Re: photo gallery architecture

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Angela Cymbalak wrote:
> 
> I think that we want to store two images the original and the 
> thumbnail.

Taking Wikimedia Commons as an example, there are many pictures
with a "preview" (reduced file size round 800x600) in addition
to the full-sized file. That's probably not what you would call
a thumbnail, right?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nizao.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gahlenz.jpg

I'm not a photographer myself, but I sometimes stumble
over forum discussions between photographers. With that
(non-)background, I assume that some ambitious amateur
photographers would want to store the "original" in a
raw format, along with a full-sized version in a standard
image format (JPG) and a thumbnail.

> But, then it is possible to add code that will allow you to 
> derive the additional sizes in between.

That assumes that a default algorithmic transformation of
the original (probably the JPG version rather than raw?)
yields the desired results. That's probably true for a
bunch of holiday snapshots, but might not be applicable
anymore even for ambitious amateurs. For example, people
might want to...
- generate different image sizes from the raw data rather
   than the JPG version
- generate beautified versions of a photo (sharpen/blur,
   adjust brightness&colors, remove red eyes,...)
- store different aspect ratios by manually cropping
   the image
- store different exposures of an image along with the
   HDR rendering as one photo [1]
- ...?

In 2006, I visited an exhibition of photographies by
Martin Munkacsi. [2,3] From what I learned there, he
considered cropping as an essential part of taking a
photo, because the camera would inevitably catch more
than he wanted to have on the photo.

To cut this short: I think you should distinguish
between a photo - something shot by someone with a
camera at a particular place and time - and the
image renderings of that photo. One photo may have
several image representations. Yes, most people will
just want to store their "photos", the JPGs they get
from their digital camera, along with a thumbnail
for browsing. But that is a requirement for the UI,
not a restriction to be built into the backend.

just my 0.02€ :-)

cheers,
   Roland

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging#Exposure_examples
[2] 
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/aktuell/festivals/11_gropiusbau/mgb_04_rueckblick/mgb_rueckblick_ausstellungen/mgb_archiv_ProgrammlisteDetailSeite_6905.php
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Munk%C3%A1csi