site- Monty Rakusen

A while ago I made some posts about the impact of video in the hands of a photographer via the new DSLRs (on Head-2-Head Reviews).

Well, here's the work of Monty Rakusen, doing just that- adapting his still-photography vision to video.

Great work, Monty!

Lightoom/Aperture market share

According to Infotrends, via John Nack's blog, Lightroom is now FOUR TIMES more popular among Apple users than Aperture.

This story was dated September '09, and it's really coming as no surprise. What Apple had, in terms of a following, pretty much disappeared through their own, repeated mishandling of the product... starting at the very beginning with an astoundingly crappy RAW processor and an interfaced that looked like Final Cut Pro, not anything from Adobe. When Apple decided that photographers should learn to be film editors I'll never really know...

That, and just the fact that Lightroom is a really great product. If you look at the book lists and workshops that fill up alone, it was pretty much expected news...


Oh, by the way... You seeing this Mike?

ANSWER your EMAIL DAMMIT!

Right now I have about a dozen irons in the fire. Some of them are little capers, some of them are Grand Schemes. ALL of them depend on other people. You really can't get anything done on your own... even the most modest plot to take over the world needs some cooperation and communication from your minions, at the very least.

That said, it just amazes me how many people simply ignore emails. Maybe they don't. Maybe they just file them in a "emails to answer" place or something, but the end result is I don't get an answer, I don't get an acknowledgment, I don't really even know if you got the email or not. (Just last week I found that a couple of emails I sent ended up in a new spam filter...) I feel like I'm being ignored, and I don't like that. On top of that, it's now sitting in the back of my mind as unfinished business, and it's one more thing I have to keep on my plate.

I get that everybody's busy. I'm busy. And I get a whole lot of emails. However, not acknowledging an email that is dealing with important questions, even if they're not particularly important to the recipient, is just plain rude. More than that, though, it's costing me money and time.

There are some pretty significant changes in progress about how we communicate, in case you've been living in a cave (and it doesn't have FIOS). My teenage son is away at school, and there is simply no contacting him by phone. He won't pick up. He won't listen to your lengthy message, and he won't call back. He will, however, respond to a text message. Before you jump to the conclusion that it's just a teenager thing, let me tell you- some older professionals I work with who shall remain unnamed are just the same.

I appreciate that between email, IM, texting, mobile phones, land lines and even snail mail, we're all trying to figure out what works best for whatever purpose... but we also have to keep aware of simple manners. I sent you an email. I expect at least an acknowledgment.

This reminds me of a "Miss Manners" type comment when I was a kid. If someone takes the time to send you an invitation to a party, or give you a gift, you should acknowledge that effort with a thank-you note. Old fashioned manners? Yeah, pretty much, but using email it's not a lot of effort.

Inbox piling up, you say? Impossible to respond to everything, perhaps? Just remember one of the fast emerging rules of managing workloads- the stuff you can take care of first, fast and easy, take care of it. Most often you can just respond to an email with a "Thanks!", or a "Let me get back to you on that... I need to check some things out". How hard is that?

I just had a friend track down some nice fine-art inkjet paper. She, after spending some time looking up the link, sent me an email with the information. I responded with a simple "Thanks!". It took 15 seconds for me to acknowledge my appreciation for what may have been a fair amount of effort for her.

Here are some phrases you may want to think about using.

"Thanks!" has been covered.

"Sorry, I don't have any information yet, I'll let you know when I do.", or,

"Sorry, I don't have any information yet, can you shoot me a note in a month or so?"

"Thanks for your note, but I'm really not interested in ... at this point."

"Thanks for the email, you really should contact ... about this."

You get the idea.

All these tools of communication remind me of a friend's comment when cell phones were becoming a required accessory for anyone in business. "Great," she said. "Just one more way for my clients to not be able to get in touch with me." The point of all this communication is to make communication better, not to make it more frustrating.

One of the most interesting notions is to establish some guidelines on how you prefer people to contact you. Revolutionary, isn't it? Communication about communication? I was working for a small company that used IM for inter-office communications, but the big problem was that everybody had different rules. Many of us used it for the necessary chatter to do our jobs... do we have this, can we get that thing for this client, like that. Many used it for just critical questions- does so-and-so have a credit line of whatever for the purchase we're discussing (right now on the phone)? Some used it for office banter. Some used it for tech support- while you have a trouble call on the phone, IM a tech who may have the answers...


The point is, someone who uses it for mission-critical stuff is going to get annoyed if he's getting hit with office banter or tech questions... and the place I was at, rather than just say, hey, don't use this with me for that, people just got pissed off at each other. Besides that- some things are better discussed on the phone than using the keyboard.

It's easy to dismiss a call, an email, a message as not important. Think of it this way, though. It's important to the person sending it, and it's polite to respond in kind.

Besides. We all can get a lot more done if we communicate.

Secrets of Data Recovery...

