I've been a big fan of my D70 for some time now, but have started looking at the current state of the art with an eye towards upgrading in a year or so. Due to their commercial success I wondered if the latest Digital Rebel has the edge... if I was purchasing today would it be time to change camps from Nikon to Canon?

Much to my suprise in a highly specific and objective comparison, performed by the highly trustworthy DPreview (see the review here), the D80 seems to be holding a slight lead. This is a suprise to me because the D80 hasn't been loudly hailed by most reviewers and because the Digital Rebel series always seems to have the general public's attention. Clearly, both are excellent cameras and the differences, while important to some, won't matter to most prosumers who probably care that the price favors Canon.

I am convinced that Nikon has the edge over Canon when it comes to that indefinable "shooting experience." Simply put, it's the little things that make the difference in the end when image quality between the two is so similar. And Nikon does great at the details... ergonomics, menu design, and the overall comfort level between photographer and camera. This kind of thing doesn't quantify in a review but makes a big difference.

Until recently I've used PowerRetouche to remove lens distortions, but I'm always looking for different solutions. I'm going to try out two different tools which seem to be popular right now, PTLens (http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens/) and DxO (http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo).

Having taken a couple of big overseas trips in the last few years I find myself with a plethora of images to sort, rate and color correct. Looks like it's time to get serious with Lightroom, Aperture, or Bibble. I've used all 3 for brief testing, I really like the speed at which I can correct images with Bibble but hate the ugly interface, and it's also easy to get lazy with it and not take photos that last 3%. Probably Lightroom is going to be the final choice...

I will be incommunicado via email off and on in April as the new house rennovation continues... shortly I will have to package up my machines and stand by impatiently as electrical work and my home office space is finished. Currently I am still putting in a new floor, and worrying about  the endless trivia of getting multiple home improvement projects finished on time and on budget. Not fun, not easy, but the end result is beginning to show and that's pretty exciting. Loads of sweat equity and a really nice home, it sure beats the past 20 years of apartment living!

Those who need to get in touch with me know already that my cellphone is the fastest way to get me, followed (usually) by email. Right now, you're best off calling me directly. :) Eventually everything will be complete and I can get back to some semblance of sanity, until them my apologies to anyone who drops by wondering why I haven't answered their email...

woOT. I bought a house. 1 acre. Two buildings. Inground pool. 3000 Square feet of personal art and living space. It's almost as cool as http://www.pandora.com/, the Music Genome Project, which attempts to identify common characteristics of individual artists. I've gone off a pro bono project helping imagine cool stuff and assemble graphics for a theme park pitch, and I'm getting some good use out of Pandora while rigging a character for a little freelance gig. After which, I build a stucco wall. Life is strange.

Some recent and/or unposted projects...

At long last, Barnyard is opening worldwide. So far it has been performing well in the box office, particularly for a first film by a new studio, placing #2 in the nation on opening weekend. I worked on this film as a character rigger and one of 4 effects supervisors.

Barnyard is a CG animation envisioned and created by writer/director Steve Odekerk (Bruce Almighty, Jimmy Neutron, Patch Adams, Ace Ventura) and production designer Phil Cruden (Titan A.E., Anastasia, Eight Crazy Nights.) Barnyard is produced and distributed by Paramount and Nickelodeon.

We did a lot of things which have never been attempted on a 3D motion picture. Many vast landscapes covered with grass, hundreds of characters with fur onscreen, an entirely new pipeline for 3d based on XSI and Mental Ray, a design blending realistic and stylized elements...It was an amazing challenge to create this movie and the crew worked very hard to overcome the obstacles of creating a brand new studio, pipeline and first film all in one go. For most of the production we were constantly told by others in the industry that we were attempting something impossible, so I hope people enjoy it and have fun with this strange, offbeat, and colorful film.

Wow, it's exciting to see that the technology is at a point where demos like this are possible...

Multi-touch Display

We are now almost entirely into the era of the digital camera, and competition between manufacturers is fierce. It's a great time for photography. But the digital era is marked with a certain homogenity which I hope is only temporary... back in the day of film, particularly around the 1950's, a lot of amazing devices hit the market. One such was the surge of stereoscopic cameras, perhaps best represented by the popular 35mm Stereo Realist camera.

