VSO image resizer

I bitch and moan enough about crappy software, I thought I should redress the balance and give a quick woot for this small and reasonably friendly little application.

EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER SHOULD HAVE IT!

Its a context-menu app – allowing you to right click on a photo, several photos, or photos and folders and resize and reformat virtually any image file. What makes it shine is its support for 8 and 16 bit Photoshop files, reading the composite data – which means its massively quicker than bridge/photoshop because it doesn’t have to load the whole file. You can save in any format, and add a simple watermark with text, or with an image file. There is a little learning curve, but you can also use it out of the box with presets. I just resized 20 or so huge jpegs (20mb files = about 8000×6000px) added watermark in under a minute.

Pros: Small footprint, quick, simple and powerful (a rare and wonderful thing), nothing out there quite like it.
Cons:Struggles with CMYK files

Its free, with a nag. PC only.

http://www.vso-software.fr/products/image_resizer/

she’s here!

Just before 10 pm,  we were off to bed and Elektra said that things were a bit different down there. “Are we having a baby?” I ask. “maybe” she replies.

I think “crap if its anything like last time I better knock out that work thats due on Thursday!” When I get off the computer Elektras on the phone to the midwife and  making “we’re having a baby” noises. She sends me off to bed, then phones me at about midnight when the contractions are about “6 mins apart”.  Although as soon as she stands up I realise they’re not 6 mins apart and I get visions of birthing on the pacific highway.  Run around gathering the essentials: camera, bananas, chocolate. Bundle into car and head off  (stopping only to turn our bin through 180 – the garbos wont collect it otherwise – part of me thinking that I must’ve done this before).  Drive as quickly but smoothly as possible to Coffs, almost go via airport (was on Auto Pilot Elektra in mid contraction “where are you going?!!”) and do the seemingly interminable walk to the maternity unit. Elektras having contractions every 3 minutes in the car, and that stays pretty much the same for the next 4 hours.

Our midwife was Bronwyn – settles us in I start running a bath, where Elektra stays also more or less for the next 4 hours. Its about 1am and we know Zahira and Lyn (our midwife) are on their way – they’re both there by 2.

For Elektra there follows several hours of what you could describe as “some discomfort” (but only if you are brave, foolish or owner of loud voice and fast legs).   Despite the screaming, groaning and expletives Elektra keeps her sense of humour dry: (middle of contraction: “you’ve got to get a vasectomy”;  to honor the cliche:  “this is your fault you bastard”; on being informed the midwife’s enormous rubber glove is used by vets: a deadpan “moo”).

She moves round in the bath a few times, after a protracted session on her knees she turns over and – oh my god – theres half a head poking out between her legs – and not a squashy cone head either, a perfectly round (and big!) head with lots of hair. On her back now but still in the bath theres “more discomfort” as the baby moves about trying to get shoulder out.  One more big push – from both mother and baby seemingly and out she comes, gurgling and crying

Off to visit now will finish up later…

misery session

from last year but recently processed a whole bunch
Enjoy

mg 0438 edit 640×480

mg 0441 2 1 55×55 flat 640×480

mg 0441 edit 2 640×480

mg 0444 640×480

mg 0286 edit 640×480

mg 0427 edit 640×480

mg 0428 edit 640×480

mg 0431 edit 640×480

Ironically only ever received criticism for any of my photos with this model (Cath) as my subject!  This session for “taking advantage” of someones grief, and for “child abuse” for the lead image on www.gethincoles.com

the comped shots

He’s not at all scary, by the way

mg 4744 edit

mg 4746

mg 4749 edit 2

mg 4749 edit

mg 4754 edit

mg 4756 edit 2

…and the black and white version

portrait lit by sparklers and leds

This was an experiment – been doing some light painting stuff with Alex (that’s him down there), had an idea to do some portraits lit with sparklers and leds. Required him to sit very still, and comped in a flash exposure of his features. Never intended to do a finished piece from these tests, but as the deadline for the Bellingen Art Prize neared, ran out of time. Based on each image, didn’t think it was going to work – but started to come alive as I played with the layers and started painting on masks. I love it, plan to do a series, but I’ll have to see if I still like it next week….

heres a detail

and a bigger detail

Each long exposure was about 30 seconds.  Alex is quite hairy so waving a sparkler round his head was exciting!

This week I have been mostly doing…

websites…

For Photoshop Nerds: Editable Diffuse Glow

EDIT: 26th September: looking back on this not sure why I didn’t just create a smart blur from a diffuse glow (one reason: you should be able to use this technique in 16bit – swapping grain for noise).

For photoshop nerds: I use diffuse glow on portraits, occasionally on architectural and landscape shots.  I’ve been messing around with photoshops CS4’s smart filters and realised you could recreate it in an editable way.
Create a smart blur layer from your background then add the following filters:
Maximum (1-3 seemed to work)
Gaussian blur (10-30+)
texture>grain (regular, mid contrast and then adjust to taste).

Set the layer blend mode to ADD.

I added a bit of finesse by sandwiching it between 2 curves layers and putting the whole lot in a group.

Pictures show the effect on a portrait.
How the layers are arranged in the group.

The before and after curves (the before curves is the one that really reduces the highlight values).

Heres one I took earlier

My favourite at the moment, I’d like to do more like this