Information and Reference.

The following sections link to pages which provide useful information on the tools and working practices and techniques we work with daily.

 

Photoshop and Other Image Editing and Creation Tools

Adobe Photoshop Family
The Adobe Photoshop product family home page featuring Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop Elements 5

Corel Paintshop Pro and Painter
Corel has made good progress with advancing these products capabilities. For photocentric activities, you should take a look at Paintshop Pro XI, and for those of you with more artistic leanings, you can't go wrong with Painter IX.5.

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
An excellent open source image editing solution which is well worth investigating. It can also be modified to more closely match the look and feel of Photoshop.

Autodesk® SketchBook® Pro
An excellent drawing and illustration tool created by Alias and designed for use by artists working on Tablet PCs.

Photo Impact
Ulead Systems excellent photo editing and enhancement solution.

Stoik PictureMan Pro
Another excellent photo editing and enhancement solution. Stoik make a whole family of image enhancement and correction tools.

StudioLine Photo
A solution for organising and editing images.

PD Pro Digital Painter
PD PRo is an excellent paint program which has some very powerful features although more suited to painting than Image Editing. It is however, more than capable when it comes to image editing as well.

Photomatix Pro
An excellent HDRI solution for photographers which runs on both Mac OS X and Windows 98, Me, 2000 and XP.

PhotoCleaner
A Simple but interesting tool designed for enhancing your photos.

Digital Light & Color
A suite of digital imaging solutions aimed at serious photographers.

Photo-Brush
A Photo and Natural media tool for editing and creating images. Media Chance also make a selection of other tools for digital imaging and handling other media like DVD, Video and Audio.

Streetwise Software
Professor Franklins consumer solutions for photo and artistic effects.

 

RAW Image and Workflow Tools

Adobe Lightroom
This RAW Image and Workflow solution in one of the most promising, it is well worth a look and is receiving much support from industry pundits. It's one of my tools of choice...

Apple Aperture
Apples entry into the world of Raw Image Workflow cause quite a stir when it was released. It's an excellent product, which is slowly become stable and well worth a look ... if you're a Mac user.

ExpressDigital Darkroom
Another Raw Workflow based application, it is one of the most interesting, Photographer and Studio centric application suites I've come across. It is in my mind probably one of the main sources of inspiration where Aperture and Lightroom found UI ideas. The Suite comes in 3 flavours; Core, Professional and Assembly editions. The UI appears to be very nicely put together and appears well suited to most professional photographers needs. The beauty of this software is, it has been around a lot longer than Aperture and Lightroom, ExpressDigital have been working in this area since 1994. You'll also appreciate the photo template support from third parties. ExpressDigital also create Photo Lab centric software called Labtricity and an internet storefront solution for photographers called PhotoReflect.com.

Capture One
One of the most powerful professional solutions available for Raw Capture. PhaseOne offer several versions of this versatile tool. Capture One Pro facilitates Tethered Shooting which is a must have for the Studio Photographer.

Lightzone
In their own words Lightzone is "Based on photographic principles and the Zone System method, LightZone is a more natural and intuitive approach for photo retouching, allowing you to focus on what to do with your images rather than how to do it." it certainly is an interesting product. Version 2 which is due in the next few months met with rave reviews at Photokina.

Raw Developer
RAW Developer is a powerful RAW image conversion application which has been designed and optimized for Mac OSX. The interface looks pretty straight forward but I haven't had a chance to play with it myself.

RAW Shooter
Another excellent RAW solution, however Pixmantec have been acquired by Adobe and as such development for the Raw Shooter family of products has been discontinued.

DxO Optics Pro
Another excellent solution, however in addition to RAW processing, DxO Optics also supports the elimination of distortion, vignetting, & lens softness, the removal of camera noise & purple fringing and the optimization of exposure & dynamic range.

Bibble
A Professional Workflow and RAW Conversion software solution which is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Bibble Labs have been at it for more than 4 years now.

Adobe Camera Raw
Adobes Raw plug-in for Photoshop CS2 and Elements, I use this tool sparingly, but it is very easy to work with and more than fits the bill. Give me Lightroom however.

ACDSee Pro
ACDSee Pro is an excellent file management and RAW Capable Photo and Image Management solution which will appeal to consumers due to its ease of use.

Breeze Browser
Breeze Systems make Breeze Browser to allow photographers to present and organize digital images, convert raw images, generate web pages, produce proofs and contact sheets. They also make a solution for Tethered shooting with Canon DSLRs called DSLR Remote Pro.

SharpRAW
An unusual solution for RAW processing, but one which produces some excellent results. It uses Neural Network Technology in the interpolation of RAW images. I haven't yet tried it myself, so I can't vouch for the benefits, but I had to mention it as an option worth exploring.

Silverfast
SilverFast DCPro and DC VLT supports RAW formats from a variety of digital cameras. It is an excellent product from a company that is well known for its scanning solutions.

Canon Digital Photo Professional
An excellent solution for RAW File Processing from Canon, it is definitely aimed at serious professional photographers and is available for free with professional digital camera models from Canon. There is an excellent overview of the product here.

Nikon Capture NX: Nik Software U Point Technology
Capture NX is Nikons latest dedicated software and uses some new technology from Nik Software caller U-point to make the process of Colour Correcting during RAW Conversion an easy task.

