And thanks Liz for being such an awesome hand model!

Growing in the U-District from Daniel Nelson.

Materials: Maple sprouts, Maple leaves, Madrona bark, lashed twine, metal tacks, hot glue, and an acorn squash (as a jig).

Castle Making from Daniel Nelson on Vimeo.

Bottom line: the MBP with retina really is all that, growing pains and all.

The Awesome? Not counting the loss of downtime from freezing and crashing, it feels about 4x faster than my 2007 MBP for just about everything: boot times, responsiveness in intensive applications, batch operations, everything. The added cpu cores and memory also dramatically raises the ceiling on multitasking. And the screen is surreal. Even though there are only a few applications that fully support the 1800x2880px resolution, the difference is appreciable almost everywhere in clear text. With the high quality IPS display and quadrupled level of detail (from a 900x1440px display), I feel like I can actually see my photos for the first time. Subtle differences like the out of focus areas in an f/16 vs a f/22 photo are discernible onscreen, where I would have had to make print enlargements to see them before. Adobe is stalling to announce the details of their intent to support, but I do most of my work in Aperture, which already supports the resolution beautifully. Added awesomeness points for the smaller form factor, cooler running temperatures, lighter weight, better battery, better wifi connectivity, and more durable enclosure.

The growing pains? Living with the glare that comes with a glass screen (renders deeper tonal range, but I do feel more distanced from work), switching from a silent mush style keyboard to a crisp chiclet, minimal choices of retina software for the time being, occasional glitches in graphics rendering, no ethernet, optical drive or DVI out, and having to replace perfectly good pieces of non-supported firewire hardware (I did make a $10 profit over the purchase price of my discontinued CF firewire card reader, though). The biggest headache is just refusing to migrate using Apple’s migration assistant (and so bring 5 years of bloat with me). Migrating data and programs has probably been a week of full time work: buying new hard drives, leaving lots of overnight data transfers, overnight backups, secure wiping, reformatting, and selling old drives, tracking down serial numbers, re-installing programs and drivers, rebuilding preferences, upgrading databases, etc. Not a complaint with the computer specifically, but something to think about if upgrading.

What this means? Overall, the biggest change is something that’s hard to put a finger on. I think it is that this computer actually feels less digital, less a product of the computer age. The fans are pretty much the only moving part, the screen brightness and audio levels gradate smoothly (almost imperceptible), and the always-visible trace of the pixel grid is almost gone unless your face is 5 inches from the screen. I imagine it feels like old DOS users switching to a GUI or (conversely) like the inexplicable joy of returning to an old 8bit NES game system. There’s a certain nostalgia and sense of comfort that disappears with the loss of a perceptible pixel grid. The grid meant you could see how everything was made, how it hooked together. Now that’s gone.

For as long as I’ve used computers, I have hoped that the digital age would be a blip in human history, that computers would mold to how we work instead of the other way around. The retina display is a big step in this direction, and I welcome this change, but there is a strong sense of disorientation that comes with it.

Note on context: I work as a photographer, pixel artist, and interdisciplinary freelance designer. Up until a few weeks ago, my primary computer had been 2007 MBP, one of the last models before the unibody design. So this upgrade for me leapfrogs an entire generation of hardware and my reactions to the rMBP mix my reactions to the 2008-2012 unibody designs with factors that are specific to the new Macbook Pro with retina.

And as excited as I am for this mission, it does bring up a peeve of mine. I know we’re all curious about water and the origins of life, but honestly, for every five spacecraft that we send with reasonable scientific queries, we should be sending one or two strictly out of aesthetic curiosity and to pursue our thirst for awe. We’ve sent a bunch of probes and landers to Mars, yet, as far as I know, Voyager 2 (from the 80’s) is the only craft to have gone anywhere near Neptune or Uranus.

NASA, the Curiosity probe looks awesome, but next time can we send something to Io or Triton?

(Infographic below by Space.com and links to their excellent article describing landing process)

Click to view full-sized version... and feel free to download and use as a wallpaper.
(At 1440x900px, this file is best sized for a 15" Macbook Pro)

]]> http://portfolio.curiousimagery.com/2012/04/stars-in-the-lake-washington-arboretum/feed/ 3 http://portfolio.curiousimagery.com/2012/03/lime-kiln-trail-in-infrared/ http://portfolio.curiousimagery.com/2012/03/lime-kiln-trail-in-infrared/#respond Mon, 05 Mar 2012 01:45:47 +0000 http://portfolio.curiousimagery.com/?p=1957 I celebrated Dr. Suess’s birthday (and my own) this weekend by hiking with friends on the Lime Kiln Trail near Granite Falls. My big kid camera is having some maintenance done, so I brought out my old Sony Cybershot that I’ve set up to capture infrared light. So, without further adieu, here’s the lime kiln trail in infrared!

