Andrew Macpherson

Why do I spend more time fighting the print driver than in any other stage of the process?  I have a roll feed printer, I have a simple view on life; here’s what should happen:

1. Turn on printer and load paper roll.
2. Printer either reads a barcode on the paper and is ready to go
   – or –
   Printer asks what sort of paper I’m putting in, and how long is it, and fetches the appropriate profile, even if the paper is from a different manufacturer.  Printer is now ready.
3. I go to my computer and select the picture to print, computer talks to printer to discover available media.
4. I say print, and either the computer puts the job in a RIP (Raster Image Processor) queue so that I can add other jobs to fill the paper, or is gives me a little backchat to ask permission to rotate the job so it fits better, then prints the job and cuts it from the roll.

What actually happens has some marginal resemblance to cloud cuckoo land above.  See if you can spot the resemblance (continue reading…)

Just spent an hour going through an excellent HDR Tutorial from the travel photography blog Stuck in Customs by Trey Ratcliff.  It merges nicely in one spot the various tips I’ve been picking up round the net, and adds in some new to me packages (Topaz Art springs to mind) to help finish the pictures.

He has discount codes for one to use on most of the software he’s promoting (Topaz, Photomatix, Nik and more), so the site is probably worth visiting just to check out his reviews if you’re considering buying one, and pick up the codes if you’re convinced to buy.