A Bit of This and Bit of That

Thinking in Photoshop

2010-07-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

I just turned in my final assignment for the Photoshop class. I certainly have learned a lot, but I know I've just scratched the surface. Summer classes are great, but boy you need to have some familiarity with the topic (or in this case software) before taking it on as summer class. I can recall telling students that in the old days, but somehow I didn't think it applied to me.

There are some things that I feel I'm missing. I've not gotten to the stage when I can think in Photoshop. By that I mean when I have a project to do, I'm not sure where to start or what assets I need. I also know that I need to learn more about Photoshop layers. I think there are a number of "tricks" to using them. I found a great book on Layers that is a lot of text with models that I plan to go through.

This summer I'd really thought I would have plenty of time to devote to my garden and yard and work on the website. I haven't had time to provide any new content. I really need to tend to that.

This has been a good learning experience, now I need to apply it.

Magazine Cover - Final Project

2010-07-28T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have a website www.urbansaratogagardening.com that I built earlier this year. I've not had much time this summer to update content, but that is my next project. However, I took this class to learn how to improve the images I wanted to use on my website, so it seemed fitting to make a magazine cover for it. I really like the upscale magazines from Taunton Press in the Fine series. They have Fine Gardening, Fine Cooking, etc. I didn't want a lot of text or many images on the cover. I wanted it to be understated and appeal to the "country gardener". I couldn't use that term since it was taken. I found this image of a "great house" with a very nice lawn area, something that seems like Saratoga. Since my focus is Roses, I added the article Rose Care and captured the three yellow roses from a photo of my own roses. I originally had white text in keeping with the website's color scheme, but with the yellow roses, the yellow text looked more appropriate. I added the url of the website at the top of the cover and included a secondary topic under the title. Overall, I'm pleased with the results.


Final Magazine Cover for Urban Saratoga Gardening

This has been a tough class for someone who knew very little about Photoshop at the beginning. At one point I was about to throw in the towel. But I knew that my fall semester will also be very busy and decided to finish. I know I have a lot more to learn, but I can continue on my own. I've learned a lot. I'm glad I hung in there.

Magazine Covers - Written Assignment

2010-07-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

Final Exam Text – Magazine Covers

Part A –What makes a successful magazine cover?

The major goal of amagazine cover is to attract the customer’s attention sufficiently to make thecustomer buy the magazine. Consumersspend a very short time, perhaps just a glance, analyzing the cover todetermine to buy or not. The coverartist has to present to the customer a visual experience that says thismagazine represents me and my lifestyle, or this is the lifestyle I aspire to,or that there is useful or important information in here that I need to know. That is a lot of ground to cover with just oneimage. As Gladwell points out in hisbook “Blink”, people make very complex evaluations with little apparentinformation. The cover artist needs to provide text or artwork that first getsthe consumer’s attention and doesn’t offend either culturally or intellectually. Once the attention is there, then there needsto be substance to make the consumer pick up the magazine and say, “I need this”. Thisdoesn’t mean there can’t be text on the cover, in fact many covers are full oftext, but it needs to be easily deciphered and relevant while making theconsumer curious about the contents. This means that really funky typographywould only be suitable for really funky magazines or special content. And colorneeds to be carefully considered to not offend customers or be inappropriatefor the topic. The artwork needs to be compelling and suitable for the targetcustomers. Lady Gaga might not be appropriate for Family Circle unless thecontent were about “bad influences on pre-teens” or the like. Creating a memorable and successful magazinecover must be a very satisfying experience given the number of challenges thatneed to be met.

Part B – Discuss the four design approaches to magazinecovers.

1- Early Covers

Magazines have been around since the 1700’s, but they bore littleresemblance to current magazines. Theseearly magazines were an outgrowth of a burgeoning book publishing industry.Consequently the covers looked more like a typical book cover with little or noartwork. Covers looked more like what we’d call a title or table of contentspage. The Reader’s Digest used this model until 1998. Magazine cover artwork consisted mainly ofintricately stylized borders and classic motifs and allegorical sketches. Itwasn’t until the mid-to late 1800’s that magazine covers were embellishedshowed up with generous splashes of artwork and cover lines.

