Memos From The Digital Darkroom

USB flash drives are very handy for transferring data from one computer to another. In fact, I use one as a “sneaker-net” in my office because sometimes it’s easier to transfer data with a USB drive than with my network.
However, these simple little devices can cause big problems because they are an extremely efficient tool [...]

This weekend I went to Fry’s Electronics to purchase a new external backup hard drive. The one I have been using for backup is a 500 GB drive that’s is almost full. I plan to store it in a safe location and put a new drive into service. For the new drive, I wanted something [...]

One of the first things to understand about Lightroom is that it’s a cataloging software. That means that everything you do in Lightroom is recorded in a type of database.That’s why any edits you make in the Develop module are non-destructive - they can be undone at any time in the future.
The analogy I usually [...]

Last week I was teaching a photographer basic Lightroom workflow. I notice that when she attached a media card reader to Mac G5, the iPhoto downloader opened at the same time as Lightroom’s photo downloader. As she closed the dialog, she mentioned that this happens every time she inserts a media card, even though she [...]

If you’ve been using earlier versions of Photoshop, you may have noticed that Photoshop CS4 is missing a few things that have been around for quite a while. I ran into this a couple of days ago when I tried to use my Epson scanner with Photoshop. I went to the usual place, File > [...]