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Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom make a great team for organizing and correcting images while on vacation. Photoshop offers post-production image correction and manipulation tools, allows photographers to enhance colors, correct exposure, resize and compress images for web use and even create Flash- and html-based web galleries. Lightroom offers automatic image backup and catalogs images by date and camera EXIF data, which includes make, model and exposure information. You can easily add keywords to individual images or groups of images at a time, making it easy to search for an image even years down the road.
While Photoshop CS3 can be cost prohibitive for many casual users, Photoshop Elements offers many of the popular features of its full-featured counterpart and even ships in the box with some digital cameras. Photoshop CS3 is available for $649, or $199 when upgrading from earlier versions. Adobe Lightroom is available for $299, and Adobe offers a $125 discount when purchasing the software together. Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 includes many of the features of its big brother without the big price, retailing for about $100.
While Photoshop and Lightroom provide solutions for still images, they won't do you much good when it comes to editing video. Adobe Premiere Elements 4 is an easy to use solution for organizing clips, editing video, mixing audio tracks, adding titles, and even uploading finished videos to YouTube. The newest version also includes an option to burn finished high-definition movies to Blu-ray Disc. Adobe Premiere Elements 4 will run you about $100, though it may have been included with a recent camcorder purchase.
For Mac users, additional software may not be necessary. Apple's iLife suite of software, which includes iPhoto, iMovie HD and iDVD, allows you to edit and organize photos and movies and burn your finished videos to disk. The software is compatible with virtually all digital still cameras and most digital video cameras. Check Apple's website to see if a camcorder is compatible before making a purchase.
Image Backup and Digital Audio
Even equipped with a secure backpack and brand new computer, things can still go wrong. An external hard drive will provide peace of mind and a complete backup of your images should your laptop go astray. Bus-powered solutions are often much smaller and draw their power from your notebook's USB port, so there's no need to search for an outlet to back up your images.
Apple's iPod Classic digital media player is one of the smallest external backup solutions, and is plug and play compatible with PC's and Macs alike. I never leave home for long without my iPod, backing up images and documents on a daily basis. Even though I rarely use my iPod to listen to music, the device provides storage for thousands of songs, and includes video and still image playback as well. In addition to backing up your entire image library, you can also use the iPod to watch movies or television shows while waiting in line for rides at Disneyland.
Available in capacities of 80 and 160 GB, the smaller version provides plenty of storage for even more aggressive travel shooters, and space was never a concern during my two-week adventure. The 80GB iPod Classic is available in silver or black with a retail price of $249.
While the iPod ships with those famous white earbuds, you may want to invest in a more powerful set of headphones. With noise isolation and noise cancellation technology creating a tranquil environment even mid-flight, a nice pair of headphones can cost several hundred dollars, but dare I say they're worth the price.
The Shure SE310 sound-isolating earphones do just that; isolate audio by forming a tight seal with your inner ear. The earphones use sound isolation technology rather than noise cancellation, so unlike bulky noise cancelling headphones, no batteries are required. Performance may vary depending on several factors, notably the size and shape of your ears, though Shure includes their "Deluxe Fit Kit" to help with that problem. The kit includes multiple sound isolating sleeves, allowing you to get the most firm and comfortable fit possible. The default sleeves fit just fine in my ears, but additional sizes are included in the box.
The Shure SE310 earphones sound fantastic, providing incredibly rich bass. Shure claims that the included sound-isolating sleeves are able to block 90-percent of ambient noise, and they were very effective at doing so, blocking out almost all engine noise during my flight across the Atlantic, even before plugging them in! In addition to extra sound-isolating sleeves, the Shure SE310 also includes a 3-foot extension cable and a small disc-shaped carrying case. With a street price of about $250, the earphones cost about as much as an iPod, but if you're sparing no expense for quality sound, comfort and convenience, the SE310 is the way to go.
Sound-isolating earphones are compact and convenient, but they're not for everyone. If you're looking for a less invasive solution, over the ear noise-cancelling headphones are a good choice. Though they may not block noise as effectively as their in-ear counterparts, noise-cancelling headphones work by using a microphone positioned near the ear to capture ambient noise, causing interference that in turn cancels out unwanted sound. Because of all this electronic voodoo, noise-cancelling headphones often leave me with a headache, but I know many people who swear by them.
With a street price of about $220, the Sennheiser PXC-300 noise-cancelling headphones offer a comfortable, extremely lightweight design. Sennheiser contained much of the weight in an external wand-shaped device, which houses the unit's dual AAA batteries and electronic circuitry. The headphones themselves are mounted on a standard headband and provide cushions on both the headband and earphones themselves, adding to comfort.
Though not without its faults, audio quality was fair with the PXC-300. Highs were clean and crisp, but the rich bass enjoyed with the Shure earphones was absent here. Noise cancelling, which Sennheiser calls "NoiseGard" on the PXC-300, worked well, and is activated with a switch on the battery wand. Included with the headphones are a compact rectangular carrying case, a two-prong airplane audio adapter for use with older equipment, and a standard quarter-inch adapter for use with audio receivers. The headphones fold to fit into the carrying case, but folding them correctly still proved a chore after several months of use.
Overall the Sennheiser PXC-300 headphones worked as described, but lackluster bass performance, the awkward battery wand and confusing headphone folding technique made them less appealing. A bit of digging can turn up sites selling the PXC-300 for $150, and at that price I think they're worth the expense, but if you're not set on an overhead design, spend a extra few bucks and pick up the Shure SE310.
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