Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

On the list of things I didn't need to hear: my left arm arguing with my right arm over which one should reach out from under the warm bedcovers to switch something off. Uh ... I wonder whether I'm running a fever or something -- that was a new experience.

Anyhow, neither feeling better enough to go to rehearsal nor enough to compose anything especially fascinating or witty, but I'm about alert enough to babble a bit about a tech matter (though I fell asleep twice while composing this):

I get the feeling that to learn to do what I want to do with images on the computer, I should really take a two-semester GIMP/Photoshop course. Or, failing that, find a really, really thorough book that covers both concepts and techniques in depth and is organized like a self-study course. But what I'm going to wind up doing is poking at various menus and tool dialog boxes figuring things out in haphazard order and gradually working out how some of the things I find relate to each other, and take eight times as long to learn it. Well maybe the pace will pick up as I get a better handle on the stuff that the online tutorials I've found seem to assume the reader already knows well, and get a better sense of what phrases to feed the search engines...

I also keep thinking that on the Levels dialog there ought to be a "white balance as though using an 80A filter" button. I'm guessing that once I figure out how to simulate a particular lens filter using either the 'levels' tool or the 'curves' tool, I can save the magic settings and recall them later ... or that if I can guess the right search phrase, Google might spit out a location where somebody else has already done the work for me. I'm wondering how much of the process I can automate (if I don't find them pre-done somewhere) by a) scanning the filters or b) shooting a grey-card or a colour-card through each filter I want to simulate, and twiddling a few controls in GIMP after loading the resulting images. (Simulating filters I don't own could be a challenge, of course ... but that would at least get me the 80A and FLD filters.)

I'll say this though: understanding what all various tools in Photoshop/GIMP are supposed to do is a lot easier now than when I first encountered Photoshop as a Mac-only product. I'm sure some of that is simple familiarity with the family of tools and with some photo-editing concepts and terminology I've picked up over the years, but I do get the impression that both apps have actually gotten easier to learn/use/understand as they've evolved, despite complaints I've heard about Photoshop having become cumbersome bloatware with "too many features". Admittedly I haven't seen the most recent version or two of Photoshop, having stuck to only using GIMP for the past few years. It would be interesting to get my hands on some of those early versions of Photoshop again to compare them to my probably-distorted memories of them.

On the list of things I didn't need to hear: my left arm arguing with my right arm over which one should reach out from under the warm bedcovers to switch something off. Uh ... I wonder whether I'm running a fever or something -- that was a new experience.

Anyhow, neither feeling better enough to go to rehearsal nor enough to compose anything especially fascinating or witty, but I'm about alert enough to babble a bit about a tech matter (though I fell asleep twice while composing this):

I get the feeling that to learn to do what I want to do with images on the computer, I should really take a two-semester GIMP/Photoshop course. Or, failing that, find a really, really thorough book that covers both concepts and techniques in depth and is organized like a self-study course. But what I'm going to wind up doing is poking at various menus and tool dialog boxes figuring things out in haphazard order and gradually working out how some of the things I find relate to each other, and take eight times as long to learn it. Well maybe the pace will pick up as I get a better handle on the stuff that the online tutorials I've found seem to assume the reader already knows well, and get a better sense of what phrases to feed the search engines...

I also keep thinking that on the Levels dialog there ought to be a "white balance as though using an 80A filter" button. I'm guessing that once I figure out how to simulate a particular lens filter using either the 'levels' tool or the 'curves' tool, I can save the magic settings and recall them later ... or that if I can guess the right search phrase, Google might spit out a location where somebody else has already done the work for me. I'm wondering how much of the process I can automate (if I don't find them pre-done somewhere) by a) scanning the filters or b) shooting a grey-card or a colour-card through each filter I want to simulate, and twiddling a few controls in GIMP after loading the resulting images. (Simulating filters I don't own could be a challenge, of course ... but that would at least get me the 80A and FLD filters.)

I'll say this though: understanding what all various tools in Photoshop/GIMP are supposed to do is a lot easier now than when I first encountered Photoshop as a Mac-only product. I'm sure some of that is simple familiarity with the family of tools and with some photo-editing concepts and terminology I've picked up over the years, but I do get the impression that both apps have actually gotten easier to learn/use/understand as they've evolved, despite complaints I've heard about Photoshop having become cumbersome bloatware with "too many features". Admittedly I haven't seen the most recent version or two of Photoshop, having stuck to only using GIMP for the past few years. It would be interesting to get my hands on some of those early versions of Photoshop again to compare them to my probably-distorted memories of them.

"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, dissent in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)

[And various people have noted that the results can't be expected to be healthy for the sect that can win, either.]

"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, dissent in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)

[And various people have noted that the results can't be expected to be healthy for the sect that can win, either.]

I know this was a long shot when I asked the first time and continues to be a long shot now when it's close to the last minute, but I've got to try:

Is there anybody headed toward Rockville from Baltimore tomorrow night, 2007-11-14, who could give me a ride to HCB rehearsal? I've missed the last several rehearsals due to lack of transportation, and we've got gigs coming up -- this Saturday, and at Darkover the weekend following Thanksgiving.

(I obviously can't afford to rent a car every time I need to go someplace beyond bus range, but I wonder whether I could manage to create enough slack in the budget to swing it tomorrow and Saturday ... and whether doing so is at all reasonable, or just the extreme frustration at my lack of mobility since February coming out.)

And a reminder regarding Darkover: I'm still recruiting musicians for the Playford dance (Friday) and the Regency Ball (Saturday). Drop me a line.

I know this was a long shot when I asked the first time and continues to be a long shot now when it's close to the last minute, but I've got to try:

Is there anybody headed toward Rockville from Baltimore tomorrow night, 2007-11-14, who could give me a ride to HCB rehearsal? I've missed the last several rehearsals due to lack of transportation, and we've got gigs coming up -- this Saturday, and at Darkover the weekend following Thanksgiving.

(I obviously can't afford to rent a car every time I need to go someplace beyond bus range, but I wonder whether I could manage to create enough slack in the budget to swing it tomorrow and Saturday ... and whether doing so is at all reasonable, or just the extreme frustration at my lack of mobility since February coming out.)

And a reminder regarding Darkover: I'm still recruiting musicians for the Playford dance (Friday) and the Regency Ball (Saturday). Drop me a line.