Please note, the Olympys 400z was a very poor digicam, to see slightly better images jump to my new Casio QV3500-EX page.

Some snapshots using Olympus 400z

To be viewed in native CRT gamma space, ( that is with PC systems that are not gamma corrected).

Please calibrate the black-point of your CRT monitor first:
1.	Disable CRT color-management if active (go to DisplayProperies/Color, press Reset or Default button and then OK button).
2.	Set the Contrast control to maximum.
3.	While observing the effect to the Miniature Monitor Calibration Chart below set the Brightness control to maximum and from there to minimum.
4.	Now increase the Brightness control until the lightness of each of the left patches in the four calibration swatches appear to have the same lightness as the respective patch on the right. Evaluate at such distance that the horizontal line screen of the right patches is fully averaged by the eye or squint the eyes.
5.	Calibration of the Brightness and Contrast controls of the CRT is now complete. It is quite accurate and is valid also when CRT color-management is used. Please do not enable the CRT color management for the photos on this page or if you do enable it set it to gamma 2.5 space.
	If you like you can set the black-point very accurately here.

The below photos are not an example of craftsmanship, just some snap-shots showing the poor quality of the Oly 400z, this is common for all today's digicams. Their transfer function (or what is supposed to be the file-gamma) is not a gamma functionm but an arbitrary in-camera applied curve, they have high noise and large hue-shifts in addition to the JPEG artifacts due to the highly lossy JPEG compression.

Images (all images just not these) must be viewed at such distance that the horizontal line-dither of the right patches in the above Miniature Monitor Calibration Chart are fully averaged by the eye, otherwise you will discern the individual pixels in the images (the noise, JPEG artifacts as well as the sharpening will appear exaggerated. CRT monitors are only about 75 DPI.

This column: Thumbs of originals. Click the thumbs to see the original camera images.	This column: Thumbs of corrected images. Click the thumbs to see them in original size.
Paris, France, 2000.
La big construction
Too big a construction for Le too small a camera
A camera shop somewhere in Paris
Hotel Chopin
Where in Paris do you find friendy, polite service?	Well, you'll need to go 25km to the east, visit the Disneyland
Disneyland Paris, a cave	This btw is not a composite, just calibrated then enhanced from the single original.
Le Louvre, main entrance
Le Sacre-Coeur
The Opera building at the back. This intersection has (usually) about 6 traffic lanes, and look; no lane markings at all.	Driving a car in Paris is a great fun, especially the traffic circle around the triumphal arch, it just needs to be experienced.
Mallorca, Spain, 1999.
Port Soller, main avenue
Port Soller
Tarn, somewhere in Mallorca
Bay, somewhere in Mallorca
Pool at the hotel
Tunnel on the northern coastal highway
Another Tunnel
Port Soller: The public transportation vehicle
Palma de Mallorca: A view from Castell de Bellver
Beach: Cala Romantica
Footpath from Cala Romantica
View from Cap Formentor
Farmyard of a riding school in Son Menut
Port Soller, view from nearby cliff
Lighthouse of Cap Formentor
Castell de Bellver

The images were corrected using Photoshop 5.0.2.

1. Blur the existing sharpening away using Gaussian Blur filter.
2. Linearize the image data (that is: apply calibration). I linearize all images into gamma 1.0 (the linear space) using an Action that converts the image into 15-bit mode, then applies Curves and ChannelMixer commands. The Curves and ChannelMixer adjustments are based on the calibration of the 400z camera using the Kodak Q-60 Color Calibration Chart.
3. Correct the white-point using the Levels dialog and simultaneously make headroom into the light-end for step 4.
4. Apply saturation enhancement using the Hue/Saturation dialog or with the Space Hunter filter.
5. Converted the image back into 8-bit mode so that Photoshop filters can be used.
6. Verify that there is still enough headroom in the light-end and apply USM at healthy strength.
7. Remove the noise that was highly amplified in step 6.
8. Adjust the black-point that got shifted because of the noise reduction and remove the remaining of the headroom from the white-end.
9. For images that go to the web make a duplicate, apply gamma 1/2.5 over the duplicate using the inverse gamma 2.5.amp  in the Curves dialog and save as JPEG.

Olympus 400z calibration

Here are the calibration commands in a zip file that I currently use, I have vritten an action that does:

1. Image/Mode/16-bit
2. Image/Adjust/Curves and the oly +0 v7.ACV from the above zip is loaded into it
3. Image/Adjust/ChannelMixer and the oly +0 v7.CHA from the above zip is loaded into it

   After this action the images will be in the the AIM working space, so the File/ColorSettings/RGB_Setup has to have:

   1. Primaries: Trinitron
   2. White-Point D6500
   3. Gamma: 1.0  
      

   In order the images to appear properly.

   Images are also in the higher bit-depth and it is beneficial to keep them there as long as possibly. E.g. Curves, Level and Hue/Saturation commands can be applied in the higher bit-depth mode.

   The copies of the final images that are uploaded to Web (or that are to be shown using an uncalibrated CRT monitor) need to be gamma compensated by the inverse_gamma_2.5.amp using the Curves dialog, in order the images to display properly there.