I don't know anyone who likes using tech support — especially when seeking help with a software title from a major company. The more users a program has and the bigger the company that sells it, the more agonizing and extended the experience.

Just finding the right place to direct your question can involve a lengthy unguided tour through a maze of Web pages, which seem to have been designed specifically to keep you from ever reaching your goal. Then, if you're lucky, you might wind up talking to a phone room in the Azores or perhaps darkest New Brunswick.

More likely, you'll have to fill in an inquiry form on the Net, then engage in a series of increasingly more detailed e-mails in which you try to explain your problem and the support person (and I use the word "support" loosely) tells you why you're wrong about what has happened to you, that you're not really having a problem at all and, to take it a step further, that what you thought was a design flaw is actually a feature.

The catch 22 in all of this is that if you let yourself become even the slightest bit upset at your treatment, then your correspondent will take this as a sign that you're just another slack-jawed, tech-illiterate jerk with a bad attitude and you'll never hear back again.

Or, if you're on the phone, he or she will end the conversation by telling you to await a call from them the next day with a resolution to the mess you've obviously created with what they know to be a perfectly good piece of software. And if you're deluded enough to sit around waiting for your phone to ring, I have some Enron shares I'm sure will interest you.

By contrast, smaller companies with more obscure (well, let's call it more specialized) software seem, generally, to be eager to hold your hand as you stumble about learning their new program or, as in a recent case for me, discovering why a Photoshop plug-in doesn't work with the new CS3 version in Mac OS X.

I had purchased DXO's (www.dxo.com) FilmPack, both a plug-in and a stand-alone version that allows you to do neat things like convert your colour images to classic black and white films (complete with grain, should you want that) or to change them to look like colour negative or positive film from days gone past.

For my own amusement, I've been capturing images, (oops I almost said taking photographs, which shows just how old I am) of an old hotel here in Vancouver at various times of the day and in different sorts of weather. And I thought it would be appropriate to see what they looked like in, say, Ilford HP Plus 400 or Kodak Kodachrome 64.

Kodachrome 25

Kodachrome 64

Kodachrome 200

Kodak Ektachrome 100VS

I then discovered to my dismay, although the information was there on the Web if I'd bothered to look, that while FilmPack worked as a stand-alone — but not with the Olympus RAW files I used and not with anything but JPEGS — it was completely non-functional as a CS3 plug-in.

It would also work, so the DXO Web site informed me with, DXO's own Optics Pro, a highly regarded program that doesn't support my Olympus DSLR lenses or files.

With something of a hopeless feeling, I filled in one of those Web support forms and sent it of to DXO, not expecting much. However, I soon became engaged in a lively and quick moving exchange with Jeff (who, like those people who phone you up at dinner time to sell carpet cleaning, didn't have a last name.)

Unexpectedly, he was sympathetic to my plight and even went so far as try to get me a test version of FilmPack that would work with CS3 for the Mac. This failed, not because of a lack of effort on the part of Jeff, but because there had been so many problems with the CS3 test version that it had been withdrawn.

Fuji Astia 100F

Fuji Provia 100F

Fuji Velvia 50

I then expressed worries that perhaps Olympus RAW files wouldn't be converted properly in FilmPack, even if a new CS3 plug-in were developed. So, Jeff had me upload a RAW file to the DXO ftp site for a test in CS2. He sent me back the converted version along with the assurance that anything that could be processed in Photoshop could be run through the FilmPack filter.

And, a couple of weeks later, when I got a new CS3-compatible version of FilmPack, Jeff proved to be right. So, thanks to Jeff and DXO, what could have been an extremely bad experience turned into a good one, since now I have FilmPack up and running.

By the way, if you're looking for a way to get those current images to take on a retro appearance, I'd strongly recommend you take a look at DXO FilmPack. It might be what you want.

Sadly, I have to admit that I'm one of those hobby photographers who rarely takes the effort to make a print. In fact, I don't even have a photo printer attached to my computer (nor do I have one networked, because when you're a writer a black and white laser printer is far more practical), so I generally transfer image files to my wife who then prints them and, as somebody trained as an artist, does an excellent job at it.

But I have been thinking that — since I now have quite a bit of time on my hands and a couple of projects underway — it's time for me to get a new somewhat upscale printer. To this end, I have been doing considerable Web-based research, poring over reviews and looking at forums where users talk about their experiences with various brands and models. I've almost settled on what I want, but, when it comes to buying tech gear, procrastination is often your best friend, since newer models are always in the hopper.

Apparently I'm not alone among North Americans in my newly-developed desire to print, according to recent statistics released by the PMA, but not, it would seem, in my need for a high-end amateur printer.

According to the PMA 18 percent of digital camera owners, or 12 percent of all U.S. households bought photo-quality printers in 2006. Of these purchasers, just 14 percent got their new printers as part of a bundle with a camera.

And the average price paid for printers was $162 US, up from $149 the previous year.

There was also a slight shift in the type of printer purchased towards 4x6-inch and 5x7-inch printers, as against 8x10 or larger printers. The small format printers made up 29 per cent of total printer sales, compared to 26 per cent the year before.

Not surprisingly, and here's where I come in, digital SLR owners were almost twice as likely to buy photo quality printers than the overall population at 22 per cent as against 12 per cent.

In a previous column, I recounted my adventures in calibrating my monitor, so I could see the colours of my images accurately as I worked on them (just so long as I keep my computer glasses cleaned properly).

Now, a manufacturer says it has a way of helping this process along.

BenQ says its new Series G LCD monitors will offer pre-set colour-accurate modes that are specifically designed for those working on video files, photos and in the sRGB colour space. Says the BenQ press release: "The sRGB mode ensures colour accuracy on-screen for precise colour editing to reflect accurate colours that are compliant with the industry-standard sRGB colour space."

These monitors have been available in Europe since mid-July.

In my years of writing about tech gadgets for newspapers I was always fascinated by the attempts to take a brand name from one field and apply it to another product area that is almost completely unrelated.

One of the latest of these is the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive, modelled after the famous motorcycle, which SanDisk describes as a "tribute to Ducati's distinctive design and engineering" and goes on to say that it "has the same glossy red chassis and black trim as the Ducati Corse team motorcycles now racking up victories on the MotoGP circuit."

The drive offers four gigs of storage and write speeds of four megabytes per second — the fastest that SanDisk has to offer.

The tie in, according to Alessandro Cicogniani, marketing manager for the product, is that both SanDisk (which sponsors the Ducati MotoGP team) and Ducati "share a passion for bringing together performance and design."

Oh, and the press release says: "There isn't a long wait to fill the drive's big fuel tank with documents, photos, music and other digital data."

Yeah, but don't try to enter your SanDisk drive in a motorcycle race. I don't think it will quite meet the stringent qualifications, even if it does load up your photos quickly.

Links to Peter's previous commentaries:

• New Kodak sensor promises more light on the subject
• Ink's costly, but online backup space can be cheap
• Frivolous features clog newest digital cameras
• When bad salespeople happen to good buyers
• Online image editing needs time to fully develop
• Taking a quick tour of Photoshop CS3 Extended
• Learning my lessons about Photoshop
• Technical Support
• Thoughts on the near-death of a lens
• Buyers want point-and-shoot features in their DSLR
• Smile, there's a useless new camera feature coming your way
• We’re not on our own when it comes to sorting through our thousands of photos