[Ed. note: This article was originally published on the Macintosh edition of Nautilus, Vol. 4-1 (January 1993).]
A New Way to Share Special Moments: The Kodak Photo CD System
by Norman Desmarais
Eastman Kodak Company developed a technology to allow storing high-resolution 35 mm film images on compact discs for later viewing on TV. The new Photo CD technology promised to help the so-called back end of the photographic process catch up with advancements in the front end. Although automatic 35 mm cameras and new film formulations had combined during the 1980s to enable photographers to take better pictures more easily, the process of storing and retrieving the resulting photos remained decidedly low-tech.
Once pictures came back from the photofinisher, they got tucked away in desk drawers and shoe boxes. If anybody wanted to look at them, the owner first had to find the pictures then sort them anew for each viewing. Some people filed their pictures neatly in photo aIbums. But, even then, not more than one or two people could look at them simultaneously.
Kodak's Photo CD system now makes looking at pictures as easy as watching TV. Photo CD discs give people a new way to share their pictures and to do a lot more. With a Photo CD player, consumers can zoom in on a favorite portion of the photo, determine the display order of the photos, skip a photo, pan from left to right, or tilt up and down. The Photo CD system also makes it easy for people to store their pictures and to find the ones they're looking for.
"In the consumer electronics arena, people don't buy technology for technology's sake," said Stephen S. Stepnes, general manager and vice president of CD Imaging at Kodak. "But they will grab onto a new technology if it makes something they do more convenient, easier, or more fun. The Kodak Photo CD system does exactly that."
A Photo CD disc looks like a gold-colored CD (fig. 1). The players that consumers use to view their photos on television will play audio CDs on their stereo systems but with a brand new capability. In many ways, the Kodak Photo CD system promises to do for consumer photography what audio CDs did for music. It provides a new way to enjoy an immensely popular form of entertainment.
Simple to Use
Using the Kodak Photo CD system is easy. Consumers take pictures just as they always have, using standard 35 mm cameras and film. At the photofinisher, they have the option to transfer the film images at full resolution to a Kodak Photo CD Master disc, a 120 mm platter that can hold about 100 images, or four 24-exposure rolls of film. Kodak Photo CD Master discs are non-erasable, so one cannot inadvertently lose pictures. However, Photo CD players are programmable; and consumers can set them to skip over any unwanted pictures.
Kodak Photo CD Master discs store high-resolution images -- up to 16 times as great as today's TV standards and four times the standards currently being considered for HDTV. The Master disc can also function as a "digital negative," which means consumers can take the disc to their photofinisher to have prints made.
Consumers can add pictures to create "electronic photo albums." For example, a single disc can contain the favorite photographs of a baby's first year, a wedding, or other special events.
Beyond 35 mm: The Next Phase
Consumers around the world shoot about 60 billion photographs every year, with 85 percent of them on 35 mm film. This explains why the first phase of Kodak's Photo CD program focused on 35 mm pictures. But the benefits of Photo CD technology extend beyond amateur photography. Kodak ceated the Kodak Image Pac file format to adapt to a wide range of other imaging needs. As the first Photo CD players get delivered to consumers, the company is extending the Photo CD concept to mainstream professional and commercial business users.
Kodak has developed a new Photo CD format aimed at consumers and has announced additional disc formats, products, and applications that offer opportunities for professional photographers, for those involved in a range of other commercial enterprises, and for users of desktop computers. The formats and products, all compatible with the core Photo CD format, demonstrate Kodak's vision for the technology.
Consumers
The new consumer format, the Kodak Photo CD Portfolio disc, lets anyone with Photo CD images create special discs that merge those images with text, graphics, and sound. A "programmed access" capability built into the new format enables people to create discs of subjects such as family trees, which allow the viewer to look at pictures of any member of the family simply by choosing the appropriate branch from an on screen menu.
In addition to discs produced at the photofinisher, third-party publishers will probably also use the Kodak Photo CD Portfolio format to distribute prerecorded titles for education or entertainment. Titles may include specialized collections in areas such as art, sports, and nature.
