Just a quick note to say thanks to all those who rang to say 1Scan.co.uk website was down.
Yes, it was planned although it did take longer than I’d hoped. It’s part of our plan to add photobooks to our offerings and I know this bit of pain will be worthwhile.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why Aperture 3 from Apple MATTERS
You may not have noticed but Apple have just announced a new version of their photo organising / editing software, Aperture. You might not use but this is important, I’ll tell you why.
Apple is a market savvy company. Just look at the iPod, those cool MacBook laptops, all that brilliant placement in trendy films and TV shows; Apple knows technology and what people want. So when their flagship product includes a raft of new features it’s worth taking a closer look. Two areas are, in my opinion, are really interesting for you and me, “ordinary” photo collectors and photographers.
Like me you’ve got photos (digital) that you’ve taken recently, another batch that you took using film or slides that you’ve had digitised. Then there might be some family photos you’ve inherited, plus all those you’ve been sent by family members - 1,000 - 2,000?
What’s on them? Yes, loads of landscapes but mainly people - faces. That means that the main questions you ask are who? and where? To help you answer these questions Aperture now offers two features, facial recognition and geo-tagging.
Facial recognition is simple in concept but difficult to implement. The ideal is that you take one image and add the name of the person in the photo. Apple’s software then scans through your image library and identifies all other photos of that person either alone or in a group. Think how long it would take you to do that by hand. Work your way through your key family members and in a couple of hours all your portraits are “tagged”. That means you can quickly identify all the photos in your collection of the people who are nearest and dearest.
Geo-tagging means you can drop your images onto a map and Aperture makes a note of where that photo was taken. Again, a quick and effective way of adding vital data.
Put the two features together and you can brilliantly answer all those who and where questions.
Just now Apple are ahead of the wave when it comes to feature rich photographic applications, but expect it to appear in more products in the coming months.
Apple is a market savvy company. Just look at the iPod, those cool MacBook laptops, all that brilliant placement in trendy films and TV shows; Apple knows technology and what people want. So when their flagship product includes a raft of new features it’s worth taking a closer look. Two areas are, in my opinion, are really interesting for you and me, “ordinary” photo collectors and photographers.
Like me you’ve got photos (digital) that you’ve taken recently, another batch that you took using film or slides that you’ve had digitised. Then there might be some family photos you’ve inherited, plus all those you’ve been sent by family members - 1,000 - 2,000?
What’s on them? Yes, loads of landscapes but mainly people - faces. That means that the main questions you ask are who? and where? To help you answer these questions Aperture now offers two features, facial recognition and geo-tagging.
Facial recognition is simple in concept but difficult to implement. The ideal is that you take one image and add the name of the person in the photo. Apple’s software then scans through your image library and identifies all other photos of that person either alone or in a group. Think how long it would take you to do that by hand. Work your way through your key family members and in a couple of hours all your portraits are “tagged”. That means you can quickly identify all the photos in your collection of the people who are nearest and dearest.
Geo-tagging means you can drop your images onto a map and Aperture makes a note of where that photo was taken. Again, a quick and effective way of adding vital data.
Put the two features together and you can brilliantly answer all those who and where questions.
Just now Apple are ahead of the wave when it comes to feature rich photographic applications, but expect it to appear in more products in the coming months.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Scanning Time?
We're often asked how quickly we can scan a batch of photos, invariably the answer is much, much quicker than even the most dedicated traditional scanner operator. Let's take a batch of 500 photos, and a decent scanner being operated by someone familiar with the scanner and its software. Every time a scan is made the lid has to be lifted, photo(s) placed on the glass, and then the scan(s) made and the digital files saved.
If it takes as little as 1 minute per photo that gives a simple elapsed time of 8 hours and 20 minutes. If you add in a few minutes each hour to rest those straining eyes you could easily be talking about 10 hours. Very few people will sit scanning for that length of time, and probably don't have the time anyway. If you could manage a couple of hours a day you’re looking at a week of lost evenings or a solid weekend of grind. Even the most dedicated family member or photo hobbyist will find this a tedious burden.
From recent experience 500 photos isn’t a massive library. Last Thursday we were given a batch of 1100 photos that need to be scanned ready for our client on Tuesday. Yes, it has been done - it was polished off on Friday. DIY that would have been some 17 to 20 hours of work for a busy Mum with a young family. I’d suggest that a scanning bill for £110 is a modest price to avoid all that grind and lost family time.
If it takes as little as 1 minute per photo that gives a simple elapsed time of 8 hours and 20 minutes. If you add in a few minutes each hour to rest those straining eyes you could easily be talking about 10 hours. Very few people will sit scanning for that length of time, and probably don't have the time anyway. If you could manage a couple of hours a day you’re looking at a week of lost evenings or a solid weekend of grind. Even the most dedicated family member or photo hobbyist will find this a tedious burden.
From recent experience 500 photos isn’t a massive library. Last Thursday we were given a batch of 1100 photos that need to be scanned ready for our client on Tuesday. Yes, it has been done - it was polished off on Friday. DIY that would have been some 17 to 20 hours of work for a busy Mum with a young family. I’d suggest that a scanning bill for £110 is a modest price to avoid all that grind and lost family time.
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