Sony f717 Ebook.pdf

The Sony eBook

The Sony eBook

iNova, Peter, 1944–

The Sony Advanced Cyber-shot eBook

By Peter iNova

Includes CD with software programs for image manipulation, demonstration, and eBook display for

both Macintosh and Windows computer platforms.

Text prooing

Marian Inova, Anita Dorich

Contributing Gallery photographers

Edwin and Stephanie Martinez, Aaron Perry, Lisa Young, Ron Hodgson, Andrew Pampallis, Joe

Jones, Jeff Dykes, Scott Dommin, Amy Walters, Shay Stephens, Michael Chiu, Pablo Lopez, Kather-

ine Chan and Paul Pelletier.

ISBN 1-882383-18-4

The Sony Advanced Cyber-shot eBook

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including

photocopying, recording, ile duplication, or by other electronic, logical, or mechanical methods, or by any infor-

mation storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author and Graphics Management

Press, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted

by copyright law. For permission requests write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordina-

tor,” at the address below.

Graphics Management, Inc.

P.O. Box 241811

Los Angeles, CA 90024

(310) 475-2988

E-Mail: gm@graphics-management.com

The author and publisher assume neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any direct or indirect

loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, by the information, data, software, or computer iles contained herein, or for

errors, omissions, inaccuracies, or any other inconsistencies within these documents, pages, programs, or iles, or for uninten-

tional slights against people or organizations.

Book design, layout, and CD preparation by Peter iNova

All photographs, diagrams, and artwork within the text by Peter iNova unless noted otherwise.

Additional photographs in the Gallery by the photographers cited. Copyrights belong to the participating photog-

raphers.

Published in the USA

The Sony eBook

FOREWORD/FORWARD

Why this eBook?

In 1999 I wrote a book on digital photog-

raphy about a speciic camera, the Nikon

Coolpix 950. Why? Because I wanted a book

that was a match to the depth and quality of

the camera, and the world wasn’t offering me

a satisfactory option. If it wasn’t an option

for me, it wasn’t an option for anybody else,

either. Bell that cat!

I’ve taught a lot of photographers over the

years, but not in a classroom format. Mostly

by being at their elbows where the conversa-

tion is free and the chance for wit, quips and

spur of the moment ironic observations is

high. So I wrote a book standing at the elbow

of you, the reader. Then showed it around.

Publishers weren’t interested. The project

didn’t it their understandings which see

books of this sort as being rather like a

manual with black and white images only.

Excuse me? This camera is all color all the

time.

I was equally not interested in itting the

vision of my project to theirs. Impasse.

This is the i-age, the e-age and the world that

surfs the Internet. Digital photographers as a

group must have computers to complete their

images, print them and distribute them.

As conceived, the book would include

software for digital camera owners and a web

site to carry the reader into new ideas as they

appeared. It was less about paper pages and

more about information and how to do in

the computer what had previously been done

with wetness and chemistry.

So the eBook concept was formed. It wasn’t

paper pages with four-color printing, but it

had features no paper book could contain.

Interactivity, for instance.

Immediate access to the CD full of software,

demos, and iles of examples, for instance.

Plus a feature I had not anticipated earlier;

big, sharp, clear color photos—sharper than

anything you have seen from an electronic

publication and more detailed than you can

experience mechanically reproduced on

paper.

It is also came to market from a more

progressive publishing source, Graphics

Management Press, who have embraced new

technologies where the larger publishers fear

to tread. (Their design and production of the

1991 book, Witness to War: Images of the

Persian Gulf War , garnered a Pulitzer Prize

for their client, The Los Angles Times. )

The book went on to become an industry-

leading Best Seller. With around 15,000

copies (currently) and four version updates

to include new Coolpix models, it has broken

just about all the records for an eBook of any

kind.

The reviews have been encouraging to say

the least. And photographers who use Canon,

Kodak, Fuji and Olympus cameras have all

asked me to do the same for their favorite

cameras.

Life is short, time is precious and outstanding

cameras are rare. In 2001 I bought a Sony

Cyber-shot that looked promising. Little did

I suspect...

This eBook orbits about the milestone Sony

DSC-F707/717 cameras which are the best

still cameras Sony has produced and the

inest digital cameras one can hope to work

with to date. These cameras combine such a

well-coordinated series of features and abili-

ties that they deserved to have their many

secrets revealed.

The eBook is not a manual, exactly, but it

digs into the secrets that lie behind each

feature, knob, button and menu item that

have hidden meanings. Secrets that can help

you make better images while making your

images better. Other books exist to give you

the “improved manual” experience.

If I’ve done my job here, you will be taking

better pictures, and you will know why they

are better. You’ll be printing, correcting,

improving, and inessing your shots through

a greater experience base, and you will be

enjoying Photoshop instead of thinking it’s

just too hard to learn. That camera in your

hand is a fabulous instrument that beckons

you to create images. It has a lot to teach you

and you have a lot to teach it.

Bon aperture...

-Peter iNova, September, 2002

iii

GETTING THE MOST FROM THIS EBOOK

This eBook is a text, a number of computer elements on CD, and an

extended experience on the Internet.

If you are inspecting images closely, the selection box on the thumbnail

image will show you the portion of the page you are currently viewing.

Clicking the cursor on any other image in the stream of thumbnails will

jump to it instantly while maintaining the current magniication. This makes

it easy to compare similar-sized images and peer into their details unusually

quickly. Without printing dots to break up the pixel structure, the details

stay more photographic.