The longer I live in a city, the more upset I get about unhealthy spaces. Why do we voluntarily immerse ourselves in a toxic environment full of concrete and garbage? Tragically, it seems like those on the margins get hit hardest by pollution, gentrification, and “progress” in general.

In contrast, I’m very encouraged by the upcoming Beacon Hill Food Forest. It is designed to transform seven acres of Jefferson Park into a community garden. The project is a collaboration between an NGO, the neighborhood, and the city government. Here’s the official statement:

“Our goal is to design, plant and grow an edible urban forest garden that inspires our community to gather together, grow our own food and rehabilitate our local ecosystem.”

The plan is to break soil this summer and continue growing until seven acres are covered. I’m excited! Learn more on the Beacon Food Forest site or their Facebook page.

Phase 1 - to be developed this year

Phase 2 - seven acres over several years

I’ve been an Aperture user since version 1.5 and the program has grown up a lot since then. Even though Adobe’s Lightroom has emerged as the clear winner for most photographers, I’ve continually found reasons to stay in Aperture. Most important to me is the actual output quality. Especially for RAW images, Aperture seems to render better tones and colors. From a workflow perspective, I also strongly prefer Aperture’s UI. Some of this may just be familiarity, but I love being able to call up an editing HUD in any phase of a project—it seems crazy to lock this into a unique “module.” And, even though most of Aperture’s headlining features (places, faces, FB integration) are more hype than they’re worth, the built-in book designer is powerful, fluid, and intuitive. In my photography business, this gives me an efficient solution for professional album design.

My prediction? The cutting edge is moving away from Pros.

Apple will confound professionals and delight enthusiasts. Like Final Cut Pro X and Aperture 3, Apple will target the bigger prosumer market and pioneer new features that appeal to enthusiasts and pros, but aren’t quite ready for professional use. I’m specifically anticipating tools to author photo and video content together and more powerful controls for DSLR video editing. Hold-outs like me will have to choose between having new features now (in a prosumer package from Apple) or waiting 2-3 years for Adobe to integrate these features into a professional workflow. I think we’re seeing this trend already with Lightroom 4’s book module.

A wish list for Aperture 4. What could make me stay?

Based on Apple’s previous release schedule, Aperture 4 is due out any second now, and Lightroom 4 is already in Beta. I’m close to jumping ship, but there are some changes that would entice me to stay:

1. Dramatically improve stability and speed. Aperture 3 is an improvement, but it still regularly crashes and gets hung when closing. After long periods of editing, the memory bloats uncontrollably.
2. Smaller database sizes.
3. Fix crop tool and straighten tool. It feels like a hack every time I use them.
4. Better integration with two displays, ability to alternate the primary display.
5. Ability to adjust opacity of all edits (i.e. I have to modify the shape of a curve to change it, I should be able to just set it to 80%)
6. Gradient masks in addition to brushing effects in and out (especially helpful for dynamic range issues with skies)
7. Usable detect edge feature on brushes.
8. Blending modes on adjustments and brushes.
9. Equivalent of content aware fill (I spend way too much time cloning out unwanted details)
10. Integrate popular plug-ins by onOne and NIK.
11. Deeper backend integration with 3rd party plug-ins (whether or not you use an aperture plug in or use an external program, you get a 60MB + file)
12. Layers and layer masks. Built in Panorama and HDR editors that source from multiple images.
13. Supplement editing presets with powerful custom FX engine. This would enable image editors to make custom multi-layered adjustments to images using photo textures, blending modes, custom masks, layer adjustments, blend modes, etc. The existing material shaders in 3D programs like Autodesk Maya are already very similar to this.
14. Better RAW processing, specifically noise reduction and sharpness
15. Ability to organize referenced photos from Finder without corrupting Aperture library
16. Real believable lens blur, ability to mimic natural grain on affected areas
17. Integrated lens correction tool
18. Tool to select regions based on focus—this would use image sharpness to create a depth mask that could be used for decreasing depth of field, adding atmospheric haze, selective vignetting, etc. I’d love to see this in Photoshop as well!
19. More control over how stacks work (currently they’re not useful if you might ever need to use more than 1 image within a stack)
20. Library-wide tool to sort by color relationships, feature to identify duplicate and near-duplicate files.
21. Improved key-wording workflow for stock photography
22. Better presets for books and slideshows—it’s either cheesy or all manual right now.
23. For books: more control over which auto alignments are suggested and ability to set/save/load guides and center points (in addition to page presets).
24. More press options for printing from Apple (paper types, fold out spreads, binding types, cover materials, metallic inks, etc.).
25. Built in ordering and wholesale pricing for photo note cards and other print products.
26. Real color grading for DSLR video, deep integration with Final Cut X
27. Powerful built-in authoring tools for combining photos and video. Output for web, tablets, interactive Blue-ray/DVDs, and native iOS Apps.
28. Ability to completely disable “Faces”

What features would you add?

The little snowman was made by some unknown collaborator.