I'd say, on the forums and group discussions there's about a post a month asking what do do if a memory card comes up unreadable, is formatted, or the files are corrupted. Around 2000, I started doing data recovery specifically for camera media- PixelRescue.com, (...ain't the Wayback Machine great?)

There's really only one secret, and that's PhotoRescue.

PhotoRescue comes in a few flavors, a standard version and a "pro" version, but either way it does a great job, far better than anything. ANYthing I've ever used, and frankly I've used it all. I really don't understand why or how, but the software looks for, and rebuilds image files specifically, and it does a remarkable job.

As far as your chances go... If you've simply formatted a card and have not shot more images to it, it's a slam dunk. PhotoRescue will find and rebuild those files with no problem at all. If, however, you've shot to the card, then you're only going to get the files that you haven't written over- every time you take a new shot, you write over the old ones.

I've found that CF cards, if they're corrupted, recover pretty well, where the really tiny cards don't. It may be that they're simply more delicate, but if I hear of an SD card that is giving an error message, my first guess, and it's been proven out 100% accurate so far, is that the card is toast, and nothing will recover it.

I'm so impressed by PhotoRescue I've decided to become an affiliate. If you appreciate the information here, do me a big favor and buy the software through this link.

Now, another question I get a lot is on hard drive data recovery... that takes a little more horsepower, and it helps out a lot if you have a dedicated machine to chunk away for the hours it's going to take to rebuild the drive. I do that too, and it's what's called a "software recovery". Here are my rates for that, email me with any questions.

Basic rates are based on what I actually recover- no success, no charge.

1GB and below- $100
over 1GB and to 2GB- $200
over 2GB and to 4GB- $300
over 4GB by quote


If the drive has a hardware problem, that is, if the heads have crashed, the platters are damaged or something worse, you need to send it to DriveSavers. Period. This is going to cost you, the estimates are typically over $1500, but if you need a forensics-level recovery (that is, a clean-room teardown and rebuild), and the data is worth that kind of money, I wouldn't suggest dealing with anyone else. They're the best, they've been around the longest. If you do go this route, use this reference code: PixelRescue DS13970. It will save you around 10%.

By the way... data recovery is one of the most rewarding jobs I've ever done. Whether it's coming from a pro photographer trying to save an assignment that can't be re-shot, or someone coming back from a once-in-a-lifetime trip who formatted a card by mistake, it just plain makes people happy. Check out some of my mail:

I can't even begin to tell you how happy you just made me!!! My dogs are going nuts because I am sooo excited, and jumping up and down!! My husband and I would like to thank you soo so much! I will tell everyone I know about your company and what nice people you are, and how quickly you resolved my problem! Thanks again :)
Kiera & Paul Barattini

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!! I will be sure to spread the word about Pixel Rescue!"
Dean

"You da man! Hey, if you need a testimonial... I am very excited about the successful recovery of my pictures. My photos involved clinical and lab images that involved an enormous amount of work and I feared they had vanished. Your salvaging them is just awesome. You were reachable, reasonable, and fast. I feel lucky to have found your site and would enthusiastically recommend your service to others...and you can quote me on that! "
Richard M. Levitan, MD

"AWESOME!!! Thank you SO MUCH! My wife will be overjoyed to hear her pictures were rescued. We were pretty crushed when we thought the pictures from our biggest vacation in over 10 years were lost (lots of tears). I am glad we thought to look on the internet for a company like yours to help us out (saw you on a Google search). Thanks again. " D. H.

"Thanks for helping me get my images back this week. You recovered images I shot months ago...

"Take the biggest number you can think of, multiply it by three, and stick a big, fat negative sign in front of it, and you'll be close to understanding the depths of my despair when I realized the ~700 images I had shot all afternoon wouldn't be coming off my microdrive and into my computer anytime soon.

"After a day of calling everyone I could think of for help, I turned to Pixel Rescue, whom I had just heard about at a seminar a week earlier. My images were back as quickly as FedEx could move them.

"Did I learn any important lessons from this episode? Absolutely. Tops on the list is to go right to Pixel Rescue if it happens again. Which it won't, 'cause I'm being careful... right? Find me some wood to knock on..."
Thanks, Rich Obrey
Sports Editor
The Current and The American Journal

"...after photographing celebrities at Fenway Park, my card was unreadable. PixelRescue was great, encouraging and was able to recover all of the images for me without loosing one. Thank you, Ted!" Jeff Dunn, Dunn Studios

"YOU'RE A GOD!!" -shutterbabe1

pixelrescue: "I was wondering if you could do me a little favor..."
anonymous photographer: "Sure thing, what do you need?"

pr: "Well, we have a little gallery testamonial site, and I'd like to use some of your shots. We also would like to get a little quote from you, if it'd be okay."
ap: "y'mean, like, 'you SAVED my BUTT?"

pr: "...um, yeah, that'd be good!"