The new Bury Me In My Skates T-Shirt design is available by special order only. If you’re interested, please shoot me an email or comment here.

My family has a love of all things on the ice. My oldest daughter figure skates and speed skates, my youngest figure skates, my wife figure skates and I hit the ice in hockey blades. We are at the ring 2,3 sometimes 4 times a week. A few weeks ago my 5 year old daughter [...]]]>

My family has a love of all things on the ice. My oldest daughter figure skates and speed skates, my youngest figure skates, my wife figure skates and I hit the ice in hockey blades. We are at the ring 2,3 sometimes 4 times a week. A few weeks ago my 5 year old daughter bought a little ice skating T-Shirt. This got me to thinking and I realised that there are not many nice looking skating related T-Shirts and products available – at least not Down Under. So I’ll be launching a new range of products under the Ice Pirates label. I’ll be working on a series of designs on shirts as well as other products and launch a website later in March 2010. This is one of the first designs – designed on GIMP and inkscape exclusively of course.

So I better wrap this post up, the Vancouver Olympics women’s figure skating is on behind me and I want to watch our little Australian hopeful Cheltzie Lee. Aussi Aussi Aussi!

This is what we’re shooting for:

Threshold The Threshold tool turns your image into [...]]]> As the title identifies, I’ll be using the image editor GIMP to demonstrate the Threshold and Color to Alpha tools. If you don’t already have a copy, head over to GIMP.org and download one. it’s free which is why I use it .

This is what we’re shooting for:

Threshold
The Threshold tool turns your image into a true Black and White. That is Black and White only, no shades of grey. You have to carefully choose the image you want to use this effect upon. If the image has too many colors or limited contrast, it may not work too well. However, if in doubt, open up the image and give the Threshold tool a whirl and see how it turns out, a little experimentation may find a brand new trick!

So, let’s take my original image:

You’ll notice that this image has a lot of conrtast and limited colors. It’s perfect for turning the Threshold tool loose on. Now, you’ll find the Threshold tool under Colors > Threshold…

I’ve selected the Threshold tool and am adjusting the slider to get just the effect I want. I think right about here gives good detail. Let’s go with that.

Now we have a black and white image, perfect for using the Color to Alpha tool (Alpha is a fancy name for transparent).

Color to Alpha tool

You can find Color to Alpha under Color > Color to Alpha… Let’s choose that now. Here’s a shot of the open Color to Alpha tool. I selected white in the “From … to alpha” box. As soon as I did that, all the white in the image disappeared like this:

Now we have an image that is only black, black trees. The rest of the image is transparent. Lets add a layer and move it underneath these black trees. If you look at the Layers, Channels, Paths and so on window (it’s usually on the right side of your screen looking something like this:

Let’s add another layer. I’ve circled in red the new layer button. This will add a transparent layer above the tree image. This new layer need to be placed below the trees so just click on the new layer and pull it below the original one. Voila, now you have a clean slate to lay in the background!

I chose a Hubble space telescope image for this background. I opened the space image and scaled it down to fit my tree image. Copied the space image, click on the trees again, clicked on the transparent layer and pasted the space image into it. That’s it. All that is left is a quick rotate of the whole image. I decided that I wanted it rotated to the left so I choose Image > Transform > Rotate 90 counter clockwise. Be sure and click on the finished image and view a larger size version. Much of the detail is lost with the small sizes.

Now, let’s see what you can do!

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

“What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, [...]]]>

“What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeeling brute. There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something. Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well. Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance. You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity — for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What can I say, this year is looking good. Another perfect day on my favorite beach. This is Juniper enjoying the crystal clear waters.

Willow came downstairs to ‘help’ me do some home improvement work. She had a red marker with her. She handed it to me “in case I needed” it. I noticed her hands were covered in red marker and I asked if she had drawn all over herself. Of course she denied any such activity. I [...]]]>

Willow came downstairs to ‘help’ me do some home improvement work. She had a red marker with her. She handed it to me “in case I needed” it. I noticed her hands were covered in red marker and I asked if she had drawn all over herself. Of course she denied any such activity. I do believe I caught her Red Handed!

Willow had her Kindy graduation last week. She’s been in childcare with about 6 of these kiddos since they were infants. They had a very cute little graduation ceremony complete with caps, gowns and diplomas. Next year, she’ll be in primary school.