AppleJack

It is not just a breakfast cereal. It is a powerful tool for helping to fix a broken down Mac. Here is a little presentation that was made for the Cypress College Advaced Digital Workflow Class.

Apple Jack’s

You can download a copy of this PowerPoint document from here.

Bullet Effects with Canon 5D Mark II

The Matrix was one of the first movies that I can remember that used bullet effects to accomplish a camera spin or movement while slowing down time. It would take setting up a bunch of camera on a rail system. Then making sure that cameras were setup to capture the action in the timing and frame sequence need. Afterword it would take an animation team to create digital backgrounds and clean up the action footage to put together. Now think about having say 52 cameras, all setup to shoot at the same time. That looks like what Rip Curl, in collaboration with Timeslice Films, did for a campaign shoot in Malaysia’s Sunway Lagoon Wavepool. Timeslice Films with their software is able to now take the shots and put them together for a live broadcast now. This is just some of the stuff that is just making the future of the DSLR cameras look even better for making films.

My New Table

I have been finding it a little bit difficult to study while at home lately. The living room always gets me to sit back and watch hours of TV that I didn’t mean to watch. I have way too many games on my computer when I actually get a change to work on it (family always playing Farmville). Lately I have had to go into school just to be able to do my homework, but now I have found a solution. Yesterday I went out and got a table for my dining room. It is nothing too big; just a little something that I could sit at away from the TV and all of my games and work. Since putting it together, I have spent almost the whole rest of the day studying accounting for an upcoming exam on Monday. I think my plan is working.

Data Back-up

Paranoia is a constant problem when it come to my photo archive. Awhile ago I was introduced to a program that would help with keeping my files synced on multiple hard drives. The program Carbon Copy Cloner looked to be just the thing that I needed. Plus it doesn't cost anything. It would just check to see if there were any changes made and then copy them over to the back-up drive. After the first back-up, which could take some time, only modified files would be copied over. This makes for quick back-ups between multiple drives.

The only thing that could have made this program better would be if it was cross platform compatible. Right now Carbon Copy Cloner is only for Macintosh computers. Since I only have PCs, it really didn't do me any good. I have been on the hunt for something that would be similar to it on the PC. Knowing that I need to back-up my files I keep searching for a program that would work. I spent a couple of months looking at back-up programs like Norton Ghost and a few others ,but they never did what I wanted. After almost giving up, I decided to start from ground zero. Unfortunately I was using the wrong terminology. I asked myself just what did the program actually do. Check to see if there were new files and then transfer them to another location. Once I started looking for syncing programs everything started looking up. I found Allway Sync.

It works almost identical to what I was looking for. Plus it too was also free. Now I have my photos on four separate hard drives and peace of mind. There is nothing better.

Test Time

Well, school is back in session. Assignment have been given out, an tomorrow is the big day that I go and take my first test of the semester. So it is going to be off to the DMV for me in the morning. Yes bright and early I will be taking my behind the wheel driving test, and this time hopefully will pass. I have been putting this off for a while but my friend' Grace, Krista, and Vergil all decided to give me a helpful shove in the right direction. I have had my permit for almost a year now and with it getting close to expiring the decided to give me a crash course in driving, no pun intended. Grace started me out by driving home at night when the roads weren't that busy. After getting a better feel for it Vergil started taking me out during the day time to drive. I don't know how he got stuck with that scary job, but I am thankful. The information that he imparted on me has really helped my driving. To keep me on track for getting my license, Grace made my appointment a couple of weeks ago. This was to make sure I would at least take the behind the wheel once before I would have to start all over again with the written. Hopefully all goes well and I will have my license tomorrow, but either way I think I might need some coffee in the morning just to keep my head twitching they way the DMV examiner will want me checking my mirrors.

The OC Fair

A while back a couple of friends and myself went out the Orange County Fair. It looked to be a heart attack just waiting to happen. Everything is deep fat fried there pretty much. Deep fried Twinkie, Snickers, sandwiches, and even butter. Deep fried butter, what could that possibly be? Could it be a stick of butter placed in a fryer bucket and just dropped in? My friend Grace just had to find out. She decide to order that and also get the chocolate covered bacon. Well, the bacon was apparently pretty good. The deep fried butter on the other hand was just a churro that was drenched in popcorn butter. I was not daring enough to try it, but by the look of everyone's reaction the buttery churro really did not seem that good. Food definitely was the key to our visit there. I wound up having a barbeque beef sandwich with lemonade which tasted great. While at the fair we did not go on any rides, just managed to walk and eat. We did stop by the art exhibits for a while. As soon as I walking into the Visual Arts Gallery, I immediately recognized from the Legacy Photo Project. Douglas McCulloh was one of the juries for the show this year and several of his pieces were on special display during the show. During my time at the Cypress College Photography Department I have had the chance to meet Doug a couple of times and it was nice to see his work again. After it got dark and the petting zoo close, Grace and Randy decided to head for home. Before Vergil, Krista, and myself decided calling it a night we left the fair and headed out to Harbor House in Sunset Beach. It was well out of our way, but Vergil was craving some food from there. Also with the new school semester coming up, it will be harder for all of us hanging out together so one last hurrah was in order.

Summer is coming to it's end

It has been a while since I have posted to my blog. This summer seems like it has gone by quick. I took a trip to Vegas with Grace, Randy, Krista, and Vergil a little while back. There was some excitement going down the shark tube water slide at the Golden Nugget Hotel. Other than that, I have been spending the summer learning about video editing. I watched all 8 hours of Lynda.com’s training for Adobe Premier CS5 and almost half way through After Effects CS5 training. Once I get a little better, I might start turning this into a video blog.

This upcoming semester is going to be a little different for me. I am going to be spending less time at the Cypress College Photography Department. The business building will become my home again. I have decided to take up accounting. I know it doesn’t seem interesting, but I am hoping to look for a somewhat steady nine to five job in the future. I will not be completely away from the photo department this semester. I have enrolled in the conceptual photography class. There is nothing like a class where the object of the class is to just make stuff up. My instructor will be Jonathan Fletcher aka “Mr. Pinholio”. Well that is about it. I will start posting more frequently now that the new semester is getting ready to be starting back up.

Things to come

I have been thinking about upgrading my Photoshop CS3 for a little while now. The computers at school have allowed me to get use to the new interface of CS4. I was almost ready to pick it up on JourneyEd.com at an academic price. On a whim, I decided to look around for when the release of CS5 would be. The very first website I found was CS5.org. After looking at the first video that shows off some of the new features of CS5, I decided to hold off on CS4. From the sites speculation on Adobe's usual release times it could be as soon as this April when I could pick it up. Right now it would be nice to move up to CS4, but CS5 looks like it’s bells and whistles look to be a good reason for waiting. So for now it looks like I am holding off from upgrading right now. He’s hoping CS5 will be out in April.

Winter Break

Well, it has been awhile since my last blog. During this winter break I have been spending most of my time watching Lynda.com. It has been hours of fun, learning, and a refresher on some of the programs I am always using. With all the time I have spent watching these training videos, it has helped my retouching quite a bit. Some of my favorite courses that I have watched so far are "Beyond Skin: Going Deeper with Photoshop CS3" and "Photoshop CS4 Retouching: Fashion Photography Projects". They showed me better way to organize my workflow, and to "reduce and simplify" as Chris Orwig would say. I went back to a couple of images that I corrected before watching the videos and reworked them. With the new techniques that I am incorporating into my workflow the images have really started to pop. This upcoming semester my post productions should be great. Now I just need to work on some concepts to shoot.