Back from holidays…

… with a couple of images:

Alps and clouds, close to Gruyere - yes, the cheese is named after the place which is famous for its castle and its milk - hence the (aforementioned) cheese and clotted cream… that is, if you still follow.

A regatta on Lake Geneva. For the treatment, I put a lot of contrast - via curves - and then removed about 30 points of saturation. I like this look quite a bit…

For the rest, I’ll catch up on emails and comments; there are some interesting entries coming up for the blog, but some time is required for me to write them… or for developers to write programs.

So stay tuned.

Blogging with a 800×480 screen

I am considering buying an Asus EEE PC for quite a few reason (relatively cheap, easy mobility, etc) but I am a little bit worried about the screen size. It only offers 800×480 pixels… I know there is a new model coming up which offers more screen estate (1024×600) but then the battery life is reduced and the cheapness is… well, less cheap. So I am testing a 800×480 setup to see if this would be a viable way to computing. And here is an entry about a concept which is vaguely related to Linux (since Asus distributes the EEE with Xandros) and vaguely related to Photography since the combination EEE + external hard drive could be a killer replacement for a card reader.

I don’t own an EEE (yet) so this is just my ageing laptop on which I am testing an EEE PC screen size. For more about the EEE, see eeexubuntu (a xubuntu derivative with specific support for ASUS EEE hardware), eeuser.com and blogeee.net (in French).

Rawtherapee 2.3 working on Hardy amd64

The new version of RawTherapee (2.3) has been available for some time already (February 12). Here is an extract from the changelog:

• Image resizing tool
• Vignetting correction tool
• Local contrast enhancement tool
• Auto Crop and Fill option in the rotation tool
• Channel mixer
• Deconvolution based sharpening
• Selectable guide lines when cropping
• Enhanced auto and spot white balance

There is even a more recent news entry speaking about the upcoming 2.4 version.

Enfuse - multi-exposure blending and a proper HDR

In a comment on my previous post about HDR, Felix Hagemann recommended Enfuse as an alternative to HDR. Enfuse doesn’t require to build a “real HDR” image that you tonemap afterwards. Instead it blends together images that are exposed differently - a lot more simple and direct. Let’s see what the results can be and compare them to proper HDR and “mere” RAW processing.

Google Summer of Code: a couple of interesting entries

Google published the list of the accepted projects for this year’s Summer of Code campaign. There are a couple which are of interest:

• Color Management Near X: “The primary goal of the project is to explore the possibilities of a X11 library for color management.”
• KDE Control Pannel for Color Management: “The goal of this project will be to create a fully integrated color management scheme for KDE/Linux users.” There are discussions to make sure the code is as reusable as possible for the Gnome crew. Sweet.

Worth noting as well:

• 5 projects for Gimp
• 4 projects for Hugin / Panotools
• 1 project for Krita - implementing a sumi-e brush engine…
  

Let’s see what comes out of these…

Rawstudio reaches version 1.0

As hinted in this interview, Rawstudio 1.0 was released last week-end. From the time I reviewed the application and apart from tons of bugfixes, there are a few nice additions:

• a directory listview allowing to directly browse through your hard drive.
• a new (optional) dark interface - apparently, without it, you cannot be considered a serious photo application…
• more important, an sharpen tool. Very Rawstudio-like: plenty fast and with an beautiful output (check at 100%, it reminds me of film grain… well, a bit)

Read the announcment on the Rawstudio developers mailing list. Get the source from Rawstudio website (Ubuntu builds from Launchpad are also available).

Congrats to the Rawstudio team for this great application!

An exclusive interview with Neil McShane

Hi Neil,

Thanks for taking some time for an interview. I generally “pick” free software developers but I thought it would be interesting to talk to a photographer who happens to use and know Linux… and does his fine art photography work on a Mac with Lightroom & Photoshop.

For those interested, your image gallery is available at www.nmsphoto.com or blackandwhite.ie and your blog can be found at nmsphoto.wordpress.com

Linus Torvalds’ best quotes

OK nothing to do with photography, but here are a few quotes from Linus Torvalds. Since he is to Linux what Nicephore Niepce is to photography, this entry is well deserved - especially since most of the quotes are so funny.

My favorite is:

“Regression testing”? What’s that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect.

Gimp 2.5.0 a preview of what is to come

The Gimp project announced a 2.5.0 release as a first snapshot eventually leading to the upcoming 2.6 series. The main emphasis of this new version is on GEGL integration and UI enhancements, including porting some drawing code to Cairo. Read the NEWS file for more details of the changes implemented so far.

Being the geek that I am, I had a go at compiling Babl, GEGL and Gimp 2.5. This is not (and is not intended to be) a usable program, this is just a preview as to what is to come. Here are just a few screenshots and my comments from a quick play around.

Tagging your images for easier retrieval

Although I delete most of the images I shoot, although I put each month’s keepers in a directory, although I have taken the habit of printing a “digital contact sheet” each month, I am faced with a growing number of images and they need to be manageable somehow…

One of the main tool for that is image tagging and guess what? It is the subject of this entry.