The world is going to an end [at least I dream so]

It is not very common to have a dream in one random night and to continue it in the very following one. I personally can’t recall when this last happened to me… until lately.

Two nights ago I had the weirdest dream of all. I dreamt I was somewhere in the US, I felt it as Miami, and I was so much amazed of the city. White beaches, summer all the way, palm trees everywhere. Suddenly the weather changed, it turned rainy, windy and it was about dawn. As I was wandering off streets at some point people started screaming and running towards the opposite direction I was heading to… I turn my eyes and what do I see? There was the biggest tsunami ever, coming to smash everything in its way. Everybody was screaming and running in panic, and I… I just stood there.

I almost forgot about this dream… until last night. As I doze off to sleep, I dreamt I was in a post-big-catastrophe. The city around me was ruined following a global cataclysm, there were cars smashed everywhere, there was chaos all around. People were crying on the streets and the next I see was a supermarket, partially destroyed. I was inside, under a security camera. I was looting for food, and not minding at all that cam that was on me.

I woke up feeling very uncomfortable. I thought to myself, to give myself some peace of mind that there is no sea where I live now (that’s Prague in the Czech Republic). There is no sea. And I definitely don’t plan to move to the US.

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We’ve got street view!

Street view, street view, who’s got street view? We’ve got street view!

     I know that probably is not news anymore for somebody, but it is definitely for me. These guys from Google, they’re genuinely amazing. They’ve literally put Prague on the map… that’s right, Google MAP(s).

     Now I can go wandering around the city from the comfort of my 24” killer screen :D, and save the real thing for the summer days. As it has a tendency of turning quite coooold (brrrrr) from mid October up until end April – mid May. The weather under the influence of Siberian cold fronts.

Showing you a screen dump from Google Maps (with their new street view) of the area where I live now:

…or click here to grab the 1198x786 version. Quite a beautiful area, I’d say? But now, all that beautiful green, the crisp colors of summer, are long gone. They have been replaced by other more darker tints, by autumn. It is grey, rainy and cloudy. It gets me depressed, the memories of summer and the cold (blame Siberia) reality outside.

This is where I work! A modern building in the heart of Prague, also street view:

You can grab the 1198x786 version here.

Feed post from http://Criss-AC.net

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First snow in Prague!

Date of today: October 15th, 2009. Have had a look outside, sky is grey, and snowing heavily. I know it has been a bad weather lately, but I did not expect it to snow… it sort of tends to get me depressed.

Less than a month ago, there was such a nice weather, and one could not guess that the winter will come that fast. I want the summer days back.. I guess this winter could have waited for a little more. I am sure we will have snow now, and around Christmas when it is supposed to be all white, there will be none..

Nice weather in Prague on the 27th of September, less than a month ago! (Pics also posted on my Flickr page)

 

 

And now, after less than one month… we’ve got this. This.

 

Source: Prague + my Nikon Coolpix P6000

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How to enhance a portrait in Photoshop

Will simply explain how I did create this picture: (the picture is clickable, it will take you to my Flickr page)

 

During the last weekend, I took my girl out for a walk. We’ve been walking through the center of Prague, and at some point, we stopped taking some pictures. In her glasses there was a great reflection of the towers, and I am crazy about shooting such things. So I decided I should give it a go. In this tutorial I will show you how you can turn a rather usual and boring picture into something that will look way better.

The camera I am using is a Nikon Coolpix P6000, the best camera in the Coolpix series, and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, also the best graphic editing software.

This is the initial shot, untouched:

 

Now, the first thing I did was to apply a couple of photo filters. I have applied them as new layers, and I’ve used two. First one is a deep brown, applied as normal (hex code #663300), second is a deep blue (hex #000033), applied as overlay. If you’re familiar with Photoshop, you should know what these codes are.

Second thing to do is to smooth the face tones and texture. I have used the quick mask mode to paint the area that needs to be smoothed, and after I’ve got the selection I wanted, I have created a new layer as a copy. Now, remember to always have a background duplicate when working, always! If something goes wrong and you’re out of UNDO-es, you can always revert to the initial background.

So, as I said, I have created a new layer with the area that needs to be smoothened, and the way I did it was using a great blur filter called Surface blur. It has been implemented firstly in the CS2 version if I am not mistaken, and what it does? It blurs in such way that most of the details or edges are preserved, and it is the best blur technique if you’re going to smooth some textures in your own photographs.

After I’ve applied that filter I had to adjust the opacity in top of the initial layer, to make sure that no textures are being lost due to blurring. Also, you can adjust the fill ratio as well, the result will be the same.

As soon as I got that and I’ve been happy with the result, I’ve applied a black border frame, and this was all. This is the result!

