Hello all,

i have just posted this on the websites section. They don't show this on their website but this is the entire contents section of their FocusON: a guide to digital imaging DVD e-book.

SECTION 1
EQUIPMENT CHOICE
INTRODUCTION
DIGITAL VERSUS FILM
Common Concerns
Digital can surpass film quality
Colour and light - faithful colour?
Exposure accuracy and recorded light range
Is this the death of film?
Pros of digital imaging
Cons of digital imaging
Camera quality
Big pictures and megapixels
Printing
Image size
Resizing
Inks and archival permanence
Common problems
CHOOSING EQUIPMENT
Digital quality
Typical problems of cheaper equipment
CAMERAS
Chip with everything - megapixel magic
Will a cheaper camera do?
Chip size and use
1Mp (Megapixel)
3-6 Megapixels
12 Megapixels
Interpolation
Removable media
Avoiding common problems
SCANNERS
Drum scanners
Flatbed scanners
Measures of scanner performance
Film scanners
Optical resolution (O.R.)
Bits/bytes and bit depth
Resolution vs ruling
Density range
Software for scanners
PRINTERS
Commercial printing vs home user printing
Inkjets
Measures of printer quality
File sizes
Running costs
Output quality
Comparing printers
COMPUTERS
Selecting a computer
Operating systems
Monitors
Processors
MP – Multiple processors
Bus
Memory (RAM)
Hard disk capacity
Virtual memory
Ease of upgrade
Software
Colour management
Sophistication / utilities / support
Peripherals
Back-up (CD, DVD, Tape)
Connectivity
USB
FireWire
SCSI
Plug and play?
Serial and 10/100 base-T
Maximum number of units
LINKS (combined there are over 1000 selected internet links at the back of each section)

SECTION 2
PHOTOGRAPHY AND LIGHTING
INTRODUCTION
BASIC PRINCIPLES
Exposure
Shutter
Aperture
Under and over exposure
Reciprocity
Metering
Contra jour metering
Tackling metering problems
Exposing film and image capture chips
Exposure range / latitude
Film / chip speed
Shutter speed
Depth of field
Hand holding limits
COMPOSITION
Balance
Portrait
Triangles / diagonals
Duality
Rule of thirds
Cropping and viewfinder accuracy
FILTERS
Why filter?
U.V. or skylight filter
Polarizer
Black and white flm filters
FLASH
Synchronisation (shutter speeds for flash)
Flash control
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
Saturating backgrounds
Flash vignetting
Slow synch’ flash
Outdoor reportage
Indoor reportage
Dragging the shutter
Indoor fill-in flash
Colour balancing flash to available light
Architecture
Working at dusk / dawn
Reciprocity failure and noise
Windows / glass cabinets
Indoor events, bands, concerts
USING A DIGITAL CAMERA
Quality tips
Simple flashguns
Automated flashguns
Dedicated flashguns
Bounced flash
Professional flash techniques
Fill-in flash
PRO’ TIPS AND PROBLEMS
Flare
Cropping
The ‘best’ side to light people
Special subjects
Babies
High key
Low key
Young children
Groups
Controlling depth of field
Short subjects
Glasses
Sun-tanned and dark skinned people
Double chins
Narrow eyes / nostrils
Slimming or adding curves
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
Saturating backgrounds
Flash vignetting
Slow synch’ flash
Outdoor reportage
Indoor reportage
Dragging the shutter
Indoor fill-in flash
Colour balancing flash to available light
Architecture
Working at dusk / dawn
Reciprocity failure and noise
Windows / glass cabinets
Indoor events, bands, concerts
USING A DIGITAL CAMERA
Quality tips
LINKS (combined there are over 1000 selected internet links at the back of each section)