2- Poster Covers

Poster Covers appeared in the late 1800’s and dominated the cover fielduntil the 1960’s. A poster cover has been defined by Josef & Prijatel asone in which “there are no cover lines, or themes announced, and the imagegenerally is not covered by the logo” [Magazine Covers & Cover Line: AnIllustrated History by G. Crow]. Theseposter covers really focus on the artwork often done by well-know illustrators,engravers and graphic designers and minimal if any cover lines announcing atheme or article. Many poster covers bearthe signature of the artist. Poster covers by Norman Rockwell represent thistype of cover, often presenting an easily identifiable evocative situation withlittle or no text. The picture tells the story. And the story may or may not beconnected to anything in the magazine. One major variation of this type wasLife Magazine with large cover art framed by an eye-catching logo at the topand a smaller footer. Many coversfeaturing poster art feature well known celebrities such as Tiger Woods, JohnLennon, Barack Obama or Osama Bin Laden to appeal to fans. While poster coversare less dominating today, they still can be very appealing and often turn upin specialized niches such as travel, food, gardening and art magazines. I talkabout my copy of San Francisco magazine in the current magazines section below.This magazine often uses a super-sized image with little text for its foodissues.

3- Integrated Covers – Artwork blended with CoverLines

Integrated covers became very common around the 1880’s. With this stylethe coverlines or typography were in mutually supportive roles to contribute tothe artistic effect while arousing the interest of the customer. With many ofthese a large image was central to the cover, but text was placed on the imagecarefully and in complimentary colorations to support and enhance the message. Itcould be found in sidebars or as footers, in brash contrasts or in subtleshades. Text placement and style varied as themagazines experimentations with form reflected the nation’s experimentationwith cultural and lifestyle changes brought about by the depression, worldwars, and post-war industrialization

4- Integrated Covers give way to an Overabundance of Text –

In the late 20^th century, text became more prominent to thepoint of where it caused the reduction in size of the photo and often consumedmore page real estate that the image itself. Critics pointed out that there wasso much text that the cover looked more like an advertisement than a cover. Text ran over, into, above and all around theimages. In some of these covers, the artwork is obscured and secondary to the over-abundanttypography. But, in actuality the cover is an ad, an ad toentice the consumer to buy the magazine.

Some reflect on the state of coverart as reflecting the barrage of modern life that sometimes overwhelms us andthe cultural and demographic glasses we wear looking at life.

Mostof the magazines that I see using this style seem to be about modern lifewhether it be a music genre, fashion scene or technology gadget review. Thosemagazines that cater to the upscale good life such as Fine Gardening, Gourmet,New Yorker, San Francisco and it sister publication San Jose seem to follow theposter or modestly integrated cover styles. Perhaps they want to offer theirreaders a quieter, culturally rich respite of meaningful content versus the cacophonyof an overabundance of sounds, images and lifestyle choice content magazinesrepresenting the hippest culture offer.

Part C – Current magazine covers that stand out and thestrategies used to gain attention.

We get a lot of magazines at my house, so I took a look atthose on the table and picked out a few that really stood out and reflected thekind of covers discussed in the history of covers. Here’s what I found:

Heavy on Artwork with some text: San Francisco Magazine of Aug. 2010

This istruly an aspirational magazine. Itfeatures good food, fine dining, luxury cars, and condos, essentially the “goodlife” San Francisco style. The currentissue features a mouth-watering plate of salad with veggies so fresh andappealing you can almost taste them. Whatperson in interested in fine foods can resist the appeal of these? The top ofthe cover boasts the title : The Food Issue with several lines of text with TheBest Chefs, Taste the Future and Terroiriste’s Plot in a contrasting color andenlarged type. Another cover boasts thetopic: The Best with an overlay of “of the (Brave New) Bay Area: Our 50 top picks from an implausibly bold2010) and has a very large photo of the SF Giant’s pitcher Tim Lincecum. Eachof these covers appeals to a customer’s desire to be a part of the good lifeand the food photography is really outstanding. Very compelling.

Artwork with no text or topic: New Yorker of July 12 & 19^th

NewYorker covers frequently evoke a chuckle as this one does. It’s a picture of a group of bugs posing forpicture with the NY skyline in the background. At the bottom of the page appears the artist’s name, Koren. It’s very cute and the picture tells the storywithout any words needed and brings to mind the summer season and outings andants at a picnic, etc. It’s very appropriate for the season.

Celebrity-poster style Artwork - Vanity Fair for July and August2010

Both ofthese magazines feature a large image of a celebrity with a young ElizabethTaylor on the July issue and Angelina Jolie on the August issue. The nearby bold text (almost as large as themagazine title) announces the article about each celebrity. Both images have side bars with additional,albeit smaller, text announcing other secondary articles. The images arecompelling and caused me to take the time to read the cover, but I wasn’tcompelled to sit right down and read the articles.

