Custom photo booth layouts

[Chris Breeze]

I've built a development version of DSLR Remote Pro which allows custom photobooth layouts. The size and position of each photo can be specified to pixel accuracy on the page. This allows complex layouts where the images are different sizes or are not arranged in a grid. It should also make it much easier for simple layouts as most layouts will only require a background image (to add logos, headers, footers, drop shadows etc.) and won't need the header.jpg, footer.jpg and other layout images.
The resposiveness of the live view on low spec PCs or when using slow USB connections has also been improved in this release.

This release can be evaluated or used with a current license the same as a normal release. It is a development release for testing the custom photobooth layout and should be as stable as a normal release. However, because it is a test version the details of how the custom print layout works may change in the full release.

DSLR Remote Pro v1.7.5 Dev 20090707 can be downloaded from:
http://www.breezesys.com/downloads/dslrp175dev20090707.exe

[Chris Breeze]

The custom photobooth layout option is now available for NKRemote and PSRemote.

NKRemote v1.1 dev build 20090710:
http://www.breezesys.com/downloads/nkremote110dev2090710.exe

PSRemote v1.6.5 dev build 20090710:
http://www.breezesys.com/downloads/PSRem165dev20090710.exe

[PhotoMeir]

I was about to write you about this being a possibility for a feature request!
Glad to see that you're keeping things progressive Chris! Also, in this release, or in future ones what are the chances of A) People being able to choose Color vs. Black and White BEFORE the sequence starts and B) If we can add sepia to the mix?

[snapshot]

If you use a touch screen or multiple buttons, it is already possible for people to choose between black and white or color.

Also, I offer sepia prints. I just have to use the camera settings for sepia instead of any setting in PSRemote.

[Chris Breeze]

With DSLR Remote Pro you can switch between color and B&W before starting the sequence (e.g. by pressing Ctrl+B for B&W or Ctrl+K for color) and update the screens displayed to the user according to whether B&W or color is selected. This is described here: http://www.breezesys.com/articles/photobooth2.htm

[PhotoMeir]

Perhaps I didn't phrase myself correctly. I am well aware of the capabilities of a guest choosing between black and white or color. What I wanted to know was....

A) Is there a possibility of setting up the software to view as color of black and white BEFORE the sequence starts

and

B) Can we add Sepia as a third choice WITHOUT setting the camera manually to do so ONLY

[Chris Breeze]

With DSLR Remote Pro and NKRemote you can use Ctrl+B to switch to B&W mode and Ctrl+K to switch to color mode without starting the photobooth shooting sequence. With PSRemote it's Ctrl+B for B&W and Ctrl+C for color.

Adding a sepia option is a bit more difficult because it isn't possible to change the MyColors setting from a PC for a PowerShot camera and not all DSLRs have a sepia setting. The easiest way to do this is probably to convert the image to grayscale and then adjust the hue but having to apply this to the live view images may cause the refresh rate to drop.

[PhotoMeir]

Enlightening as always Chris Thank you!

Also one more question in relation to the new ability to make layouts. Is it possible to to not only set up where exactly the "node" can be placed, the size that it is dependent upon the pixels, but also to be able to give it a rotation?
I know they could be "masked" with an overlay, however that doesn't give an actual rotation to the image itself as well.

I have a friend whom managed to do it with whatever software they have for theirs however I would LOVE if we could do it for ours.

Thoughts?

[Chris Breeze]

Do you have any examples of layouts with rotated images? A couple of people have emailed me asking about this but the example layouts they sent looked pretty horrible to me.

[PhotoMeir]

Hey Chris,

I sent you an image of what my friend made in an email so that you can check out the stylings that I have seen from him. Also, I have downloaded this evaluation to try and it is working well already with a new product that I had in mind. I did notice something however, as the booth captures it's image. The software used to grab the taking.jpg, go black till the image to preview came up, and then go to the next sequence image. Now it goes to taking.jpg then to black, then quickly to taking.jpg again with a blacked out live view, and THEN the previewed image. Seems a bit unpolished and I know previous versions hadn't done that. Just thought I'd point it out in case no one ever had before.

