| Notes on using the photo booth mode in DSLR Remote Pro, PSRemote, Webcam Photobooth and NKRemote
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Part 2: What the user sees (and hears)
Next article: Input options
Previous article: Overview
Overview of screen layout
The screens displayed to the user are defined by a series of JPEG images stored in the photo booth images folder ("C:\Users\Chris\PhotoboothImages" in our example). The JPEGs should be the same size as the screen resolution - if they are smaller than the screen resolution the extra area will be displayed as a black border and a warning message will be shown in the bottom left hand corner. If the images are larger than the screen resolution the extra area won't be visible. You can check the screen resolution by right clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting "Personalize" then "Display Settings".
The available screen images are:
If the live view display option is selected the default setting is to display the live view images centered at the top of the screen with the countdown text displayed below. Any messages or graphics in the screen images should leave space for this otherwise they will be covered up by the live view images. The size and vertical positioning of the live view can be changed using the height and offset values in the photobooth settings dialog. Here is an example "ready" screen display with live view:
Playing sounds
Windows wav sound files can be played at the same time as each of the screen images are displayed to the user. To do this simply copy the wav file into the photo booth images folder and give it the same name as the screen e.g. to play a sound when the ready.jpg image is displayed the sound file should be named ready.wav. The sound file will be played until either it reaches the end or another sound file is placed in which case the new sound file is played instead. This means you can have a long ready.wav sound file that repeatedly plays a welcome message and instructions and then have a 1.wav sound file that is played when the sequence starts. The 1.wav file will stop the playing of the welcome message in the ready.wav file and either be a silent file or say something like "Look at the camera!".
Screens showing color/B&W and number of print copies
It is also possible to display different screens depending on whether color or black and white mode is selected and the number of print copies. This makes it possible to show the user which settings have been selected and could be used as part of a touchscreen menu system (please see the article on "Input Options" for details).
The way it works is to check for a suffix after the filename for the appropriate screen image in the form <screen>_<b|c><1..9>.jpg where <screen> is the name of the screen image e.g. "ready", <b|c> is the color mode: "b" for black and white or "c" for color and <1..9> is the number of print copies e.g. "1" is one copy is selected.
For example when the ready.jpg image is to be displayed, the color mode is set to black and white and the number of print copies is set to 2 the software will look for a suitable screen image in the following order:
ready_b2.jpg - i.e. "ready" + black and white + 2 copies selected or if this isn't found it looks for:
ready_b.jpg - i.e. "ready" + black and white or if this isn't found it looks for:
ready_2.jpg - i.e. "ready" + 2 copies selected or if this isn't found it looks for:
ready.jpg
So to have screens to indicate the color mode and the number of print copies from 1 to 3 you need the following "ready" screens: ready_c1.jpg, ready_c2.jpg, ready_c3.jpg, ready_b1.jpg, ready_b2.jpg, ready_b3.jpg.
When a setting is changed, e.g. the color mode is set to black and white, the screen image is updated automatically to show the user the current status.
Cropping of live view images
The live view images can be cropped in fullscreen photo booth mode. This is useful when the "Crop image if required to fit printable area" is selected because it allows you to adjust the cropping of the live view images to match the printed output and avoid problems where the users see more in the live view than is actually printed.
To adjust the live view cropping first select fullscreen photo booth mode and then hold the Shift key down and either use the mouse wheel or the left and right cursor keys to crop the image. The settings are saved when the software exits and are reloaded next time it runs.
Next article: Input options
Previous article: Overview
