March 2010

March Twenty-Ten
DoubleClick
2010 MaUsE Executive
• President: Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Vice President: Aaron Vegh
[email protected]
• Apple Liaison: Marcel Dufresne
[email protected]
• Treasurer: Stan Wild
[email protected]
• Publicity Director: Jim Danabie
• Photographer: Irma Shaw
• DoubleClick Editor:
Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Secretary: Jeff Hurd
• Director: Guy Lafontaine
[email protected]
• Director: Ian Winton
• Director: Marcel Dufresne
MaUsE Contact Information:
The MaUsE
c/o Stan Wild
58 Rothean Drive
Whitby, Ontario, Canada
L1P 1L5
Special thanks to everyone who helped
with the February 2010 issue by submitting some articles about Macintosh-related
stuff they found interesting this month. If
any of the rest of you have something to
contribute to the April 2010 issue, please
send it to Michael the Editor using the info
above.
From The Editor
What you are looking at is the March 2010 edition of
the MaUsE DoubleClick, the online publication of the
Macintosh Users East, (MaUsE), a motley collection of
mostly harmless cranks who reside in Southern Ontario with their motley collection of old and new Macintosh, Hackentosh & MacClone computers.
The DoubleClick is published using a 2.8 GHz Aluminum iMac Extreme and QuarkXPress 8.12. An antique Kodak DX7590 is used for all pictures. Everything
not specifically attributed to someone else can probably be blamed on the Editor. Back issues can be downloaded from the MaUsE website: < www.mause.ca >.
Submissions from MaUsE Club members are almost
always welcome. Send your submissions and articles
to me at < [email protected] >, especially if there
are files or pictures attached. I have never refused a
submission yet.
Home and Away
Twenty-ten
This issue is being published in
truly enviable circumstances. I am
using QuarkXPress to write it on
my old 1 GHz G4 iBook, and am
writing it in El Calafate, El Chalten,
San Martin de los Andes, Mendoza, Bariloche, and other Argentine locations. And we are now in
the second decade of the twentyfirst century, so no more of this
“two-thousand-and-ten” nonsense.
From now on it is ʻtwenty-something” starting with 2010, pronounced “twenty-ten”.
Because we care about the environment, the MaUsE
DoubleClick is created using only recycled electrons:
matter was neither created nor destroyed in the
process of creating this issue. There are no infractions
of the law of matter conservation. There is always
room for another piece on any Mac-related topic and I’ll
make room if there isn’t. I would like your submissions.
Apple, Macintosh, and the Apple logo are trademarks
of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and
other countries. The MaUsE (Macintosh Users East) is
an independent Mac user group and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved of by
Apple Computer, Inc. Its very much like they donʼt even
know we exist.
Michael Shaw, Editor
MaUsE Meetings are held in Room 1 at the new Whitby Public Library on the southeast corner of Henry and Dundas West in Whitby, Ontario. Meetings start at 7:00 PM
but there is an early session from 6:30 for people who wish to discuss hardware or
software issues or problems. Macintosh virus problem discussion from 6:58 to 7:00
PM as and if required.
Meetings are open to the public and admission is free.
Raffle tickets at MaUsE events are free but the free raffle tickets for Macintosh hardware or software will only
be given to paid-up MaUsE Members. Please remember
to bring your Membership card to every meeting.
MACINTOSH USERS EAST FIRST 2010 ʻEVENING WITH MACʼ
Wednesday, April 7th 2010, 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Meeting Room One - Whitby Central Library
ʻMaUsE resource peopleʼ
ʻNew Mac usersʼ and ʻnot so new Mac usersʼ
EVERYONE IS WELCOME - BRING YOUR FRIENDS WITH YOU
TO SHARE IN THIS ʻHANDS ONʼ MAC EVENING ʻSHOW AND TELLʼ
Do you have a lap top and a favourite programme or a favourite game or utility ?
Bring your lap top with you and show others what makes that particular programme,
game or utility so special for you.
You have questions – ask YOUR questions,
We will do our best to provide knowledgeable answers
ITʼS ALL ABOUT GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR MAC.
There is so much to know about a Macʼs capabilities
You have MAC knowledge – share YOUR knowledge
Come, participate, and enjoy the first of 2010ʼs
ʻEVENINGS WITH MACʼ
This evening is specially for you
PLEASE NOTE... PLEASE NOTE... PLEASE NOTE...
The ʻEvening with Macʼ is a bonus extra meeting.
The clubʼs regular, exciting, star-studded,
fullly - featured meeting will take place
three weeks later on the evening of
WednesdayApril 28th
In meeting room one at the Whitby Central Library
Remembering...
Black and White
When photography was first invented back in 1833 you only had one
colour, Black. This was because photo's were made on tin. Fifty five
years later George Eastman developed a film process for taking pictures. Again the original colour was Brown and White, referred to as
sepia. By the turn of the twentieth century the process had been refined enough that film was producing black and white photos. For the
next quarter century that was the standard. Then Kodak developed a
process for adding colour to their black and white film. The process
gave us colour slides. This process dominated for the next seventy
five years until Digital photography came into being.
Movie studios were the biggest single user of Black and White film.
This is why all the "Old" movies were Black and White. True movie
lovers understand this and reject the tampering with this art form. But
time marched on and marketers discovered that there was a whole
generation that grew up with colour movies and even colour TV, and a
move was made to colourize the old movies. This process was very
expensive and limited to just the movie studios. It did not go over well
with the general public, and fortunately was discontinued, due to the
fact that the colour looked washed out, and whole scenes were cut
out of movies because the colourizing process could not get the
colour right.
Today that has changed, with the introduction of Akvis Coloriage,
which is software for adding colour to digital copies of your old black
and white photos, or changing the colour on digital colour photos.
As a primer to colourizing your Black and White photos I feel compelled to tell you that a B&W shot also has seven shades of gray. This
is what gives you the tone in a photo. The old adage of everything not
being black and white is so true. The more tone you have in your shot
the more detail you will notice. This also helps to reduce the contrast
of the shot. If you didn't have the gray tones, your subject would be
very harsh, with a high contrast. This may work for specific shots, but
for the most part doesn't work for most shots, especially if you are taking shots with people in them.
Akvis Coloriage is a $ 97.00 US program that comes in two versions,
stand-alone and plugin. The plugin works with your photo editor, either Photoshop, Elements, or Graphic Convertor to name the three
that are listed as Mac compatible programs. When you download the
program you need to decide which one is right for you. One Plug-in
version is for Photoshop CS3 or CS4 & Photoshop Elements 6 or 8.
The other Plug-in version (legacy) is for Photoshop 6 or CS2, and / or
Photoshop Elements 1 to 4. With the stand-alone version you can
work on photos in these file formats: BMP, JPEG, PNG or TIFF.
The minimum system requirements for us Mac users are: Intel or PPC
G4 with 1Gb Ram, 100 MB HDD, and a screen resolution of 1024 X
768. The recommended system requirements are : Intel or PPC G5
with 2Gb Ram, 2Gb HDD and screen resolution of 1280 X 1024.
