Can software auto-detect image focus?

Question

I was wondering if there was any photo management software out there that could auto detect and "rate" images on how in focus they are. This comes up for me quite commonly when i am looking through a large series of macro images of the same subject.
In a perfect world, light room (or whatever program) could highlight in focus and out of focus ares the same way that it detects burned out areas of an image. Also the algorithm i am hoping exists would be smart and would not be detracted by blurred backgrounds and only seeks that some sufficient area is in enough focus.
Anything like that out there?

As another thought for people talking about pictures being in focus on the wrong spot, and that camera focus models already look into this. Another large factor for a lack of clarity in a macro image is blur from camera movement. This damages all points on an image, and is not something the camera accounted for when focusing.

Asked by Andrey

Answer

It's an interesting question. It's certainly possible for software to detect the parts of an image that is in focus, as it's the basis for focus-stacking software like Helicon Focus.

Focus stacking is a technique used by macro photographers. The depth of field in many macro shots is very shallow, so to extend this it's possible to take a set of photos of the subject, modifying the focal point in each one. Helicon Focus takes the stack of photos and detects the most in-focus parts of each image, and blends them together to produce a result where the entire subject is in focus. It's also possible to do this with some of the technology behind Hugin, but it's a bit more tricky to set up.

I think the difficulty in extending this for a general "in focus" check would be determining whether the subject is in focus - how do we automatically determine what the subject is? How much depth of field was required by the photographer?

Answered by Maynard Case

Check more discussion of this question.

Which Windows raw image viewer can only show jpeg, but on delete both raw and jpeg?

Question

I'm searching for an image viewer with the following features: (situation is, that both jpeg and raw are saved)

• windows (7) support
• when clicking through pictures only show jpeg
• when deleting photo, delete both raw and jpeg
• auto-rotate at EXIF-rotate attribute
• freeware

At the moment I use Faststone Image viewer, which has all wished features except show only jpeg (if raw exists) and delete both raw and jpeg.

Asked by Chris

Answer

Check out this tool: FastPictureViewer

I'm not sure if there is a free version available but for those who are intrested in buying a viewer that's able to do this... Just take a look :)

Answered by Thomas Dekiere

Check more discussion of this question.

How To work with Pick and Reject in Lightroom?

Question

I'm new in Lightroom and looking for Pick/Reject Workflows strategies. Actually I'm following the Workflow suggested at the lighroomlab.com (Using Pick and Reject Flags in Lightroom) which roughly says:

• Mark as Pick all the Pictures that deserves to have a second look on it
• Delete all Pictures not flagged as Pick
• Go through the pictures again and mark the one not wanted as Rejected
• Delete the Rejected

What are other good alternatives to this Workflow?

Answer

I usually work by rejecting, in several passes.

First eliminate ones that are out of focus and other technical problems. I keep an eye on the rest to get an idea of what the better shots are, but I don't make any picks yet. I might get rid of 20% in the first pass.

Second pass, having had a quick look at all the images, I eliminate another 20-30% that are obviously not going to make the cut.

Depending on how many images are left, I may do further passes eliminating the worst images, or I may change tack and start picking out the best ones. Sometimes it's pretty obvious, sometimes not. Really depends a lot on how many images I start with and how many I need to "keep".

The workflow you mention asks you to "pick" the ones you want a second look at. That is perfectly valid, and I sometimes do that. But I take a lot of shots usually, and my keeper rate is probably not that high, so for me, eliminating the bad ones first usually works best.

Check more discussion of this question.

How can I manage my raw+jpeg files?

Question

I shoot in raw+jpeg mode. Mainly because I like to do post processing, but my wife doesn't wan't to be bothered with that. She likes to be able to take the photo and upload it to facebook without any other steps.

After a session out with the family, I can easily come home with 300+ photos. Most are good, but some are not even worth keeping. They may be blurry, over exposed, etc...

Right now I go through the files and delete any jpeg/raw combo that I don't want. Is there any (preferably free) software that will help manage them? It would be nice if it would link the two together so when I rename/delete/move one it does it with the other as well.

ps.
If you have any tips on how you manage your files, I am all ears.

Answer

If you are looking for a free option Picasa is probably your best bet. You can match it up with Gimp to do some more advanced editing. The preferred solution by many is Adobe Lightroom, which you can find on sale for around $130USD right now I believe.

Depending on the camera that you bought, you likely received a disc of software with it that may even include some pretty good digital asset management software of its own.

Resources

This question that has many answers might help you, although it does cover paid as well as free options: What software is focused on reviewing and organizing images?

A great group of articles can be found at this link: http://www.neocamera.com/article.php?id=dam-software It explains in more detail about how using digital asset management software can benefit the photographer, as well as going into detail about the paid options available.

A blog post at this very site may help you out as well, it specifically outlines the options available in Adobe Lightroom, but the same basic feature set exists in any digital asset management software such as Picasa or Apple Aperture. Here is the blog post: http://photo.blogoverflow.com/2011/10/lightroom-fundamentals/

Check more discussion of this question.

