Photo and Pictures

I have been using Xnview, which is a viewer software on most platforms. As one of its features is that it takes also Raw. Xnview is free to use even though it is not open source. I have been shooting in Raw and put the setting to Monotone. Thus still having the information in colour but seeing the result in B/W. This is a common trick to fool the camera thinking you are shooting in B/W while still having the information in colour.

It is working with my camera that is an Olympus E-PL1 and taking in the Raw file so it is also bound to take your new camera. Be sure to check it out that your camera is avaible first.

You need a software program after you shot to convert it to BW. I have used Xnview to turn the Raw-file to jpg then i used monomixer in Gimp to turn the photo to BW. Shooting this way you still got the information of colour but you see the result in camera as BW. Do you have questions please comment.

This knowledge is a good tool while you are learning which photo is suitable for BW because you will see the result directly and you are able to make a color photo if you like.

Being a painting software for free because it is open source and free for you too use. Mypaint is easy to get into and do your own projects. It recognise how fast the brush is traveling or it will apply different paint. You can have your own set of brush and you can even explore and find your own favorites.

This is a software for the explorius type and you really get anything for free. You have to try out the different brushes and discover how they behave. Some create grass and leaves others are charcoal for the hard working painter.

This program is not if you want to edit your photo but want to create your own picture. I Have tried it earlier on Linux but now it also exist for Windows. You can download it from here. I have tried to paint some aquarel even though it is not complete i like to play around and find new tools.

Overall i like MyPaint as a free painter program even if it is not a proffessional tool you will find hours of fun. You just paint away.

Again Bibble have released som new software editing. This time they removed the multiplattform when you go Lite and they also cut down on some other stuff that is not as important if you are not Pro. They also added some new cameras supporting their format.

The adding of a clone and heal tool as well as the Perfectly Clear® is a welcome addition. You still have a fast and steady workflow but they don´t support Pro stuff with the Lite version.

The price is quite fantastic and will offer a competative solution. Costing $99 as Lite version and $199 as Pro. This version of Bibble is the best so far. You can see for yourselves the difference between Lite vs Pro. Be sure to check that your camera is supported. Bibble 5.1 is a free upgrade since 2006 and will probably pay up for the long wait.

Read more: Dpreview

Picasa 3 program replaces Lightroom because they do jpg of your rawbilder. Your photos are automatically entered into the Web service you prefer. Picasa makes itself felt for many beginners. Picasa is available as two separate products like an application and also the web service. You can read more about Picasa on their blog.

I’ve just started a Community on the web and you can be as active or how little you want active. It already have 232 members. You decide and if you want to share with grandma, or just to have it as backup. You can share your PDF, JPG or Word format, etc.. I can imagine that it can handle the most common rawformat, but there’s nothing I’ve tried. You can share the most part it is just to try. Free version is limited to 1000 pieces files and 200 megabytes per month so you can not share such large files. Starting with the Pro account, you can share your original files and also have infinite space per month.

Picasa program will also spread a lot of files, as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom does. It will become increasingly common that you support a specific software. We’ll see what Windows 7 has to offer because we can see that Microsoft has made concessions to the operating system and is no longer sealed to the use of the Internet Explorer as browser. You can not just pick any image for free. Check here if you want images for free !
What I said about Facebook is true and the same applies to Google. You can read their rights here . Learn what your rights are. You have special rights with Picasa. You decide if you accept it, but know at least what you accept. The same applies to Facebook, where you now may accept Facebook to use your pictures in ads.

If you want to be rights owner, use Ipernity . You can share anything. PDF, PDS, (photoshop) Word- or Mp3 files you decide on what basis you want to share and with whom. It has definitely improved conditions. You can if you are Pro users will also tell you share unlimited. Even as free you can share your Exif, which is how you took the picture. What you used to shutter speed or what camera you used.

Picasa Web service allows you to upload images, but you will be locked to Google, which owns Picasa. You will also be locked to Picasa if you use Blogger , which use their services and ways to insert pictures. All photos you add to Blogger is automatically added to Picasa Web Service and then lock your images in Google that may be their rights to your images.

Google supports open source , but it is only on the surface. Blogger is not open source, but one of their products. Picasa 3 itself is not open. Google controls everything. ‘Do not be evil “does not mean ‘Do not be Greedy’ something to think about. Something to think that Google owns you. You have no chance against the big.

You can read more of the Picasa software, but remember that you are using Google as your own the pictures. You can read about your rights. You know what you are getting into: a slideshow . Think about it and always read the terms of the service. You might as well get your own domain and take rights over your own images.

How do you darken down your bright images in Gimp or Photoshop, you can quickly do this using the layers. You duplicate the first layer and then select Multiply at the upper layer. Then adjust the layer opacity so that you get the right light.

Here you see that I have selected around 60% opacity. It does not work so well if you have overexposed the image so much that it is completely burned out. Is the image just slightly overexposed or so it works good. It doesn´t work with all pictures but most of them.

There are of course much better and other ways to do the same thing, but this is a very quick and simple way to get a little more impact to your pictures.

Since I have a Canon EOS 350D so is my description of it, but if you read your manual, I am sure you can succeed even if you have a Nikon or a different brand on your SLR. In order to create good HDR images you need multiple exposures and it is not too hard to set that on your EOS 350D.

Only a small film about HDR and what it is.

1st Set the mode to P

2nd Set so that you take several pictures of straight. Multi-Exposure.

3rd In the Menu, locate the Camera Meny 2

4th The first row is the AEB, which stands for Automatic Exposure Bracketing. It will make the exposures you make will have a different exposure time and thus you get a normal one underexposed and one overexposed. Select and use the right arrow button on the camera to expand the setting. Set it so you have white markers at -2, 0 and +2.

