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Post by PostmasterGS on Feb 15, 2016 3:05:05 GMT
It's about time, so here goes... the PMGS StampFix app. Special thanks to my beta testers. There were significant changes between v1.0 and the current version (v1.08), and I couldn't have done it without your help. Please make sure you update to the current version. What it does:It takes this (left), and turns it into this (right). It'll do single images or batch processing. Compatibility:Windows 7+ and Mac OSX 10.10+. I suspect it might work on OSX 10.9, but I don't have confirmation. I'm working on a Linux version (sorry Andy Pastuszak ). Limitations:It's designed to work with stamps scanned on a black background. I'm working in modifying it to do white backgrounds, but it's a bit trickier. This is the issue with which my beta testers had the most difficulty. I never realized how many people scan with a white background. Here's a tip -- Strathmore Chromolux Mirri Sheet, $2.99 for a 19 1//2" x 26" sheet at Hobby Lobby. Cut it to the same size as your scanner lid and attach it with Scotch Scrapbooking Tape. Where can I get it?The latest version will always be available here. The page also has some basic instructions on how to use the app. How much is it?$100 $50 $20 $2.99 Free. Frei. Gratis. Gratuit. Livre. свободно. вільний. 無料で If you charge people for software, they expect lots of customer support, and we cant have that! I do still have a day job. But seriously, I'll do my best to provide any support needed. I made the app to save myself a lot of time and effort. You folks get the benefit. Though I'm not charging for use of the app, there was significant cost involved in creating it, so if you feel like donating to the cause, there's a PayPal link on the download page. What I ask of you:
Despite the best efforts of me and my beta testers, there will, no doubt, still be some bugs. If something isn't working or isn't behaving like you think it should, please note (1) what you were trying to do, (2) what the incorrect/unexpected behavior was, and (3) and error messages it gives you. I have no doubt there will be some quick updates once everyone starts trying it out. I ask that you please be patient if there are new versions fairly often until I get the last of the bugs worked out. Also, if you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know. Demo:Enjoy.
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rod222
Member
Posts: 9,871
What I collect: Worldwide Stamps, Ephemera and Catalogues
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Post by rod222 on Feb 15, 2016 3:22:13 GMT
As a worldwide collector, this is going to get some work. Already trialled with a few hundred. Thanks Postmaster. Donation made.
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BC
Departed
Rest in Peace
Vancouver, BC Canada
Posts: 836
What I collect: Worldwide USED up to the 1960's, later years from countries that came into existence after then, like Anguilla, Tuvalu and Transnistria.
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Post by BC on Feb 15, 2016 4:37:06 GMT
Looks great PMGS! I did a test on a single stamp and the result is below. Over the next few days I will try batch testing. Before: After:
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Post by PostmasterGS on Feb 16, 2016 23:46:13 GMT
I've just published the first update to the app, v1.09. It's available at the app webpage. The only change of note is a major correction to the cropping algorithm. v1.09 ChangesWith v1.08 if you applied a high manual rotation angle, the padding was off. For example, observe the corners of this stamp -- the padding should be 1px. v1.08Here it is with v1.09. v1.09I discovered this during the course of experimenting with diamond-shaped stamps. Observe... v1.08v1.09New Download OptionsI took a new approach to the packaging of the app, and I managed to get the download size down from ~178MB to ~48MB. Also, there's now a lighter option -- if you already have Java Runtime Environment installed, you can download the app without the JRE bundled. It's ~9-13MB. So for those with a bandwidth cap, consider downloading the JRE directly from Java, so every time I update the app, you can just download the light version. Other App News:I'm still working on dedicated diamond and triangle options. In the meantime, however, here are some instructions on how to process triangles and diamonds. TrianglesThe app still tries to treat triangles as squares, but you can overcome this by using only Pre-Processing Rotation Adjustments. If you find the sweet spot, it will make a perfectly cropped triangular stamp. The key is, DO NOT use ANY Post-Processing Rotation Adjustment. I haven't worked through that issue yet. Also, if you're going to do triangles, you need ample spacing around the stamp in the original image. If the stamp is too close to the edge of the original image, there won't be sufficient background to cover all the space when it's rotated, and you get this (note the darker black fill in the corners) -- DiamondsIt's also possible to do diamonds, though again, not yet on full automatic. For diamond stamps that are actually square, there's no amount of coding that will make the app treat them as a diamond. The app can't read the face of the stamp to tell which way is up in the text, so it will always rotate the stamp to a square. The solution -- apply a 45° Post-Processing Rotation Adjustment. For more traditional diamond-shaped stamps, the angle will be a little different -- in this example ~30° Post-Processing Rotation Adjustment produced this result. Hopefully, I'll be able to automate the triangles and diamonds soon, but until then, these tips will have to do!
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rod222
Member
Posts: 9,871
What I collect: Worldwide Stamps, Ephemera and Catalogues
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Post by rod222 on Feb 17, 2016 0:26:24 GMT
I am currently on Ver 1:06
A few notes to users, as me, scan the grungier material.