What's a good strategy for choosing which photos to keep?

Question

Since moving from a 6 megapixel DSLR to a 12.5 megapixel micro-four-thirds, the much bigger file sizes (especially shooting RAW) mean that I can't be so open about keeping everything I shoot.

I only have a 640GB primary drive for all my video and stills, and a 640GB backup drive - and they are getting fuller every day.

But going through photos and deleting bad ones can be a tedious process. I've slowly been going through old photos and pressing delete if they are obviously out of focus or have too much motion blur. But it still leaves a lot of photos that just seem uninspiring, or where I have a lot of photos that are very similar, taking up space. I'm too worried to delete them since they're actually usable, and I may find a use in future.

• What is a good process for choosing what to delete and what to keep?

• At what stage of the process do think it's best to do it?

Answer

I don't know if this is a great system, but here's what I do:

1. After the shoot/session is done I immediately sort through every frame I took looking for the 'keepers.' I do it this way because for me it is easier to choose to keep the great shots than it is to delete the borderline shots... That may just be me. :-)
2. Next I sort through every frame I didn't put in the 'keepers' pile and look for anything that is bad enough to just trash immediately- usually there are a few out-of-focus or technically flawed photos that I didn't delete 'on-the-fly' which get taken out back behind the barn and put out of my misery.
3. I then look through the 'Keepers' and see if there are any 'holes' in the shoot that I will need to fill with the shots that weren't good enough to make my 'keepers' pile, but weren't bad enough to trash... Call it my 'marginal' pile if you will. If there are holes to be filled I then pick the 'best of the worst' to fill in those holes.
4. I post-process all the 'Keepers.' If it's a personal session I post 'em, if it's a professional session I work with the client further from there to close the contract. For client contracts this is it. I keep both the 'keepers' and the 'marginal' shots forever and get ingested into my backup solution (which is an entirely different process).
5. After some time has passed (I usually do this every month for any personal work that happened 3 months prior in order to allow myself a bit of perspective) I re-examine the 'marginal' pile to see if time has changed my initial impressions of those photographs... Usually there are a few in the 'marginal' pile that I like enough to keep. The rest are shown no mercy and get to go to the round file from there.

Check more discussion of this question.

What is the easiest way to strip 'iPhoto Original' and 'Faces' tags from photos?

Question

When I switched to Macs a few years ago, I started using iPhoto to manage all of my digital pictures. I then moved on to Aperture, and now I've just gotten annoyed with the single-file-library thing and I need to move on. Probably to Lightroom. I started uploading all of my images to Flickr as well and they all have the tag 'iPhoto Original' and the Faces feature from iPhoto tags.

What's the easiest way to strip out these tags without removing all the other EXIF information from a folder with 22 gigs of pictures in it?

Answer

I had the same problem. In Aperture, choose the Window -> Show Keywords HUD menu item. Click on the "iPhoto Original" keyword, and press the delete icon. You can do this with all other objectionable keywords.

Incidentally, Aperture allows you to have multiple libraries. Look under the File menu.

Check more discussion of this question.

How to best manage photos with Lightroom?

Question

I recently started taking RAW photos and purchased Lightroom 3 to manage them. So far I have not found the ideal way to manage them. Here's basically how my workflow goes:

1. Import the RAW files from the camera to a specific import folder.
2. Edit the RAW files.
3. Once the pictures look good, convert the files to JPEG and save them to my photo album folder.
4. Keyword the photos, possibly add comments etc.
5. Save the original RAW files to external hard drive.

Currently Lightroom does not know my photo album folder exists and I've used it only to edit the pictures in the import folder.

However, I'd like to use Lightroom also to manage my photo album. But what would be the best way to handle that? Is there a better way than to export the photos to my album and them import the album folder? I assume export does not include the ratings etc if I set them while editing the RAW files?

Ideally I would of course keep the RAW files in my album, but my laptop has limited hard drive space, so I can't do that. Besides, I like to keep all the album files in JPEG so I can use them easily anywhere without additional exports.

Answer

It sounds like you're fighting Lightroom's natural workflow a bit. Here's my suggestion, which is pretty close to a "standard" workflow for Lightroom:

• Import your RAW files. As part of the import, you've got the option to move the files to another location -- that would be your external drive. Following the import, then, Lightroom knows about your photos, and the location it knows for those RAW files is the external drive.
• Keyword tagging and ranking in the Library module.
• Edit any photos you wish in the Develop module -- it's ok to swap this step with tagging if you'd rather do it in that order.
• Export your photos to your album folder.

At this point, you can disconnect your external drive and you'll still have the photos in your album. If you want to do any work with those photos, though, you'll have to have your external drive connected.

Regardless of whatever tuning you do to your workflow, you want to make sure that once photos become known to Lightroom, you're using Lightroom to manage moving those photos, if necessary. This is because Lightroom handles all of its manipulations and metadata as additions to your original photo (your RAW files). If you change the location of that RAW file in a way that Lightroom isn't aware of, you're going to end up having to help Lightroom find the new location for that file before it can continue.

Check more discussion of this question.