SnapperTalk

A recent posting in the Rob Galbraith forums alerted me to a large number of keyboard shortcuts in Photo Mechanic that I hadn’t known about before. Here’s the list:

“These are for the Mac, but the only difference between the Mac version and Windows version is when you see “option” then you should use “shift” on Windows”

CONTACT SHEET WINDOW:

If you have only one photo selected then:
You can use the arrow keys to move the selection around.
Hitting the space bar will preview the photo that is selected.

A: will play any sounds. Typing A again will stop sound playback.
T: toggle tag
+: turn tag on
- : turn tag off
[ : rotate CCW
] : rotate CW
U: upload photo via FTP

PREVIEW PAGE WINDOW:

Z: turn zoom on/off
+: increase zoom factor
- : decrease zoom factor
L: lock the two previews so that you can pan around in them together
O: one up view
V: two up view (landscapes)
H: two up view (portraits)
C: toggle color management
F: full screen mode (toggles)
R: restore from full screen mode
1-8, 0: set color class
T: toggle tag
U: upload photo
X: toggle crop tool
[: rotate CCW
]: rotate CW
A: play sounds (if any). Typing A again will stop sound playback.
I: IPTC Info
D: dismiss photo from selection
Y: copy photo
M: rename photo
E: edit photo
S: save as

Space bar: used in zoom mode to get “hand” cursor to pan around screen.
option key: will give you the “hand” cursor in zoom mode as well.
option-arrow keys will pan around in the zoomed mode.
shift-option-arrow keys will pan around in the zoomed mode, but faster (50 pixels instead of 10 at a time)
option-scroll wheel will zoom in and out of the photo.

There’s a new range of promising photographer-designed photo cases, pouches, and all-round gear carrying system launched by a new company called Think Tank Photo. Some of it looks quite good.

For the ultimate in photo-editing comfort have a look at the “c-station” - some very expensive but beautiful mac-inspired furniture from the london-based company Bluebroc - as originally reported by MacNN

Current wisdom is that there is little point in compressing jpegs for archive or transmission purposes using standard lossless compression formats such as zip, rar or Stuffit. The jpeg data is already so heavily compressed that whilst you can create a zip or stuffit archive of jpeg files quite easily, the resulting compressed archive will be approximately the same size as the original image file, so there isn’t any point.

However this could all change if claims from the makers of Stuffit hold true. Slashdot reports that the next version of their software - Stuffit 9 - will include new technology capable of losslessly compressing existing jpegs by a factor of almost 30%. This is very impressive if true and could have important implications for purposes such as archiving large quantities of pictures and transmitting pictures over very slow links such as satphones.

There’s a detailed third-party test of the new technology here. The manufacturer’s press releases on the technology, which are a bit thin on details, are here and here. However there is a more detailed white paper on the technology here. [PDF file - 89KB]

In the white-paper they propose to create a new file-type based on the technology - SIF or Stuffit Image Format.

The Slashdot article contains interesting discussions on different compression techniques including fractal image compression and the merits of the new Stuffit technology compared to image formats such as the seemingly impressive but little-used Jpeg2000.

There are some interesting reports back from photographers in the field on their experiences covering the aftermath of the asian tsunami…

PhotoDistrictNews has some good articles here in Part I and Part II of their dispatches.

The January issue of the Digital Journalist also has a good range of dispatches from photographers in the field.

Also in that issue is an article by my good friend Mike Kamber of The New York Times reflecting on covering various events in 2004 and how public attention shifts rapidly between such stories.

I currently have an old, slow, Dell running 24/7 for various functions such as downloading very large files, running ftp services etc and I have found it very useful to have a small, quiet and low power consuming second machine as an always-on server. The Dell works but is slow and painfully inelegant.

So now that Apple has released the sleek and cheap Mac Mini I definitely want one.

There are many Windows-based “Small Form Factor” PCs out there, including some quite nice offerings by companies such as Shuttle, Hush Technologies, and the Nanode & Cubit models from Hoojum, but this is the first Apple one, and it looks good.

My main complaints are I wish it had a 3.5″ desktop-style hard drive instead of a 2.5″ laptop-type drive, and the lack of gigabit ethernet. Still, one can always add extra external firewire drives, and overall it’s an attractive piece of kit.

For more reading on the Mac Mini there are discussion threads on the details and implications of this machine all over the net. If you’re looking for more pictures of the unit the german site MacNews.de has some good photo galleries of an actual unit including the internal workings.

Apple seems to be aiming to place this machine directly into the living-room as a media-hub or home music/video server, and it’ll be interesting to see how successful this is. Amongst others, eWeek has an article discussing who & what the machine is targeting - “What the Mac Mini Is and Is Not“

The always-impressive Photo Mechanic image-browsing software from Camera Bits has had an upgrade to version 4.3. As usual, Rob Galbraith has the full scoop on everything that’s new or changed.

In other image-browser news, Apple has released the latest version of it’s own browser, adding support for various RAW formats - iPhoto 5

UPDATE 18/02/05: Now updated to version 4.3.3

Digital cameras are completely ubiquitous these days… even mobile phones that don’t have one are becoming rare. But you don’t have to go that far back to remember a time when digital cameras were very rare, very heavy, massively expensive, and at the forefront of a tidal change in photography that has revolutionised how photojournalists work.

There were attempts at producing portable digital cameras before, but it was the 1.3 megapixel Kodak/Nikon NC2000 selling for a cool $18,000 that really changed everything… So if you want to reminisce over the good old days of blue-noise the size of snowflakes, non-changeable batteries, no image preview, and felt-tip marker crop lines in the viewfinder - I kind’ve miss those actually - then take a great look back at the history and influence of this camera over at Rob Galbraith.

There’s also a discussion thread about the article in the SportsShooter forums.