14.02.2005

US gearing up to attack Iran now?

When will it end, it seems they're off again? How many more countries are they going to occupy?

U.S. Uses Drones to Probe Iran For Arms (washingtonpost.com via Yahoo! News): "The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses, according to three U.S. officials with detailed knowledge of the secret effort."

Christo, Flickr and NYC Gates

The Gates in NYC just opened a few hours ago, flickr of course was there in full strength.

Photography time and photoshop?

This image is from my new digital phone camera, which has a function that allows, me to make panoramas, (without the use of photoshop) a no mean feat in itself, but having examined this one after the fact, I realised that there had been a considerable amount of time in between the 1st and the 3rd shots resulting in a some strange looking body language, and poses. This has me thinking about time and photography, it's long been a well known fact that photography is a slice of time, but what about the idea that several slices are rejoined to form a cohesive whole, yet slightly disjointed whole?

hmmmmmm?

Indeed hmmmm…

Art Photography book production

I have started small run publishing of photographic art books, and late last year produced my first book, entitled 'Typologies I' the intention was to produce a series of typologies, an idea I may or may not run with. So the next book is tentatively entitled “ Art & Mathematics…” This is the current opening image from it, click it and you can visit flickr where I have a set dedicated to it's production, this is the main reason I use flickr, to create sets of digital images for later use… oh and to have a little fun too with my camera! I have in the past talked about work-flows and analogue, well I guess this is the equivalent of a proofing and editing process that used to be done with real physical prints, now I can sequence and organise my prints and get a rough idea how they sit together before even hitting Indesign™.

Gigapixel Photography?

Wow is all I can say!

Mobile Phone Images @ Flickr

47299

Name popularity ranking

In completely unrelated news, how popular is your name?

You maybe pleasantly surprised?

Wikipedia Definition of Photoshop

What is Photoshop? It's a popular high-end image editor for the Macintosh and Windows from Adobe. The original Mac versions were the first to bring affordable image editing down to the personal computer level in the late 1980s. Since then, Photoshop has become the de facto standard in image editing. Although it contains a large variety of image editing features, one of Photoshop's most powerful capabilities is layers, which allows images to be rearranged under and over each other for placement. Photoshop is designed to read and convert to a raft of graphics formats, but it provides its own native format for layers (.PSD extension).

Adobe Photoshop is a bitmap graphics editor (with some text and vector graphics capabilities) published by Adobe Systems. It is the market leader for commercial bitmap image manipulation. It is usually referred to simply as "Photoshop". As with most of other Adobe's applications, Photoshop is available for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows; versions up to Photoshop CS 8.0 can also be run under operating systems such as Linux with an emulation program such as CrossOver Office. In the past, a port to SGI IRIX existed, but this was dropped before version 4.

The development of Photoshop started in 1987 by the brothers Thomas Knoll and John Knoll, although it was not until 1990 that the program was first released by Adobe. The program was intended from the start as a tool for manipulating images that were digitized by a scanner, which was a rare and expensive device in those days. Although primarily designed to edit images for paper-based printing, Photoshop is used increasingly to produce images for the World Wide Web. Recent versions have been shipped with a separate application, ImageReady, which provides a more specialised set of tools for this purpose.

As of 2003, Photoshop is at version 8, called CS by Adobe to reflect its integration with their "Creative Suite". Photoshop CS features a revolutionary command : 'Shadow/Highlight' which allow user to 'suppress' highlights and/or 'push out' shadows while maintaining most of the 'image details' (i.e. the histogram would remain virtually unchanged). It also comes with Adobe Camera RAW, a plugin developed by Thomas Knoll which has the ability to read several RAW file formats from various digital cameras and import them directly into Photoshop. A preliminary version of the RAW plugin was also available for Photoshop 7.0.1 as a $99 USD optional purchase. The term photoshopping is a neologism, meaning "editing an image", regardless of the program used. Adobe discourages use of the term [1] out of fear that it will undermine the company's trademark; an alternate term which leaves out the Photoshop reference is "photochop".

