Enable best settings for Photographs in Firefox

Friends you all know I am great fan of the Mozilla Web browser Firefox. Along with tech and Linux Digital Photography is also something that makes my heart flutter :) Here is a quick guide to enable optimal setting in your Firefox for displaying the best looking photos.

Go to address bar type about:config  and press enter.. now in the search bar type gfx.color
press enter. You should see the following entries with there default values.

gfx.color_management.enablev4   ----- false

gfx.color_management.mode    ------- 2

gfx.color_management.rendering_intent ------ 0

gfx.color_management.display_profile ----- blank

Now before we go on tweaking the settings make sure that you are set to use Color management at the OS level. I use Fedora Linux with KDE 4.10.x which has system wide color management enable.
For Windows look under Control Panel > Color management. Make sure the OS load the correct ICC profile for the monitor that you have.

You can also use the model specific tool for this.. for e.g my Samsung SyncMaster came with software to load the correct monitor profile and color setting tools. Check you vendor web site for updates or patches for your model. Now once we have a color profiled monitor and OS ...

Toggle gfx.color_management.enablev4   --- True.

Possible values and their effects

False    (default) Version 4 is not enabled
True    Version 4 is enabled

gfx.color_management.rendering_intent   change to    -1

Possible values and their effects

-1   

Honor the rendering intent specified in the image file.

0    

Perceptual 

(Default)

1    

Relative colorimetric

2    Saturation

3   Absolute colorimetric

gfx.color_management.mode  change to 1 

Possible values and their effects

0   Disable color management.
1   Enable color management for rendered graphics.
2  Enable color management for tagged graphics only. (Default)

"Value 0" equals "Color management disabled" — This means different things depending on the Operating System:

OS-X, Windows: RGB 'numbers' are passed straight to the monitor unchanged. 

"Value 1" equals "Full color management" — This means everything tagged is Converted to Monitor RGB, and everything untagged is Assigned sRGB and then Converted to Monitor RGB.

"Value 2" equals "Color management applied only to tagged images" — This means Tagged files are Converted to Monitor RGB and untagged RGB is sent straight to the monitor unchanged.

That's all it that simple to have better Photographs in Firefox, restart the web browser. If you find all this manual editing a bit of hassle use the "Color Management" add-on to do the same. Have fun :) 

Some personal musing on Linux...

Have been using Computers since early 80's old fond memories of chunky, springy old BBC micro keyboards back at school as small kids... staring at the small burning phosphor orange or green screens... it was all 'awe' and 'awesomeness' .. LOGO and turtle :D :D fun times.

Till early 90's I did not even own a personal computer... by mid-late when I did get one it costed an arm and leg. Had no idea about "free software"... back in the days one friend had a fast PC with the Pentium Pro chip ... we got hold of a Slackware CD via a popular computer mag.. booted with it and borked the windows 95 boot loader... I had to literately had to take the slack ;) for that... It was good I knew how to re-install Windows.

We had no Internet and support to speak of... First there was shell/acc (which was too expensive) and the dial up modems. I recall few people had heard of Linux/GNU in our circles. I once subscriber to a national level mailing list... as my software modem (sm56) would not work under Linux...  I was overwhelmed by the huge  volumes of emails in my inbox. Over 300 mails in 2 days.. It did not make any sense too.. (to be true mostly flame wars and ego trips). Had to unsubscribe in just four days.  

I was given the typical RTFM treatment, and asked to grind the soft modem type advise... being on dial-up and raking up huge phone bills... where I was paying by the seconds did not help.. need less to say I was put off ....  After a few years I did try Mandrake Linux and that did work with my dial up. I had to actually mail the maintainer of sm56 kernel module maintenance. He was kind enough to write out step by step commands. I did a actual compile of a custom kernel and module.. all without  realizing the depth or importance  of it. All I remember is that it took like three hours and forever.....  on my PIII :P

For years I did not look at Linux as a full time indulgence... things moved on the tech sphere.. was lucky to have indirect access to high speed Internet access via VSAT and ISDN via few government and research facilities. Saw them using Unix and Linux full time, the bug was on :)

A Indian tech mag had a big role in my trying Linux properly. There was a lot of useful discussion and proactive help. I even ended up been one of the unofficial beta tester for the distro they rolled out in '04, '05 and '06. After this there was a on and off spell of Linux Distro hopping ... Had a good run with the Sarge DVD... Fedora Core series. By now had seen all sorts of holy wars and flame wars on every thing under the sun from to call it GNU or not, KDE vs Genome, rpm vs apt vs yum, Windows vs rest of the to Open source world, happening/not happening Desktop Linux.  I had ADSL by this time, bills were reasonable now. 

