the Grand Union Canal links the Thames at Brentford to the Oxford Canal around Braunston, then climbs up through Leamington Spa to Birmingham, some 137 miles in total. Canal highlights: as a canal complex covering so many different regions, there s no shortage of highspots. The Paddington Arm and Regents Canal section pass close to the centre of London and London Zoo. A particular point of interest is the Canal Museum in Stoke Bruerne, just off Junction 15 on the M1. The museum includes a living canal exhibit and also has videos, models, 3D displays and more showing 200 years of the canal s history. There s also a couple of canalside walks. Family friendly? The museum is open during the winter Tuesday-Sunday, from 10am to 4pm. The canalside walks are tarmac, for wheelchair and buggy access. Admission charges are £3 for adults, £2 for children. There s a family rate (two adults, two kids) of £8. Find out more on 01604 862 229.

MAP © LOCKMASTER MAPS 2002.

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

WIGAN GO TO MARTIN MERE

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ALL BIRD IMAGES © MARK HAMBLIN

Getup&go to… MARTIN MERE

AIM FOR WIGAN Martin Mere is six miles from Ormskirk and ten miles from Southport. Situated off the A59, it is signposted from the M61, M58 and M6.

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

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HOW TO GET THERE

WILDLIFE BIRDS OF BRITAIN 8

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A warm winter sun makes plumage colours sparkle, while a bright overcast sky highlights feather detail and saturates the colour. Keep such a sky out of frame, as it could cause flare that will degrade your images. Set up your shot in advance, prefocussing on the perch ready for the action. Some birds, such as tits, need quick reflexes while blackbirds will give you more time to fine-tune the picture. No back garden? Your local pond, even if it s frozen over, should have widgin, mallards and pintails skating about — and they re easy to get close to. Further afield, there are Wildfowl and Wetland Trust centres all over the country, where you can photograph geese, ducks and swans aplenty at this time of year.

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he winter months bring many of our feathered friends down into our back gardens, within easy reach of a camera. You need only put out a few crumbs to have robins, tits, finches, thrushes — even woodpeckers if you live near woods — dropping in. Put up a feeder table and arrange a natural landing perch nearby in good light and with a suitable background. The idea is that the birds queue on the perch awaiting their turn at the feeder. A proper hide will get you in closer, and is especially useful with shorter lenses, but a nearby window or shed will be fine. Give it a few days so the birds get used to them, and your props get a seasonal dusting of snow or frost. Natural light is best, preferably with the sun behind you.

FLY-BY-NIGHT

DETAILS

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Winter times perfect for photographing native birds, reckons Mark Hamblin

WHAT IS IT?

Silhouettes against the sun always make strong images

In winter, huge numbers of ducks, geese and swans gather into spectacular feeding flocks at the Wildlife and Wetland Trust centre at Martin Mere in Lancashire. Special hides enable you to photograph the birds in natural wetland landscapes.

A VERY BRITISH BREED Use a wide aperture lens to isolate birds from the background

WHEN S IT OPEN? Open daily 9.30am-5.30pm (5pm November — February).

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? Adult £5.50, OAP £4.40, child £3.30.

LOCATION The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Burscough, Lancashire, L40 0TA. [T] 01704 895 181 [e] [email protected]

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WILDLIFE PHOTOS USE A TRIPOD A tripod is essential. Long focal length lenses are best combined with a wide aperture, these will defocus a conflicting background. Birds move quickly so use as fast a shutter speed as the light allows.

SWAN LAKE If you’re photographing large flocks of birds, it’s a good idea to crop in tight so that the shot has more impact

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© LAURIE CAMPBELL

POST-SHOOT

DUCKING AND DIVING

If your lenses aren t long enough, crop the picture, diffuse the background to concentrate attention on the bird. Cut it out then use Gaussian blur (Filters) to soften the background. Feather (!) your selection by 2 pixels for a natural edge.

Don't settle for the conventional. Bird behaviour is as diverse as our own, so it’s worth waiting for that quirky shot

WILDFOWL INSPIRATION [w] www.wwt.org.uk The main WWT website links to all the centres around the UK, with details of attractions, specific events and facilities at each

EXPERT ADVICE

Colin Palmer specialises in photographing UK cityscapes

Overcast: bright but overcast skies cause flare and do nothing to enhance a scene, and are best kept out of the picture. Use overhead branches or the arch of a bridge to hide the sky, or concentrate instead on details of boats and reflections.

©BIRMINGHAM PICTURE LIBRARY

©BIRMINGHAM PICTURE LIBRARY

Getup&go to… KENNET AND AVON CANAL

Post PC: use the Hue and Saturation control (Levels) in Photoshop to beef up the saturation of colours and make them more punchy, but don t overdo it. A 10 per cent increase is enough as a rule, any more and colours might start to look unreal when you print. You can use the same control to desaturate the scene and make colours more muted, applying a Grain filter also to simulate the large grain of faster films.

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Waterways of Britain

EXTERIOR DESIGN

Vibrant colours and bold, traditional patterns ensure that narrow boats are t brightest thing on the water on a dull winter’s day

here are apparently now more boats on Englands network of canals than during the heyday of the Industrial Revolution. Though more a leisure craft today than a working one, the traditional narrowboat is undoubtedly the most popular, its long lines picked out in bright primary colours, and every loose object aboard gaily decorated in the traditional roses and castles style. The origins of this folk art may be obscure, but the results are certainly colourful, making canal boats attractive subjects on dull winter days. No matter whether your local canal is city-bound or runs through open country, a gentle stroll to work off the New Year excesses will take you past many of these craft. Some will be laid up for the winter in huge basins, others overnighting alongside the towpath, a thin plume of smoke rising from a chimney, while others will be resolutely chugging their way toward the next lock. Modern bargees are generally friendly folk, and happy for you to photograph their artistic endeavours. Overcast

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days are best for this, saturating the colours for bright graphical shots of painted namesigns or the ubiquitous decorated tin teapots and coal skuttles. Look too for colourful reflections in the still waters. Architectural features like aqueducts and bridges offer alternatives to boats and canalscapes, and you ll often come across colourful lockkeepers cottages or old pumping stations full of gleaming ancient engines. But it s at the locks that you ll find the action, with people struggling to open the huge wooden gates that separate the different water levels, and boats rising and falling amidst great gushes of water. You can often get unusual perspectives from walkways on top of the gates — just take care when you re leaning out over the water! Boats often queue for the larger locks, such as the Caen flight on the Kennet and Avon Canal, enabling you to crop in tightly on boats moored alongside each other. But don t worry if you re nowhere near it — see our map opposite.

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CANALS Pete Martin dons his best walking shoes to discover the photographic attractions of Englands inland waterways

LAZY DAYS ON THE RIVER

A peaceful mooring basin in Bath on the Kennet and Avon canal. In the win moored up for the night by mid-afternoon

CANAL INSPIRATION [w] www.britishwaterways.co.uk Activities, specifications and history of our inland waterways network from the governing authority [w] www.canaljunction.com This colourful site is a virtual o

By car: Bradford on Avon is on the A363 from Bath to Warminster. Turn off in Bradford onto the B3109.

HOW TO GET THERE

BASED ON ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPPING © CROWN COPYRIGHT, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: AM134/02

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CITY LIVING

Back lighting is a dramatic effect but may cause flare. Try to shield the lens from the sun with a convenient shadow

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DETAILS WHAT IS IT?

LIFE AS ART

The Kennet and Avon Canal is 87 miles long, linking the River Thames to the Avon in Bath. Despite John Rennie s impressive aqueduct that carries boats over the river at Avoncliff, the highlight is his magnificent Caen Flight , a series of 16 stepped locks that form part of a two mile ascent at Devizes that can take boats most of the day to navigate.

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Bargees live and work on the water so there’s always people shots to be had, such as this canalware artist

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? PHOTO OP

Nothing!

Locks are great places to take photos

LOCATION Bradford Wharf, Frome Road, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 2EA.

FACILITIES Tea rooms/toilets/bike hire at the upper and lower wharfs.

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one stop guide to the canals of England, packed with facts and pictures. Also check out www.barge-holidays-uk.co.uk

BRADFORD ON AVON

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nter time boats are often

GO TO

AIM FOR WILTSHIRE

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the

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©BIRMINGHAM PICTURE LIBRARY

WILTSHIRE

CANAL PICTURES LOW LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY A big problem with dull days is low light, often leading to shutter shake if you shoot in a program mode. Set a shutter speed of at least 1/125th sec to keep things sharp without a tripod. This leads to a smaller depth of field so focus carefully. Emphasise misty winter scenes with soft focus filters (or an old stocking) to mute the colours further and soften the image. Use the curve of a canal bank to draw your eye into a shot and onto a strong focal point.

TURN THE PAGE TO COMPARE TEST SHOTS

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RICOH RDC-I500 PERFORMANCE

2 SKIN TONES

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PRO Colours are maybe slightly subdued, but that’s better than garish, inaccurate skin tones CON Our flash shots tended to warm up skin tones, producing a slightly tanned effect

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS

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BUTTONS A rather naff set of buttons lurks under the LCD panel on a plastic membrane

Photographic results True, 3.3-megapixel CCDs are a bit passé these days, but don’t forget that they’re not far behind 4-megapixel units in outright resolution. Certainly, the images produced by the Ricoh will stand a good bit of enlargement – just as much as those from other 3-megapixel cameras, in fact. This demonstrates that offbeat though it might be, the i500 is a camera first and a business tool second. Sharpness, exposure control, saturation and colour balance are all first-rate. The Ricoh’s not compact in terms of weight or overall dimensions, but its slimline design is the key, and means it can go to

places where only a Digital Ixus or one of a handful of other miniature cameras can go.

And there’s more What’s more, its flat base and flip-up LCD make it ideal for placing on a desktop to photograph

WORTH A LOOK

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3.24 megapixel, 1/1.8-inch 3.34MP CCD Ricoh, f2.6-3.4, 3x zoom Auto and manual, 1-24cm in macro mode Program AE Multi-pattern, centre-weighted, spot 2.0-inch 200,000 pixels +/- 2EV, 1/4EV increments Auto, flash off, forced flash, Slow synch, Red-eye NTSC/PAL switchable AVI Voice memos, email and image upload capability RICOH CAPLIO RR-1 £586, 4MP

NIKON COOLPIX 4500 £600, 4MP

MODE DIAL The mode dial also incorporates a power on/off button in the centre

macro setting, so you’ll only need the LCD for menu options. It’s here that you’ll find the exposure compensation option (shame it isn’t more accessible), a choice of three metering patterns (oh, yes) and optional manual focusing – and note the

If you’re on holiday, what could be neater than emailing your holiday snaps back to your relatives, straight from your camera? meetings, presentations, still-life shots and portraits. Camera shake? Never heard of it. Outdoors, you might expect the Ricoh’s design to make things a little more awkward. True, the flip-up LCD does feel rather fiddly and unnatural in the teeth of a raging gale, but the optical finder really is good enough to make it unnecessary. A selection of buttons on the top enable you to adjust the flash mode, image quality/resolution and

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

FUJIFILM FINEPIX M603 £600 3MP

i500’s extraordinary macro mode, which can focus right down to an amazing 1cm. The i500 is a good camera, but its business tools push the price beyond the point where it’s competitive next to similarly-specified rivals. What we really need, of course, is a cheaper, higher-resolution version. Which is why we can’t wait to get our hands on Ricoh’s newer 4-megapixel Caplio RR-1…

1

RICOH RDC-i500 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording Other features

CF CARD SLOT The i500 has 8Mb of internal memory, but you’re more likely to use CF cards

Internal, Compact Flash Lithium-ion DB-20L 3.7V Included 295g (excluding battery) 141.9mm (w) x 78.2mm (h) x 30.3mm (d) USB Windows 98/Me or 2000, Mac OS 8.6-9

MINOLTA DIMAGE XI £350, 3.2MP

Verdict

quality. That’s your first hint that this is a real camera, not just a hybrid business tool. The next comes when you take a closer look at the photographic controls and the lens. The body might be slim, but the front element of the lens (protected behind a rectangular glass window) takes up nearly all its height. It’s got a very respectable maximum aperture and zooming range, and when you take a close look at the results from the i500, you see that it’s a top-quality optic.

7

The business slant disguises a very able camera Over-priced and the the i500’s connectivity tools are complex, expensive and, without extra hardware, incomplete. Underneath, though, is a pretty fascinating and capable camera

5 6

PRO When used outside, the Ricoh produces a set of bright, sharp, colourful images CON The shape and handling take a little getting used to, and the LCD isn’t easy use in a hurry

2 INDOOR SHOTS

5 6

PRO The i500’s flat base and (excellent) hinged LCD make it perfect for table-top shooting CON A fiddly lens cap and quirky controls make it less adept at grabbing candid shots

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO 3.3-megapixel CCDs might be old hat, but they can still deliver the goods CON At this price, you’re going to expect more resolution than the i500 can provide

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BUILD

80

VALUE

57

1 1 1 1

73% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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REVIEWS

5-MEGAPIXEL 8X ZOOM NIKON COOLPIX 5700 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery Life Contact

£1,000 5 megapixels f2.8-4.2 8x zoom 32Mb CompactFlash 90 mins Nikon 0800 230 220 www.nikon.co.uk

SAMPLE IMAGES ALL THESE IMAGES CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CD

Nikon Coolpix 5700 It’s the camera with everything – the brand name, the optics, the resolution, the photographic controls… what could possibly go wrong?

*

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VIRTUAL TOUR Try before you buy! Rotate and view this camera on-screen with our unique virtual reality tour

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DIGITAL RANGE

NIKON

D100 Price: £1,700 Megapixels: 6.1

5

COOLPIX 5700 Price: £1,000 Megapixels: 5 COOLPIX 5000 Price: £800 Megapixels: 5 COOLPIX 4500 Price: £600 Megapixels: 4

£

5 036

COOLPIX 4300 Price: £450 Megapixels: 4

A

re 5-megapixel digital cameras better than 4-megapixel models? They produce bigger images, certainly, but do they record more detail? Our experiences with Nikon’s Coolpix 5000 suggest that some models can indeed produce something like the 25 per cent improvement in detail rendition that you might expect, but the test shots taken with our 5700 tell another story. If you were to take the same shot on a decent 4-megapixel camera, then interpolate it in Photoshop to produce a 5-megapixel file, we’re not convinced the Coolpix 5700 would be significantly sharper. And one of the reasons we’re not convinced is that we’ve actually tried it. The far cheaper Coolpix 4300 (also reviewed this issue), produces visibly crisper images than the 5700, even when interpolated in this way. A double dose of the Sharpen filter restores the 5700’s honour, but only at the expense of edge artefacts you’re unlikely to tolerate. We maybe need to put this in perspective at this point. The Coolpix 5700’s images are very good indeed, judged in isolation and in absolute terms. Set against those of good 4-megapixel cameras, though, the results aren’t significantly superior. Sorry, but if you’re looking for a camera to convince you to make the expensive jump from 4 to 5 megapixels, this isn’t it. To say this is a disappointment is an understatement. Apart from the 5700’s £1,000 price tag, this camera is beautifully made and a delight to use. It’s such a shame, but you’re not going to pay this much money without expecting every last vestige of resolution, and the fact is that the 5700’s images just don’t have enough bite.

Build and design You so want this camera to be good. It’s not much larger than the Coolpix 5000 (not as tall, but deeper, thanks to that long lens), but it’s much nicer to handle. Where the controls on the 5000 feel cramped and awkward, the ostensibly similar buttons and wheels on

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

3

7 LENS The lens crams an 8x optical zooming range into a solidfeeling body

the 5700 just seem to fall into place that bit better. And the metal construction, finish and build quality are superb. Ditching chrome, aluminium or stainless steel for a matt black finish, Nikon’s kept the classy look and feel but produced a much ‘grippier’ body. The switches are meant to be used, not just admired, and aside from the rather small navipad, they’re wellpositioned, well-weighted and the right size.

Zooming in on the details The 5700’s arch rival in this market, the Minolta DiMAGE 7i, has a zoom that is operated manually using a sleeve on the barrel, but while the Nikon uses a slower solution in the form of motors and rocker switch, it still

7 SLR VIEWING There’s a throughthe-lens SLR-style view and an electronic display

7 LCD STATUS PANEL A mono status panel for shutter speed, exposure and other info

gets from one end of the zooming range to the other pretty quickly. The 5700 even beats the DiMAGE 7’s zooming range, with an 8x zoom rather than the Minolta’s 7x optic. Having said that, we’d rather have the extra width (28mm equivalent) of the Minolta’s lens than the extra telephoto capability of the Nikon. The 5700 makes for an interesting contrast with the cheaper Coolpix 4300. Are they really from the same company? Where the 4300 is awkward and plasticky, the 5700 is svelte and wieldy. Where the 4300’s handgrip jams your fingernails against the lens barrel, the 5700’s leaves it perfectly positioned for grip and even one-handed shooting.

CAMERA REVIEW REFERENCE CARD

Nikon Coolpix 5700 Price Resolution Lens Memory Battery life Contact

£1,000 5 megapixels f2.8-4.2 8x zoom 32Mb CompactFlash 90 mins Nikon 0800 230 220 www.nikon.co.uk

KEY FEATURES 7 CONTROL WHEEL

7 LCD PANEL

Nikon’s trademark control wheel speeds up many camera options

7 LENS

The LCD opens out, flips, rotates and even clips back in facing outwards

The lens crams an 8x optical zooming range into a solid-feeling body

1

NIKON COOLPIX 5700 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output

2

Verdict

WORTH A LOOK

5 megapixel, 2/3-inch 5.24MP CCD Nikkor f2.8-4.2 8x zoom Auto, manual, minimum 3cm in macro mode Program AE, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, manual 256-segment Matrix, centre-weighted, spot, spot AF 1.5-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/3EV steps Auto, on, off, slow synch, Night Portrait, red-eye NTSC or PAL MINOLTA DIMAGE 7I £800, 5MP

OLYMPUS E-20 £1,300, 5MP

Movie recording Other features

QVGA 15fps with sound Flexible Program mode, auto-bracketing with 3 or 5 shots, electronic SLR-style viewfinder CompactFlash Lithium-ion EN-EL1 7.4v Supplied 480g (without battery) 108mm(w) x 76mm(h) x 102mm(d) USB Windows 98SE/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.09.2, OS X 10.1.2

Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

FUJIFILM FINEPIX S602 £595, 3.1MP

A great camera let down by a lack of bite The Coolpix 5700 is so well made, so well designed and so great to use that you really want it to produce class-leading images. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It’s good, but just not good enough

CANON POWERSHOT G3 £700, 4MP

95

FEATURES IMAGES

79 96

BUILD VALUE

80

1 1 1 1

88% FINAL SCORE

Nikon Coolpix 5700

1

Closeup

NIKON COOLPIX 5700 PERFORMANCE

1

2 SKIN TONES

4

5 6

1

PRO Very good, accurate skin tones, with no tonal shifts or exaggerated colour CON Outdoor shots are subtle to the point of being undersaturated – complexions can be tinged grey

2 OUTDOOR SHOTS 3

7 7 CONTROL WHEEL Nikon’s trademark control wheel speeds up many camera options

7

LCD PANEL The LCD opens out, flips, rotates and even clips back in facing outwards

thinking that maybe the whole camera would be a lot better if everything was scaled up by just 10-20 per cent.

Creative controls You can’t fault the 5700’s photographic options. With programmed auto-exposure, shutter-priority, aperture-priority and full manual control, it’s the

Sorry, but if you’re looking for a camera to convince you to make the expensive jump from 4 to 5 megapixels, this isn’t it Yes, it does fold out, rotate, flip around and clip back just like those on the Coolpix 5000 and Canon PowerShot G2, but at just 1.5 inches and 110,000 pixels, it’s a tiddler. Compare this with the enormous 2.5-inch LCD fitted to Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-LC5, reviewed in last month’s issue – now that’s what we call a proper compositional tool. Admirable though the 5700’s design is, the little LCD starts you

keen photographer’s dream. If that doesn’t convince you, maybe the multiple-metering patterns and focusing options, exposure and white balance bracketing, noise reduction, Best Shot Selector, Quick Review mode and optional 3:2 35mm format picture ratio will. This camera’s got the lot. Not surprisingly, this means that there’s a good bit to learn if you want to be able to use this camera

NIKON COOLPIX 5700 FULL SPECIFICATIONS Sensor Lens Focus Exposure modes Metering Monitor AE compensation Flash Video output Movie recording

WORTH A LOOK

2

5 megapixel, 2/3-inch 5.24MP CCD Nikkor f2.8-4.2 8x zoom Auto, manual, minimum 3cm in macro mode Program AE, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, manual 256-segment Matrix, centre-weighted, spot, spot AF 1.5-inch 110,000 pixels +/- 2EV in 1/3EV steps Auto, on, off, slow 0synch (Night Portrait), red-eye NTSC or PAL QVGA 15fps with sound MINOLTA DIMAGE 7I £800, 5MP

OLYMPUS E-20 £1,300, 5MP

Other features Image storage Batteries AC adaptor Weight Dimensions Transfer OS

FUJIFILM FINEPIX S602 £595, 3.1MP

5 6

PRO The zooming range of the 5700 is great for sports, plus action, distant and detail shots CON Colours can be muted, and you’ll often find yourself tweaking the Levels later in Photoshop

2 INDOOR SHOTS

Take your time Yes, it does make things more complicated, but if you spend enough time with this camera you come to appreciate that, in the long run, it repays the extra learning time with faster access to key controls. This is a very powerful camera, that’s also going to prove rewarding to those people who take their photography seriously. If only those images were sharper. We do keep going on about it, but without that extra dimension in quality, the Coolpix 5700 is just a nice but expensive alternative to equally capable cameras costing up to £500 less. There’s an awful lot to like about the Coolpix 5700, but Minolta’s DiMAGE 7i still rules the roost amongst the 5-megapixel digital cameras on the market at the moment. Not only is it better, it’s £200 cheaper, too…

1

Flexible Program mode, auto-bracketing with 3 or 5 shots, electronic SLR-style viewfinder CompactFlash Lithium-ion EN-EL1 7.4v Supplied 480g (without battery) 108mm(w) x 76mm(h) x 102mm(d) USB Windows 98SE/Me, 2000, XP, Mac OS 9.0-9.2, OS X 10.1.2

CANON POWERSHOT G3 £700, 4MP

to its full potential. What makes it more complicated is the control wheel on the top plate, which duplicates actions found in the menus and can be used to provide rapid access to many of the photographic options.

Verdict

However, unlike the E-20 from Olympus, which is a genuine ‘optical’ SLR, the 5700 uses a digital viewfinder. As a result, the image isn’t sharp enough for manual focusing, and the colours and tones aren’t that accurate. Quite often you’ll want to use the LCD panel instead of the viewfinder, and the one fitted to the 5700 is smaller than you might be expecting.

NAVIPAD Like many of the Nikon’s controls, the navipad is a bit too small for comfort

A great camera let down by a lack of bite The Coolpix 5700 is so well made, so well designed and so great to use that you really want it to produce class-leading images. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It’s good, but just not good enough

5 6

PRO The big zooming range is useful distance with macro shots and tightly-framed still-lifes CON The extra width of the 28mm wideangle on the Coolpix 5000 would have been good

2 IMAGE QUALITY

5 6

PRO The 5-megapixel resolution and the giant zooming range give the 5700 class-leading specs CON Somewhat soft fine detail that’s hard to improve significantly with unsharp masking

95

FEATURES IMAGES

79 96

BUILD VALUE

80

1 1 1 1

88% FINAL SCORE

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

037

REVIEWS

IMAGE-EDITING SOFTWARE MICROSPOT PHOTO TOOLS SUITE Manufacturer Price Contact Website

Microspot £39 (PhotoFix) £39 (PhotoXtra) £17 (Printmix) 01622 687 771 www.microspot.co.uk

THE TOOLBAR Selection, Magic Wand, Image rotate, Painting and Erase

Microspot PhotoTools This suite of photo-editing, organising and printing programs for MacOS X is a keenly priced and competent little program for enthusiasts – problem is, it’s up against the might of Adobe says Geoff Harris

A

dobe’s Photoshop and Photoshop Elements may dominate the market for image editing software, but that doesn’t stop smaller firms having a pop with carefully targeted alternatives. One such contender is Microspot’s PhotoFix, the main program in the Photo Tools suite. It offers a lot of the power of Photoshop Elements but at a fraction of the price -– £39 as opposed to £80 for Adobe’s best-seller. As well as packing in lots of similar photo editing tools for less money, PhotoFix’s big selling point is that it’s OS X native. In other words, it’s written to run on the latest versions of the Macintosh operating system, and won’t even tolerate OS 9.2. No Windows version is available as yet. Install PhotoFix and it has a similar look and feel to Photoshop Elements, but with a cleaner, simpler interface. Many of the tools will be instantly familiar, such as crop and clone, and a quick browse through the PDF manual soon gets you up to speed. It’s slower to open and edit images than Elements, but this is not an issue if your photo processing needs are straightforward (if you aspire to be a graphics professional, sorry, your only choice is to shell out 600 quid for Photoshop proper).

2 USING PHOTOFIX Okay, so this Photo Tools program is quick and relatively cheap – but is its PhotoFix option really a credible alternative to Photoshop Elements?

01

Image change

For basic image correction, PhotoFix works extremely well. It’s a fast, cheap and provides a good alternative to Mac graphics stalwarts such as GraphicConverter or typical budget shareware with a horrible interface. The PhotoFix PDF manual is really superb too, and gets you up to speed in a matter of minutes.

02

Going straight

Straightening an image shows the program’s versatility. You can either do this automatically via the Image menu, or manually, the latter offering a fine degree of control via pointers and crosshairs. It’s only when you get to complex layers and channels that the program’s limitations become more obvious – though you can’t complain too much for 40 quid.

What you can do

x FEATURES CRASH PROTECTION ■ As well as handling everyday photo editing, PhotoFix is able to automatically save and reload an image if your Mac crashes or there’s a power cut.

HOST REQUIREMENTS ■ Macintosh: G3 processor or higher, Mac OS X, 128Mb of RAM, 125MB of hard disk space. ■ Windows: Not available

038

In terms of basic photo enhancement, everything that can be done in Elements can be done in PhotoFix, though you do miss the image effects libraries and recipes after a while. That said, PhotoFix comes with some very useful extras that Adobe would do well to emulate. You can recover unsaved data, for instance, by turning on the ‘When Quit Special’ option – invaluable if your Mac crashes during a heavy photo manipulation session, or you get a power cut. PhotoFX also lets you specify up to 32 levels of Undo, though it recommends six levels as a realistic figure for everyday use. The interface is very intuitive, with handy tools for zooming and changing resolution at the bottom of every PhotoFix window. Cropping, and working with colour and text, is a cinch too. If you want to correct photos in a hurry, it’s

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

hard to fault this program. Image brightness and contract can be automatically corrected from the Image menu, and it’s very easy to do this manually for a finer degree of control. Working with photo montages and masks is made easy via the Magic Wand tool, and the manual shows you how to replace the sky in a photo in a matter of seconds. When it comes to layers and channels, you can progress so far, but Photoshop Elements is still the superior program when it comes to more complicated layer manipulation, being able to borrow so many tricks from its big brother. The Photo Tools family includes two related programs, PhotoXtra and Printmix. PhotoXtra is a fancy photo organisation and presentation suite, which

seems a bit steep at £39 when so much freeware and shareware is available for creating albums and slideshows. Printmix is a handy utility for printing out arrangements of multiple photos on a single sheet, and is harder to resist at only £17. It’s true that Photoshop is widely viewed as the Don of photo editing software and is the tool of choice for digital media professionals, so for this reason it’s hard to see PhotoFix making a huge dent in Photoshop Elements’ market share. If you want quality editing FINAL software that won’t break the SCORE bank then PhotoFix will give good results. A sound buy.

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REVIEWS

PLUG-IN SUITE IMAGE DOCTOR Price Features Requires Manufacturer Website

£85 ($129) Smart Fill, Scratch Remover, Spot Lifter and JPEG Repair Photoshop 5.5+, Elements or Paint Shop pro 7 Alien Skin www.alienskin.com

WEBSITE www.alienskin.com

Image Doctor A new Photoshop-compatible plug-in that enables you to remove unwanted objects, spots and scratches with a click of a mouse? Sounds impressive. But how well does it do the job and, at £85, is it worth the investment? OUR COVERDISC * ON 10 PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS Try our collection of top plug-ins, including Dreamy Photo, for some handy one-click fixes

P

hotoshop and its image-editing ilk are the Stalinist revisionaries of this digital world, erasing blemishes and unwanted features from your photos, with the merest of mouse-clicks. To further complement Photoshop’s existing range of tools comes Image Doctor, a suite of four filters designed for use with any Photoshop-compatible program, such as Fireworks and Paint Shop Pro. The full set consists of Smart Fill, Scratch Remover, Spot Lifter and JPEG Repair.

2 IMAGE DOCTOR IN ACTION How to use Image Doctor to play around with Mother Nature. The results are quick, but are they any good?

How do the filters work?

x FEATURES WHAT IT DOES ■ Smart Fill Removes objects, replacing them with a selected background ■ Scratch Remover Just as it sounds! ■ Spot Lifter Blends in surrounding textures to remove small blemishes ■ JPEG Repair Hides JPEG artefacts by cleverly blurring them out

040

The first, and most appealing of these filters, is Smart Fill. Like a version of Photoshop’s Clone tool on steroids, it aims to intelligently replace your selection with surrounding background detail, eradicating unwanted objects. So if, for example, you want to remove an object from a field, simply draw a selection around it, apply Smart Fill, and it should – in theory – disappear, leaving nothing but random grass in its wake. Certainly, the filter works best in instances where you have a clearly defined object set against a chaotic background – grass, trees, clouds, gravel paths and so on. It works less well on subtly graduated areas, like a clear sky, and works poorly, if at all, when the surrounding image is recognisably non-random, such as people or buildings. And if you have a variety of background images, then you’ll need to make separate selections for each one. The Scratch Remover filter is designed for long, thin objects like telegraph poles or rips in a scanned image. Again, successful removal depends on using selections to demarcate areas that are different in colour or detail. Spot Lifter works on small areas, blending in the surrounding texture to remove blemishes.

Intelligent tools? All three filters work, but they’re at their most useful when the image is most easily fixed. And while this sounds obvious, it means that you could, in most instances, fix the problem with your application’s own

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Smart fill

With very little effort, we’ve ‘de-bodied’ this deer. However, you can see where Image Doctor has sampled the slightly brighter, out-of-focus grass – this image will still need some touching up.

selection, cut ‘n’ paste and Clone tools. And if you’re lucky enough to have Photoshop 7, the new Healing and Patch tools pretty much make Image Doctor redundant. The final filter, JPEG Repair, is used to hide the artefacts found in images that are too heavily compressed: shots from low-end cameras or pictures taken off the web. Obviously, there’s no way the filter can reproduce detail that’s not there any more, so JPEG Repair is kind of a fudge, employing blur and sharpen algorithms to remove blockiness and smooth the image. As with the other filters, it works well enough, but you can replicate the effect yourself with cumulative use of Photoshop’s Gaussian Blur, Despeckle, Median and Sharpen tools. We found JPEG Repair to be kind of

Spot Lifter

Spot Lifter is used to remove this giraffe’s markings. Again, this is about the best result we could get, and though the results are rapid, it still requires further work to make it completely seamless.

pointless: if your camera produces horribly compressed images, you’d be better off buying a new camera. Overall, we had varied success with Image Doctor. With anything less visually complex than foliage, Smart Fill required further work to hide seams. Scratch Remover and Spot Lifter were more immediately successful, although smaller blemishes are also easier to remove by hand. At roughly £85, this is still quite an investment for filters that the average digital camera owner will use sparingly at best, and FINAL can probably replicate SCORE themselves with a little time and experimentation.

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REVIEWS

CARD READERS

JESSOPS 6 IN 1 CARD READER

JESSOPS FLASHPATH FLOPPY DISK

SANDISK SMARTMEDIA IMAGEMATE

2

2

2

With the size and styling of an OEM mouse, the Jessops 6 In 1 reader is the most anonymous reader on test. It’s tiny, very cheap looking and has a single LED and non-slip foot. But in terms of functionality, it’s one of the best on test, reading and writing to all main formats via the USB port at up to 1.5Mb/s (USB 1.1). And, boasting just two slots and a minuscule 100 x 72 x 34mm footprint, it won’t take up valuable desk space, either. The 6 In 1 can be used with any Windows PC from 98 on and Macs with OS 9.x+. Installation is straightforward and an extremely comprehensive 59-page PDF manual is supplied on disc. Also included on the disc is Pixology’s basic Piccolo image viewer, Jessops’ own Print@Net online print ordering software (for UK customers only) and a neat package called Dazzle OnDVD. This enables you to create VCD slideshows of your images for playback on your domestic DVD player (check first – a few older players can’t read Video-CDs), and backs up highquality images on the disc as an archive. Read and write transfer rates are very good for all media, and you can use both the top and lower slots simultaneously. Don’t be fooled by the down-market looks of the 6 In 1 reader – this really is a class act, excelling at everything FINAL from data transfer to ease of use. SCORE Verdict: Excellent functionality, good software and a superb manual.

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4

Price Contact Jessops Reads Connection

042

£50 www.jessops.com CompactFlash Type I and II, IBM , Microdrive, SmartMedia (not 5V), MemoryStick, Multimedia SM, SD cards USB

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

If your PC is more than about four years old, there’s a good chance it won’t even have a USB 1.1 port, let alone USB 2.0 or FireWire. In that case – or if you need a reader that can double up as a large capacity floppy – you might consider the Flashpath. The same size and shape as a 3.5-in floppy disc (90 x 93 x 3mm), the Flashpath is a solid-feeling device finished in brushed aluminium. It’s powered by two 3V Lithium batteries (supplied) and the SmartMedia card slots neatly into one corner. Jessops supplies Windows 95+ software on a mini CD-ROM, although we did find one (non-critical) file missing on installation, while Mac and NT users will have to visit the Jessops website for drivers. Piccolo picture viewer (handy for a quick peek at your images) and Jessops’ Print@Net software for online ordering are included on the disc. The Flashpath is an excellent concept, and downloading from your SmartMedia card is extremely easy. The big drawback is speed – floppy drives are almost prehistoric technology now and transfer rates are no match for modern USB connections. The other concern is compatibility – Jessops warns that the Flashpath may not work on some models of PC and machines like the iMac, which no longer come with a FINAL floppy drive as standard. SCORE Verdict: Portable and flexible, but not the most modern solution.

