In the latest movie from Digitizing Family Memories, I show viewers how to use their digital cameras to create high resolution files from slides and negatives.

Most hobbyist photographers have some sort of close-up lens, so that isn't a big challenge. The harder part, in my opinion, is the diffused light source. And I think the easiest way to go is with a LED edge light.

For my home setup, I'm using the FotodioX C-200RS FlapJack 7" LED Bi-Color Edge Light. It's easy to set up, has a wonderfully even light source, and I can even adjust the color temperature if necessary.

To help tame the light shining into the lens of the camera, I fashioned a slide holder out of black cardboard. I cut a square out of the center, placed the slide in the opening, and let the camera base the exposure solely on the illuminated film. Plus, it's easier on my eyes as well.

The Flapjack has a built-in diffuser panel. So that eliminates a lot of the work. It also has a standard tripod socket, so you can mount it just about anywhere, for practically any configuration. And the results are terrific.

Here's an un-retouched copy of a Kodachrome slide that I captured in Scotland in 1992. The LED light setup make the process easy. Just turn on the light, place the slide on the surface, and take the picture.

Not having to mess with electronic flash and cumbersome light boxes truly made the task at hand more enjoyable. If you're thinking about setting up your own digitizing station, I would consider a LED edge light for your illumination. It's a sweet way to go.

Digitizing Family Memories Online Course Now Available

Have you procrastinated long enough organizing that shoe box full of family snapshots, negatives, and slides? At first, the task of digitizing and cataloging all those analog shots can feel daunting. But I've designed an online course that will walk you step by step though a manageable process that is both efficient and fun.

And the best part is, you can start today! Digitizing Family Memories is available online now. It includes 4 30-minute instructional movies, class notes and schedule, and gives you access to a community of hobbyist photographers working on the same project.

Sign up today, and take control of those valuable memories.

There are product links in this article that contain affiliate tags. In some cases, depending on the product, The Digital Story may receive compensation if you purchase a product via one of those links. There is no additional cost to you.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

This is The Digital Story Podcast #737, May 5, 2020. Today's theme is "Has ON1 Figured Out the Connected Experience?" I'm Derrick Story.

Opening Monologue

ON1 360 joins the ranks of Adobe and Apple for offering a connected desktop to mobile experience with tons of features and editing tools. On the surface, ON1 makes a very good argument. We'll dig a bit deeper on today's TDS podcast to determine if this is a service that you should seriously consider. I hope you enjoy the show.

Has On1 Figured Out the Connected Experience?

Starting this June, you can subscribe to a complete photo capture, management, editing, sharing system that works on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android devices. It's called ON1 360, and there's much to unpack.

ON1 360 automatically keeps track of the photos you choose to access from any of your devices, including their metadata and where you want to store them. The desktop and mobile apps share the same processing engine, which enables non-destructive editing settings to remain in sync as well.

An Overview of the Features

• All the Powerful Editing Features of Photo RAW - built-in effects, portrait retouching, and layers.
• Choose Which Photos to Sync Between Devices - Somewhat similar to Lightroom Desktop where you can manage your Cloud storage needs by choosing which images are shared across devices. Regardless, your original files stay in their original locations.
• Impressive Compression Option - store smaller files (4x smaller, high-quality) OR the full raw files and sync in multiple directions
• One License for 5 Desktop and 5 Mobile Devices - This provides more flexibility than Adobe's plan that only allows for 2 desktop devices.
• Flexible Pricing Plan You can buy a perpetual license for Photo RAW or rent it as a subscription option. The first offering lays out two plans, one for 20 GBs of Cloud storage, and the other for 1 TB of space. Pricing depends if you include renting the software or not.

ON1 pulls off this magic by creating a temporary version of the photo under-the-hood (similar to a compressed raw file) and storing in the Cloud. The photo maintains the tone and color of the original photo while using only about 25 percent of the Cloud storage space a typical raw photo uses. For those who demand the full raw file at all times and don't care about storage space, uploading and editing the raw photo is also an available option.

Your original photo files stay put, right where you keep them. Your original photos can live on any of your devices, including external hard drives and file servers. You can choose to upload copies of your original photos to ON1 360? as well, if you need to access the full, original file remotely.

How Much Does it Cost?

If you buy your own copy of Photo RAW for $50, then you can get the 200 GB plan for $60 a year, or 1 TB for $110 a year. Those plans include the mobile app. Preorder now, and you won't be billed again until July 2021. If you decide to rent Photo RAW, the 200 GB plan for $90 a year, or 1 TB for $180 a year.

If you decide to rent Photo RAW, the 200 GB plan for $90 a year, or 1 TB for $180 a year.

