Hey everyone! Just wanted to get one more post in there before I took off for the weekend. We are presently running a Layers Back Page Design Contest that is scheduled to end on MONDAY – and the winner of it get’s a sweet drive, courtesy of our friends at Fotolia. Our editor, Chris Main shares with us the details of this contest. Now, obviously I can’t win the contest, but I thought it be fun to make up something to share of what I would like an AR thing to do, conecptually:

The Mission

In the “How’d They Do That?” cover story in the September/October 2009 issue of Layers magazine (p. 30), we learn about augmented reality (AR). Most of the AR examples mentioned in the article use a printed marker to trigger the AR experience. Your mission is twofold: First, create an AR marker for a fictitious movie appropriately titled The Marker. You can give your movie any theme you desire (i.e., science fiction, action/adventure, drama, comedy, etc.). For a couple of great marker examples, check out the one for Star Trek at www.experience-the-enterprise.com and the one for District 9 at www.multinationalunited.com/training.

The second part of the challenge is to create an image of the actual AR experience. In other words, you’ll need to show yourself holding the marker in a webcam picture along with the 3D image being projected out of the marker. Keep in mind, we’re just looking for a static image, not a real animated AR effect. The image from the marker should be something straight out of your made-up movie The Marker.

More information on the contest here! Good luck everyone!!!

Dreamweaver makes it easy to add Flash Video to your webpages, but if you want to display your video in QuickTime format, you’ll have to take care of the various settings and other options yourself. In the following steps, you’ll learn how to easily control and customize your QuickTime videos in Dreamweaver. (Note: This tutorial works for both Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and CS4. The instructions will also work with Windows Media video and other formats, but the parameters will have to be adjusted for those formats).

1 PREPARE QUICKTIME VIDEO IN A VIDEO EDITOR
Although you can insert many different types of video into your pages in Dreamweaver, you’ll first need to edit and convert the video in a video editor, such as Adobe Premiere Pro (shown here).

Click here to read the rest of the tutorial

1 PREPARE QUICKTIME VIDEO IN A VIDEO EDITOR
Although you can insert many different types of video into your pages in Dreamweaver, you’ll first need to edit and convert the video in a video editor, such as Adobe Premiere Pro (shown here).

2 OPEN THE INSERT PANEL IN DREAMWEAVER
Dreamweaver’s Insert panel (Window>Insert) provides a handy collection of options, including the Insert>Media>Plugin feature you’ll need for adding video in QuickTime, Windows Media, or any format other than Flash. If you’re using Dreamweaver CS4, you have the option to keep the Insert panel at the top of the workspace using the CS3 workspace layout (Window>Workspace Layout>Classic) or integrate it into the panels, as we’ve done here. (Note: In Dreamweaver CS3, this feature is called the Insert Bar and it’s only available at the top of the workspace.)

3 INSERT QUICKTIME FILE
First, place your cursor where you want to add the video in your webpage. Then, with the Insert panel open and the drop-down menu at the top set to Common, click the arrow to open the drop-down menu next to the Media icon and select Plugin (note that the Media icon changes to reflect whatever you last selected). Alternatively, you can choose Insert>Media>Plugin.

4 SELECT THE QUICKTIME FILE
If you’ve used the Insert Flash Video (FLV) options in Dreamweaver, you may be surprised that when you add video in other formats using the Plugin option, you won’t be presented with a dialog that contains settings for size or other video options. Don’t worry; just select the QuickTime file for now (as you would if you were inserting an image into the page—just Control-click [PC: Right-click] on the Plugin icon and select Source File). You’ll get a chance to set the size and other settings in the following steps.

5 SPECIFY SIZE IN THE PROPERTY INSPECTOR
Because Dreamweaver can’t automatically detect the size of a QuickTime file, you’ll need to specify the size after you insert it into the page. To do so, click to select the 32×32 icon that Dreamweaver inserts in place of the video and then enter the actual size of the video in pixels in the W (width) and H (height) fields in the Property inspector. The video file we’re using in this lesson is 720×480 pixels. Once you input the sizes, the icon will expand to the specified size.

6 ADD A PLUGIN PAGE URL
With the video selected, you can also use the Property inspector to add a Plugin Page URL. The Web address you enter in the Plg URL field will be displayed in place of the video if the visitor to your site doesn’t have the QuickTime player installed on his or her system. If you’re using QuickTime video, the Plugin URL is http://www.apple.com/quicktime.

7 ALIGN YOUR VIDEO FILE
Although you can use the Align drop-down menu in the Property inspector to align your video, the better option is to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). In this example, we’ve created class styles named .float-right and .float-left using the Float options in the Box category of the CSS Rule Definition dialog. To create a new class style, click on the New CSS Rule icon in the CSS Styles panel, choose Class in the drop-down menu, name your style, and click OK to enter the CSS Rule Definition dialog. (You’ll find lots more information about creating and using class styles on the Layers magazine website in the Dreamweaver tutorials section.)

8 SPECIFY A BORDER, V SPACE, AND H SPACE
To add a border to your video, enter the size you want in pixels in the Border field in the Property inspector. You can also add V Space and H Space (vertical and horizontal space, respectively). When you use H space and V space, you add margins to the top and bottom or left and right. If you define a style in CSS to specify margins and border, you’ll have more options and can choose to add margin space to any or all of the sides of the video, as well as change the color and style of the border.

9 USE PARAMETERS FOR ADVANCED SETTINGS
For more advanced options and settings, you’ll use the Parameters option in Dreamweaver and you’ll need to know the parameter options specific to QuickTime (or whatever video format you’re using). To open the Parameters dialog, click on the Parameters button in the Property inspector (remember, the video must be selected for these options to display in the Property inspector).

10 SET VIDEO TO LOOP WITH PARAMETERS
If you want your video to play in a continuous loop, use the Parameters dialog, enter “loop” as the Parameter and “true” as the Value, and click OK. Most parameters work this way with true being the setting to turn an option on, and false the setting to turn an option off. Thus, if you set the Parameter to “loop” and the Value to “false,” the video won’t loop.

11 TURN OFF AUTOPLAY
To add additional parameters, click the plus (+) sign at the top of the Parameters dialog and then enter each parameter and value on its own line. Another popular QuickTime parameter is Autoplay. To prevent the video from playing when the page loads, enter the Parameter “autoplay” with the Value “false.”

