With the holiday we failed to make a big deal of this, but it really is a big deal. We rolled out a few lower priced shipping rates for users of ExpressDigital Darkroom, Darkroom Web Edition and Photocenter. Quite a number of orders that we fulfill are for 5 or less 4×6 sized prints. In the past this was a flat $2.50 shipping charge. We have rolled our 3 new rates that start now at $1.50 for orders up to $2.00

We will be making some additional adjustments to this rate chart to make allowances for Postal Service rate increases. We let the last increase go with the idea of evaluating our rates once some time had passed. We will not be raising the shipping rate itself, but we will be lowering the cutoff point. Where in the past you saw the next highest shipping rate at say $10 you will now see the next highest rate at $9.

You can read more about the new lower rates on our website, and we will post a follow up to this once the other changes have taken effect.

Technorati : ExpressDigital, PhotoCenter, Photoreflect

Powered by Zoundry

So, you are a Web Edition user and you want to know how to hand code borders. This might be a good place for a video, but I am really not a fan of videos. There is no way to print out that video and have instructions to use as you go along. For an opening shot at creating a border by hand we are going to do it in writing and see where this takes us. I certainly will do a video, but let's see if this step by step walk through doesn't help some people first. We are going to recreate one of the sample borders that is included in the ExpressDigital installation so that everyone can play along at home. We will be doing the soccer memory mate. Though this border is a two image composite, all of the principals apply to any type of border that you want to create. What you are looking for in the border directory is the SoccerMemate_8×10.crd file. This is simply a plain text file that lists all of the details of this particular border. The .crd files can be opened or created in any text editor, though I recommend that you get one that is a step up from Notepad. I highly recommend Notepad++ as it is an open source, free program and has the two features that I love which are line numbering and tabs. On with the show. This is the finished border:

This is the header file of the soccer memory mate. Every border has to have a header file that explains certain details of the border:

DESCRIPTION: <Soccer – Memory Mate – (8×10) Vertical> <–Displayed.
CARDTYPE: Simple <–These next two lines describe the border type.
BEGIN_SUPERBORDER

BEGIN_HEADER
WIDTH: 2400 <–Width & Height are done here in pixels. The border
HEIGHT: 3000 <–is done at 300 DPI so the border is 2400×3000.
INITCOLOR: 64,64,64 DPI: 300 <–Used to factor dimensions throughout the border.
VERSION: 8.4.0.0 <–Not needed. Legacy marker for V8.2/4.
END_HEADER

These categories are all standard to the header section of every ExpressDigital border file. Width and height are subject to change, as can the DPI, but remember that you are printing this image when complete. Lowering or raising the resolution from 300 DPI can have undesired impact on your final print or may needlessly increase your upload time to the lab or to your printer.

When we begin to discuss the layers that make up this border file there is something that needs to be made clear. Think of this next list of items that create the composite as a shopping cart. As you go down the aisle of the grocery store the first item on your list is in the bottom of the cart.

That is the way that ExpressDigital borders are built. Photoshop layers are the exact opposite. So for an ExpressDigital image file the item on top of this list is actually the bottom of the completed image, not the other way around. If you ever see Border Workshop in action you will notice that in the layers section the images are on the bottom of the list, but they end up on the top of the stack once the cart is unloaded. With that in mind lets have a look at the layers that make up the image itself.

BEGIN_LAYER <–Every border has to have Begin and End layer tags.
BEGIN_IMAGE <–Tells Darkroom this is an image.
FILE: "soccer.jpg" <–Background image.
POS: 0,0 <–Top left corner.
WIDTH: 2400 <–Takes up entire width.
HEIGHT: 3000 <–Takes up entire height.
END_IMAGE <–Ends this image layer

BEGIN_IMAGE <–Tells Darkroom this is an image.
FILE: "*Photo1" <–Photo1 for player image.
POS: 1350,120 <–The part that confuses everyone.
WIDTH: 900 <–This one too. Read below for the details.
HEIGHT: 1150 <–Same for this. Read below.
FRAME: 10 <–10 pixel white border around the image.
SHADOW: 0,30 <–Simple drop shadow.
END_IMAGE <–End this image layer.

On to the confusing parts. Image position is done here in pixels so what the 1350,120 means is that this image is over 1350 pixels from the left edge and down 120 pixels from the top edge. Here is a screen shot with guides pulled so that you can see what I am talking about:

As you can see from this, the vertical guide to the left is sort of on 1350 pixels. Set your rulers to pixels and this is how you can easily lay out your border without having to make a bunch of selections. The part that you can't see in this screen grab is the fact that the horizontal guide is pulled down 120 pixels from the top. The width of 900 and height of 1150 tells the software the size to make the image once it has moved it to this position. This image is 3"x3.8" or 900×1150.

