I've just spent several days in Boston, where the taxi drivers treat credit cards like Kryptonite. They would rather sit where they are for another 20 minutes to pick up a cash fare than to take a CC fare. But in that time. They could be back to pick up that cash fare! Go figure...
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The Web - Why I Did What I Did
Getting your stuff on the web can lead down many expensive dead ends, but I think I'm finally getting close to my ideal web interface after all these years. Here are some of the big hurdles, and how I got over them. But first, is anyone old enough to remember one of those first Mac ads back in the mid-'80's where a stern looking guy says "I use a Mac because it helps me do what I do best. And I don't do computers!" Remember him? Well, that guy is me. I never did DOS, and I don't want to learn HTML or CSS, as I said earlier. I have other things to do with my life. I could hire a web development company (that's what I once did) to build the Original Green site, the Katrina Cottages site, the New Urban Guild site, the Guild Foundation site, and the Mouzon Design site. At $5-10K per site, I'd be out enough money to guy a car or two. But that's not the worst of it. Every web developer I've ever worked with has been really nice. One was even a good friend. But every time I want to add something or change something, I've got to go to them, get on their schedule, and then pay them to make the change. Both during initial site development and forever thereafter, it requires more of my time (a lot more, actually) to have them get it exactly the way I want it than it would take me to just do it myself... If I have the proper tools. So going the conventional route of hiring someone is out. So what are the tools? I've used iWeb for years, and it was crucial to the development of the Original Green idea. Without it, the idea would likely still just a warm fuzzy in my mind. But with it, it's a cause with hopes of graduating into a movement, and it has thousands of supporters spread over every continent except maybe Antarctica. The Katrina Cottages site, meanwhile, has languished because it was built conventionally by an HTML guru in a way that is painful to modify as noted above. So it has not been modified since 2007. Yet it gets more hits than any other site I've got... By far. Imagine how much good we could have done with Katrina Cottages had I taken the time to rebuild it in iWeb years ago. But iWeb was never perfect. Its biggest Achilles heel was its unfriendliness to search engines. Simply put, it allowed novices to create beautiful sites better than any other tool, it was a pleasure to use, but then your site was unlikey to be found by Google. Original Green Blog posts, followed by dedicated adherents to the cause, normally get a few hundred readers. But posts on this blog regularly get a few thousand, even though I promote them less and they're more general in nature... Presumably because Posterous is far more Googlicious. All that doesn't matter now, because Apple is essentially killing iWeb with neglect, and with the demise of MobileMe. After getting over the denial of losing iWeb, and then after a lengthy search and evaluation period, I've settled on Sandvox as the web development tool with more of iWeb's strengths than any other tool, but with other strengths where iWeb had weaknesses like strong SEO (search engine optimization) tools built right into Sandvox. There are a few other utilities and resources that round out the Sandvox capabilities into a system that really works for me: CSSEdit is a nifty utility that let's me see the effects of changes I'm thinking of making in my Sandvox themes without having to know the underlying coding. At $25 or so, it paid for itself almost immediately. WebINK serves up a ton of fonts using an HTML thing known as "@font-face." It may sound like a juvenile insult, but it allows you to use the fonts you want without having to resort to "web-safe" fonts, most of which are dreadfully ugly and boring. Photoshop is essential for developing the graphics and modifying the photos. OK, so there are others, but Photoshop is the best. Once I create a graphic, I open it in Preview and re-save it. This strips out all the Photoshop baggage, leaving just the raw graphic, often saving half the file size (or more, for small images.) the smaller your graphics are (while still being beautiful - a balancing act) the faster your pages load. PayPal lets me create Buy, Add to Cart, and Donate buttons so I don't need an often-expensive e-commerce module. That's about it... If I think of anything else, I'll add it to this post as a comment.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Delicious Disaster Aid
Contributing money to assist disaster victims is a good thing, of course, but contributions often dry up in short order, long before the devastation is healed. I've been wondering: what can we do that might have a more long-term effect? One of the ideas at the core of the Original Green initiative is that we do what we OUGHT to do only for a short time, but we do what we WANT to do for years.
So how might you WANT to help the disaster recovery from, for example, the Tuscaloosa tornado, or from Hurricane Katrina? What if you developed a taste for products that would bolster the local economies? Like the barbecue sauce from Dreamland in Tuscaloosa? Or Tabasco Sauce from Louisiana? Here's a delicious recipe that includes both:
Slice up a panful of mushrooms of your choosing plus one bulb of garlic cloves and one medium onion. Pour just enough olive oil into a sauté pan to thinly cover the bottom. Heat on high until a garlic slice crackles when dropped into the pan. Now, pour the rest of the ingredients into the pan.
Reduce heat to medium-high and sauté until mushrooms have begun to caramelize and onions have just begun to become transparent.
Pour balsamic vinegar into pan so that it's standing about 1/8" deep around the other ingredients.
Stir until the vinegar has entirely caramelized. Reduce heat to medium.
Pour one can of black beans into pan. Pour a healthy dollop of Dreamland Barbecue Sauce over the beans. Don't be shy... This is supposed to be a savory dish. Next, shake Tabasco Sauce liberally into the pan as well... use a bit of caution because it's hotter than the Dreamland sauce. Top with your favorite meat spices as this dish, while completely made of vegetables, can nonetheless be as zesty as many a meat dish.
