Solved the Thai Code List – I Think

See http://bkkphotographer.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/province-number-on-thai-license-plates/ and the comments to this photo on Flickr.

A Flickr friend directed me to the web site of the Thai Department of Land Transportartion (DLT)  here. There you can download Excel spreadsheets with statistics of vehicle registrations in each province of Thailand. That’s interesting (to me) but the good news is that the spreadsheets are organized in order of the two digit code applied to license plates for buses and commercial trucks.

The spreadsheets don’t explicitly list the codes but when I combined the information I have from photographs (> 50%) with the columns in the spreadsheets I was able to fill in the blanks. I was very thin in the southern region, but I had 92 = Songkhla and that was enough to place the remainder.

The first digit of the code gives the region of Thailand as follows:

0 – Bangkok
1 – Central
2 – East
3 – Lower North East
4 – Upper North East
5 – Upper North
6 – Lower North
7- West
8 – Upper South
9 – Lower South

Within each sub-region the codes are allocated roughly north-south, west-east. There are exceptions with provinces created since the DLT created the system, for example Sa Kaeo in the East and Nong Bua Lamphu in the North East.

Code	Name	Thai Name
01	Bangkok	กรุงเทพมหานคร
10	Chai Nat	ชัยนาท
11	Sing Buri	สิงห์บุรี
12	Lop Buri	ลพบุรี
13	Ang Thong	อ่างทอง
14	Saraburi	สระบุรี
15	Ayutthaya	พระนครศรีอยุธยา
16	Pathum Thani	ปทุมธานี
17	Nonthaburi	นนทบุรี
18	Samut Prakan	สมุทรปราการ
20	Nakhon Nayok	นครนายก
21	Prachin Buri	ปราจีนบุรี
22	Chachoengsao	ฉะเชิงเทรา
23	Chon Buri	ชลบุรี
24	Rayong	ระยอง
25	Chanthaburi	จันทบุรี
26	Trat	ตราด
27	Sa Kaeo	สระแก้ว
30	Chaiyaphum	ชัยภูมิ
31	Yasothon	ยโสธร
32	Ubon Ratchathani	อุบลราชธานี
33	Si Sa Ket	ศรีสะเกษ
34	Buri Ram	บุรีรัมย์
35	Nakhon Ratchasima	นครราชสีมา
36	Surin	สุรินทร์
37	Amnat Charoen	อำนาจเจริญ
38	Nong Bua Lam Phu	หนองบัวลำภู
40	Nong Khai	หนองคาย
41	Loei	เลย
42	Udon Thani	อุดรธานี
43	Nakhon Phanom	นครพนม
44	Sakon Nakhon	สกลนคร
45	Khon Kaen	ขอนแก่น
46	Kalasin	กาฬสินธุ์
47	Maha Sarakham	มหาสารคาม
48	Roi Et	ร้อยเอ็ด
49	Mukdahan	มุกดาหาร
50	Chiang Rai	เชียงราย
51	Mae Hong Son	แม่ฮ่องสอน
52	Chiang Mai	เชียงใหม่
53	Phayao	พะเยา
54	Nan	น่าน
55	Lamphun	ลำพูน
56	Lampang	ลำปาง
57	Phrae	แพร่
60	Uttaradit	อุตรดิตถ์
61	Sukhothai	สุโขทัย
62	Tak	ตาก
63	Phitsanulok	พิษณุโลก
64	Kamphaeng Phet	กำแพงเพชร
65	Phichit	พิจิตร
66	Phetchabun	เพชรบูรณ์
67	Nakhon Sawan	นครสวรรค์
68	Uthai Thani	อุทัยธานี
70	Suphanburi	สุพรรณบุรี
71	Kanchanaburi	กาญจนบุรี
72	Nakhon Pathom	นครปฐม
73	Ratchaburi	ราชบุรี
74	Samut Sakhon	สมุทรสาคร
75	Samut Songkhram	สมุทรสงคราม
76	Phetchaburi	เพชรบุรี
77	Prachuap Khiri Khan	ประจวบคีรีขันธ์
80	Chumpon	ชุมพร
81	Ranong	ระนอง
82	Surat Thani	สุราษฎร์ธานี
83	Phang Nga	พังงา
84	Nakhon Si Thammarat	นครศรีธรรมราช
85	Krabi	กระบี่
86	Phuket	ภูเก็ต
90	Phattalung	พัทลุง
91	Trang	ตรัง
92	Songkhla	สงขลา
93	Satun	สตูล
94	Pattani	ปัตตานี
95	Yala	ยะลา
96	Narathiwat	นราธิวาส

I verified 44 = Sakon Nakhon and 50 = Chiang Rai today by observation.

A corollary is that the six-digit license plates are duplicated across the country. For example each province registers buses in a series starting 10-xxxx. So a unique registration has to have the two digit code pre-pended.

I want to be able to search by Lightroom catalog for such duplicates. i have the data in my add-in but it is hard to write a SQL query – not least because I still have not found a working ODBC driver for the Lightroom database.

