[Jonathan Ziegler]

I’ve never seen a cooling system – I think mostly because that would require blowing air and, consequently, dust onto the sensor which is bad. I was thinking you could mount an aluminum heat sink (using a Canon mount) to the body and blow air across that (like a computer chip). Would work well with the 7D and 5D because they have metal frames (I may be wrong on the metal frame), but not so with the plastic frame cameras (like the T2i). I guess you could go to a computer store, buy an aluminum heat sink and attach it to a spare lens converter with JB Weld (or something) and try it.

Now I’m gonna have to try it! Gotta make sure no air can sneak in past the mount. May need a small, round piece of aluminum to mount to it first… dunno.

In the meantime, we used a car air conditioner, attached the body cap, and just held it in place. We had 2 cameras so while one was shooting, the other was cooling. This was in the middle of the summer here in Tucson and shooting during the day outdoors.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Duplicate the house on a new layer (presumably the layer is JUST the house and none3 of the background – if not, you need to isolate the house from the background after duplicating).

Flip the house vertical. Adjust the position down so the bases of the original house and the duplicated house line up.

Create a new Layer Mask for the duplicated house.

Select the gradient tool – black to white.

Select the mask you made in the Layers palette.

Drag the gradient from about half-way through the duplicated house to the point where the duplicated house and the original meet. Use shift to constrain to just vertical.

The duplicated house should sort of fade out.

Now, adjust the layer opacity of the duplicated house – maybe to about 50%?

Lemme know how it works.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

The way i found out about inks was by contacting Canon. We already had a 17″ printer for proofs and tests. It was a pro printer that took a roll of paper. We also had a couple desktop inkjets and were wondering why the colors weren’t matching. Canon basically clued us in – because of the types of substrates the pro printers use and the types of applications (ie: outdoors), oil-based inks are used. Some pro printers also use solvent-based inks, but I don’t think Canon does.

The inks aren’t compatible from one printer to another so you can’t switch without a major overhaul and reconfiguring. I’ve heard of people getting Epson printers to use solvent inks for printing full color on t-shirts, but those were done for resale and it wasn’t really an Epson printer when they were done – they were even able to print white on black.

HP lasers used to be really nice, but now they are loaded with problems – colors don’t line up, you get hickeys and lines and the fusers go out at the worst times. If you are doing proofs, I’d say stick with a decent Canon – the colors may shift from home to commercial, but they remain pretty consistent. Same with Epson – good color on both consumer and pro printers. Since I’m not real familiar with the current offering for pro vs. consumer right now, I suggest finding one that meets your needs and try it. You can always return it and try a different one. I suggest printers with separate color cartridges for each color and look for ones that let you get higher capacity for each ink tank.

For daily printing, use a laser if you can. Lasers are notorious for poor color for proofing, though. Toner just doesn’t work like inkjet. Even my color laser requires a lot of tweaking both in Photoshop and with the built in driver. And then, when you’re all done, it doesn’t match when you send it to the printer! 🙁

What I do is print a color bar chart (they’re all over the web) that’s pretty good for color, then print a proof with close colors. I make notes in marker on the proof (ie: make richer red or can you increase contrast?) and give it with my files on a jump drive to the printer. I generally get very nice results.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Most wide format printers these days are a type of ink jet. Plotters were awesome for making blueprints and schematics, but are mostly for special use printing these days and are rarely used (a plotter is basically a pen attached to x/y coordinating runners). Frankly, I wouldn’t buy a plotter today as most pro-level inkjet printers print a much broader range and most printers have gotten rid of their plotters in favor of wide-format ink jets. My experience has been with Canon and Epson wide-format printers (60″ and 54″ respectively). They both have amazing color reproduction, can print on paper, canvas, vinyl, etc. and are all ridiculously expensive. Really, unless you are in a situation where you are printing for profit or your company absolutely must have one of these printers, send your stuff out to a local printer to have it printed. Your cost is more than just the printer: you will need to buy ink, media (ie: paper, vinyl, etc), don’t forget shipping, then you will need a solid RIP (Raster Image Processor) as the ones that come with the printer have minimal features. You could easily spend $10k before you even print your first image. I remember a roll of photo paper, a complete set of ink, and the printer cost us something like $8500 – this included a deal with a supplier in Phoenix who was getting us a discount on supplies AND we had gotten a discount on the printer. When we finally found a RIP we all liked, we spent another $3k and then spend 3 weeks calibrating monitors to printers and vice versa. This was all from ’06-07 (I’ve since left the company).

