Topic awaiting preservation: Thinking video (Page 1 of 1)

My birthday came and went a few weeks ago. Thought I would be able to wheel-n-deal my way into some software, but no go. However, I did get lucky and found a dude with a machine and the software (old friend).

I've already started practicing recording videos.

I was going to wait a few more weeks, but I just got stinking fired. Sucks, and I'm in a major funky haze over it. So, I've got to up my time table a little bit to get me through for a bit while I sort things out.

If you were to buy a CD with WJ Photoshop videos, what material would you like?
What would you like to see me explain in video format?

As far as format goes, I'm rather happy with SWF 800x600 in an HTML page.
But definitely need to get a better microphone.
Next time I'm going to try some cottonballs to see if that helps.

Once I get S&H figured out, I'll settle on a price.
Chances are price won't be much.

Talk to me.

Maybe in a few days I'll upload a short clip.

Man, this haze sucks.
Definitely need a shot of something.

quote:

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but I just got stinking fired.

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Ouch... don't like to hear that. Done that...several times. Always came back to a couple of thoughts. I was looking for a job before I got this one. (an old standby) but for me it almost always (if I was honest with myself) came down to quitting the job in my head...loonng before I was fired. =)

As for the video thing. Well it would seem to me that you're up there in one of them thar 'elite' categories when it comes to the 'slop' and stuff... and one of the things I'd be considering is contacting 'similar' to help identify your target audience. Steve comes to mind.

If you're thinking about something for the rest of us low-life you'll have to resort to an approach best described as 'Paint by Numbers.' =)

As for a shot of 'something'.... find a patch of grass (not the puffin stuff)... if you don't have a yard.. find a park. Remove shoes and socks. Walk.

As for being fired.....there were times of course when it wasn't me at all and in those cases the words of the bard himself as best expressed by Robin Williams say it all "ASSHOLES' DO VEX ME !!" =)

quote:

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warjournal said:

I'm rather happy with SWF 800x600 in an HTML page.

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...why not just set a percentage width/height? Flash's scalability is one of its few fine points, imo.

warjournal,

I'm really sorry to hear about your job. That kind of thing can really affect you for a while if you let it. It's good that you've decided to start another project on your own right away. That will help with your attitude about yourself, which is a very important factor in helping you to move on.

I've been fired a couple of times and as NoJive said, it's not always your fault, but that doesn't seem to help with the self recriminations and feels of worthlessness.

I wish I lived a little closer to where you are, I have wanted to work on a "How To" book for PhotoShop for a long time and have a little background working in video editing. It would be a fun project to colaborate on.


Good luck to you.



.

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

I'm feeling better.

Last night went to an old bud's house and we played AD&D for a few hours. Near the end, all of us were crying from laughing so hard. The dwarf had lost his warhammer and our rescue mission was just plain hilarious. It involved Grease spell and a length of rope. Never seen a dwarf so happy as to grab a human by the yarbles and say, "These are brass, man! Brass!" It was good.

I was basically fired because of a personality conflict. Two of the bosses didn't get along so well and I was a casualty. Sucks because I'm such a nice guy and seriously needed that job. Kay-ser-ah.

NJ, I'm in the Lansing, MI area. We are thinking about heading to Chicago or New York this summer. Maybe I'll give you a holler to see if you are game.

Res, scalling is an option, but I don't think it's a good one because of the nature of rastor vs. vector. Somethings scale fine, but other things don't. Take a screen cap of Photoshop, scale down to 75%, and see what happens.

Or maybe I can chop down the grab area. Definitely something to think about.

Tomorrow I'm going to have a chance for another recording session.
May cottonballs have mercy on my voice.
If there aren't any interesting suggestions by then, I guess I'll have to wing it.
I'm sure I can come up with something.

Also, I've been learning more about FM.
Another week or so and I should have some more filter goodness.
Retweaking '2 ChOps' is first on my list.

quote:

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May cottonballs have mercy on my voice.

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Don't know if this is feasible or if you're at all interested, but if you send me the audio track I could transcribe it and then do a voice over. You insert my voice ...to your video. This way you get concentrate on the content and simply dub the voice where you want it. Or you can simply send me a script.

