Pro Photo Summit Day 1

For a room full of high level professionals, a demo of Vista meant for a general audience was not the best way to start the conference. Amir Majidimehr stated that the goal of Microsoft is to, "Hide the complexity of the technology to the consumer". What Microsoft wants to do for photography is what the Ipod did for music—create ubiquitous access. Photographs should be accessible and sharable, across all your electronic devices—computers, cell phones, HD TV’s, digital frames, refrigerator ice makers, alarm clocks, you name it.

What this had to do with a serious commitment to professional photography is unclear. Despite this wrong-footed and tone deaf introduction (which I hope it is not representative of Microsoft’s relationship to our profession) the panels are starting to get interesting. The "What Do Photographers Want?" panel was too open-ended a theme to hang a serious discussion on, though Jeff Schewe gave a tart summary: "Photographers want less time in front of the computer so they can have a sex life."

"Publishing in the Digital World" continued a theme of there being no one answer to any of the myriad issues confronting the digital photographic life. Sport Illustrated’s Steve Fine summed up the current dilemma, "When you take film out of the camera, it is as good as it’s going to look. When you take digital out of the camera, it’s as bad as it’s going to look." Chris Robinson from Digital Pro Photographer commented on the mixed level of workflow fluency: "There’s a lot of misinformation on profiles and how to handle color space. The weakest link in the chain will break it, and that’s why we get a lot of unusable files."

Jeff Schewe got the next panel started with a question: "So, is color management to photographers as sausage making is to vegans?" "Color Management" got meaty, geeky and philosophical, with a high-powered panel: Michael Stokes of Microsoft, Tom Lianza from Greta MacBeth, C. David Tobie from Colorvision, Dan Steinhardt from Epson, and Raymond Cheydleur from X-rite.

"The monitor is the new original. But the displays that photographers should be using aren’t being built. We’re using displays that are deployed in high illumination environments. In Europe office lighting levels are set in law. They’re too high for photographic studios."

A common theme through all the panels is the fragmented nature of the profession, and the divergent workflows required. A fine art photographer, a photo journalist, and a wedding photographer are going to need very different solutions. A fine art print under controlled light might not look good under the tungsten light of a gallery. A bride is not going to look at her wedding album in a 5000K light box.

More advice on LCD monitors: "You want to avoid the 17-19 inch range and go into the 21 inch. Samsung, NEC are good. As you move downmarket in the $500 range, not good. Displays are being pushed to the gaming apps. It’s nearly impossible for a nonexpert to buy a monitor."

Best advice on buying a monitor: "You go to Radio Shack, and if they don’t have it, that’s the one you want.

"Directions in RAW" got deeper still in the good stuff, but then Thomas Knoll ("inventor" of Photoshop) was on it. He was joined by Adam Jones, Vincent Laforet and Steve White.

Did you know that there are over 200 RAW formats? None of them are pristinely raw. From Thomas Knoll: "There’s degrees of rawness in the file. I’ve never seen a really raw file. There’s always some degree of processing in the file. There’s mapping out of sensor pixel defects for one."

What, my sensor has defects?

"There are a remarkable number of dead pixels that you don’t realize."

Are we going to see limitless increase in megapixel cameras? "Quantum physics places absolute limits on the noise to signal ratio for resolution of digital cameras. We’re not very far away from that now. Files are not going to grow larger. You hit the quantum limits on counting photons."

Steve White had the most cogent summary of the digital transformation that I’ve heard to date: "The problem is that film went away. The cameras want to be the film, and the software wants to be the film."

Comments

[Josh Wand]

Thanks for the summary, Doug-- confirmed more or less what I thought of microsoft, though they did manage to get good folks on the panels!

[Pailin]

ur photo are very beautiful i love the panorama... ^-^
THAI FAN.

[Dan]

It's good to see Microsoft trying to make life easier for us Photographers but ultimately MS is a company that lacks direction. Their introduction you describe is an example of that.

So my question is how long will this last, and at what point will this teeter off and become another half-assed effort from Redmond?

At least it'll spure some good competition with Apple.