Who Is It For?

This could be appealing to photographers who don't have a Cloud-connected workflow and want one. Capture One Pro, Luminar, and DxO are great on the desktop, but they're not available on mobile devices. Also, artists who are not satisfied with their current situation, whether it be Creative Cloud or iCloud, may see ON1 as a better end-to-end solution.

The Bottom Line

If you're happy with your current workflow, I don't recommend the switch to ON1 360. But if you've wanted a connected photo experience and don't have one currently, I think it stacks up well against Creative Cloud and Photos for macOS.

The New Donation Kit for Carefree Shipping of Found Film Cameras

We have more time around the house than ever. And you finally dove into that bedroom closet that's been begging for some organization.

If you found a film camera that you're no longer using, our new Donation Kit makes it easy to pack and ship. Just visit the Contact Form on thenimblephotographer.com, click the box next to Donating a Film Camera, and let me know what you have. In your note, be sure to include your shipping address.

If it's a camera we can use for the shop, I'll send you a Donation Kit that includes a USPS Priority Mail shipping box and prepaid label. All you have to do is tape it up, insert the camera, and add the label. USPS will pick up your shipment from the front door of your house during their regular mail delivery. It's that simple!

Your donation help get analog gear in the hands of aspiring fine art photographers, and the proceeds help support this podcast.

New MacBook Pro 13" Looks Great for Photographers

Apple announced today their new 13" MacBook Pro, and it looks pretty darn good.

Highlights include: the Magic Keyboard with a redesigned scissor mechanism, a 13.3" Retina Display, immersive stereo speakers, and all-day battery life. The Touch Bar adapts to different apps to provide useful functions without having to navigate menus. It features a Retina-quality display and supports multi-touch input. The power button contains the Touch ID sensor, so you can quickly log into your MacBook Pro using your fingerprint. You can also use Touch ID to make purchases over the web, thanks to Apple Pay.

The model I like for $1,499 is powered by a 1.4 GHz 8th Gen Intel Core i5 Quad-Core processor that features a burst speed of up to 3.9 GHz, while 8GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 onboard RAM helps to ensure smooth multitasking and also allows the computer to quickly access frequently used files and programs. The system memory cannot be upgraded.

For long-term storage of your files, this MacBook Pro is equipped with a 512GB SSD. If you want to add external peripherals, 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports support bi-directional transfer speeds of up to 40 Gb/s, while also supporting 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 and device charging. Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) is built-in for wireless networking, and Bluetooth 5.0 technology will allow you to connect additional compatible peripherals. There is a FaceTime HD webcam.

You can preorder the 13" MacBook Pro today for $1,499.

Digitizing Family Memories Course Now Available Online

Each of the four classes in the course will outline a specific set of steps that you have one week to accomplish. Then, the next week, we build on that progress with new techniques and assignments. By the end of the four weeks, you will have an organized digital archive of your most valuable family images.

Patreon members can sign up for free on the Patreon site. I have a post there for you. All you have to do is comment that you want to join us. If you're not a Patreon member, you can sign up at the Inner Circle level for $5 a month and become instantly eligible for the course.

Non-Patreon members can also sign up for the course by visiting the Workshops page on The Nimble Photographer. The course fee is a reasonable $45.

Updates and Such

Inner Circle Members: A big thanks to those who support our podcast and our efforts!

How to Watch Photos for macOS Catalina and iPadOS - Learn everything you need to know about Photos for the Mac and iPad by checking out my latest course on LinkedIn Learning and on lynda.com. This course is perfect for Mac and iPad based photographers who shoot with iPhone, Mirrorless, and DSLR cameras. It covers both photography and movies. And if I say so myself, it's a lot of fun.

B&H and Amazon tiles on www.thedigitalstory. If you click on them first, you're helping to support this podcast. (The Digital Story is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.) And speaking of supporting this show, and big thanks to our Patreon Inner Circle members:

Affiliate Links - The links to some products in this podcast contain an affiliate code that credits The Digital Story for any purchases made from B&H Photo and Amazon via that click-through. Depending on the purchase, we may receive some financial compensation.

And finally, be sure to visit our friends at Red River Paper for all of your inkjet supply needs.

See you next week!

More Ways to Participate

Want to share photos and talk with other members in our virtual camera club? Check out our Flickr Public Group. And from those images, I choose the TDS Member Photo of the Day.

Podcast Sponsors

Red River Paper - Keep up with the world of inkjet printing, and win free paper, by liking Red River Paper on Facebook.

The Nimbleosity Report

Do you want to keep up with the best content from The Digital Story and The Nimble Photographer? Sign up for The Nimbleosity Report, and receive highlights twice-a-month in a single page newsletter. Be a part of our community!

