This last group, photographers, not only includes digicam-wielding soccer moms, but advanced amateurs, semi-pros, pros and even the extreme guys like Art Wolfe. Vista was outfitted with tools and features to allow photogs of all stripes to find the OS usable right out of the box.

How well did they do? Let us explore the steps needed to get a Vista 64-bit Digital Darkroom in operation.

Bits of Kit 

For our Vista 64-bit Digital Darkroom you need several bits of equipment:

1. Digital camera – this makes digital image captures fast and easy. The same (or better some claim) can be had by shooting film and then scanning with a high resolution film scanner, but this method is rather time consuming (film needs to be developed and scanned) so for the sake of brevity, we will stick to digital capture. For this guide I used my trusty Canon 1D Mk II DSLR, my wife's Nikon P5000 digicam and a Nikon D40x DSLR + Canon Powershot S750 digicam graciously loaned to us by Microsoft.
2. A reasonably powerful computer – a top of the line gaming box or workstation is not necessary (but it couldn't hurt). Current mid-range Core2/A64-X2 offerings are suitable and 2GB of RAM is recommended for image manipulation. AMD graciously provided me with a QuadFX 3GHz system with 4GB of RAM and an HD 2900XT video card. Running a 64-bit OS like Vista (I used the Ultimate edition) will allow you to tap the full potential of your hardware especially if you have 4GB of RAM or more.
3. Storage – Your workstation is going to have to hold a lot of photos. Digital cameras lend themselves to prolific shooting (since taking a picture costs nothing) and, unless you have the discipline of a samurai, you will want to squirrel away all your shots, even the bad ones. And this is exacerbated if you shoot in RAW (the camera's native internal file format) which occupy more space that JPEG images. Plan on at least 250GB of storage on your machine and more elsewhere for archiving and backups. I currently sport a 500GB SATA II drive on my workstation. I also have a server with 1TB of secondary storage which is backed up using extrnal drives and an offsite backup service. (You can't be too careful.) There are several other less expensive network storage devices available as well.
4. A good monitor – Your images are only as good as the means you have to display them. Invest in a good monitor to allow you to view them correctly. Some purists shy away from LCD displays, but modern LCD's offer excellent image rendition and don't take up a lot of room. I currently own a Dell WFP 3007 30" Display which provides me with ample screen real estate (2560×1600 pixels) to see my images and has a built-in card reader for transferring images from my camera to the darkroom.
5. A color calibration device – This little piece of indispensible hardware is the secret to properly manipulating your images and not messing the colors up (unless that was your goal). These devices range in price from $99 to hundreds of dollars depending on model, features and media (some models will calibrate monitors and printers). I use a Spyder2Pro graciously provided by Colorvision. Another model to consider is Pantone's hueyPro which can monitor ambient light and adjust color profiles on the fly. This device can be purchased for less than $130.
6. A good photo printer – Printing photos out requires you invest in a dedicated photo printer. This is not as expensive as it sounds. Modern photo inkjets from HP, Canon, and Epson all provide excellent color rendition, image durability and up to 200 year lightfastness (ability to resist fading) and start around $99. One important thing to note is that the best image quality is achieved by using the manufacturer's ink and paper together. Let's face it, their money is made on the consumables. Plan on buying a printer large enough to handle the size of prints you want to work with.
7. A comfy place to work – You're gonna be sitting in front of this machine for quite a bit of time. Make sure your work area is big enough and comfortable enough for you to work properly. A proper chair/desk arrangement is key. Fatigue can lead to mistakes and that is always a recipe for trouble.
8. Software – Choose the software package that meets your needs, budget, and photo shooting style. Many pro cameras ship with RAW conversion software (like Canon's Digital Photo Pro or Nikon's NX) or you can use 3rd party programs like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop + ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) plugin, Bibble Labs' Bibble Pro, Phase One's C1, and many others. I personally use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (v1.1) for content management and RAW conversion (with Bibble Pro 4.9.8 as an alternate for special cases) and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended for image manipulation. Vista offers Windows Gallery for Digital Asset Management with support for RAW files (available via Windows Update).
9. Workflow – Have a plan. Develop a pattern regarding the way you process images and follow the pattern. Don't be too rigid though. Be willing to adapt and learn from others.
10. A willingness to communicate and learn – There are many online communities that specialize in digital photography from general forums like Digital Photography Review and Fred Miranda's site to specialty forums like Rangefinder Forums and Leica Users' Forums. Join one or more and participate. You will learn a great deal and your photography wil benefit immensely. Also, web galleries like Pbase, Smugmug and Zenfolio allow you to share/showoff your images for a low annual cost.