You may find
1. If your scanner platen, is grubby, or you have lint on any stamps, the program picks up the white flecks and will give a padding to the fleck, hence giving one a large border on 1 side. 2. If you have a long tooth on 1 of the perfs, as is the case sometimes, the padding goes from the end of the tooth one has to remove the long tooth by snipping, or whatever your method is.
I did 100 Romania this morning, flawless result. Has saved hours of repetitive work in Picasa.
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Post by PostmasterGS on Feb 17, 2016 0:30:04 GMT
rod222, I had you in mind with the size update. If you'll go to Java and download the JRE, you should be able to download just the 9-13 MB updates in the future. Sure beats those original 178 MB versions!
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KirkS
Member
Often wrong, but never in doubt :-)
Posts: 187
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Post by KirkS on Feb 17, 2016 13:01:03 GMT
Oh come on, PMGS. You know you can think of a way! Don't be one of those lazy programmers. And don't forget all the circular stamps -- you're gonna have to make those work too. <LOL> I am, of course, just pulling your leg
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Post by PostmasterGS on Feb 18, 2016 4:11:59 GMT
Another big update to the PMGS StampFix app. Now at v1.10. Bug Fixv1.09 introduced the ability to rotate/crop triangle stamps, but you couldn't use the final rotation adjustment or the image would be wildly off. This was due to the center of rotation being calculated incorrectly. That's been fixed, so you can now manually rotate triangular stamps. The Big Addition -- White Backgrounds!This was, by far, the most requested feature that I hadn't been able to conquer. Well, it works now. It's complicated to get setup, but it works. As does black stamps on black backgrounds. The key is that the app now allows manual adjustment of the thresholds. This is fairly technical, but since I know many of you won't watch the video or read the directions... In very simplified terms -- when an image is processed, it's converted into grayscale. With grayscale, each pixel receives a value from 0 (black) to 255 (white). The threshold sets a number on that axis, and everything on one side is considered background, everything on the other is stamp. The difficulty in handling white-on-white or black-on-black is that the margin for that threshold is very small. Sometimes, only 2-3 numbers on a 0-255 scale will allow the app to accurately separate the stamp from the background. And, the number will vary based on the shade of your background (in my example below, a white scanner lid was 240, a white piece of paper was 214). By allowing you to manually adjust these settings, you can find the sweet spot where it will produce accurate results for you. As usual, download is at the webpage. Here's a video demo.
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BC
Departed
Rest in Peace
Vancouver, BC Canada
Posts: 836
What I collect: Worldwide USED up to the 1960's, later years from countries that came into existence after then, like Anguilla, Tuvalu and Transnistria.
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Post by BC on Feb 18, 2016 16:33:04 GMT
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Post by PostmasterGS on Feb 23, 2016 2:11:07 GMT
And now, another major update! Meet v1.11. Download is here. The major addition to this update is the ability to take this: And produce this: That's right -- extracting multiple stamps from a larger image, then rotating, cropping, and saving! It's pretty complicated compared to the previous steps, so once again, here's a demo.
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Poodle_Mum
Member
Inactive
Posts: 252
What I collect: WW to 1950; All German Eras; Imperial Russia & USSR; All Occupations and Colonies of Germany and Russia; Canada; QV and Belgian Railways
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Post by Poodle_Mum on Feb 23, 2016 2:15:20 GMT
Do we get the German Colonies with it?
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bobby1948
Departed
Rest in Peace
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Sir Edmund Burke
Posts: 690
What I collect: WW to 1945; US mnh 1922-1990; US used and unused to 1922
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Post by bobby1948 on Feb 23, 2016 3:15:05 GMT
Another big update to the PMGS StampFix app. Now at v1.10. Impressive work!
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area66
**Member**
Inactive
Posts: 27
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Post by area66 on Feb 23, 2016 3:55:56 GMT
This is so goooooooooooooooooood , I playing with it right now.
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francis
**Member**
Inactive
Posts: 30
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Post by francis on Jun 11, 2017 20:00:27 GMT
This program is really helpful. Thank you for all your work and new updates.
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francis
**Member**
Inactive
Posts: 30
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Post by francis on Jun 11, 2017 20:01:05 GMT
I will definitely recommend it to my friends, thank you again
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Post by PostmasterGS on May 29, 2020 15:06:47 GMT
I’m proud to announce the release of version 1.20 of StampFix. What's changed? First, and most obviously, the user interface. The previous format was a small window, designed to avoid issues for those who might run a smaller screen resolution. Unfortunately, this made it impossible to have all the settings in one place, and led to users missing settings or having difficulty tweaking settings without clicking through multiple screens. The new UI is much larger, with all settings co-located, and it’s resizable all the way to full-screen size. This does increase the chance that those with lower screen resolutions will have problems — if that’s the case, please let me know. Second, a bug fix for images that were long and thin not processing correctly. Finally, a half-solution to the problem of DPIs not being included in the metadata of the outputted images. This now works if the input file is a PNG. I haven’t managed to get it working with JPG input files yet, though I’m still working on it. As usual, a quick instructional video. I highly recommend taking 20 minutes to watch this, as it explains a few key changes to the user interface. Downloads are available here. Feel free to give it a try and let me know what you think. Also, please report any bugs, unusual behavior, feature requests, etc.
