We explore this creative video tutorial/production diary from award-winning photographer Simon Plant

Last Sacrifice of Dienekes is the entertaining photography tutorial from Simon Plant at ProPhotoInsights.net. Split into two parts, this training video offers over two hours and 40 minutes of real-time tuition and practical production advice.

Plant presents the project from beginning to end through manageable video chapters. His informal approach to learning produces a video diary of sorts, encouraging even amateur photographers and photo illustrators to tackle the techniques presented.
Plant goes into great depth about the necessity of pre- and post-production.
Setting aside time to find models, costumes and studio space is addressed, as he offers his own advice on how to approach these factors economically. Also in part one, the importance of a studio shoot is looked at in four detailed chapters including ‘The studio shoot’ and ‘Lighting setup’. Plant shows you how he sets up the correct conditions to maximise Photoshop effects, the production benefits of tethered connections and the fun of improvisation when certain props are unavailable.

Buy online: There’s no need for a constant internet connection, as this video tutorial is downloadable after purchase from the ProPhotoInsights website

At 29 minutes in, the hands-on creativity begins, looking at compositing the background. Here Plant takes you through the skills, insisting patience is a virtue when it comes to any successful composition. Plant’s attentive attitude towards compositing image elements instills the same approach in the viewer – meticulously revealing his own personal ways to apply masks, Blur and Distort filters and cloning options.
Part two explores further editing techniques, the most fundamental of which is cutting and pasting that perfect model shot. Plant reveals this through an intuitive use of layer masks, Channel layers, Burn and Dodge tools, plus Pen paths, showing you how to tackle difficult image areas such as hair and edge artefacts. We found these techniques highly valuable, providing seamless integration of model and background.

More expressive effects follow, with ways to apply advanced Curves adjustments and manual selective lighting, adjusting colour shifts and the importance of tweaking these to perfection. Personalisation of cinematic lighting effects is also expressed through the application of blending modes, Dodge and Burn tools once more, layered colour adjustments and even the Paint Bucket tool.

Last Sacrifice Of Dienekes: This image reveals the results that are achievable if you follow photographer Simon Plant’s advice

Overall, this two-part video tutorial is a highly comprehensive experience that will improve your project workflow. Photoshopusers will gain knowledge of what it takes to create commercial effects, streamline and manage workflows, where to source advanced tool sets and how best to apply them. The one reservation we did have was with the video audio. Recorded sound levels fluctuate throughout. This may become an issue for those users with hearing difficulties.

For more information visit www.prophotoinsights.net

Fad or functional personalised apparel product? We experiment with Sneakart’s latest adhesive Sneakskin to find out

Sneakskin from Sneakart is another exciting apparel customisation product. However, what gives this unique elastic film the edge is its recreational use. The Sneakskin is a self-applied adhesive design that can be attached, removed and replaced at any time.

The Sneakskin has its pros and cons, as with any item. Flexible, durable and waterproof are key factors that make it a worthy investment – considering its retail price of £9. These aspects lead to Sneakart’s assurance that your design will last for months, if not years, when treated with care. Limitations do occur with this product, with the adhesive only applicable to leather-type shoes. You’ll also need a shoe design with suitable panels that your Sneakskin can be applied to, making overall application far more successful.

Design template: The tutorials at www.sneakart.com show you how to prepare your artwork. Log onto http://sneakartblog.com for official Sneakskin news updates and opportunities

The Sneakart Sneakskin service is first class. Log onto www.sneakart.com and you can browse through a plethora of varied designs. The website also has a designated search engine, grouping design types into style-related categories – including glamour, sketch, urban and fashion.

Not losing sight of the accessible nature of this product, Sneakart offers consumers the chance to personalise Sneakskin designs with upload capabilities on the website. Accessed through the Custom option, designers can experience preparation tutorials and obtain Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator templates. Just be mindful that a pattern or repeating pattern that works with the scale of the shoe is, again, the best option for a good outcome. Design turnaround time is one to two business days when a single item is ordered through the website. Volume orders are offered on a 14-day service for a custom order in retail-ready packaging.

