This week's podcast was created using Adobe Audition CS5.5. Although this application has been on my desktop system since late April, I haven't used it to create a podcast. The file format is different. The interface is different. And to be brutally honest the changes made me more than slightly nervous. In a future program, I'll tell you more about Audition CS5.5 but now I can at least say this: Well done, Adobe!
Exposure and Blow Up from Alien Skin
Every photograph that comes out of your digital camera can be improved. That may not be Alien Skin's premise for Exposure 3, but it would be a good one. Back when photographers had darkrooms, they stocked a variety of films, chemicals, and papers because each had certain strengths and all had specific weaknesses. Today you can't pick a film (at least if you have a digital camera) and chemicals are no longer used (at least not in the darkroom). But Alien Skin's Exposure 3 makes it possible to achieve a variety of "looks". And a related product called BlowUp 2 can quite literally save the day if all you have is a tiny image that needs to be turned into a large image.
Exposure for Color or Monochrome
Here's where I started. This is a photo of Chloe (serious, foreground) and Perseus (sleeping, background) in Adobe camera raw. Before opening this image in Photoshop, a few modifications were called for.
I started by modifying the color balance and fixing some of the geometric distortion. The image is now ready for additional modification in Photoshop.
Click any of the smaller images for a full-size view.
With the image open in Photoshop, I opened the Filters Menu and scrolled down to Alien Skin Exposure 3. The first choice is whether you want the final image to be monochrome or color.
Let's try monochrome first.
Here's something that brings back memories! Rodinal. This was a developer that could be used to increase the speed of black-and-white films but the result would be a pronounced grain structure.
If you've ever used Rodinal, this will look familiar.
Here's another possibility: Extreme blow up. This is what you'd see if the image you wanted was a tiny area somewhere on a 35mm film negative. Grainy. Soft.
Here's an example that replicates a large-film, fine-grain exposure. Good black-and-white images looked like this.
I've selected a slight modification that improves detail in the shadow areas of the image and kicks up the grain a bit.
Black-and-white images could be manipulated in the darkroom to increase contrast as I've done here on the computer.
Or you might dodge the edges to create a light vignette.
I decided that I'd like to see what I can do with a Polaroid black and white image. Remember those prints? Blacks were really dark blue.
Alien Skin Exposure 3 allows the user to modify the factory settings on each of several tabs. I decided that no change was needed on the Color tab because this image accurately reflected what a Polaroid black-and-white print looked like.
I did make some modifications on the Tone tab, though, and this is the final image in the monochrome series.
The color settings are even more varied than the monochrome settings. This one fades all colors slightly except for reds.
I decided to start with a Kodachrome look. When you're working with filters it's important to view the image at 100% size (or 1:1 as shown here).
Kodachrome 25 had a nice tight grain pattern as you see in this image.
On the Color tab, I shifted the overall color toward the warm side and then boosted red saturation slightly.
Here's what Alien Skin Exposure 3 returned to Photoshop. Note that both the monochrome and color layers are separate from the background. That means all of the changes have been non-destructive and I can easily return to the original image whenever I want.
Here's the final image.
BlowUp for the Least Bad Image
Sometimes the image you have isn't good and there's no way to make it great but you might be able to make it acceptable.
Case in point: A photo from 1998 taken with a Sony Mavica. If you don't remember those cameras, it's just as well. Sony chose to use floppy disks and, to allow more that one or two photos on a disk, to limit the size to 640x480. Also to conserve space, the camera applied an enormous amount of compression. So much compression that the artifacting was visible even at full size.
But that kept the images to somewhere between 20K and 40K each.
If you wanted to print one of these images, the largest acceptable print you could hope for would be about the size of a wallet print (2"x3"). Forget about anything larger. Until now.
Alien Skin's BlowUp 2 won't make a perfect enlargement. Nothing can do that. But it will make the least bad enlargement possible.
Here's what I started with. A little bear on a sofa. Bear in mind (so to speak) that this image is just 640 pixels tall and 480 pixels wide. It's also severely compressed and suffers from horrific artifacting.
Nonetheless, I'm going to try to make an 11x14 print from it! I've selected "inkjet luster" as the option to start with.
It's important to examine the image at 100% magnification, which is what I'm doing here. Note the squares in the image, the artifacting that results from extreme compression Sony elected to use.
There is no way to make this image great or even good.
But I can change some of the settings to remove compression artifacts. The higher this setting, the more blur you'll see in the image so carefully choose the setting that eliminates as much of the artifacting as possible without making the image unacceptably blurry.
I also increased edge sharpening slightly.
This is what I would have been able to create by just enlarging the image. Note in particular the splotchy areas in the bear's fur.
