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From Roller to Shoulder Bag to Backpack – Still Skooba

I’ve now come full circle with my laptop bag of choice. I’m a fan of the Skooba line of TSA friendly bags and I’ve reviewed them here before starting with the rollar bag. Although I liked the rollar bag for the sheer amount of stuff that I could carry in it, it started becoming a problem making it fit under the seat in front of me on planes equipped with in-seat entertainment systems. I switched to the shoulder bag version (which I still use when traveling with my MacBook Air), but found I didn’t like the weight on the one shoulder constantly. I gave up and went with their Backpack. Like most backpacks the weight is distributed. I get to carry a good amount of gear still including my 15″ MacBook Pro, accessories in my ThinkTank 30 Cable Management Bag, my iPad and Wacom Intuos 5 Small Tablet. I can even fit my Nikon D7000 and 28-300mm Lens in there too. Best of all I almost never have to remove my laptop from the bag due to the nice TSA friendly design.

I still clip this monster to my rolling suitcase whenever I can, but if I have to carry it, it’s not bad either.

You can get the Skooba Checkthrough TSA Friendly Backpack here

You can also see what I carry in my laptop bag here.

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Adobe Lightroom 4.1, Camera RAW 7.1, DNG Converter 7.1 Now Available

Lightroom 4.1 is now available as a final release on Adobe.com and through the update mechanism in Lightroom 4.  The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support, lens profile support and address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom. In addition, Lightroom 4.1 introduces the following new features:

  • The ability to process HDR TIFF files.  (16, 24 or 32-bit TIFF files)  This can be useful if you have merged multiple exposures into a single 32-bit image using Photoshop’s HDR Pro.  Using the new basic panel controls can be a very effective and straightforward method of achieving an overall balance across the tonal range.
  • Additional Color Fringing corrections to help address chromatic aberration.  Click here to learn more
  • Save photobooks created in the Book Module as JPEG files
  • Publishing photos to Adobe Revel is now accessible via a Publish plugin

Bugs Corrected in Lightroom 4.1

The following bugs that were part the Lightroom 4 releases have been corrected. The team appreciates the very detailed feedback the community has provided on Lightroom 4 and we’re excited to correct a number of issues experienced by our customers. These issues have been FIXED:

  • Point Curve adjustments made in Lightroom 3 have been restored.
  • Edit-in functionality has been restored to external applications including Adobe Photoshop and Nik plugins
  • Addressed performance issues in Lightroom 4, particularly when loading GPS track logs, using a secondary monitor, and the controls within the Develop module.
  • Ability to update DNG previews and metadata for more than 100 photos has been restored.
  • This update allows for improved viewing of subfolders and stacks in folders with a large number of photos.
  • It was possible that a layout of a saved book could be lost after quitting Lightroom 4.
  • Adjustments made in the Develop module were not properly being reflected to photos that have been laid out in the Book Module
  • Postscript Type 1 Fonts do not appear in the Font menu within the Book module.
  • Clarity adds grey tinting to 100% white tones.

Known Issues in Lightroom 4.1:

  • Double byte fonts such as those found in Chinese and Japanese characters are not being exported to PDF or when published to Blurb.
  • The Revel Publish Service will delete photos from a carousel. This occurs when the customer asks Lightroom to delete the carousel and then cancels out of the confirmation dialogue box.

New Camera Support in Lightroom 4.1

  • Canon EOS 1D X
  • Canon EOS 5D Mark III
  • Canon EOS 60Da
  • Canon PowerShot G1 X
  • Fuji FinePix F505EXR
  • Fuji FinePix F605EXR
  • Fuji FinePix F770EXR
  • Fuji FinePix F775EXR
  • Fuji FinePix HS30EXR
  • Fuji FinePix HS33EXR
  • Fuji X-Pro1
  • Leaf Credo 80
  • Leica M Monochrom
  • Leica X2
  • Nikon D4
  • Nikon D800
  • Nikon D800E
  • Olympus OM-D E-M5
  • Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5
  • Pentax K-01
  • RICOH LENS A16 24-85mm F3.5-5.5
  • Samsung NX20
  • Samsung NX210
  • Samsung NX1000
  • Sony Alpha NEX-F3
  • Sony Alpha NEX-VG20
  • Sony Alpha SLT-A37
  • Sony Alpha SLT-A57