Cook on medium until the bean juice has cooked up, stirring continuously the last 90 seconds to make sure you don't overcook. Serve... and enjoy! And Tuscaloosa and Louisiana will thank you for it.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Photo Workflow 12 - Process
Step 12: Process
Photoshop is cool because it takes all the metadata in your RAW (DNG) files and embeds it into your JPEG files that you save from your DNG files. Here's what I do when I process my files: Open the DNG file by double-clicking in the Finder. This will open the file in Photoshop if you own it. Everything in this post assumes you own the version of Photoshop found in CS5. If you don't, upgrade. The Context-Aware Delete alone is worth the price of the upgrade (varies according to which version you have already.) Within Photoshop's RAW converter, here's what I do each time, and occasionally: Basic window (the first one): White Balance: set to Daylight, Cloudy, or whatever setting is most appropriate to your image. Click Default, just above Exposure. This will create Photoshop's best take on the exposure, which you'll modify. Often, I'll focus on the Recovery (which focuses on recovering detail out of the blown-out highlights) and Fill Light (which focuses on pulling detail out of the shadows) sliders. Only seldom do I modify the Exposure, Blacks, Brightness, or Contrast sliders. At the bottom of the window you'll find the Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation sliders. I almost never mess with Saturation. For Clarity, you need to decide what's the defining characteristic of the shoot. For my Havana shoot, for example, the defining characteristic was the depressing decrepitude of the city resulting from the economic train wreck that is Cuban Communism. To highlight this, I generally bumped up the Clarity, which highlighted detail. For other shoots, you might go the other way. For example, the ruggedness of a male portrait is highlighted by bumping Clarity up, while the softness of a female portrait is enhanced by bumping Clarity the other direction. The Clarity setting may change somewhat from image to image in a shoot, but varying radically will make the images seem to be from different photographers. Go softer on one, go softer on all... just by varying degrees. For vibrance, I usually bump images upwards. Consumer-grade images bump vibrance upwards by 80-100 points. Because most of my images are meant to resonate with a broad audience rather than a small under-vibrance group, I test a few images in each shoot at +60 and decide where to go from there. If I settle on +60 as the baseline, the shoot might vary between +36 and +80. But I work with a highly valued client who wants to see a lot of paper through the ink, so vibrance on his work might be -30 on the average. So you really need to consider not only your own preferences, but your audience. Lens Corrections (the sixth Photoshop RAW tab): Look at the edges of the image. Do borders between dark and light look either green or red? If so, we'll come back to this later. Under Profile, I always click the Enable Lens Profile Corrections. This starts with Photoshop's best take on correcting spherical and chromatic aberration for my lens. It's a start, but not always perfect. Next, look at the vertical lines at the middle of the image. Are they plumb? If not, select the Straighten Tool in the upper left corner. Click at the top of an object nearest the center of the image that should be vertical and drag to the bottom of the image and release. This will create a crop marquee on the image that will straighten the image (if you've plumbed it correctly.) If you haven't plumbed it well, you can adjust by moving your mouse outside the crop and rotating the marquee. Next, look at the overall image. Do you really need to make all verticals plumb? You can, if you need to, by clicking the Manual lens corrections tab and correcting the Vertical (and maybe Horizontal) perspective. You may also want to make other geometric corrections under this tab. For example, if the image looks swollen or pinched, you may want to correct the Distortion slider. Finally, if there was a visible red or green fringe at the beginning of Lens Correction, let's revisit it here. Zoom to full-size by clicking Command-+ until the indicator in the lower left corner indicates 100% zoom. Scroll to the corners of the image. See red or green fringes between bright and dark areas? This is known as "chromatic aberration." Basically, different wavelengths (colors) of light bend in varying degrees. Fortunately, Photoshop's RAW converter can pretty much fix this for most images. For my camera and lens, if I drag the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe to negative values (between -8 and -36, according to the image) it'll fix the problem. Just use your judgment. Maybe it needs no correction at all. I generally don't manually-correct chromatic aberration unless I can see the problem at full-image (fit to page) resolution before doing automatic Lens Correction. Once you've gotten to this point, you're done. For most portfolios, I upload to Zenfolio. More on this later. But this is the end of the basic processing. The final step is to move the images to the outer folder "St. Michaels, MD" and delete all inner folders ("-6 Tag & Process," and whatever else is left.) Obviously, this is a lot of work. But as noted a long time ago, images that run this gauntlet are worth far more to you than random snapshots. There's no doubt they're worth the effort to me... I hope they're worth it to you as well.
Photoshop is cool because it takes all the metadata in your RAW (DNG) files and embeds it into your JPEG files that you save from your DNG files. Here's what I do when I process my files: Open the DNG file by double-clicking in the Finder. This will open the file in Photoshop if you own it. Everything in this post assumes you own the version of Photoshop found in CS5. If you don't, upgrade. The Context-Aware Delete alone is worth the price of the upgrade (varies according to which version you have already.) Within Photoshop's RAW converter, here's what I do each time, and occasionally: Basic window (the first one): White Balance: set to Daylight, Cloudy, or whatever setting is most appropriate to your image. Click Default, just above Exposure. This will create Photoshop's best take on the exposure, which you'll modify. Often, I'll focus on the Recovery (which focuses on recovering detail out of the blown-out highlights) and Fill Light (which focuses on pulling detail out of the shadows) sliders. Only seldom do I modify the Exposure, Blacks, Brightness, or Contrast sliders. At the bottom of the window you'll find the Clarity, Vibrance, and Saturation sliders. I almost never mess with Saturation. For Clarity, you need to decide what's the defining characteristic of the shoot. For my Havana shoot, for example, the defining characteristic was the depressing decrepitude of the city resulting from the economic train wreck that is Cuban Communism. To highlight this, I generally bumped up the Clarity, which highlighted detail. For other shoots, you might go the other way. For example, the ruggedness of a male portrait is highlighted by bumping Clarity up, while the softness of a female portrait is enhanced by bumping Clarity the other direction. The Clarity setting may change somewhat from image to image in a shoot, but varying radically will make the images seem to be from different photographers. Go softer on one, go softer on all... just by varying degrees. For vibrance, I usually bump images upwards. Consumer-grade images bump vibrance upwards by 80-100 points. Because most of my images are meant to resonate with a broad audience rather than a small under-vibrance group, I test a few images in each shoot at +60 and decide where to go from there. If I settle on +60 as the baseline, the shoot might vary between +36 and +80. But I work with a highly valued client who wants to see a lot of paper through the ink, so vibrance on his work might be -30 on the average. So you really need to consider not only your own preferences, but your audience. Lens Corrections (the sixth Photoshop RAW tab): Look at the edges of the image. Do borders between dark and light look either green or red? If so, we'll come back to this later. Under Profile, I always click the Enable Lens Profile Corrections. This starts with Photoshop's best take on correcting spherical and chromatic aberration for my lens. It's a start, but not always perfect. Next, look at the vertical lines at the middle of the image. Are they plumb? If not, select the Straighten Tool in the upper left corner. Click at the top of an object nearest the center of the image that should be vertical and drag to the bottom of the image and release. This will create a crop marquee on the image that will straighten the image (if you've plumbed it correctly.) If you haven't plumbed it well, you can adjust by moving your mouse outside the crop and rotating the marquee. Next, look at the overall image. Do you really need to make all verticals plumb? You can, if you need to, by clicking the Manual lens corrections tab and correcting the Vertical (and maybe Horizontal) perspective. You may also want to make other geometric corrections under this tab. For example, if the image looks swollen or pinched, you may want to correct the Distortion slider. Finally, if there was a visible red or green fringe at the beginning of Lens Correction, let's revisit it here. Zoom to full-size by clicking Command-+ until the indicator in the lower left corner indicates 100% zoom. Scroll to the corners of the image. See red or green fringes between bright and dark areas? This is known as "chromatic aberration." Basically, different wavelengths (colors) of light bend in varying degrees. Fortunately, Photoshop's RAW converter can pretty much fix this for most images. For my camera and lens, if I drag the Fix Red/Cyan Fringe to negative values (between -8 and -36, according to the image) it'll fix the problem. Just use your judgment. Maybe it needs no correction at all. I generally don't manually-correct chromatic aberration unless I can see the problem at full-image (fit to page) resolution before doing automatic Lens Correction. Once you've gotten to this point, you're done. For most portfolios, I upload to Zenfolio. More on this later. But this is the end of the basic processing. The final step is to move the images to the outer folder "St. Michaels, MD" and delete all inner folders ("-6 Tag & Process," and whatever else is left.) Obviously, this is a lot of work. But as noted a long time ago, images that run this gauntlet are worth far more to you than random snapshots. There's no doubt they're worth the effort to me... I hope they're worth it to you as well.
