p.2 #1 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
gdanmitchell wrote
Now THAT is spectacularly ironic!
Well you should certainly know, since only an expert like you could tell us, So a screen image will never look exactly like a printed image and vice versa. Who would have known?
And you have no idea if the members viewing your images on this site would prefer your print versions instead. Many seem to like your digital versions and I would bet most of them would think they look better than the printed versions. However, I don't make the same assumptions as you do.
And as others have pointed out, it is a matter of one's own tastes, not yours.
p.2 #2 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Thanks for all the comments guys. When I put "The End of Printing" in the title I figured it might generate some heated discussion. Funny thing is I agree with all points given above in one way or another
Believe me I get the value of a well done print, especially one you do yourself. I made hundreds of Cibachromes of my slides BITD when I had free access to a darkroom on an army base. I've also had a few Epson printers, culminating in a 7900 which I used to make, and sell, large canvas panoramas. I have a 20" x 80" pano of sunrise on Mt. Rainier hanging over the fireplace in my basement that I love. The whole process of printing, varnishing, making the stretcher frame, stretching, and putting it up with directional halogen lighting, all added up to make me feel like an artist and craftsman much more than pressing a shutter button and post processing on my computer.
This frame is my best answer to address two basic problems I have with displaying my photos - all my wall space is taken (esp. now that I put up this huge TV!), and I don't have a large format printer anymore. I also have too many prints in a closet now, that I can switch out, and occasionally do, but I want to see my latest work in large format glory! By the way, the phone snaps posted here don't do justice to the picture on the TV which is one of the best I've ever seen.
I've also been thinking about the "problem" Monica pointed out of having a "slide show" going when we have a dinner party being too much of a distraction from the normal conversation. In those cases we will just have one picture showing most of the time, in fact I think I will often want to keep a single shot up for a day to fully appreciate it. A fun part of going digital like this is that I can load my latest favorite shot I've processed the same day to enjoy in the living room. We are hosting a luncheon for my wife's little gardening group today as our first test.
I'm not trying to convince anyone else to go this route, but I do think it is the inevitable future of digital photography. Just wanted to give a review to others thinking of going this route. I'm very happy with all of it, but have some issues with limitations of the Leon Studio Frame software. Hopefully that can be improved in the future. Even if I don't use their software my wife and I are very happy with the quality of the frame which makes the TV look more like art.
p.2 #4 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Imagemaster wrote:
Well you should certainly know, since only an expert like you …)
So, just to clarify, you don’t claim any expertise, then? ;-)
While I believe you have some expertise, your compulsion to harangue and insult anyone whose perspective isn’t as perfect as you imagine yours to be is… quite something.
p.2 #5 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Jim, I recall how much happier I was when I could process my color prints in a Cibachrome drum roller with the lights on.
Not my forte, but do you really need to use the Leon Studio Frame software. I thought there was lots of different software that lets you load as many images as you want and have them as a slideshow on any TV or computer.
p.2 #6 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Tony, you are right about many ways to show photos on a TV. I've had my Mac hooked up to our basement LG OLED for years with an HDMI cable. I use Fotomagico software on my mac to create slide shows with Ken Burns effect - best slide show software I've seen.
Of course I can bring my laptop up to use it like that on the new Sony, but too much hassle, plus I like the mat effect and keeping one photo on screen for a long time. The big selling point of Leon's frame is the integration of a motion/light sensor that puts the screen to sleep after a time you set if no motion is detected. This way you can just leave it on most of the time and save energy when you aren't in the room, then have it come back on without having to use the remote and start up an app., all of which makes it more "print like."
p.2 #8 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
vbnut wrote:
Do you have a specific 4x4x2 inch computer in mind? I haven't gotten that far in my thinking, so it would be great to have some place to start.
Mainstream would be Asus NUC, MSI NUC, Assrock Industrial 4x4/NUC Box, etc. iNtel no longer makes the original NUCs, though there may be some around.
There are even cheaper complete mini-PCs available in the Amazon for a couple hundred, though they have very limited RAm and storage, not to mention a questionable OS that you might want to replace. Many of the NUC types are good for attaching to the back of a regular display on the VESA holes.
p.2 #9 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Personally, I use our AppleTVs to drive a slideshow to their connected TV. It supports the Ken Burns effect and the timing per photo has a number of levels. Not as sophisticated as Leon's but does a nice job never the less.
p.2 #10 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Imagemaster wrote:
The big question is will it automatically turn off if it hears you snoring?
This is at a much lower price point than has been discussed in most of the thread, but my family ended up getting a Frame digital frame by Skylight to be able to send family photos to my grandmother and she can see them easily. We can email them in or use an app.It auto rotates at random through a gallery, and best of all, can be programmed to turn on and off at certain times. I don't think it is snoring activated though.
I just dodn't think it's high enough quality to suit most of the people's needs here that want to view high quality images and not just snapshots.
p.2 #11 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
EB-1 wrote:
Mainstream would be Asus NUC, MSI NUC, Assrock Industrial 4x4/NUC Box, etc. iNtel no longer makes the original NUCs, though there may be some around.
There are even cheaper complete mini-PCs available in the Amazon for a couple hundred, though they have very limited RAm and storage, not to mention a questionable OS that you might want to replace. Many of the NUC types are good for attaching to the back of a regular display on the VESA holes.
EBH
Interesting. I haven't been keeping up with hardware options and wasn't familiar with "NUC", so I was kind of expecting you to suggest a Raspberry Pi or one of its clones/alternatives. It sounds like they are even cheaper, but they're targeted at hobbyists/DIYers so they would require more effort to get working.
With regard to OSes, I would prefer something I can install some flavor of Linux on, although I would need to find some Linux display calibration software.
FYI, it looks like Amazon still has some Intel NUCs.
p.2 #12 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
I'm way too lazy to go super basic like the Pi. You can find some minis with Celerons or basic Ryzens. The chipset and CPU/GPU should be supported Ubuntu though you may have to figure out the radio and get the driver. I read somewhere that 24.04 solves most remaining P/E thread director type of issues, but the cheaply CPUs in those minis are usually symmetrical. You could look at Beelink at the lower end of a usable new pre-built.
The main reason I would go for an external device rather than use the TV software or sned the image from somewhere else is that I would want to have a custom calibration. The default colorspaces of TVs are no good for me.
p.2 #13 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
schlotz wrote:
Personally, I use our AppleTVs to drive a slideshow to their connected TV. It supports the Ken Burns effect and the timing per photo has a number of levels. Not as sophisticated as Leon's but does a nice job never the less.
I’ve done that in the past. If We have a small central server (using a Mac Mini this is primarily for backups, but all we need to do to share photos from it to our TV is put them in a folder on the machine and then point the Apple TV at it. Super simple, and takes hardly any special technology if you already happen to use some Apple stuff.
p.2 #15 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
EB-1 wrote:
So does the Apple computer send the color profile to the Apple TV, but what if the TV is LG or Samsung?
EBH
No idea! :-)
I’ve used it with a large LG monitor and it looked decent, but that was a pretty informal use — a level or two below trying to use it as a print surrogate.
p.2 #16 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Basic Intel NUC
vbnut wrote:
Do you have a specific 4x4x2 inch computer in mind? I haven't gotten that far in my thinking, so it would be great to have some place to start.
p.2 #17 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
Regarding prints and digital displays, I don't think either will replace the other anytime soon. They are very different types of media and serve very different purposes. From a technical standpoint, a 60 inch 4K screen has a pixel density of about 70 DPI and displays an image of roughly 8.3 MP. A 60 inch 8K screen has a pixel density of about 138 DPI and displays an image of roughly 33.2 MP. Each printer brand works a little differently, but Epson large format printers have a native resolution of 360 PPI (in 1440 DPI mode) and 720 PPI (in 2880 DPI mode). This is vastly different than a digital display. For their respective purposes it may not matter, but they aren't interchangeable.
Then there's the fact that a print is a physical thing, usually archival, that needs nothing except a light source to view. It is always as its creator made it, and does not depending on whether a screen has a shiny, matte, or in between surface finish. Different papers with different surfaces can be chosen to compliment the image. The same is true of sizes and aspect ratios, the latter of which can as easily be 3:1 or 1:3, which will not fit nicely in any orientation on a monitor.
Frankly I'm not for or against either media type, but each has its place. It could be pretty limiting to shoot only 16:9 horizontals.
p.2 #18 · The End of Printing - Digital Picture Frame (near) Perfection
gdanmitchell wrote:
While I believe you have some expertise, your compulsion to harangue and insult anyone whose perspective isn’t as perfect as you imagine yours to be is… quite something.
Just look in a mirror for proof of who you are describing.
