Jack Neubart

How can you make the most use out of that limited quantity of memory cards when on the road, especially on a long trip? The answer: a portable drive. When connected to a host computer via USB 2.0, all these devices are recognized as an external drive--but not immediately in some cases: it may require activation of a USB function on the device. Adding to the utility of many of...

DxO Optics Pro Version 7 is a Raw converter for Mac and Microsoft Windows with some nifty tricks up its sleeve. It offers its own brand of nondestructive image editing, with tonal, exposure, geometric, and optical corrections that make it stand apart from the crowd. As was true of Version 6.6, Optics Pro 7 supports the company’s new FilmPack 3 film emulator plug-in (see sidebar below). We will have a more complete review of the film emulator in a future issue.

Optics Pro Version 7 is a dramatic departure from earlier releases. The Select pane is gone, so you no longer have to deal with tedious Projects (unless you want to). Now you go straight to work after opening a folder. Double-click on an image and that takes you right to the nondestructive editing phase, in Customize. Beyond this point the Mac and Windows versions part ways in one key respect: the Windows version runs faster than the Mac version, which continues to be laborious.

I always find it a nice icebreaker to show my pictures to people I meet on my travels. I also make it a habit of giving a small print to people I befriend. And the small print costs me pennies. Plus, 4x6 prints are so much easier to tote around than 8x10s. The problem is producing these minilab-size prints. I've wasted numerous 4x6 sheets because of a wrong setting in my...

I’ve had to replace a failing computer hard drive more often than I’d care to remember. Fortunately, I’ve learned my lesson: my workstation now includes external drives as both backup and primary storage. I routinely move content from the computer onto one external drive and back up to a second drive. (I usually prefer to transfer memory card files first to the computer, so that my backups will include these; then I move those files to the external drive when a project is completed, making sure that they are synced to Lightroom.) Unfortunately, the cost of all this may amount to the price of a second camera body or new lens, but it’s money well spent, as you’ll realize the first time a drive goes down.