Topical artwork and relevant text

SmartMoney – August 2010: The bold textannounces the topic: Going Global and the artwork while rather large, butsimple. There are five foreign coins with the largest being the Euro. The hand that is tossing them is a femalehand with pearls and Chinese character tattoo. This magazine provides financial advice without a lot of fanfare. The cover reflects this “let’s get down tobusiness” attitude while providing a lot of information on the topics covered. Inthis case the image is not overwhelmed by the text. It’s easy to decide if I want to spend my timewith this.

The Atlantic: FAT Nation – May 2010

The isno guessing what the topic of this issue since it sports a very overweightStatue of Liberty and FAT Nation text across the belly of the Statue. The word FAT is about ¾ the size of the largest letter in the title. Asidebar on the left lists other articles. Again an easily identifiable symboland text announce the topic. It doescatch your attention. I’m sure somefolks might be appalled with the use of the Statue of Liberty, but the artisthas definitely made the point of a “Fat Nation”.

Fortune:China Wants You – May 2010

Thiscover plays on the image of Uncle Same wants you, but sports a Chinese malefigure wearing the US adorned top hat against a field of bright yellow. Thisimage plays with a lot of cultural symbols: Uncle Same, yellow China, fear ofChina, service to country and war. It’shard to mistake the meaning and implications of this very compelling cover. The topic text is about ¾ the height of themagazine title. Red medium sized textagainst the yellow background announces other main topics. There is a lot of text to read suggesting alot of “meaty” articles. While there is a lot of text, the image and it’scultural meaning is not lost in a sea of text.

Wired:Sergey’s Search & the Future July & August 2010

Boththese tech magazines appeal to a broad range of geeks. The covers are dominatedby a central image. In the one onsearch, Sergey (Brin of Google) is depicted as repetitive code stripes of DNA. Surprisingly, you must read the secondarytext under the image to get the full meaning. At first I thought it was aboutGoogle and Search and Google’s DNA or culture. Instead the cover refers to Brins’ search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease.I think this cover takes a few more seconds to accurately understand than most othersI’ve looked at recently. It does play onthe connections between Sergey and Search and all things technological, but itmakes a turn into health research that is unexpected. I would venture that many consumers of thisissue were surprised to discover that the content wasn’t about Google’s search dataor tools or business.

Thesecond Wired cover boasts in broad type The Future, with a smaller sized secondline of That Never Happened. Reiteratingthis theme is a right hand sidebar in large type of Why We Still Don’tHave. Taking up the central position andthe image of Will Ferrell dressed in a clean-room suit wearing headphones withantennas suggesting something outer-space like. This cover seems moreconsistent and meeting the usual expectations between text and image. The Usinga comedian as the image suggests that some of the future ideas were not toorealistic and suggests a reason for the theme of “never happened” While thereis a lot of text on this cover it is not overwhelming and compliments the simpleclean image.

Depth of Field

2010-07-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

I choose one of the pictures I'd takes several years ago when we sailed under the Golden Gate. My camera in those days wasn't too good, so I tried to improve the picture a bit. I also think that the picture is a bit out of focus so it might appear blurry. Of course it was taken from a rocking boat since we had very little breeze on that sail. Anyway, I tried to blur the bottom half and keep the top half in focus. To do this I drew the gradient from the edge of the water upwards to the deck of the bridge.

Sailing under the Golden Gate with depth of field

Masks

2010-07-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

I chose to use the supplied graphic from the one-on-one text to complete this mask. I'd tried this process earlier and couldn't get it to work. I'm so pleased that this time it worked. I must have learned something in the last few weeks.

Using a Mask to create a Composite

Part 2 - Using the Mask Palette

This was a fun exercise. Of course there wasn't a lot of work to do since the author had created all effects in layers and it was merely an exercise of turning things on.

Using the Mask Palette

Using Plug-Ins

2010-07-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

I investigated the plug-ins on the Adobe site and found a number of interesting ones. I also did a search and found a lot of interesting frames and background textures. When I tried to load them into the Adobe -->Plug-ins folder I ran into trouble. The folder has many subfolders such as filters, presets, etc. I didn't know if the plug-ins were to be uploaded to an appropriate subfolder of just left in the plug-in folder. The instructions weren't clear on this. After putting a few in, I couldn't get them to work. One set said to load it into the presets folder. After fooling around with this I finally got one to work. It loaded a bunch of text-styles, so I used that in my plug-in example. I'll come back to this topic since there are a lot of neat add-ons available.

