New Version of Professional Photo Application Pocket Phojo

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.idruna.com/pocketphojo.html">http://www.idruna.com/pocketphojo.html</a><br /><br />Idruna Software, maker of professional image management utility Pocket Phojo, recently released a major update to its software. Pocket Phojo is targeted towards photojournalists with a need to get photos to editors as quickly as possible. I think that Pocket Phojo represents at least two very interesting aspects. First, the actual feature set and capabilities are astonishing. Well respected dpreview.com, known for their in-depth reviews of digital cameras, has written a <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/news/0201/02013102pocketphojo.asp">review</a> of the software that bears witness of its strength. Second, it's great to see Pocket PCs being used to make life easier to an entire professional category. Check out the article in the magazine News Photographer called <a href="http://www.idruna.com/Downloads/NewsPhotographerArticle.pdf">More over laptops: Make room for Phojo</a> to get a better understanding of how Pocket Phojo is really used.<br /><br />"For situations such as rapidly breaking stories, or in locations where laptops are impractical, this represents a breakthrough in the time required to get a photo from the camera to the photo desk. Running on the latest state of the art HP iPAQ Pocket PCs, comparable in speed to a Pentium class laptop, yet less than 10oz in weight, Pocket Phojo offers many benefits versus a laptop, including size, weight, instant-on functionality, security, battery life, sunlight readability, and the sheer convenience of being able to fit in a pocket. Since it's launch in January of 2002, Pocket Phojo has proven itself as the essential tool for photojournalists wishing to lighten their load, while still being able to browse, caption, crop, scale, tone, and transmit their images, with customers such as The San Antonio Express News, Time Magazine, Philadelphia Enquirer, Miami Herald, LA Times, Verdens Gang, Aften Posten, Greenpeace, and countless independent photojournalists. Evaluation units are available for companies wishing to try Pocket Phojo for themselves."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/phojo_01.jpg" />

[jizmo]

If the PPC were to be used in this purpose, I wonder how close the actual colors on the new devices (1910, Viewsonic) really are to reality? I find myself often color correcting the artwork I've made on PPC in my desktop computer. Is for example vivid orange still hard to reproduce correctly on PPC screen?

I welcome every new graphical utility to PPC, there are really never too many of them.

/jizmo

[ricksfiona]

If someone were to take late-breaking pics, I think they would just send the picture as-is and have a person at the newscenter make any necessary changes. I just don't see much use for a high-quality photo-editing tool for the pocket pc. Picture viewer, yes, definitely.

[Peter Foot]

If someone were to take late-breaking pics, I think they would just send the picture as-is and have a person at the newscenter make any necessary changes. I just don't see much use for a high-quality photo-editing tool for the pocket pc. Picture viewer, yes, definitely.

The main aim of the software is for captioning and uploading which are vital functions for a photo-journo. I have to agree that some of the editing functions are probably a bit redundant because there is bound to be someone at the other end of the phone line with a pc or mac with photoshop or similar to do any fine tuning, I doub't that PPC screens are accurate enough to make colour changes.

As a tool to browse, caption and upload its looks a useful tool. However it looks like they need to spend a bit of time to further optimise these key tasks - for example you cannot save common ftp settings so that you can use them again. At the moment you are prompted for server, username and password each time you upload which must be a pain.

[dbrahms]

If someone were to take late-breaking pics, I think they would just send the picture as-is and have a person at the newscenter make any necessary changes. I just don't see much use for a high-quality photo-editing tool for the pocket pc. Picture viewer, yes, definitely.

***Agreed, I think a photojournalist in the field would take the shots and submit to the main office for retouching on a full Photoshop PC etc. I can't see the photojournalists in the desert of Iraq taking pictures under gunfire...then readjusting the gamma levels and color saturations.

[Mr. PPC]

During the Sydney Olympics I was responsible for the News Limited press venue(s). It worked like this then...

1. Photographer takes photo, he deletes (whatever) photos he doesn't want anyone seeing. Typically they just left them there on the camera to get DL'd, not always though. How many black images got archived I couldn't begin to tell you.

2. Editor on-site (due to critical nature of the news) would review, crop and adjust colours. Sometimes with help from photographer, depends on which photographer.

3. Editor would send photo, if classed category A, to head office immediately. Those categorised as class B went overnight.

The other scenario I saw was the photographer doing all three above if the situation warranted it, getting shot at (Iraq) could be such a situation.

[Idruna]

The FTP settings are indeed saved, plus you can save and recall multiple profiles now. The reviews are of version 1.0, FTP profiles were added in 1.1 (it's now at 2.0). The screen can be calibrated using Pocket Phojo to correct any colour cast on the Pocket PC, the iPAQ 3900 and 5400s can be made pretty accurate this way. Not everyone uses it for colour correction, but it's there for when you need it (photos take at sunset are a good example, the guy at the photo desk can end up completely changing the colours if they have not seen the actual scene for reference).

[Andy Sjostrom]

The FTP settings are indeed saved, plus you can save and recall multiple profiles now. The reviews are of version 1.0, FTP profiles were added in 1.1 (it's now at 2.0). The screen can be calibrated using Pocket Phojo to correct any colour cast on the Pocket PC, the iPAQ 3900 and 5400s can be made pretty accurate this way. Not everyone uses it for colour correction, but it's there for when you need it (photos take at sunset are a good example, the guy at the photo desk can end up completely changing the colours if they have not seen the actual scene for reference).

Thanks, Idruna for responding! I've come across Phojo a number of times, even in non-Pocket PC situations. Professionals do report that they like the product very much. One key aspect from a feature set POV is that it is not photographers *only* that use Phojo, but photo_journalists_ that add text/captions etc and use Phojo as their main image+writing tool.

[yslee]

Ah, but how does it do for cropping? In sport photography, you're fighting with as many as 40 to 60 photographers, and every second counts. I know the workflow of a good friend, and he churns photos (including cropping) to his agency really fast.

I'm still unsure how this product would serve outside of PJs, maybe I'm too used to editing photos on a notebook/desktop. Admittedly this will get better as PPCs themselves improve.

[Peter Foot]

The FTP settings are indeed saved, plus you can save and recall multiple profiles now. The reviews are of version 1.0, FTP profiles were added in 1.1 (it's now at 2.0). The screen can be calibrated using Pocket Phojo to correct any colour cast on the Pocket PC, the iPAQ 3900 and 5400s can be made pretty accurate this way. Not everyone uses it for colour correction, but it's there for when you need it (photos take at sunset are a good example, the guy at the photo desk can end up completely changing the colours if they have not seen the actual scene for reference).

Some interesting updates, obviously some big changes since that review was written!

[Idruna]

For large scale events such as the Olympics or even regular stadium events, a WiFi network can add even more power to the Pocket PC solution. Shooters on the sidelines can quickly transmit photos or entire cards to the editor, or by running a web server on the Pocket PC the editor can even browse the shooter's card and pick the photos they want.

To answer the question about cropping, yes, you can crop the image in just a couple of seconds. If you are shooting for the AP for example who needs images at 8x10 at 300dpi, you can also set it up to automatically resize the image as part of the crop process to save time. In a crowd of photojournalists, the ones using Pocket Phojo will have a decidedly unfair advantage in the time it takes them to transmit, they can have their photos transmitting before a powerbook can even boot. Photojournalists using Phojo tell me how they are on their way home after a sports game while their colleagues are still setting themselves up to send. Needless to say his photos are used quite a bit as they are available far sooner than the other people covering the game, and often before the game has even ended.