12 MORE PARAMETERS
You’ll find more parameters and Embed settings for QuickTime at www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/embed2.html. Another popular option is to include the video controller using the Parameter “controller” and Value “true.” To hide the controller, set the Value to “false.” And here’s an advanced tip: For the controller to display properly, you need to add 16 pixels to the Height of the video in the Property inspector. So the new Height in this example would be 496 pixels.

13 PRESS PLAY TO PREVIEW
Dreamweaver CS4 makes it possible to preview the video in the Dreamweaver workspace. Just select the video and press the Play button in the Property inspector and the video should play much as it would in a Web browser with the QuickTime plug-in. You can also preview your work by using the Browser preview option (File>Preview in Browser). (Note: You must have the QuickTime plug-in installed on your computer for the QuickTime video to play in a Web browser.)

(Editor’s Note: The current Layers Back Page Design Contest is based on the following article from the Sept/Oct 2009 issue of Layers magazine. But if you want a chance to win a 1.5-TB Guardian MAXimus quad interface hard drive and $200 in credits from www.fotolia.com, you better hurry because the deadline is November 16, 2009. Click here for more information.)

In a recent issue of Layers magazine, we asked readers to submit their favorite print, Web, and video designs currently in the marketplace. In turn, we promised to track down the original creators and force them to tell us their secrets (as it turns out, all we had to do was ask politely—everyone we spoke to was very nice and accommodating).

Anyway, after going through all the submissions, there were two that really captured our attention: the GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality (AR) website and the Black Day to Freedom video by Rob Chiu. In fact, we asked so many interview questions about these two projects that we ran out of room for any of the print submissions. But don’t worry, we’ve sent all the print submissions to Corey and RC over at Layers TV and have asked them to cover “How’d They Do That?” in a future episode. So after you read this article, be sure to keep an eye out on www.layersmagazine.com/layers-tv.

CHANGING YOUR REALITY

AR will have you seeing things in a different way

When the GE Smart Grid Augmented Reality website was brought to our attention, our productivity took a major hit for a good 25–30 minutes. If you haven’t seen AR in action, then you’ll have to check this one out for yourself. So before you read any further, launch your Web browser and head on over to http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality. Follow the instructions for Getting Started on the right side of the screen, because you’ll first need to print a page to use for the demonstration and you’ll need a webcam. Don’t worry, take your time. You’ll find that magazine pages can be very patient.

(What’s taking you so long?)

Oh, there you are. Welcome back. Pretty mind-blowing stuff, eh? AR has actually been around for some time now, but it’s a technology that hasn’t quite made it into the mainstream yet, so it’s still new to a lot of people. But as we were working on the story, AR seemed to be popping up in the news everywhere we turned.

According to the GE website, they used FLARToolKit (FL for Flash and AR for augmented reality). FLARToolKit—developed by Tomohiko Koyama (a.k.a. Saqoosha) and Ryo Iizuka—is an ActionScript 3 version of ARToolKit, which is the original C version of the application. ARToolKit was originally developed 10 years ago by Hirokazu Kato, a Professor at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, and then commercially licensed by ARToolworks (www.artoolworks.com).

Armed with this knowledge, we decided to start with ARToolworks and trace the path that AR took to end up on the GE Smart Grid website. (By the way, if you find yourself wanting to venture into the world of augmented reality, ARToolworks offers commercial licenses for both versions of the ToolKit. [You may want to link to the opensource sites]For the open source download of ARToolKit for noncommercial use, visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/artoolkit.)

In the Beginning: ARToolworks
For the first stop on our journey, we’ll speak with Mark Billinghurst from ARToolworks. Mark is one of the founders of ARToolworks and was also involved with developing ARToolKit with Hirokazu Kato when they were both at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Layers: So, Mark, would you define the term “augmented reality” for us?

Mark: Augmented reality is technology that overlays computer graphics onto the real world in real time to create the illusion that three-dimensional virtual images are part of a user’s real environment. Computer scientist, Ron Azuma, says that augmented reality has three key characteristics: It combines real and virtual images; it’s interactive in real time; and the virtual images are registered in 3D.

Layers: How did the concept for augmented reality first come about and how was it developed?

Mark: Augmented reality has a long history, beginning with early experiments with head-mounted displays by Ivan Sutherland over 40 years ago. Since then a lot of interesting research has been done by the military and in university and industry laboratories—but using very expensive, specialized technology. However, in the last 10 years, AR has become cheap enough and easy enough to use that it’s getting far more widespread. A key part of this was the development of ARToolKit by Hirokazu Kato 10 years ago. That software uses computer vision to track the user’s viewpoint and overlay virtual images over live video of the real world. For the first time, this made it easy for programmers to create AR applications. Now, people can have an AR experience through their game console, personal computer, Web browser, or mobile phone, so millions of people can easily have access to the technology.

Layers: What kind of hardware and software is needed to create and view augmented reality?

Mark: To view AR content, a user needs a camera, computer processor, and display. For most people this means plugging a USB camera into their desktop or laptop computer, but other devices such as mobile phones can also be used. To create an AR experience, people can use low-level tools such as ARToolKit, in which case they’ll need to be comfortable with computer programming. However, the development of FLARToolKit means that people with Flash programming experience can build their own AR websites. Most recently, tools such as BuildAR by the HIT Lab NZ (www.hitlabnz.org/wiki/BuildAR), also based on ARToolKit, can be used by nonprogrammers to easily create AR scenes.

Layers: Where do you currently see augmented reality being used and how do you see it being used in the future?

Mark: Augmented reality has many possible applications. Currently, it’s being used as a fantastic marketing tool, and also in computer games and certain niche areas such as medical visualization and industrial manufacturing. In the future, mobile phone-based AR will become more common and used for activities such as personal navigation or location-based social networking. [See “AR Goes Mobile.”—Ed.] I think the technology also has great potential for educational applications that teach in entirely new ways.

Let There Be Flash: FLARToolKit
Now it’s time to move on to the Flash version of ARToolKit. We think this is the version that most of our readers will be interested in. As mentioned earlier, one of the developers of the FLARToolKit was Saqoosha, CTO of Katamari Inc. (http://katamari.co.jp)—a Web creative company in Japan. He also has a blog at http://saqoosha.net/en.

Layers: When did you first learn about ARToolKit, and why did you feel there was a need for a Flash version?

