[Yugoboy]

Coulda sworn this was a repeat or something… did the Bibliostats check… nope.

+1

[Yugoboy]

As far as I’m concerned, a week is sufficient. We can see the contests for weeks ahead, even when post-processing is intensive, I don’t think we need 2 weeks. If a whole week of 24-hour days isn’t enough time to post, I don’t think 2 will make that much difference.

It will be the rare vacation when a TFer can’t find WiFi to enter 3 prepared pics in the 1 week available.

That’s just me. Nobody listened about the switch to 1 week either, so I figure what happens happens, and I’ll suck it up.

[Yugoboy]

Question: does anyone here use a commercial storage unit as a studio?

I’m thinking costs would be reasonable, some of them have decent space, and you could do a ton of work in there. Just curious.

[Yugoboy]

Those came out good. Your portfolio is going to improve tremendously from the addition of these.

[Yugoboy]

Screw “Drop Shadow”… that’s for lazy people. If you’re having trouble with a shadow’s direction, using a filter is partly the cause. Duplicate whatever layer you need to have a shadow of, put it behind the original layer. use “Levels” to make it black, blur to taste, change opacity to taste, and shift it to wherever it needs to be. Using this method, you have 100% control over your shadow. Let’s say the shadow is cast over an uneven surface; “drop shadow” simply cannot account for that, but this method can. You’d have to make different layers of your shadow, but it’s flexible enough to do that.

Really terrific concept you’ve got there. I think the shadows need some blur. There’s a couple that are completely black – in this shot, as well lit as you’ve got it set up, there shouldn’t be. Go outside and look at some real shadows. Nothing, but nothing will help you more. How do shadows get thrown, how do they change in intensity as they fall away from their source, when are they blurry, when are they sharp??? When you get to noticing these things, your shadows will fall into place.

As for the rest of it, about the only thing I notice to even remotely criticize is that the workers are blacker and more contrasty than the rest of the image. Rather than wash them out to match the rest of the image, see if you can jack up the curves/levels/contrast of the rest of the image (except the sky). I disagree with fluffy on the clouds. I do agree with fluffy on the edge of the clock – when you cut it out, you should have used “feather” of .4 to .7 pixels (unless the source was HUGE, then 1-1.3 might have been called for.)

I think your one major mistake when you began the whole enterprise was picking a source that contained many of the color elements of the sky. It blends in too well and looks almost transparent. A smidgen of darkening (levels/curves) would help separate it from the sky more.

I hope any of this helps.

[Yugoboy]

That’ll fit the bill, the blurry waterfall is not the focus of the composition.

Truth be told, neither are the drops… 😈

[Yugoboy]

What a terrific opportunity!

I only found out last week that one of the guys at my current work site is an on-line “radio” dj who’s having his show syndicated and has his agent riding his ass for head shots. As soon as he saw some of my pics, he decided to go with me. Wednesday or Thursday. In return for the shots, he will be allowing me to put my watermark on his shots and will be promoting me to whoever asks.

Looking forward to your shots!

[Yugoboy]

Are you hand-holding these shots, because they look awfully blurry.

Most of them, yes. The blurry, however, is in large part due to a really shallow DoF. Almost all of them have a focal plane somewhere. I did all I could to keep them sharp without going to the tripod more than I had to.

FWIW – that zoom lens in the supplies pic above is turning out to be a LOT more interesting than I at first imagined it being. While is is in NO way a macro lens, in terms of being able to shoot close, from about 3-4 feet away it zooms pretty freaking good, and the focal distance is way farther than I first thought. The lens, for whatever reason had some sort of 1/2″ extension screwed on the end that literally did nothing except increase the distance from the camera body. Once I removed that, and only used the “t-adapter”, I was golden. Going to try to use it for some of my models (when I finally get through the e-meeting stage and start shooting some of them), because it’s REALLY honking sharp, and I don’t have to get all in their face to get all in their face. I can also zoom out to get body and background, and with the ability to manually control f-stops despite the light, I’m going to get beau coup bokeh. (The one thing that bothers me about the digital AF lenses is that the top and bottom ends of the f-stop spectrum will change based on the light, and I can’t do anything about it.) The far focal distance appears to be near infinity (as is labelled on the lens), but is certainly hundreds of feet away. Definitely worth the $8.

