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DMA® Digital Photography SIG Events of 2003 |
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Here are summaries of our events we had in 2003. We usually meet from 7:00—9:00 pm the first Thursday each month at Wright State University unless stated otherwise. Here is a PDF map of the campus and here is a map of the tunnel system. All meetings are free and open to the public unless stated otherwise.
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December 2003December 4, 2003: "Paint Shop Pro 8"The December meeting of the Digital Photography SIG was originally scheduled to cover scrap-booking your photographs. However we were informed less that one day in advance that due to a due to a family emergency, our guest speaker from Creative Memories had to cancel. Instead, we had a demonstration of Paint Shop Pro version 8 ably led by Lou Childs, in spite of having no projector. Paint Shop Pro 8 is the latest revision of this full featured photo editing program from JASC software. It automates most photo editing procedures and makes better pictures just a few keystrokes or mouse clicks away. Lou is a long time user of Paint Shop, as well as a beta tester, so she's very familiar with the product. Therefore Dave Lundy was shocked and amazed to find that he was able to show Lou a way to make opening and saving files easier that she didn't already know! That's what this SIG is all about—learning from each other, regardless of skill or experience level. Lou demonstrated several aspects of Paint Shop Pro that distinguish it from other photo editing programs, starting with One Step Photo Fix. Then she showed it's amazingly easy to use straighten, fix perspective, and trapezoid correction tools. Lou demonstrated a few of the myriad artistic effects, such as charcoal, pencil, etc. She dazzled us with it's unbelievably easy to use seamless background tile creation tool, and showed a few of the numerous Picture Tube items which are great for scrap-booking, creating cards, or entertaining the kids for a while. And finally she showed how to import an image from any other program using it's screen capture function. And this barely scratches the surface of what can be done with Paint Shop Pro. It's a great program! November 2003November 2003: "Video Editing"Before this evening's main presentation, there was some discussion of general computer security issues. Millard showed us an interesting FireWire cable he had bought from Triangle Cables at the last Computerfest® that has interchangeable ends by use of plug-in adapters. Also, Joe Solch made a slight departure from his usual layers tip of the month. This time he discussed a couple of his favorite books. He highly recommends "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, Second Edition" by Katrin Eismann and Doug Nelson for anyone interested in learning more about photo retouching. He says it's easy to read and has lots of good photos to show the results of various techniques. He also strongly recommends "Photoshop 7 Artistry: Mastering the Digital Image", by Barry Hayes and Wendy Crumpler. It contains a CD-ROM which has has the same images that are printed in the book. Both are published by New Riders. Joe says many of the printed images don't adequately show the fine details of the techniques being described, but the images on CD-ROM are much better. Someone else (Millard?) recommended "Photoshop for Photographers". Joe pointed out that even though a book may be written specifically for Photoshop, almost all of the techniques apply equally well to Paint Shop Pro, except that the specifics of which menu or icons to select to perform the operation will be different. Dean Miller had complications with his knee replacement surgery, which caused him to spend nearly a month in the hospital, but he's up and about again. Welcome back, Dean! Tom Sheibenberger mentioned a $300 Samsung SC-D23 Mini DV camcorder that he had spotted in an Aldi ad. I haven't found any reviews at the major camera review sites, but most of the user reviews I have found here and here seem to indicate it's a pretty good buy for the price. The November meeting revisited editing and DVD creation of digital videos on your computer. Millard demonstrated how to edit and assemble a short video and discussed ways to save it to DVD, VCD and other formats for computer use, using Windows Movie Maker 2, NeroVision Express 2, and Adobe Premiere 6.5. Windows Movie Maker is included with Windows XP, and version 2 is a free upgrade, downloadable from windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Movie Maker is relatively full featured and easy to use, especially for a "free" program. When reading in a video from the camcorder, Movie Maker automatically splits the video into scenes. You then drag the desired scenes into the appropriate position in the storyboard or time-line, depending on which mode you're using. It's easy to add any of a fairly good assortment of scene transitions, titles and credits, and do basic trimming of beginning or endings of scenes. Its one big shortcoming is that it saves files using a Windows proprietary CODEC, which means that the files will only play on Windows XP with Windows Media Player 9. There is no way to save directly to a DVD that will play in a standalone DVD player. NeroVision is a great program for producing DVDs, dividing your movie into chapters, and creating menus for accessing the chapters. You may even put more than one movie on a DVD. However NeroVision has only very basic video editing functionality. It's included with the full version of Nero Burning ROM, but not in the OEM versions that are often included with CD or DVD burners.
