DIGITAL DARKROOM Help Please!!

[Dawg]

As a hobbyist what would you include in your digital darkrom.

Equipment
Software

Thanks
Dawg :?:

[Dawg]

As a hobbyist what would you include in your digital darkrom.

Equipment
Software

Thanks
Dawg :?:

ps I would like to produce quality work not just family album type photos

[Vegas Poboy]

Thats a big question to ask but here goes

1. A powerful PC
2. Large screen Monitor & if you can afford it two of them
3. Top of the line printer
4. Top of the line Scanner
5. Color management device & Software
6. Photoshop CS
7. Graphics Tablet.
I'm sure I'm missing something but this is a good start.

[Jesper]

Well, this is my setup at the moment:

PC with Windows XP Home Edition, AMD Athlon 1800+ processor, 1024 MB RAM, 80 GB harddrive, DVD-recorder (for making backups to DVD). Sony Multiscan E400 (19 inch) CRT monitor, Colorvision Spyder (http://www.colorvision.com) (with PhotoCAL software) to calibrate and profile the monitor. Epson Stylus Photo 950 (I believe it's called 960 in the USA) printer.

Software: I use Capture One LE (http://www.c1dslr.com) to convert the RAW images from my 10D to TIFF, and I use Photoshop Elements 2.0, which came with the camera, for detailed editing. I also have Picture Window Pro 3.5 (http://www.dl-c.com) once in a while to do things that PS Elements can't do (for example, converting between color spaces and editing in 16-bit). The full version of Photoshop is much too expensive for me - and I'm not in the USA, so I can't upgrade from PS Elements to the full PS for $299 (and I don't like using an illegal copy!).

I sometimes see posts of people who want to buy a new computer and they're often talking about dual processors, getting six harddrives, etc. I don't think you really need to spend so much money. Any PC with a processor of 1.5 GHz or faster and at least 512 MB RAM is already good enough to do lots of things. A good monitor is ofcourse important if you're working with digital images, and if you want consistent and predictable color reproduction, calibrating and profiling is also mandatory - and a hardware device such as the Spyder works MUCH better than software only solutions such as Adobe Gamma. The printer is OK, but if I was going to buy a printer now, I'd buy one that could print larger than A4 (about 11 x 8.5 inches), probably the Epson 2200.

[Dawg]

V-P, Jesper

Thanks big time for the replys, any suggestion on what scanner and graphisc tablet. I haven't bought the camera yet but the 10D looks like thats where it's at.

Once again THANKS
Dawg

any other suggestions? :)

[SWPhotoImaging]

You can't go wrong with a Wacom Intuos graphics tablet. The 6x9 is quite adequate, but if you like to move your hand a lot more, you can get larger ones.

[Dawg]

Thanks SD, thats the one I was looking at.

Dawg :)