The key to a proper photographic color managed workflow is the use of profiles. Each profile “translates” the interpretation of color for one device into the interpretation of color on another device. For example, a certain red on your display needs to map to the correct red on your printer — but the display and the printer “speak” different color “languages.” The profile “translates.”

Don’t Sweat the Camera Profile

Whichever RAW converter you use (you do shoot in RAW format, don’t you?) has color profiles for all of the cameras it supports. The profiles that are part of Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw (part of Photoshop) and Aperture are all very good. I don’t have any experience with other RAW converters, but I would assume they’re fine, too.

This is the first necessary step — the camera profile translates from the camera’s color “language” to your RAW converter’s color “language.” So just use the profile that comes with your software.

Do Sweat The Display Profile

Here’s the first place that you’re going to have to create your own profile. Each computer display, whether it’s an older CRT, a newer LCD or the newest LED design, is a little different than every other. You may have your’s set a little brighter than another’s. Your’s may be a little older than another’s and so the colors may have drifted from the new display’s starting point. Or something. This profile will “translate” between the color “languages” of your RAW converter and your display.

The ColorMunki Profiling a Display

So you need to create your own display profile for your own display. And you’re going to need some hardware help; hardware that can “see” color in a standard and repeatable way. Two popular devices are the ColorMunki and the Spyder4. There are certainly others — and some are quite a bit more expensive. But there’s no reason these won’t give excellent results. Or even older models of these; think about a Spyder3 from eBay.

Regardless of the device you choose, get one and use its software and hardware to create a profile for your exact display. And be sure you’ve set the luminance (brightness) to something close to 100 cd/m². If you make your display too bright, your prints will be too dark.

And Do Sweat the Printer Profiles

Printer profiles aren’t hard either, but you need them for many of the same reasons you need a display profile. There’s the different color “language” thing again. And now you have to add in the paper, because each type and brand of paper will reproduce colors differently. The good news is that almost all paper manufacturers offer print profiles for each of their papers tailored for the popular photo printers. Get one of those profiles and you’re going to be golden.

The ColorMunki Creating a Printer Profile

But. If you want to take into account the subtle differences between different individual printers of the same model, you can create your own printer profiles for each of your paper stocks, too. The more expensive printers (think Epson’s professional series printers) are more consistent in color rendition from individual printer to individual printer. Less expensive printers, not as much. Or maybe you don’t have a “popular” photo printer. Or maybe your favorite paper manufacturer doesn’t have a profile for their paper or your printer.

So then you need to create your own profiles. And again you’re going to need hardware such as the ColorMunki (it does double duty for display and print profiles, which is why I have one for my work) or the SpyderPrint.

Needless to say, there are many more detailed ways to do color management and get to 100% perfect. you can spend a good deal of money on more sophisticated hardware and even training seminars. But I would suggest you give the method discussed here a try first. If you’re not satisfied with the color fidelity of your printed work now, I know you’ll be very happy with the results.

Yes, I know many, many people complain that their prints are too dark when compared to their computer’s display. And I’m sure its true — but it’s not because their printer is doing something wrong. It’s because their displays are too bright. Current LCD and LED flat panel display manufacturers pride themselves on how bright and vibrant their screens are. For many uses, that’s a good thing. But it’s not a good thing for a properly managed photographic color workflow.

What brings this to mind again is Lightroom 4’s addition of a print adjustment block in the print module. You can use this to brighten or darken the image when printed. The same thing can be done in Aperture (and for some time, now). Matt Kloskowski even has a video posted on his Lightroom Killer Tips blog and he calls the addition “one of my favorite new features for printing that solves the “my print is too dark” problem.”

I respectfully disagree. The right answer is to properly profile your display with a tool such as the ColorMunki or Spyder4. There are others. If you set your display at a luminance of around 100 cd/m² you won’t have the “prints too dark” problem in the first place. And you’ll have a more correct view of the relationship between tones in your image as you make adjustments.

Get it right in the camera, then get it right on the display, and then it will be right on your printer (if your color workflow is sound).

Clearly cameras such as the Canon 5D, the Nikon D300, the Canon 7D and the Nikon D3 were such steps up from their immediate predecessors that upgrading made good sense for most photographers. But now, does the Canon 5DIII or the Nikon D4 represent the same kind of obvious upgrade path from the Canon 5DII and the Nikon D3S? There has been plenty of discussion about that on photography forums, camera review blogs and podcasts.

There must be something to it all if Derrick Story is not planning to upgrade from his Canon 5DII to the 5DIII. And for me, its come around to the Nikon D3.

