Sunday, July 8, 2012

The Weekly Photo (Week 28) Evening Sun

Evening Sun

In the week 27 post we introduced Technogran and her charming photo-transformations. This week a bit of, hopefully flattering, imitation and a peek behind the technique.

Evening Sun

The tool used by Technogran, and also for the illustration above, is Nokia Creative Studio. This application runs on Nokia phones. That’s right, this is not an app for traditional computers. This smartphone app is a creative photo editor with a number of delightful effects. The effect used here is “cartoon”. Regular photo editors typically call this effect “posterize”, as in “make it like a poster”. In earlier posts here, I have shown a similar effect available in Microsoft Office 2010 Picture Tools where it is called “Cutout”. Here is this same photo transformed in Word with the Cutout effect: I used a reduced resolution copy in Word 2010, hence the more “painterly” look.

Evening Sun

The Nokia Creative Studio effect does not permit any adjustment, but it does offer a very nice version.

Another transformation that I like and have used frequently, is “sketch”. Let’s take a look.

Evening Sun

This image, again from Nokia Creative Studio, has been post-processed to make the lines darker. As Creative Studio prepares a sketch, the lines come out pencil gray. I like them a bit darker and made the adjustment afterwards in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

You might think that in order to use this tool you have to take the photo with the camera in the phone. That certainly is the easiest way, but with the SkyDrive app installed you can also edit photos “from the cloud” – any photo that you have uploaded to your SkyDrive.

The phone used here is a Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone. This phone has an 8 megapixel camera. The camera and the phone are new to me and I am still learning the features and peculiarities. Here is another artistic effect photo from this camera and this editor, it is this week’s picture of the week over at Silver Canvas. Click the little picture to take you there.

For a better look at these images, click the panel below to take you to my Picasa Web Album. The larger photo is the original as it came out of the phone camera, the other images are cropped from that photo (the album contains reduced resolution photos).

.:.

click here for help on how to leave a comment

Monday, July 2, 2012

How to leave a comment

At the bottom of the post there is a comment count. This is a link, see the illustration here.

Click the word comments.
The page is refreshed and a comment box will be available.
Type in your comment.
Be sure to make a selection for Comment as: Click Select profile, then click on Anonymous if you do not have one of the other listed accounts.
Then click Publish.

Of course I would like to know who you are, so won’t you please include your name if you do not have one of the IDs.

Now click the browser return button to get back to the post you were reading.

Two Leaves

This post shows a photo of two leaves and a “café art” derivation. Which appeals to you more?

.:.

How to leave a comment:

Click on the comments count below.

The page is refreshed and a comment box will be available.

Type in your comment.

Be sure to make a selection for Comment as: Click Select profile, then click on Anonymous if you do not have one of the other listed accounts. Of course I would like to know who you are, so won’t you please include your name if you do not have one of the IDs.

Go ahead, click the comment count now. And many thanks for commenting!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Weekly Photo (Week 27) Visiting Artist: Technogran

This week we introduce another “visiting artist”: Technogran. Astute visitors will have already discovered her section on the Gallery – Visiting Artists page. Technogran offers some beautiful photography in the charming and captivating stories in her blogs Neither here nor there and Technogran’s Tales. Why does she replicate posts in two services? Well, Technogran has been a technology geek for quite some time and has helped many to understand computers and the web at Technogran’ tittle tattle and, yep, Technogran’s tittle tattle.

Enjoy her artistry in our gallery (click the image), but do not miss her enchanting blogs.

Join me in welcoming Technogran. More, more!!

.:.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

The Weekly Photo (Week 26) -- Reaching Outside the Box

This week concludes the first half of the year, and the first six months of my POW project. “The Weekly Photo” did not get under way until March 2012, but over at Gallery Ludwig and at Silver Canvas I found an image to share each for each week.

Here I wish to reach outside the box and offer something rather different: An image by a “visiting artist”. Over on the visiting artists page I have provided links to some beautiful photography for some time.

This “Truck” by Stephen Blecher is “The Weekly Photo” for this week. Click the picture to view it in Stephen’s gallery here at Café Ludwig.

.:.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Weekly Photo (Week 25) Cameos

The intent for the photo was to document a culinary creation, but when I inspected the image, there it was: A cameo appearance. It was unintentional, so this was not an attempt to emulate Alfred Hitchcock. He made an art of doing a cameo appearance in his movies.

Well, let’s look at the photo.

There, very obvious once you look at it, is “my self-portrait”, in classic photographer pose – look at the spoon. I’ll show it flipped so you don’t have to turn your monitor on its head.

Normally I try to make sure that I show just the subject, no more, no less, but when it comes to reflective surfaces it is easy to catch yourself in your photos.

Particularly prone to inadvertent self-portraiture are domed or concave shiny surfaces like the spoon here.

Cars are just chuck full of such mirrors, especially in and around the lights. Here are three examples. The first one, on the left, is rather obvious. The other two are more subtle.

Other “cameo traps” are the glass surfaces of buildings. So many of today’s architecture is full of angles and curved glass. Take pictures in a town area and your chanced of self-portraiture are pretty good. You may get unexpected photos of your companions along with yourself.

Windows of all types can provide the opportunity for self-aggrandizement. That includes the zoo, the aquarium and other places that put a window between you and your subject. Now go look through your own collection!

.:.