SECTION 3
COMPUTER SKILLS
INTRODUCTION
PREPARATION
Planning
The working situation
Electrical supply
Telecommunications
Ordering ‘kit’
Delivery
Read the manual!
Registration and support
Unpacking
Connectivity
Installing cards and drivers
FireWire, USB and SCSI
INSTALLATIONS
Scanners
Installing colour target data
Software
AntiVirus alerts when installing software
Photoshop
Installing Photoshop
Application aliases / desktop shortcuts
Making an alias / shortcut
Printer drivers
Extras on installation CDs
The confused computer
Managing a multi-use computer
Disk space
Dynamic memory and RAM
Uninstalling programs
MAINTENANCE
General advice
Keep a system log
Routine maintenance
Cleaning
Back-up
Disk maintenance
Disk wear
Restarting the computer
Operating system decay
Re-installation of the system
System messages / date and time
Defragmenting the HD
Sleep / scheduling defragmentation
Crash damage
Windows Maintenance Wizard
Scandisk
Windows Disk Cleanup
tmp file deletion - Win 98 and earlier
Deleting cookies
TROUBLESHOOTING
General advice
Processing times
Diagnostics
System maintenance products
System conflicts / extensions problems
Windows conflicts
Computer crashing / freezing
Sticky cursors and keyboards
CPU fan failure
Rebuilding the desktop
VIRUSES
General advice
Tackling infection
Spyware
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
APPENDIX
How computers work
SCSI
Memory allocations – Mac OS 9
Macintosh problems: conflicts
Desktop rebuild - OS9
PRAM ‘zapping’ - OSX and OS9
PostScript drivers
Macintosh printer drivers
Finder preferences - OS9
OS9 Installations
LINKS (combined there are over 1000 selected internet links at the back of each section)

SECTION 4
IMAGE MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
PHOTOSHOP BASICS
Navigation
Rotation
Flagging files
Custom thumbnails
The digital lightbox
Export cache
Renaming files and context sensitive menus
Meta data
WYSIWYG
Best practice and process limitations
Limitations of monitors
Profiling principles
Non-WYSIWYG issues
Comparing a source image to a monitor
COLOUR GAMUTS
Gamuts
Lab, RGB and CMYK
Process (CMYK) and spot colour inks
Limitations of CMYK inks
Colour variation due to paper stock
PHOTOSHOP SETUP
Colour settings
Black point compensation
Dithering
Working spaces
Importing images with attached profiles
Conversion options
Engine
Intent
Using profiles
Applying profiles from the printer panel
Generic media and printer profiles
Using working spaces
In house printer profiles
(s)RGB printers
Colour separations
Proof setup and gamut warning
RGB to CMYK and proofing
Dealing with labs and printers
IMAGE EDITING
Basic principles
Create a generic baseline image
Intellihance
Levels and level options
Automated corrections
Curves
The eyedroppers and colour picker
Fine tuning the colour
Converting a generic file for output
Batch processing
Actions / hot folders
Sharpening
Lens blur and depth maps
SCANNING
Scanner options
Lineart
Scanning stages
LINKS (combined there are over 1000 selected internet links at the back of each section)

SECTION 5
RETOUCHING
INTRODUCTION
SELECTIONS
Cut-out tools
Brush selection
Key factors for montaging
Path tools
Pen tool
Tips for paths
Curved paths
Moving bezier points to adjust a curve
The freeform pen
Adding and deleting anchor points
Changing anchor points
Magic wand
Lasso
Magnetic lasso
Polygonal lasso
Marquee tool
Selections / inverting selections
Selection problems
Eraser
Extract filter
LAYERS
Scaling and rotating
Maintaining proportions
Blending
Flattening layered files
Masks
Quick mask mode
Layer masks
Magic wand - grow and similar
QUICK FIXES
Underexposure
Overexposure
MONOCHROME
Greyscale
Hue / saturation
Channel mixer
Replace colour
Threshold
NOISE
Dust and scratches
Adding noise to mimic film grain
IMAGE REPAIR
Dodge, burn and sponge
Blur, smudge and sharpen
Clone stamp
Healing brush
Patch
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The importance of a good original
Duotone images from greyscale
Video and web images
Solarisation
Channel retouching
Selective colouring
Panoramas
Watermarking
Using the watermark
LINKS (combined over 1000 selected links at the back of each section)

SECTION 6
OUTPUT
INTRODUCTION
IMAGE SIZE & RESOLUTION
Interpolation
Cropping
Maintaining image format
Perspective cropping
Crop and straighten
Preparing for output
Save the original
PRINTING & OTHER OUTPUT
Contact sheets
Print
Specifying print size
Maximising print size on paper
Layered images
Positioning an image on a page
Picture package
Web photo gallery
PDF presentations
Save for web
FILES FOR THIRD PARTIES
Proofs: contract and aim prints
File formats
The digital negative (.dng)
Bit depth and file formats
JPEG (.jpg)
TIFF (.tif)
Acrobat PDF files (.pdf)
GIF (.gif)
Windows Bitmap (.bmp) & Metafiles (.wmf)
Special file formats
Photoshop (.psd)
MIME files (.mim)
BinHex files (.hqx)
Web file preparation
MEDIA & BACK-UP
Handling removable media
Back-up
Archiving
CD and DVD storage
Avoiding disruptions
Writing disks
Image and text CD’s
Music CD’s
INTERNET
The web
Search engines
Alta Vista search options
Boolean operators
Meta search engines
Yahoo / internet explorer
Other popular search engines
Popular meta search engines
URLs and browsers
Browsing
CONNECTION & E-MAIL
Selecting an ISP (Internet Service Provider)
Check list for ISP selection
E-mail
Flash sessions
Check list for e-mail services
Connection speeds
Standard modems
Satellite broadband
ISDN
Using ISDN
Cable modems
ADSL
Wideless
The speed of the web
Copyright and the web
LINKS (combined over 1000 selected links at the back of each section)