Digital Outback Photo - The Art of Raw Conversion
This page on DOP is the home page for one of the best books on RAW Image Handling and Workflow. Written by Uwe Steinmueller & Juergen Gulbins, I was very impress with the presentation and depth of information I found in this publication. Look for my review in the November 2006.

Raw Workflow
Dedicated to providing RAW Digital Workflow information and products. They are definitely worth a visit.

 

Photoshop Plug-ins.

3rd Party Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop
The third party Photoshop plug-ins list at the Adobe website

Digital Film Tools For Digital Artists
DFT are a a Los Angeles based motion picture visual effects facility that has produced some excellent plug-ins for photo and video editing. Photoshop compliant Plug-ins include 55mm, Light, Digital Film Lab, Ozone, zMatte, EZ Mask and Snap.

Auto FX Software
An excellent selection of photo enhance and effects plug-ins. A must have for any Photographer and Imageer. Plug-ins include Photographic Edges, the Mystical and Dreamsuite Series and AutoEye.

Cybia - Digital Resource Studio
As well as being a resource and review site Cybia have also, for a while now, made some excellent and easy to use Photoshop plug-ins. Amongst their offerings are some excellent free plug-ins and also several excellent low cost commercial one too...

The Plugin Site
An excellent site dedicated to the world of photo and video plug-ins. One of the best sites for info and resources and they also have their own suite of tools, some of which are excellent.

Pluginz.com
Featuring plug-ins & digital tools for artists, with brief reviews and a good list of products for purchase. I do find sites like this are an interesting hybrid of review/commercial enterprise.

SilverOxide
In my opinion, the best black and white conversion filters. They have done an excellent job of modeling the tonal characteristics of different types of Black and white film and these modeled filters are what are use to attain excellent results. Modeled Film types include:
Agfa: 25,100
Kodak: PanX, PlusX, TriX, TMAX, TMY, TMZ, T400CN, VP, TP
Ilford: FP4, HP5, Delta 100, Delta 400, PanF, XP2

They also have InfraRed emulation and Colour Toning plug-ins

FreePhotoshop
Adobe Photoshop plugins and filters reviews.

Xero Graphics and Web Design
Makers of a photoshop plug-in for the PC called Quasar and also over 40 very cool freeware plug-ins.

 

Photography Based Hints, Tips and Techniques.

ShortCourses
Complete guides to digital photography, digital cameras and digital video.

Computer-Darkroom
They describe themselves as offering instructive feature articles, tutorials, reviews and technical discussions relating to digital image processing. Who am I to argue...

DP - For What It's Worth
Some very useful Digital Photography Info.

DP&I.com
An resource for photographers, digital and traditional artists, printmakers, art educators, art marketers, and practically anyone interested in digital printing and imaging. There are some useful tutorials on the site.

PHOTOWORKSHOP.COM
An interactive community, committed to providing education and information for photographers. Some excellent resources here, and well worth a visit.

Shuttertalk
Shuttertalk is a friendly community of digital photography enthusiasts. The site features very informative and helpful reviews, news articles, galleries, resources and user forums. Yet another great place to add to your bookmarks.

Digital Secrets
Home page for the Nikon eBooks - some excellent information and reference for Nikon Users.

Tabletop Studio
Some excellent info on product and studio photography, Check out their guide on Glass photography an informative look at how to photograph glass objects.

The unblinking eye
A site with excellent photographic info and books - well worth taking the time to explore.

 

IR

Beyond Red
A gallery and Info site dealing with InfraRed Photography

Captured Reflections
Digital editing article on converting color images to Infrared

echeng.com
Digital Infrared Photography

DP - For What It's Worth - IR Info Page
Infrared basics for digital photographers, some very useful info.

 

Photoshop

Tutorialized
Online Tutorials, including Photoshop and Flash.

Only Photoshop
Photoshop Blog, Tutorials, News, Downloads and Photography

Photoshop Cafe
The free resource and excellent for Photoshop Users

Planet Photoshop
Another excellent resource for photoshop users.

www.photoshopLAB.com
A source for Photoshop tutorials, news, tips, links and forums.

Scream Design
A commercial site providing lots of tutorials and freebies.

Photoshop Roadmap
A site providing tips, tutorials, actions, plug-ins, reviews, articles, training resources, books, links, and much much more...

PEGAWEB
Web Design and Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Paradise
Provides actions, books, filters, tips and techniques, and links to other good sites

Plugins.com
A very basic site providing lists and links to lots of plugin resources.

TutorialMan.com
Features many free Photoshop tutorials.

Photoshop Lover
Another site featuring Photoshop tutorials and resources.

 

Photography Info

Dan Burkholder
Photographer, Artist and Platinum Printer

LensWork
An excellent publication on the creative side of photography.

Lexar Digital Photography
Tips Techniques Blogs Lessons

macrophotography.org
Kinda Says it all...

phong [ ••• ]

photo-i
Product reviews and info. I find their reviews are pretty comprehensive and have bought several products on the strength of their recommendations.

Photography and Digital Imaging Information
Articles, Reviews and Tutorials

Photo Course
Reference books on digital photography

PhotoMonitor
Photographic Education, Technique, Culture and Profession

Northlight Images
Black and White images and digital photography techniques, Some Excellent Links

 

Design and Imaging Info

Adobe Design Center
Adobes own resource and support site for their extensive product line.

Digital Media Designer
News, Views, Tutorials and Reviews

Watermarker.com
Watermarking solutions and software