I thought I would try out Windows Photo Gallery as a tool to work my photos. This application is included with Windows Vista. Basically you can import your photos into this application and then use it to tag, rate, filter, edit, and perform some other tasks to them.

Anyhow, I uploaded all my trip photos as well as the photos from others on my trip and I have over 3,700 photos to go through. What I did was put them all into the same folder and import them into Windows Photo Gallery. Next, I sorted them by Date Taken so that I had all the photos in the correct order (you need to make sure everyone had the same date setting on their cameras).

Once a double clicked on the first one, it opened up into full screen and it allows you to navigate through the photos one at a time. While looking at each photo, you can press the arrow keys to go forward or back. The other thing you can do is press the number keys 0-5 to rate the pictures with the corresponding number of stars. Check the screenshot below of my photo of Hong Kong blown up. Note the stars on the right hand side. You can click to rate the photo or just press 0-5.

Windows Photo Gallery - Photo View

Basically, I would go through the photos and rate them with a 5 or 4 if I deemed them worthy of developing or publishing. As I went forward and maybe saw a better candidate photo of the same location or person, I would quickly go back to the one I rated 4/5 and press 0 to clear its rating again.

At the end of this exercise, you now have a set of rated pictures. Windows Photo Gallery will then let you display sets of photos based on their rating. You can even select all of these filtered photos and copy/paste them into another folder or do whatever you want.

This is a very similar method to a lot of applications like Adobe Lightroom or even iPhoto on the Mac. Regardless, it is free and already installed on Windows Vista, so why not make use of it.

By the way, it also supports other media files like video.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

The Canon SD1000 is a nifty little point and shoot digital camera I picked up the other day. It is the predecessor to the Canon SD1100 which is available now. I was looking for a deal on a Canon camera and found this "store return" for $160. That Canon SD1100 is selling for $239 right now, but was actually $250 when I purchased mine.

I was looking for a camera for less than $200 for my wife that would take nice pictures, be easy to use, and as small as possible. I have always had good luck with Canons (even though my SLR is a Nikon) so I wanted to purchase a Canon. Problem is, it is all the other brands that are under $200 and Canon sells for a bit more of premium. I am glad I found this used and after experiencing it, I would opt to pay a bit more for it anyways.

Crisp and Clear Photos

The photos are very crisp and clear. It seems like very few shots come out blurry. My sister-in-law owns a Nikon Coolpix which has a bad habit of blurring a lot of inside shots that use a flash. It could be user error, but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. The SD1000 is clear every time.

Great Colors

It is very consistent on getting great colors for each shot. My Nikon D70s annoys me quite often by having the colors out and I end up photoshopping them. The Canon can be run through Photoshop and if you do "automatic levels" in Photoshop, you will barely notice a difference quite often.

Very Compact

It is more compact than a lot of Canon's other SD line and fits very handily in her purse.

Simple To Use

Not too many buttons, but just enough to get the job done. You can play with a few settings, but that's all.

Large and Clear LCD Screen

I stress this more and more now. The SD1000 and the SD1100 both have very large LCD screens on the back with sufficient resolution to tell whether your shot is blurry or out of a focus at all. Very important if you think you should take that second shot or want to make sure your flash is turned on.

Difference Between the Canon SD1100 and the SD1000

Canon stepped up a few things between the two. Here is a few of changes:

• Image stabilization
• 8 megapixels instead of 7.
• Motion Detecting Technology - no sure what this is
• 3 cm instead of 5 cm macro focus range.
• Slightly less weight.

References

Here are some good reference pages for the Canon SD1000 and Canon SD1100

• DPReview's Canon SD1100 Review
• DPReview's Canon SD1100 Specifications
• DPReview's Canon SD1000 Specifications
• Digital Camera Resouce Page Canon SD1000 Review
• Great info page all about the Canon SD1000 Features

Samples Pictures From Canon SD1000

Camel At The Pyramids of Giza


Swimmers In Jordan

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I found the most useful picture EXIF tool the other day. It is called JHead. Basically, it allows you to mass change photo files and fix the dates, rename the files based on the dates, and perform other functions.

The reason I needed it was that I was recently on a trip. There were 4 of us. We had 2 Nikon cameras, 2 Canon cameras, and we were all set to the wrong time as we were in another country and messed up our camera settings.

File Naming With Nikon Vs. Canon

One of the big annoyances I found with the Nikon and Canon software is when they import, I couldn't get them to the same naming convention.

I am used to Nikon's import where I can set it to use the format YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.JPG. This is the full date and time the photo was taken. Because of the order of the numbers, these pictures will sort by name in the right order they were taken. It works great.

Unfortunately, Canon software won't let you have this same format. Therefore, if you put all the files into the same folder, they won't sort properly. One exception is if you have Windows XP, you can sort by the actual Date Taken EXIF property. If you are using 3rd party software or an older computer this is useless though.

Renaming Files With JHead

This is an awesome feature. Basically, you just need to download the Windows executable JHead and save it somewhere (preferably where all your photos are stored).

Open up a command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd -> Click OK). You should have a black window. Navigate to the folder your pictures are stored in.

Then you can rename them using jhead and the -n switch. Use the JHead instructions to help figure it out.

For example, I renamed my files so they looked like this:

2008-07-29_15-34-23_ng.jpg

This represents the exact date I took the picture and appends my initials in there as well. This is the command to rename the files like that:

jhead -n%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S_ng *.jpg

Fixing the Picture Dates

If your camera had the wrong date set for whatever reason (in another time zone, daylight savings, clock reset), then you can also fix the dates by applying an offset.

