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1/23/2012

This is the original file.

In Photoshop I used the ‘magic eraser’ tool to remove all the white. Then I saved the file as GIF.

After erasing the background I choose file save as and selected the (Compuserve) GIF format and click SAVE; then you get the following option box where you set your transparency options.

As you can see in the image below I missed some of the white background; so I went back and used the Magic Eraser tool again to remove the rest of the White Background.

This is the cleaned up file saved as a GIF and selecting the Transparent check box and WEB option.

Posted at 8:57 PM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/18/2012

January Sunset

I drove down to the Point Bridge and shot the Sunset; but the Wind and Cold were against me; Still.

Here I got lucky and captured sunlight cutting through the wave tops. Looks Cool.

Sunset as seen from the old Beasley's Point Bridge, Somers Point side.

Here is a shot of the Power Plant taken many years ago.

The power Plant and smoke stack look a little like a Mississippi River Boat.

Posted at 10:52 PM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/16/2012

Winter 2012

I don’t know what happened to Christmas this year; it just flew by without much fanfare. In a way Christmas has become such a financial burden it almost takes on an April 14th feeling; not Dec 25th.

Here is a photo of Carly taken Christmas Day December 25th, 2011.

She was looking at a gift with her Grand pop Marco. The portrait above is cropped from a full frame that included 2 1/2 people and a part of the Christmas tree.

Later that day; flashing through a few hundred Christmas photographs it would have been easy to miss this shot within the scene.

Posted at 9:58 PM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/6/2011

A Golf Epiphany

I’ve been playing Golf since 1994 and since that time I’ve worked very hard to learn the game and play it well. Along the way there was one good instructor and one great instructor; plus thousands of good tips from an array of professionals. I’ve been given precise instruction on holding the club, setting up to the ball, taking the club away, and what my shaft angle should be throughout the swing to the follow through. I read all three of Dave Pells books on putting & short game technique , and I've watched hours of Golf Chanel Golf instruction. But in all that time no one ever said anyting about where to hit the ball. Sound dumb Right? Here is my Epiphany: I setup behind the ball; but it is the front of the ball my eye should be focused on hitting. Think of it this way. We are all told to hit down on the ball, Right? Well if you aim at the back end of the ball you will always have a lifting tendency in your swing; however, if you aim at the front of the ball you must hit down and through the back of the ball to get there. No one ever told me to aim at the front of the ball. Try it for few dozen swings and you’ll hit fewer fat shots.

Posted at 9:29 PM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Category: Golf | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

7/22/2011

Osprey Nest

Just off the Ocean City 34th street boulevard is a parking pad that is about 80 yards away from an Osprey Nest. There are 2 parents with 3 children and due to the close proximity of the noisy roadway the Osprey don’t seem to pay any attention to cars or people along the road’s shoulder.

I was able to setup a tripod and make hundreds of exposures and my 4 favorites are displayed below here.

The camera used is the Nikon D90 with a 750mm TeleZoom Lens. Shutter speed was 1/1000 sec at f6.5.

I’ve built 2 WEB Page slide shows that you can open and view using the linked text below. I hope you enjoy them.

>Osprey Nest Slide Show

>Osprey in flight Slide Show

Posted at 12:46 PM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/25/2010

December 21, 2010:Lunar Eclipse

Nikon D90, 750mm lens, ISO 3200, 1/4 sec F6.3, Dec 21, 2010 3:15am EST, Created HDR image in Photoshop CS5, Image lighten in Lightroom 3 before posting here with Windows Live Writer.

The scene actually changed every 3-5 minutes and selecting a single image to represent the total event boiled down to the one shown here.

No single image will look the same on any 2 video displays and everyone perceives colors differently. I started taking photographs at 1:33am. The moons color was rusty red from 3:15am to 3:45am. Prior to that time it went from light tan to dark rusty red.

Here is the image taken at 2:33am

I think it was in the Ansel Adams book ‘The range of light’ I read that someone asked Ansel how may exposures he took before getting the one he wanted; his reply was “Just one!”. What a guy!

Obviously Ansel didn’t have a digital camera but if he did I like to think he still would have taken more than a few exposures to record a Lunar Eclipse that won’t happen again for 330 years.

In the hour I spent photographing the eclipse I took 185 images. I shot a wide range of exposures intended to capture single images and multiple bracketed images for HDR processing. The down side of taking all those exposures is they all have to be processed, reviewed, rated, cataloged and finally reduced to a few images that best represent the scene. This particular Lunar Eclipse happens once every 330 years so there was no pre-visualizing or predicting what was about to happen. I’ve never seen anything like it in real time.

