Wisnaes.com - Visual communication

I have just upgraded three WordPress based blogs to version 2.5.1 by using an excellent plug-in for automatic upgrades. While I do not consider it the final solution (I think this should be a part of the basic WordPress set-up), it is certainly a big step in the right direction.

One of the things that got my attention in the new version is that it should load any EXIF info into special fields so that it can be used by templates to post caption, credits etc. I am really curious how to get this working and it seems more of this is coming in version 2.6 that is close to being released.

Of course, by using Windows Live Writer, one more step and possible error source is added between the original picture and the web page you see now. I added several IPTC fields to the picture just to see how it turned out and if it came up as useful data.

Do you have any experience in using these new data fields? Leave a comment and tell about how you did it. I will add to this article as I find out more.

There is one part of the internet that for me looks like it has been totally ignored. And even this article is a good example of it. Take a look at my picture. I had to edit the whole thing in Photoshop to get the result I wanted.

I am using Windows Live Writer to publish this article to my Word Press powered blog. But neither Windows Live Writer, neither Word Press has any mechanism to add a copyright (or Creative Commons), the name of the photographer and a caption (the description) to each picture.

I would like to see the possibility to add this for each picture I use in my article. For me, this is a no brainer. The photographer deserves credit just as much as the article writer. So why is it not there?

The group of websites that actually uses some form of this best are the online newspapers. I guess that stems from the photographers there knowing a lot more about their rights. But we really need this on even small blogs today.

A very good source for illustrations for a blog today are the photosharing sites like Flickr. On Flickr, you can do a search only among the Creative Commons pictures to find something that you can use. Bust most of the CC marked pictures require that you give the photographer due credit and maybe also link back to both her/him and to the correct CC webpage. Today, there is no way to do this easily and I am trying to get some attention to this.

One way that has been suggested is to use the watermark feature in some editors to add the text inside the picture itself. But this means altering the picture and a lot of photographers do not want you to do that. Also, take a look at my picture above and think about placing the caption over the picture. First of all, it would look extremely odd. Second, it would hardly be readable. Sure, I could set the text color to white. But next picture might be a high key picture that requires me to set it to black.. No, forget about putting anything inside the picture. And by the way - why use a workaround that is clearly not meant for this? What we need is a real solution.

The first way to handle it would be to ask the creators of different WYSIWYG editors and off-line editors to add this functionality. It should not be too difficult. The second step would be to get it into the core of the different CMS’es like WordPress and Joomla. That is where it really belongs.

I want to add one more thing to the list. Microsoft has made available a nice plugin or addition to Windows XP. It is called Photo Info and it allows you to add the required text to the IPTC fields of pictures. Most of the higher end photo editing programs can do the same, and as I do not like doing the same thing twice, I would love to see Windows Live Writer and WordPress being able to load the IPTC info into the correct fields for each picture when I publish them on my blog. I consider this to be the ultimate and most elegant solution, but for now I will settle for one that just let me enter and display the needed info in a nice manner.

There are several ways to display it, and here the template designers might come in with some styling. The name and copyright could be added under the picture as I have done. But I have also seen it displayed up along the right side of the picture. The caption could either be under or over. For my own blog, I would prefer something more or less the way I made the mockup in this article. I am not totally sure about the 5% grey behind the caption, but I need to make sure it is easy to separate it from the article itself.

How would you like to display photo credits and captions? Do you do it today? As far as I know, copyright laws in most countries requires us to put a credit for pictures we use. Why has this been omitted in most CMS systems?

UPDATE: I have now posted an idea on WordPress.org to try to gather support for this. Add your vote on the idea! I have also put the idea into a forum for Windows Live Writer and someone replied that he could probably make something like this. Sounds like Windows Live Writer might be the first one to get something usable. This will of course be good news for more than WordPress users. You can add your support for it here.

UPDATE2: I tried to make an example of what it could look like in Windows Live Writer. Take a look at it here.

Have you ever tried making a nice DVD? Then you know it can be a lot of work and a lot of details to take care of to make things work correctly. But - Sometimes you just have a bunch of video files that you want to put on a DVD. You could of course use one of the big authoring tools available. If you want to take the time, make sure all video is in an acceptable format, and not the least - spend the money on buying these tools.

