It wasn’t much of a surprise, but Google has officially announced that they’ll be adding a slide application called Google Presentations to their suite of office.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets are wonderful tools and a slide addition is great news. If only they would announce a significant speed improvement (mainly client side JavaScript), and (full) Safari support, though I’m sure the latter is coming now that Apple has announced that Safari is running on Windows.

Ever heard of I-Names?

I think it holds great promise and have pointed www.i-names.dk to this page, as I’ll be writing more about I-names in the future.

One of my biggest gripes about OpenID is that it requires the user to remember a URL. It’s not intuitive - a URL points to a website, not a person - and OpenID have a tendency to be long and complicated. Even for a native English speaker spelling “myopenid” can be a challenge, not to mention “pip.verisignlabs.com”. True, some will have their “own” URL’s that will resolve to an OpenID which makes things easier, but I would contest that if you can setup this up, URL’s aren’t foreign to you anyway.

Enter I-Names, a globally unique, human readable, identifier that even has the added advantage of being based on a number that is transitively unique making it a better identifier.

Instead of being martin.strandbygaard.myopenid.com I’m suddenly =martin.strandbygaard, and if that’s too long (even the Danish speaking crowd can be challenged spelling my last name), then I can just add another I-name such as =ms that references the same I-number.

Intuitive use of both OpenID and I-Names has a nasty property of encoding unrelated information into the identifier. It may be that only one =martin.strandbygaard is needed, but like e-mail addresses I’m sure we’ll see =john.doe1, =john.doe2, =john.doe3, ….

Architecturally pleasing or not, the Internet user is better off having something like OpenID than not, and with I-names support coming in OpenID v2, there will be someting at least as intuitive as e-mail addresses to be used as identifiers.

(I know, e-mail addresses will also be supported identifiers in OpenID v2 …)

Geotagging is becomming more mainstream as alluded to by a long article on News.com

Of course 17 million geotagged images on Flickr in just a brief period of time goes a long way to show the interest, but it’s more interesting to follow the increasing mainstream interest in geotagging, as that will really get the camera manufacturers to churn out more GPS enabled cameras.

Google Trends is a great indicator of mainstream interest/trends, and searching for “geotagging” shows a peculiar development in interest that is however also quite common, for new “hot topics” which is a suddon dramatic increase followed be an almost immediate and severe decline (much like the Digg effect on a single web site).

The graph shows the relative development in searches on Google, and says nothing about the actual number of searches.Any ideas on what initiated the spike

If you’re using Flickr, and has Google Earth installed clicking this link says it all. If you don’t have Google Earth, just paste it into Google Maps instead.

With the ability to geotag images (introduction, manually, with GPS, and in-camera) also came the desire to show those images on a map. While EXIF GPS tags have existed for some time, this desire really started to make sense with the advent of applications such as Google Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc.

Photo sharing sites, such as Flickr, Zooomr, and Panoramio (now Google) rose to the occasion, but none can IMHO compete with Google Maps and Earth, when it comes to mapping functionality. Both can put images on the maps using KML files, and Google Maps can also show geotagged RSS feeds, and since image feeds from Flickr contains coordinates, it’s just asking for a mashup to convert the feeds from Flickr to a KML file.

Yahoo Pipes! made that very easy, as I’ve mentioned previously, but the solution was still a bit geeky if IT isn’t your bread and butter, and in many cases even if it is.

Good news. Geobloggers has posted a lengthy article about new improvements to geotagged feeds from Flickr. It’s still in beta, but every good web application these days seem to be.

Now Flickr will output KML directly based on parameters such as ID, tags, or groups.

This is an RSS feed of all my geotagged images. Substitute the ID with yours, and you get your own.

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/geo/?id=74832966@N00

Add "&format=kml_nl" and you get a network linked KML file that automatically updates.

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/geo/?id=74832966@N00&format=kml_

If you’re new to this discussion about RAW formats read about The Raw Flaw on Luminous Landscape, or on OpenRAW.

I crave for a world in which there is only one free, open, documented RAW format to rule them all. However much I would like to see it, I don’t believe it.

Today, different camera models supporting RAW, combine to more than a hundred different proprietary, closed, and undocumented RAW formats, and as has often been said, not all are supported anymore. This situation is clearly untenable.