As for the ink, most home inkjets use water-based ink tanks which dry out. Most pro-wide-format printers use oil-based ink which doesn’t dry out as easily. Honestly, if you are concerned your inks will dry out from lack of use, farm your print jobs to a local printer instead and let them take on the cost of purchasing and maintaining a wide-format printer.

For every day home use, don’t bother with an ink jet. Stick with a good Brother or Xerox color laser printer. Toner doesn’t dry out. I’ve been using the same toner (I bought the extended use toners) for the last 4 years. My per-page cost is pennies. If I had any inkjet, it would be $.40-0.85 a page. With a laser, the up-front cost is higher, but your long term cost for printing is far lower. I’ve also had far fewer problems with my laser than inkjets (like clogging, paper jams, poor color, reprints, etc.). If I need something big printed, I have a couple buddies who can print stuff for me just over cost, but even printing at full retail is better than trying to maintain my own printer.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Not sure what you are doing, but you can repeat any paste, transformation of any kind, etc. using command-option-3 in illustrator. Example: create an object. Doesn’t matter what (say a rectangle or a giant, detailed drawing). If you’re looking to duplicate something offset, make sure you offset the original and hold down option during transformation to make a copy. When you hit cmd-opt-3, it will create a copy along with the transformation.

If this doesn’t help, please reply with specifics on what you’re looking to do along with an example image where available.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

I could be wrong, but I believe it’s because they are coming in at 72 dpi which always looks terrible when printed. Do a resize (command option I) and turn off the resample so it just lets you change 72 dpi to something like 150 dpi or higher. Make the adjustment, save the image, and try printing again. It will print smaller, but with better detail.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Hard to say for sure, but sounds like you’ll have to manually align everything, but is use the nudge (V) and the arrow keys. What version of photoshop are you on and can you send an example? Finally, just to clarify, you have 2 layers that are already aligned and you want to align them to a third layer, right (and ps aligns all 3 like they’re each separate layers)?

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Hard to say for sure, but sounds like you’ll have to manually align everything, but is use the nudge (V) and the arrow keys. What version of photoshop are you on and can you send an example? Finally, just to clarify, you have 2 layers that are already aligned and you want to align them to a third layer, right (and ps aligns all 3 like they’re each separate layers)?

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Insert typical, I’m not a lawyer text… okay, good.

My gut says you will need a release from the location and, at least, the main people featured in the event (ie: fighters, referees, coaches, and/or anyone featured prominently). Won’t likely need releases from the audience unless they are featured prominently (edit around those bits to make them less prominent). May also need a property release from the fight location.

Think in terms of big sporting events like NFL. Everyone signs a release: coaches, staff, players, refs, even press. Basically, if anyone CAN be on camera AND they can get a release signed, they do. Its a pile of paperwork, but its worth it.

If you need to get releases, make sure to get the exact date or date ranges (time is helpful, but not necessary) of the event, get them to sign and offer them $1. If you want a good release, do a search in Google for “Getty model release” (and Getty property release)and click the PDF to download. Make the appropriate changes for your business and run it by a lawyer to be sure. Both releases need a witness signature (can be any third party, but NOT you or the other signer) to be valid and at least $1 consideration. In most cases, I’ll get away with buying someone lunch as payment and I attach the receipt to the release and it’s a legit business expense.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293

[Jonathan Ziegler]

Yep. It prints blurry because it has to scale the image – Illustrator SUCKS at resizing and doesn’t do it right at all. You should always scale to the correct size in Photoshop and then open in Illustrator. The main reason is that Illustrator only references the original file, depositing it into the final print as postscript raster data when you go to print – the scale is referenced from the original file and Postscript also sucks at resizing (worse than AI).

Incidentally, if you are just doing basic cut lines, try doing them in InDesign (ID) instead – InDesign is a sort of go between PS and AI. You do it the same way – load your path from AI in ID, then load your scaled PS file. Lay your outline over the top of the PS file and then make your mask and go from there. I like ID because you can tell it to edit either PS or AI files directly in PS or AI, respectively. It’s a layout app, like Quark Xpress, but I find it easier to use than Quark Xpress.

Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293