Tuesday, August 31, 2010

RedBull Illume

The World's Best Action and Adventure Sports Photography is coming to Ireland.

The best 50 photos from nearly 23,000 action and adventure sports images that were entered into the Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2010 will be displayed in Dublin, Ireland at a stunning unveiling exhibition from August 31, 2010.

© Lincoln Barbour

















As night time falls, the 50 winning images will illuminate the court of Trinity College. The university, in the heart of Ireland’s capital city, will host the exhibition until September 11, 2010. Gates are opened to the public between 8-10pm every night during the course of the exhibition. This is arguably the world’s greatest collection of action and adventure sports photography and it is fully open to the public.

Source: http://www.redbullillume.com/exhibition/dublin.html

For Dubliners it's a must see!

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Friday, August 27, 2010

Photoshop Tip - scratch disk is full








Have you ever had a Photoshop message “could not perform this action because of a program error” (something like that) or “scratch disk is full” and didn’t know what is going on?

Scratch disk is just your hard drive which Photoshop uses temporarily... something like virtual memory. If you get this kind of message you might run out of a disk space. You can have this kind of problem when you work on big files (like posters for print) or on multiple hi-quality photos at the same time. You can deal with it in three ways:

1. Create some disk space on your C: drive (where Photoshop is probably installed) by removing some applications, games or your porn collection ;-)

If you can’t do so...

2 ...and have more than one partition go to Photoshop and from top menu select Edit -> Preferences -> Performance. Then tick two or more of your partitions and click Ok. That should solve the problem.

But if you have just one small hard drive I’d suggest you to...

3 ...just buy an external one. Prices are very decent right now and it will make your workflow stresless and much easier.

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Basketball World Championship 2010

You might not know but I’ve always been a huge basketball fan and tomorrow World Championship is starting in Turkey. Hell yeah! I’m a NBA guy so of course I’m going to support the USA Team. Do names like LeBron James, Dwight Howard or Kobe Bryant ring any bell? Even if do it doesn’t matter because the best NBA players stayed home and United States sent to Europe young but talented team leaded by Kevin Durant. Well, maybe it’s even better for a tournament itself so if you want to see some games you can do it online at fiba.com (30 euro subscription fee).

Before you watch any games tomorrow, take a look at the best basketball team that has ever played a game:



USA Dream Team, Barcelona, 1992

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Photo of the day - 26.08.2010


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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Nikon D3100

If you haven't heard already new Nikon D3100 has been confirmed. It's a really interesting option for those of you who's thinking about buying first DSLR camera. It's the smallest and the lightest Nikon yet. It has 14,2 megapixels, live view mode and can record HD (1920x1080) video. The price is £499,99 for body only and £579,99 with kit lens.



















Check out photoradar.com for more info.

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Monday, August 23, 2010

Photoshop Tip - Actions








Some of you probably know this Photoshop feature very well but if you don't... well, just keep reading. In online photo printing post I helped you save some money, now I'll save your precious time!

Actions may be use in many different ways but I'll use an example to illustrate how you can automate your work in Photoshop. So let's say you took 1000 photos on holidays and really don't have time to work on each photo. Moreover your girlfriend/boyfriend wants to upload them on Facebook (today!) and your parents are coming over on the Sundays dinner. You just want to make jpgs smaller in size (for web), turn up contrast a little bit and let's say do a default sharpening. It would take ages right? Not necessary.

Here's what you have to do:

1. Run Photoshop. It doesn't matter which version you use.
2. Open first photo from your holiday collection.
3. Go to Windows from top menu in Photoshop and click Actions to open Actions panel
4. On the bottom of the panel you'll see a small icon looking like a document. If you roll over it should say "Create new action". Just click it, name it and click "record".
5. Now all operations you do on your opened image will be recorded. So as an example you can do the following:
Image -> Image Size -> Resolution to 72dpi (if it's a hi-res jpg) -> set width to 900px (horizontal photo) -> Ok
Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast -> set Contrast to let's say +30 -> Ok
Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask -> set Amount to 50% (should work fine with most of the images) -> Ok
6. Now go to your Actions panel and click stop icon on the bottom left and that's it. You have your action recorded.

And now it's the best part:

1. Go to Bridge and open folder with your holidays pictures.
2. Select all images inside it (CTRL + A)
3. From top menu go to: Tools -> Photoshop -> Image Processor... and a new window in Photoshop will be opened.
4. Now you have few options. You can select location on a hard drive to save your images, set quality of jpgs etc. The most important is step number four. Just tick "Run Action" box and choose an action you've recorded just a couple minutes ago.
5. Hit "Run" on the top right and Voila!

