Shooting Outside Gallery

How to Take Great Halloween Photos

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Carving pumpkins is a national tradition and you can find dozens of articles with instructions for this, but taking a great Halloween photos is also a part of this holiday. I found this article at ehow.com submitted by marymac.

Costumed kids, pumpkin patches and spooky yard displays provide great photo subjects. Here are some tips for making the best of your Halloween photographs.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

good digital camera
nice sunny day for daytime shots
lots of extra lighting/spotlights for night shots
willing subjects!

Step 1

Big inflatable pumpkins are nice too!

Head to the pumpkin patch. Taking photos with fields of pumpkins behind your subject makes for a fantastic scenic fall shot. Let the kids sit right on the ground or on a pumpkin and stand back to get the full effect of the surrounding pumpkin patch.
Step 2

Find an antique black iron fence. This great background for Halloween shots can be found in most historic cemeteries or old neighborhoods. Old gravestones in the background create a truly eerie effect.
Step 3

Create a spooky lighting effect. Use a spotlight from below where the subject is sitting, or use yellow or green light bulbs.
Step 4

Set the stage. Create great trick-or-treater pictures by having kids walk towards you on the sidewalk as you sit on the porch step- taking the picture from the angle at their level will create more compelling shots.
Step 5

Costume ball. Instead of trying to take Halloween photos when kids are anxious to get outside for trick or treating have them try their costumes on a few days before Halloween in order to get higher quality photos when they are more relaxed. Or, you could take them to a studio for extra fancy Halloween portraits.
Step 6

Candy Fun! Don’t forget to take pictures of one of the most fun times of the evening- the candy swap. When parents check for safety, kids trade one brand of candy for another, and mom and dad snag a treat or two; pictures of the kids with all their candy spread out in front of them will create fun memories.
Step 7

Halloween Past and Present. Create a digital photo album that’s all Halloween through the years of costumed fun. You could choose a black album cover and label the album "Ghosts of Halloween Past."
Step 8

Hayride Fun. Hayrides or kids sitting on haystacks create another great Halloween background for seasonal photographs.

I might add to this article that once Halloween is over, the night or the weekend after invite some of the kids over for a review with your photos.

Submit a Tip and Get a Thanks

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:14:00 +0000

The best ideas come from our readers and we want you to send them in. If we like the ideas, we'll include your link to your blog, website or shop just for telling us about it. Instructions for doing so, by clicking on the Title Bar above, or here.

And here's an example of a tip. Shooting into the sun presents multiple problems, but you really want that sunset. You could take your chances on getting a good shot by just aiming your lens into the setting sun and hoping for a nice capture. But what more than likely will occur is you will get a blown out upper and a darkened lower half image. The worst case is a burnt sensor, if you are using a digital body. Try adjusting the angle of the lens away but not at 90°, say slightly oblique and add a lens hood to further block any direct sunlight from entering the lens directly. The other tool many of us use is a Cirular/Polarizer lens which darkens down the brightest rays adding a saturated look to the blues and greens. This is merely a threaded filter which screws onto your lens.

Now it's your turn and you might want to share a site which offers tips rather than write your own.

Honoring Veteran's Day

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:56:00 +0000

I wonder how many of us spend time thinking about a Vet in our family? We see them and we greet them, perhaps even invite them over for a gathering or a meal. But how often have we planned a celebration get-together or a meal in honor of them and their service? Perhaps this November, on the 11th, we might take an extra step and do just that. We may or may not have heard much about their experiences, some of which may have been extraordinarily stressful, others which ring a grand sense of humor. Let them share some of it with you this Veterans Day. And as a tribute perhaps a few photos taken during their visit and a prints of a few special ones to give them once printed.

Or if your veteran is no longer with you, then consider a visit to their grave site or special place they spent time at or talked of often. And after that you might wish to hang a photo of your visit as a remembrance.

Remember Breast Cancer Awareness this month

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:38:00 +0000

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and here is an image from my Collection "White Borders" from which I am donating 50% of profits for the month of October. Choose from 16 pieces. If you are considering a print to purchase do consider these, for a great cause.

Buy a Print....Get Free Shipping....thru the 4th

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:48:00 +0000

You've decided to add some art to your wall(s). I just did today. But you haven't decided where to get the order done.

