Comparison of HDR, JPG, and manual raw conversion

I just created a small unpublic webalbum with a quick comparison of HDR, JPEG and a manual raw conversion (unpublic so that it won't clutter my album list). I was just wondering in which situation HDR might become necessary. In this example... well, judge for yourself.

IMHO, its not really necessary for this scene. The manual raw conversion looks more natural than the HDR version (personally, of all the HDR photos I've seen, there are only very few which are really good - and these are the ones where you don't notice that it is an HDR at first sight... just IMHO... just IMHO...:-).

Nikon Customer Service?

When I updated my computer with a new mainboard, new CPU, more memory and a new graphics card I wanted to give Nikon's Capture NX software another go (I installed the trial version on my old Sempron3000 machine with 1gig of RAM but it was no good so I uninstalled it after just one day).

Now, what I did after updating the hardware was a repair installation of Windows XP - that way I was able to keep all my data and installed programs - including the information that I once had a trial version of Nikon Capture NX installed! When I wanted to trial the software again, it told me that the trial period was over.

So I contacted Nikon customer support here in Germany and described my problem. Answer: if a trial version was installed once its embedded into the system, and its not possible to install a trial version again.

Hu? I won't buy a pig in a poke. And it seems like its not necessary for Nikon to sell their software. I mean... I can understand that they don't want to breed freeloaders that install one and the same trial version over and over again, but they should really supply a "cleanup utility" thru their customer support. Or limit their trial version to 30 sessions instead of 30 days, that would be a trial mechanism that makes sense. I mean... trialing software shouldn't really make it necessary to make a schedule that includes your holidays, being sick, broken computer, and things like that.

And what makes me particularly mad is when some half-baked uninstaller routine leaves its trash on my system (and that anger is not limited to Nikon software). The good thing is that there's an alternative: SVS from Altiris. Its free for personal use, and in the future I'll trial all software only in SVS so that I don't run into that obstacle again.

EXIF & IPTC in Windows Explorer

Microsoft offers "Photo Info" as a free download. Its an add-on that brings EXIF & IPTC support to Windows Explorer. For those of you who wondered where the keywords (tags) you entered for your photos in Picasa went, IOW why they were not visible in Windows Explorer, this is the solution.

EDIT, August 2012: as with all things Microsoft, they tend to go away, and the above links to nowhere now. It appears that "Photo Info" has been pulled altogether, and replaced by "Pro Photo Tools 2" (download requires Windows Genuine something blablah validation). Whether that adds EXIF & IPTC support into Windows Explorer for XP & Vista I don't know.

However, in order to view (some) IPTC data like the keywords, no plugin is necessary in Windows 7. Just select the "Details" view in Windows Explorer and right click on the column title bar.

• "Title" will show the IPTC Caption/Description (there appears to be no option to view the actual IPTC Title field)
• "Tags" will show the IPTC Keywords.

These fields can also be edited in the Properties dialog box for an image. Right-click, select Properties, then the Details tab.