Artsnova Digital Art and Space

Library of Congress image of Titanic survivors alongside Carpathia

The Library of Congress has just released over 3,000 royalty free photographs on Flickr. While this represents just a tiny fraction of the Library’s 1 million plus digital images, it does provide a new avenue of access to the collection.

The release consists of two collections. The 1930s-40s in Color collection features 1,615 pictures from the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information. The News in the 1910s collection consists of 1,500 black and white photos from the George Grantham Bain News Service which even includes a photograph of George Washington’s teeth. Together these two image collections provide a fascinating look back at American history of the early to mid-20th century.

One of the photographs that I came across while going through the collection was the image shown above: TITANIC survivors on way to rescue-ship CARPATHIA. If you examine the full size image of the photograph you will see that it doesn’t look quite right. Also interestingly the photo is dated as “between 1910 and 1915″. I found this curious since the exact date of the recovery of the Titanic’s survivors is a matter of record (April 15, 1912). So is it a photograph of one of Titanic’s lifeboats - or just some generic or staged lifeboat image that the news service labeled as being of survivors of the Titanic?

An excerpt from the full size version on Flickr is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Full size section of Titanic survivors in lifeboat being rescued by the Carpathia.

I next went to the Library of Congress’ site and downloaded their full size scan (22 megabytes). Shown below is a full size excerpt of the two passengers from the rear upper left of the lifeboat.

Figure 2. Full size excerpt from the Library of Congress’ scan.

From this high resolution version, it appears obvious that the original glass negative has been retouched in the form of someone inking in black lines in order to “improve” the picture. In my opinion the emotional impact of the image suffers as a consequence and the poor quality of this “improvement” serves as a visual distraction to the viewer

I recommend that you take a trip over to the Library of Congress Flicker Photograph Collection and browse through the collection. For more information about the Library of Congress photographs on Flickr visit the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Reading Room. The full digital image collection of the Library of Congress can be browsed at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog where over 1 million digitized images are available.

STS-117 Atlantis and International Space Station Pass, June 20, 2007

It’s been many years since I’ve gone outside for the sole purpose of watching a satellite or the Shuttle pass overhead. Before there was the Internet, there was a DOS program called SatTrack I think. Or maybe it was STSPlus. I seem to recall that the author was from Alabama. Anyway I would feed in the orbital elements to see what was going over and head out for a look. Seeing the Mir space station was a favorite of mine. When I learned that tonight both the Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-117) and the International Space Station would be passing over, I decided to grab my digital camera and try to capture the moment, something I had not previously done.

Before heading outside, I reconfirmed the details of the pass using data from the Heavens Above web site. Following is the most pertinent data:

STS-117

ISS

The visual magnitude for Atlantis and ISS were given as -0.9 and -0.4 respectively. This combined with the pass times told me that STS would be in the lead as the pair moved across the sky from northwest to southeast and that Atlantis would be the brighter of the two. I grabbed my pager and set its alarm to sound about two minutes before the start of the pass.

Stepping outside, I quickly inspected the sky. While it was not the best of skies, it was clear enough that sighting the space shuttle and space station pair wouldn’t be a problem. Me and my youngest son Thomas then walked to a near-by soccer field, which has a good horizon line, about 10 minutes before the pass. I wanted to have time to get set up and to experiment with shooting images of the Moon using a variety of settings. The last thing that I wanted to be doing was fiddling with camera settings while the pass was in progress.

My son Thomas gets credit for being the first to spot the pair as they traveled over our site. I was able to take several shots while simultaneously trying to answer my son’s questions about what he was seeing.

Following the pass, we headed back home. My son was somewhat disappointed - he expected to “see” the shuttle and the space station. His disappointment diminished when I explained to him how much farther away the shuttle and space station were as compared to the commercial jets that we observed at approximately the same time.