66%

4

Price Contact Jessops Reads Connection

£50 www.jessops.com Smartmedia Floppy drive

SanDisk is the world’s largest supplier of flash memory products, manufacturing all formats of cards and readers – the ImageMate also comes in a CompactFlash flavour at the same price and MultiMedia/Secure Digital format for just a few quid more. There’s even a parallel port version available if your PC runs on elastic bands and steam power. The ImageMate is made of rugged white ABS and is the most solid feeling of any of the readers on test. The teardrop 75 x 30 x 91mm unit should fit snugly anywhere – from on top of the PC to perched on a monitor – thanks to the long USB cable that’s supplied. Connection is USB 1.0 only and the ImageMate installation disc comes with drivers for Windows 95+ and Mac OS 8.6+. For such a basic reader, the installation disc is impressive, including manuals, a USB compatibility tester, local contacts and the option to register your purchase, as well as the drivers. If you do have any problems getting the reader to work, the SanDisk website contains some very user-friendly troubleshooting hints. If you own only one digital camera, this card reader is fantastic value. But if you think you’ll ever need to read just one of the other seven card formats (counting the new xD card) out there at the moment, a multi-reader might FINAL make more sense. SCORE Verdict: Superb build quality and ease of use. Good value for single format users.

70%

4

Price Contact Sandisk Reads Connection

£25 www.sandisk.co.uk Smartmedia USB

; 2

NEXT MONTH

WE TEST 6 OF THE LATEST CAMERA TRIPODS

FUJI IMAGE MEMORY OMNIFLASH CARD READER DM-R1 UNOMAS

SONY MSAC-US5 MOUSE/READER

2

2

Apple’s FireWire connector has many advantages over USB, not least of which is its raw speed. Current FireWire specs allow for data transfer up to 400 megabits/second (about 20 times as fast as USB 1.1), and there are plans to push that to multi-gigabit/second rates. That might sound like overkill for downloading a few snaps, but it’ll be necessary with the next generation of digital camcorders. Even better, it uses isochronous transfer technology, which guarantees bandwidth for real-time AV streams. Like USB, FireWire is a plug-and-play technology but it also allows for daisy-chaining, enabling you to connect up to 63 (!) devices together through a single port in your PC. The DM-R1 comes with four foot-pads to prevent slipping. If your PC has a normal 6-pin FireWire port, you can plug straight in, but 4-pin i.Link users will need a 6-pin to 4-pin connection cable as well as an AC power adaptor (not supplied). A flip-up panel reveals the CompactFlash and SmartMedia ports. Driver software for Windows 98+ and Mac 8.5.1+ is supplied, but you will need the File Exchange Utility for the Mac. Transfer is straightforward, except for removing cards in Win2000, which requires you to trudge through a Stop Hardware Device wizard. Disappointingly, the DM-R1 is also read-only FINAL for Windows 2000 users. SCORE Verdict: Very fast, but it’s not cheap and there are a few compatibility drawbacks.

84%

4

Price Contact Fuji Reads Connection

£70 www.fujifilm.co.uk CompactFlash Type I and II, IBM Microdrive, SmartMedia (some restrictions – check first) FireWire

2

The concept of being able to read seven different types of memory card is an impressive one, and the Omniflash reader certainly looks the part. It has four separate card slots – single slots for SmartMedia and Memory Stick, plus shared SD/MMC and CompactFlash/Microdrive slots – where other all-inone readers get by with just two. This means the unit is bigger than others on test, but does make it more convenient if you want to leave a variety of cards in the reader at the same time. As each slot comes with a bright red LED that flashes when the reader is busy, it’ll also make your PC looks suitably high tech. The UnoMas is light and plasticky, it measures 107 x 116 x 33mm and has non-slip feet. The UnoMas offers read and write capability to all seven formats via USB (the reader is USB 2.0 compliant), and we found transfer rates to be very good. Note that if you’re using the UnoMas with an IBM Microdrive with an Apple Mac, the extra power required for the Microdrive means that you should avoid using the keyboard USB port – use one of the rear ports instead. Installation of drivers (supplied for Win98+, Mac OS8.6+ and Linux, with Sun Solaris and Windows CE drivers available from its website) is straightforward but no other FINAL software was included. SCORE Verdict: A first class specification and trouble-free ease of use.

92%

4

Price Contact Omniflash Reads Connection

£55 www.omniflashproducts.com CompactFlash Type I and II, IBM MicroDrive, Smart Media, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick USB

Time may be money, but space comes a close second for many digital imagers. Plug a digital camera, an A4 printer and a 19-inch monitor into your PC and suddenly your desk looks like the flight deck of a 747. For those of us really pushed for desktop space (or USB ports) comes Sony’s MSACUS5, a combination optical mouse and Memory Stick card reader. As a mouse, the US5 is suitably mouse-sized (62 x 36 x 110mm) and performs splendidly. Optical mice have the flexibility to be used on almost any surface (except reflective ones), so you can follow health and safety advice that the best ergonomic location for a mouse is on your thigh. Sure, it looks a little pervy, but try it and it soon feels natural. The scroll button (PC users only) lets you pan in all directions and zoom as well as scroll – handy for navigating large or zoomed-in images. Installing drivers for Win98+ and Mac OS 8.5.1+ is simple, although no other software is supplied. The card reader itself works well, a small LED access light tells you when it’s busy, and with acceptable (USB 1.1) read/write transfer rates. The limitation of only reading a single format makes the US5 look expensive, but the convergence freaks that Sony is targeting will love its build quality and functional integration. FINAL Verdict: This combo gadget is tailorSCORE made for digital imagers – shame about the single format.

83%

4

Price Contact Sony Reads Connection

£70 www.sony.co.uk Memory Stick USB

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IMAGE EDITORS

LAB TEST

Labtest

Image editors I

n an ideal world, you’d download your images from your camera and marvel at the vibrant colours, perfect lighting and stunning composition. Back in the real world, there are a thousand things that can go wrong, from exposure mistakes in the digital camera to that annoying carrier bag in the middle of your idyllic landscape. One of the best things about going digital is the wealth of creativity that your PC can unleash after your shooting trip. Modern image editors offer far more than just a digital darkroom – many enable you to organise a photo library, create slideshows to display on your PC or DVD player, and all come with at least some facility to upload your masterpieces to the web. But at the heart of all of them lies the ability to alter every pixel, and to paint, combine, delete and copy elements of your images to construct entirely new works of art. The good news is that digital-imaging software is much cheaper than hardware. Spend under £50 on PhotoSuite and you’ll be able to correct exposure problems and red-eye, crop and resize your images for printing or web use, organise your pictures into albums, and more besides. Another 50 quid lets you choose

from the powerful Paint Shop Pro, PhotoPlus, Photoshop Elements and PhotoImpact packages, all of which offer a vast range of filters, drawing, layer and painting tools and ‘smart’ selections. The leap to Photoshop at over £500 is one of both power and ergonomics – it’s the industry standard because it offers the widest range and depth of features.

Five alive No matter how extensive a list of flashy features or memory-hungry plug-ins it might have, the functions of an image editor fall into five areas. First, it must give you some control over the hue, saturation, lightness, focus, tone (‘levels’) and contrast (‘curves’) of your work. Second, it should have selection tools that let you choose and alter specific areas of your image (subject, background and so on). Third, it needs compositional tools such as layers, filters and masks to enable you to build up your document from separate images and effects. Next, you’ll want to add elements to your image, so drawing, text and painting tools are essential. Finally, the

ON TEST

IMAGE EDITOR ULEAD PHOTOIMPACT 8 Price: £65 SERIF PHOTOPLUS 8 Price: £44 ROXIO PHOTOSUITE 4 Price: £33 ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 7 Price: £524 ADOBE ELEMENTS 2 Price: £68 DIGITAL WORKSHOP PAINT SHOP PRO 7 Price: £40

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045

LAB TEST IMAGE EDITORS – COMPARISON BEGINNER ADVICE Find out more at http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/imageediting/tp/beginphotoedw.htm

? EXPLAINED

ULEAD PHOTOIMPACT 8

PANORAMA STITCHING This function can help you to create seamless panoramas from your standard 3:2 ratio images. The software hunts for common vertical or horizontal edges such as walls and blends two (or more) images into one. They’re rarely spot on but can save you a lot of time.

SERIF PHOTOPLUS 8

ROXIO

PHOTOSUITE 4

SLICES Slices are web objects that cut an image into different sections and enable you to apply rollover behaviours, animation and links to parts of the overall image. They also speed up display of large web images by loading each slice separately.

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

£65 Ulead www.ulead.co.uk

The latest version of PhotoImpact cements its reputation as the strongest web-capable editor under three figures. When used with daughter app, GIF Animator 5 (included), it’s almost a rival for the legendary Fireworks in terms of creating web page elements and graphics from scratch. Adding JavaScript rollovers and pop-up menus is easy, and you can integrate Flash before outputting it all to raw HTML. Traditional image manipulation isn’t neglected either, with its trademark EasyPalettes making adding filters (including camera filters new to version 8) as easy as drag and drop – albeit without the user-customisation options that would make them truly great. The new Dynamic Range Extension does what it says on the tin, combining exposure-bracketed shots to deliver more solid blacks and brighter highlights, but be warned, it requires very accurate framing.

Verdict

0

EXPERT TIP MARK HARRIS PHOTOSHOP EXPERT

ESSENTIAL FEATURES All of these editors are packed with features, but there are a few that are absolutely essential for photographers. Image catalogue and album browsers (especially those capturing EXIF data) can organise even the most haphazard snapper. You must be able to alter brightness, contrast and colour balance manually (a histogram can help here), although auto-correct features are surprisingly good nowadays. Image repair features can save you hours of fiddly mouse work – red-eye removal is especially useful. If your editor uses standard Photoshopcompatible filters it’ll be easy to download new ones. And don’t forget outputting your work – a large range of crop and print options will save you time and money. Finally, digital watermarking your images helps to protect your copyright.

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PhotoImpact resizes and rotates hefty images without any difficulties. Subjecting our poor test shot to its automatic-enhance function was a real mixed bag. The auto-level feature adjusted the tone map well, but the auto-colour was disappointing. The colours themselves weren’t too bad, but the real problem was an unpleasant colour fringing throughout PRO Great web tools the image. We didn’t and modern interface like the auto-focus correction either. CON Ease of use takes PhotoImpact priority over flexibility redeemed itself somewhat with a FINAL useful red-eye SCORE reduction feature – very easy to use.

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

£44 Serif www.serif.com

This is one of the cheaper image editors on test, but you wouldn’t know that from some of its features – adjustment layers, masks, a raft of web options and selection tools that include polygon cut-outs with magnetic edge finders. The everyday basics are covered well but, unfortunately, there’s no autoenhance feature. Its list of 3D and distortion effects is particularly impressive. PhotoPlus’ neat interface includes a nifty thumbnail browser, but the lack of well-designed palettes can mean you sometimes have to dig around the menus to find just what you’re looking for. It has extensive file and picture tube sharing with Paint Shop Pro, giving a good upgrade path.

Verdict Rotating a large (30Mb) file didn’t take PhotoPlus more than a couple of moments, but it struggled with the resize request – it was the slowest on test. While PhotoPlus offers a comprehensive list of image adjustments – from Hue/Saturation/Lightness to equalisation, selective (CMYK) colour and channel mixing – it strangely lacks any auto-enhance options. The red-eye removal filter works very well, with a simple dialogue box proving extremely effective at mopping up red-eye in our test photo. PRO Up to date PhotoPlus was less pack for beginners that's never patronising efficient at optimising images – the JPEG it CON No auto-enhance, created from our test and limited output options image had a larger file size and more FINAL colour artefacts than SCORE ones from the best on test.

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

While the underlying program is no less powerful than others around this price, Roxio has taken all the fear out of image manipulation by creating tasks to deal with common problems and projects you might want to tackle, from red-eye removal to colourising old photos or adjusting badly exposed images. However, this task-orientated approach does mean a somewhat overwhelming list of individual options, as well as ultimately being less creative than its tool-based competitors. PhotoSuite has only basic web features, but offers some neat printing options, including multiple shots on a single sheet.

Verdict The typical PhotoSuite user won’t be too concerned about raw speed and power, so its rather sluggish performance at resizing and rotating large images isn’t too worrying. What’s much more of a problem is its poor auto-enhance performance, with only hue, saturation and brightness controls. The colour cast was hardly improved and the levels remained unaltered, with a dull, flat feel to the underexposed image. Luckily, the red-eye removal feature worked well, eradicating all traces of red without extracting any of the life from the cat’s eyes. PhotoSuite doesn’t have a dedicated web graphic PRO Task-based interface optimiser, the Save is instantly accessible As… JPEG merely lets you choose CON No web or quality 1-10. The advanced features. Attach to Email option No manual does let you specify a FINAL target file size, SCORE however, which might help in a pinch.

5

5

5

6

6

6

79%

63%

68%

editor must offer output options for saving it as various kinds of files, printing it out or optimising it for use online. All the editors on test this month, except Photoshop, have auto-enhance functions to spruce up your shots and remove red-eye, and all except PhotoSuite will let you adjust the five basic aspects manually. Selection tools make a real difference to how you interact with your images – all the packages on test offer marquee, lasso, polygon and magic wand tools. Smart magnetic tools (found in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and PhotoImpact) automatically find edges of subjects but, like the magic wands, aren’t always 100

per cent reliable. PhotoPlus, PhotoSuite and Photoshop come with a useful tool that extracts objects from the background, and Photoshop and PhotoImpact come with a Bezier option for selecting regular curves. All the editors allow many layers in each document, and all but PhotoSuite and Elements have full mask functionality. All the editors have a range of painting and vector drawing tools – PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro and Elements have impressive natural media brushes. Onscreen text-editing, found on all packages but PhotoSuite, simplifies the addition of captions, headlines and running copy to your images.

£33 Roxio www.roxio.co.uk

All the editors except PhotoSuite have dedicated dialogues to help you optimise your images for web use. Elements, PhotoImpact and Photoshop also let you rename and save images to different formats in batches. All packages except PhotoPlus offer the facility to print multiple images in various formats onto a single sheet of paper.

Digital photography tools With the on-going explosion in digital camera sales, software houses are falling over themselves to add features dedicated to the photo fan. All the packages on

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 7

0

DIGITAL WORKSHOP PAINT SHOP PRO 7

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2

EXPERT TIP MARK HARRIS PHOTOSHOP EXPERT

OPTIMISE IMAGES FOR THE WEB

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

£524 Adobe www.adobe.co.uk

The granddaddy of all image editors continues to set the pace, with a range of new features that make it more desirable than ever. It’s nicked the File Browser from little brother, Elements, making it easier to locate, catalogue and retrieve images, and the Workspace function should keep your screen uncluttered. The new Healing tool surpasses the Clone Stamp in improving areas of your photos and a raft of new painting tools give you an almost unlimited range of brushes and textures. But it is Photoshop’s core features – scalable capabilities and a comfortable, stable interface – that mean it’s as essential for pros as ever.

Verdict We’d have been shocked if Photoshop did poorly in any of tests, and it was only its lack of red-eye removal tool that dragged it down at all. It handled large size images with grace and speed, resizing and rotating them faster than any other editor on test. The autolevels and auto-colour functions also performed well, correcting a colour cast perfectly and evening out contrast on an under-exposed test image. While the results weren’t perfect, they were better than any package on test (except the almost identical Elements). We had to rate it zero for red-eye removal – but you’ve got all the colour adjustment and PRO Still the most filters you need to fix powerful and wellfeatured editor such problems manually. The Save CON The price and For Web optimiser is learning curve are what superb, enabling you reduce the score to set a target file size FINAL and compare different SCORE levels of compression side by side.

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

£68 Adobe www.adobe.co.uk

PRICE CONTACT WEBSITE

Paint Shop Pro’s reputation and success is based upon it offering a competent and affordable alternative to the mighty Photoshop. Although this version is getting long in the tooth now, it remains an extremely powerful and credible editor. Its list of tools is especially impressive, offering us photographers a digital darkroom in a language we can readily understand. Highlights include full-blown vector graphics and a great thumbnail browser. The interface is less developed than Photoshop’s though, with sprawling Layers and Tools palettes that can quickly obscure your workspace. The bundled Animation Shop – while offering image mapping, slices and rollovers – is a basic bitmap-only package, looking more like an Animation Cornershop compared with Photoshop’s ImageReady.

Verdict

Verdict

Elements shares a chassis with Photoshop and had no trouble rotating and resizing large images – it was the joint fastest on test. Applying the auto-levels and auto ‘color’ quickly gave a well-balanced image with a good range of contrast. Colour balance was less impressive but, again, Elements was best on test. The Quick Fix dialogue box is probably the most accessible of any on test. Fixing the red-eye image isn’t so easy. The dialogue box feels as though it PRO Great performance, has been thrown flexible and ultimately user-friendly together at the last moment and is too CON Few web tools and complex. The web little mask functionality optimiser does a good job, but the FINAL highest level of SCORE compression isn’t quite high enough.

We don’t know what’s going on inside Paint Shop Pro’s guts, but it made a meal out of rotating and resizing our large images, taking a few seconds over tasks that Photoshop did in a flash. The auto-level function worked well, brightening highlights without losing any detail. Using the auto-colour feature was less successful, washing out the more saturated hues and leaving the image a little dull. Fixing our cat’s red-eye was uncomplicated, PRO A powerful although it did leave package with comprehensive features the eye a little greyer than we would CON Sprawling interface have liked. Image and starting to feel compression using somewhat dated Paint Shop Pro’s FINAL optimiser was SCORE easy and gave good results.

5

5

6

6

6

89%

90%

81%

test offer at least a basic browser that displays thumbnails of all the images (and often movie and audio files, too) in a folder. All except PhotoPlus and Paint Shop Pro can sort and organise them, but the best on test are Elements, PhotoImpact and Photoshop. Not only do these editors enable you to rotate portrait shots and batch-convert files, they also preserve and display the EXIF data captured by your camera so that you have a permanent record of the settings. Cropping and re-sizing is straightforward with all the editors (we liked Photoshop’s ability to save certain crop sizes) but PhotoSuite has limited crop options.

£40 Digital Workshop www.digitalworkshop.co.uk

Realising that the full-fat Photoshop simply isn’t suitable for all of us experimenting with digital photography and web design, Adobe has introduced this useful budget package. Incorporating the same File Browser and some of the same tools as its bigger brother, it nonetheless retains its identity. Its excellent interface uses a palette docking bar that expands or shrinks windows as you access each function. It even has the odd feature (such as a Panorama Builder) that Photoshop lacks. A superb innovation is the clickable error messages, linking through to a glossary that helps you understand where you’ve done wrong. Elements does suffer from a smaller range of features than other packages at this price, but you get industry-standard tools at a fraction of the price of Photoshop.

5

PhotoSuite and Elements offer auto-straightening to correct wonky snaps and scans. As well as the image-adjustment controls described above, all but Photoshop come with a dedicated red-eye removal tool, and a few come with scratch removal tools to help with your scanned prints. While the packages all have Clone tools to copy areas of your images, by far the most impressive are Photoshop’s amazing new Healing and Patch tools, which sample texture and colour data from an area to mix in with the luminance information in the problem area – the results are astonishing.

If you want your images to be seen by the largest possible audience, there’s only place to publish them – the web. But as great as your 4MP TIFF images look on your desktop, you’ll need to do a lot of work to show them at their best online. All these packages (except PhotoSuite) will let you optimise your work for web use, manipulating compression and colour depth to trade off quality and file size. But some go further, enabling you to create image maps, slices, animated GIFs, rollovers and Flash animations. We like the JavaScript gallery functions that let you just drop self-contained slideshows into your web pages. The most powerful packages enable you to create pages and even entire sites, although if you’re serious about web design, dedicated packages such as Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and Fireworks or Microsoft’s Front Page offer far more flexibility.

* WEB LINKS THE PLUG-IN SITE www.thepluginsite.com This site contains thousands of plug-ins (both free and commercial) for you to download. Warning! There are some truly ugly effects here…

EPHOTOZINE

But that’s not to say that the cheaper packages don’t have impressive photo tools, too. The stitch features of Elements, PhotoPlus and PhotoSuite take a lot of the pain out of merging your landscapes into panoramas, and PhotoSuite features a fun photo-mosaic function. Paint Shop Pro offers a JPEG artefact remover that repairs over-compressed images – a god-send if you’ve gone out shooting without a large enough memory card.

www.ephotozine.com This great resource includes a searchable software tips archive as well as the usual news, reviews and forums.

Creative tools The ability to apply variable transparency masks to selections (so you can apply effects to certain areas) is

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LAB TEST IMAGE EDITORS – SPECIFICATIONS TOP TIP When resizing images, always choose bicubic resampling rather than bilinear. It takes longer but gives a more natural result

1

SPECIFICATIONS AT-A-GLANCE

ULEAD PHOTOIMPACT 8

Price

SERIF PHOTOPLUS 8

ROXIO PHOTOSUITE 4

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 7

Maker

£65 Ulead

£44 Serif

£33 Roxio

£524 Adobe

Tel

01327 844 755

0800 376 7070

0800 973 830

020 8606 4001

URL

www.ulead.co.uk

www.serif.com

www.roxio.co.uk

www.adobe.com

Album inc EXIF data?

Y

N

N

Y

Auto-enhance?

Y

N

Y

Y

Red-eye removal

Y

Y

Y

N

Natural media paint tools

N

N

N

Y

Masks

Y

Y

N

Y

Image extract

N

Y

N

Y

Panorama

Y

Y

Y

N

Slideshow

Y

N

Y

N

Web optimiser

Y

Y

N

Y

Image map

Y

Y

N

Y

Slices

Y

Y

N

Y

Rollovers

Y

N

N

Y

Multi-print

Y

N

Y

Y

Pressure-sensitive hardware

Y

Y

N

Y

Paper manual

Y

Y

N

Y

Pros

Great web tools, modern interface

Not patronising for beginners

Task-based interface accessible

Powerful and well-featured

Cons

Not particularly flexible

No auto-enhance

No web or advanced features

Price/learning curve daunting

Performance %

63%

40%

53%

90%

Features %

82%

65%

53%

88%

Ease of use

75%

75%

75%

70%

Overall

84%

63%

68%

87%

? EXPLAINED LAYERS Layers divide your document up into discrete planes. If you’re combining or manipulating your pictures in anything but the most simple way, your document will probably contain multiple layers, each of which can contain a number of objects. Each layer can have effects applied to it without affecting the rest of the document. Adjustment layers contain only filters, and apply effects to the layers beneath them only.

048

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

essential for building up complex images. You can find masks on all the packages except PhotoSuite and Elements (although Elements does let you paint masks on). Applying filters to your images is getting easier, and all the packages on test come with a bewildering array of effects, enabling you to blur, sepia-tone or distort your pictures, plus add artificial film grain, overlay 3D effects and warm up skin tones. Some of these – particularly the ones that duplicate traditional camera effects – are genuinely useful, while others are simply a waste of hard disk space.

Ease of use Something to consider before you part with any cash is whether to opt for a boxed copy or a copy downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. Boxed copies include printed manuals and aren’t dependent on you having a broadband connection, whereas downloaded programs are usually £10-30 cheaper and should be bang up to date. All the packages are simple to install. While online manuals are very quick and easy to use, we like having

a paper manual to refer to as well – all but PhotoSuite come with one. The PhotoPlus manual is particularly good for beginners. Although the packages on test offer a similar set of tools, they each provide a very different interface to use. Probably the most unique is that offered by PhotoSuite, which has an assortment of buttons reading Get, Prepare, Share, Organise, plus submenus with further options. This is supremely easy to use and is ideal for beginners, although more experienced users may find it stifling. While they do have the occasional Quick Fix button, the packages all provide primarily tool-based interfaces, with a variety of themed palettes containing tool icons and properties to interact with them. PhotoImpact’s innovation is its EasyPalettes, collections of media types and image elements that you simply drag and drop onto your image or selection. They’re intuitive to use but sometimes leave you wanting a little more control. Elements keeps a traditional selection of palettes but hides them in a docking well at the top of the window, ensuring your window doesn’t end up too crowded.

Many of its features are couched in the language of photography rather than graphic design, flattening your learning curve slightly. Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop have the purest menu and palette interfaces, and this is where Adobe’s flagship editor really shines, with a logical structure and the capability to squeeze large amounts of information into well-designed dialogue boxes. In contrast, Paint Shop Pro’s displays occasionally feel over-sized and clunky, leaving you hunting for the feature you’re after.

Universality The days when you had to worry about exchanging image file formats between packages (or Mac and PC) are long gone – all the packages on test can open and save in common formats. As the industry standard, all the packages can open Photoshop layered files (.psd), but the reverse isn’t generally the case, so you might want to avoid keeping your masterpieces in proprietary layered file formats alone. Paint Shop Pro files can be opened by PhotoPlus 8, which also accepts Paint Shop Pro’s Picture Tubes.

; 5

NEXT MONTH

ONLINE PHOTODEVELOPING SERVICES

HOW WE TESTED EACH IMAGE EDITOR ADOBE ELEMENTS 2

DIGITAL WORKSHOP PAINT SHOP PRO 7

£68 Adobe

£40 Digital Workshop

020 8606 4001

01295 258 335

www.adobe.com

www.digitalworkshop.co.uk

Y

N

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

paint only

Y

N

N

Y

N

Y

N

Y

Y

N

Y

N

Y

N

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Great performance, flexible

Powerful, comprehensive features

Few web tools

Sprawling interface, feels dated

90%

80%

85%

82%

85%

70%

90%

81%

Adobe dominates the plug-in format, too, and all the packages on test can use Photoshop-compatible plugins, although you will have to ensure you save them into the correct program folder to use them. There’s no standard cataloguing system in use, so bear in mind that all the work you put into rotating, sorting and organising images will be lost if you upgrade your image editor – the only exception being the identical File Browser used by Elements and Photoshop. Almost everything output for the web will be fully exportable to any other editor, including images, animation and slices. Of the packages on test, Adode’s Elements and Photoshop are also available for Apples.

Results Computational speed is less of an issue in the modern world of 2GHz+ processors, but PhotoSuite and Paint Show Pro are notably slower than others. The automatic enhance tools (levels, contrast and colour especially) are very important – a trustworthy set of auto tools can save you hours of tweaking sliders and graphs – so we weighted this test highly. PhotoImpact does poorly here,

esting image editors isn’t straightforward because they each offer a different approach to working with your raw images. The reason why you prefer one editor to another is likely to depend far more on the features list and your opinion of the tools and interface than differences in performance. Having said that, there are certain automated tasks that you’ll probably be using over and over again, so we rated a selection of these for speed and results. We chose to assess the packages auto image-adjustment (levels and colour), red-eye removal filters and web optimisation. We also tried rotating and resizing a large (30Mb) file to judge the editors’ raw speed. We then rated the features on offer from each package, weighting the ones that are more useful to photographers (generally, image-editing and enhancement functions got more points than painting and webdesign tools). Lastly, we rated the packages for ease of use, awarding points for logical, intuitive functionality, good manuals and useful help and error messages. The final percentage score for the editors takes all the above into account.

T

beginners is Adobe Photoshop Elements, a super user-friendly package with the backing of the biggest name in digital imaging. Ulead’s PhotoImpact is absolutely stuffed with features, and offers all you need to turn your downloaded images into great web pages and slideshows. King of the hill is still Adobe Photoshop, but you’ll need to invest plenty of time and money to get the most from it – it’s really for the full-time digital photographers only.

Conclusions… There’s no one package that’s best for everyone, but each of our top three covers all the basics and all offers unbeatable benefits for different users. Best for

hardly improving colour and adding unsightly fringing. PhotoSuite is also unimpressive, leaving a colour cast and poor exposure virtually unaltered. Paint Shop Pro does a great job with levels, but colours end up washed out and lifeless. Only Photoshop and Elements make a good job of it, with bright colours and a good tonal range. PhotoPlus suffers from having no auto-enhance features but none are good enough to prevent you having to make the odd change yourself. The red-eye reduction tools of PhotoPlus and PhotoSuite stand out as delivering a natural look with very little effort, with only Elements having any trouble at delivering good results. Another process you really have to trust your editor to do is optimising images for web use. Most are reliable but PhotoPlus is distinctly less efficient than others and PhotoSuite lacks this feature altogether. PhotoImpact and Photoshop has the handy feature of letting you set a target file size.

Conclusion Absolute novices might be tempted by the solutionbased approach of Roxio’s PhotoSuite 4, but its limited

range of features prevents it from being a long-term choice. PhotoPlus from Serif has a superb manual and is a good introduction to image editing, but is also hampered by missing functionality. If you want to improve your digital imagemanipulation skills with packages that can also achieve pro results, we recommend Ulead’s PhotoImpact 8 and JASC’s Paint Shop Pro. Both are competent editors that balance excellent, wide-ranging features with superb ease of use. PhotoImpact is especially good if you’re thinking about building a website and Pro is the stronger option for those interested in adding text, painting or drawing to their photos. It’s almost a cliché that Adobe Photoshop wins image editor group tests, and there’s no denying that it is the slickest, feature-heavy package here. Its interface is logical and compact, there’s almost no limit to the depth of customisation and power it offers, and so it remains at least one step ahead of the competition. But if you want similar power (and a bit more fun) at a fraction of the price, Elements 2 is your best option.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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Trailblazers Travel the world, see interesting things and shoot them

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WINNER! CAVE OF MELISSANI, KEFALONIA GARY HUGHES “What made me want to take the picture was the way the light was coming through the collapsed roof of the cave, and enhancing the contrast of colours between the boat and the lake. The picture was taken with a Fuji Finepix 6800.”

202 Photographed by:

203 Photographed by:

Anna Ioannides Location: Saint Nicholas church, taken in the port of Rafina, outside Athens in Greece Camera used: Fujifilm @xia ix-100

Ean Proctor Location: Photo of a lizard at Orlando Zoo, USA Camera used: Sony Cybershot PS-71

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204 Photographed by: Brian Woods Location: An orangutan sits and ponders life at Chester Zoo Camera used: Fujifilm s602

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2 This month, you have mostly been to…

206 Photographed by:

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Helen Revell Location: “I was travelling on the Trans–Siberian train into Beijing when I spotted these people ducking under a train to change platforms.” Camera used: Sony DSC-S70

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Colin Worley Location: Tourists catch a ride at an elephant safari park sanctuary in Bali Camera used: Olympus C-2100 UZ

207 Photographed by:

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Val Fordham Location: This stunning view was captured in New Zealand. Camera used: Fujifilm Finepix 1400

Trailblazers =

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Get your picture framed!

Send them in and the best gets framed and returned. We’re looking for landmarks, unusual events or just something fabulously composed. Start planning that trip away! ■ Email us at [email protected]

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DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

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205 Photographed by:

YOUR PHOTOS

THE RED ARROWS

EMAIL US! Send in your life – see opposite!

MEET JAN KONINGSVELD

01

a Each issue we lend a camera to a person with an interesting job and ask them to take some pictures. This month, meet Evert Jan Koningsveld, photographer for the Red Arrows Dutch-born Koningsveld photographs aircraft from the air – which is where his close relationship with display teams in general, and the Red Arrows in particular began. Of the 40,000 shots now in his collection, over 5,000 are from the Red Arrows and he continues to produce official images for them today.

y Dayinthelife a There’s a lot more to flying in one of the world’s best aerobatic teams than meets the eye – as Digital Camera Magazine discovers…

W

ith just 100 public performances a year you could be forgiven for thinking than being a member of the Red Arrows air and ground crews was easy. In fact, it’s a year-round exercise. From 7.30am every morning, until 11pm at night, winter and summer, someone is briefing, fixing, learning, teaching and practising. The day generally kicks off with pre-flight checks and routine maintenance by the Red Arrows’ 75strong ground crew, The Blues (so-called because of the serge-overalls they wear). By 9am, two members of the Red Arrows’ crews have undergone their briefing and are completing the team’s most thrilling and potentially dangerous manoeuvres. The Synchro Pair fly closer to the ground, pull more loops and experience more G-forces than the rest of the crew

052 DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

combined. By 9.15am, the Hawker Hawk training craft in red and white livery, are already being refuelled, while at the same time, the rest of the nine-man flight team begins its pre-flight briefing before taking to the air at around 9.45am. By 1pm, the seven-man sortie will have already been in the air twice and while they stop for lunch, the Synchro Pair takes to the skies again for another 30-minute stint of Opposition Barrel Rolls and Carousels. One more flight by the main seven-man team in the afternoon sees the manoeuvres, servicing, pre- and post-flight checks concluded for the day. At 4pm the second engineering shift arrives to carry out major maintenance tasks on the Red Arrows’ ten aircraft, the hangar doors finally closing one hour before the start of a brand new day.

02 03

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CONTACT US

Now it’s over to you: we want your life in our hands (or on these pages anyway). If you have a visually interesting job that you think might make a good Dayinthelife, please email us today at: [e] [email protected]

T BE INSPIRED! www.raf.mod.uk/reds/redhome.html

Dayinthelife a i h lif 201 The sky’s the limit The world’s greatest display team delivers around 100 performances a year. 202 Preflight service Members of the 75-strong groundcrew service one of the Hawker Hawk aircraft.

04 05

203 Preparation There are ten aircraft: nine for the display team, plus a spare – usually used to transport the commentator and flight safety officer to each venue.

08 09

204 And relax A member of The Circus, the travelling team of engineers, takes a well-earned rest between display performances. 205 Loading up the dye Tanks containing red and blue dye are transported to the aircraft. The dye is mixed with vaporised diesel to produce the red, white and blue vapour trail. 201 Final checks The groundcrew go through preand post-flight checks with the team of crack RAF pilots.

06 207 Formation flying The nine Red Arrows arrive in a Big Vixen formation at the start of their 22-minute demo.

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208 G-force The Eagle 1/4 Clover break sees crew members experience five times the force of gravity (5g), while the Synchro Pair can hit 8g – the point at which pilots can black out during flight. 209 Concorde roll The team line up into a delta-wing formation for the crowd-pleasing Concorde roll. 210 Inverted Only the Synchro Pair are allowed to fly upside down just 150 feet from the ground.

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Viewfinder

We want your letters! Email us at [email protected] and we ll print the best

Welco m e To issue 3’s Viewfinder. Many thanks again to all those who wrote in to us and to our website, we’re glad you like the magazine. I’m glad to say everyone has been very complimentary – even those of you who had a tough time with the Paint Shop Pro software on last month’s disc. Rest assured there’ll be no glitches this month. You’ll notice that we’ve rejigged the tutorials in favour of the cheaper image editors due to popular demand and we’ll be continuing this as we move forward over the next few months. In the meantime, keep writing in! Now write in, to [email protected] Nick Merritt Managing Editor

What examples? I have just treated myself to your gorgeously glossy magazine and will be reading it bit by bit. I use the Olympus program which came with my camera to do routine things with my pix, and the file size I use quite a lot is JPEG 1280 X 960 which gives me a file for each pic of between about 170K and 230K depending on complexity. However if I transfer them to Serif PhotoPlus and then send them back to Olympus by either Save as Original or Export JPEG, they have increased to 621K – all this without any work on them. Can you shed any light on this? Susan Premru DCM What s happening is your Olympus program is compressing the JPEG more than Serif PhotoPlus — part of the JPEG standard is that users get to choose the amount of compression if they want. Essentially, the higher the compression, the more information is thrown away, the lower the quality and the smaller the file sizes. It sounds as if the default in your Olympus software is set to compress more than in PhotoPlus. Take a look at your program s options/preferences to see if you can change the compression level — you should be able to.

