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Archive for May, 2007

Shortly after I wrote my quick write-up on my experiences with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I read this article in Outdoor Photographer. This also gives some nice features of the program and how it can be used.

There are a few tips on making the adjustments right on the image itself instead of using the sliders; I didn’t know you could do that. Clearly there’s a lot more to this program to be discovered.

This article has some good screenshots of Lightroom in action. You can see the histogram, the curves output as well as the filmstrip organizer.

“Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has grabbed the attention of many photographers, and for good reason. It’s a significantly different way of approaching images than Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or any other traditional image-processing software.

Is it right for you? I can’t say, because every photographer will respond to the program’s features differently. But I can help by giving you an overview of how the program works and offer a few thoughts on how it might help the nature photographer.”

Read the whole article by Rob Sheppard at:

http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/2007/may/dh_lightroom.shtml

I have several Sigma lenses and like every one of them. Of course, it doesn’t matter how many lenses you have, you always want the next biggest one. Well, I think this qualifies…

Sigma announced the Sigma APO 200-500mm lens and look at this baby!!

http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/13360/sigma_apo_200_500/

It’s over 3 feet long and weighs in at a hefty 80+ pounds! I’m not sure this is for general backpacking or taking pictures of birds in your back yard. Actually, I’m not really sure what you would do with this bad boy, but make no mistake, you would announce your presence with authority when you whip this rascal out!

You think it will get any notice if I put it on my Christmas wish list???

I’ve been looking through the search words people have used in order to find the site and there are quite a few search for DxO and Pace Anti Piracy. About 2 months ago I wrote an entry about this horrid protection scheme and the tactics Pace uses to secure their apps. They hide files all over the machine, make bogus registry keys, and pretty much do everything you would expect a virus or spyware to do. It’s pretty damn shameful.

I wrote an article on how to remove most of Pace if you decide to remove DxO Optics Pro from your machine. I have purchased 4.2 and like I said, I love the program, I have that DxO uses Pace. However, I went through and followed my own advice and remove all the keys, the crap spreadsheets files it makes in the Office directory, the fake Internet Cookies and everything else. Of course, as soon as you do an update all that nonsense comes back. Every key, the files, it all comes back as you update the program.

I guess the point is this, if you’re going to use DxO you’re just going to have to live with their antics. Unless DxO shifts to another protection scheme we’re all stuck with this virus like activity and there’s nothing we can do about it.

For those of you fed up with Pace and their nonsense (why there isn’t a lawsuit against them I don’t know) you can read my previous article on how to remove their files. The entries look a little odd, but basically just go down the list and delete all the top level registry entries that are listed. For example delete HKLM\Software\Dog, HKLM\Software\Gravity, etc.

The second part is the list of files Pace adds. Just delete all of the ones listed, they are junk files and serve no purpose.

I bought DxO Optics Pro because I really like the results it gives me, but I despise what Pace does to my machine. I guess this is really is one of those Catch 22’s.