Take a look at Imagekind. Shipping is included through the 4th of October. If you find what you are looking for at my Galleries, great, the purchase will be reasonably quick and simple. If not, there are a few more artists to view.

Wild Mushrooms on a log by Rich Collins

Here's one from Ken Dietz. And here's another from DocPixel

See you there.

Purchasing prints at my Store

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:53:00 +0000

When visiting my store purchasing a print is made so easy as to almost be effortless. You will find looking through my galleries that images are much easier to view. I'll be glad to personally respond to any questions, and in the meantime, take a look at all the new images ready for purchase and shipping.

Creating a Strong Printable Photo

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:11:00 +0000

When you have a shot you really like and want to get the very best print out of it, here's a technique I find very successful. It involves just a few manipulations that you'll find easy to master assuming you have Adobe CS-CS4.

This shot I got of a Spring cloud formation in March of this year was very acceptable. As I ingested it into a new gallery I thought this will be a good shot I can do something with one day. So I gave it a star, but did not name it. After a few months of working on other images I decided to revisit it and upon looking it over I clearly decided it would need some revision.The image above is the before image.

Here's my workflow.

After opening and duplicating your image, and I find the easiest way to duplicate is to drag down the original background image onto the create a new layer icon under the layers palette, go to the Layer Tab, then New Adjustment Layer, then Levels. From here you can define a much stronger contrast ratio by utilizing the histogram tool. Grab the upper slider on the left under the black end of the graph and gently slide toward the center just a bit until you feel sufficient darkness has added power to your photo. Then with the slider on the right, and here I had to be very careful with not blowing out the highlights, you will be able to add to the exposure levels until you again feel adequate strength has improved your photo. You can also lower the Output levels below if you need to, but this has a tendency to reduce the contrast, which of course lessens the dramatic look you have just created. Still it might be necessary. Only your photo and you can determine this. I tend to leave this setting alone.

The next setting I like to adjust is the Curves settings. Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Curves. Depending on your image this can be a very fine and delicate technique or a more aggressive one. With this image so close to higher contrast I had to gently apply only a slight change in both ends of the light spectrum. But it was enough to see what I wanted. And here's the result.

You can see the powerful effect these two tools can have on a rather normal capture. Clearly using more tools might provide you with much more that just higher contrast, which I often do, but this is an example of a fairly easy manipulation technique you can try on something you consider ordinary. I used the Clone Stamp tool to remove the Crow. And to be honest I lost a wee bit of detail in both the highlights and shadows, but the effect was in line with what I wanted to achieve. The print on matte paper was a bit dull and gloss was too much. It was Epson's Photo Luster that provided me with the best look. I hope you can find use in this simple technique.

Second Series Waterfall Photos

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:05:00 +0000

If you happen to be looking for new prints for your walls or a you know a friend who is looking, these contemporary images of waterfalls will be just what you're looking for to stimulate your surroundings while keeping you in line with your budget. These are not the traditional shots you are used to. Link by clicking on the title above, then on the Gallery Waterfalls and decide for yourself.

Send your Father here for his Gift

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:30:00 +0000

We know that most of us find ourselves in a quandry about what Dad will most treasure for a Father's Day gift. And while I cannot promise you your Father will find exactly what he wants here, until you click on my galleries you won't know if this is it. Take a moment for the one you love and choose from Eight Galleries.

Digital vs Film

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Do any of us still shoot film? You say "No I don't see anyone shooting film, but I've heard there are a few". However some of us would say "Yes about half the people I know still shoot film".

Certainly it would be rare unless of course you are among the crowd who shoots for a specific venue. Digital is so quick and easy. True, but is it as good? Well that depends. Digital certainly seldom fails to produce a good image in a relatively easy manner. But does it produce as good as image as film?

When printing up to say an 11x14" print digital looks fantastic and can go way beyond that if a lot lines up well. But when you try to print larger and are not getting truly nice prints, sharp from center to edge, then you might see why film can produce some very very good large prints for those of us who demand the very best Image Quality.

I'll keep this brief as someone else has done an excellent job of describing the details of the differences between film and digital. And you might find some very interesting details

It is a rather exhaustive article so for those of you who prefer getting to point, I'll sum up in just a short read right here. Feel free to Comment if you have any questions or helpful advice.

