DIY: Wedding Photo Booth

1/11/12 Update: I’ve been receiving scattered reports of errors for some users across all operating systems. I’ve worked closely with folks to troubleshoot, but it seems like some folks might still be having problems getting this set up. Trouble is, I’m running the same exact workflow with no issues on multiple machines, and I’ve heard from other users that it works great–I’ve seen photo evidence on their blogs! I’m no master software guru, so I try my best to help others get their machines up and running, but just please be aware that I cannot offer 100% support for your setup. I also cannot test older OS’s any longer, as all of my personal machines have been updated to OS X 10.7 Lion (which has all of its own problems, mind you.) There is a bug that affects how you can run my workflow in Lion..it still works for me, but like I said, there is a % of you who’ve contacted me with problems, and I have no idea why the problem persists even after triple checking things.

So- at this time, I must clearly state that if you’re donating for this software, please keep in mind that it could require some software tinkering on your behalf and is not guaranteed (other than my confidence that it works on my own computers!)  :)  Thanks folks.

In the early stages of planning for my sister Helen’s wedding, we saw advertisements for real photo booth rentals–like the ones you see in the arcade! We liked the idea a lot, but didn’t want to spend the money (and why pay someone else for equipment you can use only for 1 day?)

We decided that we would use our Macs, Automator, and some brainpower to create our own, personalized photo booth that would function exactly how we want it to, cost little to operate, and be available for future special occasions!

I wrote an automator workflow that:

1. Prompted the user for their name (which was inserted in the filenames of the images)

2. took the user’s picture 3 times

3. arranged the photos vertically in a strip

4. displayed the photo strip to the user

5. printed the photo strip

6. saved both the individual images and photostrip pdf file in a folder on the mac

Continue for more information and instructions on how to download…

MAKE Magazine!

Thank you for all of your support so far. I’m happy to announce that my DIY Photobooth has been featured in the latest copy of MAKE Magazine. It is a quarterly publication that showcases many neat DIY geekeries. Go pick up a copy at your local bookstore!

The digital preview is available here.

Nostalgia

Well it’s not my nostalgia cause I wasn’t alive, but I’ve spent the day converting and editing some old film found in my grandmother’s attic. These are from 1950′s..probably around 1956 or so, and some from the 60′s as well. I projected the film onto a wall and filmed the output with my Canon HD camcorder. I put some cheesy music over the videos, as they are all silent films. Enjoy!

Update: DIY Wedding Photo Booth: real ‘strip’

So for some reason, I never thought of doing this: cut the 4 x 6 sheet in half, so that it is 2×6. The automator workflow prints perfectly to this size, and it seems like most photo printers have paper size adjustments to hold the strip. Here’s some photos: