Photo 1250 - Advanced Digital Imaging - College of DuPage
Jeff Curto | Office: Arts Center 274 | 630.942.2527 | curtoj@cod.edu
Syllabus
for this course (PDF)
Below are some links that you will find useful to you in this class. I'll refer to this website frequently, so you may want to bookmark it.
For more general Photoshop and Digital Photography related links, visit the page for my Photo 1201, Tools & Techniques for Digital Photography class
Use the pop-up menu below to jump to a link category:
Color Management Links:
Color Printing:
- Apple Pro Color - An excellent introduction to the topic of color
- CS3 Video Tutorials - Adobe has teamed up with Lynda.com to provide some excellent free tutorials for the CS3 suite
- Color Management - A Dutch site that has some great info. Parts in English
- DP BestFlow - ASMP's excellent site that helps you find a workflow that works for you
- Kuler - Adobe's very cool online color exploration software and it's FREE!
- Cambridge In Color - A neat page of color management and general digital photo info
- Download Profiles - InkjetArt.com's page of ICC profiles for use in a variety of printers with "non-standard" (read: non-Epson) papers
- ColorVision Color Basics - Good info about understanding color
- Cathy's Profiles - Cathy makes profiles for your digital devices
- Introduction to Color Management - From Dry Creek Photo, a great intro to color management concepts
- Bruce Fraser on Color Spaces - A nice overview of wide-gamut spaces and why they are useful.
- X-Rite Systems Classroom - Great learning tools for color management
- ColorMatters This is a really wonderful site that is ALL about the art and science of color
- Color-Correct Vocabulary - Bruce Fraser presents an excellent overview of the terminology associated with Color Management
- Chromix - An excellent site that covers color management from start to finish
- Colour Physics FAQ - Got a question about color? Find your answer here
- digitaldog.net - Andrew Rodney, color guru, is The Digital Dog
- International Color Consortium - The ICC's home
- Understanding ProPhoto RGB - A great article about howthis large-gamut color space is great for photographers
- Color Management in Photoshop CS5 - Jeff's "handout" on managing color (PDF) For anyone using Photoshop CS4, here's the older version of the handout that's specifically for Photoshop CS4
- Color Test Image - Use this image to help you compare output sources:
- as a JPEG file (about 550KB)
- as a TIFF file (about 11.2MB)
B&W Printing:
- B&W Digital Printing - Clayton Jones' excellent series of articles that give an overview of black and white digital printing and related issues
- QuadTone RIP - Harrington's QuadTone RIP; an inexpensive solution to B&W printing with inkjet printers
- Piezography.com - One of the standard-bearers for high-quality B&W printing
- Paul Roark - Roark had done a lot for the B&W fine print world; here's his great page of B&W info
- MIS inks - Perhaps the easiest entry into B&W inkjet printing
Printed Output Links:
These are some (but not all) options for you for printing at an outside service provider:
Local:
- P.J.'s Camera - Our pals right here in Glen Ellyn (Dry Creek profiles available)
- Advanced Imaging - A lab in Downers Grove, Illinois
- Precision Imaging and Photo - A downtown Chicago print service provider (Dry Creek profiles available)
- Picture Pros - This Lombard-based print service has profiles available both on their site and through Dry Creek
- Lightbox - From East Dundee, IL; a high-quality print provider
- Helix Color Service - In our own backyard; images can be dropped at any Helix location
- Costco - Good, inexpensive prints, but you've gotta be a member (Dry Creek profiles available)
- Walmart - Get your prints from Walmart or Sam's Club (must be a member of Sam's Club to use their service)
- Target -
Yep, you can get your photographs printed at "tar-jay"
Online:
- Pictopia.com - Professional-level color output in a color-managed environment
- West Coast Imaging - Professional-level color output. They know color management, too
- Laser Light - High-end printing service
- Nancy Scans - Nancy scans high-res and outputs BIG color prints
- White House Custom Color - High-quality color printing for photographers
- The Print Room - Order color prints online
- Lambda for Less - 99 cents a square foot... yes, you heard that right...
