I have moved my blog to my web site at blog.cawilliams.us.

If I like your product, I tend to be noisy about. I'm a rabid fan of Apple's Macs, software and iPods. I love Adobe's Creative Suite software. I use Lexar Professional CompactFlash cards and readers. And I shoot Nikon cameras, lenses and flash units. I find things I like and stick with them.

So given that, what on Earth was Nikon thinking when they decided to charge $180 for their Camera Control Pro 2 software? The program allows you to do two major things: configure the settings on your camera and shoot tethered. That's it! $180 for that? But then this is the same company that charges $175 for Capture NX, their proprietary NEF (RAW) image processing software. (If you purchase a new D300 or D3, it comes in the box. Any other camera, you get to purchase the software.) Canon bundles their equivalent software with the camera.

Are you listening, Nikon?

Mood-o-Meter: cranky

Sometimes, you just have to wonder. We spotted another one a few miles away - with bullet holes in it.

Mood-o-Meter: amused

“How are you?”

Amroth stopped and glared at her. “I’m tense, angry, upset!” He resumed pacing. “I’m nine kinds of hell on hot wings!”

“So you’re fine.”

The glass in his hand shattered. "Yes, just fine!"

Mood-o-Meter: anxious

Have you ever run in to this? You sit down at the computer and start up your word processor with every intention of writing Something Big. And then you see this expanse of white space and suddenly you don't have anything to say. You sit there and stare at the screen. All the ideas you had when you were doing something vanish when you see that blank page.

It isn't just an affliction of writers. You always see the best photos when you don't have a camera or the best web site ideas when you don't have a hosting service. In any creative endeavor, the hardest thing seems to be starting with that blank sheet of paper.

I was just looking at my web site and realized I hadn't done anything with it since August 2007. Of course there are reasons. Excuses, really. And I have several story ideas that I really wanted to write about. And essays I wanted to write. And things I wanted to take pictures of... And I haven't.

Part of it is simple distraction. Sit down to do one thing and start thinking about something else. Our culture even has a word for it - shiny - which isn't quite the same thing as a lack of self-discipline but close. In the last 10 minutes or so I have type a few words on this post, went to Wikipedia to see if they had an entry for shiny (they do but for something else), added a dictionary widget to Dashboard so I could check my spelling of shiny, put a pizza in the oven, plugged my iPod in to charge, and then back to my computer and that blank sheet of paper.

One of these days though, I'm going to have something to say. And when I do look out.

Time to check on the pizza.

Mood-o-Meter: cynical

Any time you do something as traumatic as upgrading or reinstalling your operating system you are pretty much guaranteed to forget a few items. And naturally, they aren't on any backup or server because you'll do that later.

I got bit by this bothersome fact today in the form of a font, Adobe's Copperplate Gothic Standard. I bought the font in late 2005 to use in my "CAW" logo and for my name in the banners of my web pages. The heavy, even strokes and small serifs give it a distinctive look. And I didn't stash it away just in case I needed to reinstall it.

At least I can go back to Adobe to buy it. Again.

Mood-o-Meter: annoyed

Nikon has released an update for Capture NX. The new version (1.3.1) is supposed to resolve issues with OS X 10.5 (Leopard). I would assume this is the fix for the corruption of NEF files on save. Note that you have to get this fix manually; the Nikon Message Center software won't tell you it's available.

Mood-o-Meter: bouncy

My wife likes to listen to audiobooks while she does other things such as sewing. Most of the authors she listens to have audio versions of their books at Audible.com. Others are available only on CDs. That's okay though; you just pop the CDs into your Mac and rip them to iTunes and - voila! - audiobooks on your iPod. All that works as advertised.

One audiobook producer, Brilliance Audio, divides the content on each CD in very short clips - maybe 90 seconds or so. Since many portable CD players don't remember where you are in a track, the listener just has to remember what track they last listened to and the fact that tracks are short means you repeat a minimal amount of content. This a reasonable solution to the problem but it's painful when you import into iTunes. Those CDs can have up to 99 tracks and a typical audiobook has 8 to 12 CDs. A playlist with 1000+ tracks is annoying and wastes disk space.

I had thought to use Soundbooth, Adobe's new answer to sound editing for Creative Suite 3. I bought a copy of Adobe Soundbooth Classroom in a Book and started to play. Just as Apple did with iPhoto, Adobe built an easy-to-use program for people who aren't specialists in audio production. Being a new application, you should expect it to have a limited feature set. That's okay with me. I just wanted to stitch a bunch of audio files into a single file.

You can't.

