Digital Darkroom

Fixing White Balance

Shooting with the wrong white balance setting is easy to do. Jon got some help with that. See what Ron, Bob, Andreas and Gary told him.

Photoshop Plugins Too Expensive?

Viveza, LightZone, Exposure and other powerful plugins for Photoshop can save you time and do things that would require complex actions, but are they priced too high? Wouldn't developers make more money if they had many more buyers, even if the price of their plugin was substantially lower? What do you think?

Remote Backup Solutions

What happens if your home is destroyed by flood or fire? Will your photos be safe? Datto Backup allows you to keep your files on a single device while automatically backing it up to remote servers in case of a disaster. That's not a bad idea, particularly for photographers who have a lot of client photos to worry about, but is it too expensive for the photo enthusiast? What other options are there? See what the gang has to say.

Are HDR images really better?

HDR, bracketing and blending exposures, will produce more detail, but is the image really better? Doug says no. He prefers working with a single RAW file. Mike says you can lose apparent sharpness when HDR reduces contrast. Gary's photo of a church chapel with Christmas decorations demonstrates what happens when you use HDR. What do you think?