In Transition …. Hard

hard_transitions

“Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition in our lives.”

An Armoury for Little Fairy Warriors?



Explore the Universe and Find Ourselves



Orton Effect with the GIMP

Last week, I posted about a computer meltdown and a reinstall of software including trying to find the GIMP plugins I was using. After finding them and another cool suite of plugins, a twitter mate of mine @alastair_hm commented that he like the Orton Effect plugin. This plugin is located in the Gimphelp.org suite and is found under Script-Fu -> Sharpness -> Softer -> Orton Effect. I had not used this effect so I quickly applied it to an image. I instantly saw the potential for this effect.

I since discovered that the effect was named for MIchael Orton. He sandwiched slides together. For each image, he would take two shots. One overexposed by two stops and one that was overexposed by one stop. This would produce an image that had an impressionistic sense to it. Nowadays, we don’t really need to use a tripod and take multiple shots. Most image editing programs have settings, plugins, addons and etc that could produce this same effect or it an be produced by adding layers onto an existing image.

In GIMP, the Orton Effect copies the image on two additional layers. In the first it overexposes the image and sharpens it, in the second it applies a gaussian blur.

summer_flower
In this photo I used the Orton Effect then added an alpha mask to the blurred layer to fade out the effect in the center of the flower allowing the sharpness to show through.

school_carnival2
This image shows the Orton Effect without using an alpha mask.

If you have a favorite GIMP plugin or effect, please let us all know!

GIMP Plugins

I’ve had a computer melt down. My main computer’s power supply turned off the lights and now no one’s home. The laptop had a failing HDD. I replaced the HDD in the laptop but had to leave the big computer with someone else to repair the power supply. After replacing the laptop HDD I’ve had to reinstall all software. I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu 9.10 and installed all my favorite apps. However, I couldn’t remember the name of the suite of scripts/plugins I use on GIMP. I googled furiously to find the plugins I have on the main computer. Eventually I found them – FX-Foundry . If you’ve never used this collection before I’d highly recommend it. Like I said, I was frantic to find them to install on the laptop.

In the process I happened across another collection of plugins from gimphelp.org I experimented tonight with an image I took earlier in the day of an old dead tree.

Here’s the originial image:
Picture 037

Cutout script
tree-cutout

Infrared Simulation
tree-cutout_bw

and my favorite for this image – Make Wonderful
tree make wonderful

Jump to Orion

willow_jump_orion

Willow on the trampoline with a new Hubble Space Telescope shot as background.

Wild Flower

wild_flower2

My little Willow after she asked me to pick one of the giant roses in the backyard. Afterwards she stuffed the rose into the ground and pured water on top. I hope she’s not disappointed today when the rose is no longer a rose.

Waratah

waratah

The Waratha in the backyard is in bloom.

Shutter Lag

2009-10-18_willow-boots

In case you ever wondered, here the result of forgetting you have your slr on timer mode. I snapped a shot of Willow on the trampoline only to have the shutter fire several seconds later.

Woohoo! The Camera Is Back

2009-10-18_willow
For the past 3 or 4 weeks I have been without my canon camera cause I mysteriously lost my charger. Earlier in the week a new one came in the mail so this weekend I was good to go. I spent a couple of hours out in the backyard with Willow playing on the trampoline and throwing balls for the dogs with my trusty canon in hand.