Photoshop digital art experiments

Credit: atrium09 (Flickr)

“In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.” – From Wikipedia.

I have been testing a programme called Photomatix and have found it very easy to use, with examples and tutorials to boot. I also played around in Photoshop with the HDR merge tool (FILE -> AUTOMATE -> MERGE TO HDR) but didn’t find this offered as many options or control over the final processed image. I’ll post my attempts at HDR later, in the mean time check out the Flickr HDR Group.

A guy I know up at Ryedale LUG has got me interested in the OpenStreetMap project.

The point of the project is to create a free, editable map of the the world.

Someone I was telling about this asked last night what the point was when he can get maps through his TomTom. Well the point is that the mapping data isn’t free – you have to pay TomTom to get the mapping data. The reason you have to pay them is because they have to pay the mapping people such as the Ordnance Survey.

Now, there is a whole sub-plot here which I paraphrase and may be slightly inaccurate. However, the gist is that the UK tax payer paid for much of the UK mapping to be created in the first place (see the © Crown on the OS site?), then the Ordnance survey charge us for the data we paid for the creation of in the first place. If I’m right then that’s not on, is it? This reminds me of Fight Club where they make their soap from the fat at lyposuction clinics and then sell their soap to ladies who frequent aforementioned clinics.

So, anyway, Al put me onto a guy who was selling a NaviGPS BGT-11 which is a GPS tracer. You can use these to plot out roads etc and upload them to OpenStreetMap. This is a Good Thing ™ because Withernsea isn’t very well mapped at the moment.

In a couple of weeks I will hopefully be a happy mapper and will update on what I have been up to.

Go listen to the latest Ubuntu UK podcast and be in with a (realistic!) chance of winning one of these babies. Seriously, go do it – just listen, enter the easy quiz question to their email address and wait to see if you win. No catches, no nuffink.

S01E10 – Easy Come, Easy Go | Ubuntu UK Podcast.

P.S. I also get my name dropped

Traditional

A diptych (pronounced “dip-tick”) is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, types existing for recording notes and for measuring time and direction. The term is also used figuratively for a thematically-linked sequence of two books.

Modern

In modern digital art and photography a diptych is used to describe two images that are stuck together. A Triptych is very similar, instead of 2 faces, it has three.

Examples

Credit: Nick Andika (Flickr)

Credit: Panda Cat Baby (Flickr)

Credit: Frida Fritteuse (Flickr)

Credit: Victoria K (Flickr)

Credit: powJana (Flickr)

Potential scenarios

• Past & Present
• Old & New
• Night & Day
• Hot & Cold
• Dry & Wet
• Far & Near
• Front & Back
• Comparisons

Inspiration

• Diptychs – two is better than one!

I found out two things today.

1. The XSD for this XML:

   <someElement anAttribute="aValue">someValue</someElement>

   goes a little something like this:

   <xs:element name="someElement" type="some-element-def"
                        minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" />
   ...
   <xs:complexType name="some-element-def">
   <xs:simpleContent>
   <xs:extension base="xs:integer">
   <xs:attribute name="someAttribute" type="xs:boolean"
                            use="optional" />
   </xs:extension>
   </xs:simpleContent>
   </xs:complexType>

2. To get bzr 1.5 running on Ubuntu Hardy Heron add a couple of entries to /etc/apt/sources.list and re-run synaptic.

   deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bzr/ubuntu hardy main
   deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bzr/ubuntu hardy main

3. To compile PHP4 with MySQL support other than the archaic bundled 3.x use --with-mysql=/usr

Tonight was very eventful, I took my girlfriend to see the new Will Smith film Hancock at the Odeon Cinema in Harrogate. As we were getting in the car after the film had finished, I witnessed an elderly lady stumble forward and crack her head on the pavement, knocking her clean out. I ran to help… but I had no idea what to do, I wasn’t trained in First Aid… What should I do?

Lets track back abit and lead up to this atrocious event.

The Film Hancock is basically about this guy with amazing superpowers. He has all the usual superhero strengths, he can fly, run through walls, throw cars, stop trains, repel bullets blardy blah, but he chooses to rebel against society and turns the public against him. To cut this synopsis short, he turns his life around and ends the film a hero – a satisfying end for any regular film goer like myself.

I left the cinema feeling ‘super’, you know the feeling you get as a kid when you saw a superhero film and immediately after you start to mimic their every move, well this is a bit how I felt, only I’m supposed to be grown up so I had to restrain myself slightly.

As we walked out of the entrance, we passed an elderly lady leaning against the wall with her walking stick by her side, waiting for a taxi. Thinking nothing of it we passed by and walked the 30 yards to the car. I walked around the car and was about to open the door when I looked up to immediately see this lady stumble 3 or 4 paces forward, hands fixed to her side, falling uncontrollably and unavoidably cracking her head on the pavement.

