Thanks for opening this file. You will really benefit from reading the contents. Cameraid is a relatively simple program, but in order to get the most out of it, you have to understand what it was written to do and how it achieves this.
Contents:
Shareware Notice
Background
Digital Camera Operations
The Viewer
Drag and Drop
File Dates & Info
Contacting the author
Shareware Notice
Cameraid is shareware. This means that if you use it regularly, you really should pay me $15 for using it. That's not a big price to ask, if the program is of any use to you. Once registered, the "splash screen" (where it says you have to wait 10 seconds) will no longer appear. Cameraid is much nicer to use when it starts up pretty much instantaneously.
Background
A few years ago, I noticed that I had accumulated a large number of PICT files on my hard disk. I tried to use JPEGView to decide which ones would stay and which ones I would throw away, but you could only look at the pictures in JPEGView and you had to remember the filenames to get rid of them in the Finder.
The file viewer in Cameraid is very simple and it's a lot like a slide projector. It opens PICT and JPEG files. If there's a preview image, it stores that in RAM for faster access. Only one picture at a time is shown and only one picture window is open. You operate the scroll bar or use the keyboard to "change slides". I recommend using the keyboard. Open the quick reference window from the Help menu to see what keys can be used.
The original idea was that you could grade pictures and then rename the ones with low grades so that you could find them easily in the Finder. You can still do this, but you can also drag and drop files directly from the viewer window now.
I decided to make Cameraid shareware when I implemented the digital camera serial transfer support. I'll do my best to make the program work with all the cameras in the same "family". It probably works best with Agfa cameras, because that's what I have, but it should also work with Olympus, Sanyo and Epson cameras. (Hint to camera manufacturers: if you donate a camera, I'm more likely to get the thing working than if I don't have a camera to test with...)
Digital Camera Operations
I assume your camera came with software and it doesn't make sense for me to replace all the functionality that the software offers. Cameraid offers you a minimal set of functions. In return, it starts up quickly, downloads well as a background task (you should be able to continue work or view images while it downloads) and it offers you more flexibility in naming the files than most programs that are bundled with digital cameras.
You can achieve 115 and 230 kbps, if your Macintosh supports serial DMA and your camera supports the speed. Cameraid will automatically switch to 57600 if you try to use a speed that is not available on your computer, but you have to manually switch to a lower speed, if your camera doesn't support it.
Many older cameras only support up to 115kbps. Olympus models including and after the C-820L and D-320L all seem to support 230kbps. The Agfa ePhoto 1280 only does 115 kbps. Even so, Cameraid is usually significantly faster than the software that came with your camera. For instance, downloading 4 photos using Camedia 2.1 took 55 seconds when it only took 33 seconds using Cameraid.
If downloading doesn't seem to work at 230 kbps, try a lower speed. Note that Olympus Camedia utility software is capable of operating at 115kbps and possibly higher even on machines without DMA serial ports - they are bypassing the drivers and accessing the hardware directly to do this. Due to other problems in their software, you may be able to obtain almost the same speed with Cameraid at 57600 bps.
Camera performs two tasks:
- It can download all the pictures in camera memory to the computer.
- It can erase all pictures in the camera memory.
My experience was that I almost never had to download just a few pictures at a time, so this should satisfy 95% of your needs. If you need to download just a few pictures, use the software that came with your camera.
The benefit of using Cameraid for downloading:
- It's usually quite a bit faster than other programs. (20 to 40% faster)
- Cameraid allows you to view and edit each picture as soon as it arrives.
- Allows you to use the computer for other tasks while Cameraid is downloading.
- File dates can be set to the time when the picture was taken.
Cameraid never overwrites existing files. If you start a download to a folder that already has files with similar names, it will renumber the files so that the old ones are not overwritten.
If Cameraid prompts you for a new location for a file even when you have given one at the start of the download, it usually means that the disk is full or some other disk-related error occurred. Try a different location or cancel the transfer.