Saqoosha: I read an article on ARToolKit in June 2007 [http://kougaku-navi.net/ARToolKit.html]. That was my first contact with ARToolKit. The original C version of ARToolKit required you to download and install the application to experience AR. Most people don’t want to bother with a procedure like that.

But I was very interested in AR technology and intended to tell a lot of people about ARToolKit. Flash Player is widely installed, so I thought that if ARToolKit could be use on Flash Player, many people could easily experience AR.

Layers: What kind of projects have you used FLARToolKit for?

Saqoosha: My first project using FLAR was Desktop Fireworks [http://vimeo.com/1634128]. This was very experimental and a very simple example of how to use FLAR. I recently did another FLAR project for a campaign that supported the Japan National Soccer Team with messages from supporters. The messages input at the stadium fly out from the marker [http://vimeo.com/5012399].

And North Kingdom Said It Was Good: GE Smart Grid
The GE Smart Grid site was developed by North Kingdom (www.northkingdom.com), a Swedish interactive design firm founded in 2003. According to North Kingdom’s mission statement, “Our talented team of artists have a single, unified vision to push brands to new places, bringing every facet to life through interaction, imagination, and innovation—it’s what we call our design DNA.” They’ve proven this with their creative use of AR. In addition to GE, they’ve also done work for Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Vodafone. We’ll speak with one of North Kingdom’s co-founders, Roger Stighäll.

Layers: When Goodby Silverstein & Partners/GE first approached North Kingdom about the Smart Grid project, was AR already part of the grand scheme? How did the AR portion of the project progress from beginning to end?

Roger: Goodby were the ones to bring up AR as a potential ingredient for the campaign. For a long time we had been curious about AR, but never actually got our hands really into doing it. Since the field was quite unexplored to both us and Goodby, we got a couple of weeks to do R&D, to figure out what was achievable. We had a lot of fun (and certainly also frustrating times) trying to make the most out of the AR experience.

We had a very organic and open approach to the development of the AR experience. We set out with the idea that the object should come out of the marker and somehow be interactive, and then we added new features along the way. Some ideas were tested and canned, the ones you see survived. The simplicity of FLARToolKit is its main feature, so the implementation of the kit was very fast—basically the first thing we did.

Layers: How advanced does a Flash developer need to be to really take advantage of FLARToolKit?

Roger: You don’t need to be a star. It’s very simple if you have a basic understanding of 3D graphics. There are loads of very good tutorials that any AS programmers could wrap their heads around.

Layers: Does North Kingdom have any future plans for AR?

Roger: Certainly, this is a fun and eye-catching area, so we’ll continue to play with this as long as we think we can create interesting experiences in this field. We are concepting some interesting AR ideas that hopefully will come to life this fall.

AR goes mobile

Want to see some really cool AR applications for mobile? Then check out the Wikitude AR Travel Guide (www.mobilizy.com). Developed for the Android platform, this app is based on Wikipedia, Qype, and Panoramio. Through the use of AR, digital information about landscapes and landmarks is overlayed on the live view image of the cell phone.

SPRXMobile also just recently announced their first mobile AR browser at http://layar.eu. Just like Wikitude, Layar uses a combination of the phone’s camera, GPS, and compass to overlay real-time digital information on top of the mobile device’s screen. Layar can help you find ATMs, houses for sale, hotels, etc. Be sure to watch the cool video demo. Currently, this app is also only available for Android devices, but we can’t imagine that the iPhone would be too far behind now that the new iPhone 3GS has a digital compass.

Practical applications

See how BMW is putting augmented reality to work. Visit www.bmw.com/com/en/owners/service/augmented_reality_workshop_1.html and check out the demo video under Related Topics.

Some not-so-practical, but really cool, applications

If you’re a Star Trek or Transformers fan like we are, then you’ll get a kick out of these AR experiences from Total Immersion (www.t-immersion.com). You’ll probably need to install the plug-in for your browser, but it’s worth the effort.

EMOTIONS IN MOTION

How video can help us better understand our world

The Layers’ reader who recommended Rob Chiu, recommended his entire body of work, so we spent the better part of an afternoon reviewing all the pieces Rob had available at http://theronin.co.uk/Motion. From the technical beauty to the eye-catching, seamlessly integrated effects to the strong emotional impact, we found ourselves completely engaged in every single video.

Based in London, Rob has worked in the field of short film and motion design since 2000. Under the working alias of The Ronin, he has produced narrative-based works for clients such as Leica Camera, BBC, Greenpeace, EMI Records, Nokia, Channel 4, and 20th Century Fox. His short films have been featured in a number of film festivals including Edinburgh, onedotzero, RESFEST, and Clermont-Ferrand. In 2005, his three-minute, animation-based documentary on psychosis for Channel 4/APT Films won the award for best animated short in Canada. His short films Black Day to Freedom and Things Fall Apart have toured extensively as part of the festival circuit, winning numerous awards along the way.

In fact, it’s Black Day to Freedom that we’re going to focus on here. According to Rob, the film was “created as a fictional back-story to the global problem of the displacement of peoples. It portrays a city in turmoil with the loss and tragedy of a young family at the center of the tale.” After we recovered from some the very powerful imagery contained in the film, we learned that Rob animated it entirely in After Effects—he hadn’t used any 3D applications at all. It was time to ask Rob some questions.

Layers: Let’s begin with a little bit about you. You originally started out as a print designer. When did you first know that you wanted to be a filmmaker?

Rob: I’ve always wanted to tell stories whether through music, design, or film. I started in print design, as that was the easiest route back then. I was heavily influenced by the likes of David Carson, Neville Brody, and Attik and was drawn into the world of Photoshop. I naturally moved into After Effects after discovering that it was relatively similar to Photoshop with the added bonus of a Timeline. The first version I used was 3.1, so it’s going back a bit now. While I was working in a design agency, I studied for a BA degree in Graphic Design and used the course as an output for my personal work. After teaching myself the basics of After Effects, I submitted a short AE-based film as my final piece, and then used that to launch my career in moving images. I’m now slowly moving away from pure motion design and moving into live action film directing—but it basically all evolved from a love of print design.

Layers: You’re also a photographer. Does your photography play a factor in any of your productions?