Later edit: I have found a couple of tutorials/ applications, and I must add before you click on them, that they are for purchasing only. There are other free tutorials on the web, but these helped me the most. 

Learn how to use Photoshop in 2 hours	70 Action Cover scripts	Photoshop in a day	Edit Your Digital Photos Using Photoshop	Digital Photography Secrets
3D eCovers	Create Digital Backgrounds In Photoshop	Digital Photography Beginners Guides	Digital Photography Secrets	Learn Digital Photography

 

Flickr Tags: "Czech Republic",Prague,Bridge,Statue,"Charles' Bridge","Photoshop Edit",Criss.AC,Mirror,Reflection,Tower

Enjoy!

Feed post from http://Criss-AC.net

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My latest “creation”

!! From my “long” digital photographer experience, I just created my first panoramic photo! Do not expect to find an actual panorama… why I call it so it is because I have successfully managed to stitch two pictures together… and the result came out quite nice. (Or at least… this is what I like to think.) I will show you how it started, how I went through, how I got to the final result. But first, let me tell you its story:

I was walking with my girlfriend and two of her friends (a very nice couple) that came to visit us from Russia on Charles Bridge (Karluv Most – as they call it in Czech) across Vltava, in Prague Czech Rep. Well, it is an old bridge and at each 10 meters there is at least one statue, made of either bronze, either rock. There is the saying that if you rub your hand against one of the bronze statue and you make a wish, that wish will turn reality.

So as we were passing through, Julia decided to make a wish so she placed her hand on the statue. Her boyfriend Pash was right behind her, and he thought he could go on and make a… …a wish . A big wish I’d say! So I took the shot, and unfortunately I was not quick enough to take a one shot only. I needed two: one for Julia’s wish, second for Pasha’s. After one year… more than a year, I found out that you can put together two pictures, and to create a picture from two “halves”. The software I used is Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended. Enjoy the “tutorial”:

I shall start by showing you the initial pics I took, untouched, exactly the same way I shot them (now they are resized for publishing purposes):

This is the first one, with Julia making the wish. I have also published them on my Flickr page, so you can click on them and you’ll see them in large size:

Second is Pasha, making his “wish” now:

 

So I have used Photoshop to stitch them together, in an attempt to create a “panoramic” photo. First I had to load them both in Photoshop, then from the File menu –> Automate –> Photomerge… and this is the result I got:

As you observe, the top right corner is stretched all the way up (which is normal in the original picture). The black areas need either to be cropped (which will not make a good picture after all – try to see it in your mind if black was cropped) or… either be constructed. I decided to do a little of both.

First thing to do was to use the amazing Vanishing Point from the Filter menu to get rid of the distorted top-right corner. After playing a bit with Vanishing Point, the picture looked like this:

So far so good. The corner does not look distorted anymore, so I can say now that I can move on to the next step: constructing the areas under black or cropping them.

I will start with the black area in the bottom-right corner. As you notice, there is pattern that can be easily copied and multiplied. You can create ground, cracks, corners, using the existing background. The tool I’ve used is called Clone stamp tool, and you can access it from the toolbar in the Essentials display mode, or simpler, by pressing S on your keyboard. After I’ve reconstructed that corner, the picture looked like this:

The corner is now built totally. I have used nothing but pattern already existing in the picture itself. And the great Clone stamp tool, of course.

Now only one step remains: the black area at the top. For an easy to understand reason, I have decided to crop it (there are trees and bricks from the house, very hard to construct without creating a repeated pattern). So I will simply crop that. Doing so it will just save me some extra time + work, and besides, the pic will get a more widescreen aspect ratio.

 

We are here so far. Everything looks more or less OK. Now it is time to work a bit on the enhancing. I’ve decided to go for a B&W treatment, and to add a nice 12 pixel black frame, each side bordered by a 2 pixel thin white border. This is the final result!

Hope you’ll find this tutorial helpful when creating your own panoramic photos. Photoshop will help you the same way it helped me. So… gotta end this… … Please share your own work too, and if you’re a Flickr member, keep up with me on there!

Later edit: I have found a couple of tutorials/ applications, and I must add before you click on them, that they are for purchasing only. There are other free tutorials on the web, but these helped me the most.

 

Learn how to use Photoshop in 2 hours	70 Action Cover scripts	Photoshop in a day	Edit Your Digital Photos Using Photoshop	Digital Photography Secrets
3D eCovers	Create Digital Backgrounds In Photoshop	Digital Photography Beginners Guides	Digital Photography Secrets	Learn Digital Photography

 

Enjoy!

Flickr Tags: "Czech Republic",Prague,Bridge,Statue,"Charles' Bridge","Photoshop Edit",Criss.AC,"Karluv Most"

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