Hello Yes, it wasn't a good night for troubleshooting code. I have incorporated your suggestions and fixed the code.
I used a hash because I have a couple of switches and args that determine which camera is being used and where the files should go.

Moving onto my next problem. I want to call a subroutine ImageNotDark. I want to pass an Image::Magick object ($pic).
By design, the object is not changed inside the subroutine. My problem is that I am not passing the image object correctly. 
# Convert to Image::Maggick image
my $pic = Image::Magick->new(magick=>'jpg');  #   create new image obj
+ect
$pic->BlobToImage($img);  #convert the grabbed blob image to Image::Ma
+gick object

## test point A

#pass the $pic object to the subroutine and measure image darkness.
my $test = ImageNotDark ($pic);  #

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The code snippet at the start of the subroutine is as follows: 
sub ImageNotDark  {
# Argument is one reference to an image object.
# ImageNotDark compares the image with a blank black canvas.  If the c
+omparison is
# above the defined threshold, the image is bright enough to send (not
+ dark).
# the return value is true if the images is bright enough.

    my $iutImage = Image::Magick->new;  #the image tested for darkness
    $iutImage->Read(@_);  # get the image under test (iut)

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So the debugger shows that $iutImage is not initialised. At test point A, I temporarily added code to save the $pic image to a file.
I was able to confirm that $pic holds a valid image. So I am reasonably certain the problem is the way I call the subroutine and attempt to pass the image. Any tips would be much appreciated.

In reply to Re^4: Use of uninitialized value $pic by dazz
in thread Use of uninitialized value $pic by dazz

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