Discussion Group Notes April 25, 2008

Tonight six club members gathered to discuss photography. Jerry brought in some beautiful prints of flowers for everyone to look at and offer suggestions. There were some questions on mounting and framing. From there the discussion moved into the brightness of the prints, calibrating monitors, printer profiles, pixels, dots-per-inch, and so on. It became obvious that none of us were experts in this area. If anyone is an expert in all this then you'll be more than welcome to come and help us out.

We discussed the workshops we've had and how they might be changed to help out people with other than Photoshop products, mat cutters, and the other stuff that most of the senior members have.

This led to a discussion about how much we don't know about the club membership, what software they have, and so on. John and I agreed that it might be helpful to do some sort of survey, either in person at one of the meetings or online, especially of the newcomers. It was late and we didn't have time to pursue identifying specific questions or how best to go about it. I'll try to think of some questions this week.

The other John explained that much of his problems stem from his lack of familiarity with Windows itself.

At next week's meeting I'll bring in my laptop (there are outlets in the wall next to the small tables) and see if I can help him with that and also see if I can help explain dots-per-inch and related issues, though I'm still a little fuzzy on some of the details.

Sitting at a separate table was a gentleman who participated a little and stated that he liked doing 3D photography and uses some of his work to help in designing models of ships and things. He is looking for an image splitter or some other way to capture motion. He said he comes to the cafe often.

This meeting differed from last week's in that we stayed indoors and everyone mostly stayed with one subject at a time, though the subject floated considerably. There were fewer topics covered but they were discussed at more length. We ran over about 25 minutes and I wished I could have stayed longer but it was getting late.

I hope to see more folks join us in the coming weeks and months. Bring your questions, your photos, and anything else you'd like to talk about.

 

Glenn Olson
Coordinator and Moderator
oglenn@earthlink.net