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Initial Storage
When travelling, I load my pictures directly from my CF card onto
the X Drive II. My X Drive has a 30 GB hard drive that operates
independently of a computer and is able to read just about every
digital storage card around! It runs on an internal rechargeable
battery and so far (touch wood) hasn't failed me. I have come NOWHERE near to filling 30GB despite a 10 day live-a-board and 4-5 dives a day.
And that's doing a double download of every card -
just to be sure. The drive hooks directly into my USB 2 port without
drivers on my WINDOWS XP-Pro system. I can then upload the files as
required to date specific folders.
Computer System
Currently I run a Dell 3.06GHz system with 512meg ram, two 80GB
hard drives, 19 inch flat screen CRT monitor and cd burner/ DVD
reader. I have calibrated the monitor with Adobe Gamma only - and so
far get a good match with my printer. It does the job. Most of my
photographic work is done from a dedicated hard drive and backed up
onto CD. When I have finished "developing" my shots they are backed
up onto a second CD for archival purposes.
Output
This was easy. A canon S820 inkjet printer. It has 6 separate ink
tanks including photo-cyan and photo-magenta. I use Canon Photo
Paper Pro for all final output and Canon glossy photo paper for
drafts. I chose the Canon because it produces exceptional results
and integrates well with my system. I have been consistently
impressed by the output of this printer and find it as good - and
often better - than commercial labs. There are other printers that
probably supersede it now, but as long as I find the output
excellent, I'm sticking with this one.
Software
In a nutshell - Photoshop. Initially Photoshop 5.5, then
Photoshop 7 and now Photoshop CS. With the latest release I don't
need to use a separate Canon RAW image converter or Breeze Browser
as Photoshop CS has the converters built in with all the options I
require.
Web Pages are designed in FrontPage 2003.
Photo albums are constructed with
JAlbum
- a fantastic little freeware program. Highly recommended.
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Equipment
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