Epson Software Film Factory User manual

Copyright Notice

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of

Epson America, Inc.

EPSON is a registered trademark of SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION.

EPSON Software and the EPSON Software logo are trademarks of Epson

America, Inc.

Film Factory and the Film Factory logo are trademarks of A.I.Soft, Inc.

General notice: Other product names used herein are for identification purposes

only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. EPSON disclaims any and

all right in those marks.

for its contributions. 4/00

FFGSPDF

i

Contents

Introducing Film Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Film Factory features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Learning more about Film Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Windows system requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Macintosh system requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Installing Film Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Macintosh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Starting Film Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Film Factory’s main screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Organizing Your Photos with Film Factory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Working with film rolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Working with film cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Managing photos on removable media and networks . . . . . . . . 11

Finding and sorting photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

ii

Creating a Roll of Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Adding photos from a disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Adding photos from a camera or scanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Retouching Your Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Photo retouching methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Automatically retouching a photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Manually retouching a photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Printing Your Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Printing Standard Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Printing Index Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Printing Duplicate Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Printing Album Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Printing Greeting Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Printing Sticker Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Other Film Factory Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Creating a photo slide show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Creating web pages of your photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Converting any photo to desktop wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Using Film Factory’s screen saver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Where to Get Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

1

Introducing Film Factory

EPSON

®

Software

™

Film Factory

™

is a powerful photo management utility

designed to duplicate the features and functions of a 1-hour photo lab.

However, unlike a traditional photo finisher, Film Factory lets you process

your digital “film” and print snapshots using your own computer and

printer. You can import images from any digital-imaging source—such as a

scanner, digital camera, or electronic media—and create virtual rolls of film

and film cases that let you catalog thousands of photos in a visual format.

Film Factory is the perfect photo management program for the home or

office. If you’re a home computer user, you’ll have fun organizing,

enhancing, printing, and sharing your favorite photos with family and

friends. If you’re a small business user, Film Factory provides an efficient

and convenient way to catalog your business-related digital photos.

Film Factory features

Film Factory lets you:

■ Quickly and easily import and organize images from most any source.

■ Take advantage of image enhancement tools to make your pictures look

their best. Automatically adjust color balance, brightness and contrast.

Rotate or trim the image, or correct red eyes. Convert photos to black

and white or sepia for a classic look. Most enhancements can be made

without modifying the original image file.

2

■ Effortlessly organize and retrieve all your photos with virtual “rolls of

film.” And with “film cases” a mouse-click away, you can catalog your

photos by subject, or family members can have their own film case with

their own rolls.

■ Print vivid color images in standard photo, index print, and photo album

formats using your color printer—just like a traditional photo finisher!

Share photos by printing greeting cards and stickers.

■ Add comments about each photo. You can even add sound.

■ E-mail your photos to family, friends, and business associates using your

own e-mail program, or create web pages of your photos in one easy

step.

■ Use your photos as desktop wallpaper or a screen saver (Windows only).

Learning more about Film Factory

Consult these online resources to learn about Film Factory:

■ This Getting Started guide gets you started using Film Factory’s exciting

features.

■ The Film Factory online Help provides detailed information about how

to use Film Factory, including step-by-step instructions for the most

frequently used features.

■ Find out about additional EPSON Support in “Where to Get Help” on

page 34.

3

Windows

®

system requirements

■ Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT

®

4.0 (SP4)

■ Pentium

®

90 (or equivalent) processor or higher

■ 32MB of RAM (64MB or more recommended)

■ 25MB of available hard disk space, not including photo storage

■ SVGA monitor with 16-bit (High Color) display adapter or better

■ CD-ROM drive

■ Mouse or other pointing device

■ Compatible with most printers; a high-quality photo printer and special

media are recommended to print the best images

Compatible devices and file formats

■ TWAIN-compatible digital cameras and scanners

■ Imports BMP, JPEG, PCX, uncompressed TIFF, and FPX file formats.

Exports BMP and JPG.