It's going to take a while but Photoshop will do all the work for you. You can go and relax, or even call your parents that photos are ready for Sunday.

It's of course up to you how to use actions. You can record as many actions as you want - especially those you'll be using often. In this example I also used Bridge but you can use your recorded actions in Photoshop by clicking "Play" icon on your Actions panel. It's that simple.

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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Photo of the day - 17-19.08.2010

Some more street photography.




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First photograph ever taken

Taken in France in 1826 by Joseph Niepce.


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First colour photograph...

...was taken in 1861 by Thomas Sutton. He used three colour method (red, green, blue - RGB) invented by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855.

Any ideas what is it? :-)





Tartan Ribbon :)

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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Photo of the day - 15.08.2010

Irish Bay Watch :-)


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Photo of the day - 14.08.2010

Take a look one post below to see what an idea is about...


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One photo a day keeps insanity at bay

What’s all about? Below I just pasted project description from a Facebook group.

Well, I started this as a way of keeping myself motivated and after a few people telling me they were going to do the same, I thought we could all share our "daily images" and hopefully, get some inspiration and motivation from eachother. There is one rule: we commit to take one photo a day for -at least- the remaining of the year. And who knows, maybe the entire next year too!

You can post one a day, or 7 at the end of the week for the week past. That is up to you.

So if you are an artist and are going through a dry spell, feel free to join the group!

We may even set a subject a month... all suggestions are welcomed!

Also, as loads of people have problems in posting photos on FB due to copyright issues, we will post a link from Flickr on a weekly basis. So join there too!


So as it says it’s a really good way to motivate yourself... if you need to do so :-) I’ll be posting photos on facebook and here of course which means much more photos from photocrumble!

Sounds good?
Join us on facebook
and Flickr

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Online photo printing

Few months ago I ordered more or less 8 big photo prints and I spent a fortune. I don't remember exactly but there were few 18x12'' and 12x8'' prints. Later on I found out that online labs do it much, much cheaper. So let me save you some money!

I know two big brands with a really good prices. They deliver globally but use Google and perhaps you'll find something even cheaper in your country.

Anyway I recommend Photobox and Snapfish.











Let's take a look at some sample prices...

Photobox
6x4'' - 0,12e
12x8'' - 1,75e
18x12'' - 8,69e
See full price list

Snapfish
6x4'' - 0,14e
12x8'' - 0.89e
18x12'' - 1,99e
See full price list

You can see that 18x12'' is way cheaper in Snapfish. But as far as I remember they charge extra for poster prints delivery. Standard delivery cost when you order let's say 30-40 photos is aprox. 3 euro. I guess it might be higher if you order more. Anyway if you get +20 photos it's cheaper than buying it at any of land based labs. Just to mention... I paid 40 cents for 6x4'' and 10,7 euro (sic!) for 18x12''

Moreover Snapfish gives you 20 free 6x4'' prints and Photobox as many as 50 (in Ireland) when you register. No tricks here, it's really free. They also have really good promotions... just visit their websites and look around.

Basically it's hard for me to say which company it's better to order from. Just compare prices, order from both and see the results. Happy printing!

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Thursday, August 5, 2010

The weekend has landed!

I know it's Thursday but still...


























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Sigma review

I'm not a photo equipment expert so instead of writing standard review (which you'll easily find in photo magazines or websites) I'll just write down what I like and don't in Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 lens.

What's good:
  • super wide angle (actually you can't get any wider) and 10-20mm zoom flexibility
  • constant aperture of 3.5 which is really decent light
  • contains HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) thanks to which it works really fast and quietly
  • good autofocus
  • distortion is fairly small
  • didn't spot big vignetting (read about that in some reviews)
  • really well done and not too heavy at the same time

What's not:
  • it could be sharper but it's not too bad. Slight sharpening in Photoshop does the job.
  • lens hood attachment is done really bad so the hood just slips off. I almost lost it twice... thanks to the people who pick it up and gave back to me! :-)
  • filter size is 82mm so it's very expensive (yes, I knew it before buying)

    Basically I really enjoy shooting with new Sigma lens. It's definitely a great choice for those who can't afford or don't want to spend too much money (Nikon or Canon lenses) on a wide angle. Anyway wide angle (especially so wide like Sigma 10-20) is a must have.

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    Monday, August 2, 2010

    Mafia 2

    Can't wait for this game :-) Great trailer too.



    Meanwhile I almost finished playing Alan Wake. Highly recommended but only for xbox 360 users.


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