SECTION 7
JARGON

A-Z of Photographic and digital imaging terminology
Alienideas website for more info

Jaysus! - not bad, just had a look at the web page. I have stacks of books that try and tell me the same thing!

Chris

Yeah - impressive - there is some chat in the software forum about this as well. anyone else got this yet?

Hi Overlander, I've got it - its very useful to me, I've had some bad habits through being misinformed before and this has cleared up a lot of my issues, especially in the profiling and WYSIWYG areas. It has some impressive contributors as well (I'm into wedding photography on the side) and Nigel harper is one of their writers. If you buy a copy you get 2 free Master classes as well - one being Nigel harpers weddings master class. at 29.99 it was an easy decision for me after too many years of not quite being efficient

Good stuff though and well worth it in my opinion

Nice! i have had a fair few probs getting a good source of info for training my guys so this is right up my street.

cooler

Yep - got this a week ago - quite new on the shelves apparently as you can only get it through their website although jessops staff said they would be getting it soon. by far the best training product out there as it covers everything on the one dvd insteaed of one or two subjects and then a wait of a year for the next. I've only just come over form film and its proved invaluable. Good product deserves a good review




Geoff (Werner Bros)

Yep - worth mentioning also that it is the only product out there that adheres to the new industry standards and guidelins emerging from the IQA

Institue of Quality Assurance - digital group

(password for downloading guidelines is 'monument' - this is freely given from the IQA not a blag!

Now this is the kind of training I want to se for my club - too many times I've seen training books and courses and they all say different things! - lets hope this is the one!

I heard the publisher was bringing out a digital video guide as well - any reviews yet?

TA!

Len

Looks impresive! - thanks for the heads up.

Di

Got mine this morning - Woo hoo! seriously glad to have the IQAs 'best practise' guidelines on DVD - I was expecting books by the ton!

well worth it at 30 squids in my opinion - where else could you get this sort of info from the pros?????

if you haven't made you own mind up have a look at their websites endorsements - I say this 'cos I had been looking at buying the DVD for 2 weeks! - am I glad I have it - YES!

Alienideas Focus on 'best practise' guide



Gazzer

Fantastic section on the basics and the best advanced skills for photoshop in it as well - why do adobe bother with their style of manual - these people have a much better format! - excellent! gets 10/10 from me.

Mich

Can someone point me towrds a review of this DVD - lots of impressed individals here but would appreciate a mag link or something - thanks

Tony

Easy.... got this off their website alienideas.com

Am waiting for my copy but have read good things about it on other forums.

What the professionals said…..


"A stand alone training course, set-up guide and reference book... if anything, an understatement... absolute steal."
The Photographer (Master Photographers Association UK Magazine)

"A goldmine of information - a "must" for anyone interested in photo imaging."
Charles Green FBIPP, FRPS, FRSA, M Photog., MEI Cr., F-ASP

“From the beginning exact procedures are used… real examples are shown... everything in these chapters is true… a digital brain transplant. Top flight photographers... examples of technique… excellent images… high creative content… detailed inside info … ideal.”
Master Photographer (official magazine of the Master Photographers Association UK)

"Invaluable - the digital photographers' 'Bible'."
Nigel Harper ABIPP, AMPA, CrGWP

“A complete training course, set-up guide and reference work for professional imaging – in this case it is, if anything, an understatement. Easy to read and well designed. Learn in your own way and at your own speed. Highly recommended. Packed with information and an invaluable summary of photographic techniques, it’s an absolute steal.”
The Photographer - British Institute of Professional Photography Magazine

“Industry standard, outstanding.”
X-Rite

“Fast, informative and practical. Tried and tested solutions, very good indeed.”
Fujifilm

“Best practice… saves time and money. Highly recommended.”
George Dawber FMPA, FBIPP President, Master Photographers Association 2001/2

“Excellent, informative, easy to follow. I urge anyone to get this DVD.”
Ray Lowe FBIPP, FMPA, FRPS President, British Institute of Professional Photography 2001/2.

