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FFFFOUND

fffound.jpgMy buddy just turned me on to this image bookmarking site called ffffound. What a great place for inspiration and design. Prepare to lose the rest of the day to browsing this site.

Graphic Design: The New Basics

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This site (and corresponding book) is a great way for students and new designers to learn the basic rules of design. This is the stuff I wish my teachers taught me more of. My school was very software and technology-centric. For me though, it was easy to learn software. It was how to make things look great with the software that was more elusive. Sites like this remind us that form and method is not inherent in our tool set and should not be taken for granted or forgotten. Check out the “Design Problems” as well for some great visual homework. Found on Motionographer

Your Website Name Doesn’t matter

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Ladies and gentlemen…. The Beatles!!!! And the crowd went wild. People screamed their name and forever after that moment, have bought their records over and over again. People call them the best band ever and it’s not a stretch. They practically invented the modern rock band and many popular song recording techniques. They wrote hundreds of songs in many styles and OWNED the top of the charts with record sales and radio singles. However, think about their name… The Beatles. No, REALLY think about it this time. It is a really bad band name. It’s a pun; a play on words. Not beetles, but Beatles. You see, ’cause they’re a band and they have a good beat. And what about Radiohead? It’s a radio on your head? Their head? These are bad names, but our brain looks past that and only knows these names as what we connect to them. Once you remove the connection between the name from band you start to see how your brain can connect bad names to each object without damaging the reputation of what the bad name represents.

I think is was a on a Bill Cosby stand up routine that I remember him saying the word spatula over and over again. He mentioned how weird the word is and how we don’t notice anymore. He kept on saying “spatula… spatula” and eventually the word even stopped existing as a word with meaning and it was just a reason for Cosby to make funny faces. Try it yourself. Take any noun and repeat it out loud twenty times. Notice that you stop hearing the word itself and instead try to find patterns or rhythms in the sounds you are making? Or maybe, the word you repeat over and over again makes you aware of your own speaking pattern or the way you form your vowel sounds? Either way, the word itself lost all its power as a noun after less than twenty repetitions. Last Saturday’s edition of ReSound spoke about this phenomenon during a piece about playing some abstract repetitive music to listeners to get their reaction.

It took me months to decide on a website name for some of my projects. Good ideas would pop in my head and I would run over to the computer to type it into godaddy.com and see if they were taken. They usually were. I became so frustrated with finding a “good” name that wasn’t taken that I came up with what I thought was a witty idea to call my site allthegooddomainsaretaken.com, but when I typed that into godaddy.com I got this ironic answer back.
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I was lucky enough to find a few names I like, and I’m glad I have them, but looking back on the process, I can see how irrelevant that decision is. Most people find your site through other sites and most likely click on a link to get there. If they want to visit again, they will most likely bookmark it. At this stage, your website name starts to become a mental pointer to what content you have on your site and things that your visitors have learned while visiting. Your name will most likely become mostly irrelevant as your visitors become desensitized to the meaning.

So, how do you pick your site name? The best you can ask for is to find a name that you like that isn’t offensive. Most two word combinations are probably taken and literal URLs like digitalcameras.com are boring and squatted. Try using phrases. Try a sentence or a statement and it’s way more likely to be open. ilovedigitalcameras.com is open. wowyourpretty.com is also open. No need to make it super short. When is the last time you typed out a URL? Go crazy and get manohnmanmysiteissofantastic.com. Just as the Beatles overcame their less-than-great band name because of their great music, the content of your site should triumph over any URL. Just have fun with it.

Atari Video Game Manuals

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I came across this awesome archive of Atari Game Manuals today. What a flashback for me to see some of this art again. The rainbow effect of the Activision titles is practically back in style now. But, it’s the beautiful illustration style of the Atari branded games that really stood out to me.

Vimeo Vs Youtube Quality

I recently posted some of my work on Vimeo.com and I am very impressed with the quality over Youtube. The video quality is great of course and the full-frame ability is really fun, but it’s the quality of the comments that really took me by surprise. It seems that Vimeo has become a place to post and discuss your work and your passions. Youtube however, has become a place to post Saturday Night Live clips and unedited digicam footage of last night’s party. Check out the video quality compared to Youtube on these two films of mine and compare the video quality. Also, click through and see the quality of the comments between the two.


Slow Motion Water Balloon Throwing. from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

Notice how Vimeo keeps the skin tones looking warm, whereas Youtube has a tendency to blow out the skin tones and make everyone look too pink? Now that more people have hi-speed internet connection, it’s great to see the quality of video on the web get to a higher level.

Apple Releases Aperture 2.1! Curves coming soon?