Linux became main stream, at least usable for semi techie people. Lots of info on the Internet in the form of How-to, guides, web sites, and even videos. Major changes in hardware and better compatibly made things easy. Like all things tech ... things are moving at a rapid pace...  In all this my major observation is that the end user should have access to decent Internet speed. If he/she is driven enough the support and proper info can be found to make Linux work. Today points such as games/office suits/XYZ software on Linux is often mute. It works and works well indeed.

Major changes in hardware and virtualization technology, better and easy desktop environment, great hardware support in the latest stable kernels also made it easy for non *nix users to try out Linux and use it.  Now you do not have to a OS guru to install Linux. Don't want to install it just give a Live CD a try... it almost a non issue.

Now we are seeing a new wave of support issues, many places still don't have xDSL/cable or fiber. Many  people are on slow connections like GPRS, dial up even today. Many have just begun to taste the fruits of 3G wireless Internet. From what I have seen is 3G can be great enabler and can even used at places that do not have land-lines/xdsl. In this way my friends in the western countries are way better off.

For them it is just a matter of minutes or less then an hour at the maximum to try a new release DVD. On the other end for many of us it is still no fun to wait and keep downloading a DVD of around 4GB after several days. 

For what I see it is not some magical feature or the next killer app that helps in major Linux adaption, but it is rather the available of cheap data plans and faster Internet connection. Better hardware support for wireless devices like 3G HSDPA USB modems, pain less support for "tethering" with mobile phones. The Internet is "THE" medium of all types of content delivery , be it the all elusive killer cloud app or Linux adoption for the masses.    

Ridonklus I say!!!!!!!!!!!

Woke up this morning and logged into my Google+ plus account was checking out the updates from my various circles and enjoying my morning coffee. Noticed that the order of my circles were not at what I had set them at. Did not make a big deal of it... more coffee and surfing at Google+ ... As many of the regular readers of the blog will know that I am a big fan of KDE and digiKam photo management software. That from time to time I keep posting bits about both and beta test/file bug reports for them.

Along the same line I was testing and reporting an update for digiKam 2.0.0 ... it kept giving me an error "post could not be saved" as we know Google+ is still a public beta I thought it may be a temporary snag. Logged into my Facebook account and checked few updates ... the works ... now tried to post the update again on Google+ same error. Hmm what is going on ... well more checking of cool stuff at Google+ ....

Just happen to click on My Home link and BAM there it is !!!!! Oh the horror it seems my profile is suspended!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW wait a minute for what I say. I don't post Porn, nudity or hate speech in my circles. On the contrary have always helped fellow Google users with there problems. Have even help resolve and mitigate a nasty JavaScript worm that was spreading at Orkut in the past. Yes I am an early adopter of Google's Orkut Social network, have successfully manage and run huge community's at Orkut. My account is a verified one, have won several badges including "Uses most of orkut's features".

All the hoopla seems to be over the usage of "Monts Here". Well if it helps since day one I have had the same name on arch rival social network Facebook. All my friends know and call me 'Monts'. I am a amateur photographer and watermark/label my photographs with "Monts Here". I have the same name/id on Google's another social network photo sharing site Panoramio (http://www.panoramio.com/user/5700136) This was indeed much before the launch of Google+. On another popular photo sharing site Flickr I go by the ID 'Monts 4 ya' and that is indeed an old account. I have even posted photos back in 2006-2007.

"Please remember that we are currently limiting profiles to individuals and will be launching a profile for businesses and other entities later this year." Is what G+ says. I clearly state that I am a passionate armature photographer. It is not my profession, I do not make money from it. Nor do I sell any photography related product or services. I am a computer tech by profession and very clearly stated that on my G+ profile as well as my blog over here. however I do not sell any computer product, service or even support of any type on these social networks. The Google+ profile just like my Facebook profile is a personal one.

Well as a popular joke goes in India .. does all this has the hand of a foreign conspirator power ;) :p :p  or have I irked someone so much they are reporting that my profile is a fake one ??? hmm well could be or then maybe not... thought it does feel flattering to think so ;)

Google+ has been suspending the accounts with commercial id's and pseudo names... so for now at least I will rule the above conspiracy theories out. Do I think it is a bad thing ... well not really. It is a good thing and will keep things clean, good for security. Thankfully Google is not a one way street and they do listen to user feed back. All other Google services are working like gmail, blogger etc .... If those were blocked too that would have really made me mad indeed. 