Rob: Mainly, I use photography as a tool to experiment with framing, lenses, depth of field. I then take away what I’ve learned from taking stills and apply it to my film-based work. It allows me to get on the same page with a DoP [director of photography] really quickly and definitely allows me to be more confident when directing something. Secondly, I use my photography for storyboarding and style frames. When I boarded the Webbys intro, I used a series of photos that I had taken over the years as a reference for the client as to how I intended to shoot and grade the piece. Lastly, I occasionally do the odd illustration for magazines such as .net or Computer Arts and I base my designs on photographs that I take.

Layers: Can you give us a short list of the equipment that you use, including cameras and software?

Rob: It all depends on the production. I don’t own that much kit and the stuff I do own is used mainly for personal projects, as it’s not professional gear. I recently shot a short film on two RED cameras—one hand-held, the other on steadicam—but there’s no way on earth that I could afford to actually own this kind of gear. As far as my own gear, I own a couple of Macs—a MacBook Pro and an older G5 tower, which I’m soon getting rid of for a new iMac due to the space limitations at home. Cameras I have include a Canon HV20 HDV camcorder with a Letus adaptor with Nikon lens mount. This allows me to put prime lenses on the front of the Canon so that I can get some depth of field. I shot Left Unsaid entirely with that setup. I also own a Nikon D200 with a few lenses. Installed on my Macs are CS4 Master Suite, Final Cut Pro, and some font-management programs but that’s about it really.

Layers: Where did the concept for Black Day to Freedom come from and what was your ultimate goal for the film?

Rob: Way back in 2004, The University of Huddersfield approached me about filming some computer training sessions they were putting on for asylum seekers in the UK. I ran around following these courses and quickly realized there was little point to the film and it was going to end up being a missed opportunity. I proposed that we should talk to the asylum seekers, find out why they were here, and have them write some poems and stories on what had happened to them that made them leave their homes. I then took all this material and collated it into one story, which became Black Day to Freedom. The name came from one of the poems; it’s actually incorrect, as it should be Black Day for Freedom, but as that was what was written on the paper I kept it, as it felt right.

My ultimate goal at the time for the film was to show people what was happening overseas with the whole invasion of Iraq and the mass displacement of people. At the time there was a lot of negative press about asylum seekers taking all the money and housing, but no one really gave much thought to why they were even here. We packaged it all up as a DVD with a book that featured over 30 illustrators and designers worldwide and then sold it online for a short while. The film did pretty well in short film festivals and really helped cement me as a motion designer and short filmmaker. Even to this day when I talk at conferences, this is the most well-received piece out of everything I’ve done. I’m really proud of it!

Layers: Why did you decide to use only After Effects to animate Black Day to Freedom?

Rob: Mainly because I had no other way of achieving the epic scale of the film with any other tool. It was impossible to film something like this, and at that time I had no idea how to even go about doing that. The other reason is that I have absolutely no working knowledge of any 3D program, so I decided to do it in AE, which was a challenge, but I think gives the whole piece a very unique look and tone.

Layers: Could you briefly run us through how the film was created?

Rob: After writing out a rough treatment, we shot friends and ourselves for the characters; in fact, anyone we could get to stand in as a reference. My brother, who is an illustrator, then hand drew each character and created the illustration style. These were then individually scanned and cut out in Photoshop. I created the buildings using textures and line drawings—a bit of a mixture of the two really. Everything was built as a three-dimensional object in After Effects, so if you look at it properly, it’s basically just loads of boxes etc., but it worked out okay by using textures and trying to push AE as far as I could.
I even managed to just about pull off some helicopters! There was one scene where the helicopters are flying above the buildings; it’s a 10-second clip and it took forever to render out because of the complexity of the buildings. In hindsight, I would have created some low-res proxies of the buildings, but at the time I was still learning how to do it and kind of making it up as I went along, so I put the camera really high up and used the full-size buildings, which were something like 6000 pixels high each. Crazy!

Layers: In certain sections of the film, the scene switches to color for a brief second and jumps around. How does this technique, as well as your general use of color throughout, add to the overall impact of the film?

Rob: I came up with that effect by mistake. I had rendered out a clip of the scene with a sky and one without, as I was trying to decide whether to go with a sky or without. I was turning one off revealing the other and back on again and thought that it looked pretty cool. So when the moment of violence really starts to get crazy, this whole glitch-type effect occurs, jolting the viewer momentarily. I think it worked pretty well when combined with the audio dropping out except for the sound of a reporter’s voice. It’s actually my favorite scene in the film and the one people usually ask me about. Throughout the rest of the film, there’s very little color, which is why it works so well, I guess.

Layers: We were very impressed by the use of shadows in the film. Why does a shadow or silhouette of a person sometimes have more impact than the real thing?

Rob: I had some drawings of soldiers but quickly realized that they didn’t come across as powerfully as I wanted. By only seeing the shadow, we’re not led along a path that says this is a soldier from country A or B. We actually don’t know whether these soldiers, if soldiers at all, are here to help or to kill. The scene at the end with the guy with his hands on his head originally had a shadow of a soldier as if he was being captured. I rendered it out and the shadow didn’t appear, and I realized that without the shadow, you’re either looking at a guy who is being arrested or you’re looking at a guy regretting what he has just done. I liked that it was up to the viewer to decide, and more importantly, it actually says more by showing less.

Layers: How do you think digital technology has helped the independent filmmaker?

Rob: I think it’s now so easy to go out there and make a film without any financial backing or support. You can basically just make a film with a phone camera and a laptop these days. These are good times to be a filmmaker.

1 A PANORAMA ALIGNMENT GLITCH
In most cases, the seams created by Photomerge are very successful, but sometimes it may have “issues.” This panorama was made from three horizontal images taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And no matter how many times I’ve tried to get Photomerge to blend these images, it always creates an alignment glitch at the top of the locomotive, just above the windshield. In this section of the article, we’ll create the initial panorama—glitch and all—and then explore a few different ways to try and fix the problem.

2 CREATE THE PHOTOMERGE
To experience the steps from the beginning, launch the Photomerge process. In this tutorial, we’ll launch it from Adobe Bridge by selecting the three thumbnails and choosing Tools>Photoshop>Photomerge. In the Photomerge dialog, leave the Layout set to Auto and make sure that Blend Images Together is checked. Click OK.

3 INITIAL EVALUATION
At first glance it might seem that the most straightforward way to tackle the problem would be to edit the layer masks that Photomerge has created. The problem with this approach, however, is that there are three layer masks and each one is precisely aligned with the other two. Although it’s not immediately apparent in the blended result, there’s also a problem created by the auto blending, which has changed tonal values in the sky to match the layer masks. Editing these masks will reveal this tonal mismatch and create additional problems.