For reasons many of us won't spend reading all or even most of Ken's article, suffice to say that the ability of even the best sensors coupled with massive MP data, to collect sufficient light, followed by the need (when enlarged to a big print size) for image data to be created, is not going to be as good as film's ability to allow for enlargements. The reason is that the informations which is needed for enlargements already exists from film, but has to be created for digital.

A Can-O-Worms? Sure. A controversial subject? You bet. But When you read Ken's article you will see convincing evidence. When will digital catch up? Perhaps sooner than some of us think. But the sensors must be created with much more expensive sensor photons and hugely increased Megapixel dimensions. How many of us will be able to take advantage of this? Very few. It's damned expensive to do either of these and the two combined will prove in the short term, to be available only for the highest echelon of Pro photographers.

The positive side? Well if we are creating our own art for our own homes, then we will be able to pardon some indiscretions in perfection. Either that or we leave the big prints to the professionals.

Happy Mother's Day

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:14:00 +0000

You can imagine a Mother, any Mother in any part of the world which celebrates Mother's Day, when she receives her flowers, or her invite to brunch, or that special call, but one I like to think is even better is the print she receives which will hang on her wall for years which celebrates her. Hopefully your gift is on time, but even if it is late, make certain you remember her this year in a most special way. Linking to the title 'Happy Mother's Day' above, will give you a number of prints to choose from in my Gallery titled WhiteBorders.

Guess this Landscape

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Hints may be provided depending upon the guesses.

OK OK I'll give you one; it is the headwaters of one of the world's least known rivers, but one of the world's most talked about sources. And I'm facing South.

Hint number 2: It lies just below the most famous mountain known for a volcanic blast about 30 years ago....

What does Anna Jarvis know about your Mother?

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:44:00 +0000

Well according to Wiki>(Right Click) , in 1912, Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International Association.

You have just enough time to take care of your gift to your Mother by choosing a print for her to hang on one of her walls. You think she doesn't have a wall for a new print? You think all of her walls are full? Well just ask her. She'll know exactly where she wants it. Even if it arrives a bit late, and she'll never forget what you've done in her honor.

Now where do you find this print for your Mother? Get one right here and your name will echo in the halls of your family for decades to come. Especially when you sign the matte with your name as a gift, from you, for Mother's Day 2009. And if you'd like me to sign it as the photographer, just be sure you contact me before you purchase.

Happy Mother's Day May 10th and you'd better get moving.

Winners are selected Thanks for Subscribing

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:44:00 +0000

The Mother's Day Contest has ended and the winners have been selected. Thanks for those who entered and subscribed to OutsideShooters Blog. Your prints will be on the way soon. For those of you who missed your chance, sign up or become a follower and you'll be notified of the next update, post or contest as they happen.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Enter the Mother's Day Contest by subscribing with a valid email to OutsideShooter's blog, and we'll award you one of five prints of your choice. First one to sign up gets their choice of any print at 12x18", next two, any print at 11x14", the final two, any prints at 8x10".

Where do you find these prints? Scroll down to About me OutsideShooter and click on Subscription Contest. Now here's the key: just let me know which one you want. Give me the name of the print. Post a comment at this blog under any article to let me know. We can control any spam by having you enter a Comment. There is not other way to enter.

Good luck and who knows you may be able to present this as a Mother's Day gift if you are quick enough. Contest ends April 28 @ 6pm. Remember to subscribe with a valid email address just above and to the right.

Reformatting Your Flash Memory Cards

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:27:00 +0000

We get into habits and one of them may well be when we get back from a shoot, of taking the media card out of the camera, be it a Compact Flash (CF), a Secure Digital (SD), or whatever and placing it into the reader slot in our PC's to ingest for saving or working on them. Then once they are in the PC we right-click on Format. Done, now we are ready to shoot again. But should we do it that way?

OK this is not an example of format corruption but I thought I'd scare you anyway.