In the picture shown here, Jupiter is the bright “star” in the lower left hand corner of the picture. The bright streak of light in the center of the picture is the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the slightly dimmer streak of light in the upper right hand corner is the International Space Station. The pair were about one second of time apart and were traveling from the upper right to lower left in the frame.

Following are the camera settings used for the above photograph:
Nikon D50
2007/06/20 21:02:54.5
Compressed RAW (12-bit)
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
Lens: 28-80mm F/3.3-5.6 G
Focal Length: 28mm
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
5 sec - F/7.1
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 1600
Optimize Image: Normal
White Balance: Preset
AF Mode: Manual
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV
Color Mode: Mode IIIa (sRGB)
Tone Comp.: Auto
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: Auto
Image Comment:
Long Exposure NR: Off

I believe that the best part of this photographic experience was taking the opportunity to use my digital camera in a way I hadn’t previously. Novel shooting situations should be sought out, not avoided.

Ad Astra, Jim

Which Flag Do You Prefer? Before and After Using Serif PanoramaPlus 1

I was in a local bookstore last week going through the magazine section and pulled the current issue of the astronomy magazine BBC Sky at Night. I’m in the habit of going through all the astronomy magazines in search of interesting articles. Unfortunately for Sky at Night I’ve never came across an article in their magazine that would make it worth its price. Looking at the May 2007 issue, it wasn’t what was inside the magazine that grabbed my interest but what was on the CD that comes with the magazine.

The CD has a full version of Serif’s PanoramaPlus, version 1. This program automates the creation of panoramic images given a list of individual source images. Previously I had created my panoramas by using Adobe Photoshop’s Transform Tool and layer masks. Needless to say the Transform Tool is definitely suboptimal - especially when it comes to altering the geometry of the individual images. While I wasn’t thrilled that as a part of the software activation process I had to call the UK offices of Sky at Night, I figured that would be cheaper than going out and buying the software. What bugged me about this is that for all other magazines containing CDs with full versions of software being offered, I’ve never had to make a phone call to activate the product: either it was ready to go or all I had to do was point my browser at the specified web page to complete the registration.

Fortunately the software did have a one time use without registering so that I could fire it up and test it out. I fed the program a total of 11 images from an Apollo 16 EVA to merge. Their combined file size was 8.5 megabytes. PanoramaPlus quickly stitched them together and as far as I could tell from the software’s preview window, had done a good job of it.

The final step was to export the newly created panorama. Therein lies the source of my disappointment. The only export format available was to save as a jpeg. Not only that but there was no option to specify image quality and no documentation identifying what compression setting the software was using. The other shock was the size of my new panorama - just 3000 pixels wide. PanoramaPlus had taken 11 separate images with a combined width of 25,740 pixels and combined file size of 8.57 megabytes and created a panorama just 3000 pixels wide with a file size of 880K.

As a before and after comparison I took the American flag from the panorama and enlarged it to match the flag in one of the source images. The comparison of the two flags is shown at the top of this article. Note that the image shown is a scaled down version of the full size comparison. On the left is the original source flag image and on the right is the flag image from the PanoramaPlus panorama, upsized to match the size of the original flag. The qualitative difference is obvious.

Going to the Serif web site, I see that they are now on version 3 of the software so it is probably no longer the same product. Bottom line: if you’re thinking of buying the May 2007 issue of Sky at Night because of the PanoramaPlus version 1 software, don’t - big mistake. And the special upgrade offer they are running in the magazine: if you’re in the U.S. and paying in U.S. dollars, the standard price for the software is cheaper than the Sky at Night special “discount.”
Ad Astra, Jim

Desert Reality Inspired Bird House

Looking through my April issue of Rangefinder magazine I came across an interesting profile of photographer Ed Freeman. Titled Desert Reality, the article focuses on the composite images Freeman created and then used for his book Desert Reality. While the photographs appear totally realistic, they are fakes. For Freeman, Adobe Photoshop is as important as his camera because his “photographs” are actually very well done creative composites. The theme is that of unusual or dilapidated buildings, isolated, and placed into a California desert setting. Freeman photographs a building, removes it from its original setting, and then composites it with a desert landscape and an appropriate sky.