4 TURN OFF THE LAYER MASKS
To see the potential problems created by the auto blending, Shift-click on each of the layer masks to temporarily disable them. You can see an obvious variation in the sky tones just above the cab of the locomotive (in this illustration, the image was darkened with a curve to make these tonal changes more visible). The tonal variation in this area is in the exact shape of the same area of the layer masks for the Train Middle and Train Right layers.

5 PHOTOMERGE, TAKE 2: NO BLENDING
Before we try any complicated patching or cloning repair jobs, let’s see if we can coax a better result from Photomerge. Close the first image without saving it and return to Bridge. With the three thumbnails selected, choose Tools>Photoshop>Photomerge. In the Photomerge dialog, leave the Layout set to Auto but uncheck the Blend Images Together option. Click OK.

6 TAKE 2: REARRANGE LAYERS
For this image, Photomerge has definite ideas about how the layers should be arranged. But one obvious way to try and fix the problem is to simply rearrange the layers so that Train Right is above Train Middle. Hopefully, this will address the problem of the alignment error on the roof of the locomotive. In the Layers panel, rearrange the stacking order of the layers so that Train Right is the top layer, Train Middle is in the middle, and Train Left in on the bottom.

7 MANUALLY ALIGN LAYERS
Even though we turned off the blending in the Photomerge dialog, there are still a couple of automated features left for us to try. To nudge these features in the right direction, we’ll manually align the layers. Make the Train Right layer active. Double-click the Zoom tool to zoom to 100%. Select the Move tool (V) and use the Up and Left Arrow keys on the keyboard to nudge this layer up and left until the “A” in the word RAIL aligns with the same letter on the middle layer. This will also align the top of the train.

8 CUSTOM LAYER TRIMMING
The letter “A,” which we just aligned, could conceivably still cause some problems, so let’s fix that. Make sure the top layer (Train Right) is active, choose the Lasso tool (L), and set the Feather value in the Options Bar to 0 px. Make a lasso selection around the letter “A” in RAIL and press Delete (PC: Backspace) to delete this chunk of pixels. Press Command-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to deselect.

9 MODIFY THE LEFT SIDE
Now let’s inspect the left side of the image. Creating a seam through the back of this older train car makes no sense. It’s better to choose a less-complicated seam: on the far side of this car in the background of the image, where the newer RAIL RUNNER cars can be seen in the distance. Use the Lasso tool with the Feather set to 0 px and make a selection of the part of the Train Middle layer that overlaps onto the Left side layer. The right side of this selection should be placed in the distance through the new train cars (see illustration).

10 MORE CUSTOM LAYER TRIMMING
Make sure that the middle layer—Train Middle—is active and press Delete (PC: Backspace) to delete the selected pixels. (In the illustration we hid the bottom layer—click on its Eye icon—to clearly show what areas were deleted.) Deselect.

Now zoom in for a closer view and make the Train Left layer active. Use the Move tool (V) and the Down and Right Arrow keys to align the layers along the seam in the background where the train cars converge.

11 AUTO-ALIGN LAYERS
In the Layers panel, click on the Train Right layer. Turn this layer’s Eye icon off and on several times and you’ll see how the locomotive isn’t aligning with the same areas on the underlying layer—this is what’s causing the alignment glitch.

Make sure the visibility for all three layers is turned on then select all three layers by clicking on the top one and then Shift-clicking on the bottom one. Choose Edit>Auto-Align Layers. In the dialog that appears, choose Auto for the Projection method and click OK.

12 AUTO-BLEND LAYERS
Now when you turn the top layer off and on, you should see that the locomotive is much more closely aligned with the layer underneath. Make sure that all three layers are still selected in the Layers panel and choose Edit>Auto-Blend Layers. In the small dialog that appears, choose the Panorama option and make sure that the Seamless Tones and Colors box is checked. Click OK. This time, the blend is successful and the alignment glitch on the top of the locomotive is no longer present.

13 RAIL RUNNER DEBRIEFING
As a final step, use the Crop tool (C) to crop the transparent areas surrounding the image.

Most of the time Photomerge works great but for those times when it doesn’t, the techniques that we’ve covered in this tutorial are some things you can try to get a better panorama merge from multiple images. For some images you may need to go even further to touch up alignment problems, for example: using the Clone Stamp (S), the Healing Brush, or creating patch layers. All are good skills and techniques to be aware of when these issues arise.

HOW TO GET GOOD MOVING WATER IN HDR

14 A SOLID NEUTRAL-DENSITY FILTER
One of the most common questions I’m asked about HDR photography is how to deal with the strange artifacts that commonly appear in moving water. I use a solid neutral-density (ND) filter to cut back several stops of light: Less light coming through the lens means the camera must use a much slower shutter speed than would normally be feasible in daylight conditions. With long shutter speeds of one second or slower, rushing water is rendered as a smooth, silky blur. Not only does this look cool, it also hides the usual HDR artifacts that often appear in moving water.

15 CREATE THE INTIAL HDR IMAGE
Let’s explore how good water can look with an HDR image made from four exposures taken in Camden, Maine. I shot the images using a 5-stop, solid ND filter with shutter speeds ranging from 1/4 second to 2 seconds.

In Bridge, select the four source exposures and choose Tools>Photoshop>Merge to HDR. When the Merge to HDR dialog appears, make sure that the Bit Depth is set to 32 Bit/Channel and click OK.

16 CONVERT TO 16 BITS
After the merge is done, choose Image>Mode>16 Bits/Channel to bring up the HDR Conversion dialog. For the Method, choose Local Adaptation from the drop-down menu. Set the Radius to 16 px, the Threshold to 0.50, and adjust the Toning Curve and Histogram curve as shown in the illustration (if you don’t see the curve, click the down-facing triangle to show it). Click OK to apply the conversion.

17 ADD SHADOWS/HIGHLIGHTS SMART FILTER
Control-click (PC: Right-click) on the Background layer and choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu. Then choose Image>Adjustments> Shadows/Highlights. In the dialog that appears, click the Show More Options checkbox to reveal all of the sliders and set them as shown in the illustration. This will help to balance out the tones between the bright sky and water and the rest of the image. Click OK when you’re done.

