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Happy New Year and a Winter Product Review of NuTouch Touchscreen-Compatible Gloves

HAPPY NEW YEAR, and all the best to you and yours for a Happy and Healthy 2017 and beyond!

I thought it would be fitting, as we enter 2017, to share a photo from about a dozen years ago. It’s a photo of our son Tyler with my Dad (his Grandpa Mark) when Tyler was just two months old. It’s my version of “Father Time w/ Baby New Year!” Below the photo is the image info.

Image Info: The lighting was entirely from a table lamp and a halogen torch lamp. Both of those lights had the same color temperature, so it was easy to balance them in Lightroom when I prepared the final image. Camera Data: Camera: Fuji FinePix S3 Pro; Lens: Tamron 28-300mm XR Di f/3.5-6.3 @ 60mm; F-stop: f/4.8; Exposure: 1/250 Sec.; ISO: 200.

I have a lot to be thankful for this past year. I was able to work with many new and longtime clients and workshop participants, and I was able spend quite a lot of time with family in 2016, especially Tyler, who just turned 13 (oh my!). My wife and I (and his teachers at school and at a weekly social class he attends) have been helping Tyler to become more independent and outgoing each day. If you haven’t seen the special GoFundMe page I set up recently about our upcoming week-long intensive therapy for Tyler, which I believe will have very positive results based on the techniques we are already implementing, you can take a look at it here. In the photo below, I included a photo of Tyler at 10 months old with a photo of me, Tyler and my wife, Belinda a few months ago at my wife’s Mom and Dad’s 50th Anniversary.

We are extremely thankful to everyone who contributed and shared the information. I generally don’t share such personal family matters, and I’ve never requested assistance in this way, but I had a feeling that our story would help others who are experiencing similar family situations, and I was right. The outpouring of love and thoughtful comments have been very heartwarming.

QUICK PRODUCT SUGGESTION FOR SMARTPHONES or CAMERAS w/ TOUCHSCREENS

Cold weather in many parts of the world brings cold hands and fingers when outside (or in a cold car), and that can pretty easily be solved with gloves. However, most gloves are useless on touch-screen devices, and if you have an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, you may have noticed that the home button is even more finicky when using gloves (assuming you are not using Touch ID, which recognizes your fingerprints on the home button).

That being said, I found an inexpensive and comfortable set of gloves that work very well (even while pressing the often difficult to press buttons on DSLRs when using many different gloves). They are called NewerTech NuTouch Gloves, and they are currently priced at under $10 at Other World Computing (see above). You can find them in a few different sizes here. You can also find them for about $14 on Amazon.com here. The Other World Computing links are not affiliate links, but the one to Amazon.com is, which helps to support our publishing efforts.

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Please let me know if you have any questions about Image Backups, Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. and I might just answer them here on ImagingBuffet.com (or privately if it’s a quick answer). You can reach me here.

All the best, and I hope to be back soon with more tips and techniques!

-Andrew

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How to Take a Screenshot on an iOS Device with a Single Screen Tap

There are many reasons why you might want to take a screenshot on your computer or smartphone. One of the main ones for those who love taking pictures is to crop a photo quickly (just pinch to zoom, take a snapshot of the photo, and a new cropped version of the photo will appear in your “All Photos” list.) The problem I was having recently was that I kept putting my iPhone 7 Plus into sleep mode instead of taking a screen shot when I pressed the sleep and home buttons at the same time (that’s the traditional way to take a snapshot on an iOS device). It seems more difficult now for me than it was when I used an iPhone 5S as my main phone.

Below is a step-by-step procedure for setting up your iOS device so that you can take a screenshot in one screen tap (well, I should probably write “screen push” or “extended tap.” If you have a chance to try it out, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

I was also looking for a way to “bookmark” my favorite podcasts while on the go by taking a screenshot of the episode that’s playing in the Podcasts app. Taking a screenshot shows the exact place in the audio file or stream where I would like to return in the future. I was hoping Siri could help me with this, but I don’t think there is a way to take a screenshot using Siri (please let me know if you know of a way to do that). When I asked Siri to take a screen shot, she told me: “That may be beyond my abilities at the moment.”

Here are the steps to take a Screenshot on an iOS Device with a single Screen Tap (Please note: A Device with 3D Touch is needed for a single screen tap, but any iOS device with Assistive Touch should work fine if you are willing to tap twice):

STEP 1: Go to Settings>General>Accessibility. (See Fig. 1)

STEP 2A: Scroll Down to AssistiveTouch and Turn it On. (See Fig. 2 and Fig. 3)

STEP 2B: One More Thing Re: 3D Touch

If you want to make the 3D Touch “Push” action more sensitive (it takes less effort to make a screenshot), choose Light from the “Light, Med, Firm” scale in the 3D Touch menu. I find that Light is perfect whether I’m holding the phone or whether it is in a holder/mount.