You can try the software free for 10 days before you pay to see if you
like the way it works for you.Those people in Vancouver have put a lot
of thought into the design of all their software, as you can see at their
web address ( http://akvis.com). If you have ever used any of the
Akvis programs you will notice that they keep the
same style and symbols in their work area. This
makes it very easy to learn how to use any new
Akvis program. They also have a tutorial and a
video presentation to aid in the learning process. I
found it very easy to learn how to use this program
thanks to the ability to stop the video so I could understand the features that it was explaining. This
helps because not everyone learns at the same
rate, but we all learn no matter what our age.
One of the nice features of the Akvis Coloriage is
that not only can you add colour to a black and
white photo but you can also change the colour in a
colour shot or just a portion of the shot. For people
who have the ability to draw, (which I do not- that is
why I take photos instead), you can add colour to
your drawings. Even though this program is easy to
use, it could end up being a real work horse in your
photo processing arsenal. For example: Here (at the
left) you see your standard black and white photo
which you would want to colour. The process is very
easy to do by outlining the different areas with the
colour you want. This you can see how this works illustrated in the
photo below left, as all the wavy lines are colours that I want to add in
different areas. You have lots of default presets, which help, including
presets for hair, lips, eyes, and skin colour, under the “people” heading. This makes it a lot easier to deal with people, provided you don't
change a persons race, as three different races are included under
the skin colouring file. The centre photo below shows the end result of
adding colour to this shot.
Depending on your monitor you may also be able to notice that the
tone, (different levels of gray) changed the intensity of the colour
added. The program did this automatically, which is a great help. You
no longer have to fiddle getting your colours even throw out. I then
decided to demonstrate how you can change the colour of a red top
to a green one and still leave the rest of the photo unchanged, which
is shown in the image shown below on the right.
As you can see, with a little practice you can have all kinds of fun with
colourizing different things. You can now add the clear blue sky to that
overcast shot. The ease with which this program allows you to add
colour makes it so worthwhile. I did not have to spend hours fiddling
to get the colours I wanted - I just outlined the area with the selected
colour and the program filled in the areas automatically. I was also
able to undo any change that I made that I didn't like without having to
undo everything and start over again.
I can see spouses using this to determine what the new colour of a
room will look like first before heading to the paint store for all the
supplies. With just a simple shot of the living room, you could change
the colour of the furniture, the walls or the rug. To all the spouses who
now end up with more work to do, I apologise.
Submitted by Kevin Livesey <><
Nik Software
Silver Efex Pro
In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to
shoot in black and white as it was the only medium available.
Then in 1936 the invention of kodachrome brought colour photography to the world. But black and white photography didn't fade away,
instead it flourished. Modern black and white photography at its best
is art, and many photographers regard it as the purest form of photography. Black and white images place emphasis on shape and form as
well as texture and quality of light to create pictures of timeless proportions and great artistic merit. Ansel Adams is perhaps the best
known black and white landscape photographer
(www.anseladams.com). Adams was a master of black and white
printing processes and pioneered the zone system, a method of analyzing exposure to produce high quality prints. Yousuf Karsh,
(www.karsh.org) a Canadian photographer of Armenian descent was
the pre-eminent portrait photographer of his time most often chose to
work in black and white medium.
The digital era has now more then ever embraced the art of black and
white photography. Software such as Silver Efex Pro by Nik Software
provides photo enthusiasts and professional photographers alike with
power and control over their black and white images never seen before, all in one convenient tool.
Nik Software product filters are developed to integrate seamlessly into
many popular image editing applications that support the Adobe plug-in
architecture. The software
is accessible through the
filter menu in Adobe Photoshop. Plug-ins are also
available for Aperture and
Lightroom programs as
well as Adobe Photoshop
Elements. Compatibility
requirements as well as
excellent lesson tutorials
explaining all the features
available in Silver Efex Pro
can be found at the Nik
Software site.
Silver Efex Pro is available
for U.S $199.95. Nik Software bundles including
their Complete Collection
Ultimate Edition for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture including Silver Efex Pro, Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 3.0, Sharpener Pro 3.0 and
Dfine 2.0 are available at discounted rate of U.S $599.95. Trial versions are available from < http://www.niksoftware.com > and are fully
functional for the free fifteen day trial period .
The Silver Efex Pro interface has a balanced clean layout (see
Image_1, below) providing the user with powerful control over all
image parameters, satisfying the most discerning of black and white
image aficionados. View controls are in the upper left of the filter window, default and customized presets are found on the left sidebar
scrollable in a vertical fashion. A large preview pane with various user
selectable view modes is found in the center and powerful controls to
fine tune the image are found on the right hand side. In addition to
brightness, contrast and structure controls the right side panel is broken down into four distinct sections (see Image_2, on left side of
next page), including control points, color filter, film types and stylizing. In my review of Nik Software Viveza (MaUse Doubleclick June
2009) I found Nik Software patented U-POINT technology extremely
effective in applying selective image edits. This U-POINT feature is
also present on Silver Efex Pro providing a selective burn and dodge
tool. The control points operate within a user selectable radius and
provides image adjustment using brightness, contrast and structure
controls. The structure control operates by applying a form of local
contrast to enhance fine details with positive adjustment and diffuses
with a negative adjustment.
Image_1
Image_2
The color filter section is similar to that found
in Photoshop and operates in a similar manner providing the user with selective filters
each with its own unique result. Each filter
effect can be modified using the hue and
strength slider controls. I found the film type
section to be both fun to use and a very
unique tool achieving the look of past popular black and white film emulsions. A total of
eighteen black and white film simulations
ranging from 32 iso to 3200 iso can be mimicked using Silver Efex Pro (see Image_3, at
right). Each film type can be further modified
using the grain, sensitivity and tone curve
controls. The results here are much more refined than simply adding random noise patterns found in Photoshop and great control
over image parameters are provided.The
stylizing section controls paper and image
toning with user controllable presets as well
as vignette control and burn edges capability. These controls are straight forward in nature and a wide range of toning effects are
easily achievable.
In addition to being able to apply global tone
and contrast correction to an image Silver
Efex Pro can apply adjustments selectively
using Photoshops own brush tool (see
Image_4, below rigtht). Silver Efex Pro will
automatically create and manage layers and
layer masks within Photoshop seamlessly
behind the scene. This mode proves ideal
for Wacom Pen Tablet users. Smart filter
compatibility within Photoshop is also present enabling the user to revisit and fine tune
edits at a later date.
The biggest question a Photoshop user has
to ask is do I really need Silver Efex Pro?
Many of the same features can be found in
Photoshop and very fine black and white results can reached using only that program,
however Silver Efex Pro provides a purpose
built black and white engine capable of
reaching further depth and does so with a
user friendly interface that provides a quick
glance at multiple black and white results.
While the resulting black and white conversions were second to none it was the ability
of this program to provide realistic grain
techniques and multiple film simulations that
Image_3
Image_4
proved most useful to myself. This ability and the
added tonal control utilizing the selective U-POINT options only serves to justify the asking price for the software. Image_5, right represents one of my colour
originals before black and white conversion in Silver
Efex Pro as shown in Image_6a and Photoshop
greyscale renditions found in Image_6b. I should note
that in order to achieve the best black and white conversions it is necessary to convert the images using 16
bit colour to minimize banding and other artifacts.