So I here you saying 'Monts... so what is the ranting all about...' Well for once I would like to leverage the power of social networking for personal ends. I would request you to share the link to this post in your circles and friends on Google+. I have already filled the form to remove the ban. I have good faith in Google, but it never hurts if you have a few friends lobbying for you cause. Please post and re post on Google+ Thanks

Feedback from the whole episode :

• If and when a Google+ account is suspended for now you do not have any auto feed back. A mail would have been very polite. Thank you Google.
•  If you are active on a social network, normally you fill out 'about me' once and hardly update/edit the details every other day. No I am not self obsessed and do not check the about Me page everyday.
• By default one goes to the Stream page on Google+. The suspension note should be displayed there. UI/coder at Google+ should look into this. Accessibility tip :) 
• Kudos to Google of having the common sense of not disabling/suspending all other Google services linked to the account. As was reported before, that would have enraged me.

It is good that there is a link that lets you appeal against  the ban. But then "Reviews are usually completed within a few days." Bummer. Need for speed faster and better please few hours not days ... :D  Now hoping that the account will be back to normal very soon. :D Thanks all.

How to make HDR (High Dynamic Range) Images the quick and easy way

Often while surfing the Internet, Photo Blogs you come across some stunning landscape. You wish you could also capture photos like that. You do some digging around and come to know that the photo is of  HDR type (High Dynamic Range). You search the Internet for more info.. after few hours your head is full of so much technical jargon. You actually forget what you set out to do. 

It does not have to be this way. Today I will show you a step by step way to make your own HDR images. As always we will preffer to use Open Source tools and programs to do so. The program that we will use today is called Luminance HDR 2.0.2 It works under Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Digital-Photo-Tools/Luminance-HDR.shtml  To get the Windows version.

http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/?cat=5   To get the Source Code or Mac OS version

Download and install the version that fits the version of your O.S We will be using the Qt version on Fedora Linux, all the versions should look the same. Before we go on. Making good HDR images takes time and a lot of patience and experimentation. So enjoy and love the learning process. Now launch Luminance HDR 2.0.2 Click on New HDR Image. The HDR Creation Wizard will open.

Click on Next

Now Click on Load Image, you can choose Jpeg, PNG, GIF and even RAW files 

Select a file and choose Open.

Now change the EV value and Click Next.

Don't make any changes on this screen and Click Finish.

Now the Real experimentation begins, change the value of Mapping and see the change.

Now Click on Tone Map HDR Image (this will save the HDR image to a LDR format like Jpeg). Tone Mapping uses complex math algo to give it the HDR look. At this stage we have to select the size of the Image. You can keep the original size and re-size it. The bigger the size more time and CPU power is needed to make the HDR.Play around with the Operator Drop Down menu. See how the samples are rendered. Click of any one and Use Save As.

.  

A Sample HDR Image that I made.This was a quick how to on how to create a HDR image using one file (jpeg/Raw). Remember it's all about the experimentation. Good luck

How to have beautiful fonts under linux??

One of the common complain that I have seen from new users switching over to Linux from Windows

is that they find the default Fonts installed are not that 'great' 'clean' 'crisp' as in windows.

Most  modern Linux distros including Fedora do not enable any type of "anti-aliasing" out of the box. This leads to impression that the Fonts and rendering on Linux is not that good or as good as Windows or a Mac system. This is not true at all, under fedora core 14 (KDE)

Click Fedora Menu >  Computer > System Settings > Application Appearance > Fonts > Use anti-aliasing = Enabled, Now Click Configure; Tick Use Sub-pixel rendering = RGB Hinting style = Full; Ok

Fedora users can also download a patched version of freetype to have better results.

http://www.infinality.net/fedora/linux/14/x86_64/?M=D

http://www.infinality.net/fedora/linux/14/x86_64/freetype-infinality-2.4.3-2.20101117_1.fc14.x86_64.rpm

(I have tested this patch on a 15" laptop and 24" wide screen lcd 1920x1080 resolution with good results)

Or you can also download the latest source http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetype/files/freetype2/2.4.4/freetype-2.4.4.tar.bz2/download

and compile them ...

./configure

make -j6

make install

You must log off or reboot for the new setting to be in affect. Finally do remember that fonts and amount of "tweaking" aka anti-aliasing is a pure matter of personal taste and aesthetic sense. So do not be afraid to test and experiment with the settings to find your own sweet comfort spot. :D