New Lens Profile Support in Lightroom 4.1

Lens Mount Lens Name
Canon Canon EF 35mm f/2
Canon Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Canon Tokina AT-X 107 AF DX Fish-Eye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5
Canon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 16-28mm f/2.8
Canon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 17-35mm f/4
Leica LEICA APO-SUMMICRON-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH.
Nikon Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
Nikon Nikon AF Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8D
Nikon Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1.8G
Nikon Tokina AT-X 107 AF DX Fish-Eye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5
Nikon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 16-28mm f/2.8
Nikon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 17-35mm f/4
Nikon Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Nikon Sigma 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM
Olympus Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN
Olympus Sigma 30mm F2.8 EX DN
Pentax Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 II DC OS HSM
Pentax Sigma 17-50mm EX DC HSM
Sigma Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Sony Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 DG HSM II
Sony Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 II DC OS HSM
Sony Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN
Sony Sigma 30mm F2.8 EX DN
Sony Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO Macro

Thank You

A big thanks to everyone who submitted bug reports, posted entries in the U2U forums and blogged their issues so that we could improve the Lightroom 4 experience in this update. Thank you.

Download Lightroom 4.1 here – Windows, Mac

 

Camera Raw 7.1 is now available on Adobe.com and through the update mechanism in Adobe Photoshop CS6. Camera Raw 7.1 adds new Defringe controls to help address chromatic aberration. Defringe is available as part of the Lens Correction panel. Camera Raw can also now read 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit HDR files. Supported HDR formats are TIFF and DNG.  Photoshop CS6 customers can upgrade to Camera Raw 7.1.  Customers of previous versions of Photoshop can utilize DNG Converter 7.1 for raw file support for newly added cameras.

New Camera Support in Camera Raw 7.1

  • Canon EOS 1D X*
  • Canon EOS 5D Mark III*
  • Canon EOS 60Da
  • Canon PowerShot G1 X*
  • Fuji FinePix F505EXR*
  • Fuji FinePix F605EXR*
  • Fuji FinePix F770EXR*
  • Fuji FinePix F775EXR*
  • Fuji FinePix HS30EXR*
  • Fuji FinePix HS33EXR*
  • Fuji X-Pro1
  • Leaf Credo 80
  • Leica M Monochrom
  • Leica X2
  • Nikon D4*
  • Nikon D800*
  • Nikon D800E*
  • Olympus OM-D E-M5*
  • Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5
  • Pentax K-01*
  • RICOH LENS A16 24-85mm F3.5-5.5
  • Samsung NX20*
  • Samsung NX210*
  • Samsung NX1000*
  • Sony Alpha NEX-F3
  • Sony Alpha NEX-VG20*
  • Sony Alpha SLT-A37
  • Sony SLT-A57*

* denotes that the camera model was supported in DNG Converter 6.7

New Lens Profile Support in Camera Raw 7.1

Lens Mount Lens Name
Canon Canon EF 35mm f/2
Canon Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Canon Tokina AT-X 107 AF DX Fish-Eye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5
Canon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 16-28mm f/2.8
Canon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 17-35mm f/4
Leica LEICA APO-SUMMICRON-M 50 mm f/2 ASPH.
Nikon Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED
Nikon Nikon AF Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8D
Nikon Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1.8G
Nikon Tokina AT-X 107 AF DX Fish-Eye 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5
Nikon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 16-28mm f/2.8
Nikon Tokina AT-X PRO FX 17-35mm f/4
Nikon Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Nikon Sigma 85mm F1.4 EX DG HSM
Olympus Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN
Olympus Sigma 30mm F2.8 EX DN
Pentax Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 II DC OS HSM
Pentax Sigma 17-50mm EX DC HSM
Sigma Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM
Sony Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 DG HSM II
Sony Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 II DC OS HSM
Sony Sigma 19mm F2.8 EX DN
Sony Sigma 30mm F2.8 EX DN
Sony Sigma 150mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO Macro

Camera Raw 7.1 Release Notes

These items have been FIXED in Camera Raw 7.1:

  • Keyboard shortcuts for the point curve channel on Windows were not functional.
  • Local corrections are not refreshing after applying lens corrections. This occurs on both TIFF and JPEG files with noise reduction disabled.
  • Point curve adjustments made to a single R,G, or B channels in the Tone Curve tab can be reset a channel curve is adjusted.
  • Photoshop and Bridge show different values for the image resolution in certain images. Photoshop and Bridge are not changing the image resolution, but displaying different values.
  • Applying keywords to multiple files can sometimes cause errors when writing the keyword metadata to file. This can occur when the “Save Image Settings in” preference within Camera Raw is set to the Camera Raw database.

Download Links:

Camera Raw 7.1 – Windows, Mac

DNG Converter 7.1 – Windows, Mac

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M.I.C. Outs a New 4-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad

If your camera uses SD memory cards then you have probably had no issues importing images into your iPad using the Apple Camera Connection Kit. However, if your camera shoots Compact Flash then it gets a little more challenging. Apple doesn’t make a kit or adapter to allow you to import your images from your Compact Flash cards directly. However, M.I.C. does!

