Advice for Shooting Digital Photography

For you budding digital photographers out there, I have a great tip for you to try out: Camera Raw.
Warning: This advice is 1) for photographers using “professional” quality cameras having the RAW setting and 2) for digital users who are into post-production using Photoshop or similar photoprocessing software programs. If you don’t fall into BOTH categories, then forget the whole thing and keep on shooting your standard JPEG shots and having them printed at Wal-Mart. Just don’t be insulted when I call you a rank amateur.
Camera Raw (or the RAW format) is a format like JPEG or TIFF, only better. Shooting in RAW allows you to have much greater control over all the elements of your photograph BEFORE you even open up your processing software.
When you shoot a standard JPEG shot, after importing it onto your computer’s hard drive, the next step in workflow is to open the photograph in Photoshop (or its equivalent) and make necessary changes (brightness, contrast, color correction, sharpness and cropping).
Working in RAW, your camera captures a “raw” version of your image, which can be further manipulated before fully opening a final version in your photo program. You can make exposure changes up to six full stops (that is, your photo can be brightened if it’s took dark or darkened if it’s overexposed, without—and here’s the important part—any destruction to your digital image). Manipulations made later in your photo program WILL further degrade the original photo, so any improvements you can make in Camera Raw first are worth doing for quality prints.
Working in RAW, you can adjust the color tint and get the proper exposure. Then you can make refined adjustments later in Photoshop.
Once you begin shooting in RAW (which is typically a larger digital file, by the way) you’ll wonder why you didn’t start doing it before. I sure did. I’ve been shooting digital for years, but only now bothered to learn about the ins and outs of Camera Raw. Oh well, my loss is your gain.
Find out if your camera will shoot in RAW and if it doesn’t consider investing in one that does. A good camera, lens and photo manipulation program will go a long way toward transforming you from an amateur shooter to a semipro photographer, and shooting RAW images will help you make better pictures in the end.
I hope this helps your photography improve, and I’d love to hear feedback from you if it does. I know I’ve been happier since I began shooting in RAW recently. Any questions you have I’d be glad to answer.

Iran's Gasoline Shortage

We Americans take things for granted. We don’t know how good we really have it, even when life seems terrible.
Take gas prices, for example. Anytime the price gets in the neighborhood of $3 per gallon, we all start moaning. The news media runs stories about the evils of Big Oil and there are calls for politicians to “do something” about the high price of fuel. Most of us grumble a lot about the problem but ultimately fill up our tanks anyway, regardless of the price. After all, we have places to go, right?
I don’t have the space here to fully explain the market forces at work that affect gas prices at the pump, nor do I have the economic expertise or the time. But let’s just take one key component of the process that I do know something about: refining capacity.
Oil, crude oil that is, must go through a sophisticated refining process in order to be converted into the various gasoline grades that you purchase at the pump. We have all heard the arguments that the USA lacks sufficient refineries in order to meet the growing domestic demand for gasoline. This is true and an even greater problem when you take the demands of other countries into consideration. The problem has been compounded by the rapid industrial expansion of large nations like India and China.
In Iran, refining capacity is so low (that is, below what is necessary to meet public demand) their president has implemented a nationwide policy of gas rationing. The policy went into effect on June 27 and resulted in widespread violence and riots at fuel stations. There were 17 stations reported with damages, a dozen of them burned by irate customers lined up to fill their tanks when some of the stations shut down.
The rationing is an attempt to reduce the $10 billion Iran spends on fuel imports. That’s right: IMPORTS. While Iran is one of the world’s largest oil producers, it must import refined gasoline in order to meet demand. More than half of the country’s gasoline is imported from other countries, due to a lack of refining capacity. They suffer the same problem as us
The country also participates in a socialized fuel program, selling its gas at an equivalent of 38 cents per gallon (and that’s AFTER a 25 percent increase in the national sale price implemented in May). The government loses money on the deal, selling the fuel to customers at below cost as part of the president’s platform of sharing Iran’s oil wealth with the poor. As a business model the program is set up to fail.
By forcing customers to ration their gas—allowing private drivers to buy only 26 gallons per month at the subsidized price—Iran hopes to curb annual losses on fuel sales and reinvest those dollars in refineries. Instead, it seems to be inflaming discontent for the president and will eventually serve as an economic drag on the nation.
Nobody likes high gas prices. I sure don’t. But at least we have the freedom to buy as much, or as little, as we want any day of the week. Not everyone has that same choice to make.
We can certainly complain about the cost of gas, and we should debate the reasons for it as well as the solutions. But our complaints should be made with a full understanding of how good we do have it, even when things seem terrible.

