BOOKS
SOFTWARE
HARDWARE
BOOKS
The Jonathan Meades
Collection
Actually a DVD, but Meades’ combination of erudition, intelligence, wit and Blues Brothers delivery puts this right at the top of my wish-list.
The Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for
Photographers
by Martin Evening
Lightroom is coming on by leaps and bounds, to the extent that it’s becoming many snappers’ primary working tool. You'll have a thorough understanding of it after reading this.
The Adobe Photoshop CS4 for
Photographers
by Martin Evening
Unless you’re one of the few who will really benefit from CS4’s new features, if you already have CS3 I think you can probably give CS4 a miss. However, if you’ve already upgraded you may as well get the best out of CS4 and Martin’s books are generally acknowledged to be both exhaustive and approachable.
Mac OS X for
Photographers
by Rod Wynne-Powell
Come on, after those two you still want to mug up on nerdy stuff? Rod knows what he’s talking about.
Annie Liebovitz At
Work
by Annie Liebovitz
Not everyone’s favourite portraitist, but fascinating nonetheless. A very good review of this book can be found here.
Africa: Altered States,
Ordinary
Miracles
by Richard Dowden
Many members are photojournalists; of those a good few frequently find themselves in Africa on behalf of NGOs. If you’re one of them I think this book is required reading. There’s an excellent review here, worth a read in itself whether you’re interested in this subject or not.
Fifty People Who Buggered
Up Britain
by Quentin Letts
is simply a good, funny read if you’re feeling seasonally splenetic.
The Jonathan Meades
Collection
Actually a DVD, but Meades’ combination of erudition, intelligence, wit and Blues Brothers delivery puts this right at the top of my wish-list.
The Adobe Photoshop
Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for
Photographersby Martin Evening
Lightroom is coming on by leaps and bounds, to the extent that it’s becoming many snappers’ primary working tool. You'll have a thorough understanding of it after reading this.
The Adobe Photoshop CS4 for
Photographersby Martin Evening
Unless you’re one of the few who will really benefit from CS4’s new features, if you already have CS3 I think you can probably give CS4 a miss. However, if you’ve already upgraded you may as well get the best out of CS4 and Martin’s books are generally acknowledged to be both exhaustive and approachable.
Mac OS X for
Photographersby Rod Wynne-Powell
Come on, after those two you still want to mug up on nerdy stuff? Rod knows what he’s talking about.
Annie Liebovitz At
Work
by Annie Liebovitz
Not everyone’s favourite portraitist, but fascinating nonetheless. A very good review of this book can be found here.
Africa: Altered States,
Ordinary
Miraclesby Richard Dowden
Many members are photojournalists; of those a good few frequently find themselves in Africa on behalf of NGOs. If you’re one of them I think this book is required reading. There’s an excellent review here, worth a read in itself whether you’re interested in this subject or not.
Fifty People Who Buggered
Up Britain by Quentin Letts
is simply a good, funny read if you’re feeling seasonally splenetic.
SOFTWARE
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
2
is starting to make Photoshop look like optional rather than essential software. Coupled with Martin Evening’s book, use the season’s enforced leisure time (yeah, right) to bone up and transform your working environment for next year.
Adobe Photoshop
CS4
In my view CS4 can be given a miss unless you’re one of the few who will really benefit from CS4’s new features. Then again, if you’re still running CS or CS2 on an Intel Mac, the upgrade is worthwhile. To my eyes, though, Photoshop’s user interface gets uglier with every iteration. Note to Adobe: please try not to make CS5 look quite as much like Microsoft Office 1997 as CS4 does. Thanks.
Undercover
Let’s not forget that the festive season is also a tealeaf’s paradise. If your laptop or iMac is nicked when running Undercover you stand a better-than 70% chance of getting it back.
1Password
is the password manager to have. It integrates seamlessly with browsers and your iPhone, too.
Talking of iPhones, I’ve
found Vicinity to be
very useful. It’s just what you need when
face down in the gutter after that agency
party and you need a cab. Or Casualty.