Photo Workflow 11 - Tagging with Keywords
Step 11: Tag
Finally, we're to the step for which I bought Photo Mechanic. Tagging images with keywords is a really long story in itself. Here's the summary:
Navigate to the "-6 Tag & Process" folder in Photo Mechanic. In the main window, look at the star box near the right end of the bottom bar. Click the 3, 4, and 5-star parts to deselect these photos. This will leave you with the 0-star (if you haven't already deleted them,) 1-star, and 2-star images. Select all images. Using the Command-Y method described earlier, move the 0- to 2-star images to the "2 & -" folder inside the "-6 Tag & Process" folder. These are the images you won't tag or process for the time being, but which you could return to at some point in the future if needed. Because tagging and processing are the most time-consuming parts of the process, the idea is to save a lot of time by focusing on the best images for the time being. Next, click on the 3, 4, and 5-star parts on the star bar to bring them back up and then click on the 0, 1, and 2-star parts to deselect them. Select all images. Using the Command-Y method described earlier, move the 3- to 5-star images to the "3 & +" folder inside the "-6 Tag & Process" folder. These are the images you'll tag with keywords in this step and process in the final step.
Photo Mechanic works with a really cool system known as "Structured Keywords." I began with the keywords they recommended, but that system had a bunch of keywords I'll never use... and didn't include most of the ones I was looking for. So I've basically built my own system. A "taxonomy" is a system of order... building my own taxonomy has been a really cool thing because it amounts to an exercise of setting my world in order. Here's where I was with my taxonomy a year ago... I'll post an update before long. And if you want the actual keywords, let me know and I'll send you the file. Or maybe I'll just post it here later. In any case, my taxonomy of structured keywords has the following root categories:
architecture
art
building
creature
environment
event
issue
location
object
plant
scene
texture
thoroughfare
presentation
Within each of these root categories, I can drill down into just over 10,000 keywords. For most shoots, I don't use over a couple hundred or so. There are many that I've never used to date, but because they're arranged in a tree, the rarely-used ones don't clog up the ones I use frequently. To get to Structured Keywords, click Command-Option-K or select Image>Structured Keywords Panel from the menu bar. Here are the categories I go through with every shoot:
architecture>architect, historical, and regional
building>exterior, interior, massing, and types
creature>human>action>(walking, sitting, standing, etc.)
environment>land>(natural or manmade, with several subcategories, including Transect zones)
environment>water
issue>(quite a number of choices)
thoroughfare>(frontage, punctuation, and type, with subcategories)
transportation>(air, land, space, water, with subcategories)
I've also started tagging select images according to several idea systems. Specifically, I'm tagging Pattern Language patterns, Transect zones, Light Imprint patterns, and Original Green ideas.
Tagging with Photo Mechanic is pretty easy because you can select a bunch of images to which a particular keyword (or keyword path) applies and tag them all at one time. You can also click into the search box at the top left of the Structured Keywords window and search for any keyword you like (avenue, arm-wrestling, faucet, column, post lamp... whatever.)
Originally, I over-tagged. Now, I'm tagging only the most important characteristics of each image. I'm trying to keep it to about 10 keywords or keyword paths. Diigo (which will be discussed as part of a subsequent series of blog posts) allows keywords totaling 256 characters or less, so if you happen to post your images somewhere and want to tag that page with the same tags you're using in Photo Mechanic, you need to keep it succinct. Also, if you tag too broadly, it's useless because you pull up too much stuff. Just because an image shows an eave doesn't mean you need to tag it with "eave." Is the eave one of the big stories of the image, or does it just happen to be there?
Photo Workflow 8 & 9 - Rate & Set Classes
Step 8: Rate
I rate all images from 0 stars to 5 stars using Photo Mechanic. 0 stars means it's not a good enough image to ever use for any reason. 5-stars, as you might guess, are my best work. That also means I can go ahead and delete 0-star images and save the disk space. To rate images, I double-click the first image and unclick the Zoom box in the right panel so I can see the entire image in the window. The easiest way to set the stars for me is by holding down the Control button and clicking 1 through 5 for a 1-star through a 5-star image. If it's easier for you, there's a "star box" in the lower left corner of the image where you can click on the number of stars you want. For 0-star images, you can either leave them alone if you want to take one final look after rating all the images, or you can just go ahead and click the Delete key if you're sure about them. I generally take a second pass to make sure I've rated them properly. To do this, I close the Preview window that has been showing me the images large, so that I'm back to the main window showing just thumbnails of all images in the shoot. Look at the bottom bar of the main window. Near the bottom right corner, there's a box of stars. Click on the 1-star and it will turn grey... and all the 1-star images will be hidden from the window. This lets you selectively look at only certain star ratings. So you can look at all the 3-stars at once, all the 4-stars at once, etc. This helps me determine if I've rated everything evenly. It also helps me see if I've been too easy or too tough on this shoot. I then adjust the ratings accordingly. FWIW, I generally don't rate "on the curve." In other words, there are quite a number of shoots with no 5-stars, because if I'm saving that rating for my best work, I want people to be able to count on that. Once you're done adjusting the ratings, move the images on to the "-4 Set Classes" folder using the same Command-Y method noted earlier. And as noted earlier, you can delete the "-3 Rate" folder once it's empty if you like. Step 9: Set Classes
A Class, in Photo Mechanic, is a color... that has a meaning to me. Here's how my Class system works: 1 Private - Command-1 - Red - images I don't want anyone else to see, for whatever reason2 Problem - Command-2 - Orange - images that would be useful, but need serious PhotoShop work for some reason3 Polemical - Command-3 - Yellow - images that have story-telling value4 Publishable - Command-4 - Green - general useful (publishable) images that don't fit into another category5 Particulars - Command-5 - Blue - images that illustrate useful details6 Personal - Command-6 - Purple - images that include people I know
7 Pattern - Command-7 - Grey - images of textures (wood, stone, concrete, grass, etc.)8 Put Away - Command-8 - Brown - images I'll likely discard. Maybe they're not necessarily bad, but very similar to others, and that aren't quite as good. Whereas I discard blurry images instantly, I sometimes keep these (for now) because they're good, but just too similar When you use Photo Mechanic for the first time, go to Preferences. You'll see the Classes in the middle of the General preferences window. Here, you can name your classes (Private, Problem, Polemical, etc.) As with ratings, I make my first pass by double-clicking on the first image to bring up the Preview (large-screen image) window. The Command-keys noted above are the most convenient way (to me) of setting each image's class as I scroll through them. But as with star ratings, there's a Class window at the lower right corner of the image window if you'd prefer to set the Class by clicking there. As opposed to star ratings, I'm more comfortable with my Class settings on the first pass. I mean, an image either has someone I know shown prominently in the image (6 Personal (Purple)) or not. Once you're done setting the Classes, you need to move the images to the folders corresponding to their Classes using the same Command-Y method noted earlier. And as noted earlier, you can delete the "-4 Set Classes" folder once it's empty if you like.
