Contrary to the iPhone being a lousy HDR camera platform, the iPhone is a good companion when you head out with your DSLR to capture HDR images. Why?
My typical setup for an HDR shot in the field looks like this:
- Setup the DSRL on a tripod
- Use the spotmeter in my Canon 5D to meter the lightest and darkest parts of the scene
- Sit down and do the math how many shots it takes, what to set the Auto Exposure Bracket (AEB) settings to and how many AEB shots it will take.
The calculation can become quite challenging based on the limitations of your camera equipment. My Canon 5D only allows for 3 shot AEB with a maximum bracketing distance of 1 EV between each shot. If you need to bracket 7 EVs, you need 3 AEB shots with what settings for each shot? I guess you get the gist of the problem.
Two iPhone applications can help you with the math. My favorite is EVcalc – simply set the desired Aperture, the initial speed and the bracketing distance, then let it calculate the corresponding brackets. It’s quite simple and fast. The only improvement I would have wished for is to be able to pick the max EV and AEB settings for my camera from a picklist. But since I know these anyway, it was not too much of a problem. And the price is right: It’s free.
The other application is HDR Helper. It pretty much does the same as EVcalc, with one added feature: You can also change your ISO sensitivity in your HDR setup. This might be important for some photographers, especially when you shoot handheld, but I don’t need it, thus my preference for EVcalc. But if you want ISO support in your HDR calculations, $1.99 is a good price for a very capable iPhone HDR companion app.
[Posted with permission from iPhonePhotoVideo.com]
Photoshop CS4 Channels & Masks One-on-One is a new book that provides step-by-step lessons on masking and the alpha channel. Authors Deke McClelland provides 12 self-paced tutorials, engaging real-world projects, text lessons, 5 hours of DVD-video demonstrations, and real-world projects that will help you master masking through the alpha channel, which is one of the least understood feature in Photoshop’s enormous arsenal.
At the end of each chapter, you can test your knowledge with multiple-choice quizzes. Add it all up and you’ll learn to use Photoshop faster, more creatively, and more efficiently.
Price: $49.99, Amazon: $31.49
Let’s face it – a lot of pictures taken with an iPhone and posted straight to Flickr or Facebook don’t look very good. But help is available for some quick adjustments through Tiffen’s Photo Fx. Simply take a picture, open Photo Fx, choose one of the 26 filters, use the sliders on the bottom to make your adjustments, then save the picture before posting it. It is a very simple and quick process which can yield quite dramatic improvements over your straight-out-of-your-iPhone pictures. Also handy is their before/after toggle, so you can always compare how the improvements look over the original. Of course, you can apply multiple filters on the same picture.
Supported filters include: Black and White, Black Pro-Mist®, Center Spot, Color-Grad® , Color Spot, Day for Night, Enhancer, Fog, Glow, Halo, High Contrast, Infrared, Looks, Night Vision, Old Photo, Polarizer, Pro-Mist®, Reflector, Star, Soft/FX®, Tint, Two Strip, Three Strip, Ultra Contrast and Vignette.
Our verdict: Highly recommended!
Price: $2.99 (introductory), later $3.99
CameraBits released version 4.6 of its popular PhotoMechanic software from beta at PMA today. The long list of changes since 4.5.x include a slick folder-watching Live Ingest function, a full-resolution loupe in the Contact Sheet view, additional upload templates for Amazon S3, Flickr, SmugMug and others, expanded GPS support, an option to export all program preferences for import into Photo Mechanic on another computer and much, much more. It is still very good at fast imports of images from your camera to a PC or a Mac. In addition, it allows for quick sorting, tagging and the creation of contact sheets in a color managed environment. The new version also adds support for the latest DSLRs.
Price: $150
Here’s a very nifty program: Vincent Cheung released version 2 of his ShapeCollage program, which allows you to easily create a collage of different photos which you can then arrange in the shape you want. Simply pick your images, drag them into shape collage, choose your shape or create one and you are done. Upload the collage to your blog or website, save it as a separate image then import it into Photoshop — there are no boundaries. Let your creativity reign.
Sure, there are other ways to create collages and shapes of collages, but not as easily as in ShapeCollage. Give it a try and see yourself how easy it is to be creative!
Highly recommended!
Price: free
Tiffen released version 2 of its Dfx software, which allows you to reproduce many of the most popular filters you used to use in the field. Overall, the new version includes more than 2,000 standard and special-effects filters, which can be used as-is or even customized and saved for future use. Some of these filters have been part of our workflow and have consistently produced superior results without going through a steep learning curve. While not inexpensive, these filters can save you endless hours trying to re-create a special look or effect in Photoshop.
Some filter examples: Ambient Light, Close-up Lens, Hazem High Contrast, Warm and Cool Polarizers or Wide Angle Lens.
Highly recommended!
Standalone price: $99.95, Amazon: $99.95
Photoshop plugin: $299.95, Amazon: $299.95
Aperture plugin: $299.95, Amazon: $274.85
If you are like us, you carry your iPhone whereever you go. Thus, I’ve been looking for a DOF (Depth of Field) calculator on my iPhone for quite some time. No longer! Bitwerks, a company from Switzerland, released f/8, its DOF implementation for download from Apple’s iTunes store. Once installed, it’s easy to enter through the familiar iPhone interface all of the required information about your cameras and lenses. Then, just pick a camera/lens combination in the field and calculate your DOF. It’s that simple.
Our verdict: Highly recommended!
Price: $3.99
Maximum Output Software released version 4.1 of its FileBack PC backup software which is one of our favorites for backing up on a Windows PC. The main new feature is support for multiple users on the same Windows PC. In addition, support for file and folder names with more than 256 characters has been added, while performance improvements have been made and bug fixes were applied. The Enterprise edition also allows for simultaneous compression and encryption of backups.
The upgrade is free for all registered users of version 4.x
Price: $55.00
Recently CameraBits released version 4.5.3.1 of its popular PhotoMechanic software, which is optimized for very fast downloads of images from your camera to a PC or a Mac. Various metadata speed improvements were implemented in addition to speed improvements in the Navigator. As always, a number of bug fixes were implemented as well. The new version adds RAW support for the Canon Powershot G9, Nikon’s D3 and D300 as well as the Sony DSLR A-700.
This is another development of image transferring software from CameraBits. Various changes have been implemented such as improved file reading speed and a re-acceleration of image transplantation from your camera to computer.
From previous tests of this new software, this new and highly developed gadget is able to download images from O2 mobile phones as well, most specially the latest units.
Price: $150
Lemkesoft updated its GraphicConverter, an excellent program to convert graphics and images between different graphics formats on Macs, to version 6.1.2. The free update (41.4 MB) features improved EXIF handling and bug fixes.
List price: $34.95
