PhotoAlbum/CyberShow-Homepage

• Tips about usage of PhotoAlbum and CyberShow with UAE (the fastest running PhotoAlbum/CyberShow ever)
• Tips for users of digital photo cameras (new image rotation functions)

Contents

1. Short introduction of the programs

1.1 PhotoAlbum - The picture management software for all Amiga users

PhotoAlbum screenshot: 

PhotoAlbum is designed for high speed and reliability. Nearly all parts of the program are written in highly optimised 68k Assembler. Only the JPeg functions are based on the C code of the IJG.

PhotoAlbum supports more than 20 different picture file formats, in addition it supports Datatypes (incl. 24Bit-Datatypes). Nearly all of the formats can be loaded directly in downscaled form by esp. designed loading functions; this can bring enormous speed advantages for the downscaled viewing of large directories.

PhotoAlbum also offers extensive sorting functions, conversion function into different formats, several transfer functions (some with fast direct transfers, some by invoking ARexx commands of external programs) to programs like XiPaint, ImageFX, Photogenics, ArtEffect, ADPro and PPaint. It also offers an interface to CyberTVPlayer, the fast TrueColor animation player (included with CyberShow) and CyberShow, the universal viewer and slideshow presentation program with transition effects.

The HTML-Web-Page creation allows PhotoAlbum users to automatically create nice and practical Internet pages to access their picture collections. Such pages can be created with standard JPeg thumbnail files (usable on different platforms) and the usual picture subtitles. The so created web pages can be viewed on any platform with standard up-to-date HTML browsers, even through the internet.

1.2 CyberShow Professional - The slideshow presentation and universal viewer program

CyberShow Professional offers scrollable and zoomable viewing of pictures, presentations with transition effects, precise timing control, script programmed presentations, conversion functions, transfer function and more... CyberShow also does load the next picture of a presentation in advance into a picture cache memory, so that it should be available and ready to display without great delay at the desired time.

CyberShow Professional does also support more than 20 picture file formats, in addation Datatypes (even 24Bit datatypes).

1.3 Supported picture file formats

1) IFF-ILBM (all standard formats 1 to 8Bit, EHB, HAM6, HAM8, 15Bit, 24Bit)
2) PhotoCD (Base format 768x512 or 512x768 (portrait); linear 24Bit RGB)
3) JPeg (color and greyscale; incl. progressive JPeg)
4) PPM/PGM/PBM (P1&P4 b&w, P5 grey, P6 color)
5) QRT (also known as dump format by PD raytracers as POV-Ray)
6) Targa (RLE compr.&uncompr. 1/8/15/16/24/32Bit; incl. interleaved)
7) PCX (compr.&uncompr. EGA1-4Bit, VGA 8Bit grey/Colormap and 24Bit)
8) BMP (uncompr. 24Bit RGB,1Bit,4Bit or 8Bit Colormap; RLE compressed 8Bit,1Bit)
9) TIF (packbit-compr.&uncompr. 24Bit,1-8Bit grey/Color Motorola&Intel formats)
10) DEEP (compr.&uncompr. IFF-DEEP 24Bit and 32Bit formats)
11) YUV (color 1:1:1, 2:1:1, 4:1:1 and greyscale)
12) VLAB raw (color 1:1:1, 2:1:1, 4:1:1 and greyscale)
13) RGB (IFF-RGB: RGB8 and RGBN compressed)
14) HHsYUVSq sequence format (sequential or random access)
15) IFF-PBM (DPII) format
16) ACBM (IFF-ACBM: 1 to 8Bit, EHB, HAM6, HAM8)
17) FBM (8Bit grey/Colormap and 24Bit)
18) Sun raster (uncompressed formats for 1Bit, 8Bit grey/ColorMap and 24Bit)
19) MacPaint (b&w compressed 1Bit format; datafork only)
20) HHsXRL formats (1-8Bit ColorMap incl. HAM6/8, 8Bit grey, 24Bit RGB compressed)
21) binary-EPS bitmaps (RGB and CMYK; this function is experimental)
22) TBCPlus frames & fields
23) Datatypes (incl. 24Bit-Picture-Datatype interface support and for users with at least OS3.1 also
                        animation datatype support for the first frame of an animation)

1.4 Add-on-modules for ImageFX, the old Photogenics and XiPaint

Another function of all add-on-modules is the True color animation creation for playback with my free CyberTVPlayer (included with CyberShow) under Picasso 96 or CyberGraphX compatible graphic boards. For all modules there are scripts included, which can automatically create animations in HHsYUVSq format from directories of single pictures (frames). For some modules also conversion scripts are included, which can convert animations loadable by the image processing programs (e.g. IFF-ANIM) into the HHsYUVSq format.

For details about the functionality and usage of the modules and the needed program versions of the corresponding image processing programs please consult the documentation for each module, which is included in the module archives in the download area.

