Apple Mountain Lion

iPhone4s, Brooklyn Bridge

Apple Mountain Lion is coming - I am not sure when but it is coming. Below find a couple of previews for this new software. Not sure why they are releasing another operating system this quickly but it does seem to have some cool new features....Just hope it does not mess with my third party applications too much...

The second link below talks about making a USB install drive for new upgrades to your operating system. As most of these from Apple will not be on disk the USB install will be helpful in upgrading hardware without the APP Store or internet...It is also helpful to have your last operating system on an external disk should one of you pieces of third party software not upgrade quickly - this happened recently with my print RIP. Luckily I was able to boot up with the old version and still be able to print...

http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/17/airplay-mirroring-mac-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+osxdaily+%28OS+X+Daily%29

http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/17/make-bootable-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-usb-install-drive/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+osxdaily+%28OS+X+Daily%29

Check out The Last Pixel Show for location iPhone destination workshops.

Come to my New York iPhone Workshop at Foto Care, March 10-11, 2012. 

Music and Iphone

John Mellencamp, Los Angeles, 1996

'Forget all about that macho shit and learn how to play guitar'...John Mellencamp 

Still working away on my presentation for the Apple Store in Indianapolis. Today I am taking an Indiana icon and processing an image using the iPad2.

This image was originally captured with a Nikon F series camera using Ektachrome slide film.  It was scanned into the digital world using an Imacon/Hasselblad scanner. And now the fun begins...

I downsized the image to 2500 on the long edge which gave me a final output size of 8x10 at 240DPI. One could make the the image bigger or smaller to taste.

My current work-flow is to create various blend layers using SketchmeeHD, Artista Haiku, Photstudio (2): Pencil Paint 2 and Ancient Canvas plus a sharpened layer using Perfect Photo. If you do not have the new Perfect Photo upgrade note that they have improved the sharpening dramatically - they call it sharpening but it is in reality unsharp mask and it works very very well...You can create these blend layers to taste using many different applications.

Next is the fun part in Iris for iPad for blending and masking combination's of these layers to create the look. I might take a sharp layer and blend with an oil painting soft layer to see the effect the sharp has on the soft...I use pencil paint in various combos to create the outlines in some of my images - being a amateur painter I sometimes do this on canvas to call attention to a particular part of the image. Another part of the work-flow is to convert to black and white and paitn in varios amounts of color which I used in today;s image. Filterstorm does an OK job of this and gives some good control options on your conversion. A screen shot of the dialog box is below.

The final step is local sharpening for effect and to paint back in the ancient canvas layer to the desired color you want.

 

Upcoming Events:

May 21: Apple Store, Indianapolis, Indiana - 8AM-10AM Music and iPhone Presentation
September 8-9: Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery - 2 day iPhone Workshop
September 10: Gallery Show opens at Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery, Carmel, Indiana
October 9: gallery Show opens at Gallery 20 in Toledo, Ohio -Benefit for 1Matters.org.

Merry Oldsmobile

I can not stop working on my iPad2. I did have the first version but for some reason I simply never got into it. I was superstitious about changing from processing on the iPhone - why, I have no idea. Hard to change those old habits. Another old habit I got into was using the same applications from day to day and expecting different results -and we all know nothing ever happens using that model.

The past few weeks I have working mostly on blending technique to include double and triple blending using photostudio, photoforge, Iris, Filterstorm and most recently, thanks to my friend and fellow iPhone addict, Teri Lou Dantzler, the Blender Application. And by the way when I just went to her blog to copy the address for this blog I was blown away by her latest iPhone creation...check it out

OK, on to today's image:


Captured with prohdr handheld then it was sharpened in Photoforge. I then made several blending layers: Photostudio for pencil paint 1, and then another using pencil paint 2 (twice). Used Dynamic Light for yet another layer of Relief pushed to the max. Then I made a separate blending layer using color sketch in Iris and yet another using SketchmeeHD. I also made an ancient canvas layer in Photostudio to use to add final texture. Remember to always make a preset wherever possible so you can repeat this if necessary. I also make screen-shots along the way that I file with the original blend layers. In terms of shameless self promotion I teach my folder structure in my iPhone workshops.

After making all these layers I use Iris and Blender to put them together to create what I am after. Sometimes it takes a glass of wine to get there - sometimes it just happens. As a final touch I take the image into Filterstorm and add the texture (ancient canvas in this case) layer underneath the original. Then you paint with your finger at a low opacity and desired brush size to paint in the texture to your desired level. If you paint in too much texture take the eraser at low opacity and lightly rub it out. Filterstorm is very powerful in this respect. There are many ways to do this but I choose Filterstorm simply because it allows the ipad to work in horizontal and vertical mode depending on the image. Iris does not allow this and frankly they should change that in the next upgrade.

Upcoming Events:

May 21: Apple Store, Indianapolis, Indiana - 8AM-10AM Music and iPhone Presentation
September 9-10: Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery - 2 day iPhone Workshop
September 11: Gallery Show opens at Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery, Carmel, Indiana
October 9: gallery Show opens at Gallery 20 in Toledo, Ohio -Benefit for 1Matters.org.