Downloading Photos

I have recently been using the “RAW + jpg” setting on my Canon DSLR.  It is useful in some circumstances as it gives a jpg image that can be used immediately. If I’m not happy with the jpg or want to do some editing for any reason I use the RAW file. I find I only use the RAW about 10% of the time so it allows me to upload my photos much faster.

There is a couple of drawbacks. First it reduces the number of images that can be taken before the camera stops shooting and gives its busy message while it saves them. This is only an issue when in continuous mode. If shooting single shots it is fine.

The other issue is downloading the images to the computer. I use digiKam for photo management. I always rename the files as I download them from the “image_xxxx” format to something a little more meaningful, normally I use a “date-subject-num” format. When downloading with the default settings digiKam will number the cr2 raw file as 1 and the jpg as 2 etc. However I found a setting in the download options for numbers to use the extensions. This will give the cr2 and jpg the same number with only the extension to differentiate the 2 files. Exactly what I wanted. digiKam continues to amaze me with how powerful and useful it is.

Printing Issues

Recently I had 2 different and ultimately unrelated printing issues. I thought I would detail them here as I had trouble finding information on them.

Drivers

First was a printer driver issue. I have a Brother HL-5340D laser printer. It is new and quite nice model. My local printer / toner shop recommended it as he has sold a few without problems. My only difficulty was that although Cups recognised it it didn’t have a driver for it. I went to the Brother site and found they have good Linux support with lots of downloadable drivers for their printers.

For my printer I had a choice of drivers. First was a ppd file which is the format cups asks for. I thought that would be the easiest way. Just download the driver and point cups to it. Installation was easy but printing was an issue. Most important for me it wouldn’t print envelopes. It couldn’t get the alignment or the orientation correct. I ended up deleting that printer and starting again.

This time I used the lpr file with cupswrapper. Brother provides rpm files for both. After downloading and installing, Brother provides good detailed instructions but it is straightforward, I tried printing again and this time success. It worked as I expected.

The continuous document

At first I wondered if this was a driver issue too. But as it turned out it wasn’t. The problem was I was trying to print, from OpenOffice (LibreOffice has the same issue) multiple copies of a multi-page document double sided but it had an odd number of pages. You may think that isn’t a problem and I would normally agree. However this time the first page of the second copy was on the back of the last page of the first copy.

I could have printed single copies. That was the first suggestion I found when searching. But as I needed a lot of copies I didn’t relish that idea. I kept looking and finally found that there is an option on the Printing dialogue in OO. Under Printing – Options there is “create separate jobs for collated output”. I didn’t know what that meant either but selecting it solved the problem.

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Navigation With Android

I have been using an Android phone for a while now but haven’t blogged about it before. Not for any negative reason but simply because I had little to say. I bought a HTC Hero outright, no contract. I love it, it works well and does everything I wanted and much more. It came with Android 1.6 but soon after I got it an "Over the Air" update from HTC upgraded it to 2.1. That went well and added several features and a few bug fixes.

I had read that the latest update to Google Maps added a Navigation feature so I decided to test it today. I wasn’t going very far and it was a route I often take which I think is a good way to test. I wanted to see if it would replace my Tom Tom GPS. One less gadget in the car is a good thing. The phone is mounted in a cradle that mounts to the windscreen with a suctionn cap just like a GPS so it should receive the GPS signal well.

There is a navigation icon on the applications screen and that immediately asked me to activate GPS. Which I did. I tried to type in a destination but the hint list only showed US and UK locations so I changed to Spoken commands which worked surprisingly well when I gave the suburb and state it immediately found it as an Australian place.

When I asked for spoken directions I had to install the Text to Speech app. It worked well but defaulted to US English. It worked well but had trouble with several place names and couldn’t even pronounce "Way" as a road name. I have since changed it to UK to see if that is better.

The GPS worked quite quickly finding the location. Much better than the Tom Tom does when it hasn’t been used for a while. But I’m guessing it uses the phone location to get a start. It found almost the right place but where I was was difficult. It was the side street that runs beside a main road with only a few metres between them. It thought I was on the main road. Once I was moving it quickly zeroed in on the correct place. The directions were clear, allowing for the pronounciation problems, and accurate. It quickly recalcualted when I took a side street too.

So does it replace the dedicated device? I have some reservations and they are not really due to the app. The most biggest concern is the amount of download data needed. If you have a generous plan with plenty of data that won’t worry you but my plan only includes a couple hundred megabytes a month. If I were using it as a navigation device regularly that would be used up and I would be into the very expensive excess data. I could increase the data allowance by paying a small extra amount but the cost would exceed the cost of updates for my Tom Tom. So the conclusion is at the moment I think I would stick to using the Tom Tom when I am doing longer trips but for occasional help and as a backup the phone is great. If I didn’t already own a GPS unit I wouldn’t buy one I would use the phone without hesitation.

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Tech & Travel

Over the past weekend I had reason to read the journal I kept of a driving trip I took about a decade ago. It was a driving holiday around northern NSW and Queensland, over 4000 kms all together. It reminded me how valuable a journal can be. Most entries were only a few paragraphs but reading them brought back so much about that trip that I had forgotten. But I digress, that wasnt the reason behind this post.

