I've been painting the trim in the kitchen so there isn't much to show off at the moment! I'm hoping to get some sewing in tomorrow after I help out in Hazel's class in the morning. In the meantime, I'll put up some of my favourite Instagram photos from the last week or so. I'm not quite as obsessive about that app as I used to be but I still enjoy it and am very fond of lots of my photos - not that I ever get around to printing any off though!
l-r: lunch (plus a bagel), Hazel's swimming lessons, tin can lantern I made as a test for my neighbour's Matariki party next month, she wants the kids to do a lantern walk.
l-r: school pickup before and after, some flowers on the way to school one morning, Hazel's pink toes in a puddle
Abstract sun in a blue sky, some beautiful crocheted stones sent to me by the lovely Ellie, pretty sunset clouds
Last week Nevercenter asked if I'd like a review copy of their photo editing desktop app CameraBag 2. I had a look at the intro video on You Tube and thought it looked interesting so said why not and they gave me a copy. Initially I wasn't entirely sure why they approached me but I suspect that they are aiming for the "in love with Instagram (or Hipstamatic) and want to do it on my computer" set - and I admit I've looked for Photoshop filters that would allow me to replicate some of the filters I like on Camera + or Magic Hour. And woah does CameraBag have filters! Filters up the wazoo. I could put in some screen shots of it in action, but actually the 5 minute 'How To' video is probably the best way to get an idea of how it works and it will save me a lot of explaining!
So, what do I think? I think it's fun and useful but there are some important things that are missing. First the good stuff!
Filters, filters, filters and more filters! I'm sure if you're a Photoshop whiz you can do these things easily enough, but I'm not and I can't - not even a vignette, so I'm pretty excited about these.
This is some of them:
And there's even more of them here:
All up I counted 102 individual filters, and then within each of those there is a huge variety of settings. It's a little overwhelming! Luckily there is the quick look option which lets you see them all at a glance.
There are also the usual exposure settings of brightness/contrast/saturation etc. etc.
Plus some frames (something I've never been able to figure out in Photoshop!)
So all of that's good and great and I'm really enjoying it. But what can't it do? (and I do stand to be corrected on this if anyone knows differently)
Well it can't sharpen, and that's a major failing in my books. I use unsharp mask a lot, even on photos that are pretty sharp to begin with. Other online photo editing programs do a good sharpen - Snapseed on my iPhone does a super-good job, so its lack in CameraBag is a bit puzzling. It's the difference between this:
and this:
The other thing that I like to use a lot is a clone stamp or similar to get rid of pesky lamp posts or wires or trees. There are iPhone apps that can do this (eg.Filterstorm) - but not CameraBag. So instead of getting all lovely cloud courtesy of the seriously cool 'content aware' fill function in Photoshop (cloning could do it too, it's just much more labour-intensive):
You get this
Boo - trees and powerlines!
In the course of trying to figure out where sharpening was, I discovered another issue - the lack of a decent help function. The website offers a few video tutorials and some FAQs and that's about it. There is no comprehensive help guide, or any way of searching on a topic if what you want to know isn't contained in the FAQs. This suggests they aren't really expecting anyone to want to use this program seriously, or to experience anything outside the completely ordinary and expected. As a Photoshop and iPhone photo app junkie user it wasn't really an issue for me, and the controls are pretty intuitive, but still.
Overall I'm really enjoying the app and even if I had spent money on it I think I'd be pretty happy and looking forward to using it; but it's not perfect. I suspect what I'll be doing is some basic editing in Photoshop, particularly sharpening, and then taking it over to CameraBag. I've got my iPhoto set up to edit using Photoshop anyways, so it should work fairly smoothly. At the moment CameraBag 2 is US$24 and you can get a month's free trial for either Mac or PC, which seems to me like a bit of a no-brainer - you can evaluate it yourself. And if you find a way to sharpen I'd love to know!
I haven't been doing anything interesting lately, though I do try and fake it on Instagram. I love making my life look all arty and cool.
I've yet to try printing any photos off in a serious way - anyone have a good experience with a printing company? I printed a few off on my printer but I think I'd have to glue the photo paper to cardboard to stop them curling in the humidity. I created these mosaics over at instagrid.me, and they link up to printstagr.am who have some cute options, but I haven't investigated the international shipping. One never knows with US companies - sometimes they're fine, other times they seem to regard the existence of the rest of the world as offensive in some way and the shipping is so exorbitant you'd expect the item to show up carried by Daniel Craig in an Aston Marton. I think I've just convinced myself that it would be a good thing if Printstagram was in the latter camp... ;)
We had such craptastic weather over Christmas that the arrival of summer at long last doesn't seem quite real!
We (and half of Auckland) took advantage of the holiday today for Auckland Anniversary to head out to Muriwai Beach. First the beach at Maori Bay (next to Muriwai)
Then up onto the headland to see the Gannet colony there...
...and finished with an icecream - not photographed as I kept my iPhone well away from melty icecream!
Today Mat found a page out of a diary that Hazel must have started, abandoned and then discarded that says (translation to follow): Rily rily tierd!!! Today. In desprit ned of pony tile. Wishing it was yastoday. [Really really tired today! In desperate need of pony tail*. Wishing it was yesterday.] Where did she learn to sound like Bridget Jones?
*chewy little gummy My Little Pony snack. She is allowed to have one a day.
People often ask me where Hazel's blond hair comes from. Although she comes by it quite legitimately (Mat was blond and so were my dad and brother when young), I often feel like saying "the milkman".
- Posted from the couch using BlogPress from my iPhone
A pot of tea and a child's hot chocolate at Fuze while waiting for Family Day to get started across the road. I made some Triple Choc Jaffa Brownies for a bake stall for Christchurch and had to drop them off before things got started.
Later I decided I'd better buy something to take around to friends this afternoon, so Hazel chose... brownies! They weren't as good as mine though :)
On Sunday it was just so stinking hot and humid all I wanted to do was collapse. So I lay on our bed and watched Mat rip laserlite off from over the deck in preparation for our house being painted (!!!yay!) and Hazel sat next to me chattering away and sewing a lovebug of her own design and asking me to do help with pretty much everything. In between that I played with Hipstamatic.
I'm not used to seeing the sky out of window like this, it's really very nice! The light floods into all the rooms that open onto the deck and it feels much more open. On the other hand the rain comes in, the shoes get wet, and sunbeams heat the house up. We're liking the openess so much that we're thinking of painting the beams white so they blend in with the house more and don't look so massive when we replace the cover.
On an entirely unrelated note - ever since I was a kid I have stared at ceilings imagining how it would look if the house was turned upside down and the ceiling were the floor and I had to walk around the house that way. Am I alone in this? If I am I'm sure it indicates sheer untapped genius :)
The problem with having these high ceilings would be the getting in and out of doors. I do love that moulding though, it has the most beautiful changing shadows throughout the day. The print is by Judith Kunzlé, an artist we know in the Cook Islands. I love her dancers but the landscapes are my favourites, they capture Polynesia so perfectly! I should start saving up for an Aitutaki one (where my PhD research was based).