Maybe being president ain't so bad

It's no secret that George W. Bush is a hated man by a fair percentage of the country right now. Add to that number an even bigger section of the population that isn't happy with his performance, for whatever reason, and it's clear the president is "unpopular," to coin the phrase.

But maybe being an unpopular president isn't all that bad.

Consider the fact that Bush's approval rating (according to a recent Gallup poll) rests at 33 percent. Yes, that's ugly, but he's at 33 percent and holding. He's been in the mid-30s holding pattern for a long time now. And despite any more bad news out of Iraq, he isn't falling below that number.

Now consider the same poll's approval rating for Congress: 29 percent. Yep, Congress actually has a lower approval rating right now than the president. So if people don't like Bush's handling of the war, evidently they like Congress' ideas to change it even less. And that's saying something!

As a point of reference, when congressional Republicans were beat down in last November's election, suffering from a series of public scandals, Congress had an overall approval rating of 26 percent. So it seems most Americans don't like congressional Democrats any more than they do congressional Republicans.

This year's high point in approval ratings for Congress reached only 37 percent. Last month, the institution had an approval rating of 33 percent.

So the polling trend is heading downward, while the president's, oddly enough, is holding steady. Weird.

I'm not a big polls guy. Never have been, never will be. I think polls obviously are skewed no matter what, because it entirely depends upon how questions are posed and who gets asked.

Still, this is not good news if you're a congressman, particularly a Democrat. The party was supposed to sweep into Washington and do away with scandal-plagued government and return to helping "middle class Americans" (the majority of us, at least in theory). That was only last fall, about eight months ago.

If you sweep in the elections with a groundswell of change and then approval numbers don't follow suit, there's a serious image problem, Houston.

The Beauty of Wirelessness

I am writing this blog entry on my new laptop. Yes, I have finally invested in a laptop computer, which will allow me to write news stories, take notes, upload and manipulate digital photos, and perhaps eventually even lay out the newspaper from remote locations. In fact, I'll be able to do it from wherever I choose -- which is a heck of a nice feature.

We live in a world growing more and more technologically advanced -- with fewer and fewer wires tying us down. While my laptop is currently wired to my home Internet broadband connection, by next week I'll have a wireless network router hooked up and I'll be able to post these messages to you from my bedroom, the dinner table or while sitting on the toilet (nice image, huh?).

It's amazing what technology allows us to do, but I'm not sure if in the end it brings people together more or isolates them even further.

At the paper, we hope to see the blog develop into an Internet-style coffee shop, where folks can talk about the news that's happening in our area and also open up lines of communication with our staff. I'll also use this space to post items I come across -- news, photos or otherwise -- that I find of some interest. This could be odd news items in the world at large, or some pics I took at the ballgame that didn't make it to the paper.

If you have suggestions, please let me know. Register on the blog and start communicating!

What's going on

I have a lot of people asking about the website and what the heck is going on.
We are undertaking a bit of a transitional phase with it. There are changes that have been made and there are still more – and better – changes to come. So please bear with us while we are under construction. The technology staff – which includes me and another guy who knows just about as little about web building and HTML code – are working on some ideas that will streamline the website’s look and also make it easier and faster for us to post breaking news on a consistent basis.
Sports is not gone forever, just for a short while. We should have local sports back up by the end of the week. However, for the web, we are considering combining both Steelville and Cuba sports packages into one single page of full coverage. We want to be able to bring photos into the package, too, so look for that as well.
Our goal is to be able to use the website for daily updates. Ideally, news will hit the website before it ever reaches the newspaper in print. There may be things on the website that never make it into the paper, so glancing at the website now and then through the week should be worth your while once this gets popping.
Taking that idea from theory to practice, however, is a bit harder than you would think. We’re still in the mindset of a weekly paper. It’s not easy to unlearn yourself into thinking like a daily website. But we’re trying.
Sometimes it feels like we’re getting dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century – and there is some truth to that – but we’re gonna get there eventually, and hopefully you’ll bear with our mess until that time.
Some of our recent problems have been of a technical nature. Did I mention that computers can be a real bugger now and then?
Any feedback you have is much appreciated. Give me the good and the bad; I can take it.
This blogspot will be my opportunity to communicate with you and tell you about what’s happening in my world – with the website, the print product or whatever else. At some point, we may get techie enough to let you blog right back at me. I sure hope so, because believe me, I do appreciate your readership.
I’m not unaware of the fact that if it weren’t for our readers and our advertisers, I’d be out of a job quick.
More to come, folks, but right now there’s more to do elsewhere. Gotta run to a meeting in Leasburg, where I hear tell someone may get fired. Sounds like front page news!
Till next time!
Your friendly, neighborhood spiderman,
Chris Case
CFP Editor
Reach me anytime by email at ccase@cubafreepress.com (remember now, NO SPAMMING!)