I downloaded the latest version of Smartpix and added some photos to it. It crashed when I closed the file properties window.
The biggest drawback that I can see is that there is no facility to import keywords from photos. That would mean me re-entering all the keywords, or finding another piece of software to extract a list of keywords from the jpegs.
Exiftool
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
British Summer
I've volunteered to be an observer for the Channel Swimming Association (CSA), which is the official body overseeing channel swimmers. The English Channel is one of, if not the most, challenging place for swimmers in the world.
The shortest distance from the UK to Frances is about 21 miles as the crow flies. Nearer 28 miles for a swimmer, because of the strong tidal currents.
This image shows a GPS plot of one of the swims that I observed.
The water is never warm and sometimes very cold. 17°C (62.5°F) is about the warmest it gets. To add to swimmers' problems this is also one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. Up to 500 ships pass through the Straits of Dover every 24 hours. The Ship AIS web site is a brilliant way to see just how busy it is.
The rules of the CSA prohibit anything but the most basic swimming costume and cap, no bouyancy aids and no protection from the cold except for a layer of grease. Some swimmers even forgo this basic protection.
The shortest distance from the UK to Frances is about 21 miles as the crow flies. Nearer 28 miles for a swimmer, because of the strong tidal currents.
This image shows a GPS plot of one of the swims that I observed.
The water is never warm and sometimes very cold. 17°C (62.5°F) is about the warmest it gets. To add to swimmers' problems this is also one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. Up to 500 ships pass through the Straits of Dover every 24 hours. The Ship AIS web site is a brilliant way to see just how busy it is.
The rules of the CSA prohibit anything but the most basic swimming costume and cap, no bouyancy aids and no protection from the cold except for a layer of grease. Some swimmers even forgo this basic protection.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
More on Photo Organisation
As I mentioned before, I have tried several different programs. ACDSee ran out of steam at around 4000 images, but Smartpix was much better. I had some issues with running it, but their technical support is excellent. I think that your emails are answered by one of the developers, so if there is a problem they really know what they're talking about and can actually fix it.
I'd rate it at about 4 out of 5, but that's based on an early version. I will download and try the current version and let you know how I fare.
Why use any of these products?
Photo managers allow you to attach tags (sometimes called keywords) to your images. You can then easily find all of the photos that have the tags you specify. In the wedding example I used last time, each photo could have the names of the bride and groom, venue, type of car, location and many more tags attached to it.
I just file my photos by year and month taken, selecting the appropriate tags allows me to find exactly the photos I need. It is also extremely useful if you want to sell your photographs as your customers can search on the tags.
Note that both of these programs keep the tags separate from the photos. They maintain databases, which link each photo to its tags. If you can try to ensure that the tags are also written to the jpeg, as this makes searching and posting photos on websites easier.
I'd rate it at about 4 out of 5, but that's based on an early version. I will download and try the current version and let you know how I fare.
Why use any of these products?
Photo managers allow you to attach tags (sometimes called keywords) to your images. You can then easily find all of the photos that have the tags you specify. In the wedding example I used last time, each photo could have the names of the bride and groom, venue, type of car, location and many more tags attached to it.
I just file my photos by year and month taken, selecting the appropriate tags allows me to find exactly the photos I need. It is also extremely useful if you want to sell your photographs as your customers can search on the tags.
Note that both of these programs keep the tags separate from the photos. They maintain databases, which link each photo to its tags. If you can try to ensure that the tags are also written to the jpeg, as this makes searching and posting photos on websites easier.
Friday, 20 April 2007
OK the shot is in the camera, what next?
When I bought my first digital camera I used to simply save photographs on my PC. That meant thinking of a name for each file leading to file names like Dover Castle 1, Dover Castle 2 etc.
I then spent some time inventing a way to organise the files. I chose to put them into separate folders for each subject, but this rapidly became a nightmare, because many pictures didn't fit neatly into one category.
Take for example a photo taken at a wedding. This might show friends, family, the venue, a limousine, wedding cake, champagne...
OK I could just have a folder for each wedding, but which one contains the picture of the white Rolls Royce?
Fortunately I then discovered ACDSee. This piece of software combines good photo editing and a database allowing you to add tags, or keywords, to your photos. These enable you to use several different words on each image.
Unfortunately my library of images grew too big for ACDSee to cope and their upgrade policy sucks, so I looked at other options.
Read the next post for details.
I then spent some time inventing a way to organise the files. I chose to put them into separate folders for each subject, but this rapidly became a nightmare, because many pictures didn't fit neatly into one category.
Take for example a photo taken at a wedding. This might show friends, family, the venue, a limousine, wedding cake, champagne...
OK I could just have a folder for each wedding, but which one contains the picture of the white Rolls Royce?
Fortunately I then discovered ACDSee. This piece of software combines good photo editing and a database allowing you to add tags, or keywords, to your photos. These enable you to use several different words on each image.
Unfortunately my library of images grew too big for ACDSee to cope and their upgrade policy sucks, so I looked at other options.
Read the next post for details.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
More on Stock Photography
I've now had a few digital photographs accepted by Dreamstime and it's interesting to see what's acceptable and what isn't.
Public buildings and other architecture seems to be unacceptable, together with arty photographs. Though they did accept some images that I feel fell into the latter category. For example this photograph of our little pony and one of our kitten.
So far the jury's out. I know vaguely what art directors are looking for, but have not yet matched this to the photographs I've taken.
Fotolia is another stock photography site and interestingly their requirements are slightly different. They have accepted a few images that Dreamstime rejected. So it's a bit like Decca rejecting the Beatles, if at first you're rejected, try somewhere else.
That's just about it for today, if you would like to see some of my work, you can search on either of these libraries for my user name SteveF48. I also have some images on Flickr, which I don't think are suitable for stock libraries (SteveF1948).
Public buildings and other architecture seems to be unacceptable, together with arty photographs. Though they did accept some images that I feel fell into the latter category. For example this photograph of our little pony and one of our kitten.
So far the jury's out. I know vaguely what art directors are looking for, but have not yet matched this to the photographs I've taken.
Fotolia is another stock photography site and interestingly their requirements are slightly different. They have accepted a few images that Dreamstime rejected. So it's a bit like Decca rejecting the Beatles, if at first you're rejected, try somewhere else.
That's just about it for today, if you would like to see some of my work, you can search on either of these libraries for my user name SteveF48. I also have some images on Flickr, which I don't think are suitable for stock libraries (SteveF1948).
Saturday, 31 March 2007
Food for thought
Please read Frankie's blog and click on one of her links, she needs the encouragement and I need the money.
Stock Photography
The thing that I had not fully realised was that stock photography libraries are not looking for artistic photographs.
They want photographs that are interesting to their buyers. I've now submitted around 50 photographs to Dreamstime and only had 4 accepted. Some of them were frankly not up to my usual quality, but most were rejected because Dreamstime already have more than enough images of that particular subject.
It just goes to show that to make money from Digital Photography you need to know what your customers want. Equally you can save a lot of time and effort by not photographing subjects that are not going to sell.
They want photographs that are interesting to their buyers. I've now submitted around 50 photographs to Dreamstime and only had 4 accepted. Some of them were frankly not up to my usual quality, but most were rejected because Dreamstime already have more than enough images of that particular subject.
It just goes to show that to make money from Digital Photography you need to know what your customers want. Equally you can save a lot of time and effort by not photographing subjects that are not going to sell.
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