I rate all images from 0 stars to 5 stars using Photo Mechanic. 0 stars means it's not a good enough image to ever use for any reason. 5-stars, as you might guess, are my best work. That also means I can go ahead and delete 0-star images and save the disk space. To rate images, I double-click the first image and unclick the Zoom box in the right panel so I can see the entire image in the window. The easiest way to set the stars for me is by holding down the Control button and clicking 1 through 5 for a 1-star through a 5-star image. If it's easier for you, there's a "star box" in the lower left corner of the image where you can click on the number of stars you want. For 0-star images, you can either leave them alone if you want to take one final look after rating all the images, or you can just go ahead and click the Delete key if you're sure about them. I generally take a second pass to make sure I've rated them properly. To do this, I close the Preview window that has been showing me the images large, so that I'm back to the main window showing just thumbnails of all images in the shoot. Look at the bottom bar of the main window. Near the bottom right corner, there's a box of stars. Click on the 1-star and it will turn grey... and all the 1-star images will be hidden from the window. This lets you selectively look at only certain star ratings. So you can look at all the 3-stars at once, all the 4-stars at once, etc. This helps me determine if I've rated everything evenly. It also helps me see if I've been too easy or too tough on this shoot. I then adjust the ratings accordingly. FWIW, I generally don't rate "on the curve." In other words, there are quite a number of shoots with no 5-stars, because if I'm saving that rating for my best work, I want people to be able to count on that. Once you're done adjusting the ratings, move the images on to the "-4 Set Classes" folder using the same Command-Y method noted earlier. And as noted earlier, you can delete the "-3 Rate" folder once it's empty if you like. Step 9: Set Classes
A Class, in Photo Mechanic, is a color... that has a meaning to me. Here's how my Class system works: 1 Private - Command-1 - Red - images I don't want anyone else to see, for whatever reason2 Problem - Command-2 - Orange - images that would be useful, but need serious PhotoShop work for some reason3 Polemical - Command-3 - Yellow - images that have story-telling value4 Publishable - Command-4 - Green - general useful (publishable) images that don't fit into another category5 Particulars - Command-5 - Blue - images that illustrate useful details6 Personal - Command-6 - Purple - images that include people I know
7 Pattern - Command-7 - Grey - images of textures (wood, stone, concrete, grass, etc.)8 Put Away - Command-8 - Brown - images I'll likely discard. Maybe they're not necessarily bad, but very similar to others, and that aren't quite as good. Whereas I discard blurry images instantly, I sometimes keep these (for now) because they're good, but just too similar When you use Photo Mechanic for the first time, go to Preferences. You'll see the Classes in the middle of the General preferences window. Here, you can name your classes (Private, Problem, Polemical, etc.) As with ratings, I make my first pass by double-clicking on the first image to bring up the Preview (large-screen image) window. The Command-keys noted above are the most convenient way (to me) of setting each image's class as I scroll through them. But as with star ratings, there's a Class window at the lower right corner of the image window if you'd prefer to set the Class by clicking there. As opposed to star ratings, I'm more comfortable with my Class settings on the first pass. I mean, an image either has someone I know shown prominently in the image (6 Personal (Purple)) or not. Once you're done setting the Classes, you need to move the images to the folders corresponding to their Classes using the same Command-Y method noted earlier. And as noted earlier, you can delete the "-4 Set Classes" folder once it's empty if you like.
Photo Workflow 7 - Setting the Base Metadata
Step 7: Set Base Metadata
My initial reason for buying Photo Mechanic, before realizing all the other great stuff it could do, was to inject metadata (like keywords) into my images. For years, I'd struggled to figure out a database for my image, where I could store their various categories and therefore search for them more easily. All the eaves of Art Deco buildings, for example. But then I heard about IPTC metadata, which allow all those keyword tags to be embedded into the images themselves so that the images BECOME the database, rather than needing an outside database. That was a no-brainer... the only question was how to inject the metadata. I did a lot of research and Photo Mechanic was the clear winner.
Lots of keywords are specific to some images, but not all, in a particular shoot. But some particular pieces of metadata belong on every image in a shoot. To set the "base metadata," as I call it, go to the "-2 Set Base Metadata" folder where the images from your shoot now reside. Select all the images. Click Command-I (again, all these are the Mac key commands; see documentation if you have the Windows version) or select Image>IPTC Stationery Pad from the menu bar. It'll bring up the Stationery Pad window. Here's what I consider my base metadata, and its settings... obviously, you'll want to adjust all this for you and your shoots:
Caption Writers: Stephen A. Mouzon (just in case I write a caption, that'll already be entered.)
Keywords: Here, I enter the location keywords. For the example I've been using, it would be North America, USA, Maryland, St. Michaels
Rights Usage Terms: Make sure you have the terms you want. You probably want to do some research here to make sure you're comfortable. Here's what mine says: "Image may be used an unlimited number of times in books, publications, reports, or presentations, including books and publications offered for sale so long as the photographer is credited and the copyright is indicated. Image may not be re-sold directly, nor may it be used as part of an advertisement of any sort without a specific Advertising Agreement, for which different rates apply. Contact Steve Mouzon to arrange Advertising Agreement. All other rights are reserved except those specifically granted. NOTICE: There are no model releases on any persons depicted in this image. Use at your own risk."
City: Enter the city. In this example, it's St. Michaels, obviously.
Location: If you know the neighborhood, enter it here, like "French Quarter." Or if it's a significant place smaller than a neighborhood, you might enter that as well, like "Capitol Hill."
State: Enter the state or province. In this example, it's obviously Maryland.
Country: I use USA rather than United States, FWIW, for shoots in this country.
Code: Look up the IPTC Country Code. (Google.)
Date: Make sure it's set to the Capture Time option.
Photographer: Stephen A. Mouzon
Copyright: ©2011 Stephen A. Mouzon. If I'm processing images from past years, I change the date to the year shot. Just make sure to change it back to the current year when processing new images. I make a habit of glancing at this field with every shoot... it just takes a second to make sure you're not screwing up.
Contact Address: 1253 Washington Avenue
Suite 222
Contact City: Miami Beach
Contact State: FL
Contact Zip: 33139
Contact Country: USA
Contact Email(s): steve@mouzon.com
Contact Phone(s): 786-276-6000
Contact Web URL(s): http://www.mouzon.com
Most of these fields don't change. The only ones that change for sure are the Keywords, City, and State... or not even those, if you have subsequent shoots in the same city. Also, the year on the copyright might change. But everything else should be the same. Once you like what you've got, click Apply Stationery to Selected. It'll take a few seconds (depending on how many images you have in the shoot.)
Once it's finished setting the base metadata, click Command-Y or select File>Copy/Move Photos to move the images on to the next folder in the process. As with the move to this folder, it'll bring up a dialog box. The "Move photos (delete originals)" check box should already be selected, and the "RAW+JPEG handling" should already be set to "Process both RAW and JPEG files." Under the Destination window, the "Always pick destination" radio button should already be selected. Click Move. Navigate to the "-3 Rate" folder that's just beside the "-2 Set Base Metadata" folder they're now in and click OK. If you like, you can now delete the "-2 Set Base Metadata" folder.