18 FINAL CURVES ADJUSTMENTS
Open the Adjustments panel, click the Create a New Curves Adjustment Layer icon, and slightly increase the contrast as shown in the Overall Contrast illustration. Add a second Curves layer and adjust the curve as in the Darken Sky illustration. Open the Masks panel and click the Invert button to invert the mask to black. With this layer mask active, use the Brush tool (B) to paint with white at 30% Opacity in the sky, trees, and rocks to darken those areas. As you can see from the detail view of the stream, the slow shutter speeds make the water look great with no visible HDR artifacts.

The 12.3-megapixel Olympus E-620 is one of the lightest, most compact DSLRs on the market. It succeeds Olympus’s E-520 and inherits features from the higher end E-30 DSLR. The E-620 has built-in image stabilization that works with any Four Thirds lens, and an articulated 2.7″ LCD that makes shooting with Live View efficient. Buttons on the back are illuminated for easy identification in low-light shooting, and Olympus has added the E-30’s wonderful Creative Art and Multiple Exposure filters to the E-620’s conventional command dial. Curiously, the E-620 bucks a trend by not including video capture—a compelling feature in this very competitive price range.

The plastic body feels solid; however, it has no weatherproofing seals and the comparatively shallow grip might feel uncomfortable in big hands. The overall design facilitates familiarity via quick access to frequently used features. It uses dedicated buttons for features such as Live View and Image Stabilization, plus an onscreen superpanel provides all the options for features including white balance, metering, and image quality. To a great extent, scrolling through menus is eliminated.

The camera records in RAW and JPEG formats and has slots for CompactFlash and xD memory cards. The RAW format is supported in both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw. The E-620 and E-30 use the same Four Thirds Live MOS image sensor; however, the algorithms and digital engines vary and the resulting image quality in the E-620 files, although not terrible, contain comparatively more noise when shooting in either low light or ISOs greater than 800. In general, image quality is quite good, especially at ISOs under 800.

The files have a wide dynamic range filled with shadow and highlight detail, and hold up to make 17×22″ prints. The sensor offers a choice of four aspect ratios—4:3, 6:6, 16:9, and 3:2—and the cropped areas are displayed in Live View mode. The optical viewfinder is slightly larger than the E-520, but I found it difficult to see the information displayed at the bottom—something to consider if you wear glasses. The E-520’s three-point AF viewfinder system has been replaced with a fast seven-point system that covers a wider area and provides for quick, smooth focusing. Continuous shooting is slightly faster at 4 frames per second versus 3.5. The five-mode metering system and shutter speed range of 60 seconds to 1/4000, plus Bulb, are the same as on the E-520.

The Multiple Exposure filter is a hoot. It allows you to take a shot and then view and compose another subject on the same frame, all while maintaining the original image onscreen.

The 2.7″ 230,000-pixel, articulated LCD facilitates composing subjects at low or high angles, greatly improving the functionality of Live View. It holds up relatively well in bright light. Displays in Live View include an alignment grid, a live histogram, and four live thumbnail previews of different white balance or exposure compensations to help you visualize your image before exposure. Live View offers three AF modes and appears snappier than previous iterations, but it’s still no match for the optical viewfinder when shooting a moving subject. When using Image Stabilization (IS) with Live View, the stabilized effect appears only briefly on the LCD. I preferred the E-520’s implementation, which held the stabilized image as long as you depressed the shutter button half way. Still, the E-620’s IS is effective and compensated for movement up to about three stops—it was rock solid at 1/15 second. The E-620 is a budget-minded, solid, easy-to-learn DSLR.—Steve Baczewski

Company: Olympus America Inc.
Price: $699.99 with 14–42mm lens
Web: www.olympusamerica.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Built-in wireless flash remote; effective dust-removal system
Not: No video capture

Olympus E-620 images

Click on a thumbnail for a larger image. All images ©Steve Baczewski.

This video requires Adobe Flash Player.

When the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS arrived, I was eager to put it to work. After all, a compact camera with a 20x optically stabilized zoom lens and RAW capture is enticing.

The SX1 IS includes full HD video capture (1920×1080 at 30fps), 25 shooting modes, and a host of other features, but the obvious star of this camera is the f/2.8–5.7, 20x zoom lens (28–560mm equivalent). Zoom operation is smooth, it’s quick to focus, and photos are sharp with nice color. The not-so-obvious star (but the scene-stealer for many) is the ability to capture RAW files. More compact cameras should include RAW capture, so thank you, Canon.

This camera is easy to use thanks to the thoughtful ergonomics, straightforward menu, and flexibility of the lens. Users can compose shots on the vari-angle 230,000-dot, 2.8″ LCD, which holds up quite well in bright light, or with the electronic viewfinder. The quality of the viewfinder was so marginal that I didn’t use it.

The 10-megapixel SX1 IS is billed as a serious camera. It’s the first PowerShot to incorporate Canon’s CMOS sensor, something previously reserved for their EOS cameras. It also uses the DIGIC 4 Image Processor with Face Detection Technology, Intelligent Contrast Correction, and Red-eye Correction. Photos are well exposed and contrast is excellent. So I have to ask why is noise evident at ISO 200 and prevalent at ISO 400? I wouldn’t use this camera above ISO 200.

One other problem is that with all these high-end features, and the high-end price, Canon made the power source four AA batteries. This camera deserves better, and the price demands it. Shoot at a low ISO and pack plenty of spares.—Mike Mackenzie

Company: Canon U.S.A., Inc
Price: $599.99
Web: www.usa.canon.com
Rating: 3

Hot: RAW capture; stabilized 20x zoom lens
Not: Noise; AA batteries; price

Canon PowerShot SX1 IS images

Click on a thumbnail for a larger image. All images ©Mike Mackenzie.

Some designers have a background in 3D modeling. I don’t. Still, clients expect me to make their logos spin and dance in 3D space. As much as I’d love to learn how to use Maya or 3ds Max, I don’t have the time or resources to do so.

Thank goodness for Swift 3D 6. It’s a 3D application made specifically for Flash designers. It allows them to draw simple shapes, type text, or import AI/EPS files and extrude them. You can then color and shade the model and animate it using a Flash-like Timeline. Swift 3D ships with preset animations, such as spins and bounces, that you can apply via drag-and-drop. It also comes with a large styles library, so if you want your object to look like glass or chrome, you don’t have to create that look from scratch. You can render out your model in a variety of styles, including photorealism and various cartoonish looks.