SLRs vs. compacts

Interact Get yourself over to www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk and join in the discussions, swap tips and ideas and find out more about your next camera. It s been very busy since our website went live— over 4,000 people have registered already and 54 reader reviews have gone online. Here s some recent highlights:

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Please, please more detailed reviews of SLRs for the likes of me. I want to be seduced by a chunky full frame Nikon that I can use my existing lenses with and I will not be seduced by the vast array of compact cameras (as good as some of them now are). Otherwise I am impressed by the site (good article on mountain photography) and wish you the best of luck for the future, Richard Mansfield

Star letter I hate digital I realise this is not the best place to be writing this, but am I the only person who thinks digital cameras are a total rip-off – an excuse to con consumers into paying loads more money for lower-spec cameras just because they are ‘digital’? It’s just like when CDs came in and LPs were phased out. The sound quality on LPs was better all along but no, we all had to go out and buy CD players instead. I still use my old Canon SLR and I’m very happy with it. Digital still can’t match the quality I get at the price and I doubt that it ever will. Ian McCandless DCM Well, I m bound to disagree with you Ian. We think digital is giving photography a massive boost, because it s easy to get good results by editing on-the-fly, then sharing images electronically. Plus the running costs are lower too, so there s a significant cost-saving over time. But maybe there are other readers who still disagree? Are you a digital user who is thinking of returning to film? Write in and let us know — we like a good argument!

DCM Thanks for your comments. We re unlikely to carry many more SLR reviews in the magazine but we do have the odd one now and again. Do look at our website at www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk for reader reviews and latest pricing information.

Super stuff What a super magazine, it is just what is wanted for the rapidly growing band of digital camera and computer buffs. Having seen it, I think that your website should make all readers feel a part of the magazine, especially as your team of experts is just an email away. Looking forward to seeing your next issue, best wishes to all. Ron Ham

What a shower

Going digital

Nick (Ed) suggested staying up til 3am one morning in November to photograph the Leonid meteor shower. Reader Steve Spiller took up the challenge: I stayed up last night for the shower and it got cloudy just before 3am! Er, sorry Steve.

Pete Riley says, I currently own a Pentax 6x7 but I really want to move into digital. Is it still possible to take really good quality B&W in digital? And does anyone know where the best place is to trade in/sell my 6x7 and get a good deal?

DCM While you don t need a PC to indulge in digital photography, we reckon it s the best way of getting the most from it. Look out for our review of all the online photo developing services next issue.

Where s the Mac stuff? I’ve just bought your wonderful mag and signed up as a member of your site both of which are great. However I am dismayed that a so-called “independent” magazine such as yours should be so Windows-orientated I have a Mac and many of my friends at school and the ones on creative arts courses across the country also have Macs. Your magazine also has numerous screenshots from the Mac OS X version of Photoshop in its tutorial – so why do I see no

Graham Hockaday answered Pete s question, saying that B&W in digital is just as good. He says: If you can t justify the high prices of SLR digital cameras it s worth looking at the prosumer level eg. Fuji Finepix S602 Zoom or the Minolta Dimage7i. As far as selling your Pentax goes, I d go on Ebay and advertise it there.

Inspired! It s always great when you use our tricks to take better pictures. Here s the best of this month s bunch of reader photos — keep them coming, to [email protected]

Slick panoramas mention of them at all in either the editorial or content? I can understand that there may be more programs available for your coverdiscs but I would like to make a plea to you that you don’t hide any resources that could be dual format behind compacted .exe files as so many computing magazines already do. Macs and the people who use them are generally speaking more “into” digital photography and video than PC owners ... I say this in proportional terms of course because there is no denying that 94 per cent of the market is dominated by Windows boxes... But of the six or so per cent Mac users many many more of them are into digital images than the PC fraternity. David J O Brien DCM Funny you brought this up as we had a good old debate about this one prior to launching the magazine. You are right that getting coverdisc software for Mac users is a big problem — there s simply not the quality or variety out there to make it worthwhile. But in terms of the content, every image editing tutorial is Mac-compatible, so you shouldn t have too many problems there. And

we are looking at making the coverdisc dualformat so you can access the 3D tours.

Subscribing Just read the first issue of Digital Camera Magazine at a friend’s house and thought it was great. I am thinking of subscribing to the mag. I’ve just had a look on the website (also very good!) to see if it mentions what’s coming up in future issues as this will help me decide on ending my current subscription and changing over. Is there somewhere on the site that has previews of up-and-coming issues? Pam

The ‘Montage 19’ image is a monumental image inspired and created in part with Panorama Maker 3 software provided on CD 2 of the November 2002 issue of Digital Camera Magazine. An unanticipated, but in hindsight, not surprising side effect of using the Panorama Maker 3 software: When the image is folded in the centre, (such as with a two page Digital Camera World spread), and the two halves are at a right angle to each other, (such as when you hold the magazine to read it), the perspective (and

the road) straightens out allowing the eye to see 180 degrees in a glance! Pete Bobb Great image Pete. You could straighten out the fish-eye curved effect too in Photoshop/Elements — just use the Transform tool, below.

DCM We re a bit wary of giving up too many issue details too far in advance because doing so gives the game away to our otherwise hopeless competition. But there will be some very spectacular brand-name full programs on our CD next month and on issue 5 (can t give too much away but you will recognise them ). We ll also be making an effort to flag forthcoming content online and in our email newsletter.

Tell us what you want! Every issue, it s our aim to improve the magazine. Write in to [email protected]

Cool fireworks He wante d

She wante d

He wante d

John Piper wanted video tutorials to tie in with the relevant articles within the magazine

Susan Premru wanted some kind of acknowledge-ment so she knew if we’d received emails.

Chris Bradley wanted a larger type size in articles

He got Video tutorials appearing from next issue on our coverdiscs.

WRITE IN TODAY!

She got Every email now gets an immediate response

I took this picture of our local firework display in Lewes, using Getup&go to select the right exposure times. Mark Bedding

He got No change – sorry! We think the type is readable already and the impact on word counts would take too much value out of the magazine.

Every issue, we aim to improve some aspect of the magazine. Email your suggestions to [email protected] and the Editor will either don his Santa or Scrooge hat (Not at all sure I like this idea —Ed.)

Macrovision Since you welcome articles and pictures from readers I am sending you a couple of samples of close-up work. The toad picture was scanned from an old b&w print and retouched using the Paint Shop Pro program given away with your issue no. 2. Andrew Palmer

WINTER ISSUE ON SALE NOW

SETTING UP IN 3D OUR INDUSTRY REPORT ON WHAT IT TAKES TO FLY SOLO IN THE DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD OF 3D

VECTOR PLUG-INS OUR DEFINITIVE GROUP TEST ON THE LATEST AND BEST PLUG-INS FOR ILLUSTRATOR

DIRECTOR MX IN-DEPTH PREVIEW OF THE LEADING MULTIMEDIA APP IN OUR 21-PAGE REVIEW SECTION

INDESIGN 2 PDF CREATION AND PREFLIGHTING USING ADOBE’S GROWING GRAPHIC DESIGN PACKAGE

SECTION #02

YOUR IMAGES

Section highlights…

PROJECT IMAGES FROM NATURE SEE PAGE 58

PROJECT IMAGES FROM NATURE Discover how to combine and resize images, plus alter colours for an abstract, fantasy effect

PAGE

ELEMENTS TECHNIQUES HOW TO RESIZE AND PRESERVE QUALITY Get your digital photos ready for printout or web – we reveal how to avoid sacrificing image quality

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NEW SERIES! GET THE MOST FROM PAINT SHOP PRO Prepare images for the web. Get your colours and contrast right. Our new series shows you how…

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ELEMENTS TIPS 20 WAYS TO GET MORE FROM ELEMENTS Got Elements or Elements 2? We reveal the expert ways to get the most from it

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PHOTO CLINIC SEE PAGE 64

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PAGE

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Your images Making and creating better pictures

Tutorials you can trust!

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Our aim is to bring you creative ideas, expert tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work. Authoritative A leading professional in his/her field writes every tutorial. Value-added We try to include

Contact our editorial team image files, and full or trial software so you can try the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package. Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial.

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If you have a comment, suggestion, idea or submission you would like to make, please email us at [email protected] Visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

58 70 72 76

PROJECT ABSTRACT EFFECTS YOUR GUIDE SANDY GARDNER A freelance digital illustrator and photographer, Sandy designs for magazines and children’s books, as well as producing CD artwork and imagery for Amnesty International, and exhibiting her work regulalrly around the UK

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO SANDY GARDNER WEBSITE WWW.SANDYGARDNER.CO.UK

Images from nature – creating abstract effects With an image editor and digital camera, you don’t need to confine yourself to literalistic compositions – that is, combining images to simulate something that already exists. Why not combine elements and create items of abstract art instead?

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PROJECT

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR DISC

■ IMAGE FILES All the elements you need to recreate the Seahorses image are on our discs ■ PHOTOSHOP 7 TRIAL Give it a go!

2

1

SKILL LEVEL

7

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

3-4

HOURS

here are several approaches to digital photography. One is to approach it from the point of view of a pure photographer – use your camera creatively to interpret and capture a great scene, with image editing confined to tweaking what’’s there for the best result. Another is to use the image editor to create something that could exist but doesn’t – replacing a grey sky in an otherwise good photo, with a blue one from another picture. But many photographers avoid this approach as in many ways, it is the opposite of what great photography is supposed to be about. But that’s not to say you can’t use your camera and image editor to create something more altogether original and artistic. But just capturing various images and throwing them together to see what comes out is never a good idea.

So before beginning an image it is always advisable to have a concept. With the image Seahorses (opposite) I first set myself a loose brief. This included which elements were to be used and what feeling I wanted the image to evoke. The main elements I chose to use were the sea-horses and the shell. I could see how they would work together. By centring the small sea-horse’s eye in the centre of the shell, the eye of the viewer would be led into this area and back out again. I wanted the image to be magical as I think there’s something mystical about seahorses. They seem very serene and to me give off an air of wisdom. I therefore searched through my library for a selection of textures that were enchanting and evocative of being deep in thought but that also suggested water without being to

7TOOL SCHOOL GRADIENT TOOL The gradient tool enables you to create a gradual transition between two or more colours. Gradient fills can be applied as either a radial or a linear fill.

literal. The bubbles in the background give a feeling of being at some depth while at the same time sparkle with iridescent colour that suggests wizardry or some kind of underwater fairy dust! The strands of undulating hair suggest movement like the flow of water. Creating this image may look very complicated it is in fact very simply put together. Here’s how:

HOW WE PREPARED EACH ELEMENT SANDY GARDNER DIGITAL ARTIST

A

I USED A COMBINATION OF PHOTOS AND SCANS, AND SOME LIBRARY MATERIAL

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SEAHORSE

Seahorses are fantastic-looking creatures. The small one was photographed using a Canon EOS camera whereas the larger one was simply put directly onto the scanner – a surprisingly good way of scanning real objects.

B

NAUTILUS SHELL

Again, this was photographed using a Canon EOS camera. This photograph is of the interior of a nautilus shell. I especially like the way the spiral of the nautilus shell draws the eye in and out from the centre of the image.

C

BUBBLES

These bubbles come from burning and heating an old gloss photograph, giving some lovely results. I placed the burned photo directly onto the scanner. The gloss surface of the photograph reflected the scanner lights, resulting in areas of iridescent colours.

Everything you need to create this image is on your CD All the images, filters and plug-ins you need to create this image are on your cover CD. All images are (c) Sandy Gardner

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CDA/tutorials/

BORDER

BUBBLES

FLOWER

HAIR

HAIR 2

HORSE 1

HORSE 2

SHELL

TEXTURE

border.psd

bubbles.psd

flower.psd

hair.psd

hair2.psd

horse01.psd

horse02.psd

shell.psd

texture.psd

PROJECT ABSTRACT EFFECTS TOP TIP In most of my imagery I have a point of focus to which the eye is always drawn back to. Below, the point of focus is the centre of the shell on the eye of the smaller seahorse

STAGE 1

2

FOCUS ON SEAHORSES To begin with you need to remove the backgrounds of the main focus of the image, the seahorses.

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EXPERT TIP SANDY GARDNER ARTIST

PHOTO LIBRARIES I collect and photograph things constantly so that I have a huge library of what I call source material ready at my fingertips whenever I need it. Simply scan the objects directly – you will be surprised at the results you get!

01

SELECT THE BACKGROUND

Open the horse1.psd and horse2.psd files from the CD. To remove the black backgrounds from the seahorses use the wand tool (set on tolerance 10 in the magic wand options) click on the black background and most of the black background will be selected.

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SMOOTH THE SELECTION

The selection you’ve made often appears jagged afterwards. It must be smoothed out so you can then expand it. Go to the drop-down menu and hit Select8Modify8Smooth and set the sample radius to four pixels.

IN FOCUS 06

SOFTEN THE EDGE

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REPEAT WITH SMALLER SEAHORSE

If you removed the background now the edge would be a little sharp. Soften the edge by going to drop down menu Select8Feather and feather radius by 0.5 pixels. Press the delete key and you will be left with the seahorse on a transparent background.

? EXPLAINED LIGHTEN MODE Several times in this tutorial I have used the layer blending mode ‘Lighten’. The ‘Lighten’ mode looks at the colour information in each channel and selects the base or blend colour – whichever is lighter – as the result colour. Pixels darker than the blend colour are replaced, and pixels lighter than the blend colour do not change.

Now the edge will blend better with the final image. Repeat all these processes to remove the background of the smaller seahorse. Drag and drop the smaller seahorse onto the same canvas as the large one. Close the window containing just the small seahorse.

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EXPAND THE SELECTION

The wand tool tends not to select right up to the edge, leaving a halo of background colour as a result. If you expand the selection a little it helps. In the drop-down menu hit Select8Modify8Expand and expand the selection by two pixels.

Sizing up the seahorses

FLIP SEAHORSE HORIZONTALLY

Flip the smaller seahorse horizontally. Do this by having the small seahorse layer highlighted or active, then going to drop down menu Layer8 Transform8Flip Horizontally and the small seahorse will flip over.

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SCALE DOWN THE SEAHORSE Decrease the smaller seahorse a little using the transform scale tool until it’s half the height of the larger one. Go to drop down menu Image 8Transform8Scale or use control T. Click and hold the top right-hand corner of the transform.

OVERLAP THE TAILS Holding down Shift while you scale down the seahorse will keep the scale the same. Make the tails overlap at the bottom. Press return to set the transformation. Put the small seahorse layer below the large seahorse.

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USING OTHER IMAGE EDITORS

STAGE 2

PAINT SHOP PRO

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS

Apply colour gradients in Paint Shop Pro by choosing the Flood Fill tool then chooising Options, Gradient Fill Origin

PHOTOIMPACT

No problems – Elements has all of the Gradient tools, layer controls and colour tools described here, from the same menus

Apply Gradients like so: go to the Edit menu, then select Fill. in the box that apppears, click Gradient

2

OVERLAPPING TAILS Now you need to make the two seahorses’ tails look like they overlap by adding some shadows. Also you need to prepare some of the other elements for use in the image.

07

SELECT TIP OF TAIL

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CREATE A SHADOW

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FLOWER POWER

Select the tip of the tail that overlaps onto the larger seahorse with the lasso tool and copy and paste onto a new layer, (which can be done by pressing shortcuts ‘control C’ and then ‘control V’). Move this tip of tail layer above the large seahorse layer.

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TAIL TIP SHADOW

11

COPY AND PASTE THE EYE

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SET THE GRADIENT TOOL

To enhance this effect you must create some shadow. Duplicate the tip of tail layer using levels. Go to drop down menu Image8Adjust8Levels. Make the tail tip black by moving the far right slider all the way over to the left (see above) and click ok.

09

BLUR THE TIP

12

MERGE THE LAYERS

15

SET THE GRADIENT TOOL

Blur the tail tip using the gaussian blur filter. Go to drop down menu Filter8Blur8Gaussian blur and set to a radius of 5.6 pixels and click ok. Place this blurred, darkened tail tip layer between the large seahorse layer and the tail tip layer, slightly to the left.

* WEB LINKS PHOTOSHOP PLUG-INS www.boxtopsoft.com/plugpage/ Claims to serve over half a million plug-ins for Mac and Windows – worth a look for its mix of practical and creative tools.

Set the layer opacity to 60 per cent. There should now be a shadow beneath the tip. Now you must create some shadow at the lowest point where the tails overlap. Use the airbrush and black colour on a new layer between the small and large seahorse.

The large seahorse does not have as visible an eye as the other so I copied and pasted the eye of the smaller one onto it. Using the lasso tool roughly select the eye of the small seahorse. Copy using ‘control C’ then paste using ‘control V’.

Place the pasted eye layer above the large seahorse’s eye and select the layer blending mode ‘Darken’ to make the effect more convincing. Merge all the layers and save file as ‘joined.psd’. Close the window.

2

Next we’re going to work on the flower image. Open file flower.psd. To change the colour of the flower to a blue, use the gradient tool. Do this by creating a new layer. Double-click on the gradient tool. Click on Edit in the gradient control panel.

Click on the left-hand colour square and then click on the coloured rectangle to select a colour. The colour picker pallet will appear. On the far right toward the bottom set the colours to 96 Cyan ( C ), 57 magenta ( M ). Click ok.

Click on the square to the right of the slider on the gradient tool control and set that colour to 86 Cyan (C), 34 Magenta (M), 45 Yellow (Y), 70 Black (K). Click ok. Where it says ‘type’ on the third row down of the gradient tool options, set gradient tool to a radial fill.

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PROJECT ABSTRACT EFFECTS ONE-CLICK FIX Make it easy to choose the right selection tool for your image. Visit www.arraich.com/ps6_tips_sselect1.htmfor some handy hints

STAGE 3

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PREPARING ELEMENTS Now you’re going to carry on preparing elements for the image and you’ll then begin to put the images together…

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APPLY GRADIENT TOOL

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CHANGE THE COLOUR BALANCE

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COMBINE SHELL AND SEAHORSES

Now you’ll create some new colour. On the new layer use the gradient tool starting from the centre of the flower to about one third along. You now have a layer of colour that blends from a lighter blue in the centre outward to a darker blue.

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REMOVE THE BACKGROUND

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MAKE THE SHELL BLUE

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ADD THE FLOWER

Set layer blending mode to ‘Colour’. Merge the two layers and remove the background in the same way you did with the seahorses so you’re left with just the flower on a transparent background. Save as blueflower.psd and close the window.

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TRIM THE SHELL

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CREATE A NEW CANVAS

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INVERT THE HAIR

Open file shell.psd. Remove background and the light coloured end of the shelll using the straight-edged lasso tool. Zoom in close and carefully select around the edge of the shell then press delete. You are now left with the main part of the shell as shown.

EXPERT TIP SANDY GARDNER DIGITAL ARTIST

CENTRAL ALIGNMENT Pressing control and shift while dragging and dropping an image will automatically centre it on the new canvas.

To achieve the final result you must now change the colour of the shell to blue. The first step is to use the colour balance tools. Go to the dropdown menu Image8Adjust8Colour Balance and this will bring up the colour balance options.

Secondly, you must go to the colour balance options and select ‘Midtones’. Now set the colour levels by typing in -9, + 58 and +100 in the value boxes. Click ok. You should now have a blue shell. Save this as blueshell.psd.

Create a new canvas. Go to drop-down menu File8New and set the size 26cm x 30 cm at 300dpi and fill it black. Drag the shell so the middle of the spiral is in the centre of the canvas. Set layer blending mode to lighten at 80 per cent opacity. Close the window.

3 IN DETAIL MAGIC WAND The magic wand tool selects similarly coloured areas. The tolerance can range from 0 to 255. Set the tool to a low tolerance to select colours very similar. Enter a higher tolerance to select a broader range of colours.

Now you’re going to put the images together. Open joined.psd (the two seahorses) and drag and drop them onto a new layer above the shell so that eye of the smaller seahorse is where the centre of the shell is. Close the joined.psd window.

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Open blueflower.psd and drag and drop onto a new layer and place in the top left-hand corner. Copy the layer and move this flower to the bottom right-hand side of the flower. Set opacity of both to about 60 per cent. Close the blueflower.psd window.

Now it’s time to add some hair to the equation. Open file hair01.psd from the CD. Go to drop-down menu Image8Adjust8Invert and Invert it which gives you a negative of the image. Now we’re ready to play around with the image.

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BLENDING MODES

PAINT SHOP PRO

Alter blending modes via the Layers>Properties menu option. Find out more at www.hypergurl.com/pspblending.html

WWW.THINKDAN.COM/TUTORIALS/PHOTOSHOP/BLENDINGMODES/ T ADD TO FAVOURITES

STAGE 4

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FINAL TOUCHES It’s getting easier now and all we need to do is add some finishing touches and some background texture.

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CHANGE THE COLOUR BALANCE

Now you’re going to prepare the hair for some colour enhancement. Use the colour balance tool to get t ready for some blue tinting. In the colour balance option box set the colour levels to -15, +58, +67 on midtones and then click ok.

? EXPLAINED

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MAKE HAIR BLUE

Drag and drop onto the image in the bottom left-hand corner onto a layer above the seahorses and the flowers. Set the layer blending mode to lighten at 58 per cent opacity. Now you can close the hair01.psd window.

IN FOCUS

SELECTIVE COLOUR I quite often use selective colour to adjust the colours of photographs and textures for my images. Photoshop help says Selective Colour is “a technique used by high-end scanners and separation programs to increase and decrease the amount…” and so it goes on. I just really like it ’cause it gives great control and you can get the colours you want easily.

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CREATE THE BACKGROUND

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MAKE TEXTURE PURPLE

REPEAT THE PROCESS

Open file ‘hair02.psd’ Repeat the process of inverting and colouring as before and drag and drop the image onto the top right-hand corner of the image, on a layer above the seahorses and flowers on layer blending mode Lighten. Close the window.

Final touches

ADD THE BUBBLES

Open the file bubbles.psd. Drag and drop this onto the image one layer above the last texture layer. Press down control and shift while doing this to centre it (you can do this for the previous colour texture step too). Set the layer blending mode to lighten. Close the bubbles.psd window.

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FINISH OFF THE IMAGE Open the file border.psd. This came from another image I have created in Photoshop called Mantra. I selected the outer edge of the image and feathered the edges. Drag and drop the border onto the image on the very top layer top while pressing control and shift to centre it. Set the layer colour blending mode to ‘Lighten’. Set the layer opacity to 78 per cent. Flatten the image and you have finished!

Open file texture.psd. Go to the arrow to the right of layer options and click on duplicate layer. Rotate the layer by 180˚ (drop-down menu Layer8 Transform8Rotate 180˚). Set the layer blending mode to lighten on the rotated layer and merge the two together.

@ WIN! We want your creative efforts! Send them in and the best image wins a great 128Mb CompactFlash card, courtesy of Crucial Technologies. (Find out more about Crucial at www.crucial.com/uk [email protected]

Use selective colour on menu Image8Adjust8 Selective colour. Choose ‘neutrals’ set on method ‘Relative’ and move the sliders to Cyan -13%. Magenta +26, yellow -10%. Drop the texture on the image one layer above the black background.

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PHOTO CLINIC RESTORATION YOUR GUIDE ED DAVIS Ed Davis is a London-based advertising and corporate photographer with many years experience of studio and location photography. He specialises in image manipulation, and delivers creative solutions that combine photography and digital technology. He is a member of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) Equipment used: a scanner and Adobe Photoshop 7

[email protected]

WEBSITE www.ed-davis-photography.co.uk

How to restore an old tinted photograph Last month we restored a colour photo from the 70s to its former glory. Our mission here is to resurrect a much older black and white print that’s been damaged over time and was originally colour-tinted by hand…

W

hile it’s easy to restore colour and eliminate fade from your family photos, some pictures are much harder to fix: the photo paper on to which they’re printed may be creased, torn or even have sections missing. The ravages of time and the environment will have caused chemicals used in the development process

BEFORE

to bloom and later discolour the shot through oxidisation. Worse some old pictures may have had colours or tints added, presenting even more of a challenge to the would-be photo restorer. Luckily none of this is as daunting as it initially appears. Photoshop’s Healing and Lasso tools can be quickly deployed to remove unsightly creases and

The photo is damaged, discoloured and surface oxidisation is causing pink patches

AFTER

This hand-tinted black and white print needs its colour saturation and balance restored. The eyes are also a little out of focus.

■ IMAGE IS TOO DARK Solution: Adjust tonal range in the layers palette.

■ CRACKS AND SCRATCHES Solution: Copy sections of the image onto new layers, move them into position over the damage and blend them together.

■ COLOUR IS FADED Solution: Make selections of the hand tinted areas using the pen tool so that the colour of each area can be enhanced separately.

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■ EYES ARE OUT OF FOCUS Solution: Increase the contrast; make the white areas brighter, and balance the dark areas using Dodge and Burn.

■ PICTURE IS THE WRONG SHAPE Solution: Increase the size of the background; fill in the missing areas with parts of the existing image.

chemical spotting from your snaps, and in this particular photo we’ve also used the techniques covered last month to restore colour and balance the contrast in our shot. We’ve also used Photoshop to improve the original’s poorly focused eyes, giving us a finished result even Granny would be proud to put on her mantelpiece.

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The photograph is restored to its former glory

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MORE TOOL OPTIONS

In the tool bar, some icons have a black triangle in the bottom right corner. Click it for extra tools. Or right click for options

STAGE 1 HOW TO LIGHTEN THE IMAGE

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As the photograph is dark, we need to brighten the image to enable us to see what needs to be retouched.

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BRIGHTENING THE IMAGE

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AREAS TO BE REPAIRED

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SELECT THE HEALING BRUSH

We need to bring the tonal range to a level where the image is clear enough to work with. To do this, open the Layers Palette then go to: Image8Adjust8Layers. (Short cut CTRL + L), and a histogram will appear.

STAGE 2

02

BALANCE THE TONES

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CRACKS AND FOLDS

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MAKING THE DAMAGE DISAPPEAR

The graph represents the tonal range of the image. The small black triangle on the left controls the shadow detail, the white one on the right controls the highlights. Slide the black and white triangles using the red arrows. The image will lighten.

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NOW READY TO BE RETOUCHED

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COPY AND PASTE

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REPEAT. . . UNTIL DONE

The original hand tinting is now visible. The colour of the dress and the skin tone of the subject, are more defined, the red of the lips is more noticeable. The tonal range is greater and gives a better starting point for the retouching.

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HOW TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE We need to repair the folds, scratches and blemishes and clean up the image.

The photograph has been scratched (2), the surface is cracked (1) and discoloured (3). Although the photograph has been damaged, it is still in good enough condition to be retouched. The colour is even but slightly faded.

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Select the Lasso Tool from the Tool palette, (short cut L) and set the Feather setting to about 3 pixels. Make a selection around the damaged area to mimic its shape. Click inside the selected area and drag it to a part of the image that’s not damaged.

Copy the undamaged area underneath your mimic shape. When pasted, it will appear as a new layer. Now drag it over the damaged area. The new section can be enlarged or rotated to fit (use the Free Transform command: Edit8Free Transform (or CTRL T).

EXPERT TIPS ED DAVIS USING LAYERS

TRANSFORM OPTIONS Right click inside the Free Transform box, a menu will appear enabling you to change the method of transformation, i.e.: Distort, Skew and Perspective.

First flatten the layers you have created using Layer8Flatten Image. From the Tool Palette, select the correct size Healing Brush. Press ALT and click on an undamaged area, take the cursor over the damaged area, click and drag.

When the cursor is moved across the surface, it will lighten the image. This may look wrong, but once the mouse button is released, Photoshop will automatically balance the underlying texture and base colour of the image making the damaged area invisible.

Move the point of selection around the image to avoid getting a stepped effect. Repeat using the Healing Brush over the rest of the damage areas until the image is repaired. The eyes seem to be out of focus, they will be restored at a later stage.

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PHOTO CLINIC RESTORATION ONE-CLICK FIX Burning and dodging can be used on any photograph to make it look sharper. This technique of lightning the eye whites and darkening the iris makes the entire portrait more lively

STAGE 3

2

MANIPULATING THE COLOUR The colour of this photograph is even but has slightly faded over the years. The face, dress and lips colour need to be enhanced to make it look as it did originally.

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STARTING WITH THE FACE

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FINAL SELECTION

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MAKING THE EYES BRIGHT

Firstly, you need to change the colour of the skin. Go into the Tool Bar and select the Pen Tool icon. Right click to open the menu then pick the pen tool. Go round the perimeter of the face and neck, clicking to create the selection.

Right click on the face, click on Make Selection, choose Feather Radius of 1. The aim is to enhance the colour of the face without affecting the rest of the image. Click Edit 8Copy (short cut CTRL C) to copy the selected area, Edit8Paste (short cut CTRL V) to paste it on its own layer.

STAGE 4

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DEFINING THE LINE

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SPLIT THE IMAGE

17

USE THE DODGE TOOL

With the cursor back at the starting point, click the Pen Tool icon again, right click to open the menu and choose Convert Point Tool. By pressing CTRL and selecting one of the points, the parameter of the selection can be adjusted.

Create a new layer for each of the elements in the photograph: the hair, the face, the dress, and the background. Once the selected areas have been separated, they can be altered independently of the rest of the image. Changing the dress colour to red does not turn the whole of the image red.

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REFINING THE SELECTION

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DECIDING ON THE COLOUR

18

BURNING

To avoid overlaps from colour to colour, the selection of a colour has to be extremely accurate. Click on one of the points and drag to create two more points. Moving these points will change the shape of the line.

To change the colour, open the Colour Balance Pallet: Image8Adjust8Colour Balance. (Short cut CTRL + B), use the sliders to achieve the correct colour. Originally, the colour was applied as a wash over a sepia toned print, if you make the dark areas too black the tint will not show.

2

GIVING THE EYES MORE DEFINITION Cleaning up the eyes by adjusting the contrast makes them more noticeable and draws the viewer to the photograph.

As the eyes are quite dark around the iris they look flat, and one way of making them stand out more is to lighten the white part of the eye. This trick makes the eye look more in focus. Use the Lasso tool from the Tool Bar, set the feather to one pixel, and draw a selection around the white part of the eye.

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Now select the Doge Tool from the Tool Bar, and pick a brush size that fits inside the selection you’ve made of those whites. On the Option Bar set the Range to Midtones and the Exposure to 50 per cent. Next, click and move the brush over the selection and it will lighten.

To give definition, darken the lines around the eye as per the red guidelines. Select the Burn Tool icon on the Tool Bar. On the Option Bar set the Range to Midtones and Exposure to 20 per cent. Now it’s time to go around the eye with a small brush. The area will gradually darken as you do so.

4

IT’S ALL IN THE EYES

STAGE 5

If the eyes are damaged beyond repair, copy the eyes from another photograph of the person or a member of their family or someone whose facial features are similar.

2

HOW TO RESHAPE THE FRAME The original picture was probably much bigger. Using Canvas Size you can easily change the shape of it.

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THE RIGHT SHAPE

Most photographic frames are made to a ratio of 1 to 1.2, ie. 8 x 6, 10 x 8. The photograph was probably cut down or was part of a larger image. To change the shape back to an 8x6 format open: Image8Canvas Size, change the width setting and click OK. Just the background changes – the image will remain.

IN FOCUS

20

ADDING TO THE IMAGE

To create the missing sleeve you can make a selection using the Lasso Tool (image 16), Copy and Paste (image 13) part of the dress, then use the Transform (image 6) to flip it over and match it to the rest of the dress. You can use the same procedure to add the background to go behind it.

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CHANGE THE SHAPE

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CHANGE THE BACKGROUND

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NEW BACKGROUND

To change the shape of your photograph, click on the Elliptical Marquee Tool in the Tool Bar, with a Feather setting of 5px, drag an oval shape over the image. Click Select8 Inverse on the Option bar, this will select everything outside the oval. Press back space to clear the selected area.

Going further

We are working with four layers: the hair, the face, the dress and the background. Create a new layer above the background layer, this will become our new background: Layer8 New 8Layer (short cut is SHFT + CTRL +N).

@ SEND YOURS! We want your faded, damaged pictures today! Send them in, we’ll fix them up for free, show everyone how we did it and send them back restored! The sort of pictures we’re after need to be decent photos which have become damaged – unfortunately we can’t make badly composed/shot photos good. ■ Contact us via email, with a small JPEG of the photo attached, and if it’s right for the mag, we’ll get in touch. How’s that for a bargain? Email the following address:

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[email protected]

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FINISHING TOUCHES

Once the retouching is finished we can still make some interesting changes. As we have split the photograph into different sections, each on its own layer, we can now change the colours in the photograph independently without affecting the whole of the image. Have fun, download backgrounds from the web or create your own.

FULLER PICTURE Using the Transform tool we’ve created a fuller picture of the subject, free of blemishes, scratches and discolouration

EXPERIMENT WITH COLOUR Once you’ve repaired the damage, you can start to experiment with colour to create some radical results

On the tool bar select Background and Foreground colour, change the colour to your choice, see examples. Click on Filter8Render8Clouds and the background of the image will fill with a colour texture.

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TUTORIAL

ENHANCING YOUR PHOTOS IN ELEMENTS/PHOTOSHOP YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography, including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography and AG. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

How to resize images and maintain quality If you’re confused about getting your digital photos ready for print-out or web use, then check Tim’s tutorial on the best ways of going about it without sacrificing image quality TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

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ON OUR CD Find a trial of Photoshop Elements 2 on your disc

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SKILL LEVEL

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TIME TO COMPLETE

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MINUTES PERIMAGE

NEXT MONTH Sharpening your images

T

he physical dimensions of a digital image are not exactly straightforward and not as easy to visualise as a 6 x 4 glossy photographic print. Digital images are variously and confusingly described as high resolution or low resolution, 2, 3 or more megapixels and even talked about in straightforward megabyte terms. Basically, how big a digital image is will have an enormous bearing on the print size and quality you can reasonably expect to produce from it. The best way of describing the size of a digital image is in terms of its pixel dimensions. This measurement is the horizontal and vertical count of the image when first

scanned or captured with a digital camera. 1800x1200 pixels is the kind of image size produced by a mid-price digital compact and by default, in line with all other digital cameras, this is packaged with a fixed 72 pixels per inch or ppi resolution. However, the higher the resolution of a picture, the better the quality and you can change the resolution using the Image Size Dialog box. This will alter the physical size of the final image you produce (the higher the res, the smaller your print out or web image will be) but most importantly, your file size and pixel dimensions will remain the same. Resolution can be set at 300, 200

CHANGING RESOLUTION

or 72 ppi for commercial repro, inkjet and web output respectively. At 300 ppi, an 1,800 x 1,200 image will make a 6 x 4 inch print and at 200 ppi, the same file will make a 7.5x6 inch print. Preparing the right resolution for output needs to be the very first task you undertake using the Image Size control, but most crucially, this needs to be done with the Resample box left unchecked. If you leave this switched on, this option will either introduce new pixels to your image to make it larger but at the expense of sharpness, or throw away original pixels and make it smaller and lower quality.

