Is It Time for 2022 Photography Goals?

Questions to challenge your skills and identify goals

Current Equipment

Are you learning to better use your current equipment?
Are you learning your processing software?
Are you organizing your legacy images?
Did you sell your unused and outdated equipment?
Are you using your tripod?
Are you organizing your new images?
Are you using your external (speedlite) flash?
Did you consolidate miscellaneous HDs into a single larger drive?
Did you implement and follow a back-up strategy for your image files, software install files, and passwords / credentials?
Did you investigate insurance / replacement costs of your equipment?
Did you download the PDF copy of your camera model?

Technique

Are you using Back Button Focus?
Are you using selective focus with an off-center AF point placed specifically on the subject?
Did you watch any YouTube training for your software?
Did you return to a prior subject with a new lens or technical approach to specifically improve on a prior attempt?

Life

Did you make a photography-based trip?
Did the pandemic increase or decrease your overall photography effort?
Did you shoot any film?
Did you display your images on a digital frame or TV?
Did you print any images?
Did you sell any images?
Did you enter a photography competition?
Did you change to mirror-less?

Every journey, even one that takes years to complete, begins with the first step. Don't let a knowledge of the length, or just a fear of not reaching the end, stop you from ever even starting.

Source: UHH

100 Best Free and Paid Photo Editing Software

When choosing a free photo editor, one needs to look into the purpose of a photo editor and experience level in photo editing. Some may want to just make some basic exposure, contrast and slight colour adjustments where as others may require advanced features like working with layers and masking techniques. https://www.lightstalking.com/free-photography-software/

Based on the various factors, here is the round up of the best photo editing software of 2020 that includes one free and one online photo editor. Some of the software reviewed have great features and are easy to use, but they have gone down on the overall score due to low scores in terms of community.
https://www.lightstalking.com/photo-editing-software/

 

Your Phone's Apps and Privacy Definitions - Deep Dive

Privacy Definitions and Examples

Learn more about the data types an app may collect and some of the ways the developer or its third-party partners may use it.

https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1539235847

Security tip: The right way to clean out your phone apps

The process is simple. Go through each of your apps and ask yourself “Do I really need this?” But it’s not as simple as just uninstalling the apps you don’t use anymore. 

You need to take a few vital steps to delete apps the right way and protect your privacy.Here are some tips, however open the link to get the non-tech details. iPhone shown but detials are provided in the link for Android.

1. Check which you use the most, how much data and which are battery hogs
2. Log into each account and deactivate or delete (check out JustDelete.me)
3. Check and remove app permissions

Source: Kim Komando https://bit.ly/3l5QLhw

What Companies Knows About You

Here a summary of what companies know about you and steps you may consider to improve your privacy and web security.

• What Amazon knows about you
  
• What Apple knows about you
  
• What Axios knows about you
  
• What Facebook knows about you
  
• What Google knows about you
  
• What your hospital knows about you
  
• What the internet knows about you
  
• What Intuit knows about you
  
• What Tesla knows about you

Increase Your Security if You Use Facebook

The ability for Facebook to capture information about you and your activities is 'baked' into their mobile app. How - delete Facebook app and create a Home Screen bookmark on your phone.

There are several disadvantages of using the app instead of loading Facebook directly in a browser:

1 – The Facebook app is a major battery hog. After app deletion author found an extra hour or two of battery life between charges.
2 – Facebook’s mobile website works a lot more like the full-blown desktop site.
3 – Using Facebook in a mobile random glitches are less likely to occur.
4 – The app is less protective of a user’s privacy than the mobile version of the Facebook website.

Source: Rick's Daily Tips https://tinyurl.com/yesthxkm

Here is how to add Facebook website to your phone (or any website)
https://tinyurl.com/yfm2jcry

Find Accounts Your email is Used

Lullar is like the little Google of email and social media database. It is an online tool that would help you in finding social media accounts using email for free. In 2 clicks, it would give you all the Social Media Accounts of any person using email. 

Lullar doesn’t have its own database. It just works like a search engine to find someone’s social media account using an email. The tool does not give you the exact profile you are looking for.

