The French Photographer Weblog

As you noticed already I write about Photography but I write also a lot about Apple, Smartphones and iPhones. So I cannot avoid a word on that antennagate story.
First, monday was an interesting day for me, FedEx delivered my iPhone 4. It took me about 5 minutes to have it activated and another 30 seconds to test the infamous death grip to the conclusion that… what a bullshit!
There is simply no problem there. Ok, there is some signal attenuation. Ok, if I hold the phone tight for a minute maybe the signal will decrease but nowhere enough to drop a call. And in real life who will grip a phone like that and hold tight and not end up with cramps after a few minutes.
Come on, this is just plain bullshit.

I also watched the press conference last week about this topic and like everybody I noticed the body language and sort of contempt in Steve Jobs attitude when he announced the free bumper for everybody. And honestly now that I have experienced the real extend of the matter (sorry, I cannot call that a problem) I understand much better his frustration and his general attitude with the media.
This bumper giveaway will cost Apple probably $150 to $200 millions because of something that has been blown out of proportion by the media. That’s kind of expensive for a media interference.

So what’s the bottom line. iPhone 4 has a new antenna design, with a trade off. There is one clearly indicated weak spot in an overall excellent product. Does that make the product unusable? No. Is it a reason for a recall? Never ever. Is it a real problem preventing a normal usage of this product? Not in my experience. Actually I don’t even think about it or pay particular attention to it. I never used a case on my iPhones and I won’t use one on the iPhone 4, because I don’t like cases, because they are ugly and not convenient.

Funny thing, now the focus has shifted from the antenna issue to Steve Jobs attitude during the press conference.
And honestly I understand him. To me his answer to this problem is exactly in line with the way he thinks and not very different to his answer on the flash controversy. Listen if you have not done so yet to the interview he gave at All things Digital a few month ago. The segment on Flash is particularly relevant, basically steve’s opinion is quite simple – we think that Flash is not appropriate for iOS devices, there are technologies that allow us to get the same result without the problems generated by Flash, so we don;t need Flash and we won’t invest in it. If people agree with us they will buy our products, and if they think we are wrong they won’t!
For that matter Steve is the ultimate believer in free market. He must be a good friend of Alan Greenspan.
And when you look at the last quarter numbers, the market tend to prove that steve is right. Yesterday Apple repeated several times that they sell the iOS devices as fast as they can make them and cannot keep up with demand.
Nowadays information travels fast and social medias are powerful to build or destroy the reputation of a product, obviously the iPad sales like crazy even without Flash and people buy iPhone 4 despite the antenna weak spot. And they don’t return those products.

So what happened? There is a weak spot on the iPhone 4 antenna. Maybe this should have been clearly explained during the presentation of the product. Instead, it was blown out of proportion by the media. We heard all sorts of conspiracy theory about Apple knowing about it and having ulterior motives. at the end of the day – money talks, bullshit walks. Or maybe customers do. People want to buy more iPhone 4 and iPads than Apple can produce. They don’t return the products. They experience some dropped calls but not more than any other phone on the market.

This bullshit is over. Price tag for this media stunt – about $150 millions.

I’m a strong believer in the freedom of the media but maybe they should really focus on the important topics nowadays, not on that kind of easy crap.

Two days from now a few hundred thousands iPad will reach their end users but the industry has already been thinking about what innovation the device could bring to the partially dying publishing industry.

I complied 3 examples, in the form of videos, to demonstrate what could be the shape of our magazines of the future.
Will the iPad (or the tablets in general) save the magazines? You can give your opinion in the comments, anyway I found those 3 examples quite interesting.

The first video was created by Adobe and Wired Magazine. It certainly makes a lot of sense for Adobe, being the #1 provider of publishing softwares, to wonder how the needs of their clients will evolve. This is part of their vision (with a touch of self satisfaction too).

The second one is a concept for a new magazine created specifically to be viewed on a computer. Quite an innovative approach. I found that the creators have an interesting way to mix video, still photography and text.

