Sophisticated control to conquer noise

By Wendell Benedetti

Electronic noise is one of the inherent problems of digital photography. The larger the sensor chip, the hotter the operating environment, the higher the ISO equivalence, and the longer the exposure, the more electronic noise is introduced into an image. Noise is also a problem with scanned images, especially in the deep shadow sections where the scanner has less light to deal with.

At times noise looks like exaggerated film grain. More often, it appears as tiny blotches in the image. While not as distracting as the jaggy artifacting introduced by excessive JPEG compression, noise can degrade an image to a point where it becomes unusable.

To avoid even minimal artifacting, most commercial photographers don't shoot in the JPEG file format, but it isn't as easy to get around the noise problem. Some solutions do exist. A number of software companies have released plug-ins and stand-alone applications that reduce the distracting effects of noise.

Images from Shawn Barnett's review testing        

In the April 2005 issue of Professional Photographer, Shawn Barnett reviews the Olympus E-300 EVOLT digital SLR. While Barnett was impressed with the image quality from the EVOLT's 8-megapixel CCD sensor, he did note that the ESP and center-weighted metering modes left something to be desired.

Here you can download several of Barnett's full-resolution images from the Olympus E-300 EVOLT.

Download the Olympus E-300 EVOLT review from Professional Photographer.

Responsive Maxxum 7D exceeds expectations

By Ron Eggers

Once in a while, something lives up to the promotional hype and exceeds expectations. That's the case with the new Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D digital SLR.

The Maxxum 7D is the first digital SLR of the Konica Minolta brand, although there were two previous models from Minolta: the oversized, overweight 1-megapixel RD-175, released when 1 megapixel was still high resolution imaging; and the boxy, awkward 2.7-megapixel DiMAGE RD 3000.

The RD-175 used 35mm Minolta camera lenses; the RD 3000 took lenses designed for Minolta’s Vectis APS SLRs. I shot with both extensively. The image quality was good, particularly for the 3000. But lacking in ergonomics, these models didn't catch on with serious photographers, and Minolta pulled out of the digital SLR race. At that, some Minolta film camera users who were on the brink of going digital shelved the idea, and others switched their entire Minolta system for digital SLRs and lenses from another manufacturer.

Dreams really do come true

By Kevin Ames

When Wacom introduced the Intuos3 Professional Pen Tablet last September, I was truly impressed. I’m a longtime Wacom Intuos and Cintiq 18SX user. The Intuos3 had me drooling. I asked, “Wouldn’t it be cool—I mean really cool—to have an Intuos3 style Cintiq?”

The Wacom folks smiled, nodded their heads and agreed it would indeed be cool. I wrote a glowing review of the Intuos3 for Professional Photographer magazine while dreaming of a color calibrate-able LCD panel with Express Keys, Touch Strips and a bigger screen—at a lower price. (I was dreaming, remember?) I could see myself flying through Photoshop projects, pleasing clients in record time and making some serious coin. It was a very good dream.

Rarely does reality surpass dreams in pure enjoyment and satisfaction. When it does, though, it's stunning. And stunning is just one of a long list of adjectives that inadequately describe the Wacom Cintiq 21UX. It’s that close to being perfect. To fully appreciate this amazing tablet, you have to work with it yourself.

Performance Report: I want it
By Joan T. Sherwood
Ten days with a Nikon D2X is not enough. In fact, it's a cruel tease. I did not want to give my loaner back to Nikon. Ellis Vener, who files the complete Pro Review for the June issue of Professional Photographer, feels the same way.
Sometimes I describe software as deep, meaning there's a lot to discover and probably dozens of features you'll never get around to using. The Nikon D2X as a digital SLR is similarly deep. With all of its features, I didn't get close to exploring everything. But there were many aspects that truly impressed me, with either sheer technical improvement or plain practical sense.

Lightweight yet sturdy, it's a fine traveling companion

 By Joan T. Sherwood

The new Gitzo Basalt-fiber tripods fit right in with the company's thoughtfully designed stock of tripods, monopods and heads. On a recent trip, I tried out the four-section Reporter Basalt Performance Tripod (G1298), with a Gitzo Magnesium Center Ball Head (G1278M) and ran into only one small glitch.

This model weighs in at 3.4 pounds and can hold up to 12.1 pounds of gear. I'm pretty sure I put it to the test when I loaded it with a Nikon D2X camera, mounted with a 7.2-pound 200-400mm Zoom-Nikkor lens.

