This was my first go at photographing fireworks, and it was more difficult than I had expected. I had a particularly hard time getting clean, clutter-free captures at the venue–the viewing area was restricted for safety reasons and there were a number of utility poles and lines obstructing my view of the firing field. A wider lens would have caught a lot of ground and utility clutter. Shooting tighter made for good detail but also made it difficult to track the unpredictable/burst patterns.

Accompanying each shot is a credit to the original photographer, information about the shot (lighting, exposure, etc.), and a photo of the setup itself :

You can view the entire set on Flickr, or purchase prints via Mike’s space on RedBubble.

The way out in such a case is remarkably simple:

1. Always carry at least one spare memory card when taking photographs in public.
2. If you believe that compliance with a request to delete might be your only option, then by all means, delete away. Format the card in-camera if you must.
3. Do NOT take another photograph. Turn the camera off, and walk away.
4. Before you turn the camera on again–and certainly before you even think about taking another photograph–remove that memory card and drop in a spare.
5. Go home, and use a free and capable image recovery program to extract the “deleted” images from the original media.
6. Post them on-line, have them printed on t-shirts, or hand them out as stickers on the same street corner during the next big event.

[1] The operative word here is “public.” If you are taking photographs in an area where photography is expressly prohibited, you may be breaking the law. And failure to comply fully with the authorities might just buy you a night (or more) in jail. Don’t be a dumbass.

In and of itself, this isn’t an observation worth repeating. What interests (and amazes) me is that this type of disparity is commonplace among online photo sharing services. So many, it seems, give so little consideration to the quality of the prints that they and their printing partners produce.

Online photo sharing has changed the way that we share and evaluate images. We no longer tote portfolios full of prints from party to office to gallery for all to see and admire. We capture our images, process and upload them. And this digital product is all that the vast majority will ever see. Still, many photographers (or even regular consumers of photographic products) still refuse to pass judgment on the quality of a photo until they see it in print. It’s a good feeling to view a photo on the computer and know that the composition, lighting and focus appear just as intended. It’s another feeling entirely to see that same photo in print, matted and framed. That’s when it’s “done.”

Unfortunately, my experience with many photo sharing services is that they consider their auto-adjusted and resized copy of your image to be The Product. And, quite simply, it is not. There is still a demand for high-quality printed images (even if only a small percentage of total hosted images are ordered as prints). And photo sharing services would be wise to take great care in determining how they want to serve those who fuel this demand.

Of all of the photo sharing services that I’ve tried–and I’ve tried no less than a half-dozen for meaningful periods of time–only one stands above the rest in terms of the consideration that it gives to the ordering and processing of printed images: SmugMug.

Before buying in to SmugMug, I uploaded a (very carefully exposed) sample image to a handful of image hosting services and ordered the same type of print (5×7 matte, no border) from each. The image in question had a dark green background, with some red and yellow in the foreground. It was a perfect test image, in that any shop that applied generic adjustments to every single image or simply blind-printed was sure to underexpose the background and murder the vibrant colors in the foreground.

And sure enough, Snapfish blew the entire image (a terrible auto-crop, underexposed), as did Shutterfly (underexposed and dull) and Ritz Camera (also underexposed). SmugMug’s was the only lab that got it dead on, either by taking a look at the photo before or after printing, or by intelligently applying adjustments based on the properties of the image.

If you’re interested in some really, really outstanding prints, you should sign up for a fourteen-day SmugMug trial, peruse their documentation on common printing problems (which doubles as a excellent primer on color space, resolution, and other common properties of digital images) upload some images and order a few prints. They’re not the cheapest print shop, and you have to pay a nominal yearly fee if you choose to keep the service, but their’s is truly a photographer’s service, start to finish.

Will SmugMug get it right 100% of the time? No. But do the SmugMug team and print shop work harder than any place that I’ve found to make the printing process as painless and accurate as possible? I think so.

UPDATE1: Almost forgot to link to the details of SmugMug’s print services shootout, which explains the process by which they chose EZPrints as their lab of choice.

UPDATE2: If you do decide to sign up, please submit my referral code: oFbEjYRp4kqzE. It’ll save both of us a few bucks.

