Category: Photography

Categories
Photography

Creepy digital animation

Pink Tentacle points to the Japanese Motion Portrait web site, featuring software that can take a digital photograph and convert it into an animated, interactive 3D representation.

Among the examples linked is one of a dog, which I agree with PT, is somewhat creepy. It’s the human examples, though, including the interactive on one the main page that leads me to wonder how far we can take this particular art.

Perhaps news organizations will hire a ‘face’, and then just program it to talk.

And just think: every Barcamp can have its very own SillyValley A-Lister. No one could tell the difference.

Categories
Photography

Traced Botanical tour

I grabbed my camera and my GPS handheld yesterday to get some test data for application development. The recorded track isn’t the best, primarily because the containing field was small, and the terrain was flat. I also realized from the track that I tend to meander when walking around, taking photos.

screenshot from Google Earth

I can assure you, though, that I didn’t actually go through the lily pond.

Garmin provides it’s own export format, MPS, but I used g7towin on the PC to export the data directly from the device into GPX, another popular format. I also loaded the same track from my device using Ascent on my Mac. All these formats are XML-based–GPX, GML, MPS, KML, and geoRSS. Not to mention the embedded photo info contained in the EXIF data section, which is formatted as RDF/XML. In the debate between JSON and XML, when it comes to the geoweb, JSON has no where to go.

I converted the GPX files into KML files using GPS Visualizer. I also generated a topographic map of the area. With the GPX and KML, I can use any number of GPS applications and utilities, including Google Earth, and the GPSPhotoLinker, which provides the capability to upload a GPS track and any number of photos and geotags the photos, either individually or as a batch. Works in the Mac, too, which is unusual, as most GPS applications are Windows-based.

I can do any number of things with the GPS data since all of it is standard XML and accessible by any number of XML-based APIs and applications. I can generate SVG to draw out the track, as well as create an application to determine from the variance in slope between waypoints or tackpoints, whether the hike is arduous or not. I can use ‘geotagging’ in the images to incorporate photographs into mapping. Or mapping into photography.

Lastly, I can display or otherwise use the EXIF data, though using ImageMagick to generate thumbnails can also strip this information. Eventually even update my old photo/RDF work into something not dependent on a content management tool.

water lilies

Dragonfly on purple

Statue of Woman

Categories
Photography Technology

Image Magic

I’ve been experimenting around with software tools and utilities, and for this batch I used ImageMagick’s command line tools to create the thumbnails and add a signature.

The shell script to add the signature is:

#!/bin/sh
for name in *jpg
do
echo $name
convert $name -font AvantGuarde-Demi -pointsize 24 \
-gravity SouthEast \
-fill maroon -draw "text 27,27 'Shelley'" \
-fill white -draw "text 25,25 'Shelley'" \
$name
done

Puts a signature on every JPEG in a subdirectory.

I also found a lovely little online photo editor that does everything most people need, and has one of the few truly intuitive interfaces I’ve seen among these tools. It’s called Picnik and it doesn’t cost anything to give it a try, as far as I can see.

I won’t use the WordPress upload software, nor the software I had been developing. These require the ability to have global write to a directory, and this has been hacked now and I don’t consider it safe. Instead, I FTP images to a working directory, run my ImageMagick scripts to do my global changes, and then push them over to the my photos subdirectory. All in all, it’s actually as fast or more than uploading one photo at a time, though it doesn’t ‘hide’ you from the environment as much.

I think that’s a mistake myself: protecting the users from the environment. All we’ve done is help them/you to open their/your environment to hacking. Not particularly responsible of us.

Daylily
Gardens
Rose

Categories
Graphics/CSS Photography

Photoshop misery

I had been keeping my version of Photoshop current on my Mac, but not my Windows. When I saw an upgrade package at Amazon that would upgrade my Windows 5.0 version to CS2, I decided to get it. A day wasted later, and oddly enough, talking to what sounds like the same people Chuqui talked to, I found that there are certain installers on Windows that just won’t accept the serial number, and the support person at Adobe would have to manually generate one for me. I asked if the same number would work if I needed to re-install the CS2 upgrade, and she said no, I’d have to call in again if I needed to re-install CS2 on my Windows. I would also have to provide my complete purchase history for Photoshop on Windows, including keys for software bought 6 years ago.