4

Macintosh

®

system requirements

■ Macintosh OS version 7.6.1 or higher

■ 90 MHz Power PC 601 processor or higher

■ 64MB of RAM

■ 40MB of available hard disk space, not including photo storage

■ 800 x 600 display resolution with Color Depth set to “thousands of

colors”

■ QuickTime

™

3 or higher

■ HTML browser (such as Microsoft

®

Internet Explorer or Netscape

®

Navigator

®

version 4.0 or higher) to view online help

■ CD-ROM drive

■ Mouse or other pointing device

■ Compatible with most printers; a high-quality photo printer and special

media are recommended to print the best images

Compatible devices and file formats

■ TWAIN-compatible digital cameras and scanners

■ Can import and overwrite JPEG, PICT, TIFF (if QuickTime 4.0 or

higher is installed), QuickTime, MacPaint,

®

Photoshop

®

(versions 2.5

and 3.0) SGI, PNG, 16-bit BMP, and TGA. Can import but not

overwrite FPX (if QuickTime 4.0 or higher is installed), and GIF files.

Exports PICT and JPEG files.

5

Installing Film Factory

Install Film Factory on your Windows or Macintosh computer as described

below.

Windows

1. Insert the Film Factory CD into your CD-ROM (or DVD) drive. Setup

starts automatically.

2. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

If Setup does not start automatically, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the

My Computer icon.

2. Double-click the icon for your CD-ROM (or DVD) drive. If the Setup

program does not start automatically at this point, double-click

SETUP.EXE to launch it.

3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

If you need to uninstall Film Factory, Click the Start button, and

select Programs > Film Factory > Uninstall. Then follow the

on-screen instructions.

Note

6

Macintosh

1. Insert the Film Factory CD into your CD-ROM (or DVD) drive.

2. Double-click the Film Factory Mac CD icon.

3. Double-click the Film Factory Installer icon.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Starting Film Factory

To start Film Factory in Windows, click the Start button, then select

Programs > Film Factory > Film Factory.

To start Film Factory on a Macintosh, open the Film Factory folder and

double-click the

Film Factory icon to open the program.

You see the main screen.

7

Film Factory’s main screen

The main screen displays thumbnails of your photos, which you can select

and use with any of Film Factory’s features through menu commands,

toolbar tools, and print wizards.

Film

cases

Menu commands Toolbar tools

Print

wizards

Roll of film

PhotoStatus bar

Scroll bar

8

Menu commands: Open any

menu to select a command. The

Status Bar describes the command.

Toolbars: Click on any tool to perform its function. Hold the mouse

cursor briefly over any tool to see what function it performs.

Print wizards:

Select from

several

printing

features, such

as Standard

Prints, Album

Pages or

Sticker Prints,

and follow the

steps to print

vivid color

images.

Film cases:

Create separate

film cases to

catalog your rolls

by subject.

Select a film case

by choosing it

from this list. Only

the rolls in that

case are

displayed.

9

Film rolls: Add

photos to your

rolls and view

them by simply

clicking on a

roll. The current

roll displays a

yellow

background.

Scroll bars:

Use the scroll

bars or click on

the arrows to

see more rolls

and more

photos.

Status bar: Describes the selected menu command and other

information (Windows).

Photos: Click on any photo to select it.

Selected photos display a yellow background.

Select them individually or use Shift-click to

select blocks of photos.

Click All or Cancel to select or deselect all the

photos in a roll.

10

Organizing Your Photos with Film Factory

Film Factory helps you organize photos already stored on your computer as

well as those you add from other sources—your digital camera, scanner, or

removable media such as a Zip

®

disk or CD-ROM. Photos are organized in

virtual film rolls, which you can also store in virtual film cases. Pages 7

through 9 show you how film rolls and film cases appear in Film Factory.

Working with film rolls

If you already have photos saved on your computer, you can create virtual

film rolls to manage these photos. Photos can be managed by name, date, and

comment. You can drag and drop copies of your photos from one roll to

another or move them using Ctrl+drag and drop (Windows) or Option+drag

and drop (Macintosh). Or you can use any of Film Factory’s other photo

management tools, which are available on the menus.

11

Working with film cases

Film cases allow you to group rolls of film by subject to make it easier to

manage your photos. With film cases, you see only the rolls you want to see.

As the number of your film rolls increases, you may want to file and manage

rolls by categorizing them within film cases.

You can display a film roll in more than one film case. To display all

existing rolls, select

All Rolls from the Film Cases drop-down list.

Managing photos on removable media and networks

Large photo files don’t have to take up space on your hard drive; just store them

on your Zip disk, CD-ROM, or other removable media. If, for example, you

have your photos developed and returned to you on a diskette or CD-ROM,

you can create a roll without storing the actual photos on your hard drive.

