Subject: Suggestion to Digital Photo Handling section, part 1
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:57:40 +0000 (UTC)
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.video.image-magick.user

Hi Anthony,

I've got some suggestions to your Digital Photo Handling section. http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/photos/

FYI, If you still remember me, I'm the one who asked your help on producing the neon glowing effect.

The effect can also help produce the effect that real camera imprinting date onto the films, not digital camera imprint date on pictures — the difference is the glowing effect.

As we know, most digital camera won't imprint date on the pictures, so I think you may want to add how to do this to your digital photo handling section. Thanks to your help, I managed to create such glowing date imprints onto my digital photos. I am satisfied with the result, and from now on I won't let digital camera do it for me even if it can, because I believe date imprinted this way looks much better. Still, I consider it in pilot stage, and writing to ask for your comments.

Fist some background,

Now here is how I did it:

Grab floriade.jpg from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-graf/floriade.jpg

then,

convert -resize 1600x1200 floriade.jpg floriade.big.jpg
convert -gravity NorthEast -crop 640x480+0+0 floriade.big.jpg floriade-NE.jpg

fg=gold
ft=basicdots.ttf
fs=32
wd=2007-06-17

convert -size 300x60 xc:none -font $ft -pointsize $fs -gravity center -stroke black -strokewidth 2 -annotate 0 "$wd" -channel RGBA -blur 0x2 -stroke none -fill $fg -annotate 0 "$wd" -blur 0x2 -annotate 0 "$wd" +size floriade-NE.jpg +swap -gravity NorthEast -geometry +50+40 -composite dated.pic.jpg

I put the test result file at http://xpt.sourceforge.net/download/dated.pic.jpg

I noticed that all the strokewidth/blur setting really related to the point font size that we choose, which in turn related to the size of the photo that we work on. This is the setting I found satisfying, via experiment. I want the settings to be enough to make the difference, but just enough as not to interfere with the original photo. My test shows that the settings can still make the imprints distinguishable even on the background that has the same color as the imprint color:

convert -size 300x60 xc:$fg -font $ft -pointsize $fs -gravity center -stroke black -strokewidth 2 -annotate 0 "$wd" -channel RGBA -blur 0x2 -stroke none -fill $fg -annotate 0 "$wd" -blur 0x2 -annotate 0 "$wd" dated.jpg

I'll like your comment before proceeding. E.g., is font size 32 really looks good on floriade.big.jpg? etc.

Thanks

| The effect can also help produce the effect that real camera
| imprinting date onto the films, not digital camera imprint date on
| pictures -- the difference is the glowing effect.
|

| - I set my picture size on my digital camera to be 1600x1200. I
| think this is the size that can give enough details (normally
| portrait, not scenery), even for digital printing. What's your
| opinion?
|
| - From experiment, I found that using 32 point font size is good
| for date imprinting for 1600x1200 images. What's your opinion?

| I'll like your comment before proceeding. E.g., is font size 32 really
| looks good on floriade.big.jpg? etc.