Use this category for comments and questions relating to cameras, editing software, hot links, and other cool stuff. Go here for our web page:
http://www.hal-pc.org/~slcweb2/DigitalPhoto/DigitalPhoto.html
Use this category for comments and questions relating to cameras, editing software, hot links, and other cool stuff. Go here for our web page:
http://www.hal-pc.org/~slcweb2/DigitalPhoto/DigitalPhoto.html
June 17, 2006 at 7:34 pm |
I teach digital editing using Arc Soft Photo Impressions version 5
on the SW side of Houston. I will be willing to do a class if you want.
I will need a digital projector.
At the discussion at the meeting, if you scan a picture in at 300 dpi you will not be able to do as much quality editing as if you scan the same picture in at 600 dpi.
Mike
June 20, 2006 at 7:08 pm |
I edit using Arc Soft Photo Impression 5. I always store pictures in JPG. In my class, I have a dark picture that initially is 308 KB with no modifications. When I correct the photo (increase the brightness) then save that picture, the picture is 166 KB. This is not what I understood in the discussion. Confused.
Mike
July 1, 2006 at 8:24 pm |
I am making a slide show with ProShowGold and need music for it. Where can one go on the internet to get music and what format should it be in for use in a slide show?
July 2, 2006 at 9:51 pm |
Mike,
On your first comment, we’d be very happy to have you give a short presentation in the future…what topic would you feel comfortable with?
On your second comment, I wasn’t at the last meeting but your comment sounds like you may have saved the edited file at a lower .jpg quality setting than the first. Hence, it’s smaller. I don’t think altering the brightness would have all that great an efffect on file size. Maybe Margaret Meas can recall the discussion – pmaes@houston.rr.com
…Carl Farley
July 16, 2006 at 2:07 pm |
At the July SIG meeting the question of Copyrighting photographs came up.
Simply stated, a copyright attaches the moment the shutter is released. That is, you automatically have the legal copyright to pictures you take without doing anything.
US Copyright law does not require you add a copyright notice to your photograph for it to be protectable, but notice prevents an infringer from claiming he/she did not know the work was copyrighted. Notice consists of the symbol © (or the word “Copyright” or the abbreviation “Copr.”), the year of first publication and the owner’s name.
Though registration with the US Copyright Office isn’t required, it provides certain rights. For example, you must register a copyright before you can sue an infringer. So, if someone uses your photograph without your permission, before you can ask a court to stop him you must register the photograph. You can do this after your copyright is infringed, however it will delay you getting relief.
Registration costs about $30 and can include many photographs, not just one.
This article contains additional information on the subject http://photography.about.com/cs/businessmatters/ht/ht_Copyright.htm
As with almost all law and particularly Federal laws, copyright law can be quite complex with many exceptions to generalizations.
July 16, 2006 at 4:02 pm |
Correction:
As of the first of this month the registration fee changed to $45.
July 20, 2006 at 5:35 pm |
My experience with digital editing classes is the students want to work on their own pictures. That is not practical. I would recommend that speakers have a digital picture that needs editing. I use a dark picture of my aunt and a cousin. Then I correct brightness, crop on her, then paint over my cousins sweater, then cut and paste over a hand that is left around my aunts sholder. I use Photo impressions 5.
Mike Kennedy
July 20, 2006 at 11:54 pm |
When I teach formal courses at the Senior Learning Center, I create a folder (with photo files) on the hard drive of the server (or, master) computer so that students can pick and choose a photo to work on. This makes it easier to manage and takes the load off our busy Techies who might have a lot more work if we let each student have their own way.
Go here for the Senior Learning Center
http://www.hal-pc.org/~slcweb1/
Thanks for the input, Mike.
Carl Farley
July 22, 2006 at 3:26 am |
Let me propose a contest. The Sig group should collect digital pictures with imperfections. The challenge would be to correct the imperfections. The end result would be judged by the staff. The winners would be called upon to describe how they did it.
Mike Kennedy
we00022@hal-pc.org
July 23, 2006 at 9:51 pm |
Mike, I forwarded your idea to Steven Whatley, SIG Leader, and some other folks. Let’s see what they do with it. Thanks.
Carl
July 26, 2006 at 4:20 pm |
Does anybody know of software that will allow pages of a photo album to be created in this format:
THREE ROWS with text captions alongside(not under) the photo in each row.
Row#1 Text on the left, photo on the right
Row#2 Photo on the left, Text on the right
Row#3 Text on the left, photo on the right
July 27, 2006 at 1:44 am |
Since you already know how to make web pages, maybe you could try putting a table in a page – use three rows with however many columns you want. One column for text and one for photos (alternate down the page).
