Pre-event software setup

Besides the physical photobooth assembly, it is also appropriate to set up the application itself for a new event.

Create a new project

In Photobone Studio, each project is a separate folder on a disc where data from the event is stored to – photos, print outputs and some settings (for example mosaic config and counter values). Therefore it is appropriate to create a new project for each event. It is very easy to do – on the top in the tool bar, press the folder button next under the “Project” tab to open the project selection dialog.

The “Projects folder” field contains path to a folder where all projects are stored in. Each project is then represented as a subfolder. The “Project name” field corresponds with the subfolder name.

Entering a project name that does not exist yet creates a new project in a new folder. It is recommended to use the “Current date” button when creating a new project, which sets the project name to the current date, and then append the location/name of the event.

Keying callibration

Each event presents different lighting conditions (and sometimes the lighting conditions can even change during the event itself), so it is recommended to adjust the keying settings right before each event. Ask some person to stand before the green screen for a while, go to the “Environments” screen and show the “Keying” and “Details” panels.

Because different keying configurations are used for live view and for the shooting, it is necessary to perform the callibration twice.

1. Take a sample photo (with a model in front of the green screen) using the “Shoot now” button.
2. Move the “Keying threshold” slider to the largest value where the people are not yet getting transparent. When holding the slider, semi-transparent parts of the photo are highlighted in red color.

3. Adjust the “Bleaching threshold” slider to such value where edges of people are not green tinted (due to reflection from the green screen) and where the photo colors are not too distorted. Too high value of the bleaching threshold is a usual cause of people being tinted to red.
4. You can experiment with other sliders if you want to. It is always possible to revert to default settings using the “Default settings “button.
5. It is also necessary to callibrate keying for the live view. Activate the live view using the “Live view” button.
6. It is recommended to turn off the “Automatically detect background color” option. Because of that, it is necessary to set the background color. Click the button next to the background color value and then click on a green screen in the preview.
7. Adjust the “Keying threshold” and “Bleaching threshold” sliders, same as when callibrating for the photos.
8. It might be appropriate to adjust “Color temperature” for the live view.

After performing these steps, the keying is ready for real operation. It is possible to recallibrate the keying anytime during the event. It is also possible to adjust the keying config using an utility button on a customer screen.

Additional settings

Based on the event character, you can also adjust other settings in the application:

• Counter limits: If you agreed to print only a limited number of collages and don’t want to manually check if the customers have reached the limit, you can set the limit in Settings → Counters; after reaching it, the software will not allow starting new sessions.
• Price calculations: If the photos are paid per-print, it is possible to activate pricing in Settings → Project → Pricing. The price can be displayed on the customer screen when selecting print count, and you can also see it in the history panel.
• Do not offer printing: If you don’t want to print any photos and only work with digital data, you can enable “Do not offer printing” in Settings → Printing. Customers will then not be offered printing at all.
• Customer consent: If the situation demands it, you can enable requiring consent from your customers in Settings → Customer screen. This consent will be shown to customers before each shooting. The text of the consent is configurable.