5th Turn the camera on a stable tripod or a solid surface. Browse for your subject and press the exposure button. Hold the button until all three exposures are completed.

Now you have the different exposures that you need to assemble your HDR image in, for example Photomatix , Photoshop CS2/CS3, Luminance HDR or FDR Tools .

Inkscape is a vector-drawing program, which is open source and free to use. 0.47 version was released last year and there are a lot of exciting upgrades have been made. You can use the Gaussian Blur filter in, ie you can do things you mark blurry. Additionally, it has increased the speed with which it is displayed on the screen. The best is still the major improvement has been made to vectorize photos in color. The program has become easier to use and faster. Now 0.48 is planned in 2010.

Background Information
Vector graphics are different from bitmap and on the way to store simple vector graphics elements to it to be displayed rather than each pixel. So a line is stored, therefore, that a description of the line. This means that vector graphics are scalable both up and down without making it ugly.

The program is easy to use and it is also very easy to do gradient fills. If you start with two colors so it’s easy to add colors that are shades between them. It’s also easy to control how the gradient looks.

I have been thinking of making stickers to the car and when I do not think it is good enough to enlarge my banner outright. It will be ugly and pixelate. Therefore, I tested to vectorize my log so I can send it to the press. The printer can scale my banner so I can get it in the right size.

You pull up your image in Inkscape and then you get it in a frame When you vectorizes bitmap in Inkskape makes about 15 Scans, Colors and Tick tick off “Smooth”, you should get a nice vectorization. Here you get to experiment as it depends on the original image, and how detailed you want it.

Rawtherapee, which are one of many free raw converters there is. Development have taken a new course and lets hope its fasten its development. Now its a good software and everything is steered widely another way. This is the program to use if you shoot Raw and want free software.

Lets hope it is up to standard because Adobe is releasing good upgrades all the time. I myself have start using Bibble 5 Pro since its organising features. But we need a good organiser editing softawrae that is open source too.

Lets hope it will push the software producers to new heights and don’t let them relax too much. The features roadmap seems extensively and we hope that the open source community welcomes its new member.

Roadmap of algorithm changes planned for V3.0 (approximately in sequence of implementation):

– new curve editor with parametric curve support

– per-image selectable demosaicing method + brand new demosaicing methods

– new color denoising method

– new luminance denoising method

– automatic C/A correction

– purple fringing correction

– perspective correction

– bad pixel removal

Foto: Henningklevjer. Raw or rawformat have been used for so long as digital SLRs have been. Few compact digital cameras have the option of saving in Raw, although there are some who can. Rawformat or Raw will look different depending on which camera you have chosen, but the idea is that you post the setting with the white balance, temperature, contrast and much more so that you can concentrate on image composition.

Rawformat is different depending on which camera you have, but what are the files containing information from the CCD or CMOS element that captures light and recorded as a voltage. It is actual the tension that is stored in raw file. It makes you get all the information and can process it later. Rawformat require conversion so that you get an extra step forward to the finished image.

Most cameras are otherwise store images in JPG format. It is important to be aware that the Jpg is a lossy format that is if you save an image several times, then the compressed and thus destroy the information each time. So if you upload a jpg image in your image editing program so the image becomes more compressed and therefore have less information when you then save it again as jpg. If you make the process, the picture continues to deteriorate. Try it. This is not true with Gimp, but many other programs.

Which format should I then use the Raw or Jpg?
It depends a little on how you shoot and what you want with your photos. In the beginning when I had bought my camera so I photographed lots and LOTS pictures were weird and blurry. I recommend novice photographers to shoot jpg and shoot lots. It also enables you also see directly what the settings do for the image. Use jpg-format early to get to know your camera and the various options. Additionally, the workflow becomes easier because the image does not need any pretreatment. You probably get back to Jpg as you learn to expose right.

When one begins to learn to deal with his camera and its image-editing tools so I think you definitely should move on to take photos in Rawformat. Mainly because you are not so dependent on you after the event can adjust the picture as you want it without losing any information. Go back to Jpg if you shoot with Olympus, while Raw is better if you use Canon or Nikon.

When you want to get started, it is important to think about what they feed on their edits to streamline the whole thing. It so far has been a little circumstance is to handle many images at once. Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture for a simpler workflow with Rawformat.

Conclusion
Use jpgformat to learn your camera or if you are sure to use the images only on the Web or to the family album. Use Raw if you want to be sure of getting the right exposure and be able to work with the pictures afterwards. If you would like a fast workflow may still be preferable jpg and if you want full control as Raw is better. The only one who can say what you want to use you depending on your needs. There is no right or wrong.

Hint: Both IrfanView and XnView is good for an overview of your Rawbilder and manage simple, quick edits and transfers the images to jpg format.

Update: Rawtherapee 2.4.1 is free to download and use.

Lightroom costs about 2800 SEK.

Read more about Raw: Wikipedia, Wikipedia about Jpg; Luminous Landscape “Understanding Raw files”, Ken Rockwell about Jpg vs Raw, Photocritc says his meaning about Raw

Paint.Net was clearly good when I tested it last and now it has been further developed. Just newly released in November there final release. Important to note is that the program requires Windows XP SP2 and no other system does it for. There are layers and curves, which features I myself think are very important tools in image processing. It can not so many image formats which can be restrictive, but it is easy to get started and working with images. One thing I thought was very nice was the history which clearly saw where we had to step.

You can use the magic wand to select areas in a simple manner. Cloning is also a feature and now to the latest beet, you can also draw gradients and you can let the levels to float together with odd-dated levels. There are just some of the features. Are you using Windows XP SP2, and looking for a simple, free image editing program Paint.Net is definitely something for you. It seems also developed a lot and has a lively forum with lots of users who offers tips on how to use the program. I myself is using Gimp for sure.