#Photo image enhancement
13 messages in this thread
On May 10, as everyone will remember, there was an annular eclipse of
the sun. The path of annularity went through Toronto where I live so
my wife and I took the day off in the hope of photographing this once
in a lifetime event.
To avoid eye damage, we tracked the progress with a pin-hole camera
and used a page behind the viewer to indicate when the camera was
properly aimed. I thought that exposure could be done using the
"auto" setting on her little Ricoh. In that lay the misfortune. The
pictures were over-exposed. The "ring of fire" became the circle of
fire. The sun on our slides looks like every day Sol!
However, there is SOME contrast there and I had an idea which prompts
me to post this message. Can one do the following?:
Digitize the picture to get an IFF image.
Use a paint program (or write a little C-utility) to fill in the centre of
what should have been the dark area pixel by pixel.
Prepare new slides of the result.
If the Amiga is ever used for such computer enhancement, this surely
would be a classic application. These pictures threatened never to be
taken at all as the sun flirted with cloud cover throughout the
eclipse period. In fact, a really dramatic picture could have
resulted: the "ring of fire" right next to a billowing thunderhead.
So you see my dilemma. Instead of a great picture, I have a lousy one
which might be rescueable. I am confident that I can perform the IFF
image enhancement stage. My question is two fold:
Does the equipment to go from analog slide to IFF and back exist and if so,
what is it called?
If such exists, is there such a commercial venture as a digitizing service
whom one could get to do the hardware part of this for a fee? One suspects that
such equipment would be too expensive to unless one is doing more that touching
up the occasional picture.?
Any ideas anyone can give would be much appreciated.
Cheers!
Tom Stevens
Nikon makes a scanner for 35mm slides and film and there are film
recorders to output back to 35mm. You are right about the expense,
I don't know the exact prices but it is far too much for the casual
user looking to do an occasional fix up. Don't know offhand of any
service bureaus who will do scanning for Amigas, maybe some others
can provide that information.
Here are two companies who will render your images onto film or
slides. You can get samples on request.
Graphic Impressions Hammond Photographic Services
502 Main, PO Box 254 11280 Washington Place
Wausaukee, WI 54177 Culver City, CA 90230
(715) 856-5627 (301) 390-3010
The file sizes for scanned photos can be enormous, many megs!!
You might consider a simpler solution. If you're willing to settle
for a good picture on your computer monitor rather than a
photographic print then things get much easier. I took a photo of
the Andromeda galaxy which wasn't very good. It was my first time
doing astrophotography. But there was an image! Using my video
camera and a frame grabber, I converted the photo to a video frame
and was then able to process and greatly improve the picture.
A video frame is only about 1 meg. which is much easier to work with.
If you want to go that route and don't know anyone who can do the frame
grab for you, let me know maybe I can help there too.
Best of Luck
David
The Nikon Coolscan is about $2500 a decent Film recorder is any where from
Polaroid Pallette $1800 and up and up and up
The easiest thing you could do would be to send your pictures off to
any photo lab that handles Kodak PhotoCD imaging. Have them put it
on PhotoCD then use any of the Amiga solutions for reading PhotoCD
disks. Asimware provides one with their CDROM reader (you will need
a CDROM drive or have someone with one to help you) or there is a PD
loader for ImageFX that can handle PhotoCD images.
Nothing else will touch the quality of PhotoCDs if you whats needed to
get the resulting image into your Amiga.
Sorry for butting in but could you give me more info about PhotoCD
loader for the Amiga 4000. I am trying to get a solution for the lack
of PhotoCD capabilities in ADPRO, TVPAINT, DPAINT, … Perhaps a
shareware program? I heard the name Photoworx bandied about. Who
makes it? Is Asimware on CIS?? Thanks alot and sorry once again for
my intruding. -DAN ZAID
I don't recall who makes Photoworx. The PhotoCD compatible loader I
mentioned is for ImageFX. The loader is here on CompuServe and works
with ImageFX 1.5 from my tests. As far as I can tell it's PD, but
I've never talked with the author yet.
Advertisment on 😉
PhotoWorX and PhotoWorX Pro are written by Olaf Barthel and are
distributed by COME in Germany (there is an US distributor and you
can find it at mail order companies in the US). The programs are not
cheap but really, you will through away any of those *1/&'2 stuff
based on the PD ppm source. Worth every penny and the only real
license Kodak software on the Amiga.
