Alexander 6, V8.

It is one busy day, and full of dust. The weather was nice in the morning, but suddenly after a visit from my director who asked me to get the "air sampler" out to collect a sample of air in "such" weather, I suddenly stopped and looked through the window, and voila! A yellow planet was there! The time was almot 9 a.m. even (and not exactly 9).
After some trials again with my tortaloza (my beloved turtle, going to call it tortaloza from now on), and my watch with my rings. Not so much to be mentioned really, but I did, somehow, make up some sparkles on the surface, but yet I had to use the flash head as well. I made 2 images different in DOF and tried to combine them with Exposure Fusion option in Photomatix, but the result was not what I did expect. The image was a bit of what I call "dreamy effect," where you have some blurred fog like texture over the original image (and with some sparkles as well). Anyway, I discovered that the shallow DOF for the two images can be combined together in Photoshop by stocking and blending (not an option for CS2 users);

 

Two images of different depths combined by "blending" as "stock" in Photoshop CS4.

As you can see, in the first image the ring was sharp and the turtle is blurred at the back (it gives a sense of a distance) and the opposite is on the right image, although the ring might not seem so clear whether it is blurred or not. However, with Photoshop and not by exposure fusion, I made a new image with both objects sharp.

I felt that Photomatix's EF option is not what I need, so I found, as mentioned in some site, that there is a freeware named EnfuseGUI. It is a software based on a command-line program made before. "GUI" stands for "Graphical User Interface," which is the type of softwares I do like the best. However, the software got a glitch and crash every time I drag and drop some files in it (or maybe it is because I was using RAW files rather than JPG or TIF?). There is no "add" or "open" buttons in this software, and the only method is to drag and drop. I think I shall try again today and see if this problem is related to the files being RAW or not. I have to convert the files first.

The software has many options that I've never heard of in Photomatix; many sliders and check-boxes here and there and something about maps or the type of map. The map here, as I believe, is the map created from one file in order to measure the weight of each pixel (usually done by doing a Threshold effect in the memory, i.e. not seen in front of you on the monitor but merely something calculated and data collected for usage by the CPU). I could be using Photoshop less now, but I think this is for good.

__________

169. a man got closer to Alexander and started
170. and the story of his folk he went to tell
171. "we are from far away lands there near you,
172. in greenish mounts just before Caqobia,
173. we are the Shepherds, and I am Ikilis,
174. every year at a time like this,
175. we come to this spot with sheep to pasture
176. and the volcano god Kadmún won't allow us,
177. until we pray for him and slay some sheep
178. and if we did not do that, all our fortune will be gone"
179. Alexander boiled with rage but kept silent
180. and talked slowly to Ikilis the shepherd
181. "dear Ikilis, what kind of god is that,
182. who has no mercy for his followers?
183. and what kind of god is that,
184. who cannot make other people worship him?
185. or what kind of god is that,
186. who asks for fortunes of others?"
187. Ikilis thought about it for a moment
188. then asked Alexander: what do you mean O good king?
189. Alexander smiled to know that the man is able to think
190. then Alexander said: no gods on this Earth,
191. except of God who is every where,
192. and that Kadmún is certainly a demon of tricks

Alexander 6, V5.

Been some days without putting some words here. Well, the natural thing with the holidays. I'm heading back to work by tomorrow after 3 days of holidays (neglecting the weekend, which makes it up to 5 days of holidays).
In this holiday I had some time to make up my own home-made light tent and softbox for my flash, and big thanks for my brother who has soft hands with the tools! I bought some tiny desk lights and fixed some energy-saving light bulbs to use as side lights for my light-tend.

