New version of Topaz Detail

St. Aldates 35/365, originally uploaded by attila acs.

One of my main issues with Topaz Detail was that it felt a bit slow and clunky. The current release fixes that and makes the plug-in much more responsive. The processing seems similar and it’s still a great plug-in (and at an amazing price!). The above image was processed in Photomatix Pro and then I added in some parts of the original exposure (to fix the movement of the bus between exposures) and an overall processing with Topaz Detail. By using it to blend in the original main exposure, it can subtly clean up some of the washed out parts of the image caused by the initial blending and processing.

Highly recommended!

Check it out at: http://www.topazlabs.com/detail/

Lightroom experiences

Still in my demo phase with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.1, I start to discover the slight limitations that could change my mind on what application suits my work best.
One more thing I noticed is that Lightroom has a maximum image size of 10000x10000px. 100MP sounds like a lot, but when you start stitching panoramas with Photoshop, you quickly exceed the 10000 pixels in width, even-though you only use about 3000px height. The option would be to resize your panoramas to a maximum of 10000px width, as it doesn’t look like Adobe will change this limit too soon. It makes perfect sense for most photographers and the RAW file handling that LR was designed for (who has that 100MP camera and huge HDD? 😀 ).
According to Tom Hogarty (product manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom), the long term plans are to add more functionality through 3rd party plugins and the like. And they are also thinking about removing the 10000 pixel limit but probably not too soon as this is mostly speculation.
Read the interview
Lightroom Feature Request Form
The main thing I’d like to see is an easier way to update web gallery templates. I spent all day figuring out basics of xslt and all the files that generate the html files. I’m still struggling with getting my wordpress template into LR. Any help would be appreciated. Here’s the rundown on my current problem.

Web 1.0 2.0 3.0… stop counting!!!

Ok, who doesn’t have a myspace account? It seems like most people have at least one account on that horrible and slow website. Some of your friends are on there and you probably keep in touch with them that way because email just doesn’t cut it anymore. And they are on there to keep in touch with someone else and so on… That’s all good. Many people I know complain about myspace (I’m one of them!) and how horrible it is to use and how cluttered it is with all kinds of crap. The other day I opened a friends page and it started playing audio of an mp3 player AND a video with sound at the same time.

Productivity at work

I’ve been working from 9-10am until about 2-3am every day with no weekends or days off. Sometimes I just take some time off and watch a movie or cook (or post here) and sometimes I just collapse and want to quit everything I’m working on (mainly study related work since other work generally is more fun to do and more “educational”).
My workplace is slightly more ergonomic than it used to be but it’s still very very improvised and temporary (plastic garden chair, anyone???). It extremely influences my productivity and put a decent chair and a height adjustable desk on top of my wish-list for when I come back to Australia. I simply can’t do it at the moment.
To try to accommodate for these long work hours and the bad conditions I started to use AntiRSI
It helps me to take breaks and if I use the mouse or keyboard continuously it forces me to take little 10 second breaks. The thing I love about AntiRSI is that the notification won’t distract from the app you’re working on. You can finish your thought in Word or Pages and take the break shortly after. And you can set the timing as well as the length of the main work breaks. I just set mine to 48 minutes of work followed by 12 minute breaks (The Power of 48 Minutes). Since I find that 90 minutes (my previous setting) was way too long. But I liked to do big chunks at once. However, it didn’t work out well. Let’s test the power of 48 minutes and at some stage get a proper chair and desk as well…

Technorati Tags: effectivity, freeware, osx, productivity, tutorial

Byron Bay Bluesfest 2007 (the morning of day 3)

The Bluesfest is on! Just like every year, the rainy and cold Bluesfest in Byron Bay. It’s been pretty good so far, with Bo Diddley being the highlight. I’ve seen him last time as well. The old man still got it!!! Doesn’t matter if it’s his signature sound and great band or his jokes about women and Vegemite.
Instead of the usual “How are you feeling?” that you can hear from every lame young artist, Bo Diddley got stories to tell and he doesn’t take himself too seriously as it can be seen every-time he starts to rap about other musicians or his “baby”.
His performance reminded me of Les Paul, who still regularly plays at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. They both might be old but they got something that most people on MTV don’t have: the ability to pull off an entertaining show without huge fireworks, playback tapes, sex and scandals.
Who wants go to a concert of some eye candy without a proper voice and nothing to say – and even pay $100+ for a 90 minute show?
While an amazing band might be playing in the bar next door…