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Photomatix 4.0 – Software Review

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It was Friday night, and after everyone was off to bed, I finally got my chance to transfer my "110204 Chester Springs (Rt. 401) Field" images from my camera, converted from cr2 RAW to DNG and into Lightroom for evaluation.

On another computer, I fired up my test virtual machine (VM) and installed HDRSoft.com’s Photomatix.

I have seen many images done with Photomatix, and what normally comes to my mind, is the surrealistic side of HDR images, which seems to be the "in thing" to do these days.

Most of the time, I think, the surrealistic effects are over done, and have been a main reason I have not tried Photomatix before.

When I loaded my first single exposure, and started to play with the first few pre-sets, I realized that I had been sadly mistaken by my preconceptions.

Having worked with several HDR packages before, including Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS5 and HDRLabs.com’s Picturenaut, I found the Photomatix application to be very fast, even in a Virtual Machine.

I was very happy that I could open/import a DNG file, instead of converting it to TIFF like one has to do for Picturenaut 3.0.

The GUI interface was easy to work with and allowed for very easy adjustments. I do wish, that the sliders had a little more control, in that one could enter a number or use the arrow keys to make finer adjustments.

When playing with the various pre-sets, I could easily understand why people would succumb to the surreal side. It is quick and easy, and makes for a dynamic looking image.

In my initial steps, I selected a preset that was close to what I wanted, and then used the various sliders to tweak my image from there. Photomatix also allows you to easily save your custom pre-set for later use.

I also imported a multi-exposure HDR image from (5) DNG files, and again found the application to be quicker than Adobe Photoshop CS5.

When finished with Tone Mapping, I was able to save the image out as 16-bit TIFF file (there are 8-bit and jpeg options). A nice additional option, is that after processing your image, Photomatix will open the image in an external editor, such as Photoshop!

I have only worked on four image so far, but I plan to add Photomatix to my regular HDR/RAW work-flow.

- Andrew
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Waren Zevon 1982 (Ithaca College)

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Scanned from Original Ilford hp-5 Black and White negatives…

Of a Warren Zevon concert held at Ithaca College on October 2, 1982.

Andrew (SDC) - View my 'Waren Zevon 1982 (Ithaca College)' set on Flickriver

I had scanned these months ago, but during a recent Facebook exchange, I got a chance to Post these to Flickr.

If you are old enough to remember, awesome!

If not, to bad…

Hope you enjoy “Memory Lane”!

- Andrew
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Cold Weather and our Outside Neighbors

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When I got back home after dropping of Logan at daycare, I looked out on to our deck, and I saw “Sarah”, our red/orange tingled squirrel that the kids name a couple of years ago.

Not sure why “she” has that coloring, especially considering all the other gray squirrels, but it does make “her” easier to identify, plus “she” is a little bit smaller than the rest of the “gang” that inhabits our backyard which filled with Black Walnut trees.

Seeing her today, reminded me of my chores for our outside friends at this time of year, and hence the reason for this blog post.

Here is a list of some simple things to help out our furry outside neighbors:

  • Fresh Water – At this time of the year, unless you are near running water, the birds and squirrels that are still running and flying around still need water. So please take a moment and fill a container with water so they have something to drink.You will have to change it in the morning, but it is a great way to get kids thinking about nature. 
  • Bread Crusts – Madison does not like the crust on her bread (yet), so we have a little container next to the cutting board to collect the what is cut off, and those scraps are then later put on the deck.
  • Pop-Tart Edges – Don’t know why, but the kids do not like them either, but the squirrels do!I have not figured out what their favorite flavor is, but I have watched one of our squirrels trying to get a long piece through the railing on the porch. Very entertaining! (Think of a dog with a long stick, trying to get through a fence door…) 
  • Stale Snacks – These can take on many forms, cereal, pretzels, cheese balls, cheese curls, pop corn, french fries, you name it! You may not like it, but our furry friends do not seem to care, especially the crows! (Ever notice what the crows eat on “Trash Day”?)”Crow Salad“/”Critter Granola” – Trying mixing a bunch of items together! It my look gross to you, but trust me, our friends will not care! 
  • Kitty TV – This is more for our indoor animals, but our two cats. Jessica and Joy, love to sit/lay on the couch and watch their outdoor friends as they eat!

These are just a few thoughts and suggestions, and I hope I will hear some more from my readers!

- Andrew
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Raining… but we NEED it!

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With the remains of Tropical Storm Nicole all around us, there have been many warnings of the flooding to come as the storm heads up the East Coast.

It has been raining ALL day, but I should not complain, we have needed it for over well over a month.

At least I have not had to mow the lawn lately…

But then again… I can still see the wheel tracks from the last time I mowed…

- Andrew
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iSCSI on Ubuntu 9.04

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The following section is a brief overview of “How to Install iSCSI on Ubuntu”, and is intended as a reference.
These instructions were done as a guide to setup a test environment.

If you see anything that is in “error” or would like to have something added, please feel free to contact us.