Stereo imagery has a rich history, in fact predating photography itself (the original "peepshow" of the 18'th century featured engravings, usually of architectural subjects.) When photography entered the scene, stereophotographs were immensely popular, and over generations families owned stereo viewers... holmes viewers, later viewmasters, and today... nothing.

Digital photography revolves around eventual viewing on strictly 2-dimensional monitors, and stereograms are a novelty (fischer price still makes viewmasters, though.) There is no digital camera which steps up to take the place of the good old Stereo Realist.

But stereo images have proven themselves to be popular over the course of 300 years, and I really don't think this has changed. For instance, 3d lenticular images still stop viewers in their tracks. Stereo films are more popular than ever with 3d IMAX theatres drawing in the crowds (and of course Disney's "Chicken Little" managed to draw crowds in part due to it's hype over a 3D experience.) Stereo has a grip on viewers, and it's just a matter of time before a camera manufacturer realizes that there are a LOT of cool things that can be done with a digital stereo camera... Print 3d Lenticular images, market a digital viewmaster-like viewer, tie in with stereo HMD manufacture. Realtors, architects, researchers, soldiers, artists, there are so many people who could benefit from a resurgence of stereo imagery.

The knowledge is there, the techniques have been thought out, and competition is entirely focused on the past. Companies like Kodak are feeling the pain from the loss of film revenues, maybe what they need is to think of the many ways the advent of cheap CCDs can result in new 'innovative' products... how about starting out with a fully digital return to stereoscopy?

A History of Early Visual Media

The Art of Stereo Photography

Stereoscopy.com

Homebrew Digital Stereography

Like many artists, Photoshop is one of my most relied-on tools. I'm constantly using it for tasks ranging from resizing graphics creating digital paintings. And like many artists, I have a pretty big collection of brushes.

Photoshop stores brushes in it's own .abr format, which is also recognized by a few competitors, such as Painter. Brush sets are basically collections of bitmaps, and they can get pretty large. On startup, Photoshop scans the preset brushes folder and loads up all the brush sets it can, which takes up precious time and memory when users get beyond just a few simple brushes. Photo manipulators, unfortunately, often like to use brushes as a sort of magic rubber stamper, to stamp complex textures onto their canvas. It's a valid and useful technique, but one which relies on very large collections of very large brushes.

You would think that Adobe would have long ago created some elegant functionality to sort, organize and archive brush sets, particularly now that brush collections are one of the most commonly created photoshop user resource. Not yet. Aside from a couple of load and save commands, there isn't much you can do from within photoshop to get organized. If you want to look at the 2000 brushes you just downloaded for that perfect cellophane tape brush you are in for a fun night. Year after year this need for brush organization seems to get missed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing Adobe. They have been improving PS at a phenomenal rate and nobody can expect them to not miss out on some things. But here's hoping they get around to this one soon before we all drown in our brush collections...

So until Adobe saves the day with some sort of organizer, what do most artists who use a lot of brushes do? After looking into it for a few days I found that most artists either minimize using bitmap brushes and rely on variations of the round brush (which is perfectly adequate for fine artwork) or they create their own folder structure somewhere away from photoshop and load brush sets only as needed, which is what I have been doing.

A while back Luigi Bellanca of Palermo, Italy came across the same situation I did, and to make our lives a little easier he created a tool to at least open brushsets and inspect them without having to load them into PS. You can find his tool, called ABRviewer, here: ABRviewer

I find it amazing that this is the only tool I've found which even addresses viewing and organizing PS brushes. I love Photoshop and think the world of Adobe, so I'm suprised this has been missed up to this point. I think as they realize that more and more users are relying on Photoshop as a platform application for painting artwork from the ground up they will eventually take a look at how digital painters are using the application and discover the need for better brush organization. But until then, at least we have a way to view brushes independent of PS and hopefully the first of many third-party tools along these lines. Thanks, Luigi!