Quote of the Day

Time Magazine’s Quote of the Day for Friday, August 28, 2009.

It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.

• LEIF HARMSEN,
• a former Facebook user who now crusades against the social-networking site; a small group of users are fleeing and speaking out against the site’s privacy issues

I think he has a good point. All these ‘free’ tools come with a price. I am content with my blog. Everything in it is under my control. Thank you WordPress!

Op-Ed Columnist – Until Medical Bills Do Us Part – NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist – Until Medical Bills Do Us Part – NYTimes.com.

I read this op-ed in the NY Times about medical bills in the USA. It is such an acute problem and I am sad that so much of the debate is so mean spirited.

Something else struck me when I read the footer of the column.

I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Where does he find the time to do any work? Not just the writing of his column but all the research and networking that’s necessary for him to stay current, informed, influential and influenced. Blogging, Facebook updating, making videos and Twittering are all time consuming if you put some thought into what you’re posting.

I wonder if he’ll have time to win any more Pulitzer Prizes with all the new media updating he’s doing.

Descreening in Photoshop

I found a Photoshop recipe to remove the moire patterns that result from scanning magazines and books. See here for why I need this.

Here is an article on About.com on the subject.

1. Scan the image at a resolution approximately 150-200% higher than what you need for final output.
2. Go to Filter > Noise > Median.
3. Use a radius between 1-3. Typically the higher the quality of the source, the lower the radius can be. Use your own judgement, but you will probably find that 3 works well for newspapers, 2 for magazines, and 1 for books.
4. Go to Image > Image Size (Image > Resize > Image Size in Elements) and resample to the desired image size and resolution using the bicubic resampling option.
5. Make sure you are zoomed to 100% magnification.
6. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.
7. Exact settings will depend on the image resolution, but these settings are a good starting point: Amount 50-100%, Radius 1-3 pixels, Threshold 1-5. Use your eye as the final judge.

Tips

1. If you still see a pattern after applying the Median filter, try a slight gaussian blur before resampling. Apply just enough blur to reduce the pattern.
2. If you notice halos or glows in the image after using Unsharp Mask, go to Edit > Fade. Use settings: 50% Opacity, Mode Luminosity. (Not available in Elements.)

I did an experiment to follow these instructions with a picture of a Chinese ‘Bullet Train’ I scanned from Fortune Magazine Asia-Pacific.

• I did three scans at 150dpi, 300dpi and 600dpi. (I can work out how to do that using my Thai user interface to Scan Gear).
• I tried using the technique to make a better 300dpi picture from the 600dpi scan. Here is a crop of the file as scanned:

Descreen test 1 - 600 dpi before

• That’s a good example of a moire pattern!
• Here’s a screenshot after I applied the Median filter, radius 2:

Descreen test 2 - median filter (radius=2)

• Much better.
• I kept the file the same dimensions but reduced it to 300dpi with this Image Resize setting:

Photoshop Image Size Options

• Which left the picture looking like this:

Descreen test 3 - Resampled

• Finally I applied the Unsharp Mask Filter with the following empirically derived settings:

Photoshop Unsharp Mask Settings

• Here’s a screenshot of the picture after I applied the Unsharp Mask Filter:

Descreen test 4 - Unsharp Mask

• Finally, here is a before and after comparison using Lightroom’s Compare View:

Descreen test 5 - Before & After

Conclusion

The recipe worked well. If I can work out how to use Thai language Scan Gear I will compare it with using the descreen option provided with the driver.

Unknown Error in Lightroom!

An unknown error occurred while moving a photo

If the error was unknown, how do you know it was an error? (That’s a philosophy question.)

No, it is NOT OK. What do I do about unknown errors?

It happened when I added a keyword to a photo and immediately tried to move it to another directory. I didn’t give the poor overworked database time to update the metadata before I started the move.

Why do I, a 53 year old human, think faster than a 2009 PC with gigabytes of memory, a fast processor, a 160GB disk and decades of development experience?

Haven’t you heard of transactions, Adobe Lightroom Team?

ScanGear in Thai

This is why I cannot de-screen the pictures I scan from books and magazines. The user interface for my Canon MP610 all-in-one scanner / printer is in Thai and I do not know how to change it.

ScanGear User Interface in Thai

I purchased my old Sony laptop and it was, of course, all English Windows XP. I purchased the printer in Thailand, but when I installed the software everything came up in English. No problem.

When I received the new Compaq Presario CQ40 it had the Thai version of Windows XP. I set everything up so the user interface is in English (United Kingdom).

Windows XP Regional & Language Options

When I installed Canon’s software it came up in Thai without asking me what I wanted. I found how how to change the language for the printer driver.

How to Change the User Interface Language

I have not found anywhere I can change it for the scanner. Canon licensed Scan Gear from another company.

There’s another tool called WIA that is English. But it is so simple that I don’t think it supports de-screening.

WIA Canon MP610

Note: there are ways of de-screening pictures in “post” using Photoshop. I was too lazy to research them when I scanned the Fortune Magazine article.