One fascinating aspect pointed out in the article is that the background mountain range in all but one image in the book actually came from the same source photograph. Freeman used various Photoshop techniques to alter the appearance of the mountains for each of the images in which it was used.

If you visit the book’s web site, www.desertrealty.org, there is a gallery displaying some of the images from the book. There is also a before and after feature whereby for two of the images from the book you can see the original photograph of the building and then the building as composited into the desert landscape. You may also want to visit Ed Freeman’s web site.

As I was writing this entry, it occurred to me that I would need an appropriate illustration. I went to Imageafter.com to grab a couple stock photos. One of the first pictures I found was of a bird house - that would be my structure. Next was to find an appropriate background. Seeing an image of a stately lawn, I knew that I had my picture. It was a simple task to use Photoshop’s Lasso Tool to isolate the bird house from its background and drag it in as a new layer on the lawn photo. Positioning the bird house slightly back from the central gravel path seemed natural. I then used a combination of the clone stamp and eraser tools and layer masks to blend the base of the house with the gravel path. The final step was to create a shadow layer for the bird house so that its lighting would match the shadows being cast by the trees to the left. One thing I thought of doing but didn’t was to enlarge the bird hole and add a sign “Beware of Bird.”

Just one more example of how Photoshop can be the digital photographer’s best friend.

Ad Astra, Jim

The other day I paid a visit to Shutterstock, a seller of royalty free stock photographs. I wanted to get a feel for the stock photography market. I have a large collection of photos, an unfortunately large number of which are still trapped in negatives and 35mm slides, and felt that selling some via a stock photography web site might be a good way to generate some additional income. It was chance that took me to Shutterstock first.

My first step was to find out what sort of photographs they were selling. I found that the photographs they sell are organized into 30 different categories. My primary areas of interest are astronomy, landscapes, abstracts, nature, and science and technology so these are the areas in which my collection is strongest. Based on my interests I found that the following categories are probably most appropriate for me:

• Abstract
• Animals/Wildlife
• Backgrounds/Textures
• Buildings/Landmarks
• Nature
• Objects
• Parks/Outdoor
• Science
• Technology

I then went to the relevant galleries to see what types of photos were being shown there. This is important because Shutterstock makes the call when deciding which of your submitted photographs to accept. If they know their business, then they know what is more likely to sell.

Shutterstock also has a web page that features their top selling images. Using a filter to limit the search to photographs, excluding illustrations, I was able to look over the Top 50 Images Ever. While I could understand the appeal of some of these images, I was quite surprised at some of the others. What this signaled to me was that what I thought would be good photographs to sell is not necessarily what people are looking to buy.

Now that I had an idea of what people were buying, I decided to check out what people were looking for. To do this I visited the Top 100 keywords for the past month. The top ten keyword searches were:

1. flowers
2. family
3. background
4. flower
5. vector
6. people
7. nature
8. abstract
9. fashion
10. beach

Fortunately, flowers, background, nature, and abstract are all keywords relevant to a number of the photographs that I have to offer.

My final step was to investigate Shutterstock’s submission requirements, terms, and what they pay. For payment, the photographer gets .25 cents for every download. Images being uploaded must be at least 4.0 million pixels, which works out to 2000 pixels wide by 2000 pixels high for square images. There are also content guidelines to be considered.

At first look, Shutterstock looks okay but I won’t know for sure until I have the opportunity to compare them with their competitors. My next step will be to visit some of the other online sellers of stock photography and undertake a similar investigation for each. Only then will I be able to make an informed decision on who to go with.

And no, that is not my camera in the picture. Rather it is a free stock photograph from FreePhotosBank.com.

Ad Astra, Jim

Did you ever start out doing one thing and get distracted by something else? I was asked by the Adler Planetarium to teach a class about NASA’s Project Gemini - the frequently overlooked program wedged in between the Mercury and Apollo programs. I happily agreed. For more info about the class, see Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon (ST1).

