Two of my favorite Photoshop experts, Ben Willmore (Digital Mastery, The Best of Ben and Where is Ben?) and Bert Monroy (PixelPerfect) get together. They meet to explain HDR (High Dynamic Range) in a two part series. A great explanation of HDR, with a walk through of the creation of an HDR image. Simple enough explanations that anyone who uses Photoshop can follow along, and with enough detail that even someone who's used Photoshop as long as I have can learn something new.

Derek Powazek has posted an article about How to Shoot Events. Very nice. I've done a fair bit of photography, enough to know how well his suggestions work at least. I've seen the most benefit myself from number 3, "Be Confident". A confident photographer, who looks even vaguely professional, can go just about anywhere. Everyone assumes that you belong.

Scott Kelby has a great post about Photoshop vs. My Camera.

“Can’t you just take them out in Photoshop?” Yup, I could but I really hate doing that, so I just moved my camera to a spot where I could compose the frame without the wires being visible. That was much faster and easier—getting it right in the camera.”

People constantly underestimate the amount of work it takes to fix a photo in Photoshop. Getting the photo right the first time is often much easier, and almost always gives you a better final product.

Have people you need removed? From photos that is. Here's and interesting technique for doing just that. It requires some planning when you're shotting the photos, but isn't too technically difficult. Seems to me that it would work both ways too. Need more people in a photo? Bring people from multiple photos into the same photo. Some interesting double exposure type images could be done this way too.

A great demo video of Photosynth is presented by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs. I find it hard to believe there isn't a real powerhouse computer behind that demo, but this is supposed to be much less memory dependent than it appears to be. Like with most software, time will tell. I look forward to seeing this and other products based on this technology in use.

The Online Photographer is linking to a Slate post called Can photographers be plagiarists? by David Segal. I'm not a legal scholar, but as an artist I think the answer would be yes. I think the standard for proof of this charge should be set very high, but at some point there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. Letting an artists work inspire you is one thing, but an outright copy is another. Take the Nanpu bridge photographs for instance. If Horst and Daniel Zielske had added something to the mix, I would never have considered given Peter Bialobrzeski's claim of plagiarism any credit at all. Looking at the photographs though, I don't see where they've added anything to the work of Peter Bialobrzeski. They appear to me to be very, very similar. Where is their artistic vision? Where is their modification that made the composition better? The change in lighting, or the change of angle that makes this their work? I don't see it. Again, I'm by no means a legal scholar, but I think Peter Bialobrzeski may have a case. In looking at both these photos, I see only his hard work.

A little bit of CSS brilliance for your day. Using CSS and javascript Carl Camera has put together the CSS Photo Shuffler. In the Linked Photo version, it even allows each photo in the shuffle to have a unique link.

Update: I had the opportunity to use this in a project.

I have the feeling that Global Nation of Creatives is going to be something really interesting. Their self proclaimed "grand vision" is to create an online home for all forms of "creatives", artists, designers, craftsmen, painters, sculptors, writers, etc. I'm fascinated by the idea of bringing members of all of these disciplines together. Creativity as the uniting factor. That is a much more uniting factor than most people realize. Show me someone creative in one field, and I'll show you someone who's creative in a lot of areas you are not aware of. Most people know me as a graphic designer, but my creativity doesn't end there. I'm a painter, sculptor, and a photographer. I've also done landscaping and cabinet making to name a few disciplines my creativity has taken me into. Creativity is a way of thinking, not just a discipline.

Welcome to my new site. I'm going to be using this site as a repository for online resources and news about the interrelated fields of graphic design and web design. I'm a professional graphic designer with thirteen years of experience in print publications. I started to add web design to my repertoire about five years ago, and for the last two years have been doing forty to fifty percent web design work. I'll also be writing about photography, computer, and design software. These subjects are dear to my heart and integrally linked to my design work. Thanks for stopping by. Before you go, please check out the links on the sidebar, there are only a few now, but they're good ones. I'll be adding to that list and to this site as time provides, so please come by again and see what's changed.