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Secrets of Digital Photography DSLR: Nikon D70 errata? |
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With 446 pages, 466 Photoshop Actions and a bunch of support files to keep track of, it's a wonder the production team doesn't ever make misteakes. But, of course, there's the human factor...
Here is a list of known errors or omissions for DSLR: Nikon D70:
1. Missing iBC2Taste-D70 Photoshop Action.This is a simple version of the more complex iBC Actions tweaked for specific lenses at specific focal lengths. It allows you to dial in a fairly good anti-barrel distortion effect (or anti-pincushion effect) so you can make nearly any lens look a whole lot better. Too bad it didn't make it into the mix.
If you need it, the temporary fix is to email me and ask for it. Have your eBook handy. I'll ask you a question that can only be answered via the eBook, and then email you the missing file. Hopefully, I'll have this automated soon.
Current (January, 2005) eBooks have fixed this, so the omission only occurred in early copies.
2. At the bottom of page 4-8, an InfoBite is incomplete. It should read
"
For a rough estimate of performance with a 512-megabyte card, multiply the numbers by 16X. For a 1GB card, multiply these numbers by 32."
3. Page 5-20 has a misplaced paragraph. At the top of the page, the second paragraph should read
"For subject matter that defies easy focus, you can zoom into a subject, let the Auto Focus system settle in on it, then click the focus switch to Manual, thus locking in the current focus point. Most lenses maintain reasonable focus as they zoom back. As you zoom out, depth of field covers much of the focus drift. At smaller apertures the results are often good, but test the idea with your zoom to see if it follows this convention.
"4. Two known Actions are messed up. One is literally missing. Is that "Missing in Action?"
The Action "iBC2Taste" is missing. I've made a replacement for this and I invite anyone who wants to use it to drop me an email noting that you would like a copy. Email me at peter.inova@mac.com with a note and I'll send it to you ASAP.
The iFXxD70.atn folder has a flaw in the Action "iOldTymieDistressed" and you may run into a problem with it. An improved, repaired version exists and I'll send that to you, too.
5. Here's a novel "bug" of sorts. If your Photoshop Color Settings window has a certain box checked, it will cause the program to jam with certain Actions which create a new window as part of their process.
The circled area in this image identifies the box that should be unchecked as it is here:
You don't want Photoshop to identify Profile Mismatches and "Ask When Opening".
6. In the iNovaFX folder iFXxD70, the iOldTymie action has a bona fide bug. It's an inadvertent command that crept into the string of instructions, and it will only confuse you. View the Action in List Mode (with Button Mode unchecked in the Actions Palette options that open using the upper right reveal-delta) and open up the list for iOldTymie. Note the spurious command in the image below.
The fix is easy. Just uncheck the box to the left of that "Select snapshot PanoKitRight-03.jpg" item, or toss that instruction into the nearby trash. If this is unhandy for you, contact me peter.inova@mac.com with iOldTymie as the Subject line and I'll send you the fixed version by return email.
This is what it looks like when the Actions Palette is opened up large:
That's the offending item outlined in red.
7. A few minor typos (3) have been spotted. Let me know if any of them are a problem for you.
8. Actions that use text may not work on older versions of Photoshop. The latest versions of iNovaFX Actions were generated using Photoshop CS and may only work within that version without errors. This includes the iFilmBorder effects. The only good news here is that Photoshop CS is worth the upgrade.
9. Fisheye straightening Actions loaded into a PC (Windows) system exhibit a--well, it's not a "bug" exactly, more like a behavioral difference between Mac and PCs. It seems that PC versions of Photoshop Actions behave slightly differently at the name level.
We've noticed that Photoshop on Windows PCs trims the suffix off when it loads Actions into the Actions Palette. That will turn the file into "iBCFisheye10.5mm" instead of the complete "iBCFisheye10.5mm.atn" that was its full name. Since the ".atn" is a convention needed only by Windows PC operating systems, we included it when the Action was written on a Macintosh so our PC brethren wouldn't be stumbling over the missing letters. The Mac simply sees it as part of its name.
So much for theories. But for most actions the presence or absence of the ".atn" is irrelevant. Not so with the Fisheye straighteners.
Where the problem seems to come from is that the Action calls into play several subroutines that are actions in their own right within the folder and it's looking specifically to Play action "iHyper" of set "iBCFisheye10.5mm.atn", so it needs that suffix or it doesn't know that the subroutine is sitting right in the same folder.
The easy fix is to simply write ".atn" at the end of the Action Folder's name so it says "iBCFisheye10.5mm.atn".
We've also noted that Photoshop in Windows works better with big graphic surfaces such as the ones these fisheye straighteners need providing you give the program all the memory it can handle.
That improvement is found under Edit > Preferences > Memory & Image Cache > Memory Usage > Maximum Used by Photoshop: 90-100%.
This stuffs Photoshop full of RAM the next time it is opened. The fisheye Actions seem to work well with at least 200MB dedicated to Photoshop.
MAJOR NOTE: THIS SAME FIX WILL BE NEEDED WHEN USING PHOTOSHOP CS2 WHICH EXHIBITS THE SAME BEHAVIOR ON MAC COMPUTERS AS WINDOWS OS's DO NORMALLY. At least they finally unified the two versions.
So if your fish are still rather curvy, write that little suffix onto the Action's name and try again. Any other action that complains that it can't find another action to run is looking for the same sort of thing. Most of them (better than 99% in fact) won't need this little tweak.
-iNova (March, 2006)
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