Hermanland

Life cycle of a DAM folder

herman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:40:13 +0000

I am wondering what is the life cycle for a folder in the context of Digital Asset Management. In line with the bucket and additive backup concept, I see a bucket in a HDD undergoes following life cycle.

Open - The bucket is available for adding new files. Folder in other status is always full as a backup bucket and no new files should be added to the folder.
Meta in Review – Meta data is under review.
Image in Review – Hash total was generated and the photo or video images are under review.
Closed - The bucket was closed for any further update and is ready to backup to read-only media e.g. DVD.
Re-open - The closed bucket is re-opened for updating.

Hash total is a text file kept immediately under a bucket folder listing all the file name, attribute and checksum. Hash total is a digital signature to the bucket folder allowing to automatically detect any changes in content in the folder.

Which software to create the digest text file in batch?

herman — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:08:13 +0000

There are many software to create the digest text file for multiple files in batch. Following features help to manage to manage a large photo portfolio more effective.

Selectively update the digest text file just for the changed or new photo only because I dont want to visually verify the other old photos again because they are too many.
Able to perform digest verification on read only media e.g. DVD.
Portable application so that I can perform the digest verification any where any time.
Consider file modified attribute and file modified datetime.
Keep should-be checksum, file attributes in digest file and show it along with actual value in the verification result.

How to verify a big collection of photo

herman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:02:00 +0000

When I have more than 20,000 photo in my collection, I start to wonder how I can ensure all of them are still being kept in the storage media properly. All media e.g. hard disk or DVD will be aging and I may find some photos cannot be displayed properly when I open them some day in the future. This will happen although no one can tell exactly when. Regular data backup will not help because backing up rubbish gets rubbish. My solution is to have the computer automatically create a digest text file containing a list of order pair of file name and checksum for the photos in my collection bucket. And then, I visually verify these photos. It is tricky. Visually verifying photos and then creating digest is still not the safest. Then, I can have the computer to automatically verify the photos regularly. Whenever I need to copy or move the photos across partition, I also use a special tool with checksum verification to do so.

Fuji Classic Dream Team

herman — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:21:00 +0000

富士經典夢幻組Fujifilm made its name in high performance portable digital camera in its F series. Fuji did it by leveraging the result of its continous R&D effort in sensor technologies and the careful balance in various factors in camera design. I have no doubt the famous moonlight camera F31FD is qualified to be admit to my dream team. The comparatively less well known F700 and F810 have recently joined my dream team. Unlike F31FD, they are both capable of saving in raw format and supported by Adobe dng converter. F700 is fitted with Super CCD SR to optimize the dynamic range while F810 provides 16:9 format. A common characteristic of all these team members is that they all are not mega pixel blaster but still their humble 6 mega pixels sensors are producing pleasent image which can be seen from my online album http://hermanland.com/zp

Raw or Cooked

herman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:39:00 +0000

Should I use raw format or jpg format when taking photograph? I had tried to explain to the beginners as most books do and still could not manage to get them understood with correct expectation. Recently, I think of a better analogy for easy explanation. Just like raw food I got from the market, raw food is often not as tasty as the cooked food or raw format does not look as eye candy as pre-cooked jpg. Well, some people prefer their dish cooked by P. Here P may stand for chef from Pennisula hotel or the raw file processor from Pentax:-) Oh, so Pennisula taste…oh, so Pentax color. If I cook the food myself, it may not taste the same as cooked by P or it may be even worse depending on my cooking skill or post processing skill to the raw file. However, with the raw food on hand, I have the flexible to cook to whatever taste I want.

Fujifilm F200EXR better shots

herman — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:48:00 +0000

Although Fujifilm claims F200EXR as intelligent machine fitted with EXR sensor that auto switching between high resolution low noise mode aka the classic HR sensor and wide dynamic range DR mode aka the classic SR sensor, the end resulting image produced in its auto EXR mode is less than satisfactory except a better DR. In the Kim’s Fuji F70EXR – How to shoot it, Kim summaries his experience which also applies to F200EXR. 1) Use P mode for general purpose shooting, set M size to 5M, set auto iso 1600 or lower for people, set DR400 2) use EXR DR mode for super harsh sunlight, M size is fixed by the machine, iso is fixed at 200 by the machine, set DR800 3) Use M mode for special effect e.g. concerts or long exposure, set M size, set iso, set aperture wide open, set shutter speed. For all cases, in film mode, use Provia. Set -1 ev when shooting lights at night. Set -1/3 ev for general outdoor and -2/3 ev in strong sunlight.