Use of a plug-in to style the title

For my image, I took a photo of a rhododendron my from garden (which also appears on my website) and selected just part of the image and placed it on a new background. I then used the watercolor filter to create the water color effect. I really enjoy Impressionist school of painting. I was hoping to use one of the backgrounds I'd found, but I couldn't get that to work, so I used just a plain green background. I then added a title and used the downloaded plug-in to creat the shadow effect on the title. I like this since it sets off the title nicely without being garish.

Surrealism

2010-07-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not much a fan of abstract art and surrealism. But this is my idea of how a surrealist might view a daffodil. Rather than the bright vibrant colors we associate with spring and the daffodil's erect posture, this daffodil is dark and gloomy and bending.

Image Enhancement - Retouching & Healing

2010-07-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Doing the old man's face took a bit of patience and tenacity. But this is a good technique for healing damaged photos. I know I have some of these in my collection. It should be fun to restore them.

Healed Bluebeard

Here are the two faces of Hannah that I've practiced retouching. I found this a very interesting tutorial. I'm sure that I have many images that will benefit from these skills. I look forward to working on them when I finish this class and have more time.

Face of Hannah

One question I have is that when using the brush tools, I see a circular swish (like what you get when you sand with a circular sander). Is that trail based on the flow or intensity coverage or based on the speed of moving the brush? Also, the book doesn't mention using a graphic tablet in this exercise, but I wonder if that would provide more control over the tools? I'd like to hear some comments about using one so I can decide if I should buy one? Thanks in advance.

2nd Face of Hannah

Question for my fellow students. Are any of you using supplemental books or web tutorials? Could you share the titles and/or locations of those items you find more useful than our textbook?

Coloring Line Art - The Butterfly

2010-07-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

I decided to add this assignment of Coloring the Butterfly since I really like the results. This is one assignment that I've found fun and is the kind of thing I'd taken the Photoshop class to learn how to do.
My coloration might not be as dark as in the text, but I like my butterfly.

Colorful Butterfly

Mid-Term Project: Paul Masson Winery

2010-07-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

For my mid-term project, I choose to do something about Paul Masson and the Mountain Winery. It reminds me of the early risk takers who came to this valley and found success. Masson's was in agriculture and wine making which was the driving economic force of this valley until the mid-1950's. While there aren't a lot of monuments and landmarks to the early pioneers in the valley, the Mountain Winery represents that to me.

I did a lot of research on Masson using winery industry files and the Saratoga Historical Society. For the collage, I tried to create the impression of "legendary" and "aged". I'm still having trouble with masking, so I had to use other selection tools. I'd really wanted a picture of Masson, but was unable to find one. Most of the images I found were very small and needed enlargement. I'm learning that half the battle is finding suitable images requiring a lot of time or some good personal photographs. Plus there are other design ideas I have, but I don't have the skills to pull them off, yet. I'm not entirely pleased with this and would like to come back to it later for further refinements.

Paul Masson Winery in Saratoga

At the Paris Expo of 1900, Paul Masson Champagne stunned the world’s oenophiles by winning its prestigious Paris Award. The Masson brand brought the California winery industry (and its Santa Clara Valley appellation) to the forefront of wine lovers worldwide. And that reputation of innovation and hard work forms the basis of Santa Clara Valley’s success in the modern world.

Leaving his family’s reputation and vineyards behind, Paul Masson came to the US in 1878 from the Burgundy region of France. Here he met up with Charles Lefranc, another transplanted Frenchman and winemaker. The two experimented using Lefranc’s imported French vines with grafts from “Mission” vines from nearby Franciscan padres. Their work resulted in great wines that brought business success and celebrity for both Masson and Lafranc in Santa Clara Valley and San Francisco. Masson eventually married Lafranc’s daughter and set up his own winery in the hills above Saratoga. His mountain winery completed in 1905 was named “La Cresta.” The 1906 earthquake destroyed most of the winery and in rebuilding the he acquired the 12th century portal from the ruins of St. Patrick’s Cathedral of San Jose.