The term photoshop is also used as a noun referring to the altered image. This is specially popular amongst members of the websites Something Awful, Fark and Worth1000 where photoshopping is an institution, with the goal of altering an image, subtly or blatantly, to make it humorous or just clever, by appealing to both the slapstick- or intellectual-level of humor, often via the use of obscure in-jokes and pop culture references. A very recent and even more obscure variety of this, is the so called "Fake": extreme parodying of the current celebrity culture, by blending famous faces with nude or pornographic images. Photoshop competitions in all these varieties have become a favourite passtime for many professional and amateur users of the software. The term is sometimes used with a derogatory intent by artists to refer to images that have been retouched instead of originally produced. A common issue amongst users of all skill levels is the ability to avoid in one's work what is referred to as "the Photoshop look" (although such an issue is intrinsic to many graphics programs). Photoshop is generally considered one of the best (if not the best) image editing programs for raster graphics, but it has the disadvantage of a high price. This has allowed competing programs such as Jasc Software's Paint Shop Pro and The GIMP Team's GIMP to become popular. To capture this lost market share, Adobe has introduced a much less expensive program called Photoshop Elements that consists of Photoshop minus some of the high-end output capabilities, useful for editing photos from consumer digital cameras and for doctoring images for the web but not as useful for professional prepress work.

Release history
Photoshop 1.0 (Mac OS) : February 1990
Photoshop 2.0 (Mac OS) : June 1991
Code Name : Fast Eddy
New Features :
Added Paths

Photoshop 2.0.1 (Mac OS): January 1992

Photoshop 2.5 (Mac OS): November 1992
Code Names : Merlin (Mac), Brimstone (Windows)

Photoshop 2.5.1 (Mac OS): 1993

Photoshop 3.0 : September 1994 (Mac) - November 1994 (Win)
Code Name : Tiger Mountain (Mac OS)
New Features :
Tab Palettes
Photoshop 4.0 : November 1996
Code Name : Big Electric Cat
New Features:
Adjustment Layers
Editable type (previously, type was rasterized as soon as it was added)

Photoshop 4.0.1 : August 1997
Photoshop 5.0 : May 1998
Code Name : Strange Cargo
New Features:
Color Management

Photoshop 5.0.1 : 1999
Photoshop 5.5 : February 1999
New Features:
Extract
Vector Shapes

Photoshop 6.0 : September 2000
Code Name : Venus in Furs
introduced the 'liquify' filter

Photoshop 6.1 : March 2001
Photoshop 7.0 : April 2002
Code Name : Liquid Sky
New Features :
Made text fully vector
Healing Brush

Photoshop 7.0.1 : August 2002
New Features :
Adobe Camera RAW 1.0 (optional)

Photoshop CS : October 2003
Code Name : Dark Matter
New Features :
Adobe Camera RAW 2.0
Shadow/Highlight Command
Match Colour command
'Lens blur' filter
Real-Time Histogram

Coming soon my critique of photoshop and what you aren't told about it.

This article is from wikipedia, and is used here without premission. I also have another article on my website that looks at the history of this behemoth program.

Digital Photography Manipulations?

Digital photographs manipulated in photoshop, are they somehow less “ photographic”?

According to some folks over at flickr yes.

This notion displays a lack of understanding of the entire photographic process to my mind. Manipulating photos in a program like Photoshop™ is simply processing. All photographs are processed. Analog ones in chemistry, digital ones in a computer. All digital photos whether scanned form film or downloaded from a digital camera require some level of manipulation, the degree of manipulation required depends on several factors, the means by which the image was captured, and the output device, (there maybe others but I can'think of them just yet).

So here's a scenario, you choose to shoot in RAW for because like me you don't trust some camera manufacturers idea of what an image should look like. This image upon downloading requires processing of some sort, otherwise you have an image whilst full of digital information visually may express nothing, or what about the other extreme, you are travelling and don't want to fill up your cards to quickly, so you settle for a jpeg from the camera, even these are not as crisp as they can be and require some intervention in the process. My point is digital manipulation is no more unphotographic than push or pull processing, burning or dodging or spotting, there is no cheating going on. Anyone who thinks there is doesn't understand the process.

Learning Photography & Flickr Updates

Photography Books aren't just about pictures, once again Peter Marshall over on photography about dot com has an article worth reading. so if you want to learn how to take better pictures or learn how to ‘read’ your own and others photos then have read of his article.

Recent addtions to my flickr account/site:-

• Portrait of a place
• The Flood of 2005
• Chase #7 a kind of scavenger hunt game, currently with about 80 participants.
• Melbourne's Trams crickey never thought that I'd become a tram spotter?