The key element of the Image Size Dialog box is the Resample Image checkbox set in the bottom left corner

? EXPLAINED USING THE PRINT PROOF PREVIEW In Photoshop An advanced preview function is offered via the Proof Colours option found in Photoshop’s View menu. This tool modifies the monitor appearance of your image to match the likely outcome from a chosen inkjet paper type. You own personal Proof Setup needs to be created first by picking one of the options under the Custom menu. In Elements The options are more limited in Elements but there are colour management controls – go to File, Print Preview then Show More Options, then the drop down menu.

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01

PRINTING AT MAXIMUM QUALITY

After uploading the image from your digital camera or scanner, open the image in Photoshop Elements and do Image8Resize8Image Size. Here, you are faced with the image size dialog box that confirms the 1,800 x 1,200 Pixel Dimensions in the top panel, and the current file size alongside.

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02

CHANGING THE RESOLUTION

Turn the Resample Image option off and in the Document Size half of the dialog box, change the Resolution from 72 to 200 pixels/inch. Notice the Pixel Dimension has remained unchanged, but the Document Size has shrunk because your pixels are much more concentrated.

03

PREVIEWING THE PRINT

Now you’ve altered the resolution, Click OK and return to your image window. To confirm your new print size, do File8Print Preview and check that your image sits within the margins of the currently selected paper size and that it fits the portrait or landscape orientation correctly.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

ENLARGING OUTPUT SIZE

The Digital Photography review is an online resource centre dedicated to digital learning. Check out a great explanation of interpolation techniques on: www.dpreview.com/learn/Glossary/Digital_Imaging/Interpolation_01.htm

Remember that distortion can be a problem when you enlarge your images. Take the necessary precautions…

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EXPERT TIP TIM DALY ON FILTERS

USING THE UNSHARP MASK (USM) FILTER

01

ADDING NEW PIXELS

Enlarging a digital image means adding new pixels to your original ones. Stay in the Image Size dialog box, but check the Resample Image option before starting. Ensure the Constrain Proportions option is selected, or your picture will be distorted.

02

SETTING THE NEW PRINT SIZE

Type in the desired size in the Document Size text box and watch how both file size and Pixel Dimension increase. Be realistic at this stage and don’t enlarge your image by more than 25 per cent or you may lose quality and colour saturation.

REDUCING OUTPUT SIZE FOR WEB

01

MATCHING MONITOR RESOLUTION

Reducing a digital image is called downsampling – throwing away original pixels to make it smaller for web only use. Start by changing the Resolution to 72 pixels/per inch, as this matches the resolution of most monitor screens.

02

THINKING IN PIXELS

Use the Pixel Dimension read out, rather than centimetre or inch scale, as monitor resolution is based on pixels. Remember that even at 600 pixels wide, an image will look huge on a web page and download slowly. Set your size, press OK.

USING PRINT PREVIEW DIALOG

03

CHOOSING THE RIGHT INTERPOLATION MODE

To the right of the Resample Image option are two modes for introducing new pixels. Choose Bicubic for best results from photographic images and Nearest Neighbour for hard edged graphic images.

After enlarging or downsampling your original image, some sharpness will have been sacrificed along the way. This can easily be re-established using the Unsharp Mask Filter just prior to print out. For very drastic reductions from a high resolution file to a tiny Web thumbnail, USM should be applied after each reduction if several individual steps are made.

The important thing to consider for web resizing is monitor resolution

03

CHECKING THE SIZE

Confirm the exact size your new image will appear on the web by viewing it at 100 per cent or by choosing View8Actual Size. Don’t be disheartened if it looks poor quality at 200 per cent, as it will never be seen at this magnification by others.

A less sophisticated method of resizing images but handy in a hurry!

? EXPLAINED INTERPOLATION

01

VISUALISING YOUR RESULTS

You can change your print size using the File8Print Preview option but you won’t be able to choose your image res or interpolation method (adding or subtracting pixels). You should also use the USM filter (see Expert Tip, above) before printing.

02

SCALING THE PRINT SIZE

The scaled print size option is a good device providing you’ve set your print resolution beforehand. It’s better than the percentage option in most printers, because you see the result before printing out and your image will be interpolated.

03

SCALING TO FIT MEDIA

Forcing your image close to the edge of the printing paper is the crudest solution to size problems, but useful when time is limited. Check that your printer can print to the edges of the paper before using this option though.

Resampling, downsampling and upsampling are all terms used to describe interpolation: the process of adding or subtracting pixels from your image. The colour of new pixels is based on an average taken from surrounding pixels, but with a compromise in sharpness. If smaller parts of your image are transformed to fit in a montage project, they too are interpolated using the default interpolation mode as set in the Preferences.

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TUTORIAL PHOTOSHOP TOOLS YOUR GUIDE SIMON DANAHER Simon Danaher is a digital artist specialising in Photoshop, compositing and 3D. He is also a consultant, trainer and author. Simon has been working professionally in the graphics industry for over six years, and is currently writing his second book on professional graphics techniques

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO SIMON DANAHER

Going further with colour correction Getting digital photos to look good requires many different skills, and of course depends on your expectations. Photoshop can always be pressed into service to improve things where colour and contrast is concerned. TUTORIAL

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ON OUR CD Discover our trial of Photoshop 7 on CD 2

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SKILL BOOSTER

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C

olour correction is one of Photoshop's core strengths. In print Photoshop is the defacto standard for colour correcting images, be they scanned or digital in origin. There are a lot of different tools on offerer as well making the process quite tricky to understand for the unexperienced since it's not always immediately obvious which route you should take. For the digital photographer printing out images at home things can be even more complicated. Often the

photo-quality printers used today employ their own colour correction methods contained in the printer drivers. These can usually be adjusted as well offering yet another set of variables for you to consider. Either way, what you see on screen is rarely what you'll get when you print. Because of this it is difficult to give specific solutions for getting perfect prints at home, but we can show you how to be in control of colour so that you can make adjustments yourself.

If the ultimate destination of your digital images is online or onto DVD or CD perhaps, then things aren't quite so bad. Because the viewing medium is the same, ie a computer or TV screen there is less that can go wrong. For the web all you need to do is make sure the images look OK on your monitor, there should really be only minor difference when viewing the image in a browser, though you should still double check and adjust accordingly.

TIME TO COMPLETE

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MINS

REMOVING CASTS

Sometimes images appear tinted towards a certain colour, we'll show you how to correct for this in Photoshop and Elements

NEXT MONTH Selection options

? EXPLAINED CORRECTION The adjustment made to an image to remove colour and brightness imbalances.

RGB A colour mode that describes the image using three channels, Red, Green and Blue. RGB can describe a wide range of colours but not as many as LAB.

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01

HOW TO SPOT IT

This image has a mild yellow colour cast, possibly because it was taken indoors without compensating for the difference in internal lighting compared to sunlight. Both Photoshop and Elements use the same approach to help you sort this out.

02

USE LEVELS

We can easily snap the colours back to neutral by using a simple part of the Levels feature. Open the Levels dialog box by typing the shortcut command-l. Select the eyedropper tool then move the eyedropper over the image to the bright edges of the white-painted window frame and click on it. You willl see that the image now has a slight purple cast to it.

03

EXPERIMENT

You're telling Photoshop that the pixel you click on should be neutral (ie gray, no colour) but it in reality it actually isn't the adjustment for all the other colours will be wrong as you can see. Click a few times around different parts of the window and particularly the blinds until you get a more natural result. The window might have been off-white, but the blinds are white-gray so give a better result.

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SEVERE CASTS

NEXT MONTH

SELECTION OPTIONS

* WEB LINKS

It takes a different approach to to adjust images with severe colour casts

[w] www.adobe.com [w] www.newi.ac.uk/computing/

modules/L1GII/PShop4Wk1.html [w] www.rgbnet.co.uk/ilyons/

tutorials/tutorial_3_1.htm

01

IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM

This image has a severe colour cast, but it is actually quite artistic. However, you can adjust the image if necessary to tone down the heavy orange cast.

02

A NEW APPROACH

Trying the Levels method used previously does not work successfully – every part is infected with the heavy orange cast. All you are doing here is shifting the cast from one hue to another.

03

START WITH THE HUE/SATURATION

Instead, open Hue/Saturation by typing command-u. This panel allows you to control the Hue, the Saturation and the Brightness levels in the image. Drag the Saturation slider to the left.

; READ ON PHOTOSHOP 7 COLOR CORRECTION

04

ADJUST THE BRIGHTNESS

We can now adjust the brightness, but don't do this with the brightness slider in the Hue/Saturation panel, in fact never, ever use this slider for anything (apart for reducing the contrast). Do this:

05

Move the White Input slider to the point where the levels in the histogram begin to rise (at about 216). To brighten the image drag the gamma slider (the gray central one) to the left.

USING LAB COLOUR

01

CHANGING THE MODE

The image from a digital camera is RGB. However internally Photoshop offers other ways to describe the colours in an image. Revert the image back to its uncorrected state then choose Image>Mode>LAB.

BACK TO LEVELS…

02

06

DO ANY FINAL TWEAKS

At this point you can go back to the Hue/Saturation panel if you feel the image looks too desaturated. To readjust simply move the Saturation slider to the right.

By making use of the different colour spaces in Photoshop you can make correction quicker

ADJUSTING IS EASIER

Now when you adjust the gamma image using Levels it does not affect the colour and vice verca making it easier to adjust the image. Once levels are corrected open Hue/Saturation again. This time we reduce the overall Master Saturation more.

03

Published by ISBN Price Website

Peachpit Press 0321124014 £35 www.peachpit.com

Written by top American colour expert Michael Kieran, it’s a very visually-orientated set of tutorials to getting colour correction right. There’s 49 sample pages available for free at www.amazon.com (go there and type in the title).

BALANCE THE COLOURS

Change the popup to Red. Get rid of the red halo: move the Hue slider to the right, and then up the Red Saturation to compensate for the extra Master desaturation. This reduces the yellow in the walls while at the same time boosting the skin tones.

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NEW SERIES GET STARTED WITH PAINT SHOP PRO YOUR GUIDE JOE APICE Joe has been a keen amateur photographer for over 20 years and trains others in basic camera techniques. His work has been exhibited in local galleries and he’s an avid user of Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO JOE APICE

Using Paint Shop Pro 7 to edit colour and contrast You wanted it, so now you have it. We begin our new monthly series on Paint Shop Pro with a selection of essential ways to get the best colour reproduction from your digital photographs TIPS GUIDE

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR DISC Full trial of Paint Shop Pro 7

2

SKILL LEVEL

4

2 2

TIME TO COMPLETE

15

MINSPERIMAGE

NEXT MONTH Enhancing your photos

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In this new series, we are going to show you how Paint Shop Pro can help you improve any picture without compromising on quality. Each issue, we will reveal key tools and creative techniques and explain how they work in a step-by-step fashion. This month we're going to take you through the Paint Shop Pro editing basics from rotating an imported image to adjusting the colour, contrast and brightness – all of which should help get you an attention-grabbing result. Take a look opposite at Tool School for the specifric tools we will be covering in this tutorial.

GET STARTED

Before you begin serious tweaking, get your picture into a position you can work with, with optimum lighting conditions for the effect you are trying to create

8 01

THE IMAGE

Start by opening the image that you want to enhance. To demonstrate the effectiveness of these tools, I have chosen this photo taken at a stop I made near Rutgers University. Before we jump in and start making changes, lets examine the image. The image is on its side, there is a reasonable amount of detail, and the colours appear a little dull or subdued.

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7TOOL SCHOOL

aint Shop Pro has always been overshadowed by its more illustrious Photoshop rival, partly because of Photoshop's industrial strength tools but also because it's the perfect package for power users and wannabe pros. Even in its Elements guise, Photoshop could hardly be described as supremely user-friendly. Which is where Paint Shop Pro 7 comes in. This £40 software offers many of the familiar Photoshop tools and is easy enough for even newcomers to digital imaging to get to grips with.

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DIGITAL PHOTO TOOLS The digital photo tools discussed in this tutorial are available in the Photo Tool Bar. They consist of the Rotation Tool, Auto Colour Balance, Auto Contrast, Auto Saturation, Unsharp Mask, Gaussian Blur,Sepia Tone, Red Eye Removal and Print Multiple Images.

8 02

THE ROTATION TOOL

The first tool we would use for this image is the Rotation tool. The Rotation tool rotates the image in the direction selected by the user. To rotate in quarter circle increments click the 90, 180, or 270 degree option. To rotate by any other amount type a degree value in the Free Box. For our image we want to rotate the photo 90 degrees to the left.

03

AUTO COLOUR BALANCE

The overall lighting is a bit flat and tells us nothing of the time of day. I want to add a little warmth to the image with the Automatic Colour Balance tool. Move the slider left for warmer temperatures and right for cooler temperatures. A setting of 6500 is equivalent to daylight, 3500 for a sunset effect. For this photo the sliders set to 5000 for mid afternoon.

4

ONE-CLICK FIX

FINE TUNING

The Freehand Selection Tool Resize (sometimes called the lasso tool) is used to make freehand selections in the image. It is conveniently located on the Main tool bar here

Paint Shop 7 has a multitude of filters and colouring techniques to help you get contrast, detail and emphasis exactly the way you want it

* WEB LINKS TUTORIAL WEBSITE http://psp7tutorials.homestead. com/index.html

01

AUTO CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT

04

MAKING A FREEHAND SELECTION

The Auto Contrast Enhancement adjusts the intensity of the pixels. Lowering the contrast reduces detail and makes the image flatter. Increasing it enhances detail so the image is snappier. Here the Bias is Neutral, Strength is Normal and the Appearance to Bold.

I want to alter the depth of field — that is, blur the background to make the flowers stand out more. Ive selected the area to blur with the Freehand Selection tool located on the Main toolbar. Then I set a feather value of 4 in the Freehand Tool Option window.

02

AUTO COLOUR SATURATION

05

THE GAUSSIAN BLUR FILTER

The Automatic Saturation Enhancement feature is used to adjust colour saturation, or intensity. Here the Bias was set to More Colorful and the Strength to Strong. For people pictures, check the Skin Tone Present checkbox to maintain the skin tones at the proper level.

I want to use the Gaussian Blur Filter on the selected area. The amount of blur applied depends on what were trying to achieve. In this case its to simulate the out-of-focus effect generally seen with a large lens. See how the flower really stands out now.

03

THE UNSHARP MASK

06

SEPIA TONING THE IMAGE

The Unsharp Mask is a filter used to sharpen mid to high contrast edges without enhancing the noise normally present in digital images. For this photo, the PSP default settings will work well. Set the Radius to 2, the Strength to 100 and the Clipping to 5.

When applied directly to a colour image, the Sepia Tone produces an effect typical of colour photographs from the 1940s. For this photo I applied the Sepia Tone and set the Amount of Age value to 50. Notice how the filter affects the image.

0

EXPERT TIP JOE APICE PAINTSHOP PRO EXPERT

07

GIVING PHOTOS AN OLD LOOK

You can also use the Sepia effect to create a dutone effect similar to the sepia photographs of the 19th century. Convert your image to greyscale and increase its colour depth to 16 million colors (24-bit). Then apply the effect. Here, I set the Amount of Age to 30.

08

RED EYE REMOVAL

One tool that no image editing software should be without is the Red Eye Removal tool. Select the area within the eye then choose a custom eye colour from the list. To make a quick fix, simply place the cursor in the centre of the pupil and click the mouse.

09

PRINTING MULTIPLE IMAGES

The Print Multiple Images tool enables you to position images anywhere on the page, in any direction. Drag the image onto the page and right click to bring up a placement/direction window. You can print two or more images, or create multiples of the same one.

CUSTOMIZING Use the toolbars customizing feature to place the most frequently used tools in your photo toolbar. This will speed up locating the tools and cut time off your work.

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TUTORIAL GET STARTED WITH PAINT SHOP PRO YOUR GUIDE JOE APICE

Joe has been a keen amateur photographer for over 20 years and trains others in basic camera techniques. His work has been exhibited in local galleries and he’s an avid user of Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO JOE APICE

Enhancing your photos by adjusting highlights If your photos seem washed out or lack detail, there are some basic tools available in Paint Shop Pro that can breathe new life into them. Joe Apice shows you some subtle techniques for changing colour and contrast TIPS GUIDE

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR DISC See our trial of Paint Shop Pro 7, on CD 2

2

2

7TOOL SCHOOL

complex lighting situation) then the enhancement tools in Paint Shop Pro can help. You can bring back detail, increase colour saturation, and improve overall image sharpness, to bring back to life just about any photo. In the first of this three-part series, I’ll adjust highlights and shadows and selectively add colour saturation.

CROP TOOL The Crop tool, the Selection tool, the Paintbrush tool and the Eyedropper tool are located here in the Tool Palette.

SKILL LEVEL

2

2

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hoto enhancement, though sometimes confused with photo restoration, is a process that adjusts the colours or grey tones in a photo to bring back a balance between the highlights and shadows. If your photos look washed out, or lacking in detail (perhaps the camera metre was fooled by a

TIME TO COMPLETE

20

MINSPERIMAGE

FRAMING UP

Before we work on adjusting the colour balance in this picture, we need to sort out the perspective by rotating it and cropping unwanted areas

NEXT MONTH Enhancing your photos part 2

8

0

EXPERT TIP JOE APICE PAINTSHOP PRO EXPERT

ADJUSTMENTS When adjusting shadows and highlights, make the changes gradually and try to keep the colours natural.

074

01

THE IMAGE

This image is an example of how the metre in a camera can be fooled by complex lighting conditions that are composed of shadowed areas and bright scenic backgrounds. The image has a washed out sky and there is little detail in the archway. The columns in the archway tell us that the image is tilted slightly to the left and there is a bright area on the right side to the photo that distracts the viewer’s attention.

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8

02

ROTATE THE IMAGE

The first thing to do is to rotate the image slightly using the Rotation tool. Choose Image on the Main menu bar and then select Rotation in the drop-down window. In the Rotation dialog box, click the radio button labelled Right and enter a value of 2 degrees in the Free Box and click OK. With images requiring small degrees of rotational correction, use incremental values of 1 or 2 until you reach the desired results.

03

CROP UNWANTED AREAS

The Crop tool can now be used to remove the unwanted areas. Cropping will reduce the memory needed to edit the image and by removing extraneous areas of colour we will be able to make better colour corrections. Place the cursor in the upper left hand corner and drag the rectangle as shown until you’ve selected the area to crop. Double click the mouse button to complete the job.

4

ONE-CLICK FIX

ENHANCEMENT

The Freehand Selection Tool Resize, sometimes called the Lasso tool, is used to make freehand selections in the image. It is conveniently located on the Main tool bar here

Now we’re going to address the contrast between the light and dark areas of the picture, and increase the intensity of some of the colours for emphasis

* WEB LINKS TUTORIAL WEBSITE http://psp7tutorials.homestead. com/index.html

01

MAKE THE FIRST SELECTION

04

USE THE LEVELS COMMAND

We want to darken the scenic background to saturate the colours better. To do this we select the Freehand selection tool (click the Lasso tool icon). In the tool option palette choose the Freehand mode and set the feather value to 2. Now select the background area.

The levels command is similar to the Curves command but is less intimidating. To adjust the brightness of the selected area move the centre diamond to the left or right. The preview windows display a before and after view of the image as you adjust the value.

02

ADJUST BACKGROUND BRIGHTNESS

05

ADD HIGHLIGHTS

The Curves command lets us adjust brightness. On the Main menu choose Color8Adjust 8Curves to bring up a box. Select the centre of the graph and drag the line down and right until the image in the preview window is at the desired brightness level.

Adding colour pixels in the background will create an illusion of flowers. Select the color picker tool and choose a colour that’s consistent with the flowers in the image. Use the Paintbrush tool with a size of 5 and place colour pixels sparingly in the front bush.

03

INVERT THE SELECTION

06

SELECT FOR COLOUR

Now we need to adjust the foreground. On the Main menu bar choose Selection8Invert to select the foreground. By inverting the selection, all the shadowed areas inside the archway will now be affected by changes in brightness values.

To make the bushes and the flowers stand out more, we must saturate them. We must first select only the area we want to work on. Choose the Lasso tool in Freehand mode and set the Feather value to 2. Trace around the area of the frontmost bush.

? EXPLAINED UNSHARP MASK

07

COLOUR SATURATION

Go to the Main menu and choose Effects8Enhance Photo8Automatic Saturation Enhancement. In the Auto Saturation dialog window choose More Colorful for Bias and Strong for Strength. Leave the Sintones Present checkbox unchecked.

08

FOCUS AND IMAGE CLARIFICATION

The Clarify filter adds a crisp, focused look to an image so that objects in the picture stand out. Go to the Main menu bar and choose Effects8Enhance Photo8Clarify. I find the default settings work quite well. Larger values can sometimes introduce unwanted noise.

09

THE FINISHED RESULT

When we compare our final image to the original, we can really see the power of PSP. Using some basic tools, mostly in their default settings, we were capable of transforming a less-than-perfect image into one that could be proudly displayed.

The unsharp mask, perhaps oddly named, is a tool which comes from the printing industry. It is less affected by noise than a standard sharpening filter and because of this usually produces more natural-looking results.

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TIPS PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS YOUR GUIDE NICK MERRITT Nick has edited, managed and launched some of the UK’s leading technology magazines, and has been writing about and using computers for longer than he wants to admit

[email protected]

WEBSITE www.futurenet.co.uk

20 ways to get more from Adobe Photoshop Elements Got Elements or Elements 2? Then you don't need to be told how good it is. But that's not to say you can't use it better. Nick Merritt shows you 20 ways to get the best out of it… TIPS GUIDE

KEY DETAILS

2

ON OUR DISC Trial of Photoshop Elements 2 and Photoshop 7 Find it on the front of this mag

2

SKILL BOOSTER

4

2 2

TIME TO COMPLETE

1.5

HOURS

NEXT MONTH 20 ways to make more of PhotoImpact

P

hotoshop is the preferred image-editing program of professionals the world over. However, its myriad of features and price tag make it overkill for someone at home who just wants to retouch photos and prepare a few graphics for the web. This is where Photoshop Elements comes in. It’s powerful enough to give pro results, yet simple to use at the same time. If you have a scanner or digital camera you can import your images directly into the program. It comes with all the usual image-editing tools, including red-eye removal, together with innovative ones, such as

Photomerge, which enables you to create panoramas from a sequence of separate images. Support for the web comes in the form of Optimization, which will help make the most of your images prior to uploading. You’ll also find Web Photo Gallery – useful if you have a library of images that you would like to display online. Our tips this month focus on some of the tools contained within the program and how to get the best out of them.

Before you start using Photoshop Elements, it’s a good idea to calibrate your monitor. By doing this, you can set

USE THE TOOL

The Liquify filter can make some quite extraordinary changes to an image and gives the impression that the subject matter has been melted or reduced to liquid. Click on File, Open and locate the image that you would like to make changes to.

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There are so many different tools and functions within Photoshop Elements that unless you have a very large display area you’re never going to be able to display

One of the more unusual filters in the program is the Liquify effect...

8 01

02 Using the tools

01 Calibration

03 SPECIAL EFFECTS

an ICC-compliant profile for your monitor, which helps to standardise the images that will be displayed between different monitors and will ensure that you’re maximising visual quality. Use the Adobe Gamma Utility in the Control Panel once Photoshop Elements has been installed, double-click on it, select Step By Step and follow the calibration instructions.

8 02

BRING UP A TOOL

Next, click on Filter8Liquify to bring up the tool window. On the left-hand side there's a vertical row of buttons, each providing a different kind of effect. On the right you'll see Tool Options, where you can set the brush size and pressure.

03

DO IT!

Once you've decided on the style you're going to use and have defined your brush settings you're ready to start. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the brush around the screen to alter and 'Liquify' the image.

4

INSTANT SUPPORT

4

GETTING HELP AND ADVICE Get all the help you need and publish your images with Adobe Online

What it is: Pretty much all applications nowadays provide a link from the main software program to an area of the main website as extension of the help system. Photoshop Elements follows this trend with Adobe Online, a website where you’re able to find more help and advice on using the program.

Where to find it: To begin using it, make sure you’re connected to the net and click on Help, Adobe Online. Click on Refresh to download the latest version of the Adobe Online Window. Next, click on Preferences, Setup and configure the settings for the type of info you would like to get.

What it offers: Adobe has all this available in the form of technical documents, FAQs and upgrade patches together with practical advice on using the program. Go to the tutorials section of the website for step-by-step guides on using the tools and features of the program. You’ll find that trying a couple of these will help you get the hang of using the program a lot quicker. Also, look out for ePortfolio – it’s for those who would like to showcase their work online.

everything at the same time. A way around this comes in the form of the Palette Well that sits at the top of the screen. Here you can conveniently locate and organise all the different effects and tool palettes.

04 Conserve printer paper If you have several photos or images that you would like to print on the same page to conserve paper or for an album, this is quite simple to achieve. Click on File, New and create an 11 x 8-inch image with a white background. Next, open the images that you would like to print and copy and paste or drag them onto the new image area. Once they have been copied across, use the Move tool to resize them and get them into the correct position for printing.

05 Create your own art The more artistic among users will be pleased to know that you can use the program to produce your own images from scratch. There are paintbrush, pencil and airbrush tools that can be used to produce and add effects to your new image, each one with its own adjustable settings.

06 Get some help If you need a little help to get going with Photoshop Elements, make sure that you keep the Hints Palette window open. Whenever you run the mouse over or click on a button in the Tool Palette, Hints will give you more information about that tool and how best to use it.

07 Preparing images for the web The program comes with predefined settings that you can use to optimise your image for the web – whether it‘s in JPEG, GIF or PNG format. Use optimisation, click on File and Save for Web. You can choose to go with the settings suggested for you by the program. Photoshop Elements will suggest a file format and adjust the compression of the image to optimise it for your web page without sacrificing too much in the way of quality. Alternatively, click on Custom in the Settings drop-down

box and you can make your own adjustments. You can save predefined settings suggested by the program.

08 View image information Having created an image in Photoshop Elements you may want to protect its use by adding some information to it such as copyright details and a URL. With the image open click on File, File Info. Click on the Section dropdown box and choose Caption to enter text that will be displayed underneath the image when it’s printed. Alternatively, select Copyright & URL to enter the appropriate information.

BY WEB www.adobe.co.uk/support – support in the form of top technical issues and reference documents BY PHONE 0131 451 6888 – available to users in the UK and Ireland from Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm BY EMAIL [email protected] – put ‘instructions’ in the subject header for help

PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS’ PICTURE EFFECTS Create ‘paintings’ with Photomerge and the Impressionist brush There are plenty of image-editing packages out there that enable you to add special effects and filters to your pictures, giving them a more artistic appearance. Photoshop Elements is no different in that respect. However, Adobe has managed to cram in some new and interesting tools. It steals a march on the likes of Paint Shop Pro and some of its other competitors with one of its tools, Photomerge. This enables you to stitch together a number of pictures to create a seamless panorama. Before now, if you wanted to achieve such an effect you would have to buy a specialist piece of software or at least spend a little more on a different package. Another excellent effect you can use is the Impressionists Brush. This is usually applied to the whole image by a filter, but Photoshop Elements gives you full control by enabling you to paint over the image yourself, giving your picture the appearance of an early 20th century painting. You’ll find the 3D rendering tool quite handy. Take a picture of a 3D object – for example, a ball or a box. The 3D Transform filter enables you to move, manipulate and resize it.

3 IN DETAIL

09 Create a panorama If you’ve ever taken several photographs of a view or a skyline in an attempt to recreate the panorama with the photos you get back from the developers, then you’ll know how difficult it is to line them up and get it to look like one continuous image. However, if you can get those same pictures onto your PC, then you can use the Photomerge tool that comes with Photoshop Elements to recreate an impressive panorama and hide any joins.

RECOVERING YOUR SETTINGS

Create your own Renoir rip-offs with the Impressionist Brush

10 Lighten or darken images You can use the Dodge-and-Burn tools to lighten or darken an area of an image. To lighten an image you would use the Dodge tool and to darken it you use the Burn tool. Right-click the button on the toolbar to choose between the two. Once you’ve selected which you would like to use, you can adjust its size and the extent of its effect on the toolbar above. Then click on the area of the image you would like to change and drag the mouse to add the effect. See p66 for more on this.

11 Colour correction Making colour corrections to an image is easy in Photoshop Elements. You can create duplicates of your main image by clicking on Edit8Duplicate Image. Make several copies and try experimenting with settings such as Hue Brightness and Contrast to see what improvements can be made.

12 Fix red-eye The camera flash reflecting off the back of the eye can result in red-eye. Like most image editors, Photoshop Elements comes with a tool that makes the removal of this very simple. It will help you greatly if you magnify your image first, then select the Red-Eye Brush tool from the tool palette and adjust the brush and colour settings on the toolbar above it. By clicking on Enhance8Variations8Photoshop Elements will automatically make adjustments to your image’s colour balance, contrast, and saturation.

Sometimes when you start Photoshop Elements, it might come up with an error message saying, ‘Unable to continue because of hardware or system error. Sorry, but this error is unrecoverable’. You can resolve this by recreating the Photoshop Elements Settings file. On the Hints palette menu select Close Palette to Shortcuts Well. Then restart the program and press [Alt] + [Ctrl] + [Shift] until you see the prompt 'Delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements Settings File?' Click Yes, then on the Hints palette menu, choose Close Palette to Shortcuts Well. The Hints palette will then be hidden. To show the Hints palette, choose Window, Show Hints.

13 Remove a background The Background Eraser tool enables you to remove the background area of an image and make it 8

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TIPS PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS ONE-CLICK FIX Fix an error message about missing fonts. Click Layer, Type and Replace All Missing Fonts

transparent. In the tool palette, right-click on the Eraser tool and select Background Eraser Tool. The Limits dropdown box on the toolbar above it gives you the ability to set how the pixels are erased. There are two settings: Discontiguous and Contiguous. The first erases whatever comes into contact with the brush; the other removes all pixels of the same colour that are joined.

16 Use PDFs A good way to preserve the layout while securing your Photoshop Elements file is to save it in PDF format. This also makes it easier when sharing the file as well. As long as the person who opens it has Acrobat Reader they will be able to view its contents. Click on File, Save as and choose PDF from the Format drop-down box.

8

14 Get help Photoshop Elements comes with plenty of tips and tutorials to help you get the most from the program. Apart from the Hints palette, something else you’ll find useful is the Recipes palette. This provides you with guides for performing tasks using the program. It’s a great place to start if you’re new to image editing. Click on the Select a Recipe drop-down box, then choose a topic that you would like to learn more about.

If you have a number of images that need to be altered in some way – for example, converted to a different file format – you can use the Batch command to make the changes to all the files in one go. To do this click on File, Automate8Batch. Locate the files that you would like to convert and then select your options.

Photoshop Elements comes with a tool called ‘File Browser’. This simultaneously displays thumbnail

20 WEB-BASED GALLERIES

8 OPEN A PREVIEW

Click on File8Automate8Web Photo Gallery. Click on the Styles drop-down box and choose one for your gallery. A preview of what the web page will look like appears on the right-hand side of the Window.

02

If you have a version of Photoshop installed on your PC and you then install Photoshop Elements you may well find that your Photoshop files (.PSD) become associated with Elements and their icons change as well. To rectify this, right-click on one of your PSD files and choose Open with. Scroll down the list of programs and locate Adobe Photoshop. Click on it to select it and make sure there’s a tick in the Always use this program to open this type of file box. Click on OK and all your image files will be associated with Photoshop again.

19 Use the Stamp tool

17 Use batches

15 Preview thumbnails

01

18 Create the right file association

previews of all image files that are contained within a folder. A good tip here is to leave File Browser in the Palette Well because if you drag it to, say, the centre of the screen, and then double-click to preview an image, it will always be opened behind the File Browser.

Add subtle special effects to your images using the Stamp tool. This is ideal for improving the appearance of any buttons or bars you may be creating for your web pages. From Pattern on the toolbar you can choose from a selection of designs. Click on the arrow on the open Pattern window and you’ll be able to choose designs from two files – Patterns and Patterns 2.

Automatically produce a web page displaying thumbnail images

8 GET THE FILES

Next, click on Source and navigate to the folder that contains the files, then click on OK. Next click on Destination and choose a folder to contain the resulting HTML page and images for the gallery.

03

DECIDE THE FORMAT

Under Options for Gallery Thumbnails set how many rows and columns of images you would like displayed. Also, choose the font and name that will be used for the labels.

? EXPLAINED MEMORY PROBLEMS If you are trying to merge photos, but keep getting the error message, 'Could not complete the Photomerge command because there is not enough memory (RAM).' Try the following: Click Edit8 Preference and choose Memory and Image Cache. In the Used by Photoshop Elements text box, make a small change to the value. For example, if its current setting is 50% then increase it to 60%. Then click on OK and then restart Photoshop Elements. Now try merging your images again.

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8 04

CHOOSE THE COLOURS

To choose the colour settings for the gallery web page, click on Custom Colors in the Options box. Here you'll be able to define the colour to be used for different areas of the page.

05

8 CHOOSE A NAME

Click on Options8 Banner. Enter a name for the site, the date, and choose which font you would like to use as well. Next to Photographer you can enter the name of the person responsible for the gallery.

06

CREATE GALLERY

Click on OK and wait while the gallery is created. Your gallery will then be previewed in a browser window. You can now make changes to the HTML code in the page or upload it to your website.

TUTORIAL TOOL SCHOOL YOUR GUIDE SIMON DANAHER Simon is a digital artist specialising in Photoshop, compositing and 3D. He has been working professionally in the graphics industry for over six years, and is writing a book on professional graphics techniques

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO SIMON DANAHER

Cropping and framing You’ve got the image just the way you want it – now it’s all about the presentation. Simon Danaher shows you there’s more to cropping than a bit of rough trimming… TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

2

IMAGE EDITORS YOU CAN USE Every image editor offers the tools outlined opposite

2

resenting a digital photo can be almost as important as actually taking the picture itself. To show off your work to its best advantage, you can choose from a near limitless variety of frames and vignettes. All image editors have lots of options for creating frames and otherwise showcasing your work, but they might not always be obvious. Cropping an image, for example, can be a good way to improve composition, though of course you’re at the mercy of

P

the resolution of the digital image file. In this case it’s always a juggling act – at least if you are on the move – to decide between quality/resolution settings and the number of shots you can hold in the camera. If you’re photographing at home or in a home studio, or perhaps if you have a laptop, then you can afford to always shoot at the highest quality and resolution and download the files to your computer’s hard drive once the camera’s memory is full.

SKILL LEVEL

3

2

TIME TO COMPLETE

20

0

MINUTES

EXPERT TIP SIMON DANAHER Using colour

01

A FAMILY PORTRAIT

05

ZOOM

To illustrate our tutorial we’ve gone for a high resolution image with a lot going on in it. There’s lots of opportunity here for aggressive cropping in to focus on smaller areas of the picture.

