bioneural.net » iphoto

iPhone geotagging good for a laugh only

Bruce — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:59:23 +0000

Geotagging outdoors with the original iPhone—which uses triangulation of cell tower signals—seems to be as entertaining as some of the "productivity tools" in the App Store. In other words, laughably useless. While the iPhone did somewhat erroneously relocate a pavement sign to the North Sea shipping lanes, it also managed to pin a photo of a rose to within 1.4km of the actual location. How can it be so inconsistent, and are things really as bad as they seem? The new iPhone 3G features built-in GPS, which although limited at present offers the prospect of enjoying a growing number of location-aware applications. One of these is geotagging using iPhone's built-in camera, and the good news is that those with first generation iPhones can update to version 2.0 firmware and experience similar functionality. Similar, not the same—because the original iPhone contains no GPS receiver hardware, and for reasons unknown Apple's Bluetooth implementation is currently neutered so iPhone cannot be paired to a data logger. The image below was recorded in Chesterfield, pretty much in the middle of the UK. To plot the iPhone-geotagged location you'll need to download the images using iPhoto; it's no use e-mailing them from the phone, because the EXIF-GPS data are stripped out. Something for Apple to fix! iPhone now includes "location awareness" for candid photography Aside: The "pick up or pay up" pavement graffiti is put down by the local council, using biodegradable spray paint. Despite such signs it's still a case of "eyes down" in our neighbourhood, as most ...

CDFinder in the Mac geotagging workflow

Bruce — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:22:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

Like many Mac users I archive my pictures in iPhoto, largely because I enjoy the tight integration this affords with Apple and third-party apps that might want to use them. Having entered the world of geotagging I was disappointed to discover that iPhoto can fail to show coordinates in EXIF (and when shown, oddly lists them under Exposure), does not recognise location data in IPTC headers, and does not provide any "show on map" facility (even Preview does this). Norbert Doerner of West-Forest-Systems then pointed out that I'd completely neglected archive and retrieval of geotagged images in my "ABC" article. This Mac software critique goes some way to redress that omission by considering the role of CDFinder in a Mac user's geotagging workflow. CDFinder is essentially an asset manager that catalogues any file on any volume (CD-ROM, DVD, USB drive, etc). But media metadata are its speciality, and this indexing powerhouse has recently been extended to handle geotags and provide related functionality. Disclosure: A single user license for CDFinder 5.1 was provided by West-Forest-Systems for the purposes of this review. I have a personal interest in the success of the Geotag Icon. Critique context The review machine was an Intel Mac mini running Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Leopard) with iLife '08. I shoot in NEF format (Nikon raw) with a D70 and JPEG with an Olympus C-70Z. My current media organization is I expect fairly typical: Most of my music is in iTunes; Most of my photos are in iPhoto; the rest are mainly in ...

Geotagging your images in iPhoto

Bruce — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:04:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

When writing about geocaching I mentioned that I'd heard of geotagging—but I hadn't made use of it. I've also posted about various ways to keep track of places you've been, including utilising Google Maps. I like to catalogue my travel pictures in iPhoto, but know of no way to integrate iPhoto and Google Maps. But you can use Google Earth to display geotagged photos in your iPhoto Library—even if you don't have a GPS device to record coordinates. Add GPS coordinates via Google Earth Download Craig Stanton's Geotagger (freeware, Universal) and install it in your OS X Dock; Open Google Earth and centre the map on the area with which you wish to associate the photo(s); Open iPhoto and drag the photo(s) for tagging onto Geotagger's icon in the dock; Geotagger should launch then quit; To check that the coordinates were applied drag the photo from iPhoto to Preview in the Dock and use Command-I or the Tools menu to Get Info (Get Info in iPhoto is too limited); In the details pane you should now see a GPS Properties section with coordinates. Note: iPhoto is optional as Craig's app works with photos dragged from anywhere. The GPs coordinates are approximate. If you zoom in using Google Earth to get as "close" as possible to your location at ground level accuracy should improve! It also helps if you can search Google Earth for a specific location e.g. ""Guilin, China". But wait: there's more. Now that your images are geotagged you'll want to share them, right? Craig's got that covered too. Upload ...