Photo Workflow 6 - Scratching Fuzzies
Step 6: Scratch Fuzzies
You'll need Photo Mechanic for several of the next steps. Normally, Adobe creates great products, but Lightroom (and every other photo manager I've seen) pale in comparison to Photo Mechanic. It's the overwhelming favorite of the news media that deal with photos, FWIW. It has many great features; I'll discuss some of them in the next posts, but it'll do a lot more great stuff for you as well. Photo Mechanic is $150, but well worth every penny. Don't even think twice... just download Photo Mechanic here, buy your serial number here, and get started.
Once it's installed, open Photo Mechanic. There will be a Navigator on the left side of the screen, and a Favorites window above. I start working with my photos in Steve's Photos on my MacBook Pro's hard drive, and so I drug Steve's Photos to the Favorites window so I don't have to navigate to it each time in the Navigator. I also have a Steve's Photos folder on my 1-terabyte Images & Websites external FireWire drive (a laCie Rugged drive.) I keep the photos on the internal drive while I'm working on them, but then move them to the external drive once they're processed because I'd never have room for all of them on the internal drive because there are too many of them. So I also drug the Steve's Photos folder on the external drive to the Favorites window, and whenever the external drive is plugged in, it's available as well without navigating.
From within the Favorites window, open the "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder of the images you want to work on. Double-click on the thumbnail of the first image. It'll open a large window with just that image showing up large, and a row of thumbnails at the bottom. Click the Zoom button in the right panel and slide the slider below to 1. This will zoom to full size, so you'll see each pixel in the middle of the image. Scroll through all the images. Whenever you get to an image that's fuzzy, click the Delete key to get rid of it. You might not see this fuzziness zoomed out, but it may degrade the quality of your finished work nonetheless (depending on what you're doing with the images) so you don't want fuzzy images. How fuzzy? I tolerate a tiny loss of crispness, but not much. Do you want to be known as a fuzzy photographer? So get rid of them.
Two caveats: I tolerate a bit more loss of crispness on night shots because the ambiance of the light and the exotic light in most night shots compensate. Some night shots even benefit from loss of crispness, like this one. I also tolerate a tiny bit of crispness loss on aerial shots... not as much as on night shots, but just a bit more than normal daytime shots on the ground. The reason is because it's almost impossible to get completely clear shots at 12 megapixels through a commercial airliner's window while traveling several hundred miles per hour.
Photo Workflow 5 - Converting to DNG
Step 5: Convert to DNG
I shoot RAW images for reasons I've discussed elsewhere. I'd strongly suggest you do the same. If you look at my work before and after I switched from JPG to RAW, you'd likely swear it was from two different photographers. RAW images take more time, as you'll see below, but they're well worth it. You may spend twice as long (it takes at least as long to process as it does to shoot, as a general rule) but your images will be at least 3 times better and 5 times more useful if you do the things noted in this series of blog posts. OK, I just made up those numbers, but the images are much more beautiful and far more useful.
The RAW format has some challenges. RAW files are big, so you'll eventually need a bigger hard drive. New cameras continue to come out with new RAW formats. It even varies within the same camera company. My current Nikon D300s doesn't have the same RAW format as the Nikon D200 I owned previously, for example. The Nikon D300s' RAW format has a .NEF extension. And new RAW formats aren't necessarily supported by every piece of computer software or hardware until some time after the new camera is released.
But it gets worse... RAW files also leave a bunch of datafiles strewn all over the place. The RAW format produced by my Nikon D300s camera makes data files with a .XMP extension. Other cameras produce other formats of datafiles. This is where all the info is stored about the modifications you've made to the RAW file, and also the original settings so you can go back to them if desired. Useful information, but a nuisance to deal with.
Adobe, fortunately, had a great idea... they said "what if we developed a single common format of RAW images that was readable across all platforms... a PDF of photo formats, if you will? And then, what if we fold all those pesky datafiles into the structure of the image file itself, so it's invisible inside the image?" So that's what they did... it's called the Digital Negative format, if I recall correctly, and the files have an extension of .DNG. Adobe's DNG Converter is free, and you can download it here.
So the next step in the workflow is to convert them to DNG files. On my Mac, I have a Steve's Photos folder inside the Pictures folder that comes on every Mac. Inside this Steve's Photos folder is another folder named "to DNG". This is where I put all the image folders (like "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12") that haven't yet been converted to DNG. This means I don't have to keep changing the folder location of the images I want to convert. So go ahead and make your "to DNG" folder now.
So here's how you do it: Open DNG Converter. Under "1 Select the images to convert" you'll see a "Select Folder" button. Click that. Navigate to your "to DNG" folder. Select it. From now on, it'll stay selected unless you change it. Click the checkbox below that says "Include images contained within subfolders." Under "2 Select location to save converted images" select Save in Same Location. Under "3 Select name for converted images" it should already be set to Document Name plus a file extension of .dng, although you can set it to different things if you like... but I never have any need to do so. Under "4 Preferences" set Compatibility to Camera Raw 5.4 and later, JPEG Preview to Full Size, and "Don't embed original" so the files aren't twice the size. I see no need to keep the original RAW image from the camera because the DNG file has the same functionality. Once you've set all this, then click the Convert button. Again, go get a cup of coffee or do something else for awhile. On my computer, DNG Converter normally converts 6-8 images per minute, so a large shoot can take awhile, but then it runs totally in the background, so it doesn't require any of your attention.
Once it's done, DNG Converter will say "Conversion completed successfully." You can quit DNG Converter at this point. Now go into the "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder. Click at the top of your window to sort the files by type, which will put all the DNG files together and all the RAW files together. Select all the RAW files. Delete them.
Photo Workflow 4 - Renaming Files
Step 4: Rename Files
I use A Better Finder Rename 8 to rename my files. It's $19.95 and well worth it. First, select the name of the folder you're working with ("St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" or whatever.) Copy. Select all the images in the "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder. Drag them to the A Better Finder Rename 8 icon in your dock, or into the A Better Finder Rename 8 file list window, if it's already open. Select Category: Text in the top left of the window, and Action: Replace Text just below it.
Cameras typically put a prefix on every image, and then a serial number afterwards. What we're wanting to do is replace the prefix with the name of the enclosing folder, so it's immediately obvious just by looking at the file name where the picture was taken and when. But we want to keep the serial number so that each file name is unique, and in the order they were shot during the course of the day. Just below that, you'll see a Replace window. Enter the prefix your camera puts on all your images. In my case, it's "SAM_" "DSCN_" is a common prefix. But whatever it is that is at the front of every file name your camera turns out, enter it here. Just below that, there's a With window... tab or click into that and paste the folder name ("St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" or whatever.) Add a space after the name, so it'll put a space between the name and the image serial numbers. If you don't do this, it will be harder to read. In other words, you want "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12 7447.jpg", not "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL127447.jpg" See what I mean about being harder to read? Below that, there are four radio buttons... set it to "The entire file name and extension" or "The file name without the extension"... both will get the same result. Click Perform Renames in the bottom right corner. All your files will now be renamed with "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" in place of the original prefix.
