Kitchens' Sink

I apparently based my post below on incorrect information and assumptions that I made.

Per Imagenomic's David McDonell:

Imagenomic is working on and will be releasing plugin updates for CS5, and these will likely be provided FREE for registered users.

My apologies to the team at Imagenomic and any concern I might have caused other loyal users of their products.

Those of you who have upgraded to Photoshop CS5 already and are fans of Imagenomic's top quality filters (as I am) will be frustrated to know that they will not be supporting the existing versions of their tools in CS5. Noiseware, Portraiture, and RealGrain users might be able to get the tools to work, but on first attempt they would not install in the new CS5.

Imagenomic is working on updates to the tools but these are version upgrades which are not normally slated for free upgrade.

While the new versions will have better features, it seems silly that the old version wouldn't just work or be quickly modified to fit the plug-in format of CS5. Let the features of the new versions sell themselves. Don't hold the customers hostage to buying a new version just to have existing functionality.

UPDATE: I did manage to get the tools to install and work just fine in CS5 by manually moving them from the old CS4 plug-ins folder.

I frequent the DPChallenge.com site and one of the features there in the forums are the side challenges (similar to the soon to be completed Thematics here). This year they've started an Archive Photo A Week (APAW), which basically involves going through the scads of photos on your hard drive(s) and processing them now using skills you didn't have when you took it. In some cases, this will be salvaging the previously unsalvagable. In others, simply finding that diamond in the rough.

Since we're supposed to share the steps we took in processing the photo, I thought it would be good to post these in parallel here -- and stimulate me to set aside time to post in this journal.

So with that, here's my Week #01 Entry entitled Tarmac... [MORE]

Hopefully this will start getting updated a little more regularly as the long desired (by me) and needed blogging code has been implemented. This will allow me a little better integration and control of blog viewing and posting as well as tie in directly to PVs existing comments section.

Look for a few guest bloggers to appear as well.

Thanks!

A photos I took of our beautiful dog Archer is a finalist on the canine-loving "DogPixAndFlix.com" website. Some other really beautiful shots there too -- and some recognizable names.

Click HERE and check the bottom left shot.

Cool.

Thanks to all who are reading this. In my WPD entry, I mentioned my nieces and their mother were in a car wreck last Thursday April 5. Today (April 12) the oldest and seemingly best recovering, 14 year old "Lacey" passed away in Atlanta Medical Center. She apparently had a heart attack or coronary something or other. Since this hospital is right near my office, I stopped there each morning including today. She was speaking and complaining as any teenager would in the hospital. And now she's gone.

Her sister Kadee is still in ICU at a different hospital while she heals, but she is still in critical condition. Kadee looks older, but she's only 13 herself.



These pictures were taken this past December.

I know Lacey is in a better place, as she was not only my niece, but my sister in the Lord.

Thanks for indulging me this.

If you've never seen or heard of the (Michael Orton) technique, prepare for a treat. It works best on nature or landscape photos more than people shots... but who knows. The digital darkroom is all about creativity, so learn the tools and apply them as you see fit.

First, some before and after shots:

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This year I had the opportunity to assist the Operation Christmas Child effort in our city. Atlanta is one of 11 processing centers in the USA and my son volunteered (us) to help with the church youth group.

For those of you that don't know, OCC is an effort started by Franklin Graham (Billy and Ruth's son) about 10 years ago -- each year churches and groups prepare "shoebox" gifts for a boy or girl in three different age groups. These shoeboxes are then processed and shipped worldwide where they are given to children at Christmastime -- for some this will be the only gift they may ever receive in their lifetime.

The Atlanta center has been processing gifts that get shipped to India for the past several years -- this year is no different. Here's a few shots showing the process... [MORE]

Here's three more shots for those who wanted to see the "before" pictures. These are from 11/28...

You can see how frail she looks -- but it's just being emaciated from poor nourishment and illness.



From the other side...



Finally, like I said, she's starting to eat very well. Here she's chewing on one of Archer's big boy pig bones.




BTW, that toy dog to the left? Destroyed by Archer already. He just loves to get out the noisemakers from his toys. :)

And one more of Archer from the same day to see how big he's gotten from earlier shots... he's up to 30-35 lbs now. About 18-22" at the shoulder.



Thanks for all the kind words. Will keep everyone posted!

Meet Shmoopie... she was from a litter of three. One was adopted, the other didn't make it. Shmoopie is right now skin and bones, literally. She was malnourished and dehydrated when they found her -- and then she contracted pneumonia as well and lost even more weight. We've had her about a week now and she's getting friskier, eating well, and starting to put on weight. She's a beagle/hound mix, similar to Archer. Will post more shots for a good before/after compare.