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Ryan
Member
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Posts: 2,720
What I collect: If I have a catalogue for it, I collect it. And I have many catalogues ....
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Post by Ryan on May 29, 2020 16:06:48 GMT
Downloads are available here. Oops - I'm guessing you intended to link to this page on your site, rather than to this TSF thread. Ryan
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Post by PostmasterGS on May 29, 2020 22:58:21 GMT
Ryan , Thanks for that. I had a curved quote in the URL instead of a straight quote, and the forum software didn't like that.
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gmot
Member
Posts: 205
What I collect: Canada & French Morocco
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Post by gmot on May 30, 2020 1:53:39 GMT
Thanks for the update - I must admit to being one of those users who had difficulty finding the settings. Looking forward to trying this out.
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Post by sherro on May 30, 2020 4:13:02 GMT
Try as I may, I can't give the program permission to access images.
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Post by PostmasterGS on May 30, 2020 6:09:02 GMT
Try as I may, I can't give the program permission to access images. Not sure what you're talking about, sherro . Can you post a screenshot of whatever error message you're getting?
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Post by sherro on May 30, 2020 8:22:58 GMT
Clicking on "Load Single Image", selecting an image, this is the result
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khj
Member
Posts: 1,449
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Post by khj on May 30, 2020 8:39:12 GMT
Did you create a new username on your computer in the past 3 years? If you are signing in as an admin, you should be able to open the file.
If you are not signing in as admin, you will need to check to see if you have read permission on the image files you are trying to open. Right-click on the image file, select Properties in the pop-up window, then click on the "Security" tab, click on your Group or User Name, and make sure you have a "check mark" (i.e., allow) in the row marked "Read". It may be that your entire image folder somehow got the Read permission removed, so you may need check the permission settings for the entire folder (&contencts).
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Post by PostmasterGS on May 30, 2020 23:04:13 GMT
sherro , I'll second what khj said. This appears to be an issue with the permissions within Windows for those files or folders, not with the app. Are you able to open those images with other applications?
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brightonpete
Departed
Rest in Peace
On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on May 31, 2020 0:11:58 GMT
The Mac version seems to be OK. Odd installer, why not just the app? Anyway, it threw up a dialog box asking if it was OK for the app to accept keystrokes from any application! I denied that, and it seems to work OK.
Oh and the url in the last message about the yupdate is munged. I hate to delete a pile of stuff at the beginning of the URL to get it to work.
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Post by PostmasterGS on May 31, 2020 0:50:04 GMT
Odd installer, why not just the app? There isn't really such a thing as "just the app", unless it's a very basic app. There are usually extra things that need to be packaged with the meat of the app (desktop icons, etc.). The installer is the easy way to do that. Oh and the url in the last message about the yupdate is munged. I hate to delete a pile of stuff at the beginning of the URL to get it to work. Sorry about that. The forum software inserts redirects for ad/tracking purposes, and sometimes those screw up the links.
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brightonpete
Departed
Rest in Peace
On a hike at Goodrich-Loomis
Posts: 5,110
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Post by brightonpete on May 31, 2020 1:05:56 GMT
Don't worry. Somehow HAD was changed to HATE & I missed that. Sorry about that!'
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Post by sherro on May 31, 2020 3:08:31 GMT
Thanks for the input. I have full rights under my name and I'm also the administrator. No login changes and I can work with my pics with all other programs, boards etc. This is a conundrum!
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khj
Member
Posts: 1,449
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Post by khj on May 31, 2020 3:43:07 GMT
Since you are able to access those files using other programs, that suggests Windows has flagged StampFix and is deliberately blocking it from opening certain documents (depends on your security settings). I am assuming you are using Windows 10 ( ). In the warped world of Windows, having an Administator account, having only one account showing, actually using Administrator privileges, and running an application as Administrator... are not the exact same thing. Yeah, what I wrote doesn't make sense to me either, but it is what it is... Try this: -- go to the PMGS StampFix app -- right-click -- select Properties -- choose Compatibility tab -- mark the box "Run this program as an administrator" Hopefully, that can be a functional workaround for you. Since our NPO often uses ancient devices, it's not unheard of for me to set something to "Compatibility mode" to get the device driver or app to work. Or if they update the device driver (but I don't update the device), sometimes I have set the app to run as administrator. Windows can be really picky about what it doesn't like -- doesn't matter how good the program actually is.
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khj
Member
Posts: 1,449
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Post by khj on May 31, 2020 3:44:22 GMT
Don't worry. Somehow HAD was changed to HATE & I missed that. Sorry about that!' I had when that happens!
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