FAQ Snap Photo Pro



Version Changelog

1. App Goes Paid.

Increased sensitivity of stability detect.

Added Artificial Horizon

Added editing mode.

Added tap screen to take pictures.

1.0.2 Added ability to draw on pictures.

Bug fixes

1.0.3 Custom Borders download my base borders from http://thecrayonbox.org/files/SnapBorders.zip

Force close bug fixes.

New save dialogs.

Toggle timestamps

1.0.4/5 Dev loses brain and releases bugged version 3 – then 4 then finally fixes borders in 5. Hits self in face as punishment.

1.0.9: Dev wonders what happened to 1.0.6 – 1.0.8.

New effects in edit mode. These effects will slowly be added to (My thanks and credit goes to jhlabs whose library I ported over to work with android). These new effects for the most part run fairly quickly however effects like oil painting can take a great deal of time when generating a final image. Please be aware of this.

New grid overlay that can be toggled in settings. Allows for better composition of pictures.

New independent edit mode. Can be entered from main menu.

Levels sliders and all other dialogs now portrait/landscape specific.

New level slider with improved sliders

Ability to set a delay between multi mode shots (in advanced settings) Phone will stay awake (screen dim) until all shots have been taken.

Ability to cancel multishot mode before finish by hitting back button. Images that were taken will have thumbnails generated and may be saved.

Pictures are now placed into timestamped folders so at most one days worth of pictures to be sorted at the end of the day.

Edit mode now allows a new name to be allocated t the final image at save time. Original image will be kept.

Entire screen is now able to be touched (except for settings arrow) to start the picture taking.

1.1.4 New Sphere distort filter

Download backgrounds directly through app. Check often for more borders.

New Icon.

1.1.8 Faster startup – about half time of previous version

Faster saves. Saving moved to background thread.

Selective grayscale filter. For examples of what can be achieved. Default settings used. Could be improved by tweaking.

Tulips Grayscale

Tulips Original

1.4.9: Added quickshot widget

Added ability to touch icon in top right corner to take quick picture.

1.5.0: Added new interface to edit.

Fixed issue with taken pictures not showing in gallery.

Added ability to turn flash on/off for Samsung Galaxy

How to use app

For the most part anyone who has used a phone camera before will be able to use the app, there are a few exceptions.

The main screen shows two icons. One in the top left and one top right. The top right icon displays the current camera mode. Either a hand with vibrate lines surrounding it (vibrate mode) or A basic camera (Point and click – no stability detect). The icon on the left is a clickable button which when pressed will show a set of icons along the top of the screen. These icons represent the current settings for the camera. These icons will display for 4 seconds if untouched and then automatically hide (changeable timeout in settings). Pressing any of the icons within the row displayed will bring up a transparent listing of settings for that icon. This listing will automatically fade if untouched within 3 seconds. From the list the value of the clicked setting can be changed by scrolling and selecting. Once a selection is made the list will disappear, the icon will be updated to reflect the change and the new value will be applied.

Stability Mode: (Adjustable sensitivity in settings) In this mode the camera is looking for a period of stability in order to take the photo. It can be used while standing stock still and holding the phone in a death grip, but it is better suited to situations where you may not be able to control your stability (such as in a car). Such situations now do not require you to hold the camera steady, focus half way with the button – then while still steady take the photo, all you need do now is tap either the trackball or camera button (NOTICE I SAID TAP NOT HOLD) and then manage 1 second of stability and the app will take the photo of that stable image.

Regular Mode: In this mode the camera is pure point and click. Again you do NOT need to hold either the camera or trackball button. Just tap either one to start the process and thats it.

Timer Mode: If set to a value other than zero the phone will enter timer mode. In this mode the phone will wait for the set time before taking the photo. At 3 seconds left the phone will start to beep letting you know to pose. The phone pre-focuses in this mode so snap should be quick after beep finishes.

PhotoBooth Mode: In this mode stability detect is automatically disabled. Camera will take a user set number (default 6) of photos one after the other (without focus, using camera button half way will pre-focus as normal). The shots will be taken as fast as the camera is able and will be taken using the small setting of picture size (This helps with speed). Once all six photos have been taken the user will be presented with a still shot showing the first picture and a save and discard button. User can then use a right or left slide of a finger on the screen to scroll through the pictures. Deleting/Saving an image will remove it from the previews and move the screen to the next image. The back button will result in discarding all images left in the preview list. Photobooth mode can be used in conjunction with timer mode (I expect this will be the most common use)

QuickshotMode: Tapping the icon in the top right corner will take a picture as fast as possible, no autofocus or other processing.

Options Slider:




When clicking on the arrow in the top left a set of icons will be displayed. The display for 5 seconds then auto hide (unless an option is selected). From left to right the buttons are.

Picture Quality – White Balance – Camera Effect – Night Mode – Timer Mode – Focus Mode – Picture Size – Multi Shot Mode – Stability Mode

Clicking any of these icons will bring up the corresponding options for that icon.

