iD Blog Author: Justin
March 5th, 2009 by: Justin
If you’re like me, sometimes it’s hard to get a good idea of what your best photos are when you’re looking at them on the screen. Sometimes it’s good to get away from the computer, and look at paper. While I always advocate “staying green” and avoiding paper where possible, sometimes clients (or grandparents) prefer things the old-school way. Professional photographers use “contact sheets” which are sheets of paper with sample images on them, much like you may have seen “thumbnail galleries” online. A contact sheet is a paper version of a thumbnail gallery. Adobe Bridge features a really easy and customizable way to view just the images you select.
Open BR CS4. Select “output” from the top row, and you’ll see a dialog box on the right hand side with multiple sets of options. At the top it asks if you want to output to a pdf file or for the web. According to what output options you choose, you can customize the way you want it to show up.
You can see a couple of samples here; a contact sheet with 40 smaller images, or one with 20 larger ones. You can choose whatever sizes you’d like, or use some of the more common presets.
March 5th, 2009 | Tags: Adobe, Bridge, contact sheets, CS4, iD Tech Camp, photos
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
February 24th, 2009 by: Justin
The temptation is great. Filters are awesome. Everyone has their own artistic vision, but after the shiny-newness of all those cool Alien Skin filters we all love to use wears off a bit, you may want to take your photos to the next level, and the way to do that is by subtle changes.
Here is a before-and-after. The original is a film photograph I took in my photo studio, and had printed by my high-end local photo shop. Because they have color chemistry, their black-and-white prints always come out as sepia. (CLick on image to see it larger.)
The modified photo has gone through the subtle set of changes that I feel makes for a stronger photo. In this case, the subject matter is neutral, and therefore could be considered a bit boring, but I chose it because there is nothing to take away your interest from the pure processing differences between the two images.
You want the nitty-gritty on the changes I made, don’t you! Well, I’ll give you the basics here, and stay tuned for the video version, with the walkthrough of the changes I’ve made.
First, I scanned the image with all presets off – no in-scanner-sharpening or anything like that. I cranked up the brightness in the brightness/contrast adjustment until the histogram shows the brightest part of the photo nearly at the right edge. Contrast is also increased to give more drama. Adjustments/Black and White is next, bringing it back from sepia to true greyscale. Some people prefer sepia, but I’m showing you what I personally chose, so there you are. A little bit of vignetting is added through the filter/distort/lens correction selection, and there you have it. I didn’t do anything drastic. Practice with these few adjustments and see how much better your own photos start to look!
February 24th, 2009 | Tags: contrast, filters, id tech, photo, photographs, photography, Photoshop CS4, tutorial
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
January 29th, 2009 by: Justin
I know a lot of jokes start with that line; “Did you hear the one…?” — but this is no joke. A 15 year old self-professed “hardware hacker” who goes by the name of Xteaphn (think “Stephen”) decided that having a Wii wasn’t enough for him – he wanted a portable one. So he built his own. Rechargeable battery? Check. Integrated IR emitters to make sure the Wiimote works correctly? Check. Folding screen? Got that taken care of, too.
What does this have to do with iD Tech Camps, you ask? Well, this is the sort of project you get excited about taking on once you sign of for a week (or more!) of RoboContenders at one of our iD Tech Camp locations across the country. Starting with raw parts, you build a working robot. Doing-it-yourself is cool, and remember, campers – its not just about building a robot that can win a “BattleBots” style contest – it’s having an awesome idea, about figuring out how to make it work for you, and going big.
Portable Wii
Credit where credit is due – I first read about Xteaphn in engadget.
January 29th, 2009 | Tags: DIY, hacker, hardware, RoboContenders, Wii, Xteaphn
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
January 18th, 2009 by: Justin
It’s me again. If you’re like me, you really aren’t into reading directions. Particularly when it comes to computer applications (and games), I prefer to dive in head-first and just start working, clicking through menus and exploring the various options and what they do. Therefore, I don’t always go as deep into applications as I would had I taken a seminar or class, or read a book. With Photoshop CS4, however, I have found some really cool features! One of my favorites is the action manager: you can use it to manage repetitive tasks. For instance, I scan a lot of photos, and when all of the photos are the same initial size, I end up doing the same thing, over and over. I cut my scanning time in half by using the actions manager (which you can get to by making sure that windows/actions is checked) to record an entire action that you often repeat. I use it to connect to the scanner, scan a set sized photo, and save it, all with one keystroke. All I have to do is swap photos, hit that key, and I’m ready to go again – no more mousing around in menus.
CS4 has been very, very good to me.
January 18th, 2009 | Tags: computer camp, CS4, macro, photography, Photoshop, recording, time saving
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
January 15th, 2009 by: Justin
Hi, I’m Justin. Some of you may know me already — maybe we met at a camp fair, or at one of the iD Tech Camps locations that I run, or maybe it was at one of our training sessions. For those of you who I haven’t yet gotten an opportunity to meet, I’m one of the Regional Managers here at iD. I am responsible for camps which are mostly located in the southeastern part of the country.
I’ll be writing some blog entries here on the internalDrive website, so if there is a topic you’d like to hear about, let me know! My interests include video games and gaming (especially RPGs!), playing guitar (and Guitar Hero III), soccer, web design, photography, and filmmaking, to name a few. I’m also going to be creating some tutorials on some of the basics of file usage and importing and exporting with different software.
I’m always asking myself questions, and for those who have met me at camp, I tend to ask a lot of questions there, too. I think that is one way to keep improving. “How can this be better? What sort of things do people find the most interesting?” These are a couple of questions that I tend to ask of our iD Tech Camps summer campers when I get the chance to check out their projects.
I can’t wait for summer!
January 15th, 2009 | Tags: camps, iD Tech Camps, introduction, Justin, Manager, photography
Posted in: iD Tech Bloggers