Mock up: The Sneakart site allows you to browse Sneakskin styles with consummate ease, with a contemporary-themed search engine. Thumbnails of designs are clear and comprehendible, allowing you to see live on-screen mocks, matching with trainer templates

When we did receive and apply our Sneakskin, we discovered a few fundamentals that you should know. First, it’s best to order your initial samples in quantity. It won’t take you long to get to grips with the application of this adhesive item, but unless you have a keen eye and are up on your textiles then you may need a little practice. Second, we did question the durability of the item. It sticks fast and is impressively waterproof.

However, our Sneakskin sample did show signs of lifted ink when peeling back the sticker template. This isn’t ideal, but disrepair was minimal and, considering the price and leisure of this product, it’s a worthwhile risk.
Sneakskin isn’t quite the future of sneaker design, but it will appeal to those who are big on creative individuality and fashion choices. Overall it’s a non-permanent method of customising trainers, eliminating the risk of ruining your shoes if you make a mistake. The site also offers a really good platform for showing off your artwork and style to other like-minded enthusiasts.

For more information log onto www.sneakart.com

We explore the capabilities of this portable device from 3M

3M is enthusiastic about its latest products, the MPro 120 and MPro 150 Pocket Projectors. Cash-conscientious consumers may have their heads turned by the more economic of the two – the MPro 120. The producer of these innovative technologies, 3M, promises that this device will open up a “whole new world of opportunities for people wanting to present or share digital content anywhere, any time“. But does the MPro 120 deliver on this guarantee? We take a look at that model here, but if you want additional features then check out our boxout on the next page on the higher-end solution.

The MPro 120 Pocket Projector sports upgrades in its new energy-efficient technology. This makes a battery life of up to four hours available before the necessity of recharging, subject to the Brightness mode selected.

Projection power: The MPro 120’s VGA image and 100 per cent colour range promises users one of the highest-quality images of any portable projector currently available

This is a significant upgrade from the previous MPro 110’s single-hour capability. Another important advantage of this second-gen model is its new voice. The MPro 120 comes equipped with two 0.5-watt speakers, which in close quarters handle admirably at delivering clear audio. This is especially suitable for those demonstrating animation and video at small meetings. Liberal use of the speakers will drain the battery life in half the time, however, along with the High Brightness mode.

The MPro 120 Pocket Projector’s native resolution stands at 640 x 480 VGA – that’s around 307 pixels or 0.3 megapixels. This provides attractive projections up to 50-inches diagonally, which show minimal disturbance when addressing smaller image areas such as typography. Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCOS) technology makes it an acceptable unit for those using it to demonstrate detailed and high-resolution graphics to clients.

However, as this is a portable unit, its maximum 12 lumens (permitted through Enhanced Mode) is as good as it gets. This is minimal in comparison to larger units, yet
still handles light and moving images well.

Suitable stationary: When hooked up to your laptop, the MPro 120 becomes a powerful stationary projector, complemented by attachable tripod and built-in flip stand

But saturated and shadowed image elements are affected adversely. Looking flat at times, it becomes tricky when presenting monochromatic and dynamic exposure effects. While this is fine for quick fire presentations, if you want to convey the quality of your work then you will need to take printouts as well.

The portable nature of this device is a mixed bag and raises interesting questions over its ergonomic functionality. With dimensions of 120mm x 60mm x 24mm, and weighing in at 154 grams, this makes the MPro 120 Pocket Projector easy enough to slip into your pocket for transportation, protected with a tailored leather pouch. 3M states that this “allows you to take it wherever you go.” However, this becomes a moot point when considering you also have to accompany the unit with the AC adaptor for charging the battery, and one metre of computer VGA cable to transfer the images from laptop to projector.

3M also encourages handheld functionality, which seems frivolous at times. It certainly does feel more natural to handle the device like this in a remote sense, flicking between the volume and Brightness settings. But without any mass storage device (like USB) or dock compatibility, it becomes limited. The MPro 120’s front focus button also seems ill-placed when functioning by hand, and would be far more accessible nearer the control dial.