I would not and I do not allow my PC to format my flash memory. A PC has it's own formatting procedure and it does so from the PC angle. To prevent this I never take the card out unless it is full and I need a fresh card for more shots. When I get to the ingesting of data into my PC, I will USB cable to PC. The camera is specific to the type of formatting it was engineered to do even given the media card format specifications. All Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Hasselblad, Mamiya and so on (with few exceptions) format slightly differently so that there is always present at least the opportunity for data degradation or corruption if not formatted using the hardware which then interprets incoming data, in this case light, and then writes that data onto the card which it previously formatted according to it's own formula.

To say this a bit less complicated, make sure you reformat your card in-camera.

Have any questions? Leave a comment below and I'll get back to you.

A good read on sensors and more

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:41:00 +0000

I'd like to give credit to shortcourses.com for the following article. It's a good read on sensor types. For those of you who have never used film, be patient, as the article quickly gets to the digital point.

When using a film camera you can insert any kind of film you want. It's the film you choose that gives photographs distinctive colors, tones, and grain. If you think one film gives images that are too blue or red, you can change to another film. With digital cameras, the "film" is permanently part of the camera so buying a digital camera is in part like selecting a film to use. Like film, different image sensors render colors differently, have different amounts of "grain", different sensitivities to light, and so on. The only ways to evaluate these aspects are to examine some sample photographs from the camera or read reviews written by people you trust.

Initially, charge-coupled devices (CCDs) were the only image sensors used in digital cameras. They had already been well developed through their use in astronomical telescopes, scanners, and video camcorders. However, there is now a well-established alternative, the CMOS image sensor. Both CCD and CMOS image sensors capture light using a grid of small photosites on their surfaces. It's how they process the image and how they are manufactured where they differ from one another.

* CCD image sensors. A charge-coupled device (CCD) gets its name from the way the charges on its pixels are read after an exposure. The charges on the first row are transferred to a place on the sensor called the read out register. From there, they are fed to an amplifier and then on to an analog-to-digital converter. Once a row has been read, its charges in the readout register row are deleted, the next row enters, and all of the rows above march down one row. With each row "coupled" to the row above in this way, each row of pixels is read—one row at a time.

* CMOS image sensors. Image sensors are manufactured in factories called wafer foundries or fabs where the tiny circuits and devices are etched onto silicon chips. The biggest problem with CCDs is that they are created in foundries using specialized and expensive processes that can only be used to make other CCDs. Meanwhile, larger foundries use a different process called Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) to make millions of chips for computer processors and memory. CMOS is by far the most common and highest yielding chip-making process in the world. Using this same process and the same equipment to manufacturer CMOS image sensors cuts costs dramatically because the fixed costs of the plant are spread over a much larger number of devices. As a result of these economies of scale, the cost of fabricating a CMOS wafer is significantly less than the cost of fabricating a similar wafer using the specialized CCD process. Costs are lowered even farther because CMOS image sensors can have processing circuits created on the same chip. With CCDs, these processing circuits must be on separate chips.

Despite their differences, both types of sensors are capable of giving very good results and both types are used by major camera companies. Canon and Nikon both use CMOS sensors in their high-end digital SLRs as do many other camera companies.

Why use a Layer when making photo adjustments?

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Assuming you are using Photoshop, you want to create a better looking image than your camera settings have delivered, you can open this file and make adjustments without harming your photo and losing information captured in your original photo.

Since many use the standard JPG format, a lossy configuration, they find that each time their image is altered, data is lost, meaning that accurate sensor information is gone forever. If your image file is nothing special then you have nothing to worry about. However if you are shooting to sell any of your images, or are particularly fond of your photo then following this brief tutorial will give you an advantage.

Open your JPG image in Photoshop. If you choose Image> Adjustments> then choose an option you'll be changing pixels within the original file. Not a good thing if you make a mistake and then save in original JPG format, because you have now forever altered the photo and lost data. You can of course avoid pixel damage by using a different approach, choosing the use of Layers and saving appropriately.

You can alter your image safely by using Layer> New Adjustment Layer> and perhaps Levels or Curves, for instance. The effect is easy to check by simply clicking on the eye icon next to the background layer. You will see that the effect you have created will show on the background layer.

You now have the choice to Save As (Control/Alt on a PC) create a name and save. Then when closing you will be asked if you want to Save changes to the original Photoshop document before closing, and here you can simply click on 'No'. Choosing the 'no' option allows for the original image to hold all of the original data for future use.

