A multi-platform photo booth software using Electron and your camera
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This repository is no longer under active maintainance.
Simply connect your camera via USB or even via wifi to the computer running this application, for example a Raspberry Pi. The app shows a countdown by clicking at the screen (or tapping at a touchscreen), triggers your camera to take a photo, downloads it from your camera, shrinks it to a smaller size and displays it on the screen. First in fullscreen, then added to a gallery of previous taken photos.
photo-booth also provides a web application by running a webserver. Every newly taken photo gets immediately pushed to the webapp. From there it's easy for your guests to download their photos. There's also the option to leave a contact address for sending the photos afterwards. Creating GIF animations and printing out selected photos are also possible through the web application. You only have to provide a Wi-Fi hotspot and a printer (optional for printing feature).
Because of the use of gphoto2 and cups it works with nearly any camera or printer like plug and play.
To clone and run this repository you'll need Git, Node.js, gphoto2 and CUPS installed.
Before getting started please check here if the hardware you want to use is supported. I tested photo-booth under Ubuntu Linux (64bit), MacOS and Raspbian (Raspberry Pi 3, ARM). Anyway, the documentation here will be focused on Linux based systems.
Also check here if your camera is supported (at least Image Capture should be available). Please also note, that only the JPEG-mode of your camera is currently supported (no RAW or RAW+JPEG).
Raspbian STRETCH (with desktop):
# Install needed dependencies
sudo apt update
sudo apt install git libxss-dev libgconf-2-4 libnss3
# Install latest version of libgphoto2, choose last stable release
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gonzalo/gphoto2-updater/master/gphoto2-updater.sh && sudo bash gphoto2-updater.sh
# If you are using a Raspberry Pi > 1: Activate hardware acceleration
sudo apt install libgl1-mesa-dri
sudo su -c 'grep -q -F "dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d" /boot/config.txt || echo "dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d" >> /boot/config.txt'
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/philipptrenz/photo-booth.git && cd photo-booth
# Make the Node installation script executable
sudo chmod +x ./scripts/install_node_v9.sh
# Install node
sudo ./scripts/install_node_v9.sh
# Install (you can do this later if you want to add a printer to use the printing feature)
npm installTo run photo-booth the following command should do it. To run the webapp on port 80 and for the usage of GPIO pins at the Raspberry Pi root privileges are required.
WORKAROUND FOR RASPBERRY PI 3 if Photo-Booth stays black
export LD_PRELOAD=node_modules/sharp/vendor/lib/libz.so
Important: The command needs to be run from a terminal on the GUI, executing via SSH will most likely fail!
sudo npm start
Basically, it's not a good idea to run a web server as root, if you do not need GPIOs consider setting up a redirect from port 80 to 8080 on your system. That can be achieved by a iptables rule for example. Then you can start photo-booth with
npm start
HINT: The little linux tool unclutter can hide the cursor.
To start photo-booth on boot add the following line at the end of /home/pi/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart:
@sudo node /home/pi/photo-booth/scripts/cli.js
There are a few settings and options that you should take a look at.
The project includes a config.json file. There you can set several parameters, e.g. to start in fullscreen or not or if you want to keep your taken photos on your camera.