The standard connectivity of the MPro 120 Pocket Projector is good, functioning with most laptops and notebooks. The only drawback here is that it does not come with inclusive Apple connection. This must be purchased as an addition at an extra cost of $36, which is around £23. What is included though is a VGA and component video cable. Couple these with the unit’s fixable miniature tripod – and forgetting the handheld portable tag – and you have yourself a very competent self-contained stationary device. The MPro 120 can also be hooked up to MP3 and DVD players, and even handheld videogame consoles, making it a good addition to your entertainment systems.

For more info log onto www.3m.com

Christian Darkin explores 3D stills and animation for anyone who doesn’t do 3D

iClone4 Pro is a 3D and video effects application, aimed at people who don’t do 3D and video effects. It allows you to take still images and video clips, and combine them with virtual actors, 3D models and scenery to create still images or animation. It’s about as easily approachable as a 3D package can be. Just drag sets, props and actors in from the Content Manager to the left of the screen, customise them, then direct their action using the timeline and the tabs at the top of the screen. You can then export your movie or still for further editing in Photoshop.

Content
The package is built around a drag-and-drop interface, and content such as 3D characters, sets and furniture can be easily added to build up your scenery. The program accepts still and video imagery, but unfortunately not in PSD format. If you want to add 3D content, you can buy it ready-made from the iClone Content Store, or you can buy the iClone 3DXchange converter to make use of 3D objects from Google SketchUp and other model libraries.

All the content appears at the correct scale, so it’s very quick to set up and edit scenes. Some content even has built-in animation

Characters
Creating and animating characters is one of the most important iClone4 features. You can set up a relatively realistic human actor in a couple of clicks and customise them incredibly easily, changing their clothes, hair, body shapes and poses. You can even add automatic animation for clothing, hair and soft body parts. In version 4, you can now use the Facial Puppeteering tool to modify expressions and mouth movements. These can be animated, for example, to lip-sync with audio files, but they also work well for creating expressive stills.

Option set: Swapping clothes or hair is just a matter of selecting them from the library

Visuals
iClone4 makes a lot of its new High Dynamic Range (HDR) effects and Image-Based Lighting (IBL) tools. HDR allows you to create a greater range of brightness in your shot, which practically means realistic glows and light-blooming effects in your renders. IBL lights your scene using an image file projected onto a globe surrounding it, giving you natural light and shade coming from all around your objects for softer, more toned lighting. Both are well implemented and easy to use, but a real-time rendering engine limits effects.

High Dynamic Range effects allow you to create beautiful glows and image blooming effects quickly and easily

Textures and objects
iClone4 improves texture handling and you can now drag any texture from your hard drive onto any object in your scene. This even works with video files, as long as you have mattes for them. To superimpose a 3D actor into a real video, you simply drag the video clip in behind them. Likewise, to change a building from brick to concrete or metal, simply drag the appropriate texture onto it. You can even turn an image into a 3D object or at least a 2D placard, which can be positioned in your 3D scene. So if you cut out a series of objects in Photoshop, you can now bring them into iClone4 and painlessly create a 3D scene.

Finish your image
iClone4 allows you to output your finished scenes as still images, image sequences or video clips. Video in AVI, RealMedia, WMV, MP4 and FLV formats can be rendered in a range of sizes. You can also output widget files for showing your animated work online. Rendering is done in real-time and consequently the look of iClone4 files tends to be a bit like that of a videogame. This would be fine except you can’t export your 3D models and scenes into Photoshop – or any other graphics package – as OBJ files and take advantage of Photoshop’s 3D features to improve upon realism.

We explore the flexibility and efficiency of this high-specification printer, and what it means for professional photographers and aspiring designers alike

Elegance and class: For an A2 machine, the Stylus Pro 3880 presents a streamline and professional persona, with silver and black gloss casing and rounded edges. Its button functionality is extremely simple yet dynamic, and all this asserts it as a highly capable, easy-to-use, intuitive printer

For those of you working in a creative studio, especially one that largely produces print design, or as a freelance artist, then the word economy means everything. Not only will you be looking for a large, multiformat printer that is efficient and highly capable at delivering top-quality printouts, but also one that doesn’t chew a hole through your wallet when investing in ink supplies. Well, the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 is that print solution.