Review by Paul Danabie
Prepress Colour Specialist
website: http://web.me.com/pdanabie/Site/Home.html
Image_5
Image_6a
Image_6b
Take Control eBooks
Screen Sharing in Snow Leopard
DoubleClick features an ebook from Take
Control Books every month. These
ebooks have been published in PDF format and cover issues related to Mac OS.
Because they are in PDF format, these
ebooks have a lot of advantages over the
traditional paper books. Electronic books
are a new experience for many people,
but they provide you with a good deal of
flexibility that isn't available with printed
books. With your purchase of the ebook
you get expert advice on various topics
but with an Apple perspective. These are the same expert authors of
some best-selling print books. The download is immediate and you
don't have to leave your house to get it. Because it is paperless it can
be purchased for much less than a paper edition. Also, if a new edition of the book comes out, your original purchase of the book allows
you to easily update your current copy for free. There are clickable
links right in the text so that your book immediately leads to other
sources on the same topic. It is readable onscreen which means you
can control the size of the print. If you use Preview you can even
highlight sections without messing up the book (use a copy of the
original if you are worried). You can even print up a paper copy of the
book if you feel the need. The catalog is very extensive and can be
accessed from http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog. They offer
free sample sections of all their ebooks and a money-back guarantee,
so try one out anytime. As readers of the DoubleClick, you also now
have access to this coupon (CPN90219MUG) which entitles you to a
30% discount on the purchase of a book.
The book featured this month is Take Control of Screen Sharing in
Snow Leopard by Glenn Fleishman. Screen sharing lets you control
the mouse and keyboard of one computer while you sit at another
computer across the room or on the other side of the world. It's great
for providing remote tech support, configuring and managing a remote
server, and collaborating on documents. In recent versions of Mac OS
X, Apple has piled on the options, enabling screen sharing via iChat,
Bonjour, directly by entering an IP address, and Back to My Mac.
Plus, Skype has a screen sharing feature and various iPhone apps
offer remote screen sharing.
All these screen sharing choices bring complexity, and this book helps
you match your situation to the best screen-sharing option for your
needs. You'll learn how to configure the software—and set up your
router, if necessary. And, should something not work as expected, the
book also includes problem-solving advice.
This 136-page ebook answers questions like:
• How can I share the screen of a buddy via iChat?
• What are iChat's screen-sharing limitations? What are the best alternatives?
• How can I give a presentation remotely using screen sharing?
• What's the best way to use screen sharing to do remote tech support?
• What's the best way to control an unattended Mac remotely?
• How do I share screens with someone running an old version of
Mac OS X?
• How do I share screens with someone running Windows?
• How do I wake up a remote Mac so I can share its screen?
• What tricks does Apple employ to make Back to My Mac connections work?
• How can I copy text from one computer to another while sharing
screens?
• Mac OS X's screen-sharing features aren't sufficient—what thirdparty software do you recommend?
If you are hoping to try out screen-sharing on your Mac then have a
look at this ebook. This ebook costs $10.00 normally but using the
coupon will make a difference. Check this ebook out and a lot others
at www.takecontrolbooks.com.
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
AKVIS
Noise Buster
In this world there is a lot of noise. What with
iPods, iPhones and all the regular sounds we
hear on a daily basis, it seems like there is no escaping from noise. We even get noise in our digital photographs. You may remember I mentioned
noise in the February 2010 issue of the DoubleClick in my article concerning magnifigation. If
you missed that issue here is a quote:
"In the days before digital, one of the limitations of film was the grain
of the film used. To get faster films the manufactures used bigger
pieces of silver iodide. This was embedded in the film and was
known as grain. When you enlarged the photo the grain enlarged as
well and became more apparent. With todays digital cameras you
would know grain as "Noise".
If we look carefully at the picture below in the “before” mode we will see
the noise showing even at the 100% magnification setting.
Noise is most noticeable in areas where you have one constant
colour as a background or a blue sky. You also have a problem with
what is known as "Colour Noise" in a digital photo. This is where you
have random red, green, or blue pixels in your photo. Even expensive professional cameras produce noise at high ISO settings. Not to
mention consumer level cameras that perform well only at ISO 50–
100. Most digital cameras offer the option of automatic ISO setting
(auto). In this case a camera chooses settings on its own based on
the shooting conditions. As a result, one can easily get "noisy" photos because the camera can decide to shoot at an unsuitably high
ISO value.
Fortunately there is a solution for all this photographic noise. It is
AKVIS Noise Buster. Akvis Software Inc. (http://akvis.com) is a software Canadian, located in Vancouver BC. They specialize in the development of image processing software and tools for scientific
research. They are very enthusiastic about graphic and image processing issues. They support non-profit organizations, heritage foundations and historical societies involved in the conservation and
restoration of photographic archives of cultural value. They also sponsor web design and digital photography contests. (They also support
the MaUsE, having donated over the past few years many samples of
their software to be used as raffle prizes at our meetings).
AKVIS Noise Buster can work independently as a stand-alone application or function as a plug-in to a photo editor. It is compatible with,
Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, etc. There are two Mac versions of the plug-in available, depending upon which photo-editor you are using. One is good for,
Photoshop CS3-CS4 and Photosphere Elements 6 or 8. The Plug-in
legacy version is good for Photoshop 6 or CS2, Photoshop Elements
1 to 4 if that is the editor you are using. The stand-alone edition of
AKVIS Noise Buster supports BMP, JPEG, PNG and TIFF file formats. It is also available as a Windows program. It can be down-
loaded from the AKVIS website and tried for 10 days free of charge.
Then you must purchase a license. There are four license's available.
Home Plug-in, Home Standalone, Home Deluxe, or Business. The
Home Plug-in, Home Standalone go for $ 49 US, and the Home
Deluxe goes for $ 55 US. You can also get a DVD (for
an additional fee of $19.95) This program is also available as a photo
bundle with "Enhancer" which is another Akvis Program. You may
want to consider getting the bundle as it will save you some money
over what you would pay for both of them. AKVIS Enhancer which is
detail-revealing software comes bundled with AKVIS Noise Buster
which is a noise suppression program, and you get a discount of $ 35
USD. Home Deluxe License is
an advanced version of the
Home license. The license is
valid for both the plugin and
standalone versions. Home
Deluxe License allows registering the software on 2 computers
(for example, on a desktop and
on a laptop).
Now, if we use the Noise Buster we get the photo as seen below. Although probably not obvious on your monitor, on my screen the difference bettween the before and after images is very noticeable.
It’s About the Money...
Macintosh Users East is a good computer club. It is your club
and we appreciate the support that you the members have
given to it this past year. We trust that your enthusiastic
participation will continue unabated in the coming year.
Macintosh Users East relies on the yearly fees paid by you to
cover all of our MaUsE operating expenses and we are now
coming to that time in the year when we start collecting the current year’s membership dues.
In the coming months I shall be sending each member a letter
advising them when their dues are payable. When you get your
letter you will be helping the club by paying your dues promptly.
Many members find it convenient to simply bring their annual
dues to the next members meeting and hand their cheque or
cash over to me in return for their new membership card. If you
prefer, you can mail your membership cheque to me. You will
find my address on the dues letter that I shall send to you.
I was very impressed with the layout of the AKVIS Noise Buster work
space. It uses the same style as the AKVIS Magnifier program including the same tool symbols. The definitions are different of course, but
at least it looks familiar and makes the learning curve a lot smaller.