Go here for an example of text always on the left. Could easily make it the way you want it, though.
http://www.hal-pc.org/~farleycw/QTravels/200WorkingTaiwan.html
How about putting captions ON the photos?
Maybe Margaret or someone will know of some software title that will do this. Hello, Margaret.
July 27, 2006 at 2:00 am |
For Bob Reardon: When using Pro Show Gold for slide shows you can use a number of file formats, the main choices for music are wav and mp3. If you go under Help you will find the file formats it accepts. I use MP3 music because it’s a much smaller file than a wave file.
As far as downloading music: You can join any number of music clubs, such as one that WalMart has where you can download for .99 or you can download a free program called limewire . I’m sure there are others out there. Limewire is free for the basic program, they do ask that you not use copyrited music, but what you download is free. It’s up to you not to reuse it in an illegal manner. Their website is http://www.limewire.com
July 27, 2006 at 2:04 am |
For Mike Kennedy: I agree with Carl as to why your saved, edited file was smaller than your original. You inadvertently saved it as a jpg file that was set to a lower quality compression. In your software programs, and I know this to be a fact in Elements, Digital Image and Corel, you can set the percent/quality of compression as your default when saving. It will be under your preferences, or the box will show up with an option button when you click on Save as. Always strive to save at the least compression, highest quality. If you intend to edit your photo further, save it in the file format of the software. That way you can bring it back into the program at a later time, work on it more, and when you are finished, then save as. There will be no loss of quality when saving in the programs file format. Only when you hit the save as button. Moving, Dragging and dropping, cutting and pasting photos does not affect the jpg quality.
July 27, 2006 at 2:11 am |
I agree with Mike K again. I believe I suggested something like that for one of our SIG’s. Have everyone bring in a “bad” picture. One they were having trouble with. One they want but can’t quite get edited like they would like. Then ask some of us to put it on our computers, and see what we can come up with. A couple of us could bring our laptops to the SIG, set them up, and accept a digital photo from the audience. Either on a CD or a flash drive. Correct it right there, hooked up to the projector. Software would be the choice of the person doing the correcting, or we could each try a bad photo in the software of our choices. It would show options, and give people an idea of how we go about trying to save a photograph that is “bad”, yet we choose to save for sentimental reasons, etc.
July 27, 2006 at 2:17 am |
For Bob R. again: If you want different printing collages, easy to manipulate and arrange there are a number of nice software packages on the market. Some fancy that will give you templates to pop your photos in, some rather plain, but arrange your photos nicely. Here are some good ones.
HP’s Creative Scrapbook Assistant – http://www.hp.com
Photo Printer – http://www.arcsoft.com
Scrapbook Max – http://www.scrapbookmax.com
Corel has a Photo Album out also. http://www.corel.com
Both Corel and Digital Image Suite have printing templates that would come close to matching your specs.
The other possibility is to pull up a blank page in your software, and add pictures to the blank page and make your own. You can add borders, backgrounds, etc.
I would be happy to do a presentation on how to make scrapbook pages if the group runs out of other ideas.
July 27, 2006 at 2:21 am |
I know very little about making websites but I do know a lot of people make the pages for their sites prior to uploading them. And as my last response indicates, there are a number of nice software packages out there that fit the bill for something like this.
July 27, 2006 at 2:23 am |
Bob, HP’s Zone Express has printing templates that would also come close to doing what you want. Most of these programs do allow text, etc. And as I said Arcsoft’s Photo Printer is excellent.
July 27, 2006 at 3:13 am |
Here are 3 Free Software programs that I highly recommend. HP’s Software is found on this website, in fact if you sign up for their newsletter and watch for their classes, you can take free classes in things such as Adobe Photo Shop Elements, Scrapbooking done in Adobe Elements, Scanning, Printing, using your Digital Camera. These are all free online courses and done very well.:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/pse/index.html
For Scrapbooking try this freebie:
http://www.scrapbookflair.com
For basic editing and photo management:
http://www.faststone.org
July 27, 2006 at 10:34 am |
For Mike K.
I checked out Photo Impressions, Mike and the jpg saving options come up when you click on “save as”. The slider bar is at the bottom of the box, it is set around 90% as default. And it does not save your setting for the next time you open the program. It has to be set each time you “save as”.
July 31, 2006 at 3:52 am |
For Margret M
Agreed. I always use SAVE As. I am funny about not knowing were my files are going and what format they are in. The fact that Photo impression has its own format and defaults to that format is not my choice in the way things should be done.
Mike Kennedy
August 2, 2006 at 4:16 pm |
At a SIG meeting a while back the issue came up about the best way to squeeze more pictures on your camera’s memory card.
