Digital Imaging: Tools

Function plugin: HDR, combine several pictures taking at different exposure levels

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:16:08 GMT

The free function plugin "HDR" for cPicture can combine several pictures taking at different exposure levels using the "enfuse" program.
No complicated settings and fully automated. Unlike different complicated HDR software, you only select the pictures and the plugin is doing the rest.

Example:
In the following example the first picture is correctly exposed for the interior, but leaves the bright window areas over exposed.
The second picture is correctly exposed for the window area but leaves the interior under exposed.

The function plugin "HDR" combines the two pictures to create a single picture with correctly exposed areas:

+ =

To create a combined picture:

Select the individual pictures with the different exposure levels:
Select the function plugin "HDR" from the menu in cPicture:
Confirm the settings and click "OK":
The output of "enfuse" is displayed in the console window:

Click "OK" to close the window.
The combined picture is created and will be displayed in cPicture as a new picture.

Installation:

Download the plugin from http://cpicture.net/en/cpp_hdr.zip
and unpack the cpp_hdr.dll and the enfuse.exe in the same folder where you copied cPicture.exe.

Panotools mirror, update 04/25/2007

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:12:31 GMT

PanoTools mirror

The latest release of the Panotools version 2.8.5 is mirrored on cPicture.net with permission of the author:

PanoTools12_2007Apr25.zip [Version: MSVS 2.8.5 Size: 894KB]
http://cpicture.net/panotools/PanoTools12_2007Apr25.zip

Pano12.dll only
http://cpicture.net/panotools/pano12.zip

[Links]
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/
http://wiki.panotools.org/

Creating webpages

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:10:21 GMT

Creating webpages

is very easy. Just follow these simple steps to create your own picture page on the internet:

Step 1

Select the folder containing your pictures and select Create a HTML page from the start menu:

Step 2

Select a folder where to store the webpages and pictures
Enter a title, for example Summer vacation
Specify how many Pictures per row and how many Rows per Page
(Enter a '0' in Rows per Page to have all pictures on one page)

Step 3

Optionally you can set the size of the linked picture and if you want to link to the original picture:

Click OK and then the button Create a HTML page.

Step 4

Upload the content of the folder specified in Step 2 to your webserver.

For example http://cpicture.net/html/index.html

Picture CD

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 04:55:05 GMT

Create a picture CD!

All you need is to add cPicture.exe and autorun.inf to the CD layout along with your pictures.

Put both files to the top folder in your CD layout:

Now when you insert the CD to a computer, all pictures will be displayed in a slideshow! Press the ESC key to stop the slideshow.

Because cPicture doesn't need any installation, the slideshow runs without any interaction and does not leave any files on the computer.

Edit pictures with an external program

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:34:44 GMT

Edit pictures with an external program

cPicture provides two easy ways to process a picture selection using an external program.

You can drag&drop the picture from cPicture directly to the other application using the mouse or assign an external program in the settings.

To assign an external program goto to the settings (press F9 or select "Change settings" from the menu), select the "Settings" tab and check the box "Use external image editor" in the Advanced settings section. Select your image editor in the edit field and click OK:

Picture Check

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:03:40 GMT

Picture Check

You have all your pictures on a CD/DVD or backup drive, but how do you make sure they are actually OK and not broken? Quite often a picture file gets broken because of a faulty drive or storage media and maybe you keep making backups of these broken pictures.

One solution is to view all pictures in fullscreen and check each one. But there is a better way:

The Check Pictures feature reads in all the pictures and verify the correct loading. The same way as you would open the picture for display one by one.

The steps are easy, select the folder and run Check Pictures:

Step 1

Select the folder/drive containing the picture. If you want all sub folders, right click the folder and select the menu item "Rescan folder including subfolders".

Step 2

Select Check Pictures from the menu:

Step 3

Click Check

The picture check is executed as a task in the background displayed below the left side menu so you can continue working.

To stop the picture check click on Cancel.

In case broken pictures get found, you will see the following dialog:

Click Yes to open the error text file. For example:

C:\My Pictures\ex000001.jpg , "Bogus DQT index 15"
C:\My Pictures\ex000002.jpg , "Bogus DQT index 15"
C:\My Pictures\ex000003.jpg , "JPEG datastream contains no image"
C:\My Pictures\kaputt.jpg , "JPEG datastream contains no image"
C:\My Pictures\error.jpg, "JPEG datastream contains no image"

Move and backup EXIF data

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 04:05:13 GMT

Download location:

http://cpicture.de/JpegData.exe (164KB)

Usage:
JpegData -save|-load jpegfile [datafile]

Description:

JpegData is a command line tool to automate the "EXIF" backup. JpegData loads/saves all jpeg data like EXIF/IPTC/XMP or embedded profiles from or to a datafile.

The datafile is optional. If no datafile is specified, the datafile is the jpegfile with the extension ".app".
For example, JpegData -save DSCN0001.JPG will save the data to "DSCN0001.APP".

        Examples:

        JpegData -save DSCN0001.JPG
          Saves the jpeg data to "DSCN0001.APP"

JpegData -save DSCN0001.JPG DATA.APP
Saves the jpeg data to "DATA.APP"

JpegData -load DSCN0001.JPG
Loads the jpeg data from "DSCN0001.APP"

JpegData -load DSCN0001.JPG DATA.APP
Loads the jpeg data from "DATA.APP"

You can do all sorts of data moving. For example deleting any picture data with a data file from a JFIF or restore a modified picture with its original data. Its impossible to trace back that the picture data was processed with this tool.

The datafile is 100% compatible with the same load/save picture data feature in the EXIF view (F10) in cPicture.

Note:

This tool is not necessary for any picture operation in cPicture but can be used in a scripted solution to restore the picture data when pictures are processed with other programs that are not 100% EXIF safe.

If you are using pictures modified with other programs that do not follow the JPEG standard you might see some meta data missing. For example IPTC data added with Breezebrowser will be lost because of the non standard processing. IPTC from irfanview is in the right section, but its completly out of order (IPTC invalidates JFIF).

Not sure at that point if other software makers comply with common apps or comply with the standard.

cPicture is with the standard.