Microsoft Replaces Black Man With White Man In Photo

Microsoft Replaces Black Man With White Man In Photo.

I cannot remember how I found this blog entry about Microsoft editing a photo for the Polish market, replacing a black businessman’s head with that of a white man. There were predictably a lot of Microsoft hate comments and some name calling. Rather than jump into that fray – I thought I’d comment here.

1. No one would have objected if Microsoft had substituted a different picture in the Polish ad. But to do a Photoshop job and “cut off” the black man’s head, replace it with somebody else’s and not change the hands is crass. It wasn’t a unique photo: like someone shaking hands with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer. They could get a stock photo of people at a conference table looking interested and happy for pennies in royalties.
2. There are no secrets any more. Just like the Czech grocery store who appropriated a happy family photo from the internet for their advertising, somebody will find out sooner or later.
3. Quite possibly it was done by an agency in Poland. They received the US ad and had an urgent deadline to translate the text, “localize” and publish it. I am certain it wasnt a conspiracy in Redmond, WA. But the damage done by embarrassment is huge. If the ad’s got Microsoft’s name on it then they’re responsible – and people love to hate Microsoft.
4. The whole thing could be a hoax.
5. I think it is great that people are sensitive about this kind of thing but sad it opens up so much hate-filled debate.

I’ll Fix it in Post

http://photofocus.com/2009/08/26/the-biggest-lie-in-both-the-still-photo-video-production-industry/

“Post” is another of those jargon words that make me wince. It’s short for post-production or post-processing. I.e. fiddling around in Lightroom or Photoshop to correct the mistakes I made whenI took the photo.

I think it is most used in the film and video industry but still photographers use it too.

I agree with the article most of the time. No amount of “sharpening” in Photoshop will correct an out-of-focus picture, or one where I didn’t get the subject’s head in the frame …

But there are a two things I don’t worry about when I am taking pictures in RAW format:

1. White balance. I use “auto” on the camera and I can change it at will in Lightroom with no penalty.
2. Canon Picture Style. I use “standard” all the time. Lightroom emulates Canon’s Picture Styles for Raw and DNG files – again without penalty.

I know I can fix these in “post”.

Within limits I don’t worry too much about framing or exposure.

If I have plenty of high quality pixels I can crop the picture in Lightroom or Photoshop.

It’s hard to judge a correctly exposed picture on the camer’s LCD screen. Raw files have a lot of exposure latitude and I can adjust a picture a stop plus or minus with little quality penalty. Yes, it is always better to expose correctly the first time. I’ll bracket exposures if I have time.

But I don’t always have time and so I think it is best to get an in focus shot of what I want even if it is badly framed and a bit over- or under-exposed than miss the picture altogether.

Lightroom External Editing Preferences

Chris Orwig’s Lightroom Training drew my attention to Lightroom’s External Editing Preferences. I wondered if I had the best setup. I opened the dialog box and was bemused by Adobe’s explanations.

I find it surprising that a) PSD can be less efficient than TIFF with respect to metadata updates and b) If I don’t use the ‘maximize compatibility’ option when saving a PSD file in Photoshop Lightroom won’t be able to read the file.

What’s up? Aren’t Lightroom and Photoshop from the same company? Are there secrets that the Photoshop team keeps from the Lightroom team? How can a generic format like TIFF be more efficient at metadata updates than PSD when Adobe controls both ends?

What do I lose if I maximize compatibility in Photoshop? If it is an option there must be a downside to using it. Perhaps a performance penalty next time I open the file in Photoshop. Is this explained properly anywhere?

Inquiring minds need to know!

AutoCopy :: Add-on for Firefox

AutoCopy :: Add-on for Firefox.

I’m always copying snippets of text from web pages to use on this blog or something else I am writing. This little add-on makes it a bit easier. Every time I select some text it presses Ctrl-C for me and copies it to the clipboard. It only works for text – not images.

It has a useful right-click menu that includes:

• Undo copy
• Previous clipboards – a history!
• Paste to location bar
• Paste to search bar
• Search for (whatever is selected)
• Open in new tab (assuming you’ve selected a URL)
• Append URL to clipboard

My only problem with Firefox add-ons is that they are very sensitive to the Firefox version. Firefox wants to update itself almost weekly and I almost always get an error message about incompatible add-ons I have installed.

It’s another of those things that make using a PC more complex and stressful than I like. I like to minimize the number of add-ons and utilities I install – but they grow inexorably over time. I lost the lot when my old laptop’s drive crashed and it was nice to start from scratch.

I found a problem with Auto Copy when composing blog posts. When I want to add a URL I usually find the page I want in another browser tab and copy the URL from the address bar. Then I return to the editing window, select the text and insert the link.

But with Auto Copy it replaces what I just put on the clipboard with the text I’d selected in the post. That caused me to wonder what was up until I remembered Auto Copy. The work around is to select the text first and open the link creation window. Then go to the other tab and copy the URL.

Aren’t side effects wonderful‽