I'm glad I don't manufacture or sell video cameras. Actually I'm glad I don't depend on any hardware, the lesson I learnt years ago in the mainframe computer industry is just how hard it is to compete in the global hardware market. Of course IBM sold its once all conquering PC business to the Chinese company Lenovo and just this last week it is said Sony have found a buyer for their laptop product line. Not so long ago I saw Sony as the Microsoft based alternative to Apple, with well designed hardware almost as attractive as the Mac product line.
Then, yesterday, I saw the 30th anniversary video on the Apple website. The subject matter is a glossy, colourful and (in fashion terms) exciting catwalk show. Lots of trendy people, lots of swishing clothes. The subject matter didn't interest me, what impressed me is that the whole movie was shot on a collection of iPhones. Believe me the video lacks nothing, it is broadcast quality with lots of clever tricks. As the movie develops you get snippets of the way iPhones were used - clamped to standard tripods, hoisted on clever poles, mounted in pairs and groups, pointed and fired simultaneously. With great results.
Some years ago I was party to producing a business plan for a small video business - weddings, local business promos. The cost of decent cameras was the main item. A few years ago a passable video camera was £1500. How many iPhones would you get for that? Four, five? then there was the cost of video editing software, and training.
Do you think in a few years time we'll be thinking about buying dedicated video cameras? Or perhaps using multiple iPhones to work alongside or maybe even replace the now standard video recorder? Yes, today I'm glad I'm about to fire up the computers and start work on our photo scanning service.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Photo Scanning - MFP
I don't know anybody who scans more photos, slides and negatives than we do - particularly across Nikon, Kodak and Epson scanners. So I follow other peoples comments on photo scanning hardware with particular interest, most often via various blog posts. The photo scanning topics vary with several common themes recurring in posts. There are the "how tos" (scan, improve colour, crop, rotate, email, share and backup online) alongside several reviews and recommendations of hardware and software.
Over the last few days several posts have popped up with the theme "don't scan photos on an MFP device". Really? If you're not familiar with the abbreviation MFP stands for multi function print, those combined units that will print, fax and scan documents and prints. Given that you can buy one in my local supermarket for around £50 the quality of each functional unit isn't going to be as good as a dedicated printer or a dedicated photo or document scanner. But does that mean you should never, ever think of using an MFP unit to scan photos? Of course not, thanks to the help of one of my neighbours I checked scan quality on an Epson unit. At 300 dpi the scans of a decent print were more than acceptable. Hike the quality setting and scan images fell away, but modest results were achieved at lower resolution.
Are MFPs a photo scanning solution? If your needs are modest, and you only have a few photos to scan I think they could be. But they suffer from chronic slowness, as does any flatbed scanner. It's a one-by-one process so it will take a long time if your archive comprises hundreds of photos. Certainly you'll get a better result if you increase the quality of scanner you use but I would certainly not say you should "never" use an MFP to scan photos.
Over the last few days several posts have popped up with the theme "don't scan photos on an MFP device". Really? If you're not familiar with the abbreviation MFP stands for multi function print, those combined units that will print, fax and scan documents and prints. Given that you can buy one in my local supermarket for around £50 the quality of each functional unit isn't going to be as good as a dedicated printer or a dedicated photo or document scanner. But does that mean you should never, ever think of using an MFP unit to scan photos? Of course not, thanks to the help of one of my neighbours I checked scan quality on an Epson unit. At 300 dpi the scans of a decent print were more than acceptable. Hike the quality setting and scan images fell away, but modest results were achieved at lower resolution.
Are MFPs a photo scanning solution? If your needs are modest, and you only have a few photos to scan I think they could be. But they suffer from chronic slowness, as does any flatbed scanner. It's a one-by-one process so it will take a long time if your archive comprises hundreds of photos. Certainly you'll get a better result if you increase the quality of scanner you use but I would certainly not say you should "never" use an MFP to scan photos.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Small Business Saturday Brentwood
We are a small business, in a couple of days it will be Saturday, we are based in Brentwood, Essex; so what is happening at the weekend? Well it's Small Business Saturday.
What is Small Business Saturday? It's an initiative to get shoppers to think of using their local suppliers rather than the bigger national names, the obvious suppliers who support their efforts with massive advertising campaigns. American Express have been supporting the campaign with full page newspaper adverts and TV coverage too. Their printed advert talks about the butcher, the baker and the vintage dress maker. Well we're none of those although there are several in Brentwood along with the cluster of TOWIE shops and beauty parlours.