And here's the result after BlowUp2 processed the image.
The result is noticeably softer (fuzzier) than the unprocessed image, but overall it's much more presentable.
If the image you're starting with is a low-resolution image but one that has little or no artifacting, the result will be far better.
For example, this photo from the Columbus Zoo. It began life as a raw image 3648x2736 pixels.
I began by trimming a section from the center and ensuring that it was 640x480 pixels, the same size as the image that the Sony Mavica would have created. The difference is that there was no artifacting.
Here's the image at full size after being scaled up to be large enough to create an 11x14 print. That means that the long side (originally 640 pixels) has been scaled up to 4200 pixels. (This is a 700% enlargement!)
Yes, it's slightly rough at 100% view. But just slightly. This would make an acceptable 11x14 print!
If this isn't magic, you'll have to tell me what it is. (OK, that was a bit of hyperbole because I know what it is: It's science and intelligence combined.)
If you're a photographer, you'll want these Alien Skin applications.
Exposure 3 offers a wide variety of color and monochrome presets and the presets can be further modified so that you'll achieve exactly the effect you're looking for.
The audience for BlowUp 2 is more specialized but this tool is invaluable for those times when all you have is a small image and you need a big image. There's simply no better, faster, or easier way to accomplish this difficult task.
For more information, visit the Alien Skin website.
Manual Labor
Trying to avoid sounding like curmudgeonly old Andy Rooney, I have to ask why nobody makes printed manuals any more. But then I have to admit that the question would be a rhetorical question because I already know why nobody makes printed manuals any more. Two reasons, actually: They cost a lot of money to produce and few people use them.
In the early 1980s, manuals were often half sheets of paper with holes punched. They were placed inside miniature (2-ring) binders and the binders were stored inside a box. I still have a Wordperfect manual from that era.
Then the manuals became perfect-bound affairs. If ever a name was a misnomer, "perfect-bound" is it. Perfect-bound books are hard to use and fall apart. But at least the manuals provided useful information for those of us who used them.
Today's manuals are provided on the CD or DVD that contains the program or as downloads from the manufacturer's website. And it's not just software, either.
Cameras come with useless "quick-start" guides that explain how to insert batteries and perform functions that anyone but a certified idiot will be able to figure out without help. But if you want to use one of the more advanced functions, you need the manual.
This isn't a disaster if the missing documentation is for a computer application because you'll be sitting at the computer when you need the manual and (particularly if you have a second screen) you can just open the manual on screen and read it. That assumes what you need to look up isn't something that explains how to fix the computer or who to call in case the computer doesn't work. But what about a camera?
With a camera, you'll probably be in a park or on vacation or at a zoo or at a wedding—not in front of your computer. Print the manual (300 pages from on laser printer) or copy the PDF to an electronic reader. I used to be able to carry the manual in the camera case so that I could refer to it. Now any operation that I haven't committed to memory is unavailable. Unacceptable? I think so.
I can understand not providing a manual if the software or the device you're selling sells for $100 or so. Profit margins are slim. But if I spend $500 or $1000 or $5000 for something, I expect a complete and accurate manual.
Plain Text Can Be Your Friend
When I upgraded from Ultra Edit to Ultra Edit Studio so that I could use some of the features that are missing from the basic Ultra Edit program, I thought about reasons that I use a text editor. In many cases, it's because I'm working on program code in PHP or tweaking HTML or CSS files. But other times I use a text editor so that I don't get sidetracked by spell-checking and formatting.
Let me explain: When it comes to writing, our brains have two modes. One is the creative (writing) mode and the other is the analytic (editing) mode. We can do one or the other but not both. Or, more accurately, if we try to perform both functions simultaneously we won't do either very well.
Write first, then organize and edit. Initially, you shouldn't even worry about spelling or grammar. Just get the thoughts down. The problem with trying to write in a word processor is that you get sidetracked. Should this word be bold or maybe italic? Microsoft Word tells me that I've spelled something wrong so I'd better fix it. The grammar checker thinks I've made a mistake so I'd better investigate.
These all get in the way of writing.
A text editor such as Ultra Edit or Ultra Edit Studio simplifies the process. There is no formatting. Unless you request it, nothing checks your spelling. You can turn on word wrap so that what you type doesn't extend off the right edge of the screen, but that's about all. This is the perfect environment for writing.
But an application such as Ultra Edit or Ultra Edit Studio is invaluable when you're working in a programming language.
Color coding is helpful. For example in the PHP code shown here comments are green, variable names are orange, constant values ("false") and certain other terms ("$_SESSION") are blue, functions are brown, and quoted text is gray. This alone helps the developer keep things straight.