Artificial Horizon: The artificial horizon is a red line in the middle of the camera view. This line changes angle based on the angle the phone is being held. When level the line changes to a line with two small lines on either side. The horizon can be calibrated in the settings (and also toggled off). Simply place the phone on its side on a flat surface with the screen facing you, buttons on the right, and click the trackball. A small notification will show with the horizontal adjustment. For vertical place the phone on its top side on a flat surface and press trackball.

Edit Mode: In edit mode you can adjust the Brightness/Contrast and Red/Green/Blue levels of the image before saving, you can also add a border to the image or draw right on top of it. This mode will also place a time stamp in the bottom right corner of the image (Please note the time stamp is MUCH smaller on the final image than the preview but for display purposes it was made larger on the preview) This timestamp can be toggled in the advanced section of Snap Photo Pros settings.

To adjust levels simply select levels from the menu and use the slider with your finger or the +/- buttons to change the value. The reset button will set everything back to 0. When happy with how your picture looks choose save from the menu. You will then be take back to the normal camera.

To choose a border color select one from the gallery (more details on borders below). To select no border simply select the empty space in the gallery or choose reset from menu options.

Select lines to draw lines directly on the image, first choose your color from the color picker (or back key at color wheel to select no color). To choose another color just select the lines menu option again

To reset any drawings or borders on the image select the reset option from the menu.

To discard the image hit the back button to go back to the regular camera.

Tap Screen Photo Taking: To take a picture without pressing any buttons simply tap the camera in the bottom right of the screen. This will start the picture taking as if you had used the camera button or trackball.

Longpress Manual Focus: Long pressing the screen will perform a focus. Upon lifting the finger off the screen the picture will be taken. Useful for taking images of moving items.

Filters: Inside edit mode you can apply several filters. I am including a screen shot of each filter below. In order we have.

EdgeDetect, Emboss, Exposure, Oil Painting, Pixelate, Ripple, Sharpen, Sphere, Twirl, Water, Selective Grayscale.



























Making your own custom borders/Props

Because I wanted to keep the size of the app low and because I wanted to give you freedom to create your own borders Snap reads its borders from the /sdcard/.SnapExtras directory. If you want to create a new custom border/prop you will need the following

  1. An image editing program, personally I like GIMP www.gimp.org

  2. A picture to use as a border. Please note the picture doesnt' have to be of a frame. You can put anything you like as a border.

  3. A modicum of skill.

Ok so you have the above.

Firstly open your image in your image editor.




As you can see this is a nice simple frame. We want to clear the middle of the image so that we will be able to see the image we have taken through it. To do this we add an alpha layer




Now that we have our alpha layer we can delete the middle of the image. Choose a selection tool from the toolbar. In this case I am going to choose the contiguous color selctor.




Now simply click in the middle white space of the image. This will select the entire middle area of the frame. Once selected (dashed lines moving around the area), just hit delete. Your image should now look like this.




Lastly we need to save the image in two sizes. One for the thumbnail and one for the border. First the thumbnail. Scale the image down to 100x67 pixels (for landscape borders) or 67x100 pixels for portrait. Under image menu select the scale image tool. Please note the chain is not linked , this allows you to have a different aspect ratio than the orginal image.




Once the image has been scaled save the image using the following naming convention using any name followed by thumb.png.

MyBorderthumb.png




Now we have our thumbnail its time to save the main border. Hit cntrl z and undo the scaling. Select Scale image again this time scaling to 480x320 pixels (for landscape) or 320x480 pixels (for portrait). Save this image using the exact same filename as the thumbnail however leave out the thumb portion of the name. For the above example I would end up with two files

xmasborderthumb.png

xmasborder.png

Copy these two files into the /sdcard/SnapBorders for borders or /sdcard/.SnapExtras for props directory on your g1 (make the directory if needed). Thats it you can now use that border within Snap Photo Pro.

The section where I talk about Force Closes and Sdcard inserts.

Several people have complained about force closes of the app. This issue appears to be related to the format of the sdcard. Many of the sdcards are formatted using FAT. This is an OLD, slow POS Format that was never intended to handle large files, large bandwidth and long names – all of which snappphoto produce. To check if your card is FAT. Connect your G1 to a pc, touch the notification that appears and select mount. On your pc a new drive should appear – right click this drive and select properties.




Where it says File System it will either say FAT or FAT32 (In this case my card is FAT32). If your card is FAT chances are you are going to have problems. At this stage you may wish to format your card as FAT32. NOTE: THIS WILL REMOVE ALL DATA FROM YOUR SDCARD BACK IT UP FIRST, BACK IT UP FIRST, BACK IT UP FIRST. If you do not back it up first and send me email complaining that you lost all your coolz songz and shiz, I will simply point at you and laugh Nelson wise HA HA. Ok so now you have your data backed up you can format. To do so right click the drive letter and select format.




