The Home of the Hybrid Photographer

I would like to apologize for the lack of updates in the past month, as I have been rather busy on a litany of projects and LIDF kind of slipped to the ways side. Primarily I have been trying to polish up my scanning series, so that as the articles drop, they will be solid off the bat.

Good news though. Saturday will be the first official post in the scanning series and it will be looking at software. For those of you activly scanning already it may not be of much interest, but I feel that the choice of scanning software is second only to choosing you scanner. I won’t touch on what scanners to use, as there are differing needs and differing capabilities. However I have a few reviews waiting in the wings of the units I am familiar with, and if any of you have a scanner you would like to review, e-mail me what you got and I will run it on LIDF for all to see.

But that is coming this weekend, so look for it.

Also, since I already have you here, I would like to direct you to one of my favorite blogs I have came across in recent months. 1/125 (http://one125.net) is the creation of Nick Shere (@kukkurovaca ) and Karl Gunnarsson ( @kalli) and is a refreshing view on the world of photography. It is a tum-blog, so the posts are usually short, full of opinion and entertaining as hell. Both guys are good photographers with unique outlooks on photography, both the act of and the photographic world in general.

I highly recommend you give 1/125 a look. It covers opinions on classic works, current events and thoughts on photography. Much like me, both Nick and Karl are hybrid photographers, utilizing both film and digital in their work, so I feel their opinions may well be of interest to many LifeInDigitalFilm fans.

Also, while you are purveying the web, make sure to drop by X-Equals and check out my latest piece there, covering a quick workflow to fix bad exposures.

Anyways, just wanted to check in since I had a few minutes, I’ll see ya this weekend when we take a look at scanning software.

Later all,

Michael

Well, it looks like its another post finally. But, its a fluff piece. I’m working on new content for LIDF, looking to broaden the horizons. To that extent I have been taking time to build up new content and laying low on the LIDF front. That is not to say that I have not been busy. I’ve been working on a new series of articles over at the X=blog delving deep into the Camera Profiles in Lightroom.

Part one is currently live over at Brandon’s fine site. In it I cover the basics of camera profiles and how to use them. You can find it HERE. Part two will be dropping soon, so check out X= frequently to see it once it drops. In it I will be covering the process by which you can develop you own camera profiles, and how to share settings between cameras. Part three is currently in my text editor being written, and it will cover making creative profiles….such as camera profiles that simulate film, much like my presets. So get a color checker and join me over at X= for the profling fun.

As to me, I’ve spent much of the past two months getting back in touch with traditional film photography. Aside from a wedding and a few portrait sessions, I haven’t touched my digital gear much lately. I can’t say that I regret it either. Shooting film feels different and I enjoy it. In that same vein, I have developed scanning methods and a Lightroom workflow for dealing with film…I will be sharing the insights I have garnered on that from in the coming posts.

In all, please bear with me a little longer as I prepare to relaunch my efforts here on LifeInDigitalFilm. The new Cold Storage Collection is well on it’s way to completion and should drop by the end of this month. I’ll contact those of you who already have the 1st collection before I release it to get contact info to send you a link to your copy of the new set.

Hang around, once we’re back rolling I think you will enjoy what I have cooking for you. And I’ll throw in a couple presets too.

Until later,

Michael

[EDIT: New LifeInDigitalFilm is up int test mode. Very basic WordPress theme for the moment, but it is functional. Hope to have new posts starting this weekend. Check it out:

www.lifeindigitalfilm.net

When fully ready to go, I will either redirect the current lifeindigitalfilm.com or I will keep the blogger dot com site up for a while, linking to new posts on dot net. Let me know what you think is the best idea]

Just a heads up, LifeInDigitalFilm will be switching over to WordPress as a blogging platform. This switch will give me more option and more creative control over LifeInDigitalFilm. Most likely there will be no posts until the switch is complete. During this time, LifeInDigitalFilm.com will still be operational as it is. I will update this post with additional information as necessary, and give you the link to try out the new LifeInDigitalFilm before the switch is complete.

I hope to have the switch over completed as soon as possible, hopefully within the next week. If there are any delays I will let you know. I was planning on finishing up the tutorial and release a few more presets before the switch, but I decided I was going to jump on it now.

Bear with me, this is gonna be worth it.

Michael

PS: In the mean time, if you find you enjoy my presets and wish to show some support for LifeInDigitalFilm, consider purchasing my Cold Storage Preset Collection. It is a collection of many of my presets on this site, along with 12 exclusive presets. More information can be found HERE. Your purchase helps me aquire more film for emulation and pay for processing and scanning needed for emulation analysis.

Anyone who purchases (or have already purchased) the Cold Storage Collection will recieve a free upgrade to Cold Storage Vol. 2 upon its release in Late May, along with a special pack of presets just for my early supporters. More information on this will be sent to those who have ordered the Cold Storage Collection shortly before the release of Cold Storage 2. If you have already purchased the Cold Storage Collection and are using a new E-mail address send me an E-mail to help@lifeindigitalfilm.com with your new e-mail address as well as the e-mail address used for purchase so I can update my records for when I send out the upgrade links.

I currently have my system back up and I am catching up on a backlog of photowork and guest blog posts. LIDF will resume this Sunday/Monday. New presets are coming. Maybe even Saturday night if all goes well.

Be back soon,

Michael

So, again I come off another week feeling like I was a punching bag in a boxing gym. I never succeeded in getting back ahead with my releases on the blog, had to replace my film scanner and now my primary photo computer has a failing hard disk. Not getting ahead whatsoever. Thank goodness I started these Monday updates…give me the rest of the day to find a way to get caught back up and hopefully save the presets I lost in my data crash. Hopefully after running through a repair program my presets will be intact. If not, I still have the draft versions of them on my Linux machine, which I can pull off and finish them back up again. Hopefully I will again have something for tomorrow.

Here are the releases made this week:

Tuesday: Fuji 160C
Wednesday: Fuji 160S
Friday: Foma Fomapan Classic
Sunday: Forte Fortepan 400

Had a review of the great, inexpensive canvas products from ZaZa Gallery on Thursday. Definitely check out the review and their site is you are looking to get some gallery wraps made. Great quality at a reasonable price, make them your first stop when shopping around for prices. And if you need to uprez an image for a canvas wrap project, read Dennis Hays’ write up on Genuine Fractals 6 over at X-Equals.

Saturday I made a post with a couple reminders…Vote on a winning image at the Flickr Prestting Lightroom group’s photocontest. Please drop by and vote.
And drop by X-Equals to learn more about Dripbook, a great new online portfolio service.

And now I am going to continue in my epic struggle against failing hardware and hope that I can produce more content for tomorrow. Hopefully I can get my next article for X-Equals done soon too. Need to get my screenshots and then I will have an article all about sharpening in Lightroom ready to go. Just need a working Lightroom computer. This Linux machine is fine for everything but photos…no Adobe love for Linux.

Hopefully see you tomorrow,

Michael

UPDATE: My local Hard disk is trashed, and I was unable to recover my finished presets. As it is, it should be Wednesday before I can get a new drive, and Thursday before I can finish off a preset from the WIP presets that were last saved to my server the night before. In other words, no new releases until then. I don’t know what I am going to cover the next few days, as I have no Lightroom/Photoshop PC at the moment, but releases will resume by the end of this week. And so it is written in stone, this week is best left forgotten.