Want to Comment on this Post?

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

External solid state drives were once relegated as travel companions. But now, thanks to their larger capacity and impressive speed, I find myself relying on them more for everyday work. Such has been the case with the Crucial 1TB X8 External USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Solid-State Drive.

A recent example is how it's helped me with a Final Cut X project. I use the X8 during the production phase to house the library and assets for my Digitizing Family Memories video course.

The Crucial SSD relieves disk space from the iMac and is much faster than an external HDD (much faster!). I can blaze through the project with it, then copy the entire bundle to my RAID 1 afterward for archiving. I really noticed a positive difference during activities such as rendering the video out of Final Cut.

Plus, those who work with Final Cut know that it can be temperamental about hard drives used to store its assets. Of all my options, the Crucial X8 has been the most reliable as well. Like I said, these just aren't for travel anymore.

The Crucial X8 is a sleek, solid, handsome drive. It feels like a quality hardware device. It slips easily into my pocket or backpack for transport. And I don't have to baby it since there are no moving parts.

But its performance has been the star of the show. Who would have ever thought that with all the great movie-making hardware that I use, that a $165 pocket-sized SSD would steal the spotlight. And yet is has.

The Crucial 1TB X8 External Solid-State Drive is available now for $165. I highly recommend it.

There are product links in this article that contain affiliate tags. In some cases, depending on the product, The Digital Story may receive compensation if you purchase a product via one of those links. There is no additional cost to you.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

This is The Digital Story Podcast #736, April 28, 2020. Today's theme is "Prime Time - Break Out the Fast Glass." I'm Derrick Story.

Opening Monologue

As we explore spaces in our home environment that we forgot even existed, who knows what photo opportunities that we will uncover. And what better way to capture them to their full extent, then by breaking out our fastest primes to document the shadowy corners of our lives. This week I talk about 5 prime lenses that have become important tools in my new normal.

Prime Time - Break Out the Fast Glass

Zooms are great when you're on the go, but primes are perfect for backyard and interior exploration. Here are the 5 primes that have been keeping me out of trouble during our ongoing Shelter-in-Place.

• Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm f/1.8 lens on an E-M1 Mark II. Some say this is the sexiest lens that Olympus has ever designed.
• Pentax-A SMC 50mm f/1.4 on a black Pentax Program Plus. Possibly the most beautiful coatings I've ever seen on an optic.



• Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f/2 SL IIS Aspherical Lens for Nikon F on a Nikon D610. The best of both worlds: silky-smooth manual focusing and outstanding design with click-stop aperture ring, but also has the Nikon chip so it records metadata and works on practically every Nikon F-mount camera.



• Kamlan 50mm F/1.1 II for M4/3 on an Olympus PEN-F. Lovely bokeh and softer contrast make this a wonderful portrait lens for MFT photographers.



• Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 II ASPH. Lens on an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II. This was the first premium prime lens that I bought for Micro Four Thirds, and I use is practically every day. It's compact, sharp, and contrasty. I even use it for movie making.

Exploring your home base with your favorite prime can transform the world that you've grown tired of looking at into a completely fresh look. Try it. Get out a prime, and re-explore your home universe. I bet you'll come up with something new.

The New Donation Kit for Carefree Shipping of Found Film Cameras

We have more time around the house than ever. And you finally dove into that bedroom closet that's been begging for some organization.

If you found a film camera that you're no longer using, our new Donation Kit makes it easy to pack and ship. Just visit the Contact Form on thenimblephotographer.com, click the box next to Donating a Film Camera, and let me know what you have. In your note, be sure to include your shipping address.

If it's a camera we can use for the shop, I'll send you a Donation Kit that includes a USPS Priority Mail shipping box and prepaid label. All you have to do is tape it up, insert the camera, and add the label. USPS will pick up your shipment from the front door of your house during their regular mail delivery. It's that simple!

Your donation help get analog gear in the hands of aspiring fine art photographers, and the proceeds help support this podcast.

Digitizing Family Memories Course Now Available Online

Each of the four classes in the course will outline a specific set of steps that you have one week to accomplish. Then, the next week, we build on that progress with new techniques and assignments. By the end of the four weeks, you will have an organized digital archive of your most valuable family images.

Patreon members can sign up for free on the Patreon site. I have a post there for you. All you have to do is comment that you want to join us. If you're not a Patreon member, you can sign up at the Inner Circle level for $5 a month and become instantly eligible for the course.

Non-Patreon members can also sign up for the course by visiting the Workshops page on The Nimble Photographer. The course fee is a reasonable $45.

Updates and Such

Inner Circle Members: A big thanks to those who support our podcast and our efforts!