When the Photo CD Portfolio discs become available in 1993, they will have a distinctive trade dress to distinguish them from other discs. Those who have already purchased players will be able to play them.
The original Photo CD format, now called Kodak Photo CD Master, and Kodak Photo CD Portfolio discs share the same features. The major differences involve image source and resolution which, in turn, affects the number of images the disc can store. Kodak Photo CD Portfolio discs can hold up to 800 TV resolution images. In contrast, the Kodak Photo CD Master discs store all images in full photographic resolution and hold approximately 100 images. Kodak Photo CD Portfolio discs must be created from Kodak Photo CD Master discs or other Photo CD Portfolio discs. Also, Kodak Photo CD Master discs are created from consumers' original 35 mm slides or negatives or reproduced from other Photo CD Master discs.
Both formats have the ability to hold up to one hour of CD audio quality stereo sound or a combination of sound and images. They also share the ability to use programmed access to give consumers more viewing choices and to have text and graphics combined with photos on the discs.
Professional Photographers
For professional photographers, Kodak designed the Kodak Pro Photo CD Master. It carries its own trade dress but otherwise looks very much like its consumer cousin. The key difference comes in the feature set built in to meet the requirements of professional photographers. Kodak Pro Photo CD Master discs store images from the larger film formats favored by professionals, including 120 mm, 70 mm, and 4 x 5 inch, as well as 35 mm. It supports higher resolution film scans for the larger sizes, yielding images that have the fine detail required by professional photographers. It enables professionals to store versions of their images that have been electronically edited. It also helps control how a professional's images are used by offering one copyright and two security features -- a special identifier to indicate image ownership and copyright, the ability to place a watermark (such as "PROOF") over an image, and the ability to encrypt high-resolution images to impede unauthorized use. The encryption enables photographers to provide a code number to their customers once the rights to use a particular image have been agreed on. Entering the code number into a desktop computer which accesses the disc through a CD-ROM XA drive will free the image for use. Many professionals may choose to protect their images, simply by retaining their high-resolution digital originals on Kodak Pro Photo CD Master discs and distributing lower-resolution versions for review on Kodak Photo CD Catalog discs.
Because these larger film formats contain more image information, Kodak Pro Photo CD Master image files are also larger. Depending on the film format, the discs can hold from 25 to 100 images.
Other Commercial Users
By providing a low-cost way to store and distribute images in digital form, Photo CD technology presents great potential for commercial applications in addition to professional photography. To illustrate this potential, Kodak has announced two new disc formats: the Kodak Photo CD Catalog and the Kodak Photo CD Medical, targeted at applications from mail-order retailing to health care, as well as an image library and international image network to provide easy access to images for any commercial user.
The Kodak Photo CD Catalog targets organizations such as mail-order retailers, tourism associations, or art galleries that want to store large numbers of images on a disc and distribute these images widely. Kodak Photo CD Catalog discs can store as many as 6,000 images at video resolution for soft display on TV sets or computer monitors. (The images have a lower resolution than standard Kodak Photo CD Master discs or Kodak Pro Photo CD Master discs and can't be used to make photo quality prints.)
The Kodak Photo CD Catalog format allows easy distribution of on-disc catalogs containing thousands of pictures of vacation destinations, works of art, retail products, and so on. The pictures can be formatted into catalog pages on the screen, complete with text, graphics, a table of contents, and chapters -- even sound.
People who play the discs on home Photo CD players will see on-screen menus that lead them through the catalog's pages at the touch of a remote control . Those who run Kodak Photo CD Catalog discs on computers can also locate images with simple key word searches by using Kodak Browser software, contained on each disc.
Westlight, a stock agency in Los Angeles, plans to release a Kodak Photo CD Catalog disc containing images they have available for use. Westlight will also work with Kodak on the development of the Kodak Picture Exchange (discussed below). Kodak has also had preliminary discussions with art museums, direct marketers, and sports card publishers about future projects.