Archive, Print & Sell:
- Photo shelter -
Archive, Buy and Sell Photographs
B&W:
- The Print Lab - Custom B&W printers in Chicago
- Damatian -
Custom B&W printers
Resources:
- Dry Creek Photo - This is cool; a website where you can get profiles for Fuji Frontier printers all over the USA!
Book Printing/Publishing Links:
Book Publishers - You will use one of these services to create your book project book:
- Aperture - Apple's Aperture software provides a very high-quality book production environment that is very, very flexible.
- MyPublisher - An online "one-off" book publishing service. Truth be told, Apple's iPhoto book service uses MyPublisher to print their books. A fairly simple process to make a book.
- Blurb - Another
online "one-off" book publishing service. Very high-quality
books and standalone software for both Macs and PCs. Lots of options,
tons of layouts and designs. Probably one of the best choices for making
books. They also offer an online sales option for your published books.
- Step-By-Step Video guide - Blurb has a great video tutorial on making a book
- Scan it like you mean it - A nice post from the Blurb Blog about scanning things other than photographs to make your book
- Blurb's webinar on color management in Blurb & Photoshop - a bit of a review for students in this class for the first half of the presentation, but the last half is solid info about how to get the best color in your Blurb book.
- Blurb Lightroom plugin - use your Lightroom Library in Blurb's software
- Blurb's Photo Book Now competition - Check out the entries in the student book category here
- How to Sequence your images - great advice from Blurb
- Prepping your images for Blurb books - resolution and more
- Type for your book - Blurb's articles on typography Part 1 and Part 2
- Blurb tips and tricks - some neat tidbits about using their software
- A&I Books - An interesting-looking, high-quality on-demand publisher
- Book service comparison article redux - Another really good comparison of various book publishing companies
- Pikto - Another photo book publisher
- Printing Industry Terms - Don't knowyour bleed from your blueline? Check here!
Other Options and Ideas:
- Democratic Books - Not a book printing place per se, but something you might think about on down the road
- How to make a Chapbook - A nice tutorial in 2 parts: Part 1 & Part 2
- Russell Brown on Handmade books via Photoshop: You've got to scroll down to the books section of the page (nearly to the bottom) to see these nice movies about a neat idea
Web Publishing Links:
- Web Image Demo - The "web image basics" demo pages used in class
- 10 Secrets to Successful Online Portfolios - great advice from photographer website provider Photoshelter.
- Build a better online portfolio - A good webinar from PhotoShelter
- 7 Rules for creating a professional portfolio site - a good set of guidelines
- How to make a website - A start-to-finish guide
- Designing a Better Portfolio Website - Part 1 & Part 2 - Great advice on the process
Authoring Web Galleries in Lightroom & Aperture:
Though they aren't "websites" because they offer no comprehensive navigation features, Bridge/Photoshop and Lightroom can build web galleries. With a little html gruntwork, you can make those galleries into a website.
- Lightroom - Lightroom can output a nice web gallery. A third-party company makes this interesting looking plugin for Lightroom that makes more complex web pages
- Aperture - A nice video from the mothership about how to create a web gallery in Aperture
Other Simple Web Authoring Software:
Free Desktop Software:
- SimpleViewer - Free flash-based web galleries. Installed on our Macs (Mac & Win)
- PostcardViewer - The same folks who make SimpleViewer also makes this spiffy little flash gizmo (Mac & Win)
- Weebly - A freebie website solution
Pay-For-It Software:
- Dreamweaver - It's the industry-standard (Mac & Win - Expensive)
- RapidWeaver - A good, inexpensive ($40) template based web authoring solution. (Mac-only)
- Shozam! - A $30 Windows web gallery solution, albeit with a stupid name (Win-only)
Services for Building and Hosting Photography Websites:
- LiveBooks/edu - A very cool, easy-to-use website solution for student photographers
- Squarespace - Customizable websites for everyone; some good options for visual creatives
- PhotoShelter - "The complete solution to show and sell photography."