As a buyer we try to think local, for obvious reasons, but it's hard to sustain a truly local buying programme. This week we've bought technology devices (mainly USB hard drives and a USB hub) which we've got from Maplins in the High Street. OK, maybe not what the campaign had in mind but it highlights a difficulty of the campaign in that we aren't left with many truly local suppliers, certainly in retail, here in Brentwood. Sure we use the local post office but we've also engaged a local book-keeper and a local handyman for a bit of site maintenance. The Small Business Saturday has certainly helped us to "think local".
What can we offer you? Well if you decide to use us for photo scanning (assuming you're in Brentwood, Shenfield, Ongar, Billericay, Hutton, Kelvedon Hatch, Pilgrims Hatch or anywhere within striking distance) we'll collect and return your photos free. And more - if you place an order on Saturday we'll give you a 20% discount.
What if you live outside the Brentwood area? If you mail your photos to arrive here on Saturday, or if you post your parcel on Saturday, then we will return your photos free. Yes, free postage for Saturday's orders. And more - for orders of over 1,000 photos we'll also give you a 20% discount. That's it - photo scanning and Small Business Saturday in Brentwood.
What is Small Business Saturday? It's an initiative to get shoppers to think of using their local suppliers rather than the bigger national names, the obvious suppliers who support their efforts with massive advertising campaigns. American Express have been supporting the campaign with full page newspaper adverts and TV coverage too. Their printed advert talks about the butcher, the baker and the vintage dress maker. Well we're none of those although there are several in Brentwood along with the cluster of TOWIE shops and beauty parlours.
As a buyer we try to think local, for obvious reasons, but it's hard to sustain a truly local buying programme. This week we've bought technology devices (mainly USB hard drives and a USB hub) which we've got from Maplins in the High Street. OK, maybe not what the campaign had in mind but it highlights a difficulty of the campaign in that we aren't left with many truly local suppliers, certainly in retail, here in Brentwood. Sure we use the local post office but we've also engaged a local book-keeper and a local handyman for a bit of site maintenance. The Small Business Saturday has certainly helped us to "think local".
What can we offer you? Well if you decide to use us for photo scanning (assuming you're in Brentwood, Shenfield, Ongar, Billericay, Hutton, Kelvedon Hatch, Pilgrims Hatch or anywhere within striking distance) we'll collect and return your photos free. And more - if you place an order on Saturday we'll give you a 20% discount.
What if you live outside the Brentwood area? If you mail your photos to arrive here on Saturday, or if you post your parcel on Saturday, then we will return your photos free. Yes, free postage for Saturday's orders. And more - for orders of over 1,000 photos we'll also give you a 20% discount. That's it - photo scanning and Small Business Saturday in Brentwood.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Christmas Gifts via Apple Mac computers, iPad and iPhone
Just got this link from Apple, how to use standard software to create great photo based products for Christmas gifts. Shows what can be done, some help in the "how-to" field.
All with that lovely Apple look and feel.
All with that lovely Apple look and feel.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
What the f?
The name Scott Kelby is massive in Photoshop and photography circles so my ears pricked up when his name was mentioned last week on an Apple Mac podcast. Scott was on a photographers panel at a conference in NewYork speculating about the future of cameras and photography. Senior industry figures predicted the usual in digital photography - more pixels, greater sensitivity, better lenses. Kelby's take is very different and two points he made stick in my mind.
First, why can't we do away with the f-stop? As you know this is the mechanism by which the amount of light going into the camera body is adjusted. Get it right and the image pops, too much or too little light and the picture is ruined. Serious snappers shoot in camera RAW, a file format that tolerates greater exposure latitude but still you need to be there or thereabouts to get the best result.
Just imagine if the captured image could be adjusted, to display with just the right amount of light for your purpose. A quick image scan by some clever software would give you a near optimal image which you could then fine tune. We already have a type of camera that allows you to focus after making the image, surely the same could be applied to exposure data to get a brilliant image,
Second, why can't we do away with screw in accessories? When I heard this point I thought immediately pictured items such as coloured filters. My mind when back to my own early days in black & white photography and buying yellow, green and orange glass filters which could be used to improve elements of an image such as clouds or skin tones. They were pretty expensive too and a reasonable set would be a chunk to carry around in your camera bag. Today I can quickly convert from colour to B&W in my image editing program (I normally use Aperture) then apply any filter effect at that point - all in the comfort of home.