Or you could head over to http://www.dvdflick.net/ and download DVDFlick. It is probably the easiest tool I have come across to make DVD’s. From their own description:

DVD Flick aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks as well as subtitles of your choice.

And here is a short list of some features:

• Burn near any video file to DVD
• Support for over 45 file formats
• Support for over 60 video codecs
• Support for over 40 audio codecs
• Add your own subtitles
• Easy to use interface
• Burn your project to disc after encoding
• Completely free without any adware, spyware or limitations

I can really recommend this program. And for the price of it, you can hardly go wrong - it is free. But if you like it and become a user, you should consider donating something. These programmers that make software and then give it out for free really deserve our support.

The interface is very easy. You add movies to a list and then you create the DVD. But before you start creating, make sure you have gone through the project settings and set the target size, target format etc. You can also decide to make an ISO-file instead of burning direct to DVD.

For each video that you add to the list, you can click on edit and adjust a number of settings. One thing to look out for here is the aspect ration. Check that it is set correct. This is also where you can add extra video sources, audio tracks and subtitles.

If you are new to making DVD’s, there is a nice tutorial online that you can get to by clicking on the guide button. It is a very easy step-by-step guide that should answer most questions.

I only have one thing to complain about. My main video editing program is Avid MediaComposer, and I have had some reports of problems with the Avid DV codec. So if you are using any of the Avid editing programs, you might want to make sure you are exporting with a more generic codec. But of course, try it out once with a couple of small videos. I have sent a mail to the author to tell him about the problem, so it might get solved in the near future.

Have you tried this program? Did you experience any problems? Let us know how it worked for you by leaving a comment. Is this the solution to all DVD authoring problems?

Are you concerned about megapixels? They may not be as important anymore as they were. Take a look at what Image Engineering has to say about the subject. Also, check what they say about diffraction, a subject that few people ever think about. Usually it has been said that you should step down your aperture to get more field of depth and an overall sharper picture. But depending on the size of the pixels, type of camera and lense, when you reach a certain f-stop your picture will suffer from diffraction and will become worse! It makes for good reading if you are interested in some of the technology behind our digital world. So no need to get anything better than my 7.1 MegaPixel camera

Edit: The holiday is over, and the free stuff has ended for this time. But the free version is still a keeper!

We all love free stuff. Especially when it is something we otherwise would have to pay for. The fine people behind Divx has decided to give out a gift this holiday season. It is unsure how long it will run, so hurry over there and get your copy of a totally free Divx Pro.

What does this give you over the free version of Divx? Here is their own explanation:

So, the primary reason to buy DivX Pro for Windows is to get full
versions of the DivX Converter and the DivX Pro Codec, two things that
let you easily create DivX videos. What are these two things, you ask,
and why should you care? Read on, kind friend, read on…

DivX Converter

The DivX Converter is the official DivX video creation software application. It lets you:

• Drag-and-drop nearly any video format to create a high-quality, highly compressed DivX video
• Merge and convert multiple videos into a single DivX file with an automatically generated menu
• Back
  up your home-made DVDs, compress a full movie to fit onto one regular
  CD (requires the optional $4.99 DivX Converter MPEG-2/DVD Plug-in)

DivX Pro Codec

The DivX Pro Codec is the top of the food chain, codec-wise. It
includes the most advanced version of the DivX video encoder so you can
create the highest-quality DivX files in combination with DivX
Converter or another third-party encoding application. DivX Pro gives
you:

• Higher performance, including multi-threaded support
  for better performance on all HyperThreaded, dual core and dual CPU
  (SMP) systems
• More encoding options, including six
  carefully optimized encoding modes that balance visual quality and
  performance for virtually any application 

What are you waiting for?

If you use Photoshop to isolate objects from their white background, you might have heard of a small plugin called Remove White.

I used it back in the days of Photoshop 5 and really loved the way you could lift out any object from the white background with a click. If any pixel was not completely black, it would be partially transparent. This meant that soft shadows could be lifted off as well, something I have not been able to do with any other method so far.

But this plug-in does not work with Photoshop CS2 and I have been trying to find a newer version for a long time. Until recently when I stumbled across a way to run older plugins on newer version of Photoshop.

First of all - the Remove White plugin is as far as I know, made by Mark McLaren and you can find it here (scroll down and click on Remove White under Mark McLaren). Unpack the filter and put it in your filter folder.