Once you import your project into Flash, you see it as a series of layers on the Timeline. Each aspect of the 3D data (reflections, colors, shadows, etc.) is on its own layer, so you have independent control of all the parts.

Advanced users will enjoy Swift 3D’s ability to import industry-standard 3DS and DFX formats. Swift 3D also includes polygon tools for advanced modeling. Developers will enjoy the program’s ability to export models and Papervision3D scenes.

With Swift 3D, I’m able to tell clients, “Yes, I can!”—Marcus Geduld

Company: Electric Rain
Price: $129
Web: www.erain.com
Rating: 4

Hot: Huge time saver; bargain: 25 effects for $129
Not: Mac only; lack of built-in image ordering

Hey everyone! I wanted to share with you another image that I took while I was in Kansas City. This time, it happened to be of the Drum Room Lounge, inside of the Hilton President in Kansas City. If you see at the post that I did with the hotel lobby (it’s a few below this one) both were taken with the same biodegradeable tripod (an apple). Hey! I didn’t know I was going to stumble into somewhere this cool! Same as before – this was a 5 shot HDR shot at -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 and processed with Photomatix.

So, why share these HDR images with you here? Well to whet your appetite for more HDR stuff at Photoshop World. That’s right, registration is open for Photoshop World in Orlando, FL March 24-26 2009. Now, on Tuesday March 23 Matt Kloskowski and I are bringing back our pre-con Real World HDR. So, if HDR is one of those things that you’re thinking of doing, and you want to learn it from Matt and I at Photoshop World, make sure you register now! Believe me, this one will sell out pretty fast.

My Weekend With the Droid
Here at the office, I get teased quite a bit for not owning the Iphone. It seems like everywhere I turn, there’s someone walking by the office pointing out their newest migration to the Iphone; their finger pointing in mock anguish as to me being one of the last holdouts. Over the last 2 years.. the landscape has gone from red to blue.. everyone gushing at their ability to to do this.. and do that.. on the new Iphone.

Here’s the real skinny about it: I just don’t care. Most of the time, if I give you a “I know.. im waiting for x to switch” I really am not thinking about that.. i’m just telling you what you want to hear.

The thing is – I am very happy with being on Verizon – and no amount of bells and whistles on the Iphone would have made me switch for it. My wife and I both have a plan, and both of our families are on the same network.. so most of our calling is free. The key word here being -calling-. At it’s core, I am one of those few people who believes that owning a phone really does begin with a phone. Everything else on top of that is just gravy. Phone must come first. I’m even the guy who has given up on Bluetooth earpieces after getting every one. A wire works just fine for me.

That said, I was interested to see what the new Verizon Droid was going to be like – the union of Motorola Hardware and Google software. Hey.. we’re big Google fans, and Motorola has been known to produce cool stuff (Startac). I’d be willing to give it a shot.

Here’s where things differ. I am NOT LOOKING for an Iphone Killer. To me, I happen to think that the Iphone is an amazing piece of hardware – saddled with (what many say) is the worst carrier of the group. I don’t want it to replicate all of it’s features and I dont want to bench it on whether the exprience is “Magical” “Breathless” “Just Works” “Timeless” Je ne sais quoi.”. My review comes from a standpoint of “Since the Iphone isn’t coming to a real phone network any time soon.. is there a phone on Verizon that will let me do the following things.. ”

To me, the answer to all of those questions was a a very good yes with the Droid. Want to hear about it? Want to enter the weekly Blog contest? Check out the link below:

Scroll down to the CONTEST TIME if you want to bypass my initial thoughts on the Droid

What I was Looking for In a Phone
There were a couple of projects that I was working on not too long ago that had me get a loaner Iphone for a bit. While I had it, there were a couple of things that I really thought were awesome to have- which is what i’m using as the basis for my review:

1. Email – Access to my Work/Personal email rocked.
2. Photos – Being able to see pics on my phone. Being able to take pics and share them on FB/Twitter
3. Social Media Stuff – Access to my Facebook/ My Twitter Account - they turned out to be good
4. Music, Movies, and Media – Itunes – The Ipod portion of it rocked only when I was traveling. Commuting? Not so much

Email
Right off the bat, the entire intergration with gmail worked for me. I’d been lamenting having POP email access for my personal email and finally said to myself “Im making the jump to gmail” with the phone. To be able to check it, and be in time with it wherever I went is a big plus and very painless for me to setup so far. I was also able to setup my work mail with it as well, so in no time flat, I was getting alerts for messages on both accounts. That was a plus for me.

While on the subject of the Email – Email is definitely a lot easier to use when you can type. Now, I could do somehting like 35wpm on my LG Voyager, so I was really looking for a keyboard that I can use to work on some messages/text. In this I think the Droid did OK, but does have some room for improvement. The keyboard was OK, but I think that the spacing of the letters could have been a bit better if they would have done away with the selector button on the right of the keyboard. If this is a touch based phone, why would I need that selector? Take that space, and space out the letters just a hair more and typing would be a joy. That said, I seemed to be doing OK with the keypad after a couple of days.. so it’s something i’d like to see changed.. but not bothering me too much so far.

Keypad: A- Mail Accessability: A+

Photography
The camera on the phone is a 5 Megapixel camera, but like all of the cameras on cell phones these days, it seems a little slow on the picture taking. Coming from a DSLR, im expecting instantaneous pictures to be had here.. and am noticing a bit of a delay on the pics. Frustrating, yes.. but it’s about as frustrating as the cameras i’ve had on some Sprint phones, the LG Chocolate, The Envy, and the LG Voyager. This one seems to be a bit slower.. and not as reliable.

What I do like about the phone in this spot is it’s screen. The screen is big, sharp and bright. That part was a solid plus for me. Looking at pictures in the phone was awesome, but took a little learning to not pinch the screen. An icon on the lower right of the screen let me zoom in and out. It was odd that it didn’t have multitouch features here, but i’m going to give it a benefit of the doubt that the feature is stuck in a court room rather than an omission. I’d totally put this on the list of things to remedy. All told though, it worked out well.

