The Photographers' Corner 2013-2020

[RonBoyd]

We were behaving in a “lossy” way in the first place!

Great line. I may steal that someday.

 

[steelyman]

Great line. I may steal that someday.

Feel free. Sometimes I actually amuse myself.

 

[MRG]

Before you start using 300/600 LOSSLESS, read up a bit. I remember seeing an article that gave excellent examples where a scan at higher resolution, and then compressed, was far better than lower resolution lossless.

Try googling that, and you could experiment. I think you'll find that only a modest amount of compression to a high resolution scan will be needed to produce a file size the same /smaller than the lossless 300/600 scan, and the quality may be far better.

But double check all that. But actually, it seems like common sense. If it were not true, why would we bother with these fancy, complex compression algorithms? We would just cut the resolution down!

-ERD50

IIRC that's true. We used compressed tiff for business documents and some regulatory bodies were involved in the process.

 

[RonBoyd]

IIRC that's true. We used compressed tiff for business documents and some regulatory bodies were involved in the process.

Well, this will be my anecdotal evidence. (And sadly not the most authoritative source.)

Well, we're not speaking of documents here.

I have found that scans are hard enough to work with (LR or PS) even when there is an abundance of data. There are just sometimes you need to go way beyond the normal post-processing to get the image where you want it. Particularly if the original image is damaged (more so with printed picture scans but nevertheless). The more data one has to work with the more the image can be enlarged and the greater detail to work with.

Of course, the other option (the wise one perhaps) is scan with the greatest storage space savings in mind and, if a "treasure" is found, go back and scan it at high resolution.

 

[steelyman]

The Photographers' Corner

Of course, the other option (the wise one perhaps) is scan with the greatest storage space savings in mind and, if a "treasure" is found, go back and scan it at high resolution.

I’m thinking that’s in line with my (evolving) approach. I also realize that current storage options, for images that one doesn’t mind being “in the cloud”, are large. Right now, I have 14 TB of local HDD storage, which is a lot to work with (I’m not a video person, but have a lot of audio).

I’m guessing LR and PS refer to Lightroom and Photoshop. I’m working with digiKam, not as polished but free. It seems OK to me, but I’ve only started learning about its management, not editing, features. It’s also non-destructive, using a versioning scheme.

[ADDED] After writing this, I searched to see what limits Google Photos imposes on its “free unlimited storage” policy. It seems they’ve dialed it down, especially for video.

https://www.theverge.com/platform/a...no-unlimited-storage-video-format-unsupported

 

[steelyman]

Is compressed TIF an option in the software?

Following up on this: I was examining file properties (using digiKam) of some photos I’d scanned in TIFF and discovered they used LZW compression. I hadn’t done anything to request that.

From what I can learn through Google, LZW is lossless. It also may even increase the file size according to one preservation website.

Apart from the obvious benefit of scanning photos, this is a learning exercise. Never knew what “EXIF” was either!

 

[RonBoyd]

Never knew what “EXIF” was either!

Yes, EXIF is good to know about. It is what makes Lightroom such a wonderful program. I can, for instance, instantly find the 3 images of "Joe Smith" among my 120,000 images... or of Mt. Rushmore. I can, also, see on a Google map where each of the pictures were taken (well, those taken with my current cameras anyway). So very handy.


FWIW, this is true of the metadata found in other digital files -- i.e., music and video files.

 

[steelyman]

Yes, EXIF is good to know about. It is what makes Lightroom such a wonderful program. I can, for instance, instantly find the 3 images of "Joe Smith" among my 120,000 images... or of Mt. Rushmore. I can, also, see on a Google map where each of the pictures were taken (well, those taken with my current cameras anyway). So very handy.





FWIW, this is true of the metadata found in other digital files -- i.e., music and video files.

Thanks for the additional info. This thread has a wealth of useful information and experience for the uninitiated. Not to mention great photos!

 

[Chuckanut]

Here's a bit of photographic history:

Fifty years ago today—50 years ago this morning, at a few minutes after 10:30 Central U.S. time—a former USAF fighter pilot named William A. (Bill) Anders, who is now 85 years old and lives in Anacortes, in the State of Washington on the West coast, took one of the indisputably great photographs of the 20th century.

Apollo 8 had entered lunar orbit and they photographed Earthrise over the moon.

 

[Ronstar]

^ Thanks for posting! That is an incredible photo.

