I have a new film scanner, and I’m trying it out on some old stuff until I get more film in the mail to shoot. I recently found my long lost film camera, and I missed it dearly, so I expect to be shoot much more film in the future. Esp. of note is that this new one is flatbed, and thus I can scan around the edges of the frame, using roughly the methods described here. I haven’t exactly figured out how to completely eliminate Newton Rings, but they’re pretty small at this point, so they’re usually easy enough to clone out.

On an interesting side-note, I also found a post on a blog I read that suggests a good method for using Automator to import photos into Aperture when I scan them initially into Photoshop (since Aperture doesn’t allow for importing from a scanner). That helpful tip can be found here.

News to any of you stumbling on this website because of my occasional mentions of Aperture. Picturecode’s Noise Ninja, long since my favorite noise-reduction utility very recently came out with an Aperture plugin for their software, which is great news as per Aperture having seemingly useless noise-reduction functions integrated into it. It lacks a few features that the full photoshop plugin has (like auto-selecting camera profiles) but it still has the main features I found myself using, which typically was auto-profiling, and then adjusting the amounts where needed. If I’m reading it right, it can only be purchased with, or as an upgrade to, any existing noise ninja license. (The cost is $20 as an upgrade). I suggest getting the pro bundle, which while costing a bit more, allows for edits on 16-bit images so you’re not ditching any color information, plus multi-core and batch support for when you need to noise-reduce a big swath of images at once.

Even without the Aperture plugin, anyone using Photoshop who ever shoots above ISO 800 has use for this product, so take a look. You can download any of their software at any time, to try it out, but will just be saved with watermarks or grid lines without purchasing a license.

Keep it real, folks.

Today I had Abby come up to the studio for my official shot, and Kirsten came up as well, which was pretty fun, since just like last night, I got to shoot more than one person in the studio. Having another person or two bustling around the studio seems to liven things up a bit, and makes the time even more enjoyable. At any rate, my shot of Abby is over at the other site, so here’s one of Kirsten for you all. It wasn’t really posed, per se. That’s her in the middle of laughing at some ridiculous face Abby made at her. I find that almost none of the photos I really enjoy, even when taken in studio, are meticulously posed. There’s a form of impromptu that goes on with every shoot that I enjoy, and seems to result in interesting, lifelike photos. Anyway, I’m getting some sleep. Have a good one everyone.