Learning one AKVIS tool makes it easy to use others.
I found that using this program helps to reduce noise and improves
my photos. The task of noise reduction is to find the golden mean between suppressing noise and keeping detail. As a note you can also
change all the settings to adjust the amount of noise you wish to remove. If you don't like the results you have a reset button to go back
to the default settings.
The minimum system requirements for us Mac users are: Intel/G4,
1Gb Ram, 100 Mb HDD and a screen resolution of 1024 X 768.
The recommended system requirements are : Intel/G5, 2Gb Ram,
2Gb HDD screen resolution of 1280 X 1024.
Submitted by Kevin Livesey <><
If you have any questions about your membership please
either call me directly. My telephone number is 905-430-4562.
Or you could speak to any of the club’s directors - they and I
will be happy to answer your questions.
In advance I thank you for your cooperation.
Stan Wild
MaUsE Treasurer
iPhone/iPod Battery Pack
RichardSolo 1800 with Cable
Isn't it annoying when a battery runs out and you have no way to
recharge or replace it? As we all know, the iPhone and iPod touch are
power hungry machines. Their battery is stored so as not to be accessible. It is not a matter of picking up some AA batteries. You must get
out the USB cable and hook your iPhone up either to your computer
or an electrical outlet. This may not be convenient, say at an airport or
in your car. Wouldn't it be handy if you could just plug in a replacement battery? Well this does exist and RichardSolo® has a very good
one.
One of the major complaints I have heard about the iPhone is that
you have no prior warning of the battery running low unless you are
using it. Then there is a battery life indicator. This is of no use to you if
there is no easy way to recharge it. Other devices of the same kind do
in fact let you know how the battery is doing without having to turn
them on. Of course the problem still exists if you ignore the warnings.
The best solution is to have a backup battery ready to plug into your
machine, preferably one that could charge and run your iPhone/iPod
at the same time. Again RichardSolo® has a rechargeable battery for
you. It is the RichardSolo 1800 (RS008).
It comes with all the cable and additions that you ever need to keep
your iPhone/iPod alive. There is the battery itself with a cable to link
the battery to the iPhone/iPod. The battery has an 1800mAh capacity which is
enough to completely recharge your
iPhone or iPod, and have reserve
power left over. There is an electrical
outlet plug with a cable to recharge the
battery. There is a car charger attachment that allows two USB devices to be
recharged at the same time. Every possible configuration has been considered. At night, snap the battery and the
iPhone together and charge them both
at the same time. The battery has two
additional functions that could come in
handy. There is a powerful LED light
that can be used as a flashlight. And
there is also a laser pointer built in.
Indicator lights help to tell how well the
recharging is going. The power indicator light on the iPhone shows when the
iPhone is charging and the blue light illuminated on the battery indicates that
the RichardSolo is properly connected
to your device. A green light indicates
that the rechargeable battery is fully
charged. When the battery level on the
rechargeable battery gets to about 10%, you will see a red warning
light. When the iPhone is fully charged the power from the Richard
Solo shuts off and charging stops. When there is nothing plugged in,
all lights are off to save power.
Some of the features to take note of are:
• Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and all other iPod devices except shuffle (Note: You can now use the earphone jack while you are
charging the iPod.) Works great with the iPhone 3G.
• Gives you more than double the battery time
• Small and lightweight for pocket, purse or briefcase
• High-quality plastic case is light and durable
• Ultra-bright LED white flashlight built-in, with on/off switch (flashlight
lasts over 100 hours when battery is fully charged!
• Red laser pointer built-in, with on/off switch
• Fits easily to any iPhone case
• Environmentally sensitive packaging
• Begins to charge your Apple device immediately
• Complete kit includes Mini-USB to Apple connector cable, USB retractable charging cable, USB dual-port car charger, and USA AC
adapter [100-240V, 50-60Hz] wall charger (works with any international plug adapter)
• USB retractable cable connects Smart Backup Battery directly to
computer's USB port, car charger, or AC wall adapter for convenient
charging
• Charge the Smart Backup Battery and iPhone/iPod together (the
iPhone / iPod will charge first and then the backup battery — the next
morning both are completely charged)
• 1800mAh polymerized lithium-ion battery
• Lithium-ion technology does not develop "memory" so you can
charge often
• Smart, automatic on/off charging technology protects the battery
from overcharging
• Advanced circuitry keeps battery cool to touch
• Blue, green, red LEDs indicate charging status
• One-year warranty from RichardSolo.com
• Richard Solo Battery itself is charged to 100% in about 5 hours or
less
There are instructions on how to use all the parts that come in the box
but I found the video produced by RichardSolo® to be much more informative. You can have a look at it from
http://richardsolo.com/richardsolo1800withcable.aspx.
You get all this for $69.95 and they will ship to Canada without outrageous shipping and handling fees. They are shipped from a Canadian
warehouse. They even throw in an iPhone custom case for free.
Check out their line of products at http://richardsolo.com. They have
some really cool looking devices. Your satisfaction is guaranteed, with
their 30-day return privilege. Don't find yourself stranded without a
backup battery ever again.
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
iPad
Therefore iAm
An iPad letter to DoubleClick by
GrandpaChris. This iPad letter to
your editor is from our world which
is decades ahead of your 2010
time. The purpose of this letter is to
bring up up-to-date on our future
iPad world.
• News Now:
Facebook now owns Baidu and
Google. I have 3,631,564 Facebook friends on iPads we own,
most are DNA relatives or face recognized friends. For security reasons World Government (W.G. for
short) authorizes and licences all
iPads via face recognized image.
• Jury selection story:
As you may know all Master iPad Tablets must have cameras for face
security ownership authorization. Last week I was called for homeblock jury duty by World Court. I submitted my face via iPad internet
as required to the court data base. But it appeared my face and the
accused are related faces. After a speedy DNA cross reference check
World Court found that we are indeed related with a common ancestry
some 301 generations ago. At that time our related ancestor walked
across the Swiss Alps from Indonesia. The Alps were snow covered
during that era! Not today! Because I have no current home-block life
knowledge of the accused I'm allow to be on the jury. I'm sure she'll
get off! The twelve of us meet in World Court via secure iPad Room
4,326.
• An iPad in every room:
W.G. mandates an iPad in every room. The most important iPad is the
residence Master Authorized iPad. This is the unit that has full access
to our remote and local intranet devices. The Master Authorized iPad
controls, resets, monitors and shows smart meters, appliances, home
network alerts, thermostats, electric vehicles and many, many other
devices on it's screen. Our Master Authorized iPad views home supply and food items which were store-purchased, in our home food
data base. Everything has RFI data tags even the cat!
Example of remote Master iPad control: Kitchen appliances are programmed to run when prices are low. She's planning a dinner party
and the dishwasher is turned on, despite higher prices, because of
the need for clean dishes. Or an air-conditioner can be turned off because the party is being held outside. Or because the car battery still
has power and she doesn't plan to go anywhere she authorizes power
to be sent back to the grid making a deposit in her electrical sump
bank. She makes money for higher deposits for the 5Pm to 6Pm hour
and recharges late at night when prices are lower.