October 2003October 2003: "Creating Slide Shows with your Photos"The October 2003 meeting of the Digital Photography SIG featured an excellent presentation by Steve Hayden on creating slide shows of your photos using MySlideShow, available at anixsoft for merely $24. He showed us step by step how to assemble photos into a slide show, synchronize them to music and add captions, sound bytes, narration, and transition effects. He also showed us some techniques for preparing to make the slide show, including using free tools such as 1-4a Renamer to rename a batch of files, and JPG Cleaner to strip out "meta data" from the files to reduce their size. Dave Lundy installed a somewhat similar program, jhead, on dmapub this afternoon as part of installing Gallery, which is mentioned later. You can then burn the finished slide show to CD as a self running program for your computer, make a screensaver, or even make a VCD or DVD from it for playback on a standard DVD player. Once again, Joe Solch demonstrated some more tricks using layers to improve poorly exposed photos. He promises to have a more detailed presentation eventually. Dave Lundy gave a brief demonstration of Gallery, which he installed on dmapub today in this SIG's web site. There is a gallery link in the navigation bar on each page on the SIG web site. If you want to display some of your pictures, please contact Dave to get an account. Dave also very briefly demonstrated FUDforum, which was recently installed on dmapub. Millard strongly urged participation in the forums. Nearly forty people attended tonight's meeting. One of our regulars, Dean Miller, was absent due to knee replacement surgery. We wish him a speedy recovery. September 2003September 2003: "Show and Tell for Photographers!"The September meeting of the Digital Photography SIG featured "Show and Tell for Photographers!" This largely unstructured meeting was a place for you to share the items you are proudest of with a group of peers! A few of the things (in no particular order) shown, demonstrated, or discussed were:
August 2003August 2003: "File Formats"Our topic for the August meeting was File Formats. Millard described some of the most commonly used image file formats (JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, etc.) and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the difference between lossy and lossless compression. He also demonstrated the type of image degradation typically associated with JPG compression and GIF. There was a also a brief discussion of the problems of missing CODECs in regards to A/V files. Nobody had a solution to how to determine what CODEC is required when a file won't play. After the file format discussion, he described and / or demonstrated four interesting programs.
Joe Solch demonstrated a very easy way to dramatically improve badly over exposed or washed out pictures by creating a duplicate layer of the image and using the multiply filter. In a few seconds he converted a very faint image into a very detailed photo. Amazing! Thanks Joe. He also demonstrated a neat way to easily adjust the amount of blur if you want to tone down an image slightly. Again, he made a duplicate layer. Then he applied a rather drastic blur to the duplicate layer, then adjusted the transparency (or opacity) of the layer to get exactly the effect he wanted. The whole process took only a few seconds. These techniques can be used with any image editor with layer support (Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, JASC Paint Shop Pro, etc.). Dean Miller was passing out a small sheet of info about the problem of "gray market" cameras from the Aug. issue of Popular Photography, which is reproduced here.
Several of us adjourned to Frisch's for some food and lively discussion. July 2003July 2003: "Buzzwords Explained"Our topic was Digital Photography Buzzwords. The group discussed what some of the technical terms mean with the goal of helping to understand the salesmen's drivel when buying a camera. We attempted to de-mystify the jargon used by salesmen when selling digital still and video cameras. Millard explained why he will be absent for a few months - he'll be providing technical support for a photo shoot in India! Way to go, Millard! Finally, we were treated to a trip down part of the famous Route 66 by Steve Hayden. He used Anix Software's MySlideShow to make a very nice "slide show" of a couple hundred pictures, complete with various transitions, background music, and sound clips. It seems like quite an impressive program for its modest price of $24. Steve may demonstrate compiling a slide show at some future meeting. June 2003June 2003: "Creating VCDs From Your Still Photographs"Joe Solch showed us how to use a host of inexpensive programs to create a slide show of your still photographs on a CD that is playable on most DVD players. You can even add music or narration to the slide show. This is a great way to share your digital photos with those who do not use computers! May 2003May 2003: "Movie Making"This month's Digital Photography SIG meeting was our most ambitious to date! The published topic was introduction to digital video using Microsoft Movie Maker 2, but we expanded on that just a bit. The group attempted to film, edit, and render a 3 minute video on what the Digital Photography SIG is all about. The video is a narration type documentary about what the SIG offers and why you would want to join. We took still photos and movie clips and began assembling them together with a voice track. We had a storyboard for the movie set up. Task cards were handed out to participants who