Choose settings similar to those above. In fact if you don't know what you are doing choose those exact settings. Hit start. It will chug away for a while (time depends on how large your sdcard is) and the present you with a shiny new empty sdcard. Copy your files back. Now you are all set to use SnapPhoto.

Many people have mentioned the issue regarding the message about having to insert an sdcard even when one is inserted. Thanks to some great users and a lot of restarting of g1's we have a root cause and solution have been found. The root cause appears to be corrupted thumbnails. When a picture is taken or the picture gallery is opened thumbnails are generated. Most of the time this is fine but as more and larger pictures are stored the thumbnails take longer to generate and anything that interrupts this process can cause the thumbnail database to become corrupted. A simple way to do this is press the back button repeatedly when the gallery is updating thumbnails. Once corrupted this will prevent the sdcard being set back to read/write status and this result in the message you see telling you to insert an sdcard (This is owing to how both my app and the regular camera app check for an sdcard). Powering down/up the phone will free the sdcard but only until the next time a thumbnail is generated (taking a picture/viewing gallery). Below is a fix that can be used to free the condition

  1. Power down phone completely. Hold down red phone button until menu is presented, choose power off option.

  2. Power on phone

  3. Download a file explorer from the market.

  4. Using the file explorer delete the following directory - /sdcard/dcim/.thumbnails. (Please note you can also do this by mounting your sdcard via a pc).

  5. SnapPhoto, camera and gallery should all now work. Please note entering the gallery will result in thumbnails being regenerated. Please allow this process to fully complete.

The section where I answer some questions about why my app doesnt have certain features.

Shutter Speed/Zoom: I am very limited in what I can make the camera do by the interface google provide me to the hardware. The are actually many many more things the camera can do - I just have no way of being able to call them - shutter speed, zoom, etc. Its possible google will open up the interface after January when they release their better camera app (supposedly) but I am using the latest version of their code with changes checked in to find all the things I am doing - and right now I am using everything they expose.

Why doesnt it have a flash. A flash is hardware. The day I can figure out how to put new hardware into a device via software is the day I can make Bill Gates and Steve Jobs my beoches. The G1 will NEVER have a flash unless someone can figure out how to open the device and hardwire one in.

Video Player: I have gotten many many requests for it,.Ok some news about DONUT. I just finished going through the source and here is what I can tell you. There will be video recording in the new app. They finally added the videosource stuff to the MediaRecorder lib. What I can also tell you is that all the new options I have added into the camera, they wont be in (at least not in source at this stage). If that is the case then rest assured as soon as the DONUT release comes out I will rewrite my app to take advantage of the video stuff and also any new camera features they free up.

At this stage however I CANNOT write a video recorder which mirrors camera functionality- google simply have NOT exposed the methods I need to the SDK.

Why cant your photobooth mode take pictures as fast as continuous shot.

Several reasons. The first is that that app does not actually take a picture as such. What it does is store an image of the currently displayed preview, as a result the images will never be as clear and resolutions will be extremely small in order to achieve any clarity.

Secondly the images are insanely small 72 pixels wide.

General Questions/Comments Answered

  1. What does your app do? It takes photos based on when the phone is stable. It uses the built in accelerometer to detect when the phone is not moving and snaps the pictures

  2. I have ideas that could make your app better. Please Please Please email them to peacock73@gmail.com. If they are even half way good chances are you will see them in the next release. Have an idea for a new app? Tell me, most of mine come from people requesting apps on the android boards.

  3. So what can we expect from SnapPhoto in the future. Make cars run on water, perpetual motion machine. Seriously though – check out the TODO at bottom of changelog.

  4. So what do pictures look like from SnapPhoto compared to regular camera

    http://picasaweb.google.com/ghoonk/SnapPhoto100#

  5. Why is there a delay between the photo being taken and the menu. Basically that delay is where the G1 is creating the image. If you save it it keeps that image if you delete it wipes it. Previously the menu showed up BEFORE the image was completed saving. Unfortunately the saving event is a locking event(it kind of has to be) and while it was writing the buttons wouldnt show presses. I cant really do much about this. I can make the buttons show earlier but they wont detect events until the same amount of time has passed. Personally I would prefer to look at a static shot of what I have taken and wait 1 second for the buttons.

A new section where I lay down the law.

Recently I have started receiving emails from a small group of gangsta wanna be's which have not only been an insult to the English language but have also started to threaten both myself and my family members (sometimes in graphic detail). THIS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. As of some years ago emailed threats are treated by law enforcement authorities as valid and serious and as such are regarded in the same light as if a threat had been made in person. In addition almost all Internet providers and email account providers have clauses in their EULA prohibiting this use.

Any emails I receive in the future involving threats against me or my family will result in the filing of a police report and me pressing whatever charges possible against the person/s in question.