Shun Photography

Sunix Pili - Thunderbolt Dock

2012-06-11T10:04:00.001-07:00

June 12, 2012 - It's coming all together! Today Sunix Pili Thunderdock station was introduced at the Taiwan Computex Show. It is assembled with everything I thought necessary for thunderbolt o take off as a mainstream gear. It comes with hot-swapping SATA Bay for upto 4TB, Kensington lock, cooling fan, single gigabit ethernet connectivity, dual thunerbolt channels for upto 6 thunderbolt devices and 1 native DisplayPort display, supporting both data (PCI Express) and video (DisplayPort) on a single cable connection.

The Sunix Pili integrates a 3.5-inch HDD enclosure, it includes a slim Blu-ray writer, four USB 3.0 ports, a high-speed multi-card reader with support for SD, MMC, MS, an xD media, and stereo audio playback using the SPDIF digital audio interface.

I predict the PC is well on its way to being modular and slim, like iPads and Ultrabooks. You only need to hook up a mouse and keyboard, WiFi or Bluetooth enabled to achieve a desktop configuration or a carry it with you like an iPad when you are on the move.

Boogle Your Mind

2012-04-21T00:08:00.000-07:00

1 Instant Portable Hotel

More info

2 Airport Atop Skyscraper!

Shun Album: Allusion

2012-02-23T18:23:00.002-08:00

2 3 5

Shun Album: Lofty

2012-02-23T18:22:00.002-08:00

2 3 5

Shun Album: Sweet & Simple

2012-02-23T18:16:00.002-08:00

2 4 5

Full-screen Blogger Websites

2012-02-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

Amazing Full-screen Blogger Websites

Shuttershot: Terrific Full-screen Photo-blog!
Shuttershot Template Download

Pro Secrets: Excellent Shots

2012-02-22T00:14:00.000-08:00

This Series features examples of photos that are outstanding. They will surely inspire you to work on the techniques shown.

1 - Amazing Dawn Images!
2 - Fabulous Selective Color Photos!

I search and locate Excellent Tutorials on Digital Imaging so you don't have to!

D800/800E Product Info

2012-02-07T01:41:00.001-08:00

Nikon D800 and D800E were launched today. Following are the promo vids released in conjunction with the launch. Amazingly, the D800E is able to capture high-speed action on video without using external lighting gear. Pictures produced are sharp and clear inspite of the adverse ambient condition. All I can say is - Wow!!
Joy-Ride
Behind the Scene
Norwegian Music Vid

Articles
Good Insightful Read - Thom Hogan: Nikon D800 / 800E Introduction
Luminous Landscape: D800 and D800E Comparison
Insightful Info on Nikon 800/E by Nikon Engineers

Video for Everybody

2012-02-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

Video for Everybody ("VfE") is a nifty HTML5 player implementation using an embedded Youtube player as the fall-back Flash player. VfE does not need javascript and vids will display across all browsers. However, without javascipt menu control is inconsistent across different platforms.

Notes:
a. The original vid is 640x360 - I can't amend the dimension to fit my page width. When W=600px the vid don't play. If the vid is to fit nicely on the page or vid box (width=600px) your vid dim must follow the same aspect ratio and have the same H and W as the vid box dim, a parameter you control if you produce your own vid. So what to do? Well, I adjusted the page width instead! * hehehe * Width adjustment is easy if you use a standard Blogger template. Solved: 11-Feb-12.

b. If the parameter 'autoplay' is included in the vid tag the vid will play automatically when you open the page. Omit it if you don't want that event.

Download Video: Closed Format: "MP4" Open Format: "OGG" / "WebM"

Recover deleted posts

Pro Secrets: Doug Boutwell - TotRad Tutorials

2012-02-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

Featuring Doug Boutwell of TotRad
Tutorial: Layers & Layer Mask
Tutorial: Pro Retouch

Tutorial: Orange & Blue

Using YinYang, BigBlue, Green
Tutorial: Photoshop Action Basics
Tutorial: In-Faux-Red and Lith-E-Yum!

Tutorial - f/zero

Tutorial: Installing Your Actions

Tutorial: Extending Your Dynamic Range

Blogger Pencil Edit Icon Goes Missing !

2012-02-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

Note: This is also posted on my other Greencoal blogs, useful for reference as I do edits on these other blogs too.

Bloggers find the blog post quick edit icon and wrench a great time-saver when they edit their blog. However, each time Firefox is upgraded the blog post edit pencil icon goes missing! * Arrggh * There are several causes, amongst which are possibly the anti-virus software setting. Example: in FF9 I investigated and switched off website filtering, and the pencil icon was restored on my blog posts! Other times it could be a security setting in your browser. The article below is a good read on the issue:

Blogger-edit-pencil-missing

UPDATE: 02-Feb 2012
I upgraded to FF ver 10 last nght, and sure enough, the pencil icon went awry! I tried the previous tweak but it did not work.

