# Making a photo booth. You know, one button gives you a print with 4little pics.



## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

So, I want to build a setup that work like a "real" (if I can use that term) old school photo booth. I want to be able to press a button and get a print of either a strip or four corners on a 4x6".

I know that there's some PC software out ther like photoboof for making a digital photo booth that takes a series of shots and gives you a print.

I havn't used apple's photobooth app enough to know if it could but from what I've seen I highly doubt it. 

Anyone have any suggestions? Do I have to write my own program? 

Thanks.


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

Should be easy enough to write in Automator.

There are controls for taking iSight pictures.



I was at a friends wedding and the photographer had set up an area with a Mac, a camera and a mouse. Stand on the X and press single mouse button and the camera would take your picture. Didn't bother printing on site as they were meant to be a visual record of the guests for the couple.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

I've never really used Automator. Can you suggest a good tutorial?

I've set up photo booth areas at parties and such but they have always meant having some one click on something for each shot. And making a print on a single document is pretty essential. 

I could probably make an action for most of this in photoshop, with the exception of taking the captures and automating the action to start once all four captures have been made.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

So, uh……what's wrong with just using Photo Booth?


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Well, the whole point is that I want to go straight from a camera to a print with one click. Plus I don't want to have to use an iSight, I'd like to use a digital still camera or at least something that will trigger a flash.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Your pictures are very fun. But if I use another camera that can fire a flash then that way I can light it like this photo from the last time I tried making a photo-booth. (Both people are not me by the way.)


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Would anyone with some automator experience be able to give me a suggestion in the right direction.


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

masoste said:


> (Both people are not me by the way.)


 I'd have been very impressed if _they_ were you. :lmao:


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

I try to be as many people as possible, but I'm just one guy.

Sigh.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

*Maybe a lead!*

Well a bit of searching turned up this little gem. 

An open source DSLR interface.

It looks like I've got a fair bit of learning to do though.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

*or*

Or if I can't get gPhoto2 to work I guess I'll go with photoboof 

It's for windows but it's made to make real photo booths.


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## Macified (Sep 18, 2003)

masoste said:


> Or if I can't get gPhoto2 to work I guess I'll go with photoboof
> 
> It's for windows but it's made to make real photo booths.


It's also $600.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Yay. 
Thanks maximusbibicus.
Now I've got a mac mini to start building this project. 
I'll let you know how it goes.


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

masoste said:


> Yay.
> Thanks maximusbibicus.
> Now I've got a mac mini to start building this project.
> I'll let you know how it goes.


Enjoy!

Very curious to see the outcome of this. 
:heybaby:


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

*Next step .... Button.*

So the next step that I'm at is this: I need a button.



I need to give the photobooth user something to start taking pictures of them self.
I've been thinking that a griffin PowerMate would work but they're expensive and all I need is a button, not a wheel.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Ok, so that's a bit too much. In fact I was thinking something like this. I guess in a regular photobooth the cameras start as soon as you put your money in, but I don't want to collect money. 

Has anyone made a USB button interface before? Or know where I can find something simple.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Ok, I got photoboof running in windows xp environment in the mini. I wish I had another way but it's working so far. 

I even found a great page that shows how to make a button that pins out on to a USB to serial adapter. I've got the adapter, and I think I can come up with the rest. It should beat the Griffin PowerMate at simple buttonieness, but I wish I could see a way to get it to only light up when it's ready to take a photo. 

As for printing, the Olympus P-11 or P-10 look like they would work fine. I'm still trying to find one that will print strips though. It looks like I may have to resort to the slow option of an inkjet.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Here's another solution that looks like it might be worth exploring. 
Here's a little automator app that uses the built in isight, takes four shots, makes a pdf of them in a strip, and prints it out on the default printer. 