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Apple Just announced Aperture 2.1. This free update allows Apple and third party vendors to make plugins that work directly in the software. Does this mean that we will have Curves in Aperture soon? Let me tell you, if I knew how to code plugins, I would already be starting on it. Any takers out there? Anyone planing on writing a Curves plugin? No sign of it yet, even in the dpreview article where they list the “most requested plugins.” In the mean time, lets all download it and check out the new Dodge And Burn Plugin from Apple. I can’t wait to try this over the weekend.

I Hate Balloons

I Hate Balloons is a quick film I put together last night after hearing Alexia’s speech on how balloons are the worst gift ever. Alexia’s hatred for balloons is legendary. Here are some angry words straight from her mouth…

There is no reason to ever give balloons as gifts. What the hell is someone supposed to do with the balloons? And how are they supposed to get them home? Yeah, no, it’s totally fun and not at all annoying to have to jump on the bus with a bunch of helium-filled devil-balls. Then, you bring ‘em home and do what everyone always does; you stick them in a corner of your house until they shrivel up like old-man balls and then you drag them out to the trash. Yeah, great present. Much better than something edible like a cake or something aesthetically pleasing like flowers. So, if you’re the kind of jerk who hands someone a bunch of balloons for their birthday/Mother’s Day/anniversary/bris, it’s really as if you’re saying, “I fucking hate you.”

This film acts as a warning to others who might consider giving balloons as a gift. Enjoy The mylar/latex violence.


I Hate Balloons (Part 1) from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.


I Hate Balloons (Part 2) from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

Nikon DX 17-55mm f/2.8G (My New Lens)

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I finally bought it. I mentioned on my photoblog a while back that I was looking at getting a new main lens. My kit lens (18-70mm f3.5-4.5G) was not as fast or as sharp as I needed, and it was frustrating to constantly switch between my 20mm prime and my 50mm prime. I wanted a lens that could stay on my camera and allow me to do wide angle shots (20mm) AND low aperture, narrow depth of field portraits (50mm). This piece of glass fit the bill. It is expensive and HEAVY, but so far I am happy with it. I’m excited to be able to walk around with one fast lens that will do 90% of what I need for every day photography. I haven’t been able to shoot much with it yet, but I will post some examples soon.

EDIT: Todays photoblog post is from my first night of shooting. It was great to take a shot with the sun down this far and still get detail in the shadows. So far so good. Ill post more as I shoot.

Lightroom Vs Aperture

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Prompted by the comments in my last post about Aperture 2.0, I downloaded the Adobe Lightroom trial and used it for about a week. “It has Curves!” people screamed. My decision to get Lightroom was instantly made as I gleefully grabbed the curve and stretched it around just like in Photoshop… or so I thought. I looked around the interface for the switch or menu item that would let me access the Red, Green, and Blue Curve adjustments, and was severely disappointed to see that there was no such button. Using the RGB curves to tone the image is a large part of my workflow when it comes to landscapes and skies. It’s great to use the RGB curves separately to fake a cross processed look or pull some red out of the mid-tones easily. It looks like a round trip to Photoshop is needed for curves with Adobe Lightroom. I was back to square one.

After that fiasco, I was starting to see that neither of these programs would be able to do what Photoshop does for me. I’m not naive to think that either would be a TOTAL Photoshop replacement, but there are some things that I thought would have been a no brainer like fully functioning curves. I began to think of these programs as management tools to be used to separate the good from the bad and begin to find the best photos, to be ultimately corrected in photoshop. But how is this unlike my Bridge/Photoshop workflow that I have now? Now that RAW converter is built into Bridge, I am starting to wonder if I really need one of these tools. I already have a fully organized hand-made file structure where I can find what I’m looking for relatively easily. What good is bringing my library into a proprietary system that only allows me to see my photos if I open a HUGE application like Aperture? Bridge can Rate my photos, collect multiple versions, copy and paste changes between multiple photos, make web galleries, and help organize a round trip to Photoshop. What am I gaining by moving every photo I take to Aperture?

I totally understand the need for a tool like Aperture when doing a large photo shoot where I need to quickly go though, rate and process dozens of images for the day. I can see how a pro can use these tools when a deadline is looming they have to aggregate their best shots from a specific shoot in record time. But, as a daily photoblogger it’s hard for me to imagine loading EVERY photo I take into Aperture. I shoot in small bursts every day. I shoot different objects all day long so keywording is rather useless unless I tag everything with “Chicago” or “Street”. Also, I use Photoshop for everything that goes on my site. So, why not just use bridge to sort everything by day, pick the best photo and load it into Photoshop?
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Well this wouldn’t be a Lightroom vs Aperture review if I ended up using Bridge for everything. Luckily, my mind came to a slightly different conclusion. I will be using my existing file structure to organize all of my day to day shots and I will use Aperture as my Project/Vacation based organization tool. In other words, all of my every day, walking around the street photoblog photography will be processed as is, through Bridge and Photoshop. However, when bigger projects come along, or when I need to load up themed sessions like vacations or large daily event photo shoots, I will use Aperture.

