If you check out the side bar you will see I have added a couple of new features including RSS feed and email subscription to the blog. As well as plenty of new links to keep you entertained on these cold Winter Autumn nights.

One week till my trip to the Ukraine, the train tickets are booked and the tour to Chernobyl is go, go, go. I’m not sure what to expect from Chernobyl but I’ve been warned not to wear sandals, t shirts and cover up as best as you can. Also, they say in the Lonely Planet that it is wise to throw your shoes away when you get back. Not really your standard package tour holiday now is it? Anyway, here is another You Tube video for your pleasure about an Aussie bloke that took the same tour as the one we are going on.

I bet I come back with 12 nipples, glowing green and bald. Again, I shall be life blogging the week off my Nokia N95 phone and iPod Touch to keep you all entertained.

Last Saturday I bought a new printer and not just any printer. The flagship Epson R2880 is now taking up half of my bedroom. The quality of the prints is mind blowing especially in black and white. Having three different shades of black really does help with toning and is the closest thing to darkroom pritning I have seen.
The default setting seemed to be on the dark and dull side so after a little digging on the web I found some good settings for Ilford Galerie Pearl classic paper which I’m using at the moment.
If you are having trouble setting up the Epson R2880 these settings seem to work for me. I also have my monitor calbrated which helps no end with colour matching.

Colour Printing
Photoshop CS3
Colour Handling – Printer Manage Colour
Paper – Epson Premium Glossy
Colour Setting – Epson Standard
Print Quality – SuperPhoto 5760dpi

Advanced Colour Settings Tab
Gamma – 1.8 (even if you have your monitor set to 2.2)

Black and White Printing
Photoshop CS3
Colour Handling – Printer Manage Colour
Paper – Epson Premium Glossy
Colour – Advanced B&W Photo
Print Quality – SuperPhoto 5760dpi

Advanced Colour Settings Tab
Tone – Dark (Default is set to Darker)

Photo of the day
12 Apostles – Cape Town (Click on the photo and view it large, it looks so much better). I took this from Lions Head just as the sun started to set.

Till the next time, Sam.