From this location he produced fine wines and even supplied sacramental wines during Prohibition. With most of his fortune gone and now a widower by the time Prohibition was repealed, he sold the mountain estate to Martin Ray in 1936. Ray, who had worked at the winery as a youngster, kept the Masson brand and reported that Paul Masson visited his former mountain estate up until his death at 82 in 1943.Martin Ray eventually sold the Masson Brand to the Seagram’s. It’s had several owners since then. An amphitheater was added and the property began its second life as a concert venue.

In the late 1950’s, the Masson brand needed an easily accessible location for its products. So it hired the notable architect John Savage Boles to design a modern tasting cellar to be located on Saratoga Ave. Bolles, noted for Bay Region Modernism, contributed more than 500 different structures including Candlestick Park, the Macy’s at Valley Fair, IBM buildings in SJ, and the Fremont GM plant. The famed photographer Ansel Adams documented the construction of the Champagne Cellars in an exhibition which eventually appeared at the Smithsonian.

The Champagne Cellars were razed in the early 1990’s for a housing development.While the Champagne Cellars have been replaced by housing, the historic Paul Masson Mountain Winery still stands in homage to the legacy and success of the Santa Clara Valley agricultural and winery innovators. On many nights when the lights are visible on the hill off Pierce Road, it’s easy to imagine the wonderful events that have taken place up there over the years. The Mountain Winery still epitomizes fine living with music, entertainment, and of course, a glass of champagne.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_wine
http://www.kipnotes.com/beverages.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/sets/72157622875749578/detail/
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/14696209@N02/4135384406/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/3632191421/in/set-72157621559636512/
http://synthetrix.blogspot.com/2008/03/paul-masson-champagne-cellars-saratoga.html
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/santaclara/mas.htm
http://www.santaclarawines.com/index.php/wineries-of-santa-clara-valley-history/
http://www.mountainwinery.com/history
http://www.saratogahistory.com
http://www.herecomestheguide.com/location/detail/mountain-winery/
http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/b/bollesJohn.html

Incorporating Text into Graphics

2010-07-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

The assignment was to incorporate a piece of text (haiku, part of a poem, song lyrics or quotation) and embed it into a graphic. I really enjoy the natural landscape, sunrises and sunsets and decided to use one of the photos provided to us. I choose this positive quotation from Anne Frank since it reminds us that there is so much beauty all around us and how amazing it is that she could feel this way in spite of her dire situation. It is truly inspirational.

I did a few adjustments to the photo to sharpen the contrasts and bring out the shadows in the clouds. I thought that was representative of her situation. In doing so it brought out more of the blue in the sky which complimented the text color.

While this is just a simple incorporation of text in a photo, I'm pleased with it. In fact it looks like an inspirational poster or greeting card that you might find in the rack at the Hallmark store. I hope you enjoy it and that it speaks a positive message of beauty and hope.

The second image assignment in the typography assignment was to complete the Chief Executive ad. Here's my final copy of that.

Homework 4 - Colorize a Greyscale Image

2010-07-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

I choose to colorize the woman in a hood image from the tutorial.In colorizing this image I found that there were fewer colorations available while with the duotone the number seemed to be infinite. This process seems a more limiting in that the tutorial didn't recommend using any of the other color tools such as levels and curves. In this regard the changes that I made seemed much more limited where as in the removing coloring I could more finely tune the amount of dark and light using the curve and level tool. This image is ok, but it is not something that I like.

Duotones

2010-07-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

Part 1 - Definition and Discussion of Benefits and Challenges

Resources for this article:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duotone - very weak, perhaps some of the better material from this exercise should be directed to submitting to wikipedia.
http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/duotones/index.html
http://www.pstut.com/tutorial-duotone.html - short and to the point
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/actions-tutorials/duotone-tritone-quadtone-actions-tutorial.html - very thorough but with a lot of ads
http://www.creativepro.com/node/58522
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshpp/11.0/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-778ca.html
Using Adobe Photoshop CS4.pdf

Discussion

Duotones are a process for presenting an image/photo using only two colors or two color tonalities. One color provides the background and main coloration while the second color generally is used for complimentary or contrasting highlighting. Designers use this process to create striking black and white tonal images, aged-looking sepia tones or brash contemporary color effects. When done using the common black and white tones, this process produces an effect like the older black and white photos. Another popular color scheme is to produce a duotone that looks like the older sepia photographs. While the black and white and sepia duotones are very common, the designer is not limited to to these two color schemes since any color pairing can be used to achieved the desired artistic effect.The photos below, from akvis.com, show an original black and white photo on the left and its resulting sepia duotone on the right.