How to Watch Photos for macOS Catalina and iPadOS - Learn everything you need to know about Photos for the Mac and iPad by checking out my latest course on LinkedIn Learning and on lynda.com. This course is perfect for Mac and iPad based photographers who shoot with iPhone, Mirrorless, and DSLR cameras. It covers both photography and movies. And if I say so myself, it's a lot of fun.

B&H and Amazon tiles on www.thedigitalstory. If you click on them first, you're helping to support this podcast. (The Digital Story is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.) And speaking of supporting this show, and big thanks to our Patreon Inner Circle members:

Affiliate Links - The links to some products in this podcast contain an affiliate code that credits The Digital Story for any purchases made from B&H Photo and Amazon via that click-through. Depending on the purchase, we may receive some financial compensation.

And finally, be sure to visit our friends at Red River Paper for all of your inkjet supply needs.

See you next week!

More Ways to Participate

Want to share photos and talk with other members in our virtual camera club? Check out our Flickr Public Group. And from those images, I choose the TDS Member Photo of the Day.

Podcast Sponsors

Red River Paper - Keep up with the world of inkjet printing, and win free paper, by liking Red River Paper on Facebook.

The Nimbleosity Report

Do you want to keep up with the best content from The Digital Story and The Nimble Photographer? Sign up for The Nimbleosity Report, and receive highlights twice-a-month in a single page newsletter. Be a part of our community!

Want to Comment on this Post?

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

The current installment of Digitizing Family Memories covers different techniques for scanning snapshots to help you archive inherited photos.

The 30-minute episode covers techniques for digitizing with a smartphone (don't rule this out, the software is really cool!), flatbed scanner (you probably already have one on your multi-functional printer), and the Epson FastFoto for bulk jobs.

Next week's installment covers digitizing slides and negatives, followed by organizing all of this work in your favorite photo management software. You can jump in anytime by signing up for Digitizing Family Memories. You'll receive the current classes right away so you can get to work. And the upcoming classes will be sent to you weekly. Here's a quick video BTS overview by the course instructor, Derrick Story.

Do you have shoeboxes of old family prints that you would to take control of? If so, this online course can help you get started in the right direction.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

As photographers, much of our image publishing is via the Web, which usually means that we reduce the size of the original image before posting.

In Capture One Pro, as we simultaneously export and reduce size (sample down), we can also compensate for any loss of detail that happens as we prepare the file for publishing. In the export dialog box we can go to the Adjustments tab and set up Output Sharpening. Here's a look at that process.

Applying sharpening while exporting a photo from Capture One Pro 20 Essential Training by Derrick Story

I like that there are options for both screen and print. For example, if I know I'm going to print this image on matte paper, the output settings would be much different than those for gloss, or for a Web page for that matter.

If you're curious about how easy output sharpening can be in Capture One Pro, watch the movie at the top of this article. It's a solid introduction to this pro feature.

It's from my latest online class, Capture One Pro 20 Essential Training on LinkedIn Learning, or, if you're a lynda.com subscriber, you can watch it there as well.

If you don't have Capture One Pro yet, you can download the 30-day free trial (Mac/Win). No credit card is required, and it's a fully functioning version.

Some applications have some form of output sharpening, but very few provide the control that's available to you in Capture One Pro.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

This is The Digital Story Podcast #735, April 21, 2020. Today's theme is "LUTs, RAW Power 3, and More." I'm Derrick Story.

Opening Monologue

LUTs may sound like some kind of technical mumbo-jumbo, but they are quite useful, and they allow us to easily add creative color effects to our images. Today, I'll do my best to demystify LUTs and encourage you to give them a try. Plus, we're going to look at RAW Power 3, the robust $39 image application that can tap your entire iCloud library of images. All of that and more on today's TDS Photography Podcast. I hope you enjoy the show.

Color Grading with LUTs

Focusing on color can help photographers communicate style and emotion. This approach is often referred to as color grading. You may have wondered how this differs from color correction, which is more of a technical adjustment. A tungsten bulb, for example, will produce a color shift in our images that's warmer than what we're accustomed to seeing with our eyes. Often we want to adjust that hue, cooling it off a bit so that it appears more natural. That's a correction.

Color grading, on the other hand, leans toward the artistic. The photographer may add or enhance oranges and teals to create a mood similar to what one would experience in the movies. Exact reality isn't the goal. It's more about a creative look that elicits a feeling.

The Power of LUTs

Lookup Tables sound like a technical adjustment. And indeed there is plenty of color science at work under the hood. They are used to precisely shift colors from one spot to another. But those shifts can be stored in a container, such as a .cube file, that can used to color grade an image.

