What fun you can have with some water, food colouring, glue, a light and a camera!

A useful technique that I have recently discovered for improving my portrait photos (and others) is the use of “levels” to adjust the blackness or whiteness of the background.

The software that I use to manipulate my photos is Corel Paint Shop Pro XI. This technique can also be used in Photoshop (which I’d love to have but is too expensive - any donations welcome), and I guess (although I don’t know) Photoshop Elements.

Here is an example. This shot was taken in my home studio (a black cloth draped over a door):

It may be difficult to see, depending on your monitor contrast/brightness, but the black background is not completely black. You can see that the cloth is not completely flat. Sometimes I find that it is easier to see flaws in a photograph if you look at the negative:

(In Paint Shop Pro go to “Image -> Negative image” to see the negative image).

Back on the positive image, select “Adjust -> Brightness and contrast -> Levels…” and the following box will appear:

At the bottom you will see a histogram showing the distribution of the dark and light tones in the image. The peak at the left hand end is where most of dark parts of the image are. For the background to be truly black you would expect that peak to be as far left as it could be. But it isn’t in this case.

Drag the black diamond under the histogram to the right until it is in the peak. This will darken the who image and make everything to the left of the diamond black. So that the rest of the image is not also too dark, drag the middle diamond until its value is about 128. This will lighten other parts of the image. click OK when done.

The final image looks like this:

As you can see, the background is now a nice even black.

This same techinique can be used for white backgrounds - just work from the other end of the histogram.

I’ve recently been using Google’s ability to produce your own custom homepage.

This has been wonderful. I’ve been able to add my calendar, my email, my subscribed RSS feeds with Google reader, and lots of other useful tools such as notes, to-do lists, etc. I have a common home page that I can use from both work and home that contains the up-to-date information that I want.

Or so I thought….

Somewhere around lunchtime today it all went pear shaped. The homepage reverted back to some version that I had played with a few months ago. Gone was all the useful information.

Thinking that I had done something stupid, or that there was a bug in our web filtering proxy (that the company I work for makes), I spent ages trying different things: checking with IE and Firefox, clearing out old cookies, do network traces.

Luckily I stumbled across a post in Google groups suggesting that I was not alone. It seems that a lot of people have experienced the same problem today. The sad thing is that Google (who generally are thought of as “good guys”) have not said a word - no explanation, apology, warning or help on the homepage as far as I can see.

Are we becoming too reliant on these “free” services? How much damage does an insident like this do to our confidence or Google’s reputation? What are the alternatives?

In my hunt for a solution I’ve come across Netvibes. But can I rely on this any more (or less) than Google?

Update: 27th April 2007:  It seems Google is now fixed with no explanation of what went wrong.

I’ve not blogged recently. This is not because I don’t have anything to say, but I have been busy (work and life) and very tired.

There are a few things in the pipeline that I want to blog about, so keep watching:

• New toys - some new photography equipment I’ve just got (haven’t had much chance to play yet)
• New photo course - learning about photomacrography and photomicrography (if only I could afford one of those expensive microscopes) - look out for some spectacular photos soon!
• New challenges - as more people seem to be leaving where I work than rats leaving a sinking ship - how does one cope with an uncertain working environment?
• New ways of worship - leading the music for the occasional service at a small church plant, and with a concern for all-age/family worship, giving a round up of some useful resources I have found
• Old arguments - [geek warning] Why I think threading is easy and my ex-colleague Jon thinks it is hard

Flickr and Moo allow you to produce these nifty “business” cards that have your photos on the back:

Now that I’ve got them I trying to find people to give them to!

I’m quite surprised that how a mediocre picture can look quite good when cropped to a letter box shape.

Well not really fame, but Dave does have some nice pictures of me in his Funkypancake blog.

This has nothing to do with H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, but the demise of my trusty Cobra tripod.

I’ve had my tripod for about 20 years - back in the days of 35mm film, no autofocus, guessing the light level (I couldn’t afford a light meter), and my second hand Zenit SLR (I later upgraded to a Pentax).

Yesterday while practicing some portrait photography, the central column of the tripod snapped off. Luckily the camera didn’t go tumbling to the floor.

So another item to add to my wish list. This is becoming a rather expensive hobby. Any donations welcome.

Happy Easter.

See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, “Christ is risen!”
See God’s salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!

Words and Music by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2003 Kingsway Thankyou Music

An early start with a “sunrise” service down at the river, then back to New Hope Community Church for breakfast.

Yesterday I decided that there is some essential equipment that is missing from my camera bag - baby wipes.

While waiting in a queue for Anna to go on the Driving School ride at Legoland Windsor, a bird with a very good aim left a deposit on my new Sigma 28-300 lens. Luckily this was on the barrel of the lens, not the optics. However, I did not have any tissues with me. The only thing that I had to hand was “emergency sheety” (one of Anna’s comfort bits of cloth) in my pocket. This was not terribly effective, so I had to wait until we got home to clean the lens with a baby wipe and kitchen towel.