Elliot Park
6
Jun1
Jun1
Uploaded a few of my old photos. These are in Elliot Park, just strolling around the neighborhood. Probably circa 2005.
Photoshop Express – It’s about time
27
Mar2
Mar2
After graduating from college and losing my cheap student software licensing privileges Photoshop fell out of favor with me. I tried GIMP for a while (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is essentially a Photoshop clone, but the controls are slightly awkward. I also have found for the most part both Photoshop CS2 and GIMP 2.4 to be very feature rich and far to complicated for basic photo editing and processing.
Photoshop finally announced their online Photo Editing suite called Photoshop Express. The answer to the layman’s photo editing needs. While the online factor is cool – I think the most important thing is you can get your photos back when you are done with them. Photoshop Express could have just as easily been a desktop install, but that is not the way of the software world these days.
Photoshop Express is still in Beta, but it is available to everybody and you should definitely try it out and see if it is right for you.
First thing I noticed was the 2GBs of free storage, not bad – but with 7 megapixel cameras being the norm this will fill up fast if you use the service regularly.
However, the 2GBs free is probably just a way to bait you into purchasing a larger ‘digital locker’ to keep all your photos in. A not half bad idea considering then your photos are safe (or safer anyway) from a hardware catastrophe at a reputable location.
Another interesting features – it allows you to login into other Web 2.0 worlds where you may have pictures stored and edit them directly. Currently you can edit pictures from Facebook, Picasa and Photobucket – so you can essentially grow your storage capacity by using external sites that integrate with Photoshop Express.
All the photo editing options are extremely easy to understand and show you 7 ranges for each effect and allow you preview each interval within that range in real time. Good enough! Some of the coolest editing features are the ‘Pop Color’, which allows you to create a grayscale image except for one color you isolate and the ‘Exposure’ which lets you quickly fine tune the exposure of your photograph.
There are also some standard Social Networking elements that all web 2.0 sites require. In this case you can share and browse Galleries. Essentially albums you have uploaded and selected as public. Hopefully – if you don’t select them to be public they are in fact private. (Facebook I’m looking in your general direction….).
The biggest advantage I see is all the processing is on their end, as long as you have a high-speed Internet connection, the age of your computer shouldn’t really affect performance, unlike installing the full blown Photoshop.
For now, I think it is a pretty good tool and so far it is free. I will continue to use it until I forget about it, which always seems to happen.
So I says to him, I says "Get your own monkey!"
25
Mar0
Mar0
The last week was comprised of four days in Las Vegas at the massively overly excessive Venetian hotel for a work conference. 
My time there consisted of working long days and losing track of whether it was day or night.
After losing all of my $40 dollars – being a high-roller, naturally I was sad to have lost soooooo much money and was ready to leave.
It might have also been excitement to head out to San Francisco to meet up with Jo and visit with E&K and crew. We headed to Lake Tahoe for a leisurely and/or grueling vacation depending how you look at it. Two days in the warm spring snow at Northstar, couldn’t have asked for better conditions for a relaxed snowboarding trip.
In fast forward, it would read something like this:
Snowboarding, Eating, Hot Tub Beers, Jenga, determining the trustworthiness of historic icons, a little sleeping, and Eating some more. Repeat.
If you aren’t much of the wordy type, here is a hyperactive visual tour of the outdoor portion of the trip:
All in all it was a blast and sealed the deal on the decision to make it to Shasta for the houseboat extravaganza which has only existed to us on film and through folk lore. I am already preparing for the undoubted trip to Little Star Pizza for the corn meal crust deep dish we missed out on this time around….
The dirty tricks of food photographers ||| Photocritic blog
9
Mar0
Mar0
Photocritic.org has a fantastic overview of just how c0mplicated and bizarre the world of Food Photography really is. From the obvious use of a blow torch for caramelizing and creating a seared effect to the more bizarre Motor oil used in place of syrup or this technical definition of the use of cardboard.
Sturdy cardboard squares, used to make little raw (except for the blow-torched edges) ground beef-patty-platforms (with the help of the toothpicks) to keep the fatty patties from mooshing the frilly lettuce.
For the full story check out:
The dirty tricks of food photographers ||| Photocritic blog
In the meantime be sure to keep the motor oil out of the fridge, just in case.
Hmmm… Food
9
Mar1
Mar1
A while back I had been taking pictures of food I had cooked. Unfortunately, the hardest part of ‘home food photography’ is the fact that your food gets cold/old and usually the photographs were of whatever I was to eat for dinner. So, I haven’t taken any in a while – but in the process of updating http://10gallonhat.net I am adding these back. There are a couple that I think really turned out well. I think the two Blueberry, Ginger and White Chocolate chunk cookies turned out really well. Take a peek at the oldies but goodies below… or maybe they are new to you – either way – enjoy!
Photo Series v1
8
Mar0
Mar0
I have been running through some of my photographs from the last couple years and noticed an interesting trend. I have a lot of photos that don’t stand out on their own, but look great incorporated as part of a series of photographs. Not sure how this happened… but I like it.
10 Gallon Gallery
