I went on a hike last week and I was able to get this shot with my G9 right at sundown. I was hoping for some better storminess for a compelling background, but it was a pretty clear night.

I’ve been wanting to do another one of these for a while now. This is a pretty standard multiplicity shot. Multiple frames merged quickly into one. It was shot with my G9. Click on the image for a larger view.

Do you have The Fear? That nagging feeling that keeps you up at night? The Fear of the thing that can strike at any time and totally debilatate the unprepared? Hard drive failure can be one of the… [hold on a second, you might say, Hard drive failure? that's The Fear?]. It sure is. Read on to find out why.

Hard drive failure is one of those things that everyone will face at some point - kind of like life, death and taxes. If you haven’t experienced it yet - you will.

Scott Kelby has experienced it and, as a result, has ‘The Fear’. If it’s ever happened to you, you’ll know what I’m talking about. After it happens the first time, you’ll do anything and everything you can to prevent it from ever happening again. Irreplacable photos can be lost. Days, weeks, months or years of work and emails can go down the tube. Yesterday, Scott Kelby posted his answer to The Fear right here. It is a very elegant system for backing his photos up all along the way - from capture to permanent storage. Check out his full update here.

Scott’s list of backup hardware is impressive, toting everything from the Drobo to the Epson photo viewer. One thing Scott didn’t list, though, was the price tag. I did some informal calculations and his setup runs somewhere in the $2500-$3000 range.

So, the question is, hHow much are you willing to spend to protect your data? In most cases, every additional level of protection costs more $$.

My magic equation is as follows:

• No immediate backup after shooting. I’d like to purchase one of the Epson units mentioned above, though.
• I download the photos from my card to my laptop, when on the road. If I’m on a longer road trip, I’ll then backup the photos to a portable hard drive.
• Once back home, I transfer the photos to my main PC. I backup the hard drive on my main PC 3-5 times/week to an external hard drive sitting on my desk.
• About once a month, I’ll backup my PC to an external hard drive that I store off site (in case of theft or fire).

Do you have The Fear? If not, you will. Or, if you’re wise, you’ll follow others and begin your backup plan today!

I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I’ve finally entered the world of Twitter. If you don’t know much about what Twitter is, you can check out more here. In a nutshell, it’s a way to post very short (140 characters or less) updates on what’s happening in your life.

Until now, I avoided joining because I felt I didn’t need another thing to do (honestly, I still feel that way a little). But, I just got the urge to try. I like to throw things against the way and see what sticks. Thus far, the experience has been fairly decent. The folks at twitter have done an excellent job at making posting your own updates or reading others’ updates really easy.

You can past at their web site, from several instant messenger programs or via text messages from your phone.

You can read others’ posts via the same channels (instant messenger, text messages or the web/RSS feeds).

How I’ll Use It

People on Twitter post all kinds of things. Personal, business, etc. I plan on posting things mostly related to photography and graphic design. Good books, blogs, news and other things happening in my professional (and occasionally personal) life. I’ll post things that are interesting and hopefully useful to others, but that aren’t large enough to dedicate an entire post here at the blog.

You can read my Twitter items several ways.

• You can create a free account at Twitter and add me (I am listed as profsnapshots). You can then sign up for updates via your phone or Instant Messanging program.
• You can subscribe to my RSS feed here.
• I’m posting the most 5 or so recent items on the sidebar of this blog. Scroll down and look to the right and you’ll see what I mean.

Hopefully, this will be a good way for me to communicate additional thoughts and happenings with family, friends and those that frequent Professional Snapshots!

A little nostalgia for this week’s image. It is a picture of our first daughter (she’s now 5). Click the photo for a larger view. This was shot in all natural light, with a 5MP point and shoot (5 years ago, that was a fairly pricey camera!).

I recently created a 78″x33″ stand-up banner (the kind you’d see at a trade show). I used one my photos in it and had to blow it up to fit in the 78″ tall requirement. In many cases, this can be a pretty scary proposition. In many cases making images larger than they start at can be a BAD thing. I hadn’t blown up an image that much in the past and had to do some research/experimentation on a few different tools/techniques to make sure it didn’t look like a blurry/pixelated mess on the very expensive banner.

I listed the three best approaches I found and brief instruction on how to do each. I preferred OnOne’s Photoshop plugin, Genuine Fractals, but any of these options will provide usable results when followed correctly.

Where to Start

It’s important to always start with as high quality image as you can. Ideally, you can use a RAW file or JPEG right out of your 6 or 7+ megapixel digital camera. You don’t want to grab a 800 pixel wide, been compressed multiple times image off of Google. The old addage is true here: Garbage in > Garbage out.

Also, when doing this, keep in mind that most folks are going to view a large print or poster from at least 3 or 4 feet away. As a result, they won’t need to be quite as sharp as an 8×10″ print.

The Options I Tried

I did some research and tried three different options. #1 and #2 were done directly in Photoshop. #3 was done with a Photoshop plugin.  Here’s how they work. Note that each one will make the file substantially larger (several hundred MB in some cases, so make sure your hard drive is ready to handle that). Also, in many cases I would apply a bit of sharpening to the photo after enlargement to crisp things up a bit (more on sharpening in a future post).

#1: Increasing 10% at a Time with Bicubic Smoother

Open the image in Photoshop and choose Image>Image Size. Uncheck the Resample Image checkbox and change the resolution to 200 and click OK.

Go to Image>Image Size again and re-check the Resample Image checkbox and change the option to Bicubic Smoother. Choose Percentage from one of the document size drop-downs and change the percentage to 110. Click okay.

The image will now grow by 10%. Repeat the Image>Image Size, percentage, 110 steps until your image is at the desired size.

#2: Increase all at Once with Bicubic Sharper

This tip is directly from Scott Kelby’s best selling book The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers. He mentions in the book (and I’ll second it here) that this seems like the most non-traditional of the options. But, it seems to do the trick! The one downside to this option is that it produced the largest file size, which can get tricky when you start to consider Photoshop’s 2 GB file size limit.

Open the image in Photoshop and choose Image>Image Size. Change the settings in the box as shown below and click okay. It’ll process things for a while.

#3: Increase with OnOne’s Genuine Fractals Plugin

This is the only option of the 3 that requires an additional dip into the bank account (past the already pricey Photoshop). Make sure OnOne’s Genuine Fractals plugin for Photoshop is installed (it retails for around $160, unless you need to resize CMYK images and can be found here).

Open the image in Photoshop. Click onOne>Genuine Fractals>Scale Current Image…. The image will open in a new window, with new options. Set the desired resolution (around 200) and size and click okay. One benefit to Genuine Fractals is that it provides advanced previewing and sharpening options while in its resizing dialog box.

The Results

As I mentioned before, the results were all fairly decent, although they varied a bit. Of all, I preferred Genuine Fractals - it provided slightly sharper lines and less noise. I also listed the final file size for each.

Original File: 53 MB

#1: 10% at a Time: 934 MB

#2: Bicubic Sharper: 1530 MB

#3: Genuine Fractals: 928 MB