We will now discuss several of these points in detail and how Vista's handles them out-of-the-box.

{mospagebreak title=Digital Cameras}

I spy with my digital eye…

There are more models of digital cameras on the market today than you can shake a stick at. Digital cameras sales surpassed film cameras years ago and show no signs of letting up. More resolution, features, and quality glass (plexi or otherwise) are packed into each subsequent generation making it easier and easier to take reasonably good exposures with no actual photographic training. I say exposures because without composition skills, no camera (regardless of the quality of it's optics, speed of it's processor or dynamic range of it's sensor) can save a photo from being hopelessly mediocre. Great photos are in the eye of the photographer and his/her skill at using the camera to capture the image is what separates the great photographers from the rest of us (I include myself in that latter group).

For our Vista x64 Digital Darkroom I used my own Canon 1D Mk II pro DSLR, my wife's Nikon P5000 high-end P&S (point & shoot) digicam, a Nikon D40x entry level DSLR and a Canon Powershot S750 P&S digicam loaned to us by Microsoft).

Getting photos out of the camera and into the computer is accomplished two ways:

1. Direct camera-to-PC transfer: usually accomplished via USB but some pro cameras also sport IEEE1394 (Firewire). This requires drivers from the manufacturer so that the camera can be recognized by the PC. Vista recognized all four cameras automatically.
2. USB/Firewire card reader: a safer bet as these devices are recognized as removable storage by Vista. Using a card reader has the added benefit of not draining your camera's battery (especially good in the wild).

Vista's out-of-box experience with these cameras varied in a couple of areas. The digicams, which record images as JPEG files, were easily detected by Vista x64 and the images were imported into Windows Gallery. Windows Gallery provides several easy-to-use tools for adjusting/correcting the images. Gallery also provides excellent slideshow capabilities.

The trouble started with the DSLR's. Shooting JPEG files with them yielded results similar to the digicams. However, when switching to the DSLR's proprietary RAW format, Windows Gallery noted the files and went to the manufacturer's website to download the appropriate codec. The snag is that neither Canon nor Nikon offer the RAW codec in 64-bit, so there is no way to manage RAW workflow using the built-in tools in Vista x64. Until they release 64-bit codecs, Windows Gallery, while capable, will play a minor part in the workflows of anyone above the casual photographer.

{mospagebreak title=Software}

3rd Party Software to the Rescue!

Enter the 3rd party software developers to fix and/or enhance the situation. In my case Adobe Software, Breeze Systems and Bibble Labs.

The main programs I use in my digital darkroom are:

1. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (v1.1) – a brand new digital asset management/RAW workflow product in the Photoshop family. Powered by code from the recently acquired Pixmantec (former developers of the excellent Raw Shooter Essential/Professional program), Lightroom has become my main application for culling, sorting, developing and printing photos. Lightroom provides a subset of tools found in Photoshop, but they are redesigned and streamlined to maximize workflow efficiency. It's photo import function is quite usable and (as of version 1.1) works automatically in Vista x64. Plugs very nicely into Photoshop (CS2 & CS3). Also available for the Mac.
2. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended – my secondary editor of choice, used for special projects or when the image manipulations required exceed the limited set of tools provided with Lightroom. Mac version also available.
3. BibbleLabs Bibble Pro – a super fast RAW workflow software with excellent plug-in support and multiprocessor capabilities. Includes Noise Ninja for superior image recovery at high ISO and sports fine grained B&W conversion utilities. I use this product for large batch processing (trade show shoots, sporting events, etc). At $129 (pro version) this program is a must for any digital darkroom. Also plugs into Photoshop. Mac and Linux versions available.
4. Breeze Systems DownloaderPro – you're probably wondering why I would use a dedicated application for importing images from my card reader when Vista, Lightroom, Bibble Pro, and Photoshop all have this capability. Chris Breeze's DLPro has to be the finest image importer on the planet, automatically sorting images and (with a little profile setup) categorizing them based on EXIF shooting metadata. My profile automatically sorts images by camera used + year + date of the shoot, but there are dozens of other criteria that can be used. The app's only shortcoming is an inability to register as a card reader auto-event in x64. Hopefully this will be dealt with in version 3.

{mospagebreak title=The Color Issue}

Color, Light and other Bits of Science

What most budding photographers really need to understand is the science and nature of light and color. Thomas Kincaide has been called the "Painter of Light", but photographers paint with light every day. I could go on for many pages on this subject. Entire books (by people far more qualified than moi) have been published on it. I will attempt to boil it down to something manageable but useful.

All light is made of color. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light energy versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra. (Wikipedia)

Cameras (film and digital) record the light being reflected from objects in much the same way the eye does: photons pass through a lens assembly that focusses the light on a receptor medium that processes the signals into a recognizable image. In the eye, the retina is the receptor. In a film camera, it is the film (duh!). In a digital camera, it is the sensor.

The digital camera usually processes the raw sensor data into a JPEG file. This is the default setting. However, DSLR's and some top-end digicams have the ability to save the raw sensor data unprocessed. This is called a RAW file or a digital negative. Programs like Lightroom, Photoshop, C1 DSLR, Bibble Pro and Aperture allow you to process the digital negative in your PC giving you the opportunity to correct errors that would otherwise be very difficult to repair.

However, what your camera saw is not what you are seeing on the screen or what is being squirted out on your printer. This is because those three devices (camera, monitor, and printer) all have different ranges of color (called color gamut). To alleviate the issue, we use a fourth device: the color calibrator.

Color calibrators all operate basically the same way. A sensor is plugged into a USB port and draped over the monitor. A software package runs on the machine displaying a series of colors while the sensor takes detailed measurements and compares the measurements to a set of standard values. A color profile is then generated for the monitor which is then installed via a control panel into Vista. More advanced calibrators also calibrate printers. In my case, the Spyder2Pro only calibrates monitors. I used advanced printer profiles provided by Epson (I own an Epson Photo Stylus R800). The latest version of the Spyder software allows for manual sampling of ambient light which provides even more accurate calibration. The drawback of this method is that you always have to work with the lights on and the windows curtained. Pantone's hueyPro includes a cradle for the sensor that constantly samples the ambient light and adjusts the color profile accordingly.

Vista's out-of-box performance in this area is slightly better than XP. A dedicated color management system has been incorporated into it. The system is based on the new Windows Color System (WCS) which, sadly, is unsupported by any color calibrator currently on the market. Never fear, the control panel accepts ICC color profiles for display and printers, providing a nice clean interface for managing (adding/using/deleting) profiles. The only issue is that once a display profile has been set, any occurence of UAC (User Account Control) causes the control panel to revert to the default WCS profile. The workaround is to disable UAC and to keep an eye on the background image. If the color shifts (some other programs also trigger the reversion) just run the calibrator's profile chooser and reset it to the custom profile.

In Part 2, we'll look at the cameras involved, some models of calibrators, printers and storage. In Part 3, we'll discuss image prinitng and workflow.