However, I also believe the argument misses two import points:

1. A problem needs a certain size to merit a fix
2. There are different formats, and there are variations of a format

Addressing the first point, how many are actually affected by this problem? Users are not evenly spread across the 100 formats, so a proportionally small portion of the 100 RAW formats, represents a significant amount of all RAW shooting users. Also, RAW is by and large a format used by users of SLR cameras, and until recently, that meant that just 2 manufacturers represented 95% of this space. Taken together, my totally unfounded belief is that Nikon and Canon RAW formats represent at least 80% of RAW images taken.

Compare that to text documents. Microsoft Word and OpenOffice probably represent 95% of all documents being written today - but there are literally hundreds of different text document formats in existence.

With regards to "different formats" I think it’s important to stress that there is a difference between "different" and "variation". It may be very difficult to support a different format, yet very easy to support a variation of an existing.

Am I advocating that there is no problem? No, but there is no problem yet, and we don’t know the size of the problem. And that is not even touching upon the, in IMHO, exceedingly naive idea of a file format that will endure for 10, 20, or more years.

The Outcome

I believe that the RAW format landscape will eventually change in the next 3-5 years, though not before then, and it will change for different reasons. To see this, it’s necessary to realize, that the problem is not the 100+ formats themselves, rather it’s the [lack of] guarantee that it will be possible to open view an image in say 10 years. There are many solutions to the actual problem, and a single RAW format or open RAW specifications are just two possible ones.

I’m split as to whether the change will be a convergence on a single output format - DNG seems to be the obvious choice - or whether it will simply converge on one or a few interchange formats. Though, without significant community pressure, I’m certain it’s going to be the latter.

From a camera manufacturer’s perspective, the changing RAW formats most likely also serve the purpose of reducing development costs, and keeping unit prices down. Some initiatives, including Nikon’s controversial white balance encryption, look mostly like attempts at vendor lock in, but others cater for new sensors, changed configurations etc. RAW photography is also a comparatively new discipline which is characterized by rapid development, and changing the RAW format is a cheap way of accommodating for changes - tailoring hardware is much more expensive.

Third party application developers are probably the ones most affected by the many RAW formats in existence, and their proprietary nature. They are forced to introduce support for new formats at time intervals that don’t fit with existing application development schedules. This quickly becomes a configuration and maintenance nightmare. This gives them a stronger incentive to offer good support for an independent format such as DNG. The specification is much more constant than RAW formats, and because success of this format would lower their development costs.

The Future

Good application support for an independent format like DNG, translating to improved workflow, combined with it’s functional advantages over other RAW formats, will drive it’s uptake as an interchange format - and I believe that will happen first. That leaves "the last mile" to the camera missing, and when and if we will see that I’m less certain.

Camera makers hold a tremendous advantage in controlling the RAW format, just like Adobe does with e.g. PSD, TIFF, PDF, and may also with DNG, and they no doubt look longingly at the increasing market of post production software. If Nikon Capture NX is any indication, at least Nikon may very well be maneuvering to position NEF as a direct competitor to DNG. Functionally, it may not look the part right now, but there is no reason Nikon couldn’t make the necessary changes to the NEF format to be a DNG competitor.

That would effectively make NEF a competitor to DNG as an interchange format, the only three differences being that NEF is owned by Nikon, is not an open specification, and it is already widely used. (I know it, that’s making a lot of assumptions about the format)

The [RAW shooting, dedicated amateur and up] world may be in uproar about closed RAW formats, but if [computer] history is any indication, openness has little impact on end user choice of format.

Ever considered how much long lasting information exist in proprietary formats - films, music, books….?

Searching Google for the title of this post, surprised me as it only returns 63 exact matches. It was first defined in Wikipedia in June 2005, and according to Google Trends the subject of on-line identity received almost no interest until the end of 2005. Since then, however, Google Trends shows a sharp increase in the interest in the subject, as well as the somewhat related topic of ID theft.

For the purpose of this post, an on-line identity is represented by the information about any given person, that is discoverable through a search engine, e.g. Google. That subset of personal information is very interesting as it largely determines the immediate knowledge other people and organizations are able to learn about you, and consequently, by controlling and shaping that information, the on-line impression you give others can be controlled.

Controlling your on-line impression or identity is becoming increasingly important e.g. to prevent other people from spreading misinformation about you, or to present a fuller picture of you to a potential employer.

For the purpose of this post I’ll assume that only one identity is needed. Indeed, this may often not be the case, as I’ll soon expand on in another post.