We could perhaps do a test run to see how it goes. I'm no James Earl Jones but 30 some years of radio can, me thinks, be applied here without toooo much trouble... ifya know what I mean. =)

No charge... been brain-suckin' your stuff long time now... a 'bit' of pay back.. if you want it. =)

Thanks for the offer, NJ, but I'm going to stick to my larynx. I don't think anybody will be able to match my particular flow in a vocal manner. You know, like a badly dubbed kung fu flick. You should see the dubbed version of Shaolin Soccer - ew!

Minor update on the filter front.

2 ChOps
Just have to tweak the UI a tad and it will be ready for a serious release.
Shouldn't take too long, but sitting down and doing it sucks. Tedious.

Uber Contrast
Finally came up with Squisher code that I'm happy with.
Tried various gamma options, but kept running to various problems.
Tried some trig and I'm rather happy.
Again, UI tweaks needed.

Colour 2 Colour
Works absolute wonders as-is.
But still needs some serious work.
A little more functionality and the new Squisher code.
Few other little things.

Extract HS/Lum
Condensed the various Extract filters in to one.
This one even has 16-bit support.
Not sure if I'm going to tweakify the UI or not just yet.

With just Colour 2 Colour and Uber Contrast, I have become rather proficient in blasting colour cast.
They make a killer combo.
Not to mention tossing in 2 ChOps for masking action.

Those three are my current trinity.

Also made some new and interesting observations.
One observation I call desaturating up/down.
For example, desaturate yellow up.
Or desaturate blue down.

(Edited by warjournal on 04-29-2005 23:52)

TS_2chops.zip ~143k
The zip includes several files.
Be sure to check them out.

You can do ChOps with it using 2 different channels in a variety of ways.
Channels include R,G,B, Hue, Sat (HSL), Sat (PS), and several others.
Should be enough blending modes to keep ya'll happy.
You know, Multiply, Screen, Hard Light, and a few more.

It is my filter done my way, so I am getting buttloads of milage out of it.

Who's your daddy?

Ouch! I'm sorry for your job, WJ!
Usually the tutorials come in quicktime. Camtasia makes a good software to record them.

I'd really like to see some new chops or more KPtips revisits.

Pierre Courtejoie

Definitely some Kai revisited.
Some basic ChOps and then some Layer ChOps (like Snowy Mask) to get folks started.
Related to KPT #13, the last hue rig that I posted is amazing.
Maybe do a bit called Kai Did It First You Nub.

Colour 2 Colour
PC/Win, 8-bit, Layers palette

Steve's Intro to Curves > Page 3

First incarnation was called Basic Neutralize.
Then I got crazy with the Cheese Whiz and did a drive-by body piercing.

TS_colour2colour.zip ~101k

That little filter can work some miracles when it comes to blasting colour cast.
I'll talk about it later, but shouldn't be terribly hard to figure out.
Been working on it like a maniac and the exhaustion is setting in.

G'night, ya'll.

edit:
LOL
That's what I get for coding all day - messes up my UBB fingers.

(Edited by warjournal on 05-03-2005 04:28)

Colour2Colour Preview bug found and squished.
Above archive/zip updated.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the little one needs to be squished as well.

Colour 2 Colour
now with 16-bit support

If it gets funky on ya, let me know.

Above link updated.

More news later.

As far as what to include, all of your "musings" have been great. (even thought most of your color stuff just blew past me at mach 2.)
One thing I`ve noticed about your tuts is that they usually start at a high level of understanding and go skyward from there. My only advice is to think small words and crayons for us tards.
Looking forward to this one.

I hear ya, DB. For awhile I was thinking about having the little one on my lap while recording. But it might sound like I'm talking down to the viewer as I would my own little girl. You know, as if I'm thinking of and treating the viewer as a literal 2 year-old.

Another thing that I'm wrestling with is over-lap.
But I think I have problem figured out.
Go over the little things in great detail, then put the little things together at a faster pace for the bigger techniques and ideas.
Seems to be working fairly well so far.

NJ, I might have to take you up on your offer.
I'm still fighting with the audio and might need your voice after all.

quote:

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NJ, I might have to take you up on your offer.

