Royal Lion

#11828 - Royal Lion
Originally uploaded by Tuzen
The original photograph was terribly blurred. It was taken from, perhaps, a cake dish in one of the many museums we visited in Portugal. It was a fine example to practice on.

The first layer starts with the 'cutout' effect, and the second layer is a 'stamp' layer set to multiply with a mask for cleanup with a brush.

After 'stamp' cleanup was complete, still needed to cleanup the 'cutout' layer. I magic selected, sample all-layers, the remaining 'stamp' detail. Then I expanded and filled this selection to help create a mask for the 'cutout' layer.

Reach - No Sabre

#10368E - No Sabre
Originally uploaded by Tuzen

Like millions of people, I've been playing some Halo on Xbox, and enjoying most of the new stuff. However, there is one level of the Reach campaign where we are forced to fly the Sabre in space. It was definitely dull in space, until I got back on my feet. My real commute is more interesting and significantly shorter.

The next morning, I captured my negative reaction to the space plane in Photoshop. I already had a collection of interesting signs, and so I didn't have to do very much to create the one above.

close doesn't count

Sometimes I screw up an amazing shot.  Since the photo agencies get plenty of contributions they can afford to be picky about technical aspects like noise, focus, and motion blur.  When I only get a few fleeting moments to capture a cool shot that appears before me I don't always get the technicals nailed.  And by now I have a growing collection of these images waiting for help.

If only there was software to help.  Well...  there is one way to catch these "fish that got away" that I've used and it's not Photoshop;  it's Illustrator.  By using the photo as source material for an illustration, two amazing things happen: the first is that technical issues disappear, and the second is that the image actually becomes more valuable since it can be infinitely scaled and transformed.

There are several ways to create an illustration from a photograph.  I have done it three different ways: for the best quality I've hired professional illustrators from Elance,  alternatively, I have traced photos myself with some level of success, and lastly I have used software that automatically creates a fast and cheap illustration.

If you can paint or draw that might also be a great way to save photos from the trash bin.  What other ways might I save flawed content I can't give up on?

cheat the RAM test

Image via Wikipedia

A friend asked me to install the Adobe Illustrator CS4 trial on their PC. Sadly, after a rather large download and unpack the darn thing failed. It just refused to install with less than 512MB of memory; quit was the only button. This little PC gives a few MB to the video card and so it's always been a few crayons short of a full box.

I crawled around on the web to find out how to make it work and, sure enough, I came across some folks that got an older Adobe product to stick. The trick goes like this.

1. Find the un-packed setup folder "Adobe CS4"
2. Find the file AdobeIllustrator14mul.proxy.xml
3. Open this file in notepad.
4. Change:"Memory":{"System":{"Default":{"Require":"512","Exclude":"500"}}}
5. To:"Memory":{"System":{"Default":{"Require":"400","Exclude":"410"}}}
6. Re-run Setup.

This worked great and my friend is now happily playing with the Adobe Illustrator CS4 trial.  However, if they get serious about using CS4 I recommend getting a new machine.

Related articles:
Bypass RAM check on Adobe Illustrator CS Installation (jaunis.blogspot.com)

photo star effects

Night shots that include point light sources can be spiced up by adding a little flare. I was shooting Christmas lights the other day and I found the camera did not reproduce the twinkle that my eyes saw. So I went on a search to figure out how to add some twinkle to my christmas light photos.

In hardware: there is a filter that you can add to your camera. It has many names: cross-screen, star effect, or diffraction grating. These filters can be purchased in a variety of sizes, number of star points, and strength.

In software: with a little work you can use Photoshop to create a similar effect. I found an article with the details here. The basic steps are:
1. copy the layer
2. change the layer levels, drag the grey-point all the way to the right
3. shape blur, using a star shape, and adjust the radius.
4. change the layer blend mode to screen.