I use A Better Finder Rename 8 to rename my files. It's $19.95 and well worth it. First, select the name of the folder you're working with ("St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" or whatever.) Copy. Select all the images in the "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder. Drag them to the A Better Finder Rename 8 icon in your dock, or into the A Better Finder Rename 8 file list window, if it's already open. Select Category: Text in the top left of the window, and Action: Replace Text just below it.
Cameras typically put a prefix on every image, and then a serial number afterwards. What we're wanting to do is replace the prefix with the name of the enclosing folder, so it's immediately obvious just by looking at the file name where the picture was taken and when. But we want to keep the serial number so that each file name is unique, and in the order they were shot during the course of the day. Just below that, you'll see a Replace window. Enter the prefix your camera puts on all your images. In my case, it's "SAM_" "DSCN_" is a common prefix. But whatever it is that is at the front of every file name your camera turns out, enter it here. Just below that, there's a With window... tab or click into that and paste the folder name ("St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" or whatever.) Add a space after the name, so it'll put a space between the name and the image serial numbers. If you don't do this, it will be harder to read. In other words, you want "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12 7447.jpg", not "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL127447.jpg" See what I mean about being harder to read? Below that, there are four radio buttons... set it to "The entire file name and extension" or "The file name without the extension"... both will get the same result. Click Perform Renames in the bottom right corner. All your files will now be renamed with "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12" in place of the original prefix.
Photo Workflow 2 & 3 - Geotagging w/GPS Data
Note: If you have another way of geotagging your photos, skip steps 2 and 3. Step 2: Test GPS Tagging
I've just discovered a cool app for geotagging photos. Click here to read how gps4cam works, and so you'll understand the rest of this step. It has a quirk that can show up while processing the images... if the QR code you photograph is too blurry, it won't read it... but it doesn't know it can't read it until it's logged all the photos, which can take several minutes. So copy the last 4-5 photos (including the QR code photo, which will be the last image) into the "test in" folder. IMPORTANT: copy the photos, don't move them. Open the gps4cam desktop app. Select "test in" as your Pictures Input Directory. Select "test out" as your Pictures Output Directory. Click Go. If it can read the code, it'll process the images in a few seconds. If not, then take a clearer photo of the QR code on your iPhone and replace the other one and test again. Repeat if necessary until it works. FWIW, once you figure out the quality of image it's looking for (it's pretty forgiving) you'll probably get it on the first try nearly every time. Once it works, delete the "test in" and "test out" folders. Step 3: Run GPS Tagging
With gps4cam still open, select "GPS in" as your Pictures Input Directory and "GPS out" as your Pictures Output Directory. Click Go. Then go get yourself a cup of coffee or something. Depending on how long the shoot took and how many images you have, it can take up to 10-15 minutes (or possibly more) to geotag all the images. Once it's done, delete the "GPS in" folder. You'll see a folder inside the "GPS out" folder where gps4cam has put the QR code, which you don't need any longer. Don't select this folder, but select all of the images. Move all the images in the "GPS out" folder to the enclosing "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder. Delete the "GPS out" folder, which now only contains the folder with the QR code you don't need any longer.
I've just discovered a cool app for geotagging photos. Click here to read how gps4cam works, and so you'll understand the rest of this step. It has a quirk that can show up while processing the images... if the QR code you photograph is too blurry, it won't read it... but it doesn't know it can't read it until it's logged all the photos, which can take several minutes. So copy the last 4-5 photos (including the QR code photo, which will be the last image) into the "test in" folder. IMPORTANT: copy the photos, don't move them. Open the gps4cam desktop app. Select "test in" as your Pictures Input Directory. Select "test out" as your Pictures Output Directory. Click Go. If it can read the code, it'll process the images in a few seconds. If not, then take a clearer photo of the QR code on your iPhone and replace the other one and test again. Repeat if necessary until it works. FWIW, once you figure out the quality of image it's looking for (it's pretty forgiving) you'll probably get it on the first try nearly every time. Once it works, delete the "test in" and "test out" folders. Step 3: Run GPS Tagging
With gps4cam still open, select "GPS in" as your Pictures Input Directory and "GPS out" as your Pictures Output Directory. Click Go. Then go get yourself a cup of coffee or something. Depending on how long the shoot took and how many images you have, it can take up to 10-15 minutes (or possibly more) to geotag all the images. Once it's done, delete the "GPS in" folder. You'll see a folder inside the "GPS out" folder where gps4cam has put the QR code, which you don't need any longer. Don't select this folder, but select all of the images. Move all the images in the "GPS out" folder to the enclosing "-1 Scratch Fuzzies" folder. Delete the "GPS out" folder, which now only contains the folder with the QR code you don't need any longer.
Photo Workflow 1 - Copying Images to the Master Folder
I've made several recent improvements to my photo workflow. Here's a summary of how it currently looks, with details below: 1. Copy Images
2. Test GPS Tagging
3. Run GPS Tagging
4. Rename Files
5. Convert to DNG
6. Scratch Fuzzies
7. Set Base Metadata
8. Rate
9. Set Classes
10. Set Finder Color
11. Tag
12. Process Step 1: Copy Images
I have a master folder outlining all my processing steps to help me remember where I am with a batch of images in case I can't get them completely processed in one sitting (a very rare occurrence except with very small shoots.) The master folder is named ***Master Folder so that it sorts to the top of an alphabetical list. The first step is to duplicate the master folder and rename it for the current shoot. I name the folder for the location and date of a shoot. For example, if I'm shooting in St. Michaels, Maryland on July 12, 2011, then I would duplicate the master folder and rename it "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12". The date gets deleted from the folder name later, but it's useful for two reasons now: it helps clarify that this is a new shoot if I've shot there before so that I don't save a new folder on top of an old folder with different images, thereby losing them. The date is also used in Step 4 to rename the images. I use this date convention" The year is the first two digits so images from the same place sort correctly into the years they were shot when you put them all in one folder. The next three characters are the month (JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, etc.) This doesn't sort chronologically, but it's immediately obvious to anyone that the middle is the month. I could do the whole thing as numbers (11-07-12 instead of 11JUL12, for example) and it would sort fully, but then is 11-07-12 in 2011, 2012, or even 2007? It's not self-evident. And It's somewhat unusual to do two separate shoots of a single place in one year, but in different months. I do that in Miami Beach (where I live) and in New Orleans (where I travel often for work) but not so much anywhere else. So clarity is more important than occasionally mis-sorted months, IMO. The master folder structure mirrors the steps above, and looks like this: *** Master Folder
-1 Scratch Fuzzies
GPS in
test in
test out
GPS out
-2 Set Base Metadata
-3 Rate
-4 Set Classes
-5 Set Finder Color (empty)
-6 Tag & Process
2 & -
3 & +
1 Private
2 Problem
3 Polemical
4 Publishable
5 Particulars
6 Personal
7 Pattern
8 Put Away The last part of Step 1 is to copy the files off my camera's memory stick into the "GPS in" folder, which is inside -1 Scratch Fuzzies, as you can see above. I just do this in the Finder, like copying any other files. No special software needed.
