Jan. 2000
President's
Message
Portrait of ...
Article: CD Disks
CD Disks
- Bill Talarowski
Boy, did I mess up this time! When I wrote
the piece about getting into the digital revolution, I had no idea what
a fire storm I was getting myself into. If you remember, I tried to explain
the route I used in getting my digital images. I tried to explain that
this wasn't the only way, just my way. I also tried to let everyone know
I was no computer geek, in fact I knew very little about this new technology.
Even tried to prove my ignorance by making a mistake about the number
of bytes in a gigabyte. Evidently, there's a lot of club members that
are in the same boat as I am because the comments about the column keep
coming, along with the telephone that keeps ringing.
One person I hold in high regard even suggested I write a book on the subject. The only problem with that is, I can't intelligently talk to someone who really knows something on the subject nor answer some of the questions being asked which frustrates me to no end. I really get a bang out of helping members and not knowing the answer really ticks me off. The questions range from software, printers and programs to how much will it cost to do what your doing? One question early on really threw me, and it was what I thought was an easy one. "Just what is a CD disk and where does it fit in the whole picture"? This got me thinking, especially when I realized I didn't know the whole answer. You see, it really does show you how little I know about this technology but it also demonstrates how you can have technical limitations but if you are newsy and have a bulldog tenacity to get the right answer, (and boy, I have that!) you too can enjoy this new field.
You all remember the phrase in the bible, "in the beginning". Well, in the beginning there was the floppy disk. Don't ask me why it was called this, just be satisfied I was able to remember the name (getting old is hell). It was a magnetic disk much like magnetic tape and subject to the same vulgarities (dirt, wear). It only held 1.44 MB of information, meaning if you had a program let's say PhotoShop that was up around 5.0 MB, you had to have several disks to hold the program. And if your corrected image was around 35 MB in size, to get the image to Kodak for scanning on a CD disk, I would have to use about 25 floppy disks. Now I down load onto a zip drive disk which holds about 95 MB of information which in turn is used to load the CD disk.
Along comes Kodak with a polycarbonate (very hard plastic) and gold coated disk that is able to hold 40 scanned images with 35 MB files and is read by a laser. You can't use them as Frisbees but the information states that it is practically impervious to wear. That means once you have your image on the disk there is no exposure or color deterioration no matter how many times you pass the laser over the surface. You can use this system in scanning your original work from 72 KB to a hefty 72 MB and then with a CD writer, rescan your images into a permanent filing system. Just imagine a disk of all your winners, or of all landscapes, or all nature etc. The possibilities are endless. No filing in slide pages, trays or folders and they never fade, scratch or get dusty. Another benefit is you get a thumb nail sized picture of each image so you know what is on each disk, which makes looking for that image that you need a lot easier. And one more thing...no need for photo albums. That alone makes it a blessing.
There are many other advantages to using this system like getting your developed images on disks instead of regular prints and viewing them on your TV. But I am going to refer you to Jim or Bill at Cameras Etc. for any additional information.
My brain can take just so much these days and right now I'm on overload and in need of my rocker. Now what was it I had for lunch?