Computer Equipment
Which computer?
Currently I am using an Apple Intel iMac, 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM.
I have also an Apple G4 Powerbook (which is nice).
Though I am using Macs, you can do similar things with a Windows PC.
So how do you get the images from the camera to the website?
At the moment I generally use iPhoto to organise and sort my photographs. This is especially useful when I need to get a lot of photos online very quickly (as in after GamesDay).
Most of my cameras can be connected direct to the computer using USB and as the newer cameras are USB 2.0 now this is much faster than the USB 1.1 my other cameras used. With those cameras I would generally use a card reader as it would be faster.
Editing
For editing I use Fireworks, which I crop, resize and compress the image for the website.
I use a standard 600 pixel wide size, which offers a good compromise between size of picture and file size. Also having bigger pictures would slow the site down and increase my bandwidth costs.
Film or Print to Computer
There are various ways of getting your prints from a film camera into a computer. I still do this as I am now re-scanning some of my older images as they either were not scanned correctly or have (for some reason) been saved multiple times and therefore are full of compression artefacts.
CD
Usually I when getting my film developed I would get it scanned onto CD as it is realtively cheap and a lot lot quicker than scanning all the images by hand.
Scanning
I have used many different scanners, currently I am using a Canon MP600r
Most of the images are now scanned in at full resolution at 24-bit colour, saved as a bitmap, before using Macromedia Fireworks program to convert into JPG format. What this means is that the original 704Kb BMP image now becomes a 40Kb JPG image. Of course there is a loss in quality, but for screen work it is acceptable.
Prior to this stage some photos are digitally altered, sometimes it's just a matter of erasing the odd bit of fluff, but I have for example, removed the flying bases from this Epic Battle Scene and added a background to Sharke and Elephant in Mountains.
In some cases we can be more ambitious. with these photographs of two Snotling Pump Wagons, the first has had motion blur added to the wheels, whilst the second is an attempt to show them at speed.
Printers
Canon MP600r
This is a wireless networked all-in-one which prints very nice pictures.
P1000 Photosmart Printer
My printer is the P1000 Photosmart printer, due to cartridge problems with the original photosmart printer and that I needed a replacement for my laser (and the P1000 is good at both colour and black and white). It's a great printer with an excellent print engine and also had the advanatage that you can print straight from a digital camera memory card without even needing to switch the PC on. It's also very useful as a standard page printer and ink consumption is not excessive.
Considering it is now over eight years old, it is still going really well, and can print a mean picture! The same print engine is used in the HP 1220c and G95 which shows that it can last. It still works really hard as I use it to print stuff for work when working from home and it seems to work well.
I have also shared and networked it with my other computers and the Macs and it works fine.
Legacy Equipment
Details on older equipment used to capture, create and convert images for the website can be found here.