Building The Online Profile

An effective on-line identity may be built in a two simple steps:

1. Create a profile that explains your facts (ID profile) on a website like ClaimID
2. Create a couple of profiles that says something about you (content profiles) on websites like Flickr or LinkedIn, and link to these from your ID profile.”

Chances are that you already have one or more content profiles, andthat you just need to create an ID profile, and link to these.My favorite ID sites include:

• ClaimID
• MyOpenID
• Opinity
• 2idi
• LinkedIn

Other content profiles can be created on sites like:

• Flickr
• Google PicasaWeb
• del.icio.us
• Google Reader (shared RSS feeds)
• Technorati

References

• Wikipedia: Online Identity
• ID Theft: What You Need to Know

I just installed the public beta of Movable Type 4, and was pleasantly surprised to notice that out-of-the-box authentication is no longer limited to username/password and Typekey.

The beta comes with support for several different authentication mechanisms, including Livejournal, Vox, and OpenID.

Of course, this has been possible for a long time using different plug-ins, but having it included in the base install makes for one less plug-in.

If only Typepad would follow suit, and add OpenID support in their hosted service, but that seems unlikely to happen any time soon, or they would have done so by now as they practically already have support through their Typekey system.

It seems incredible that they would actually believe that a centralized authentication system is feasible, given the fate of Microsoft Passport.

Should RAW images be stored as that, or should they be converted to Adobe DNG? A seemingly very simple question, but with no easy answer unless looking in a crystal ball.

Background

In short, each and every different digital camera model that can take pictures in RAW format does so in a different, proprietary, and undocumented format (pretty much). The result is more than 100 different RAW formats, some of which are no longer supported by the camera manufacturer.

The issue is little different from any other case of "proprietary vs. open format", but surprisingly while the world is severely divided on the question of Open Office XML (Microsoft) vs. Open Document Format (everyone else), everyone seem to agree that the "closed" and undocumented nature of current RAW formats will in time become a problem, as manufacturers seize support of older formats.

The discussion from here on becomes long and winded. Luminous Landscape has a good article on this specific issue, that has been dubbed "The Raw Flaw". OpenRAW also has several articles on the problem, though I personally don’t believe in their solution.

Suffice it to say, if you also think it’s a problem you’ve probably at least contemplated possible solutions.

The Difficult Decision

One such solution is the Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) format, which is Adobe’s attempt at a universal RAW standard. Much can be said about Adobe’s intentions for creating such a format, but it remains a fact that converting existing RAW formats to DNG removes "closed" and "proprietary" from the equation of file format support, and leaves just the issue of "support". Support in terms of selection of applications and time.

Adobe has made a serious commitment to this format, and combined with the relative difficulty of supporting an endless stream of new RAW formats, this has led to a fairly quick uptake by other application developers. By now all significant applications related digital imaging offer support for DNG.

This leaves just the question of support in time, hence the crystal ball. 5 years from now, will DNG have the better support? Or will hundreds of different RAW formats, most of which were used by cameras no longer in production, and most likely no longer in use?

Interestingly, there seems to be an almost automatic uptake of DNG amongst users of non- Nikon and Canon cameras as it’s generally accepted that there is greater risk that these manufacturers will exit the camera market space at some point.

With Nikon and Canon users the situation isn’t as clear cut as these companies carry much more weight and their significant user bases encompasses most professional photographers and will present a market in their own right for a very long time. In other words, just by looking at the numbers both Nikon and Canon RAW formats have significantly larger user bases, than DNG most likely has at this point in time (2007).

Making A Decision

I’ve been looking at DNG on and off since it was released by Adobe, each time evaluating the functionality offered by Adobe DNG Converter, and DNG support by the applications I use in my workflow.

So far it hasn’t amounted to more than (a lot of) reading, doing a few large projects with DNG based workflows, and Aperture’s lack of support for XMP information in DNG, has kept me from considering DNG for a long time (because I insist on adding a lot of XMP metadata to the RAW files, but that’s likely an unusual requirement). However, while Aperture’s speed has improved significantly since it’s release, it appears that my patience with its lack thereof has declined more rapidly, and working with a Bridge CS3/Lightroom/Photoshop CS3 tool chain convinced me that it’s time for a major overhaul.

