Home (What´s New?)   Search this site   About this site   About R & T   Overview   History   Membership   The Whistle   Photo Albums   Reg. Events   Special   Articles   Visitors Info   2008 Schedule     Tractor Pulls   Regulations   Register form   Exhibitor Info   Gift Shop   Organization   Officers&Dir's   Committees   Volunteer Corner   What is it?   Contacting Us     October 2, 2000		Creating R&T Photo Albums (For a list of computer programs used, click here.) For those who have asked what is involved in setting up the photo pages for Rough and Tumble's photo albums (many of whom are new to digital photography and processing photos on a computer), this page provides a fairly detailed list of the steps involved as well as a list of the programs I use. While it looks pretty complicated to those new to the technology, and while it is a lot of work when many photos are involved, most people new to the technology can set up their own web sites with their own information and photos using software now available for that purpose and targeted at those who do not want to know any more than they have to. (I was a computer programmer in another life, and have a strange affinity for doing things the hard way, probably because I am accustomed to total control of the process and results.) The following takes you through the steps from start to finish. When I am done, I will have on my own computer: 1) the original unedited raw files from the cameras; and 2) a complete copy of all web pages and images that appear on R&T's web site. Setting up directories - I start out by setting up a directory for the event with subdirectories by day and by photographer, if I have any contributed photos for the event. These directories will always contain all of the original, unadjusted images received for the event. Copy images from camera card (my own) or cd-rom (contributed by others) to the appropriate directory. These are generally "jpeg" files, in my case using the highest quality compression in my camera, some of which are as large as 6.5 megabytes each and expand to almost 50 megabytes each in memory.   Steps 3 through 9 below are done using "GraphicConverter", a Mac shareware program. I then rename each photo's file according to year, event, day, and photographer with a sequential index number. GraphicConverter makes this easy. A typical file name would be "2004_2bg_270" for an image received from Bill Glenn (bg) taken the second day of the 2004 reunion, where "270" is the 270th image in the directory of reunion images. I then set up sorting output directories by categories for the event, with a prefix number to ensure the desired order Typical directory names are "1000 Stream Traction", "2000 Gas Tractor", "3000 RR", etc. I then go through all photos using the GraphicConverter browser, select candidate images for the web site, and create copies of those image files in the appropriate output directories ( i.e. selected copies of Shay and Little Toot photos go in the "3000_RR" directory). This task is complicated by fact that the parade photos, for example, may appear midway within every one of my daily directories of photos plus the photos contributed by others. It's especially complicated because I have to forego posting many photos that I would include if I did not have to be concerned about the cost to R&T of a larger web site. After the initial selection process is completed, I tally up the total number of photos selected as candidates in the various category directories. This is always more than I can post, and often includes similar photos of the same subject. I then go through the category directories and cull out photos to get the total number of photos down to an acceptable number. I try to keep photos of topics or machines that have not been posted in prior years, and not keep duplicate types of images. I then use GraphicConverter to modify the filenames in the category directories by adding prefix index numbers for each photo, by category, in the order categorized. I then re-sequence photos within each category as required. For example, consider the photos in the "Parade of Power" category. I like to put all steam traction photos together in the parade photos section, and I do this by altering prefix sequence numbers in the image filenames. (The images are processed by the software in alphabetical order by filename, so the prefix numbers in the filenames allow me to control the sequence in which images are viewed.)   Steps below are all done in Photoshop (currently version CS3) I then individually process each photo in each output category directory using Photoshop. Crop the image if necessary Resize the image to 600 pixels wide (for horizontals), 450 pixels high (for verticals), setting the image to a pixel density of 72dpi (dots per inch). Color/exposure correct if necessary - Indoor photos often have color cast from tinted sky lights, fluorescent lights, etc. (CS3 Menu:Image:Levels..) Lighten shadows containing interesting detail (CS3 Menu:Image:Adjustments:Shadow/Highlight...) Other adjustments may be required because the photo is overall under or over exposed or adversely affected by a cloudy or rainy day. Sharpen appropriately - The goal is to save all photos at no more than 80kb file size. I use the third-party "NIK Sharpener Pro" Photoshop plug-in using the screen display option generally set to 20. For each photo, I do one of the following - Do not sharpen at all Sharpen entire image Sharpen selected areas - Select specific areas using the lasso tool and sharpen them only. (Note: images with a lot of grass or gravel require selective sharpening of only the tractor or other object of interest. A high level of detail in grass and gravel does not compress very well and is not needed.) Save as JPEG using Photoshop's "Save for Web" option to the "final" web site graphics directory on my hard drive. The jpeg compression amount is adjusted as necessary to keep file sizes no greater than 80kb to prevent lengthy downloads to visitors web browsers. It is not uncommon to have to abort the Save and reduce or segment the sharpening in order to stay under the 80kb limit and still have a decent image. Images are saved to local host web site directory on my hard drive that will eventually be copied to R&T's web server.   