VIV Mag Interactive Feature Spread – iPad Demo from Alexx Henry on Vimeo.

The last one is a demo of what could be the cover of your next travel magazine and I have to admit that I really like the way it looks. Because it is close enough to what we are used to, it still looks familiar but at the same time it really goes one step further and clearly provide more than the paper magazine experience.

iPad Sunset Mag Cover Spec from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Are we going to buy more magazines thanks to those new way of telling stories? Wait and you will know.

If you read my previous article on this topic and everything I wrote about RAW software converters you already know that Aperture has been a topic of equally great enjoyment and disappointments.
Version 3 is out and so far it sounds very promising.

In no particular order version 3 brings
- Faces, already introduced in iPhoto. It’s about time!
- Places, an awesome support of GPS metadata and geotagging. So far it’s the best support of geo localization I have ever seen in any software.
- Video and audio, the DSLR have included that functionality and Aperture is following this evolution. The support of audio files attached to the pictures is also very welcome. As far as I know, no other software have this.

Expect a full review soon.

Let’s look back about 2 years ago? Apple had just released Aperture an entirely new breed of application for photographers. Shorty after that Adobe came up with Lightroom, subsequently renamed Photoshop Lightroom. And the web got mad about which one was the best and the most useful tool. This simple question started a fury of discussions and strong opinions.

Being a professional photographer I had to make a choice like anybody else, so I did my little testing and comparison which led to an article that is still on my web site and is still quite popular actually.

What motivated that article at the time was the purchase of my Nikon D3. With this new camera came a new format of RAW files unique to the camera that required an update to the softwares to be able to process those images.

Now 2 years later I think it’s time for an update on what I called at the time – the RAW Softwares Comparison.

Let’s start with a reminder and a definition of the scope of this article. I will be talking about Apple Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. There are other tools to process your RAW images but none have a comparable set of features. I will mention them but they are too different to be included in a fair comparison.

Recent professional cameras can shoot JPEG and RAW files. I guess everybody knows what JPEG is, so I will pass on that. RAW is a file format for photographs that allows to record all the ‘RAW’ data captured by the camera sensor. It is often compared to a negative in traditional film photography. As each camera has a different sensor and specifications, each RAW file format is different and when a new camera is released a new RAW file format appears.
A jpeg file can be read by a lot of different softwares, but to be able to get something ‘viewable’ out of a RAW file you will need a totally different software. Camera manufacturers always include such a software in their package (after all it would be quite meaningless to take photos without being able to see what you did) but it is usually a very basic product with limited functionalities. The real players in this market are the more sophisticated products like Aperture or Lightroom and those are the one we will discuss here.

Just a reminder first on what make those software different.
- they are non destructive editors, that means that the original data captured from your camera remains untouched forever. The software only keeps track of adjustments that you do and alter the way the original data is visualized.
- they do transform your RAW file into a viewable photographs allowing you a great deal of adjustments. Actually much more adjustment than we ever dreamed possible.
- they are not pixel level editors. That means that you only edit the entire photo and not only a few pixels of it. Well for the most part because overtime both have added the ability to patch limited areas of the image to correct little details (dust on your sensor for example).
- they integrate some extend of Digital Asset Management. That means that you use them to organize your photos into folders, albums, catalogues, etc. They act as a repository of your photos and as such allow you to export those photos in different formats depending on the use you want to have with it (web gallery, fine art print, etc)

It is very difficult in my opinion to have a definitive opinion on which software is better. People have engaged in almost religious battle over one tool or the other, I’m personally very moderate. I have process ed a lot of images with a lot of different softwares, sometime one software gives me a result that I like better than the other and the next day it will be different. Overall they both do an excellent job at processing the RAW datas and turning it into beautiful photographs (provided that you did a good job yourself when you triggered the camera)
So to me the key points are not in the quality of the processing, it is in everything else. So let’s be more practical than dogmatic.

My experience with Aperture.