Privacy - Opt Out of Ring Amazon Sidewalk

You can opt out of Sidewalk through settings in Alexa, but you can also do it through the Ring app. Here’s how:

• Open your Ring app.
• Tap the three-lines in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.
• Navigate to and tap Control Center.
• Tap Sidewalk.
• Tap the Sidewalk slider button.
• You will see a screen asking you to confirm that you want to disable Sidewalk. Confirm that you wish to disable Sidewalk.
  

 

Privacy Settings for Amazon

If you're sensitive to how your personal information is being collected (and used by Amazon) ... here are some tips from Kim Komando's tech website we all can follow.

Approach:
1. Hide you order history
2. Clear your browsing history
3. Delete Alexa recordings
4. Delete public profiles
5. Delete Amazon Cloud Cam video clips

Source: Amazon Privacy Tips

Amazon Ratings - True or False?

Review Meta. A website offering that uses technology to identify and remove all of these unnatural reviews to give Amazon shoppers a more accurate "Adjusted Rating" that shows what true, unbiased shoppers really think of each product... a rating you can trust! ... Check out Review Meta

An Alternate to Facebook Portal - Free

We were introduced (made aware) of Facebook Portal from our friends recently. Portal allows a full room view of callers/recipients on video calls like Apple's Facetime - either on an 8" or 10" iPad-like tablet of directly on the TV. There are Pro's and Con's - the cons being primarily privacy concerns. An option may be to simply use an Apple TV connected to an HDTV and use any Apple device with an Apple Facetime app installed. Once connected simply stream the conversation to the HDTV. A couple of items to be considered are:
.. where to position and secure the device (can I use iPhone tripod)
.. check that the device position so the conversation is natural
.. will the viewing quality be okay?

Use 'What3Words' to Find a Any Location

Get the exact (within a 10x10 ft square) location or position based on 3 Words - worldwide. The What3Words system divides the globe into a grid with fifty-seven trillion squares measuring three meters on each side. It encodes geographic coordinates into three English words for each three-meter square. Valuable when a position or location you need does not have an address (remote area, car location at a mall or mega flea market, etc.) 

The only catch ... you need, and the searcher needs the app to enter the 3Words of the position you need to navigate to (using Google or Apple Maps). To get the app, download it from the Google Play or App Store.

See What3Words

Nik Collection ... from ~ $400 to Free

This software was the boss several years ago. Google picked it up and made it free. They subsequently decided not to support it but the 'live' links still exist.  Here are the free versions:

Windows - http://dl.google.com/edgedl/photos/nikcollection-full-1.2.11.exe
Mac - http://dl.google.com/edgedl/photos/nikcollection-full-1.2.11.dmg

Read The Nik Collection is No Longer Free, But It’s Alive

What Does Apple Have on You - Go Here

Apple has launched a privacy website that allows you to download all the information Apple has on you that is stored on their servers. 

Go to privacy.apple.com. This is where you'll choose exactly what you want to download. You can select certain things that might be important, like your App Store activity or all the notes you've stored in iCloud. If there are items you don't use, then you don't have to check them.

At the bottom of the page you'll see a list of files that might be large, like your entire iCloud photo library. 

Free Digital Scan of Old Photos

Photos from the past, meet scanner from the future. Google Photos is a (my) home for many of my photos from my smartphone and computer. However, we still have many old prints that are treasured memories. Wouldn't be nice to save if I could save those photos digitally, and e if I wanted to friends and family? Well, Google provided an answer - Photo Scan! Not only can you save those photos for free, but Photo Scan even provides some basic editing tools to enhance those memories.

iPhone, iPad and Mac Apps Sync

Can iBooks and Apple Notes sync across all Apple devices? Well - almost and No. I save reports and tech articles that are PDF docs on the iPad so it is mobile and convenient in the car or on the beach. However, even though the app exists on the Mac and the iPad, Apple suggests the PDF be downloaded separately to each device. Solution: instead of iBooks - use Pocket (Read it Later).

Similarly, Apple's recent upgrade to the latest iOS 9 and OS El Capitan 10.11 has create an inability to sync Apple Notes across devices. Solution: install Wunderlist app in mobile device and use Wunderlist website for the Mac. 

One big benefit of this approach for drive space limited Macs is that this approach does not require space utilization on computer since you're using the web versus installed app.