Helluvablog

Welcome to Birmingham.

Maffu — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:38:50 +0000

And America thought it had the monopoly on weird rednecks…

Birmingham man who had sex with sheep jailed – Sunday Mercury.

Before it’s too late!

Maffu — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:02:37 +0000

via

The Mother of Invention.

Maffu — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:14:56 +0000

Does my bum look big in this?

I recently started looking at 3D modelling software, mainly with a view to eventually turning out animated films. I find it amusing that the one thing for which I haven’t yet used any of the various bits of software I have is making a film.
Today’s obscure use is to use Poser 7 to plan for a photoshoot. I have a model coming round this evening to pose for some shots, and, although I already have the shots in my mind, the last time they didn’t quite come out as I expected. The results were still pleasing but that was with some trial and error and moving lights and props about.
In order to make things run a little more smoothly this time, and since some of the planned shots are nudes, I’m using Poser 7 to preplan the model’s poses, lighting and camera positions.
Watch this space for the results.

A New Beginning – Talk To Me!

Maffu — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:39:37 +0000

After much frustration I decided that Joomla!, while powerful and well supported, just didn’t work for Helluva.
My thoughts on how the site might grow were kind of scuppered by the meteoric rise of social networking sites like Twitter et al, leaving Helluvaforum with tumbleweed blowing through it and the rest of the site seeing spikes of traffic whenever a post goes up, and a steady stream of people viewing the tutorials and recipes.
So I decided that it was time to reverse direction and, instead of thinking about a Helluva Community site, revert to the simplicity of a personal website, where I can post articles, stuff that I find interesting around the internets, review hardware and software for whoever would like to read them, and share my knowledge of things like Photoshop etc.
Helluvablog is more sociable than before though – we have comments and everything! So please, feel free to comment on whatever you find here, ask questions, moan, whine and correct spellings but, most importantly, say hello, enjoy your stay and come back often.
Oh, and if you’re wondering how to comment, you can do so by clicking on the title of any post, or by clicking on the teeny-tiny number underneath the post title.

Listen to Yourselves

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:57:08 +0000

“You need to identify this man before someone kills me”
David Calvert

No, they need to restore order and reason before someone kills you.
I hope the tabloids are pleased with themselves when someone does get hurt.

.44 Blues

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:43:19 +0000

Finally figured out a reliable way of mounting my camera onto my guitar without a/ making it unplayable or b/ being in danger of twisting the neck off.
Anyway, for your delectation, here is my rendition of 44 Blues…

Video Tutorial – Removing Colour Casts

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:40:10 +0000

A Helluva video tutorial on how to remove colour casts from any image using the Curves tool. Quick and easy, this method offers far more control over the end results than most others.

No video? Get the DivX Web Player for Windows or Mac

Video Tutorial – Skin Retouching

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:35:30 +0000

A Helluva video tutorial on how to re-touch skin, removing blemishes and the like without leaving your subject looking alien-smooth.

No video? Get the DivX Web Player for
Windows or
Mac

Review – Adobe Premiere Elements 4

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:27:37 +0000

Following on from our Photoshop Elements 6 review, the other half of the two-disc bundle is Adobe Premiere Elements 4. As you would expect from a bundled package, the interface shares a look and colour scheme with the new Photoshop Elements and the two packages interact with each other in an easy unobtrusive fashion. How does the ‘user friendly’ version of Premiere measure up to its 800lb cousin?

Once again, having experience of using the Pro version, there is the feeling of meeting an ex partner who went away and lost a couple of stone, had a face lift and now has hordes of admiring suitors where before only you knew the right buttons to push. With Premiere however, taming and even ‘dumbing down’ of the menus and tools is a godsend, since the pro version of Premiere rivals even Acrobat 8 for its toolbar incontinence.

As you would expect from a bundled package, the interface shares a look and colour scheme with the new Photoshop Elements and the two packages interact with each other in an easy unobtrusive fashion.

The interface is helpful and intuitive and, while I raise a mildly incredulous eyebrow at Adobe’s claim that a novice could be cranking out movies in less than 15 minutes, it is almost instantly obvious what you are looking at and the steps you need to take to achieve your ends. The only place where that is not the case is importing new clips into an existing project. But even this, while initially sending me on a lip chewing click-fest, still passed the no-manual, dive-straight-in acid test.

The feature list and output options remain rich and once again, there are added touches that are excellent. One such addition is the Beat Detect feature which aids in the creation of music videos or the like by analysing your music track and then inserting markers at key peaks in the rhythm. These markers allow you to accurately place cuts in your video, shaving huge amounts of time that you would normally spend in other applications scrubbing the timeline to find the sweet spots. As with the Photoshop Elements, Adobe have really done their homework in deciding what stays and what goes in this package and the end result feels comfortable without being dumb.

Your masterpiece can then be styled to perfection with the addition of pre-fabricated, themes, which include matching opening titles, end credits, filters and DVD menus. Effects, such as distortion, ripples, and blurs can be applied by simple drag and drop operations and there is no wait (on a decent machine) for rendering during editing – grab your desired effect, drop it onto your clip and hey presto, it’s done. From there your end results can be output to a wide variety of formats including Blu-Ray, and even directly published to youTube from within the program itself.

All in all, Adobe have pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of making video editing quick, easy and fun, and as a bundle with Photoshop Elements 6 this is not only a chance to put some remarkably powerful software in your creative arsenal, but also a bargain that’s too good to miss.

{ fin }

Review – Acrobat 8 Professional

Maffu — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:12:39 +0000

For all of the universal presence of the PDF format it’s a constant surprise just how many people are unaware of the existence of Acrobat Professional, the software used to create and manage those PDFs. But why would you want to make a PDF?
Well, at its simplest level, the PDF is about as close as you can get digitally to the printed page – a universal, freely distributed medium which, once editing is complete, can be published in a locked format and distributed without fear of it being changed.

Acrobat has long been a favourite of graphics stables and designers, not only for its control over layout but also over colour space and print output. Over the years, more and more capabilities have been added to the engine and the latest incarnation continues along these lines.

That’s not to say that the interface isn’t initially user friendly – novices are greeted with a Getting Started dialogue which guides you step by step through various common tasks such as PDF creation, document merging, exporting, etc..

Stray away from your trusty guide though, and you’re into a haunted quagmire of toolbars, palettes and icons. Thousands of them. With even more waiting just a click or two in any direction. I’ve never seen such a mind-numbing array of buttons. Obviously you don’t have to have them all on screen at once, but what you do have to do is remember where on earth they all are, since Adobe have, rather bafflingly, neglected to include the option to save your workspace. This feature, which is available in Adobe’s other flagship applications, has never been so needed as it is here. Or isn’t here, as the case may be.

Unfortunately, Adobe’s constant to drive cram more into the Acrobat package is probably its biggest drawback. Acrobat Professional 8 lumbers like a walrus, shuddering under the weight of all those esoteric features.

A quick search of the world wide web will turn up many cheap or even free PDF creation applications and plugins, each clocking in from a few hundred kilobytes to a few megabytes. AP8 gobbles up an alarming 1 gigabyte of disk space. That’s right, 1GB! Now that’s all very well since hard drives come big and cheap these days (just like my …snip!) , but the bloat doesn’t stop there. I found it chugged along in fits and starts even on a dual-core machine with 2GB of RAM, although, in fairness, blame should probably be aimed equally at Windows Vista, the Mr Creosote of the operating system world.

In short though, if you’re a graphics repro house then this is probably right up your street, but for the rest of us – and those of us with ordinary machines – you’re probably better off getting a converter application or plugin.