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I'm able to locate any photo in my own catalogs, totaling 23 gigabytes, within a few seconds.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
3 photo developments:
  • iView image manager for Macs and Windows gets even better
  • You can get U.S. combat photos by e-mail
  • The real cost of some inkjets might surprise you


Dec. 7, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   I have three developments related to digital photography to share with you this week.
   Improved photo software: In the software area, my No. 1 choice for photo-cataloging software has just become better. It's iView Media Pro, the cross-platform image manager from www.iview-multimedia.com. The "Pro" version of iView is by far the most powerful image manager I've ever used. The current version, iView Media Pro 2.0.1, adds drag-and-drop image management, the ability to turn a series of still images into a video, direct creation of PDF files, built-in image editing and a dozen other improvements.
   Each iView Media Pro catalog can hold up to 128,000 pictures, and each one can be shown as a thumbnail of any practical size or as an informative listing within the catalog. Viewing full-size images is as simple as pressing a key. If you have more than 128,000 images, you simply create separate catalogs for each group of 128,000.
   iView Media Pro scrolls quickly through thousands of photos, and its search capabilities are outstanding. I'm able to locate any photo in my own catalogs, totaling 23 gigabytes, within a few seconds.
   iView Media Pro was designed for OS X, the state-of-the-art operating system that comes with modern Apple Macintosh computers. A standard version, missing the advanced features of iView Media Pro, is available for Windows as well as for OS X. The "Pro" version costs $160 (Mac OS X only); the standard version, iView Media 1.3 for Windows and Mac OS X, costs $30. (The standard version also runs on the discontinued Mac OS operating system, but only on the last two versions before Apple stopped developing it. They are Mac OS 9.1 and 9.2.)
   You can also get a free iView catalog viewer from the iView Web site. There's a Windows version and a Mac version (OS X and Mac OS 9.1 or 9.2). This allows you to put iView catalogs and an iView viewer on CDs and share them with both Windows and Mac users.
   Both versions of iView store your photos in their normal formats. If you have hundreds of JPEG images, the iView catalog will contain those same images without any changes. The catalog data information is stored separately.
   Combat photos: Another development I'm excited about is a mailing list that sends you the latest U.S. combat photos from Iraq, Afghanistan and any other location where American forces are deployed. You receive an HTML-formated e-mail every weekday showing the latest contributions from U.S. military combat photographers. (Now and then, you'll also get photos from non-combat military photographers, but most of the images are combat photos or pictures from a combat zone.) All the photos sent to subscribers have been released by the military; they are not classified pictures.
   To subscribe to the mailing list, choose the Combat Camera link at afishp6.afis.osd.mil/dodimagery/html/aboutlist.html.
   Each e-mail shows thumbnails of the latest photos. Clicking on a thumbnail opens a Web page with a larger image and a caption giving details about the image, including the name of the photographer. Clicking on that image displays the high-resolution version of the picture, and you can also click on a link to download the high-resolution version.
   As a former combat photographer myself, I appreciate the work and danger involved in getting top-quality photos from a war zone. I also appreciate the speed with which these combat photos are delivered. In Vietnam, where I worked, days and sometimes weeks might pass before anyone was able to see my photos. By contrast, the e-mailed Combat Camera pictures sometimes appear in your e-mail inbox within a few hours after they were taken.
   High cost of ink: Would you pay $1,000 for a $50 printer? That's what you're doing when you buy some models of inkjet printers. The cost of ink over a three-year period can push the cost of using the printer to more than $1,000 in that typical three-year time frame, according to surveys of actual ink costs.
   The Lexmark Z605 printer had the highest ink cost in one such survey, conducted by PC magazine. The Z605 cost $50 to buy, but the cost of ink was reported to be $387 a year. The three-year total was $1,021.
   The least expensive printer in overall usage cost in that survey was the Epson Stylus C84, which cost $100 to buy and $198 a year to use, with a three-year cost of $354. Next was the HP Business Inkjet 1100d, which cost $200 to buy and $272 to use for a year, with a total three-year cost of $375.
   It's no secret that manufacturers charge an extremely high price for ink. It would cost thousands of dollars per gallon if you bought it that way. Aftermarket inks usually cost less but sometimes aren't good enough to justify taking a chance on non-standard inks. Until printer companies stop charging so much for ink, consumers will have to shop with great care not only for a good printer but for one that keeps its hands off your wallet, too.