The Nikon D3 is a fabulous camera. If you’ve forgotten, just go back and read the contemporary reviews from the likes of Thom Hogan and DPReview. In my upgrade path I had made it to the Nikon D300S and liked it very much. But for me, it was time to move to a “full frame” camera and the D700, D800, D3 (and D3S), and D4 are the players in the Nikon field.

Yes, the D3 is not a new camera — in fact it’s two generations old, if you count the D4 and the D3S. But it still represents an enormous step up in performance from any if Nikon’s DX format cameras, including the D7000 and the D300S. All of the newer full frame Nikon cameras (D4, D800, D3S) are “better” than the D3. But an excellent condition used D3 can be had on eBay for somewhere under $2,500. Is there another camera that can deliver what the D3 does for $2,500? I think not.

So here’s my thought. Cameras are getting better and better at a slower and slower rate. Each new generation is somewhat better than the old, but we’re not seeing revolutionary improvements. We’ve reach the point of steady evolution. And in my opinion that means that unless your photographic job specifically requires the features of the newest cameras on a regular basis, there are still plenty of high quality images to be made with some of the older, but still great, cameras.

RadioPopper PX Receiver

Some time ago I posted a comparison of the RadioPopper PX and PocketWizard ControlTL systems. I left open the possibility that I would consider selling my RadioPopper PX system and switching to PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5s. After some thought, I think I’ll sty with the RadioPoppers.

Why? Perhaps the final decision came after contacting PocketWizard about the compatibility of the current firmware with the new Nikon D800. They won’t work and will likely require a firmware update at some unannounced future date. And it will take a period of testing.

This won’t be a problem for the RadioPoppers as they simply convert Nikon’s i-TTL output to radio signals and back again. They don’t care what signals they are. If it happens to be a D800, a D4, or my D300s, its all the same to them.

Nikon SU-800 Commander

Another point is that the interface to the PocketWizard ControlTL system is its own. Using RadioPopper PXs is just using Nikon’s system; so if you’d like to use Nikon’s optical signals, you can without having to remember anything. And there are certainly times that the optical signals work fine and there’s no need to hook up all the radio signal gear.

So I think I’ll be cruising eBay for a used Nikon SU-800 commander and a RadioPopper PX receiver.

Making a simple font available on a website is a simple matter of adding a line like this at the head or your CSS file (using Arimo as an example):

@import url(http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Arimo);

Google’s website makes it easy to generate the needed code for any number of fonts and styles. And that’s where a little more knowledge is required.

To use the normal style of the font, your CSS just has to assign it to a rule, like this:

font-family: 20px Arimo, sans-serif;

Notice that I’ve included the browser’s default san-serif face as a backup, in case there is something wrong with Google’s servers. At least the user will see a readable version of your site.

And getting to the italic version of the font is straight forward, too, just use:

font-style: italic;

Now you need to be a little more careful for any of the “fancier” available faces, such as the different weights that Exo comes in (100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900). Obviously simply using:

font-style: bold;

won’t do it alone. The “trick” is to use the font-weight property, like this:

font-weight: 400;

or:

font-weight: 700;

to get at the various font weights any font face may have available (assuming you’ve loaded them all back in the @import step). For font faces with different weights of italics, just combine the two.

To be sure you’re getting the font face you want in the situation you want it, your CSS file will have to be sure to define all the situations in your design:

strong,
b {
font-family: “Lora”, serif;
font-weight: 700;
}

p em {
font-family: “Lora”, serif;
font-style: italic;
}

That’s pretty much it. If you have any techniques to add, please add them in the comments.

The decision on the platform (WordPress) and the framework (Headway) having been made, I did some research on a good portfolio system and didn’t take long to find that NextGen Gallery would more than do the trick. It is very powerful and adaptable, towering above the competition.

Finding a client proofing system wasn’t so easy. Many photographers use services such as PhotoDeck, PhotoShelter, SmugMug Pro and Zenfolio, which means the market for WordPress client proofing systems is small. What I found were ProofBuddy (free for Lite and $150 for Pro), Photography Orders ($200), and Photo Video Store ($83). Each had their strong points and each would handle the chore, but in the end I picked ProofBuddy. I’m using the Lite version 2.0 now, but intend to upgrade to Pro when version 2.1 is released.

I had two main requirements for the client proofing system: it had to be easy for inexperienced clients to use and it had to be adaptable enough to be styled to match the rest of the site. With the blog, portfolio and proofing areas all running together, they needed to look like a unified whole, not three independent parts. ProofBuddy’s theme system fit the bill for adaptability – the CSS was exposed and there were template files for tweaking the HTML and PHP as needed.

While the proofing area is not flashy, it has all the pieces needed for a client to easily view their proofs and order the images they want in the sizes they need. The client gets automatic emails confirming the order and on any status updates. I get emails for the orders and can manage multiple clients easily from the administrative interface. There are options for me to offer discount coupons and the Pro version will allow me to sell photo packages.