- VisualServer - From PhotoEye comes a great-looking software/hosting solution
- FolioSnap - "Self-Managed Websites for Creative People"
- FolioLink - "Show and sell your work online"
- ZenFolio - "The Premier Showcase for your Images"
- PhotoBiz - "Josh uses it, so it must be good"
- Photocrati - Highly customizable templates that are based on WordPress
- FolioMob - "Mobie Friendly Portfolio Websites for Professional Photographers"
Blogging Platforms:
WordPress
- WordPress.COM -
The "Lite" version of WordPress. It's free,
and it's hosted on the servers at WordPress. This is by far the
easiest way to get started in WordPress; you can be up and running
a blog in minutes.
To get started, you create an account with WordPress. That account creates your "WordPress User," and from that account you can create as many WordPress.com blogs as you want. So, the name of your blog can be different from your user name.
Another feature of your WordPress.com user name is that it can be used by other bloggers to give you the correct permissions to allow you to author articles on another blog.
All WordPress.com blogs have a web address that looks like this: http://yourblogname.wordpress.com. It's possible to "tie" a WordPress.COM blog to a custom domain name like www.myblogname.com, but you have to pay a fee for that privilege, something WordPress.COM offers as an "upgrade."
Also note that with WordPress.COM sites, if you are planning to use one as a host for a Podcast, you'll need to find another online space (like Libsyn) to host your Podcast files.
There are some ways that a WordPress.COM blog can be extended and changed, but you can only choose from a somewhat limited set of options that include a few very useful "Widgets" for the sidebar of your blog and around 70 "Themes" that change the appearance of your blog.
WordPress.COM offers a great set of support pages, including Getting Started with WordPress.com - A guide to the simple setup for WordPress.com
- WordPress.ORG -
The "Regular" version of WordPress. This is
an "Open-Source"
blogging solution with a huge community of users and developers who
develop (mostly) free "plug-ins" to
make WordPress do a lot more than it can do "out of the box."
This solution is substantially more flexible than the Lite "they host it" version, but... you're hosting it, so there is a bit more legwork to get WordPress installed and set up. If you are reasonably "tech savvy" the famed "WordPress 5-Minute Install" shouldn't be too daunting.
WordPress.ORG is also free, but you have to host it on your own server, not on WordPress' servers. Your hosting provider may already have it installed for you; many do. This takes a lot of the legwork out of setting up a WordPress blog. Check with your hosting provider for details. A self-hosted WordPress blog is generally considered the best blogging platform for businesses and is very, very popular.
There are hundreds and hundreds of "Widgets" available for customizing the functionality of your blog and thousands of "Themes" available for customizing the appearance of your blog.
Some support pages for setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog:
Getting Started in WordPress - A really clear "get going guide"
First Steps with WordPress - Another "get started" guide
WordPress comes in two different "Versions," each with its own set of web pages, support sites, etc. The two versions are based on exactly the same technology, but with different capabilities. Think of it them as "Lite"(WordPress.COM) and "Regular" (WordPress.ORG) versions of the same product.
WordPress Version 1:
WordPress Version 2:
For both "Lite" and "Regular" versions of WordPress, a fun and potentially useful tool is WordPress for iPhone which allows you to write and post (or even save as draft) blog entries from your iPhone.
Blogger
- Blogger - Google's entry into the free blog-o-sphere
- Getting Started with Blogger - Google's support pages
- Getting Started with Blogger - A good guide from an "Educational Technology Guy"
Digital Storytelling / Movies / Slideshow Links:
Storytelling Basics:
- Ira Glass, of NPR's "This American Life" on the art of storytelling; this is required watching for the class
- What's the Deal with Storytelling? - A great write-up and video about storytelling from the Permission to Suck site
- Vimeo Video School - Somewhat more oriented towards videography than still photography, this is a great resource
- Multimedia Shooter - A weblog about still photographers who are using multimedia
- Center for Digital Storytelling - Information about digital storytelling from an excellent source
- Electronic Portfolios - A good resource
- Producing Multimedia That Supports the Still Image - Some thoughts on producing an audio slideshow
- Elements of Digital Storytelling - From the University of Minnesota School of Journalism
- Digital Storytelling from the University of Houston - a great site with a ton of info; thanks Joanne B for the tip.
