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Turn Your Photos Into WebPage Images ~ Part II

ADH-HH's Tips & Tools editor: ericB

In the last issue's column, Dave (Allstondave) supplied us with a way to get photos from your developed roll of film onto your web page.
Below is an "overly simplified" summary:
[ For his complete article, click here.]

Preparation

  • subscribe to TL/2, Anthony's (StarBlvd) premium transloader
  • assign TL/2 to an "F-key"
  • save "Hootie's WebTV Jumps" to an F-key
  • save the Domania Freeloader on another F-key [ This gives you both a link* at the bottom of the results page (so you can view your uploaded photo & see if it worked) and thus an easy jump directly to Hooties for further processing; and it lets you rename the photo.]

*[ note: In order to get the link at the bottom of the results page mentioned above, be sure you enter your homepage "base URL" in the text box provided ... such as: http://members.tripod.com/~membername ... leave off the "/" after "~membername"]

Then you would:

  • take your film to a Ritz Camera location
  • have your pictures uploaded to their website ("Ritz BigPrintNet")
  • pick up your order with an assigned User ID and password
  • go to their site (www.ritzcamera.com)
  • enter User ID & password, & log-on
    [ note: your "roll" will be located under "Big Print Net" in their sidebar]
  • load your "BigPrints" thumbnails
  • click on a photo
  • click "Download" from right hand menu
  • click "Start Download" button
This will give you a larger view of your photo.
From there:
  • Hit your "Go To" key, then "Show Last"
  • select "Go To Page" to get your photo alone
  • hit your TL/2 F-key and enter into TL/2
  • scroll to "Progressive HTML Extractor"
  • on the "Download and Extract" drop-menu select "Download"
  • after the downloading finishes, scroll to "Pool / FTP Manager"
  • enter into Pool / FTP Manager
In your file pool list, you'll see the URL of your photo ending in ".zip" with a zipper symbol next to it. Click on the zipper symbol. In a few seconds you'll see your pool list again, this time also with your photo URL in JPG format. Click on the JPG URL to see your photo.

  • Hit your Freeloader F-key and go through the process as usual
  • if you just want your photo, you're DONE!
  • else: from there at the bottom of the Freeloader results page you can click on the new URL of your photo, and see your picture *[ see note (above) ]; &/or continue on to Hootie's to get the dimensions, reduce the file size, transfer to ImageMagick to modify, & then back to the Freeloader to transfer it to your home page directory.

Allstondave's article presented an interesting method of getting your roll of photos onto & useable for a web page. Although it addressed Classic users, the method will also work for Plus users. Due to the different specs of the units, your wait time may be shorter on a Plus & you should be able to use his method with less cache clearing. If you are going to test drive his tip via Ritz's sample "BigPrintNet," be sure you follow his directions! Do not do as I did and click on "Show Current" button when the instructions call for "Show Last." It won't work. Ahhhh, well, it's good to know I'm only human. :~))

ADDITIONAL INFO   For us Plus users &/or those who would like to stay within TL/2 to do most of the above, here are a few short-cuts.

You can save up to 12 zipped photos at "one-time" into your TL/2 Pool. This requires a little creative use of your "Recent" key. From within the Ritz site, when you have "downloaded" your first photo and viewed it on a page by itself (gotten it's temporary Ritz URL), do not hit the "Back" key to select your next photo to "download." Instead, hit your "Recent" key. You'll see the Recent thumbnail ("pic") of the Ritz BigPrints thumbnails selection page (the one that has all your BigPrints displayed). Click on that Recent's "pic." Repeat the process to view each desired zipped photo (suggest up to 10 views but you can do 12 views).

Right after viewing your 10th or 12th zipped photo & before you go to TL/2, click on the "Recent" key. You will find the various screens between your "BigPrint thumbnails selection page" & the "temporary URL view of just your zipped photo" are not shown. I'm not sure but I think this is because these steps are done within a frame.

Whatever the reason, each photo that you viewed will be displayed on your Recent page however. Go thru & re-view each one on your Recent's page in sequence by clicking on it's thumbnail, then, use the "Recent" key to get back to view the next one. After you have re-viewed each photo, then go to TL/2. At the Progressive HTML Extractor select "from your recent history" & you will notice the temporary URL of each of the zipped photos you just viewed, listed right after each other. Select each photo & one by one download them into your TL/2 Pool. You can now go back to the Ritz site, select your BigPrints & repeat the process to get the next 10 or 12 of your desired zipped photos into your TL/2 Pool. One advantage of this is you can get your photos into your TL/2 Pool rather timely & not have to worry about them "timing-out" at the Ritz temporary URL.

There are a few things to remember.

  • Although the interim screens between the BigPrintNet thumbnails selection screen & the view of the zipped photo are not saved in your "Recent" memory, they are saved in your URL History. Therefore, in the Ritz site there are three URLs saved in your URL History for each process of select-photo then "download" then view-photo. Before going to TL/2, if you do not go thru & re-view the photos from your "Recent" memory as mentioned in this section, you will only be able to access about four of your photos from TL/2's URL History.

  • The files in your TL/2 Pool only remain there for three days. If you're not going to be able to actually unzip all of them at this time, be sure to transload the "zipped" files to your website directory. You can later re-enter into your directory thru TL/2's Pool / FTP Manager, download them back into your Pool and unzip them at that time.

  • The TL/2 URL History has the most recent URL listed first. Each new URL visited pushes the oldest URL off the bottom of the list. Each select/download in TL/2 takes up two URL listings in your URL History (Pool / FTP Manager page's URL & transition page's URL). It's advisable not to begin with the first listed photo URL (the last one viewed) but to scroll down the history list to the first viewed photo's URL, download it into your Pool, then go to the second viewed photo's URL, download it, etc.

BTW, using the "Back" key in effect erases the "current" URL from your URL History. That is the reason once you have viewed your zipped photo in the Ritz site you do not want to use the "Back" key or you will erase the temporary URL of the zipped photo from your URL History. Like most sites that allow you to temporarily store results on their site, the temporary URLs on the Ritz site may only remain for an hour (maybe less). However, that is more than enough time to select and download into your TL/2 Pool.

From talking to Dave & trying this out, I learned even the unZIPped files mentioned above can be from 30k-60k, at least. Considering I have used the Kodak PhotoNet service and my JPG pics averaged 10k-20k, I'd say there was a whole lot more info in the zipped photos. Neither Dave nor I can definitively attest zipped photos are of greater resolution (we haven't yet made a head to head comparison using "identical" prints), but we believe so.

Two other very neat aspects of Ritz Camera is the ability to also have your photos returned to you either on a CD or a disk. If you do elect to have your pics also returned, they will come in a nice, protective & easy to store "RitzPak" (storage case), presumably which will include the CD or disk if that feature is selected. If there is the possibility you will not be able to upload from their BigPrintNet right away, or you just want a "backup" copy of your photos, this may be a viable option. Most such services offer similar features.

In a subsequent issue(s) we hope to detail how to use both Kodak*s PhotoNet and another service called PhotoPoint, along with other similar services. One service may suit your purposes better than another.

ADH-HH's Tips & Tools editor: ericB


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