- Andrew

The following section is for the basic installation of the Ubuntu Operating System and needed Services to get iSCSI running.

During these installations, the Default values should be used.

Install the Base Operating System

For this installation, we used the Desktop version of Ubuntu 9.04, which can be downloaded from the main Ubuntu website.

  1. Download the ISO installation file;
  2. Create a Installation CD;
  3. Boot the Target Computer from the Installation CD;
  4. Install the Default Unbuntu Desktop;

Install DHCP (dhcp3-server)

The following installation is done from the Terminal Window (aka – Command Line), and must be done with root/sudo access to the system.

  1. Open a Terminal Window/Command Line session;
  2. Type in the following:
sudo aptitude install dhcp3-server
  1. Select or OK the Default settings.

Install TFTP (tftpd-hpa)

The following installation is done from the Terminal Window (aka – Command Line), and must be done with root/sudo access to the system.

  1. Open a Terminal Window/Command Line session;
  2. Type in the following:
sudo aptitude install tftpd-hpa
  1. Select or OK the Default settings.

Install iSCSI (iscsitarget)

The following installation is done from the Terminal Window (aka – Command Line), and must be done with root/sudo access to the system.

  1. Open a Terminal Window/Command Line session;
  2. Type in the following:
sudo aptitude install iscsitarget
  1. Select or OK the Default settings.

Update the System

At this point, run the Update Manager, and Reboot the System.

From the top menu bar, select the following:

System > Administration > Update Manager

You will be prompted for the root/sudo password to apply any and all updates.

The following section is for the basic installation of the Ubuntu Operating System and needed Services to get iSCSI running.

During these installations, the Default values should be used.

Configuring Static Address

It is general “Best Practise” to setup Servers with a Static IP address.

Caution — Backup config files BEFORE Editing them!

The main file that you will be working with is, and you will need sudo/root access to this file:

/etc/network/interfaces

To Backup the original config file:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.bak

To Edit the file:

sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

These settings are going to be uniques to your environment, and is beyond the scope of this document.

Once you have configured your IP Address set, you will need to restart the Service:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Configuring DHCP

Caution — Backup config files BEFORE Editing them!

The main file that you will be working with is, and you will need sudo/root access to this file:

/etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf

Backup the original config file:

sudo cp /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf.bak

Now to Edit the file:

sudo gedit /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf

These settings are going to be uniques to your environment, and is beyond the scope of this document.

Once you have configured your DHCP server, you will need to restart the Service:

sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart

Additional Useful Commands

To manually start the DHCP Service:

sudo /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server start

To get DHCP Service to Autostart:

sudo update-rc.d dhcp3-server defaults

To check DHCP leases:

gedit /var/lib/dhcp3/dhcpd.leases

To Verify that the Server is listen for Clients:

sudo netstat -uap

To check Log files:

gedit /var/log/messages

gedit /var/log/syslog

Configuring TFTP

Generally, when TFTP (tftpd-hpa) is installed, the installation will add the correct lines of configuation code, but if you would like to check (or add) use the following:

Caution — Backup config files BEFORE Editing them!

The main file that you will be working with is, and you will need sudo/root access to this file:

/etc/inetd.conf

Backup the original config file:

sudo cp /etc/inetd.conf /etc/inetd.conf.bak

Now to Edit the file:

sudo gedit /etc/inetd.conf

To enable TFTP, add the following code:

tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd /tftpboot

Note: If you wish to log Boot errors, then add the -l switch to in.tftpd causing errors to be logged to the system logs.

tftp dgram udp wait nobody /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd -l /tftpboot

If you changed /etc/inetd.conf, then you will need to reload the inetd process with the following command:

/etc/init.d/inetd reload

Configuring iSCSI

Caution — Backup config files BEFORE Editing them!

The main file that you will be working with is, and you will need sudo/root access to this file:

sudo cp /etc/ietd.conf /etc/ietd.conf.bak

Now to Edit the file:

sudo gedit /etc/ietd.conf

Once you have opened this file, you will find additional information/comments within the file on how to “tweak” your installation.

For a basic install, you will need to add the following:

Target iqn.yyyy-mm.com.mydomain:[Optional identifier]

Lun 0 Path=/path/to/image,Type=fileio,IOMode=rw

Where:

  • yyyy is the year and mm is the month that the domain became valid.
  • is written as 1.168.192 or com.yourdomain (this will change in your environment).
  • [Optional identifier] is used to further identify the target.
  • Path= is where your files are located on the local machine.

To restart iSCSI you can use the following command:

sudo invoke-rc.d iscsitarget restart

The iSCSI target daemon is:

tail -f /var/log/messages
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Trouble Shooting – Things to Check/Verify

If you get the error:

iscsitarget not enabled in “/etc/default/iscsitarget”, not starting…

check:

/etc/default/iscsitarget

to confirm

ISCSITARGET_ENABLE=true

One should also check/verify that:

/etc/initiators.allow

to confirm

ALL ALL

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