Photobooth Shooting

PSRemote can be run as a simple photobooth where it automatically takes a series of pictures and then prints them on a single sheet of paper.

To setup photobooth operation select "Photobooth Settings..." from the File menu and the dialog below will be displayed:

First select the number of images to be taken and how they are arranged. This could be a single image on one sheet of paper (1 image, 1 row, 1 column), a passport style strip of images (e.g. 4 images, 4 rows, 1 column), 2x2 grid of 4 images as shown above or any other arrangement of up to 20 images arranged in a grid. Alternatively select "Custom layout" and click on the "Settings..." button next to the checkbox to position each image manually on the page (this is described in more detail later).

Next select the delay before taking each photo and how long the shot just taken is displayed on screen when shooting in fullscreen photobooth mode (this can be disabled by setting the time to 0). After taking each photo a preview can be displayed on the screen for a specified number of seconds (set this to 0 to disable the preview). Please note that the preview may not fill the screen if the image size/quality setting in the main PSRemote is set to "small".

Some older PowerShot models have a significant delay when taking a photo and this can result in the photos being taken later than expected. This delay can be reduced by using AF lock but if the delay is still a problem enter a value for the delay in 1/10th sec in the "Camera delay" edit box e.g. to enter a delay of half a second enter 5 in the camera delay edit box. Please take care when changing this setting because too large a value may upset the timing of the photos.

Note: AF lock can be selected or updated in fullscreen photobooth using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A.

When the "Minimum duration in seconds before closing 'processing' screen is set to 0 the 'processing' screen will be close as soon as the data has been sent to the printer. The 'processing' screen can be displayed for longer by adjusting this value. This is useful if you want to keep displaying a message such as "Thank you! Your photos are being printed, please leave the booth now" for longer than it takes to print the images.

The countdown text is displayed before shooting each image and is updated every seconds. The following tokens can be used:

@secsToNextPhoto@ - the number of seconds until the next photo in the sequence is taken

Select "Enable live viewfinder for fullscreen photobooth shooting" to display live view images in the fullscreen photobooth shooting mode. The live viewfinder image can be mirrored so that the user sees the image the same way round as when looking in a mirror. Use the height setting to resize the live viewfinder image. By default the live view images are displayed at the top of the screen but this can be adjusted using the "offset from top of screen". The count down text is displayed beneath the live view image so make sure there is enough space for it when setting the live view size and the offset from the top of the screen.
Normally the live view display, if enabled, is shown before each image in the sequence is taken. When the "Only display Live View images for the first shot in the sequence" option is selected live view images are only displayed to the user before taking the first shot of the sequence and are hidden during the rest of the sequence.
Please note: Live viewfinder images from PowerShot cameras are only 320x240 pixels in size and will appear pixellated if they are enlarged too much.

Select "Ask for confirmation before printing" if you want to be able to decide whether to print the images or not. When this option is selected the print layout will be displayed on the screen with "Print" and "Cancel" buttons in the top left hand corner. Click on the "Print" button (or press the Enter key) to print the images or click on the "Cancel" button (or press the Esc key) to continue without printing.

"Keyboard only (ignore mouse or touchscreen clicks)"	This is the default setting where the photobooth sequence can be started using the normal keyboard shortcuts e.g. F4
"Left click anywhere to start"	This setting allows a mouse or a touchscreen to start the photobooth sequence. The user simply needs to click the left mouse button or press anywhere on the display if using a touchscreen
"Left click to start, right click to toggle B&W mode"	This setting allows a standard mouse to be used to start the sequence (left click) or to toggle between B&W and color modes (right click)
"Left click top left to start"	This setting is designed for touchscreens and requires the user to click in the top left fifth of the screen to start the sequence. The ready.jpg image should be edited to show the user where to touch the screen to start the sequence.
"Left click top left to start color sequence, bottom left for B&W"	This setting is designed for touchscreens and requires the user to click in the top left fifth of the screen to start the sequence in color and the bottom left fifth to start it in black and white. The ready.jpg image should be edited to show the user which areas to touch to start the sequence.
"Touchscreen"	This setting allows up to 10 areas on a touchscreen to be given different actions (described in more detail below)