JHead has two switches to do this. One is by specifying how many hours it is out and the other is by specifying how many years, months, or days it is out.

Note: Please test this out on a copy of one file before applying it to all of them to see if you get the desired effect.

There are a number of good examples in the JHead instructions as well.

For myself, one camera was out by a month and the other was out by 12 hours so I used the following switches:

Roll forward a month (camera was at May 30th when it should have been June 30th).

jhead -da2008:05:30-2008:06:30 *.jpg

Roll forward 12 hours.

jhead -dt+12 *.jpg

Conclusion

So after adjusting all my times to be correct, I then set the file names for all my pictures and included the initials at the end of who took the photos. It is ten times easier to look through them now and know where they came from.

Keep in mind, a good practice would be to have everyone in a group take a photo at the exact time at the beginning or end of your trip. You could then look at the times for all those photos and if some cameras were offset by a couple minutes, you would be able to adjust them back so the pictures are perfectly aligned.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I just made my first high dynamic range photo today. It is most commonly referred to as an HDR photo or HDR image.

What Is An HDR Photo

Basically, it a single image that is made from multiple images to offer a greater range of photographic detail. The different images are usually taken with different exposure settings so that more detail may be captured in light or dark areas.

Why Would You Want HDR

It can complete a scene by filling in areas that are too dark or too light. You can also use it to make a photo look unrealistically cool by blowing out colors and making it look surreal.

The example I will show you is for filling in a scene with more details. It is a photo taken from within a house that also wants to capture scenery outside that is a lot brighter.

How To Create An HDR Photo

These are the steps I took to make my HDR image. I used Adobe Photoshop CS2.

1. You need multiple photos of the exact same scene taken at different exposure settings.
   
   My example photos are from the lobby of a bed and breakfast I was staying at. I wanted to capture the atmosphere of the lobby, but also show the view of the mountains in the distance.
   
   You can see in each of the 3 photos below, that I would either capture the mountain detail and the inside would be too dark or I would have the lobby detail and the mountains would be to bright.
   
   Note: You need to take these from a tri-pod and not have any other subjects in your photo moving. For the photos to be merged for and HDR photo, they images should be as exact as possible. A lot of cameras have a bracketing feature which helps to take different exposure levels without changing any settings between shots. Check the user guide for you camera.
   
   Inside Details Visible but Outside is Washed Out
   
   
   In Between Shot - Still Not Very Good
   
   
   Mountain Details Visible but Inside is Too Dark
   
   
2. Open up Photoshop
3. Drag and drop all 3 photos into Photoshop
4. Select File -> Automate -> Merge to HDR....
5. In the Use dropdown, select Open Files. The files you have in Photoshop should be listed. Click OK.
6. You will see a preview screen called Merge to HDR, just click OK.
7. You will now have a new file open in Photoshop that doesn't really look any better. Just save it for backup purposes. Please note, the file size will be fairly large. This is a 32 bit image with a lot of data being stored in it.
8. Select Image -> Mode -> 16 bits/channel. You will be presented with a new pop up window called HDR Conversion.
9. In the HDR Conversion window, in the Method picklist, select Local Adaptation. Click the Toning Curve and Histogram arrows to open up the Histogram if it is not showing already.
10. Manipulate the histogram.
    
    Move the bottom left and top right control points on the line in the histogram to the edges where the shadows are. You can also add more control points inside to manipulate the image for a more realistic look. For more on histogram techniques, just Google or look it up. Click OK when you are finished. It will take a few moments to do the conversion. You now have your new image and it should look a lot better.
    
    The Final Image
11. The final step (so that I could save it as a JPEG) was to select Image -> Mode -> 8 bits/channel. When you select File -> Save As you will then have the option to select the JPG or JPEG file type in the file type picklist.

This photo could have been done better, but this is a quick and dirty way of getting it done.

Summary

Creating an HDR image in this fashion takes a bit more time, but sometimes it is the only way to show the correct amount of detail in a picture. Remember, if you think you want an HDR image. Fix you camera in place, take multiple exposure shots of a scene, and then find an applcation like Photoshop to do the HDR prcoessing.

For more examples of what HDR can do, do an HDR tutorial Google search for other tutorials and search for HDR on Flickr to see some really coold examples.

Post a Comment ... (1 Comments)

I had taken my handy little Optex tripod with me on our honeymoon to Varadero, Cuba. This was a shot using my Canon S50 point and shoot camera. I had set it to no flash and the exposure last a few seconds. The photo turned out awesome and this is exactly how it looked in the evening.

We were staying at the Princesa del Mar (a Sandals resort at that time).

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

This was the sunrise from our room at the Princesa del Mar in Varadero, Cuba. Cheryl and I were there for our honeymoon in April of 2005. The sunrises were awesome, when we were awake to see them. I took this on my Canon S50 point and shoot camera.

Post a Comment ... (1 Comments)

During my trip to south east asia in 2004, I went to a large park in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was pretty neat and had a large ferris wheel that was all lit up at night. Taken on my Canon S50 again.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

Another rejected photo for our wedding invite, but I still like it. The romantic semi-silhouette shot. This was from my Canon S50 again.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I couldn't pass up this opportunity. There were a half dozen storm troopers walking around West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta to promote Star Wars Night at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. I decided to get a photo with them. They even had microphones in their suit to make their voices sound like the ones in Star Wars. I was imagining that they would be a bit taller however.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)

I snapped a few more photos of Cheryl when we were trying to get a photo for our wedding invitation. I like this show. I took it on my Canon S50 point and shoot.

Post a Comment ... (0 Comments)