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Sure thing. You'll find a gmail addie in my profile...I can't find one for you.... so send me a note there... and we'll work out a quick and dirty.... different deliveries...that sort of thing and we'll know in pretty short order whether or not this will work for you.

Apparently e-mail has been crippled just a tad.
My e-mail is jlhalmich@cablespeed.com.
Be warned that I'm notorious for junking legitimate e-mails by accident.

Although, probably isn't needed any more. I did some more playing with the audio and figured out that I was sampling *way* too low. When I upped the sampling, I could take the noise out and down sample with adequate results.

Guess I'll be re-recording a lot of stuff.
:sigh:
It's a learning process.

Bought a new headset just to see. Wow! It's amazing what a difference $18 can make. No hum or buzz. However, just a tad too sensitive and not the right kind of microphone. If I crank just a tad, it will pick up a mouse fart 3 rooms down. Guess I'll have to be a little extra mindful with background noise.

On the filter front, the new beta of FM has access to alpha channels... kind of. If you are in the Layers palette and turn on the little eye of an alpha, the data in the alpha can be accessed. This means ya'll might get a Displace filter with alpha channels for channels. Can even use floats or doubles for interpolations, which should be good for less jaggies but at a performance cost.

With recent events, I'm a bit thin, so not sure when I'll get to playing with more filter ideas.
Take comfort in knowing that the ground work for Channel Displace has been laid down.

Hallaleuya, brother.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention before..

Thanks.

You're welcome, and it's good . . . mostly.

Since I got the new headset, I haven't been able to find the time to record. Things just keep happening. Hopefully today I'll be able to get a few hours in before another shit storm comes along.

Also having a problem getting FM to read the extra alpha channels. Going to eventually have to hit the FMML group to figure this one out it's looking like. Of course, just when things are looking good, a little gremlin comes along.

But I have been playing with a few ideas that seem to work fairly well.

One thing I've been fighting with is over saturation of skin tones. I *hate* using Hue/Sat to lower sat and brighten. I do have a long-winded version, but it's a bit too long-winded. So, I've been playing with what I call Desat Up/Down. Seems to be working fairly well. I'll babble about this some more later if I can remember.

Another thing that's been on my mind is repairing or tweaking a nasty Blue channel. If a photo is too yellow, then upping B is usually what the Guru ordered. However, sometimes the B channel is just too nasty for such tweaking.

In such a case, here something to try with a nasty yellow photo with a nasty B channel:
1. Adjustment Layer > Hue/Sat, leave as is and click Okay.
2. Advanced Blending options of Hue/Sat Ad-Layer, turn off R and G.
3. Back to Hue/Sat dialog and try Hue +100 to +120.

In my tests, that little technique seems to be working damn finely.
Plus I think it's going to lead to a whole new set of techniques.

Thinking about a whole new area of techniques gives me the giggles.
Feels good to be giggly again.

If you can believe it, I'm too tired to talk too much.

Acid Test

colourcast.rar ~4.1 megs

Little ditty showing Steve's colour cast blasting technique using Curves.
I don't know . . . 3 minutes?
Yeah, MOV or something.
Rar instead of Zip.

Let me know.

Oh, and the Alpha thing with FM has been figured out.
Good news.

thankyouJKM

(Edited by warjournal on 06-03-2005 04:15)

(Edited by warjournal on 06-03-2005 04:16)

(Edited by warjournal on 06-03-2005 04:22)

Hmm . . . guess I'll keep trudging along.

Anyways, I can now to 2 dimensional ChOps. Not just adding, substracting, intersecting, or that normal kind of stuff - I mean real 2d ChOps.

First incarnation, I'm thinking 2D ChOps.
Second incarnation, 2D Displace Space.
Or 2D Space Displace.

Here is an example of 2d ChOps using Hue and Lum-

Upper-Left
Horizontal is Hue and vertical is Lum. This is the 'template map' or whatever you want to call it.

Upper-Right
Biker Chic in Hue and Lum space.



Lower-Left
Greyscale of what to map Hue/Lum to. The white line across the top means that any low lum no matter what the hue will be mapped to white. The blob near the top line means that low lum greenish will also be mapped to white. The white line across the bottom means that any high lum will be mapped to white no matter the hue. The bigger blob near the bottom line is yellowish/redish with high lum.