So even though LUTs are precise color science, their recipes can be wonderfully artistic.

Tips for Effective Color Grading with LUTs

Creating a separate adjustment layer for your color grading provides lots of flexibility. The base layer is used for basic adjustments and the other tools that you need to establish a good range of tones. The adjustment layer contains the LUT Mapping, HSL, and other creative filters. You can then use the blend modes and the opacity slider for precise control over the grading.

Applications that support LUTs include: Lightroom Classic, Capture One Pro, Luminar, and RAW Power 3.

Your viewers may not realize the techniques that you used to create the enticing color schemes in your images. What they will notice is your style and creativity. And using LUTs can contribute greatly to that pursuit.

RAW Power 3 Brings Star Ratings, LUTs, and More to Photos Users

Gentlemen Coders has released RAW Power 3.0 for macOS and iOS. It's a comprehensive update with much to unpack over the coming weeks, but the focus today is how it brings Star Ratings to Photos for both the Mac and iOS versions of the app.

The rating system is easy to use, and is ingenious in its design. If you're running macOS Catalina, the RAW Power app allows you to use your Photos library in real time. This even works if you have the Photos app open. Within RAW Power you can tap all the powerful tools to enhance your images and have those improvements saved directly to your iCloud Photos library. But now, you can also rate and tag those pictures, and they too will be saved to iCloud and acknowledged in the Photos apps.

RAW Power creates Star Rating Albums that are displayed both in RAW Power, and in the Photos app. RAW Power uses Aperture style keyboard shortcuts for the ratings allowing you to move quickly through the images. What's really cool, even if you're running Photos on macOS Mojave, which doesn't allow the library sharing as in Catalina, the Star Rating Albums still appear in the app if they were added in RAW Power running on a Catalina machine using the same Photos library. The overall approach is both clever and works great.

This update, over a year in the making, includes tons of other stuff as well. Here's a brief overview.

RAW Power 3.0 for Mac and iOS creates the first real option for serious photographers in the Apple ecosystem. RAW Power 3.0 is now the first and only third-party app to include full support for Apple Photos libraries on Mac and iOS, allowing photographers to rate and edit their images anywhere and any time. New features introduced today include flexible storage options, synchronized ratings and flagging for Photo libraries, support for Files.app on iOS, advanced auto enhance, LUT support and one-tap integration with the popular Halide camera app on iOS. RAW Power 3.0, developed by Nik Bhatt, a former Apple engineer who led the iPhoto and Aperture teams, is available for download today on the Mac and iOS App Stores.

The new RAW Power app for iOS introduces the much-requested ability to manage photos either in Photos or in Files.app. Now, photographers can easily work on their collections of images in either or both environments and switch seamlessly between them. Users can import images from an SD card into RAW Power using the Files app. Additionally, the new Copy to RAW Power Share Extension makes it easy to import images from other apps into the Files storage for RAW Power.

RAW Power 3 also supports LUTs. It has a great collection built in, including 7 of the Fuji film simulations, which look very good to my eye. I also had good success importing .cube files that appeared in My LUTs. Very nice!

RAW Power 3.0 runs on macOS Catalina and Mojave and is available for $39.99 or as a free upgrade for existing users of RAW Power for Mac 2.0. (It does not support the iCloud Library sharing on Mojave, however.) RAW Power for iOS 3.0 is available for $9.99 or as a free upgrade for current RAW Power for iOS customers. RAW Power for iOS 3.0 runs on iOS 12 and 13, but does not support iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus, or iPad mini 3 or earlier.

Digitizing Family Memories Course Now Available Online

Each of the four classes in the course will outline a specific set of steps that you have one week to accomplish. Then, the next week, we build on that progress with new techniques and assignments. By the end of the four weeks, you will have an organized digital archive of your most valuable family images.

Patreon members can sign up for free on the Patreon site. I have a post there for you. All you have to do is comment that you want to join us. If you're not a Patreon member, you can sign up at the Inner Circle level for $5 a month and become instantly eligible for the course.

Non-Patreon members can also sign up for the course by visiting the Workshops page on The Nimble Photographer. The course fee is a reasonable $45.

Updates and Such

Inner Circle Members: A big thanks to those who support our podcast and our efforts!

How to Watch Photos for macOS Catalina and iPadOS - Learn everything you need to know about Photos for the Mac and iPad by checking out my latest course on LinkedIn Learning and on lynda.com. This course is perfect for Mac and iPad based photographers who shoot with iPhone, Mirrorless, and DSLR cameras. It covers both photography and movies. And if I say so myself, it's a lot of fun.

