We are pleased to offer our visitors
monthly photo techniques by Larry Frank – photographer,
traveller, presenter, Photoshop instructor, digital retouch artist.
Leave Your Laptop at Home –
As a digital photographer, whenever I've traveled in past, I always dragged my laptop along to download and process
my images. Believe me, it was a headache. It added weight and even worse, it could have been stolen! A laptop is
an attractive item to steal in most countries because it can earn a fortune for the thief (even if it's password
protected). And, of course, if that ever happened, I'd loose all my other images plus all my important personal and
business files.
Because of that fear, I once left the laptop home and used internet cafes to burn backup CDs. That was a big mistake. CD burners in internet cafes are often unreliable and very slow or not capable of replaying the CD to verify that all images were recorded. I've lost many a file and had many corrupted files as well with this scenario.
Now, I've solved the problem. I leave the laptop home and travel with an Epson P6000 - 80 gigs of reliable storage
in a 5 1/2 x 3 inch package with a
2 1/2 x 3 1/4 LCD screen. I can view each image file, enlarge it, enhance it with brightness, contrast and saturation,
sharpen it, colour balance it... and upload images at an internet café to send home or to friends.
Another real benefit: I can lock the unit in my hotel room safe or carry it with me in my Lowepro bag. I can also use it as an iPod.
So, I'm off next month on vacation without my laptop (and my wife will be happy because I won't be glued to it when we should be on the beach!)