Now If I can figure out ow to make this, then I'm hoping that I can do the same thing with a Canon S50 that I've got in stead of the isight, and get make a few changes to how it prints.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

*No dice*

After a whole hatred attempt to get gphoto2 working I've given up. 
I went through installing the x11 SDK and Macports. I even was able to get gphoto to compile itself and to recognize the camera that I plugged in. 
Oh yes, it knew that it was a Canon s50 that was plugged in, but wouldn't do anything else. 
I don't know if it's because I've got a conflict with another driver for the same camera, it I don't have gphoto2 configured properly, or if the version of gphoto even works at all.

So I'm turning back to the dark side. I've installed Photoboof. It's working ok. I really wish that I had more control over layout. In fact I had been planning to run a photoshop action to lay four images out in a nice layout. But I can't do that this way. There are a number of layouts though, so I'm happy enough.

It still comes down to having poor controllers for the camera too. In order to use the Canon S50 I've been using Canon's RemoteCapture 2.7.5. It's pretty much the same as the mac version of Canon's RemoteCapture. They both have the problem that they're not able to remember flash settings. So, in order to get the flash to fire I've got to navigate to RemoteCapture's flash settings and change them to always on every time I start the machine/application/camers.

Well, luckily the developer at Photboof has been very helpful and it looks like with their help I'm on the way. 

On the button trail it looks like I'm going to go the Arcade button route. 

Right now I'm using a PowerMate, but it's kind of chintzy. Unfortunately the USB to serial adapter that I have doesn't have mac drivers. I think I should be able to get it to work in XB (bootcamp) but if I'm going to return to makng my own solution on the mac os I'm thinking that maybe I should be looking at different usb to serial adapters. It's too bad that the Keyspan adapters are so expensive.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Well. Photoboof is a dream. 

I got the whole thing put together in a 6'x3'x2.5' plywood box.

Inside the box is: 
-A mac mini running XP
-Monitor (lacie photon 18vision LCD) [because the mini won't boot XP headless unless it's tricked in to thinking that it has a monitor attached and it's handy to have one anyways]
-Canon S50 camera
-Olympus P-11 Dye sub printer (holds paper for 50 prints and makes a 3.5"x5" in about 30 sec.)
-500w/s self-contained strobe head behind white plexi
-serial to USB adapter connected to a lit (9v light) arcade button
-a guitar practice amp for announcing functions and problems
-Lots of cables
-Black mat-board dividers to keep light where it needs to be


I used a piece of metal electrical conduit to make a curtain rod that extends 3' in front of the booth so that the curtain wraps around the people being photographed. 


I did an event last month with it and it went pretty well. The serial usb to button adapter was a bit of a problem since it got confused and thought that it was getting repeatedly pressed. Unplugging it and restarting the app fixed it though. I ended up with 130 +/- happy people.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Here's a fun photo. The booth it exposed wood now. I don't know if I'll cover it with something else. I like the look of the wood, it's just not super durable.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

And the prints are a like this.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

The most important part so far... 
...Lighting.

I enclosed the light in the structure of the plywood box but forgot to paint the inside where the light bounces around. Everyone looks great in black and white, but if I print in colour everyone's got a weird orange tan.

That's the next fix I guess. A daylight conversion gel also almost worked.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

*Any other photobooths?*

Anyone else out there made a photo booth?


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

This seems like it was an ENORMOUS amount of work, but the payoff in those happy faces is probably worth it.

Me, I would have just stolen a real photobooth. Renting a truck and dolly would have cost less than what you sunk into this, most probably.


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## digitddog (Jul 5, 2006)

A fellow named David Cline created a Mac Photo Booth. It doesn't use an external camera, just the built-in iSight on a Macbook. Connected to a photo printer, it looked like it worked fine. He offers the Automator script as donation ware. 

DIY: Wedding Photo Booth sevenEightcline


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Thanks for the link to the automator program. I'll try it. I think I'll have another go at it, but not using an external camera is a major problem. The most important factor has been being able to use a professional strobe light (even if the light I'm using is a bit old) and that also requires an external camera. I suppose once I get automator to work with Nikon's software to fire my nikon I'll be set though. The photoboof software handles all those connections though.