I started to think how much things have changed in such a short time, at least where tech is concerned. The only tech items I took with me were a phone and video camera. The phone’s only additional feature I used was the clock and alarm which woke me on a couple of mornings when departure time was important. The video was an vhs-c, old even then. My camera was a manual slr. For navigation I relied on on several paper maps, many of which proved to be out of date. The journal was written with pen and paper, actually a fountain pen something I still love to use.

If I was going today, I pause to dream for a while…ahh!., I would take a lot more. Immediately I add a netbook or laptop complete with mobile broadband. It would assist in navigation with access to mapping sites. It would hold my journal and serve as a repository for photos I take. A portable hard drive for backups would be essential.

I couldn’t imagine going anywhere without a satnav unit. It would be used while travelling with the computer used for planning. There were times when I wasn’t sure where I was but that was part of the fun.

I noticed from my notes how conservative I was taking photos. Probably due to the cost and availiability of film and processing. These days I take more shots on a day trip than I took in a week on that trip. There are several times I wish I had stopped to take more photos. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

One thing that wouldn’t change was the vehicle. It is still going strong and I wouldn’t think twice to set off in it again. But that is a bit off topic.

So would I have a better trip? Well I would take more photos and that is important to me. I would have a better idea where I was and where I was going so that might make it easiest. But either way it was a trip to remember and that was the most important thing.

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Keeping It Real

I was reading an article in a magazine recently and it talked about the issue of editing photographic images. Of course this has always happened but with the advent of powerful computers and editing software it is far more common than in the days of darkrooms. The article discussed the problem of changing the image and therefore changing recorded history.
One of the most powerful research tools for the history of the last hundred or so years is the photograph. It shows what words cannot describe. Just look at the impact the photos of the Vietnam War had and still have and on a more personal basis I have recently found and scanned some photos of my grandparents and great-grandparents. It was rather moving to see the faces of those who had previously just been names in the family history. If we change our images are we changing the way future generations will see us?
The other side of the argument is the freedom of artists to show the world as they see it. We cannot deny them the chance to produce images that give a personal view.
So how can we reconcile the two sides? While it is obvious that many artistic images are not and could never be interpreted as factual it is not so obvious with images that have received minor tweaking. If you change the colour of a building or car are you changing history? If you remove modern television antennae from an historic building does it make your image less real?
Let’s agree that some things are acceptable, correcting colours to remove colour casts for example. There is nothing wrong with fixing the effects of poor exposure. I have removed litter from the foreground of an image and don’t think it changed it too much. But what is too much?
What can be done? Digital images include metadata, the information that the camera records when it processes the image, often called EXIF or IPTC. The metadata is editable with software. It includes sections for image information, captions and artist for example. I strongly recommend adding caption information as it will ease the burden of future viewers, but that is another subject we will look at some other time. Maybe notes should be added to indicate when images are not historically accurate including what changes have been made.
What do you think? Do you change the content of your images? Have you considered the history perspective?

More on Raw

It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted anything on photography for a while. All of my posts have been about Linux. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that! As a step to add something photographic I thought I would post an update on how I handle raw images.

I have been shooting raw almost exclusively for quite sometime however I always rebooted into WIndows and used either the supplied camera software or Adobe Camera Raw to edit them and create jpgs. I tried UFRaw with the Gimp a long time ago and it didn’t work for me. I couldn’t get the images to look the way I wanted. I experimented with a couple of other raw converters too but nothing produced as good a result as the Window software.

Recently though that changed. When I updated to the 64 bit version of Fedora 8 I installed UFRaw again and tried it out. I found it greatly improved. It recognised the raw format from both my cameras, a Canon 400D and my old Fuji S5500. The Fuji in particular is not handled well in Linux. It is only recognised as an external USB device but I can still transfer images from it. As DCRaw can now handle the format digiKam and others can display the images. UFRaw can be thought of as a front end for DCRaw conversions.

The results are that I no longer need to use Windows to work with raw images. This simplifies my photo workflow and means I have one less reason to keep XP alive on my system.

Raw in a Nutshell

Explaining the difference between Raw and jpg is difficult sometimes even when dealing with experienced photographers.  Here is a link to a primer, it talks about Google’s Picasa but the sections on Raw are applicable everywhere. I agree with the conclusions drawn at the end too. What do you think?

On the Map

When I logged into my Picasa Web account today I got a pleasant surprise. They have finally activated the map function in Australia. I know it has been available in the US and other places for a while but not here. But today it just appeared, no announcement except a comment in the What’s new column.

This is something Picasa Web has been missing to compete with other photo sharing sites. Picasa Web is generous in the space it provides (1 gig for free) but has been a bit light on features. Slowly that is changing.

I have added the location to a few of my photos but have many to do. They will have to wait until I have a bit more time. So far it all seems to work well. It found a few locations in Australia I didn’t expect it to but some of the maps don’t look right. Of course this is not a part of Picasa but an issue with Google maps. But for the purpose of recording the general location it is fine.

