Digital Tools: Apple. Epson. Aperture. C1 Pro. Photoshop. ImagePrint. And more.
Nowadays, I'm being asked about what digital tools I use almost as much as what camera gear I use. So, consider this page a snapshot (as of February 20, 2007) of the hardware and software that I rely upon. Please be aware that both hardware and software related to digital imaging are still evolving rapidly and what I use today may differ significantly from what I use tomorrow (or next month). I will attempt to keep this page relatively current - as much as my time permits.
For organizational purposes, I've split my digital tool kit into the following categories:
2. Software: Image Culling, Image Management and Keywording
6. Software: Full Workflow Packages
IMPORTANT: The series of steps used to take your digital image from your camera's memory card through to final output (print, web, etc.) is normally referred to as your "digital workflow." There is no single best workflow or toolset that supports that workflow - the one that works best for you will vary with your computer experience, output needs, need for speed of image turnover, budget, et cetera. A press photographer will have a totally different workflow - and use different tools - than a fine art photographer. Nature photographers will have different workflows than studio photographers. And so on. I shoot virtually all my images in the outdoors and my workflow is based totally upon image quality, not speed. And, as such, I shoot RAW format images exclusively. Which, in turn, impacts on my workflow. Choosing the right tools for your own workflow requires thoughtful scrutiny of your photographic goals - simply adopting the tools of others can result in the expenditure of thousands of dollars and still leave you with inappropriate tools. To read more about various digital workflows as well as detailed Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines, check out UPDIG's website.
Please be aware that this brief review covers products that I currently rely upon. There are many consumer level products, such as Apple's iPhoto or Adobe's Photoshop Elements, that perform very well. However, I don't use them and thus I am not qualified to review or critique them.
Computer Hardware
Confession: I am a proud Mac user. I have been a Mac user for years. I will likely always be a Mac user. Getting into a Mac vs. PC debate here would be as useful as "debating" creation vs. evolution or pro-choice vs. pro-life. Both Mac and PC (Windows) systems can be configured to meet the needs of any digital photographer. If you like Windows-based PC's use 'em. If you're a competitor of mine, PLEASE use a PC ;-)
I am most productive using both a desktop system and a laptop. Plus, a few peripherals like a Lexar Professional Firewire CompactFlash Reader, a Nikon Slide Scanner, Epson colour printer, and a slew of LaCie backup drives.
Desktop Computer System
Most of my digital workflow occurs on my desktop computer with dual monitors. I tend to purchase fully loaded state-of-the-art CPU's and keep them 2 to 3 years - normally until buying the latest system will give me a speed bump of a factor of 3 or 4 (in Photoshop). I keep peripherals and monitors considerably longer. Here's my current desktop configuration:
CPU - Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5. Loaded up with 8 GB of RAM and two 500 GB hard-drives and ATI Radeon X800 XT video card.
20" Cinema Display. My "smaller" of my dual monitor configuration. Has great colour (and matches the colour of my primary monitor very well). Normally visually occupied with thumbnails or text-based documents but not with the images I'm actively editing.
30" Apple Cinema HD Display. My primary monitor and where I do my serious image editing. Great colour (and colour matched to my colour printer) and a LOT of real estate. A wonderful luxury if it fits into the budget.
Coming Purchases? Yep, I'll be needing to move over to the Intel-chip Macs soon. But not until Photoshop is shipped in Universal Binary form (i.e., Photoshop CS3) and not until AFTER the spring/summer field season (when I should be spending more time shooting than image editing!).
Laptop
Day-to-day I use my laptop a LOT. For communication. For surfing the web (and testing websites). And, once in a while it comes with me on a long multi-day field trip when I may need to do some initial image cull/editing to free up some of my compact flash cards. I also use my laptop to "play" with images in the evening (or whenever I want to emerge from my office). I currently use a PowerBook G4 with 17" monitor - not tiny but it has a great display (you could do REAL image editing using this display). I managed to buy this computer JUST before Apple introduced their much-faster Intel-based MacBook Pros. Yes, I blew it! But, this laptop will be with me for at least a couple more years...