 

My light box or light tent

 

My softbox for my flash head

One tiny problem happened after fixing the sides of the box, and that was the fact that the glue started to eat into the white surface. It is a problem but I don't think it would affect the snapping too much, since the object is going to be inside the box with lights out of the box. The main purpose of these wings on the sides (as I read in the main scheme) is that they serve as "reflectors." You can find the main scheme in this blog.
I didn't try the flash head so much, but I had some trials with the light tent a bit, trying out with my censer again. The first problem was to fix the box on a suitable surface on a suitable height. The table I used before for snapping the censer (and the turtle before) was not a suitable one because of its small surface area and hence, I wouldn't be able to put the desk lamps around (I would need other small tables to do this!). Anyway, after moving here and there, I fixed it over my suitcase (which still contains some stuff I got from Ireland and some books!). I've fixed the desk lamps around it but one problem occured then, and it was obvious in the pictures taken after, but I had no solution to that really. I could have fixed something below the box just to elevate it a little from one side, but the wax was already molten and I didn't want to shake the censer anymore fearing that something would drop down on the inside of the box. I kept it that way and made the censer body as straight as possible, with the molten wax being tilted to one side.
I took many shots in different modes (and sometimes in different WB) but the chain of pictures that I worked with most was a series of 9 pictures taken with constant aperture (f32) and changing shutter speed (time), making up a sequence of 9 exposures.

 

Photoshop composite and tone-mapping of 9 exposures

The good thing here is that the lighting was somehow good and controllable with 3 desk lamps fixed in positions surrounding the light-tent itself, but despite the fact that I used a narrow aperture (f32) as I usually do, to make sparkles of light reflected of the subject, here it did not show up. I'm guessing that I'm supposed to put a light source hitting forward to the censer instead of putting one to the top of the box. Yet, I had some fun merging different exposures.

  

3 exposures, tungsten white balance, merged and tone-mapped with photomatix .

The above image was taken in tungsten white balance, anyway it is not a big deal now with the white balance (in analog photography it was a big deal already, but with digital photography you can change that easily when you shoot in RAW). I called it "Frozen Censer." Despite the fact that I know clearly most of the stock sites won't like such images that got plenty of effects in them, but I put this one in Bigstockphoto.com.

Bigstockphoto had been kind enough to accept lately one or two of my images. Unlike Fotolia, who always refuse images either as "quality problems" or "aesthetic problem," Bigstockphoto does mention the problem exactly for you, and if you can, you would be able to fix the problem (when possible) and submit it again. Of course if there is no potential marketing for the picture itself that's another story. At least, they do mention something for you and don't leave you in the dark like Fotolia does. Lately, all the problems that I've encountered when my files are refused from Fotolia are under the "aesthetic" category, which makes me ask myself how this is fixed?

Anyway, back to the censer again, I made a go also with Exposure Fusion. Although I'm not so fond of this method but sometimes, it does some beauty to the images. I can't really tell what is the algorithm and the method used here, but your exposures are not combined to make one HDR image and then tone-mapped, but it sounds more like direct tone-mapping without passing the HDR phase.

 

Fusion of 9 exposures.

And finally, I tried out the fusion of several white balances extracted from a single image (the original was taken in tungsten WB);

 

Several WBs fused together.

Generally, the contrast is good despite the fact that I did not put a light source directly hitting into the body of the censer from the front. The flame inside has a sharp contrast and appears somehow "flamboyant" from the middle of the censer and the purple hue is dark, but can be shown with some saturation a bit. All the images anyway were not put directly but there was always some manipulation in Photoshop for increasing the contrast slightly or increasing the saturation and changing the hue little bit.

The thing that was missing from this, the sparkle that used to show up when I used the flash in a completely dark room. I have some experiment in my mind currently, and I shall get back to the censer again, I suppose!

Today, we have the 5th verse of Alexander VI; The last part of Alexander's story. The work with my transliteration has stopped as well during the holiday, but tomorrow is the working day, and I think I shall get back with my routine as usual (despite some pressing work in the labs).