For both of my readers, I have also uploaded an image from my desktop of the info from the folder where I store my camera files. It's been a busy 5 weeks I can tell you but I just know things will slow down, particularly in the winter months when daylight is short and workloads are in full swing! Still 1442 images is nothing to sneeze at, of course not all of them made it to flickr but those that did I'm pretty happy with and of course will use the sets feature to ‘organise’ the images for further publication elswhere, probably as books.

Melbourne Floods

We had some serious rain here in Melbourne over the last 2 days, our local creek almost broke it's banks. Last night I went down and snapped off a few shots, so I'll post them later at flicker.

I took a couple of panoramas using the panorama assit option on my Nikon Coolpix camera, and then tried to assemble them in photoshop. The results are OK but because I didn't use a tripod they are a little wonky, which is easy enough to fix in photoshop, or i can just leave them as a slightly off and wonky ‘Cubist/Hockney’ style image.

see no evil....?

What fun you can have if you have the inclination!

Briefly:-
tripod,
3 shots (with self timer in this case)
opened in photoshop
shift dragged two images on the top,
create masks through them so you can see the other layers below.

Photoshop Manipulations

Here's an image manipulated in Photoshop to look like a cheap plastic camera!

It's amazing that given the technology available to us like photoshop folks are still find ways to subvert that technology

Personally I can take or leave photoshop, so long as the image is a good one.

First Ericsson Mobile Phone images

Here is an image made with my Ericsson K700i. It isn't the first but it seemed to me to justify the extra cost of e-mailing to myself to have it posted at flickr, of course on a real monitor, it falls apart, but on y mobile phone screen it looks sensational. the colours are what really drives me here, and the way the mirror looks like a planet earth, looking down in dismay at the discarded shopping trolley, in all that crazy mixed up light it's just great I reckon?

This phone camera also has a built-in function which allows you to stitch together 3 pictures to create a panorama. Now whilst these images are by no means accurate renditions of the scene presented it certainly gives the feel of the scene as it was experienced.

I think I am finally coming to terms with what these new technologies mean to my own creative practices. I can really appreciate the way that images can be produced quickly and spontaneously. Then once on the web can be organised in seamless and intergrated bodies of work that are interconnected.

My most viewed image on Flickr?

My last post from home for the summer of 2005, leaving later for work. Anyway, the most viewed image of mine at Flickr? Strangely its a screen-grab of my favourites, with 211 views, prior to that, it had been a shot of a mannequin dressed as Santa outside a shop in Fitzroy. Strange very strange indeed? I mean I can understand the mannequin shot but a screen grab of other folks photos that I enjoy?

Photographic Flickr frenzy!

FWIW, I have uploaded over 150 photos in the six week break from work, with probably a 25% hit rate means I've shot more like 600 in this time frame!

With me back at work tomorrow, I suspect the upload rate will drop right off, who knows, it's all just to easy to shoot process and upload these days.

The total amount uploaded so far to flickr is about 783 images but a substantial number of these are from the archives.

Ericsson K700i Review

Update on the phone review.

The darns thing stitches panoramas together, has a black and white function, as well as sepia, negative and solarised. My god when will all this end? The downside to this camera is that I am unable it seems to turn off or change the ghastly shutter/clicking sound. Buggah!

Mobile Phone Camera 2

Here is my new mobile phone.

A big thanks to Matt at Telechoice in Northland for the help in upgrading at no cost. I chose this particular phone because it was one of the few that was listed on the Apple site as bluetooth compatible

Well so far so good, have almost completed setting up the phone, once I have the bluetooth attachment for my laptop it's away I go with my idea of seriously exploring these cameras as cultural tools. Flickr is probably where most of them will end up, who knows. For the time being here's my ‘thoughts’ on the camera.

I like the backlit keypad, and I like the icons and the rollovers attached to them, the menu system was very quick and easy to work out too. However the small gripes I have a this stage are, the Navigation key, this is small for a person of my size and I seem to be either missing it all together or hitting it when I don't want to. The built in ring tones are somewhat limited in their choices and because I don't have the bluetooth all configured yet I don't think I'll be able to download any other options. I am also a little perplexed about the e-mail configuration, and I'm waiting for some messages tom arrive that are supposed to help me set it all up, I've been waiting since about 8:00pm last night?

Still all in all it's shaping up to be a great phone with what appears to be pretty reasonable image quality. Stay tuned for the snaps dear Reader.

Flickr Downtime again?

Hmmm it seems flickr is down again for a couple of hours, uh oh! For two hours! Ai Carumba!