It looks like this:
{
"language": "en",
"init": {
"fullscreen": true,
"width": "1440",
"height": "900",
"showDevTools": false,
"useGPIO": false,
"grayscaleMode": true,
"preventScreensaver": false
},
"maxImageSize": 1500,
"countdownLength": 5,
"slideshow": {
"enabled": true,
"activatesAfterSeconds": 30,
"secondsPerImages": 8
},
"gphoto2": {
"capturetarget": 1,
"keep": true,
"simulate": false
},
"content_dir": null,
"webapp": {
"password": "test",
"maxDownloadImageSize": 800,
"gifDelay": 1000,
"enableRemoteRelease": true,
"contactAddressType": "email"
},
"printing": {
"enabled": false,
"simulate": false,
"printer": "printer-name",
"limitPerUser": 0,
"overlay": {
"image": "overlay.png",
"x": "right",
"y": "bottom"
},
"grayscale": true,
"layouts": []
},
"live": {
"framerate": 10
},
"branding": {
"type": "text",
"content": "<div style='font-size: 1.2em; padding-left: 25px;'><i class='fa fa-wifi' aria-hidden='true' style='font-size: 2.5em;'></i> <b style='font-size: 2em; padding-left: 15px;'>photo-booth</b><br /><p>Log into wifi, browse to <b style='padding: 0 5px;'>photo.app</b> and download your photos!</p></div>",
"position": "bottomleft"
},
"flash": {
"enabled": true
}
}Best way to modify the config.json is by copying it to my.config.json, photo-booth will prefer the latter one:
cp config.json my.config.json
Some notes:
- Images get shrinked after got downloaded from the camera, set the size with maxImageWidth
- You have to figure out the captureTarget of your camera. Even if you choose to keep images at the camera, if gphoto2 chooses to store by default to the RAM of your camera, images get deleted when camera get turned off. Figure out the right captureTarget by running
gphoto2 --get-config=capturetarget, then choose something should named sd card or so. This should be your first try if a photo gets taken, but it won't show up at the screen. - If you want to keep images on camera, set
keeptotrue - The errorMessage is pure HTML, just fill in whatever you want
- Slideshow and liveview do not work together.
- You have to experiment with the framerate for live preview depending on the power of your machine. On a Notebook with an Intel i7-8550U upto 15% CPU utilization are needed for 20 frames per second. Also if your camera is running on battery, it drastically decreases the battery duration.
- When
flashis set toenableda white page will be shown as a flash after completing the countdown - You can use
gphoto2.simulate = truewhen you want to test your setup without an active camera connection - The
webapp.contactAddressTypedefines what kind of address types are supported inside the webapp. Supported values arenone(feature disabled),email(email validation) andtext(no input validation).
As mentioned above photo-booth has a built in web page where images can be downloaded, gif animations can be created and images can be printed.
For an easy way to use it, start a open wifi hotspot on the computer photo-booth runs on. If you use a Raspberry Pi, there're enough tutorials out there to figure it out (i.e. here). Then connect your device, e.g. a smartphone, with the wifi, open your browser and type in the ip address of the Pi. More elegant is it to configure a DNS redirect so the users can type in a web address like "photo.app", therefore I use dnsmasq which is also configured as DHCP server.
You can connect a physical push button to the GPIO Pins of your Pi to trigger photos!
Therefore activate the GPIOs by setting "useGPIO": true in config.json. Then connect the first port of the push button to the ground pin of your Pi, second to GPIO 3 (PIN 5) and to a resistor of about 10k-100kΩ, the other end of the resistor to 3.3V (e.g. PIN 1). That's all!
Make sure you run the application as root (sudo npm start), GPIOs need root privileges.
_______RASPBERRY PI_______
|
|----3.3V---●o |
~50kΩ → ▯ oo |
|----GPIO3--●o |
[-\ oo |
\------GND---●o |
oo |
oo |
oo |
oo |
oo |
oo |
oo |
oo |
|
|
photo-booth also supports image printing with configurable layouts. For this feature to work you need a supported printer, install additional software and configure the layouts individually.