"Photographers will, improve quality, increase efficiency and save money.”
Russell Baston ABIPP, BIPP Regional Chairman Northumbria University Photography Department

"The best practice guide for digital photography.”
TypeMakeralienideas.comAlienideas

Mitch

Might be worth mentioning that these are available on e-bay - seem to be going for £8 - not bad saving! :-)

Gary

hehehehe got mine on Friday for £2.50 + P &P woo hoo - Itr arrived this morning :-)

nice call thanks!

Chris

I've just had an interesting conversation with their Business Development Director - a pleasant chap who is switched on to the industry or so it seems. The reason being I want a multi user licence for my L.E.A - has anybody else got a Multii User Licence and if so what is the unit cost?

Thanks for your help

Patrick

Hi Patrick - You don't mention what type of licence you want there being many types. I have a non perpetual licence for 3 years at £25 / user including auto upgrades and free Master Classes. I have 200 odd students and had to predict my usage. I know you can get all types though - what are you looking for?

John

More spam from this dodgy firm, who are putting spam postings on every photography forum, all from the same 2 computers.

BTW, they don't 'adhere' to the new IQA guidelines' it's the same firm

This is just another bunch of spam postings from this dodgy firm.

How can the IQA and Alienideas be the same firm - me thinks you're a little miffed they have bought this out before you? - do you have a copy - I do and I'm pleased with it - not over pleased or 'spam happy' pleased - just pleased.

before you go shouting your mouth off come back to us with useful feedback - thats the problem with you Brits - to quick to dump on a good thing - like your Tim Henman :-) let a good thing get out there without back stabbing and petty minds getting in the way.

Denise

Can I interest you in a dvd called SpammerBaiting. Its absolutely brill. and written by Brits for Brits. Theres a simpler version called SpammerBaiting for Dummys if its too complicated for you Denise aka Digidreams aka AmateurSpammer.

Oh do behave - I use this site to share information - if you look you'll see I've been posting for months and months on a variety of subjects you stupid man. - If you feel threatened by Alienideas I suggest you call them on+44 (0)118 9773371 and ask them why they are doing so well and selling thousands - what is your problem - and don't say spamming because, frankly, it bores us!

You have to let go - if you see something good out on the web - what do you do? perhaps you keep it to yourself or perhaps you share it with as many people as possible? - I tend to share and in return I ask questions that get answers - a fair deal - you just moan - how dull is your life if you can't do anything but moan! - enjoy what information is given and perhaps add a useful comment on a thread - have you seen the FocusON DVD Their webpages - if not but a copy or use their free samples and comment when you have something worthwhile to say - if not just keep quiet please!

Denise
Distinctions with the BIPP,MPA, RPS and the Guild

S'funny. Cant find any other posts by you here. Maybe you used an alias.
Obviously I have no idea who you are, but if you were a regular visitor to Photography Blog, then you would probably know my name. I love photography and enjoy visiting this site on almost a daily basis. What I object to is the pathetic way that software is being spammed here.
Your ranting about the Brits ( and poor Tim Henman) have done nothing to help. In fact your replies seem a bit unhinged to me.
If you have a decent product to sell, do it honestly.
I will not be returning to this discussion again. Suffice to say, the majority of people who visit this site are intelligent enough not to be fooled by this nonsense.

WOW! someone is upset! - I'm waiting for my copy and will post a user review if it will stop all this moaning - spammer or not its a product that needs looked at in your own rights - donmac - you may be right, you may be wrong nd that goes for the rest of you a well - but I for one am glad to see a guide that seems to take the best bits of lots of books and digest them into a single 200 odd page pdf with video - who knows - I haven't found anything comparable so it is difficult for me to say if it is the best or not.

If you are spamming - why the 'unhinged' replies? - me thinks someone likes their conspiricy theories

I hope you all find what you want - we're still talking about it so somethings working - I'll be miffed and reporting them to watchdog if it doesn't do what it says! - but the endorsements speak for themselves Alienideas Endorsements

best

greg

Just posted my own thoughts on this in the software pages - ebay have them starting at £15 a 50% discount if you don't get snipped.

Philip

Ebay sounds like the way to do it

But yes don't get snipped.




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