After spending the better part of the day googling and investigating the possible myriad causes, including resetting browser preferences, none of which worked, I decided to see what would happen if I closed and shutdown my anti-virus software.

After shutting down the AV program I closed firefox and re-open the browser again. And lo and behold - the pencil icon was restored! So my anti-virus program (always) was the culprit. But didn't I disable web-filtering in the anti-virus program? Yes, I did - but that didn't restore the pencil or edit wrench icon! I needed to shutdown the anti-virus program to restore the pencil icon. I also re-activated the anti-virus program; the edit-pencil icon still shows on the blog! Good.

To re-check, I shut down Firefox and re-open it again. The pencil icon still shows! Somehow, somewhere, something was broken in the AV program setting. Shutting it down and re-opening it was the only way to restore its setting and the pencil edit icon.

UPDATE: 26-Mar-12
Another cause of missing pencil icon is your browser privacy setting. Click on the wrench icon at the top right corner to access the Options page of Google Chrome. Next click on Under the Hood -> Content settings... and check 'Allow local data to be set (Recommended)' on the Cookies page. Close the Options page, refresh browser and the pencil icon should reappear.

Pro Secrets: Pictures-To-Exe

2012-02-01T05:36:00.000-08:00

Note: No label specifically for all P2E posts. Hence all P2E posts will not appear under the INDEX tab. To locate P2E posts use the Search button.

1 The Dom Text Effect Tutorial
1 The Dom Text Effect Tutorial
2 The Dom Pan, Zoom & Rotate

1 SteelOrchid
2 SteelOrchidP2E Part 2 - Timeline
3 SteelOrchidPan & Zoom
2 SteelOrchid
2 SteelOrchid
2 SteelOrchid
2 SteelOrchid
2 SteelOrchid

Photos on Wood

2012-01-30T19:14:00.000-08:00

DIY: Print Your Photos on Wood!

Learning Lightroom: Basic and Essential

2012-01-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

Preamble
I learnt Lightroom (or any other program) intuitively i.e. by trial-and-error: trying out the software, do one thing and see what happens, then do another and again watch what happens. Then repeating the process over and over again until I'm comfortable with the software to start using it productively. Many of us do that, don't we? Because who reads operating manuals nowadays? *grin*

When I hit a brick wall I would turn to the Net for answers and how-to's. Where would we be without the Net today? *grin*

Sometimes the info is available on forums or articles. But more often than not I quickly found they provide information that is not entirely related to my search query. I also found there are some basic info that shortened my learning curve. Which were not immediately apparent or self-evident. Such as "What is the purpose of a Lightroom Collection?" Or "How does one set up a Target Collection under the Develop Module?"

As someone who has gone through the learning process I hope to make it less of a hassle or pain for learning Lightroom by providing answers here on questions that confound the first-time user. However, instead of rehashing info that might already be available on the Net, I decided to save time and locate well-written and clearly articulated articles that provide real information. I will write only when I could not locate such info on the Net. I will also not talk about basic basics e.g. importance of backups of your photos, etc. Hence for some users they might not find answers to their questions here. My hope is that many will find the basic essential knowledge provided useful to them.

Preliminaries
Before you import your photos into Lightroom, you should organize your photo collection(s) on your PC hard disk. For instance, I organize my photos as follows:

From Camera -> PC Hard Disk -> Directory -> Folder: Photos -> Sub-folder: Client or Personal (i.e. main subject e.g. client: Shane-Alyssa -> not by date or camera or lens etc as such info are already captured in the photo EXIF metadata. Sub-folders under "Personal" could be Personal i.e. immediate family, Family (siblings and relatives), Friends, Birthday (temporary) and so on. Temporary folders allow me to have in one folder all the photos taken during an event. Weeks after the event, when relatives and friends have seen the photos

My file structure
Spend some time thinking through the filing system and structure, especially the name of the main subject folder. Having an organized file system helps to search and locate photos later. When deciding the name of the main subject, other possibilities came to mind: Date, Camera Name, Places, Cities, Landscapes, Pets, Macro, etc. Since these words could be keyword'ed or entered in metadata during the import into Lightroom, I dropped those in favor of "Client" and "Personal" as these 2 subjects are usually my main interests.

Basic Lessons
Following are the basic lessons I went through on learning Lightroom 4-beta. Bear that in mind as the informational videos below precede LR4 and some things have changed in LR4.

Why create a Collection?
Difference between a Regular and Smart Collection
Basic considerations: Importing photos into Lightroom 3
Watermark Your Photos: Quick, Simple, Easy!
Creating Import Presets

Spot Removal in Lightroom

..to be Continued

Basic Masking in CS5

Animated Image

Burst of Light

Crop to Fixed Ratio in PS

Quick Easy Workflow in LR - A Starting Point

Seim's Historam Lesson

Pro Secrets: Retouching & Skin Tone

2012-01-13T21:15:00.001-08:00

Featuring TotRad Action at the 4m:15s mark

Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta Preview

2012-01-10T20:17:00.001-08:00

Adobe has finally done it! Yes, it has bundled a book-making module inside the Lightroom package. That makes LR4 extremely productive and efficient for wedding photographers and will persuade many to switch to Lightroom from PSCS5. Wow !!