On to the next section of the .crd file. some text layers. These things are always fun. These are all of the layers that make up the text for this border file along with a screen grab of the text layers. I will tell you that text was always a crap shoot when hand coding borders. It required more fudging of numbers than anything else as will be demonstrated below. I am not going to go through each one of the text layers as you can follow along from this breakdown of the first text layer.

BEGIN_TEXT <–Tells Darkroom this is a text layer.
FONT: "Georgia" 150 <–Font and size in points.
TEXTCOLOR: 255,255,255 <–This makes text white.
SHADOWCOLOR: 0,0,0 <–Black drop shadow.
FLAGS: TOP | CENTER | BOLD <–Text position in box.
POS: 150,425 <–Over from left 150px and down 425 px.
WIDTH: 1150 <–Width of text box.
HEIGHT: 575 <–Height of text box. See the Problem?
TEXT: "%First Name%" <–Editable text designator. Without the "%" this text would not be editable.
END_TEXT <–Ends the text layer.

My screen shot is off on the width ruler. That ruler should be placed out at 1300 to allow for the fact that this box is offset from the left by 150px. That is not the problem that I made mention of though. See the height there of 575px? That text box is not 575px high. It is placed at 575px. That isn't the simple solution though. Look at the layer for the next text node which is the last name:

BEGIN_TEXT FONT: "Georgia" 150
TEXTCOLOR: 255,255,255
SHADOWCOLOR: 0,0,0
FLAGS: TOP | CENTER | BOLD
POS: 150,565
WIDTH: 1150
HEIGHT: 435
TEXT: "%Last Name%"
END_TEXT

Looking fairly normal no? Over 150, down 565. 1150 px wide by 435px tall?

Using the theory about height from above that line should be at 700px, but instead the border lists it out as 435px. That's because the 575px and the 435px here are the actual size of the box, not their placement on the rulers. These text boxes are abnormally large. This is how the first two text layers should look:

BEGIN_TEXT
FONT: "Georgia" 150
TEXTCOLOR: 255,255,255
SHADOWCOLOR: 0,0,0
FLAGS: TOP | CENTER | BOLD POS: 150,425
WIDTH: 1150
HEIGHT: 155
TEXT: "%First Name%"
END_TEXT

BEGIN_TEXT
FONT: "Georgia" 150
TEXTCOLOR: 255,255,255
SHADOWCOLOR: 0,0,0
FLAGS: TOP | CENTER | BOLD
POS: 150,565
WIDTH: 1150
HEIGHT: 155
TEXT: "%Last Name%"
END_TEXT

Notice how I have changed the height of the two boxes to 155 px each. The height is determined by having the boxed placed 425px from the top of the image and then the bottom placed 155px down from there or down 565px for the last name with a size of 155px. This is why people tend to get lost when looking at the sample border .crd files. When these text layers are viewed in Border Workshop they really are as big as the .crd file makes them seem. I suppose the designer was making an allowance for some awfully long names. Make sense now? Follow along with the rest of the text layers using Photoshop as your guide. We are going to finish up now with the last layer which is the team image layer.

BEGIN_IMAGE <–Tells Darkroom this is an image layer.
FILE: <*Photo2> <–Photo2 makes this a unique image.
POS: 150,1350 <–Over 150 from the left, down 1350.
WIDTH: 2100 <–Image width.
HEIGHT: 1500 <–Image height.
FRAME: 10 <–10px white frame around image.
SHADOW: 0,30 <–Black drop shadow.
END_IMAGE <–Ends image layer.
END_LAYER <–This closes the Begin_Layer tag from above.

END_SUPERBORDER <–This closes the Begin_Superborder tag above.

The end layer and end superboder tags (like all of the begin/end tags) are very important here. Without them your border file will cause an error in the Darkroom software and will be unusable. It really isn't as hard as it may seem. You can open any existing border .crd file in Notepad++ and reuse for another graphic by simply changing the name and pointing the .crd file to a different graphic. You can post questions here, to bbcolor at gmail.com or post a message in the group where you saw this link. To assist you further in your reading we will break down a trader card border and a magazine cover border each over the course of the next week or so.

Technorati : Borders, Darkroom, ExpressDigital

Powered by Zoundry

There has been some discussion going around about Micro-Art and even a few people claiming that it will be the ExpressDigital killer. I have looked in to this myself as a customer at the lab is looking at it and he wanted my opinion of it. Here it is for all to see. Please keep in mind that I am stating my thoughts based solely on the information available on the Micro-Art website and from spending about 90 minutes with it on Friday afternoon. The customer of mine is looking at this software as he is a Web Edition user that uses a homemade web server with html catalogs done in either Photoshop or ACDSee to create his pages for on-site viewing. I have never been to one of his events but he tells me that it works fairly well for him. He wants to automate the process a little and he likes the price of this software. The server copy would be $300 (see below for a cost breakdown) and each workstation copy would be only $200.

