Way back in 2007, an extremely talented illustrator named Charlie Powell offered to paint a portrait of thedude. I’m a huge fan of his work, so when he offered to do this in exchange for some basic web hosting services, I jumped at the chance. I have always loved the painting. It’s been hanging here in…
San Francisco Pride Parade
After years of procrastination, I finally made it to the fabulous Pride Parade in San Francisco. This colorful event is a dream for anyone with a camera. It’s almost impossible not get at least a few amazing shots. If you would like to see all of my images from the event, including a couple that…
Image Restoration with Krea.ai and PhotoShop
Among the many cool things you can do with Krea.ai, one of the best uses I’ve found is image restoration. It seems to work very well on images that are slightly out of focus or perhaps lacking in resolution.
An Image Slider. w00t!
So, this is cool. I implemented a simple before-and-after image slider so that I can show the effect of the AI image enhancements I’ve been doing with Krea and PhotoShop.
AVIF/HDR Changes EVERYTHING!
If you have an HDR monitor like the Apple XDR display, you will immediately know what this post is about. Those of you with “normal” displays may see a difference, but it may not be that obvious. This post is made possible by a confluence of very cool things. My neighbor bought a new camera…
California Tiny Home
A friend designed a tiny home conversion for an old semi-trailer in SketchUp. His original work was quite good, making my job of converting it to Cinema4D and rendering with Corona Render a lot easier.
Zion and Bryce National Parks
We recently made our first ever visit to Zion and Bryce National Parks. We knew we were in for a treat, but neither of us imagined just how spectacular this part of Utah is.
Before and After
I was approached about creating some graphics for an eddy current training class. It turns out that there are very few images depicting how eddy currents work, and those that do exist are just terrible.
I Bought a Drone
The interesting thing about today’s featured images is that it was totally random. I was merely demonstrating the features of the DJI mini-2 to a neighbor. I took exactly one panoramic shot with the new toy, and did not think much of it. That is, until I got home and opened it in Capture One….
First Birthday Present!
It’s a fabulous Nixie tube clock! I love it. Thanks, Todd!
Orange Wednesday
I have posted smoke-filled bay area skies year after year, but this is truly unprecedented. These shots are straight out of the camera, set to daylight white-balance. The first was taken inside the loft at 8:00 AM, but by 10:30 AM, it got even darker, so I went outside to take a few shots.
Best Shot of Andrew Ever
Most excellent photographer Jonathan Clark got this drone shot of Andrew at Burning Man 2019. It is featured in a story of an excellent new film that captures the Burning Man experience more faithfully than any I have ever seen. The story about the new Burning Man movie appears in New Musical Express, Britain’s ‘Rolling…
CA Fires Wreck Air Quality — Again
Scenes like this used to be pretty rare in the Bay Area. Now, it seems to happen every year. Here is the worst air day of 2008. Here’s a post from 2018, and another. 2019 wasn’t much better, and now, it’s 2020, and here we go again. Extremely rare August thunderstorms brought lightening to a…
Nature Photography During a Pandemic
I don’t get out of the loft much these days, but there are still ways to do nature photography. It’s still possible to find amazing things to shoot right in your own back yard. To get shots like these, all you need is a telephoto lens and perhaps, a bit of patience.
Superhero Coworkers
They ran a 5K today despite the heat. Impressive!
Sophie, Revisited
She’s a sweet 16-year-old now, and in need of some photos for her yearbook. She’s changed a bit since I took this shot of her eight years ago.
Xenophon 2019 Gala
Photobooth made an appearance once again. This year’s shots make me very happy. Here are a few of my favorites.
I made the Cover!
I was asked to provide a graphic for the cover of the GeneStudio S5 owner’s manual.
Before and After
I saw this very poorly PhotoShopped image in one of our product brochures, and saw so many problems with it that I just HAD to do a better version.
Janet and Kelly
Janet and Kelly at Jack London’s Wolf House on a beautiful day in Glen Ellen.
Wedding Bands
After doing a simple rendering of a shiny piece of metal for a friend, I was inspired to try my hand at rendering some jewelry. For my first test, I decided to see what kind of results I could get modeling and rendering our wedding bands, designed by her school chum, the brilliant Scott Knutson….
Kelly’s Wedding Band
(The ring is not really from Tiffany.)
I am often asked to place products into realistic settings
For this sample, I downloaded a generic image of a lab and used the Cinema4D Camera Matching tool to perfectly match the perspective of the image, cloned the instruments five times, rendered the instruments with their reflections and shadows along with an alpha (transparency) channel and placed them into the scene with PhotoShop.
More 3D magic
The inside of the cool microscope.
More work in progress
This is a close look at an instrument under development by one of our teams at work.
Work in progress
Not EXACTLY what it looks like, but pretty cool, nonetheless.