Bending Pixels

Wow!  I was browsing the Photoshop User magazine and came across a comment in the Photoshop Q&A that addressed the question of “what is pixel bender?”  I’d love to say that I knew exactly what it would do and that I carefully considered the requirement to download and install this Photoshop extension based on exhaustive research and careful consideration.  Unfortunately I just thought the name sounded cool, and decided to see what it was.
I reached the Pixel Bender Technology Center  at  Http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pixelbender.html, and read that “Adobe Pixel Bender technology delivers a common image and video processing infrastructure which provides automatic runtime optimization on heterogeneous hardware.”  (Is that English?  What does that mean? )  I browsed around on that page that seemed to have nothing to do with what I like to do in Photoshop, with lots of references to Flash and other Adobe products.
I liked the blurb on Programing in Pixel bender that promises: “Low learning curve: Pixel Bender offers a small number of tools that are sufficient to write complex image-processing algorithms. Learning Pixel Bender is easier than learning C/C++ and each application’s plug-in SDK. You do not need to know any graphics shading language or multithreading APIs.”  I learned many years ago that anything do with computers with the word Simple, or Easy wasn’t.  This sounded like more of the same.  Undeterred by an entire page devoted to a product with out explaining what that product does or is in anything resembling english, I decided to download and install it.  After all, it would not have been in Photoshop User, if I wasn’t meant to use it, would it?
I downloaded the product and tried to apply it to a photo, and got a “Image too large” error. I tried different formats and different photos and got the same error over and over again.  Finally I resorted to reading the README file that came with the download, but didn’t find anything helpful there.  As a last resort,  I googled the error, and immediately figured out that I had to update my video driver to be able to use the graphics processor mode for this filter in CS5.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it, just update the driver and get right to the play time.  Two hours later, multiple downloads and installation attempts and much frustration, finally the driver update was complete.  I opened my first file, and opened the photoshop filter, selected Pixel Bender, and chose Oil Paint.  The image jumped to life as the filter applied.  This effect is great and worth the effort!
This filter uses the graphic processor on the video card to process the effects, and there is a whole gallery of various filters for this product.  My favorite so far is the oil paint which allows you to add highly textured stylized brush strokes to an image.  The results have been very cool.

More as I explore some of the other offerings from the Adobe sharing site.

Digital Darkroom or Fine Art Printing for Dummies

I picked up my new wide format printer last week and I have jumped into the world of fine art printing.  I purchased a canon 24 inch 12 ink imagePROGRAF 6350 photo printer because I really felt I had reached the limit of what my older Epson could do.  I spend months poring over reviews and specs  ( Specs ) on the internet, and finally decided on this printer for several reasons.
The first reason was the absence of any hate posts in the newsgroups.  This struck me as a curious thing because it seems that 20% of all people absolutely hate a product and go out of their way to flame it, 20% that absolutely love a product and it can do no wrong, and these two groups normally represent 80% of the posts to most newsgroups and forums.  I normally filter these out and look for the 20% that are posted by people who really want to provide feedback to other people.  Almost every post I reviewed was looking for refinements.  There were no blazing discussions cataloging a laundry list of issues like there were about the two epson printers I was considering, and reviews were universally strong. 

