Three months since a google crawlerbug went onto my site

Celebrating three months of being included on a major search engine listing

HDR

HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging is a technique that melds photos with different exposure together to make one image that turns out extremely vivid so that it sort of ‘pops out’ at you. For an example, do a google image search on ‘hdr’ and click on the first thing that looks like a 3d cartoon. If you look closely, it has too much intricate detail to be animated, and the edges are perfectly round; more than any computer in the universe could handle in a million years. Yet it looks abnormally vibrant. Those are only the high end ones, though. But you can still create something like this:

You can see that it was badly edited in the upper left hand corner.

I will be using the components from this image to explain how:

1. Download and install Photomatix Basic.

2. Take two pictures of the same thing with a digital camera.Make sure that one is is -1 exposure while the other one is +1 exposure or 0 exposure for your first one. You can read about how to adjust your cameras exposure setting in its manual. Best that the camera is on a tripod. You want the pictures to look EXACTLY THE SAME, except one is darker than life and one is lighter.

Note that most HDRs have 3 images, not just two. If you can find free software that automatically melds over two images together please comment to tell me about it.

Also note that the only thing different about the images is the exposure. You should use a tripod so that you can be sure that you are taking the exact same picture without pan or tilt every time.

3. Put the pictures onto your computer

4. Open up photomatix

5. Open the photos that you took in it.

6. Click on HDR from the drop down menu and select generate. Click OK on the popup window.

7. Enable ghosting and set the detect value to high on the next popup window. Click ok again.

8. Select ‘tone mapping’ from the HDR drop down menu, and make it a 16 bit image. After that, you are done! Or you can go onto the next step.

9. Exit your image (NOT Photomatix) and save it from the prompt that it gives you. Be sure to save it as a tiff. Now you are really done.

)10.) Open it up in GIMP or your favorite photo editor and re-save it as a png or another file type. Tiffs are just too big for most people.

This:

Plus this:

Equals this:

I added that kind of ’soft’ effect on GIMP afterwords. I just gave it a light ‘afterglow’ filter.

How to make your own personalized CD cases out of the thick plastic kind with paper embedded inside

We were cleaning out some of our old CDs the other day, and found that we had to throw tons and tons away. The CDs were no good, as they were read only and had useless things written onto them permanently, but that didn’t mean that the cases that held them were totally useless. Still, some of them were the kind that were made out of plastic and had a little piece of paper embedded inside. I didn’t want to keep Civilization IV in something with a ‘Humongous entertainment’s Putt-Putt Enters the Race’ Description and Requirements panel semi-permanently branded into the back of the case on a piece of paper guarded by a plastic wall (The world isn’t ready for that amount of hipness yet ) The truth is that these things are pretty hard to break to the un-fixable level without cracking th plastic. If you don’t already know how to do this, then here is how:

1. Pry the flip-cover lid off of the case. (The swingy-hingey part)
2. Now bend the entire remaining case the long way, gently but firmly. Try to dislodge the black bumpy strip off of the frame. (The only part remaining that is clear) That makes it easier for the other side to come off.
3. Take the piece of paper out of the frame, and measure it.
4. Cut out a piece of paper the same size and print stuff out on it or just color it in. Note that there are these long, tiny strips on the edges that go on the sides of the case that usually tell the title of the software. Include these, but also remember to fold them upwards when you put it into the case.
5. Put it where the old piece of paper used to be and put everything back together.
6. Measure the little booklet thing that comes on the front flip cover of the case that you slide out, and cut a piece of paper out that is twice the size the long way.
7. Design something for it that is only the size of the ORIGINAL flip cover.
8. Fold it in half and put your new one back in.
9. Put everything back together
10. Make some more for your other out-of-place CDs!

This is hideously simple but still yields cool results if you make a good design.

It looks even better if you have gloss paper.