Nikon D7100

Digital Photography Review has published a very positive (85%/Gold Award) in depth review of Nikon's 24MP 'enthusiast' APS-C DSLR.

Edited snippets from the conclusion follow:

"The D7100 is a fast, responsive camera in most operational aspects. Most impressive though is just how many features it shares with its higher-priced full frame siblings. The D7100 one-ups its Nikon stablemates with an RGBW rear LCD which offers more efficient operation and gives the option for greater brightness than an RGB panel.

"The D7100 delivers outstanding image quality and detail rendition at low ISOs in both JPEG and Raw mode. Noise does start to become visible at the pixel level even at moderate ISO sensitivities, but is kept well under control given the pixel density of its 24MP APS-C sensor."

"The camera's auto white balance does a fine job of rendering accurate colors in all but the more extreme lighting conditions. We also find that the camera's default JPEG settings produce pleasing files that avoid prominent sharpening and/or noise suppression artifacts."

The D7100 maintains nearly every operational and handling feature we liked about the D7000, improves upon those we found fault with and offers a compelling upgrade in resolution, image quality and high ISO performance. And at a list price of £999 (body only), the D7100 inherits an impressive amount of features and performance from the much higher-priced full frame Nikon DSLRs.
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GoComics

Comics Alliance reports: [edited]

Universal Uclick's GoComics has launched a free app that enables you to read many classic comic strips on your tablet and phone for free, including Peanuts, Doonesbury, Garfield and The Boondocks.

The most notable inclusion may be Calvin and Hobbes, marking the first time the entire archive of the legendary strip have been legally available to read on your phone.

The app offers users '20 years of back issues of comic strips', and allows them to bookmark their favorites and share them with friends via email, text, and social media, including Twitter and Facebook.
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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Beta

Adobe Labs has announced the availability of a free public beta of Lightroom 5 for Mac or Windows.

New/improved features include:

Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke.

Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click.

Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer's eye through your images with more flexibility and control.

Video slideshow sharing – Easily share your work in elegant video slideshows. Combine still images, video clips, and music in creative HD videos that can be viewed on almost any computer or device.

Improved photo book creation – Create beautiful photo books from your images. Lightroom includes a variety of easy-to-use book templates, and now you can edit them to create a customized look. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks.

To download click here
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Photoshop CS6 Cheat Sheet

Available from Web Design Ledger
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Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3

Digital Photography Review has published a full review of Panasonic's Micro Four Third flagship.

Snippets from the conclusion follow:

"In terms of Raw capability the images it produces are sharp and have reasonably low noise levels. There's not a tremendous amount of additional dynamic range to be had out of the files, but they're reasonable malleable. The JPEG noise reduction isn't quite as impressive - with higher ISO images losing all their fine detail."

"Anyone who found the OM-D's handling too fiddly will love the GH3's substantial grip, while its magnesium-alloy build strikes a good balance between offering a feeling of solidity, without adding excessive weight."

"The GH3 has some of the most comprehensive wireless control we've yet seen on a camera of this type, with full control over exposure, focus and the majority of camera settings. Wi-Fi can also be used to automatically download files to your computer or upload them to the web."

"The Panasonic GH3 is the new standard bearer for video on a consumer stills camera. At the time of writing no other camera at a similar price point offers so much for video shooters and filmmakers. Whilst the Nikon D5200 / D7100 and Canon 5D Mark III perform better in low light, neither have the range of video features and frame rates the GH3 offers for $1299 - nor quite the crispness of detail at 1080p."

"For us the GH3's stills capabilities, while good, are not enough to make it stand out - Olympus' more compact E-M5 produces nicer JPEGs, while the likes of Nikon's D7100 offer an edge in stills image quality."
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Status Board for iPad

Status Board is an app that groups a number of useful data streams on to an 'at-a-glance' panel on your iPad.

At £6.99 it isn't cheap (by app standards at least), but I've been using it for a week now, and I like it a lot.

It allows me to have the time/date, weather and my email, newsfeeds and twitter messages in plain view at all times. The panels can be moved/resized/deleted. And there are customisable widgets which allow you to channel your own data to the panel.

For more information, visit Panic.
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Essential Web Design Tools

Webdesigner Depot reports: [edited]

Every web designer requires the right tools to do their job. To create well crafted original designs you need to be inspired to do so.

Getting to that point is sometimes the hardest challenge in the field of web design. Luckily for us and our fellow design community there are tools available to assist in completing the job quicker and more efficiently.

Here's a selection of tools I recommend for any web designer.
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Cover disasters

Where Magazine is published by Morris Visitor Publications. Like many publications, they occlude part of the title with a 'cutout' of the main image. These two covers are good examples of why you should be very careful which parts of the type areas you exclude.
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Moving/Resizing a Screenshot Selection Area

Cult of Mac reports: [edited]

Most Macintosh users know that hitting Command-Shift-3 will take a picture of the Mac's screen.

Some know that Command-Shift-4 reveals a crosshair which you can use to select a specific area.

Not very many know that once you’ve hit Command-Shift-4 and selected your area for a screenshot, that if you hold the Space bar down while continuing to hold the click, you can move your mouse cursor around and the selected area will move with it.

If you don’t let go of the mouse button, and release the Space bar, you can even continue to resize the selection area. Once you’ve moved everything around to the right area, let go of the mouse button, and the screenshot will be deposited on your desktop.
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Free Font - Exo

Font Squirrel is hosting this 'technical' sans serif family, available in a very useful nine weights from thin to black, with complementary italic versions.
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