Set-up is easy with the Anti-Leg-Rotation twist locks (though I'm not sure I get that nomenclature). With minimal practice, you can loosen all four locks with one hand, extend the leg, then secure the sections with just one counterclockwise turn to each lock.

Desktop studio makes product photography portable, easy

By Joan T. Sherwood

Product photography can be a teeth-grinding, painstaking process. The D-Flector from Sharpics makes it so quick and easy it's scary.

The D-Flector is a reflective white background that folds (no crease) neatly into a lightweight wooden case. Open the case, lock the supports (simple hinges), and you've got a seamless background desktop studio. The photographic area is 24x35 inches and the outside dimensions of the case are 25x18x2 inches. It's so lightweight that I easily toted the case, along with everything else I usually carry to work, onto the train and for a one-mile walk from the station to my home. Sharpics says the photographic surface is easy to clean with a damp cloth, but I didn't get it dirty enough to test that claim. It certainly looks and feels robust.

Read the full review.

Like printing money: Pop in your media card, get a great 4x6 print. Don't overlook this low-cost, easy-to-use photo printer as a moneymaker for your event photography.

By Joe Farace 

When I saw the Epson PictureMate, I saw more than a toaster-sized inkjet printer—I saw dollar signs. It looked like the perfect device to produce “instant memory” prints for parties and corporate events. I could shoot images, print directly from the media card, and hand out prints for the party-goers to take home.

But would the prints be archival? PictureMate outputs water- and smudge-resistant 4x6-inch prints with archival six-color pigment inkjet technology. The prints are rated fade-resistant for up to 100 years behind glass, 200 years in an album. An independent study by Wilhelm Imaging Research of 4x6 photo inkjet printer output showed a print life of 104 years (www.wilhelm-research.com). That’s archival enough for most events.

By Joan T. Sherwood

It's always best to get the scoop on a brand new product from someone who has tried it himself. For a first-hand report on the new line of Epson printers used with UltraChrome K3 inks, Professional Photographer talked to editorial and advertising photographer Bruce Dale, who served as an Epson beta tester.

Dale, who has been using the Epson Stylus Pro 4000, 9600, and 1000 as well as the Epson Stylus Photo 2200 and 1280 for his printing needs, tested the Epson Stylus Photo R2400 and the Epson Stylus Pro 7800. He shoots primarily with a Nikon D2X digital SLR. Here's what he had to say about the Epsons' performance and his experience in using it with his workflow.

Professional Photographer: Tell us about the improvements to the user interface.

Bruce Dale: The interface continually gets better. The final version of the larger printer hasn't been released yet, so I haven't taken the extra step that I would normally do to build my own profiles. Actually, Epson's profiles get better and better, too.

A look at photosites and noise control

By Ellis Vener

When Nikon released the D2X, I had doubts about the company's decision to stick with the 23.7x15.7mm sensor format. The 1.5X apparent focal length magnification factor didn’t bother me, but the use of smaller photosites (pixels) in the sensor worried me, especially given that it is a 12.4-megapixel camera.

The D2X sensor photosites are slightly smaller than 5.5 microns. Conventional wisdom says smaller pixels are more susceptible to electronic noise than larger ones, especially at high ISO-equivalence settings. Until recently, the predominant view was that a photosite needed to measure about 9 microns across to get a good clean signal.

High ISO equivalence in a digital camera is obtained by turning up the gain on the signal, which increases the noise-to-signal ratio. Artifacts from this electronic noise show up in the image as both graininess and as weaker performance in the shadow areas, where the lower light generates a weaker signal to start with. Like tuning in to a distant a radio station, turning up the volume increases the background hiss.

This noise can be at least partially processed out of an image either in-camera or in post-capture processing, and like all good digital cameras, the Nikon D2X includes an optional noise suppression feature for the ISO 400 to 800 range. There is an optional high setting, which is always active when the ISO sensitivity is set to Hi-1 or Hi-2 (ISO 1600 and 3200).

Using the camera's Noise reduction feature increases in-camera processing time and lowers image buffer capacity. After some experimenting and image evaluation, I decided to keep it off and use Noise Ninja from www.picturecode.com for shots taken at ISO 800 and higher. At very high ISO settings, shadow tones are not quite as smooth as I’d like them to be.

Read the Professional Photographer magazine review.

With all the sites out there competing for professional photographers, it's daunting to find one that's just right for your business. No single way of doing business is right for every photographer. For example, some photographers already have a method of taking credit card payments, so they may prefer to leave the money collecting to their own staff, while other photographers will be happier leaving all that complexity to the photo Web site.