02

CROP TOOL

06

NEGATIVE CROP

With the Crop tool, select the area around the little girl. Elements frames the crop region by making the area outside it darker. This helps to show the final composition before you commit yourself to cropping.

03

COLOUR OVERLAY

07

FRAME COLOURS

You can adjust the opacity of the colour overlay so that it's totally black, if you wish. There’s a slider in the options bar that enables you to adjust the overall darkness. You can also change the colour if you wish.

04

EXPERIMENT

08

SOFTEN THE EDGES

Experiment with different crops. You can move the region by dragging inside it, and change its shape by dragging the handles. Different crops can change the mood of an image.

FILLING IN To quickly fill with the foreground colour use Option/Alt-delete, to fill with the background colour use Command/control-delete.

? EXPLAINED RESOLUTION The pixel size of the image. A high resolution image has more pixels than a low resolution – in digital terms it’s physically bigger.

Add a border to the image by using the Image8Resize8 Canvas command, or (more quickly) by using the crop tool again and zooming out a little way so you can see the gray of the extra-image area.

‘Negative crop’ by OptionShift-dragging a corner to expand the crop region beyond the image border uniformly from the centre. Even up the border by option-dragging the handles at the centre of the edges.

Now as you accept the crop the canvas will be enlarged using the background colour to fill in the empty pixels. You can choose any frame colour by changing the background colour before you use the crop tool.

Get a softer frame by creating a new layer with the white border on it (use the selection tools and fill with the same colour) then run Filter 8blur8Gaussian Blur. Duplicate the blurred layer to strengthen the result.

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SECTION #03 YOUR CAMERA Section highlights… TECHNIQUE FANTASTIC FLASH Tim Daly talks red-eye, flash-fill and photography after dark with this comprehensive guide to flash

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TECHNIQUE IMPROVING COMPOSITION It’s a skill you learn through trial and error. We explore colour, texture and perfect symmetry

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Q&A ALL YOUR CAMERA QUESTIONS ANSWERED Your resident digital expert, Aidan O‘Rourke, solves a whole host of technical queries

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TECHNIQUE FANTASTIC FLASH SEE PAGE 84

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Your camera Expert guides to taking better pictures

Tutorials you can trust!

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Our mission is to ensure that our tutorials bring you creative ideas, expert techniques, tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work. Authoritative A leading professional in their field writes every tutorial. Value added Where possible, we

Contact our tutorials team include image files, and full or trial software so you can try the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package. Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial.

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TECHNIQUE USING YOUR CAMERA YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography and AG. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

Fantastic flash A built-in flash is a great addition to any digital camera and can be used for much more than low light scenarios

ABOVE The Flash Blur technique illuminates the scene while keeping the shutter open for longer, capturing these ghostly motion effects FAR RIGHT The flash can be used to help frame a picture by lighting objects in the foreground

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ost digital cameras have a built-in flash that can be set to fire under a range of lighting conditions. The physical size of the flash unit isn’t a good indicator of its power – this is best judged by the guide number, found deep within the camera manual. The guide number states the distance range which the flash can cover and with most digital compacts, this is rarely over five metres. Flash works by firing a short burst of light lasting less than a thousandth of a second – unlike natural daylight that is constant – and so mistakes are easily made. All flash units are self-regulating and switch themselves off when enough light has been produced. This works by a clever mechanism that quenches any

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further output by light reflecting back off the first object it hits in its path. However, that object might not be the intended main subject, switching the light off prematurely. A typical result from this kind of scenario is a dark and underexposed image with a strangely burned out shape in the foreground.

Avoiding common mistakes Red eye occurs because in low light, the iris in the eye is open wide to compensate, just like a wide aperture in a camera lens. When flashlight is fired into the eye it bounces off the eye’s red retina back to the camera in a straight line. On a better digital camera this can be solved by using an external unit set slightly to one side,

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FURTHER INSPIRATION

Check out the street scenes of Walker Evans at www.masters-of-photography.com /E/evans/evans.html. One of the most creative exponents of flash photography, Britishborn Martin Parr is at www.magnumarchive.com/c/htm/Pa.aspx?E=29YL53DQ0MI

BOOSTING YOUR FLASH RANGE

ABOVE Great subjects to shoot with the rear curtain sync technique are those set against a background of bright lights like a cityscape or nightclub

Flash presets In addition to red eye reduction there are three other flash modes found on digital cameras. Full flash mode is used when all other sources of light are found wanting, such as a darkened room or at nighttime outdoors. Full flash takes no account of any existing ambient light and will fire at maximum power creating a stark result, shedding any naturally occurring atmosphere in one fell swoop. As such, most full flash images lack the extra warmth of sunny daylight conditions. Often called daylight flash, the fill-flash setting is a very handy tool for livening up all kinds of photographic subjects. Fill-flash works by firing a much-reduced burst of light that mixes with natural daylight to form an exposure. Great for reducing the dense black shadows

found under strong sunny lighting conditions to much more acceptable grey, the fill flash helps to reduce contrast and restore balance to objects that fall within its limited range. This is much used in press, public relations and wedding photography by skilled photographers aiming to reduce heavy shadows cast on a portrait by overhanging eyebrows. Eyes are the most important feature of a location portrait and can easily be shaded

FILL-IN FLASH

No matter the time of day, a quick burst from the flash can liven up any picture

LEFT A quick burst of flash prevents the subject from becoming a silhouette against the setting sun

by a strong shadow. Fill flash is also used on location portrait shoots to create a catchlight in the sitter’s eye, that essential tiny white highlight that adds a liveliness to an otherwise dull and gloomy portrait. It can also be used to increase the colour saturation of nearby subjects. making colours sing out under dreary natural light. On better cameras, a further fill flash setting is also available: the flash compensation dial. The flash compensation dial offers the chance to fire the flash unit at specific power such as half power, quarter power or less. These settings can be used to reduce the visual impact of stark flash illumination when mixed with daylight and if used cautiously, will remove traces of flash use altogether.

Rear curtain sync One of the most exciting flash options is called rear curtain synchronisation or just sync for short and is usually found only on top price cameras. The shutter stays open longer than with a regular flash and the camera uses ambient daylight to record detail in the background, while the foreground subjects are frozen in motion by the flash. In fully manual SLRs with external flash units, this technique is sometimes referred to as flash blur and can be a very stylish way of expressing movement and frozen motion in one frame.

External flash units

NO FLASH Without fill-flash this image looks dull, flat and a bit uninspiring.

NEXT MONTH

WE TAKE A LOOK AT CAMERA PROGRAM MODES

3 IN DETAIL

or by using the red eye reduction mode. Red eye reduction works by firing a tiny pre-flash to narrow the iris in your subject’s eyes before the main burst of light is first off. A red eye reduction brush is found in most consumer image editing software. Very difficult to see at the point of exposure are flash hot spots caused when light reflects off a shiny surface. Windows, picture frames or people’s glasses can often act like a giant mirror, making patches of white over the subject’s face. This is easily avoided by shooting at an angle to any shiny surfaces rather than shooting straight on. If you can’t move your own position try changing the angle of the objects. The only method of removing hotspots afterwards is to use the Cloning Stamp tool and patch the error from a non-affected area.

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FILL-IN FLASH Colours are boosted and more sharp details appear in nearby objects.

Better digital cameras have sockets so they can be synchronised with more powerful flash units. Two types of units can be used, the bigger hammerhead flash and the hotshoe flashgun. The universal hotshoe connector is found on more advanced digital compacts and most SLRs and permits the synchronization with the shutter. An alternative connector, sometimes called the x-sync can be found on professional SLR cameras and enables the camera to be hooked up to professional studio lighting equipment. External flash units are much more powerful and permit the photographer to change light direction, contrast and variable output.

Despite the distance limitations of your camera’s built in flash, there are a couple of tricks you can use to stretch it. Open your lens aperture its widest setting, as the sensor needs much less light when combined with a wide value. Less light requirements can also be manufactured if your camera has a variable ISO speed setting. At the lowest value such as ISO100, your flash range will be at its minimum, but if this is increased to ISO 400 or even 800, your range is boosted considerably. You won’t shoot dark outdoor landscapes, but you could photograph a large indoor space.

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EXPERT TIP

DIFFUSED FLASH A diffuser can soften harsh shadows by modifying the contrast of the light and reducing its intensity. Flashguns can be aimed at white ceilings that act like a giant reflector and diffuser rolled into one. As the flash reflects downwards, light appears softer and covers a wider area.

Great flash photography hides the fact that flash was used, like in this image

@ SEND ’EM IN! Try out the techniques in this article then send us your photos. We’ll print the best each month. Email us at the following address:

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TECHNIQUE USING YOUR CAMERA

Improving composition Composition is another term for a photographer’s skill in organising a subject into a balanced and pleasing position in the camera viewfinder. Tim Daly takes you through the basics…

ABOVE Much better results occur when fewer things are included – the ‘less is more’ maxim makes for much more memorable results. Emphasis on single features is best achieved by giving it surrounding space rather than making it bigger in the frame FAR RIGHT This off-centre composition works, too, because the bright orange is balanced by the trailing stems in the other corner of the image

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or immovable subjects or those essentially out of reach like a spectacular natural landscape, composition is completely influenced by your own shooting position, together with your choice of wide-angle or telephoto lens. For more pliable and nearby subjects like people, composition can be determined by direction and peopleorganisation skills. Most amateur photographers place their subjects centrally in the frame and don’t take advantage of dynamic compositional effects. The best photographers have a sense of adventure and are willing to experiment.

Balance and weight Experience only comes with shooting many photographic situations over time, and an intuitive understanding of visual balance usually follow. When organising scenes in your viewfinder, each element in your composition will vie for visual attention. Over-cluttered compositions have too much emphasis in too many areas of the image, and lack emphasis and

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

a clear message. Strong colours and heavy textures will dominate and swamp your main subject, as can patterned backgrounds. If you can’t move these objects out of your frame, a good way to minimise their destructive effect is to blur them out using a wideaperture value. Visual weight can be described as the effect of a colour or tone pulling a viewer’s eye in a particular direction and, if used effectively, can act as a counterbalance to the central subject. The best way to get into this kind of thinking and picture taking is to look at books of great photographs and see how others have used these rules to good effect. No photographer was born with innate compositional design skills, most were borrowed along the way.

Symmetry The easiest kind of balanced composition to make is a symmetrical one. Symmetrical photographs are those which have near-identical elements on either side of an imaginary vertical or horizontal fold and are, as a

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FURTHER INFORMATION

For more fine examples of the art of composition, check out the online gallery of Walker Evans’ work. His images of street scenes in the American Depression years still stand out as examples of how to divide up the rectangular picture frame. Go to www.masters-of-photography.com/E/evans/evans.html

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NEXT MONTH

HOW TO FRAME A PICTURE CREATIVELY

EXPERT TIP TIM DALY LENS CARE

ORGANISING PEOPLE Large numbers of people can be an ordeal to arrange into a good composition, particularly if you’re not assertive, but good group shape is easy to set up and will lead to successful end results. It’s not essential to cram in every part of a person – facial expressions do take priority over feet ankles and shoes.

ABOVE This moody landscape is enhanced by the inclusion of a vista that takes your eye to the background RIGHT Documentary photographer Walker Evans was a master of balanced composition – as shown in this classic image

consequence, very eye-catching. As a starting point, place the main elements of your composition in the centre of the frame until a balance is achieved along the vertical or horizontal axis. Architectural and landscape subjects work well with this kind of approach, but you may need to pull in additional items in the frame to balance things out. These kind of images don’t need to be mathematically equal and can look very artificial if done so.

Asymmetry Perhaps harder to define, because of the rule-breaking nature of the concept, is an asymmetrical composition. Asymmetrical compositions are visually attractive – due

to the very fact that they are imbalanced and totally removed from everyday life experience. Most of these sorts of pictures are produced as happy accidents rather than carefully stage-managed shots, and the best will often have a certain element of humour about them.

The rule of thirds An excellent set of guidelines to base your landscape photography on is the rule of thirds. This theory suggest

that an image should be divided up into a grid of nine equal but entirely invisible sections and was adopted by many artists and painters in western art movements. The idea of the rule of thirds theory suggests that as long as elements are placed on these grid lines (or at their intersections), a pleasing compositional can be achieved. Next time you’re out shooting in the open landscape, why not try some variations on this theme?

Vista views

7 Rear-mounted LCD preview displays are a great boost to making strong compositions

Composition is far from the mundane task of fitting together objects into a kind of two-dimensional jigsaw pattern. Great use can be made of diminishing distance and depth within the photographic frame. The limitations of natural light and your own viewpoint rarely enable you to cram more than a few miles of distance into a single shot at the best of times. Open space sweeping countryside can be captured to good effect with a vista view. Vistas are made when a set of parallel lines merge into each other at the vanishing point on the horizon and, in addition to making a great graphic effect, lead your eye from the foreground of the photograph to the background. As so many photographic images are viewed and dismissed within a fraction of a second, anything that makes the viewer dwell for a little bit longer can only be a good thing.

Software composition Digital images can be cropped and recomposed in a digital imaging application like Photoshop. The best tool to use is the Cropping tool which, on the latest versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, darkens down the areas you propose to crop off, so that you can contemplate the consequences of your actions. Digital recomposition inevitably means the loss of some areas of original pixels, which reduces the potential to print at a larger size. 8

* WEB LINKS KODAK http://[email protected]/ global/en/consumer/education/ programs/composition/photoPro gramCompMain.shtm Expert advice from the Kodak Photo Program’s Beginnings of Photographic Composition.

PICTURES OF THE YEAR www.poy.org/59winners/ index.html Press photographers grapple with the complexities of composition on The Pictures of the Year International website.

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TECHNIQUE USING YOUR CAMERA ? EXPLAINED

RIGHT Parallax error is greater when shooting closeup and can result in drastic cropping

DIGITAL ZOOM Many digital cameras have a function called a digital zoom. This works by enlarging a small central section of pixels to make a far-off subject appear larger than it is in real-life. The process is called interpolation and works by mixing new pixels with estimated colour values with original pixels. The images can be unsharp and lower quality than those shot with a conventional longer lens.

More useful, perhaps, is the ability to remove unwanted elements by using the Clone Stamp tool, by painting out distracting parts of the image that went unnoticed at the time of capture. (The introduction of these and many other rescue processes should not encourage the photographer to be lazier and less concerned with finding perfection!)

Framing in the viewfinder Great photographs are made at the moment the shutter release is pressed, but the critical judgements are made beforehand in the viewfinder. The viewfinder is the preview window in a camera that frames your composition. In addition to the image, most cameras provide information in the display, such as focus and exposure confirmation. Large viewfinders are easier to use, especially if you wear spectacles and find it hard to see through a tiny window. With a digital camera’s rear-mounted LCD preview screen, photographers can, for the first time, contemplate a two-dimensional scene before pressing the shutter, and visualise exactly how the final print will be balanced. With all the advantages of real-time framing, holding the camera steady at arm’s length is far from easy. With a tendency to wobble and tilt, only tripod-mounted cameras will be certain of shooting an accurate and predetermined composition.

Big is best Most amateur photographs – especially those shot on unsophisticated and older film-based compact cameras – never get close enough to the subject. If you are worried about chopping off the heads and feet of your portraits, then you are probably standing too far away. A tall and thin person doesn’t easily fit into the shape of your viewfinder, so you will have to zoom

@ SEND ’EM IN! Try out the techniques in this article then send us your photos. We’ll print the best each month. Email us at the following address:

@

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DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

in closer or move your own position to crop out any unnecessary details. Getting closer to your subject has an additional advantage, too, because detailed backgrounds become more blurred and are a lot less distracting to the eye.

Parallax error In older viewfinder film cameras, the optics were not as sophisticated as they are today and there was always the risk of cropping people’s heads off by mistake. Without any way of previewing the final image, the only alternative was to stand well back and hope for the best. With all viewfinder compacts, including digitals, the viewing window is set to the left of the camera lens and sees a slightly different image – especially at close range.

As a result, unexpected crops can occur when close focusing. This is called parallax error and is responsible for many disappointing family snapshots. SLR cameras use a clever arrangement of mirrors called a pentaprism to let the photographer focus and compose directly through the lens and don’t suffer from the same problem. More expensive digital compacts offer a direct LCD preview directly through the lens, that also prevents parallax problems from surfacing. Next time you flick through the family album, be less critical of your photographic predecessors, as many errors were down to bad camera design. See page 93 for more about parallax errors.

Tight crops and surprises Just to compound the issue further, LCD previews, viewfinder windows and SLR pentaprisms rarely display the end result in its entirety. SLRs can show marginally less around the perimeter edge than will appear in the final image and viewfinder compacts can show deceptively more than they should. To counteract later disappointment, always avoid framing your subjects too closely to the edge and always leave a slight gap where possible. The hardest skill for an emerging photographer to learn is to keep a close eye on distracting backgrounds. Caught up in the excitement of composing and arranging the central subject, background details are easily overlooked. Common mistakes are telegraph poles sticking out of heads, or signs with inappropriate wording appearing inexplicably in your frame. Small details can be painstakingly removed later in your imaging application, but it only takes a second to recompose another shot, or choose a wider aperture to blur out the background.

LEFT Images can be made even better by using an image editor’s Cropping tool. Distractions are removed to make stronger and more balanced images

PHOTO HELP Q&A YOUR GUIDE AIDAN O’ROURKE Aidan O’Rourke is a freelance photographer who has been working with digital imaging and photography since 1994. He created ‘Eyewitness in Manchester’ (part of Manchester Evening News), the largest online source of photos and information about Manchester. He’s currently running seminars on digital photography around the country. See opposite URL for more details

[email protected]

WEBSITE www.aidan.co.uk/seminars/index.html

All your camera questions answered Send us your camera and image-editing queries and Aidan will do his best to help

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QUESTIONS ANSWERED

IMAGE CAPTURE PHOTOGRAPHING IN THE MIST .90 SHOOTING INTO THE SUN . . . . .91 FOCUSING ON TWO PEOPLE . . .91 CAMERA USE DOWNLOADING PICS . . . . . . . . .90 TIFF SETTINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 PIXEL SIZES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 WHICH RESOLUTION TO USE . . .92 ONLINE PICTURE PORTFOLIOS . .92 PARALLEX ERROR . . . . . . . . . . .93 BUILT-IN FLASH . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 MINIATURE CAMERAS . . . . . . . .93 MEDIA BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 WEBSITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91, 93

In the first picture, the levels in the upper part of the photo are too high and have burnt out to white. In the second picture, all the light levels have been contained within the picture

2 HOW DO I TAKE PICTURES IN THE MIST? PHOTOGRAPHY

■■ INTERMEDIATE I have tried to take photos in morning mist, but they never come out well – they’re burnt out to white. Is there a remedy for this? Stefan Novak

Q

It’s often very difficult to achieve the best exposure in misty weather conditions, especially if the sun shines through and causes light levels in parts of the picture to go very high. Many digital sensors, even in expensive cameras, have a tendency to burn out to white above certain light levels, whereas film seems to be able to handle these wider levels of light more effectively. The problem with shooting in misty conditions is that they present the camera’s exposure system with non-average levels that it finds difficult to cope with.

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Photo Help 090

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

If you really have an aversion to people downloading and saving your photographs, then it’s probably better not to publish them at all. If you share via the internet and people like your photos, then they will save them. But is it really that bad for people to download your pictures? In my opinion, it depends what they do with them. If they use them as desktop wallpaper or for a slideshow, and tell me how nice they are in an appreciative email, then I’m happy. But if they grab them off my website and brazenly stick them on their badly designed pages without my permission, then I get annoyed. One of my online readers informed me that someone had used one of my images on a website. I found it and sent a firm but friendly warning message to the culprit. He removed the image without even replying to me (it even had my copyright notice on it). Photographs are often downloaded and used in print. I have noticed that

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The photographs above, are taken in morning mist in the Peak District. The left-hand picture shows how the camera has exposed for the average light level in the centre of the picture, but hasn’t been able to handle the bright area of sky. The solution is to reduce the light entering the camera by setting the exposure compensation to -1 or -2 or, as in the right-hand picture, zoom in on part of the scene so that the frame takes in a narrower range of levels to achieve a better exposure. With digital cameras you can experiment in the field like this, and make adjustments immediately.

many free, local newspapers publish low-grade images that have been grabbed from the net and blown up to a much larger size, magnifying the JPEG compression. To stop people saving images, some photographers slap a huge © for copyright on top of every image on their website. A copyright notice can deter people from downloading your pictures – most offenders are too lazy to remove it in Photoshop, or don’t know how to do it. Other photographers use a Javascript code that presents a pop-up message saying ‘Image copyrighted’ or ‘Stop! Do not attempt to download this image!’ This technique can simply make the viewer feel resentful – when they see a notice like this, some people just download it in another way, such as a screen grab! Finally, some photographers use digital watermarking, but this is only really useful to prove that an image belongs to you. Most mainstream publishers observe copyright and will ask for permission to

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CAN I STOP PEOPLE DOWNLOADING MY PICS? INTERNET

■■ BEGINNER How can I stop people from downloading and using my photographs on the net? Jane Gaulter

Q

Which of these two copyright notices is more likely to engender a positive reaction in the viewer? (photos of statues in Trinity College and O’Connell Street, Dublin)

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Digital sensors have extra pixels that don’t form part of the output. The term ‘effective pixels’ refers to the pixel dimensions and size of the images produced by the camera

8 FANSITE REVIEW www.lomo.com Content The Russian-built Lomo has become a cult object among its devotees, who love to shoot from the hip. There are books and exhibitions devoted to work produced with this camera, including a collection from

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CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT TIFF SETTINGS? FILE FORMATS

■■■ ADVANCED What is the advantage of using the TIFF setting on my digital camera? Paul Newton

Q

Most digital cameras process the image data from the sensor and save it in the form of a compressed JPEG file. JPEGs can be interpreted by web formats and there are normally three levels of compression – low, medium and high. Sometimes, you might want to enlarge an image, and for this purpose many digital cameras have a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) setting. A TIFF file will be larger than a JPEG and may take some time for the camera to process, but the file has much less compression than a JPEG and consequently has fewer artefacts (colour faults or line faults that can be seen in the image). TIFFs are the standard in the printing industry, and the fact that I saved my photo of the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai (below) in that format was a decisive factor in the hotel’s decision to use it.

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2 HOW MUCH BIGGER WILL PIXEL SIZES GET? CAMERA TECHNOLOGY

■ BEGINNER Are pixel sizes of camera sensors ever going to reach an upper limit, and what do you think the size is going to be? Peter Clayton

; READ ON THE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY MANUAL

Q

Sensor sizes are getting bigger and bigger. Cutting-edge cameras now produce image sizes of 6Mb – that’s nearly 3,000 x 2,250 pixels (I like to think in terms of pixel dimensions rather than megapixels). It’s reckoned that this is equivalent to scanning a 35mm film frame – but I’m not so sure. Film is a deceptively subtle medium for the storage of picture information. My Nikon Coolscan film scanner will scan film up to 3,600 x 2,400 pixels, but I still think there’s extra picture information in there and there’s only one way to get it – to scan at an extremely high resolution of around 6,000 x 4,000 to give a file size of well over 20 million pixels. The increase in pixel sizes seems to be never-ending. Maybe some new technology may come along that does away with megabytes and pixels – technology is notoriously difficult to predict…

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CAN I IMPROVE SHOTS TAKEN INTO THE SUN? PHOTOGRAPHY

■ BEGINNER Whenever I shoot into the sun, the results are awful. Why is this and is there anything I can do about it? Vincent Abbott

Q

In the inset, the top of the spike has been enlarged, and some detail from the JPEG version has been placed next to it. The vertical line is smoother and there is greater contrast in the TIFF file, but otherwise the quality is similar

© Courtesy of Double Life Films

use your photos. Photography is all about sharing, so why not just post your images and let people enjoy them?

the Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Verdict Go along to www.lomography.com – it’s a wacky but superbly designed website of the Lomographic Society International, where it’s possible to upload your own ‘lomographs’.

As a child, taking photographs with the Kodak Brownie camera, my father always used to

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In this production still from the feature film, Derek, the camera has been aimed between the two characters. The camera focused on the window and the effect, which is barely noticeable, made the difference between a useable photo and a reject

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sales managers, glamour models or nuns, you are really interested in the water cooler, rubber HELP ME SOLVE MY plant or stained glass window FOCUSING PROBLEMS! behind them. PHOTOGRAPHY The autofocus targets a small ■ BEGINNER area in the centre of the frame, When photographing two and when you have two people Q people, the camera keeps on side by side, the autofocus focusing on the background. Is there doesn’t ‘see’ the off-centre anything I can do? subjects close to you. The way Alan Smith around the problem is to focus first on one of the two people by The fact is that camera depressing the shutter lightly, A autofocus, like auto then turning the camera to exposure, doesn’t get it right include both subjects. all of the time. Sometimes it In practice, however, this is thinks that instead of wanting often easier said than done and it to photograph a pair of smiling takes a bit of experimentation.

say: “Stand with your back to the sun.” That is still good advice, even when using today’s so-called sophisticated cameras, which are supposed to be so advanced that they enable anyone to take perfect pictures in any lighting conditions. But taking a photograph facing into the sun is more than even the most sophisticated camera can handle. The most common problems are: light shining directly into the lens, causing lens flare; surfaces in front of you going into shadow, causing the

colours to be unsaturated and tones shadowy; and the sky burning out to white as you get closer to the sun, and the level of light increasing in the sky. However, often you have no choice but to shoot into the sun – for instance, if you’re photographing a north-facing building. It’s possible, through image enhancement, to squeeze latent picture information out of an apparently badly exposed photograph, or add bits from other photographs.

Published by ISBN Price Written by Buy from

Carlton Books 1 84222 241 4 £16.99 Philip Andrews www.amazon.co.uk

This superbly presented book on digital photography achieves very high standards of layout and picture quality, with lots of superb photos to inspire you. There are individual reviews of image-editing products, and chapters on ‘Why Digital?’, ‘Digital versus Traditional’, ‘Image Capture’ and ‘Image Manipulation’. Verdict Highly recommended.

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EXPLAINED

FOCAL LENGTH Focal length refers to the field of view of the lens – 50mm is standard for 35mm cameras. Most digital camera sensors have a smaller area than 35mm film, and so the focal length value is smaller, typically one third. The 8mm – 24mm zoom lens on the Nikon Coolpix 885 is equal to 38mm – 114mm on a 35mm camera. The focal length of digital cameras is usually given as the 35mm film format equivalent.

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PHOTO HELP Q&A TOP TIP If close-ups of friends and relatives are over-exposed using flash, trying using a white piece of paper or hankerchief to reflect light onto their faces instead

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WHICH RESOLUTION SHOULD I USE? IMAGE OUTPUT

■■ INTERMEDIATE Do I really need a high resolution camera if I’m only going to print at small size? Mary West

Q

V TECH FOCUS THE IPIX PHOTO FORMAT What is it? iPix is an innovative photo format that exploits the possibilities of digital image display. It’s similar to the Quicktime panorama effect, but goes one stage further and enables you to look up and down as well. How it works: to make an iPix picture, two photos are taken with a fish-eye lens, one pointing up and one pointing down. The two images are combined in iPix’s proprietory software and viewed using the iPix viewer. When to use it: the iPix format is less than convincing as a serious medium for capturing general subjects, but it can be useful for specific creative purposes. For instance, you could capture the interior of the Sistine Chapel from a point midway between the floor and ceiling. The view would be weird and interesting, providing a view upwards, that would be similar to the one that Michelangelo saw. For more conventional subject matter we’re less keen – the experience of viewing an iPix image is similar to looking at the world dangling upside down strapped into a harness. We also find that zooming in is pointless because there isn’t the resolution to reveal extra picture detail. But this is really a shortcoming of the small image sizes found on the internet.

If you’re only printing at 6 x 4 inches, then a 1,200 x 900 pixel file is more than adequate, so why spend a fortune on a camera that does 2,560 x 1,920 or larger? There are two reasons why it is still a good idea to have more pixels than you need. First, it’s nice to be able to crop part of a picture and still have

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enough resolution to print at a reasonable size. But there’s another, more subtle reason why it’s a good idea to start from a larger image. When resampling from a large to a small size image, you may notice that a larger original image often produces a better smaller image. Even when you’ve resampled to a smaller size, the more detailed picture data from the larger image seems to remain present in the smaller image – or at least some of it. It’s the same effect as when you see images on a web page that have been scanned at high resolution from medium format film. So, you don’t need a higher quality camera for smaller size prints, but it’s very nice to have picture information in reserve. We recommend choosing a

camera that has at least one-and-ahalf times the output of your final print size – say 1,800 x 1,350 (2.4MP).

Capture at 640 x 480, zoom into the canvas 3x and what to you get? Pixellation. Capture at 2,560 x 1,920, zoom into the canvas 3x and there's plenty of detail

2 ONLINE PICTURE PORTFOLIOS You may wish to make your own online picture portfolios, so here are a few basic ideas

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Using a Photoshop action, save large, medium and small size versions of each picture. Typical sizes are 500 x 375, 200 x 150 and 100 x 75. You can make them larger or smaller as you wish. Save the images using the same file names into three folders.

Create a table 500 pixels wide with four columns and three rows. Insert each thumbnail into each cell. You now have what looks like a contact sheet. You can adjust the colour scheme to your taste – we prefer a black background.

To display the mediumsize photos we can create an HTML page for each one. The photo can go on the left and the text on the right. Duplicate this page 12 times, naming the files 01.html to 12.html corresponding to the image files 01.jpg to 12.jpg. At the top we can create links to the next and previous page. One by one, insert the picture onto each file and write the text.

Another possibility is to place thumbnails and short pieces of descriptive text on a preview page.

Now link to the large size version of each picture. The easiest way to do this is to link directly to the image file. The picture is displayed in the top left on a white background.

Alternatively, create an HTML page for each picture and insert it on the page, centred. To have it appear in a new browser window set the link attribute ‘target = _blank’.

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Finally, go back to the thumbnail page and put a link from each thumbnail to each of the 12 pages that have been created. We now have a functioning gallery. (An alternative to individual pages is to put five or so pictures on each page. This is the arrangement I use for ‘Eyewitness in Manchester’.)

Pictures can be put in a password-protected folder. This enables you to hold back your content. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) should be able to provide info about this.

More info: www.ipix.com

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Using an IPix camera in the Sistine Chapel would provide a similar view to the one Michelangelo saw – but without having to use all that scaffolding…

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GET THAT SHRINKING FEELING

The Digital Leica M3 camera is a one-third size replica of the classic Leica from the 1950s, but with a digital interior. Go to www.minox.com for more info

8 MANUFACTURER SITE www.nikon.co.uk Content The Nikon website has changed. Gone are the black background camera buttons and sounds. Instead it has a much bigger and more comprehensive site, with extensive galleries of superb photos.

sensor will record (sunlight-allowing). It’s not just a question of parallax error though – the viewfinder also sometimes seems to crop the frame severely. For this reason, we nearly always use the screen. There’s no easy answer to the problem of parallax error – just be aware of it, and zoom out a little to leave some margin for error.

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WHAT’S THE LIMIT OF MY BUILT-IN FLASH? PHOTOGRAPHY

■ BEGINNER In the top picture of the Orthodox Church in Leipzig, the way in which the viewfinder crops the frame has been simulated, showing a smaller area than the camera sees. Picture 2 shows what would appear on the LCD screen

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WHAT IS PARALLAX ERROR?

At night-time sporting events, you see thousands of flashes going off. Can I assume that most pictures won’t come out properly? Julie Dawson

Q

If lighting conditions are dark, then it’s assumed that you have to use flash. The flash comes on automatically anyway, so the flash is

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Verdict I particularly liked the ones of London Fashion Week and the London Underground. Plenty of camera and product specs to drool over. Should you experience a rise in temperature, a visit to the British Refrigeration Association website www.feta.co.uk/bra website may be advised…

going to provide the necessary light, isn’t it? Well not quite. If you are photographing in a stadium at night, using 100ASA film or its digital equivalent, have the shutter set to 125th of a second, and the aperture at f5.6, then it’s likely that nothing is going to be visible in the photograph – apart from the backs of spectators’ heads. A successful photo will only result if the camera is using fast film or its digital equivalent, if the lighting is very bright, or if the camera is set to ‘slow synch’ where, in addition to firing the flash, the camera also leaves the shutter open to make a long exposure (see below, or last month’s feature on photographing at night). And it’s important to note that most current digital cameras don’t handle low light as well as high speed films. I’d love to have an exhibition of those underexposed photographs taken at sporting events – a room full of carefully framed prints, each one completely black.

PHOTOGRAPHY

■■ INTERMEDIATE Why, when I take a photo, does the final image I’ve taken, and the initial view from the viewfinder, not quite match? Simon Ruddle

Q

This is parallax error and occurs for the same reason a scene looks different when you view it though your left eye with the right eye shut, then vice-versa. It isn’t a problem on SLR (single lens reflex) cameras, which use the lens as the viewfinder, but it is on compact cameras, which have a separate ‘window’ next to the lens, which is used to frame the picture. The problem with parallax error is that the closer the subject is to the camera, the greater the difference between what the viewfinder sees and what the lens sees – this is because the angles are greater. On compacts, the solution is simple – use the LCD screen, which shows almost exactly what the

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2 MINIATURE CAMERAS Shamelessly jumping on the James Bond bandwagon? Us?

The German manufacturer, Minox (www.minox.com) specialises in miniature cameras. Here are its 35mm Minox ML and Minox spy cameras

Last month we wrote about candid photography. Using a miniature camera is a great way to take photos, and there are a number of tiny digital cameras currently on sale. The smallest include Digital Dream’s L’Espion Xtra keychain camera, the Nisis Quickpix 2 and Casio’s WQV10 Watch Camera (see DCAM#01). These cameras produce a very small picture, similar to a webcam. If you want small camera dimensions, but large picture size, the Minolta Dimage X is a good choice. It is currently the lightest and most compact 3x optical zoom digital camera, producing images of up to 1,600 x 1,200 pixels, and is small enough to go in your shirt pocket.

The idea of a miniature camera is not new. In the 1920s, there were many small format and novelty cameras for sale – some concealed in watches, keyrings and even in flowers to put on your lapel. Maybe some time in the near future miniature cameras will provide true professionalquality images – imagine, a 6megapixel camera smaller than a matchbox but still good enough to use for professional use. Wouldn’t it be great to turn up to a wedding as the official photographer and shoot it with the super-miniature camera? For credibility, you’d probably have to take a battered non-functional medium-format camera and tell them you’re using it instead! Minox recently launched its desirable Digital Classic Camera Leica M3

You don’t always need a flash at night! In this picture, a number of shorter exposures were made, capturing light trails and combining them using layers in Photoshop. This photo shows the Al-Madheef Roundabout, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates

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FROM THE MAKERS OF

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SIMPLE STEPS SERIES

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SECTION #04 USING YOUR PC SEND PHOTOS BY EMAIL SEE PAGE 96

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Section highlights…

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YOUR PC

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USING YOUR PC HOW TO PRINT AND SEND PHOTOS BY EMAIL Tips and tricks to make the most of your printer, and send photos by email using Windows XP

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ONLINE TUTORIAL HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN WEBSITE With the right software, you can design a functional, stylish website to showcase your photographs

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PRINT TECHNIQUES PART 3 CALIBRATING YOUR PRINTING PAPER The paper you use has a real impact on your finished prints. Make sure you get it right

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PC & Internet Using a PC to make the most of your digital photos

Tutorials you can trust!

