[Choc-Ful-A]

FWIW, I’m seeing 12 entries where the images are busted and just the hostname is displayed. That usually means Fark’s servers can’t load the image links I think… Of those, 9 of them are for Flickr accounts so it might be something wrong with a part of that service.

Then again, it might be my WONDERFUL (and yes I do mean that in the most sarcastic way possible) Internet provider, Comcast. Since they have an exclusive deal to provide Internet service to people suffering in hell, I’m assuming they had to de-prioritize service to the living to meet the minimum SLA for people in eternal torment.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I just found out about this recently. Finally some high color depth capabilities for Linux…

http://rawtherapee.com/blog/features

Also available for Windows/Mac in 32 and 64 bit flavors.

I have yet to load it up and take a test drive, but as soon as I tire of Skyrim I’ll be ignoring my Windows partition and will once again be back in Linux playing with the toolkit. One of the members over at CloudyNights has been using it to tweak post-stacking results on their astrophotos and the results look impressive.

Nice find! I installed it and used it on a couple of NEF files to see how it works. There are lots of knobs and buttons to play with, some of which are adjustments I’ve never heard of before. The UI was a little confusing and I had some trouble getting it to load the thumbnails at first. But once I got over that bump in the learning curve I didn’t have any more trouble.

Also, it was very nice to see that they have been incorporated into standard Fedora repositories so installing just means typing “yum install rawtherapee” and it’s done. That also means as updates are made available they will automatically be installed whenever you check for updates going forward.

[Choc-Ful-A]

This part of the curve has an exponential build in because during their hysterical fervor it takes them a while to remember that they can only vote once.

One small correction here… You can vote as often as you like, just not for the same entry more than once. So I vote on Wed night (Pacific Time) then check in a couple more times before the voting closes on Saturday to check out new entries (and vote for them if I like them).

[Choc-Ful-A]

That’s a painful story and sounds like it leaves you in a really crappy position. I’m sorry to hear you’re at such a difficult crossroads. From an outsider perspective, which maybe could be helpful(?), I’d ask if you can arrange a repayment schedule with your landlord so you could sell some of the gear now, pay that to show good faith. And if your new job allows to you recover the rest a month at a time you could still keep the camera body so you could get the sanity benefits of shooting digital (which is definitely more convenient).

As for film, I really love film but don’t have a good setup for scanning negatives. I would do it more if I worked out a better way to scan in the neg’s. Being forced to shoot film for awhile will probably result in an archive of work that you’ll appreciate in the future. It might be associated with a dark period in your life, but that could prove to be powerful. Even if you don’t appreciate it until later, once things “get better” as the say.

The bottom line is that you have to do whatever it takes to make yourself as happy and safe as you can in the meantime. I sincerely hope that includes some creative outlet that helps manage the stress associated with your immediate situation.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Okay, who else hates the new voting? =P

(this was in place last week, wasn’t it? I missed last week)

Yeah, it’s not proving very popular on the Farktography side of things.

overall the photoshoppers hate it if comments in the PSAEF are any guide. i sure hate it. and regular thread voting? WTF. really WTF.

I do find is amusing, and somewhat protest-like, that Curious‘s text only comment about not casting “Funny” votes for his photos is actually winning the “Funny” vote contest.

Also, wow, nice batch of photos folks! This is among my favorite contests we’ve had in a long time.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Not when you have one of these.

I have never seen one of these, but now that I have, my desire to possess one burns like a supernova.

I want one of those! Seriously, mechanical curiosities like that just make me happy.

[Choc-Ful-A]

If you convert the raw NEF files to 16-bit PNG you wind up with a format any image manipulation program will read without the loss of dynamic range inherent in 8-bit JPEG’s. It’s also a lossless format, unlike JPEG, so you don’t get any extra distortion on top of stepping down the dynamic range. The files are big though, so that’s the tradeoff. And I’ll toss out the “disk is cheap” cliche before someone else does…

And if you keep the raw files around (disk is cheap remember?) then you can always go back and re-process them to PNG again if you decide you want to tweak things like white balance in the raw image before converting. Basically, you have an archive of the best quality image around you can use as a source.

[Choc-Ful-A]

My suggestion is to shot in raw mode, then convert the “NEF” files to PNG after uploading them to your computer. The conversion tool I use is “ufraw” and it will let you tweak the white balance in the process, as well as make other adjustments if you like.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Also phrases like,

Sequence from video filmed at 20,000 frames per second

get dropped when describing the photos like this popping balloon and that makes me want new toys…

[Choc-Ful-A]

Wow, there’s some cool photos on that site… I bookmarked it in case I want to use elements in Photoshop contests. Plus I now know what a “Worthington jet” and “laminar flow” are. 🙂

[Choc-Ful-A]

FWIW, this is about my favorite theme ever since it’s a combination of taking focused photos, constructing a composition based on those images, and involves Photoshop/GIMP type work to pull it all together. So I certainly hope we can do more like this in the future, especially since “real life” has reared it’s ugly head and made it impossible for me to get out an take photos. So unless I get extraordinarily lucky, have a chunk of free time, and find something that fits in my archives, I’ll be reading/voting only this week.

[Choc-Ful-A]

http://www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/Magazine/The-Business/Has-the-D-sseldorf-School-killed-photography

Wow it was seriously difficult to read that article through to the end. It’s hard to get past the author’s insufferable pretense to even figure out what he’s saying. But in the end I think he’s just whining about how photography should be a viable means of making a living, regardless of how commercial the work has to be to allow your arbitrary achieve, and there are people that don’t agree with him. The fact that there are groups, markets, events, etc… that are focused on certain types of photography doesn’t bother me. If the guy that wrote the article can’t stage another one of his fabulously successful shows at every fringe cultural event, well, so what?

[Choc-Ful-A]

Serious question (because my creative side is squeezing out):

Tritych format must be same size pics side by side?
Or can I be more creative (like having an inset image or something)?

I’m guessing the former, but if the latter is cool, I got some ideas I really want to play with.

One of the “like this” examples post earlier in this thread has different sized images in the triptych. So, no you don’t have to limit yourself to three identically sized images lined up.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I’m with Plamadude30k and ennuipoet on this one. I take my camera bag to work everyday and most time I go out otherwise. I generally just wind up carrying it around or leaving it in my trunk, but I like having the option to take photos if an opportunity presents itself.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I really liked the idea of that contest but I’ve had a cold since late last week and it’s dropped my attention span, energy levels, and creativity too low. I’ll re-submit the theme in again sometime in the future, since there’s no reason we can’t do it periodically. I didn’t sub it this time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t suggest it next time. 🙂

Also, I’ve used my own photos in PS contests a few times in other contests. In fact those are some of the ones that have done the best. I think (hope?) it’s because I know the image I’m working with pretty well and have a high-res original to boot. I’m happy to see you jump in with both feet Curious! I’m definitely going to be sending some votes your way…

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