Windows 7 has a really great feature that allows you to “pin” sub items to the applications you have permanently pinned to your taskbar. For Windows Explorer the jumplist items are sub-folders that you would like to have quick access to. I use this feature all the time to easily access the work folders and documents that I have spread around my network.

I recently had a problem with an item in my Windows Explorer Jumplist that could not be removed. Neither clicking on the blue pin, nor right clicking on the item and choosing “Unpin from this list” did what they were supposed to. Even worse was that it was actually a duplicate item and I didn’t want either of them pinned to my jumplist!

This is a pretty common problem and most of the posts about it on the Internet either say that you can’t fix it, or that you pretty much have to destroy your entire jumplist (and possibly all of your jumplists from every application pinned to the taskbar) in order to remove one frozen item. I discovered a quick workaround that lets you actually remove just the frozen item(s):

1. Right Click on your Start Menu choose “Properties”
2. Uncheck “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar”
3. Click Apply”
4. Re-Check “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar”
5. Click OK”

You should now be able to remove the frozen items from your Windows Explorer jumplist:

1. Right Click on the Windows Explorer icon on the Taskbar
2. Click on the blue pin beside each item that you want to remove

Voila! Your jumplist is pristine again!

I posted an article yesterday describing a method to reduce noise from photographic images shot at high ISO by using a free Action for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom called the OD Virtual Tripod Action.

In that article I used an example image that was shot at ISO 400. I realized when I was writing it that the example image may not have been the most convincing; however, it was the best example I had at the time.

So I went out at sunrise and created a new series of images that could really demonstrate how well this action works.

This new example image was created from a series of 11 images that I shot in rapid fire on my Canon 1D Mark IV at ISO 12,800. I deliberately underexposed the images, which always results in noiser images than images that are exposed correctly. I also turned off all noise reduction in Lightroom. The resulting image (upper left) after applying the action is still somewhat noisy, but I think it’s a much more pleasant or organic noise than the originals.

Check out a closeup of the original image on the left below. It is really, really ugly. Now compare it to the image on the right. This is the resulting image after the OD Virtual Tripod Action has been applied. I think the result speaks for itself.

For more information about the OD Virtual Tripod Action check out the original article.

Download the Free OD Virtual Tripod Photoshop Action

• OD Virtual Tripod (Photoshop Action)