When I first got into digital art and photography I was using Windows 3.1 and an early version of Photoshop.  I am not sure if I was running a 386 or 486 then but it was definately Pre-Pentium times.  The one annoying thing back then was the fact that the highest resolution shots my camera could create (640×480 – or 0.3 Megapixels) would take FOREVER to process using some Photoshop filters.   As time went on and computers got faster the images processed more quickly.  I am probably an anomaly in that I upgrade PC’s faster than I upgrade cameras.

As a result of this process, I have the occasional magic months when GIMP and G’MIC can rip through images like a hot knife through butter.   That is where I was since moving to a 8gb of RAM, Phenom quadcore system last year.   That all changed with the new camera.   Now that I am working with 15 megapixel RAW files my PC is finally challenged.  The new camera allows me to make things like this:

Her Highness Aiko

The problem is that stages of the processing can take over ten minutes.  So now  that I have this, I may very well need a new and faster PC.  At least this time I will be set for years since I have no plans to upgrade the new camera any time soon.

This is the view towards Center City from the top of the parking garage between 29th and 30th on Arch St.

I didn’t have a tripod but the railing around the roof worked pretty well.

A single image taken with a camera like my Android G1 can contain a lot of information as shown below:

EXIF Information from an Android G1 Photo

Removing EXIF Data in Ubuntu

This is a quick and easy way to remove EXIF data from JPG files from a Bash prompt in Ubuntu or other Debian derived versions of Linux.  This method will let you remove the EXIF date from all images in a directory.

First, install the jhead package via apt-get.  Open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install jhead

After jhead is installed you may want to review all the ways you can use this powerful tool by typing:

man jhead

You can use jhead to add/remove/modify information in JPG files but for now, all we are going to do is strip out all the information from the file that is not needed to render the image itself.  This may be more than you feel you need but it will give you the most privacy that I know how to provide.

To remove all EXIF info from a single image just open a terminal window and type:

jhead -purejpg /path/to/image.jpg

You can also use wild cards so you can use:

jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.jpg

or

jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.JPG

Since the jhead tool only acts on jpeg files you can do an entire directory of files – regardless of the case of the file extension using xargs like this:

ls | xargs jhead -purejpg

from within the directory of photos.

Rasterized Aiko on PC Room Wall, originally uploaded by techfun.

Four by Four rasterized image of Aiko now hanging on the PC Room wall above the loveseat.

Rasterized image created using The Rasterbator (Standalone version) from the color image in the lower left corner of the above image.

Get the tool at http://arje.net/rasterbator

You can use the web interface for images up to 1mb. For larger images, download the tool and run it yourself.

I haven’t messed around with modifying my photos in an artistic way since getting my new camera. I usually enjoy messing around with outdoor photos so I decided to mess around with this photo took on April 19th: Marsden-St-Philly-3

I wish I had more use for a calendar because I really love the one he sells on his site. If you have a need for a wall calendar, you could do far worse than to grab a copy of his Northern Norway 2008 Calendar. You would be sure to possess a calendar that none of your friends have. The calendar photo for May is the sunset at 1:30am photo featured on his favorite sunsets post.

read more | digg story

Edit: Thanks Alan for noticing that the links were gone. Somehow when posting directly via the Digg.com site links disappear.