As for transportation, I've built the booth so that the whole thing knocks down and fits in the trunk of our four door VW Golf. We have to pop part of the back seats out and leave them behind but I took it to New York a couple months ago. It's made up of a 3'x4'x2 box that doesn't knock down, but sits on a 3'x2'x2' base that comes apart. when the base comes apart it fits inside the main box. The curtain is on a rod that also tits inside. And I've used a fold up stool to sit on. 

I definately much prefer the good old fashion dip and dunk style analogue photo booths, but they're getting hard to find. I seriously considered buying one but it would have been out of my budget. Plus you only get one print out of each shot which isn't ideal for most big events where the organizers want a copy and the booth-goers want a print right away. I generally hate digital booths though because of the overly digital feel of having a display in the booth and crappy pixelated prints. I'm satisfied with the prints that the Olympus Dye-Sub makes but just barely. The next step up for dyesubs are pretty pricey though as far as I've seen. As for displays I didn't put one in the booth for people to see. They just see their reflection in a piece of plexiglass which the camera is mounted behind. That way people look at the camera, just like they should, not somewhere else.

It's definitely been worth the time and work (if you could call it that) to see how much fun people have with it. 

I've got to take some more photos of it set up. Unfortunately it's over in a friends basement since, although it fits in out car, we don't have room for it in the apartment right now.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

I just found this page. 
It's a nice set up using automator and photoshop.
Nice photos of the booth construction.

[I can't seem to figure out how to embed the page here but it looks kind of like this]


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

If you want to connect a camera to the Mac via USB and have the computer control the camera, the correct terminology is *tethered camera*. I got a bunch of hits on Google with the search term "tethered camera mac" (without the quotes.) You might want to look into it.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Yes, there are lots of tethered camera controls.
Nikon has Nikon ViewNX, Capture NX2, and Camera Control Pro 2
Canon has their own and there are a few really good independently developed tethered software camera controls like this one for PC. There's a nikon version too

But I still haven't found one that has good enough automation to use in a photobooth environment. Although they tend to provide great control when you're working in a studio environment with a tethered camera.


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

Well, Photobooth has some great updates to their program. It now supports more cameras and has a handy function that can allow the audio jack to be wired to a button to start a photo sequence (now that's pretty smart).

I set my booth up for another party recently and it ran fine. Still running Photoboof in XP environment on my mini and printing using an Olympus p-11 dye-sub printer.


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## jcowens (Sep 9, 2010)

*Plans for photobooth*

Hi - 

Do you happen to have plans for the construction of the booth? That is what I'm finding hard to find on the net.

Thanks,
Jeff



masoste said:


> Well. Photoboof is a dream.
> 
> I got the whole thing put together in a 6'x3'x2.5' plywood box.
> 
> ...


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## masoste (Mar 7, 2006)

I don't have plans since mine is pretty much just a plywood box with some bent conduit for a curtain rod that sticks out camera side. I'm sure that your layout will change depending on what gear you use. It's 6 feet tall about 34 inches wide and something like 2 feet deep. Mine has to fit in the trunk of our VW golf so it breaks down in to an approximately 34"x24"x40" box and the bottom of the box has to be disassembled and placed inside it. 

I'll have a look around and see if I have a photo. I don't know if I do since I usually use the booth to do the picture taking.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Another approach, using HTML5 to create a Photo Booth, using OS X and the isightcapture command line tool:

*Sunlight's (Mostly) Web-based Photo Booth*



> The UI is written in HTML5. That gets us a lot of street cred, right? Well then keep it a secret that I didn't use any of the new elements. This app is HTML5 in doctype only. There is, however, a lot of CSS3 used all over the place. border-radius adds pleasing rounded corners to photos. CSS transforms are used to randomly rotate the photos and text as they are displayed on the screen. These random rotations give the app a natural, messy look that says "Hey kids, this application is free-wheeling and fun!"


(SunLightLabs)


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