ProofBuddy connects easily to PayPal as its only payment system, which is fine with me. Most of my work is local and clients pay me directly, anyway. Others may need the more variety payment systems offered by the other options.

In the end, I’m pleased with the results. My customizations are pretty well isolated from Headway, NextGEN Gallery and ProofBuddy so that updates to those key systems won’t require much design (or redesign) effort. Take a look at the Bob Rockefeller Photography site and see how it all came out.

The most well known of these frameworks are probably Thesis, Genesis and Headway. All of them are powerful and each are used by a great number of professionally done sites. But they are not the same. I have experience with Genesis and Headway and would like to describe how they are the same and how they are different.

The Same

Both Genesis and Headway provide these features in common:

• Advance control for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Personal and Developer licenses
• Complete flexibility of design using HTML, PHP and CSS
• Well structured code (especially well organized CSS classes)
• Available child themes that are ready to go out of the box or that can be modified and customized as needed
• Available custom widgets
• Excellent support forums
• A community of professional developers available for hire
• Online documentation

Different

And they are different in these ways:

• Extras in the developer license – Genesis gives you all their themes, those they have now and any that are developed; Headway provides special developer tutorial videos
• Updates – Genesis provides updates free for life, Headway requires a yearly subscription
• Design approach – Genesis is text based, Headway is visually based

Text vs. Visual

It is the last of the differences that is by far the greatest differentiator between these two powerful theme frameworks. Developing in Genesis is like programming – you grab your favorite text editor (mine is Coda) and make the modifications and adjustments you want. Headway shares a lot in common with the web platform Squarespace, but is based on WordPress. While you always have the option to break out the text editor and dive head first into the HTML, PHP and CSS code, the primary intention is that the bulk of your development efforts will be spent in the Visual Editor.

The Headway Visual Editor allows a designer to start from scratch and design a site using drag and drop techniques to place the building blocks of the site (the header, content, widget area, footer and such) and then simply click on the options to set the style of the elements used (fonts, colors, alignment, headings, link hovers, borders and so on). Or you can start with a child theme and modify that with the same approach.

The Visual Editor allows a lot of control, but not all of the control. Each block or element can only be modified in the Visual Editor using the tools Headway has created in that environment. If you want a header title to have a graphic background, for example, you can do that in the Visual Editor.

Headway Version 3.0

For the comparison in this article, I have discussed the just released version 3 of the Headway framework. The basic concept of Headway has not changed – it wants to be a visual design environment. Version 3 has just picked up where version 2 left off and provided more power in the Visual Editor. But version 3 is still a work in progress and does not yet include all the features of version 2. They are coming.

Notably, version 3 has no upgrade path for web sites from version 2. That, too is coming.

New with version 3 is the licensing and pricing model. Gone is the lifetime support; now its a yearly renewal. Lucky for me I got a developer’s license before the release of version 3 so I am grandfathered in for support for life.

Drag-and-Drop vs. Code

I’m not a big fan of the way Headway version 3 stores CSS in the WordPress database instead of in text files that can be easily edited in Coda. And I’ve been a somewhat vocal critic of the organization and user interface of the Visual Editor. The good news, at least for me, is that you can do all your layout work (which can be very tedious in pure text) in the Visual Editor and then do your design work (CSS) in a text editor – a tip I got from Headway Expert.

There’s more for me to learn since I’ve been using Genesis, and liking it, for a while now. But I started work on a new web site for my photography work and decided to use Headway together with Gallery+ and ProofBuddy. So far so good and it has let me really get down into the HTML and CSS behind the scenes. I’m doing most of the work using Espresso version 2 as a change of pace from Coda and a way to compare those two strong development tools.

So I may have a more in-depth blog post about Headway and Espresso when that project is complete.

One of those ways is to use the LensAlign system from Michael Tapes Design. I have that system and I guess I should just say that I don’t use it. For me, it’s just too big a hassle getting it all set up and aligned to the camera. Not that it doesn’t work or it’s not accurate, because I believe that it is.

So my lenses have ended up unadjusted in the settings of my camera. And the LensAlign sits in its box on the shelf.

On Twitter I started seeing tweets about something called the Focus Pyramid from Allure Multimedia. The Focus Pyramid is much simpler in both design and use compared to the LensAlign. For one thing, the Focus Pyramid is made out of cardboard that you fold up into a pyramid yourself!

To use it, you just put it on a flat surface, aim your camera at it, and shoot some frames to identify where the focus point of your combination is. Give that lens a little + or a little — in the focus adjustment menus of your camera, and take another shot to confirm focus at the center of the target. They have a video to show you how it works.