- How to Podcast - A web page I created for a presentation I gave about Podcasting
Storyboarding Resources:
- How to Storyboard - A nice short intro to the art of storyboarding
- Storyboard PDF #1 - A premade storyboard in PDF format for you to download
- Storyboard PDF #2 - If you don't like the layout of the first PDF, try this one
- Storyboard Generator - And if you want something completely different, make your own storyboard layout with this neat online tool
- Tell an story in 5 pictures - OK, this isn't really a "storyboarding" resource, but there is a Flickr group that is called "Tell a Story with 5 Pictures" that does a great job of exploring how to do series and sequence images.
- Tell a story in pictures podcast - worth exploring
Software for Recording and Mixing Audio:
- GarageBand -
Apple's really easy to use software with which you can record your voice,
create your own audio using "loops" and mix the two of them
together. You could also take existing audio and mix in
"voice-over" with that audio. All our Macs have GarageBand
installed.
- Getting Started with GarageBand - Apple's 98 page PDF on how to use the software (don't let that scare you; it's really not that hard to use)
- Recording Audio with GarageBand - Just the basics on how to get sound into GB
- GarageBand Keyboard Shortcuts - For you Power Users
- Audacity -
A free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. (Mac & Win)
- Audacity Tutorial list - From the Audacity folks, a list of several good Audacity tutorials.
- Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters - Or really anyone. Just the basics, complete with some video sections. Nice.
Tips for Audio Recording :
- Mastering the Craft - A great set of tutorial pages about audio from the Association of Independents in Radio. They also have some great links that can be found here
- PCRecording - A nice tutorial site about how to record any audio to your computer.
- Sound in the Story - A really fine long-ish (21 pages) PDF on the art of location recording, mostly from the creative standpoint (what to do as opposed to how to do it)
- Digital Audio Principles - From the Lynda.com training website; some freebie samples of their online audio class
- Dave Schroeder on Lynda.com - Dave Schroder's online "course" on digital audio. The first few lesson bits are free (and quite good) you've got to pay for the rest.
- The Pen is Mightier than the Mic - A nice piece by an author who is making his transition to the spoken word.
- Guide to Recording Voice - Nicely done tips about how to sound your best
- The Voice Recipe - What's your voice like? This is a very, very cool and fun site about how we speak
- Record Audio on your iPhone - The ultimate gizmo records sound!
- Zoom H2 Manual - We have some Zoom H2 recording devices; here's a PDF of the user manual.
- Tips for voiceover recordings- Great set of videos on placing microphones and on technique.
- Microphone primer - Basic mic advice - want more? Go to the Microphone University
Great Audio (As Inspiration):
- SoundPortraits.org - Amazingly good audio documentaries by an independent production company dedicated to telling stories that bring neglected American voices to a national audience
- American RadioWorks - ARW is public radio's largest documentary production unit; it creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports for the public radio system and the Internet.
Resources for Music for your Story:
- Friendly Music - This may be your best choice... great music, no copyright issues and low price
- JewelBeat - Some free music and sound effects on this website
- Freeplay Music - Royalty-free music that you can use in your presentations. We also have this music on our lab's Macs, loaded into iTunes.
- Podsafe Audio - Music created specifically for use in Podcasts
- Podsafe Music Network - More established than the above resource, another place where you can download good music created specifically for use in Podcasts or other shared media.
- Triple Scoop Music - Great royalty free music, for a fee
- MobyGratis - Contemporary musical artist Moby has a way you can use some of his music for free in non-profit presentations.
- Copyrights, Digital Files and your Slideshow - A nice copyright primer from the Photo to Movie folks
- More about Copyright and the Public Domain
Software for Authoring Your Story (Primary Options):
- iMovie -
Comes with every Mac and is easy to use for both images and audio. Allows
panning and zooming of images. For most students in this class, this
is the best option, as it's easy to use yet fairly powerful. Makes QuickTime
movies that can be played on computers, on the web or ssexported to iDVD for
distribution on DVDs. iMovie is installed on our Macs
- iMovie '09 Tutorial - A nice overview as a PDF file
- Exporting Your iMovie - Some great tips on getting smaller file sizes and higher quality
- Zooms and Freeze-Frames in iMovie
- Editing to the Beat in iMovie '09 - Boom chacka!