The camera has LED flashes and a screen slide out section that lets you change Color Effect, Storing Location, Size, Quality, White Balance, Flash Mode, Scene Mode and Focus Mode. I thought it was great that the Focus Mode included a Macro setting, and that’s something that I am definitely putting to use over the next couple of weeks. As I write the review I’m going back to the camera and taking some sample shots. This one really gets the worse part of the review. A firmware/software update on the camera is totally in order here. If you take pics at a distance.. great.. up close.. anyone’s guess. Press and hold down an image in the gallery and it will let you share it in a variety of ways – Bluetooth, Email, Facebook, Gmail, Messaging, Picasa, or other apps (in my case, Twidroid). I’ve also started using the new Photoshop.com Mobile app for Android, so that’s another feather in it’s cap as well.

Camera: C- Screen: A+ Sharing Experience: B+

Social Media Stuff
These days, it’s about My Facebook and My Twitter Account . I’d like to be able to have something that keeps me connected to the ppl that stay connected to me. The Droid has Facebook on it and I was able to download Twidroid to it in no time. On the Facebook front, you have the option to sign in and take your contacts from Facebook and add them to your phone- beefing up your contacts in a big way. Single click on one of the contacts and you can check their Facebook profile. As much as I liked the feature when I first got it, Im turning it off, and only syncing it with the people that I really want on my phone – people that will also be accessible and available through my gmail account. That kind of integration I think is key. Twidroid appeared to do everything I wanted it to do – make posts, check @replies, see trends, add pictures. I don’t have the multicolumn support that I would have in something like Tweetie – but to be honest, I like the featureset here. Simple. So that’s got a big fan in me right now.

Which brings me to something that I am liking and hating at the same time. I’ve connected all of these services to this device, and when I am running them, the phone is whirring at me every 3 minutes it seems. Now, I have something in my pocket that lets me know when I get mail at work, or at home, or when someone sends me a Facebook item, or when someone Tweets something.. or when I get a DM. The internets are completely connected to me, and as much as I like it – part of me wanted to shut the phone off entirely this afternoon. I love it’s interconnectivity though..

Social Media Connectivity: A-

Music and Movies – The Itunes Experience
When I’ve been traveling, using the Iphone was key in that I had Music, Movies, Pictures, and apps to keep me busy. With a short commute, however, I saw that my use of it as an Ipod went down significantly: Something that I didn’t expect to happen. That said, I think that it’s a good thing that entertainment and our work stuff roll itself into one app – I just dont think that’s its an essential thing. For the longest time, I was completely happy running around with a phone with great service AND an Ipod. It be nice though if I could share some movies with the Droid, some pictures of my daughter, some podcasts, and some Playlists to hit the road. Maybe even throw in some apps while I am at it.

For those looking for Itunes syncing – we all know that’s not going to happen. However, here’s something I found that I thought really took a lot of the frustration out of the sync- kudos to them. The company is called Salling Software and they come up with a piece of Software called Salling Media Sync. Its a program that runs on your desktop that when you plug in the Droid to your computer and Mount the drive, Salling Media Sync kicks on and brings you to a Dialog box where you can sync your Itunes playlists, Podcasts, and pictures from Aperture2 and Iphoto! The process is pretty straightforward (Here’s a great video to show you how the process works.. easy).

The playlists transferred over great, as did the Podcasts. In no time flat, I had music and the most recent LayersTV. The only thing that this doesn’t let you do (hopefully soon) is to sync Photos from a specific directory, and to sync Movies. In that, I just manuallu copied the movie to a directory on the Droid. Tropic Thunder played with no problems.. and on a screen like the Droid, I was really happy.

Obviously apps are another thing that the Itunes experience relies on, and it’s hard to argue with the 100,000 or so apps available in the Itunes store. The apps that I really was looking for were in the Android Market. I got my Tip Calculator, Reversi, Shazam, a Lightsaber App, a Dave Chapelle Rick James Soundboard, a Flashlight, and an app to write on Wordpress blogs. To me, I didnt feel like I was missing the thousonds of other apps in the Itunes store. I got my healthy dose of candy apps as well as productivity apps. While writing this though, I did come across this article on Appsfire that showed just what happens to the majority of apps in the Itunes store. Remember.. it’s not quantity people. (Again, saying that fully understandting that Itunes and the Iphone have quality apps out there). The Android market seemed to get me stuff I needed, but i’m sure that upon inspecting it more this will change. I didnt expect to use the Droid too much as a multimedia app, but because of Salling Media Sync and the Android Store, that totally got me ranking this much higher than I expected.

Multimedia Experience : B+ to A- Salling Media Sync: A- (Lets get that Sync Photo to Dir and movies for the A!)

In this, I feel that the Droid came up Aces for what I was looking for, but it’s probably a great idea to also talk about other things on the phone.

Dialing and Call Quality: Big screen for dialing is a plus. Call quality is awesome (Verizon obviously). The phone is actually loud – which I appreciate when walking around in a city atmosphere. Love the fact that it has a 3.5 jack.

Score: A

Phone Build: Overall the phone seems to feel solid, with two notable exceptions. The volume buttons on the top right felt a little flimsier than I would have liked them – as if they would come off. These definitely need to get taken care of. The other one -could- be a big deal but i’m going to wait and see on it : the Battery cover. 3 times i’ve taken it out of my pocket and the battery cover has come off. A locking switch would have been good here.. or a better battery cover. Big no no there. Let’s hope that the accessories for this thing let me cover that up. Other than that, I think the phone feels great.. the keyboard is a welcome addition, and the speaker is loud enogh.

Score: B (Fix those 2 problems)

Google Maps and GPS: AWESOME!!! Bye bye GPS! Totally confirmed I was going the right way and saved me on a bet with the wife this weekend. It even gives you a street view of your location. Great intergration here! A+

Browser/Video
So far seems good, but going to need to browse more sites. Seems like youtube doesnt allow a HQ version for some videos.. but need to check on that. Inconclusive right now. Also cant figure out how to use Speakerphone for Youtube app.. must

VERDICT:
If you are looking for a phone that is going to take your Internet/Social Media experience, couple it with your email, give you a good set of apps, GPS, camera and some Multimedia stuff on a great phone network, Droid certainly delivers. The experience comparison to other phones in it’s space should be Apples to Oranges here. So far, very happy with my choice.

CONTEST TIME
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question:Who is the author of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac in the Reviews section?

The Prize:
A copy of The CS4 Training Jump-Start Program from Kelby Training as well as a Layers Magazine Subscription!

Thanks so much for stopping in everyone. Have a wonderful week!!