The wildest thing? It cost just $9.99 as its introductory price. I couldn’t pass it up, at that price, and ordered one.

It works as advertised and takes just a few minutes to get a lens set up for your camera. All my lenses have been checked and adjusted (it just so happens that they all needed some about of + correction). I need to take more pictures to prove this all out, but the one’s I’ve shot so far have been focused right on the first shot at the widest lens apertures.

Now you surely know that a $9.99 system can’t be “just the same as” a $79.95 system. I suspect that the Focus Pyramid is less accurate because it is made of flexible cardboard and doesn’t have any system to be sure that it is, in fact, level and square to your camera’s focal plane. But it worked fine for my lenses. I don’t have any lenses with maximum apertures greater than f/2.8, so there could be trouble with f/1.4 or f/1.2 lenses, I suppose.

Anyway, for $9.99, you can’t lose much by trying one.

When I wrote that article, I thought there were a few key things missing for photographers:

Version 2.0 has closed the gap somewhat by adding:

And as extras, we now have:

RadioPopper PX Receiver

Different than some photographers, my style of flash photography benefits from TTL control of the off camera flashes. I know many stick to manual control, but TTL works for what I do. And so I want a TTL based system that does not depend on line-of-sight or the “right” ambient light conditions.

I am using the RadioPopper PX system with my Nikon speedlights (SB-900s) and used them, before my switch to Nikon, with Canon speedlites (580 EXs). They work very well and provide all of the native Nikon (i-TTL) or Canon (E-TTL) system features because they work by intercepting the pre-flash signals, translating them into radio signals, transmitting those signals to the receiver and then decoding the radio signals back into light. Here is a past article of mine about the RapioPopper PX system for Canon.

The main reason I chose the RadioPopper PX system for my Canon flashes was due to the RF interference problems the PocketWizard ControlTL system has with Canon flash (which is not true of their PocketWizard Plus II or MultiMAX systems). Now that I’m using Nikon flashes, the PocketWizard ControlTL system is again an option as there is no such interference problem. So I wanted to document my research comparing the two systems for Nikon flashes. I don’t have the PocketWizards, so that information is based on online research.

PocketWizard MiniTT1

A key difference in the systems is that the PocketWizards use their own flash control “language” called ControlTL (Control The Light). They work by taking the camera’s TLL signal from the camera’s hot shoe and converting that to ControlTL, transmitting that to the receiver and then sending commands to the flash through the flash’s hot shoe. Either a MiniTT1 or a FlexTT5 can be the transmitter while only the FlexTT5 can be a receiver.

As best I can tell, there are no radio interference problems with the Nikon flashes. That’s good because, for me, that was the no-go problem with using the PocketWizard system with Canon flashes.

PocketWizard FlexTT5

Because PocketWizard uses ControlTL to control the remote flashes, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between Nikon i-TTL commands and ControlTL commands. In practice that means:

ControlTL Can Do Some Things i-TTL Can’t

• HyperSync—allows studio flash and some hot shoe flashes to sync at faster than x-sync speeds and up to 1/8000 second.
• Simple hot shoe connections—no need for the special brackets the RadioPoppers use to line up with the flash control sensor on the speedlight.
• Work without an on camera flash controller—no need for an SU-800 or a speedlight.
• Change with firmware revisions—both the MiniTT1 and the FlexTT5 can have firmware updates (to correct bugs or to add features) made using your computer and the USB port on the devices.

i-TTL Can Do Some Things ControlTL Can’t

• Separate exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation—Nikon’s i-TTL system let’s you control one separately from the other.
• Use the SB-900 light patterns—using the Center or Even light patterns available with the SB-900 will casue exposure errors using PocketWizards.
• Work in mirror up mode—ControlTL just won’t.
• Allow flash repeat mode—ControlTL just won’t.
• Mix radio and pre-flash—RadioPoppers don’t interfere with the pre-flash as PocketWizard does.
• Control flash zones from the camera menu—you’ll need a PocketWizard AC3 Zone Controller for that.
• Future “proof”—PocketWizard firmware may have to be updated for future flash and cameras.

PocketWizard AC9

Of course, PocketWizard’s upgradable firmware means that its abilities can expand with revisions.

PocketWizard also offers matching radio controls for studio strobes that allow the strobe power to be controlled from the camera (although not in TTL):

• AC9 AlienBees Adapter
• PowerST4 for Elinchrom RX
• PowerMC2 for Einstein E640 Flash

So, will I be selling my RadioPopper gear and buying PocketWizard equipment? Maybe. But probably not right now. I’d like to see if RadioPopper will make another firmware upgrade to allow more of i-TTL’s features into ControlTL. Or even surpass them.