iPhone Photography Revisited

Back in December, I had written a post about photographing with an iPhone (which I don't personally own). That post revolved around an iPhone app for sharing images and a live feed of iPhone images submitted from folks around the world to Chase Jarvis' website called "The Best Camera" (as in the one you have with you).

Now iPhone photography has been taken one step further. I am talking about fine art iPhone photography! Seriously. Turns out you can do some pretty amazing stuff with the iPhone in conjunction with some image editing apps without ever having the photo leave the phone.

Think I'm kidding or exagerating? Check out this area of Dan Burkholder's website. The images are pretty amazing! He even has iPhone photography workshops and has an article about his iPhone photographs in this month's PhotoTechnique.

Tree And Pond In Fall
Copyright Dan Burkholder
iPhone Image With Post-Processing

I had always thought that cell phone photography was for 'the masses' and could not be used for 'serious art'. However, I have to say that with the changes in technology it is quite possible that this is no longer the case (not that I am about to go out and sell off my Canon 5D MK II). Though I have never seen any of Dan's iPhone prints myself, I do have a friend who has seen them and she was quite impressed with their quality (as a separate issue from their 'artistry' which, in my mind and hers, is clearly superb). But then again, what else would one expect from Dan Burkholder?

As an aside, some may have noticed that there has been a lack of images on the blog recently. That is because it has been taking me some time to set up my new computer system, load software, deal with driver bugs etc. But I hope to be back to making images in the very near future. Thanks for joining me here.

Chris Jordan: Running The Numbers

Seattle photographer Chris Jordan's work is so different, so intriguing, so filled with message that it really is important to see for yourself. Rather than try to describe it I will let you read what he has said in his own words:

"Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2008 "

He subsequently continued this style of photography with another project entitled "Running The Numbers II"

I think this work is illuminating and worth looking at and thinking about. After all, isn't the best kind of photography the kind that makes you think?

Here is a link to Jordan's website. Because of the way the site is constructed, I can't give a direct link to the project pages.....so once on the home page just click on the Running The Numbers projects and have a look for yourself!

Pre-Visualization.....Once, Twice, Thrice

It occurs to me that as photographer/artists we pre-visualize our work more than once and often as many as three times or more.

Pre-visualization #1. When we are making images out in the field we need to have a reason for stopping to make a photograph.....to take time to think about what attracted us to the subject and to pre-visualize how we want it to look in the final print.

Pre-visualization #2. Assuming that we are shooting digitally, the image is then imported into Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop etc and, in my case, this is usually done in RAW format. When I import images into Lightroom I don't apply any develop presets on import and, thus, am greeted by images that have a generally bland appearance. Therefore, when deciding which images to work on, I not only have to judge composition, but also think about what I can make the image 'into' to 'bring out' the qualities that led me to make the photograph in the first place.

Pre-visualization #3. Finally, in todays digital age, we can frequently combine images to extend dynamic range, increase depth of field, or make panoramas. This, for me, is the most difficult pre-visualization, probably because I have just recently started using these modalities.

Obviously, in the 'pre-digital' days there were also mutiple pre-visualizations to be made when it came to making prints. However, as a 'slide shooter' who didn't often make prints back then, I really only pre-visualized once, and this occured when making the initial photograph. After that you got what you got and that was that.

I am not quite sure why it is that I find it interesting that as photographers we need to imagine and formulate our end result in our mind's eye so many times, but I do find it intriguing.

Quick Quotes: Elliot Erwitt

"Photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them."

Elliot Erwitt

I had planned on a different post today, but, while reading the latest issue of LensWork, came across this quote. It just seemed to complement the prior quote by Morley Baer so perfectly that I simply couldn't resist. Two people with the same idea, both expressing it with an amazing eloquence.

Quick Quotes: Morley Baer

Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it.

-Morley Baer

This quote by Morley Baer really sums up to me the essence of photographing. So often we want to go someplace exciting or exotic to get 'great shots'. Those photographers that have most amazed me are those that can take everyday objects or routine settings and transform them into something special and, in the process, allow us to see them in a new way.

Photoshop Optimized Computer III

With the background of Parts I and II of this series behind us, I thought it might be useful to discuss what components I personally picked for my "Photoshop Optimized Computer".

In the 'digital age', all of our processing is done on a computer and, for many, prints are made at home on an inkjet printer. For as much time as we spend out in the field, we likely spend as much time, or more, working on our images in the digital darkroom. For this reason I feel it would be foolish to spend money on cameras and lenses and not put forward the investment in a computer system that makes finishing the job efficient and pleasant. In short, I don't think it is wise to buy expensive equipment and mate that equipment with a computer that is underpowered and which makes the processing portion of image making an unpleasant experience. If you have waited and waited for a file to open in Photoshop or had your system crash while using a memory intensive plug-in, you know exactly what I mean. If one can afford to make the investment, a good computer system will make post-processing a much more pleasant and productive experience.

