Thanks!
Yup, all hosted in Photium

My original attempt is still available here: http://www.photon.me.uk/mattmatic/index.shtml

I used SimpleViewer - which can work really well, especially if you can be bothered to use dynamic server content. To be honest, I had such a pain getting the HTML and CSS to work in all browsers that it was a relief to just forget about all and concentrate on the photos. Photium has great options for setting up pricing, postage etc.

I had hoped to sell a few prints over the course of the year... but I reckon the site is just lost amidst the sea of the Internet Either that or the images are the kind that people want on their walls! LOL!

Matt

Personally, I got fed up with online photo album creation and went with Photium.com

Very highly recommended and includes all kinds of features for not a great deal of money. Extremely easy to use and professional results. Incidentally, the guy who does the coding used to be at ePhotozine (the sister site to Pentax User).

If you want to check it out - www.mattmatic.co.uk
Matt

My argument is not "it's impossible"
It's "it doesn't make sense", and especially "it doesn't make business sense".

I've got enough saving to do already: 16-50, 50-135, K20D
Matt

If you look at the construction of the SR mech with the sensor mounted... then scale that up to hold the 36x24mm sensor I think you'd have a monster of a camera with a view finder that would probably have to be a lot higher.

Also, if you read the comments (even on DPR) it's common knowledge that lenses that were great on film behave differently on FF digital. The image has to be collimated properly because the sensors sit in a "well". This wasn't the case with film - light at the edges of the film would be recorded fine even if the rays were not perpendicular. The Canon FFs need really good (read: EXPENSIVE) glass otherwise you get some serious vignetting.

I've mentioned it before, but it's worth mentioning in this context as well - a friend of mine has a 30D and 20D kit with L-series glass. It weighs a flippin' ton I could barely lift it. The equivalent focal range in Pentax glass was cheaper and probably half the weight. He was amazed at how light weight the Pentax was in comparison. Goodness knows what a serious Canon FF kit weighs

Still, with Canon FF you do really look the part

Matt

(Yawn )
Here we go again...

I reckon a very large part of it is that there are a great many people who think that a FF digital will suddenly make them produce pro quality images.

I've seen really rubbish out of a 5D, and I've seen pros use APS cameras and got results just as good as FF.

As I've heard said "Size isn't everything" (Isn't it what you do with it that matters??!)

Matt

And it costs more because of the physics...

An APS-C sensor has about 370 square mm of chip, versus a full frame at 864 square mm! That's about 2.3 times the surface area of semiconductor.

Semiconductors have to be grown, sliced, and then one wafer is divided up into several die. The wafer is the expensive part and the more chip dies you get from it the higher the yield and therefore the cheaper the end result. You also have to add to that the imperfection rate of the wafer - so some of the chip dies will be dead = wasted money.

Your FF price of £500 is hugely optimistic I would expect a FF body to be around the £2k mark, and MF body to be at least £5k. And it's largely down to the cost of the sensor plus the extra support electronics required.

As has been mentioned (many times), there really isn't a big problem with APS-C... except in the minds of some In practical use there is no issue whatsoever, and often some clear advantages (e.g. 300mm lens behaves like 450mm - ideal for wildlife and sports).

Matt

Silkypix has a useful, but also annoying feature

You can specify the colour space in the development tab of the image. BUT, when you process, there is an advanced setting in the dialog box:

Click the "Setting" button and you'll see a "Setting for developed image". There's an "Output colorspace" combo box that chooses between sRGB, AdobeRGB, and "Specified colorspace in parameter".

If you select anything but "Specified colorspace in parameter" then your setting on the main screen will be overridden!

(It's very useful when you want to quickly output web images straight from Silkypix... but if you forget to change that setting you'll be in trouble!)

It's also worth mentioning that you SHOULD have the option "Record ICC profile" ticked - then Silkypix will embed the profile in the output image. That way your imaging application should know which profile the image was created in

HTH!
Matt

As expected
On an uncalibrated machine, without colour management at all, the image software has to assume that your display is probably sRGB. Without CM, the software will just output the RGB values directly to the display. i.e. camera RGB of 150,128,128 will be output exactly as 150,128,128 straight to the video card. With the RAW it has to assume the same thing.

When you use a Spyder etc it will introduce a conversion between the application output and the display output. Your video card may have a LUT capability (Look Up Table) to provide the transformation, or it may have to be done in software.

Then, when you get a CM app, there are now two routes for RAW and JPG. The JPG is marked with the colour space (either sRGB or AdobeRGB, depending on your settings in camera). The app will transform from sRGB the 150,128,128 through a colour space conversion maths routine and output that to the video card, AFAIK bypassing the simplistic LUT that is there for non-CM apps (see above paragraph).

Additionally, when converting from RAW you can choose to output in other colour spaces - Silkypix can output in sRGB or AdobeRGB. Capture One can output in others too (like Pro Photo). Note that an output TIFF/JPG that is not in sRGB will look very "sick" when viewed in a non-CM application

So, here's a check list (think I mentioned these in my Colour Management sticky thread):

* Make sure you have a decent video card driver. Some drivers may have issues with the calibration tool.
* Check your version of the Spyder/Huey etc software
* As I mentioned, make sure the profile is listed in the display properties advanced settings.
* If you have had other colour management tools installed (like Adobe Gamma) then disable or uninstall these! Two CM tools on the same machine makes for a very great mess!!

As I've said, you can have an issue "hiding" - like I did with the M200 video driver - that can really freak you out when it comes to CM. If it's any consolation it took me about a year to work out what was going on... and I even asked experienced pros who were flummoxed!

I would suggest working from the video card and driver upwards, sticking with just Silkypix and CS2 until you find the source of your problem. It's likely that when you have these two working properly that the rest will follow.

Matt

There's usually an answer to these things...

What I can say is that I have a dual-monitor setup that's calibrated with Spyder 2 Pro, and I have had no issues at all with colour management when using Silkypix DS3 and Photoshop CS2.
What I see is what I get, and when I print using a profile I have gotten exactly what I saw on screen.

So, it can work... but admittedly that doesn't help you

Additionally, I can say that with my Toshiba Tablet PC M200 that has been calibrated with the same Spyder 2 Pro I find that I cannot trust the display 100% because the LCD suffers too much from changes in colour when changing the viewing angle (even by a few degrees) All too often I have trusted that display and gone adrift. When viewed on the dual-monitor setup (Lacie 120 Laframe + Dell 19" Ultra 1703FP) I know I've got a good setup. Though, I will add that the Lacie and Dell do render differently - the Dell is brighter than the Lacie, but the Lacie is more accurate (when viewed in subdued lighting).

Even with Macs, not all displays are made the same
Matt

To try and answer the specific question...

1. AFAIK Photoshop uses the profile that's registered as the default under the display settings of the monitor.
2. Silkypix can use either the default, or you can lock it to a specific profile
3. No idea about the other two.

So, having built a profile for your monitor (Huey/Spyder etc), you need to ensure that it's listed as the default profile in the video driver (Display / Settings/ Advanced/ Color Management). Not all profiling software loads the profile into the driver, and not all drivers accept it through programmatic means So you have to check

Then, to make doubly sure, I normally force Silkypix to use the specific profile I just made.

And as a final note, when you disable colour management within software there are two ways they may display the image:
a) as Windows would view it (ie slightly profiled)
b) without profiling at all (ie uncalibrated)

As a point in case, when you use Photoshop's Save-For-Web option it will display it with option (b) AFAICS - which means you can end up with a real skew of colours.

It's a large, gloopy mess with Windows applications, and I don't like it.... you can lose far too much sleep over it

Matt