- Aperture - Apple's Aperture is an amazing tool that will alllow you to make easy, good-looking slideshows. If you already have your images in Aperture to begin with, this may be the best tool to use.
- Aperture Slideshows -A YouTube video about how to create a slideshow (with or without full-motion video) in Aperture
- Apeture Slideshow tutorial - Another good tutorial
- Aperture slideshows - a blog post/tutorial
- Advanced Aperture slideshow- greate video tutorial from Lynda.com
- Soundslides -
This inexpensive ($40) flash-based software (Mac & Win) has become
a defacto standard for multimedia presentations for online newspapers.
It makes only Flash files, not QuickTime or any other format, so it's
may not be the right choice if you want to distribute your story on DVD
or CD-ROM. Soundslides is installed on our Macs.
- Soundslides Manual - Official documentation
- A Soudslides Tutorial
- Convert your Soundslides to QuickTime - Just follow the instructions
- GarageBand -
Though primarily an audio creation application, GarageBand can also be
used to author an "enhanced Podcast;"
which is a podcast with embedded images. If you want to distribute content
via a podcast, this is an excellent option for doing so. GarageBand is
installed on our Macs.
- GarageBand Video Tutorials - Nice, short videos that cover the basics of recording & editing in GarageBand
- Recording your Podcast with GarageBand - Apple's instruction page
- GarageBand Podcasting Basics - Some QuickTime movies from Lynda.com
- PhotoToMovie - Sort of like iMovie, but without the video capabilities. A very powerful, yet easy-to use tool for making motion (with audio) out of still photographs (Mac & Win). PhotoToMovie is installed on our Macs.
Other (Secondary) Story Authoring Options:
- ProShow Gold - A Windows only software package that's sort of like iMovie, but doesn't do video, just animated still images
- Authoring Tools - A nice overview of several useful authoring tools for Mac and Windows
- Mixcraft - A "sort of like GarageBand" application for creating and mixing audio on the Windows platform
- Make Better Time-Lapse Movies - a freebie application that dovetails with Lightroom to make the process easier
Software for putting your Story on a DVD:
- Apple's iDVD - A tutorial on the easiest way to get your slideshow on a DVD that can be played on a computer or on a DVD player. This is what we have available in our labs and all of our computers can write DVD -R discs (that's DVD "minus" R).
- Easy DVD Creator - While there are about a bajilion options for creating DVDs on the Windows platform, Roxio's product is one of the leaders
Examples of Digital Storytelling Movies & Slideshows:
- Stories by Dana Atchley - The guy who first showed me the power of sound and images was Dana Atchley. You'll need to click on the movie screen to play the movies. Use the links at the bottom of the page to select a few of his other stories.
- Grandpa's 90th - Former student Ben Chernivsky's story about his grandfather. Notice how important his voice is.
- Aston Martin Vantage V12 - The visuals are stunning, yes... but pay attention to how sound sets the mood for the piece and what sorts of sounds are used.
- Gardyn - This uses video, not still images, but it could easily have been done with stills and the incredible sounds that the creator has recorded and mixed together.
- LOOKBetween Multimedia Spotlight - Great stories, curated by FlakPhoto's Andy Adams
- The Fallen - A moving and interesting piece about Robert Kennedy's funeral from the New York Times
- The Photography Channel - Photographic Storytelling for Electronic Media... these are very strong examples of what's possible
- Mulimedia Muse - A nice clearing house of great picture stories
- Hats - Done in Soundslides; a simple set of images that uses location recording effectively
- Essence of Atmosphere - A nice show from New York Times photographer Nicole Bengiveno
- Digital Stories from Arizona - Great, simple stories from students (not necessarily photographers) from Scottsdale, AZ
- Iraqi Kurdistan - An excellent still-photo slideshow that takes advantage of rapid image sequences
- Magnum Photographers In Motion - A nice set of Magnum photographers' photographs. Also available as a Podcast here.
