Problem statement Sometimes, I am somewhat dissatisfied with the size of my digital photographs. The simplest way to improve (after the fact) is to run any Photoshop-like program, and apply a resampling (resize) preferably with the Lanczos method, in order to get 2x or 3x or 4x more pixels. It is fast and efficient, but…
Category: ·Others
Improve your photographic skills with a photo challenge
One little idea to progress in our mastering of the photographic technique: Take a photo challenge like “52 photos in 52 weeks”. There are many of them, but I looked at one of the most famous ones: The Dogwood 52 Week Photography Challenge. Major advantage: It does not concentrate on the technical side of photographic…
Protection of your privacy and of your data
You may not have noticed it but European Regulations recently required some significant changes on web sites, in order to make sure that they are respectful of their visitors and -even more importantly- of the privacy of their data. Our web site has been adapting since a few weeks with a few nice changes, including:…
Fast identify your USB drives and sticks
We are handling so many memory cards and USB thumb drives that it is often quite unpleasant to recognize them all. Sometimes, because it is difficult to find them in the photographer bag, sometimes because all these look alike when plugged into our computers. wouldn’t it be great if we had a simple way to…
Our backups after the end of CrashPlan for Home
In the past, I did some recommendations about backups. Today, I insist on the criticity for the digital photographer to keep her eyes on this operation (who did not discovere with horror that some files had disappeard from the hard disk drive?). But this now becomes a central question after CrashPlan announced the end of…
World Backup Day 2017
Sometimes, one wonders whether it is still necessary to repeat it, but it is important (No! critical) to backup digital data as soon as we approach our first computer. Worse, for a (digital) photographer, it’s now critical. Don’t we all have lost already one or more images because of a hard disk crash, a capricious…
No more lost memory cards (Tip)
My personal prophylactics in order to avoid loosing memory cards and photos on memory cards: Always format the memory card in-camera (formatting on a computer may not be right for your camera, same thing about formatting on another camera) Always wait 3 seconds before ejecting the memroy card (or check the red LED flashing on…
Epson Pano Awards 2016
A photo contest I particularly like, the Epson Pano Award, just released its list of 2016 winners. You will find superb images,: In panoramic format (sometimes, even vertical ones), avec a clear taste for abstraction (it’s more than OK with me), and a notable attention to Architecture and Nature (no contradiction here, you’ll see). Go and…
Security on YLovePhoto
Minor technical information for those of you who are sensitive to their online safety. One of the recommended steps to a better privacy and safety is using web site under the SSL protocol (accessing them with https:// instead of http://). Now, YLovePhoto helps you and can be transparently accessed through both addresses: https://www.YLovePhoto.com/ http://www.YLovePhoto.com/ For…
A flipboard for YLovePhoto
A few changes for YLovePhoto in 2016. Starting with the decision of adding a special complement to the web site for those who know and love FlipBoard, a powerful way to flip pages on Internet-based magazines. It’s even easier if you chose to use your smart phone: your magazine pages are flipped from the tip…
Is this the best camera manual?
We always complain about the quality of user manuals of our cameras. We sometimes complain about the environmental impact of their useless paper. Here is a delightfully intelligent solution to it: Make the packaging double as a user manual (or re-use the materials of the manual into a clever packaging for the DSLR camera). Please…
Lessons from the Adobe Creative Cloud down incident
If you are using Adobe Creative Cloud (the recent subscription-based cloud-based solution for Adobe tools including Photoshop), or if you know somebody using it, there are 99% chance that you heard that Adobe service broke down on 14-May and is just going back up as I write this. Note that Photoshop CC is only available…
Light leaks on Sony A7 and A7r
The small hybrid cameras with interchangeable lenses from Sony, the Sony A7 and A7r know quite a (expected) success but the manufactured just recognized a fairly big fail: a A light leakage is possible between the body and the lens at the lens attachement. Not good…. The lens mount lets some light leak into the…
Canon would abandon point-and-shoots
For sure, the recent financial report [PDF] from Canon shows that the situation is not perfect for them (But compare to Sony who announced it would soon sell its historical headquarters Osaki building in Tokyo). it’s clear that all photography equipment manufacturers are facing difficult times with a dwindling market eaten by smartphones more and…
Metz insolvency: End of an era for Flash accessories
This is coming from Reuters: The German manufacturer of flashes and accessories, Metz, filed for insolvency. this is bad news for 600 employees. This is also the probable end of an astounding range of flashes and camera accessories, from mid- to high-end. We thought that they were strictly unassailable and, once again, the economic reality…
Did you live before the digital age of photography?
This is the question I want to ask you after reading an amusing little post on PetaPixel: 17 Signs That You Were Alive Before the Age of Digital Photography. You can go and read before coming back here. Please, do. In a couple of minutes, I observed that I was able to recognize nearly everything…
Sigma’s surprise
Last week, Sigma surprised all of us with a very unusual announcement: Sigma Mount Conversion Service. It’s all about offering the owners of the most recent Sigma lenses (the Art, Sport and Contemporary series; currently seven lenses in all) the possibility to swap mounts. You bought a 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM with a Canon mount…
Heavy-wheight lenses for 2013
While 2012 was relatively calm in terms of new tele-lenses (with the significant exceptions of the Pentax 500mm and the progressive availability of the new great whites from Canon), 2013 appears ready to become a year of big tele-lenses at nearly all the manufacturers: Nikon launches an 800mm f/5.6 which is becoming the biggest product…
International Women’s Day
To celebrate the International Women’s Day (today on March 8th), I wanted to show how, we photographers moved from seeing women as models and crude ones at that. Here is how Bell & Howell was advertising its slide projectors in 1959. And if you think that this was pretty innocuous, think about the lives of…
Color calibration? Really?
Take a minute to have fun with this cartoon from XKCD. Thanks Xtian for the pointer!
Goodbye Kodak
Kodak just filled for bankruptcy. It may not be the total end of the red and yellow logo. But they were already selling their assets and debt has been climbing up quite high in the recent months.
Olympus: How to end?
Olympus is going through really dire straits. The previous management has obviously organized some really risky finance operations (so risky that they turned to be catastrophic). Now that smoke and dust are settling down we can see more clearly (it produced a small hike up in the stock prices and we heard that the rumors…
Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!
Happy new year to all YLovePhoto readers! I hope that 2012 will bring you joy and photography. It’s now time to look back at the year behind us and try and see what is coming in 2012. 2011 Two features were really striking in 2011: Natural disasters: The earthquake in Japan and the floods in…
Too many comments…
I have to apologize to all of you who track the comments on the YLovePhoto web site. We have been hit by a spammer who deluged us with comment spam. I appreciated the dozens of laudative comments (about my writing style, the quality of my posts, the depth of my insight and other overly nice…
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst”
“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” Henri Cartier-Bresson – Photographer