2. Test GPS Tagging
3. Run GPS Tagging
4. Rename Files
5. Convert to DNG
6. Scratch Fuzzies
7. Set Base Metadata
8. Rate
9. Set Classes
10. Set Finder Color
11. Tag
12. Process Step 1: Copy Images
I have a master folder outlining all my processing steps to help me remember where I am with a batch of images in case I can't get them completely processed in one sitting (a very rare occurrence except with very small shoots.) The master folder is named ***Master Folder so that it sorts to the top of an alphabetical list. The first step is to duplicate the master folder and rename it for the current shoot. I name the folder for the location and date of a shoot. For example, if I'm shooting in St. Michaels, Maryland on July 12, 2011, then I would duplicate the master folder and rename it "St. Michaels, MD 11JUL12". The date gets deleted from the folder name later, but it's useful for two reasons now: it helps clarify that this is a new shoot if I've shot there before so that I don't save a new folder on top of an old folder with different images, thereby losing them. The date is also used in Step 4 to rename the images. I use this date convention" The year is the first two digits so images from the same place sort correctly into the years they were shot when you put them all in one folder. The next three characters are the month (JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, etc.) This doesn't sort chronologically, but it's immediately obvious to anyone that the middle is the month. I could do the whole thing as numbers (11-07-12 instead of 11JUL12, for example) and it would sort fully, but then is 11-07-12 in 2011, 2012, or even 2007? It's not self-evident. And It's somewhat unusual to do two separate shoots of a single place in one year, but in different months. I do that in Miami Beach (where I live) and in New Orleans (where I travel often for work) but not so much anywhere else. So clarity is more important than occasionally mis-sorted months, IMO. The master folder structure mirrors the steps above, and looks like this: *** Master Folder
-1 Scratch Fuzzies
GPS in
test in
test out
GPS out
-2 Set Base Metadata
-3 Rate
-4 Set Classes
-5 Set Finder Color (empty)
-6 Tag & Process
2 & -
3 & +
1 Private
2 Problem
3 Polemical
4 Publishable
5 Particulars
6 Personal
7 Pattern
8 Put Away The last part of Step 1 is to copy the files off my camera's memory stick into the "GPS in" folder, which is inside -1 Scratch Fuzzies, as you can see above. I just do this in the Finder, like copying any other files. No special software needed.
gps4cam
I've just started using a really cool iPhone app to geotag my images. The gps4cam app is available for $2.99 on the iTunes Store, and the desktop app (you'll need both) is available for free on gps4cam.com. I initially downloaded Mac version 3.9.4, but had problems with it and dropped back to 3.9.3, which works just fine. I see where they've taken down the newer version with issues. In any case, when you start a shoot, open the app, click Preferences, and set the gap between captures in Standard mode to 1 minute. The documentation says it takes more battery, but several hours of shooting drained my iPhone battery relatively little, so I'd rather have the greater accuracy. Next, click the Start button which takes you back to the main screen. Click the green "Start a new trip" button. Put the phone in your pocket and start shooting. When you're done, click Exit. It'll bring up a QR code on your phone. Unless you have a macro lens, set your zoom to a fairly long telephoto, hold the camera at arm's length, and take a picture of the screen. You might have to fiddle with the telephoto a bit... you want the image of the QR code to pretty much fill your viewfinder in the short dimension. I take 3-4 images to make sure I'll have one that is clear. Once I've copied the entire shoot to my computer, I go to the images of the QR code (which will be at the end of the shoot) and delete all but the clearest one. The QR code contains all the GPS data on your shoot (really long shoots generate more than one code.) The code also contains the current time, so shooting the image synchronizes your camera's clock with your phone's clock. When you process the images (more on this in a subsequent post) the desktop app figures out the precise moments of all your shots, finds the 1-minute-increment GPS locations just before and just after the shot, and interpolates where you likely were when that shot was taken... and then it geotags the image accordingly. I've tested it and found it to be remarkably accurate, even though I'm a fairly erratic walker as I'm shooting, walking this way and that to get the best shot. Let's put it this way... it's accurate to within 2-3 yards in most cases. I'd thought about buying a $200 GPS unit to plug into my Nikon D300s camera, but it costs money and takes up space in my already-crowded gear bag. This solution is $2.99 and uses the GPS capabilities of the camera I'm carrying around with me already. Cool, eh?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Facebook Comments on Blog
I've just started using Facebook Comments on the new Original Green Blog, and I'm really liking it! Anytime someone comments, it goes on my Facebook wall as well as on the blog, and anyone who comments either on my facebook page or on the blog page will show up in the other location. Seems like a great way to drive traffic to the blog!
CSS Main Font Size & Sidebar Font Size
I've been having to learn CSS in order to customize my Sandvox theme for the new Original Green site. I want 14 point text in the main window and 12 point text in the sidebar. Apparently, 100% text size is 16 point, so the main body text size should be 87.5% of that. Or since CSS seems to like integers, 88%. I finally discovered that you can set the sidebar font size by entering...
#sidebar {
font-size: 85%;
}
... just below the body font definition, near the top of the CSS. You'd think that if you wanted a 12 point sidebar and 16 point was 100% that 12 point would be 75%, right? Wrong. After a lot of trial and error, I discovered that the sidebar percentage refers to the main font size... in other words, it's relative to the main size, not 16 points. So it should be 12/14 = .85713... or 86%.
Fixing HTML's Bad Bottom Margin
HTML is notorious for adding space below each paragraph. That may be a lot like bullet lists today, but it's not nearly so elegant as classical typography, where the lines were all spaced the same and the distinction between paragraphs was highlighted by a first line indent. I'd puzzled for some time over how to fix it, but after a lot of Googling, I found this in the CSS...
p {
margin-bottom: 0.8em;
}
I changed it to this, and everything works like it ought to:
p {
margin-bottom: 0em;
}
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Diigo vs. Delicious - Anybody Wanna Win?
