Month: November 2007

News lag

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It’s been a quiet few days as some home tasks have been taking up a lot of my time.  Over the course of the weekend, I began an electrical project (replacing outlets with GFCI), a plumbing project (replacing faucets in bat), and construction (drywall patching, and accessoy replacements in bath and shelving downstairs).  All that on top of the usual family routine of dinner and dog walks has put a bit of a crimp on my posts.  Having said that, the day off on Monday allowed me to put a video podcast in the can for release on Friday, so that should be forthcoming in 48 hours.

In Photo news, I was reading Scott Kelby’s blog the other day when he mentioned the website Pixel Perfect where Bert Monroy demonstrates various techniques using Photoshop.  The production quality is professional and just goes to show how far I have to go to gain that kind of quality in delivery and recording.  Such is the difference of an amateur tutorial versus an established and professional photo professional and Adobe evangelist.  Perhaps some day…

Anyway, Bert Monroy did a fantastic tutorial on how to create a smoking gun entirely inside of Photoshop.  Great technique and it’s a highly recommended 5 minutes toward learning PS techniqes.  Check it out here.

A special “Thanks”…

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Today we honor all veterans of the Armed Forces of the U.S.A. I would like to take a moment to thank each and every one of those that have and those who continue to serve to protect our country. Our freedom and way of life was paved by your predecessors and continues to find new outlets in the world thanks to the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. To all those who serve – we salute you!

One of the side effects of honoring our veterans is that I got an extra day off work today. So…lucky viewers and listeners, I was able to get another podcast out, which means there will likely be two this week (I may even get an extra “in the can” for next week”!) So…first up is a technique for creating reflections of objects or selections inside of Photoshop. Great for making web graphics, outputting to holiday greeting cards, and for presentations in many venues. Check it out at the link or the embedded version to the blog:

Visit here: Reflections in Photoshop

or watch below:

Selections tutorial is finished

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Just under the wire…the selections tutorial production has been completed and has been posted for viewing. At a total of just over 8 minutes, it shows three different selection techniques, that when used in concert with one another, can select exact selections with professionally feathered borders for transitions into other graphics. This is particularly useful if you are porting images taken into web designed graphic backgrounds for things like headers and banners.

ETA: The closing audio was positioned incorrectly, so a correction had to be made in post production. I ran that overnight and am uploading the replacement now…it should be functional within about an hour. (6:30 or thereabouts)…apologies for the technical mishap.

Flash Version is here

Windows Version is here

Or, stay on the blog and view the WMV file natively! Any way you like it…enjoy!

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Video Podcast promises

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I hope the video podcast lives up to it’s promises….it’s in post production now and should be finished and uploaded before I go to bed tonight. In the meantime, I’d like to share a great dialog that has been going on over in the community forums of the Radiant Vista website. There’s been some really interesting discussion over a post yours truly made a while back asking “How do you learn?” The whole site is thought provoking and informative, but this thread in particular is just great evidence of the quality of thoughts and ideas that can be found if you know where to look. Props specifically go out to Marti Jeffers, Alistair, Wes, and Flo for contributing such great ideas and positive energies to the discussion! I would highly recommend joining this community as it is quite a remarkable collection of people that share sometimes similar and other times divergent views on a number of topics. The site is here

I would also like to specifically give a more formal reply to the article suggested by Marti, titled The Myth of Talent, by site contributor and instructor, Craig Tanner. Because it is a lengthy reply and more of a white paper on the subject of talent, I composed it as its own PDF file, and posted as it’s own page here on Canon Blogger. Feel free to read/download as you prefer here

Podcast update

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I know I had said that I woud be putting out a tutorial today showing the benefits of god quality gear (i.e. my new Samson condensor Mic), but since my typical date for release is Thursday, I dediced to hold off until tomorrow to finish the production on it, and cross all my T’s and dot all my eyes. In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, since I’ve not done a POTD for a while, here’s one I worked up recently from last Wed. (Haloween). Kind of works for the month of November to as the color scheme also is leading into fall/autumn and Thanksgiving. So…another day delay on the podcast, but will definitely be out tomorrow. Until then…happy shooting!

Ready and raring to go…

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The new mic has been set up and all accessory components are also in place.  I recorded a test podcast tonight to basically do a sound check and hear the audio quality.  I must say that a condensor microphone has far and away better quality than anything I had tried via USB or stereo mini connection.  I guess it would be with a diameter more than 10x that of the rinky-dink ones in Best Buy and Wal-mart, and that requires its own power supply source!

The latest podcast should be out tomorrow with the new audio gear in place – the subject:  Photoshop selection methods.  Should be a fun subject to explore and I’ll be showing three different techniques to use in concert with one another for obtaining the best selections you can.

