Zoomify lets you post high resolution photos to your website and creates panning style navigation.
Most times when you post photos online you try to make the files fairly small to ensure that viewers won’t wait too long to load the images.
But Photoshop’s Zoomify command lets you create pages with high resolution and panaromic images that are composites of smaller, faster loading jpegs, which greatly improves load time.
And it’s so simple to use.
Simply go to File>Export>Zoomify. The template field allows you to pick a colour for your interface.
The Base Name will be the name of the html file Photoshop creates for you.
Make a folder and select it to save your zoomified files in. Set jpeg quality – keep this high, you want your image to look good.
Set what size you want your browser interface to be (maximum width is 1000 pixels).
Make sure the Open in Web Browser box is checked to see your new creation immediately.
That’s all there is to it, just hit OK and your files will be created ready for upload – a zoomify viewer swf file, the tile group of small jpegs, an image properties xml file and the html file.
The interface will look something like this shot of a spring commute on Great Slave Lake. (You can zoom in and see a guy on the houseboat – is that Adrian?)
And lastly – don’t forget to add a target=”_blank” attribute unless you plan to add navigation to the page!
Aren’t you getting sick of toting about that bag full of gadgets? Can’t decide whether you want to shoot still or movie? Well with today’s technology, you don’t have to carry heavy equipment to get fantastic results.
The evidence is compelling – check out this 1080p video shot at 6400 ASA (some scenes were shot at 3200 ASA) with a Canon 1D MKIV. No flash, no outside lighting – only available light. Prepare to be amazed by the quality (of the resolution, the actual plot doesn’t make much sense).
All this quality comes at a price – a $5,000+ price, but as the 1D MKIV is inevitably replaced by the next-best-thing, its cost will drop.
Both the Canon and Nikon’s D3S can shoot at ISO speeds of up to ISO 102,400 – less lighting = lighter camera bag.
D3S’s built-in microphone for monaural sound, or use an optional external microphone for stereo recording.
As well, the D3S allows videographers to attach an external microphone, which is important for getting good sound (viewers are more likely to forgive poor picture quality than poor sound quality).
These cameras are fantastic for on the move travel light photographer-videographers – a growing category in this jack-of-all-trades multi-media world.
After finding the term “gigavision” in this month’s Wired magazine’s Jargon Watch, I had to read more about this technology – using computer chips as sensors, which allows pixels to be packed 100 times more densely than with CCD or CMOS captures.
There doesn’t appear to be much online about this gigavision yet – even though an article in Wired’s Gadget Lab suggest devices with the chip will be available early this year.
Gigavision will be targeted for cellphones, and not the upper end of imaging (yet).
Cheap Naked Chips Snap a Perfect Picture in New Scientist predicts these chip will “pave the way for cellphones and other inexpensive gadgets that take richer, more pleasing pictures than today’s devices.”
These chips are not set to replace CCD and CMOS sensors in the immediate future, but it’s interesting to see the rise of more hi-res/3D/interactive multi-media pieces.
With the rise of ever cheaper and better quality digital imaging, can film survive? I donated my last film camera years ago, and don’t miss the darkroom chemicals at all!
Will people still want to view movies in 2D once 3D becomes cheaper and more available?
Use Metadata pulldown menu to choose what File Info to include in web photo
Photoshop CS4’s new controls for adding metadata are a handy tool to control copyright information included in your online photos.
Before you export your photo for the web, go under File>File Info to see the array of metadata options.
Most important: under the Description tab, change Copyright status to Copyrighted and put photogs name under Copyright Notice (Option, g on a Mac gives © symbol), then type the year.
Also fill out info tab IPTC Contact.
The International Press Telecommunications Council’s photo metadata was made to describe and administrate photographs and to provide the most relevant rights-related information.
Finally, under Save for Web and Devices (new in CS4) choose which metadata you want to export under the Metadata pulldown menu. Include copyright info, of course.
This feature is a useful way to control which metadata is exported in your web-optimized files. I found this tip while browsing some of the movies in Lynda.com’s Photoshop CS4 for the Web lessons. Some of the information there is a little basic, but I found the web workflow description most efficient, with emphasis on smart objects, grouping/naming layers, and keeping PSD copies of everything for ease of editing down the line when you inevitably want to tweak your design.
With the massive increase in online video, I wasn’t surprised to see a story on mediapost.com saying it is the fastest growing medium in the world.
The story cited a new report from social media research consultancy Trendstream and research firm Lightspeed, giving stats such as:
- In one week in January, 97 million Americans viewed a streaming clip online – as many as are tuning into any major broadcast network
- With 72 per cent of U.S. web users watching clips online, web video outstrips both blogging and social networking, and is now the leading “social-media platform”
- With 49 million active Web users – 32 per cent – uploading content in January 2009, users of all ages now generate far more content than traditional broadcasters and collectively contribute the majority of video content to the web
Meanwhile the world’s most popular video-sharing site, YouTube had a 1,700 per cent jump in mobile video uploads over the past six months.
YouTube has shown phenomenal growth over the past few years. In mid-2007, six hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute. Now, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. In fact, as I write this blog “uploaded youtube” is a trending topic on Twitter.
