davejenbarnes

Created using this tutorial on making an OS X aquafied icon in Photoshop while using my nifty WACOM tablet.

So, yeah, I made two sets of GIMP brushes yesterday. Both are downloadable from site where the images link.

The first, Swirlz, is from the font Curlz MT. I just erased and manually added the anti-aliasing where it was missing from the erased areas. The second was inspired by the hot sauce theme of this here site… it was in need of some flame. The flame set is entirely original. I used the bezier curves and cranked it out in the gimp then added some gradient grayscale fills and some rotations and ended up with four brushes. I also used the flames on the newest version of the header on this site.

And about the lipstick… My mom bought me the Most Awesome Lipstick Ever Created. Covergirl’s outlast lipstick truly doesn’t come off! This stuff is amazing. I tried it last night (I was that curious, yes, that I would try it right before going to bed) and it lasted all night and through the shower. I have not yet tried playing clarinet, but this is a good lipstick for me on Sundays. I do NOT like wearing lipstick but think my lips look funny without it. This stuff is like lip stain. It doesn’t feel like I’m wearing lipstick (I like that) but my lips look good (I like that too). Awesome.

I have just discovered how to make my own brushes for the gimp and it’s really quite simple. I used Graphic Converter to get the basic brush (since the font recognizer in gimp 2.0 doesn’t recognize 97% of my fonts) which in the case of the header above was Edwardian Script in a combination of our initials. I will be wasting a lot of time making brushes in the future.

I am itching to get the post-processing started on our vacation pictures. We have over 775 pictures and I will most likely be editting about 700 of them or so and uploading them to the gallery over several days. The pictures, however, reside on David’s iBook and the cable for the Canon digi-cam also resides with the iBook so I remain impatiently pictureless.

To edit such a high volume of pictures, I will attempt to write a script for the GIMP so the process will be a one-click process. Since I am pictureless, I will look up how to write a script for the GIMP!

UPDATE: Yes, an update already… writing a script for/in GIMP is going to be quite educational. I will need to learn basic Perl and another programming language! Eek! Anyone wanting to do this for me is welcome to take a stab at it! Jer?? Mark?? Peter?? Shelley?? anyone??

I have downloaded “bootleg” copies of the directional buttons for the photo gallery and have been slowly updating the wedding album. The wedding album is slow work due to the hand-scanning and editing process to remove dust particles and make the necessary color adjustments. For the dust removal, I am using PhotoStudio in classic mode… I haven’t found anything better besides the Photoshop 7.0 demo which expired a long time ago on our computer. For color adjustments and corrections, I am using The GIMP but I wasn’t satisfied with its dust-removal abilities. I think that must be because it has so many variables and I haven’t experimented with each of them to see what they do to get the results I want. I’ve found that with the default setting, the noise reduction feature softens the image too much. For some reason, theh older version of PhotoStudio is doing an awesome job on dust/noise removal. Two hours and I got 9 pictures scanned, editted, and uploaded to the web… I gotta find a faster way. I leave you now to go sleep. bye

I have been reading for quite awhile a blog entitled, Facetiously Me, which is very well written. It’s interesting to see her writing style develop over time if you read her blogs. I have been inspired by this young woman to develop the skills necessary to become a proficient graphic designer… but my software is slightly different from what you’d expect. You see, I have budget limitations and cannot immediately afford the software I dream of… but I do have a very intellegent brother and friend who knew of this open-source stuff called The GIMP which is a very powerful and photoshop-ish piece of software which has me glued to the iMac in every possible way learning and experimenting. GIMP is mainly to be used for the manipulation and clarification of photographs, but can also be used to a small extent as graphics software… just don’t expect the graphics abilities of this program to be easy to use or extensive in capabilities. It’s good for the time being while I save up the necessary funds for Adobe CS at around $1200 [I know, *whistle* at that price. I did, too!] and more necessary funds for the G5 on which to run the suite candy. Regardless, this is something I think I could be really good at and don’t want to wait in developing my skills until I get the good stuff… skills come with experience… experience comes with experimentation on some kind of software… The GIMP is some kind of software!!! It rocks!! …

So how is this not your average Wednesday??? well, It just didn’t feel like an average Wednesday. Fall is in the air for the first time… Woo-Hoo! Weather in the 80’s! It hasn’t been that cool here in a LOoooooong time! Anyhow… I am getting tired even though it’s only 9:50 pm. I know, I lead such a boring life.

Good night to anybody out there reading this.. -Jen