12

Likewise, rolls for network images can be viewed as thumbnails and

searched by photo comments even when the network is offline. Rolls of film

that are stored on removable media or network drives have a slightly

different icon.

When you want to print an image file, a message appears telling you the

name of the media disk where the file can be found. Just insert the disk to

continue printing. Rolls that have already been created on your hard drive

can also be transferred to a removable disk, such as a Zip disk.

Finding and sorting photos

The Find Photo command on the Edit menu and Sort Photos command

on the

View menu help you manage large numbers of photos.

Network drive icon

Removable media icon

13

Creating a Roll of Film

Film Factory lets you create a new roll of film at any time and add photos to

it—from a disk or from a device such as a digital camera or scanner. You

can add photos to a new roll of film or make a copy of existing images. Each

roll can hold as many photos as you want, but 100 photos is a practical

maximum.

1. Click

Print Options, if it’s not already selected.

2. Click the

New button. The New Roll window appears.

3. In the

Name field, enter a name for the new roll.

4. Do one of the following:

■ Click Empty Roll to create a roll to which you can add photos later.

■ Click Use Existing Image Folder and browse to a drive and/or

folder where photos already exist. For example, you may have your

photos developed and returned to you on a CD-ROM. In this case,

the photos are not copied to your hard drive; only thumbnail images

are created.

5. In the

Comment field, you can enter a description to further define your

roll. Comments are useful for searching later on, especially when you have

a large number of rolls.

6. Click

Add. The roll appears on the main screen.

14

If you created an empty film roll, you can add photos to it using photos

already stored on a disk or from other sources such as a digital camera or

scanner. See “Adding photos from a disk” below and “Adding photos from

a camera or scanner” on page 15 for details.

Adding photos from a disk

Follow these steps to import photos from various sources, such as a disk:

1. Click

Print Options, if it’s not already selected.

2. Select the appropriate film case and film roll.

3. Click the

Import button, then select From File from the drop-down

menu. The Import Files window appears.

4. Navigate to the disk and directory where the photos are stored.

5. Click the filename you wish to add. A thumbnail of the photo is

displayed. (In Windows, you can select more than one with Shift+click or

Ctrl+click.) Click

Select All to select them all.

6. Do one of the following to add photos to your roll:

■ Click Move to move the photos from their source to where Film

Factory stores images.

■ Click Copy to place a copy of the photos where Film Factory stores

images, leaving the originals intact.

15

Adding photos from a camera or scanner

Follow the steps below to download photos using a TWAIN device, such as a

digital camera or scanner. Film Factory works with all digital camera image

formats.

Make sure your device is TWAIN compliant before you try

importing photos. The device should be connected to your

computer and ready to use. See the instructions that came

with your device for help.

If your camera or scanner is not already selected as the import source:

1. Click the

Import button, and choose Import Settings. The Import

Settings window appears.

2. Click the

TWAIN tab.

3. Select the digital camera or scanner you are using and then click

OK.

To import photos from your camera or scanner:

1. Select the appropriate film case and film roll.

2. Click the

Import button, and choose From TWAIN Device. The

software used to transfer photos from your camera or scanner to your

computer is started.

If you have more than one TWAIN device, click Import Settings

to select the device you want to use.

Note

16

3. Import your photos to the selected roll of film using the software that was

started. See the instructions that came with the software for help.

Retouching Your Photos

Film Factory provides several photo retouching methods to bring out the

best in all your photos!

Photo retouching methods

Retouching can be automatic or manual. In most cases, retouching does not

modify the original photos.

■ Photos are automatically retouched according to Auto Retouch settings

when you prepare them for printing Standard Prints. See “Printing Your

Photos” on page 20 for details.

■ Photos already stored in a film roll can be selected and retouched

according to Auto Retouch settings using the Auto Retouch command.

See “Automatically retouching a photo” on page 17 for details.

■ Auto Retouch can greatly improve the quality of your photos. If you

want to retouch them manually, you can use the Manual Retouch

command to change the brightness, contrast, and color.

■ You can also manually retouch photos for these additional special

effects: black and white, sepia tone, soft focus, red eye correction, image

rotation, and trimming. See “Manually retouching a photo” on page 18

for an example.

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Epson Software Film Factory User manual

Epson Software Film Factory User manual

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