Step 10 below is done using "RT_Page_Generator", a "home-made" program on my Mac Create caption for each photo Launch "RT_Page_Generator" to which I will input web page header information and then a caption for each photo. This program reads in information about each jpeg image file saved for the album and presents the info (filename and image dimensions) on a separate line for each image. When all captions have been entered and proofed, this program will generate the html pages that will display each photo with it's caption, pre-load the next photo in the sequence, and provide links to the previous and next photo. Launch GraphicConverter (used in 3-9 above) in browse mode and open the directories to both the "final" web images and all of the original (unprocessed) images. Work my way through the "final" web images, writing a caption into "RT_Page_Generator" for each image. I like to write a caption that identifies the equipment in the photo as well as prominent people in the photo. I often refer to one or more of the original total images to get caption information from other photos (I almost always photograph the sign on each tractor that has one [make, model, year, owner, etc.], in addition to photographing the tractor itself), or sometimes look up people or tractors on R&T's web site using its "Search" feature in order to get detail information from previously posted photos. I have a lousy memory for peoples' names, so I sometimes look people up in my own list of names of R&T members and exhibitors whom I have met in the past. Create and review photo pages On command, the "RT_Page_Generator" generates a web (html) page for each photo in a directory, using the caption I have provided. It also generates a single text file with the html (web language) for the list of links that appears in the "header" page for each photo album. The photos and pages are then uploaded (using FTP) to the R&T server and reviewed on my web browser. Inevitably I have made spelling or other errors, so caption changes and any other needed corrections are then made to "RT_Page_Generator", and the final set of pages are re-generated. Correct "Photo by" captions. The "Photo by Jacob Merriwether" at the bottom of each photo page has to be changed for those photos taken by others. For photos contributed by others, the photographer's initials are part of the file name. Using a program called "BBEdit", I select all the newly generated pages for all photos by a given photographer and do a search/replace to insert the correct photographer's name in place of my own. Set up photo header pages Each event has one "header" page on which the captions for each photo are listed with a link to each particular photo's web page. For the annual Reunion, we have three separate header pages due to the large number of photos for the four day event and the large number of activities unique to the Reunion. The program that generates the photos pages also generates a text file containing html list-formatted captions, each caption being a link to the corresponding photo page. Using BBEdit, these are separated into groups and inserted into the appropriate subsection of the album's header page. The category directory at the top of the header pages are created and linked to the part of the list for that category (allowing you to, for example, jump directly to the photos in the "Pedal Pull" section). Post to Web Server I use an FTP program named "FTP Client" for copying image and html files to the server that hosts Rough and Tumble's web site (PLH WorldGroup Communications in West Chester, PA). Any ftp program could be used for this purpose. Using my web browser, I review the header page and all of the photo pages and corresponding links to make sure everything is working properly. I add a link to the new photo album on the site's Photo Album page, post an announcement of the availability of the new album to the Home page, and send an email to the subscribers to the site's Notification List. As a final task, I go to the web site for the service that provides the search engine for www.roughandtumble.org and "tell" it to re-index the web site. After that is completed, any searching on a name or tractor or other word may see the newly posted photo pages in the list of found pages. Software Used (all Macintosh versions) - GraphicConverter - This shareware program is a fabulous Mac-only application that has been continuously improved and updated for over a decade. For my purposes, it is far superior to Apple's own "iPhoto" application. While you can edit images in GraphicConverter, I primarily use it for looking at a large directory of images, renaming images, sorting and categorizing images, and doing slide shows. I often open an image in Photoshop (below) directly from selecting it in GraphicConverter's "browser".   Photoshop - I have also been using Photoshop for as long as I can remember. I could probably use "Photoshop Elements" now, but stick with the full-blown Photoshop that I'm most familiar with. Photoshop (and Photoshop Elements) are available for both Windows and Macintosh, with Elements being much less expensive, and very popular with digital photographers. This program is used for all image editing, including resizing, color correction, sharpening, exposure correction, and saving in the best possible way given the trade-offs between file size (smaller the better for web posting) vs image quality (larger generally gives a better quality image).   BBEdit - Another Mac-only program, this is really just a super powerful text editor. You can't do text formatting in BBEdit like you can, for example, in Microsoft Word. However, BBEdit has powerful search and replace capabilities (even over entire directories of files), and auto-formats for specific programming languages, including html that is used for web pages. BBEdit also allows me to save a web page directly to the web server, in addition to saving it to my own hard drive. Comparable programs are available for Windows.   RT_Page_Generator - This is a program I wrote myself about 6 years ago, using the SuperCard development tool, another Mac-only application. This program is given a directory name and lists all the jpeg files in the directory as well as the dimensions (pixels wide, pixels high) for each file. It then allows me to enter a caption for each image. It also has entry fields for page title information. When all captions are entered, the program will generate one web page in html for each image. These are the photo album pages you see on R&T's web site. It also spits out a file containing the list of captions, already linked to the corresponding web page, that is used to set up the "header" (index) page for each photo album.   Vicomsoft FTP Client - FTP Client is a program used to copy files back and forth over the internet. I use it to copy entire directories of files (html pages as well as graphic images) from my home computer to web sites, such as www.roughandtumble.org. It can also be used to rename and delete files on the web site. There are many programs available on both Windows and Macs that can do this task.
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