You'd think that two companies competing for a very similar market would each be at the top of their games. You supposedly get fat, dumb, and happy when there's little competition. Not so with Diigo and Delicious. The great idea of a "folksonomy of bookmarks" originally belonged to Delicious, I believe, allowing you (and everyone else) to bookmark a webpage and tag it with keywords. One can draw all sorts of interesting conclusions by looking at how many people have tagged a particular page. I've used Delicious for several years to create the tag cloud on the Original Green Blog. A tag cloud is a group of keywords, with the ones used most often in larger type. Click on a keyword in a tag cloud and it'll pull up all the pages you've tagged with that keyword. Nifty. Some time ago, Yahoo bought Delicious. Last December, they let it slip that they were planning on sunsetting Delicious. "But what will become of our tag clouds," many of us anxiously wondered. I tweeted "any ideas on a replacement for Delicious?" and in just a few minutes, Cindy Frewen Wuellner tweeted back that she'd been researching Diigo and liked what she saw. It had everything Delicious had, and more. I looked into it and agreed. Tens of thousands of users (or more) apparently agreed with us, and the stampede to Diigo was on. They were so flooded with new users that for many of us, it took a week or more just to import our bookmarks. And Diigo wasn't so forthcoming with how long it was going to take, leaving us hanging. They did say something like "power users may get quicker service" which hacked off the rest of us. Finally, my bookmarks were imported. But how to create the Diigo tag cloud? I searched several times over several weeks, but couldn't find anything definitive on their site, or through Google, about how to create a Diigo tag cloud. Wasted a ton of time. I tagged a few Original Green posts but then gave up, assuming I'd have to find another tag cloud creator. I'm now in the process of moving all my websites to Sandvox because Apple abandoned iWeb (another story for another day) and thought "I really need to resolve the tag cloud issue." I Googled and discovered that Yahoo hadn't killed Delicious, but had instead sold it to another company. Yippie-ki-yay! I'll just go back to Delicious! But then I started to wonder if the new buyer might have fixed the biggest Delicious flaw, which was not allowing spaces in keywords. For example, you couldn't have the tag "New Urbanism." Delicious would treat that as two keywords: "New" and "Urbanism." Clearly, much less useful. If you wanted to preserve the meaning of New Urbanism rather than just all things new and all things urban, you had to tag a bookmark as NewUrbanism. Or new.urbanism. Or new_urbanism. Or new+urbanism. All of which showed up as different results in a search. Modern tagging systems such as Diigo, Google Bookmarks, etc., have all fixed this by allowing spaces, and separating tags with commas. But not Diigo. The purchasers of Delicious (for what was surely many millions of dollars) amazingly didn't fix the biggest drawback to their new investment. This morning, on a whim, I went to Diigo one more time to see if I could discover how to make a tag cloud with all those bookmarks it took them so long to import. There, as clear as can be, was Tag Clouds on the Tools menu. Apparently, they were so overwhelmed with all the new users abandoning the Delicious ship in December and January that their servers couldn't handle it and they temporarily shut down their tag clouds. Or something. But they didn't tell anybody. So it cost me (and surely countless other users) a ton of time looking for a promised capability that simply wasn't there for awhile. So now I'm grudgingly back to Diigo... But I'm wondering: do either of them really want me?
Web Publishing's Big Mistakes
There are a lot of ways of getting your stuff on the web today, but they all, so far as I can tell, make at least one of two big mistakes: They either ask you to accept their predesigned themes (which are highly unlikely to match the look and feel of what you'd like your online face to be) or they force you to enter the dimly-lit dungeons of HTML5 and the murky underworld of CSS3. To be clear, I didn't even know what HTML5 or CSS3 were until a couple days ago, nor did I want to know. I have a lot of things going on in my life, including the Original Green, the Sky Institute, Project:SmartDwelling, Mouzon Design, the New Urban Guild, the Guild Foundation, Mouzon Images, Katrina Cottages, etc., and am working with great longterm clients like (alphabetically) Carlton Landing, DPZ, the Preserve, the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, Schooner Bay, the Village of Providence, etc. And I'm writing books and blogging as well. The last thing I need to do is to be forced to learn programming languages in order to move my websites off the sinking ship of iWeb. But that's exactly what has happened. Some companies have built WYSIWYG website editors that let you build your site by moving text and graphics around on a page until you get it where you like it. That's great. But why not do exactly the same thing with the underlying themes? InDesign lets you modify master pages as easily as other pages in a book. Pages and Word do the same with stationery, as does PowerCADD (what I use) and other CAD software. Keynote does the same with master pages in presentations. Matter of fact, with every other type of software I can think of, modifying the master pages, themes, stationery, templates, or whatever you want to call them is as easy as working on any other page. Why not web publishing??? All I can think of is that maybe web publishing might be where all the DOS Gremlins went after they were run out of system software user interfaces. I remember years ago how people had to go to school for weeks or longer just to learn the basics of the "command-line interface." Remember that? And once they finally learned DOS, they wore it like a badge of courage, and made you run the DOS gauntlet if you dared enter their little world of computing. And it was a little world, because so few regular people had time to immerse themselves into DOSgatory. Apple sold a lot of Macs in the early years with a tagline something like "I want a computer that helps me do what I do better... and I don't do computers!" Once Microsoft came out with Windows, their eternally-clumsy ripoff of Apple's Graphical User Interface, a crazy thing happened: the whole world learned to do computers. And the DOS Gremlins took their "the only real way to compute is with a command line" mantra and slunk away to regions unknown to me... Until now. Someday soon, a web publishing software company will realize that a WYSIWYG site editor needs a WYSIWYG theme editor. I hope it'll be Karelia, author of my newly-adopted site editor Sandvox. It won't be hard to build. I could even design the interface in an hour or two, and a decent programmer could write it quickly, I suspect. And when they do, an entire world of web publishing will open up to people like me that want a specific look and feel of a website, but don't want a second career in HTML to get it. I'm not saying they'll be another Apple or Microsoft, but then who knew Apple would be Apple when Steve & Steve were working out of the Jobs family garage? Empower people, and all sorts of interesting things can happen.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Leaving iWeb
I've been a huge fan of iWeb for years, but Apple has decided to let the program sunset, so I've pretty much made the decision to move to Sandvox, which is the closest thing to iWeb. I've been working through the painful part, which is getting acquainted with the new interface, figuring out what it will do and what it won't do. I'll be putting up a number of posts shortly describing the things I've learned, hoping they're helpful to others as well. A couple things for now: A. Sandvox uses the same sidebar design throughout the site. At first, I thought this was a big drawback because I want somewhat different things on the sidebars of different pages. But I've gotten my mind wrapped around it now, and have discovered that since the most-updated thing about my Original Green sidebar does go on all of them, it'll save me a lot of time updating. So that's a minus that turned into a plus by looking at it differently. B. Sandvox has a really cool way of doing blogrolls that allows you to just go to a site in Safari, return to Sandvox and click the + sign in the link inspector, and it'll automatically add the name and URL (embedded, where you don't see the gobbledygook) to the blogroll. Really cool... will save a lot of time. C. One thing about the blogroll: I'd first been pasting in bit.ly links to all the blogs, because that lets me see how much traffic I've sent. But then it occurred to me that I had it backwards. One benefit of having a blogroll is that when you send traffic to someone else's blog, they usually appreciate it. So I'd much rather have them see the traffic coming from originalgreen.org rather than bit.ly. bit.ly links are great for many things, but not here. D. I'm also cleaning out some old blogs that aren't active anymore, including some run by good friends of mine. But if their last post was from sometime last year, they're not really doing it anymore. More soon...
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