Up to 10 areas can be defined on a touchscreen to control different photo booth settings such as starting the sequence, switching between color and B&W, selecting the number of print copies etc. First select the "Touchscreen" option in the "Start options" dropdown list and then click on the "Settings..." button to display the touchscreen settings dialog:

Select the action using the dropdown lists on the left and the area on the touchscreen that activates the action using the corresponding "Left", "Top", "Right" and "Bottom" edit boxes. The values entered in the edit boxes are the screen coordinates in pixels with the origin in the top left corner. The example in the screenshot above defines three sensitive areas on the touchscreen:

Settings can be saved to file for future reference by pressing the "Save..." button and reloaded by pressing the "Load..." button. This is makes it possible to define a number of different layouts which can be selected before entering fullscreen photobooth mode. Please note that layout depends on the size of the page which is affected by the printer settings. The values saved for one setup may not produce the same results if a different printer is used or the page or resolution settings have changed.

Profiles allow you to use a keyboard shortcut (or touchscreen action) to automatically switch between different sets of saved settings. To assign a profile to a keyboard shortcut click on the "Profiles..." button at the bottom of the photobooth settings dialog to display the following dialog:

Then click on "..." button for the appropriate profile and select a previously saved set of photobooth settings. In the screenshot above profile 1 (keyboard shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+1) loads the settings file psr1.xml and profile 2 (keyboard shortcut SHIFT+CTRL+2) loads the settings file psr2.xml. Profiles can be used to allow users to selects different sets of photobooth settings e.g. profile 1 might be a traditional layout of two columns of four images and profile 2 might be a custom layout with one large image and several smaller ones. Profiles can be selected using the touchscreen actions (described above) allowing a user to easily switch between different settings.

Use the output dropdown list to select whether the output is sent to a printer only, saved as a JPEG only or both printed and saved as a JPEG. The JPEG with the printed layout is saved in a subfolder called "prints".

The print can have an optional background with a header and or footer image. When PSRemote prepares the image for printing it looks for the following files in the image folder:

background.jpg - optional image which is tiled to fill the background of the printed page

footer.jpg - optional image which is centered and placed at the bottom of the page

left.jpg - optional image which is centered vertically and placed on the left of the page between the header and footer

right.jpg - optional image which is centered vertically and placed on the right of the page between the header and footer

middle.jpg - optional image which is centered vertically and placed between each column of images

overlay.png - optional image which is overlays the page and uses transparency information stored in the alpha channel

The images are then arranged in a grid which fills the printable area of the page less any space taken up by a header or footer image. If the "Rotate image to maximize size" checkbox is selected the images are rotated through 90 degrees if this would give a larger image. e.g. if the printable area for the image within the grid is 80mm high and 50mm wide and the image was shot in landscape orientation it would be rotated by 90 degrees to better fill the printable area.

If the number of images matches the number of rows the images can be repeated in each column by selecting "Repeat images to fill empty columns". This is useful when printing strips of images on paper from a dye sublimation printer e.g. two copies of 4x1 strips on a sheet of 8x6 paper.

Images can be manually laid out by selecting the "Custom layout" option which allows the size, position and rotation of each image to be specified on the page. This allows complex layouts where the images can be different sizes and don't need to be arranged in a grid. It is also simpler to setup for many less complex layouts and often these can be achieved using a single background.jpg containing logos and other graphics.

After selecting "Custom layout" click on the "Settings..." button to display the dialog below:

Up to 10 images can be positioned using the custom layout. The number of the image to be printed is selected using the drop down list and the position of each image is specified in pixels on the page with the point (0, 0) in the top left corner. The size is also specified in pixels. If both the width and the height are specified the image will be sized to fill the width and height and any excess will be cropped. Alternatively either the height or the width can be set to 0 and the image will be resized to match the specified size without cropping.