This table is designed to give you an idea of what the site offers, not represent a complete compendium of each site's abilities and practices. If the Custom materials section mentions mouse pads, then that site does offer mouse pads; but that doesn't necessarily mean that another site doesn't offer them, or that one of their lab partners doesn't have them. They might. This table is a jumping off point, where you can examine the different kinds of sites and investigate further. There are too many photo proofing and printing websites out there to list all of them, with more popping up as this table was compiled. These are some of the most prominent, and you should feel confident giving any one of them a closer look.

—Shawn Barnett

VIEW TABLE

By Joe Farace

In the August 2005 issue of Professional Photographer, we ran a review of the Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm f/4.0 and Zuiko Digital ED 150 mm f/2.0 lenses designed for the Olympus E-System. Click the link below to see more images taken with these lenses and to download the full review.

Left: Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm f/4.0; Right: Zuiko Digital ED 150 mm f/2.0

By Joan T. Sherwood

When I first saw the Smoy PhotoCuffs, I thought, oh, moms and seniors would love these.

The PhotoCuff is a soft vinyl (leather looking) wide bracelet with laser-cut windows for photos. The windows are protected by clear acetate, and you just slip your photos between the two layers of vinyl. The window pocket is open on both edges, so it's easy to position and change photos; simple friction holds the photos in place.

By Stan Sholik

In the September issue of Professional Photographer, Stan Sholik took a look at portable flash power systems available from Balcar, Broncolor, Calumet, Elinchrom, Hensel and Profoto. Here he looks at alternative, economical options for photographers.

Technological advances have given photographers an increasingly wide selection of portable battery-powered high-output flash units. Those same advances have given us another option for location assignments--power systems designed to allow the use of AC-powered studio flash systems on location. Photographers have done this for years by bringing generators on location. But now there are battery-based power systems that are small, affordable, and produce the pure sine wave output that modern power packs need. Two of the most popular are the new Dyna-Lite XP 1100 and the Paul C. Buff Vagabond Portable Power System.

The Dynalite XP1100 (right) delivers 1100 watts
of AC power in a compact package.

When what you really want to do is produce, ProShow Producer puts you in charge of the show

by John Stein

I create about 10 DVD slide shows each month for my wedding and portrait clients, and I am always looking for an easier way to get the job done.

ProShow Producer is one of the easiest programs that I have found for making DVDs for clients. Within 20 minutes of installing the program I was burning a DVD, using just the quick start guide. This was a very simple presentation of around 200 images using a single transition style.

I wanted to go further into the program and see how difficult—or easy—it would be to create a presentation using multiple transitions and a larger amount of images. Once again, the program surprised me with its ease of use. It was a simple task to create a presentation that I could use to promote my company and another that I can use when I speak at camera clubs to promote the state PPA affiliate association I belong to.

Try it, you'll like it ... if you like to save time and make money

By Angela Nivens Rose

Not long ago I decided to take on yet another project, since it wasn't like I didn't have enough to do between running the studio, and managing a family. My goal was to put together a DVD for one of our best clients as an expression of our thanks for their business. After three hours of trying to create something wonderful that I could only envision in my mind, I turned off the computer and gave up.

Shortly after that, can you believe I received a fortuitous e-mail about a service that creates DVD presentations for professional photographers—Photo Showcase DVD. I clicked on the link and was taken to eMotion Media's Web site for a thrilling showcase that surpassed the way I imagined my images could be seen. I was excited to see how my images could be experienced!

Sneak Preview: Canon EOS 5D, digital nirvana for $3K?

By Joe Farace

The new EOS 5D fits into the same “good, better, best” strategy that Canon uses with their film-based SLRs. It’s plopped down right in the middle of their product line between the EOS 20D and Canon’s 1D alphabet soup models. Unlike the EOS 3 that looks and feels more like an EOS 1, the 5D’s magnesium-alloy body reminds me more of a chunky20D, but where else are you gonna find an SLR with a “full-size” chip for $3,299.95?

While the original EOS 1Ds had a full-sized chip that was the equivalent of a mounted 35mm slide’s opening, the 5D’s imager is slightly less (23.9x35.8mm) than the revered 24x36mm standard but it's close enough. I asked Canon, "Is this the same chip used in the original 1Ds?" The answer, from a source I trust, was, “nope, it’s not.” But I still wonder...

