How to get a manipulated image onto a digital camera LCD?
August 14, 2006 3:50 PM   Subscribe

How do I get an image file, manipulated in photoshop and placed onto a compact flash card, to be understood and read by a digital camera as if it had taken the shot?

I am making a film in which a character takes a photograph of a subject, looks at the LCD screen on his digital camera, and sees an altered version of the real subject he had intended to shoot.

The manipulation is simple and can be done nearby on a laptop right after the initial photograph is taken. I'd like to then be able to save the file back to the compact flash card and view it in playback mode on the camera's LCD with the real subject in the background so the viewer can see the difference.

The "prop" camera we are using is a Nikon Coolpix 4500. All the tests I've done (taking a photograph, bringing the file into photoshop, making an alteration and saving it back to the card) have resulted in a "File contains no image data" error. I realize this camera is a bit old and there may be newer models that allow something like this - I know my phone allows me to put pictures of any JPG type on it for viewing - but it's got the right "look" so I'd like to try to make it work without doing a composite effect onto the LCD.

Does anyone have any experience with this? If it has something to do with saving the files in a very particular format/with a specific header, I'm not even sure where to begin looking.
posted by SmileyChewtrain to Media & Arts (13 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I know my old Olympus d-560 didn't have a problem doing this, even after files were renamed. If you can't get the Nikon to work with your trick, you can pick up one on Amazon for about $80.

Otherwise, I'd assume you need a camera that when, connected to your computer, acts like a mass storage device- otherwise it may be suited for putting pics on your computer, but not taking them back.
posted by Glitter Ninja at 3:56 PM on August 14, 2006


My guess is that the camera is either looking for a particular EXIF header that you're overwriting in Photoshop, or you're saving it as a progressive JPG instead of using standard compression.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:23 PM on August 14, 2006


Check to make sure your saving the file as the same file type your camera takes it as.

Right click on the file and check properties for the file type. To set the type when saving, click the down arrow when saving in photoshop next to "save a type:" and set it to the appropriate type.
posted by JakeLL at 4:24 PM on August 14, 2006


my fujifilm s5000 finepix does this, provided the new shot is the same dimensions as the old and the same format (jpg).
posted by b33j at 4:35 PM on August 14, 2006


I could only do this with my Fujifilm MX2700 if I created or uploaded (or both) the image using the bundled transfer and image conversion application.

If your camera came with a program that can write JPGs, use that to create the files you want to upload.
posted by krisjohn at 4:43 PM on August 14, 2006


The camera is also probably looking for the files in a particular folder on the CF card. Try formatting the card, taking a single picture with it, then saving the prop image over the existing file.

Oh yeah, and make sure it's not a progressive JPEG. And it'll probably help to have the new JPEG be the same dimensions as the original.
posted by neckro23 at 5:47 PM on August 14, 2006


Also, some cameras require a thumbnail in the EXIF header for display. You can check if your input and output images have these with ExifTool if you've got Perl.
posted by claudius at 6:38 PM on August 14, 2006


Saving all this, could you take a picture of your computer monitor, carefully framing it so that you can't see it's on a monitor?

It's not perfect, but may be easiest for this purpose.
posted by defcom1 at 7:49 PM on August 14, 2006


(substitute paper & ink if you need a better quality shot?)
posted by defcom1 at 7:50 PM on August 14, 2006


ok, i cant find my other article. but check this one out. the topic is not what hou want, but your idea is there. when the Duke LX scandal jumped off, i changed some photos 3 years ago to seem as it they were taken the night of the alleged rape. i used the GIMP - cuzs its free. but i found this site also.

once the meta data is straight, you should be able to transfer it back to hour digital camera via your SD card or hard drive dependent upon on your type of camera.
posted by Davaal at 8:20 PM on August 14, 2006


I solved it on mine by digging up the bundled software that came with the camera. When I'd done my stuff in photoshop, I'd save the image, then load it in the bundled software and save it again.

Sucky way to do it, but it worked.

I spent a long long time messing with photoshop settings to do it natively, without success. This was a while back though - maybe modern versions of photoshop have better EXIF support.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:43 AM on August 15, 2006


It probably has to do with the header information as has been suggested. Opening the original file and the edited file up in a text editor you can compare the beginning of the files and hopefully be able to determine what the header part is. Copy and paste that part into the editied file. It may take some experimentation but I've done similar things before.
posted by JJ86 at 6:16 AM on August 15, 2006


I tried to do this recently with my canon 20d and I couldnt get it to work.
posted by skrike at 9:24 AM on August 15, 2006


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