Mother and Child, Marathon

Mother and Child, Marathon

Speaking of Photoshop technique: these are almost totally unworked since I didn't have the time. They're just up as reminders to me - worth working on. Scanned at 5400, flipped down to 72 dpi in one pass; and just sharped with the Photoshop unsharp mask. They are just ideas for me right now. You can see all sorts of technical errors - bad sharpening; highlight of baby's face blown; hair of woman mixing with background, etc. And it can all and will be fixed.

Shhhh!

Shhh!

Business Crap

So far I've spent about $100 on samples from Lulu and haven't seen a thing yet.

I published the first Lulu draft calendar on11/04/2005. Still hasn't shipped. And what has shipped - still hasn't arrived. Oh man - today's Vet. Day. No mail

What does Lulu mean anyway? "It's a Lulu?"

I also think Lulu was Ed Norton's childhood dog. Remember the sleep-walking episode? Poor Ed is dreaming about his pooch and starts sleep-walking - looking for his poor Lulu that he lost at Coney Island. "Loooo-looooo."

There was also a screen siren in silent films called Lulu. (Louise Brooks)

Lulu may be the bleeding edge technology of the day.

Anyway - the ftp connection was (is) unbearably slow this morning so I decided to develop two rolls of film. Ah the old technology. Can't beat it sometimes. Hope to have something worth looking at later.

Camera Confessions

Hi, my name is Dave B. Read on if you dare: Camera Confessions.

Next Year's Wish List

First off - while I'm awaiting the calendars etc. from Lulu - I've delved into InDesign and I'm churning out PDF files with various settings. Since the shortest test book you can do on Lulu is 32 pages - I figure I might as well do a real one. What the heck.

* * *
Next year's wish list: the 35mm Leica f1.4, though I might settle for the Voigtlander 35 which I've read good things about.

A new computer; lot's of deals at Dell.

* * *
I've noticed that Christmas displays are everywhere - so I'm already behind with that in terms of specials. The main thing, is that I'm trying to get the calendar finished so people can get it from Lulu - or maybe directly from me (which might be faster).

* * *

I've been meaning to raise the prices on the 5 x 7 prints (since they're selling pretty well at the $20 price) and I want to see what happens if I go for $25. I've got to go now - the cat is giving me all sorts of troubles - climbing everywhere - demanding attention.

Now he's stepping on the remote control and switching channels. I'm trying to listen to the senate debate whether we can torture prisoners or not. Apparantly the cat wants to watch the animal channel which is what he keeps switching to.

Wait Staff

Your wait staff for the evening.

Leica on 1st

Leica on First

POS PC

I've finished all the conversions from RGB -> Output Sharpener -> CMYK -> Adjustment Levels -> 8-bit so it can be saved as JPG for the calendar. And the biggest pain in the you-know-where is my POS computer which wasn't always a POS. But for what I'm doing now is. And I just can't afford a new one this year.

It was fine when my Photoshop needs were simple, but with lots of layers - it is slow as you-know-what.

Really freakin' annoying since now the most time-consuming part of what I'm doing is waiting for the POS PC to do its' thing.

I still need to upload all the new images, and then order another calendar. God only knows how long it will take for the new calendar to arrive (still don't see the previous one as shipped).

At this point - I'm sort of leaning towards dealing with a printer in the States who can do a short run, say 500. I have one printer in mind - who was helpful with the specs for Lulu and when this is over I may contact him for a quote.

It is really wonderful to actually speak with the actual printer who will do your work as opposed to the monolithic (sp?) Lulu. How about actually being able to choose the paper you want to use? Good God. What a concept. I don't think the time with Lulu is wasted as I've learned a fair amount about offset printing and workflow for same, but egads - I wish their turn-around time was quicker.

Maybe I shouldn't talk because my own turnaround time for prints is getting worse and worse - but if someone says, hey - I need this fast - then I do it fast.

* * *

Terrible day with the calendar. I went through the conversion to CMYK and uploaded all the jpgs - which took about 45 minutes to upload with no progress bar, just the infernal blinking of the hard drive light - and then the thing is converted by Lulu to PDF and guess what - looks like pure cyan tint.

So I'm figuring that at least for the calendar, where you don't have control over the PDF conversion settings - you'd better just give 'em RGB like they say. Books may be different since you can do your own conversion to PDF.

Anyway - I need to use the original RGBs again, though this time with what is hopefully proper sharpening settings (this is taking the whole day so far).

May be time to pick up a bottle of Vodka.

* * *
6:30 pm.

Okay. Everything looks fine now, at least in the PDF. Now I'm going to wait for the first copy of the calendar (basically the same as what I did today but without output specific sharpening). So if all works out I'll have one slightly soft version and one sharp version (or if they apply sharpening after all: one sharp one, and one over-sharp one).

* * *
Tomorrow back to the real world: developing film and printing.

Fare on 2nd

Fare on 2nd

New York Marathon, 1st Avenue

Actually had an hour or so to walk over and do some shooting of the marathon. I still had tri-x rated @ 1600 in the M3 - so - what the heck. I shot the first roll with it. I have to say, I like the look. (p.s. it was very foggy early on).

I have a few more rolls (@ 400)- mostly of things going on in the crowd (but I tell you - I remembered taking this shot and it may be the only shot on three rolls that actually contains a marathon runner).

Part I The New York Calendar

Calendar Preview

Well - this is the stuff I've been working on for the last few days. It was harder than I thought in terms of selections. I wanted a picture that suggested the season. Had to be night. Had to feel like New York. And about half people and half scenic.

I think I've managed to get together all the info I need for the final printing (no, I haven't gotten the first proof yet). One of the good things about putting all this mental energy into the calendar is that if it works in the calendar = it will work in the book(s).

If it doesn't work - then no point preparing book through Lulu. (I have my fingers-crossed that the first proof will look halfway decent._

More Lulu 3

Here's some more about Lulu (trying to keep it in the forum).