For Chugui, the experience began with the mistaken belief that if all you want to use in CS2 is Photoshop, one should be able to just upgrade Photoshop, especially when Adobe sells upgrades for Photoshop. You’d think…

The first one’s job was to tell me that no, in fact I could NOT upgrade a CS2 package to just Photoshop (but, I asked, what about your web site that says I can? I never got a straight answer about that, actually, just told that it wasn’t possible). I finally decided the hell with it and decided I’d wasted enough time — and maybe I might use Dreamweaver here or there — so I went ahead and decided to go to CS3.

…

That third guy’s job was to let me know that they couldn’t actually just amend my upgrade, I’d have to buy the CS3 upgrade, and then they’d refund me my original upgrade.

Of course, you can imagine what happened when Chuq tried to get a refund.

Adobe believes it has a lock on the graphics and photo editing world with Photoshop, and is using it to force people into buying what they don’t need. I’ve thought about upgrading my CS2 installation on the Mac (never again on Windows), but after listening to some of the problems people have had, have been reluctant to plunk down yet more money. Especially since there’s been so many issues related to upgrading Photoshop, as compared to upgrading the CS ‘suite’.

Now, I do like Lightroom more than Aperture, and I really like Adobe Bridge. I can live without Lightroom, though, and my Adobe Bridge still works. I’m finding that what I have with my current software is more than good enough, so I’m reluctant to do anything at all; just use what I have until forcibly kicked off in some way (probably some incompatible Mac OS upgrade). Frankly, I just can’t keep up with the expense of all these upgrades — especially when I’m maintaining three computers (two Macs and a Windows).

I’m also turning to open source for my needs more frequently. I’ve made the transition to NeoOffice for my Office replacement on the Mac and have never looked back. The software is stable, easy to use, and improves with each release. I also like OpenOffice for Windows, and have had no problems using it with my Windows XP box (I also am holding on upgrading to Vista).

For the new book, instead of putting any time into Photoshop, I decided to cover GIMP and other tools, instead. There is an installer for GIMP for the Mac that works nicely, but instead I installed Darwin/Mac Ports, and then installed both GIMP and UFRaw, the wonderful tool for handling RAW images, using the Ports installation program. Both installations went through without a hitch.

I also installed GIMP and UFRaw on Windows, using the ‘dummies’ installation for the latter and, again, no problems with the installation (though I don’t know if either will work with Vista).

UFRaw

What do I think of the tools? I really like UFRaw, and from what I can see, it handles my Nikon NEF files to a treat. I think I actually prefer it over Adobe’s plug-in, as it seems to manage white space better.

GIMP isn’t as fully featured as Photoshop. It’s not as simple to work with as Photoshop, but much of that could be my unfamiliarity with the tool. It doesn’t have the color support, or the Smart Sharpen filter, nor does it seem to support free transformations. However, the unsharp filter seems to work decently, and I can find most of the transforms I need by looking through the other tools. In addition, GIMP is very much a ‘living’ application, which means new filters, plugins, and versions are continuously being developed.

rose

As for graphics, I was able to immediately create a ‘shiny’ Web 2.0 button, as well as re-implement the reflection technique I had picked up for Photoshop. In other words, it provides all I need for the effects I create.

Shiny Button

You also don’t need a desktop tool. I recently discovered an online graphics tool, FixPicture that can take my Nikon RAW images in NEF format, and allow me to add any number of edits, saving the result to any number of formats.

FixPicture screenshot

I can’t speak for professional photographers and graphic artists, but I can’t help thinking the amateur photographer and web developer/designer who does some graphics, would get all they need from the open source community, rather than having to pay the Adobe tax. Not just GIMP and UFRaw–there are dozens of interesting single and multipurpose tools and utilities that allow us to create all sorts of interesting work; all open, all free except for what you can spare by way of donation.

I’m not adverse to proprietary applications or companies who profit from such, but when a company’s proprietary acts cross over the edge to the predatory, like Adobe’s has with Photoshop, I think it’s time to look elsewhere.

Categories
Photography

Lotus 123

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Lotus 1
Lotus 2
Lotus 3

(I couldn’t resist)