Funny looking Fujifilm F610 DC (2003)

herman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:26:09 +0000

The recent trend in portable DC to end the mega pixel war for better image quality is my long awaiting wish I was shouting for in hermanland.com back in 2006 when I got my F31FD which was my only choice of budget DC with well image quality at that time. Despite I have the latest F200EXR and I appreciate its faster response and higher dynamic range, I am still using F31FD for its low noise, 35mm F2.8 lens, hence faster with less distortion for portrait. The Fujifilm F series started from F10 in 2005 showing which can be achievable with the combination of Super CCD sensor and well balanced camera design among different factors. In fact, Fujifilm made some DC with Super CCD before the F series glory story started and some of them had a funny upright format which look odd by today standards. One of them is Fujifilm F610 I recently got from a retail shop for HK$800. It is brand new out of old stock and the whole package was made in Japan including even the battery. I am happy to get an extra 1G XD card for free. Following is its attraction to me:

1) Funny upright format
2) Funny dual LCD
3) Super CCD DC pre date the F series glory story
4) Can turn off the LCD and use the built-in optical viewfinder only
5) Faster lens with more portrait friendly focal length – 35mm F2.8
6) Bigger CCD size – 1/1.7
7) Aperture priority, shutter priority and full manul exposure mode

Just discovered that the upright format body of F610 is really handy for snapshot in coffee shop. Just set the timer and put the camera on the table. The view is less likely blocked by the table. Here is the years my “antique” DC were made:
F610 (2003)
F31FD (2006)
F200EXR (2009)

Versioning affects label item count in IDimager

herman — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:02:00 +0000

What will happen when 2 image files with different keywords are brought together to form a version set? In Idimager, the labels are merged into the main version that can have label assigned while the other version cannot have. For example, the image A has 2 object label apple and fruit and the image B has 2 object label banana and fruit. The object label item count is then 2. The apple label item count is 1 and the banana label item count is 1 and the fruit label item count is 2. After the 2 images forming a version set with image A as main version, the object label item count and fruit label item count are both decreased to 1. The apple label item count and banana label item count both remain unchanged. The label merging mechanism do not apply to auto label e.g. import session and that is why I found the auto label item count always decreasing after versioning as stated in my previous post.

Where is my meta data kept ?

herman — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:40:00 +0000

After I added the meta data for my image file, where is the data kept? It may just be kept in the database, the XMP sidecar file or embedded in IPTC block or XMP block within the image file. Before I adapt a new tool to maintain meta data, I need to find out from where the tool will import the meta and to where the tool will keep the meta. Adobe PS family software tends to use XMP sidecar for proprietary raw and even jpg. For dng file, they keep the meta in the embedded XMP block. Because I prefer to keep the meta within the image file, I use PS Bridge purely as a media browser and avoid even doing any rating there. I also turn on the ‘merge XMP’ option in file handling in Image Ingestor so that the batch meta will be inserted to the XMP block within the image file. From the product web page, I found quote “A little problem that this introduced is that there’s no way to prevent generation of XMP sidecars. This will be fixed.” Therefore, I need to manual delete the XMP sidecar files. After ingestion, I keep my practice to maintain the meta always from Idimager because the tool maps its XMP based catalog to the EXIF, IPTC and XMP embedded block within the image file for maximum compatibility.

Wikka wiki 1.2 and UTF-8

herman — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Wikka wiki 1.2 is available. The major enhancements to me are the support of table wiki markup and the nice looking ‘Light’ template. Same as previous version, I found the new version also stores the UTF-8 encoded non ascii characters as numeric reference e.g. & # 915; & # 917; & # 925; & # 917; & # 931; & # 921; & # 931;
I need to apply the hack as I did for previous version to correct it. However, I found the search function to the non ascii characters did not work after the patch but there was no such problem with previous version with the same patch. Also, I just found there is a hack that may correct the search function but there seems to have some side effort but I have not tried this hack yet.