We also have his and hers iPads in most rooms. Each has auto audio
(Bleep Bleep) call back when they get lost. Personally I like the manly
feel of the 24" iPad in use in the bedroom. It gives me that macho size
I've always wanted. It's one of the flexible iPads that the banks gave
away a few years ago. Banks promoted their services via iPads much
like the early gas stations with give-aways of hockey games and
hairdryers back in the 1950's. I can play net games with my Facebook
gamers crowd or with MissMary right in bed. And we love to watch the
weekly World Olympics Games on World Government Channel 3245
enjoying all that youth-full energy trying for new records at a trillionth
of a second.
• iWall iPad for LivingTheatre room:
Let me tell you about our newest iWall iPad. All residents are required
to have licensed room survey iPads. It's been World Government regulation for many decades. My newest iPad is the wall style type. I installed it myself.
My hardware is all government approved (almost). Our LivingTheatre
room has a 8x12 wall space framed with regular IC LED simulator
connectors, W.G. approved for wireless intranet. I was able to send
away for the newest iWall iPad film screen surface from India. It took
four weeks for W.G. approval but arrived in a flexible ready to use
package. It adhered to my wall beautifully. All connections clicked in
the first time. W.G. promptly gave our face licence and we're ready to
enjoy.
I reprogrammed the iWall iPad screen display electronics using an
old DRAUG BASIC language program I found on a very old Floppy
disk from the 1980's. It gets around the licence using an out of date
application. You might like to know that the iPad APP store located in
Greenland, now has 6 million iPad applications in over four hundred
iPad categories. Students are required to know and use at least
300,000 iPad apps before receiving authorized W.G. licensed graduation.
All iPads take verbal dictation and have for many decades. Personally
I use iLook eyeball input for most of my typing duties. We just look at
the screen keyboard and look to select each key for writing. I really
want to try a mind helminthology iPad input device. It is a weird use of
Biological invasion as in the case of the family Planorbidae snails
which were discovered in 1995. The family is a genus of small tropical
fresh-water snail, aquatic gastropod mollusk (snail) whose extract can
be used as a method of coding messages or 'morse' the brain. (Ditdit-dit Dah-dah-dah Dit-dit-dit). Just think wearing my mind helminthology iPad morse device, I can just think; iPad therefore "iAm".
How the World Government changed heating and cooling usage.
Another change since your 2000 time line is oil and earth gas use for
heating. We all use earth heat for home surface heating.
When it finally dawned on people that burning little bugs locked under
the earths surface for millions of years (Oil & Gas) was not sustainable and when world surface waters had risen to cover most of Europe, many coastal areas of Asia and all of New York, World
Government mandated the use of earth source heat. (By the way
World Government is located in what was your Greenland continent.
Palm trees are thriving on the south most coast of Greenland. Although not native they thrive in the moist warm coastal sand areas.)
The centre of the earth is liquid heat. Drilling into subsurface heat
source using ionic pressure drilling heat recovery methods for all surface heating needs has improved the earths temperature and breathing atmosphere. High density drilling devices create two way earth
tubes as they drill through sand, mud and rock. Earth heating became
easy to use when the first high energy tip earth splitting devices were
first used in 2011. Not one drop of earth oil or gas is allowed to be
used for heating or cooling by W.G. And that's a good thing. The
upper ionosphere D, F1 and F2 layers haven't recovered yet and mid
areas of earth do get high seasonal radiation doses. (We often wonder how stupid we were back in the early 2000's to think earth, water
and air warming wasn't real.)
• Roots of iPads OS:
As you know the Macintosh computer was the forerunner to the iPad
which was invented in 1984. When the iPad arrived in mid 2010 it
killed off old computing devices in months. The idea that people would
sit for hours in front of a CRT screen with wires coming out of a huge
noisy box full of dust mites someplace on the floor is hilarious.
The gold was of course is in the brains of the operating system which
grew from early Blackberry, Macintosh and Windows OS designs.
Apple Inc. patented imbedded advertising in the OS back in 2009.
This allowed Apple Inc. to force advertising in all version of the iPad
Operating System from then on. This made it very easy for W.G. to infuse all those annoying mindless suggestions on todays iPads.
Today's OS is vastly different from those old bytecode ones and
zeros. We currently use the new Trilly silicone La Molina system. The
original La Molina system forced RIM Inc., Microsoft Inc. and Apple
Inc. to turn over all their OS source codes to the World Government
several decades ago. The La Molina system uses molecule imbalance at it's core. But just today the Greenland subsurface Working
OS group announced an approved Jobs 2 version of the La Molina
system at three time the speed of light. It should be interesting to see
how fast networks (satellite wireless) zap the updates to World Government headends and on to world consumer fibre nets.
• How we keep and store electronic energy:
Our eugenics generation uses many forms of what you called electricity. We have extracted several types of electronic energy from electricity. The most common storage units today are old fashioned ones
called EEStor. These are ceramic capacity batteries used in surface
vehicles, the home, for business and in many light engineering factories. Ceramic batteries are very small. Our residence unit is about the
size of your old fashioned 10 cu. ft. freezer. They are charged from
solar or earth surface electricity in as little as 8 minutes.
All EEStor earth moving motion vehicles are an integrated part of the
Master Electronic energy smart grids. The EEStor batteries act as
electronic sump storage for our smart grids. All are mandated by licence to be online when not in motion. Monitor devices maintain constant location co-ordinates for each licensed device. (All monitored
device connections, iPads included, are held with World Government
which is located in upper Greenland - where the atmosphere is quiet,
cool and clean - so far.)
• iPad Designs:
iPad designs have changed over the years. It depends on how you
use them in you daily life. Bathroom iPads come with only verbal net
communication for home or business by special licence and also
in several feminine iPad colours. Most other iPads have full audio
and video capabilities for entertainment. Watching or playing in the
holograph game of hockey on my wall is great fun. I call that my iWall
Wii <grin>
MissMary loves to watch her favourite black and white Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers movies with simulated holograph third dimension
effect including wonderful fifth dimension encase sound. You would
think you were inside the head of Ginger and Fred as they romantically drift and slide across the dance floor carrying you in their arms.
The films are still in black and white!
Reading on our feather light film style iPad with natural light is a
pleasure. It feels like the old fashioned 'paper' you are accustomed to
holding in your hand. I enjoy W.G. local and national instant
news. We have favourite channels 1945 through 2310.
land in 2010. Look it up. I have several 'new' parts and live a well life
as does MissMary.
Now, can you guess, how old iAm?
A final note for 2010. Do you sleep with your cellphone?
How and why did the iPad kill computers? Here is a trend of 2010. A
question was asked of the Millennial generation (born after 1980); "Do
you sleep with your cellphone?" 83% said yes to having either placed
their cell phone on or right next to their bed while sleeping. That was
way back in 2010. While Gen. X (born 1965-1980) 68%, Baby
Boomers (born 1946-1964) 50%, and my Silent Generation (born
1928-1945) 20% built on the upward trend. The iPad took over that
trend and killed the computer.
We owe decades of gratitude to the original iPad 2010 de
Seniors have taken to the mini light film iPads for security. A friends
96 year old mother still lives in her home in Yellowknife, NT. The home
has sensors for movement. This is a non-invasive computer watched
system and a way to let her children and doctor know if she changes
her daily routine. Should she not do what she does usually the application notifies her family via their iPads with 'last movements' report.
She also video-calls her boy friend, who is 91, in Holland each morning to discuss their holographic day together.