Questions? Comment below & I'll get back to you.

Shown among other artists on Imagekind Homepage

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:26:00 +0000

Among other great artists I was particularly pleased to note that one of my recent pieces of digital art was displayed on the Jan 26th Homepage at Imagekind, an Artist Community and Art Buyer's Showcase

Mine is the dual image overlay of a pair of black thistles on tan background of a Bumble Bee approaching a Lupine Flower. You can't see it very well here, but if you'll link to it here at my IK page, you can get a closeup

'Save for Web'? or 'Save As'? EXIF is the criteria

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:07:00 +0000

Is EXIF an important issue to you? If not you won't get much from this. On the other hand if you are considering selling your images online this could give you an option for uploading.

Let's say you are about to send some photos to a website. If your upload is to a social networking site (SNS) it's a simple 'Save for Web' command and its gone. You don't care if EXIF data attaches itself to the file or not. The photos are only for sharing. The trouble is we tend to get into a habit of uploading because of habit.

And if you are sending files to an online gallery for sale or to your agent for rights managed images, or even a gallery in which you simply want to hold while adding more images for future use and you have the settings available to anyone you don't know, EXIF is crucial. And 'Save for Web' is not the choice you want since it has parameters for stripping out all of the metadata in order to make the upload quick. This is when you will be using the 'Save As' command in Photoshop (my apology to users of other photo editing applications - I don't know them). The idea behind saving all of the EXIF data is important as it identifies this particular image file with your camera body and lens, your name, your © info and all other important metadata which accompanies a work for sale. Not including this can make it very difficult, though not impossible, to claim rights to the image.

Is there a way around this? Yes there is, but it means you have to have the last version CS3 or the latest version CS4 of Photoshop, because in those versions there is an option for enabling 'EXIF Embedding' while using the option 'Save for Web'. However like anything you do have to remember to set this after downloading. I don't know about you but that happens to me more than I care to admit.

But lest you think that buying copies of used Photoshop is the way to go, remember that the seller must have an Adobe Transfer of License. This way you'll be able to participate in any upgrades which are not still in that seller's name. Otherwise when you seek an update you will be informed that you are not the legal owner. That is not a good statement to view.

Any questions? Comment.

How to Produce Background Blur

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:32:00 +0000

What sometimes grabs our eye in a photo is the contrast in detail between one or more objects in a photo. This is commonly referred to as bokeh or background or foreground blur. There is that element in photography which we immediately recognize because this is exactly how we tend to see things naturally and when we see this in an image it grabs our attention. But how do we produce this most powerful photographic effect?

There are more than one element involved in this. First and most importantly your subject should minimally be a pleasing-to-the-eye subject and better yet a strong one. Here we have a most unusual subject, an old steel wheel off a farm implement no longer used. Rusty, hardly even noticed in a run-down farm field most passers-by would not give it a second glance. It is just another worn down piece of junk from days gone by. But when photographed using bokeh, it commands 1st place attention. The fact that this is in B&W may help a bit more to some, but the primary ingredient is the subject placement in the lens, or the sensor's field of view.

Can this be done with any camera? Well yes but perhaps not quite as well. The camera can capture this even if it is a consumer point & shoot pocket sized one, but the true effect is best captured using a Wide Zoom Lens and at the longest telephoto length. Say you are using a 17-40 zoom. The fact that it is fairly wide, 17mm coupled with it being in the longest length produces the very best bokeh possible. However in the above photo this can also be accomplished with a mid-range zoo as it was captured using a 70-200mm lens at an F-stop of 9 and a zoom length of 200. And further as I mentioned above this can involve the foreground or background blurred, in this particular case I have produced a blur in both. You see only a very tight range, for this subject, in the middle as pertains to it's Depth of Field.

Now here is another using a consumer level point & shoot, a Canon PowerShot S2 IS, captured at an F stop of 3.5 and a focal length of only 21mm. Imagine how much more blurry this would have been if the camera was able to capture it at a longer length, or I had backed up more & then refocused on just the pine flowers. So you see this technique of creating bokeh can be a regular part of your shooting expertise by simply using a couple of factors.

New Years: A time to Defrag your Hard Disk Drive

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Prior to doing this make sure you have all of your work backed up, preferably on another HDD (Hard Disk Drive)or on DVD. Only then will you feel like soaring.

