PixelatedImage Blog

In yet another bizarre twist I am shooting in Burnaby tommorrow and my subject is none other than Chris Walla of the band Death Cab for Cutie. As friends are already lining up with requests for autographs and free tickets, I should tell you nothing says “professional” like fawning over someone and asking them for stuff while you’re being paid to take a great photograph. I will, however, try to steal a bunch of his stuff when he’s not looking and all interested parties will be notified once I put it up on eBay.

My friend Matt has updated his site - The Digital Trekker - and if you’re at all a fan of my photography you will love Matt’s imagery. Matt and I are colleagues in several senses and are sounding boards to each other on our photography; it’s a recent friendship that I think will see us collaborating on projects in the future - including a potential photography course in India. Go check his stuff out - just don’t love him more than me, ok? Please?

RobGalbraith.com has a great article about Joey Terrill. I am not familiar with Terrill’s work but the article makes for great reading if you are at all interested in workflow issues associated with digital photography.

One of the things I read on there is how Joey bought a 20D (his primary gun is a 1Ds MkII, lucky guy) for use as a proofing camera - the 20D has a video-out line and he connects his 20D to a 9″ colour television for use as a monitor. So i thought I would try this. Very cool. Simply connect the cable that came with the 20D to a yellow Video-in, set the tv to the necessary input channel, and shoot. Instead of previewing on the little on-camera LCD, it previews on the television. I will admit I don’t yet know what I will do with this new secret knowledge but one of my beefs is about previewing images that are too small to be meaningful. This is a step towards shooting tethered, and while my tv is crappy and the resolution too low to solve my problem, it has got me thinking. ideally I would like to shoot to my laptop but haven’t made that leap - ostensibly because I have this feeling it would cost money I don’t have right now.

Give the article a read. There’s gold in them hills.

The 2006 Travel Photographer of the Year contest has been opened. Details can be found on their site: tpoty.com

At the NAPP-sponsored Photoshop CS2 Power Tour on Monday I picked up Ben Wilmore’s tome - Photoshop CS2 Studio Techniques. It’s published by Adobe and looked big and imposing and full of the why’s and how’s of Photoshop not just clever techniques for making yet another molten chrome text effect. So last night I started at the beginning and while it starts with rudiments I learned something cool.

Cool thing I learned:

If you want your current image open in TWO WINDOWS, say one at 100% and one at a smaller screen size - then you can do that and changes made on the image in one window show in real time on the other window.

Here’s how: View > Arrange > New Window for (filename)

I spent Monday at the Photoshop CS2 PowerTour here in Vancouver. I think this thing would have tremendous value for anyone who has used PSCS2 for a little while and needs to get up to speed on basics and intermediate stuff. Lots of ground was covered and I kept wondering how everyone was keeping up because they were teaching what I considered basics but going at a speed I figured you’d have to be somewhat advanced to be comfortable with.

That said, the materials were top-notch and if you missed anything it’s in the course book, set-by-step. They were also some great deals to be had on books and dvds from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. I picked up one book and it was half what I might have paid in-store or on-line.

If you have a chance to do one of there things it is worth it. I came out with a couple new techniques but mostly I left with the realization that I could teach one of these and I know my stuff and it’s nice to have that kind of affirmation, even if it costs you $100.

I will be posting a couple images from a walk Sharon and I took last night. I also hope to get a tutorial up on a little technique I saw that allows you to give some added punch to photos using the Apply Image command and the LAB Colour mode. Hopefully later today.