Duotones work best when the initial photo have some interesting details that will benefit from this process of highlighting. I see this particularly useful in landscapes, images of buildings and images that have a lot of angularity to them that the second coloration can emphasize. Another application would be for highlighting one item or aspect in a photo such as a white crane amidst a dark building or landscape.

One reason duotones have had a resurgence of interest recently is that inkjet printers just can't print the many tonalities of blacks from just one cartridge. Using Photoshop to create duotones, or even tritones and quadtones, a wider range of black tonalities can be achieved. One advantage to using this method is printing cost containment. Having an item printed in many colors can be rather expensive as I discovered when I had the newsletter printed for my homeowner's group. I've never had a job printed commercially in color such as a photographic quality poster, but I can imagine that it would be very expensive. By limiting the color ranges to just two, this should cut the costs substantially.

However there are challenges in doing this. As an graphic artist creating a great duotone I rely on the images being reproduced the same as what I'm seeing on my own monitor regardless of my monitor's settings. But, each printer has a unique calibration and library of color outputs. Therefore, what gets produced from a printer may not match what I see on my monitor. Therefore I can't be guaranteed that a printing of my great work will be reproduced the same as what I've produced. The same is true for placing my duotone on a web site. The consumer of the website might have different monitor settings which will not reproduce the image as I intend. Either way it is challenging to get exacting color reproduction but for a professional project, then the designer needs to work with the printer to make sure that the colorations are as intended. But these issues are probably the same whether I'm producing a duotone, monotone or full color item. There is no 100% certainty in exact reproduction from my original to the reproduction.

Creating Duotones

Reading the histogram will reveal a lot about the image's tonal composition and if the image is a good candidate for transformation to a duotones. The lines on the histogram represent the brightness value of each pixel and the height of the bar indicates the quantity of pixels with that value. The total graph reveals the range and brightness values of the image. The image needs to have a good range of tones with highs at the right (white/light tones) and left (blacks).
I've created several duotones, but I'm not really happy with them yet. The first one is a composite using a photo I took of a of railroad tracks in Marfa, Texas and the other is the yellow frog from one of the stock photos.
These are the original photos:

And this is the resulting duotone composite:

I realize that my little froggie is too small and not distinctive enough. I'd hoped he would stand out and this would be a humorous piece. Need to keep trying. I had earlier created this one using the bird in the tutorial (which I had trouble capturing) and a river scene in upstate New York.

Getting Organized

2010-06-30T13:29:00.001-07:00

Now that I've repurposed this blog, I've decided to move all the writings to their own separate tab. You'll find those under Thinking in Text. I must say Blogger has changed a lot since I last used it. The main page of this blog will be used for my photoshop class related material.

2010-06-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

How about some changes!

When I first started this blog, I thought I'd be very diligent and post a writing at least once a week. Well, I did one, and then another 5 years later. Hardly consistent or reflecting any kind of diligence.

So, like lots of folks let's reinvent this blog. My interests in technology and social media haven't waned. In fact they've grown. But along the way, I've learned a lot and have decided to get out in the front and create some stuff. It's nice to work on a big commercial site and see work that you've done appear. Or, more accurately ...work that you had a very, tiny, tiny role in creating. It's much riskier to create your own page with text and images and put that out there.I guess I've never been that confident to take those risks. Now, I feel comfortable putting my own work out there. Just as the nike slogan goes, "Just Do It. "

As part of this new risk taker image I've launched my gardening web site. It's still very tiny with just a few pages, but in time it will grow. You can view it at urban saratoga gardening. It's a site devoted to one of my life-long hobbies: gardening. Since I've taken web development and Dreamweaver classes, I can now create my own site. And to help me develop good content and reasonable art work for that site, I'm taking a class in Photoshop this summer. The instructor wants us to post assignments into a blog. So, I'll be using this blog for that.

The photo that appears at the top of this blog is a "before" photoshop. This is probably my most favorite plant: a lavender rhododendron. Despite objections from my gardener I bought it in Home Depot for about half what it would have cost at a "professional" nursery. I put in a shady corner of my front yard and it has just bloomed away every year. It never disappoints me. Last year I got very brave and did some trimming to shape the plant a bit. I didn't want it getting just tall, but rather to be shorter in the front and taller in the back. It survived my clippers and put on a nice show this spring. Maybe I'll find a way to use the photo in one of my assignments.