In the shadow of Mt. Doom

Bruce — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:38:13 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

We end this month in New Zealand with a sense of achievement: we walked the Tongariro Crossing without significant pain nor injury. We had good weather and got some great photos of the beautiful volcanic landscape. Our 18.6 km walk began early morning in the shadow of Mt. Doom, as Ngauruhoe is now popularly known following its role in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. In the bright sunlight at altitude, capturing well-exposed images of the dark landscape required extra care to avoid blown highlights. Click thumbnail to enlarge image Mt. Ngauruhoe (a.k.a Mt. Doom) Getting good exposure I have the AE-L/AF-L button on my Nikon D70 set to AE Lock only, meaning exposure locks while the button is pressed but focus is unaffected. The default locks both exposure and focus: AE-L/AF-L settings (© Nikon) I've ignored this button until recently, perhaps because using it requires some dexterity and coordination: Zoom in and focus on a highlight—usually horizon sky (half-depress the trigger); Depress the AE-L/AF-L button; Keeping my thumb on the AE-L/AF-L button, release the trigger; Zoom in on the subject and half-depress the trigger to lock focus; Zoom out and recompose; Press the trigger; Release the AE-L/AF-L button! Fingers and thumbs (© Nikon) I recently tried this routine repeatedly on the Crossing and it soon became automatic, but granted it does seem cumbersome. Is there a better way to do this? After taking the shot I always check for over-exposed areas on the LCD, which I keep on Highlights display (the brightest areas flash; the less the better). Raw material The idea is to get ...

Moving from .Mac to Google

Bruce — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 23:35:24 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

MacDevCenter have published a great article entitled Making a Smooth Move from .Mac to Google. Intend to ditch .Mac? The article covers forwarding to Gmail, importing your Address Book (not an issue if using Gmail via POP), iCal to Google Calendar (synch is sadly one way), Google Notifier, using gDisk for online file storage, .Mac Groups to Google Groups, iWeb to Blogger, iPhoto to Picasa, and Google Browser Sync for synchronizing Firefox bookmarks, etc.

How to merge iPhoto libraries for free

Bruce — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:40:16 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

While traveling in China with my wife's MacBook I attempted to keep on top of my photo editing. This involved naming and commenting close to 300 photos in Apple's iPhoto. But when I dragged these into the iPhoto library on my own computer, such data were lost. Searching Google suggested the only easy way to avoid this was to purchase the $US20 shareware program iPhoto Library Manager. Other more messy library merger procedures involved the use of the command line and disk images. But this is functionality that really should be included with iPhoto, especially given the progressive increases in "allowed" library size with each release. Can you say "Hello" in French? iPhoto 6 includes the ability to share your iPhoto library across a network using Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous). It turns out this technology allows you to import photos from a shared album, preserving titles and comments along with date, time, and other EXIF data. On the donor Mac Open System Preferences > Sharing > Firewall and enable iPhoto Bonjour Sharing on port 8770; Create an album in iPhoto for the photos you want to merge (important, since only albums can be shared, not photos in the root library); Open iPhoto Preferences > Sharing and enable Share my photos. On the destination Mac Open iPhoto Preferences > Sharing and enable Look for shared photos (you may need to restart iPhoto for the shared album to appear, and perhaps temporarily disable your firewall); In the shared album select the photos you want to transfer and drag them to an ...

iPhoto to web gallery bypassing .Mac

Bruce — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:45:57 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

Apple's .Mac HomePage was a simple way to build a web gallery using versions of iLife prior to 06. With iLife/iPhoto 06, you're forced to use iWeb instead if you want integration. But it's not the changes that have caused me to shy away from .Mac—it's the lack of them. All those regular member benefits dried up like a Namibian river bed. When I migrated to WordPress the only substantial part of my online presence that remained dependent on .Mac was my photography. That is the case no more. What do you need to perform a .Mac bypass? An alternative web host (e.g. Media Temple) A version of iPhoto (I'm using iLife 06) Gallery software that "connects" with iPhoto Some photos (huh?) Gallery software for "static" web-space To a large extent your initial choice of gallery software depends on the capabilities of your web space; if you can upload only static pages (as with .Mac), you can't make use of solutions that require server-side scripting. If you want something very basic, you could just use iPhoto's built-in "Web page" Export plug-in (just upload and link to the exported pages): If you want more options, Galerie is a free Universal Binary application (it's not a plug-in) that integrates with iPhoto to publish your pictures or albums with the press of a button (shown without configuration): Gallery software using server-side scripts There are several open-source photo galleries based on PHP and a back-end database, such as MySQL. Rob has written an informative write-up comparing Coppermine and Gallery. I installed Gallery ...