Canon ipf6350

The second reason was the size of the ink cartridges.  In my epson printer, I had to change a print cartridge everytime I looked at the printer.  In an average session printing I would invariably have one or more cartridges run out and spoil several prints with color shifts.  The cartridges are big and a full week of printing hasn’t even put a dent in the in levels.
Its interesting to see how polarizing technology can be.  There seems to almost be a relgious fevor to the various camps in photography.  Put a dozen canon photographers in a room with a dozen nikon  photographers, and there are sure to be fireworks as the canon missionaries try to convert the the nikon missionaries to the true path as the nikon missionaries try to convert the canon missionaries.  I have somehow escaped this level of fevor so far, but suspect it may be contagious without strong counter measures to avoid infection.
It’s another major step forward for me in terms of learning.  The past few years I have been focused on the photography and learning the necessary craft to take good photographs.  This year I have started to learn the craft necessary to make good prints.  I think the digital photographer is at a disadvantage in this process because so much of our work exists on the monitor of a computer.  I have been taking digital images for 12 years, and my image archive is over 50,000 images.  I have printed very few of these in the past, and never focused on the print as the over all reason I take photographs.
Had I started photography 25 years ago, I would have been deeply focused on the print as the whole reason for the process of taking the photograph.  Without this grounding in the chemical darkroom basics I am finding that it is much harder than I suspected to produce an outstanding print.   The simple days of producing snapshot quality prints on Gloss, Semigloss or matte Epson paper are over.  This new printer takes my printing to a whole new level.
It starts with the size.  This printer is Big, the paper is Big.  It doesn’t sound like a hard thing to do but I’ve never visualized what a print would look like bigger than 11×17.  I could never print it, so I never thought much about it.  I’m finding that some prints lose context and don’t work if printed too large.   Other prints really call for the scope and scale that a large print allows.  I printed my first panoroma of the Alaska Moutain Range at dawn over four feet long, and for the first time was able to view this photograph in the appropriate scale.  It looks better than I visualized.
The next challenge is the choice of papers.  The days of three types of paper are over.  There are a bewildering variety of papers, with an amazingly variety of finishes and properties.  To make decsions harder, I now have a choice of canvas, and other fabrics.  Visualizing the image as it moves on to these papers is going to take much trial and error to get it right.  I have found already that careful pairing of media and photo can greatly enhance  the final print.
A perfect example is an photo that has a fringe of ice around a rock in a stream with sunlight bouncing through the ice and water.  Printed on gloss photo paper, this is a good photograph.  Printed on a metalic paper, this is an outstanding photograph, because the metalic finish causes the areas there were lit with internal sunlight to glow as if lit from within, and breaths life into the print.
I have much to learn about the craft still.  I had to call my photo mentor last week and ask “I keep reading about using cotton gloves to handle paper as you load it and finished prints, in the instruction manual.  Surely no one really uses them?”  There was an icey silence on the line for a moment, then “Of course I use them.  I have always used them since I had a darkroom.”  When I visited I saw white cotton gloves next to her printer and she even gave me a bag of them to start me out, and a quick lesson the tricks to keep them on as they stretch out.
It will be fun to see where this new challege takes me.  Already shooting photos this last week I find myself not just visualizing the photo and what it look like on the computer, but taking the next step and considering what I expect the finshed photograph to look like.

Typewriter Keyboard for the computer. IBM M Series LIVES!