Stabilized Telezoom Shootoff: Nikon and Sigma 80-400mm Stabilized Lenses

By John M. McBride

Nikon users looked on jealously in 1998 as Canon launched a new era of handheld photography with their 100-400mm optically stabilized telezoom lens.  Suddenly photographers could capture handheld telephoto shots that previously demanded a tripod.  Two years later Nikon countered with the 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 ED VR AF Zoom-Nikkor stabilized lens.  Not to be left behind, Sigma introduced its own stabilized 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 EX OS lens in 2002, matching Nikon’s specs while offering versions for Sigma, Nikon and Canon users.

All images ©2005 John M. McBride

Filling the niche between the 20D and the Mark II, the new Canon DSLR combines speed and performance in a compact camera.

By Ron Eggers

Canon’s new EOS 5D full-frame digital single lens reflex camera is in a class by itself. Positioned in the market between the 20D and the least expensive Mark II—what Canon calls the “premium DLSR market”—it’s suitable for a broad range of professional applications.

Priced just over $3,000, the 5D is less expensive than the lowest-priced Mark II, and holds its own against those models in speed and performance. The 5D is designed around a 13.3-megapixel effectively), with maximum resolution of 4,368x2,912 pixels. With 8.2-micron pixels, the 5D’s second-generation Canon CMOS chip is a significant redesign of the original, engineered for lower power consumption and less noise distortion, particularly in shadow detail.

Here you'll find three additional photos taken with the Canon EOS 5D, and links to download the full-size images to take a closer look.

Is It Really Photoshop for Photographers?

By Joe Farace

"Waddaya mean," my friend Ralph, asks, "what else is Photoshop for?" I hated to be the one to break it to Ralphie but Adobe Photoshop has changed a lot in its journey from that cute little FotoMat desktop icon, to the all-seeing-eye, to the oh-so-Forrest Gump feather. It's evolved from just being a photographer's tool to one embraced by artists and Web designers too, so there are lots of tools that photographers seldom use. (Other than Save for Web, how often do you use Image Ready?)

Along the way, stuff--as they say--happened. When handed a tool that has the capacity to capture images unhindered by film processing costs, some of us have unleashed our internal creative demons and shoot, shoot, shoot. Where once a wedding photographer may have had a hundred, maybe two hundred, 5x5 proofs to edit, they are now faced with four hundred or more images. And while Photoshop CS2 Bridge, bless its pea-pickin' heart, is a good way to edit lots of images, it ain't the fastest way. Enter Adobe Adobe Lightroom, a.k.a. Photoshop for Photographers.

Finally, the successor to the Nikon D100 makes the scene
with lots of impressive features and performance passed down from the D2X

By Joan T. Sherwood

I have been shooting with the Nikon D200 for a month now, and really I have mostly great things to say about it. Before the full review appears in the March issue of Professional Photographer, here are notes on the results of my initial experience with the camera using a Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G IF-ED AF-S DX VR lens, which is an 11.1x zoom lens designed for everyday photography. It's NOT a pro-level zoom lens. In the action shots, I believe focus results would be much better with a fast, 2- to 3X zoom.

Read the full article.

Recreate the look of the films you loved

By Wendell Benedetti

Alien Skin Software advertises its latest Photoshop plug-in, Exposure, as bringing the look and feel of film to digital photography. As "the closest thing to film since film," it's supposed to make digital images look like they were shot on film. That impressive claim piqued my curiosity. I had to have a look.

Installation on a Windows XP configured imaging workstation went without a hitch and the 48-page instruction manual more than adequately covered the program's features with colorful illustrations. Everything worked as advertised, but it didn't take long to discover that Exposure offers a lot more than film simulation.

Exposure actually does three different things. Using pre-configured tools it simulates black-and-white and color film stock as well as an assortment of darkroom/studio effects. It also offers an array of powerful image optimization tools. First and foremost, though, Exposure simulates specific film stocks. That's its primary, unique purpose. Its secondary features are simply a bonus.

Is It Really 6X Better?

By Joe Farace

Any tripod can be a three-legged friend that has the simple job of holding your camera steady. How it accomplishes that task is a matter of personal preference, design, and price. A good tripod has basic requirements: It must be sturdy enough to support your camera yet light enough for you to be willing to take it along and use it! The Gitzo Mountaineer Reporter is part of a new family of Carbon 6X tripods that reduces overall weight by up to 17%.