Soundbooth is a "single-asset" editor - as in "work with a single sound file at a time." Or to put it another way, you need a multi-track editor like Adobe Audition 3 to do what I want to do. And Audition is only available for Windows. True, I could run it in Windows using Parallels but it kind of sticks in my craw to use a non-Mac-native application. There is also a price-for-features issue. Audition 3 is $349 and what you get is Audition plus content. In contrast, Apple has released the new Logic Studio 8 which includes Logic Pro 8, MainStage, Soundtrack Pro 2, Studio Instruments, Studio Effects, WaveBurner 1.5, Compressor 3, Impulse Response Utility, Apple Loops Utility, QuickTime 7 Pro and a boat load of content. All for $499. There is also a Logic Express for $299.

Of course for what I want to do (at least right now) either one is like swatting a fly with a hand grenade: it'll get the job done but it's way more than you need. On the other hand, I prefer to buy tools once and have done with it. Apart from this single track issue, Soundbooth is a simple and elegant application.

Oh, one other nit. Who on Adobe's HMI team decided a trashcan icon meant "close the file?" In every other app on the planet, a trashcan means delete.

Mood-o-Meter: calm

I have been a printing machine this weekend. I started with the RAW files from shooting a couple of weekends ago. Call it 240+ images. I then went through and culled out the duds. Down to about 100 or so. Next, I selected a half-dozen or so to edit and printed multiple copies of each on 5x7, 8x10 and one at 13x19. Papers of choice included hp Advanced Photo Glossy and Ilford Premium Photo Glossy.

In the middle of this run, I had to stop and print several 4x6 prints for a friend of ours.

I'm glad photography is a hobby 'cause this seemed like work!

Mood-o-Meter: tired

If you are a Lightroom on Leopard user, Adobe has release version 1.3.1. I am pleased to see they have a bug fix for the Print module. Hopefully this resolves the crashes I was having when using the templates. There are also bug fixes for importing from a card reader and an issue with the Develop module. An update is also available for Camera Raw (4.3.1).

The web folks at Adobe have been at it again, giving the Adobe Store a make over. Not quite sure why but, hey, change can be good. Someone must have discovered blocks and black-and-white because that seems to define the new motif. And it definitely sports the "swirling color" look of CS3. (If you have the CS3 apps and like the look of Adobe's packaging, Adam Betts turned it into a set of icons. Scroll down to the CS Icon Replacement entry.)

Given the amount of time and money they have invested in the new CS3 look, why would they change the Photoshop logo? The nature logos from CS1/CS2 were interesting but you still had to think for a minute to figure out what was what. (What has a feather got to do with Photoshop?) With CS3, Adobe has gone to two-letter abbreviations and a rainbow of colors. Very clean and minimalist and very easy to pick out. This new logo reminds me of PBS.

Mood-o-Meter: happy

Nikon's Capture NX software, it seems, does not work and play well with Leopard. I went to check for updates to version 1.3 and was greeted by the following:

[WARNING】
Capture NX Ver.1.2.0 and 1.3.0 are not compatible with Mac OS X version 10.5.
As image files may be corrupted when they are saved, this software should NOT be used under Mac OS X version 10.5. We are currently investigating a means to resolve this issue.

This isn't a huge issue for me as I use it for playing with camera setting for RAW images (white balance, color, etc). I rarely save photos I've tinkered with, preferring to use Lightroom instead. It is a bit annoying though. I checked Nikon's web site but didn't see anything more.

There is good news, too. Adobe released updates for Premier Pro CS3, Encore CS3, and Soundbooth CS3. These are the Leopard compatibility updates. The only one left is Acrobat (I think).

One up, one down.

Mood-o-Meter: amused

I don't often heap scorn on Adobe; they make top-notch software. If you are a creative (or a creative-wish-you-were like me), Adobe Creative Suite is it. That said, I think they stepped off the deep end.

Usability critics have railed against Portable Document Format (PDF), the ubiquitous file format of the Internet and offices everywhere. PDF gives document creators total control over the layout of text and graphics on a page. Which is fine, the critics say, if you have a large screen. If you have a small screen like a phone or a PDA, you are in for a lot of scrolling.

PDF had one really redeeming feature: it was ad free - until now.

Adobe is now doing beta testing for Ads for Adobe PDF. That's right. Now you can put ad streams into your PDF documents to enthrall and entertain everyone who views your PDF documents. For the love of all things holy!

A travesty, says I, a travesty.

What's next, ads on toilet paper? At least those would be useful!

One the other hand, the do have an interesting new service called SHARE. File storage/sharing services are hardly a new idea but I would expect this one to have tight integration with CS3 or CS4, especially Bridge. Bridge is Adobe's file (I mean "asset") manager. SHARE would be a logical extension to any Bridge-based workflow.