About the software

First of all, the developer of this application needs to hire a UI designer. This is what the software looks like:

This is the main ordering screen

This is the order processing screen

This is the print item output page

The way that this software looks is enough to keep me from using it. Maybe that is a bit short sighted of me, but if it looks like crap I don't want to use it. I won't like it, my people won't like and if we don't like it customers won't like it. In terms of features it seems limited. From the best that I can tell these are your available print items. Further, as it says under "NOTE" above, it certainly seems that you must resize your images manually to order different print sizes. I didn't readily see any method of adding a pre-made border or creating multi node print items. I am told that all of these things are available as add on modules to the software. I went to the Micro-Art website to see that indeed all of these things are available for an added cost. They are not add on modules to Event. Rather they are standalone programs that mostly operate as batch ordering tools. Nothing visual for the customer to create as they look at and order the image.

On to functionality

The software does work. It was very odd to me as it is totally unlike anything that I am used to, but Jerry has been working with the demo for some time and he was able to do quite a number of things with the software easily. He was browsing folders, not catalogs. It was very difficult to change drives. I don't know if he just didn't get it or if this was an actual problem. Here is my rundown of what I didn't like.

• No editing tools. Nothing. No crop, no exposure, scale, focus, contrast or shadow adjustments. Nothing at all. I asked. He said idunno. I looked. I couldn't find anything.
• Thumbnail window is slow, images are spaced poorly and I didn't see a way to add display image names anywhere. Thumbs were like double spaced but on each line the thumbs were touching, In a few cases you couldn't tell where one image ended and the next began.
• Full screen view didn't create a very good preview. It seemed to be low resolution. Images viewed in XnView were just fine. Not in Event.
• Favorites cart visible at all times. At least it has a favorites cart, but it is visible at all times and takes up a tremendous amount of screen space. As the other lists in this software, it doesn't display an image in the cart, it displays the file name. This would mean that the customer would need to browse through that catalog one image at a time. It may allow you to save a favorites cart for later viewing, but we couldn't get this to work in the demo so it may not. Overall, not well implemented.
• The order cart is once again a list. The customer doesn't get any view of the image that they have ordered. Further, once an item is added to the shopping cart there is no way for the customer to review the print item. To see what images have been ordered you would have to review the order list and manually select that image in the browser.
• No borders to add.
• No multi node print items.
• No option for black and white, sepia, retro or anything else.
• No white balance.
• No zoom tool.
• No chroma key.

I became disinterested at this point and really stopped paying attention. The software is very simply a way to browse a folder of images and place very basic, generic print item orders. It doesn't have any of the advanced tools that I simply take for granted so I really didn't care to see any more. I put this in the category of OzE software. Ugly as sin, but it does what it says to varying degrees of difficulty.

Price

On the surface the software seems to be a very good bargain. At $300 for the server copy and $200 for each workstation version it is a good bit less than my first choice, which is ExpressDigital. However, when you look at the things that are missing from the list above and then factor in how much money will be spent to add some of the features it isn't such a deal. Compound this with the fact that when you spend this additional money you aren't adding features to Event. You are buying a standalone program. Here is what some of the extras would add up to. I looked at the features that I use in ED every day, or regularly enough to care about. Added up the individual items that I would have to buy to meet these demands using Micro-Art software and here is my list. Keep in mind that your needs may be very different from mine:

1. Event software $310
2. Bookmark $75
3. Greenscreen $150
4. Hot Print $185
5. Image Process $185
6. Montage $165
7. Packager $275
8. Plaque $275
9. Traders $275

Grand Total $1,895 For me, not such a deal. For that money I have a copy of Darkroom Professional and a copy of Core to use as a workstation. Forget about the fact that for the money I don't end up with all of the above features rolled in to one application where the workstations inherit the features of the server. I get nine separate programs that all operate independently of one another.

Summary
If your needs are modest this software might be for you. If you can get by with simply viewing images and placing simple orders it is something that you should look at. Otherwise you are best served elsewhere. The developer of this software clearly has done a fine job. The fact that this is ugly doesn't take away at all from the fact that it does work. There is nothing here that is unique or different. Everything that this software does is available in other programs. Some of the features are implemented poorly and are not as easy to use as they could be. I just might look at their Composite program. I am leaning away from Darkroom Assembly. It hasn't been updated in well over a year and I am not certain an update is ever coming. The Timestone software looks good, seems to work well in the demo but I can't get past the annual subscription model that they use. $3,400 first year and $1,700 each year after doesn't really excite me much. I might be able to warm up to Micro-Art Composite for $450.

Technorati : ExpressDigital, Micro-Art

Powered by Zoundry

Doesn't that look familiar to users of the ExpressDigital software? The more that I use this stuff the more I think that people are going to like it when we roll it out next month. It is available for download now from bbcolorlabs.com though we haven't yet begun our marketing.

Technorati : PhotoCenter

Powered by Zoundry