STEP 3: Turn on AssistiveTouch, then press Customize Top Level Menu. (See Fig. 3)

STEP 4: Under 3D Touch Action, Choose Screenshot from the menu items. (See Fig. 4)

Fig. 4

STEP 5: You will then see a white button with a black square background around it (about the same size as an app icon) appear on every screen you use (See Fig. 5). When you touch it, it gets much more contrasty, and it will then fade back to about 20% opacity. You can place it just about anywhere along the border of your device’s screen. Quick Tip: You can delete an app in the space where you place the button (or reorganize your apps in iTunes so that it doesn’t overlap with any of your apps).

STEP 6: If the white button is annoying or you just want it to temporarily disappear, you can set up a triple-click action to turn it on and off under Accessibility>Accessibility Shortcut (it’s the last item in the list, as shown in Fig. 6). Then choose AssistiveTouch and triple click to your heart’s content!

If You Don’t Have 3D Touch on Your Device

Many iOS devices don’t have 3D Touch (you can tell that you don’t have it if the 3D Touch Action line is not shown on the screen in Fig. 4). However, you can achieve almost the same result, but you will need to press the screen twice. Once to open the Assistive Touch control (by pressing the white button) and once to choose Screenshot. You won’t be able to see the Screenshot icon by default in the menu (shown in Fig. 4), but you can add it quickly by pressing on any of the icons there (or add a new one by pressing the + key). Then choose Screenshot from the list of items.

Here’s an example of a screen shot captured during the show (at 11:28) from one of my favorite Podcasts, Mac Geek Gab (I highly recommend subscribing to the show (or just listening online) if you use any Mac or iOS device). The show is packed with practical advice, tech tips, gear reviews, etc.

I hope that this was helpful to you and I welcome your comments!

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PhotoPlus Expo 2016 New York City – Registration Info, Free Exhibit Hall Passes and Tips

It’s that time again! The PDN PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo is returning to New York City. The conference runs from Wed.-Sat. 10/19-22 and the Expo runs from Thurs.-Sat. 10/20-22, 2016. If you love photography or video, this is a truly outstanding event and I highly recommend attending.

There is a huge amount of free education on the show floor, as well as in the seminar rooms, and you will find many opportunities to take pictures of still life sets, models, action, etc).

There are also many great fee-based seminars happening, which you can find listed here.

And don’t miss the many, many opportunities to see stunning prints on all types of media. Here is a photo from Epson’s booth, which is always fantastic:

TIPS FOR THE SHOW

Last year, I wrote some Tips For Getting The Most From PhotoPlus Expo. You can find the article here. The tip about downloading the PhotoPlus Expo App is, in my opinion, a biggie. It really helps save time when navigating through the aisles, and in case you don’t read the other article, here is the link to download it for iOS or Android.

FREE PASSES

If you are looking for a promo code for a free pass for the exhibit hall, here’s one option that should work (code is SMILE): https://twitter.com/PhotoPlusExpo/status/785543858935435266

If that doesn’t work, just search the PhotoPlus Expo Twitter feed for more.

TEST DRIVE EVENT

There’s also a free Test Drive event happening on Wed. 10/19 from 4-7pm, which is a great way to see the latest and greatest gear (below is a post about it from the PhotoPlusExpo Facebook page):

LIVE TALKS ON THE SHOW FLOOR

One of my favorite parts of the show is listening to photographers from many different areas of expertise talk about their work. For example, here is a link to a PDF of the show schedule for Nikon’s booth this year.

Adobe will have 30 minute presentations all three days of the show at the Adobe Show Floor Theater. I’m sure these will be fantastic.

The folks at Photofocus.com will have a booth with Perfectly Clear, Platypod Pro, and Plotagraph. I’m particularly excited to be able to learn more about how to make Plotagraphs, which are “moving pictures” that can be made from single exposures.

And here is an announcement from Unique Photo’s Twitter feed. They always have great speakers at their booth:

Visit us at booth 337 at @PhotoPlusExpo October 20-22, check out the latest gear & attend free photography lectures! https://t.co/dlnY843DVG pic.twitter.com/AGVlKRLvAl

— Unique Photo (@UniquePhoto) October 6, 2016

PHOTO WALKS

A few years ago, PhotoPlus started doing photo walks. Here is another Facebook post with info about them:

MORE EVENTS

There is much more happening, and this page has a long list of events. One of them is the Power of Print Pavilion, sponsored by Canon. The company will be making free prints for attendees, and that page has all of the details. Prints will be output on Moab by Legion Paper or Innova Art paper.

And don’t miss the keynotes, which are free with your exhibit hall ticket. On Thursday from 12:30-1:30 PM, Graham Nash and Mark Seliger will share the stage. Graham Nash, along with R. Mac Holbert, helped pioneer the field of fine-art inkjet printing. I had the honor of visiting Nash Editions in California some time ago. Their original IRIS printer is currently housed in the Smithsonian Institution.  Here is an article about it.

And if you can’t get to the show this year, you’ll find a lot of info about new products (plus many special offers) on hardware and software from companies who are exhibiting at the event. The official PhotoPlus Expo Twitter feed is @PhotoPlusExpo (find it here), and their Facebook page can be found here.

If you see me there, please say hi. I look something like this! (this was from last year’s show).

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All the best, thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you at the show!