Last.fm for
the iPhone and iPod Touch does a very
clever Genius Playlist-like trick with
Internet radio, finding tracks similar to
those you’re listening to. So there you
are on Christmas Day with the in-laws and
you’re clean out of Frank Sinatra. Install
Last.fm and get Matt Munro, Dean Martin
and Perry Como for free!
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
2
is starting to make Photoshop look like optional rather than essential software. Coupled with Martin Evening’s book, use the season’s enforced leisure time (yeah, right) to bone up and transform your working environment for next year.
Adobe Photoshop
CS4
In my view CS4 can be given a miss unless you’re one of the few who will really benefit from CS4’s new features. Then again, if you’re still running CS or CS2 on an Intel Mac, the upgrade is worthwhile. To my eyes, though, Photoshop’s user interface gets uglier with every iteration. Note to Adobe: please try not to make CS5 look quite as much like Microsoft Office 1997 as CS4 does. Thanks.
Undercover
Let’s not forget that the festive season is also a tealeaf’s paradise. If your laptop or iMac is nicked when running Undercover you stand a better-than 70% chance of getting it back.
1Password
is the password manager to have. It integrates seamlessly with browsers and your iPhone, too.
Talking of iPhones, I’ve
found Vicinity to be
very useful. It’s just what you need when
face down in the gutter after that agency
party and you need a cab. Or Casualty.
Last.fm for
the iPhone and iPod Touch does a very
clever Genius Playlist-like trick with
Internet radio, finding tracks similar to
those you’re listening to. So there you
are on Christmas Day with the in-laws and
you’re clean out of Frank Sinatra. Install
Last.fm and get Matt Munro, Dean Martin
and Perry Como for free!
HARDWARE
A new
MacBook Pro.
They’re beautifully made, but functionally
I don't see these new laptops as much of
an improvement over the old ones for us
and are little faster. The current 15"
models have sacrificed their useful
ExpressCard/34 port for an SD port, too.
At least the 15" and 17" versions are now
available with a matte screen, in
preference to the standard over-glossy
screen. The underlying screen technology
in current versions is improved, with
wider gamut and more saturation. If you
can, hold on to your current laptop and
wait for new models with 4-core
processors, due in early 2010, which will
offer a significant performance increase
over current offerings.
When money is tight, good
fresh hard disks are
among the top priorities because that’s
where your valuable back catalogue is
stored. No data, no business. Microdirect are among
the cheapest vendors that I’ve
discovered with bare Samsung 1.5TB disks
available for around the £65 mark.
Of course, unless you’re
going to mount these internally you’ll
need hard disk
enclosures to put them in. May
I respectfully suggest RocStor,
Sonnet
and Wiebetech
as being among the best buys?
A new
MacBook Pro.
They’re beautifully made, but functionally
I don't see these new laptops as much of
an improvement over the old ones for us
and are little faster. The current 15"
models have sacrificed their useful
ExpressCard/34 port for an SD port, too.
At least the 15" and 17" versions are now
available with a matte screen, in
preference to the standard over-glossy
screen. The underlying screen technology
in current versions is improved, with
wider gamut and more saturation. If you
can, hold on to your current laptop and
wait for new models with 4-core
processors, due in early 2010, which will
offer a significant performance increase
over current offerings.
When money is tight, good
fresh hard disks are
among the top priorities because that’s
where your valuable back catalogue is
stored. No data, no business. Microdirect are among
the cheapest vendors that I’ve
discovered with bare Samsung 1.5TB disks
available for around the £65 mark.
Of course, unless you’re
going to mount these internally you’ll
need hard disk
enclosures to put them in. May
I respectfully suggest RocStor,
Sonnet
and Wiebetech
as being among the best buys?
It’s December, the economy’s in the toilet and you’ve
decided to give upgrading to a P60 a miss this year.
Nevertheless, Christmas is unavoidable and even if
you’re Bob Cratchit you’re going to
have it foisted upon you, so you may as well
prepare yourself for it. Here are some hints to
be dropped to potential present-givers for gifts
that are unlikely to break the bank (unless it’s
Lehman Brothers) and will actually be useful. Of
course, there are always socks, too.
Seasonal Recommendations
