"In short, I do like Stitcher. If you want to create multi-shot panoramas (e.g., more than eight images), the speed efficiency is reason enough to consider using Stitcher over Photoshop. ...

Because of the limited new functionality in this version, I am only giving it a 3 "A" rating. If you are new to Stitcher, by all means, I strongly recommend the program. If you already have a copy, it is hard for me to tell you to spend your money unless the fish-eye lens and/or HDR features are sufficient enough."

Where Does Color Come From?: "Color is all around us. We look at a tree and see green, or we look at a stop sign and see red. The sky looks blue and flowers come in all sorts of different colors. As photographers, most of us shoot in color, but have you ever stopped to consider just what the heck color actually is and where it comes from?...."

(Via Earthbound Light Photography Tips.)

John Krygier wrote "I sat down one day and made a list of Tufteisms from the book" ... leading to "20 Tufteisms from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information"
which he then distills down to six commandments.

As someone who has three of Tufte's books, this is quite interesting. Another aspect I liked in the books was the frequent use of some fine (and a few bad) maps as examples of points in the text.

First Thoughts on Nikon's Big Announcement: "The long period of gossip and rumors about a possible Nikon full-frame DSLR came to an end this week with the announcement of the new Nikon D3 featuring the new FX format sensor (24 x 36mm). Nikon also announced the DX format D300 body as a successor to the D200 as well as a crop of great new lenses. Here are a few first thoughts on what these new cameras mean...."

The Guardian considers the commodification of photography... "the difference between a professional and an amateur is not that the amateur never takes really good pictures. It is that the professional will always come up with usable ones."

REALVIZ Stitcher Updated for Intel Macs: "REALVIZ announced the immediate availability of Stitcher 5.6 on Thursday. The updated version of the photo stitching and panorama creation application now runs natively on Intel and PowerPC-based Macs"

(Via The Mac Observer.)

In my last post, I mentioned how there was one prototype of the glass San Francisco map that used the typeface Klavika, and while it wasn't chosen for the final product, I was very curious how it would work for a city map. Well the answer can be seen in the Portland map series project -- an architecture of location for Portland culture and business which covers some of the major districts of the city, including the Pearl, Northwest/Nob Hill, and Downtown.

I meant to announce this some time ago when it was unveiled. I've gotten quite a few queries regarding aspects of this map, so I'm posting some more info about it. From across the lobby of the San Francisco Business District Hilton, the map looks like it is one giant sheet of glass, twelve feet wide by six feet tall. Diffuse backlighting illuminates the grid of streets and neighborhoods and color coded tourist attractions.

Panoweaver 5.0 for Panorama Creation Released: "The updated photo stitching software uses fisheye images to create 360-degree spherical panoramas.

Nikolas Schiller: Schiller barely pauses on the way to his computer, which he fires up to reveal hundreds of his map creations. They are places you know — the Mall, Adams Morgan, Georgetown, plus other U.S. cities and war-torn ones abroad. But the streetscapes — photographed from above at a resolution fine enough to just make out cars and people — have been warped and woven into kaleidoscopic mosaics, arabesques, spheres. "

(Via The Map Room.)