[Yugoboy]

I assume the same thing for mobile device usage. Don’t forget there are a lot of Canadian Farkers, we don’t have nearly the freedom with cellphones that you (Americans) do. We have low bandwidth limits on cellphones and we pay through the nose for extra MBs (yes, MBs, not GBs). My other assumption was that it’s really hard to see the detail in a pic on a tiny screen, so why bother.

I’m aware of the zooming capacity for iPhones, and am really hoping Androids can do the same thing (getting one this summer… refuse to join the iHive). If you want detail, you can get it. If you just wanna see pretty pix, you can do that, too. Voting with those tiny buttons on a mobile device is probably frustratingly hard. That’s got to be at least a certain percentage of it.

[Yugoboy]

I spoke to Drew this weekend about Farktography and one of the interesting things he borught up was that page views of the mobile site has steadily gone up and the page views of the regular site have plateaued. This may be one explanaition for the drop off in viewship (and voting) for Farktography (and photoshop contests). I’m not sure how many people want to view photos on a tiny little screen, personally I wouldn’t. That aspect of dissappearing voters my be beyond our control, which is good and bad.

So… I guess the big question is whether there is any desire on the part of Mike and the other programmers to design a parallel system for Farktography and Photoshop contests that would have a laptop/desktop version with full-size images and a mobile version with reduced-size images, wherein the voting all goes to one place. I was originally going to ask if it was possible, but I am quite certain it is, these days.
I’m sure a part of the reduced traffic is a need to watch the amount of megabyte usage. I’ve got students who will text the shit out of their phones, but refuse to make any sort of phone call that isn’t due to emergency, because they don’t want to run out of minutes. Same principle.
Just wonderin’

[Yugoboy]

Woooo hooo!

Thanx y’all!

[Yugoboy]

ennuipoet, if you keep posting pictures like these, you’re going to make me actually want to visit NYC. For me, Toronto is the BIG city and a very cosmopolitan international one at that. I grew up with “NYC crime” horror stories, and now live with “NYC cost of living” horror stories… My desire to visit has only ever been for a few specific places (Ellis Island, Tenement Museum, Empire State Building, Chinatown…) You’re actually making the place attractive…

[Yugoboy]

What’s flickr?

Its this website with an annoying new layout.

More annoying even than the new GIS features… bleah!

Why does everybody have to redesign to become more like Windows 8?

Regardless of whatever improvements may or may not have been made under the hood, Win8 sucks as far as user-friendliness or usefulness. I am hoping against hope that by the time I finally pull the trigger on the new machine (July, maybe) Win8 will be updated to include an option to switch default to the more traditional layout.

Some “features” of Windows have never been needed. How many of you actually use the Windows Aero shit? That windows flipping thing? Seriously? Waste of resources and too much bloat. There’s a reason it’s not part of the advertised features of Win8. Unneeded and unused.

Why do people gotta fix what ain’t broken?

They don’t redesign cars that way. It’s not like next year’s Corolla is going to have bench seats without backs so you can reach the back seat easier. Next year’s Dodge Rams aren’t going to be designed with the stereo built into the door to make it easier to reach. Next year’s Jeeps aren’t going to all of a sudden going to get front wheel drive and a rear-mounted engine. Why does Microsoft gotta do this to us?

If it were offered, I’d buy a machine with modern speed and storage capacity, with Windows 95. Seriously. I can’t think of a single thing except improved security, speed and capacity that I use Windows for that I wasn’t using it for in 1995. All my work and entertainment comes from non-windows programs, even today – OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Photoshop, etc, etc, etc…

If they weren’t the only (realistic) game in town (because I ain’t locking into the Apple collective hive mind, and I’m not brave enough for Linux), I’d be jumping ship. Maybe I’ll get lucky and be able to get an Android computer someday.

OK… rant over.

[Yugoboy]

No problem… It was a weird problem to have.

[Yugoboy]

Help, please!!!

I just submitted a new pic for this contest that I shot this afternoon (actual real, breaking news), so now I’ve got four. I’d like to either remove voting from the Sister Cities pic: http://www.fark.com/comments/7774776?startid=84535207&fpost=64GmXYWqCUCfBx8qxeaY4oKTD8HjdEijZevsef0#c84533055 or delete it altogether – whatever seems more appropriate.

Thanx!

EDIT – I used the contact a mod link because it’s after midnight and the contest is live, so by the time Elsinore sees this, it may have been done already. That request was simply for disabling voting, if it’s more appropriate to remove it entirely, please go ahead.

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