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Picture
CD: First Impressions
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02/15/99
While Kodak has moved into digital cameras
in a big way, they're not abdicating film as a
medium for getting images into a computer. Film
processing companies are already offering to
develop your film and provide you with low
resolution scanned images on a floppy or via the
Internet. Kodak's new Picture CD does the
same thing -- providing digitized images from
either 35mm or APS film -- but delivers medium
resolution images on a CD-ROM.
Kodak
has some experience in this. Their Photo CD
-- originally developed as a consumer format
&endash; was introduced over six years ago. Photo
CD provides digitized images on a CD-ROM, but
proved more popular for professionals than for
consumers. Kodak now markets Photo CD entirely as a
professional product.
Now
Kodak is trying the consumer market again with
Picture CD. While in principle it sounds like Photo
CD, it actually differs in several important ways.
Picture CD has been in test markets for the last
few months and is now being slowly rolled out into
the entire US. This rollout should be completed by
the middle of 1999, at which point Kodak expects to
launch a large advertising campaign.
Picture
CD differs from Photo CD in the following
ways:
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Picture
CD
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Photo
CD
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Software:
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Included
on disk or use standard graphics
software
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Custom
software (though many graphics
applications can now read Photo CD
disks)
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Image
resolution:
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35mm:
1024x1536
APS: 864 x 1536
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35mm:
2048 x 3072
Other resolutions possible
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File
format:
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JPEG
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Proprietary
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Cost:
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as
low as $8.95 per roll
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Varies:
from about 50 cents an image up to
$3.00+
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Availability:
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1
hour facilities as well as over night
service
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Some
facilities provide same day. Frequently
takes several days.
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Picture
CD will be available for overnight processing
($8.95) per roll, or at some 1 hour photo finishers
for $9.95 MSRP. The actual files are less than 500K
each, so a Picture CD could hold multiple rolls of
film. However Kodak says that this option will only
be available at 1 hour developers. Over-night
processing requires that a separate roll be placed
in a separate photo-finishing envelope and will
therefore be returned on multiple discs. Kodak says
this is a limitation of the way photo-finishing
services have been set up to handle these
envelopes. [Note: I have had multiple rolls in
separate envelopes digitized on a single Photo CD.
The secret is to label them in large letters 1 of
3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3 etc., write instructions on each,
and if you can, use a rubber band to lump them
together! Whether this will work for Picture CD I
don't know yet!]
Photo
CD included no software on the disc and required
graphics applications to be altered to read the
proprietary file format. Macintosh users may
dispute this; when they insert a Photo CD they see
a viewer application, but this is actually a
"trick" of the Macintosh OS!
The
Picture CD disc includes a viewing and editing
application for Windows 95/98 NT. The viewer
application provides a "magazine" interface to the
software and images stored on the disc. Kodak plans
to change the software placed on the discs
regularly; with six "issues" per year. You do not
have to use this software to access the disc; you
can use a standard editing application to open the
JPEG files. While Kodak says that Macintosh and
Windows 3.1 systems are not supported by
Picture CD, this is only for the software included
on the disc. You can still open the images using
any editing application. The disc is a standard ISO
9660 disc.
The Picture CD Magazine interface displays
thumbnails of the images (left) and simple editing
options (bottom left and
right.)
When
inserted into the PC, the application opens
automatically showing the magazine "cover."
Clicking on this presents another window listing
the images on the disc on one side, and a list of
"topics" on the other. This list of topics actually
takes you to simple editing functions, and lets you
edit the files.
I
didn't spend too much time with this as the
software is somewhat limited &endash; but the red
eye reduction and simple image adjustment controls
may be the only features that the casual user
needs.
The
software saves thumbnails of the images to your
hard disk, providing an index that's available
without having to reinsert all your discs. Also,
the editing software saves updated images to the
Kodak Picture CD directory on your hard disk and
when you access the viewer it will display these
updated files instead of the original files on the
Picture CD disc (though you can revert to the
original file if you want to.)
Whether
you get a 1 hour disc or overnight processing, the
contents of the disc should be the same. However,
while the overnight disc has inkjet printing of the
disc number and date, there will be no such
identification on a 1 hour CD. This may make
sorting through your discs a little
confusing.
The
sample images on a Picture CD supplied to me looked
impressive; similar in quality to the scans from
Photo CD (though obviously at lower resolutions.)
Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to get my
own disc made.
Over
the years I have made many Photo CDs, so I was
curious about Kodak's reasons for switching to
Picture CD for consumers. When Photo CD was
originally released it was a consumer format too;
yet the images are much larger.
James
Holmes, Manager of Software content says that
when they developed Photo CD they were digitizing
practically to the grain. Given limitations of the
Internet, consumer requirements, and the speed of
CD burners, Kodak felt that the new size would be
acceptable since you can get a "pretty good" 8 x 10
from these images. Obviously the additional
software will also make Picture CD easier to use
for the casual user. Also, since the images are in
standard JPEG format in a standard disc format,
they can increase resolution if customers demand
it.
I've
been very happily using Photo CD for many years,
but I'm really interested in trying Picture CD.
Most of my work is lower resolution, multimedia
(screen) work. I rarely even open the larger
resolution Photo CD images. Also, it usually takes
at least a week to get a Photo CD made through
normal processing services. If Picture CD is
cheaper and more readily available then I'm going
to use it instead of Photo CD. If only I could find
a place in Boston that was offering the
service...
Michael
D. Murie has been a multimedia consultant and
developer since he first saw HyperCard in 1987. He
has written for New Media magazine and worked on
the CD-ROM The Jack Kerouac ROMnibus. He wrote the
books "Macintosh Multimedia Workshop" and
"Macintosh Multimedia Starter Kit" and was
co-author of "The QuickTime HandBook." He can be
reached at mmurie@m2w.net.
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