I have been using Aperture for more than 2 years now. I have more than 70,000 images in my library.
I like:
- the overall digital assets management. It is very easy to organize your photos move the galleries around on different hard drives, retrieve files.
- the integration with other tools. Being a photo level editor means that if you need to edit a photo at the pixel level you must use another tool (photoshop anybody?). Aperture does that relatively well but over the last 2 years a lot of Third parties have also developed a bunch of plug-ins that allow you to do various adjustments on your files. Both software handle this in the same manner – a new file is created, sent to the plug-in or to the external editor, and when you are done with this file it comes back into Aperture (or Lightroom) where it appears next to the original unedited file.
- the overall integration in Mac OS. Yes I use Macs and Aperture is only for Macs, but being developed by Apple, Aperture enjoys a level of integration unlike few other softwares. Being also an Apple TV and iPhone user (wait a few paragraph before calling me an unconditional Apple freak) it is really convenient to unload the camera into Aperture, select the pictures I like and have them synchronized with my iPhone or my Apple TV in just a few clicks. You don’t even need to export the photos, the synchronization happens automatically in the background. To me it is very convenient and Lightroom has nothing comparable.

Anyway after using the software for 2 years I started to reconsider my decision, first because it’s always good to keep an open mind and look around at what else is available and second because I was worried about the future of Aperture.

What I don’t like with Aperture:
- The future of the product is simply unknown. Apple has not given any clue about the future developments. The last major release was published months ago. It is unknown when the next one will happen and what it will bring. In the meantime Adobe keeps releasing new versions of Lightroom with constant improvements. After a while it becomes very tempting to have a look at what is available. In addition Adobe has a very clear roadmap on their product development. We don’t know yet (well the general public don’t) what will be in the next revision of Adobe Creative suite but we know that a major release happens every 18 months (about). When it comes to professional tools Apple leave you in the dark while Adobe gives you an overall roadmap, which one sounds best to you?
- Some features are badly missing… when you compare it to Lightroom but also when you compare it to iPhoto the (almost free) little brother of Aperture. Apple introduced facial recognition in iPhoto 2009, a convenient feature. Almost a year later this is still not available in Aperture, why? what is the rational behind having advanced features in a consumer product and not including it in the professional line? I cannot come up with a valid reason except that Apple is too busy working on other products (iPhone anybody?) and does not really care about Aperture. than is it really safe to put your eggs in a basket with an uncertain future?
- MacOs 10.6 was supposed to bring great performance improvements and it looked like Aperture was the perfect software to take advantage of that. 3 months after the release of the new operating system there is no sign of even a minor update of Aperture. Once again not very reassuring if a computer manufacturer does not use its own software to demonstrate the ability of its operating system.

So all those facts recently pushed me to start processing my photos with Lightroom and now allows me to make a valid comparison between the two products. I really wish I could trust Apple on bringing back Aperture to the level where it should be but as of today I really have a confidence issue. Let’s hope they will prove me wrong and I will be able to use Aperture again.

Well somehow I’m still using Aperture because I have 70,000 photos in it and those are not going anywhere. It would be a gigantic task to move all that to Lightroom (or anywhere else).
But back to Lightroom for now, and let’s be practical.

My experience with Lightroom.

What I really like:
- the adjustments that are possible on the photos are really great and well ahead of what you can do with Aperture. There are simply more functionalities and more sophisticated controls (split toning or fill light does not exist in Aperture, tone curve is not as sophisticated). One drawback though – it can be complicated and it may take you some time to learn everything that can be done with all those adjustments (split toning or camera calibration for example are not exactly trivial).
- Importing and exporting photos is more powerful and overall the user interface is better in Lightroom for those features.
- The use of preset is everywhere and makes your life much easier. Processing photos is often repeating the same task over and over, so having presets makes a lot of sense and at this game Lighroom does a better job again.

