There are basically two different types of hard drives on the market. One is a spindle hard drive and the others is an SSD or solid state drive. The spindle drive has been around for a long time. These drives are found in 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch drives. 3.5 inch drives usually need auxiliary power. 2.5 inch drives usually run on bus power(gets power though data connection). These drives are electro-mechanical data storage devices. The platters rotate between 5400-7900 rpm and a magnetic arm moves across the platter to read and write data. The read/write speeds of these drives are around 115-250 MB per second. An issue with a spindle drive are the read/writing speeds are slow and can easily break because they have moving parts. Their pros are they hold large amounts of data and are the most cost effective.
The 2.5 inch drive is usually a portable drive that runs at 5400 rpm on bus power. They are most common in laptops, but most new computers use solid state drives and portable external hard drives. It is one of the more common drives found in box stores and it is most likely a consumer drive. The 3.5 inch drives runs at 5900-7900 rpm. Usually, the faster the rotation the faster the read/write speeds. They offer the most bang for the buck but usually require separate power. These drives are usually found as a desktop internal drives, NAS drives or external non-portable drives. Spindle drives come in consumer and enterprise variants.
Enterprise drives are usually made for NAS(network attached storage) or servers and are much more reliable, rated for around 1 million hours and have better warranties. The main spindle drive brands are Western Digital and Seagate. Toshiba is also in the market. Hitachi or HGST used to make spindle drives but Western Digital bought the company. Examples of Enterprise drives are Western Digital Red Pro and Seagate IronWolf Pro. You can get enterprise hard drives in external drives. I use one by Glyph, Glyph does not make drives. Most likely it uses Western Digital or Seagate. I usually just call the manufacture and they will tell you the exact specifications.
If you are ever wondering which drives are the best, a company called Backblaze publishes the failure rates of the drives they use. Backblaze is a personal and business backup service. I use and love this company. They backup your computer and all hard drives for $6 a month but you can get a discount if you pay for the year. This is not an offsite cloud like google drive but a backup solution. The process is automated in works in the background.
SSD or Solid State Drive
The SSD is a flash memory drive that has no moving parts and work with semiconductors and NAND style chips. They are lighter and more portable, require less power and crazy fast. SSD’s are found as internal hard drives as well as external drives. Most computers these days are using SSD’s are the main hard drive. The speed of the drives lets you computer boot up and work at much faster speeds. The down side is they are more expensive(but prices are dropping) and they don’t hold as much data. It is typical these days to see smaller SSD’s in a laptop to run your OS and all other data saved on external drives instead of the internal SSD. This is the way I have been working the last 6 or 7 years. I actually made on old 2010 MacBook Pro useable by replacing the spindle drive with an SSD. SSD speeds vary on a variety of factors but read/write speeds are around 450-3000 MB per second. Just like any drive they do have a limited life and will slow down when the reach the number of times they can read/write data.
I presently use an internal SSD in my laptop, an external SSD as my working drive, two external spindle drives one enterprise and one consumer, and four Western Digital NAS Red drives in a Qnap Network Attached Storage running Raid 5.
If you would like to learn about the differences in SD cards check out this blog I wrote https://www.jcwphoto.com/sd-cards-are-not-created-equal/
I do prefer to photograph outside but I can do indoor studio portraits. This image was toned with the matte look and gradient map to give it that color graded effect. The lights used in this image were simple, just a hair light and beauty dish. It was taken with a shallow depth of field so it would quickly fall out of focus. Feel free to take a look at my other portraits on contact me for more information. Hey don’t forget about photos when it is snowing. It is a great time for portraits. If you are not available when it is snowing I can ad falling snow to any image.
Stop using those phone apps to retouch your selfies. I can use high-frequency retouching in Adobe Photoshop to retouch your portraits. High-frequency retouching separates the color layer from the detail layer in Photoshop. This allow me to to fix blemishes, skin color and shadows without removing detail. This will give you a more natural look than just blurring your face. I can contour you face, shape your eyes, nose, mouth, head and body. Need thicker eyelashes, no problem I can add them too. Retouching is totally free and painless for all portraits I take.
If you would like to see the process, I have a YouTube tutorial I made for this image. The description has time stamps so you can skip to any part of the video you would like to watch.
This is a more extreme version of retouching and face shaping. I added digital makeup to to this subject. You can see how I changed her face shape with makeup and shadows. I can do anything from mild to extreme retouching.
Feel free to contact John Whitehead Images to schedule a spring portrait. Retouching is totally free for all portraits I take.
Do you need to update your website? I have managed my own websites over the last 25 years. WordPress is the largest opensource CMS platform and used all over the world. I can help you take advantage of WordPress 5 and the thousands of themes and plugins available. I can install WordPress,set up your site and show you how to make blog posts or any other change to your your site. I can add Google Analytics to your page as well as set it up for SEO(Search Engine Optimization). If you can work Microsoft you can work WordPress.
Secondly, as a photographer, I can photograph anything you need for your site. Get accurate color, small file sizes for maximum speed. Need video, no problem I can make business video intros speciifically for your site.
What to use stock photography, I have access to anything you want. To find out more feel free to check out my sites below or contact John Whitehead Images for more information.
John Whitehead Images
Metal Design
Foods with Flavor
Have you ever wanted to learn how to shoot in manual with your dslr or mirrorless camera? Professionals use manual because of the control and honestly, camera meters are not very accurate. You achieve better images and exposures by learning how to work your camera. Even if you don’t want to shoot in manual, understanding how a camera works can allow you to put it in a better working range. I am starting a series of Photography 101 videos for students in my classes. Feel free to give them a try.
I also have a series of tutorial videos on Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.
Link to YouTube page and all my videos: YouTube John Whitehead Images
New Content-Aware Fill-Adobe Photoshop 2019
I test out how well the new content-aware tool works in the new Adobe Photoshop CC 2019. Overall it is much faster however, the quality is about the same or just a bit better in my opinion. It still leaves an out of focus area where the fill occurred in the image. This is most only visible if you have a detail or textured area that is in focus. You are still going to have to do some clean-up on most images. I will need to use the tool more before I can really see the difference. You can still use the old content-aware fill, so I will be testing it more in the furture.
Photography is only one part of the finished product. I photographer with good toning skills can turn an average image into something amazing. I also offer free profressional high frequency retouching on all of my portraits. This technique separates the detail and color layers. Retouching can be simple or involved. It is all up too you. I offer blemish removal, skin color correction, sculpting, eye brightening and modeling, lip retouching, face and body shaping, hair retouching, and fake eyelashes. If there is something I missed let me know and I can most likely do it.
How to create a vignette action in Adobe Photoshop that works with horizontal or verticle images as well as any ratio. If you would like to download my free Action Set I will create a link below. To install the action just double click the .atn file and it should install.
If you would like to see more Photoshop, Lightroom or Photography Videos check out my YouTube Channel.
Free Action Set Download: John Whitehead Images Action Set.atn
Simba is a 2-3 day old Alpaca at Bent Pine Alpaca Farm. I had the chance to take a few photos when my neighbor took my daughter to meet him yesterday. He was silky smooth and very docile. I think they said he was 15lbs. He was walking around and very curious. I love animals and am always willing to take portraits of them. Check out some of my animal portraits here!