Camera Connection Kit 4-in-1 for iPad, iPad 2 and The NEW iPad

I’ve been using the original M.I.C. reader for over a year. Recently I either lost one of the two I own or I misplaced it. This lead me to go to their site and order a new one. That’s when I discovered that they had replaced the one I had with a newer, better one. This NEW Camera Connection Kit not only handles Compact Flash (CF) cards, but it also handles SD, MicroSD and a direct USB connection to your camera. This effectively eliminates the need to carry both the M.I.C and the Apple one as it will import images from both my SD and CF cards.

One of the hurdles in supporting CF cards is that the higher speed ones use more power. A while back Apple purposely dialed down the amount of power available via the iPad dock connector as they didn’t want people connecting all the peripherals they were starting to connect to it (I can only guess they did this to eliminate all the support calls for what people might connect to an iPad). M.I.C originally said that they wouldn’t support cards over 400x in speed, but this new Connection Kit also comes with a USB power cable to the adapter. If you have a card that draws more power than the iPad will handle you can plug in this cord to the adapter and your USB wall charger and get more juice.

How well does it work?

Over the weekend I was at a meeting where a photographer was taking pictures. He handed me his SD card and I imported his Canon RAW shots right into my iPad. No problem. Yesterday, I decided to try it with the CF cards from my Nikon D4. This is where I discovered that although M.I.C. includes a power solution, you can still have cards that won’t work. For example, my SanDisk Extreme IV cards worked fine, but my newer Transcend 32GB 400x CF cards wouldn’t work at all. Even when I plugged in the power cord, the card wouldn’t mount on the iPad.

The Bottom Line

There are lots of knock off 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 readers for the iPad that are cheaper than the M.I.C. solution. However, most of them don’t work on the New iPad at all! Although the M.I.C. 4-in-1 Connection Kit worked fine on my New iPad, there was still at least one particular CF card that it couldn’t read. Therefore I would recommend that you test your cards before heading out on your trip with your camera and iPad only. Lastly, the New Photosmith 2.0 App makes the sorting, flagging and metadata process on the iPad much nicer especially if you’re a Lightroom user. When you get back with your iPad you can simply sync all your RAWs, JPGs, and Collections to Lightroom wirelessly!

You can order the M.I.C Camera Connection Kit 4-in-1 here.

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Memorial Day – A Day To Honor Those Who Made The Ultimate Sacrifice

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women that currently serve or have served in our US Military Service! Your continued sacrifices to protect our freedoms are greatly appreciated. We are able to spend this day with our friends and families because of what you do!

As we observe this solemn day, we must remember all the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives in the service of our great country.

Again, Thank You!

Terry White

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Gelaskins: The Terry White Collection :)

I’ve been using Gelaskins for a couple of years now to customize my various devices. As a photographer I’m always looking for ways to display my work. Put the two together and now my “Creative Portfolio” is on my MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone.

P.S. I love it when the TSA agents are so busy looking at my photos that they forget to make me take off my belt! 😉

Check out Gelaskins here. You can buy existing designs or upload your own!

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Review – The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad 2 and the New iPad

Sometimes I get comments here, jokingly about how much money I just cost you because I reviewed something cool that now you must have. Well you’ll take pleasure in knowing that it just happened to me too. My colleague and gadget buddy Dave Helmly just showed me his latest gadget and in about 3 seconds I knew I’d have to have one.

The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad 2 and the New iPad

I’ve tried other iPad keyboards and while they work, I usually just ended up carrying my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. The problem I had with the ones that are designed to be a case for the iPad is that they typically added more weight and bulk to the iPad than what I was willing to carry. At that point I figured I might as well carry my MacBook Air. That all changed when I saw the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover! First of all the “ultrathin” part is key. I use Apple Smart Covers now and I don’t want any cover that’s much thicker than those. Logitech brilliantly designed their Keyboard Cover as a “Smart Cover”. That’s right, it magnetically snaps on to the iPad 2 and the New iPad just like Apple’s Smart covers do. Just snap it on and close it. It maintains a very low profile and is very thin when attached. The next smart thing they did was they made a magnetic slot to dock the iPad in to prop it up either vertically or horizontally while you use the keyboard.

The keyboard is bluetooth as you would expect and rechargeable via a standard USB micro cable. Speaking of the keyboard itself, the first key I looked for was the import Shift Key on the left side! The other keyboard I tried (Brookstone) didn’t have a Shift Key on both sides and that really bothered me. Typing on this keyboard seems very natural. I can’t speak to battery life yet as I’ve only spent a few hours playing with Dave’s, but I’ve already ordered one for myself. Damn you Dave you just cost me money (again)! 🙂

You can get the Logitech Ultrathink Keyboard Cover for iPad 2 and the New iPad here for about $99.

