A Window 7 crash causes a lot of frustration and angst while you try and sort the problems – read on to find out what I learned from the experience and how to get back your Photoshop and Lightroom setting and preferences.

In the past I have let windows updates go ahead automatically but this is not a good strategy, as I found out to my cost recently. In fact it can and did cause me a lot of work and angst.

The PC had been working fine all day but a break was need so I had switched it off, and it did an install of updates and when I returned that evening to do some more image work it would not boot up. One of the updates  (most likely a driver update) had changed something and it was stopping the machine from booting up.

The splash screen error message was “unmountable boot error”.

Which after a lot of web research and the trying different approaches to getting the system to boot again, I decided that the best solution was to reinstall the operating system on a new hard disc. This is of course a real pain as all your programs have to be reinstalled and then you have to find your key codes and then for programs like Photoshop your actions and setting too.

Fortunately all my images are stored on a separate Raid 5 drive, so they were ok I just need my operating system and programs back to be able to work with the image again. The timing of this event was of course practically bad as firstly I was half way through rebuilding my website follow its crash and I had my first camera club talk of this season coming up in two weeks and my presentation was only half done.

So what did I learn from this exercise, that is worth passing on in this blog: firstly don’t let windows do automatic updating turn this off. Just remember to check once a week to see what is in the list updates and make your own mind up about what to install.

Here is the windows info for changing that setting  info  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/turn-automatic-updating-on-off#turn-automatic-updating-on-off=windows-vista

1. Open Windows Update by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Update.
2. In the left pane, click Change settings.
3. Choose the option that you want.
4. Under Recommended updates, select the Include recommended updates when downloading, installing, or notifying me about updates check box, and then click OK.

As a photographer who uses both Lightroom and Photoshop making a back up of your preferences / setting files for both these programs is well worth the small effort.

These are located on a Windows machine in the following locations on your system drive

Users/[Username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [version #]/Adobe Photoshop [version #] Settings

Users/[Username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom [version #]/Adobe Lightroom [version #] Preference

These can be found by searching for  (*.agprefs)

Here is also a list of location of other bit of the Photoshop program that might be of use too.

You can also find these by searching using *.psp file

Armed with this info I was able to get most of my setting/ preferences back for both these programs as I could read the disc that would not boot in file manager so the various setting could be copy and replaced.

Always rename the original preference files before replacing it with your preferences that way if they are corrupt then you can go back to that file. I usually use .old as the file extension.

Here is one really useful but useless bit of information that I thought might solve my issue was that Window 7 can be re installed on top of itself, but only if Window 7 is running. (smile)

The other thing that is well worth doing is backing up your Lightroom catalogue, its file name is:  Catalog.lrcat. I now make sure that I back this up weekly and I would strongly advise that these backups are on a different drive to your Lightroom installation, a stand alone hard drive is well worth the investment for this purpose. Keeping them separate avoids losing your catalog and your backups at the same time.

I also now store a copy of my catalog off site.

The other important files that are worth making a backup copy of are paper profiles; on a Windows based machine these are located here:

C: Windows, System32, Spool, Drivers, Color

Well worth getting those backup too.

I have had a number of photographers contact me recently asking my thoughts on my recent upgrade to the Canon 5D Mark III.

So it prompted me to stop and think what I thought about the camera.

I had previously said a number of times that I could not see any need to upgrade to the 5D Mark III, for my type of photography (Working with models in the studio and on location) the MkII did its job well enough and produced good images.

However my main issue with the MkII was the focusing. It performed well most of the time but in low light it did struggle especially if you had the modelling light turned off; on the studio lights it was almost impossible to get a focus. You always had to move to move your focus point back to the central focus point to get any form of focus in those conditions. But I knew about it and worked on the central focus point when working in those lighting situations.

However this year I had started to be a little unhappy about the number images that were not as sharp as I would have liked and as I mentioned in a previous blog post  I took the decision to change a couple of my lens from zooms to prime lens. I also had the opportunity to handle to MkIII in anger a couple of time and was impressed with the new 61-point focusing system that it now had.  So the decision was made to change when Canon had the offer of a battery grip included with the camera.

The first impression when you look at the camera is not much has changed, however the body shape has changes slightly and for me the camera fits slight better into my hand (I have big hands so a plus for me) Most of the key specification have been upgraded over the MkII (details can be seen here) The menu system has also changed quite a bit, but if you are used to the MkII menu system then finding your way around is more or less the same. A number of function screen have been added for the Auto focus system, and a few useful custom setting have come forward in the menu hierarchy.  The rest of the Mk III shooting controls are in the use place here on the top or on the back plate to the side of the display screen. MkII owners would be familiar with most of what these buttons do. However there are three new buttons on the back; one labelled Rate, which you might use to rate your images on the back of the camera, one with a Magnify glass on it, which you use to zoom in and out of the image when pressed using one of the scroll wheels, the final one is used when shooting stills to allow you to access the Picture Style, Multiple Exposures, and in-camera HDR – In image review mode allow you to compare images side by side.

The button functions changes only really become an issue when you are shooting and you look at an image on the back of the camera. The old 5D MkII way of doing this is so in grained that you automatically go to the button which use to do it and then wonder why you are not zooming in. To zoom in on the 5D Mark III takes a different button selection and the use of the small scroll wheel on the front to the camera. You now need to bring up the picture as the MkII and then hit the magnifying button and then using the scroll wheel on the front to zoom in and out. This for me has been the main change when actually using the camera. The other is the focusing which is vastly improved over the MKII and is a really winner for me. You can select any of the focus points and they will focus on your aiming point in the low light condition that the MkII would not even pick up an edge.

So having now used it on two studio shoots, and outside for some landscape work what do I think of it, was upgrade worth it?

For me the answer is a firm yes: the new way of zooming into and out of images will eventually become second nature, but of me the 61 point focusing really does make it better than the MkII.

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