Rangefinder Magazine
February 2005

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Digital Photography by John Rettie
Giant 2.5-gigapixel Image Wows Visitors

Gigapixel Photographs
The latest pro digital SLR body has a 16-megapixel image sensor capable, without interpolation, of producing an 11x16-inch photograph at 300dpi, which happens to be the resolution used in a good magazine. Imagine then a 2500-megapixel sensor. It would be big enough to produce a 9x22-foot print at 300dpi and would be sufficiently detailed for you to read the license plate on a car located hundreds of yards away from the camera.

The amount of detail visible as you zoom in on this 2.5-gigapixel image of the city of Delft, Holland, is amazing.

Of course there is no sensor of this size in existence. However, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO has produced a digital panoramic 78,797x31,565 pixel photo. The image was assembled from over 600 overlapping images captured on a Nikon D1X digital SLR with a 400mm lens. Each of the photographs was then stitched together to form one panoramic picture of the city of Delft in Holland. The computer-controlled camera, mounted on a pan-tilt tripod, took the photographs automatically.

All the individual photos were captured in 80 minutes, but it then took a day to optimize the photos and compare the overlapping edges of each photo. Stitching the photos into one image took three days using five high-powered PCs.

You can check out the final result at www.tno.nl/gigapix. It is amazing to be able to zoom into the 2.5-gigapixel photo, which is initially just 540x217 pixels on your computer screen, getting in so close that you can see individual bricks and leaves many city blocks away from where the photograph was taken.

On the whole there are very few misalignments or differing colors between individual images. However, in a couple of places you can find a person with missing feet and a car that appears to blend into the back of a bus. These “gotchas” are the result of a time lag of approximately nine seconds between each exposure.

Incidentally, this image may currently be the largest of its kind, but it is by no means the first. Max Lyons (www.tawbaware.com/ maxlyons) has been producing panoramic photographs using many images for some time.

In 2003 he produced a 1-gigapixel image of Bryce Canyon that was displayed at last year’s PMA show. It was stitched together from 196 separate photos taken on a Canon D60 camera. Max had to write his own software to create the image, and it still took him more than a week to assemble.

It’s worth checking these web sites to see what can be achieved using a regular camera and some sophisticated computer software. Don’t be surprised—before too long many of us could do the same thing with a program coupled to a computer-controlled tripod head. I’m sure someone is working on such an accessory.

	Kodak’s Digital GEM airbrush plug-in can be used on non-portrait images.

Quick Software Review: Digital GEM Airbrush
If you check out the web site (www.asf.com) for Kodak’s Digital GEM (formerly Applied Science Fiction) line of Photoshop plug-ins, you’ll find the examples for the Airbrush Professional plug-in demonstrate its use on portraits. In some cases the end result looks overdone, turning living people into porcelain statues. Used in moderation it’s a great tool that’s easier to master than doing the work directly in Photoshop.

While I was experimenting with the plug-in I tried it on a hot rod car I photographed at Hot August Nights in Reno last summer. The car looked neat but it was (un)finished in primer paint and had several flaws.

I ran the plug-in, and it immediately improved the looks of the car and the road surface. Check out the before and after images, and I think you’ll agree the air-brushed picture looks better. Now if I was an expert in masking, I could also finish “painting” the car for the owner in a nice glossy yellow or red. Try using the GEM Airbrush plug-in on subjects other than humans and you might be surprised by the results.

The image of a hot rod painted in primer (left), cruising downtown Sparks, NV, during Reno’s Hot August Nights, looks much better in the air-brushed picture (right).

Olympus P-440 Dye-sub Printer Not many years ago the only way to produce a digital print that looked anywhere like a traditional silver-halide photograph was to use a dye-sublimation thermal printer—inkjet printers were just not capable of producing prints with the look of a continuous tone image. All of that has changed, as the droplet size on inkjet printers has gotten so small that it’s nearly impossible to see the individual dots.

Because of the intense competition in the inkjet market and their much lower cost, the market for dye-sub printers has all but disappeared.

Yet there are still many photographers who prefer the look and feel of a dye-sub print to that of an inkjet. Fortunately for them, there are still several printers on the market, and their prices have dropped considerably compared to a few years ago.

In 2000 Olympus introduced the P-400 dye-sub printer, the first one priced under $1000. It was well received although it upset users because it would only print an image of 7.64x10 inches. Last year Olympus upgraded the printer so it can print a full 8x10 print. At the same time it lowered the price, so it is now available for around $400.

	The Olympus P-440 dye-sub printer is one of a handful on the market.

The P-440 printer includes two built-in memory card readers, one for reading direct from an xD-Picture Card and the other for a PC card, which with an adaptor will read other memory card formats. There’s a small LCD monitor, so images can be previewed and printed directly without being hooked up to a computer. Simple adjustments can be made to images on the printer, and a variety of different layouts can be set for printing everything from passport-size images to full 8x10 prints.

One disadvantage of a dye-sub printer, such as the P-440, is that it can only print a full sheet each time. This is fine if you need to fill the complete print area but can be very wasteful if you only need a single small print. Because of this it costs about $2.40 for each sheet of paper including the thermal ribbon. Each cartridge of thermal ribbon is sufficient to produce 50 prints and costs $50 to $60. Paper comes in packages prescored for postcards or 4x6 prints as well as full A4 size (8.25x11.7 inches.). There are two ribbon types, for a glossy or matte finish.

It takes about 75 seconds to print a photo as each sheet of paper is drawn back and forth four times through the printer in order to lay down the three (CMY) colors and a UV coating. In addition there’s about a 45-second wait before printing while the image is processed by the computer or the printer. All told, it takes about two minutes to produce each print, but at least the print is completely dry when it emerges from the printer.

As I write this I am looking at two prints, one from the P-440 and the other from a Canon i960 inkjet printer. There is a slight difference in color balance, but I defy anyone to see any difference in image quality. The dye-sub printer is slightly less sharp, which does not make it appear as good. The finish on both is glossy, and the paper weight is identical. The big difference is that after sitting around and being handled a few times there are some light surface scratches on the inkjet print and none on the dye-sub. Because of the cost difference per print it’s difficult to justify a dye-sub printer for proofing or making prints that will be protected. However, the fact a print comes out dry and is immediately more robust makes the P-440 ideal for event photographers who need to produce finished prints on the spot.

Quick Book Review: Photoshop CS Bible, Professional Edition
According to Deke McClelland, his Photoshop Bible is the longest continuously published book on Photoshop and has sold over one million copies, which must say something about the book’s value to its readers. Nowadays there are two versions that are quite different: The regular paperback edition is aimed at new Photoshop users and those not yet confident in its operation. The Professional Edition ($59.95) is hardbound with 650 pages—some 400 less than the regular edition, and yet it costs $20 more. Both are written by Deke and published by Wiley Publishing.

Deke is one of those Photoshop masters who can work miracles and explain how to transform images using techniques the rest of us would never easily unearth. The main reason the Professional Edition has less pages is because the book is aimed at users who are already proficient with Photoshop. Consequently, there are no chapters on getting started or learning how to take photographs. Instead the book wades straight into tough subjects such as blending modes, using brushes, creating masks and getting the most out of the cloning tools.

One of the most useful aspects of the full-color book is Deke’s explanations of how tools, such as the healing brush, actually work. This helps show why results are not always what one would expect. A chapter on the hugely improved file browser, which appeared in Photoshop CS, is also useful reading. Another good chapter is the one on levels, curves and shadows, which is accompanied by good color graphics that explain how they work. Although many of the examples describe how to create artwork as opposed to modifying photographs, there is plenty for a photographer, such as preparing photos for the web.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 35 years, a computer for 25 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past 12 years. Readers can contact him by email at john@ johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.