B&H and Amazon tiles on www.thedigitalstory. If you click on them first, you're helping to support this podcast. (The Digital Story is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.) And speaking of supporting this show, and big thanks to our Patreon Inner Circle members:

Affiliate Links - The links to some products in this podcast contain an affiliate code that credits The Digital Story for any purchases made from B&H Photo and Amazon via that click-through. Depending on the purchase, we may receive some financial compensation.

And finally, be sure to visit our friends at Red River Paper for all of your inkjet supply needs.

See you next week!

More Ways to Participate

Want to share photos and talk with other members in our virtual camera club? Check out our Flickr Public Group. And from those images, I choose the TDS Member Photo of the Day.

Podcast Sponsors

Red River Paper - Keep up with the world of inkjet printing, and win free paper, by liking Red River Paper on Facebook.

The Nimbleosity Report

Do you want to keep up with the best content from The Digital Story and The Nimble Photographer? Sign up for The Nimbleosity Report, and receive highlights twice-a-month in a single page newsletter. Be a part of our community!

Want to Comment on this Post?

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

I wanted a place to dock my iPhone X while working in my home office. It's all part of my changing work life where I'm setting up new areas to get things done. I decided to try the PITAKA Wireless Charging Stand Dock because of its versatility. And after a few weeks of use, I feel like I made a good decision.

The stand itself is actually a holder for the wireless charger. It's a clever design where the charger slips into the stand, then via a magnetic strip that you attach to your case, the phone snaps in place. The clever part is, that you can take the charger with you when away from home and need some extra juice on the road.

Wireless charger removed from the stand, yet still attached to the phone.

You can use your existing case, as I did, using the adhesive magnetic strip that's included in the kit. Pitaka includes templates for current smartphones so you can place it in exactly the right spot. It's slim, good looking, and hasn't changed the comfort of my current case, nor has it impeded the use of other wireless chargers.

Included magnetic strip to attach your phone to the charger.

When it comes to actually charging my phone, it takes about as long as my Samsung wireless pad, which is longer than plugging the phone directly into the wall. But it hasn't been a problem, because I just click my iPhone on to the stand when I sit at the computer, and click it off when I leave. Over the course of the day, my iPhone X has remained nicely juiced up.

You can also buy custom cases from Pitka that have the magnetic strip embedded in them. They look quite nice, and the reviews have been solid. So if you're in the mood for a new case, they might be worth a look.

But the setup included in the box will get you started as is. I like having the stand to make it easier to check the phone when I'm working at the computer. Having the removable charging unit is a nice touch for those days in the future when I can travel again. And overall, the design is quite good.

It's easy to recommend the PITAKA Wireless Charging Stand Dock for $79. Who knows, someday I may even buy one of their cases as well.

There are product links in this article that contain affiliate tags. In some cases, depending on the product, The Digital Story may receive compensation if you purchase a product via one of those links. There is no additional cost to you.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

Gentlemen Coders has released RAW Power 3.0 for macOS and iOS. It's a comprehensive update with much to unpack over the coming weeks, but the focus today is how it brings Star Ratings to Photos for both the Mac and iOS versions of the app.

Photos displaying the rating albums created by RAW Power.

The rating system is easy to use, and is ingenious in its design. If you're running macOS Catalina, the RAW Power app allows you to use your Photos library in real time. This even works if you have the Photos app open. Within RAW Power you can tap all the powerful tools to enhance your images and have those improvements saved directly to your iCloud Photos library. But now, you can also rate and tag those pictures, and they too will be saved to iCloud and acknowledged in the Photos apps.

RAW Power 3 tapping my Photos library.

RAW Power creates Star Rating Albums that are displayed both in RAW Power, and in the Photos app. RAW Power uses Aperture style keyboard shortcuts for the ratings allowing you to move quickly through the images. What's really cool, even if you're running Photos on macOS Mojave, which doesn't allow the library sharing as in Catalina, the Star Rating Albums still appear in the app if they were added in RAW Power running on a Catalina machine using the same Photos library. The overall approach is both clever and works great.

This update, over a year in the making, includes tons of other stuff as well. Here's a brief overview.

RAW Power 3.0 for Mac and iOS creates the first real option for serious photographers in the Apple ecosystem. RAW Power 3.0 is now the first and only third-party app to include full support for Apple Photos libraries on Mac and iOS, allowing photographers to rate and edit their images anywhere and any time. New features introduced today include flexible storage options, synchronized ratings and flagging for Photo libraries, support for Files.app on iOS, advanced auto enhance, LUT support and one-tap integration with the popular Halide camera app on iOS. RAW Power 3.0, developed by Nik Bhatt, a former Apple engineer who led the iPhoto and Aperture teams, is available for download today on the Mac and iOS App Stores.