Even more helpful, and one of the primary reasons that I upgraded to Ultra Edit Studio, is the application's ability to automatically create closing punctuation. Values are passed to functions inside parentheses and when the developer types "(", the application automatically provides the closing ")". This also works for "{}" and "[]" pairs. As one who constantly forgets to close parentheses, braces, and brackets, I can tell you that this functionality is well worth the extra cost of the Studio version.
But Ultra Edit is expensive ($60) and Ultra Edit Studio is more so ($80). If you plan to use the application and want to keep it up to date, as I do, you can pay two-and-a-half times the cost and then never have to pay for another update. For me, that's an equation that makes sense.
If you need just a basic text editor, the built-in Windows Notepad may be sufficient, but I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, if you need a text editor and you need not to pay for it, try Notepad++ instead.
Either way, you'll do yourself a favor by writing in a plain-text editor and saving the editing part of your brain until later.
Short Circuits
California Cannot "Protect" Minors from Violent Games
The Supreme Court this week invalidated a California law that regulates the sale or rental of violent video games to children. The ruling was 7-2. Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer were the dissenters, arguing that the majority’s interpretation of the First Amendment was too broad.
The California law sought to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed. The Supreme Court upheld an earlier federal appeals court decision that the state's ban violated minors' rights under the First Amendment.
Does this call into question laws that forbid the dissemination of pornography to minors? Is it all right to show minors scenes of mayhem and murder but not of sexual intimacy? Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion, which said that there is a difference between protecting children from depictions of sex, and placing restrictions on depictions of violence.
Sex bad! Violence not so bad!
Opinion: I happen to agree with this decision but that doesn't mean that I feel children should be given unfettered access to scenes that depict violence. But it seems to me that the restrictions should be imposed by parents and guardians.
In his written opinion, Scalia cited the books we give children to read – or read to them – that contain no shortage of gore. As examples, he cited the brothers Grimm's fairy tales.
The games the California law would have blocked are those such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Postal 2, Duke Nukem 3D, and Mortal Kombat. I can make no claim that any of these has any redeeming social value. No more than, say, "Debbie Does Dallas". Retailers that sold or rented those games to anyone under 18 years of age would have been subject to a $1000 fine for each infraction.
Further opinion: Freedom of speech is an absolute. It exists or it doesn't exist. There is no partial freedom of speech. One might detest, for example, statements by "Reverend" Fred Phelps and the (in-bred?) members of the Westboro Baptist "Church", but the First Amendment requires that even xenophobic, homophobic, full-of-hate "ministers" and their misguided flock be allowed to speak freely.
Floating Business Docs in the Cloud
The cloud is the future and (as the old joke goes) it always will be. Although some companies are moving away from desktop-based applications to Internet-based services, this is not something I would be comfortable suggesting to a client. Not yet, anyway. Maybe never.
The New York Times carried a story this week by Steve Lohr in which he described a move by the InterContinental Hotels Group, which is transitioning its 25,000 office employees to Google's office and e-mail applications.
The hotel group's chief information officer sees gigantic savings as a result of the change and says that nearly one third of the conversion is complete.
I hope that the hotel chain has an extremely reliable Internet connection because what the organization will have, when the conversion is complete, is one gigantic single point of failure. If InterContinental's network connection stops working, every employee will stop working because there will be no access to text documents, no access to spreadsheets, no access to e-mail.
When the applications are on the desktop computer, people can continue to work during network outages. Given what I've seen of network reliability, I wouldn't be ready to take the chance.
The online offerings don't include feature sets that are as robust as Microsoft's desk-based applications. They're not even as robust as offerings from Libre Office (the former Open Office project). And, unlike their desktop-based counterparts, the Web-based applications aren't extensible.
Nonetheless, Microsoft is answering Google's challenge with an online system of its own, Office 365. It includes Microsoft e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, and a collaboration application.
This is essentially a bet-the-business wager for Microsoft. The online offering will steal some business from the PC-based products and, unless Office 365 is better than (or at least as good as) Google Docs, it could give Google a huge advantage.
Google's advertised fee is $50 per user a year but the company will not say what percentage of its users actually pay that fee. Microsoft's offerings will range from $24 per user per year for just e-mail to more than $300 per year for the full suite of applications.
Although it's not an Internet-based offering, Adobe has recently started offering a rental plan for its applications so that users can pay for just the applications they need when they need them. But the applications still run on desktop computers.
Maybe software rental is the future.
Updating a look at Firefox add-ons from a year ago. Most of what I said back then still applies.
http://www.techbyter.com/today/archives/308
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