ACROBAT VIEWING

Three main ile types are here in two folders marked High Res and Ultra

Res. Each contains individual chapter iles and clicking on any of them will

start up Acrobat for viewing. In the High Res folder one large ile contains

all chapters in a continuous string. The text in each is identical, but the Ultra

Res chapter iles have greater image detail.

As you read these pages in Adobe Acrobat™, the page is taller than your

screen, most likely, and the distance from your eyes to the screen is greater

than your normal book-reading distance. In order to adjust for that, the page

image will likely feel best to you at 125% or 150% scale, as set by Acrobat

in the lower left corner of the display. With the page at 140% magniication,

it works well on a 14- or 15-inch screen such as is found on many portable

computers. You can have Acrobat optionally show you one page at a time,

or pages laid out like an open book, or as pages following one another in a

continuous scroll.

PRINTING OUT

You can print out ranges of pages from this book in black and white, as with

a laser printer, or in color, as with an ink-jet printer, any time you wish for

reference. The color charts and test images are on the CD for easy access

and may be printed out, too.

INOVAFX ACTIONS

Included on the CD are the Photoshop Actions under the iNovaFX brand.

These are 100% original procedures, manipulations, and helpful orchestra-

tions of Photoshop’s myriad features, all of which are speciically designed

to achieve three things:

1. Correction, perfection, and performance enhancement of Sony DSC-

F707/717 images.

2. Demonstration of, and experience with, the rich Photoshop Menu of

Plug-in Filters.

3. Artistic, impressionistic, and graphic interpretation of your photo-

graphs in original ways.

Included in the irst group are the iBC barrel distortion Actions, the iCrAb

chromatic aberration reduction Actions, the iCC color-repair Actions,

the B&W ilm-look Actions, the JPEG artifact-suppressing Action, the

ISO-boosting Actions, the iFF denoise Actions, and several others. They’re

all created to work particularly well with the images from these cameras.

Some, like the iBC and iCC Actions are tuned so speciically to these partic-

ular cameras and their individual optical systems, that using the Actions on

the images from other cameras will not give ideal results. New Actions have

joined the collection with this eBook version. Some last-minute instructions

may be found in the ReadMe documents.

THUMBNAIL BROWSING

The thumbnails running down the left side of the Acrobat Reader page

work well as a quick browser. They give you a chance to scan the chapter or

complete eBook pages fairly quickly and spot any page that looks familiar.

Any page you can see is accessible by simply clicking on it. Immediately

the new page will appear at viewing size. The header bar has a control to

turn the thumbnail images on and off to conserve screen space, if you wish.

INTERACTIVITY

You will ind a certain level of Acrobat interactivity in some places. Gener-

ally, clicking on any color-identiied text will jump to a referenced topic if

an interactive link is in place. Click on a chapter in the Table of Contents

and the chapter will immediately appear. In the text, a citing of another

chapter’s information on the subject will also link to it.

Note that the Acrobat reader behaves much like an Internet browser and

the solid arrow triangles in the header will navigate forward and backward

through a string of interactive jumps.

Individual chapters link to prior and following pages even when those pages

are in a different chapter ile. Click on the bottom of the last page to jump to

the top of the next chapter’s irst page, and click on the top of the irst page

to jump backwards to the last page of the previous chapter. About 20% of

the page is activated.

INTERNET UPDATES

It is inevitable. Data in a timely document like this may give way to new

information, become obsolete, or acquire new meanings as technology pro-

gresses. After reading through this eBook you may wish to visit our special

site holding updated information, links, special offers, new techniques, and

the latest information about these cameras.

http://www.itssony.com

http://www.digitalsecrets.net

ZOOMING IN

Most of the images in this book are made from full-size iles from the

DSC-F707. Some images have been made on other digital cameras where

image qualities or speciic features of the 707/717 aren’t at issue. All can be

seen in closer detail. In general, you can zoom into them with as much as

a 200% magniication without seeing pixels. Some images can be viewed

even closer in the Ultra-Resolution chapter iles. Ultra Resolution iles are

designed to withstand a 400% enlargement on your monitor without break-

ing into discrete pixels. Not all images will do this. The High-Resolution

iles are faster to move through, simply because the images contain less

data.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 SONY, THE ONE AND ONY...........................................................1-1

CHAPTER 2 DIGITAL FINGERS..........................................................................2-1

CHAPTER 3 MYTH REDUCTION........................................................................3-1

CHAPTER 4 THE PHOTOSHOP CONNECTION................................................4-1

CHAPTER 5 HOW DO I?...................................................................................5-1

CHAPTER 6 LEARNING DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY...........................................6-1

CHAPTER 7 PRINTING DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS.............................................7-1

CHAPTER 8 SPECIAL EFFECTS..........................................................................8-1

CHAPTER 9 VEXING FAQS...............................................................................9-1

CHAPTER 10 INOVAFX ACTION OPERATION................................................10-1

APPENDIX......................................................................................................AX-1

INDEX...............................................................................................................IX-1

SHOOTING FOR EFFECT.................................................................................FX-1

DIGITAL VISIONS II: A GALLERY OF CYBER-SHOT PHOTOGRAPHY ...............BONUS VOLUME

FOREWORD/FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

GETTING THE MOST FROM THIS EBOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

NOTE TO FILM PHOTOGRAPHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

MEET THE CAMERAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii

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