The new RAW Power app for iOS introduces the much-requested ability to manage photos either in Photos or in Files.app. Now, photographers can easily work on their collections of images in either or both environments and switch seamlessly between them. Users can import images from an SD card into RAW Power using the Files app. Additionally, the new Copy to RAW Power Share Extension makes it easy to import images from other apps into the Files storage for RAW Power.

I'll be covering more of the features in upcoming posts. But after my initial testing on both macOS and iOS, I can comfortably say that this elevates the Photos/iCloud environment to a high level for serious photographers.

RAW Power 3.0 runs on macOS Catalina and Mojave and is available for $39.99 or as a free upgrade for existing users of RAW Power for Mac 2.0. (It does not support the iCloud Library sharing on Mojave, however.) RAW Power for iOS 3.0 is available for $9.99 or as a free upgrade for current RAW Power for iOS customers. RAW Power for iOS 3.0 runs on iOS 12 and 13, but does not support iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus, or iPad mini 3 or earlier.

You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.

This is The Digital Story Podcast #734, April 14, 2020. Today's theme is "Project Productive - Digitize Family Memories." I'm Derrick Story.

Opening Monologue

Most of us have at least another month indoors. So I've designed a 4-week online course that I think most photographers will find extremely satisfying - finally getting to those shoeboxes of family photos that need to be organized, digitized, and cataloged. We are going to embrace Shelter in Place in a most productive way. I hope you enjoy today's show.

Project Productive - Digitize Family Memories

By now, we've accomplished many of the "low hanging fruit" projects. We've organized our camera gear, caught up on paperwork, and maybe even have cleaned a closet or two.

But the 800-pound gorilla that's lurking beneath many of our beds is that box of slides and snapshots that we've been meaning to tackle. Why haven't we done so yet? To be honest, the project can feel overwhelming. There are so many aspects to it, it's hard to know where to begin.

Well, now you have a starting point: my Digitizing Family Memories online course that begins Monday, April 20. And the best news is - if you're an Inner Circle Member, the class is absolutely free.

What We're Going to Do

First of all, you'll have structure. Each class will outline a specific set of steps that you have one week to accomplish. Then, the next week, we build on that progress with new techniques and assignments. By the end of the four weeks, you will have an organized digital archive of your most valuable family images.

The approach is to break the project into smaller parts. Everything we do will be easy to understand and implement. When it comes to digitize, you'll learn techniques that are as simple as using the camera on your smartphone, or as sophisticated as tapping a dedicated film scanner.

I will show you techniques that will help you research, organize, digitize, add metadata, and catalog. We'll also discuss retouching and mending damaged photos.

Every Monday during the class, I will post an instructive video on Vimeo for you to watch. You can watch it whenever you wish, but don't let too much time go by, because there are assignments associated with it. There will also be handouts that you receive via email. And you can comment or ask questions via the comments section on Vimeo.

Patreon members can sign up for free on the Patreon site. I have a post there for you. All you have to do is comment that you want to join us. If you're not a Patreon member, you can sign up at the Inner Circle level for $5 a month and become instantly eligible for the course.

Non-Patreon members can also sign up for the course by visiting the Workshops page on The Nimble Photographer. The course fee is a reasonable $45.

Start preparing now. The first step is to find a dedicated work area where you can leave the project spread out on a table for the duration of the course. You don't want to waste time setting up and breaking down each time you want to work on an assignment. That's the kind of stuff that discourages us from working on these things in the first place.

Next, begin your search for family snapshots, slides, and negatives. You don't have to do anything with them yet, just find as much as you can, and put it on your worktable. If you want, you can start enjoying some of the pictures and reminiscing, but don't begin the project until you've watched the first installment of the course.

I hope you can join us for this online workshop. I think you will find it extremely rewarding!

Do You Have a Film Camera that Needs a Good Home?

Over the last year, I've received donations from TDS members who have film cameras that need a good home. What I do is inspect the items, repair and clean as I can, then list them in TheFilmCameraShop where I can find a good home for them. If you're interested in donating, please use the Contact Form on TheNimblePhotographer site. And thanks for you consideration!

LaCie 8TB 2big 2-Bay USB 3.1 Type-C RAID Review

Photographers interested in enterprise-caliber backup storage, housed in handsome easy to use hardware, should definitely take a look at the LaCie 8TB 2big 2-Bay USB 3.1 Type-C RAID Array. It looks great sitting next to your desktop computer, is surprisingly quiet, and is a joy to use.