I had been thinking of creating a blog, this prompted me to make one. It’s called Picturation.
The bottem line is, increase the JPEG compression rather than reduce the megapixals.
The first article addresses this question, and I’ve added a couple more articles since then.
http://picturation.wordpress.com/
August 2, 2006 at 4:19 pm |
Carl
How ’bout adding my blog to your blog links.
jim
August 4, 2006 at 12:30 am |
For Margaret: Thanks for your advice about scrapbook software. I bought HP Creative Scrapbook Assistant. It does everything I wanted and more and is very easy to use. Also, it comes with an on-screen demo of how to use the main features.
Bob Reardon
August 4, 2006 at 1:49 am |
For Bob R. I’m glad you enjoy that software. I sure do. I also bought Scrapbook Max which is super program also. There is a freebie that you can download from online:
http://www.scrapbookflair.com
It has free software and free templates and embellishments. Also you get 10 MB of free space to upload your scrapbook pages for others to see and comment on. It’s really great cause you get to see what everyone else is doing and I’ve certainly learned a lot. Messages can be left for other members and to comment on their pages. They also have a Forum where you can get answers. They also allow you to upload pages made in other scrapbook software.
Have fun…..I sure am!!
August 4, 2006 at 2:07 am |
I just visited the site Picturation. I would like to make a few comments, and please bear with me, I’m not as technically oriented as a lot of you. I have always shot in JPG. I believe everyone at the SIG’s have seen at least some of my photographs. The only time I shot in tiff was by accident. I accidently had my camera set wrong in the menu. It was so slow, processing that I missed a number of pictures. It used up my then 512 RAM so fast it would make your head swim.
I am curious why you mentioned that you saved over and over again? I download my pictures to my computer. As JPG’s. I edit most of them just once. Most don’t need extensive editing. I then Save AS. That is one save. Unless I play with that photograph I don’t go back to edit it. If I want to try something different on it, I go back and make another copy of my original which hasn’t been touched yet, and I make changes. Again…….it will only be once time Save AS. Copy/paste, moving and dragging a jpg file does NOT affect it’s quality. Only saving over and over does, and I just don’t know why anyone would have to save 1 picture over and over again.
Actually I strive to take my pictures correct the first time. If you shoot in tiff and/or RAW they almost always need some editing to start with.
I see very little advantage to shooting RAW or TIFF except to play around with something new.
Did I make any sense? hahahaaa.
Happy shooting!!!!!
August 9, 2006 at 3:40 am |
Mike Kennedy
I agree and save exclusively in JPG. I can do extensive editing with the JPG picture. I know that you can do more and better editing with Tiff but the size of the file make it impractical most of the time.
I support JPG. I know that others are better but the product is much better that I need.
August 19, 2006 at 3:07 pm |
The EXIF web site mentioned at the August 19 meeting is an unofficial site and is http://EXIF.org
It contains the 2002 specification for EXIF which is 154 pages long.
EXIF = Exchangeable Image File Format
Happy reading!
August 19, 2006 at 3:37 pm |
Related to stabilization for those who don’t have it in their camera,
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/stabilizer/
has a photo of a gyro stabilizer that has a tripod connector.
What’s a Gyro Stabilizer?
Gyros consist of a gyroscope with two perpendicular spinning wheels and a battery pack. The gyro attaches to your tripod socket and acts like an “invisible tripod”
September 20, 2006 at 3:38 pm |
RE: EXIF
I have a Kodak P850 and have found that none of the (jpg) photos already taken with this camera contains exif information. My habit has been to unload photos from the camera to the computer using PaintShopPro(version 9 or 10). Kodak provides their own EasyShare software, so I tried using the Kodak software to unload some photos. Like Magic – the exif data was then available and could be displayed with PaintShopPro and Irfanview.
SO, it seems that only the vendor’s (i.e. Kodak’s) software can be used to get exif info. from the P850 ( and other Kodak cameras? )
Is it generally true that, for a given camera maker, their own software must be used if you want exif data with your jpg photos?
September 21, 2006 at 1:21 am |
Margaret:
>I am curious why you mentioned that you saved over and over again?
If you read the comments/replies you see someone brought this up. You hear it said often that saving again and again is like making a copy of a copy of a copy etc., of a document. That the image degrades each time time you do this. I was demonstrating that this commonly held belief isn’t true.
September 21, 2006 at 1:24 am |
> **you saved over and over again?**
By the way, I don’t do this. It was a demonstration that as long as you save at a compression equal to or better than the previous one used there is no degradation.