I don't mean to insinuate that one needs to go on a wild spending spree for a computer. In fact, as we shall see, some high end components are well worth buying but there are others, such as the graphics card, where pouring more money into a higher end card is not going to significantly enhance the Photoshop experience.

So, lets get down to particulars. What components did I choose for my new computer? Again, some of these choices are personal and I don't mean to imply that this is the best or only worthwhile configuration.....I just thought I would share my decisions and why I made them.

RAM: I'm starting here because I knew how much I wanted (12 GB) and the way to get to this amount at a reasonable price was to have 6 memory slots on the motherboard so that I could purchase 6 x 2GB as opposed to 3 x 4GB. RAM comes in several varieties and speed. I bought Kigston ValueRAM (DDR3-1333). While one can pay more for 'faster' RAM etc, I am not convinced it will make much difference for still image editing. It may well make a difference for gaming and video, but I am not planning to use the computer for much of either. Therefore, it seemed to me that this RAM would do the trick. Obviously, once one is over 4GB it makes no sense not to get a 64 bit OS in order to utilize it.

Motherboard: There were some limitations here, as any builder is only going to carry a limited number of makes and models. In order to get a 6 memory slot board I went with the Asus P6TD DDR3 motherboard.

Processor: I was originally planning for an Intel i5 750, which sits at a nice price/performance point. The i5's don't have hyperthreading but, to the best of my knowledge, Photoshop doesn't utilize hyperthreading at this point in time. Nonetheless, because of the motherboard choice, an i5 was not an option and I went for the arguably more powerful (and a bit more expensive) i7 920 (which is actually due to be replaced by the 930 soon) which does have hyperthreading. Perhaps in the future (I expect to use this system for at least 5 years) Photoshop will utilize hyperthreading.

Graphics Card: This is one component where, if one were building a computer for the express purpose of gaming, you could go hog wild and really drop a bundle on a high end video card. However, while one wants a reasonable video card, the best of the best is really a wasted resource if it is to be used for Photoshop alone (as opposed to gaming or video editing). For this reason I went mid-range with a Gigabyte GeForce 9600GT with 512 MB of video RAM.

Sound Card: This machine is for Photoshop and Lightroom primarily....I went with no dedicated sound card, just the motherboard sound processing.

RAID: A discussion of all the varieties of RAID is far beyond the scope of this blog. However, for the scratch disk, I did go with RAID 0 (as I had discussed in Part II of this series) using 7200 RPM disks. One worthwhile issue to touch on is the use of on-board RAID controlled by the motherboard vs a dedicated RAID controller card. Again, this goes beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say that, based on what I was able to learn, having a separate RAID controller card is well worth the investment in order to remove the RAID function from the motherboard. I went with a two disk RAID 0 array and a RAID card. I had the two disk array partitioned into a smaller first volume for the scratch disk. This volume resides on the outer, faster portion of the disk while the remaining volume will be used to store files on which I am still working in order to allow rapid opening and saving of the file. When the processing of these images is completed, they will be moved to storage on a non-RAID hard drive given the increased risk of data loss if either of the disks in the array were to fail.

Hard Drives: As I mentioned, I went with two 7200 RPM disks for the RAID array. I also wanted a fast boot drive so that the computer would boot quickly and applications would also launch very fast. Though this was clearly a 'luxury item', I decided to go with a solid state disk (SSD) for the boot disk to hold the OS and applications. In addition, a Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black hard drive is to be used for storage. The motherboard and case will allow for the addition of 2 more disks, should the need arise.

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Monitor: Discussing this component of the system is really opening a can of worms. A quality monitor can be expensive, but is also a mission critical part of the digital imaging system. It is used to assess the image, process the image, soft proof the image etc. Clearly, a low quality monitor that is poorly calibrated and profiled can make producing high quality images and prints a nightmare. If one's budget allows, a high quality monitor together with a hardware calibration system is optimal. Some names to look into (and I don't mean to imply that these are the only worthwhile monitors) include Eizo, NEC, Apple, and Lacie.

Well, I hope that this series of three posts will be helpful to others that might be interested in putting together their own 'Photoshop Optimized Computer'.

Photoshop Optimized Computer II

For Part I of this series click here.

Let me begin Part II by explaining what I view as a 'Photoshop Optimized Computer'. Obviously that means a computer whose hardware/software is set up in a way which allows Photoshop to run in the most efficient and fastest way possible. But what special hardware or software is needed to allow this efficiency to occur? How is a 'Photoshop Optimized Computer' (I think maybe I should try to trademark that little phrase before someone else does) different from the standard computer you might pick up anywhere?