For an A2-sized printer, the Stylus Pro 3880 sports a surprisingly small footprint. This means that it’s economic on studio space – a real bonus. However, it’s the economy provided by its individual ink cartridge system that makes the machine a good choice. Colour quality is assured with its advanced, fourth-generation, eight-colour UltraChrome K3 inks, including Matte Black, Light Black, Light Light Black, Light Cyan, Cyan, Yellow and Vivid Magentas.

Each can be replaced individually when running low so you can maintain a constant optimum colour flow at a controlled cost. Cartridges
have an asking price of £47.25/$59.95 direct from Epson (though hunt around for cheaper options).

Although ergonomically sound, the Stylus Pro 3880 still carries a little extra weight. This means that housing this machine in your working environment is fundamental, with constant manoeuvring becoming time-consuming, never mind a little tiring. However, there is a good reason for carrying this weight. It’s more technological muscle than design fat. The Stylus Pro 3880 includes a range of innovative print sciences. No expense has been spared when putting this high-tech machine together, and it shares all the latest industry print sciences also present in its sibling models, notably, the Epson-patented Micro Piezo print heads. Combine these with the inclusive pigment ink – with advanced Vivid Magenta promoting accomplished blues, red and purples, and UltraChrome K3 presenting first-class monochromatic reproductions – and your art prints show an incredible colour stability, light fastness and colour gradation.

Print perfect: Advanced Micro Piezo AMC print head technology gives the best colour lay standard available, aided by eight-channel, drop-on-demand, inkjet print head, Auto Head Alignment and Cleaning technology, autosharing Black Ink Mode Switching and professional-level pigment-based ink technology

Printing from this machine is discreet, with production times quite quick for such a large-format machine, and noise reduction means that it won’t give you a headache when working in close quarters. Also, after the initial nozzle check, print production happens almost instantly without witnessing any visible colour shifts. This makes it not only a great production machine, but also extremely capable as a proofing unit. It also supports artists looking to produce limited edition prints, as the high standards met in initial samples can be experienced over and over again, even after long periods of time between reproductions. This is again thanks to the Micro Piezo technology.

This latest Epson model also has a few new tricks up its sleeve to ensure even more optimal ink application, remarkably evolving the quality of print production further. Teaming up with the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Munsell Color Science Laboratory, the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 offers the latest AccuPhoto HD2 technology. But what does this mean? In a nutshell, this science ensures precision placement of each individual ink droplet, resulting in smooth, grain-free images. After a ground test it really does produce truly great photographic prints, under either high-speed or lower-resolution print modes.

Include the Epson LFP Remote Panel (which helps you to specify and optimise your printer settings, allowing quality control over alignment and material types along with the ability to create bespoke black tones and clear whites, offering a great level of precision and artistic control) and you have yourself a very professional, print-conscientious machine. Throw in the autoswitching black inks, wide-format prints up to 17 x 22 inches, cut-sheet media handling and high speed connectivity with USB 2.0 and Ethernet, and print designers the world over are being thoroughly spoilt with the latest Epson Stylus Pro 3880.

The low-cost powerful image-editing package

Having prevailed as the software package for budding digital photographers since its initial launch in 2001, Photoshop Elements has undergone innumerable changes over the years, resulting in the honed, sophisticated image editor that we’re featuring in this review.

Photoshop Elements 8 boasts a number of new innovative features in addition to some of the tried-and-tested options that users of its previous incarnation benefited from. One of the potentially most useful time-saving features is the software’s ability to analyse your images and organise them according to their perceived level of quality (low, medium or high), using criteria such as whether they’re in focus or blurred, contrast, exposure and so on. While this is undoubtedly going to cut down on the amount of time you spend on trawling through hundreds of shots of the same subject, cataloguing and rating each in turn, it does remove the human aspect of selecting the best shots; after all, it’s not always technical perfection that produces the best images.

Expanding this feature further, Elements 8 is equipped with a face recognition feature that attempts to locate and tag subjects automatically – potentially a handy tool for social and portrait photographers in particular. Once the program has finished searching through your images for faces that it thinks match the ones you’ve already tagged, it asks you to check its selections and approve or reject them. We found it to work best for well-lit subjects that are squarely facing the camera, but not at all for subjects that aren’t perfectly exposed or directly looking at the photographer. There’s still some room for improvement, which hopefully the powers that be at Adobe will have realised.
Additional enhancements include a Quick Edit panel that’s now available in Full Screen mode, which lets you make a few basic tweaks to your images without having to load the main editor, but anything more advanced than a quick rotation and crop will require you to do so.

