Focus

Here's something that'll make your head spin, just a little... you know how when you're taking a photo you need to focus your image before you take it? What if you could leave that decision to after you'd taken the shot? What if you could decide to re-focus a picture you'd already shot? Enter the Lytro light field camera.

The secret to this idea of focusing and re-focusing an image after it's been shot is in the way it's shot. I'd try to explain in my own words, but I think the website does a better job of it:

Recording light fields requires an innovative, entirely new kind of sensor called a light field sensor. The light field sensor captures the color, intensity and vector direction of the rays of light. This directional information is completely lost with traditional camera sensors, which simply add up all the light rays and record them as a single amount of light.

So, with all of this data stored in this image file, you can adjust the focus -- quite dramatically -- after you've taken the shot. Both the blog for this product and the how-to videos talk about staging a photo or looking for a specific type of shot to take to get the most out of this camera... it's not the sort of thing that works well when you take a picture of two people standing next to each other against a wall, for example. You need to establish the various depths-of-field in the shot in order to really see it work.

Distressed

I've been using an Android -based phone for a few months now; I finally upgraded from my old QWERTY phone that had treated me so well for 3+ years as part of a family-wide phone update. However, it occurred to me that I had yet to feature an app here, of any sort. So, let's change that...

...introducing: Pixlr-o-matic, part of the Pixlr family of photo editors by Autodesk Inc. (makers of AutoCAD, 3DS Max and Maya). Although recent reports of Instagram coming to the Android platform seem more believable than all the previous reports, I stopped holding my breath a long time ago. So, in my search for a similar app, I found this one.

Unlike Instagram or other popular camera apps, this one is based on post-production of an image, rather than in-camera, on-the-fly editing or manipulation. At first, I wasn't really sold on this idea, but in hindsight, I'd much rather have a 'true/clean' copy of the image that I can later layer effects on, than only having the one distressed, bordered image that I can never clean-up or apply different effects to.

It's a simple enough application to use, having three layers of effects that you can choose to apply to any photo in your gallery: colour overlays, lighting effects and borders. Each one of these layers has a number of selections from which to choose; the app has also recently added a large number of additional layer sets (e.g., soft colour overlays, fire lighting effects) that you can install, from within the app, for free. When you've decided on how you want your image to look, you can save it back to your gallery as a seperate file. This app does lack the dedicated on-line social media community that Instagram has, however, you can choose to share your finished photographs through a number of existing services.

Furthermore, if you were a fan of Picnik (on the web) previously, you've no doubt heard that it's being closed down (on April 19, 2012, and absorbed into Google+ somehow); if you like what you see in this Android app, Pixlr is on the web too and includes many more features that you can enjoy and experiment with.

It's a free, ad-free, download on the Android Market (and is also available for iOS). Go check it out!

» Found at: Android Market - Pixlr-o-matic

Smile

From what some might think to be an unlikely place, I have found what may be my favourite photo of the Mona Lisa... well, not exactly:

Dianna Agron, who most will know as Quinn on Glee, is not only an up-and-coming actress with more TV or film credits than I was aware of (including guest spots on Veronica Mars?!) but also a photographer who has a lot of talent (and a very nice collection of cameras too!).  She took this photo for the same reason(s) that I would have: "I’ve never seen so many people (hundreds) taking pictures of a painting. ... I had to take a picture (don’t worry, sans flash, to counter the damage hundreds all around me might be creating) of all the people taking pictures. If that makes sense!"

Her blog is usually filled with excellent, random photos from wherever she is, music videos or track lists that she's enjoying at the moment and/or the detalis of a charitable effort that she's leading. Lots of positive focus here which is so nice to see.

» Found at: But You Can Call Me Charlie blog

Tiles

This can get filed under the 'awesome' category. Have you ever wanted a texture to place under (or over) another layer in Photoshop to add depth or realism?  Ever wanted a background for a webpage that you could tile easily? Ever wanted a solution like this for the low-low price of FREE? Now you have it: tileabl.es

I stumbled on this site via Cameron Moll's quick link-list he'd posted last week, prior to his leaving for a conference, so many thanks to him for this. To be honest, I haven't even opened up these .zip files yet for a closer look, but according to the site:

This pack consists of 20 [type of texture or pattern featured] textures at various detail levels. Included in the download is your .PAT patterns file which can be imported into Photoshop. You also get the layered .PSD file so you can edit each pattern to your liking. Grab your copy today!

That's pretty cool in my books. Not only do you get the textures, but also the source files? Very nice touch. There are currently five 'sets' available: lines, paper, rust, fabric and wood ... and, to be honest, I can't think of what they'll release next! But, in the meantime, if you need some great looking, seemless textures for a project, maybe this is the site for you.

» Found at: Tileabl.es

Carnival

These are some really impressive images from a photographer named *brynne. She (and a friend) went through the abandoned Six Flags park in New Orleans last year, four years after Hurricane Katrina passed through the region. 80% of the park was demolished; only one ride was considered salvageable.

I was impressed to see that she has a number of other sets like this -- abandoned buildings -- as well, until I read her profile, which says, in part:

If I controlled the world, it would be cloudy every day at 67 degrees and I would be allowed in every abandoned building on the planet. I'm an aspiring stormchaser, urban explorer and future horror fiction novelist. I love to read, learn about new things and I am very well known as a trance music fanatic.

The post-processing on the images is quite good; be sure to check-out the silhouetted images of the park at the end of this set as well.  [Found via daringfireball.net]

» Flickr: “Six Flags New Orleans 228” – uploaded by *brynne

Scott

Author Bryan Lee O'Malley took a bunch of "behind the scenes" photos during the filming of the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (which is, obviously, based on his series of graphic novels).

This image shows director Edgar Wright, apparently, moments after he ever-so-briefly sat in his director's chair. The one (and only) time he ever did. Edgar also did his own 'photo a day' thing while filming the movie; it's also worth checking out.

The movie, SPvtW, opens today. It's getting great reviews, especially from the gamer/comic fans.

» Flickr: “38. (ON-SET) Chaos Theatre” – uploaded by radiomaru

Letterpress

Although this photo has very little to do with the article, I think it's representative of the overall look of the set. I love this airy, old, washed out, intimate, shallow depth-of-field look that these photos have.

There are also some black and white photos with the article and just this past weekend I was commenting on how much I love good b&w shots. Well done.

» Found at: Grain & Gram: The New Gentleman's Journal

Park

I would love to get outside and experiment with this sort of long exposure (e.g., no flash) photography. There is a misty, 'summer evening' feeling to this shot that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

» Flickr: “Untitled” – uploaded by frydpacz

Kittens

This is really just a test of Flickr's "Post to Blog" feature. And, since I needed an image, "kittens" seemed like the perfect search term to test with. Who doesn't love kittens?

» Flickr: “I Know You're There” – uploaded by Fernando Felix

Tokyo

An example of high dynamic range (HDR) imaging. I'd seen this before, but didn't know what it was called. By total coincidence, kottke.org posted a funny chart that referred to this today.

Wikipedia, of course, has more information about this type of photograph.

» Found at: Gizmodo blog