Savannah Photographer Dale Reagan

Have you encountered a Photoshop Error/Warning message: Could not complete your request because it is not the right kind of document…?

Ok, if you are like me you don’t upgrade to the latest version of every software package that you might be using – sometimes you simply don’t need all the new bells & whistles.  If, however, you do get a new camera then you may need to find a work-around to get your new camera image files into a form that your old software can use.

One solution – only use a file format that your software supports (i.e.  TIFF, JPEG, etc.)  Of course the downside to this is you may lose some of the special data that your RAW files contain; you will also lose some flexibility in image editing since RAW files may provide more room for aggressive editing.

In most cases (for higher end cameras) vendor software is typically provided for editing RAW image files.  If, however, you have Adobe Photoshop CS2 and RAW support for your camera is only available in Adobe Photoshop CS4 then what else can you do?

Enter a simple, portable solution from Adobe – Adobe DNG (digital negative) format.  The DNG converter/reader is FREE – download, install, convert your new RAW files to DNG and then crank up your old version of Photoshop.  The downside?  Hmm, you may not be getting access to all of the information available in the RAW file – which could also be true for ACR…

Another solution is to use some other image application tool(s) to access the RAW files and then move converted files into your version of Photoshop.  In my case I started using (purchased) Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – which does support the latest cameras AND also supports RAW to edit in CS2 (creates a copy of the converted file which you then edit.)  I do all of my custom printing from Lightroom – I think that it is a wonderful tool – when purchasing, make sure to check for discounts, i.e. if you have an education connection.

Another tool that I have recently explored is Bibble 5.   This tools is cross OS, provides a license for Windows/Linux, has a nice interface, incorporates a number of plugins – I will provide a better review later this year.  In the meantime – it also provides support for RAW files so it could be used to resolve your RAW file dilemma…

Sizing your Photographic prints from digital images

Ever lost part of an image when you had prints made?  Wondered why?

One of the challenges you may face when printing digital images is getting the right size print from the original image file.  Many (most?) digital cameras have an image sensor that captures images at a 2:3 ratio.  What this means is that one side of the RAW image is typically 1.5 times the other side.  How does this impact prints?  If you want a 4×6 print (or some even multiple of the 2:3 ratio like 8×12, 16×24, etc.) then you will get a ‘full frame’ image.  If you want an 8×10 print then some cropping will occur (you will have to discard ~17% of the original image, usually from the top and bottom and/or sides.)

The photographic film print business relied on standard sized prints for years (and most of us are already accustomed to these print & frame sizes) but the arrival of digital images is both creating new print sizes as well as bringing some possible confusion into the mix.  Since most prints are destined for framing (esp. larger prints) then it makes some sense to simplify the matching of print to frame by using standard sizes for both images and frame mats.  Some terms:

• Full frame image:  all of the image data is used
• Cropped image: only parts of the image data is used
• Print image size: what are the actual dimensions of the printed image vs the dimensions of the paper on which the image is printed; sometimes these are the same

Standard frame sizes usually include standard mat openings – when you print then you need to consider the size of the opening (unless you intend to cut a custom mat for each print – lots of work.)  It is simpler to use standard sized prints for standard sized mat openings.  In general you should subtract .5″ from each side of the print size to reach a mat size that will cover your print & paper size.  Note that by including/adding an empty border to your print you have additional control/options for the size of the image.

** Print paper sizes will vary for custom prints; print paper size for commercial prints is usually the same as the print size, i.e. the image size of a full-frame 4×6 print is 4×6.  It is common to print with large borders on ink-jet papers, i.e. an 8×10 image on 11×14 paper would have 1.5″ left and right borders with 2″ top and bottom borders.  For large prints this allows space for an artist signature or other print-related information.

My solution when printing from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is to increase the print size by 0.15″ based on the mat window opening.  So if the frame label in the store has a description like, ” 8 x 10 frame matted to 5 x 7″ I will:

• start by cropping my original image to closely match my  destination print size, i.e. crop to 5×7 when printing 5×7, crop to 8×10 when printing 8×10, etc.)
• size my print image layout to 5.15 x 7.15″ (or 8.15 x 10.15 when printing an 8×10)
• select the ‘zoom to fill’ option (you will only ‘lose’ a very small portion of your image)
• print on 8.5×11 photo paper
• after printing, I will remove (cut) 0.25″ from each side of the print as well as removing 0.50″ from the top and bottom (make the print fit into the 8×10 frame.)

How does print size impact Image Capture & Editing?

As a photographer I consider the possible cropping scenarios when I capture images.  When working with a group I may add a fudge factor when framing the image in the camera (i.e. allow some space on the sides of the image so that a standard sized print can be easily cropped from the image.)  When I am preparing images for delivery to clients I may also crop the the images to standard sizes (i.e. creating full-frame image sizes of 5×7 or 8×10.)

There are a number of Open Source tools that you may find need for when your CF card (or other camera storage media) becomes corrupted (fully or partially.)  In all cases for digital camera media I encourage folks to:

1. use the camera tools to ‘format’ (erase, clean) the media after you copy your images to your hard drive; if you use your computer to ‘format’ the media it may lead to problems (for various and nebulous reasons) and
2. once you get your images onto your computer disk then make another copy to a backup drive OR to CD/DVD.

Ok – but we seem to have a problem – we can’t read the media - how do we get the images off of the ‘bad’ CF (or other) card?  There are a number of commercial tools (some free – check with the maker of your media) that you can try OR you can explore the Open Source data recovery tools below.  Note that this type of activity is not for the faint-of-heart and, if you have images with commercial value (i.e. taken on assignment or during studio work) then you may want to contract with a service that specializes in data recovery.

• photorec - best for image files; relatively simple to use and designed specifically to recover image files.  Two resources with more information include this Wikipedia post and this CGSeurity page.

• ntfsundelete - restore NTFS drives (and possibly files)

• testdisk - Restore partitions (Unix/Linux); actually another tool related to photorec.

• foremost – Configurable – restores files by type from a disk partition.  The recovered files will have numeric names but appropriate extensions (i.e.  .jpg, .gif, .pdf, etc.)  The bad news is your folder structure is lost.

When using these types of tools, I encourage folks to select options that copy lost files from the damaged media to a good drive – don’t try to rebuild, repair the damaged media.  Get your files first and then try formatting in your camera and taking some test images using the suspect media card and then copy the test images to your PC.  In most cases, once I recover any lost images I would discard the potentially problematic media…

The Linux manual page for PhotoRec is quite brief so you may want to explore the links above for more detailed information on using this tool.

PHOTOREC(1)                  Administration Tools                  PHOTOREC(1)

NAME
photorec – Recover lost files from harddisk, digital camera and cdrom

SYNOPSIS
photorec [/log] [/debug] [/d recup_dir] [device|image.dd|image.e01]

photorec /version

DESCRIPTION
PhotoRec  is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures (Photo Recovery) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes after the under-lying data, so it’ll work even if your media’s filesystem is severely damaged or formatted. PhotoRec is safe to use, it will never attempt to write to the drive or memory support you are about to recover lost data from.

OPTIONS
/log   create a photorec.log file

/debug add debug information

SEE ALSO
testdisk(1), fdisk(1).

For a detailed example using hard disk tools the post on my technology blog may be of interest.