At least PhotoWorX Pro comes with various links to other programs
(Studio V2 and ADPro, and if you can't live with the provided ones,
you can use ARexx…).
The software is VERY stable and the quality of the compressed
unpacked image are better than the other solutions. When it comes to
speed: the main routines are written in assembler. This makes
PhotoWorX one of the fastest PCD reading software on any computer.
And the software does support various gfx boards (at least on my
Retina III the software is a real joy — something I can't say for
the ADPro Retina stuff…).
If you have any specific questions, let me know. No, I'm not working
for COME. I'm just a VERY satisfied PhotoWorX Pro user… I doubt we
will see a better PCD solution on the Amiga… (sure you can do
better, but who will really do this major job succeeding this
software???).
I recently saw PhotoWorX show up on my local dealers shelve. I've
heard about it, and wanted it for a while now.
Will PhotoworX load ALL the various resolutions of images included on
a PhotoCD? It would be a great way of finally archiving my collection
of Trans and negs from over the years. Many would probably come in
handy on my Amiga. It would be great to have like 600 video res
images all on one PhotoCD. Not sure if the current PhotoCD h/w can do
this though. I haven't really kept up with recent developments on the
PhotoCD front.
It hasn't really Hit as a consmuer product here in the US. Even here
in LA theres only a few places that do the scans. Its GREAT
technology for certain applications but I think they can forget it
about the Large res images. Great for comps though.
Quality Hi-res scanning is an Art that can't be done like an assembly
line. Just like high quality photo printing can't be done on a 1-hour
system.
Thae type of Digital Imageing your asking about is going VERY strong in
the Pro photo circles. It's definately the future of photography, if not
nearly the present.
I do this at work everyday. I run high-end I/O equiptment that scans the
film to digital format and also print the images to film or paper. We use
Quantel super computers to manipulate the images in between. We also use
Macs running Photoshop to do the same quality work, just alot slower.
Recently s/w on the Amiga has matured to the point that this type of work
CAN be done pretty easily, If you have the h/w. I'd recommend atleast a
fast 030 machine with 16 megs Ram to manipulate small images. We're not
talking video res images here. :^) To be able to attain a minnimum of
photorealism in print you'll need a hi-res scan of about 3500×2500, thats
approximately a 25 meg image file.
I could go on for along time, but I'd recommend you let some Pros do the
job for you. Let me know if you want to hear more on the Amiga side.
Perhaps I could help with this project, I'm always up for a challenge. :^)
….John
Howdy John, I may be in need of yer services soon. I'm going to be doing
some Pics using Imagine soon that I'm going to want Negatives made from.
Preferably 2 1/4" square format negs, firstly what rez and aspect ratio do
you recommend I render at? And Also What will this service cost me?
Thanx John…..
I have "CHEATED" before and made "B&W Negatives" using my Laser Printer
and Transparency film, it actually worked failry well tho 300 DPI is a bit
too grainy.
Any way the use for the negs would be to have Poster Sized Prints made up
of the images.
You always want to render at 1/1 for print applications. Render the images
as large as possible, about 3kx2k should be fine. I've had great results
saving the image as Jpeg 100% with little if any loss in image quality.
I could go straight to print for you, upto 30×40" , but for something like
that you should render to about 7kx5k. I've been wanting to do some Very
large renders now that LW 3.5 can go upto 8kx8k :^)
1:1 Aspect Ratio, Ok Thanx John…. 3k * 2k rez ok Thank ya for the tips.
I prefer to get Negatives since I can then Print myself. Thanx for all the
help.
The way I see it, getting your negative scanned onto a PhotoCD would
be your best bet for the digitizing stage; you could also take
advantage of the situation and pick some of your favorite negatives
out of their showbox, and wind up with a custom CD full of pics you
like, ready to use whenever the urge strikes you. (Assuming you do
graphics on your Amiga)
There's a group of nice people called TAZA, the Toronto Zoetrope
Amiga Association. We meet every month to show off new (primarily
animation-related) software and projects. If you showed up at a
meeting, I'm sure you could find someone (like me, for example) who'd
love to sit down and take a crack at processing your washed-out
pictures.
TAZA info can be had by phoning Rick Dolishny at (905) 279-4187. He's
out of town for about 2 weeks, so be patient if you leave a message.
TAZA meetings are held on the last Thursday of the month, and I do
believe August is the month when we reconvene from our summer break.