You recall an old versions of the world iPad application called SKYPE.
I learned today that the reincarnation of SKYPE Inc. and Facebook
Inc. are in merger talks. This would be what W.G. councillors have
been wanting for decades. One consumer people source. An all "verbal and video" communications pipeline. W.G. would finally be able to
live their mandate of "all peace protection, all day". Monitoring bad
guy trends would be more seamless. The world would be more completely safe.
We owe decades of gratitude to the original iPad 2010 design for improving lives on this small green world! Thank you Apple Inc.
All the best to you and your iPad world from mine:
Yours GrandpaChris.
PS. You may wonder how it is that I am still alive (or why <wink, wink,
grin>). (It's all about SLICE technology! I have some of your parts and
you have mine. But that's another story.) Our valued World Government World Health Scheme (WGHS) has used adopted cell tissue
structure with body parts regeneration (just like newts) for our worlds
citizens. Adopted cell tissue structure was first demonstrated in Eng-
Submitted by Chris Greaves
TRENDnet
Mac to PC Share Cable
Ever since computers started to appear in
homes there has been a need to be able to
share data, whether it be files, documents or
applications. The Internet developed when
scientists at MIT and UCLA wanted to
quickly share their information. The first
computers came with the 5 ¼ floppy disk
which held a measly 180 KB. Next came the
3 ½ inch hard disk which held 1.44 MB.
Then came the external drives, the CDs and
the DVDs, and the flash (thumb) drives. The
evolution of these various devices coincides with
the two biggest concerns of data transfer. These are the
need for speed and the amount of the data to be transferred. Another concern that many have is how easy it is to
learn how to transfer this data. I am going to ignore CDs and
DVDs in this review only because, for the most part, they are not a renewable source in that once burnt, they cannot be reused.
If you were at our January 2010 MaUsE meeting you were given a
presentation on how to transfer data between two Macs. As a quick
summary, you can use external devices, network connections and cables. The easiest and fastest method is to transfer the data through
your LAN (network router). This is fine as long as the two computers
are using the same comparable operating systems. My wife's computer is still using Tiger. I am using Snow Leopard. I can quickly upload and download anything between the two computer using my
home network. Her computer on the other hand, does not seem to be
able to connect to my more up to date system. There are probably
some work arounds that would allow this to occur, but I don't need the
hassle of finding this out. Remember, ease of learning is one of the
three top concerns for most of us.
The next easiest method would be using an external drive or thumb
drive. Although not as fast as the Ethernet connection,
their use is very straight forward. Connect the drive
through the USB port, download what you want
and reconnect it to the other computer. There
are three draw backs that I see with this
method. One is that there is a limit to the
amount that can be transferred at one
time (especially if it is a thumb drive).
The second is the cost of the drive,
which are much more reasonable
now than they used to be. The third is
the slow transfer speed.
The third method is to use a cable to connect the two
machines. There is no way to link two computers with a simple USB cable. They
would not recognize each other and
data could not be transferred.
However, as you saw if you were
at the meeting, TRENDnet has a
special USB cable that does allow
for this transfer. It is called the High-Speed PC and Mac Share Cable
(TU2-PMLINK). Aaron simply plugged the ends of the cable into each
of the two Macs and we were able to see the files of both computers
on each screen at the same time. This plug and play technology
makes using the TRENDnet cable very easy to use, as well as not
limiting the size of the data transfer. The manufacturer claims 160
Mbps transfer rate. I am not sure what data rate transfer I got when I
used it, but it certainly was fast enough for me.
The real beauty of this cable is that it not only allows data to be transferred between two Macs, but also between two PCs and, best of all,
between a Mac and a PC. This gives it a great advantage over the
Ethernet/router network connection. I have had a difficult time getting
my home network to recognize my daughter's PC. If I was more of a
computer geek, I am sure I would know how to do this, but I am not.
With the Mac to PC cable from TRENDnet, I don't have to play around
with the Windows system. I can simply plug the cable into her computer and mine and we can exchange whatever we want.
When the cable is first plugged into a Windows computer, you get a
message that new hardware has been detected and that your computer is being updated to use this new cable. You will have to restart
your computer to ensure that it will work properly. This is a first time
use only. From then on, your computer will recognize the cable. Now
when you plug in the cable, an application called ShareLink pops up
on the screen. Clicking on this opens the application and file sharing
is now possible. When the cable is plugged into a Mac computer, a
disk icon appears on your desktop called Sharelink. Double clicking
this brings up a window with the application Sharelink_Mac shown.
Double clicking this opens up a window displaying your computer's
files. When the cable is plugged into another computer, then the top
half of the window has one computer displayed and the other half has
the second computer. It is a matter of drag and drop to transfer your
files. The direction does not matter. The platform makes no difference.
The OS can be anything from Mac OS 10.4 and up or Windows XP
and up , including the new Windows 7.
The versatility of the Mac to PC Cable makes it a desirable transfer
method. There is no need to worry about which platform or system
you are using. There is no manual that has to be read. No installation
disk is required. No external power is needed: Itʼs simply plug and go.
If you need to transfer a lot of data between any two computers then
you should look into this fairly inexpensive cable alternative. The one
draw back to this method is the proximity of the two computers. The
cable is 1.8 m (6ft) long.
Find out more about this cable by visiting the TRENDnet web site at
www.trendnet.com. This is a very new product and is currently available in Canada only from Amazon.ca for about $30. Searching online
might give you a few more places to obtain it from. It's sure to become
a popular item and thus become more available in Canada.
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Akvis
Enhancer
Akvis Enhancer is detail-revealing software put out by our friends in
Vancouver BC. Why would we need this software in our Macs you
may ask yourself. Well here is the answer: not every photo you take
comes out perfect every time. Oh yes I know you took the shot on
Auto, and your camera manufacturer said this would give you perfect
exposure, and detail every time. Well guess what ? They were wrong.
Even the most advanced DSLR camera's can be fooled. If you look at
the three photos below you will see that the left shot has good detail
of the flamingo, but not of the tree, the centre has better detail of the
tree, but you are losing it on the flamingo and the image on the right is
best for the tree, but not the flamingo. What you really want is a composite shot where you get the best of all three shot combined.
Akvis Enhancer can do that for you, and a lot more, especially if you
get the bundled package which includes "Noise Buster"as well.
The complete bundled package is $83.00 US, which is the better buy
over the individual Akvis Enhancer package which goes for $69.00
US. Sold individually Noise Buster is $49.00 US. A considerable saving is made by bundling. As with all the other Akvis software you can
try it free for 10 days, before you have to decide which licence you
want to buy. There are four licences to choose from, and two styles,
Standalone and Plug-in. They differ in their functionality. The Plug-in
version allows batch processing and the Standalone allows High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR) processing. You can choose the standalone version which you add as an Application to your Mac, or if you
prefer the Plug-in version which you add to your photo editor. One
Plug-in version is for Photoshop CS3 or CS4, Photoshop Elements 6
or 8, the other Plug-in version (legacy) is for Photoshop 6 or CS2,
and/or Photoshop Elements 1 to 4.
Enhancer detects detail in Under exposed, Over exposed, and the
Mid Tone areas of a photo with uneven exposure. It is even designed
to bring into focus blurred images.