Thousands of photographers and astronomers around the world filmed and photographed the event. A Google search will reveal many great images. As I discover the work of others I will include those links here too so come back again sometime soon. w

Links to Images made by other photographers and astronomers.

Here is a link to a spectacular image taken with a camera and lens that cost more than my Buick. When it comes to photography you get what you pay for.

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOW_DIG/Lunar_Eclipse_20101221.HTM

Here is another rendition, photographer unknown, that presents the event in a very clever and different way: http://i.imgur.com/zeL7S.jpg

Posted at 2:24 AM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/1/2010

Swans

This is a slide show, created in Adobe Lightroom2, showing images taken at the Cape May Point New Jersey wild life refuge.

Link: Swans You have to use the back button to return here.

Posted at 1:01 AM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/13/2009

Exporting multiple Lightroom files to outlook

I didn’t invent this but want to keep a record of it for myself. Lightroom 2 seems to have a bug where it can’t attach more than one file to a mail message. In searching for a solution I found a post with a link to a MapiMailer written by SBSutherland here http://www.sbsutherland.com/downloads.aspx

It works and I’m happy to move on. The program adds itself to the Lightroom’s Export Post-processing options list of actions. I installed it and it works just fine.

Posted at 10:18 AM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Category: Photography | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/11/2009

Lightroom 2 Image Storage

I first installed Lightroom 2 about 4 months ago and it wasn’t long before I started having issues with the Lightroom database software. Lightroom is a ‘non-destructive’ editing package; meaning, all edits are stored in a database. If you edit an image outside of Lightroom, say for instance, using Photoshop 7, then your Photoshop edits cause the file to be modified when saved. Consequently, Lightroom doesn’t know about the changes made by other editing programs and their lies the problem.

I have Lightroom installed on my main workstation, but when I transfer images from my Nikon D60 camera, I save them to my primary workstation, and also send a backup copy to my File server. I also have a second computer with Lightroom installed and sometimes edit files on the primary PC using this second PC. Not realizing how Lightroom stored changes, it became a mystery to me how the same image can look completely different when viewed from two different workstations. After learning how Lightroom stores changes, I decided to move my image files and the Lightroom database to an external USB hard drive; thusly I can plug the external drive into any computer that has Lightroom 2 installed and see the edited versions of my images on any computer because the Lightroom database moves with the USB Drive.

Posted at 2:51 AM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Acer Aspire One

Its almost yr 2010 and my current primary workstation, a Dell Dimension 4300 I purchased back in 2003, was still going strong until Adobe Light room 2 came along.

First, after installing Adobe Photoshop C4, my Dells’ performance was still tolerable, however, after installing Light Room my main squeeze turned into a lemon.

Shortly after shopping for my next ‘be all things’ computer soon brought the realization that building my next dream computer was going to be expensive. The lowest price I could build an adequate ‘Photoshop’ workstation for was $1400. Not a bad price considering my first attempt on Dell.com resulted in a $3400 workstation. Well, for me, spending $1400 right now isn’t an easy decision and being the procrastinator I am, I needed an interim solution.

Acer-One to the rescue

As it turns out my little Acer Aspire-One, or, my “Minnie-Me” is quite a bit faster than my Dell Dimension 4300. The Dimension and Acer both have 1.60 MHz processors, but the Acer has 2 GB RAM compared to the Dimension’s 1 GB RAM. This extra memory must be the major contributor to the Acer being 3-4 times faster in rendering images. But there was one huge problem; the Acer Screen is just to small to take serious when it comes to actually using Photoshop CS4 and Light Room 2.

Acer to the rescue: The Acer has an Intel Atom Processor and the Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile that supports duel monitors with resolutions up to 1680 X 1680 Resolution. My Dell 22’’ monitor’s native resolution is 1680X1050; so I connected the Dell 2208WFP Flat panel Monitor to the Acer’s external VGA port and to my surprise it looked great. The Aspire-One can display an extended desktop or mirrored video, both with independent video resolutions.

Also: if you don't have A1ctl for the Acer Aspire Computer then go here http://nodadev.wordpress.com/pc-projects/a1ctl/ and get it. This small applet fixes the realy stupid 1024X600 screen resolution issue this notebook has. By using a1ctl you can run Quickbooks, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. Without it you can't. NO BRAINER!

Lightroom 2 Image Storage

The image storage solution I’ve come up with is another surprise. Apparently, the Acer can access my Seagate 500 GB external drive as fast, or faster than, it’s internal hard drive. Makes no sense to me, but none the less, using an external hard drive for Lightroom’s images and database makes a lot of sense.

Posted at 2:25 AM by Michael Angelo (angelom) | Category: Technology | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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