Lower-Right
What happens to Biker Chic when the 2d remapping is applied.

Not sure how useful it will be, but I know I'll be using it. I adore the idea of being able to paint a selection/ChOps, so to speak, or to be able to use extremely tweakable gradients for same.

So much work to do, so little time.

(Edited by warjournal on 06-05-2005 18:50)

Holy bit my ass!
Extreme beta of '2D Colour Space Displace' rocks!

Do you understand Distort > Displace? Of course you do. Same basic idea, but uses colour space axis for input/output.

First, pick two axis from six different dimensions: RGBHSL.
Build a CD-Map (if you can build a D-Map, you can build a CD-Map).
Then pick two axis for output and their channel.

For example . . .
Where R and G are high, shift Hue and lower Sat.

Oh, I'm all tingly.
I think I'm gonna bail early on D&D tonight and burn some midnight oil.
Damn I love this stuff.

Here is an example of a CD-Map:



Horizontal is Hue and Vertical is Lum.
The majority of it is 50% grey because it was built for Linear Light mode (both channels).
The black blob is where Hue=Yellow and Lum=High.
So, yellow with high lum is the area to be affected.

Here is a screen cap of this diabolical filter:
2dcolourdisplace cap

First, load the CD-Map in bitmap format. Kind of sucks, but it's good.
Bitmap can be 8-bit or 24-bit (8x3).

Everytime you load a bitmap, a 2dcolourspacedisplace.ini is written to with the full path and name of the bitmap.
Long story.

Then pick Horizontal and Vertical. For this, Hue and Lum.

In the first part, I want to modify Sat in the source with R (chan1) from the bitmap.
Then Normal (N) or Linear Light (LL) - LL for this.
Set the scale and choose to Invert or not.

In Displace, you can max out at +/- 999% on 128.
I decided to go with 0 - 255 with option to Invert for -255 to 255.
Currently a hack and I'm not sure if I'm going to change it just yet.

Then do the same for the next set of controls.
In this set, modify Lum with R, but Invert to brighten (remember: the CD-Map is black in that spot).

The order is important in some cases depending on what you are doing.
For example, modifying Hue in the first part will have an affect on Lum, which can make a difference if you are modifying Lum in the second part. Um, yeah.

Also, this works in Photoshop's own HS/Lum space. This means that it should play nice with blending modes and things once you get back to the Layers palette. Should also have a familiar feel to is since regular HSL is different than PS's HS/Lum (especially in regards to Sat).

There is also a problem when Sat=0. Not sure how to hack around this just yet. As much as I adore HS/Lum, dealing with Sat=0 can be a pain.

My mind is boggling with applications of this filter.
With just that one CD-Map I have already fixed buttloads of bad photos that have way too much yellow.
Damn, all of those Displace tips-n-tricks can now be applied to colour space.
Fan-freaking-tastic.

Must do some more play.fiddle.learn - with my own filter no less.
Woohoo!

(Edited by warjournal on 06-10-2005 01:39)

Ha! the first vidslop!!!

We want more!

Note to self: do not follow WJ threads before going to bed. I'll be dreaming of color corrections using displace, now...

Pierre Courtejoie

Close, Spec, but not quite. Technical Slop: My Flow. Unfortunately, haven't been able to record this past week. After tonight things will be calming down and I should be able to get back to it these next few.

So I have been focusing on other things, like 2D Colour Space Displace.

This is the latest of 2D CSD and going to be for awhile. Still needs a few finishing touches, but not sure when I'll get the gumption for it. One of the bigger little things on my list is the UI.

- Fixed a few logic bombs.
- Added H/S Bypass Hack in case Sat=0 and it's getting funky. Might fix some Sat=0 problems, but might not. Working on a better work-around.
- No more *.ini file. Instead, went with an entry in the registry. All it is is the last BMP used. So far has worked fine between 2D CSD invocations, but doesn't seem to be picking up between PS sessions. I'll give more info about this upon request.
- Offset sliders for Horizontal and Vertical with option to Wrap-Around. Another layer of tweakage, especially useful when dealing with Hue.

TS_2dcolourspacedisplace.rar

The easy things that it can do can very easily be done with stock tools. When it comes to more complex uses, might require a little more brain power than what most people are willing to give it. Chances are very good that I will be the only one using this little plug. I don't know why, but I find that ironic.