 

[steelyman]

Rather than watching the stock market hurl for yet another day, I’ve been looking into learning more about digital images and in particular metadata. Quite an array of acronyms and formats!

I came across a website that is informative and may be interesting to others. The author is a photographer and Linux fanatic (according to her site’s “About” section).

The site’s focus appears to be mainly color management, but I found one section addressing a workflow for cleaning up “messy metadata”. I’ve not yet messed up my metadata, but have confidence I can and will do so!

The author does not disrespect commercial solutions, but does favor open source.

http://ninedegreesbelow.com

 

[RonBoyd]

Rather than watching the stock market hurl for yet another day, I’ve been looking into learning more about digital images and in particular metadata.

Then you will want to get the amazing ExifTool by Phil Harvey.

And if you are using Adobe's Lightroom you must visit Jeffrey’s Lightroom Goodies (Plugins and Tools).

 

[steelyman]

The Photographers' Corner

Then you will want to get the amazing ExifTool by Phil Harvey.

You’re right. I’d downloaded it earlier today and it IS amazing! Who knew all that info is embedded in images?

I’m using (and learning) digiKam but the concepts are package-independent for the most part, it seems.

[ADDED] What I’ve been trying to get a handle on is where the metadata is or can be stored. In the case of digiKam, it seems one can store in the image itself, in the (digiKam) database, and in an XMP “sidecar”. Or some combination thereof.

I’d rather not make choices that I later regret or have a hard time recreating. This all came up for me when thinking about multiple uses of “tag”, as in “tagged image file format” or “tag” as in a type of label maintained separate from the image file itself.

 

[ggbutcher]

+1 on both Elle Stone's ninedegreesbelow.com and Phil Harvey's ExifTool. Color management is a science rooted in subjective human perception, and Elle does a really good job of bringing it to regular folk like me. ExifTool is one of my go-to command line image utilities, next to g'mic and dcraw.

Image metadata is a morass of somewhat related standards and conventions. I finally gave up on managing any more than the basic exposure tags in anything other than my raw files straight out of the camera. When I make a jpeg for posting or such, it just contains date taken, make/model, shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, focal length, and copyright.

 

[steelyman]

Image metadata is a morass of somewhat related standards and conventions. I finally gave up on managing any more than the basic exposure tags in anything other than my raw files straight out of the camera. When I make a jpeg for posting or such, it just contains date taken, make/model, shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, focal length, and copyright.

Based on what I’ve learned, the word “morass” is about right. It seems that various things (“standards”?) have been tacked/bolted on from many sources.

My current efforts are scanning and that only captures information about the scanner itself, date scanned, resolution and so on. So contextual information about the image has to come from me. Good thing I’m retired.

 

[Ronstar]

SIL got me this camera. Just need to figure out how to operate it - if it runs. But for now it looks good on the shelf.

 

[steelyman]

This afternoon, I spent a little time searching for sites that can provide location information (coordinates) to be used/added to metadata for scanned images, which are on my brain lately.

Here’s one I found that seems OK. Anyone have better suggestions?

http://gps-coordinates.net

 

[explanade]

In Lightroom, you can drop a pin on a map for your location and I believe it will save the GPS for that location.

You can do the same in the old Apple Aperture program if you have a Mac.

 

[steelyman]

In Lightroom, you can drop a pin on a map for your location and I believe it will save the GPS for that location.

You can do the same in the old Apple Aperture program if you have a Mac.

Thanks, good to know. There’s a similar pinning feature in the image management software I’m working with but I’m looking into options that can work from the “command line” (shell in Unix-speak), independent of a GUI application. For that, the GPS coordinates in text form would be useful.

Going forward, the camera should do the work for me!

I have a small enough set of scanned images to try things out with the help of the previously-mentioned exiftool. If I have any luck I’ll report in the hope that others have similar questions/interests/goals.

 

[explanade]

Would you organize photos by location and then script the writing of GPS data to the EXIF?

I didn’t even know there were EXIF fields in scanned images?

How many images are we talking about?

I guess it depends on what kind of precision you want?

You could assign a couple of dozen photos one set of coordinates for say a location like Times Square.

But those photos could have been taken 20 yards apart or maybe you walked around the perimeter and you’d want the map to show your trail of photos?