What I don’t really like:
- the separation between Library mode and Develop mode is limiting to me. I constantly switch between the two modes and this separation between the two just make my life more difficult. Aperture has a much better integration on this point.
- overall the user interface feels a bit messy to me. There is more than one way to do the same thing with no reason for that. Things are not always very intuitive.
- after a photo shoot I often come back with hundreds of photos, some of which are very similar, so the first task when I get to the computer is to select the best ones. Both software have this functionality but it is much more convenient to do this in Aperture than it is in Lighroom. Once again Lightroom tends to make things too complicated and Aperture has a nicer more slick user interface. But this is my experience.
- Finally one big feature that is missing in Lightroom as far as I’m concerned is the Onscreen proofing. It is the ability to see on your screen a photo the way it would be rendered by another device, like a printer for example. This is a very valuable tool because it allows to preview and adjust a photo appropriately before it is printed.
I cannot understand why this feature is missing in Lightroom and I certainly appreciate it in Aperture.

A word of conclusion.

I don’t want to get into big debate here about one tool or another. What matters to me is the ease of use and overall set of functionalities. What is important for me is to get the most efficient tool to do the job. As a word of conclusion I can say that if only Apple could bring Aperture to the level of Lightroom on certain aspects, I would be so happy to continue to use Aperture. Overall the product feels better to me but right now it lacks of a strong commitment from Apple. I wish it would get more powerful adjustment tools and a better management of presets. With that it would be a great tool, unfortunately for now my next batch of photos will go into Lightroom because I will have at my disposal better tools to adjust and process my photos even if I will have to suffer from a heavy user interface and some limitations.

Adobe already has Lightroom 3.0 out as a beta preview, there are at this point few new features and nothing really ground breaking (not sure how they made this one a 3.0 release). My only hope is that Apple will manage to come up with a significant release of Aperture that will bring the product back in the race. They have to come up with something big.

This story is so typical of how the world is changing and some people ‘don’t get it’.

Let’s call it The Great Ralph Lauren Photoshop Debacle.
Here is how it unfold.

Advertisers are well known for retouching images, this is not new and sometime it is apropriate. At Mindworks Creation we do a lot of retouching of images but we try to keep things look natural. Apparently Ralph Lauren has a different vision of what is ‘normal’. Their last advertisement shows a model, Filippa Hamilton, so emaciated that her waist actually appears to be smaller than her head (you can judge by yourself).

On September 29th, Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin posted the ad, which originally appeared on another blog called Photoshop Disasters. Their comment was “Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis.”
So what do you think a big american corporation do when something like that happens? They turn to the absolute answer to any problem: the lawyer. Ralph Lauren responded by filing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint against Boing Boing and Photoshop Disasters, claiming that their use of the image was a copyright infringement that fell outside of the Fair Use laws which allow the media to reproduce creative content for the purposes of commentary and criticism.

I will leave it up to you to decide if their claim is relevant or not.
Apparently the Internet service provider hosting Photoshop Disasters (Google Blogspot) decided that they won’t take any chances and deleted the post containing the image. In the meantime, Boing Boing’s ISP who is in Canada ignored the request.

In response, Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow issued a stern warning to Ralph Lauren yesterday on the website, saying that the company’s attempt to silence their criticism has only inspired them to step up their efforts in the future:
“Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better.

And of course what was meant to happen happened the story spread all over the Internet with traditional media like ABC News, Jezebel joining in and turning this into a total debacle.

Finally coming back to their sense, Ralph Lauren today published the following statement:
“For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”

Yes guys, sure, it’s about time to start worrying about the ‘representation of your brand’!

What is the conclusion of that little episode?

1 – What were they thinking? Do your really want to look like the model on this ad? She looks simply ridiculous whatever clothe she is wearing. Photoshop or no photoshop.

2 – Turning to the lawyer is not the solution to a big screw up. And it’s not because you are a big company or a big name that you are immune to criticism.

3 – Don’t ever believe that you can silence the internet by sending a few legal letter. How a company in the 21st century can still believe that this kind of behavior has any chance to be successful?
Some people really don’t get it!

4 – Feed your models, it won’t make the photo shoot much more expensive.

5 – Now I know that I won’t be shooting for Ralph Lauren anytime soon (ever) but honestly what is the point in shooting that kind of crap?