Slide Scanner
I use Nikon's Super Coolscan 5000ED to scan slides for non-critical uses. Non-critical uses? Desktop scanners, like the Super Coolscan 5000ED, work very well in producing digital files that are destined for use on the web or as smallish prints (no larger than 8"x10" or so). You can get a quality desktop scanner for around $1,000 or so. In contrast, a high-end drum scanner used by service bureaus can cost up to $100,000 or more. If you want to get the MOST quality (colour, contrast, shadow detail, sharpness, etc.) out of your slides, a desktop scanner won't come close to matching the quality of a good drum scanner run by an experienced operator. So...if your goal is to convert your 35 mm slides into 24" x 36" fine art prints, you can NOT rely on a desktop scanner. That being said, there are many positives about desktop scanners - they're relatively fast (especially compared to sending out your slides to be scanned!) and once you own a scanner they're relatively cheap per scan, depending on how many slides you scan (and certainly not the $10 to $30 per scan you'll pay for quality drum scans). And, like I mentioned, they can produce perfectably acceptable digital files for use on the web or small prints. All images derived from scanned slides on this website (like this image of gulls in flight or this Hoary Marmot) were made using my Super Coolscan. If you do use a desktop scanner, I'd recommend turning off its image sharpening (which is commonly part of the scanning software) and do any image sharpening after-the-fact (and very carefully) in your favourite image-editing program (which is code for "Photoshop").
Colour Printer
I currently use an Epson Stylus Pro 4000 for my colour printing needs, including printing my Limited Edition Prints. This printer produces brilliant output and allows me to produce prints up to 17" long along their shortest axis (and, because it accepts paper rolls, of any length along the long axis). The size of the output of this printer rarely limits me given the current maximum resolution of Nikon's digital SLR cameras. Once Nikon cracks the 15 megapixel limit in resolution (likely with the D3X in 2008) - or Pentax or someone else produces a field-ready medium format digital camera that I won't be able to live without - this printer will no longer meet my needs. So...an Epson 9800 (or the next generation's equivalent) is on the purchase horizon. By the way, to get the most out of any professional Epson printer, I'd recommend "driving it" with ImagePrint software by ColorByte Software (more on this below in the software section).
Backup Drives
Any even half-serious digital photographer absolutely MUST back-up their digital files on a regular basis. I have an array of multiple LaCie external firewire drives (incorporating both 250 GB and 500 GB drives) and, at any one time, have a minimum of 3 copies of my image libraries (plus selected images on DVD's that are stored off-site). The interval between my backups is never more than 1 day, thus it would be extremely difficult for me to lose more than 8 hours worth of work on my images, even with a catastrophic drive failure. If your images have any personal or economic value to you, back them up regularly. Period.
Computer Software
Introductory Caveats: When reading the following sections it is CRITICAL to keep the following points in mind:
- I'm a geek. I like trying new software and I'm definitely a bit of software geek. When I worked for Adobe Systems, one of my jobs involved testing all 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons for all Adobe's software applications. I enjoyed it. So...I'm very comfortable with adopting new software into my workflow and do so within only a comparatively short time frame. I try, legally own, and use more photo-related software than almost anyone would ever need. You can get by VERY effectively in digital photography with a much smaller array of software than I use.
- I have a RAW workflow. I shoot RAW images almost exclusively. RAW images have many advantages, but they definitely complicate any workflow. Almost every phase of a purely RAW workflow differs from a JPEG- or TIFF-based workflow.
- I care most about image QUALITY, not speed-to-output. My workflow is based totally on image quality, not speed-to-output. Many professional photographers, such as photojournalists, have only hours (or minutes) to get their images into final output form. These photographers need and use very different software tools than I do. Or, where we overlap, our relative need for a specific tool varies dramatically. For instance, I have virtually no need for bulk-renaming or bulk-captioning of images, but this is incredibly critical for some news photographers. The tools discussed below work for me and my workflow - they may be totally inappropriate for you.
- I'm a field shooter. I work outdoors and often in remote locations. I have virtually no need for wireless transfer from camera to laptop. Working tethered to a laptop doesn't work for me. I can almost leisurely transfer my images from my camera to my computer and then initiate my workflow.
- I'm a Mac user. I can comment only on Mac or dual-platform software. If you are a PC/Windows user don't forget to investigate the various Windows-only options that may be available to you.
For organizational purposes, I've organized my critical software into the following task-oriented scheme: 1) Image Culling, Image Management and Keywording; 2) RAW Conversion; 3) Digital Editing; 4) Printing; and 5) Full Workflow Software Packages.
