Photo 1250 - Advanced Digital Imaging - College of DuPage
Jeff Curto | Office: Arts Center 274 | Office Hours | 630.942.2527 | curtoj@cod.edu | jeff@jeffcurto.com
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
- 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
- Color Management in Photoshop CS4 - Jeff's "handout" on managing color (PDF) For anyone still using Photoshop CS3, here's the older version of the handout that's intended for Photoshop CS3
- 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
- Digital
Railroad - Offers a personalized online photo archive for a low
monthly fee
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:
- iPhoto -
Use Apple's iPhoto to make printed books. It works and it's easy.
- Apple provides a great general iPhoto tutorial here
- 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
press profile and color management instructions - A Blurb user
has done some homework and has not only gotten a profile for the
HP Indigo digital press that Blurb uses, but also written a nice
handout about color management in Blurb.
- Lulu -
An "online only" book publishing company. No software to download.
Also offers a variety of templates and other book options. Offers online
sales of your book, as well.
- Blurb vs. iPhoto vs. Lulu - A nice review of the various options available to you for book publishing
- Book service comparison article - from PDN, an article comparing Blurb with other services along with tips and tricks for all services... one tip, stay in sRGB mode...
- CafePress -
Though the above options are probably better for your class project,
you can get books (and a whole host of other stuff) through Cafe Press
and you can sell your book through them, as well.
- Sharedink - An interesting concept: they provide online storage and web-hosting services and then allow you to take your web pages and turn them into a book. They also claim to be able to take documents created with iPhoto or Adobe Album and make books out of them.
- Pikto - Another photo book publisher
- Fastbooks - Oh, yes... another book publisher
Other Options and Ideas:
- Democratic Books - Not a book printing place per se, but something you might think about on down the road
- 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
Authoring Web Galleries in Bridge & Lightroom:
- Bridge Web Galleries - Web galleries moved from Photoshop to Bridge in the CS4 version... here's a video on how they work
- Lightroom - Don't forget that Lightroom can output a nice web gallery
Other Simple Web Authoring Software:
Free Desktop Software:
- JAlbum - Free, customizable, flash-based web gallery software. Nice stuff; hard to believe it's free Installed on our Macs. (Mac & Win)
- 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)
- Galerie - Free, HTML-based... easy-to-use. Installed on our Macs (Mac-only)
Comes with your Mac:
- iPhoto - iPhoto does a pretty nice job of making web galleries (and no, you don't have to have a "dot-Mac" account to use it)
- iWeb - Another Apple method of making a website, iWeb integrates nicely with iPhoto (and no, you don't have to have a "dot-Mac" account to use it).
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)
- Web Gallery Wizard - A $30 Windows web gallery solution (Win-only)
Free "Hosted on your Web Server" Software:
- Photofolio - A free, easy to use flash-based software for making web galleries. The guy who made it is a photographer who wanted an easy, great-looking solution to posting galleries of his images. It runs from your website, not your desktop machine, though, so it requires a bit of setup.
- Gallery2 - Yowza! This thing seems like it will wash the car and walk the dog for you. It's a full-featured, open-source, database driven image web gallery solution. It requires some setup, but a lot of it is automated. If you have a web host, this could be a neat solution.
Services for Building and Hosting Photography Websites:
- LiveBooks/edu - A very cool, easy-to-use website solution for student photographers
- VisualServer - From PhotoEye comes a great-looking software/hosting solution
- FolioSnap - "Self-Managed Websites for Creative People"
- FolioLink - "Show and sell your work online"
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.
Digital Storytelling / Movies / Slideshow Links:
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)
- GarageBand Tutorial - Apple's tutorials for GarageBand
- Recording Audio with GarageBand - Just the basics on how to get sound into GB
- GarageBand Keyboard Shortcuts - For you Power Users
- QuickTime Pro - All of our lab's Macs have the "Pro" version of QuickTime, which allows you to record audio as well as export in a variety of formats. Tutorials on recording are available for Mac and Windows
- 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 :
- Recording Sound on your Computer - A very good, brief overview of how to record sound of all sorts on your computer. If you've never done it before, this is a good place to start for information, especially for Windows users.
- Brian Storm on Gathering Audio - Brian Storm of MediaStorm has some great pages on gathering audio for media projects
- 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)
- Microphones 101 - From Apple; A beginner's guide to Mics and Macs. Probably a bit of "overkill" for your project, but great info for the future if you decide to start getting serious about sound.