In lieu of a review, I thought it would be useful (and fun) to document my past and present workflows, and explain the reasons for my move in light of this evolution.

The Beginning

For years, my workflow consisted of a relatively simple multi-application process:

1. Import photos into a hybrid date- and event-based folder structure (YYYY/MM_EventName) using Windows XP’s Scanner and Camera Wizard
2. Open Picasa and review photos, deleting the crap
3. Make any drastic cosmetic adjustments using the GIMP
4. Make adjustments to exposure, contrast, and sharpness using Picasa
5. Upload to [some sharing site] using [some sharing site]‘s crappy web-based upload interface.

Of course, for years, I was shooting with one of two point-and-shoot cameras and dealing exclusively with JPEG output. I also wasn’t applying keywords, copyright/credit, or any other metadata to my images. I was shooting, filtering, uploading and never looking back.

In early 2007 I purchased my Canon EOS 400D, and out of necessity this workflow changed (albeit not much):

1. Import photos into a date-based folder structure (YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD) using Canon’s EOS Utility
2. Open Canon’s ZoomBrowser to review photos, deleting the crap
3. Make basic adjustments to exposure, contrast, and sharpness within ZoomBrowser, then export adjusted images as JPEG files
4. Make any drastic cosmetic adjustments using the Gimp
5. Import photos into Picasa and apply keywords*
6. Upload to [some sharing site] using [some sharing site]‘s crappy web-based upload interface.

I was still using close to the same number of applications within my workflow, but on account of the JPEG export and keyword application, processing even small groups of photos was now eating up a significant chunk of my time. There had to be a better way.

Around the middle of 2007, I started shopping for a software solution that I could use to optimize my workflow and buy myself a little more free time.

The Requirements

In order of importance (descending):

• Built-in image acquisition capability, with a configurable file and folder naming mechanism
• Support for all common RAW file formats
• A robust image editing and adjustment capability (the latter being more important, but the former being important enough that a good editing or touch-up capability could be the deal-maker for one application).
• Crazy support for metadata manipulation
• Ability to re-locate images on disk
• Ability to move originals into and out of the application’s library as needed
• Ability to take images off-line, while maintaining the ability to search for or browse the same
• Ability to create dynamically updating albums based on image metadata
• An extensible export mechanism, so that images can be submitted to on-line services without having to export JPEG or TIFF files first
• An interface that takes advantage of multiple displays when available
• Full-screen editing

I certainly didn’t pull this list of requirements out of thin air. I’d seen my share of photographic workflow software reviews, and I more or less knew what features were available. I just didn’t understand how similar features compared across applications, nor did I know which application was most likely to meet my requirements.

Lik many an amateur photographer before me, I quickly narrowed the field to two applications: Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture.

The Skinny

Both applications support–to varying but satisfactory degrees–all of the features on my must-have list. And I saw this coming. Both applications were designed by companies with a rich history of support for visual artists. Thus, my decision would be made based on the details of each feature’s implementation, and the overall polish of the applications, from the look and feel of the interface, to the performance and customization provided by import/export facilities. On to the high points . . .

• Lightroom is useable on a dual-display system, but lacks the interface customization provided by Aperture.
• I actually prefer Lightroom’s default screen configuration, but have since come to love the Aperture interface (more on that later).
• Both applications have adequate image editing and adjustment capabilities, and both perform these tasks in a completely non-destructive manner. That said, Aperture’s full-screen editor and heads-up displays blow away the best that I’m able to get out of Lightoom.
• The Lightroom interface is definitely more responsive than the Aperture interface. Select an action within Lightroom, and that action takes place. Right away. Whereas Aperture will occasionally present you with a pretty, spinning wheel. It’s not a drastic difference, and a little extra memory makes it (almost) a non-issue, but it’s worth mentioning.
• Aperture makes management of original images a little less painful. If you’re in a terrific hurry, you can import your photos without regard for their destination on disk, and very easily re-locate them after the fact. I was somewhat disappointed with (or scared by) Lightroom’s affinity for its library. I don’t recall exactly what it was that turned me off, but I do remember feeling guilty for attempting to store my images outside of the library.
• Both applications provide an extensible export facility, and both enjoy an energized user base that’s willing to devote time to plug-in development.
• Both applications have powerful metadata manipulation, although I’m partial to the way that Aperture presents metadata groupings and allows for the definition of presets.

The Verdict (I know: The article title is a spoiler.)

Both applications more than meet my needs, but I find that Aperture is better suited to true workflow optimization. Don’t get me wrong: Lightroom is workflow. But it’s Lightroom’s workflow, not my own. And while all of my technical requirements are met by Lightroom, being able to access any of the application’s features from any point within the creative process is a huge win for Aperture. Directly related to this point, Aperture’s interface can be very quickly customized to the point that almost any portion of the interface that meddles with the desired workflow can be cast aside, never to be seen again.

The other win for Aperture is the tight OS X and iWork/iLife integration. Being able to call up Aperture albums within iMovie, Keynote, and iDVD is huge. I can organize all of my images just the way that I want them to appear in an exported product, and keep those albums in my proverbial hip pocket until I need to drop them into a media project. And when I want to make that addition, it takes seconds, and I don’t have to context-switch away from the application on which I’m focused. My initial goal was time savings, and time savings external to my imaging workflow application are as important as the time savings that I enjoy while manipulating the images and library itself.

Summary (For the impatient)

Both applications are capable, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. A lot of the traits that Lightroom users love, Aperture users dislike (or despise), and vice versa. In my opinion, it comes down to control. Some users like the fact that their workflow is neatly defined and enforced by their software, whereas others prefer that their software get the hell out of the way, so that they can do as they please. I definitely fall into the latter category, and Aperture very much suits my need for an application that provides me with the functionality that I require, when and where I require it, and otherwise fades into the background while I work.

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* You can apply keywords to RAW files within ZoomBrowser, but these keywords don’t survive an export–they’re only useful as long as you’re using Canon’s image browser.

The Black Cat has very recently instituted a change in our photo policy. We do not allow professional flash photography, and photographers are prohibited from the stage. The only exception to this no-flash policy will be times when a specific band has permitted professional flash photography and granted a photographer a photo pass. In such cases, we will allow professional flash for the first three songs of said band’s set.

Of course, point-and-shoot cameras (with flash) are still allowed. This policy only applies to professional flash photography – professional photography without flash is permitted at all times.

So, basically, if you are using professional flash we have a couple guidelines in place. But if you’re shooting without, there are no rules that you have to follow and you have free rein to photograph inside the club.

And yes, bags and backpacks are allowed – although they may be searched upon entry.

Thanks, Black Cat info robot!

UPDATE1: None of my entries were chosen.  You can check out the winner’s gallery (which contains some wonderful shots) here.

I paid a quick visit to the Forensics Wiki’s page on data recovery tools and found two utilities right away: PhotoRescue and PhotoRec. Options. Swell.

I’m familiar with DataRescue (makers of the IDA Pro disassembly suite), and PhotoRescue allows you to view the results of the recovery pass(es) prior to purchasing the software, so I figured I’d give it a shot. As promised, it presented me with previews of a number of images (ninety-six, to be exact) available for recovery, then asked for $29. Not a lot of money, but not free (as in beer). On to PhotoRec.

I downloaded PhotoRec, only to find that the downloaded package name was actually testdisk-6.8.darwin.tar.bz2. Funny thing about that: I already have testdisk installed from MacPorts. And sure enough, a quick path check confirmed that the binary for photorec has been with me all along.

A recovery attempt with PhotoRec was as simple as:

photorec /d my_output_path /dev/disk1

This sets the output directory and device from which PhotoRec should recover data, then spawns a terminal-based wizard. From there I chose:

1. Disk /dev/disk1 - 512 MB / 488 MiB (RO)

2. Intel/PC partition

3. FAT16 >32M

4. Other

5. Extract files from whole partition

And that was it! Ninety-six images successfully recovered in less than two minutes, at no cost.

UPDATE1: Formatting the card via the camera menu appears to have no effect on PhotoRec’s (and presumably PhotoRescue’s) ability to extract old images.

UPDATE2: NYT article on photo recovery tools and services. Mentions PhotoRescue, among others.