But since it is an older type filter, you need an extra file to make it work. You need to add msvcrt10.dll (click here to download it) to the same folder as the Photoshop program. Do not add it to the system32 folder or anywhere else in the main Windows folder as it might interfere with how other programs work.

Reboot Photoshop, and it should start with no problems. You should now have a new category of plug-ins at the bottom of your filter list called Mac’s with a single filter called Remove White.

To apply this filter to an image, you first have to either duplicate the background layer and do it on the copy, or double-click on the background layer and turn it into a regular layer. If you want to apply this to just a portion of your image, you have to make a selection first, otherwise just choose the Remove White filter and you are done. You should now see the checkered background through the parts of your image that is not completely black.

To verify that the extraction is ok, make a new layer and fill it with white. Then place this layer under the image layer. You image should now look like it was before you removed the white background.

Most people do not like to have a transparent main object, so you need to make a quick mask of your object, fill it with white and place it under your main image layer. But you now have the option to exclude shadows so that the shadow will fall on whatever background you choose for your picture.

This is an effect that is simply not possible by using a mask or doing a selection based on color.

If you like this post, leave a comment and consider adding it to some of the social bookmarking sites.

It is now the rule rather than the exception that port 25, the normal port for outgoing mail (SMTP) is blocked. This creates big problems for users like me that moves around a lot. I have to find out what SMTP is available in the network where I am connecting. And if that one is only available to people that work in the company, I have to use a webmail solution.

But today I found a neat solution that will help a lot. If you have a GMail account, you are in luck. GMail has their SMTP servers on different ports than the usual 25. If you check this link, you can see that the ports are 465 or 587. I set this up in Thunderbird and had no problem bypassing the SMTP block in the network I was using at the time. Just remember to use SSL and authentication when you set it up. 

There are a couple of things to be aware of. GMail rewrites the from-address of your mail to your GMail address as well as the reply-to address. According to  Lifehacker it is possible to go to the settings of your GMail account and change the default address to change this. In addition, GMail stores all outgoing mail (and thus indexes it for it’s own use…). This probably does not appeal to everyone, but for many people is a minor issue.

If you really need to get that mail out and don’t have any other way of doing it, GMail might just save the day for you. 

Google has realised that video is a great way of communicating. The issue they tackle in this short video on YouTube is privacy.

There has been a lot of rumors about what kind of information Google stores about us when we search. And I guess the biggest sceptics will just call this video a smoke screen. But it makes sense and is exactly what most websites store anyway.

The difference now is that Google will start to anonymise their logs a bit when they are 18 months old. Maybe you heard this already, but here is a video explaining this, made by Google. Not only is it good information, but also a good example of how to communicate in the simplest way and get your message across.

 I love the combination of internet and video and I will be looking for more examples that can serve as ideas for anyone that want to put video online. There will also be some articles in the future about how to get maximum quality on your video. Watch this space!

Do you have any examples of great online video communication? Make a comment with a link!

I like carrying programs and data with me. I love my laptop. But recently, I have found that the really portable thing is a 1GB USB memory drive. So I got myself a 1GB Flash Voyager.

The reason I got it was to move data. But I found a few programs that did not need to be installed, just double-click on them to run them. I added them to the Flash Voyager and started to search for more programs like this. I am definitely not the first one that has this idea! Several websites are dedicated to this.

One of them is PortableFreeware . On the frontpage, you find the latest updates. But if you click on All in the top menu, you will find categories with a lot of programs. At the moment this site only caters for Windows users.

The first program you should get is PStart portable. This gives you a “Startmenu” in your systray (at the bottom of your screen, next to the clock). After that, it is up to you to add the programs you find interesting.

Another site for you to check out is TinyApps.org . Here you also find programs for OSX.

As with everything else that has to do with computer, it is very important to make a backup. And Microsoft has made available an application that do exactly that. It is called Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager .

If you know any other good resources for this type of programs, or if you know any good programs that should get a mention, just leave a comment!

When preparing images for web or for TV it can be quite nice to have a tool that is easy to use and delivers great results. It does not hurt if the program is small and on top of everything is free.

This is exactly what Resize.exe is. The program is made by Peter Bone and you can download it from his website, http://www.geocities.com/peter_bone_uk/resize.html . Another great thing about the program is that it does not require any installation. So you can put it on your USB drive and bring it with you all the time.

Peter Bone has a few other programs also available for download on his website.