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Our aim is to bring you creative ideas, expert tips and quick fixes you can use in your own work. Authoritative A leading professional in his/her field writes every tutorial. Value-added We try to include

Contact our Reviews team image files, and full or trial software so you can try the tutorial for yourself, delivering a complete package. Clear Our large page size means we can add extra elements, explanations and detail to each tutorial.

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If you have a comment about our reviews, or a product you would like us to test, please email us at [email protected]. Visit our website at digitalcameramagazine.co.uk for reader verdicts

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TUTORIAL USING YOUR PC YOUR GUIDE JOE CASSELS Joe Cassels writes regular tutorials for a wide range of computer magazines. He is an enthusiastic digital photographer with a track record of helping many people get more from their PCs

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO JOE CASSELS

How to print and send photos by email It’s time to show other people your photographs. This month, Joe Cassels shows you how to print photos either at home or via a professional outlet, and send them by email TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

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SKILL LEVEL

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TIME TO COMPLETE

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WINDOWS VERSIONS Windows XP

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ne of the criticisms some conventional photographers level at their digital counterparts is that they can only look at their pictures on screen. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the great strengths of digital photography is the many different ways you can share your pictures with other people.

Printing at home The technology behind inkjet printing has advanced in recent years. Most printers turn out decent photos these days – even those at the bargain-basement end of the

market. Printer manufacturers spend millions of pounds formulating ink and paper products so that they work together. Although they are more expensive, if you want to get decent quality prints, it’s best to use the ink and paper that’s recommended by your printer manufacturer.

your films to the chemist – you get top-quality prints on high-quality paper for a fixed price. And you can choose only to have the best ones printed, leaving out those you don’t like.

Sharing your pictures

Professional services If you’ve ever used a printer at home, you know that mistakes can happen. And when you’ve paid a premium for the correct ink and paper, it’s frustrating to see any of it wasted. If this concerns you, why not try an internet printing service? These work in a similar way to sending

Emailing pictures is a great way to share images. Windows XP makes pictures smaller so they can be sent over a modem. Large pictures take a lot longer to send, so unless you know the recipient has a broadband connection, it’s probably worth resizing them – consider both their patience and their phone bill!

NEXT MONTH Archiving, indexing and burning photos to CD

PRINTING YOUR PHOTOS

Use the Photo Printing Wizard to get the best results when you print your photos

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? EXPLAINED ATTACHMENT This is a computer file sent alongside an email message. The attached file can be a document, picture or anything else generated on a computer.

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01

GET STARTED

Click Start, My Pictures and double-click the folder containing the pictures you want to print. Launch the Picture and Fax viewer by double clicking one of the pictures in the folder. Click the printer icon to launch the Photo Printing Wizard.

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SELECT THE PHOTOS TO PRINT

You’ll see all the photos in the folder. Tick the ones that you want to print (click Select All if you want to tick them all). Click Next to select the printer you want to use (if you have more than one printer) and specify print and paper settings.

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ADJUST THE PAGE LAYOUT

Select a layout for your page. You can have just one picture per page or save paper by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the photos per page. You can even print a contact sheet of all the photos you have selected. Click Next to start printing.

You get far better printing results if you buy photo-quality paper for your printer. It worth remembering that some printers need photo-quality ink, too

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FURTHER INFORMATION

EMAIL YOUR PHOTOS

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SELECT THE PHOTO

Click Start, My Pictures and browse to the image that you want to send. Click it. Move to the File and Folder Tasks pane on the left-hand side of the window. If it’s not shown, click the Folders button on the toolbars to reveal it.

02

Send your pictures to anyone you like – but don’t forget to resize them

RESIZE THE PICTURES

Click Email this file under File and Folder Tasks. Choose Make all my pictures smaller in the next dialog and click OK. This resizes the pictures being emailed, not the copies you hold on your hard drive.

PRINTING ONLINE

GET THE SOFTWARE

Browse www.jessops.com. Follow the link to Internet Printing. Click Download Now and choose Save in the dialog that follows. Choose a suitable place to save the software and click Save.

SEND THE MAIL

You’ll see an email window from your default program. The picture is attached to this message. Add the addresses you want to send it to, plus your message. Click Send. You’ll need to connect to the internet, if you’re not already online.

Use a service like the Jessops Internet Printing Service to buy prints of your digital photos

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INSTALL THE SOFTWARE

Wait as the program downloads. Once complete, browse to the place where you saved it and double-click the file called setup. Accept the software licence and the default install location.

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LAUNCH THE PROGRAM

Once your PC has restarted, double-click the Jessops Print@net icon. Click Start to begin creating a portfolio of photos for printing. Now choose the size of photo you want to buy.

* WEB LINKS MICROSOFT www.microsoft.com/windows xp/default.asp

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JESSOPS www.jessops.com

NEWSGROUP microsoft.public.windowsxp. photos

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SELECT PHOTO PRODUCT

A list of products is available such as different sizes of print and novelty items. Select one of the options and click Next Step: Browse Pictures to choose the photos you want to use.

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CHOOSE YOUR PICTURES

You can choose different folders in your you’re my Pictures folder by selecting them on the left-hand pane click on each of the pictures you want to use and click Add selection to order.

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CONNECT AND PAY

Click Next to enter delivery details and then go online to arrange payment and upload the pictures. This may take some time. Your photos will be posted to you shortly afterwards.

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TUTORIAL SHARING YOUR PHOTOS YOUR GUIDE MATTHEW RICHARDS Matthew Richards reviews digital cameras for worldwide specialist press, as well as being a keen photographer using both conventional 35mm outfits and digital systems. His main areas of interest are sports, landscape and people photography

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO MATTHEW RICHARDS

Building a website gallery For effectively sharing your photos online, a custom-designed website is impossible to beat. Matthew Richards shows us how to build a quick, easy and inexpensive way to create and maintain your own site as a showcase for your photos

TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

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ON OUR CD A Smaller Image will help optimise your pictures before putting them online

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SKILL LEVEL

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NEXT MONTH Optimising photos for web use. Plus we rate all the main online photo developing services in our Lab Test

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n the first issue of the magazine, we looked at how to share your photos online using a photo album or community service, like those offered by MSN Communities (http://photos.msn.co.uk) and PhotoBox (www.photobox.co.uk). While services like these are both simple and very fast to use, they have their limitations. For starters, you’re limited to the design and layout offered by the service itself, even though some offer a few variations. And if you want to include more information about your photos, create themed sets and build in some interactivity, it can be difficult or even impossible. If you create your own site from scratch, you can design the site exactly as you want, supply extra information about yourself and your photos, group shots together by category, subject matter or anything else

that takes your fancy, and build in links to other sites or offer feedback facilities. Best of all, though, building your own website can be almost as quick and easy as using a community service, thanks to the range of webcreation programs now available.

Choosing software The first step is to choose some software for creating your new site. If you don’t want to get into any HTML programming, there are plenty of programs that do all the hard work for you, behind the scenes. You can lay your pages out just as you would do in a basic DTP package. Programs don’t have to be expensive either – in fact, IMS Web Dwarf (www.virtualmechanics.co.uk) and Netscape Composer (www.netscape.co.uk) are both completely free to download and use.

EASY WEB DESIGN

FTP This stands for File Transfer Protocol and is the universal system for uploading and downloading files on the internet.

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CHOOSE A TEMPLATE

Designing an effective web page from scratch can be an arduous process. You can short-cut the procedure by using a template, which already has a full layout and coherent style, then customising it for your exact requirements.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Design issues Unless you’re confident, the quickest and easiest way to design a website is to use one of the ready-made templates, collections of which are built into almost every web-creation package. Of course, you can change some of the elements to customise templates to fit your

A simple DTP or web-design package is all you need. Here’s how it works in Microsoft Publisher

8 ? EXPLAINED

Another alternative is to use a DTP program, like Microsoft Publisher, recent versions of which have builtin tools for designing web pages and entire sites as well as pages for print. For higher levels of interaction, though, it’s best to get a proper web-design package. These don’t come much simpler than Serif Web Plus, but if you want to add some power to your site design, while avoiding HTML coding, we suggest Microsoft FrontPage or, best of all, Macromedia Dreamweaver.

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ADD PAGES AND ELEMENTS

Microsoft Publisher includes styled pages for order forms, sign-up forms, feedback pages and various other types of web page. Simply choose the ones you want and add them to your site.

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ADDING PHOTOS

From pages of thumbnail images to larger photos, add sets of pages for each category to your site. Insert the photos you want to use, then add effects like drop shadows, and include captions to get the message across.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Want to organise your web page? Why not use some of the pro photographer sites for inspiration? Our favourites are www.glynedmunds.com and www.anseladams.com

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YOUR WEBSITE

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If you’re looking for your own domain name and good webhosting services, you can’t go wrong with www.easily.co.uk

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For uploading all the HTML, picture and other files to your online web space, you can’t beat a program like WS_FTP Pro

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01 Toolbar

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As with most Windows programs nowadays, the WS_FTP Pro toolbar gives you quick, point-and-click access to the most commonly needed tools.

02 Local system

Once you’ve designed a website on your PC, all the necessary files should be contained in a folder, which may have a collection of sub-folders. The program refers to this as the ‘local system’.

IMS Web Dwarf is one of the easiest web-design packages around, and it’s free for personal use, at www.virtualmechanics.co.uk

03 Files and folders

All the files and folders for your website that are initially held on your PC are available for selection and viewing in the Files and folders pane of the program’s main window.

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04 Command buttons

You can create new sub-folders, rearrange files, view their contents and even delete unnecessary files by using the centre strip of command buttons.

05 Upload and download

Simple left and right arrow buttons provide oneclick operation for uploading selected files to your web space, or for downloading online files from an FTP site.

exact requirements, but at least all the ground work is done for you. To make your site look its best, avoid using very large fonts, or collections of different fonts, and make sure you retain as much consistency as possible between different pages or sections of the site. It’s also best to avoid highly textured backgrounds as these can add hugely to the download time required for each page of your site, which is a real turn-off for your visitors. Naturally, the main emphasis of your site will be the photos themselves. Here, you’ll probably have to use large images, but that doesn’t mean that the file sizes have to be huge. You don’t need such high resolutions for on-screen display as you do for printing, and you don’t need to fill the whole screen if photos are forming part of a complete web page. Experiment with saving your photos on a sliding scale of quality versus file size, by altering the compression ratio for JPEG images. You might be surprised at what you can get away with. We’ll be covering this in-depth next month but, in the meantime, it’s also good to supply thumbnail images of your main shots on the site, so that visitors can choose what they want to look at closely without long download waits.

Optional extras Websites that just contain a bunch of photos can end up being predictable and ultimately tedious, no matter how good the shots happen to be. One of the powerful elements of building a website is that you can add interactivity, enabling visitors to navigate the site and discover your shots as they explore. Add commentary

06 Remote system

The remote system is the FTP site that you are logged onto. You can use the navigation options to browse and select the site that you want to create or maintain.

07 Remote files and folders

Once you’ve navigated to and selected a remote web address, all the folders and files contained on the site will be displayed in this pane of the main window.

text to let people know what they’re looking at, and encourage feedback by placing hyperlinks on the site that will launch email forms. As your site grows, you might even want to build pages for selling your photos online, providing catalogues of your shots and more besides. Another

08 Status bar

Quick reference point to what’s going on within the program, and what tasks are running, while a secondary button bar gives access to more tools and options.

and easiest to use. It runs an excellent online service, which includes free technical help.

Uploading your site Once you’ve designed your website, tested it on your own PC and decided where you’re going to put it online

* WEB LINKS ESSENTIAL SOFTWARE

Websites that just contain a bunch of photos can end up being predictable and tedious, no matter how good the shots happen to be great thing about websites is that they’re easily adaptable, so you can change anything you want, whenever you feel like it.

Find a host The chances are that the ISP you’re already with offers an amount of free web space for your personal use. This varies greatly, from just a couple of megabytes up to maybe 30Mb or more. It makes sense to utilise this free web space for as long as you can, and certainly while you’re experimenting with getting your initial site online. However, as you progress, you might want to sign up for your own domain name, which will be independent of your ISP, and rent a larger web space for hosting your site. There are many companies offering domain name registry and hosting online but we’ve always found Easily.co.uk (www.easily.co.uk) to be one of the best,

(whether with your own ISP or with independent hosting), the next thing to is to upload it. There can be a surprisingly large number of files to upload, containing all the HTML and picture file and so on, and even some of the major ISPs and hosting companies make a meal of the uploading process. AOL has always been particularly difficult in this respect. However, you can get software that takes the chore out of this – one of the best programs is WS_FTP Pro, which you can download from www.ipswitch.com. There’s a free trial version online, and the full package costs around £29. It enables you to update specific files online, after you’ve made changes to your site, rather than having to upload the whole site from scratch after every change. All in all, creating, maintaining and running your own photo website can be a fantastically rewarding experience, as well as being surprisingly easy to achieve.

There are plenty of good webcreation software packages around, as well as programs for uploading your site. On top of that, you’ll need to choose a domain name and web hosting for your site, unless you’re sticking with your ISP’s free web space. Here’s the shortlist of software and services: IMS Web Dwarf (free) www.virtualmechanics.co.uk Serif WebPlus 7 (£30) www.serif.co.uk Microsoft Publisher 2002 (£99) www.microsoft.com/uk Microsoft FrontPage 2002 (£125) www.microsoft.com/uk Netscape Composer (free) www.netscape.co.uk Macromedia Dreamweaver MX (£299) www.macromedia.co.uk WS_FTP Pro (£30) www.ipswitch.com Easily.co.ukp (prices vary) www.easily.co.uk

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TUTORIAL PRINT TECHNIQUES PART 3

FURTHER INFORMATION

Once familiar with the technicalities of adjusting Output values, you can save them as Curves or Levels recipe files using the printing paper as a reference filename

YOUR GUIDE TIM DALY Tim has written several books on photography including The Digital Photography Handbook, The Digital Printing Handbook and The Desktop Photographer, and he continues to write for The British Journal of Photography. His photographs have been exhibited across Europe

[email protected]

PORTFOLIO TIM DALY WEBSITE WWW.PHOTOCOLLEGE.CO.UK

Calibrating printing paper Shadow gain and highlight spread is a common problem when printing photographs on inkjets, but Tim Daly demonstrates that if you’re prepared to spend a little time calibrating your paper you’ll get rid of the problem forever TUTORIAL

KEY DETAILS

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NEXT MONTH Calibrating your monitor

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he greatest impact on your image contrast can come from an incorrect selection of the paper type in your printer software. This is usually the case when using a different paper brand to the printer because, for obvious reasons, printer manufacturers exclude competitors’ products from their list of media options. Confusion can grow more intense when recommended paper is rebadged with a different name that doesn’t correspond with any of the options in the media settings dialog. It’s a much better idea to stick with one media setting for glossy and one for matt paper and set your printer resolution to 1,440 or 2,880 and leave it well alone.

Printer software presets Unexpected results often stem from the use of printer presets such as auto contrast or auto colour correction. You’ll never be able to predict exactly how these commands will change your image, so these are best

3 IN DETAIL ADJUSTING A COLOUR IMAGE IN PHOTOSHOP To repeat the same correction for an RGB image, work on the composite RGB channel in your Levels dialog box. As colour is not described as a simple 0-100 per cent, but on a 0255 scale, you’ll need to convert your percentages to fit. Assuming that 1 per cent equals 2.55, adjust the Shadow Output to 15 instead of 0 and the Highlight Output to 240 instead of 255, as shown.

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left unselected in favour of an manual preparation in Photoshop before getting to the printing stage.

Paper differences There’s a world of difference between inkjet paper bought in sheets of 500 from a high street stationers and photo-quality paper. Cheap papers never give you good results, as they do not have the necessary coatings to cope with fine dots of ink. Cheap paper gets soggy, lacks rich contrast and presents poor colour saturation independently of the perfect image on your monitor. Different papers respond to different printer software settings, but may still need additional correction to achieve a flawless print. The idea of testing your paper beforehand is straightforward and in the long run very cost effective. Testing involves finding the exact points at which the paper can’t separate dark grey from full black, and pure white from light grey. Once this has been established and accounted for, your prints will no longer burn out or fill in.

TESTING YOUR PAPER 01

USING COLOR BALANCE CONTROLS

From the cover CD, open the image testwedge.tif found in the Printing Techniques folder. This has been set with an ideal resolution for inkjet printers at 200ppi. Next, select a sheet of your favourite printing paper and send the image to print using the closest media settings options found in your printer software. It’s important to make a note of these settings on the reverse side of the paper when it emerges from the printer.

02

MONITORING VIA THE INFO PALETTE Get an idea of the danger areas in your image by using the Info palette in Photoshop or Elements. Select Window8Info and click on the dropper tool. Pick the Grayscale option from the pop-out menu, float the dropper over shadow, highlight areas and watch the readout change. Use this to judge your extremes before adjusting your Output values.

The Variations dialog in Elements is the first place to start if you’ve never done any colour printing before

JUDGING YOUR RESULTS

Look closely at the shadow areas on the black step wedge and try to spot the point when the different steps merge together. On all but the best inkjet paper this occurs at about the 94 per cent mark, changing any darker tones into pure 100 per cent black. Next, judge the highlights on the black wedge and pick the step before the first sign of detail. Note how each colour stops and starts at a different point.

03

ADJUSTING A MONO IMAGE

Once you’ve realised the starting points of both highlights and shadows, you can amend your digital image to fit within these new boundaries. Let’s assume your image is a grayscale and your results showed highlights starting at 6 per cent and black appearing at 94 per cent. Open the Curves dialog and set the curve to the new points as shown. Two readouts are shown here instead of the normal one, with shadow Output shown on the left as 94 per cent and highlight Output shown right as 6 per cent.

SECTION #05 RETAILERS 5 steps to safe shopping To prevent or handle the unlikely event of receiving faulty or damaged goods, why not follow our checklist below – you’ll reduce whatever slight chance there is of problems:

1 2

CHOOSE YOUR SITE OR RETAILER

3

NEVER PAY IN CASH

4

KEEP A RECORD

5

DON’T USE A DEBIT CARD

Online, it’s wise to stick to the bigger retail brands. On past experience, we recommend Jessops.com, Dabs.com and Amazon.com for starters.

USE A CREDIT CARD If you are buying goods worth more than £100 in total, use a credit card. This is because in the event of any problems, you are entitled to claim against the credit card company as well as the seller (you won’t get your money back twice but the company is there to claim against if the seller has gone bust.) You might also get extra insurance, so check with your credit firm.

If you can’t pay by credit card, use a cheque or postal order instead. Don’t send cash through the mail, even by registered post. Apart from the risk of theft, you can’t stop payment if you need to, and it’s impossible to prove how much you sent.

Keep records if you’re paying by credit card over the phone. Print off web pages after you have entered your details on them. Keep notes of exact times and the name of the person who took your order, if you’re paying by phone. Always keep your receipts.

Many debit cards don’t have the protection or insurance options afforded to credit cards, so avoid using one.

Dealerbank 20 pages of the UK’s camera retailers

Contact our team

#

We can’t make guarantees on quality of service from our advertisers, but if you do have problem – or have had praiseworthy service – we’d like to know. Email us at [email protected]

To advertise in our Dealerbank section contact our sales team on 01225 442244 or email [email protected]

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Web. www.mx2.com Tel. 01481 740200 Fax. 01481 740300 Email. [email protected] NEW NEW NEW NEW

18L0032 18L0042 10N0016 10N0026 17G0060 17G0050 13619HC 13400HC 12A1970 12A1975 12A1980 12A1990 15M0120

EPSON

BLK .............£17.99 CLR.............£25.85 BLK .............£17.90 CLR.............£22.00 CLR.............£17.99 BLK .............£17.90 CLR.............£23.90 BLK .............£17.99 BLK .............£17.99 BLK .............£28.90 CLR.............£25.90 PHOTO .......£27.99 CLR.............£26.45

BC01 BC02 BC05 BC06 BC10 BC-20 BC-21 BC-22 BC-23 BCI-3 BCI-3 BCI-5 BCI-5 BCI-5 BCI-6 BCI-6 BCI-6 BC-30 BC-31 BC-32 BC-60 BC-61 BC-62 BCI-10B BCI-11B BCI-11C BCI-21B BCI-21C BCI-24B BCI-24C BCI-61 BCI-62 BJI-201B BJI-201

NEW LEXMARK COMPATIBLE C-12A1970 C-12A1980 C-13619HC C-13400HC C-17G0050 C-17G0060 C-15M0120

BLK .............£13.90 CLR.............£14.75 CLR.............£15.50 BLK .............£14.75 BLK .............£14.65 CLR.............£14.65 PHOTO .......£15.90

INKJET PAPERS MX2’s comprehensive and best selling range of compatible inkjet papers, provides high quality output and ultimate value for the enthusiast.

NEW MX2 Papers The UK’s No 1 choice for the digital enthusiast introduces a professional range of bright white Glossy & Matte inkjet papers for top Quality Photo printing and the Ultimate value. NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

M270G M220MG M200G M150G M220M M180M M130M

A4 A4 A4 A4 A4 A4 A4

PP101 MP101 PR-101 GP-301 HR101 HR101 TR201

Pro Photo Glossy 270g (40)..................£13.99 Pro Photo Glossy/Matte 220g (50)........£9.99 Pro Photo Glossy 200g (50)....................£9.99 Pro Photo Glossy 150g (50)....................£8.99 Pro Photo Matte 220g (100) .................£9.90 Pro Photo Matte 180g (150) .................£9.99 Pro Photo Matte 130g (200) .................£9.99

A4 Photo Paper Plus Glossy (20)........£TBA A4 Photo Matte Paper (50)................£TBA A4 Glossy Photo Paper (15) ..............£8.90 A4 Glossy Photo Paper 165g (20).....£6.90 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g (200).....£16.50 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g (50).........£4.99 A4 T-Shirt Transfers (10)....................£8.50

CANON COMPATIBLE C-BC01 C-BC02 C-BCI-5B C-BCI-5 C-BCI-10B C-BCI-11B C-BCI-11C C-BCI-21B C-BCI-21C C-BCI-61C C-BCI 62 C-BJI201B C-BJI201M C-BJI201C C-BJI201Y

Photo Glossy Papers A4 ICI Photo Glossy 2 sided 270g (20) .....£13.99 A3 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20).......£17.75 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (50).......£16.99 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20).........£8.50 6x4” ICI Photo Glossy Paper 260g (20)......£5.50 A3 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (20)..........£17.75 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (50)..........£16.99 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 260g (20)............£8.50 A3+ Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) £17.99 A3 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) .£15.99 A4 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (50) .£14.50 A4 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) ...£7.99 A5 Glossy Greeting Cards 220g (20) ..........£7.99 A5 Photo Glossy/Photo Matte 220g (20) ...£4.75 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 170g (50).........£9.99 A4 ICI Photo Glossy Paper 170g (20).........£4.99 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 170g (50)............£9.99 A4 ICI Photo Satin Paper 170g (20)............£5.99

EACH DISCOUNT BLK ..................£9.95......2 PK £17.50 BLK ..................£9.90......2 PK £17.80 BLK ..................£3.99 C/M/Y ..............£3.99 BLK (x3) ...........£4.99 .....2 PK £8.99 BLK (x3) ...........£5.99......2 PK £11.00 CLR (x3)...........£7.50......2 PK £13.98 BLK ..................£2.75 .....3 PK £7.50 CLR..................£3.99......3 PK £11.00 CLR..................£7.99......2 PK £15.00 PHOTO ............£8.99......2 PK £17.00 BLK ..................£1.99 .....3 PK £5.50 Mag...................£2.50 Cyn...................£2.50 Ylw ...................£2.50

STORAGE MEDIA

MEMOREX CDR 80/700MB 24 Speed.each 65p/10 PK £5.99 80/700MB.............50 Pack Spindle £16.50 CDR Audio 80min..99p each /10 Pk £9.45 CDRW 650/74....99p each /10 Pack £8.99 Hewlett Packard CDR 80min/650MB.......79p each /10 Pack £7.50

Photo Matte Papers NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

CM314 A4 ICI Super Heavy Artist Paper 310g (20) .£13.99 CA240 A4 Artist Watercolour Paper 240g (10) ......£6.99 CM234 A4 ICI Photo Matte 230g (50) ..........................£9.99 CM1750 A4 ICI Photo Matte 2 sided 170g (50) ............£9.99 CM17100 A4 ICI Photo Matte 2 sided 170g (100) ........£12.99 CANA3 A3 Canvas Photo Paper 140g (20)............£13.50 CANA4 A4 Canvas Photo Paper 140g (20)..............£5.99 NEW CM120 A4 ICI Photo Matte 120g (100) ........................£7.99

6656A 6657A 6658A 8727A 8728A 6615D 6578D 6578A 6614D 1823D 1816A 51649A 51645A 51641A 51633M 51629A 51626A 51625A

BLK...............£17.95 TRI -CLR ......£17.99 PHOTO .........£16.90 BLK...............£13.50 TRI -CLR ........£TBA BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.90 CLR...............£38.83 BLK...............£17.90 CLR 30ml .....£23.50 PHOTO .........£22.99 CLR...............£17.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.50 BLK...............£17.90 BLK...............£17.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR...............£23.50

MX2 is the UK’s largest seller of EPSON Inks & Photo papers.

Hewlett Packard Paper NEW 6818 NEW 6984 6832 6951 6040 1847 51634Z 1853 6945 6050 6042 3832

A4 Brochure & Flyer Gloss 160g (50)£8.99 A4 Photo Quality Paper 160g (25) ....£6.90 A4 Premium Photo Glossy 230g (20)£9.50 A4 Premium Photo Matte 230g (20) .£9.50 A4 Premium Photo Paper 220g (15) .£5.99 A4 Photo Glossy Paper 160g (20).....£5.99 A4 Premium LX 95g (200)................£10.95 A4 Photo Matte 2 sided 135g (100)£10.50 15x10cm Prm Photo Paper (20)........£5.99 A4 Iron-on Transfers (10) ..................£9.99 Greeting Cards + Env. (20) ................£5.49 A4 Transparency Film (20) ..............£12.00

H.P. COMPATIBLE C-1823D C-51625A C-51626A C-51629A C-51633M C-51645A C-51649A C-6614D C-6615D C-6578A

USB KEY DRIVES 32MB Key Drive ..............................£29.99 64MB Key Drive ..............................£49.99 128MB Key Drive ............................£79.00 IOMEGA CLIK 40MB ..............................each £7.99 ZIP 100MB PC or MAC............each £6.99 ZIP 250MB PC or MAC............each £9.75

Specialist Products

Maxell LS-120 120MB Super Disc ...£6.75 IMATION 3.5” DISKS NEW Black IBM 1.44Mb 10 Pack.......£2.99 NEW Neon IBM 1.44Mb 10 Pack.......£3.50 MEMOREX DVD STORAGE NEW DVD-R 4.7Gb.................................£5.90 NEW DVD-RW 4.7Gb.............................£9.49 NEW DVD+RW 4.7Gb.............................£9.99

©

CLR ....................£13.30 CLR ....................£12.99 BLK ......................£9.99 BLK ....................£11.90 BLK ......................£9.99 BLK ....................£11.50 CLR ....................£14.99 BLK ....................£11.90 BLK ....................£11.90 CLR ....................£15.99

Vectorjet Refill Kits & Inks Refill your empty cartridges & SAVE £££s Black Refill Kit (50ml)....£4.90 (100ml)..£6.99 Colour Refill Kit (75ml)....£7.90 (150ml)..£9.99 Black & Clr Refill Kit (125ml)......................£9.95 Photo Refill Kit (150ml)...............................£9.99 Black Ink (250ml)...£5.90 (500ml)£16.90 C/M/Y Inks Each(250ml)..£6.90 (500ml).£16.99 Photo Inks C/M/Y(250ml).£9.90 (500ml)£17.90 Cleaning Fluid (125ml).£3.99 (250ml)..£4.90 Ink Jector Kit (Kit without ink).............£2.90

DIGITAL CAMERA FOOD

©

COMPACTFLASH CARDS

16MB .......................£11.20 32MB .......................£12.90 64MB .......................£17.90 128MB .......................£42.00 256MB .......................£79.99 512MB .....................£179.00

MEMOREX MINIDISCS NEW 80min 5 Pack................................£6.75

CMETAL A4 Silver Metallic Film (10)..........................£6.99 NEW CHOLO A4 Silver Holographic Film .........................£7.95 CTFR A4 Transfers for T - Shirts etc. (10)............£7.99 CLING A4 Cling Film 720 Dpi (10) ...........................£7.50 NEW CMAG A4 Magnetic Photo Sheets (5) ....................£7.90 CLEAR A4 Transparencies for Projectors (20) .......£7.50 CLAM A4+ DIY Laminate for Menus etc. (10).......£6.99 CBUS DIY Laminate for Business Cards (50).......£5.99 NEW CDKIT CD & Zip Kit (50) Free CD Software.........£11.99 CDM2 Photo Matt CD Labels 2 per A4 (2x10) ......£5.99 CD2 Photo Glossy CD Labels 2 per A4 (2x10)...£6.50 CD3 Photo Glossy CD Labels 3 per A4 (3x10)...£6.50 CBC Glossy Business Cards 220g (10x10).........£5.75 NEW CAB Art Canvas Business cards 10 per A4 (10x10)£5.90 CAD20 Address Labels (adh) 10 per A4 (10x10) ....£5.99 NEW CMOUSEDIY Mousemat Kit (2) ..................................£5.90

DIGITAL VIDEO FOOD

NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

QUALITY RECONDITIONED HP CARTRIDGES FROM KMP & IT IMAGE

MX2 PAPER DELIVERY DATE : LATE NOV 02 NEW CP274 CPR0A3 CPR050 CPR020 CPRO64 CS26A3 CS2650 CS2620 CP22-3P CP22-A3 CP22-50 CP22-20 CARDS CP22-A5 NEW CP1750 NEW CP1720 CS50 CS20

BLK...............£13.90 BLK...............£13.75 CLR ..............£15.90 PHOTO .........£13.99 BLK...............£23.50 BLK .............£16.90 Print Head....£29.99 PHOTO ........£15.90 BLK...............£17.99 BLK.................£7.90 C/M/Y ...each £5.90 BLK.................£6.99 C/M/Y each....£6.90 PM/PCeach ...£6.90 BLK.................£6.90 C/M/Y each....£6.50 PM/PCeach ...£6.50 BLK...............£22.90 CLR ..............£23.99 Photo............£24.99 BLK...............£17.99 CLR ..............£17.90 PHOTO .........£29.99 BLK x3............£9.50 BLK x3............£6.99 CLR x3 .........£11.00 BLK.................£4.99 CLR ................£9.90 BLK.................£5.90 CLR ................£9.90 CLR ..............£12.99 PHOTO .........£17.90 BLK.................£5.80 C/M/Y ...each £5.50

SMARTMEDIA CARDS

16MB 3.3V .................£7.50 32MB 3.3V .................£9.49 64MB 3.3V ...............£16.70 128MB 3.3V ...............£46.99

SECURE DATA CARDS

32MB........................£27.90 64MB........................£44.90 128MB......................£69.00

MULTIMEDIA CARDS 16MB ......................£11.90 32MB .......................£14.99 64MB .......................£36.99 Memory Stick for all SONY equipment 32MB Memory Stick ......................£23.50 64MB Memory Stick ......................£39.00 128MB Memory Stick ....................£52.50

DIGITAL ACCESSORIES Compact flash & Smart Media accessories...