An Automator workflow for batch resizing

Bruce — Sun, 28 May 2006 09:09:48 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

In the pre-Intel era I used the PhotoToolCM contextual menu plugin to take a selection of JPEG images in the Finder from our digital cameras and quickly resize them to send as e-mail attachments. Here's a way to do the same with Automator. One of the great things about having your photos in iPhoto is the Email button that lets you choose a selection to resize and send as e-mail attachments: Unfortunately it takes some time for my photos to get into iPhoto, since I sort them using Adobe Bridge (part of CS2) and import them to iPhoto after processing. But, as when you've just got back from a holiday, there are times when you want to quickly fire off a few (unprocessed) snaps to friends and/or family. Here is a basic Automator workflow for batch duplicating, renaming, and resizing a selection of JPEG images in a Finder folder (or selected directly on the CF/SD/XD/whatever card mounted on the desktop), ready to be sent as e-mail attachments. Output to the desktop at 25% of the original dimensions is my personal preference: If you choose Save As Plug-in in Automator you can right-click on your image selection to perform the resize action: If you want to use or customize this workflow, you can download it here. Open it, choose Save As Plug-in, name it, choose Plug-in for: Finder then Save.

Keeping track of places you've been

Bruce — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 12:30:40 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

A world map on a pin-board. Your old passports. A diary. There are various ways of keeping track of the places we've been but it's not so much the where as the when that tends to escape me. I've been comparing options for recording both the where and the when of our travels. Visited Countries The name says it all. Visited Countries describes itself as: ...a small project demonstrating the power of manipulating the palette of a gif image on the fly. Here we start with a map of the world with each country in a different color. The script asks which country you have been to and sets the colors of those countries to red, the rest to green. Visit the site, check the boxes, and generate an image like this: That's the where, but not the when. Unfortunately you have to re-create the map from scratch each time you visit a new country—but it's very easy to incorporate the map into your website. iPhoto This happens to be the solution I'm using at present, primarily because my memory is largely based around a collection of images rather than written words. I use a Travel folder into which I create albums by year and trip, creating a timeline thus: The comments field can be used to record details not appropriate for the image caption. Unless you want to upload your entire iPhoto library, this is more of a personal way of keeping tabs rather than a solution to share on the web. Google Maps A number of sites are ...

Apple .Mac membership looking less attractive

Bruce — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 06:53:01 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

Once, long ago, being a member of Apple's .Mac seemed like a good idea—even value-for-money. Following the recent Macworld in San Francisco (Jan 2006) I'm left wondering what I'm getting for my money. I use Gmail instead of .Mac for e-mail, because I find it more flexible in use for mail forwarding to and from my domain. I used to make use of Virex, until Apple killed support in recognition that it caused some users more problems than it solved (I now use ClamXav). The .Mac membership area used to make software freebies available (including iBlog); this habit has long since dried up. Occasionally the Pulbic folder on my iDisk sees use as a drop-box, but the only .Mac feature I use regularly is HomePage integration with iPhoto for sharing holiday snaps (although there are excellent free alternatives, such as Galerie). When Mac OS X Tiger was released .Mac users were promised "exclusive" widgets; they never materialised. And now Apple has released iLife 06, together with iWeb, the icing on the cake of disappointment. Apple promotes iWeb as if it's some kind of benefit of a .Mac membership—but it's not. It's not included. whereas it used to cost £70 for a .Mac membership, if you want to enjoy all the features Apple trumpets, it now costs £125 (£70 for .Mac plus £55 for iLife 06). Add your ISP costs to that and you have a fair bit of cash to spend on a more transparent and competitive hosting service. A couple of "first impression" ...