As a part of preparing for the class, I went to the Adler armed with my Nikon D50 to take photographs of their “Return to the Moon” exhibit. The centerpiece of this exhibit is the Gemini 12 space capsule. This was the final mission of the Gemini program and carried James Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin into space for a mission that lasted just shy of four days.

The lighting in the exhibit area was low, especially in the room housing the Gemini 12 capsule and flash photography was discouraged. Fortunately I had the foresight to bring my tripod with me so steadiness for long exposures wasn’t a problem. However lighting did present another challenge in that the spacecraft was housed within a large glass exhibit case. On the wall opposite the case were some brightly lit quotes. Unfortunately I did not notice the reflection that these quotations created on the glass case at the time. Last weekend upon a closer review of the photographs I took of the capsule’s interior, I was dismayed to discover the presence of these “backwards” quotes in a number of my shots. Fortunately I had taken photographs from a number of different angles and a few managed to come out clean. But I digress.

The real purpose of this story is to highlight the synergy of the camera and the computer. Synergy is the combination of two or more elements in which the net effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects, or the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The marriage of the camera with digital image processing is one of the best examples of synergy that I can think of. I had always been interested in photography at an amateur level and I have worked with computer graphics off and on going back more than 20 years. It was my move from film to digital that renewed my interest in photography. Combining my love of computer graphics with the image capturing ability of the digital camera has led me in a new direction graphically speaking.

An example of this synergy is seen in the image used to illustrate this story. Titled “Spaceship Under Glass” I took the photo only to serve as a reference image of the Gemini capsule. Following my initial visual examination of the photo in Photoshop, my first thought was to just adjust the image to lighten the underside of the spacecraft. One thing led to another and before I knew it I had multiple adjustment layers and an image that was looking increasingly psychedelic. The true power of digital image processing is that it encourages experimentation.

One thing that I found very annoying in the original photograph was that the upper right quadrant of the glass case was obscured by a movie projection screen which was showing a movie about the Gemini mission. I could have cropped out the top of the image to get rid of it but that would have entailed cropping out all the lights as well and I was determined to keep them. Instead I resorted to a combination of the clone stamp tool, the healing brush tool, the eraser tool, and segments of the image copied to another layer and then blended in with the underlying layer to remove the intrusive movie screen. A companion screen was also present at the extreme left of the image. However, it only intruded over the background wall, rather than the glass case, and was easy to digitally “erase.” Note that the left portion of the photograph was cropped out of the version of the image shown here.

In summary, I began just wanting to use the photograph of the Gemini capsule as a simple illustration in the Open Office Impress presentation I was preparing. Instead of just making minor image corrections in Photoshop, I began a digital excursion that led me to an entirely unforeseen result. On the bright side, I suddenly found myself with the perfect title slide for my presentation along with some new image processing techniques under my belt.

Ad Astra, Jim

I’ll be speaking at the monthly meeting of the Pixel Camera Club Tuesday, December 19 at the Schaumburg Library. The subject of my presentation will be “Imaging Mars” and it should last approximately one hour. My presentation will focus on the workflow and techniques that I use to process the raw PDS (Planetary Data System) image files from the Viking, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Exploration Rover missions to Mars.

Aside from using either the NASAVIEW or GIMP programs to open the PDS files and save them, all of my processing is done in Adobe Photoshop. This includes noise removal, destriping, contrast enhancement, and colorizing. Technically the most difficult of these tasks is the destriping of the push-broom noise inherent in the Mars Global Surveyor images and the stitching together of individual Mars Exploration Rover picture frames. Aesthetically, the most difficult task is the application of false color. I have developed several different methods of applying false color to pictures of Mars but which to use depends on the image itself.