TDK 5.2Gb DVD RAM..................... £12.99 ePROMOCARD MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE NEW 6-in-1 Reader/Writer...............................................£26.90 NEW Multimedia Business Card kit £14.90 Dual Compact/Smart Reader/Writer.....................£17.99 NEW Business Cards......................... £9.90 Smart Media PCMCIA Adaptor..............................£17.99 NEW Business Card Labels (120)...... £7.90 Compact Flash PCMCIA Adaptor...........................£5.99

SONY DVM 60min Premium (no chip)..........£4.90 SONY DVM 60min IC Excellence (with chip)£7.90 Panasonic AY-DVM 60min EK (no chip)........£4.90 FUJI Hi8 P5-90 Heavy Metal Particle............£4.99 FUJI 8mm P5-60 Metal Particle (2 PK).........£4.20 FUJI 8mm P5-90 Metal Particle (2 PK).........£5.95

NEW T042440 Yellow ........£9.90 NEW T042340 Magenta ...£9.90 NEW T042240 Cyan..........£9.90 NEW T041040 CLR .........£16.90 NEW T040140 BLK .........£17.90 NEW T037040 CLR .........£13.50 NEW T036140 BLK ...........£9.99 NEW T033640 Photo Mag..£8.70 NEW T033540 PhotoCyan£8.70 NEW T033440 Yellow .......£8.90 NEW T033340 Magenta ...£8.90 NEW T033240 Cyan..........£8.90 NEW T033140 BLK ...........£8.70 NEW T032440 Yellow .......£9.50 NEW T032340 Magenta ...£9.50 NEW T032240 Cyan..........£9.50 NEW T032140 BLK .........£17.90 T029401 CLR .........£15.90 T028401 BLK .........£17.99 T027401 PHOTO ...£12.50 T026401 BLK .........£14.90 T020401 CLR .........£14.50 T019401 BLK .........£16.50 T018401 CLR .........£13.99 T017401 BLK .........£16.90 T009401 PHOTO ...£13.90 T008401 PHOTO ...£10.70 T007401 BLK .........£12.50 T005011 CLR .........£17.90 T003011 BLK .........£15.99 T001011 PHOTO ...£15.50 20193 PHOTO ...£10.99 20191 CLR .........£14.90 20189 BLK .........£13.99 20187 BLK .........£12.90 20138 CLR .........£10.90 20110 PHOTO ...£10.90 20093 BLK .........£12.50 20089 CLR .........£14.90

See website for full range of Inks NEW 41620 A4 Photo Glossy Paper x50 ...............£12.00 NEW 41622 A4 Photo Paper x50............................£12.50 NEW 41624 A4 Premium Photo Glossy Paper x50..£17.50 41328 A3+ Premium Semi-Gloss x20...........£33.95 41316 A3+ Premium Photo Paper 255g x20£29.50 41143 A3+ Photo Paper 190g x20 ................£17.99 41264 A3+ Photo Matte 167g x50 ................£27.99 41334 A3 Premium Semi Gloss x20 .............£27.95 41315 A3 Premium Photo Paper 255g x20 ..£25.00 41261 A3 Photo Matte 167g x50...................£17.99 41142 A3 Photo Paper 190g x20 ..................£17.50 41125 A3 Photo Paper 120g x20 ..................£14.90 NEW 41330 Premium Semi Gloss Photo Roll.......£10.90 41071 A4 Photo Glossy Film x15..................£17.90 41332 A4 Premium Semi Gloss 251g x20 ......£9.50 41287 A4 Premium Photo Paper 255g x20 ....£8.99 41140 A4 Photo Paper 190g x20 ....................£6.90 41126 A4 Photo Glossy 120g x20 ...................£5.99 NEW 41560 A4 ColourLife Photo Paper 245g x20£11.50 NEW 41342 A4 Matte Archival Paper 192g x20 .....£9.50 41256 A4 Photo Matte 160g x50 ....................£7.90 41106 A4 Photo Matte Adhesive x10 .............£7.90 41061 A4 Photo Matte Paper 90g x100 .........£7.90 41154 A4 Iron-on Transfers x10 .....................£8.90 41176 Photo Stickers 5x4 ...............................£3.99 41122 10"x8" Photo Card x30.........................£9.99 41121 8"x5" Photo Card x30...........................£4.90 41148 8"x5" Cards + Envelopes x10 ..............£5.90 41134 6"x4" Photo Paper 190g x20 ..................£4.99 41144 A6 Photo Stickers x20..........................£3.90 41054 A6 Photo Card x50................................£5.99 41147 A6 Cards + Envelopes x20...................£5.90 See website for full range of Papers

EPSON COMPATIBLE SAVE UP TO 70% ON EPSON INK MX2 is the UK’s largest seller of EPSON Compatible Inks & Print-Rite Ink Products are our Best Performing Brand. EACH DISCOUNT NEW C-T032440 YELLOW..............£5.90......3 PK £17.25 NEW C-T032340 MAGENTA ...........£5.90......3 PK £17.25 NEW C-T032240 CYAN ...................£5.90......3 PK £17.25 NEW C-T032140 BLK......................£6.99......3 PK £20.52 C-T029401 CLR......................£6.90......3 PK £20.52 C-T028401 BLK......................£4.99......3 PK £14.52 C-T027401 PHOTO ................£6.99......3 PK £20.52 C-T026401 BLK......................£5.99......3 PK £17.52 C-T020401 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T019401 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-T018401 CLR......................£6.90......3 PK £20.25 C-T017401 BLK......................£7.90......3 PK £23.25 C-T014401 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T013401 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-T009401 PHOTO ................£6.90......3 PK £20.25 C-T008401 PHOTO ................£6.90......3 PK £20.25 C-T007401 BLK......................£6.90......3 PK £20.25 C-T005011 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-T003011 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-T001011 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20193 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20191 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20189 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-20187 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-20138 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20110 PHOTO ................£3.99......3 PK £11.50 C-20093 BLK......................£2.50......3 PK £6.99 C-20089 CLR......................£3.99......3 PK £11.50

MX2 is the Best & Cheapest Place to Buy On or Off-Line Your DVD’S, MUSIC CD’S, GAMES & BOOKS... Game Food Music Food Music Food Music Food Food for Thought Film Food FilmFood FilmFood FilmFood Game Food Game Food NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE NEW RELEASE

PAPA ROACH OASIS LoveHate Heathen By The Way Tradgedy Chemistry £8.99 £8.99 RED HOT CHILLI

E.T £15.99

GOLDMEMBER MINORITY £14.50 REPORT £16.99

BLADE 2 £14.50

MONKEYBALL 2 MARIO SUNSHINE DEAD TO RIGHTS COMMANDO2 £8.99 XBOX PS2 GAMECUBE GAMECUBE IMPORT £49.99 IMPORT £49.99 IMPORT £52.99 UK £34.99

NOW 52 Various £12.99

UK CHART CD’S from Only £7.99

THE BEST NEW COMPUTER & INTERNET BOOKS STOCKED...

P&P ONLY £1.95 PER ORDER. DELIVERY 3 - 7 WORKING DAYS FOR CHRISTMAS DELIVERIES, ORDERS MUST BE RECEIVED BY MONDAY 9TH DECEMBER MX2 Computers Limited supplies to Home Users Only (sorry we do not supply Business to Business). Prices shown include any VAT & duties where applicable and are Accurate at time of going to Press E&OE. MX2 Reserves the Right to Change Prices. Please check our Website or Phone Us for up-to-the-minute Prices. The above Trademarks are recognised and used for illustrative purposes only.

Merry Xmas & a Happy 2003 to all our Customers from Everyone at MX2

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FUJI Finepix S304 £338

KONICA KD400 £338

FUJI Finepix A202 £128

FUJI Finepix 2600 £198

CANON Powershot A40 £208

FUJI Finepix 2800 £278

NIKON Coolpix 2000 £178

OLYMPUS C220 Zoom £178

EVERY CUSTOMER GETS £2 OF DIGITAL PRINTING FREE

D I G I TA L C A M E R A S MAKE & MODEL

CAMERA

Canon Digital Ixus 330.................. £298 Canon Digital Ixus V2 .................. £278 Canon Digital Ixus V3 .................. £338 Canon Powershot A200 ............... £148 Canon Powershot A30 ................. £188 Canon Powershot A40 ................. £208 Canon Powershot G2 ................... £548 Canon Powershot G3 ................... £598 Canon Powershot S30 .................. £378 Canon Powershot S40 .................. £468 Canon Powershot S45 .................. £468 Casio Exilim EX-S1 ....................... £168 Casio GV10 Blue .......................... £208 Casio GV10 Red ........................... £208 Casio QV2900ux .......................... £308 Casio QV4000 .............................. £398 Casio QVR 3 ................................. £288 Casio QVR 4 ................................. £328 Fuji Finepix 2600 .......................... £198 Fuji Finepix 2800 .......................... £278 Fuji Finepix 30i ............................. £278 Fuji Finepix 6800 .......................... £398 Fuji Finepix A202 ......................... £128 Fuji Finepix A203 ......................... £218 Fuji Finepix A204 ......................... £188 Fuji Finepix A303 ......................... £268 Fuji Finepix F401 .......................... £328 Fuji Finepix F601 .......................... £458 Fuji Finepix S304 .......................... £338 Fuji Finepix S602 .......................... £548 Kodak CX4210 ............................. £138 Kodak CX4230 ............................. £178 Kodak DX3215 ............................. £130

+32MB CARD

+64MB CARD

£314 £294 £354 £164 £204 £224 £564 £614 £394 £484 £484 see website £224 £224 £324 £414 see website see website £209 £289 £289 £409 £142 £232 £202 £282 £339 £469 £352 £559 see website see website see website

£321 £301 £361 £171 £211 £231 £571 £621 £401 £491 £491 see website £231 £231 £331 £421 see website see website £220 £300 £300 £420 £153 £243 £213 £293 £350 £480 £363 £570 see website see website see website

MAKE & MODEL

CAMERA

Kodak DX3700 ............................. £218 Kodak DX3900 ............................. £268 Kodak DX4330 ............................. £268 Kodak DX4900 ............................. £268 Kodak LS443 ................................ £348 Konica KD 3000 ........................... £258 Konica KD100 ................................ £88 Konica KD200Z ............................. £218 Konica KD300Z ............................. £378 Konica KD400 .............................. £338 Kyocera Finecam S3X ................... £298 Kyocera Finecam S4 ..................... £348 Minolta Dimage 5 ........................ £398 Minolta Dimage 7 ........................ £688 Minolta Dimage 7Hi ..................... £958 Minolta Dimage 7i ....................... £678 Minolta Dimage E203 .................. £198 Minolta Dimage F100 .................. £358 Minolta Dimage X ........................ £288 Nikon Coolpix 2000 ..................... £178 Nikon Coolpix 2500 ..................... £248 Nikon Coolpix 4300 ..................... £398 Nikon Coolpix 4500 ..................... £518 Nikon Coolpix 5000 ..................... £698 Nikon Coolpix 5700 ..................... £868 Nikon Coolpix 775 ....................... £248 Nikon Coolpix 885 ....................... £358 Olympus C1 (c-you) Zoom ............ £168 Olympus C220 zoom .................... £178 Olympus C300z ............................ £258 Olympus C3020 ............................ £338 Olympus c4000z ........................... £378 Olympus C50zoom ....................... £468

+32MB CARD

+64MB CARD

see website £284 see website £284 see website £274 see website see website see website see website see website see website £414 £704 £974 £694 see website see website see website £194 £264 £414 £534 £714 £884 £264 £374 £179 £189 £269 £349 £389 £482

see website £291 see website £291 see website £281 see website see website see website see website see website see website £421 £711 £981 £701 see website see website see website £201 £291 £421 £541 £721 £891 £271 £381 £190 £200 £280 £360 £400 £493

MAKE & MODEL

CAMERA

Olympus C700 .............................. £378 Olympus C730 .............................. £428 Olympus camedia c120 ................ £148 Olympus E10 ................................ £798 Olympus E20 ............................. £1,098 Oregon Scientific Dshot III .............. £68 Pentax EI100 .................................. £98 Pentax Optio 330GS ..................... £248 Pentax Optio 330RS ..................... £308 Pentax Optio 430 ......................... £418 Pentax Optio 430RS ..................... £428 Ricoh Caplio RR1 ......................... £468 Ricoh Caplio RR10 ....................... £248 Ricoh Caplio rr120 ....................... £168 Ricoh RDC-i500 ............................ £398 Ricoh RR30 .................................. £248 Samsung Digimax350SE .............. £288 Samsung Digimax 410 ................. £328 Sony Cybershot DSC P2 ................ £328 Sony Cybershot DSC P7 ................ £368 Sony Cybershot DSC P9 ................ £408 Sony Cybershot DSCS75 ............... £468 Sony Cybershot DSC-707 ............. £867 Sony Cybershot DSC-31 ............... £178 Sony Cybershot DSC-P5 ............... £408 Sony Cybershot DSC-51 ............... £188 Sony Cybershot DSC-71 ............... £278 Sony Cybershot DSC-85 ............... £498 Sony Cybershot U-10 ................... £188 Sony Mavica CD400 ..................... £738 Sony Mavica MVCFD200 .............. £428 Sony Mavica MVC FD75 ............... £348

+32MB CARD £389 £442 £159 £809 £1114 £79 £114 £264 £324 £434 £444 £479 see website £179 £414 see website £304 £344 see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website

+64MB CARD £400 £453 £170 £820 £1121 £90 £121 £271 £331 £441 £451 £490 see website £190 £421 see website £311 £351 see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website see website

READERS AND ADAPTERS

C O M PA C T F L A S H ( T Y P E I & I I )

S E C U R E D I G I TA L

Fuji ZIO USB Smartmedia reader/writer .............................................. £29 Expert USB Compact Flash reader ...................................................... £24 Sandisk Compact Flash adapter ......................................................... £15

Fuji 16MB ........................................................................................... £15 Fuji 32MB ........................................................................................... £18 Fuji 64MB ........................................................................................... £26 Fuji 128MB ......................................................................................... £48 IBM 340MB microdrive .................................................................... £110 IBM 1GB microdrive ......................................................................... £238 Sandisk 16MB .................................................................................... £15 Sandisk 32MB .................................................................................... £20 Sandisk 64MB .................................................................................... £28 Sandisk 128MB .................................................................................. £50 Sandisk 256MB .................................................................................. £98

Sandisk 16MB .................................................................................... £22 Sandisk 32MB .................................................................................... £30 Sandisk 64MB .................................................................................... £46

SMART MEDIA Fuji 16MB ............................................................................................. £9 Fuji 32MB ........................................................................................... £14 Fuji 64MB ........................................................................................... £26 Fuji 128MB ......................................................................................... £48 Sandisk 16MB ...................................................................................... £9 Sandisk 32MB .................................................................................... £15 Sandisk 64MB .................................................................................... £28 Sandisk 128MB .................................................................................. £52 Toshiba 128MB .................................................................................. £50

M U LT I M E D I A C A R D S Sandisk 16MB .................................................................................... £19 Sandisk 32MB .................................................................................... £24 Sandisk 64MB .................................................................................... £44

B AT T E R I E S A N D C H A R G E R S 4 X 1200 mAh ................................................................................. £6.50 4 x 1800 mAh ............................................................................... £11.50 4 x 1200 mAh & mains charger ..................................................... £16.50 4 x 1800 mAh & mains charger ..................................................... £20.50

www.

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MEMORY STICKS Sony 16MB ......................................................................................... £29 Sony 32MB ......................................................................................... £42 Sony 64MB ......................................................................................... £62 Sony 128MB ....................................................................................... £98

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POWERSHOT S45

-

5 Mega Pixels 3x Optical zoom High Quality lens Small and lightweight

DCM PRICE

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4 Mega Pixels 3x Optical zoom Full manual control High speed CCD

DCM PRICE

SRP £549.99

D I G I T A L

£469.00*

£1560.00

OPTIO 430RS

-

4 Mega pixels 3x Optical zoom 3D Picture mode Solid metal casing

DCM PRICE

SRP £549.99

£469.00*

DCM PRICE

SRP £499.99

C A M E R A S

£389.99*

SRP £999.99

DCM PRICE

EXILIM EX-S2

£179* £134 2000 £249 £149 2500 £229 £189 775 £344* £209 885 £399* £349 4300 £529 £279 4500 £685 £429 5000 £869* £469 5700 £579* D100+MBD100 £1689* £1870 D1H PRO KIT £2949 £3499 £3995 D1X BODY Phone D1X PRO KIT £3699

C120 £149* C220 £172* C220 Luxury kit £222 C300 £259 C300 Luxury kit £295 C4000 £376* C730U+Case £424* C50 £469* C5050 £585* E20P £979 E20P + 1GB £1169

please phone 01444 245316 for helpful advice and to order

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U10 U20 F77 FX77 P31 P51 P71 P2 SD9 Digital SLR £1295 P7 SD9 + 17-35mm f/2.8-4 P9 £1699.99 S85 SD9 + 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 F717 £1799.99 DB100 digibinos £239* 230 £239 330GS £258 330RS £309* 430RS £390*

£169* £229 £349* £379* £164* £190* £255* £259* £319* £389* £405* £730*

DX3215 £120* DX3215 + Docking Station £179 DX3500 £149* DX3700 £209* DX3900 + Docking Station £229* DX4900 £259* LS443 + Docking station £379* Scanners Nikon coolscan 4 £499 Nikon coolscan 4000 £1079

BATTERIES

£29.99 £35.00 £54.99 £39.99 £39.99 £9.99 £18.79 £29.99 £49.99* £19.99

CARD READERS Sandisk USB CF+SM dual reader Olympus USB dual reader Fuji DM-R1 Firewire dual reader Fuji DPC-R1 XD Picture card and smart media card reader

£34.99* £49.99 £69.99 £35.99

FITTED CAMERA CASES CALL FOR PRICES ON ALL

Canon ACK-500 Canon ACK-700 Fuji AC5V Nikon EH21 Olympus C6AG Pentax K-AC2E

MAINS ADAPTORS

WIDE/ TELE LENSES

Canon WC DC58 wide (G2) Canon TC DC58 tele (G2) Fuji WL-FX9 wide (6900/S602) Fuji TL-FX9 tele (6900/S602) Nikon WC-E63 wide Nikon TC-E2 tele Olympus WCON-08 (3020)

please phone/see web for others + adaptors

- 3.0 Mega Pixels - 3x Optical zoom - 3D Picture mode DCM PRICE

DCM PRICE

SRP £299.99

£259.99*

£258.00*

M E M O RY C A R D S AT L OW P R I C E S ! ! Fuji 16MB Fuji 32MB Fuji 64MB Toshiba 128MB Fuji 128MB

Compact Flash £7.99 £12.00 £22.00 £39.99* £44.00

Other Cards 64MB Secure Digital 64MB Multi Media 16MB XD card 32MB XD card 64MB XD card 128MB XD card Olympus 16MB XD Panorama Olympus 32MB XD Panorama Olympus 64MB XD Panorama

£49.99 £44.90 £7.99 £12.99 £21.99 £39.99* £7.99 £12.99 £21.99

Fuji 16MB Fuji 32MB Fuji 64MB Fuji 128MB Sandisk 2 x 128MB Sandisk 256MB Fuji 256MB

£11.00 £16.00 £23.00 £44.00 £73.00 £80.00 £88.00

IBM Microdrive

1GB 1GB travel kit

£179.99* £199.99*

Sony Memor y Sticks and Accessories

D I G I TA L C A M E R A AC C E S S O R I E S Canon NB 1LH Canon NB 2L Canon BP511 Fuji NP60 Battery Nikon EN EL1 Olympus CR-V3 Olympus CR-V3 twin Pentax D-LI2 Sony NP FM50 Hahnel 4 AA NIMH batts+charger

£729.99*

OPTIO 330GS

- 2.0 Mega pixel - 3x Optical zoom - 11mm thickness SRP £299.99

DCM PRICE

SRP £899.99

£869.99*

Smart Media A100 A200 A30 A40 IXUS V3 IXUS 330 S40 S45 G3 EOS D60 EOS 1D EOS 1DS

- 5 Mega Pixel - 5x Optical zoom - Carl Zeiss lens

- 5 Mega Pixel chip - 8 x Optical Zoom - Full manual control

DCM PRICE

SRP £1899.99

£2075.00*

N E W

£489.99*

O T H E R

- 6.1 Mega pixels - low noise CCD sensor - built in speedlite

SRP £5499.99Deal 2 PRICE

DCM PRICE

£3699.00

CAMEDIA C-50

- 4 Mega Pixels - 3x Optical zoom (Additional wide angle and teleconverter lenses available) - Full manual control UY - F2.0-2.5 Aperture lens S TA R B - Full ETTL flash compatibility - Direct printing to canon CP-10 & CP-100 printers

SRP £749.99

- 6.3 Mega Pixel

- Accepts all Canon EF lenses - 5.47 Mega pixels SRP £5499.99 deal 1 PRICE - Accepts all Nikon lenses D60 + 1GB - 3 Frames per second SRP £2499.98 £1999.99*

SRP £35.00 £35.00 £29.99 £39.99 £49.99 £39.99 £99.00 £69.00 £99.99 £89.99 £105.99 £105.99 £99.99

Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony Sony

MSA 16mb Memory stick MSA 32mb Memory stick MSA 64mb Memory stick MSA 128mb Memory stick MSA 128mb Memory stick - deal for 3 x 128Mb sticks MSAC US1A USB Reader USB Mouse and cardreader

£49.99 £79.99 £129.99 £249.99 £749.97 £69.99 £84.99

OUR PRICE

£20.00 £27.00 £35.00 £60.00 £175.00* £59.99* £69.99

order on line at w w w. p a r k c a m e r a s . c o . u k

All prices include VAT @ 17.5% Opening times Monday-Saturday 8:30-5:30pm. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Switch. Alternatively, send cheque to Park Cameras Ltd,115 Lower Church Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, RH15 9AA. Figures in Brackets Indicates stock level held at unrepeatable prices at time of going to print. NB Goods will not necessarily have been sold at SRP for 28 days prior to this. Prices correct at time of going to press, check on website for latest prices. E&OE. * = Please mention Digital Camera Magazine

Next day delivery Memory cards

£3.99

Other

£6.99

FOR ALL FUJI DIGITAL CAMERAS AND ACCESSORIES VISIT

www.

p a r k c a m e r a s .co.uk FINEPIX S2 PRO

FINEPIX S602 -

3.3 Mega pixel chip 6 Mega pixel output 6x Optical zoom 2.8-3.1 Aperture lens Full manual control 1cm Macro mode Manual focusing ring Continuous autofocus

- 6.1 Mega pixel chip - 12.1 Mega pixel Output - Compatible with Nikon AF lenses - Full manual control - ISO 100-1600 - Firewire download - Continuous shooting 2fps for 7 shots In short supply - Phone or see website for availability

BODY ONLY SRP £699.99

OUR PRICE

£534.99

- MPEG Movie mode S 602 + 128MB CARD+ DUAL CARD READER

S 602 + TL- FX9 Teleconveter

SRP £889.97

SRP £799.98

S 602 + 1 GB microdrive

S2 PRO + NIKON AFS 24-85mm

SRP £1029.98

SRP £2395.97

OUR PRICE

OUR PRICE

OUR PRICE

£599.99

£ 624.98

£714.98

S AV E £££££££s ON FUJI PA C KA G E D E A LS

@xia Slimshot

-

640 x 480 resolution Autobrite lens Credit card size 8mb built in memory

FinePix A204

-

OUR PRICE

£1899.98

FinePix A203

2 Mega Pixel CCD 3 x Optical Zoom XD picture card High quality lens

-

3 Mega Pixel CCD 3 x Optical Zoom XD picture card Small and compact

SRP £1995.00

OUR PRICE

£1660.00

S2 PRO + NIKON AFS 24-85mm + 1GB MICRODRIVE

S2 PRO + NIKON AFS 17-35mm F2.8

SRP £2694.98

OUR PRICE

OUR PRICE

£2695.00

SRP £3544.99

£2049.97

FinePix A303

-

BODY ONLY

3 Mega Pixel CCD 3 x Optical Zoom XD Picture card Small and Compact

FinePix S304

-

3 Mega Pixel CCD 6 x Optical Zoom XD picture card 2.8-3.0 Aperture lens

FinePix M603

-

3 Mega Pixel CCD 6 Mega Pixel output 3 x Optical Zoom Cradle included

camera only

£64.99*

£184.99*

£219.99*

£259.99*

£344.99*

PHONE

+ 64MB card

n/a

£204.99*

£239.99*

£279.99*

£364.99*

PHONE

+ 128MB card + card reader

n/a

£254.99*

£289.99*

£329.99*

£414.99*

PHONE

F U J I P R I N T E R PA P E R D E A L S

- Fuji A4 Glossy inkjet paper 30 Sheets 270gsm - Fuji A4 Satin inkjet paper 30 Sheets 270gsm - Fuji A4 Glossy inkjet paper 10 Sheets 270gsm - Fuji A4 Satin inkjet paper 10 Sheets 270gsm - Fuji A4 Glossy Inkjet paper 30 Sheets 210gsm - Fuji A4 Glossy inkjet paper 30 Sheets 180gs

£15.99

PAPER DEALS 10% Discount on 2 packs

£7.99

15% Discount

£15.99

£7.99 £13.99

on 5 packs

20% Discount on 10 packs

£11.99

Fuji NX 500 Printer paper - 5 packs (100 sheets in total) Fuji NX 500 Printer paper - 15 packs (300 sheets in total)

£7.99 £35.00* £99.90

OT H E R F U J I D I G I TA L C A M E R A S Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

D I G I TA L

C A M E R A

COMPACT FLASH Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

16Mb 32Mb 64Mb 128Mb 128Mb 20x speed 256Mb 256Mb 20x speed 512Mb 20x speed

Finepix F602 Black Pro with 340MB microdrive £699.99 Finepix F401 £319.99* Finepix F401+128MB Card £359.99* Finepix A202 £129.99* Finepix A202+64MB Card £149.99*

IBM 1.0GB + PCMCIA Adaptor IBM 1.0GB

£11.00 £16.00 £24.00 £44.00* £50.00* £88.00* £99.00* £199.98*

BK NH Fast charger + 2 NiMH AA Batteries BC 60 Fast Charger (for NP-60 batteries) BC 80 Fast Charger (for NP-80 batteries) NP-80 Rechargeable Lithium Battery (4800, 6800, 6900) NP-60 Rechargeable Lithium Battery (F401, F601) 2HR-3UF Twin pack of AA NiMH batteries 5V Car Adaptor AC-3V Mains Adaptor AC-5V Mains Adaptor

16Mb 32Mb 64Mb 128Mb

£7.99 £12.00 £22.00 £44.00

MULTIMEDIA Fuji 64Mb

£44.90

WL-FX9 (wide converter + adaptor ring for finepix 6900 / S602) TL-FX9 (tele converter + adaptor ring for finepix 6900 / S602) AR-FX9 adaptor ring

16Mb 32Mb 64Mb 128Mb

£99.99 £89.99* £27.99

FUJI SOFT CASES SC FX9 Soft Case (for Finepix 6900/ 4900) SC FX602 Soft Case (for Finepix S602) Finepix 2800 Soft Case Finepix 2600/A204 Soft Case

£19.99* £29.99 £10.99* £14.99

CARD READERS AND SOFTWARE

XD PICTURE CARD Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

£49.99 £49.99 £39.99 £39.99 £39.99 £6.99 £29.99 £29.99 £29.99

WIDE ANGLE AND TELEPHOTO £199.99* £179.99*

SMART MEDIA Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

A C C E S S O R I E S

BATTERIES, CHARGERS AND AC ADAPTORS

FUJI MEMORY CARDS

MICRODRIVES

N X 5 0 0 P R I N T E R PA P E R D E A L S Fuji NX 500 Printer paper (20 sheets)

F U J I

£7.99 £12.99 £21.99 £39.99*

Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji Fuji

Zio! USB Smart media Card Reader DPC-R1 USB xD-picture and SM Card Reader DM-R1 Fire wire cardreader PCMCIA Adaptor for IBM Microdrive Utility software HS-S2

All prices include VAT @ 17.5% Opening times Monday-Saturday 8:30-5:30pm. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Switch. Alternatively, send cheque to Park Cameras Ltd, 115 Lower Church Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex, RH15 9AA. Prices correct at time of going to press, check on website for latest prices. E&OE. * = Please mention Digital Camera Magazine

£29.99 £35.99 £69.99 £24.99* £129.99 Next day delivery Memory cards £3.99 Other £6.99

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Offices & Showroom: Unit 12 • North’s Estate • PIddIngton HIgh Wycombe Bucks • HP14 3BE Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm • Sat 9am - 1pm

PRODUCES OUTSTANDING

External Battery Kit EBP-100 ..£189.99 Flashgun 3600HS(D) ..............£129.99 Flashgun 5600HS(D) ..............£249.99 ......................................................................................

Subject to Availability • E & O E • Prices Subject to Change without Notice MasterCard/Visa/Switch/Amex/Cheque/Council or School/University Orders. COURIER: Cameras £7.50 Scanners/Printers £9.95 • Jiffy Bags £3.95 Memory Cards & Cases £1.99 • Prices include Vat @17.5%

•Dimage X ......£289.99 Minolta Leather Case Dimage X£19.99 Lithium Battery Dimage X ........£29.99 99

• Dimage F100 £349. ....

CANON

• Powershot G2 £499.99 • Powershot G3 £589.99 • Powershot S30 £369.99 • Powershot S45 £464.99 • Ixus 330 £349.99 • Ixus V2 £279.99 • Ixus V3 £329.99 • D60 £1,949.99

Minolta Leather Case F100 ......£19.99 Lithium Batteries F100................£9.99 Minolta Case 304/404 ..............£19.99 ......................................................................................

....

....

NIKON

..

..................................................................

..........................................

£279.99

................................................................

..........................................

................................................................

................................................

................................................................

Speedlite 550EX......................£269.99 Speedlite 420EX......................£169.99 Speedlite 220EX......................£129.99 NB-1L Battery for Ixus..............£29.99 NB-2L Battery for Powershot....£39.99 NB-5H Battery for S10/S20 ......£29.99 BP-511 Battery for D60......£49.99 SC-PS300/400/800 Case ..........£19.99 BG-ED3 Grip for D60........£129.99 ......................................................................................

....................................................

..........................................................

..................................

........................................................

NIKON LENSES AF-D 18/35mm ................£429.99 AF-S 17/35mm f2.8 ........£1,199.99

CANON LENSES:

General

EF USM 20f2.8 ..................£1,169.99 EF-L USM 16/35f2.8 ............£1,169.99 EF USM 20/35f2.8 ................£329.99

CASIO

EPSON PHOTO 925

• QV-4000

FUJI Finepix ...

.

.

OLYMPUS C4000 4MEGAPIXELS • 3X ZOOM

£379.99

£449.99

c/w 1 Gig Micro Drive ................£599

99

• • • • • • • • •

A202 A204 A203 A303 A304 A401 F601 S602 S2 Pro

£129.99 £189.99 £219.99 £269.99 £349.99 £319.99 £459.99 £549.99 £1,799.99

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Fuji Accessories AC Mains Adaptor ....................£29.99 Case ............................£19.99/£29.99 NP100 Batt .................................£39.99 NP80 Batt ..................................£42.99 NP60 Batt ................................£34.99 BC80 Charger ..........................£54.99 BC60 Charger ..........................£49.99 SM R2 USB Reader ..................£69.99 0.8x Wide (2900)......................£54.99 0.79x Wide Kit (4/6900) ..........£89.99 1.5x Tele Kit (4/6900) ..............£89.99

......................................................................................

KODAK

• DX3900/Dock £329.99 • DX4900 Camera £369.9 ..............

9 .. ......................................................................................

MINOLTA Dimage CANON D60 6.3 MEGAPIXELS

£1,949.99

• Dimage D7i........£69999 • Dimage D7Hi ..£929.99 • Dimage D5 ........£479.99

Case MB-D1 for D5/7 ..............£39.99

Nikon

Accessories

SB28DX Flashgun ..............£299.99 SB-22S Flashgun ............£119.99 SB-80DX Flashgun ..........£269.99

99

MEMORY CARD SLOTS PRINTER

£219.

......................................

£179. £249.99 £399.99 £529.99 £799.99 £874.99 £1,749.99 £3,199.99 £3,389.99 £3,575.99 ..£3,649.99

................................................................

..

35MM NEG&SLIDE SCANNER

99

................................................................

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MINOLTA SCANDUAL

Coolpix

• 2000 • 2500 • 4300 • 4500 • 5000 • 5700 • D100 • D1H • D1H Kit • D1X • D1X PRO KIT

..

.

SB-50DX Flashgun ..........£159.99 SC-17TTL Sensor Cable ....£59.99 Battery EN-EL1 ..................£39.99 Battery EN-EL2 ..................£39.99 Battery EN-EL3 ..................£49.99 Battery EN-4......................£84.99 URE 2-8 Lens Rings ..each £12.99 Case CS-E880/885 ............£19.99 CS-P11 Case (5700) ..........£34.99 Case 990/995/990..............£29.99 AC Adaptor EH-31/EH21 ....£49.99 AC Adaptor EH53AC ..........£39.99 Flash Bracket S K - E 9 0 0 ....£58.99 Wideangle WC-E24 ............£69.99 W i d e a n g l e W C - E 6 3 ..........£99.99 W i d e a n g l e W C - E 8 0 ........£119.99 Fisheye FC-E8 ..............................£209.99 Telephoto TC-E15ED ........£119.99 Telephoto TC-E2 ................£99.99 Telephoto TC-E3ED..............£209.99 Slide Copier ES-E28..................£62.99 Nikon Filterkit (4) ......................£37.99 28mm Lens Protection Filter ....£12.99 MD-D100 Grip ........................£234.99 MB-E5700 Lenshood ................£17.99 HR-E5700 Grip ......................£119.99

OLYMPUS Camedia • C220 Zoom £179.99 .• C220 Luxury Pack* £209.99 • C720 Ultra Zoom £369.99 • C730 Ultra Zoom £429.99 • C300Luxury Pack* ....£299.99 ..............................

Leather case, 64MB SM card & 4 NiMh + Charger ...

....

Leather case, 64MB SM card & 4 NiMh + Charger

• C4000

Zoom

A FURTHER

......................

£379.99

£15 (AGAIN WITH FREE SHIPPING) £249.99.

PRINTER USED TO SELL FOR

POSTCARD

SIZE PRINTS IN JUST UNDER

• C50 Zoom £474.99 • C5050 Zoom £589.99 • E10P Zoom £749.99* • E20P Zoom £1,099.99* • E20P Zoom Pro Kit*£1,299.99*

2

MINUTES

........................................

........................

......................

......

TCON-14B 200mm & WCON-08B 28mm lenses

CANON

• FS4000US ..........£649.99

HP

*Free Olympus P300 GWO Printer . E10/20 Accessories:

• Photosmart S20..£209.99

TCON-300 420mm lens ..............£579.99 TCON-SA2 Support Arm ..............£179.99 TCON-14B 200 mm lens ............£199.99 MCON-35 macro ......................£99.99 WCON-08B 28mm lens ..........£179.99 B-30LSP Li-Po batt/charger Kit£579.99

• ScanDual 2 £279.99 • ScanDual 3 £299.99 • Scan Elite 2 ....£469.99 • Scan Multi 2 £1,299.99 • Scan Multi Pro £1,899.99

Olympus General Accessories AC Mains Adaptor ....................£49.99 Case to fit 1/2000/3000/1400 ..£27.99 Case to fit 4/8/9 Series ............£12.99 Aqua Housing 8 Series ..........£129.99 16mb Panorama Card ..................£19.99 32mb Panorama Card ..............£32.99 64mb Panorama Card ..............£64.99 128mb Panorama Card ..........£139.99 Card Case - Leather ..................£12.99 Telephoto Lens 1.45x................£67.99 Wide Lens 0.8x ......................£119.99 Macro Lens ..............................£68.99 43mm Lens Protection filter ....£12.99 43mm ND 4x ............................£19.99 49mm ND 4x (2100/700) ............£19.99 49mm Lens protect. (2100/700)£16.99 Dimo/Power MO 640mb ..........£99.99 Flash Film Scanner ................£159.99 Fast Charger incl 4 Batts ..........£65.99 External Flash FL40 ................£329.99

......................................................................................

PENTAX

................

................

..............

MICROTEK • • • •

Filmscan Filmscan Filmscan Filmscan

35 ....£119.99 1800£199.99 3600£399.99 4000£749.99

NIKON • Coolscan IV £549.99 • Coolscan 4000£1,149.99 • Coolscan 8000£2,299.99 ..............

EPSON

‘Accredited Stockist’

Perfection • 1260 Photo • 1640SU Photo • 1640 SU • 1660 Photo • 2450U Photo

............

............

Optio Case ..................................£9.99 K AC-2E AC Adaptor ................£39.99 DL-22 Battery ..........................£29.99 ......................................................................................

SONY

......

.................. ............

.Expression • 1600 • 1600 PRO • 1680 • 1680 PRO

.................................... ......................

....................................

DSC-P2 £329.99 DSC-P5 £439.99 DSC-P9 £399.99 DSC-S75 £399.99 DSC-S85 ..............£43999 DSC-P20 £169.99 DSC-P31 £179.99 DSC-P30 £159.99 DSC-P51 £199.99 DSC-P71 £269.99 DSC-P717 £799.99 ..............................................

..........................................

..............................................

....................................

....................................

£89.99 £269.99 £229.99 £149.99 £299.99

......................

..........................

• Optio 430RS £379.99 • Optio 330RS £309.99 • Optio 330GS ..£269.99

• • • • • • • • • • •

MINOLTA

......................