Kodak Photo CD Medical
For medical applications, Kodak is developing another new format that stores diagnostic images. Along with film-based images like photographs, the Kodak Photo CD Medical format will store digital diagnostic modalities, such as computed tomography (CAT) scans and magnetic resonance images (MRI) on compact disc, all at full resolution.
Potential applications for the Kodak Photo CD Medical format include training and education, distribution of patient files, and long-term storage of diagnostic images. The discs will comply with most medical industry standards for digital imaging.
Kodak Professional Photo CD Image Library
Along with its multiple disc formats, Kodak has developed new products and services to give commercial users easy access to all types of images stored on Photo CD discs. One involves a product called the Kodak Professional Photo CD Image Library, an automated disc library, or "jukebox," that holds as many as 100 Photo CD discs. The library can store thousands or hundreds of thousands of images, depending on the type of Photo CD discs it contains. Users can rapidly search for and retrieve any of these images by keying in requests at a desktop computer.
Although the library will give individual customers easy access to images internally, Kodak has also announced its intent to create an imaging network that will use telephone lines to link the distibutors of images, such as stock photo houses, with potential customers worldwide.
Kodak Picture Exchange
The Kodak Picture Exchange represents a new Kodak business that will give users access to a huge database of images, just as networks like CompuServe provide access to text and data. Kodak Picture Exchange will link distributors of images, such as stock photo houses with customers they serve, including graphic designers and publishers. With a desktop computer and a modem, users will be able to search the Kodak Picture Exchange database and request hard copies of images electronically. Kodak Picture Exchange will alert the image providers immediately, providing them with the information they need to fulfill a request.
In most cases, prints, negatives, or transparencies should go out within minutes by a local delivery service or air express. In the future, as data carrying capacity of telephone lines expands, it will be possible to fulfill requests directly over the telephone. The image provider and the customer will continue to negotiate the rights to use a particular image. Kodak Picture Exchange will help bring the parties together. The system will make it easier for image agents to distribute photographers' images more widely and will make it simpler for those looking for images to find what they need.
Qualified image providers will be able to post, on Kodak Picture Exchange, any image that has been converted to a standard Photo CD digital format. The network will store each image in a low-resolution "thumbnail" form linked to index information to aid in its retrieval. This information could include the photographer's name, ownership information, and key words that describe the subject and attributes of the picture.
People will gain access to the Picture Exchange by joining the network and "dialing in" with a communications-equipped desktop computer and Kodak software. Once they have signed onto the network, they will be able to browse through preestablished categories, such as "Hawaiian beaches," simply by choosing them from a menu. They will also be able to perform key word searches tailored to their specific needs, the same way they now search a conventional text database.
Software used to search Kodak Picture Exchange mirrors the look and feel of Kodak Shoebox (discussed below) image search and retrieval software. In other words, it will share a common interface with other Photo CD image databases. Both image providers and users will pay nominal annual membership fees to join Kodak Picture Exchange. In addition, image providers will pay an annual per-image storage fee and a referral fee for each hard copy image request fulfilled for a customer. Users will also pay access fees which Kodak says will amount to only pennies per image.
In addition, Kodak has joined with more than a dozen companies, universities, and organizations to cooperate on the new commercial applications. These cooperative agreements include licensing the Kodak technology to some of the biggest names in the computer, electronics, and photography industries.
Desktop Computer Users
For consumers or commercial customers, Photo CD technology provides a convenient new way to input high-resolution images into desktop computing applications. Photo CD discs give people a way to take their own photographic images and convert them inexpensively into a digital format. People can then play the discs in Photo CD compatible CD-ROM XA drives.
As a result, all types of computer users can take advantage of the technology -- from a consumer composing a family newsletter for a holiday mailing, to an art director creating page layouts for a commercial magazine.
New Software
Kodak has developed a family of five software products designed for all types of users. Two of the five provide easy search and retrieval of images stored in databases; the remaining three allow users to work with individual Photo CD images in different ways.
The most basic of the two database software products, Kodak Browser which all Kodak Photo CD Catalog discs contain, allows for easy search and retrieval of images using key words. The second, Kodak Shoebox, offers more powerful search and retrieval functions for customers with large image databases.