As 2008 runs out of steam, and 2009 is about to emerge, we are faced with some of the same challenges as well as some added ones. In considering these I always look at what I have done to my PC in adding tons of image files. If I had to consider only these images I should be Analyzing & Defragging our HDD's every 30 days. But there is so much more to consider when it comes to how well our PC's work.

Consider that every upload, every download, every file added or deleted, every profile change on your pc, every screensaver added or changed or deleted, every email written, received, read & trashed, then dumped, in short, every action a PC takes has potential for losing bits of data, albeit small amounts, but these add up. Now let's add what we do to our images; my workflow includes ingesting the files into my image browser, I use Adobe's Bridge, and adding the metadata, keywording, starring the ones I like, deleting the one's I don't, then naming the folders & opening and saving each image I wish to work on that I feel has potential for use on a magazine page or in an online gallery for sale and then by necessity, changing the actual format from Raw to whatever the market demands, JPG, TIF PNG and so on.

Each of these workflow actions acts also to defrag tiny amounts of data while we are organizing them. So if it were for only this we need to analyze and defrag our HDD's monthly. But as mentioned above it is for everything we do on our PC's that demand we continue to practice good management methods on a very regular schedule.

Oh what a pain you say. Yes there are some painful steps taken and you must not allow anyone on the PC when it is happening, meaning you can't check your email or go shopping or upload photos or download music, etc. While it is true that it is without a doubt best that you consider you PC OFF_LIMITS during the process, you can briefly and occasionally interrupt the defragging, by simply clicking on the Pause button. I hear it is fine to do this, just don't overdo it. Here I am adding the Overview directly from the Window's 'Microsoft Management Console:

Disk Defragmenter overviewDisk Defragmenter analyzes local volumes and consolidates fragmented files and folders so that each occupies a single, contiguous space on the volume. As a result, your system can access files and folders and save new ones more efficiently. By consolidating your files and folders, Disk Defragmenter also consolidates a volume's free space, making it less likely that new files will be fragmented. The process of consolidating fragmented files and folders is called defragmentation.

The amount of time that defragmentation takes depends on several factors, including the size of the volume, the number and size of files on the volume, the amount of fragmentation, and the available local system resources. You can find all of the fragmented files and folders before defragmenting them by analyzing the volume first. You can then see how fragmented the volume is and decide whether you would benefit from defragmenting the volume. For step-by-step instructions describing how to analyze or defragment a volume, see To analyze a volume and To defragment a volume.

Disk Defragmenter can defragment volumes that are formatted with the file allocation table (FAT) file system, the FAT32 file system, and the NTFS file system.

OK now that you have read this all that is left is to pick a time when you are not likely to need your PC. I like analyzing, which normally should'nt take more than 10-20 minutes (only a guideline) then starting the Defragmentation just before hitting the rack. Here's the steps you'll need to take to perform this necessary task (I apologize to Mac users as this is strictly for the PC environment):

Here is the most common route; Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Defragmenter. Another route is Control Panel> Performance and Maintenance> Administrative Tools> Computer Management> Storage> Disk Defragmenter> Analyze, then Defragment. What you most likely will see are Red, Blue, Green and White vertical bars all across the top bar left to right. What you want to see is mostly Blue and a lot of White. In order to get there Micorosoft recommends the following:

To open Disk Defragmenter, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.
You should analyze volumes before defragmenting them. This tells you whether you need to take the time to defragment them.
A volume must have at least 15% free space for Disk Defragmenter to completely and adequately defragment it. Disk Defragmenter uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, Disk Defragmenter will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.
You cannot defragment volumes that the file system has marked as dirty, which indicates possible corruption. You must run chkdsk on a dirty volume before you can defragment it. You can determine if a volume is dirty by using the fsutil dirty query command. For more information about chkdsk and fsutil dirty, see Related Topics (I'll add here that I know nothing of this utility so I avoid it, this is not a recommendation that you avoid it).

The time that Disk Defragmenter takes to defragment a volume depends on several factors, including the size of the volume, the number and size of files on the volume, the percentage of fragmentation in the volume, and available system resources.