Adjust Smart Fix: In addition to the simple Smart Fix option, users can take a little more control over the amount of editing applied to their images using a slider, while a live preview is displayed in the background

The latest version of Elements offers more powerful editing options than ever before, including adjustment layers that are accessed via a panel that’s reminiscent of the ‘full fat’ Photoshop CS4 program. Also borrowed from CS4 is a new option under the Photo Merge tool: Exposure Mode. This involves the program automatically scanning your bracketing images, picking out the best ones and merging them together for the optimum image. This is great for high-contrast images or shots where you want to combine a flash-lit foreground subject with ambient lighting in the background. The program does a pretty good job of matching up layers, even if you have shifted slightly when taking multiple shots; however, if it does not get it quite right or you want to take matters into your own hands, you have the option to align them manually.

All of the key tools Elements 7 users benefited from are still here with new templates and projects are to be found in the Create tab

Another exciting option is the Recompose tool, which lets you crop out messy objects or big gaps in the frame without affecting your subjects themselves. For example, take a group shot where everyone is standing close together except one straggler that’s a few paces to one side, then bring them into the group by eliminating that gap for a better composed group shot or – if you prefer – remove them entirely, without leaving a trace in your final image. This feature produces brilliant results for the most part, but we did notice a bit of distortion in some of our recomposed shots, particularly those that involved subjects closer to the camera and images that required larger chunks to be removed.
Adjustment Previews are another worthwhile addition to Elements 8’s feature set, allowing you to check the effect of tweaks you want to perform in the Quick Edit tab. You get to preview full-size images that demonstrate potential changes before picking the one that you want to execute – a quick way of applying a range of edits and a handy learning tool at the same time.

The new interface, editing tools and templates that Elements 8 offers make for a powerful program that developing photography enthusiasts will love.

NEC has launched the P221W with the intention to satisfy creative professionals as well as the demands of industry CAD/CAM designers. High expectations indeed for a low-budget monitor.
The company fills the gap that lies between its own high-performance MultiSync 90 series and its more commercially based displays, the MultiSync EA series. Placed between these two, the P221W offers a more affordable option to cope with both demands.

The P221W’s specifications on paper give it a good first impression. Its 22-inch LCD display comes equipped with a high contrast ratio of 1,000:1. That’s good value for money, considering it has a price of £315 (excluding VAT) or $499. It also has an optimum resolution of 1,680 x 1,050, but all these impressive numbers don’t necessarily mean better results, and in the process of keeping its price to a minimum, NEC has had to compromise slightly on quality.

When profiling the monitor after powering it up, we found it lacked the tonal depth we’ve come to expect from widescreen LCD displays of similar specifications. It has a brightness of 300cd/m2, and with NEC’s AmbiBright technology the screen automatically adjusts brightness to suit the lighting conditions around it. This is done using an ambient sensor; however, when the monitor is set to 100% brightness using the menu, the screen reached its peak and couldn’t become brighter in dimmer lighting conditions. We pushed its brightness to the top, as the display is naturally dim from the offset. However, we’re being fussy because we’ve been spoilt with NEC’s amazing higher-end options, and it is worth remembering what you’re paying for here. While we might be disappointed with tonal depth, in comparison to its price peers this is still a cut above the rest.

The P221W produces lots of saturation in its colour and this is one of the strongest points to the monitor’s make-up. This does well to counteract the monitor’s lack of overall brightness. We boosted the contrast value through the menu to also give the display more vibrancy and strength in the highlights and shadows. As a consequence, this left the midtones looking somewhat flat and left behind, so it’s a personal preference on how you set up the monitor’s contrast values.