[Chris Breeze]

Which app and camera are you using please?

[PhotoMeir]

DSLR Remote Pro v1.7.5 Dev 20090707
and Canon EOS Rebel XS

[anastassis]

Hi,

I have an isssue with the vertical allignment of the pictures while i am trying to create a 4x2 stip, using the new custom layouts.

My Printer info: 1240x1844 pixels

I position the pictures 60px left with 500px width. To my understanding i should have as a result, 60px border left, 120px border middle and 60px border right, with the rest of the 1000px (out of the 1240px) remaining are taken by the pictures.

However in my print out the middle boarder is almost three times larger that the left and right borders together, insteed of twice.

Can you please assist?

[Chris Breeze]

The easiest way to check the positioning is to use the JPEG output option and then look at the JPEG in an image editor.

Unless your printer supports borderless printing the printable area will be smaller than the paper size.

[anastassis]

Chris thanks for the reply.

You are true, the printable area is smaller than the paper size. Will it be possible in your next update to include this as a fix? Maybe if we could setup the margins of the print, or be able to fit the image to printable area.

Custom layout is a great new feature, but for as with printers that dosent support borderless printing, will not be used in all occasions.

[Chris Breeze]

I'm not sure what you mean. It's only possible to print in the printable area of the page - you can't print up to the edges of the page if the printer doesn't support borderless printing.

[anastassis]

Let me try to explain my issue better. Sorry for the confusion.

What really happens is that my printer reports the printable area of the page larger than it actually is. So the print out gets cropped.

You explain in your document (http://www.breezesys.com/articles/photobooth4.htm) how we can overcome this issue by creating header, footer, left, etc jpgs, but i cannot find a solution on how to make the boarders of the strip equal when using custom layouts. When prints a 5x15cm strip the left boarder is smaller than the right boarder due to cropping.

Is there a way to overcome this problem? Once again thanks for your help

[Chris Breeze]

The simplest way to compensate for this is to use the custom layout option to adjust the placement of the images. If you create a background image which is the same size as the reported printable area and add index marks (e.g. at 50 pixel intervals) this should help with working out where the images should be placed.

[anastassis]

Thanks Chris very much for the reply. Unfortunately again this doesn’t seem to solve my issue.

In the picture below, you will se the layout of the strip that i am trying to create.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9372/200908261346491.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/i/200908261346491.jpg/)

In this picture the left and right boarders are equal, with double size middle boarder. It looks great...

In the print out thought, the issue is that due to cropping, the left and right boarders are been cut and when we split the photo into two strips the boarders do not look aligned. Because the middle boarder takes the value of the left boarder and duplicates it (copy left half of page to right to create a double strip), either we adjust the positioning of the images or change the size of them, it doesn’t compensates the problem.

[anastassis]

Will it be possible in the custom layout to have the option to adjust the placement of 8 pictures instead of 6?

[Chris Breeze]

I'm not sure that increasing the number of pictures from 6 to 8 in the custom layout option is the answer because a photobooth sequence of 8 shots is too long. The option to copy the left half of the page to the right probably won't give good results if the printable area doesn't match the paper size or if the left and right margins are different. You may have to go back to the standard layout option and use left.jpg, middle.jpg and right.jpg images to adjust the placement of the photos.
It's also worth checking to see if newer printer drivers are available for the printer and experimenting with different page settings in the printer driver.

[anastassis]

I have tried the newest drivers of the printer but again nothing. I will probably go back to the standard layout options. Chris thanks for the support.

[snapshot]

I agree with Chris in that you don't need to use the custom layout feature to make this type of layout.

I use the UP-CX1 printer, and just like yours, it crops off a small portion of each side of the photo. I made similar layouts to the one you want by using the left, right, and middle.jpgs. It may take a little while finding the right size they each should be, but in the end, it should give you what you are looking for.

Thankfully, now that you can save your settings, you will only have to set this up once and then just load it each time you need to use it.

[anastassis]

Thanks Snapshot. I am aware of the process you are describing. As many of the sub dye printers crops the pictures, i was hopping to find a solution to use the much easier and precise, custom layout, feature.