Not a worldwide observance, but here in the USA it's Thankgiving Day -- a day for family, turkey, football, and rest before the Christmas shopping season begins. At some point today we hopefully give dedicated time to think of all we have to be thankful for -- and for most of us, it's a very great deal -- no matter our circumstances.

I'm with the in-laws this year, so I'm not in the kitchen cooking all day (bittersweet). I did manage to sneak in and make mashed potatoes and iced tea, but my turkey is thawing to cook on Saturday. But I'll leave you with this bird of mine from a previous year.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE! (or if you're politically correct, Happy Holiday -- hey, if we cannot say Merry Christmas, why should we name any holiday?)

So here's another one... a brain teaser if you will. What is this a picture of? It's a common household object... To find out the answer, highlight the area between the asterisks below.



The answer is: *Paint brush bristles!

My wife was trimming down a new paint brush for a faux wall treatment and I walk in and find this neat pile of bristles just sitting on the kitchen counter. So I took them to another room where there was a lot of natural daylight and took several different shots. Some "action" shots with me dropping them from above, etc.*

You never know what is going to make a good picture.

Ok... so this is supposed to be a blog, where I, as photographer, get to post and share some of my own images as well as discuss the process behind them. But in the course of developing this website as well as real-life issues, time has not been my friend. But finally I've gotten a moment to dig through my stash. And this flower is the result:



Nothing really spectacular, just a nice purple flower, perhaps even a weed? I'd love if someone could tell me what it is. It was growing at my in-laws' new house and I took some a few weeks ago that came out pretty poor because flash was required. I was back with some time during daylight and tried again. Hearty little bugger, since the other flowers in the vicinity were starting to dethrive from the cold.

As for the processing, used my normal PSP routines. One thing I've learned however, is that in post-processing, your routines must be variable. (Does that make them still routine?) But you have to gauge each step by the photo and the result. Don't just assume the what works for one image will work with every one. You have to assess and reassess. I've seen some great shots come in on the POTD contest where the photographers are forgetting this... and apply the same sharpening levels to each photo. It may work great on an landscape, but those animals and flowers look really bad.

Sorry, that's my deep thought for the day.

Have been working with PSP Photo XI for awhile now and just noticed a VERY annoying bug that of course wouldn't be so obvious. When you duplicate an image in version X, the EXIF data is properly carried over to the copy -- so you can always preserve your originals. In version XI, however, the EXIF data is simply discarded in the copy.

Now a painful, but simple workaround, is to either work on your original directly and then remember to Save As... a new filename or do a Save As... right off the bat. Neither option is very convenient. In the former, you have to be careful of hitting Save (CTRL-S) during the editing process and overwriting the file accidentally (setting the read-only flag here would be helpful). In the latter, you have to commit to keeping the edited version prior to any edits -- such that if you find the photo isn't going to work, you have to remember to delete the working copy.

Word is that a patch from Corel is due in December. I think JASC used to be a lot faster at getting quick fixes out the door.

Had the occasion to go back to Whitewater Falls last weekend -- we were up in NC for a family reunion. So since we were there, I wanted to get a shot of the falls with the "fall" color surrounding them. However, it seems things have not quite turned so much as I was hoping, this weekend was probably better I think.

Anyway, here's a shot I got of Whitewater.

It does appear the water level is down from a month ago (see below).

Still beautiful.

Getting new features added to the site, plus the addition of our new puppy have really drained the time for photography. I have a few shots, but no time to process them from the camera. Oh well. Time flies and all that.

Here's a picture of Archer from SEVEN WEEKS AGO! Ah, when he was that small. This was at 10 weeks of age. He's now 17 weeks old and just over 25 pounds. So estimates are he'll be about 50 pounds when all is said and done. But he probably won't get much taller than 18-24 inches at the shoulder, so a medium-sized stocky dog.

No, this isn't a post about my recent birthday... it's even more interesting than that.

This man went back with a photo taken of his house 40 years ago and documented the house from almost the exact same spot in 2006.

Found this browsing the alt.photography newsgroup (yes, some people still use newsgroups to communicate more than GIRLZ, WAREZ, and PILLZ.

Gary Edstrom's 40 Years Comparison.

This past Saturday was one of those days that never starts like it was supposed to. We'd planned to visit Western North Carolina for my birthday for a waterfall shooting and hiking trip. To get an early start my lovely family did the celebration thing on Friday night. Lots of cool stuff and excellent dinner, but then as I was putting my Atlanta Falcons (Go Birds!) license plate frame on the car (Thanks, son), I realized that I had not paid our car tags fees for the year! [MORE]