Automatically use special designs on significant occasions, add excitement with random outputs, award prizes and vouchers in GIFs and prints, and more
Breeze Booth (Windows + DSLR) aka DSLR Remote Pro
Last updated: January 2021
These tutorials walk you through varying print and GIF designs during an event. You will also learn how to include date and time specific vouchers and designs to fixed installations and trade show booths.
This is the first of two tutorials which explain how to set up custom Breeze Booth (Windows + DSLR) print and GIF designs which change either randomly or in predetermined ways.
Whether you are using prints, slideshow or burst (aka boomerang) GIFs you need to create the overlays and backgrounds; and tell the program when to use them.
Spice up events with random designs on your prints and GIFs.
Prints with random backgrounds for Hallowe’en
First tell DSLR Remote Pro to look for your special backgrounds and overlays instead of the regular versions (background.jpg and overlay.png):
DSLR Remote Pro looks in the PhotoboothImages folder (1) for background and overlay images whose names match the Background/overlay filname suffix (2)
Extra background image names for prints all start with background_ and end with the filetype .jpg
The suffix part of the name follows background_ and explains what your backgrounds and overlays are called.
In this example I want to switch randomly between four print layouts.
To achieve this the suffix is a Breeze token {random,1,4}. The names of each background image must fit the same pattern ie background_ + one of the random numbers between 1 and 4 + .jpg
The suffixes are 1, 2, 3 and 4, so the full filenames are
Set of four strip backgrounds for a Hallowe’en event (designs courtesy of SMOVE)
Guests prints could be on any of these four backgrounds:
Surprise guests by printing on randomly chosen layouts (Breeze DSLR Remote Pro 3.15.3)
Random overlays and backgrounds can also be used to pick winners.
Winning print layout shown on screen (Breeze DSLR Remote Pro 3.15.3)
For this event I have changed the random token to {random,1,6} to randomly pick a winner 1 in 6 times*
Suffix using a random token to pick a winner (Breeze DLSR Remote Pro 3.15.3)
I only need 1 special overlay for the winning print overlay_1.png. The other prints all have the same design which is set up using the Print Layout Editor.
The ‘winner’ overlay is called overlay_1.png
The Print layout created in the Print Layout Editor is used for ‘non-winners’
Print layout for those who don’t win shown on screen
You can have several prizes occurring at different intervals. For example,
The next example uses a different suffix to add a special overlay at a fixed time each day.
Print with Happy Hour overlay
Happy Hour in Suzy’s Bar is between 17:00 and 18:00 or 5-6pm. I want to replace the regular print overlay with a special version during Happy Hour, which is between 17:00 and 18:00 or 5-6pm.
I have called the event Happy Hour (3) and used the time based token %H (4) instead of the random token earlier.
The Happy Hour event (3) uses the Breeze Hour token %H (4)
I need two overlays in the PhotoboothImages folder. overlay_17.png is used on prints during Happy Hour, and overlay.png at all other times.
Happy Hour PhotoboothImages folder showing the Happy Hour overlay (overlay_17.png) used between 17:00 and 18:00, and ordinary overlay (overlay.png) used at other times. (Breeze DSLR Remote Pro 3.15.3)
You may have noticed that both prints are captioned Suzy’s Bar.
Captions, logos and QR codes are added in the usual way in the Print Layout Editor, and included in both prints.
Add captions, logos and QR codes using the Print Layout Editor. They are displayed on both regular and Happy Hour prints. Any regular overlay (overlay.png) and background (background.jpg) are shown in the Layout Editor.
The same %H token can also be used with a collection of different backgrounds and overlays at differnent hours of the day and night as here
This event also uses the %H token and has 24 backgrounds for each hour of the day and night
Prints use the Evening background between 17:00 and 19:59, and switch to the Night background at 20:00
To use set up overlays and/or backgrounds in advance for special dates such as Valentines’ Day, Hallowe’en and New Year’s Eve you can combine two tokens %B%D.
%B will be replaced by the full English name of the month eg February *
%D will be replaced by the day of the month eg 14
Insert your special and overlays into the PhotoboothImages folder with the correct names, and they will replace the regular background /overlay on these key dates. The format for the %B%D tokens is background_Monthdd.jpg.
Use background_February14.jpg for Valentines Day, background_October31.jpg for Hallowee’en etc .
*The %m token uses numbers to show months (eg 02 instead of February). If you prefer, use suffix %m%D with overlay_0214.png etc
There is no need to create backgrounds/overlays for every day of the year, just for the days you want a special print.
Use the same technique to print special offer vouchers on the final day of a tradeshow or wedding fair.
You can use suffixes in the same way to vary GIF overlays and backgrounds. Part 2 will take you through this in detail:
You will learn how to randomly switch between GIF designs, use special designs for prizes and vouchers, etc.
Event image folder showing random prints and GIFs. Each time the booth is run a GIF and matching print are created in shades of green, purple or red.
This shot of the PhotoboothImages folder shows the print and GIF backgrounds used to create these slideshow GIFs:
PhotoboothImages folder for a random slideshow GIF event.
PhotoboothImages folder showing simple overlay set for random burst GIFs.
As print captions can use tokens, you can use them trouble shoot errors. Disable the caption when everything is working.
Learn more about the Print Layout Editor
Combining Breeze tokens with suffixes gives you an imensely flexible and powerful tool to enhance the experience you offer.
This tutorial has given you a taste of what you can achieve using suffixes with your prints. Explore this further in the online manual
Part 2 will cover using suffixes to vary your GIF designs.
© Breeze Systems October 2020