For example: assuming an image size of 1600x1200 (one of the medium settings from a Canon PowerShot G10) the resultant image size for various width and height values would be:

width=1000, height=0: image resized to 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels high (the app calculates the height as 1000*1200/1600)

width=1000, height=800: images resized to 1067 pixels wide by 800 pixels high and then cropped by equal amount left and right to give a final image size of 1000x800

width=0, height=800: images resized to 1067 pixels wide by 800 pixels high (the app calculates the width as 800*1600/1200)

The settings in the screen shot above show how a simple layout of two strips of four images printed on 6"x4" paper using a 300 dpi printer can be defined.

The page size in pixels can be displayed by first setting up the printer to the required page size and resolution and then pressing the "Print Info..." button. The layout can be previewed on computer screen by pressing the "Preview" button or printed by pressing the "Print Test Page" button.

When the custom layout option is used the number of rows and columns, image border, rotate and crop settings in the main photobooth settings dialog are not applicable and are grayed out.

Please note: The custom layout functionality was revised in PSRemote v1.9 and custom layout designs from previous releases may need to be updated if they use the "Copy left half of page to right to create a double strip" option.

Other output options

The images can be sharpened by selecting the "Sharpen images" checkbox and specifying a sharpening amount in the the range 0 to 100. The amount of sharpening required depends on personal taste, the camera and the printer. A value of around 75 is a good staring point.

Select "Print photos in B and W" to have the photos printed in black and white (grayscale) as opposed to color. In fullscreen photobooth mode black and white mode can be toggled on and off by typing Ctrl+W.

If the "Crop image if required to fit the printable area" checkbox is selected the image will be cropped to fill the printable area within the grid. e.g. if the printable area within the grid is square equal portions of the left and right of the image will be cropped to make it square.

Up to two captions can be printed by selecting the "captions" checkbox. Press the "Settings" button to display the dialog below to setup the captions:

Each caption can occupy more than one line if required and is left justified by default. Select the "Center justify" checkbox to center justify multiple lines. The size, font, color and rotation (in degrees clockwise) of the caption text can also be specified. The font size is calculated using the printer resolution and so a 72 point font should give text one inch high (one 'point' is 1/72 of an inch). The caption is printed in the selected font color with a transparent background. Tokens can be used in the caption text to insert values such as %d for the date and %t for the time the sequence started, {comment} for the comments entered in the main screen and {filename} for the filename used for the JPEG copy of the print layout.
Enter the position for the captions as offsets in mm from the top and the left of the page.

The easiest way to see how this all fits together is to run PSRemote and take some test shots. First setup the printer settings by selecting "Printer Setup..." from the File menu and then set basic photobooth settings using the setup dialog. The take a test sequence by pressing Shift+F4 or selecting "Photobooth Test Shot" from the File menu. This will take a sequence of images and create a test page which is saved as photobooth_test_shot.jpg. Load this image into an image editor (or BreezeBrowser Pro) to view the layout. Then make any changes to the background.jpg, header.jpg, footer.jpg or overlay.png images and the photobooth settings and take more test shots until you're happy with the layout.

Tip: To save having to setup the printer preferences every time PSRemote is run you can go to the Windows Control Panel, select "Printers and Faxes" then right click on the printer to change its preferences.

With left.jpg down the left border, middle.jpg placed between the columns, right.jpg down the right border and footer.jpg at the bottom

Same layout as the first example but with no left.jpg or right.jpg images defining the left and right borders

Same layout as the previous example but with no middle.jpg image placed between the columns

A custom layout where the size and position of each photo is specified individually

If full screen mode is selected (by pressing F11 or Ctrl+F4 to enter full screen mode and display the ready image) a series of images can be displayed to the user to show them what's happening and to advertise the photobooth. These images are held in the same folder as the background, header and footer images and are as follows:

ready.jpg - image displayed when PSRemote is ready to take the next set of photos

1.jpg, 2.jpg etc. - image displayed before taking the first, second, third etc. images together with the text specified in the setting dialog

release.jpg - optional image displayed when the shutter release command is sent to the camera

processing.jpg - image displayed after taking the photos while PSRemote formats and sends the page to the printer

camera_not_connected.jpg - image displayed when the camera is turned off or disconnected

These images can be JPEGs containing any information you like and are displayed centered on the display with a black background. The images 1.jpg, 2.jpg etc are displayed together with the text defined in the settings dialog which can be used to give a count down timer before each picture. The text is displayed centered below the live viewfinder display as white text with a transparent background. The following tokens can be used in the text:

Again, the easiest way to see how this works is to try it out. To do this run PSRemote then press Ctrl+F4 to display the ready screen. Then press Shift+F4 to take a test sequence or F4 to take the pictures and print them.

