With the increase in quality and drop in price of digital photosgraphy, many people discover that they can now take many photographs and then import them into their computer. This leads to the need for a good program for importing, managing, and outputing these images. Adobe Album is such a program. You can use it to connect to and download your images, organize them using tags, create web pages, send them to a service bureau to print, link to Photoshop for editing, remove red-eye and do many other tasks.
Setting up your environment
In general, if you use Windows XP or Windows 2000, you do not need to install
any programs that come with your camera or card reader. The first time you attach
your camera or a card reader to your computer, if you are working in Windows
XP, the computer will ask what program you want to use to interact with the
camera or reader. Choose Adobe Album. One exception to this is if you have a
project where you are not using JPEG. For example, suppose you do an archival
project using Nikon NEF format. In this case, you should install Nikon's image
management program (called Nikon View) and use it to download.
When you load Album, a window entitled Quick Guide wilol open (pictured below). The tabs under the title duplicate the functions illoustrated below them. The first task you'll probably want to try, importing photos, is circled in red.
Importing Photos
Most digital cameras now come with a cable (USB type) to connect your camera
to your computer. You can also use a card reader. These devices are inexpensive
and often are substantially faster than a direct camera attachment. In either
case, in the Quick Guide window, click Camera. A dialog will open. The computer
lists your camera or card. Click to download. Let the software delete the photos
from the card normally. This may seem to be a risk, but there are two good reasons
to do this. First, the software will not delete the images until after the download
is complete. Secondly, the memory card is a disk being managed by a very primitive
operating system (in the camera). IF you don't delete the photos, it is tempting
to open the carde volume on your computer and do things like renaming or re-organizing
files. This is a very bad idea. Often the camera will not recognize them. Let
the camera and Adobe Album managae the card. Don't go to My Computer and open
the volume. Its too dangerous. This does mean that you should back up your images
to CD-R or DVD-R or the network as soon as possible. See
more about this later when we discuss exporting images.
Once you are importing, the Quick Guide will disappear and you will see your photos (just the ones you've just imported) in the screen. The reason you only see the photos you've just imported is because a selection criteria for them has been set. This is why, in the example below the computer indicates 18 matching and 40 not maching. If you click the Clear button (circled in red), you'll see all your images.
The "normal view in Album is like that shown below. From here you can organize photos, search for photos, edit photos, send photos to a service bureau for printing, export photos to make a backup CD or for some other purpose, etc. The Help files provide details. This document adds a few supplementary tips by topic.
Organizing Photos in Album
Album organizes images by date and time (see the timline along the top of the
viewing window) Click a date to get photos for that date. The other primary
methid used by Album is Tags (see the left side of the screen in the above image.)
You can use built-in or your own tags. The Tips below the tags tell you how
to work with the tags. The main idea is that you will drag tags by name onto
photos to place the photo in that catagory. For example, dragging the "Family"
tag on top of any photo places it in the Family catagory.
Although you should be cautious about directly editing or moving them, you might want to know where Album puts your files. Inside your "My Documents" folder is a folder called My Pictures. Windows stores your imasges here. You'll find a folder named Adobe. Inside that Album sets up one folder for photos and another for scanned images. Each import date, Album creates a folder inside the Photos folder for that date. This is where your images are.
Editing/Fixing Photos
There are two basic ways to do editing in Album. First, if you select a photo,
you can pull down under Edit to "Edit with Photoshop." The comptuer
will load Photoshop for you and open the Image. Do all the normal editing tricks
in Photoshop to enhance your image.
Secondly, you can pull down under Edit to "Fix Photo..." This opens a window with a fair number of standard controls for photo editing including Auto Contrast, Auto Color, Auto Levels, and Sharpen. The Sharpen button does a basic Unsharp sharpening. Album also has a quite good red-eye repair capability. To use it, click the Red Eye Removal button. A rectangle appears on your screen Adjust the size and position of the rectangle until it encloses one or more red-eyes (caused by a camera flash bouncing off the blood vessels in the back of the eye.) Then click the Red-eye removal button.
No matter how you edit, Album protects your original photo. This is a good idea. You can always pull down under Edit to Revert to Original to resore back to the original that you imported from the camera.
Searching for Photos
Album has a wealth of search methods built-in. Just pull down under Find and
explore your options. The Help files willo explaing any confusing details. Note
that when you do a search, the program will end up showing you your selected
subset. Click Clear as in the example above to go back to viewing all the files
in your catalog.
Sending Photos to a Service Bureau for
Priniting
Select one or a group of photos to order. Click Order Online and pick a service
bureau. Follow their web instructions. We use service bureaus thaqt are not
in this list (such as Kodak or Snapfish) To export to these, open a workspace
(under file), drag your photos into it (details under Exporting below). Note
where you put the photos. Connect to your service bureau using a browser and
they will help you upload.
Exporting Images
First create a workspace using File -> New Workspace
More info to come. This page is a work in progress!
Author: Bob Fry
June 28 2004