So thanks Google, Picasa Web just keeps getting better.

Gone in a Flash

Call them flash memory, memory cards, whatever but with everyone who owns a digital camera and other devices using them they are now an important part of our lives. Often they hold the only record of important occasions. Too often they are also a source of exasperation and disappointment. So what can be done to make them more reliable?

In some ways I feel a little under-qualified to write this as I have never lost a file off one of these cards. So I don’t really know what it feels like to have try and recover that important photo.

I have one card that has survived in one of my digital cameras for two and half years. It gets used too. It is the camera I drop into my backpack when I’m going out for the day. It is also used regularly to record activity at a worksite. Here is what I do, it’s not rocket science just a little common-sense.

The card stays in the camera, at least as much as possible. I use the USB cable to download files from the camera, not a card reader. Similarly I don’t take it to a photo booth and print from it. Either I print at home or I put the photos I want on a cd and take that to the shop. I bought the largest card available at the time as using a high capacity card will reduce the chance of filling it up and needing to change it.

If it comes out of the camera it goes in its storage box. How often have you seen people pull one of these cards out of their pocket, bag etc. and then wonder why they can’t read from it? These are fragile pieces of kit and should be treated accordingly.

If it does come out of the camera it doesn’t happen in a dusty, damp or dirty environment. Dust or moisture on the contacts or worse in the camera will prevent proper use of the card. Cleaning is difficult and if its in the camera, expensive. Keep the cover closed!

All my cards are formatted regularly. While new cards will sometimes work as soon as they are put in the camera I always format in the camera before using them. Rather than just deleting photos when they are copied off I often do a full format. I have heard advice to the contrary and even been told it causes the camera problems. This is old news, it appears early digital cameras would forget their number sequence when formatted and so old photos could be overwritten (who keeps the name cameras give the images anyway?). This doesn’t happen with newer cameras.

Get those files off there. As soon as I can I transfer the images to the computer. However unless I am going to use the camera immediately I don’t delete the files from the card until I have backed them up at least in one additional place.

So that’s it, a few simple ideas that work for me. Treat your card with respect and it will reward you with long life. Do you have any other ways of keeping the card contents safe? Please share them in the comments.

Scanning Film

I find when scanning film it pays to follow a procedure. Failure to do this often equals failure to achieve a successful scan (or archived copy). I mentioned earlier the steps I had to go through to get the scanner working so this time I will concentrate on the actual scanning process. I follow the same regime whether I am working with slides or negatives. It can be broken down into three steps – scanning, produce an archive, produce the required useful image.

Scanning

I use Vuescan to control the scanner. It has the advantage of being cross platform but I principally run it under Linux.

After selecting the shot to be scanned I select the appropriate settings in Vuescan. I have set the defaults to be close to what I need so the main settings to be made are negative or slide and type of film. Vuescan comes with presets for common film so this is easy if I can identify the film. With negatives it is printed on the film strip but with mounted slides it is not possible to tell.

I sometimes change the presets particularly if the film is faded or otherwise degraded, some of the film I am working with is more than 20 years old. Next a preview is made. Although the quality is a little less than the final scan it is a good indication of what I will get. At this point I may try some changes to the settings. Eg, I may preview different white balance settings. The area to be scanned is selected at this point too. There are options to keep the existing aspect ratio if that is important. I don’t crop too heavily at this stage especially if any perspective adjustments are going to be made later.

When I am happy with the preview I select scan. When the scanner has finished it will ask for a file name. Over time I have developed a naming procedure that works for me, it is YYYY_mmddtitle-nnnn.ext. This is year followed by an underscore then month and day, a title (or subject) follows then the image number. The image number is made up of my film catalogue number and the frame number on the film. (I use the same system with digital images but there is no film number so I just use a shot number.) I save the output of the scanner as a tiff.

Produce an Archive

As the output of the scanner has been saved I have an archive but I may do some additional work with a photo editing package. I use the Gimp for most editing. This includes fixing any perspective problem (ie. straightening sloping horizons or leaning buildings) and cleaning up any dust or scratches. A graphic tablet is an ideal tool for cleaning up images. It allows excellent control. I find it a must for detailed editing.

When I am satisfied with the results I save it, still as a tiff. I usually replace the scanned image but I sometimes rename it, usually by appending an “a”, if I consider I have altered it to the stage it is a new image, although this is rare.

Most importantly I save and backup this original scanned image.

The Final (or Useful) Image

This can be done at any time but usually I have scanned an image with the intention of using it, often as a post on my photo blog, “cewatticey”. So at this stage I make any changes to the image I think it needs and resize it and save as a jpeg if it is for use online. I will save in a different format if needed for some other use. I keep the name, just changing the extension unless the site has restrictions on file names, this applies to my photo blog. In this case I rename it to a generic name often using the title. If I have changed a colour photo to monochrome for example I will append a “m” to the filename to make it easy to identify in future.

The copy is saved with the original, if I want to post it somewhere else it saves reprocessing it. If I want to create a version for a different purpose it is created from the original.