Why did I decide on Aperture over Lightroom? It was the ease of use, and overall feature set that brought be back to Aperture over Lightroom. The full frame mode is GREAT. I can flip through all the images and quickly rate and process the best ones checking for focus. The full RGB levels editor in Aperture is actually MORE flexible than Lightroom’s curves. HOW? The ability to adjust the “quarter points” on the levels graph allows one to emulate curves. It’s a little tricky to get used to, but after I figured it out, it all became clear. And, with the ability to adjust the red green and blue separate, I can do 90% of what curves can do. Lastly, I trust Apple as a company to make a clean sleek piece of software more than Adobe right now. Adobe is getting better lately, but they have always had a knack of making bloated software with 90s sensibility just because thats how they have always done it.

My hope is that as I become more comfortable with Aperture, I will allow myself to use it for more and more projects. As always, I’ll get back to you with any more updates.

Apple Aperture 2.0 First Impressions

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Apple’s Aperture promises to be the end all photo management tool for rating, adjusting, cropping, processing and exporting your photos. However, because of a few missing features and its high price tag, I never got around to trying it.

Version 1 Started off at $499 and it forced the user into Apple’s “my way or the highway” way of archiving, similar to iTunes or iPhoto. Forgoing my hand managed, dated, key-worded, five-year photography archive for Aperture’s brand new way of putting it all in one file was not in the cards. Aperture 1.5 fixed a few things. The price was now only $299 and it allowed photographers’ existing archives to play nicely with Apertures. But now with the ability to manage thousands of old photos came the downfall of 1.5… It was SLOW. Load up the archive with a few thousand photos (not a lot in today’s digital world), and expect Aperture 1.5 to come to a screeching halt. On top of all of this, the application has been missing the feature I use most when processing my photos… CURVES! More than any other tool, I reach for curves when color correcting or adding contrast to my photos. Any photo management tool without that feature was completely useless to me.

Meanwhile, my old way of archiving my photos was becoming tedious with large projects. My existing workflow includes hand placing images in folders that have the date and the project in the folder name. I use Adobe Bridge to rate and keyword my photos and to help manage multiple versions. I open every photo I need to adjust in Photoshop and adjust accordingly. I then save the PSD files in bridge along with the JPG versions for Flickr and my blog. This structure is fine when working on one or two photos at a time, but this workflow becomes VERY tedious when working on large projects like a large photo shoot, or event based projects where I need to adjust dozens or even hundreds of photos. Opening every shot in Photoshop, is not only overkill for most of the small adjustments I needed to do, but saving out a PSD for all of those photos was turning a photo shoot into a huge hard drive clogger. Needless to say, a real photo management tool was becoming more of a necessity and less of a desire.

nocurves.jpgWhen Aperture 2.0 came out. I was pleasantly surprised to see that apple had dropped the price to $199. Early reviews of the software claimed that the speed issues were also solved, and the the new version was super fast. So far, so good. When I go take a closer look at the specs however, I am astonished to see that Apple Aperture still had no Curves. Thanks right, after all the criticism, Apple still decides to leave out the most flexible color correction tool available. I understand that Aperture is not supposed to be a full replacement for Photoshop. I don’t expect Aperture to have some esoteric Photoshop feature like Gradient Map, or be able to execute complicated layer based photo editing, but I am talking about Curves here.

With a large photo shoot looming, I dreaded opening all those photos in photoshop and manually saving them through bridge again. I decided to dedicate my Saturday to downloading the Aperture 30 day free trial and give it a go despite the lack of Curves. I hoped that most shots would only need a minimum of fine tuning and color correction and that I wouldn’t miss the flexibility of curves.

After quickly loading in all of the photos from the day, and checking the Apple site for a few quick tutorials, I went to work. I rated my favorites and started to do basic color correction. As I reluctantly started to use levels to fine tune my colors and contrast, I found a switch to set the levels sliders to use quarter tones as well as half tones. This helped immensely and gave me enough freedom to adjust my contrast with some real control. Now I could do some very specific “looks with Aperture without having to load up Photoshop.

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After spending about an hour with Aperture, I started to see how much power a program like this could give me. I could easily load my photos and store them in a way that makes my old stuff easier to find and that makes my new photos easier to rate and sort. It allows me to make 80% the corrections I usually need very quickly, without the time and extra hard drive space that my Bridge/Photoshop workflow had. The vignette feature was simple and gorgeous. Cropping and straightening is so much simpler than even Photoshop. It even has a cloning/healing brush to clean up dirty lens dots and blemishes. Overall, I am pleased with Aperture and am excited to spend more time with the program. I will probably be using the fully functional demo for the time being, but when the time comes, I can see myself plunking down the $199 for the full version. Stay tuned for an in depth review when I become more comfortable with the program.

Have any of you had experience with Aperture? What has your experience been? Anyone use Adobe Lightroom more? I would love to hear from you.