That’s what I do for instance if I do a sightseeing cruise and I end up with a trail of pins on the map. It’s a bit of a hassle to make sure the Bluetooth receiver and the GPS receiver are updating correctly between shots.

 

[steelyman]

That’s the general idea (scripting and batch processing). Really, I’m just trying to think through in advance how to manage/organize/modify things.

Scanned images (in my case, TIFF format) do have metadata container possibilities. That’s been my learning exercise this week.

At present, I don’t have tons of scans, less than a hundred. Enough to use as items in a sandbox/playground to see what happens.

GPS precision is important, depending on the image. For example, I added imprecise/good-enough location to a photo taken in France. It was the city’s town hall. With that information added, I could click on the photo, go to map/street view, and “take a stroll” around. I remembered seeing some of those spots.

In another case, there were photos from a Christmas party at a home with a known street address. For that, I could be exact with the location. Pretty cool.

There are a few super-old photos of ancestors from the “Old Country”. I guess I’ll just locate somewhere in the country’s interior. If I later find more exact location, I can update accordingly.

I think all this effort will eventually add to the enjoyment of the old, scanned images. I think.

But am looking forward to letting the camera do the work!

Would you organize photos by location and then script the writing of GPS data to the EXIF?

I didn’t even know there were EXIF fields in scanned images?

How many images are we talking about?

I guess it depends on what kind of precision you want?

You could assign a couple of dozen photos one set of coordinates for say a location like Times Square.

But those photos could have been taken 20 yards apart or maybe you walked around the perimeter and you’d want the map to show your trail of photos?

That’s what I do for instance if I do a sightseeing cruise and I end up with a trail of pins on the map. It’s a bit of a hassle to make sure the Bluetooth receiver and the GPS receiver are updating correctly between shots.

 

[ggbutcher]

SIL got me this camera. Just need to figure out how to operate it - if it runs. But for now it looks good on the shelf.

Cool!

A friend sent me a Baby Graphlex, film, and tank to try with my granddaughter, who's expressed interest in the old ways of film. I'm still trying to figure out the two shutters...

 

[steelyman]

I have a small enough set of scanned images to try things out with the help of the previously-mentioned exiftool. If I have any luck I’ll report in the hope that others have similar questions/interests/goals.

This turned out to be not too hard, thanks to the excellent exiftool. There are so many options, it can be difficult to construct the command you want (that shows how powerful exiftool is).

Here's the template, given coordinates LAT and LON that you want embedded in the image file FILE:

exiftool -exif:gpslatitude=LAT -exif:gpslatituderef=LAT -exif:gpslongitude=LON -exif:gpslongituderef=LON FILE

I tested this on a couple of images, one of Wrigley Field and the other in Paris. Using Wrigley's street address "1060 W. Addison, Chicago IL", gps-coordinates.net returned the coordinates that could be plugged into the above command.

Examining the resulting file with exiftool showed that the information was in the file, but initially I couldn't seem to get digiKam to recognize the new data and flag the image as geotagged. Then I found a menu item "reread metadata from image file". After that, all seemed to work properly and I could select the photo, switch to map view and visit the Friendly Confines.

 

[Souschef]

SIL got me this camera. Just need to figure out how to operate it - if it runs. But for now it looks good on the shelf.

My folks had one just like that, except it was called a Brownie Autiographic., It used A120 film, which I am sure you cannot get anymore. There was a trapdoor on the back of the camera where you could annotate each picture.

 

[explanade]

This turned out to be not too hard, thanks to the excellent exiftool. There are so many options, it can be difficult to construct the command you want (that shows how powerful exiftool is).

Here's the template, given coordinates LAT and LON that you want embedded in the image file FILE:

exiftool -exif:gpslatitude=LAT -exif:gpslatituderef=LAT -exif:gpslongitude=LON -exif:gpslongituderef=LON FILE

I tested this on a couple of images, one of Wrigley Field and the other in Paris. Using Wrigley's street address "1060 W. Addison, Chicago IL", gps-coordinates.net returned the coordinates that could be plugged into the above command.

Examining the resulting file with exiftool showed that the information was in the file, but initially I couldn't seem to get digiKam to recognize the new data and flag the image as geotagged. Then I found a menu item "reread metadata from image file". After that, all seemed to work properly and I could select the photo, switch to map view and visit the Friendly Confines.

I use it to strip GPS data on some iPhone pictures taken at home before posting them online.