Inside the stylish enclosure are two Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 4 TB hard drives. They are easily accessible through the front of the enclosure via the spring-opening doors. The 7200 rpm SATA 3 drives are hot-swappable, although I haven't had the guts to try that yet. I've powered down the unit the examine the internals. But the documentation says hot-swappable works just fine. (OK, I'm a chicken, I admit it). And after a month of testing with a RAID 1 configuration, I am very pleased with their performance.

The LaCie 2big works great for both Mac and Windows computers right out of the box. Just plug it in and go. But most will want to configure the unit for their particular workflow, and for that, LaCie provides the excellent Toolkit software to format the drives and choose the RAID configuration that you want.

The first option is RAID 0, which provides the best performance and gives you 8 TBs of storage. The two hard drives work together to ensure the fastest data transfer possible.

The second option, RAID 1, is what I'm using. In this scenario, the drives mirror one another to provide an extra level of protection from drive failure. If one goes down, all of your content is still available on the other. The downside to RAID 1 is that your total storage is 4 TBs, and performance is a bit slower than with RAID 0.

And finally, if you're a willy-nilly kind of guy or gal, there's the JBOD option, short for just a bunch of disks. Two drives appear on your desktop with 4 TBs available for each. All of this is configured with Segate Toolkit.

In all honesty, the 2big checks all the boxes for me. I have an enterprise RAID device that looks like industrial artwork sitting on my desk. I can feel like a smart system admin when all I'm really doing is just checking a couple boxes in the easy to use Toolkit app. And the read/write performance has been similar to a standalone HDD. What more could I ask for?

You can purchase the LaCie 8TB 2big for $451. There's also a 4 TB version for $349, and a 16 TB option for $649. At the moment, I'm quite happy with my 8 TB model. And I highly recommend the 2big to photographers and videographers who want reliable enterprise backup enclosed in a handsome hunk of hardware.

Update for the TDS 2020 Photography Workshop Season

Those of you on the registration list for the Humboldt Redwoods Workshop, I'm looking to reschedule the event, and I have a note in your inbox to discuss this.

If you have questions about Humboldt or the other workshops, feel free to drop me a line using the Contact Form on www.thenimblephotographer.com.

The summer and fall workshops are looking less tentative at the moment. If you're interested in either, jump over to our 2020 Workshops Signup Page and place a $100 deposit to secure your place. Only participants on the Reserve List who have placed a deposit will be eligible to register for a workshop. If you have questions or need more information, fill out the "Send Me Info!" request form. I'll get back to you asap.

• Lassen Volcanic Park Photo Workshop - July 16-18, 2020 - 2 Seats Remaining -- We'll convene at a spacious cabin at Lake Almanor that serves as our HQ. From there we explore the stunning Lassen landscape, peaceful shores of Lake Almanor, and the magnificent mountain night skies. This hands-on photo workshop is limited to 8 participants and is a wonderful blending of experience, camaraderie, and artistry. Limited to just 8 participants, you can reserve your spot and learn more about this event here.
• The Eastern Sierra Photography Workshop - Oct. 1-3, 2020 - 2 Seats Remaining - Our event is headquartered at the Silver Maple Inn in Bridgeport, CA - gateway to Bodie, Mono Lake, and June Lake. We'll take advantage of the magical morning light to photograph some of the most unique landscape in North America. We'll photograph the sparkling night skies of the Sierra and explore rustic urban environments. Limited to just 9 participants, you can reserve your spot and learn more about this event here.

Updates and Such

Inner Circle Members: A big thanks to those who support our podcast and our efforts!

How to Watch Photos for macOS Catalina and iPadOS - Learn everything you need to know about Photos for the Mac and iPad by checking out my latest course on LinkedIn Learning and on lynda.com. This course is perfect for Mac and iPad based photographers who shoot with iPhone, Mirrorless, and DSLR cameras. It covers both photography and movies. And if I say so myself, it's a lot of fun.

B&H and Amazon tiles on www.thedigitalstory. If you click on them first, you're helping to support this podcast. (The Digital Story is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.) And speaking of supporting this show, and big thanks to our Patreon Inner Circle members:

Affiliate Links - The links to some products in this podcast contain an affiliate code that credits The Digital Story for any purchases made from B&H Photo and Amazon via that click-through. Depending on the purchase, we may receive some financial compensation.

And finally, be sure to visit our friends at Red River Paper for all of your inkjet supply needs.

See you next week!

More Ways to Participate

Want to share photos and talk with other members in our virtual camera club? Check out our Flickr Public Group. And from those images, I choose the TDS Member Photo of the Day.

Podcast Sponsors

Red River Paper - Keep up with the world of inkjet printing, and win free paper, by liking Red River Paper on Facebook.

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You can share your thoughts at the TDS Facebook page, where I'll post this story for discussion.