Creative Presentations

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The aforementioned tutorial is now recorded and up for your viewing pleasure. Lots of content here including multiple layers, layer masks, gradients, keyboard shortcuts, and marquee selections in place, so hopefully a helpful tutorial all around. In the interests of providing a web-based version and a downloadable version, I am going to embed the flash one with this post, and provide a link to download either a WMV version or a Quicktime version. Fair warning, but the Quicktime version has a short feedback issue from when I re-recorded the intro vocals…will attend to that today (hopefully), but if you skip over the first ten seconds, a new musical intro is also in place (yup, I’ve been busy…new vocals, new musicals, and new tutorials!) So, without further ado, here’s today’s tutorial:

Mac Version

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

After a flea market and a fair…it’s time to flop

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Today, bright and early, my wife dragged me out of bed to attend the mother of all garage sales, the Jr. league’s annual sale event in downtown Charleston.  For those of you that may not know, the Jr. League is a non-profit group of women who’s mission is to…

“The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. (AJLI) is an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. Its purpose is exclusively educational and charitable.” – from their website here

As one of their charity efforts here in Charleston, they have a garage sale, or flea market of things they have donated over the last year.  Proceeds go toward charities and funding of the organization itself.  In the interests of promoting these efforts, (and to see if we could find some good deals), Tracy and I braved the crowds…and walked away having donated $27, and collecting for our own uses probably over $150 worth of goods in the way of end tables, coffee tables, and a Vivitar flash (two guesses at my contributing efforts…:) )

So, after a return home to recoup, eat, and re-gain our energies, my wife went to tre-charge by taking a nap while I tackled the end tables that needed some minor sanding.  By 4pm, it was time to do the new arrangements.  After moving each piece of furniture about fifteen times, we (meaning she) found a new setup she likes enough.   Next were the requisite weekend jobs of grocery shopping, walking the dog, and other odds and ends.

Once all was said and done, the last day of the Coastal Carolina Fair was in full swing, and we decided to head over for at least an hour or so to eat some yummy fair food.  Funnel cakes, tacos, pizza, pretzels, and about 10 Tums later, we are now home again, and fully tuckered out.

So…the tutorial will have to wait until tomorrow.  Sorry all, but the traffic was horrendous – it took us an hour to go 10 miles!   Be on the lookout for a new one tomorrow though,  on a cool technique for creative digital presentations of your photos…it’s done I’ve just not had time to produce it yet (oh, and one other thing – going back to the flash presentations for the time being – the wmv files aren’t logging on my analytics account…)

An amateur audio adieu and adios

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Funny store I thought would be worthy of sharing on the blog today…

As a blogger about photography, the last position I thought I would do is find myself in is spending my hobby monies on audio equipment, but… since I never really do things halfway, I decided to invest in some additional audio accessories. Until recently, my techno-phile tendencies were limited to two Windows-based PC’s, a Linux box that acts as a file/print server, and a Canon DSLR with a complement of a solid tripod, 3 accessory lenses, replete with multiple CF cards and gear bags.

A month ago, I added a Macbook Pro to the tool belt, and quickly saw the benefits of adding a peripheral keyboard and additional audio tracks, so saved some monies to bring that into play. Now, as I crawl up the underside of that learning curve, I decided it would be silly to keep recording the audio tracks on inferior gear ($20 combo headset/microphone).

So, I entered the audio realm full bore. First off, a Samson condenser mic. (This came with the keyboard actually as my birthday monies combined well to cover the cost.) After that, another wave of funds covered the accessories to both mount the microphone to a wall with two goosenecks serving as my “poor man’s boom”, and connecting cables to patch the audio to the computer. Filled with exuberance, I plugged the mic in and got set to record my first video podcast with new tracks and audio setup.

Much to my chagrin, the mic did not work.   After about ten minutes of troubleshooting, and a phone call to B&H to confirm my suspicions, I learned that condensor microphones require a dedicated power source, often referred to as phantom power supplies. Another investment on the order of roughly $40, and I am just about there.  However, the powersupply is another day or two away from arrival, so my next podcast will still have the popping “p”s and “b”s, but I am happy to say, it will be the last recorded at the “amateur audio level”…

So….in my next podcast (coming out tomorrow), I will bid an amateur audio adieu and adios!  (You  had to know the alliteration would return eventually!)  In any case, be on the lookout for another podcast soon – digital framing!  Enjoy the weekend all and happy shooting!

Centering Objects

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Just a quick video podcast today, I ahd a few ideas on what to do, but the hours in the day ran short on me yet again, so, in time for the weekend, here is one on how to center objects inside of Photoshop. I used text here, but it really would work with any object you want to have completely centered across an entire image area. Check it out – it’s only 3 minutes total! Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to tune in next week when my new audio equipment will finally be up and running – microphones, cables, phantom power supplies, wall mounts and all!