September 21, 2006 at 1:31 am |
>Is it generally true that, for a given camera maker, their own
>software must be used if you want exif data with your jpg photos?
No. It is not generally true. If you will post an image taken directly from your camera here http://imageshack.us/ the come back here and post a link to it. We can take a look and see if the EXIF data is in it. Do not put it in Paint Shop Pro or save it in any way except directly copied from the camera.
The EXIF concept means it should follow a standard and be just like other cameras.
September 21, 2006 at 3:20 am |
REPLY TO Picturation RE: exif
This is a link to the image as downloaded using kodak software:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7615/dogkodakuk9.jpg
This is a link to the image as downloaded using PaintShopPro X:
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/8658/dogpsprosx9.jpg
Neither image has been edited.
Please let me know if there is any problem – I have never used imageshack before.
Bob Reardon
September 22, 2006 at 4:10 am |
I teach Photo Impressions 5 and I recommend it. I purchased Photo Impression 6 and do not recommend it. Most of the good features in version 5 are buy add on in version 6. The ability to edit in 6 is significantly reduced.
September 22, 2006 at 2:42 pm |
No one mentioned a simple way to read the EXIF data in Windows XP.
Right Click on the image file. On the menu that pops up got to the bottom and click on Properties. Click the Summary tab at the top. Then the Advanced button near the bottom.
So that becomes Right Click file > Properties > Summary > Advanced
Another way is
Select/Highlight file > File > Properties > Summary > Advanced
September 24, 2006 at 2:38 am |
I have worked on a poor picture and saved my work 20 different times. The original was of poor qualiity/resolution and the end result was of no apparent poorer resultion. The picture was in JPG. I do not question that you loose resolution each time you save. In my case the change is minimal.
October 14, 2006 at 6:26 pm |
TO: Bob Reardon
I must apologize Bob. I missed your reply earlier. Seems like you may have answered your question by now but in case you haven’t . . .
The first image — the one taken from the camera with the Kodak utility has EXIF data. Here it is
File: – C:\Documents and Settings\Mark\Desktop\dogkodakuk9.jpg
Make – EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Model – KODAK P850 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Orientation – Top left
XResolution – 230
YResolution – 230
ResolutionUnit – Inch
Software –
YCbCrPositioning – Centered
ExifOffset – 228
ExposureTime – 10/300 seconds
FNumber – 2.80
ExposureProgram – Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings – 100
ExifVersion – 220
DateTimeOriginal – 2006:09:20 20:47:35
DateTimeDigitized – 2006:09:20 20:47:35
ComponentsConfiguration – YCbCr
ShutterSpeedValue – 1/32 seconds
ApertureValue – F 2.83
ExposureBiasValue – 0.00
MaxApertureValue – F 2.64
MeteringMode – Multi-segment
LightSource – Auto
Flash – Flash fired, auto mode
FocalLength – 6.00 mm
FlashPixVersion – 100
ColorSpace – sRGB
ExifImageWidth – 1664
ExifImageHeight – 1248
InteroperabilityOffset – 896
ExposureIndex – 100
SensingMethod – One-chip color area sensor
FileSource – DSC – Digital still camera
SceneType – A directly photographed image
CustomRendered – Normal process
ExposureMode – Auto
WhiteBalance – Auto
DigitalZoomRatio – 0.00 x
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm – 36 mm
SceneCaptureType – Standard
GainControl – Low gain up
Contrast – Normal
Saturation – Normal
Sharpness – Normal
SubjectDistanceRange – Unknown
The seond picture — the one from Paint Shop Pro does not have any EXIF data. Apparently PSP removed it. This may be a preference setting, or maybe not. I don’t use PSP enough to know.
October 14, 2006 at 6:28 pm |
NOTE: that first line in the EXIF data is the file location on my computer.
Sure wish this blog software would let you edit your own posts to fix things like this instead of piling on more posts.
October 14, 2006 at 6:50 pm |
Here’s a slightly improved version of the picture of your dog
http://img285.imageshack.us/img285/1791/dogkodakuk9rxd5.jpg
Incidentally I give free digital photography lessons http://factsfacts.com/photolessons
October 31, 2006 at 10:26 pm |
Carl
I replied to the senior learning center address, but Liz tell me that address doesn’t get checked often so I’m reposting my comments here. These are simply FYI comments. I don’t feel strongly about them and probably won’t enter a photo myself.
I wondered if an entry can be mounted or framed? A mounted/framed photo is likely to have more appeal than an equivalent or better unmounted photo, but it adds cost.
May be just me, but to me this suggests people can “buy” a better rating. It seems like it would be good for entrants to know whether it’s permitted to”doll up” their entries.
Just my 2¢
jim