Mood-o-Meter: annoyed

Nine 8x10's, fifteen or so 5x7's, and an emergency run to Fry's Electronics 'cause I just ran out of Light Grey and the one I ordered won't be here until Tuesday and the print is half-way out of the printer. Pile of paper, lots of ink, lots of fun. Now if I just took better photographs...

One other nit... when the printer has a paper jam (I had my first one happen today), it takes the printer a fair bit of time to recover and start printing again. hp's printers have always taken a fair amount of time to recover from a jam after you remove the offending sheets but this just seems longer. Perhaps it's because you are only printing a single photograph. Maybe it has to call out for counseling.

Mood-o-Meter: tired

I've had my hp Photosmart Pro B9180 for four months now and just replaced my second cartridge (light magenta). I don't print a huge number of photos (an average 10 a week maybe) and I only use it for photography; there's another printer on our home network for regular non-photo printing. I love the way it prints, everything from 4" x 6" to 13" x 19" in both color and black-and-white. I have settled on hp's Advanced Photo Paper (glossy) and Ilford's Premium and Galerie Smooth Papers (mainly satin finishes) as my standard stock. Prints come out with rich blacks and bright highlights.

As I've mentioned before, the B9180 uses eight (8) Vivera pigment-based inks in 27 ml cartridges. On the right paper, they are supposed to last 200 years. I doubt I will get to see if that is true or not. Just a hunch. I've seen a few postings that suggest the printer uses a lot of ink. Maybe it depends on what you are printing and the media you are using but with my stuff, the B9180 is a miser when it comes to ink. That 27 ml cartridge seems to last a long time - which is good given that they are $34 each ($272 plus tax for a full set). The only gripe I have in the ink department is this is one of the few (or perhaps only) printer that uses the number 38 cartridges. That means you don't find them at Staples, etc. I know of one local store that has them (Fry's Electronics) and you can get them on-line.

I've also heard a few reviews (Nikonians, perhaps or maybe an Inside Aperture interview) that the B9180 might not give repeatable results. I disagree. Maybe you need to get out the loupe or run the prints through a spectrometer to prove it but to my eyes, I'm getting the same colors on every print.

I do agree with a couple of nit points. First, the printer is quiet. It isn't rock-band loud but it does make a fair measure of noise. And every 6 or 12 hours it wakes up long enough to perform maintenance. That'll make you jump the first time it happens and you weren't expecting it! The other nit is the blue nightlight power button. I guess that's just an hp thing.

If I had it to do over again, would I buy it? Yes. Price-for-features, the B9180 is a great printer. The only reason I wouldn't buy it is because I got a Z2100- or Z3100-series printer instead. Those printers output on 24" and 44" and they support rolled paper. But they start at more than $3000 and that's more than I can afford - at least for now!

Mood-o-Meter: cheerful

The Christmas season has officially started in the Williams' house. For the last umpteen years, on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving we have done two things: put up the Christmas tree and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Philip assembled the tree and started putting the lights on it and we watched the movie.

It's an odd year so we are doing a "Mommy" Christmas tree. Even years, the kids and I get to decorate the tree. On the odd years my wife gets to decorate it. Naturally, her selection of ornaments is a bit more... unified... to say the least. But it's fun and another part of our family tradition.

Christmas is here!

Mood-o-Meter: awake

Apple has released the Leopard 10.5.1 update containing both security and bug fixes. Adobe has also release updates for Lightroom, Bridge CS3 and Photoshop CS3. Also, a quick glance at Adobe Labs indicates the availability of Premier Pro CS3 version 4.1, a preview of the fixes for the app when running on Leopard. Woot!

Mood-o-Meter: busy

I love it when accidents happen! I just got a new flash and was playing around with it. I shot about 25 frames and this was one. Since the WB on the camera wasn't set right, I decided to convert it to black and white. Glad I did because it works nicely with his silver fur. And the eyes!

Photograph of our Teacup Poodle, Napoleon. Shot with a Nikon D200 and Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens @ 195mm, 1/60 sec @ f/5.6 with a Nikon SB-800 flash on camera. Raw and B+W conversion using Adobe Lightroom.

Copyright © 2007 C.A.Williams, Some Rights Reserved. Click here for details.

Mood-o-Meter: accomplished

Last weekend I took the plunge and converted denali, my MacBook Pro, from OS X Tiger (10.4) to Leopard (10.5). After two full days of installation CDs and downloads, I had everything back. I swear, we must be masochists to upgrade computers - especially software. None of what I did was particularly onerous. Quite the opposite in fact. In general, I have found Mac software to be easier to install than on a Windows PC. No, it was the tediousness of it. Insert CD, click this, type that, wait, repeat. I could have saved some pain, I guess, by doing an Archive and Install rather than a from-scratch install. Doing it the way I did ensures there are no stray files laying around and it lets me get rid of the things I don't need like Microsoft Office:mac (I'm using iWork '08)¹ and Adobe Design Premium CS2 (I have CS3).