At startup: "ready.jpg" image displayed on screen and "ready.wav" played once (if present)

Sequence started: "1.jpg" image displayed on screen together with countdown text and "1.wav" played once (if present)

Approx 1 sec before taking picture #1: "taking.jpg" image displayed on screen and "taking.wav" played once (if present)

After taking picture #1: preview image displayed for the required number of seconds (if enabled in the settings) then "2.jpg" image displayed on screen together with countdown text and "2.wav" played once (if present)

Approx 1 sec before taking picture #2: "taking.jpg" image displayed on screen and "taking.wav" played once (if present)

After taking picture #2: preview image displayed for the required number of seconds (if enabled in the settings) then "3.jpg" image displayed on screen together with countdown text and "3.wav" played once (if present)

Approx 1 sec before taking picture #3: "taking.jpg" image displayed on screen and "taking.wav" played once (if present)

After taking picture #3: preview image displayed for the required number of seconds (if enabled in the settings) then "4.jpg" image displayed on screen together with countdown text and "4.wav" played once (if present)

Approx 1 sec before taking picture #4: "taking.jpg" image displayed on screen and "taking.wav" played once (if present)

After taking picture #4: preview image displayed for the required number of seconds (if enabled in the settings) then "processing.jpg" image displayed on screen and "processing.wav" played once (if present). During this time the images are formatted ready for output and either saved to file or sent to the printer queue. When this has finished the screen goes back to the "ready.jpg" image and the ready.wav sound file is played ready for the next sequence.

Once everything is setup simply run PSRemote and press Ctrl+F4 to enter full screen mode and display the ready screen. You probably don't want to have a keyboard on show otherwise users will be able to exit the photobooth mode and access your computer. There are a number of methods that can be used to start the photobooth shooting sequence:

Alternatively you could use a programmable USB input device which can be setup to send an F4 key press to PSRemote:
a) The Powermate from Griffin Technology (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate/) is an inexpensive and nicely made device which works very well.
b) The StealthSwitch (http://www.stealthswitch.com) is a very robust foot switch which simply needs to be plugged in to be used in fullscreen photobooth mode. No additional drivers need to be installed. The desktop hiding software that comes with the StealthSwitch should be disabled otherwise the photobooth screen will be hidden when the switch is pressed.

If "auto reconnect" is selected from the "Camera" menu the camera can be turned off when not in use and then turned it back on again to automatically restart photobooth operation. When the camera is turned off the camera_not_connected.jpg screen is displayed and when it is turned back on again the ready.jpg screen is displayed.

The keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, Ctrl+4, Ctrl+5, Ctrl+6, Ctrl+7, Ctrl+8 or Ctrl+9 can be used to specify the number of copies of prints when running in full screen photobooth mode. The number pad "add" and "subtract" keys can also be used to increase or decrease the number of copies. A small confirmation message is displayed for approximately 2 seconds in the bottom right corner of the display when the number of copies is changed.

To exit fullscreen photobooth mode either press the Esc key or hold down the SHIFT key and press the left mouse button.

Ctrl+K - switch to color mode but don't start the photobooth sequence (alternative for Ctrl+C)

Number pad '+' - increase the number copies of prints (up to a maximum of 9 copies)

Number pad '-' - decrease the number copies of prints (down to a minimum of 1 copy)

The last print layout can be reprinted by typing Ctrl+R in full screen photobooth mode. Alternatively select the output option to also save a JPEG copy and then use a browser or image editor to select and print the required layout.

First create a new image with a transparent background. Then create a mask by clicking on the "Add layer mask" in the layers palette.

Next add the graphics such as text overlays and picture frames to the image layer and use the layer mask to control the transparency. In the layer mask white represents opaque, black represents fully transparent and values between white and black represent increasing transparency.

Save a copy of the image as a PSD file for future reference and then save the image as a PNG file named overlay.png.