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The Tour Site That Muse Built – Thank You Oslo, Prague, Warsaw & Istanbul!

A packed house in Warsaw

As many of you know I’m currently on my Adobe CS6 and Creative Cloud World Tour. As I visit different countries showing Adobe’s latest offerings I like to use my own demo files as much as I can. This means photos and videos I’ve taken as well as using real-world scenarios. Last week it hit me! The best way to show off Adobe Muse was to build a site in it from scratch, update it live on stage in front of the audience and publish it so that they could check it out themselves.

I rolled the site out during the Warsaw tour stop and it was a big hit.

The Gear

Using my Nikon D7000 and an Eye-Fi Pro X2 Card I shot wirelessly to my iPad using the Shuttersnitch App. I then chose the ones I wanted and using the PhotoSync App I wirelessly transferred the photos to my MacBook Pro (granted I could have had the Eye-Fi card configured to transfer directly to my computer, but it was already configured to go to the iPad). From there I used a Photoshop CS6 Droplet to automate saving the high-res images to web ready jpegs and then I added them to the slideshow for that particular city.

The beautiful city of Prague

Adobe Muse is a fantastically easy tool to design and build websites with!

Check out the site here: cs6tour.businesscatalyst.com

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CloudFTP Lets You Share a Hard Drive Wirelessly with Your Devices, even your iPad

I ordered this little gadget before heading out on my current tour and got a chance to try it out in the hotel lounge with one of my colleagues. CloudFTP for all intents and purposes is a little adhoc access point with a USB port on it. Technically you should be able to hook up just about any storage device to it and share the content on that device wirelessly with your devices (computers and iOS/Android devices).

I figured I’d give it a real world test and time for a CloudFTP review. I took it out of the box, read the little manual that comes with it (so I could figure out how to access it), plugged in my LaCie Rugged Firewire 800/USB 2 backup drive into and fired it up. After a few moments it was up and ready to go. I then went to the web browser on my iPhone, keyed in the URL and there it was!

My hard drives directory structure. I could access any file and if the file was iOS compatible such as a PDF or movie I could see it right then and there. Speaking of movies, I get asked all the time about plugging in hard drives or other external drives into an iPad or iPhone to carry movies around and up until now I never really had a good answer. This would do the trick nicely. The first movie I tried wasn’t in a format that iOS liked (it was an AVI file) and therefore it copied the movie to the iPhone and then I was able to open it in the VLC App and it played just fine.

The movie playing above is streaming wirelessly from my LaCie hard drive to my iPhone 4s via the CloudFTP

I tested another movie that was in the proper .MP4 format and it streamed. However, I will note that about halfway through the movie the video froze and the sound kept going. Not sure if that will be an ongoing issue or not. I was also impress that the built-in USB port had enough power to run the drive without the drive or the CloudFTP being plugged into a power source. The second thing that impressed me even more was that it didn’t seem to matter what format the drive was in. My hard drive was Mac formatted and it still showed up as the “C” drive with all the directories (folders) showing.

Battery life is up to five hours and you can share documents, music or photos with up to 8 users at a time or movies with up to three users. It creates a WiFi network for your devices to join but keep in mind it’s not a WiFi Internet Router and therefore there is not internet connectivity while you’re connected to it. However, you can configure it to join your existing network if you like.

The Bottom Line

I don’t know how much use I will get out of this. I primarily got it as a method to quickly share files between computers and multiple users. I don’t run into those situations often, but when I do this device should come in real handy. The small size is also a plus as I can just keep it in the ThinkTank Cable Management 30 accessory bag that I carry in my laptop bag. The only thing I don’t really like about it is that while it does charge via USB, it comes with it’s own proprietary charging cable and that means having to keep up with more more cable as opposed to using a standard USB micro cable to charge. Other than that it works as advertised.

You can check out CloudFTP here for $99.95 and it comes in either Black or White

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Adobe CS6 Creative Cloud World Tour – Thank You Helsinki & Stockholm

Wow! What a way to end the week. We presented Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud to over 1,200 people in Helsinki Finland and Stockholm Sweden while touring on the Adobe CS6 Creative Cloud World Tour. It’s always a treat for me to get out and see real users of our products and to see those users get excited about the new features of Creative Suite and the new options in Creative Cloud!

Now that Creative Cloud is available as well as the new Adobe Touch Apps we can show even more in the cities to come. Today we’ll be in Oslo Norway! Looking forward to seeing you this week and in the weeks to come.

Jason Levine once again put together a great clip with some customer testimonials….

I also got to spend a little down time off the grid in Sweden over the weekend thanks to my colleagues Fredrik and Jason!