Kodak Shoebox software helps automate the storage and retrieval of images for anyone maintaining a Photo CD image archive. Using Kodak Shoebox, users store lower-resolution thumbnail images in a database that resides on their computer hard drive or similar media. Because of their relatively small file size, these images can be searched very rapidly using key words.
For example, a designer sitting at a workstation could enter the words "football," "autumn," and "college" to locate thumbnails of homecoming games. Users can also browse through thumbnails in a Kodak Shoebox database. Double clicking on a thumbnail tells the software to retrieve the corresponding high resolution image file from the proper Photo CD disc. (If the right disc isn't mounted in the CD-ROM XA drive, the software will prompt the user, identifying which disc to load.) The resulting images can be viewed in color or grayscale and in a variety of sizes and resolutions. They can also be framed on the screen, cropped, or incorporated into an on-screen "slide show." The images can be exported as PICT or TIFF files to other applications.
Kodak Shoebox software also supports Apple's QuickTime system software extension. In 1993, when Kodak Picture Exchange services become available throughout the United States, a version of Kodak Shoebox software will enable direct interface with it.
Kodak Browser software, a scaled-down version of Shoebox software, aims to give the casual user key word access to images from the moment he or she inserts the disc into a Photo CD compatible CD-ROM XA drive.
The other three software packages provide different levels of image-editing capability to meet the needs of different users:
- Kodak Photo CD Access software contains a low-cost tool for casual users that makes it easy to read and display Photo CD images and to import them into current applications, such as Adobe PhotoShop or Aldus PhotoStyler software. It performs basic functions like cropping, zooming, and image rotation. The software also acts as a bridge, allowing users to carry their digital images into other applications for page layout, image enhancement, and other uses. Kodak Photo CD Access software supports PICT, TIFF, EPS, and other popular image file formats. The software runs on both the Macintosh and Windows 3.x platforms. Future plans call for bundling the software with CD-ROM drives and third party software packages.
- Kodak PhotoEdge software targets business users who are beginning to work with Photo CD images. It provides the same functionality as Kodak Photo CD Access software, with the additional ability to edit the overall appearance of the image --such as sharpening the focus and adjusting color or contrast. In addition, Kodak PhotoEdge software makes it possible to correct unsharp pictures, under- or over-exposures, and adjust contrast, color, soft focus, and sharpness. People creating their own business presentations, newsletters, and similar materials will find the features built into Kodak PhotoEdge software especially useful. Amateur photographers who want to improve their pictures on a home computer also will also like Kodak PhotoEdge.
- Kodak Renaissance software comprises a page layout package for professional users. It allows merging text, graphics, and images into comprehensive layouts and gives the designer the ability to adjust those layouts easily to experiment with different ideas. Kodak Renaissance software can serve as a brainstorming complement to other page layout applications, such as Aldus PageMaker, Quark Xpress, and Adobe Illustrator.
All of the Kodak software packages employ user interfaces that are designed to be simple. They all have the same look and feel that characterize applications runing in the Apple Macintosh or Windows 3.x environments, with icons and pull-down menus to guide the user.
Hardware to Play It On
Finally, in addition to the new CD formats and software packages, Kodak offers three Photo CD players, each with audio capability and a set of picture-viewing features.
The low-priced model allows the viewer to delete some pictures from the playback sequence and to program a disc each time it is viewed. An "autoplay" feature permits automatic sequencing through selected images at two-second intervals.
The deluxe player offers a variety of more advanced viewing options. Users can view close-ups of their images, selecting a rectangular portion for magnification with the "2X tele" feature. Another feature, "expanded favorite picture selection," provides additional memory for recalling the individual picture edits and viewing order selections of more discs.
A third model offers all of the advanced features of the deluxe version with the addition of a five-disc carousel. This player also provides on-screen display of the selected image number for easy indexing and fast photo identification.
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Norman Desmarais serves as Acquisitions Librarian at Providence College in Providence, R.I., and editor-in-chief of CD-ROM World magazine.