In my ongoing quest to acquire the correct tools necessary to improve my writing skills, I’ve taken the next step.  Keyboards.  I am a computer professional, and type on many different computers as part of my job, and I’ve come to accept that basic keyboards that ship with the computer, like so much of the PC are not well suited for the task they are designed for.  My first computer was an IBM, and came with the amazing IBM M series keyboard.  I moved this keyboard from computer to computer for 6 replacement systems before it finally ceased to work a few years ago.
If you are not familiar with a M series keyboard, these keyboards are based on a  buckling spring key switch  mechanism.  This technology was developed by IBM for computer terminal, and early PC keyboards.  The name refers to the coil spring tensed between the key cap and a pivoting hammer  that “buckles”,  or kinks, at a certain point in its downward traverse, providing auditory and tactile feedback. When the spring buckles, the hammer pivoted forwards and strikes an electrical contact which registers the key press.
The beauty of these keyboards is that you have no doubt if you pressed the key.   You have clear feedback that the key was pressed and this improves your ability to type accurately and quickly.  In my last post, I described the challenges that modern world processors present with their thousands of features that actually prevent me from being able to focus on the most critical portion of the process, actually getting words down on the screen.  I was traveling last week, and using my new found favorite  text editor (http://writemonkey.com/), but found that I was making dozens more typing errors than I normally do on my home computer.    The difference?  The keyboard.
The M Series keyboards were developed by IBM who was responsible for the development and refinement of the Selectric Typewriter which has one of the most productive and best key feed back experience ever designed.  designed.  Imagine if you were a typist in the days before computers and you had just finished typing a long page of information, you’re on the last line, and you press the wrong key.  For most application, this meant that you had to start over, and retype the entire page,  or spend the time to white out and correct the document.  This equated to additional time and expense.
With computers, it’s easier because we can just backspace and correct the error before it hits the paper, however the typical mushy membrane keyboard ensures that we make significantly more errors, that equate to lost time and productivity.  I find using my current M series keyboard that I can stare off into space and type with the assurance that the keys that I’m pressing are actually what I intend to press.  This allows me to think and formulate what I want to say without being distracted by the process of inputting those words.
To type this document, I unwrapped and attached the keyboard shipped with my two year old  Acer computer for the first time.  I find that I have to watch the monitor to ensure that I am actually hitting the right keys to make the right letter appear on the screen.  This is a much slower process and makes it harder for me to stay focused on the actual task, which is writing.  So why do we settle for inferior input devices?  Good question.
My current M series keyboard has been getting a bit arthritic, and the S key sticks sometimes.  This keyboard was produced in 1985.  I bought in on eBay used several years ago, but it’s 25 years old.  I have owned 11 computers and 7 laps tops since this keyboard was produced.  It’s not surprising it’s getting a little creaky when it’s the oldest piece of hardware I own.  I started scouring eBay a few weeks ago for another used M series keyboard in the hopes the even if it wasn’t perfect, I could scavenge parts.
I was trying to explain to a friend why I’m going to these lengths to find a used M series keyboard, and hit Wikipedia so I could clearly explain how the buckling spring mechanism worked and found the following statement: “Unicomp, which now owns the rights to the design, continues to sell Model M keyboards.”
M SERIES KEYBOARDS ARE STILL BEING MADE!     How could I have missed this.  How could my computer geek friends and colleagues have missed this? A few trips to Google, and the cause is clear.  Unicomp does not have apparently have a corporate website, just a page that gives their phone number and location.   They’re not even on face book! (just kidding but they’re not.)  My first Google trip was to http://unic

ompincorp.com/ which doesn’t mention keyboards.  Their sales site is hosted on yahoo, and is so poor that I almost didn’t order from it.
Several days later, I was talking to one of my uber geek buddies and my jaw dropped when he responded, “Yeah, they make great keyboards.”  This is the highest, most glowing review I’ve ever gotten from this geek, and armed with that recommendation, I revisited http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/keyboards.html
I ordered two keyboards at 69 dollars each.  Quality is worth paying for, and this is cheaper than several I’ve watched on eBay.  The order form had a blank for comments, and I couldn’t resist.
“Comments:  Wow, your website really sucks.  It’s been a while since I’ve come across a website that really said, “Please don’t buy my product” as much as this one.  I am a computer professional, and have a rock solid reference for your product, but found myself, make the phone call to my reference and saying, “Your kidding, right, Unicomp?” based on the http://www.unicomp.com website and a yahoo store front.   I’m hoping your products are more impressive.  If these really are M style buckling spring keyboards, I’m very excited.  I would rather buy new products, but didn’t believe these were still in production.”

It will be interesting to see what their response is.  I received a prompt email from an actual person detailing when my order would ship.  More when they arrive.

UPDATE.

Tools for the writing trade. Writemonkey text editor and Unicomp "clicky" keyboard!

My first new keyboard arrived today.  This was the updated version that included the windows keys.  When I picked up the package at the Post Office, the heavy weight told me that I have received something substantial.  Yes, this keyboard is heavy, but it’s also built like a tank.    The touch is outstanding, with the keys firm and defined.  I’ve been going back and forth between this keyboard and my vintage IBM keyboard.  It’s clear there there is more than just the S key that is arthritic on my old keyboard.
This keyboard compared to the membrane keyboard that shipped free with my computer, is like the difference between a cheap plastic screwdriver that’s included with the assembly hardware for furniture free, and a quality crafted tool that feels like an extension of your hand.  It is, in fact the right tool for the job for inputing text.
It would be interesting to know if the reason this device feels so right is because I learned to type on a typewriter, and spent a good part of my early career working on terminals and mainframes.  Perhaps if you have never typed on a typewriter and never used one of these “clicky” keyboards, the feedback is unimportant.  When my second keyboard arrives, I will target some people that have NEVER used this style keyboard and see what their response is.