Tethering: Best Combo - 1Ds2/Laptop/Software?

[Michael_Britt]

My tethered workflow involves setting up the shoot in the camera manufacturers software, hiding it in the background and pointing Bridge to the capture folder. Previews are faster than in DPP and more accurate (easier to adjust) than in Leaf. The only problem with this workflow is that when an image is added to the folder Bridge can't automatically change the large preview to the latest image. I have spoken to Adobe about this and they realize it is on a lot of Photogs wish list. I just use the arrow key as the image loads as a workaround.

Any of you that have read my posts or had a conversation with me know that I am a proponent of using Photoshop as my primary workflow tool. I have thousands of hours into learning and using photoshop and it is a very mature product. I don't have the time or interest in learning the kludgy beta software for every brand of camera I shoot with. I would love to see something similar to scanner twain drivers for digital cameras that would let us capture straight into Photoshop. BTW, I have no affiliation with Adobe other than a few phone conversations and teaching workflow at Thomas Knoll's Great Lakes Digital last summer.

Don't get me wrong, I use many pieces of software to keep my workflow streamlined and running smoothly. I only start looking at other solutions when my current tools aren't meeting my needs. Prior to CS2 Bridge I used iView for editing. It is incredibly fast and has the ability to do negative editing. I once edited 7200 images down to 2000 in less than two hours using iView. I would probably still go to iView for heavy editing but for daily workflow and marking selects with the client during the shoot I use Bridge. At the end of the day all color corrections and starring/labeling get safely rolled into DNG files.

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I have decided to bite the bullet and buy a 30" Apple display and mirror that to the clients.
At that stage, showing the previews on a 30" should be impressive and large enough to view at a reasonable distance.

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How are you doing this, technically?

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I recently set up a second computer and large lcd monitor for the client to edit as we shot. We networked the computers and used Bridge pointed to the capture folder on the main computer. The previews came up on the editing computer about the same time they loaded on the capture machine. Since the large image files stayed on the capture machine Bridge was only accessing the image previews. When the client starred an image as a select on the editing computer the star was added to the original file (sidecar) on the capture machine. This seemed like a happy accident since I didn't expect Bridge to work this way over the network. I have ordered a 20" iMac for this purpose since it gets a little ridiculous lugging around 2 full G5 towers with large lcd monitors and all the peripherals.

[Michael_Britt]

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I have decdided to bite the bullet and buy a 30" Apple display and mirror that to the clients.

At that stage, showing the previews on a 30" should be impressive and large enough to view at a resonable distance.



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James, I don't know if you saw my post in the color forum but beware of taking an apple monitor on location. I have always worried about a cable failure with the built in one-for-all cable design and sure enough it happened. Luckily I was able to finish the job since the monitor still worked but it just wasn't quite right. I took it in for repair and found out that it cost $500 to replace the cable. Since it was user error (I shut cable in car door leaving a hotel) it is not covered under warranty. A 30" monitor was on my end of the year purchase list but I am not sure I can live with the risk of cable failure. I am definitely on the fence about buying any more Apple LCD's.

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