With the standalone version and its High Dynamic Range Imaging
(HDR) capability you can obtain a new shot from a series of bracketed shots. By bracketing you deliberately take a series of shots that
are Under, Normal, and Over exposed. It is good to also set your ISO
(sensitivity) to 100 to help avoid too much Noise in your shot. Remember Noise = Grain, and that can be hard to handle. It can also
help to use a tripod so that all three shots are taken from the same
spot, and using a tripod will reduce the shifting of position.
I have mentioned the HDR mode, but you also have three other
modes to choose from in the standalone version. They are "Enhancer,
Focus, and Smart Correction". Here is a quick explanation of what
you can do with each of the modes.
• Enhancer bring out detail on a shot by intensifying the colour, it
strengthens the difference between adjacent pixels that have different
colour gradations. This helps to reveal more detail in the photo, in all
three areas. I used this on the Left flamingo and was very impressed
with the detail I was able to get even using the default settings.
Depending on your monitor you may be able to see the enhanced
detail in the after window of the workspace. The Navigator window
shows the area of the photo you are looking at. As common with other
Akvis software, you also have the setting panel where you can make
manual changes. With Enhancer you also have a preview scale, from
1 to 1/8 of your photo size. You can select the smaller scales to speed
up the processing speed of your changes. You can also select the
post processing section where you can adjust the colours, either all at
once or individually as well as the Luminosity, which looks like a histogram of your photo. The lower screen shot show the post processing section.
• Focus is used to improve the sharpness of blurred shots. Your camera's Auto focus may have picked a different spot to focus on then
what your eye saw in the view finder. You can also use this on a select section of an image, instead of the whole thing.
Last but not least is the HDR feature. For this you need at
least two photos, but three or more is better. You can set
the exposure value for each photo, before you get to
merge the images. You can see in the screen shot of my
first photo merge that I have some misalingment because I
was hand-holding my camera. That is why Akvis recommends using a tripod when doing bracketing exposures.
Where you can see the merge working properly is in the
tree. You will see that the dark side of the tree now has
greater detail and exposure, compared with the original
shot at the start of this article.
The Minimal system requirements for us Mac users are:
Intel/G4, 1Gb Ram, 100 Mb HDD and a screen resolution
of 1024 X 768. The Recommended system requirements
are : Intel/G5, 2Gb Ram, 2Gb HDD screen resolution of
1280 X 1024.
This is one of the most impressive software packages that I
have had the pleasure of using, and reviewing. If you are a
photographer who wants to get the best detail in your photos I would strongly recommend you give Akvis Enhancer a
serious look.
Submitted by Keivn Livesey <><
HDRsoft
Photomatix
Todays digital cameras now match or exceed the performance of silver halide film.
Now the goal is to go beyond what was
possible on photographic papers and silver halide film emulsions. One area of
rapid development is dynamic range.
New techniques using high dynamic
range (HDR) aim to extend the dynamic
range of digital imaging technologies beyond traditional media. In image processing, computer graphics and photography
high dynamic range is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of a
image than standard imaging techniques or photographic methods.
This wider range allows hdr images to more accurately represent the
wide tonal range found in real scenes. Real world scenes may contain
a light range that exceeds a 50,000:1 dynamic range however traditional media has been limited to around 300:1 tonal range. For hundreds of years photographers have constantly battled with the limited
dynamic range of exposure available to them and now the software
company HDRsoft has come to their rescue with their highly acclaimed Photomatix program.
HDRsoft develops innovative software in the field of high dynamic
range imaging for photography and is currently the most sophisticated
and robust, yet easy to use solution available today. The first version
of Photomatix was released in February 2003 as a result of research
started in July 2002. The project was awarded a grant from the
French Ministry of Research. The company is owned and controlled
by its two founding members, one of them being a professional photographer with over twenty five years experience. HDRsoft was previously known as MultimediaPhoto (the company changed its name in
December 2006).
Downloading Photomatix was quick and seamless to my Imac 2.66
Ghz Intel core i5 platform and one simply needs to enter the serial
number and Photomatix is ready for use. A number of versions are
available for Mac OSX and Windows PC platforms. The premier version Photomatix Pro is a stand alone application available for US$99
which also includes a free Lightroom plug in.
Photomatix Light 1.0 is also available for Mac OSX and Windows and
although stripped down it still includes most of features available in
the pro version at a very reasonable US$39. Aperture users have a
version available to them for US$79. Trial versions are available for
download and are fully functional with no expiration date however a
copyright watermark is applied to the saved image.
To begin hdr photography you need a few simple things:
• 1) Digital camera, preferably a digital SLR but a good point-andshoot camera will suffice. You need to be able to change the shutter
speed manually. Focus can be automatic or manual and it may be advantageous to set the white balance manually so it stays consistent
through the series of multiple exposures necessary for hdr photography.
• 2) Tripod. To function correctly hdr needs to take multiple pictures of
the same scene. A tripod ensures no camera movement during the
multiple exposures making it easier for the hdr software to properly
align the images.
• 3) Adobe Photoshop. Newer versions such as CS3 and C4 are
preferable.
• 4) Photomatix by HDRsoft. Used to generate the hdr file ready for
tone mapping.
• 5) Step by step instructions and suitable wide gamut subject matter.
Early Sunday morning, prior to dawn, I headed down to Toronto Harbour to fire off a series of images suitable for hdr photography. I was
looking for a scene with wide dynamic range and was rewarded at
sun up. The temperature was a frigid -18C and I was extremely happy
my Nikon D300 digital Single Lens Reflex camera is highly suited to
hdr photography. I had preset the camera the previous evening to fire
a burst of five images at varied shutter speeds. It is necessary to keep
the aperture constant so the depth of field in the image remains the
same through the series of bracketed shots.
The exposure range was set to -2EV,-1EV, normal (0EV), +1EV and
+2EV. You can see the resulting exposures in the pictures below. The
Nikon is actually capable of shooting nine bracket exposures in a
burst firing mode but I used five exposures for my test shots. A minimum of three exposures are necessary for hdr photography with 2EV, 0EV and +2EV being the accepted standard. In order to capture
the dynamic range in some scenes a higher number of varied exposures may be necessary.
I was eager to try Photomatix Pro upon returning home with images in hand. I
watched the tutorials available on the
HDRsoft website and was surprised to
learn how simple the Photomatix software
was to use. The program is very well
thought out and I found the controls very
useful and intuitive. You simply need to
start Photomatix Pro and a simple box appears with a few options available to the
user (See image at left). Select the "Generate HDR image" button and a box appears for you to drop your series of
images. Click "OK" and a secondary box
appears with a few user selectable options
(See image below). I enabled the boxes
"Align source images" and "Reduce chromatic aberrations". Control for adjusting
white balance and altering the colour
space are also found here. Click "generate
HDR" and Photomatix takes over convert-
ing the images into a single entity suitable for tone mapping. It should
be noted this image will look somewhat strange in nature (see Image
above) as it contains a tremendous dynamic range that cannot be
viewed on most monitors available today. This image is now ready to
begin the tone mapping process or it can be saved as is for future hdr
versions as sort of an hdr raw file.