- Connect and power on the printer
- Run the following scripts:
sudo apt-get update # Install additional libraries for collage creation sudo apt-get install libpixman-1-dev sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev libjpeg-dev libgif-dev sudo apt-get install libpango1.0-dev # Install cups sudo apt-get install cups # Install cups-config (needed for node-printer) sudo apt-get install libcups2-dev # Change user (adjust pi, if you have changed this) sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin pi # Install optional node modules cd photo-booth npm install cd helpers/collage npm install
- Navigate to http://localhost:631 and add the new printer
- Important: Remember the name, you need it for the configuration file later
- Check if the printer is enabled and is accepting jobs. This can be done using the UI or with the following commands:
# Check state lpstat -p # Enable if the printer is disabled cupsenable printer-name
- Configure the content in
config.json(ormy.config.json) under the sectionprinting - Set
enabledtotrue - Set
simulatetotrueif you only want to test the image generation - Set
printerto the printer name you configured during the installation process - Set
limitPerUserif you want to limit the printouts per person. 0 means no limit and with the webapp password you always have unlimited printouts. - Use
grayscaleif you want to print only grayscale images (seperate config only for printing feature) - Warning: The grayscale feature does not work for larger DPI values. - Use
overlayto add a image to each printout. Be sure that it matches all your layouts (eg. 2x2 layout with spacing won't match with an overlay in the same color as the background color) and also consider that not all placehoders must be occupied (eg. do not use the background color in the overlay image) - Configure the layouts under
layouts. You can add multiple layouts (the user can select the desired layout from within the web application). A sample layout looks like this:{ "key": "selphy_2x2", "options": { "dpi": 300, "width": 2, "height": 2, "imageWidth": 868, "imageHeight": 577, "backgroundColor": "#ffffff", "spacing": { "top": 8, "left": 0, "bottom": 8, "right": 1, "betweenImages": 11 } } }- This sample layout is a 2x2 layout optimized for the following configuration:
- Canon Selphy CP1300 printer with a paper size of
100 x 148 mmand a resolution of300 x 300dpi(eg.1181 x 1748 px) - Nikon D90 camera with a picture size of
4288x2848which results in a width to height factor of1.5056...
- Canon Selphy CP1300 printer with a paper size of
- Description of the options:
- key: Internal identifier for the layout. Must not contain invalid file name characters
- dpi: The printer resolution
- Note: Must not match the full printer DPI (images will be scaled to the whole printing area)
- Defaults to
96, which should already be quiet good for most portable low quality printers - Warning: Higher DPI values require more resources, which can be too much for a small computer like a Raspberry PI. Also the grayscale function does not work at higher resolutions anymore.
- width and height: Number of images per row / column
- imageWidth and imageHeight: The width / height of each individual image in the layout. Try to set the values in a way that it will give the same aspect ration as the original image size from the camera.
- backgroundColor: Layout background color which is used to fill the spacing, the unused space when the original images do not have the same aspect ratio or placeholders without an image.
- spacing: Spacing outside the images (
top,left,bottomandright) and between two individual images (betweenImages).
- This sample layout is a 2x2 layout optimized for the following configuration:
Please note that there are several devices which are not supported by photo-booth.
As Electron, the main framework, besides ia32 (i686) and x64 (amd64) only supports the ARM v7 architecture (and ARM v8 as it is backwards compatible), several ARM devices are not supported. Further information can be found here. The following ARM devices among others can not be supported:
- Raspberry Pi Zero
- Raspberry Pi Zero W / WH
- Raspberry Pi 1 A / A+
- Raspberry Pi 1 B / B+
- The Raspberry Pi camera module is not supported
- Webcams (such as those built into your laptop or Logitech USB) are not supported
Also some other DSLR and Compact Cameras are not supported. Please check for your specific model here.
If you have any problems, start reading here. If you do not find anything, check under Issues, if someone else already had a similar problem. If you still have no solution, open a new issue.
Hit the Escape key to exit the fullscreen mode, then you can close the app.
Go to config.json and change grayscaleMode to false.
This may be related to wrong capture target settings. Run gphoto2 --get-config capturetarget from the console, the output looks something like this:
Label: Capture Target
Type: RADIO
Current: Internal RAM
Choice: 0 Memory card
Choice: 1 Internal RAM
Identify the number of the memory card and change the captureTarget property in config.json.
It seems to be an old known problem with gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor module. For reference read here.
sudo rm /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.gtk.vfs.GPhoto2VolumeMonitor.service
sudo rm /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/gphoto2.mount
sudo rm /usr/share/gvfs/remote-volume-monitors/gphoto2.monitor
sudo rm /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
The project got featured at The Verge, incredible! Also take a look at the video they made at Facebook!
An article was also published in the blog of my degree course (in German).
partyblitzer published a post on his blog and a video on YouTube using this software for his DIY photo booth setup.
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