AtkinsTechnicolour

PMA (Photo Marketing Association Australia's huge annual trade show and convention) in Brisbane is coming up at the end of this month, and I think this is your best opportunity to get an overview of the industry. Here are some of the aspects I value: How the Australian photographic industry works, who are the key players, what state is it all in, how can you make a buck in it, how you can improve your skills, new products and equipment and most importantly, a chance to meet others in my situation.

Who is PMA Brisbane for: Professional photographers, keen amatuer photographers, labs, framers, educators, camera retailers, camera repairers, consumer electronic fans…..etc etc.

Just register and go, it is worth it. And when you do, look me up, I'll be close to our Picpress stand (Booth 318). Cheers, Paul 

Link to PMA web site. 

A custom hard cover book is a book that has an image that wraps over the front and back cover.

Those of you who want to design your books in TDA, Proselect, Photoshop etc need to consider the cover carefully. If you take a typical hardcover book and open the cover out and inspect how it is created you will find the one printed image wraps across both covers, the spine and around to the inside, in fact that inside wrap needs to be about 2.5cm!

 So imagine unravelling that print to help you plan your cover. Here are the steps to planning the cover:

1. note your page size (say 30cm square, 20 pages, 10 leaves)

2. now imagine your two pages side by side as a cover, add 4mm all around to cater for the fact that the cover is always bigger than the book block, plus the 25mm that wraps around the inside of the cover

3. add 12mm to the length for each hinge

4. add 6mm to the length for a smallish spine (this will vary with more pages)

Now think how big that cover image needs to be (35.8cm x 68.8cm), and how much of the image will wrap around, so be careful that you keep critical detail off those edges! Cheers, Paul 

Click here to register for our Picpress books

Click here to check out the Picpress website 

We are finally up and running with our PicPress website, if you want to register as a PicPress client to use our software and on-line ordering: registration.

Click here to go to the PicPress main site. 

If you want to check out the pricing, click here to download the Picpress pricelist - revised

Pricing and products can be reviewed on the PicPress pricelist.

Heather Donaldson, began working for the Atkins Photography business in 1950, and continued work through to 2000. Heather began as an office assistant, worked as a colour printer, one-time photographer, and finally company secretary for AtkinsTechnicolour.

Heather was a part of the Atkins family, she was Godmother to John's son Matthew, and never missed a Family celebration. Heather was a very special person, for whom age only caught up with when she battled cancer in 2007, John and Paul miss her love of a quiet chat and her keen business mind, and we are sure that North Adelaide Football Club will miss her support.

Heather Maureen Donaldson 1934 - 2008. Rest in Peace.

Heather's Funeral will be at Berry's on Magill Road SA at 10 am this Friday the 18th April 

So what has this marvellous program got in store for us; post crop vignetting, burning and dodging, panoramic handling, enhancements to keywording, etc etc! This is important stuff, the way Lightroom works is that it leaves the original file untouched but builds a set of instruction to apply to the file when it is exported (run out as jpeg or printed). This will mean faster editing (time you spend in front of the box), and more chances to undo the previously undo-able.

 But let's face it, this will remove the need for photoshop for many photographers, and if you add lightroom's little bag of tricks for organising and managing your images, we have a hugely useful program. The future may be here!

For those of us who like to tread carefully and not run Beta software, Lightroom 1.4 is available for download. Cheers, Paul.

Link to Adobe's press release

It seems as though Jeremy Clarkson of "Top Gear" needs a good lab. In his latest Sunday Times article he laments the difficulty of printing at home.

I do enjoy Jeremy Clarkson's motoring journalism, follow this link to the Sunday Times to read his review of the Volvo C70 and his difficulty with his home printer, I'd be pleased to offer Jeremy a free 8×12inch print corrected by our experts! Cheers, Paul.

I really think podcasting is a fabulous medium, the time we normally spend listening to a program schedule or advertising on our radios can be better spent listening to information we want when we want it. Currently I keep up with about 6 different podcasts through iTunes, and I find I now enjoy a good traffic jam, as it gives me guilt free listening time.

If you love photography, you will love TWIP - This week in photography, although the target is more the keen amatuer, the information is gold to everyone.
If you love looking deeper into great photographs, and thinking about what makes great images, you will love Lenswork.
If you love technology information, check out the variety of work Leo Laporte offers throught his TWIT network (This week in tech).

Happy hearing! Paul 

This is not new news, but you may still bump into the issue, and it is interesting that we live in times where products are rushed out before proper evaluation. We should all learn a lesson from this!

Link to Adobe's news on this issue.

Internode (the most excellentest ISP) have moved our service from a layer 3 to 2 and this has resulted in a change in our system configuration: you must invoke "passive mode" in your settings. Passive mode is sometimes written as PASV. So look for the check box and tick it. Cheers, Paul

 What is passive mode? - see wikipedia

Image ©Montalbetti & Campbell
Over $40k worth of cash and prizes. Entries close 23rd May 2008, judging May 30 - June 1 2008 in Brisbane.

For entries and rules: AIPP website