While the user has no control over the generated hdr it is the secondary set of controls labeled tone mapping where the user now has infinite control over the image. Most colour lcd/crt displays (and printed
paper) have low dynamic range. In order to output an hdr image or
view it on a display you must somehow convert the wide intensity
range of the image to the lower range supported by the display or
printed paper. This process is called Tone Mapping. An older method
of tone mapping familiar to photographers is the manual dodge and
burn technique performed in the darkroom.
The user simply needs to engage the tone mapping button and the
Photomatix software generates a new image ready for manipulation
and the "tone mapping settings" dialogue box appears with the image
(see image in left column on next page). Photoshop users will find familiarity with the range of features and controls found here as many
are similar in nature to those in Adobe Photoshop. The settings are divided into three distinct areas, tone settings, colour settings and miscellaneous settings. These controls are straight forward in nature and
provide great control over the resulting image. More important are the
two boxes at the top of the tone mapping settings, details enhancer
and tone compressor. The user must first decide what type of look he
or she is trying to achieve with the image and this will determine
which button to access. Details enhancer works on local areas of the
image and produces a painterly effect if pushed hard. The user can
attain an almost surreal look to the image and artistic flair is introduced to the image.
The Tone Compressor function works
on a global basis and provides a
more natural photographic look. It
has the advantage of adding less noise into the image. I found no
preference between the two methods but the details enhancer needs
to be applied judiciously unless artistic license is being exercised.
Photomatix also incorporates another method of hdr imaging called
"Exposure Fusion" which achieves a more subtle look than the tone
compressor provides. This is achieved using tiff or jpg files and provides a natural low noise result many photographers will find works
best for their needs.
The results of the different process modes can be seen in the two images on this and the next page. The image above has been converted using the exposure fusion mode within Photomatix and final
image adjustments applied using Adobe Photoshop CS4 colour edits,
and a noise reduction filter applied to the sky area with Noise Ninja.
The image on the next page has been converted using the details enhancer mode and again post edit colour correction applied with Photoshop CS4. These review images and more hdr samples are
available for viewing or download on my mobile me site in a higher
resolution format than can be found here. Follow the link http://gallery.me.com/pdanabie#100226 to access these images.
To say I was very impressed
with Photomatix hdr software
would be a drastic understatement. The quality of the
results and the wide range of
effects available when using
this software are limitless.
The Photomatix user interface is logically thought out
and I cannot think of any improvements to be made. I
feel this software represents
a true bargain for the asking
price. Highly Recommended!
Review by Paul Danabie
Prepress Colour Specialist
http://web.me.com/pdanabie
CatPig Studios
Radium
The Internet is a great way to get and listen to radio stations from all over the
world. Many stations have their own web
site which offer live streaming of their
broadcasts. iTunes also has a very extensive radio station listing in its menu. Both
of these require that I actually start up the
application and find the station I want. iTunes did provide me with my
first glimpse into the world wide availability of radio stations to listen
to, but I now find that it has a limited number of choices and some of
my favourites are not there. Lately I had been using the Safari
browser to find my preferred stations. That is, until I came across Radium.
Radium features:
• Many radio stations from around the world
Automatic updates
• Favorites - save your favourite stations for quick access
• A choice of bandwidths
• Free support and requests
• Growl notification of the song that is playing
• Mouse over the Radium icon in the menu bar to see what song is
playing
•Easily adjust radium's playing volume from the menu bar
•A search window to quickly find what is available
•A help menu from the menu bar that shows how to easily use Radium
There have been almost weekly updates to the stations available and
these come in automatically. You can easily request a network, provide feedback to improve their application, or get some support help.
It is one click away. I had one station that
wasn't listed so I emailed them a request.
Within two weeks, I had a reply email
telling me that the current update now had
that station. This is amazing support. My
wife can now listen to her favourite Hawaiian music station. A new feature coming
out soon will allow Radium users to add their own URL streams. This
way you could possible get that favourite station without having to go
through their updates.
Whereas the larger free applications such as Safari and iTunes will
play radio stations for you, they take up cpu space and they are
slower to respond. Radium is the best small application for playing
radio stations and it is getting better. You can use the trial version for
one month without any interruptions or annoyances. The full version
costs $16 USD, and you get free licenses for your other computers. It
took very little time for me to decide that I wanted Radium to be permanently in my menu bar.
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresnr
Radium is an Internet radio player for Mac OS X Leopard and later. It
sits in your menu bar and stays out of your way. No browser is necessary. I found that I rarely listened to the computer radio when I depended on iTunes or Safari as my players. I often forgot it was
available. With Radium being in the menu bar, I have been listening to
the Internet radio much more often. It could not be easier to use. One
click drops the menu and another click starts one of the radio stations
I have selected to be shown. There is almost no lag time between the
choice made and the music playing.
Macintosh Users East February meeting was well attended despite the lure for
some members of watching Canada play Russia in Olympic hockey on TV.
Canada won!
The treasurer announced that we are financially solvent but did not specify by
how much due to the fact that many members had paid their membership renewal
dues just before the meeting started and the new total had not been calculated.
(Itʼs a little over $4,000.) Two announcements were made: Only 24 days of winter
left to go... and April 7th is the date set for the first of the clubʼs two 2010
ʻEvenings with Macʼ.
Program wise there was an interesting demonstration on using the dictionary (a
native application on your Mac) in an interactive fashion. Two feature presentations – multiple users on a single computer, and, adding useful programs to your
menu bar. Aaron was in his usual fine form, humourous and informative, fielding a
wide range of questions throughout the evening. The evening concluded with Marcel raffling off a piece of PhotoShop software, and then the Loyalty draw; Fred was
the winner of the $100 gift card, Frank won a flash drive.
-S. G. Wild
Whitby, Ontario, Canada
'Proud to be a Canadian'
As most of you know, it was not
possible for Irma and me to attend the February 2010 MaUsE
Meeting because we are doing
our wee bit for the Argentine
economy by touring some of the
more remote parts of Patagonia. Because of this,
Jim Danabie took the pictures for this issue instead
of Irma. We wish to express our thanks to Jim for
taking over the photographic duties while we are
busy in foreign places.
Michael & Irma
From the Editor
Seriously, folks, I really expected to get more of myself into this issue and it
just didnʼt happen. In previous years I have easily sent in the DoubleClick
from France without any problems but that was because I couild depend on
getting quite a few days of really shitty weather. Rain or sleet or something
else would keep us penned up somewhere with decent internet access.
That was simply not the case this time. For this winter we have “returned to
summer” by traveling in the southern hemisphere. Irma & I are running
around Argentina and spending more than the usual amount of time either
up in the Andes mountains, on long-distance bus rides, out on the beautiful
hiking trails of Patagonia, on old boats visiting isolated eco-parks, in Argentine glacier parks, in the high desert, or out on the town to all hours at various wine festivals. And we experienced our first earthquake !! Another
issue is that so far it would appear that Argentina is perhaps the only country in the civilised world with worse internet access than Canada !! It isnʼt
anywhere as expensive as Canadian internet but it is even more flakey.
Luckily for me I have a dependable team of supporting writers who have
sent me lots of great articles for this issue. I hope they are all scribbling furiously for the April 2010 (pronounced “twenty-ten”) issue. If any of the rest
of you have articles to submit, please helpm e out. Use the contact info on
Page 2 of this issue and send something to me.
Michael Shaw,
Editor, MaUsE DoubleClick