2. Current versions of the programs

PhotoAlbum: gfx/misc/photoalbum##.lha
CyberShow: gfx/board/cybershow##.lha
ImageFX-Modul: gfx/misc/fastifxmodul##.lha
Photogenics-Modul: gfx/edit/universalgio##.lha
XiPaint-Modul: gfx/misc/xipaintmodul##.lha

The programs can be used by interested persons as demo version and by registered users as update versions.

3. Registration information and contact address

My email address (for enquiries or online registrations) is: helmuthoffmann@arcor.de

My postal address is:

Helmut Hoffmann
Rubensstrasse 4
D-41063 Moenchengladbach
Germany

4. Frequently asked Questions & Answers

Is it possible to use PhotoAlbum/CyberShow also on a windows PC with the UAE emulator?

Yes, I tested this personally. If you plan to do so, you should ensure that you use an UAE emulator including "Just-In-Time" compiler (e.g. version 0.8.17 release 3), as this is faster by large factors compared to the traditional UAE simulator. When I first tested the new version, I could not believe my eyes, so high was the performance. On a standard PC (1GHz) even very large Jpeg pictures could be opened and viewed in less than one second, so that it is possible to work very fluently (on my old Amiga 3000 such JPeg pictures could need a minute to load).

If the transition effects of CyberShow appear to fast with such high CPU power, you can use the option ED (EffectDelay) to slow the effects down, so that they are nice to view again. The new CyberShow version now also allows a finer adjustment of the EffectDelay between 0.1 and 0.9 seconds per image (earlier versions only allowed whole seconds). To achieve this you have to specify -1 to -9 as value. Positive values will be interpreted as whole seconds, to maintain backward compatibility.

As I am myself now a passionate user of a digital photo camera, I extended my programs by useful functions for picture rotation. The picture rotration is possible by +/- 90 degree or by 180 degree. To use the 90 degree rotation enough memory should be available. The rotatino functions can be accessed by menue entries in PhotoAlbum and CyberShow.

The Sony DSC digital still camera also stores information about the rotation in the JPeg pictures. Unfortunately I have no official information about this; but I have extended my programs so that they can correctly interpret the rotation information from my camera to view the pictures automatically in the correct orientation.

If you have pictures from other Sony cameras or from other cameras, which should also contain such rotation information, but are not compatible with the currently implemented automatic rotation in my programs, please contact me. Maybe I can extend my programs in the future, so that they also automatically recognize this for many camera types...

Due to patent rights for the LZW compression theese formats can not be supported freely anymore in programs since some years. As better compression technics and more flexible file formats have been available since a long time as well, theese formats should be replaced. Unfortunately this has happened only in partial areas yet. Support of the LZW compressed formats in my programs on a payable licence way is also not practicable for me due to complex legal issues and paying modalities. Instead I suggest to use free Datatypes on the Amiga to load theese file formats.

On the Amiga you can find free Datatypes of other developers to load theese file formats. For GIF pictures I suggest to use the ZGIF datatype V39.18 from 30th March 1996, which can be found e.g. on Aminet (e.g. on Aminet-CD16) under util/dtype/ZGIFDT39.18.lha. (and .readme). This Datatype has proven fast and stable use on my system and also works in conjunction with 24Bit Datatype systems (but only upto 8Bit are used for GIF). For TIF-LZW files different datatypes can be used depending on your system configuration (as my programs support many other TIF variants internally, the Datatype will usually only be used for TIF-LZW pictures). If you have a 24Bit datatype installed on your system (e.g. the one included with the Picasso 96 software), you can find a 24Bit Datatype for TIF to be able to load 24Bit TIF pictures in full color quality. Other users can select TIF datatypes which convert 24Bit pictures down to 8Bit including dithering.

Since some time besides GIF pictures there also exist GIF animations. If you have installed a GIF-Anim datatype, this can get in conflict with your GIF picture datatype, so that you can get trouble in loading certain old or corrupt GIF pictures. It should be checked critically, if the GIF-anim datatype works stable esp. with corrupt GIF picture files. Unfortunately I have currently no suggestions for a stable GIF-anim-datatype.

My programs are written in highly optimized Assembler code for the motorola 68k processor family. A port to the PowerPC assembler (RISC) would be combined with unaccetable high efforts. A port to the C language followed by a compilation for PowerPC assembler would be theoretically possible, but would not bring much advantage in most parts, because the highly optimized Assembler loading functions would get larger by translation from C, which would compensate the higher PowerPC performance partially. In addition on many system configurations not the CPU but other components in the system architecture are the bottle neck for higher speed, e.g. harddisk speed. Only for some very CPU intensive compressions (esp. JPeg) larger speed advantages are thinkable.

The most-CPU-intensive picture format "JPeg" can alternatively be loaded by Datatypes in the current versions of my programs. If you have a fast PowerPC board and an optimised PowerPC JPeg 24Bit-datatype, you can make use of it now. The additional overhead of Datatype system usage will certainly compensate a part of the higher speed; due to this the datatype way is currently only available for JPeg. But also for PNG (which is currently not internally supported by my programs) you can get profit from a fast PowerPC-PNG-24Bit datatype.