Nikon D70

[John Grenier]

Mike, I think I remember you purchased your camera about the first of the year and I received mine about a month before that.

I highly recommend the camera and am very pleased with just one exception and that is the file format. I want a tiff format and so far have not been able to get there. Admittedly I havn't tried very hard.

I have an iMac with OSX the iPhoto program that comes with the system is a good application for the storing and emailing photos and so far working out quite well.

How does this tie in to Hand Lettering? Well, I want to be able to take the best quality photos of my work I can afford and to be able to manipulate the files afterward.

Any others who care to share their opinions and tips.

John

[Site Man]

John,
The Best advice I can give you is to immediately convert your jpg files to tiff after downloading from camera. Do no manipulation in the jpg format.

I work with jpg files from digital cameras on a daily basis.

When you have to manipulate a photo in tiff, make a copy and manipulate that. Not the original tiff. Then if you get in trouble with the manipulation there is no permanant damage to the original.

Hope this helps,
Bill "Irish" Holohan

[Mike Jackson]

John,
There are settings on the camera that let you select the file format. I still use JPG, mainly to reduce the file size for long term storage. They are 1.5 megs on average even in JPG, so they can take up close to 10-18 megs per shot if in tif format.

As Bill said, you can open the file one time from JPG and then save to ones you want to keep long term in TIF.

While not exactly main stream sign painting discussion, we all overlap this subject to some extent. We need a camera to photograph our final signs for our portfolios, web pages, and so forth. I use them for the articles, step by steps, and similar applications. They can also be used to photograph buildings, old signs, and be worked into a proposal image. Lastly, some of us have image printer, such as an Edge. So, discussion on this topic is On Topic as far as I am concerned. It fits "sign making, fabrication, and design".

Mike

[Danny Baronian]

How does this tie in to Hand Lettering?

Besides what Mike listed, I consider my camera a visual notebook. Go to a job site, stick a tape measure in the field of view and you have an visual reference of the area that will capture information you may not write down on the paper pad, and you can (NOTE: Mr. Chapman) take as many photos as you want, and they don't cost 50 cents each. Don't even have to print them all.

Look at the portfolio issues of the sign magazines. More and more you see photographs, or renderings from photographs included on the sign as a digital print. I haven't seen one issue in the last several years that didn't include a variety of prints. This recent post is a good example:

viewtopic.php?t=653

and here:

viewtopic.php?t=656

note: sunset photo.

Another tip regarding the camera. How often do you have a piece of art that's too large, or can't be put onto your scanner?Tape it to a wall with good even light, and photograph it. From taking a picture to bringing the image into Photoshop took roughly 5 minutes.