I may also venture into some discussion of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars. These pictures are stored in the FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format which is the standard image format used by the astronomical community. In fact the picture that appears at the top of this post is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of Mars. For the inquisitive, Arabia Terra is the large light colored region on the right side. Acidalia Planitia is the dark region at the top. The light colored circular patch at the 7:00 position is Argyre Planitia.

In addition to the coloring challenge posed by these Hubble images, another challenge is locating the necessary FITS files. Locating and retrieving the FITS files for me begins at HubbleSite and ends at MAST (Multimission Archive at Space Telescope).

The folks at Pixel may get more than they have bargained for in that I’ll also be speaking about the geology of Mars. After all, how can you show pictures of Mars without explaining what the picture is. I suspect that many will find some interest here since one of their members indicated to me that many have an interest in nature photography.

Imaging Mars
Pixel Camera Club
7:30pm Tuesday, December 19 2006
Schaumburg Library, Schaumburg IL

Ad Astra, Jim

The current issue of Photolife magazine, November 2006, has an article by Freeman Patterson. Titled “Thoughts on Photography“, Freeman reflects on his career as a photographer while offering advice to those new to the field of photography. I was particularly struck by one quote:“If you have a boot fetish, photograph boots until you’re sick of them or until you become so good at it that footwear manufacturers and fashion houses come knocking on your door - be who you are!”

In essence Freeman is advising newbies to not only pursue their dream but to pursue their subject. Contrast this with a photographer who loves astronomy but instead photographs weddings because that is where the money is. Yes you have to make a living but love of what you’re doing can take you to a higher plane of understanding. If you love photographing boots, you will be more likely to explore all aspects of the subject and become quite familiar with the angles, lighting and texture and ultimately produce better photos of boots than someone with only a passing interest in the subject.

This same reasoning is true of me with respect to the Viking and Mars Global Surveyor missions to Mars. As a NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador, and prior to that as a speaker for the Chicago Society for Space Studies, I had created a number of presentations about Mars. But I chaffed at being limited to using the images that had been publicly released. To overcome this limitation I had to figure out how to process the raw image data myself. When I began processing the raw image data files, stored in the Planetary Data System or PDS format, from the Viking and Mars Global Surveyor missions several years ago it took me quite some time to come up with an efficient work flow and a methodology for processing the images. If my desire had been less I would have given up and resigned myself to using the MSSS and NASA publicly released pictures. My love of the subject and the desire to create my own renditions of Mars won out. You can see some of the pictures that I have created at my Mars Art Gallery web site.

To illustrate this story I decided to photograph one of my boots - a first. But rather than take just one photograph, I took two with slightly different focus and from slightly different angles. I then used Photoshop to merge the two pictures together. Layer blends, adjustment layers, selective blurring and sharpening were all used to create the final image (2200 x 1600 pixels).

For the digital photographer, photography should not be considered just mastery of the camera, but mastery of image processing software, like Photoshop, in order to create pictures impossible to obtain from the camera alone.

Ad Astra, Jim

Yes that is me in the picture. You can click it to see a larger version if you like. I needed a photograph of myself for inclusion in the 2006 International Space Development Conference Space Art Track Programming Guide. To get the picture, I set up my digital camera on a tripod and took a photo of myself sitting in my office chair. With the magic of Photoshop, I erased my office background from the picture. I then used Photoshop to create a separate picture of an astronomical scene to use as a background. I then merged the two pictures together and scaled them down to the required size. Creating my picture for the program guide in this manner served two purposes. First, it was the opportunity to create a distinctive portrait for the program guide and second it was to give me one more excuse to experiment in Photoshop, which is my preferred image editor.

Too bad my night sky doesn’t really look like what is shown in the picture but living in a Chicago suburb - our night sky consists of a bland orange background and a handful of stars. Well that’s not really true for the suburbs but take a trip to downtown Chicago and look up: you’ll see what I mean. Who knows, if all the world’s skies were as bad as Chicago’s, we’d probably still believe that ours was the only galaxy and the heliocentric model would be alive and well.

Ad Astra, Jim