In my hometown of Yellowknife I have seen the growth of online video. Here are a few businesses that prominently feature online video. Let me know what I am missing:
- CBC North – runs its full Northbeat news show as well as numerous shorter news videos
- Kellett Communications – offers full gamut of filmmaking and effects, strives to make communication interactive, weave it in and out of all media, especially online content
- Up Here – this magazine about the north posts photos animated Ken Burn’s style with music/voice over track such as this recent soundslide, which is hosted on Up Here’s Vimeo channel
You can check out the Yellowknife tab on my Netvibes page to see other Yellowknife videos on YouTube.
I heard it was OK to go off topic sometimes 
Had fun at Vancouver’s Chinese New Year parade yesterday, so colourful. These Kung Fu club dragons put on a great show before heading indoors.
I made a wee photogallery of the parade today at my CBC practicum.
I have been working on a portfolio site for my URL www.ehargreaves.com, and have now uploaded a home page. I used the menu from my After Effects/DVD project, exported the clip as an FLV file, then imported it into Flash.
Once the FLV file was inside Flash I added invisible buttons over the DVD navigation. These buttons all link to external sites – my YouTube and Flickr streams, and this blog. The “_blank” tag on the button links cause other tabs to open (the intended effect), but this also causes the Flash to become deselected, so then the buttons don’t have their sound/roll over effects again unless the Flash document is clicked on 
That means I have to get going on the inside pages. Once I have these pages to link to, I will remove the “_blank” tags because my links will lead to internal sources.
My plan for these inside pages (which I will create in Dreamweaver) are to add:
- a video page, using my YouTube content as embeds
- a photojournalism portfolio in the big-photo style of Boston.com
- a new ‘About’ page, which will link back to this blog
WordPress site upgrades also needed
I will also continue to make changes to this site. A prominent RSS feed button would be nice (the text version gets a bit lost), and eventually a custom theme. I will be picking the brains of other bloggers at two upcoming conferences: WordCamp Whistler and 2009 Northern Voice.
Still mulling Twitter options. I like having the update feature since my tweets are mostly about technology, but if I get too busy to blog for a few days, then Twitter takes over. I would welcome suggestions
Even before the Flash-animated movie Waltz With Bashir took home a Golden Globe for foreign-language film prize, I had been interested in seeing it. After all, it rated an impressive 95 per cent Fresh Pick on rottentomates.com
The New York Times has a thought-provoking video interview with the movie’s writer/director Ari Folman in which he discusses how Waltz With Bashir was animated in Flash using 3,500 keyframes, giving the film its unique, graphic-novel style look.
Preview for Waltz With Bashir
You can check out more details on Folman’s innovative techniques in studiodaily.com’s story.
The team used photographs to build realism into the environments, then added the background details.
Waltz With Bashir was made for two million dollars, and took four years to complete. Animators would slave a whole day over a second and a half of footage. That’s dedication, but it looks like their toils were well worth it.
LG Electronics made a splash at the Consumer Electronics Show when it introduced a fully functional, touch-screen wristwatch cellphone.
The watch-phone is expected to be available for sale in the second half of the year.
It looks a little clunky from the photos displayed, but has many features, such as:
- a built-in speaker for text-to-speech
- an MP3 player
- a Bluetooth compatibility camera which can be used for videoconferencing
I am not sure that I would want to watch TV on my wrist, but I do like the idea of all-in-one gadgets. How handy to have devices such as GPS, phone, camera, video recorder, all bundled together, like my fetish object, the Nokia N96.
Why carry 10 gadgets when one can do it all?
As well, LG and all of the major television manufacturers are expected to push 3-D technology at this year’s CES, according to a story on CBC.
That could open up all kinds of opportunities to develop more interactive games …. combine that with a Wii (with better graphics of course!) ….
I remember back in the days of my first photojournalism job at the (now defunct) Nanaimo Times I would spend hours a week in a darkroom, working with toxic chemicals to process photos for the next edition. Now with the advent of new media, not only do I not have to inhale fixer (or try to wash the smell from my hands), but I can add other multimedia elements to my photography projects. Recently I have been working with the Adobe application After Effects, and using the Ken Burn’s Effect to animate still photos to sound in order to tell old stories in a new way.
One journalist using these new tools to great advantage is Globe and Mail photographer John Lehmann, who uses a mix of uses of video, stills, soundcape and interviews in stories ranging from the tragic, such as Man Behind the Log, about a homeless soapstone carver sleeping on the beach, to the more lighthearted, such as Barely Bowling, with its look at nude bowling nights.
Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen uses stills and soundscapes/interviews to tell the stories of slumdwellers in Caracas, Mumbai, Nairobi, and Jakarta in The Places We Live, which also has book and exhibition components. The website excels at transitions – from scenes of the outside slum (with accompanying city noise) – to the inside, family stories, told in their voices.
But it isn’t the death of ’static’ photography online. One of the web’s most interesting photo sites is Boston.com’s Big Picture, which showcases the best photos from the news wires for display in a large-format (990 pixels wide) photo blog, with the pictures placed vertically for ease of viewing. Simple yet brilliant.
A recent twitter post by kk that linked to the 2008 Greek riots got me hooked on this site’s large-scale format – these amazing photos need to run this large to capture the drama of the events there.