Software: Image Culling, Image Management and Keywording
Image Culling - Apple Aperture. I often return from a field shoot with anywhere from hundreds to thousands of RAW format images. While I have stated that my workflow is based on image quality (as opposed to speed), this is the part of my workflow where speed IS of the essence - it would be easy to spend many times the duration of my field trip culling images! To sort through these images and quickly cull these images down to the "keepers" I require a software application that very quickly builds high-quality previews and provides me with a range of tools for comparing images. Additionally, I need the ability to quickly zoom in on one or more images at a time (to assess and compare focus and sharpness). And, I need the application to provide multiple workspace options, including support for a dual-monitor setup. At present, the software that best meets my needs for this part of my workflow is Apple's Aperture. Its image culling and comparison tools are amazing and they allow you to accurately cull and sort hundreds or even thousands of images in very little time. Aperture is designed as a soup-to-nuts digital photography workflow program but at present I use it for image culling only (the reasons will become apparent below). I give honorable mention to iView MediaPro in this category - it produces great RAW previews (from Nikon RAW image files) and gives you multiple ways to view and compare images. What about Adobe Bridge? While the quality of RAW image previews produced by Bridge has improved as the Camera RAW plug-in has evolved (thankfully - the previews used to be AWFUL!), it lacks the image comparison tools that make Aperture so useful. What about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom? I haven't played with it enough yet to say. Stay tuned for updates!
Image Management and Keywording - Adobe Bridge. Like any active digital photographer, I have tens of thousands of digital images and at times I need to be able to access specific images very quickly. I use a combination of a logical folder (or directory) structure and keywording to ensure that I can find any of my images (or any group of images) quickly. I was trained as a biologist and the folder hierarchy on my hard-drive reflects this - my wildlife collection is organized taxonomically (using generally accepted biological classifications) and my landscape collection is organized by habitat/ecosystem. This scheme alone would allow me to access my images relatively quickly, but when it's combined with a detailed keywording scheme (and software capable of searching across folders/directories) I can locate any image (or image group) very quickly. I started using Adobe Bridge for keywording my image files a number of years ago and have developed a detailed keywording scheme within it. I chose Adobe Bridge because of its smooth integration with other Adobe products, because it didn't build proprietary "libraries" or "catalogs" to store all the metadata and because it could handle the keywording of RAW images. Today, there are many programs that can keyword images as quickly (or more quickly) than Bridge, but most build their own libraries or catalogs to store the info (and normally these catalogs and libraries can NOT be read by competitors products). I considered a complete conversion of my workflow to Apple's Aperture in 2006, but at that point it could not "see" the keywording of my RAW image files and I would have had months of work to manually re-keyword my images. This was a non-starter. iView MediaPro gets honourable mention in the image management and keywording category as well - not only does it "see" my RAW image keyword files, but it allows me to carry around catalogs of thumbnails of all my images on laptop without actually transferring the original image files over. Overall, iView MediaPro is a great product. My chief concern with it is that iView has recently been purchased by Microsoft and I'm a little nervous about how well they will continue to develop the Mac version of the product.
Software: RAW Conversion
Phase One's Capture One Pro. Currently my favourite RAW converter is Phase One's Capture One Pro. Why? Here's my top reasons:
- I like the logical RAW processing steps it presents.
- I love its ability to retrieve blown-out highlights.
- I really like its easy-to-use (and fully user-controlled) tone curve adjustment.
- I love its superb sharpening options
- I really, really like its intuitive BACKGROUND batch processing capabilities (and batch-wide application of user-specified conversion settings).
Great software. Its only drawback is its speed - you need a speedy computer to get C1 Pro to function at an acceptable pace (this issue is apparently being addressed in the upcoming release of version 4).
What about the RAW conversion capability of Apple's Aperture? It's very good. But, I don't like the absence of tone curve adjustment (but it does have a very well-executed Levels adjustment). And I'm definitely not thrilled with the fact that it processes RAW files in the foreground, even when batch processing images. And, I'm not overly impressed with its sharpening capabilities (compared to C1 Pro).
What about Adobe Camera RAW (as found in Bridge, Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom)? Getting better all the time! I just (Feb 2007) spent an evening testing ACR 3.7 and LightRoom 1.0 - the RAW conversion abilities are getting very good and the gap between C1 Pro and ACR is narrowing (fast). I still prefer the colours rendered by C1 Pro and its sharpening options. Phase One will need to produce a great upgrade soon (the coming version 4.0) to keep Adobe at bay and maintain its marketshare in the DSLR software market.