To add to the monitor’s naturally dim display, a bigger downfall of the P221W is its clarity. This seems to be the overriding issue and one of the most important aspects to a designer’s monitor. The display’s not blurry, just not pin-sharp. It’s more noticeable when working with text, where the definition of each letter isn’t precise. Cycling through the menu options, you can adjust the Fine control, which aims to straighten everything up. Thinking this would resolve the problem, we were proven wrong. Adjusting this control threw different areas of the screen out of focus. It was a matter of focusing the middle portions as best as we could.

The P221W is supplied with a 10-bit look-up table (LUT) for calibrating each colour channel of the RGB spectrum, and boasts high colour accuracy as well. Perhaps colour accuracy is the monitor’s rewarding trait, as compared to the quality of the other specifications, this seems to be its saving grace.
The P221W is manoeuvrable in three ways: it can be spun 90 degrees to a portrait position, it can slide up and down and it can be tilted, all depending on your desk space. This means that you can move it to your most natural way of working, which is a real bonus. The monitor’s on-screen menu is controlled with the array of buttons lined up around the bottom-right corner. NEC states in its release that the technology on board is a professional grade, and therefore it is ideal for graphic designers and photographers running Photoshop.

The P221W is affordable to those looking for a first-time buy, stepping out of the typical monitor setup that comes as standard with your PC on purchase. We felt there’s a slight unevenness to this monitor’s make-up. It’s a mixed bag, and what it lacks in tonal depth it makes up for in colour saturation. Photographers and designers who primarily work with black-and-white imagery wouldn’t benefit from the P221W, however, for graphic designers who need more space and brighter colours, it’s a real step up.

NEC has been environmentally conscious with the P221W, making an Eco Mode function to reduce the carbon footprint. Eco Mode works by reducing the brightness of the screen or by running in Power Save mode when it’s not in use. The monitor actually has a built-in Carbon Foot Print meter, which tells you what the current and accumulated savings in carbon dioxide add up to – it’s a nice touch.

Next to similarly priced 19-inch monitors, the P221W is a decent option. For amateur digital artists keeping to a tight budget and working with colour, this monitor would be ideal. If you’re a working digital artist who needs a versatile display, we recommend looking to NEC’s higher-end products, as you might find that you outgrow this monitor. 5

Dell says that the Precision M6400 is not just designed to meet your needs – it’s designed to exceed your expectations. You certainly won’t expect it to be quite so heavy at a weight of 3.8kg before opting for the huge range of upgrades available, though, making it a laptop that won’t spend very long on your lap. In terms of appearance, the M6400 comfortably falls within expectations.

Sleek and silver with a straightforward layout, its design follows function rather than form, and you will certainly benefit from it. If you’re feeling flash you can opt for the sexy orange-skinned Covet version, but attention-grabbing looks are not what the Dell is about. In fact, one perceived advantage of the M6400’s conventional appearance is perhaps that it contradicts its price. The machine we tested, with full specs, racked up to more than an eye-popping five grand. Take a breather, as purchase validation is coming.

Heavy, conventional looking and the price of a small car may not sound ideal, but there is good reason why this machine can cost this much. The M6400 offers state-of-the-art technology. Designed absolutely with the professional in mind, the M6400 aims to finally allow 3D artists, video editors, architects and scientists to abandon their desktops and head for the park, safe in the knowledge that their laptop can render in the sunshine without imploding. This Dell laptop is engineered to provide the user with the vast amounts of processing power, massive scalable memory options, high-tech security and proven reliability needed for managing complex tasks.

In terms of elbow grease, the M6400 features Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Quad-Core processors combined with significant memory scalability, up to 1TB with optional RAID and dual internal hard drive bays. There’s also up to 16GB dual channel memory and a next-generation NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M or FX 3700M graphics processor, with up to 1GB dedicated graphics memory on board.

For those of us that aren’t too technically minded, that equates to oodles of oomph. This makes running Photoshop CS4’s interactive options, rendering times and a host of other compatible plug-ins and software a dream. In independent bench tests the M6400 has outclassed countless competitors. It’s worth noting – especially when considering the price – that this Dell laptop is ISV certified. This means it has been rigorously tested to ensure that it can reliably operate CAD and design software like 3ds Max, Maya and CATIA.

