Linux for museum imaging

I have ordered a cheap secondhand PC as I want to investigate if it can be upcycled to help with image processing.

The specs are a little laughable compared to modern standards, but part of the exercise is to work with easily obtainable kit. So, a quick summary:

• Dell Optiplex 755 SFF, paired with an existing keyboard, mouse and VGA monitor
• Core 2 Duo processor at 2.2GHz
• 4Gb RAM
• 160Gb Hard disc

My thinking behind the purchase is roughly as follows:

• I have run various versions of Linux on one core of a not-much-more-powerful iMac quite successfully in the past. All versions I have tested have run much more smoothly than Windows in the same virtual machine set-up
• These PC's can be sourced very cheaply secondhand (mine was £75, delivered) as companies upgrade their XP based networks
• Being designed for enterprise use, most components can be easily accessed and swapped out if the need arises
• There is no licensing cost associated with any of the software I anticipate installing
• I intend to use the machine for batch processing, not graphics intensive GUI work, if large jobs need more time to complete, then so be it. 

Letting ImageMagick do the heavy lifting

Sometimes, as the files from our digital cameras get ever larger, we find that we don't need such huge files, and need to make a set of smaller images. Think of it as a set of proof-prints for the post-film world.

There are plenty of applications which will do this - iPhoto, Picasa and any number of things supplied with the camera. Trouble here is that the GUI is not really necessary in this case. There will be some performance penalty to be paid for loading thumbnails of the images, and it is likely to be a more than one-click operation.

If you know exactly what you want to do, then this is more easily accomplished in ImageMagick. For instance, I have recently had the need to perform the following steps, repeatedly on several sets of images:

• Get the image from a locally mounted server directory
• Make a copy
• Resize the copy and drop the JPEG quality a bit
• Turn it upside down
• Save it into a new folder

To do this in ImageMagick is simple. Unusually for me, this example is in DOS, but a *NIX version would be much the same. In the directory where your original files are held:

for %A in (dir *.JPG) do convert -resize 1500x1500 -rotate 180 -quality 70 -verbose "%A" "path\to\the\resized\images\%A"

And then hit return. Quoting out the paths helps with images with spaces in the names, and the "verbose" switch ensures you have some output on screen. 

What is the Barrow Kipper?

Really good series of short videos leading up to the opening of the New Walk Museum's Dinosaur Gallery this weekend. Even better, there are preshistoric marine reptiles and fossils as well. Having seen the "Barrow Kipper" on the traffic island, I'm looking forward to seeing the real thing!

http://www.youtube.com/leicestermuseums

"Disappearing acts"

Nice series of photo slideshows from The Guardian about heritage crafts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/series/disappearing-acts

Hacking work

"Benevolent hackers see the future and pull us toward it."

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0670919500/

NYT Museums Special; Arduino

New York Times has a Museums Special section online today. Amongst the articles there is one covering the use of Arduino in museums.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/artsspecial/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/arduinos-provide-interactive-exhibits-for-about-30.html?_r=4

Focus 2011

Returned earlier this evening from my annual visit to Focus on Imaging, which fortunately for me is held in Birmingham, so is easy to get to.

Just a few notes for now, perhaps more to come in a future post:

• My general feeling is that the industry is settling down again now after the turbulent times of the last few years - the film/digital war is over, and the megapixel-race is now a steady climb.
• There seemed to be more interest this year in continuous lighting kits based on CFL (continuous fluorescent light) technologies, both for beginning users and high end pro work.
• Kits and accessories for modifying the light from compact flash-guns (e.g. "Speedlites") were also popular, as people look to improve the results they can get with their existing flashguns. This might also be called the "Strobist-effect"
• There are now plenty of services who will take your digital files, and take them right through to a printed book output. Or, you can print your own in-house using any one of a number of inkjet printers
• Conservation storage for both new and old photographs was also covered, courtesy of Timecare.
• A service called "Lab Direct" from Ilford that offers digital prints on "proper" black-and-white paper. A good example of old meets new. My sample print even had that wonderful smell of hypo (sodium thiosulphate)....
• Some truly superb cameras from Linhof and Cambo utilising the newest digital backs and large format lenses. Unfortunately, impressive resolution also brings with it an impressive price.