In order to answer this, we need to know a bit about how Photoshop itself works. More specifically, we need to know about the software's data handling strategy. Now, I need to point out that my 'day job' has nothing to do with computer programing.....so, if I make a mistake in any of these posts I would be more than happy to have someone out there correct me.

When one opens a file using Photoshop, the program puts the data into RAM. If there is not enough RAM to handle the file, or if in the process of editing the file by adding layers etc the file becomes so large that it doesn't fit into the available RAM, then Photoshop writes that data to a physical hard drive that it has set aside for itself known as the 'scratch disk'. The specific drive or drive volume that Photoshop uses for the scratch disk can be chosen in the Photoshop Preferences. It should be recognized that:

1) Not all the RAM in the computer can be devoted to Photoshop use, as some of it is needed for use by the OS (and 32 bit programs limit the amount of usable RAM to 4 GB).

2) Once the data file gets large enough to require Photoshop to write its data to a physical hard drive things move much slower since the speed at which data can be written to a physical drive is much, much slower than the speed at which it can be stored in RAM.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this information? Knowing that things move much faster when Photoshop has enough RAM to write to tells us that the more RAM the better. And then more! And to allow Photoshop to utilize all that RAM, it would be optimal to use a 64 bit OS in order to remove the 4 GB RAM limit that is imposed by a 32 bit OS.

However, no matter how much RAM is in the system, Photoshop still needs to use the scratch disk to some small degree, even if the file itself fits fully into RAM. For this reason the scratch disk should be optimized, even in systems with a good deal of RAM. How does one achieve this optimization? It can be done in two ways.

The first and most important way is to put the scratch disk on a separate physical drive from the OS (the Photoshop application itself can be installed on the OS boot drive...some say it is optimal to install it there, as opposed to on another drive). That way the drive head can read and write to the scratch disk without having to do anything else. If the scratch disk were on the same physical drive as the OS, that disk's read/write heads would be slowed down by having to perform both the scratch disk duty as well as the reading and writing that the OS requires, such as writing to the page file and other required duties (don't move your page file to the scratch disk....if you don't know what that means just forget about it, as it's not there unless you put it there yourself).

The second way to optimize the scratch disk is to not only put it on a separate physical disk from the OS, but also to make this separate disk as fast a disk as possible. Options thus include, going from slowest (worst) to fastest (best): 5400 RPM drive, 7200 RPM drive, fast 7200RPM drive (no, not a separate type but 'better' because of increased cache, number of microprocessors etc), 10,000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor (though many would argue that there are some 7200 RPM drives out there that function faster than the 10000 RPM VelociRaptor) and, finally, a RAID 0 array.

A RAID 0 array is simply using two disks that appear to the OS as a single larger disk. Data is written to the array by splitting it and having half of it go to one disk and half to the other. Therefore each physical disk has to write only half as much and they can both do it simultaneously since each disk has its own read/write head. If one of those two disks fail all the data from the file is lost and can't be reconstructed....but since the scratch disk data is used only temporarily while the file is being worked on.....who cares?

Notice I didn't include a solid state drive (SSD) in the list of options. Though an SSD would be superb for data storage, the OS, or use in a RAID array, the current feeling is that as a stand alone disk it is not optimal (in addition to its being very expensive) for use as the scratch disk. The reason for this is that, while SSDs have blazing fast read speeds, the current write speeds (except perhaps for the super premium Intel E series SSDs) are no faster, and possibly slower, than a fast hard drive. The important fact to recognize here is that, for a scratch disk, the write speeds are much more important than the read speeds. This, then, is what makes the SSD, at the current level of technology, perhaps a sub-optimal scratch disk....or at least a scratch disk that is no better than the current breed of hard drives but costing far more.

So, to sum up:

1) OS and Photoshop on the same drive

2) RAM and more RAM

3) 64 bit OS so that RAM constraints are removed

4) Scratch disk on a second physical disk that is separate from the OS boot disk and

5) Make that separate physical scratch disk a fast one, with a RAID 0 array being optimal.

Want to dig a little deeper? Try this article from the Adobe Knowledge Base or this one, which is exceptional, from Lloyd Chambers. Though the second one discusses performance on a Mac, the information it contains, for the most part, can be applied to a PC as well.

I should mention one caveat, and that is that in this discussion I am assuming that large files are going to be worked on. If you are just working with very small files all of this might not be necessary. But if you are starting with large files (I shoot in RAW format with a Canon 5D MKII) that you then edit with many layers, use smart objects etc....then this info is for you.