The straightforward but carefully considered layout of the Dell is a joy to use. The keys are soft but satisfyingly positive and backlit, a feature strangely absent on a lot of laptops. The touchpad, again backlit, is accurate, sensitive and boasts a clever jog/shuttle feature to allow easy video editing. By engaging this feature the touchpad mouse function is disabled, but the M6400 offers a track point stick in the centre of the keyboard as an alternative. The 17-inch, 1,920 x 1,200px screen resolution is very crisp and gentle on the eye, while Photoshop users will surely revel in its ability to render 100 per cent of the Adobe sRGB colour space. However, it has to be said that the screen was prone to some reflection in harsh office lighting. Other features include an eight-in-one memory card reader, slot-load DVD writer, two USB sockets and a full-size six-pin FireWire port.

In terms of security, the Dell M6400 offers an integrated smart card reader and optional fingerprint and no-contact smart card readers. Or if you’re really in trouble, with the combination of its super-tough magnesium alloy casing and considerable heft, this laptop could double as quite an effective weapon. Seriously, though, in addition to being well engineered on the inside, the M6400 does feel very solidly built. It’s always hard to tell how things will last when they’re just out of the box, but Dell assures us that these laptops have been tested to destruction to ensure the final product will last, a claim that’s backed up with a three-year hardware warranty.

We found that we were unable to provide a test that really pushed this laptop. It breezes over everyday tasks. Dell says that the M6400 works at the speed of thought, and at times it really does feel like you can’t keep up with it. Independent tests show that, like the marketing rhetoric says, it exceeds expectations when running complicated memory-munching tasks.

For many of us the M6400 could be a little too pricey, and we can console ourselves with the knowledge that we won’t have to make regular trips to the chiropractor. But this is a remarkable laptop, it’s a joy to use and is capable of running pretty much anything. There isn’t a mobile workstation that rivals it for sheer power, which for some will definitely validate the cost.

With 23 years of experience in the field of custom-built graphic workstations for the CAD, visual effects and animation markets, Workstation Specialists clearly has a very good idea of what’s important when it comes to building a suitable system for your work. Since the WSX114 is part of its flagship ‘ultimate’ range, you can also be sure that it incorporates leading-edge technical wizardry to ensure your workflow and image fidelity isn’t hamstrung by hardware.

Built on a backbone of Intel’s blazingly fast Core i7 950 processor technology, the system has been overclocked to run at an incredible 4GHz – just about squeezing every last drop of speed possible from the chip maker’s top-drawer CPU. To put that into context, the fastest we’ve seen a system run using similar processors is 4.2GHz – an astonishing speed. However, overclocking is something of a double-edged sword in that it can lead to instability, so Workstation Specialists has wisely taken a small step back from the absolute limit to ensure solid, reliable performance. Since reliability is of utmost important when it comes to workstations, we tested its mettle in this regard using a well-known form of processor torture testing – Prime95. The software itself is used to calculate Mersenne prime numbers that are literally millions of digits long, but since it puts the processor and memory under considerably more strain than even the most demanding multithreaded application like Photoshop ever could, it’s the perfect candidate to ensure that a system is 100 per cent stable. Suffice to say, it passed with flying colours, making it an ideal tool for earning the £100,000 prize for finding the first prime number with 100 million digits. With much more than just a fast processor and 12GB of solid DDR3 RAM under the hood, however, this would be a heinous waste of a perfectly good Photoshop workstation.

In terms of speed, its four native cores (doubled to eight if you take Hyper Threading into account) provide enough power to ensure there’s literally nothing else on the open market that can beat it. Since Photoshop CS4 is so well optimised for running tasks across multiple cores, it made short work of our basic filtering benchmarks. From our tests, it was immediately obvious that we could run batch processes in the background while concentrating on another facet of our workflow without a noticeable drop in performance. Despite this, the WSX114 is surprisingly quiet under a heavy load, a considerable feat considering the aforementioned overclocking and is an important (if somewhat overlooked) aspect of a usable workstation.
Despite an already impressive show of technical prowess, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what makes the WSX114 such an intriguing prospect. Some of you may be aware that CS4 features the ability to use the latent power in many of today’s graphics cards to increase image fidelity and processing performance of a system. This is thanks to NVIDIA’s CUDA (compute unified device architecture), a parallel computing architecture designed to move compatible processor-intensive tasks away from the humble CPU onto the surprisingly versatile and capable graphics processor.