The file naming scheme is quite flexible. To put it simply, each # character in the file name pattern you entered in the Digicam Control window will be replaced with a number. This allows you to control the number of leading zeros, for instance. If there aren't enough # characters in the name, more numbers will be appended to the name.
Some examples:
pattern first file tenth file file 123
Image # Image 1 Image 10 Image 123
Image ## Image 01 Image 10 Image 123
Image ### Image 001 Image 010 Image 123
# pic 1 pic 1 pic 0 1 pic 23
PIC##### PIC00001 PIC00010 PIC00123
PIC###.JPG PIC001.JPG PIC010.JPG PIC123.JPG
Once all the pictures have been downloaded and you have verified that they are OK, you can erase the pictures in the camera. Make sure the Digicam Control window is active and select "Erase All Pictures in Camera" from the Digicam menu.
The Viewer
The important thing to realize is that even though you see one picture at a time, they are all there. It's pretty much analogous to a slide projector.
The most powerful thing about Cameraid is that you can load up a large number of pictures and then view and grade them quickly. Once graded, you can drag and drop (or mark) the ones you liked and disliked as groups.
The keys to use are pretty easy to remember and they make the program much faster to operate. If you don't like keyboards, you can do most operations (except increase/lower grade) with the menus.
Renaming files is especially fast in Cameraid. Use the keyboard shortcut "r" to rename a file.
Drag and Drop
NOTE: With System 7, the Finder is quite buggy and may not always do what you expect. System 8 Finder implements drag and drop correctly.
A simple drag and drop from the viewer window will drag a gray outline of a circle. This represents the file that is currently visible in the window. You can drag it just like you would drag an icon from the Finder. If you want to open a picture in PhotoShop, just drop the circle over the PhotoShop icon.
To drag and drop all the files that you have opened into Cameraid, hold down the shift and control keys when you start the drag. The circle will be much larger and have a thicker border, if there's more than one file to drag.
To drag and drop all the files with a negative grade, hold down the control key while starting the drag. The gray shape will now be a square with a minus sign in it. You could for instance control-drag files that you don't like straight into the desktop trash.
To drag and drop all the files with zero or positive grades, hold down the shift key while starting the drag. The gray shape should look like a square with a plus sign in it.
If there are no files to drag, no gray shape will appear at all. If there's only one file to drag, the shape will be smaller than if there are many.
Cameraid tracks files with aliases. If you move a file while it is open in Cameraid, Cameraid will find it in its new location. This means that if you drag and drop a file into the wrong folder in Cameraid, you can just drag it again from Cameraid without having to go dig it up from the wrong folder.
File Dates & Info
For digital camera pictures, you can set up Cameraid to automatically look for special tags that are included in the picture data. These tell how and when the picture was taken. If the info is present, it is shown in the bottom of the viewer window. You can have the file creation and modification dates adjusted automatically to the exact time when the picture was taken or you can have it done to all the open pictures manually (hit cmd-T or use the menu command).
Note that it takes a bit of time to change the date of a file. Cameraid operates a bit faster if you have the automatic date adjustment turned off.
I have also included a program called FolderDateSynch with Cameraid. If you drop a disk or a folder onto this icon, it will scan through that hierarchy and change all the modification dates of the folders to represent the newest file contained within that hierarchy. If there are no files in a folder, the date will be untouched. Be careful, because changing these dates might affect your file backup system (if you have one).
The best time to use FolderDateSynch is when you are about to burn a CD-R. Just drop the source disk onto FolderDateSynch. If the pictures already have the correct dates, then the folder dates will also represent the correct time of the contents.
If in doubt, don't use FolderDateSynch.
Contacting the author
The official Cameraid web page is <http://www.clinet.fi/~jmunkki/cameraid/>
You can E-mail me at: cameraid@kagi.com
If you want to send me regular mail, you can, but please don't expect a reply (unless you know how to be very persuasive). My address is:
Juri Munkki
Ehrensvèrdintie 20B8
FIN-00150 Helsinki
Finland
Remember that Cameraid is $15 shareware ╨ register today
