Loaded up some images from downtown Denver, Colorado from this past holiday season. See the city decorated with seasonal lighting!
View the Daniels and Fisher Tower, the 16th Street Mall and Union Station all decked out in their holiday glamour!
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing. These are our 2008 pumpkins from the garden. These images I’ve initially posted are from the backyard of our Westminster, Colorado home. Check the entire collection here: Fall Color Images 2008.
Chris J. Politzki
Adobe Photoshop never ceases to amaze me. I’ve been working with it since version 3, which would have been somewhere around 1995 or 1996? So when I found this new automation in CS3, I was really psyched to be able to share this new feature I found. I used to take hours sometimes to do what Photoshop now does with a click of a button.
Well, as an avid enthusiast of photography, I’m always exploring ways to further the art of creating an engaging image. Upon my explorations, I’ve dabbled in creating panoramas. Never resorting to purchasing either a wide-angle lens or a proper panoramic camera, I was left to discover cheaper methods to satisfy my explorative cravings in photography. I even briefly offered my panoramic photography services out to realtors before it was a common feature on realty web sites. These were Quicktime VR files, which were interactive (some examples of my quicktime vr examples). The creation of these files took an enormous amount of manual labor. The new automation ‘Photomerge’ within Adobe Photoshop CS3 is a godsend!
This ‘Photomerge’ feature is found in the top menu under ‘File’=>’Automate’=>’Photomerge’. A window will popup which gives you the option to work with individual image files or a folder of images.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Photomerge Dialog Box
I’ll demonstrate working from a folder of images. Select which layout you prefer on the left-hand side (I’ll show samples of all these layouts at the end of this post), select ‘Folder’ and then click on ‘Browse’. I always choose the ‘Blend images together’ checkbox as this helps in blending imperfect matches between image edges.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Photomerge Choose Folder Dialog Box
Hit the ‘Choose’ button. This adds the selected images to the queue. Finally, hit ‘OK’ and see this magical feature perform it’s task.
Here’s the results below with different layouts used.
The ‘Auto‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Perspective‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Cylindrical‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Reposition Only‘ layout: (Full-size image)
The ‘Interactive Layout‘ allows you to manually move around the images. This can be useful when the automation isn’t quite perfect. All-in-all, a nifty little feature to have!
Chris J. Politzki
So we’ve got a few days off here in America for Thanksgiving. I thought I’d write some on the old Blog that I’ve been neglecting. I think I’m going to keep another non-serious thread going here to lighten up the load on the work-related items.
So how shall I start? Hmmmm. You know, there’s a site I really enjoy checking out almost everyday when I log on. This is from a british photographer by the name of Ross Halfin and seeing as how he’s got some good writing on his site, I think I’ll start out talking about him.
Ross has a ‘Diary‘ section on his site which is really amusing and informative at the same time. His travel photography I really enjoy as a beak from all of the great rock and roll photography. He’s photographed nearly every great musical artist there is! You name it, The Who, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam and of course my favorite, Led Zeppelin… he’s photographed them all! Here’s an example of Jimmy Page at the recent Olympic Games in Beijing of 2008.
One of my favorite series of photographs from Ross contains this image here below of Jimmy at Shepperton Studios in 1993.
I really enjoy reading Ross’ writing in his Diary on his site. He writes about all kinds of things. Mostly commenting about others on his travels across the globe. His comments hold nothing back and he is oftentimes very critical of others, but that can be quite refreshing to hear what a person is really thinking rather than sugar-coating everything. Oftentimes, his comments are related to his travels.
A sample below:
My flight is full, absolutely rammed, only got a middle seat (okay, I’ll admit I’m flying business) but sitting inbetween an old man and a Chinese man who keeps knocking my arm trying to get more elbow room or whatever you call it. I wonder how long I’ll last without a row with him, – he’s now done it four times.
And yet another sample when he was currently in Kansas City when shooting a Metallica show:
Kansas. Yes, somewhere over the rainbow. The airport is about a hundred miles from downtown. Okay I’m exaggerating, but it was a long way. Around the arena are lots of Irish bars and places to eat meat, lots of meat. Most of the people walking around are the size of cows, it’s like herds of human cattle. Kazuyo says ‘It’s so boring here all they do is eat.’
I got out of a taxi at the venue. A large heifer comes over, ‘Hey are you Lars?’. Firstly, could you see Lars getting out of a cab in the street and saying at the stage door ‘Hello my good man. Is this The Kansas Sprint Arena and can I come in?’ I say no and he then looks at me as if he’s just seen the awakening of Christ and says ‘You really look like Lars are you sure?’ I’m sure and just to clear up any misconceptions, Lars looks like me – except I’m far more handsome…
Ross has some great photographs of some of the most famous and influential musicians ever, so check out his site and see how he allows us access into his perspective on a quite intriguing career as a photographer. Well worth return trips to the site to see what he’s up to, where he’s travelling to, and who he’s photographing or bumping into at hotels in Hollywood.
Chris J. Politzki
Studio 119 Degrees
Just set-up my first Blog here… Within the next few days I’ll start posting items of interest.
Keep checking in!
Chris
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