You can defragment only local file system volumes, and you can run only one instance of Disk Defragmenter at a time.
To interrupt or temporarily stop defragmenting a volume, click Stop or Pause, respectively.

If you start Disk Defragmenter while performing a backup, Disk Defragmenter stops.

Ok that's about it. Then hopefully your PC (or Mac) will run faster and cleaner once this is done. And know that once done this becomes an easy routine to manage monthly. It should become one of the most common PC Maintenance Tools we use as Photographers. And while I am not a PC Guru, let me know if you have any questions. You can Comment below or go to About Me> About OutsideShooter for my email.

Merry Christmas Snow Shot

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:13:00 +0000

This is a shot of snow falling with the following body & lens settings:

F Stop/Aperture Value 4.0,
Shutter Speed 1 second
ISO 100
Focal Length 24mm (using a 24-105, 4.0L IS USM Canon)
Color Space Adobe RGB
Layer converted to mono

I took this using my outdoor security motion-detected light in it's 40watt lo-beam setting, hand held.

Makes for an interesting effect and is a much better capture once converted than in color as the lighting was very low. The only manipulation used after mono was a slight Curve adjustment. A lot more could be done with this but this is according to individual tastes.

Anyway I hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday.

Christmas Gifts, my Zazzle Products & more.......

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:39:00 +0000

OK you can stop Commenting as I have the 3 winners of a 5x7" photo of the image here. Thanks for entering & commenting on posts in my blog. You will receive your prints shortly after Christmas. Congratulations.

I've just recently opened a shop and here is one of the images I've been using to prepare gifts for Christmas. If you see anything you'd like me to create just let me know. There is no extra charge for customizing to your needs. But you'd better hurry if you want get this by Christmas. And thanks for linking to my new site.

The first 3 to arrive & Contact Me with a message that you have commented on a post or article here, and Pasted the url to your Comment, will receive a free 5x7" print (sure they're small but...they're free) of the above photo. You'll receive this in time for Christmas only if you are a rapid Commenter. I will also need a photo of you to add to my winner's Post on December 27th. Gooooooood Luck.

Sorry this only applies to those in the contiguous US, unless you cover postage.

Just for the Fun

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:08:00 +0000

While shooting from the base of Mt St Helens in Sept of this year I caught a movement to my left, as did it of me. Since the mountain had little snow, I chose this as my subject for the outing.

And by the way, don't forget the batteries this Christmas: Batteries.com

Should you delete from memory card in-camera?

BOXOMAIL@gmail.com (Rich) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Deleting images in camera

There has over the years been a lot of discussion about the safety or lack of same as involves deleting images from a memory card, be they Compact Flash, SD or any other format. It has to do with whether file corruption from the deletion can cause the next image to overwrite in a corrupted fashion. And that it is safer to download all images as is, even if you don't like them onto your PC, then deleting them as you view them in your camera's download software application.

I have done it both ways and while I cannot find any instances of overwrite corruption in either fashion of deleting images, whether in-camera or in-pc, the common consensus is to finish out a card, then remove & replace with another memory card. There is evidence that deleting & overwriting can occasionally corrupt the next file, and that next file, that next image could have been your best shot of the day. From all I have read though, and from all the photographers I have discussed this with, this concern is no more valid than an occasional corruption occurring from mere re-format corruption (a not so common yet normal part of preparing the memory card for receiving another round of file writing) which rarely occurs when deleting all the data on a card by zeroing out all the data on the card.

This is the more important concern. It is the re-formatting of the card that is of most concern. Should this be done in-PC or in-camera? Here you will find that most all professional photographers (and I have not spoken to a single one which disagrees with this) agree that reformatting in-PC is far riskier than reformatting in-camera. The reason involves using one software approach over another. It is reasonably assumed that by reformatting in-camera it is done utilizing the camera manufacturer's format technology rather than using the PC technology. And because of that it is nearly every proffessional's work habit to always re-format the card in-camera.

So if you find that you are out shooting and are close to running out of card space, feel free to delete and overwrite as you need. The chance of file corruption is minimal, certainly not enough to keep an unacceptable shot while missing the opportunity to gain one you will be happy with.

In addition you can easily backup online at Mozy Online Backup: 2GB
Free. Automatic. Secure.