All Carbon 6X tripods and monopods use a six-crossed multilayer tube that’s 30 percent lighter without sacrificing strength and stability. Part of the weight reduction of Gitzo’s 6X tripod legs comes from making the standard 1.5mm carbon fiber tube thinner. Using a six-layer construction, Gitzo proclaims the tubes now are 1mm thick but are equally as strong and as stable as their 1.5mm three-layer carbon fiber tubes. Mountaineer 6X tripods are constructed using a screw thread and adhesive dual jointing technology called Hybrid Interconnecting System (HIS) for increased ruggedness and durability. In real world use, the Mountaineer Reporter held up as well as, if not better than, metal or other carbon fiber tripods I’ve used, and having to schlep less weight around is a plus.

The rookie: Can Apple's innovative approach to workflow software overcome its flaws?

By Andrew Rodney

(Editor's note: This is a more extensive version of the review that ran in the March 2006 issue of Professional Photographer magazine.)

For years, photographers have had excellent software tools for manipulating and retouching their images, yet few products that fully addressed the agonizingly slow process of editing and processing RAW files from a typical photo shoot. With nothing more than a loupe and a light table, the task of editing and sorting thousands of 35mm slides is relatively fast process. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case when editing thousands of RAW digital camera files. Recognizing this, Apple Computer announced, with great fanfare, its first software product designed for professional photographers; Aperture. Apple’s Web site declares, "Designed from the ground up for professional photographers, Aperture provides everything you need for after the shoot, delivering the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers."

By design, Aperture attempts to wear many hats, showing its greatest promise handling a process that, for lack of a better term has been called “image ingestion.” Ingestion is the process of moving digital images from camera to computer, examining and organizing them (sorting and ranking) with the ultimate goal of producing an edited set of hero photographs. At this point, adding metadata, such as copyright information and keywords would be applied.

LightZone blazes new trails in RAW processing

By Andrew Rodney

Correction layers, selections and blending now a part of the RAW-to-rendered process

In the last 6 months, a slew of new software products designed for photographers who shoot primarily in RAW format have come onto the scene. Apple Aperture and Adobe LightRoom are just two examples. Light Crafts LightZone enters the fray as yet another new image processing product that provides some unique and interesting tools.

LightZone has two basic modes: a simple image browser for quickly finding files and an editing mode, which is the more advanced. While the browser can preview existing rendered images (TIFF, JPEG, PNG) as well as RAW data from a number of camera manufacturers, it's limited to viewing images and embedded metadata (Figure 1). In this first released version, LightZone is all about the editing mode and rendering images.

By Joe Farace

Memory cards fail for lots of reasons. Sometimes it’s the card’s fault, other times the camera's and often it’s (heaven forbid) the user who creates the problem. Laying blame is irrelevant when you just want your files back.

When my 4GB Lexar Professional CompactFlash card failed, I reached for PhotoRescue software, which will usually recover images from reformatted cards. But it couldn’t solve this particular problem. Next I tried ProSoft Picture Rescue, but it wouldn’t work on this card either. The Image Rescue software included on every Lexar Professional CF card can recover lost or deleted JPEG, TIFF and RAW files from erased, reformatted, or corrupted memory cards, but after recovering just a few files, it stalled.

How fast is your digital experience?

By Joe Farace

All CompactFlash cards are the same, right? All you need to do is buy whatever is cheap to capture your precious images. Wrong! Just as choosing the correct film for the assignment is important in traditional photography, choosing the right memory card is critical for digital capture. Here’s why:

They’re not all the same speed. Lexar was the first company to rate the speed of its flash memory cards and currently provides ratings for its Platinum and Professional lines. Most other memory card manufacturers also rate their products’ speed, but what does it really mean? The rating refers to the speed that data can be written to or read from a flash memory card.

Photographers often think their memory card’s speed and performance only make an impact when the card is in their camera, but speed impacts workflow when transferring data with a card reader, too. A “sustained speed-rating” is important because it allows the photographer to capitalize on the camera’s built-in functions, such as burst rate and video capture. When a card exhibits inconsistent high-speed performance, either function can be interrupted.

By Ellis Vener

The Studiotool-Stm STS-Model 1  marries the image shaping controls of a monorail view camera—moving either the lens or the sensor/film independently of each other—to a Digital SLR body. You need a Sinar P series view camera (P, P2, C or X chassis, but not the Sinar F variants) and a Canon or Nikon DSLR body. The full kit consisted of a Sinar lens board modified for using Mamiya RZ lenses; flexible Neoprene bellows connecting the Sinar lens standard to a DSLR; a camera-mounting bracket that replaces the removable format frame /groundglass assembly on the rear standard of the Sinar; an Arca-Swiss based quick release plate connecting the DSLR to the bracket; and a depth-of-field sticker marked for the 24x36mm format for use with the built-in Sinar depth-of-field and tilt-angle calculator.  The Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, a 35mm-style DSLR with a large sensor, is the best choice for the DSLR.