£549.99 £719.99 £639.99 £789.99

MICROTEK • ScanMaker 5600£199.99 Including Neg & Slide Adaptor

• ScanMaker 8700 S/F £599.99

CANON

....................................

....................................

....................................

....................................

............................

SONY ACCESSORIES NP-F550 battery for Mavica . . £ 5 4 . 9 9 NP-FM50 battery for Cyber-Shot£54.99 M e m o r y S t i c k 8 M B ............£12.99 Memory Stick 16MB ............£19.99 M e m o r y S t i c k 3 2 M B .........£26.99 M e m o r y S t i c k 6 4 M B ..........£34.99 P C M C I A A d a p t o r ............£69.99 F l o p p y D i s k A d a p t o r ........£69.99

• Photo S330 • Photo S900 • Photo S530D • Photo S820D • Photo S830D • Photo S9000

£74.99 £299.99 £219.99 £269.9 £279.99 £399.99

..............

..........

........

........ ....

..

Canon Ink Cartridges BC1-6C/M/Y/Blk/PC/PM each ....£7.99 BC13EC/EM/EY each ..................£6.99 BC13EBK ....................................£8.49 BC124BK ....................................£5.49 BC124C ....................................£11.99

1/2

64

OR

PRICE ACCESSORY KITS WITH EACH CAMERA PURCHASED

128MB

PLUS USB C ARD READER DIGITAL CAMERA CASE

PLUS TAMRAC

FROM £34.99 HP

99

• Photosmart 100 £119. . HP Ink Cartridges PS100 ......................C6657A £29.99 PS1115 • 1215/8 • 1315 Blk51645G £20.99 Same ..............Colour C6578D£42.99

EPSON

MS into CF..............................£39.99 Trio SD/MM/MS into CF..........£39.99

CANON • CP100

..........................................

. PCMCIA 4 in 1

£209.

99

KP-36IP Paper (36)............£17.99

FUJI

• NX500 .................. £149.99 A6 Paper Cartridge (20) ......£8.99

‘Accredited Stockist’

• Photo 810 • Photo 830 • Photo 890 • Photo 895 • Photo 915 • Photo 925

£79.99 £89.99 £159.99 £169.99 £159.99 £219.99

...................... ...................... ................

................

..................

..........

TV Monitor ..........................£79.99

• Photo 950 • Photo 1290 • Photo 1290s • Photo 2100

99

£339. £314.99 £329.99 £519.99

................

OLYMPUS

• P330NE ............£299.99 • P300E Special ......£49.99 Bundled with 60 Paper/Ribbon£69.99 ...................................................................................... 99 A6 Paper & Ribbon (60)............£29 .99

• P400

....................................

£479

Ribbon for 50 A4 prints ..........£59.99 A4 Paper (100) ..................................£79.99 A5+ Paper (25)............................£34.99

.......... ......

............

Epson Accessories (not included) USB A-B Printer Cable 1.8m ............£6.99 USB A-B Printer Cable 3m................£9.99 Parallel Port Printer Cable 1.8m ..£6.99 Epson Paper A4 (20) 141g....................SO41126 £5.99 A4 (20) 194g....................SO41140 £6.99 A4 (50) 194g Archival...SO41342 £10.99 A4 (100) 102g .............SO41061 £7.99 A4 (20) Prem 255g..........SO41287 £9.99 A4 (50) Prem 186g..........SO41256 £8.99 A4 (20) Prem 255g ......SO41332 £11.99 A4 (20) 215g Archival....SO41349 £10.99 Roll 8x 0.1m 255g..........SO41303..£12.99 A4 (100) 89g ..........................SO41059 £5.99 A3 (20) 141g ..................SO41125 £17.49 A3 (20) 194g ....................SO41142 £17.99 A3 (100) 89g Special....SO41065 £14.99 A3 (20) Prem 255g......SO41315 £24.99 A3 (20) Prem 255g ....SO41334 £24.99 A3 (20) 195g ArchivalSO41344 £24.99 A3 (20) 215g GlossySO41350 £24.99 A3 (50) Heavy Matt ..SO41261 £19.99 A3+ (20) 141g................SO41133 £18.99 A3+ (20) 194g ......................SO41143 £24.99 A3+(20) Prem 255g ..SO41328 £34.99 A3+(50) Heavy Matt ..SO41264 £29.99 A3+ (50) 195g ArchivalSO41340 £33.99 A3 (100) 105g....................SO41068 £22.99 A3+ (100) 89g ..........SO41066 £24.99 A3+ (20) Prem 255gSO41316 £32.99 A6 (50) 188g ............SO41054 £5.99 4x6 (20) 194g ............SO41134 £5.99

Epson Colour Cartridges 1200 ........................TO01011 £19.99 1270/1290......................TO09 £16.99 750 .................................SO20193 £14.99 870/890/790/875 ..............TO08 £13.99 740/1160..................SO20191 £17.99 Photo/700/EX ..........SO20110 £13.99 400/600/800/850 ....SO20089 £14.99 810 ................................TO27 £15.99 2000p ............................TO16 £25.99 C70/80 Cyan ................TO322..£11.99 C70/80 Magenta ..........TO323..£11.99 C70/80 Yellow ..............TO324..£11.99 C70/80 TriColour C/M/YTO325..£21.99 C60 ................................TO29..£20.99 950 ....................T0332/3/4/5/6..£8.99 2100 ..T0342/343/344/345/346 £9.99

Epson Black Cartridges 740/1160 ................SO20189 £17.99 1200/750/640/440........SO20187 £15.99 Photo/4/5/6/700/EX .......SO20093 £14.99 1270/1290C870/890 ......TO07 £14.99 TO07 x 2 ..................................£24.99 2000P ............................TO15..£24.99 810 ................................TO26 £18.99 C60 ................................TO28..£23.99 C70/80..........................TO321..£21.99 950 ................................T0331 £8.99 2100 ........................T0341/348 £8.99 2100 ..............................T0347 £9.99

Compact Flash 10 Year Warranty • Lexar Drivers 16MB..........................................£11.80 32MB..........................................£15.99 64MB ........................................£24.99 128MB........................................£39.99 256MB........................................£89.99 Smart Media • 10 Year Warranty 16MB............................................£7.99 32MB..........................................£13.99 64MB..........................................£24.99 128MB ......................................£44.99 Lexar MemoryStick • 5 Year W’ty 16MB ........................................£19. 80 3 2 M B .......................................£24.80 6 4 M B ........................................£39.80 1 2 8 M B ......................................£69.80

Multi Media

• 10 Year Warranty 16MB..........................................£15.99 32MB..........................................£29.99 64MB..........................................£39.99 Lexar CF USB • 5 Year Warranty 32MB 8 x speed ........................£24.99 64MB 8 x speed ........................£34.99 128MB 8 x speed ......................£59.99 256MB 8 x speed ....................£109.99 SD • 10 Year Warranty 32MB..........................................£29.99 64MB..........................................£39.99 128MB ........................................£5999

xD - Picture Card

32mb ........................................£14.99 64mb ........................................£24.99 128mb ......................................£44.99

Microtech CameraMate USB for CF • CF2 • MD & SM £49.99 USB for MS • CF • CF2 & MD ....£49.99 FIREWIRE for CF only ....................£59.99 PARALLEL PORT for SM only ....£39.99 PARALLEL PORT for CF only....£39.99 MICROTECH ZIO USB 4 models: SM or CF1+2+ MD or MM ................£29.99 or Memory Stick........................£34.99 DAZZLE 6-IN-1 READER SM/CF/CF2/MD/SD/MM/MS ......£59.99 FUJI FIREWIRE DUAL CF/SM £59.99 JACTRON 6-IN-1 READER SM/CF/CF2/MD/SD/MM/MS ......£49.99 FLASHPATH SM Floppy Disk Adaptor ..........£49.99 LEAD DATA EXPERT USB SM or CF/CF2/ MD ..................£19.99 LEAD DATA USB DUAL SM/CF/CF2/MD ................................................£24.99 LEAD DATA 5-IN-1 SM/CF/CF2/MD/SD/MM ......................£39.99

Adaptors CF into PCMCIA......................£10.99 CF 2/MD into PCMCIA ..............£16.99 SM into CF2............................£39.99

SM/MM/MS/SD ................£49.99 SM Adaptor S M into PCMCIA ............£39.99

NiMH Batteries 2 x 1800mAH ...................£6.99 GePe 5hr Charger & 4 Batteries 1800mAH ....£29.99 GePe 1hr Charger & 4 Batteries 1800mAH ..£39.99 Ansman Digital Powerpack Kit Belt-fitting 3000mAH ..........£39.99

USB Express Intelligent Cable • DB25 or HD50 £59.99 SCSI to USB ..............

IBM Microdrive 340MB 340MB Travel Kit 512MB 512MB Travel Kit 1GB 1GB Travel Kit

£99.80 £129.80 £129.80 £159.80 £189.99 £219.99

Mindstor 10gig ......................£349. 20gig ......................£399.99 30gig ......................£499.99 99

Nixvue Album 10gig ......................£379.99 20gig ......................£429.99 Traveljack ..................£39.99

Nixvue Vista 10gig ......................£399.99 20gig ......................£449.99 30gig ......................£549.99 Printerjack ..................£49.99 Firewirejack ................£69.99

Image Tank 10gig/Powerbank ........£259.99 20gig/Powerbank ........£299.99 30gig/Powerbank ........£349.99 Spare Battery ..............£59.99 Case ..........................£16.99

Hahnel Accessories Universal AC supply..............£29.99 HL80 Battery (Fuji, Kodak) ..£29.99 HL-E1 Battery (Nikon)........£29.99 HL-1L Battery (Canon) ......£19.99 HL-2L Battery (Canon) ......£19.99 HL-511 Battery (Canon) ......£34.99 HL-200 Battery (Minolta) ..£19.99

Lowepro Digital Camera Cases D-Res 30AW ............................£17.99 D-Res 25AW ......................£15.99 D-Res 20AW ......................£14.99 D-Res 10AW ......................£12.99 D-Res 8 Pouch ..................£12.99 D-Res 8S Pouch ................£10.99 D-Res 6 Memory/Battery Wallet ....£9.99 D-Res 4 Memory Wallet ......£7.99

Tamrac Digital Camera Cases 5692 5693 5694 5696

(S) ..............................................£12.99 (S/M) ................................£14.99 (M) ....................................£15.99 (L) ......................................£17.99

Kenko Digital Camera Lenses 2xTele ........................................£34.99 0.5x Wide..................................£32.99 0.43x Fisheye..............................£39.99

Microtech Media Vault

OLYMPUS C300

CHOICE CF/SM/MS/MM/SD/PC ............£19.99

Ohnar Digital Slide Duplicator................£69.

LUXURY PACK

£299.99 99

Lens Adaptors from £ 6.99

AVer Fotoplay Images directly onto your TV

£69.99

Cokin Digital Filter Kits G300 ..................................£19. 99 G350 ..................................£24. 99 G400 ..................................£34. 99

1/2 Price Value Pack

Purchased with Camera (Prices in brackets if bought separately)

For CF or SM-type Cameras: 64mb CF or SM memory Card USB CF or SM Card Reader Lowepro Digital Camera Case ONLY

OLYMPUS E10 3.8 MEGAPIXELS • 4 X ZOOM

£34. 99(£39.99)

w i t h ..................................................... 1 2 8 m b £ 4 4 . 99 ( £ 4 9 . 9 9 )

£749.99

For xD-type Cameras: 64mb xD memory Card USB xD Reader Lowepro Digital Camera Case ONLY

£54. 99 (£59.99)

w i t h .................................................... 1 2 8 m b £ 6 4 . 99 ( 6 9 . 9 9 )

For MMD/SD-type Cameras: 64mb SD memory Card USB SD Reader Lowepro Digital Camera Case ONLY

£54. 99 (£59.99)

w i t h.......................................................... 1 2 8 m b £ 7 4 . 99 ( £ 7 9 . 9 9 )

For Memory Stick-type Cameras: 64mb Memory Stick USB SD Reader Lowepro Digital Camera Case ONLY

£59.

99

OLYMPUS P300

PRINTER • GWO STOCK*

(£64.99)

£49.99

w i t h 1 2 8 m b £ 8 4 . 99 ( £ 8 9 . 9 9 ) ...........................

* GOOD WORKING

ORDER

VanSon Ink Cartriges for Epson VL193 (Photo 750) VL187 (440/460/640/660) VL093 (750/1200) VL110 (EX700)

1/2 Price only £4.99 each

CANON 830D PRINTER MEMORY CARD SLOT

£279.99

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WWW .digitalfirst.co.uk

On your discs This January…

>

Two CDs every month! Here’s what we’ve lined up for you this January…

Welcome to Digital Camera Magazine’s interactive section. As usual we’ve got two cover discs crammed with superb software…

DISC A FULL SOFTWARE

FREE SOFTWARE

Smart Pix Manager 4.3

Centarsia 1.3

(Also contains camera

Context Magic 1.0.b1

tours & test shots)

DigiThumb 1.2 File Recovery 3.0

DEMO SOFTWARE Smart Pix Manager 6.0

Gallery Wizard Mihov Image Resizer PixVue 1.4 RedEye 1.4

O

n the CDs this issue you will find three more full programs for you to keep. Our main title is Smart Pix Manager. If you need to maintain a large collection of digital photographs then this is the ideal tool to organise and view your images. It provides an advanced databasing system whereby keywords and descriptions can be attached to individual, or groups of, images, enabling you to quickly find pictures simply by searching a word entry. Our other full products are Dreamy Photo and A Smaller Image. Dreamy Photo is a image-effects program that either works as a standalone package or as a Photoshop plug-in; and A Smaller

Image, which provides powerful JPEG optimisation, is ideal for processing your hi-res pictures for use on the web or for emailing. As always, full tutorials can be found for these products on the next few pages, along with special offer discounts of the latest editions of the software featured.

Splitz 1.2

FULL SOFTWARE

XnView 1.62

A SmallerImage 1.0 Dreamy Photo

DRIVERS Kodak Easyshare

DEMO SOFTWARE

Jeremy Ford Senior New Media Editor [email protected] ■ Don’t miss next issue. Again, we’ll have two packed discs full of essential resources for your digital camera. On sale 16th January.

VIRTUAL TOURS

DISC B

Our virtual tour enables you to get a proper feel for the five digital cameras we’ve reviewed this issue

Davory 1.03

PS PLUG-INS

Magic File Renamer

AFH Beveler

5.02

AutoEye 2.0

Paint Shop Pro 7.04

Color Pilot Plug-in 2.42

Photage 1.91

India Ink 1.7

PhotoCleaner 1.3

LIGHT 1.0

PhotoImpact 8.0

OZONE

PhotoMeister

PhotoGraphic Edges

Photoshop 7

ProJPEG 5.2

PictureMore 3.30

Spat

Dreamsuite Series 2

Web Image Guru 4.0

A SmallerImage 3.0

How to run your CD Simply place the CD in your PC’s CD drive. The interface will run automatically. Please read the user agreement carefully – if you accept the terms, click ‘I agree’. Then use the menu bar at the top of the screen to browse your disc’s contents. Enjoy!

Reader support

01

FLY AROUND

Use the pink arrows to the left and right of each camera image to spin the camera around. Rollover the outside arrows to autorotate the camera in that direction or click the inside arrows to manually rotate the camera to the position you want.

02

DETAIL SHOTS

We’ve provided nine detailed images of each digital camera so you can have a really thorough look at each of them. Zoom into the required close-up shot by simply clicking the relevant thumbnail image or pressing the number key shown below each one.

03

TEST SHOTS

We’ve taken test shots in four different lighting situations to enable you to view the image quality of the individual cameras. These include a detail picture, a skin shot, plus indoor and outdoor shots. See a large version of each shot by clicking the thumbnail or pressing the number key displayed below each image.

We are careful to thoroughly test each CD but in the event of a problem, please call our reader support team on 01225 822743. In the event of your disc being physically damaged, please see the back of the disc case for details of how to get a free replacement.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

121

Smart Pix Manager 4.3 Image database creator that could be the ultimate in photo management

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

PUBLISHER FIREGRAPHIC PRODUCT STATUS FULL VERSION CONTACT INFORMATION WWW.FIREGRAPHIC.COM AS SOLD FOR $39.95 SERIAL NUMBER 6610-8aa5-4999-8668-8362-e9b3

S

mart Pix Manager is a remarkably powerful image management and viewing program and, as such, it’s great at handling the sheer volume of images that any keen digital photographer is bound to accumulate. If you’re like most PC users, you’ll have created multiple directories to categorise your images, then multiple sub-directories for further differentiation. Say you’re a car buff storing a collection of car photos. You may have directories for sports cars, racing cars and family cars, and each of these may have a sub-directory for country of manufacture, and further sub-directories for whether the car is stationary, being driven, being rolled and so on. But what if you only want to view pictures of German cars, red racing cars or Japanese sports cars being driven by your partner? That’s where Smart Pix Manager steps in. It uses a database to enable you to store multiple keywords against any file on your PC and then retrieve a list of all files that match a certain search criteria. This means that our petrolhead only needs to add references for the images to the Smart Pix database (assigning default keywords). Later he might go through and assign extra keywords such as the car colour, driver and so on. It’s really powerful – find out how it works opposite.

01

ADD A SOURCE DIRECTORY

05

HAVE A SEARCH

09

SEND AN EMAIL

Once you’ve read through the opening help box, specify a directory of images as a source directory – just choose a folder of photos you want to manage.

Click the search mode and you can do a search of all databases you’ve specified. All relevant results appear in the main window, in thumbnail format.

02

CONFIRM YOUR CHOICE

06

DISK BROWSE

10

SAVING OPTIONS

Specify the folder you want to use as a source directory. You’ll be asked if whether you want to add 'keywords'; these help you to track down the images later on.

Smart Pix Manager can be used to browse and categorise any image on your PC. Select 'Disk Browse' mode and select the shot you want open.

03

ENTER YOUR KEYWORDS

07

EDIT SHOTS

11

GET IMAGE INFORMATION

You shouldn't need to go into too much detail if you're simply managing a folder of shots of your kids, for instance. Choose keywords, then confirm the database.

With an image open in Disk Browse mode, right-click to discover more options. Basic editing tools are available, such as crop, rotate and resize. Fine for a quick fix…

Software registration Online registration is required at www.xequte.com/offer/dcm-spm/. Enter your registration key by clicking the ‘Enter Reg Key’ button in the About Box. Select your username and click Copy then paste it into the registration box. Do the same for the registration number. Click OK.

122

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

Right-clicking an image also lets you send it as email. Select the option and your default email program opens with the image attached. Make sure it's got a meaningful name...

Go to File/Save As/Convert and you can choose to save out the file in different image formats and also to set it as your Windows wallpaper.

Some of the icons running along the top of the screen require further information. The symbol of the hand holding the paper reveals more information about the image.

Free software plug-ins Centarsia 1.3

3 IN DETAIL FINE-TUNE YOUR IMAGES Once you've set up a few databases, click 'Manage Databases' under the Database menu to fine-tune your image files. From here, you can password-protect databases; handy if you want to stop the kids accessing certain archives, for instance. This only works when the program's registered.

04

SET SEARCH OPTIONS

You're given a fine degree of control over the search parameters. 'Match any selected for Search Options’ ensures easy searching, but you can go into as much detail as necessary.

More info: www.alhena-design.com/centarsia/ Created by Daniel Lewis, Centarsia creates photo mosaics from supplied images. Daniel says: “It began as a thought of inspiration that I had several months ago. I had seen photo-mosaics from place to place and thought it would be great if there was a program out there that the average person could use with the 1000s of pictures they had taken with their digital camera.”

Light 1.0 More info: www.digitalfilmtools.com The full version of this plug-in was reviewed in issue 1. It adds shadows to your pictures, which you can use to brighten up even the dullest image. If a picture is flat and lifeless, use Light 1.0 to cast a ‘sun shining through windows’ effect across your subject. This demo version places a white grid over your picture but you can upgrade to the full version of the plug-in for £48.

Ozone 1.0 Upgrade to Smart Pix Manager 6.0 Buy the latest version for just £13.25

08

SET BOOKMARKS

You can right-click to save images as 'bookmarks' – useful if you're working through a large collection of images and want to save the highlights for viewing later.

12

O

rganising your media files is made easy with Smart Pix Manager, with its impressive user-interface you can make your digital camera image collections simple to maintain, search through and view your images. A trial version of 6.0 is included on the CD and comes with no less than 20 new enhancements to improve image management. Xequte is offering discounted upgrades of just £13.25 for Digital Camera Magazine readers along with offer special offers on other software bundles. Find out more at www.xequte.com/offer/dcm-spm/

More info: www.digitalfilmtools.com American photographic pioneer, Ansel Adams, invented a method of lighting a still image based on zones and luminescence values. Sound complex? Ozone 1.0 makes it easy, dividing an image into 11 zones and them enabling you to adjust the lighting and colour values. This demo version places a white grid over your picture but you can upgrade to the full version of the plug-in for £48.

AutoEye 2.0 More info: www.autofx.com/detail_pages/ aedetail.html This was created to automatically improve digital images by rebuilding colour detail, sharpness and image vibrancy. AutoEye does not use standard curves and histograms to adjust images on a global basis – its unique methods result in image enhancements that are easier to attain and which should yield a higher quality result.

USE 'FIND'

The binoculars icon brings up the File function: note that you can also search for instances of text within the name/description of the photo.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

123

THE MAGAZINE WHOSE TIME HAS COME... …A magazine dedicated to style, connectivity & convergence. Technology for life INSIDE THE FIRST EDITION SYNERGY& STYLE Enjoy seamless technologies for smarter living SURROUND SOUND REVOLUTION One speaker panel to rule them all? HOUSE 2010 Fastforward to the future home FREEDOM TO ROAM Get broadband internet on the move VIDEOTAPE IS DEAD! Every new recordable technology tested Get connected. Get digitalhome. £3.50 Order your copy direct (UK only): TEL 0870 444 8657 FAX 01458 271146 ONLINE www.digitalhomemag.com/issue

BRAND NEW ON SALE DEC 19

Dreamy Photo Give your photographs a dream-like look with this image editing tool

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

`PUBLISHER PRODUCT STATUS CONTACT INFORMATION AS SOLD FOR SERIAL NUMBER

AUTO FX SOFTWARE FULL PRODUCT WWW.AUTOFX.COM $50 ONLINE REGISTRATION

Upgrade to Dreamsuite Series Two

P

lug-ins are a great way to spice up your digital photographs with a minimum of effort. Dreamy Photo is one such plugin, but has the added bonus that it can also be run as a standalone program.

The plug-in can add atmosphere to an image by giving it a dreamy, ghost-like feel. By merely adjusting the ghosting, blurring, blending and tint of a photo you can quickly and easily give your images something of an eerie feel. With a little

SPECIAL EFFECTS

experimentation, the program can create various ambient lighting effects. There are a number of preset examples available in Dreamy Photo which will help to give you an idea of just what this software is capable of producing.

Dreamy Photo has preset effects you can use, or options to create your own original dreamy look manually

The module that appears on this month’s cover CD is part of the DreamSuite collection. The suite includes 12 new image-editing programs which can be used as standalone programs or as plug-ins for a range of image editing programs. The software can be purchased for $149, and if you place an order now you will receive a bonus module, Mosaic, worth $50, free of charge. Visit www.autofx.com or phone +1205 980 0056 to order, quoting the code 32155.

More details ■ For more information on the effects available with Dreamy Photo, see: www.dizteq.com/dreamsuiteafx/ dreamyphoto.html. ■ There’s also a full PDF manual at http://www.autofx.com/freeplugins/ Dreamy_Manual.pdf

01

REGISTER THE SOFTWARE

After you’ve installed the program, launch it then click on the Get Serial # button in the splash screen. Enter your email address and a code will be sent to you shortly.

02

LAUNCH SPECIAL EFFECTS

Load a photo into Dreamy Photo by clicking File and Open. To apply the dreamy effect to the photo, click Special Effects8DreamSuite Bonus8Dreamy Photo.

03

MODIFY YOUR IMAGES

You can choose a specific effect or manually alter the settings to get what you want. Use the sliders to change elements of the effect (see the preview in the main screen).

ASmallerImage 1.0 Shrink your photos ready for emailing or web publishing

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

`PUBLISHER PRODUCT STATUS CONTACT INFORMATION AS SOLD FOR SERIAL NUMBER

TRIVISTA FULL PRODUCT WWW.TRIVISTA.COM $15 NOT REQUIRED

Upgrade to TriVista suite Upgrade today and save 20%! Readers of Digital Camera Magazine can upgrade to the TriVista Suite for just $40. This suite includes a number of photo-specific tools which simplify the process of publishing your images to the web, and creating your own thumbnail galleries. The package comprises the five programs: ASmallerImage, Ultimate Online Photo Gallery, 3D ImageScene, 3D ImageCube and Paper PhotoCube. If you would like to take advantage of this offer, visit the special order page at www.trivista.com/futurepublishing.

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f you’re serious about digital photography, then chances are that all your photographs are taken at the highest resolution possible. Even if they’re not, the resulting files can be huge – too big to attach to an email or add to your website. This is where ASmallerImage can help. This software enables you to quickly resize your images and adjust the quality so that they are suitable for adding to a web gallery or simply emailing to friends. Using a simple set of sliders you can adjust the dimensions of your images as well as rotating them. In addition to all this, you can also alter the sharpness and contrast of images to ensure perfect output.

RESIZING

01

GET STARTED

Drag an image you want to resize to the left of the ASmallerImage screen or click open and navigate to an image. A smaller preview will appear to the right.

Adapt your pictures quickly and easily so they’re of suitable size and quality for your online purposes

02

SET OPTIONS

Clicking the Options button can configure the program. Select the file format to save images in, and use the slider to set the quality level to be used for JPEGs.

03

RESIZE IMAGES

Use the slider at the top right to resize your image. You can rotate pictures using the arrow buttons, and adjust sharpness and darkness with the bottom sliders.

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File Recovery 3.0 Deleted a picture from a card and think you’ve lost it? File Recovery is here to save the day

*

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS

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CONVAR FULL PRODUCT WWW.PCINSPECTOR.DE FREEWARE NOT REQUIRED

I

t is a nightmare scenario. You’ve spent a happy day snapping away, and filled your camera card with scores of photographs. While you’re browsing through them, you accidentally hit the wrong button on your camera and watch in disbelief as your prized picture disappears before your very eyes. Unintentionally deleting images from your camera is something that everyone has done at least once. Now, thanks to File Recovery 3.0, it is possible to try and recover these images that have seemingly vanished. Thankfully, when you choose to ‘delete’ a file, it is not actually completely obliterated. Instead the space the file was occupying is marked as available for use by other files. Provided this space has not been overwritten, you stand a good chance of recovering your images. The program can read files from your camera card (whether you are using Smartmedia, Compact Flash, or Memory Stick) that have been deleted and enables you to restore them to a location of your choice. To maximise you chances of recovering a deleted file, you should stop taking photographs immediately. This reduces the risk that your deleted file may be overwritten by a new image. Although the program is very easy to use, it comes complete with a detailed help file to guide you through a number of different scenarios.

0

01

GET STARTED

04

VIEW DELETED FILES

07

SAVE DELETED FILES

When you launch the program you’ll see this. It lists three different scenarios and the steps that can be taken to recover your files depending on your situation.

Click on the Deleted icon to the left of the window, and the folders and files on your card will be displayed. You may have to navigate through sub-folders to find your pictures.

02

SELECT YOUR DRIVE

05

SELECT FILES TO RECOVER

08

RECOVER ‘LOST’ DATA

To recover deleted files, click the top icon. A quick scan will show all the drives attached to your computer. Choose the drive you think is your camera card. Click Preview to check.

The last column of the list indicates the likelihood that files will be successfully recovered using the labels Good or Poor. Select your files by holding Ctrl and clicking on files in turn.

03

VIEW DRIVE CONTENTS

06

SET RECOVERY LOCATION

09

VIEW YOUR FILES

Once you find the correct drive, highlight it in the list and click OK. You will then be greeted by a familiar Windows Explorer-style screen which displays the contents of your camera card.

Right click on one of the files you have highlighted, and select Save to. Browse to a folder on your hard drive to save the files to, or click on Create to make a new folder.

EXPERT TIP

FILE RECOVERY File Recovery 3.0 has not been designed simply for the digital camera user. It is also capable of recovering files from hard drives and floppy disks, although it should be noted that it has not been designed to recover data from drives which are physically damaged.

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Ensure that the No FAT option is selected and click OK. Now sit back an wait for a couple of moments while your images are restored to your chosen location.

If you have accidentally quick-formatted your camera card, you can search for lost data by clicking Tools8Find Lost Data. After a scan you can recover files from the Lost folder.

If everything has gone to plan, your files should have been successfully recovered. Open up the folder you saved them to and double click to check on them.

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE CLASSIFIED TO ADVERTISE HERE please email [email protected]

NIKON D 100 CAMERA BODY + FREE D100 GRIP £ 1695 D 100 BODY + 24/85 AFS Lens + FREE D100 GRIP £ 1895 NIKON D 1 X SLR BODY PRO KIT £ 3759 NIKON SB 80 DX FLASH £ 269 EN - EL4 BATTERY £49 NIKON COOLPIX 5700 CAMERA KIT £ 895 WE STOCK NIKON, TAMRON, TOKINA + SIGMA LENSES FUJI S 2 SLR CAMERA KIT + 1 GB MICRODRIVE £ 1895

Demand the best from your printer

*Cotech A4 Inkjet papers and films High Quality papers and films for all inkjet printers

* See us at Focus 2003, N.E.C. Birmingham Stand No. K4, from 23-26th February

for more information and ordering online www.cotech-uk.com 128

DIGITAL CAMERA MAGAZINE

NEXT STEPS NEXT ISSUE On sale everywhere from 16th January

Wet camera gives trippy results

Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW Customer services [t] 01458 271 100 [w] www.digitalcameramagazine.co.uk

Who needs an image editor when you can chuck your camera into a bucketful of water instead? EDITORIAL & ART he great thing about digital cameras is that they're versatile. Up mountains, down mines, across the seas – wherever there's a picture to be taken, your camera is up to the job. Up until recently we thought that was about it. Until we read about the guy who discovered a hitherto unknown digital photography technique – the one where you drop your camera into a pond of water and it suddenly starts to produce creative weird, trippy effects. After accidentally dropping his Nikon Digital 990 into the chilled rapids of the Pecos River in the USA, retired amateur photographer Farrell Eaves spent several days cooking it in the sun during the day, and baking it in the oven at night. Not even this drastic action was enough to dry out the camera, so Farrell tied the camera to the windscreen of his car and spent a week driving around New Mexico instead. Eventually all this effort dried out the components and Farrell decided to see if it still worked. It did – sort of. The image on the LCD screen was revealing patterns of colours that were very different from his original subjects. This radical departure from the original image produced some startling but beautiful results. To his great surprise, Farrell had found an unusual way of creating totally unique photos. Farrell has taken his unusual photos on travelling exhibitions around Tennessee. "I never know what I am going to end up with," he says, "and I'm always amazed by the results." We don't recommend you try this one at home...

Nick Merritt Managing Editor [e] [email protected] Dylan Channon Senior Art editor [e] [email protected] Richard Llewellyn Art Editor [e] [email protected] Elizabeth Raderecht Operations Editor Vicky West Sub-editor

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EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS Steve Bavister, Rob Mead, Aidan O’Rourke, Pete Martin, Mark Harris, Will Smith, Sandy Gardner, Joe Apice, Ed Davis, Tim Daly, Simon Danaher, Joe Cassels, Matthew Richards PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTRIBUTORS (Where not credited inside) Future Network Photo Studio, Getty Images UK

The damage to the sensor has affected the way the camera records light intensity

[t] 020 7317 2600 Michelle Blackwell Ad Manager [e] [email protected] Ben Shoesmith Sales Executive [e] [email protected] [t] 020 7317 0259

NEW MEDIA James Brown Group New Media Manager [e] [email protected] Jeremy Ford Senior Disc Editor [e] [email protected] James Guest New Media Development [e] [email protected] Steve Pashley Online Editor [e] [email protected]

See more of these unusual pictures at Farrell’s website, at www.kineticimpressions.com

2 Next month – on sale 16th January ■ Complete guide to portraits

We show you how to capture your best-ever portrait photos with our expert tutorial and post-shoot tips!

■ Create this!

We show you how you can easily create this fantastic picture, in our essential creative project ■ Don’t forget to reserve a copy of Digital Camera Magazine at your newsagent, or subscribe See page 80 for full details!

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2 PACKED CDs! Plus 8 pages of events & ideas to Getup&go to, and five new-format tips cards!

START A NEW JOB IN JANUARY! Digital Camera Magazine is expanding and increasing our team! ■Are you a current or wannabe editor, deputy editor, production editor, art editor or designer with photographic leanings? Then come and work for us! ■Email the managing editor at [email protected] in confidence and let’s talk!

CIRCULATION AND MARKETING Clare Tovey Production Manager Diane Ross Production Coordinator Mike Thorne Team Buyer Jamie Malley Circulation Manager Fiona Tully Marketing Manager Marie Spicer Subscriptions Executive

SENIOR MANAGEMENT Dave Taylor Group Publisher John Weir Publishing Director Colin Morrison Managing Director Greg Ingham CEO Printed in England © Future Publishing Ltd 2002/2003

Disclaimer Getup&go section, tear-out factsheets and gatefold covers are published in UK editions of the magazine only. All contributions to Digital Camera Magazine are accepted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish or license others to do so, unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing. We reserve the right to edit letters. We cannot accept liability for mistakes or misprints, or any damage to equipment or possessions arising from use of this publication, its discs or software ■ Due to unforeseen circumstances, it may sometimes be necessary to make last-minute changes to advertised content, for mag and discs.

iPhoto Developing your photography. iPhoto on the new faster iBook

Combined with service

Digital cameras are revolutionising the way we take pictures. Now Apple provides the missing link to the way we save, organise, share and enjoy them. iPhoto lets you import pictures from your digital camera, organise them, edit and improve them, and then share them in a number of different ways. Once you see what iPhoto can do with digital pictures, you may never go back to using a film camera again.

Our after-sales support service is designed to make your John Lewis experience even more positive. We have installation professionals on hand to help you set up your Apple computer, along with a free delivery service that saves you the hassle of carrying your purchase home yourself.

All under one roof John Lewis department stores stock the whole OSX iPhoto-ready range, including the brand new faster Apple iBook, iMac and Power Mac G4 series. In fact any Apple product, including a wide range of monitors, printers, scanners and other accessories.

Satisfaction guaranteed As well as the John Lewis reputation for quality and value to give you peace of mind, we offer a free 2-year guarantee with every Apple computer as standard*. * See in store for details

iPhoto is included with all OSX ready Macs

Apple trained Regular customers know that they can talk to knowledgeable, helpful staff at John Lewis. This is because we ensure that our sales team are fully trained on a regular basis, affording you the peace of mind that you are receiving the product that best suits your needs.

If you want to know more, visit your nearest John Lewis shop.

www.johnlewis.com