“Holy crap” I said, as Zoe turned to see what all the fuss was about. I let go of the car handle and made haste and ran back to her to give assistance.

Unfortunately this lady was out cold, knocked unconscious from the fall and looking in bad shape, not helped by her frail elderly frame. I was first there to help so I took the lead, problem being I had no First Aid training and nobody else around me had either. So what do I do, and more importantly what shouldn’t I do.

I was informed by an onlooker that an ambulance had been called and would arrive shortly, this was a relief, leaving me to focus on the old lady.

The years of watching TV hospital dramas were to be finally put to some use, I immediately checked her vitals:

• Pulse Rate
• Breathing Rate
• Temperature

Luckily her head was to the side and she was breathing clearly with no sign of any fluid or objects obstructing her airway, and her pulse was also steady and strong which was a relief.

I felt the patient was in a ‘Stable’ condition, her position was a little awkward but her vitals were good, so I decided to leave her in this position as to not make the situation worse and put a blanket over her to keep her warm, ironically given to me by the taxi driver who came to pick her up!

Now to finish off and make this lady as comfortable as possible until the ambulance arrived, I took my jacket off and delicately placed it under her head.

To fast forward: Lady regained consciousness, ambulance arrived, Paramedics did ‘their thing’ and the situation was dealt with. Only what was left behind was a big pile of blood from the head wound all over my jacket!!!

It may be ruined, the dry cleaners may be able to rescue it, but to be honest, with light to the situation I don’t care, the Elderly lady seemed to making a speedily recovery and that’s all that matters.

So one Will Smith Film, a bloody accident and a ruined jacket later and I’m going to hit the sack, fingers crossed for Ms Mitchell and her sore head.

This is a useful guide for beginners to Bash shell scripting: All about Linux: 10 Seconds Guide to Bash Shell Scripting.

Again, a bit late in the day this one, but on 29th June I went with my girlfriend to see Radiohead play live in Manchester.

They played at Lancashire County Cricket Club‘s ground. The place was really easy to get to – though we ended up paying £10 for ‘event parking’ in some car park around the corner which is a bit gutting having paid nearly £50 for a ticket in the first place.

However, we got there at about 17:30, I peed in a bush due to lack of facilities and we ate packed lunch then headed in. I haven’t seen so many people in a crowd like that before – but then I’ve never been to football matches where they get twice that number every week.

The weather was atrocious on the East side of the Pennines but once we’d gone over the top it faired up and the weather was absolutely gorgeous – we were lucky not to get sunburnt.

Anyway, we got to see MGMT and Bat for Lashes for warmup. MGMT really surprised me, good live band and Bat for Lashes had a cracking voice but seemed a little bit out of place on the day – she may have been better as the first act, but that isn’t to disparage her as an artist at all.

The main problem with the venue was visibility – I’m 6′ tall and I kept finding I couldn’t see anything so I feel for those that were smaller. However, with the exception of the usual minority, the atmosphere was the friendliest of any gig I have been to.

So, enter Radiohead: naturally they were sublime, there’s lots been written about it above plus lots of photos on Flickr and I’m sure that Youtube is awash with videos.

It took about 45 minutes to get out of the £10 car park and a further 45 to get to the motorway out of Manchester and we got home at 01:30 … but it was a really fantastic event and I would go and do it today if I could.

I’ve just looked up where we parked and it shows clearly why it took so long to get out – we had to get East to White City Way and were right at the back. Oh well!

A few months ago a requirement came up in the Land Rover Project to move from Paypal Website Payments Pro (UK) to using Protx.

Both of these systems enable you to take online payments directly from customers’ credit cards, but what’s the difference?

Well Paypal was a great early choice for us. L. R. Series already had a very strong eBay presence as so used Paypal heavily already. They were familiar with the Paypal admin systems and given that their own website was about to be launched there was merit in easing that transition by not changing everything all at once.

Additionally Paypal have one great feature: they don’t require that you have a merchant account. Paypal act as the merchant on your behalf. This was necessary for the Land Rover people because as a new startup they would have been unlikely to get merchant status from their bank.

So Paypal have a lot of positives. The downside to Paypal is that they charge for the privilege of them being your merchant; don’t support Verified by Visa nor Mastercard Securecode and so leave you much more susceptible to chargebacks; we also found that CVV/CV2 failures weren’t being rejected or flagged up clearly in the administration panel.

Enter protx.

To use protx you must have a merchant account – you need to contact your bank and jump through a few hoops so that they can satisfy themselves that you are merchant-worthy.

Once you have this then you can sign up to Protx and let them handle the payment for you.

The best features we found with Protx when compared with Paypal are, in no particular order:

1. Reduced transaction fees
2. Quicker to get money from them into your account
3. Better security – e.g. VBV and MSC are supported; the admin panel is awash with traffic lights about the security of the transaction; you can add more policies to determine which transactions are rejected immediately.
4. Great customer service

All handy experience to get just before starting with Ebuyer.