Now, when Nikon space models are released, and euphoria is over, let’s get back to earth. I own very “earthly” Nikon D80. It’s a very good camera and I like it a lot, but there is always place for improvement, isn’t it. And here are few »improvements«, which I would like to have in next Nikon D80 firmware. Not in new camera, in new firmware.

- Top control panel. It’s nice that Nikon D80 still have one. There is almost complete data on it. Also an »EV« compensation indicator. But just indicator, not how much or in what direction did you compensate EV. When turning main command dial while searching for »neutral« position, you can skip »neutral« position very easily and end up turning that dial in both directions, not knowing, where that »neutral« is. Of course, you can look in viewfinder, where those little lines do tell you, where the hell you are! Annoying.

- Let’s say that »preview« mode is on and we want to take few shots one after another while looking through a viewfinder. While doing that, you need to change aperture or/and shutter speed. You start turning main or sub command dial between shots, but instead of changing desired parameters, you and up scrolling between stored photos. Of course, you(again) forgot to

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This one stroke just on the other side of the street. Quite a nice bang it had. Luckily the tree didn’t catch fire. Taken from my balcony.
Cropped this from the larger photo. And for the viewers, I took a LARGE amount of photos today when trying to get some of the lightning over here.
The photo made the first page in the local newspaper. I’ll take a photo of the paper and posted here later. And that has been done now.

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Lexmark introduced three full-featured wireless all-in-one (AIO) printers delivering industry-leading value for small office/home office (SOHO) professionals and combining the flexibility of wireless connectivity, the efficiency of automatic two-sided printing and the convenience of easy installation.

With the addition of the new Lexmark X6570, the Lexmark X7550 and the Lexmark X4850, Lexmark’s new wireless AIO line delivers robust and reliable solutions to meet the rigorousdemands of SOHO professionals. Lexmark’s research reveals that SOHO professionals are so busy that they work on their personal time - nights or weekends - an average of three days per week1. Most are already using a wireless home network, according to the study, and two-thirds of participants said that a wireless printer would complete their wireless set-up at home.

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Just hangin’, originally uploaded by XXVIII.

Photographer’s Comment:
“Strobist info: Snooted 580EX II 1/8 (key) @ 4 o’clock, 580EX II 1/4 fired into bounce card (fill) @ 8 o’clock, 420EX to illuminate background. Triggered by ST-E2″

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For those of you who have been “embracing your flash”, you may want to consider taking it to the next step, taking the flash “off camera”.

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Channel mixer is the preferred method for changing a colour image to black and white. There are other methods of course, however it is the one I use so I wont go into the others.

Open your image and select a new adjustment layer in the layers box. Click on channel mixer. Or select Image>adjustments>channel mixer. In the channel mixer box, select monochrome (bottom left). You can adjust the blue, red and green channels if you want, but try not to adjust them too much from their settings. Click ok. Now you have a black and white adjustment layer. I find this method results in a too flat image, since I love contrast. To fix this, create a new adjustment layer as before, and select either curves or levels. Play around with curves or levels and see how it effects your image. Below is an example of an original image, with channel mixer adjustment and the third image with channel mixer and levels.

This technique is so basic but can be used anywhere, from landscapes to portraits, but especially works best for smoothing out wrinkles and blemishes in portraits and adding a little contrast.

Duplicate the background layer of your image (right click the background layer, select duplicate layer).

Select Filter>blur>gaussianblur. Set gaussian blur to any sort of radius, usually about 30 pixels. Your layer will be blurred. For a subtle glow, reduce the blurred layer to an opacity of, say, 40%.

Dont like the cheesy glow effect? then set your layer to soft light, with an opacity at 100%, or less for a less strong effect.

From left to right, original image, image with guassian blur at 40% and normal opacity, blurred layer set to soft light with opacity 100%