- Digital Audio Principles - From the Lynda.com training website; some freebie samples of their online audio class
- Build a field audio recorder for under $100 - A nice "do it yourself" project for high-quality field audio recording
- 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.
- Record Audio on your iPhone - The ultimate gizmo records sound!
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:
- 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
- Exporting Your iMovie - Some great tips on getting smaller file sizes and higher quality
- Unlocking iMovie - A site with some good "how-tos"
- Zooms and Freeze-Frames in iMovie
- iPhoto -
While iPhoto doesn't allow you to do much with regard to changing of
image-by-image timing or transitions or audio, it does do a pretty spiffy
job of making a QuickTime movie out of your photographs. Great for a
quick "test" of your ideas. iPhoto is installed on our Macs.
- iPhoto Tutorial - Using iPhoto's slideshow options
- Killer iPhoto Slideshows - From MacWorld Magazine, a great tutorial on some hidden cool features in iPhoto
- Make a Movie from your iPhoto Book - Amazing, but true... you can take the book project you made a few weeks ago and turn it into a QuickTime movie with this tip. Try the "page flip" transition effect! Cool!
- 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
- Creating a Podcast with GarageBand - A nice PDF handout from Penn State
- Recording a Podcast with GarageBand - A video tutorial from Zoom-In Online
- Online Podcasting Seminar from Apple - A nice, 3-part, online series.... free
- GarageBand Getting Started PDF - The "help" document from Apple
- 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:
- FotoMagico - A silly name for a very nice package that makes movies from still photos (Mac only)
- ProShow Gold - A Windows only software package that's sort of like iMovie, but doesn't do video, just animated still images
- Moviemaker - A freebie from Microsoft
- Authoring Tools - A nice overview of several useful authoring tools for Mac and Windows
- Joggle - An interesting software/server product. Downloadable software creates a slideshow (with no audio, sadly) that then gets uploaded to the Joggle website where it can be viewed and shared. You can also use the URL for the slideshow on any other server.
- Mixcraft - A "sort of like GarageBand" application for creating and mixing audio on the Windows platform
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.
- 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
- Brothers - An example of the power of a well-written text, archival images and a bit of new video footage in this touching, tragic story
- Hats - Done in Soundslides; a simple set of images that uses location recording effectively
- Dallas Morning News State Fair - Click the links for "Slideshows" on the left side of the page
- 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
- Chicago Tribune - a page of multimedia stories
- 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 - A very interesting clearing house for multimedia content
- 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
Digital Storytelling Resources:
- 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
- Tech Head Stories - A nice list of digital storytelling links
- Elements of Digital Storytelling - From the University of Minnesota School of Journalism
- Telling Stories - Great stories from the BBC in England
- Capture Wales - An offshoot of the above BBC site
- How to Podcast - A web page I created for a presentation I gave about Podcasting
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 Plugged In - A clearing house of good tips and tutorial videos
- Aperture 2 Product Overview PDF - A 32-page PDF about Aperture's feature se
Adobe Lightroom Links:
- Adobe's Lightroom Video Tutorials - Starter tips from the Mothership
- Lightroom Tutorial Videos - Like it says
- Photoshop User Lightroom Tutorial videos - Scott Keby and others take you through Lightroom's toolset
- Lightroom Killer Tips - A great website/podcast about Lightroom
- Lightroom Tips - A clearing house of good tips and tutorial videos
- Project Photoshop Lightroom tutorials - Excellent tutorials on Lightroom from Julianne Kost
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.
- iView Multimedia Pro - Its name has changed to Microsoft Expression Media, but it's still one of the best assett management apps around
- Extensis Portfolio - One of the big dogs of asset management
- Canto Cumulus - Another big player in the DAM market
- 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
- Adobe Digital Photography Primers - a whole slew of great "white papers" on using Adobe products for digital photography
- ASMP's Digital Photography Standards and Practices - An outstanding and important collection of ideas about standards and practices for professional digital photography
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
- James Nachtwey - Important contemporary journalist
- 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. Check out how she tells the world about her two interests right off the bat with her site
- 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
- Digital Imaging Competition Winners - PhotoWorkshop.com's competition winners; great stuff (slow site load)
- 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
- Photocast Network - Some of the best photo related podcasts all gathered together; this site is a "clearing house" for the group