By Andrew Rodney

Five months after releasing Aperture, Apple released version 1.1 to address bugs, RAW conversion issues and add new functionality. After working with 1.1 for a few days, I can say that Apple has now addressed many of my initial concerns with the original product. In addition, Apple has significantly lowered the price of the software from $499 to $299. Those who purchased the original product can receive a $200 coupon to use on the Apple Store.

RAW conversions
My biggest beef with version 1.0 of Aperture was the quality of the RAW conversions. While I felt the initial color rendering was very nice, examining a full resolution rendered image showed nasty artifacts that where soon labeled the “Parquet Floor” effect by users on the Aperture forum. The effect manifests itself in horizontal streaking in many areas of an image and can be seen at high (200%-plus) magnification.  Other users reported white speckles or other artifacts not visible when processing the same RAW data with other RAW converters. Apple spent considerable time looking at customers' RAW files and updated the RAW decoding algorithms in version 1.1.

By Joe Farace

Out of the box

At first glance, the Samsung Digimax Pro815 looks exactly like what is: a fixed lens, EVF (electronic view finder) SLR. Picking it up, you’ll see that it's a solid piece with excellent build quality. At 3.5 inches, the Pro815 features the largest LCD currently available on a digital camera. When you're shooting portraits, the large screen makes it easy for a subject to see how they look and is better and faster than any Polaroid test print you’ve used in the past. You can show it to a subject and ask “how do you like your hair?” and the screen is big enough for them to know the answer.

The 3.5-inch LCD uses Samsung’s Transmissive with Micro Reflective technology, but as far as I could tell presents all of the same advantages and disadvantages of any other preview screen. The screen lets you see a histogram for checking exposure, and you can superimpose a “rule of thirds” grid for composition that might be helpful for keeping horizon lines straight.

By Ellis Vener

Equipment cases with built-in rollers are nothing new, but none really satisfied me, until now. Either the cases were too heavy, too bulky, too small, or the extended handle was too short. Or they were prone to tipping sideways on uneven surfaces. Or they didn’t allow for flexibility and efficiency in arranging gear for different types of jobs. Or they simply weren’t built for the long haul. And the designs usually scream, “Steal me! I am full of something valuable!”

Finding all of the right elements in a single bag seemed as likely as getting comfy in a coach airplane seat. But then I found the Think Tank Photo Airport Security Roller case and that has turned out to be one of the best designed and well thought out pieces of photographic gear I have worked with.

By John Russo

[Editor's note: Because our April cover photographer, John Russo, came to our attention through his elegantly designed yet simple Web site, we asked him to write about liveBooks, the company that offers the editable Web site marketing and presentation software that he uses.]

Since the early days of the Internet I have been deeply inspired by its promise of being the ideal marketing tool for photographers. The idea of having one portfolio Web site that I could market simultaneously to photo buyers in New York, Miami, and LA just sounded too good to be true. Unfortunately, as most of you have experienced, it was too good to be true. Countless hours and dollars later, the Web has never lived up to my dream of a simple, cost effective way to market my portfolio. That is, until now!

By Bob Coates, PPA Certified, M.Photog.Cr.

I was a little skeptical when I first heard about Unibind's PhotoBook Creator, in part, because of a press-release claim that it only takes three seconds to create the book. (Unibind information no longer makes this claim.) I tested one myself and spoke with other photographers about how they use it. It takes more like a minute and a half for the Unibind heater process to finish and then another minute until it cools. Nevertheless, you can still create a nice finished product in a short period of time.

Photo © Bob Coates

By Joan T. Sherwood

You want a multimedia storage and player device. There are a few choices out there. With the Epson P-4000 and the FlashTrax XT you get a bigger viewing screen. With the Wolverine 9000 MVP series you get more built-in memory card support, larger storage capacity options, a smaller and lighter-weight package, and a better price, all in a cherry-red chassis. Despite a few quirks, I think this is a great option for a photographer who's willing to sacrifice the big viewing screen for a much lower price tag without giving up much else.

By Ronnie Norton, ABI, Qualified European Photographer, Associate of the Irish PPA

The best way to introduce Sketch Master is to qu