__________
97. then Alexander asked about the secret
98. and the old man explained in few words
99. "secret of the lights after the lights in the Beginning"
100. thus, Alexander felt the burden of destiny
101. crushing down his shoulders from Heaven
102. and then he said with a shaking jaw
103. "how am I supposed to know the road,
104. if I never heard of your ancestors before?
105. and how I am supposed to reveal the secret
106. if I do not know what you are talking about?
107. help me O good old man in my task
108. may God help you to succeed in the good ways"
109. Náwi established his words with the praise of God
110. and said to Alexander: O young man, did God forget you before?
111. or did He give you a false promise before?
112. No! Thus you shall walk by His grace and mercy
113. like He made you a sun and moons to guide you
114. through the deserts He will never forget you
115. stay with us for three days and be prepared
116. then go on to your journey with your destiny
117. the prophecies there were made will not lie
118. go and fear nothing O Vuqurnún
119. thus Alexander decided to stay for three days
120. while the hermits prepared him for his journey

Alexander 6, V4.

TGIW. Thank God It's Wednesday! A phrase I missed typing or saying for a long time after changing the weekend system in Kuwait, making the weekend on Friday and Saturday instead; which sucks! We got a holiday here extending until next Monday. Woho! No work on a MONDAY!
I'm planning to go out earlier today, and that's why I'm writing my blog earlier than usual. After finishing 2 verses of transliteration from Alexander VI, I took sometime on writing a short little poem. Something to the memory of Oughterard and Ireland. I named it "The Path of Oughterard."

The images I took the day before yesterday were not so special or anything, without any sparkle or life in them, and also not sharp enough and somewhat blurry. Thus, I decided not to work on the tone-mapping for them and instead, I kept on working stitching some old panorama I made for my work place.


The stitching process takes almost half a day. I made this parnoama before and it is not a quite spherical panorama, because I didn't take pictures for the ceiling in complete sequences, but it was a 360 degrees one made on 2 rows. This is the second time I make a trial with this panorama, as I made it normal the last time. Here, I've made my mind to make it as a "little planet" projection (also called Stereo). The first stitching process stopped after it reached the end almost with some error regarding the creation of the JPEG file (I remember it was related to the damn RAMs), and I thank God that it was a sequence of JPG images only and not HDR! Anyway, choosing the final creation to be saved as a JPG was a mistake as well because I wanted to keep the transperancy as well. Thus, I had to stitch again and this time, the end-product is saved as a PSD (more than 500MB in size but only one layer!). I manipulated the image later on (this morning and in a hurry), making it more sharp and minimized it from its original size (close to 20,000 pixels height and width). For web purposes I decided to save the image in a GIF format to save the transperancy, but unfortunately the picture was sluggish and spotted for the low quality. Thus, I decided to put it up as a PNG, but of course the file size would be a bit larger than the GIF version. The JPG format of course, won't save me the transperancy in the image.
This is said and done, I might try to construct my own softbox in the coming days, as something to do for fun at home and also it would be useful in the future. I have in my mind many sizes to construct currently, and to begin with, I would do a flash-mounted little softbox, to reduce the glare of the flash on objects (since I suffered this sooooo much with my trials on my censer). Also, I intend to make out a light tent, or a light box, in which lights are projected from the outside and the object is in the middle of the box with a white background. I wanted to do some trials with my camera yesterday, but with the stitching process that took almost half a day and took over most of the memory in my PC, I neglected such idea completely!


__________
73. and Alexander was shaken by the speech
74. and could not imagine the age of the man
75. what is going around him and what is the logic
76. nothing seems to bear meaning to him now
77. then he gathered the power to ask the old man
78. "and how shall I get to the lands of Ayvars?"
79. so the old man answered: you shall answer my dear!
80. and with a strange look, Alexander gazed upon his face
81. and then he said: you are the grandson,
82. you don't know how to visit your ancestors?
83. then Náwi answered with sadness apparent in his eyes
84. "my dear friend, your question revives memories,
85. of long lost tribes and nations, wisdom and faith,
86. my ancestors went away with their secrets,
87. and here I am left alone with my sons away from them,
88. and it is mentioned in ancient books that we had,
89. about a the poor and rich man, whose name is Vuqurnún
90. who has light in his face and a spot on his forehead
91. and his red hair go down on his shoulders
92. and his teeth are white with bluish color
93. carrying his sword of the three points
94. and his golden shield of the sun's image
95. he shall know the road to the ancients
96. and by his hands the secret is revealed"