Need Help getting started

[C Nelms]

Hi, I am new to this forum. I have been a children's photographer for 15 years specializing in B&W wall portraits. I have always used Mamyia and Hassleblad. Now I have decided to ease into digital to gain better control of retouching and reduce costs over the long haul (after I get over the check I wrote for the 1Ds last week and the huge computer expenses in the next few weeks!). I have been paying for fiber based prints and have a huge lab bill each month.
My question is- since I need help on everything from computer selection/setup, to possibly printing my own B&W on an Epson 7600 (or something like that) are there digital gurus who can be hired to come in for a short period and get one going in an orgainzed manner? It seems stupid for me to try to figure this out all alone. I have a working knowledge of Photoshop but the whole computer thing is freaking me out. I've read the threads about computer selection for D60 users. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

[justme_dc]

Are you using a PC or a Macintosh? There are lots of solutions available to you. There are digital professionals in most mayjor cities that can help you get going. Do you have a local pro shop that has a digital department? Often times you can get someone there to help set things up for you. The guy at pro shop that sold me my printer offered to give me all the custom ICC profiles he had made for my model of printer if I wanted them. If you have specific questions just post them and we'll give all the answers we have!

Good luck with your jump to digital!

[martcol]

It sounds to me as though your move to digital will be really exciting! I'm not a pro by any means, just a late-starter enthusiast. I love computing and I love digital photography.

Anyway, I reckon you might benefit from looking at Martin Evening's book, Photoshop 7.0 for photographers. If you are using a previous version of PS there that's out there too. Might even be on ebay.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

Martin

[elm54]

Hiya,
And welcome. It sounds like you do have a large job ahead of you , The computer thing is a big decision and can get crazy with all the different opinions you will receive. I don't know where you are but I do know B&H Photo has a whole digital Dept. And they are pretty dependable. I am not a professional just an enthusiast and a photo novice. I primarily us a Macintosh dual 800 mghtz with alot of Ram and storage. It appears to me that most of the more experienced Photographers around here use PC's and it also seems that most of the software they are using is PC stuff though Photoshop is great on both platforms . Breezebrowser, yarc, Thumbs plus, qimage, and awhole bunch of other capture , raw conversion and printing software for the canon Dslr are PC stuff.
So you might want to look at a big P4 with lots of ram and storage. and either a dvd burner or cd burner or both.
Good Luck with the 1DS . I wish I had the bucks to lay out for that.
I just threw a little info at you and there are some pretty smart and experienced folks around here , Hopefully they will help you with the info you need to make your decisions .
One more thing , I have a mac like I said . I take a raw to 16 bit linear tif and then run one of pekkas actions on it and it processes it to a pretty good image in about 4 minutes. My pentium 3 866 takes about 6-7 minutes for the same process. Pentium 4 are probably much faster.
I hope some of this was some help. Good Luck
And
Peace
Eric