Software: Image Editing
Adobe's Photoshop CS2. There is no choice here - Adobe Photoshop is the only kid on the block. If you are a serious digital photographer you must own this software. It has so many advantages over its competitors (what competitors?) that it isn't worth wasting much space pointing out its virtues. On the negative side, it is so powerful and flexible that it can be a bear to learn (and even to decide what portions of it are of use to a digital photographer can be a challenge). See Bio: Techniques for a few key Photoshop techniques that I find very helpful on a day-to-day basis.
Photoshop Plug-ins. Photoshop - and other Adobe applications - are designed to accept 3rd party software packages that "plug" into them and, in doing so, extend their functionality. A few year's back I was Adobe's "plug-in guy" and tested and evaluated all these products. So I got to play with an awful lot of them. By and large, MOST plug-ins either automate or simplify functions that the host program can already perform. And often this automation/simplification is dramatic - a process in Photoshop that may take 20 or more steps may be reduced to a single button or slider in a nice dialog box. "Power" Photoshop users (and I'm NOT in this category of user!) would likely consider these packages as a means of "dumbing down" the product. I disagree and feel that many plug-ins are worth their money (they're often priced at $99 or less). What plug-ins are installed on my computer? Only two of them: PictureCode's Noise Ninja and Adobe's own Camera Raw plug-in. While I can remove digital noise from an image using Photoshop alone, I find it so much faster and easier with Noise Ninja that the purchase was easily justified. And the Camera Raw Plug-in is free from Adobe and is an integral part of RAW image preview rendering and the RAW conversion process in Bridge, Photoshop and Lightroom. So, it's a no-brainer, if you own Photoshop - get it (and keep it updated!).
I recently tested (and purchased) a Zone-System based image-editing software package - Light Crafts LightZone. It does a very nice job of RAW conversion. But, its main strengths are its ZoneMapper and ToneMapper tools - they provide both a means of drawing your attention to your image's tonal range and a very intuitive way of adjusting that tonal range. Could you replace Photoshop with LightZone? No way. But it does complement it well. Landscape photographers and lovers of black and white images should definitely give LightZone a look.
Software: Printing
ColorByte Software's ImagePrint. If you own a high-end Epson printer and want to get the most out of it, take a look at ColorByte Software's ImagePrint. This industrial level software lets you lay-out print jobs consisting of multiple image files in a manner that maximizes the efficiency of paper use. But the key to this software is its library wonderful colour profiles (for literally hundreds of different paper and media types). I couldn't get my Epson printer to perform to my satisfaction until I purchased ImagePrint. The downside? VERY expensive. And, an industrial interface. But I still recommend it if you want your Epson printer to output the best prints possible.
Software: Full Workflow Packages
Recently a few software packages designed to meet the needs of a full RAW workflow (from image management to RAW conversion through to final output to print or web) have been developed. The two most prominent players in this field are Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom. Are these all-in-one tools worth commiting time and money to? Actually, they're very, very good and are only going to get better. Both of these workflow tools automate many tedious tasks and make them much more accessible to photographers who don't have the time, or don't want to dedicate the time, to learn all the idiosyncrasies of a customized (or personalized) digital workflow. They may be right for you - check them out yourself and decide. At present, they don't quite meet my needs (especially in RAW conversion and in accepting legacy keywording strategies), but I think it's only a matter of time before they win me over. My current preference is Aperture (with its elegant yet powerful interface), but I have a feeling Lightroom is going to end up as the category killer...
The threat of these "full workflow" software packages to the more narrowly-focused workflow tools (like C1 Pro or iView Media Pro) is not insignificant. If you own these other "simpler" tools you can often creatively combine them to produce a full workflow solution that rivals the capabilities of the full workflow tools. Currently Phase One is promoting its flagship product (C1 Pro) as the perfect complement to iView MediaPro. Combined, they claim, they form the perfect "total" workflow solution. Phase one is even offering a discounted bundle of C1 Pro and iView MediaPro. These two products CAN be effectively combined to produce an excellent RAW workflow solution. More info can be found on Phase One's website.
February 20, 2007