- Stefan Rohner - Rohner's B&W slideshow "Humans"
- Couple Lacks Sight, Not Vision - A Soundslides example with voice over
- Wrestling - Pro wresting mixing music and on-site recorded sound
- Coryn - Simple images, simple images, clear voice over and a powerful message
- Dulcimer Festival - Nice mix of images and sound
- Granada, Nicaragua - A short Soundslides show that has some great animation/editing effects
- Punk in Drublic - Check out all the different formats that this presentation is available in. Note the tradeoff in size vs. quality. Also note the very cool use of a stationary camera and moving subjects
- Life Through Time - Franz Lantig's and engaging work in a beautifully told story format (don't expect to produce something this sophisticated in our class, but it does give you something to shoot for)
- Media Storm - Brian Storm's Media Storm website is one of the best storytelling sites around
- Pictory - Excellent storytelling site
- Visual Edge - A website for a workshop for journalist storytellers with some great stories. Also be sure to check out the lessons page.
- Bridges to Understanding - Photographer Phil Borges has established a cross-cultural storytelling program that's designed to help people learn about other cultures. Here are some examples of what they are doing.
- Soul of Athens - Great stories about Athens, OH
- 16:Moments - Though not a "photo" story, take a look at how well this piece works with sound and image
- Everybody has a story - Imagine this set to music with voiceover narration of the quotations...
- Bastardo Dot Biz - One of the best projects a student has ever done - by Courtney Penzato
Apple Aperture Links:
- Apple's Aperture website - Starter tips from the Mothership
- Aperture Tutorials - Like it says
- Inside Aperture blog - A frequently updated blog of Aperture tips and tricks - very deep with lots of downloadable actions, etc
- Aperture Users Network- One of the best organizations for Aperture support and info
- Aperture Adjustment video - a free video about how to use Aperture's adjustment tools
Adobe Lightroom Links:
- Adobe's Lightroom Video Tutorials - Starter tips from the Mothership
- Adobe TV - Yowza! Seemingly a bazillion videos about all Adobe products.
- Julieanne Kost on Lightroom - The best Adobe teacher out there
- Lightroom Killer Tips - A great website/podcast about Lightroom
- Lightroom Tips - A clearing house of good tips and tutorial videos
Digital Asset Management Links:
- DAM Useful - A clearing house of sorts for information about digital asset management and a place where you can buy the best resource about DAM, The DAM Book.
- DAM on Wikipedia - A really good roundup of all of the issues and solutions to DAM
- UPDIG - Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines is an organization dedicated clarifying the issues affecting accurate reproduction and management of digital image files.
- Controlled Vocabulary - Great information on how to choose and use keywords
- ASMP's Digital Photography Standards and Practices - An outstanding and important collection of ideas about standards and practices for professional digital photography
- PhotoMetaData.org - A good metadata info clearing house
Image Galleries - Assignment Inspiration:
- William Eggleston - One of the most important color photographers of the 20th Century. Check out how he used small portfolios
- Philip Trager - One of my favorite photographers... he works with both architechture and modern dance
- Elliott Erwitt - Outstanding street photography
- David LaChapelle - Pop culture taken to the extreme
- Martin Parr - Social interactions and documentary
- Abelardo Morell - Camera Images of Camera Obscura Images
- Angelika Rinnhofer - A contemporary photographer with ties to both commercial and fine art worlds.
- Eolo Perfido - An Italian fashion and Portrait photographer... with a twist
- Keith Gerling - A gum-bichromate printmaker
- Loretta Lux - Photography? Painting? Photoshop? All of the above? Does it matter?
- Ashes and Snow - A striking site for really amazing work
- ParkeHarrison - Some of the coolest work being done today
- Michael Kenna - Kenna works in series and does a great job of publishing that work in book form
- Monica Denevan - Beautiful B&W work from Burma
- Julie Blackmon - Interesting slices of life. Posed? Does it matter?
- Douglas Menuez - Great work, fab-o website
- Mark Tucker - A wonderfully varied set of images from a prolific photographer
Podcasts - Audio and/or Audio/Video presentations about photography
- Lenswork Podcast - Brooks Jensen's short and to the point musings on the creative process in photography
- Camera Position - Yeah, I feel a little funny recommending my own stuff as class support, but my podcast is about creative process and creative ideas