But what else falls into the screw in category for digital imaging? How about the tripod? Another expensive purchase from my early days albeit one which immediately improved my images by the simple expedient of holding the camera rock solid. However I noticed a new Pentax DSLR which employs clever technology to stabilise images. I think Scott's right, this will creep into a wider range of DSLRs, pocket cameras and even mobile phones.
First, why can't we do away with the f-stop? As you know this is the mechanism by which the amount of light going into the camera body is adjusted. Get it right and the image pops, too much or too little light and the picture is ruined. Serious snappers shoot in camera RAW, a file format that tolerates greater exposure latitude but still you need to be there or thereabouts to get the best result.
Just imagine if the captured image could be adjusted, to display with just the right amount of light for your purpose. A quick image scan by some clever software would give you a near optimal image which you could then fine tune. We already have a type of camera that allows you to focus after making the image, surely the same could be applied to exposure data to get a brilliant image,
Second, why can't we do away with screw in accessories? When I heard this point I thought immediately pictured items such as coloured filters. My mind when back to my own early days in black & white photography and buying yellow, green and orange glass filters which could be used to improve elements of an image such as clouds or skin tones. They were pretty expensive too and a reasonable set would be a chunk to carry around in your camera bag. Today I can quickly convert from colour to B&W in my image editing program (I normally use Aperture) then apply any filter effect at that point - all in the comfort of home.
But what else falls into the screw in category for digital imaging? How about the tripod? Another expensive purchase from my early days albeit one which immediately improved my images by the simple expedient of holding the camera rock solid. However I noticed a new Pentax DSLR which employs clever technology to stabilise images. I think Scott's right, this will creep into a wider range of DSLRs, pocket cameras and even mobile phones.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
File Size Saga
One of the most frequently asked questions from phone calls relates to the relationship between file size and quality. People seem to think that the quality of a photo scan is determined by the size of the resulting file. Bigger file, better quality.
To re-hash what I've said before the key factor in picture scan quality is the dpi at which the original is scanned, then the cleverness or otherwise of the program which compresses the resulting image. So I was surprised when one of our clients took me to task - we had scanned a large number of 35mm slides, all at 4,000 dpi into jpg files. Why, he asked, did the file sizes vary? After a little thought and file comparison the answer related to the slide mounts.
First, jpg files are compressed. Clever maths enables the program to remove some data points, for example in uniformly solid black areas. If one image has a lot of solid black, while another is more varied, jpg compression will give you a smaller file. In theory that goes some way to answer the question but in practice the file size variation isn't that great.
Second, as I found after some digging, look at the amount of space the slide mount creates. Yes the maximum image size on a 35mm negative or slide doesn't vary but even within the same type of film the bit in the middle varies in size. By a significant amount. It was noticeable, and maybe understandable, how much difference there was between different slide mount manufacturers but I was surprised to find variation between different Kodachrome slide mounts.
To re-hash what I've said before the key factor in picture scan quality is the dpi at which the original is scanned, then the cleverness or otherwise of the program which compresses the resulting image. So I was surprised when one of our clients took me to task - we had scanned a large number of 35mm slides, all at 4,000 dpi into jpg files. Why, he asked, did the file sizes vary? After a little thought and file comparison the answer related to the slide mounts.
First, jpg files are compressed. Clever maths enables the program to remove some data points, for example in uniformly solid black areas. If one image has a lot of solid black, while another is more varied, jpg compression will give you a smaller file. In theory that goes some way to answer the question but in practice the file size variation isn't that great.
Second, as I found after some digging, look at the amount of space the slide mount creates. Yes the maximum image size on a 35mm negative or slide doesn't vary but even within the same type of film the bit in the middle varies in size. By a significant amount. It was noticeable, and maybe understandable, how much difference there was between different slide mount manufacturers but I was surprised to find variation between different Kodachrome slide mounts.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Order! Order!
I've never been a paperwork fan so when we launched our photo scanning service I just asked people to supply their key details on whatever paper came to hand. All we really need is your return address, pretty much everything else we can work out ourselves.
Not everyone thinks that way and we've had consistent calls asking how clients can find an order form on the site. So we have now added an order form page, if you like forms you can just print that page, fill in the details, and mail it in with your photos, slides or negatives.
Not everyone thinks that way and we've had consistent calls asking how clients can find an order form on the site. So we have now added an order form page, if you like forms you can just print that page, fill in the details, and mail it in with your photos, slides or negatives.
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