Well, Chasie is 3 years old today.
Seems just like yesterday we were joking around 'bout Woman's water breaking and I had to spend a few minutes here before we went to the hospital.
Man, the time flies.

Off to chase the kids and eat some cake.

"The easy things that it can do can very easily be done with stock tools. When it comes to more complex uses, might require a little more brain power than what most people are willing to give it. Chances are very good that I will be the only one using this little plug. I don't know why, but I find that ironic."

Well, I tought that for us, heathens, it might be a little hard to use without an accompagning video, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
But indeed, Photoshop latest tools make it very easy to color correct. But an hardcore way is sometimes useful.

As I see it, it would be wonderful to have the ability to paint the bitmap inside the UI, but that's a job for a KPT kind of plug-ins, do not think that filtermeister can cope with it...

Pierre Courtejoie

Yeah yeah yeah. Tutorials and videos.

FM might be able to handle such a thing, but I think the performance would suck. Yes, best left to a real C/C++ programmer armed with the SDK. Damn. I feel so dinky all of a sudden.

Been doing a little more messing around with 2D CSD. 'Bout time I came up with something damn useful to go with it.

hue_by_lum.jpg

A real Hue x Lum template based on the one posted earlier with Biker Chic. One channel is linear and another channel is mirror. Blue is, of course, 50%. If you want to play with it, you will have to save it as a BMP.

This one little CD-Map is a major breath of fresh air for me. I've been messing with it for some hours now and it's amazing. Takes care of several things that I used to wrestle with. Now, instead of getting crazy with the ChOps and tweaks, I can take care of things with a few paint strokes or gradients. Bloody amazing.

Next on my list is 2D Histogram. I've been wanting one of these for a long time.

Ah! Grrr!

2D Histogram of Biker Chic:



Low Lum is across the top and high Lum is across the bottom.
Been using screen coordinates for so long I don't know if my brain can easily go back to Cartesian.

Pretty easy to see the majority orange/yellow flesh tones are around 33% to 50%.
The green leaves are on the lower side.
Then the streak of blue sky.
And finally the purple/magenta shirt she's wearing.

Did a few variations on this with a few different photos.
Man, it gives up some secrets at a glance not readily apparent without looking much harder.

With some of the stuff I've been talking about, imagine using something like this as a guide or starting point.

(Edited by warjournal on 06-19-2005 05:20)

Oh man. Too cool.

One of the basic ideas of extracting is finding contrast and enhancing it. Going through some more paces, some of this junk is pretty good at extracting.

Do 2D Histogram and pick 2 dimensions.
Use that result to paint some black and white.
Save that as a BMP.
Load it up in 2D Remap.
Tada.

Seems to be working pretty good so far.
But, you know, some things can make it bad, like jaggies and compression in the original.

Same ol' tricks, but in a much different light.

2D Histogram pretty much done to my satisfaction. Could be a bit better, but I really don't care right about now. For example, it's not a complete histogram algorithm, but seems to be working fine.

When you run 2D Histogram, it will only do what is in the current layer. It will also size the histogram to the image. Also might be a good idea to Levels it to brighten it up. Other things as necessary, like maybe a spectrum gradient if one of the axis is Hue. Or whatever or not or something.

I totally adore using Horizontal: Hue with whatever channel for Vertical. Doing this, I'm seeing photographs in a whole new light all over again.

2D Remap could also use a little tweaking, but I'm happy. Click Load Bitmap, pick a BMP, then pick Horizontal and Vertical. Note: BMP must be 24-bit (8 per channel), or regular grey 8-bit.

Both are RGB 8-bits per channel.

TS_2dhistogram.rar

TS_2dremap.rar

So far just dinking around.
No real test just yet for serious real-world application.

If you can believe it, this has led me to back to some things that I've been pining for. I think some of my very old ideas are finally within my grasp. Who needs 3d when you can do 2d x 2? I guess you could call it faux 4d ChOps.

Imagine something like this:
( Hue by Lum ) ChOps ( Red by Sat )

Damn.
I know I've been out there before, but even I'm starting to think that I've seriously gone off the deep end.
For several reasons.
Heh.