assembled and shot photos of the topic on the card. Jessica Corbet had agreed to edit the photos taken using The GIMP (a picture editing program for Linux) so they could be integrated into Movie Maker II. It was anticipated that at about 7:45, we would begin downloading the files to the main computer. And at 8:00 PM, we would assemble back in the classroom and start putting the movie together. Well, that was the plan... Millard had hoped to make the finished available for download on the website in various formats and file sizes within a few days of the meeting. Well, the 1 minute 50 second video (16 MB) is finally on-line! It is playable with Windows Media Player 9, or within IE 6 (and possibly other recent versions). If you do play it within IE, undock the media player and maximize it. If you use a different browser, it's probably best to right click the link and and select (Save Target As... or Save Link Target As...) for later playback. I'm not going to upload the 56 MB MPEG1 version. We hope Millard will provide us a more web-friendly version soon. Yes this movie is a bit rough around the edges, but it is a starting point! In 3-6 months we can revisit the movie and add to it, expanding and correcting it as our skills, time, and equipment improves. It is my dream that someday, we will have a movie of this type about every aspect of DMA®; one about membership meetings, another about each SIG, one for OTAP and so on. What a way to show people how the club works! April 2003April 2003: "Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 8"Our April meeting was held on April 3rd and featured photo editing using Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 8 graphics editor. There were 34 people present. Paint Shop Pro is a full-featured photo editor that is very reasonably priced. PC Magazine recently gave it a five star review. Dean Miller and Lou Childs led the meeting. Lou gave an overview of Paint Shop Pro and showed many features, both simple and advanced, including several unique image creation tools not found in other photo editing programs. Dean showed us the advanced red-eye removal features, exposure compensation using the histogram feature, perspective correction, and how to create CD inserts using Paint Shop Pro. We learned about the features of Paint Shop Pro, and what differentiates it from other programs of its type. For its price, Paint Shop Pro is the leader in photo editing! March 2003March 2003: "Buying Your First Digital Camera"
February 2003February 2003: "Printing Options for the Digital Photographer"The February 6th meeting was our first held at Wright State University in 302 Oelman Hall, Wright State. Attendance was about fifty in spite of rather severe weather, and we nearly filled our new location. The topic of the meeting was Printing Options for the Digital Photographer. Millard summarized the primary advantages and disadvantages of the different printing technologies available both in the home, and through photo services such as traditional camera stores (Click Camera, Malone's, Fairborn Camera, etc.), and discount processors such as WalMart, Meijer, etc. He covered Inkjet (both piezo and thermal), Laser, Dye Sublimation, and photographic (silver) prints. Then there was much lively discussion by the attendees of their experiences, both good and bad, with a wide variety of printers and photo finishers. Several samples, printed on a variety of printers and papers, were distributed for comparison. January 2003January 2003: "Our First Meeting!"The Digital Photography SIG held its first meeting on Thursday Jan 2nd at CompUSA in Miamisburg. Officially, 45 people were in attendance (39 members and 6 non-members), but at least a dozen others were turned away due to lack of space. It was truly a standing room only crowd as we overflowed our facilities! Millard Mier demonstrated color correction techniques in Adobe Photoshop, and the group discussed other methods of picture editing and even taught Millard how to use histogram editing in Photoshop! We also discussed what to look for when purchasing a new digital camera, a brief overview of how photos were edited before the digital photography, and a host of other topics. The SIG has decided to hold future meetings on the first Thursday of each month, but needs much larger quarters. We are hoping to find space at Wright State University for future meetings. Our next meeting will be on Thursday Feb 6th at 7:00pm. The topic will be printing options for the digital photographer (both home use printers and professional printing services). Check here for the location as details are arranged. Future meetings will be held the first Thursday of each month at Wright State University where we will learn digital darkroom techniques, scanning tips, and video editing (both true digital, and captures from VHS). You are encouraged to bring your camera and your computer to show off you latest work. Or just bring CD with some of your favorite work. Be prepared to have fun and to learn! Millard Mier III | |||||||||||||
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Search the contents of all the publicly available web pages at www.dma.org/photosig/ or archives of our mailing list. Subscribe to our mailing list for occasional correspondence regarding digital photography at Photo-SIG Info Page & read our archives. Check out our other Special Interest Group (SIG) mailing lists here. Users Group Contact: Nancy Christolear or Dave Lundy (937) 426-1132, digiphot-contact@dma.org Web Site Contact: digiphot-web@dma.org | |||||||||||||
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