I must confess to being a bit vexed with Adobe right now. First, Lightroom isn't 100% compatible with Leopard. In particular, you can't always get it to switch to the Print module. The workaround seems to be exit Lightroom and try again but that isn't 100% either. Apparently the Audio and Video apps in CS3 will need some updates (Adobe says December) and I think Acrobat or Flash needed an update as well (January for that one). Neither impacts me stuff right now; just the Lightroom glitch.

The other Adobe issue has to do with installation of Master Collection. The whole process takes about 4.5 hours. I know there is a whole lot of software to install but the MC installer seems to be terribly inefficient. Normally I would assume it was I/O bound, waiting for the CD drive or the hard drive but this doesn't seem to be the case. Drive reads and writes were quite low. Neither was it processor bound as again processor utilization was quite low. Hopefully, I won't have to do that again.

I like Leopard for the most part. A couple of things I don't like are...
1. About 1 out of 3 times, my MacBook Pro does not shutdown completely. I get the spinning wheel thing and it gets stuck. I have not noticed that on kids' laptops, just mine. Needs investigating.
2. Apple changed the preferences for Safari. In particular, they changed the Tabs behavior. You used to be able to have the tab appear at the top even if you only had a single tab in the window. Can't do that any more. Also, when you close a Safari window and it has multiple tabs, you get the annoying "Are you sure?" dialog. Can't turn that off.

Still, that isn't a whole lot given the scope of the updates OS X.
---
1. Office:mac 2004 doesn't run native on the Intel chips so it runs in Rosetta. That means lower performance. Not that that matters a whole lot as I'm not writing much right now. The new version of Office:mac 2008 comes out in the spring but with iWork '08, you can save files in an Office-compatible XML format and that's good enough for me. Now, if Apple made that a default rather than a Save As... thing, we'd like it even more!

Mood-o-Meter: busy

I think the world has gotten just a touch out of hand with the whole trademark/copyright management thing. I was visiting the Wacom® web site to find out about compatibility of their most excellent graphire® Bluetooth® pen tablet and Apple's Mac OS X Leopard^TM.¹ While there, I was looking at the new Bamboo^TM tablets. In the description, they note that the tablet has four ExpressKeys^TM. (Note: It is unclear if it should be one word or two as it appears both ways on their site. Maybe they trademarked both forms.)

I get that companies want to create and control their image and that of their products. I get there are legal reasons for using trademarks and copyrights. I get it when Apple® says I can write "I have two Macs^TM" or "I have two Macintosh^TM computers" but not "I have two Macintoshes." I get it. If you don't use names consistently and require others to use the names in a consistent fashion you lose the protections of trademark law.

But I seriously doubt that Wacom is the first to have ExpressKeys^TM.

Honestly, I think the whole trademark thing is just a bit out of hand!
---
1. It is, just in case you wanted to know.

Wacom, graphire Bluetooth, Bamboo and ExpressKeys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Wacom.
Bluetooth is a registered trademark of The Bluetooth SIG, Inc.
Apple, OS X, OS X Leopard, Mac, and Macintosh are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.
Everything else is a trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft. They own a bunch, you know.

Mood-o-Meter: annoyed

In the world of digital photography, this book is a rare find: the author kept it short. Granted the Nikon's Capture NX doesn't claim to be the ultimate pixel-bending tool but Ben Long didn't fill a bunch of pages with fluff either.

Long starts with some basics about how a Nikon digital camera converts what you see in the viewfinder into a digital image, explains concepts like gamma and color space, and the different types of files that Capture NX can process (NEF, JPEG, and TIFF). He then moves in to a discussion of the Capture NX user interface and a sample workflow. Central to understanding and using the program is Nikon's U Point technology and he does a good job of explaining it. The remaining chapters of the book follow the basic workflow: preparing to edit (ch 4), editing (basic (ch 5) and advanced topics (ch 6)), and output for screen and print (ch 8). Chapter 7 talks about version control and batch processing and it feels kind of stuck in the middle of other topics.

Long's writing is clear and easy to read; even the color theory was understandable. There are plenty of illustrations which helps. The one criticism I have of the book is the section on printing images is rather thin. Thin to the point of being almost useless. Many photographers don't print their images; I do. While I bought the book because I wanted a quick intro to Capture NX, I found the 10 pages on printing to be next to useless.

Long, Ben. Real World Nikon Capture NX. (Berkley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2007) 240pp, index. $34.99.

Mood-o-Meter: blah