In recent times, graphics processing units (GPUs) have leapfrogged CPUs as the architecturally dominant force in computing. With many million more transistors dedicated to computational tasks, NVIDIA’s CUDA can provide an incredible speed boost with a compatible graphics card and software. The Quadro FX 1800 with 768MB of its own dedicated memory featured in the WSX114 is a prime example of a card with this cutting-edge technology, although it also works with off-the-shelf cards designed for home computers and PC gaming starting at just £50. While CS4 boasts many CUDA-compatible facets off the shelf, the technology is still young and very few plug-ins are currently compatible. Thankfully, for a relatively standard workflow the biggest boosts are immediately evident. The manipulation and filtering of very large images is probably the most obvious example. Halving the time it takes to blur a 500MB file – especially considering the awesome speed of today’s test system – is a feat of extraordinary proportions.

Zooming in and around particularly large canvasses can be a drag with a basic PC, but with CUDA enabled it is possible to mill around the most demanding image without a hint of stutter or lag. With CUDA you also have image fidelity enhancements, entirely ridding your screen of jagged edges thanks to image smoothing, completely removing the need for interpolation at nonstandard zoom settings.
We’re sure we’ve barely seen the start of CUDA’s capabilities, and despite the current lack of suite-wide compatibility, the incredible speed and silky smooth operation of the WSX114 offers us a level of future proofing we’re confident matches the large asking price. While predominantly aimed at users of the latest version of Adobe’s world beating app, the WSX114’s cutting edge processor, ample RAM and super-fast SSD hard drive ensure it’s the most capable system around, CS4 or otherwise.

It’s not so much an issue of size, but more about technology. EIZO has added to its ColorEdge 24-inch series with the CG243W LCD monitor, and this new model aims to cater for a wider creative audience.
The company has improved the stabilisation technology for brightness and colour quality in its latest model, and also includes specific presets for the optimum setup for moving images. EIZO has given a lot of focus to make this monitor ideal for multimedia designers.

Its 24.1-inch screen gleams off its plastic stand, and the widescreen frame can be spun left and right, slide up and down, and even pivot 90 degrees to edit in portrait mode. All of the monitor’s function buttons are aligned along the bottom of the screen, and never seen before on EIZO monitors is a user interface that’s been designed to show the command of each physical button on screen, which is ideal if you’re working in low light.

The monitor comes with ColorNavigator, its own calibration software. This allows you to set brightness, white point and gamma values, although a separate measurement device is needed. Compatible brands of measurement devices include ColorMunki, Eye-One and DataColor. The ColorNavigator software synchronises with the monitor’s 12-bit look-up table for a fast calibration to achieve best results. EIZO’s newest addition uses a 3D look-up table, making adjustments on a mixed-colour cubic table rather than assessing RGB values on separate tables. This may sound complicated but means neutral greys are rendered to a high standard, with a hand from the monitor’s 16-bit internal processor for this exact purpose.

The monitor has impressive colour and tonal depth, which is down to its native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200. Couple this with its 850:1 contrast ratio and colours truly bounce off the screen. Let’s not get carried away, however, as its price tag isn’t easily swallowed. At £1,399/$2,798 this would be a serious first-time buy, and only then for designers with deep pockets.

The CG243W reproduces 98 per cent of the Adobe colour space. That’s up from 96 per cent on the previous model, the CG241W. The subtle increase gives an advantage to photographers shooting in Adobe RGB mode to reproduce more of the colour spectrum on-screen.

A common problem found with LCD monitors is an inconsistency with brightness and colour intensity from corner to corner. Fortunately, the monitor comes with a DUE (Dual Uniformity Equalizer) function to improve performance across the entire surface of the screen. For digital artists using every last inch of their monitor, this feature makes a noticeable difference.

The CG243W hits the middle ground on size and does it with superb results. We were impressed with the monitor’s depth and contrast, making it the ideal multimedia choice. If you’re not dismayed by its price, we recommend this ColorEdge screen for digital artists dealing with video streams to photo retouching. 5