That also decision also suddenly reintroduced DNG as a viable option, and since I’ve decided I believe (and I think the question is reduced to that, a matter of belief) in a bright future for DNG, the were no more excuses to adopting it.

Further Reading, Products, And Reviews

In my opinion the Adobe DNG Converter is the best RAW to DNG converter around. And they for the technically inclined, they also have the full DNG specification available.

Barry Pearson is an outspoken advocate of DNG, and his website has extensive information about everything DNG, including an extensive list of products supporting DNG. He also has different subsets of this list, e.g. a list of products supporting DNG and embedded XMP, which I think is a requisite to use a tool in a workflow.

Most big photo related websites have mentioned Adobe DNG at some point, so there are plenty of good reviews and howto’s to be read. Digital Outback Photo has a very nice coverage on digital workflow, including a good write up on Adobe DNG Converter. Luminous Landscape also has a good commentary on it.

Flickr satisfies my requirements for casual publishing of my images online. It isn’t a good choice for monetizing on your images, but for posting images for friends and family to see, presenting your great works for all to see, or collaborating on e.g. images of Norwegian churches - for all this, I think it’s great.

Having chosen Flickr as the venue of publication (instead of e.g. Google Picasaweb, Panoramio, or Zooomr) the pressing question quickly becomes how to efficiently get images from your local computer uploaded to Flickr. This typically works as follows:

1. Upload a couple of pictures using the web page, and when that gets tiresome
2. Get the dedicated uploader from Flickr, and use that until you realize this really does not work with your existing workflow, at which point you
3. Get a plugin that fits into your existing workflow

Now is a good time to add that Flickr is in the business of making money and IMHO all the necessary features for serious work are only available in the $24.95/year Flickr PRO upgrade. Namely:

• Acceptable control over the images you publish
• Adequate storage/bandwidth to be of any use
• Ability to upload images in decent resolutions

When I’d been through (1) and (2) I started searching for a decent plugin that would integrate with my workflow which is currently based on Aperture.

I accidently stumbled upon FlickrExport! from Connected Flow (works with iPhoto and Aperture), and basically never looked any further.

It will do everything (naming, tagging, assigning to sets, etc.) expected of an exporter, and much more including:

• Geotagging images using Google Earth at the time images are uploaded
• Replacing existing versions of an image with a new version (only PRO accounts)
• Store the Flickr ID in a custom meta data tag on the original image

I’ve previously described a simple workflow for basic organization of digital images. Several people wrote me and asked if "that’s it" and why I don’t structure the process of assigning keywords (meta data). I think I covered the latter here, and in all fairness the workflow I described in my previous post "wasn’t it".

The Workflow

I use a two-part workflow, in which I first store as much meta data in the image files as makes sense, and then import the image files in my image organizer of choice.

1. Ingest images using importer of choice
2. Rename files as "yyyymmdd-hhmmssss"
3. Store in dated folders matching date of capture
4. Batch assign as many IPTC fields as possible, including IPTC keywords
5. Assign as many XMP fields as possible
6. Store both IPTC and XMP within the files
7. Import images into image organizer of choice
8. Delete rejects
9. Stack similar images
10. Rate (1-3) the best images
11. Assign more batch keywords
12. Assign specific keywords to the rated images

The Reason

Vendor lock in is one of the biggest problems of existing image organizers such as iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom because they store image meta data outside the image file. Consequently, the best way of locking all your images to one program and possibly one platform is by mindlessly using one of these programs.

On the other hand, these programs and indeed their approach to storing meta data has some great strengths that I certainly want to leverage, so I’ve tailored a workflow that represents the best compromise I could device (according to my personal needs and preferences).

The two main requirements I’ve identified are:

• Store all critical meta data in the image files
• Manage all image files using the image organizer

To achieve this, I’m willing to accept that:

• Meta data stored in the image files can only be updated outside the image organizer
• Additional meta data added inside the image organizer is "lost"

And this corresponds to the two sections in my workflow. First, working directly with the image files, I add as much meta data as I can, and then using the image organizer I work through the images selecting keepers and rejects, rating them, and adding specific keywords to individual images.

The Means

Many tools will do the job(s). I’m currently evaluating Photo Mechanic, which looks to be the most promising choice for adding IPTC and IPTC4XMP meta data to images.

On Windows I really like Breeze Browser Pro, which basically does what Photo Mechanic does, but at half the price and in some cases (e.g. IPTC categories) better.