The One

2012-01-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

Today is 9-Jan-2011, barely a few days after 6-Jan-2011, the date Nikon launched the D4, its latest and greatest camera. I could title the post 'D4' or something like that to cash-in on the widespread excitment and interest in the D4 launch. But that would be pretentious and falsely enticing readers to this blog simply to increase pageviews, etc. Hence the post title, a tribute to a truly great camera - but without any allusion to Nikon! I have nothing to add to what's already available on Youtube. Plus obviously I don't have any hands-on experience to tell! So why then embed the D4 promotional vid? Because, folks, Nikon has finally nailed the competition with this one! The D4 is undisputedly the One to get and own! The quality of the videos captured by the D4 is simply Astounding! It is what clinches it for me this time! So this post gathers all the vital info relating to the D4, all in one convenient place! I do the searches so you don't have to!

Above: Bill Frakes on Shooting with the D4
For more detailed information on the production of "WHY" & "HOW of WHY" and the Nikon D4, check out our blog and the Nikon Professional Services Global site.
http://news.coreyrich.com/
http://nps.nikonimaging.com/movie_shooting_guide/

UPDATE: 01-02-12
Did you also know that the XQD can store up tp a massive of 2 terabytes? Wow, that surely would one day be used on laptops. ultrabooks, etc and yes, the Modular PC - made possible by Intel's new innovation Thunderbolt technology! The following article is an excellent read on the new Sony storage format for digital cameras employed in the D4: Sony XQD card in Nikon D4
Professional Insight: Vincent Munier's Take on the D4
Joe McNally & Bill Frakes on the D4

Pro Secrets: Macro Photography

2012-01-08T09:45:00.001-08:00

Taking Great Insect Photos
Shutter Speed in Macro Photography
Storytelling in Macro Photography

Pro Secrets: Wedding

2012-01-08T09:44:00.001-08:00

Wedding Photography Lesson

Pro Secrets: Photoshop & Lightroom

2012-01-08T09:42:00.001-08:00

Good Interesting How-To Articles
Using LR4 Retouching Presets
Character & Symbol Codes
Windows: Alt Key Numeric Codes
PS Retouching Workflow by Joey L.
Layer Masks in Photoshop

Videos
Textures Overlay

Color Correction in Camera Raw
Retouching Eyes and Teeth
Portrait and Beauty Retouching
Julieanne Kost

Pro Secrets: Basic Concepts

2012-01-08T09:41:00.001-08:00

ARTICLES
1 - What is Photojournalism?
Most photographers here loosely use the term wedding photojournalism to describe their style of shooting weddings in a natural way - unrehearsed, unposed, unplanned, waiting for the moment. Yes, partially correct but certainly not totally correct usage and application of the concept. This pro describes her photojournalistic approach in the context of a portrait shoot. I believe that is the correct interpretation of the term.

Here's the read: Achieve perfect portrait expression

2 - What does it take to be a * real * photographer?
Before you take the plunge into full-time photography as a career choice, do you have what it takes and know the costs? Well, this photographer certainly knows and is a real pro! This is her cool and measured response to a public "Why do photographers charge so much?" advert put up by a bride-to-be. She also reveals what she does daily to earn her keep and what the job entails. We all can admire her integrity, drive, passion. Wannabe pros - heed the invaluable insights she provided!

3 - Workflow for Digital Imaging Post-Processing

VIDEOS
After weeks of exhaustive search these are the better ones from the heaps and tons of videos *sigh* regurgitated by Google Search. It is an on-going, continual search for good, watchable videos from the spam and garbage that is ubiquitous on the Net. Enjoy these vids!

1 - Workflow

2 - Working from Home as a Pro Photographer

3 - Photo Composition
4 - Multimedia Storytelling by Bob Kris
5 - Visual Design of a Photograph
6 - Depth of Field Explained
7 - How to Use Your Lens Angle of View
8 - Awesome! A top fashion photographer explains

Pro Secrets: Speedlight & Studio Lighting

2012-01-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Posing and Lighting with Bambi Cantrell
Studio Lighting with Zack Arias 1
Studio Lighting with Zack Arias 2
Studio Lighting Essentials
Lighting Persona
High Speed Photography

Keywording, Categorizing & Labelling Your Photos

2011-11-10T14:52:00.001-08:00

Keywords
Adobe: Keywords

Lightzone - We'll Miss You!

2011-11-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

Excellent Digital Tool

Blogger's New Dynamic Views

2011-11-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Dynamic Views on Blogger