I have yet to try the stop motion video technique, but I am going to try my hand at this sooner or later. Here is an example of what you can do with a short stop motion video.
Tags: stop motion, technique, Tel Aviv, video technique, Vimeo
There’s something about birds in the water that attract photographers (well this photographer anyway). The Temecula duck pond is no different.
At first glance it appears to be a scenic place to shoot, but I just came away with some ugly duck shots, that aren’t even worthy of uploading to my iStockPhoto account. 
I have been to Oscar’s, the restaurant at the top of the hill that over looks the Temecula duck pond several times, and have always made the assumption that the pond would produce some good bird shots. I think this location may only produce ugly duck shots. Maybe I will give it another try some other time.
The Temecula duck pond is a very popular setting for outdoor portraits. While I was there, there were two other shoots going on, a wedding, and some video shoot.
Here is a map to the Temecula duck pond:
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The image you see here is of me (left), and my best man in October of 1991, at my wedding.
I sent my box of 17 year old, professionally shot, medium format wedding negatives to ScanCafe about 7 weeks ago. Three days ago, I got a small box back from ScanCafe with all my negatives safely packed inside. In addition to the negatives, the box also contained 7 DVD’s full of high quality tiff files of each image (about 170mb each).
I immediately copied all the tiff files to a folder, then imported them into Lightroom. As I went through each image, the first thing I noticed was that the images had no scratches or dust particles visible, and the color was for the most part dead on. I did finally see one or two images with barely visible dust problems etc, but I have scanned hundreds of negatives in my life, and to scan a negative without dust and scratches is a feat in itself, let alone hundreds in a row.
After I reviewed every precious 17 year old image, and did some slight cropping, and color adjustments, I simply keyworded, dated the images, put them in order (this took most of the day saturday), and added them to my digital library. I have to admit, it is very nice having old shots along with my digital photos at the tip of my fingers.
Overall my opinion of ScanCafe is a resounding “high” recommendation. I plan to send the rest of my negatives to them over the next year or so, and I have boxes, and boxes. I do have to warn you, the time you save in scanning is well worth it, but don’t forget you still have to organize, tag, and date them, and that can steal a few weekends of your life. The payback is seeing the old negatives and slides come to life on your screen, and feeling the emotion as you relive your youth.
Note: I decided to use Lightroom instead of photoshop, because it is much better suited for high speed cropping, color correction, and organization, and I would recommend that you do the same. I would also remind you to actually change the exif data in each image to reflect the actual date they were taken, so your photo library program will put them in the correct place. I will write an article covering this topic in a few days or so.
MURRIETA, California – Last night around 7:45pm, a Nissan 350z skidded into a telephone box on Whitewood Rd. I heard the accident from my driveway. It sounded like a long skid followed by a loud thud that was none other than a car slamming into a stationary object. Then I clearly heard a another vehicle speed off. I am assuming there was another vehicle involved, but this is purely speculation on my part.
The accident knocked out telephone, TV, and internet service for Verizon customers for almost 24 hours. In fact my internet was just restored as I am posting this video. As you can see in the video, the metal box was torn up, so many thanks to the Verizon guys who worked all through the evening in an effort to restore the phone, and internet service.
This stretch of Whitewood Rd, in Murrieta, California is notoriously dangerous. I hear cars speeding along this road all the time.
Tags: accident, internet service, Murrieta, murrieta california, Nissan, nissan 350z, Verizon, WhitewoodHere is a brief “how to” instruction in adding a transparent text, or image logo (jpeg instructions are at the bottom) to the lower right corner of your video using Quicktime Pro. These are also known as “bugs”.
The following steps are the same for windows and OSX, the tutorial is for OSX users.
First, create a transparent image in photoshop choosing the size you want. Be sure you have a transparent background as shown
Next, choose the type tool in photoshop, and type the text you want in the box as shown. You can change the color to any color, I have chosen white here:
Then Choose “Save for Web & Devices” in photoshop
When the next window pops up, choose png, and check the transparency box as shown:
Then open the newly created png file with Quicktime as shown:
Once you have the png file open in quicktime, then choose “movie properties” as shown:
Then select the video track:
Select the visual settings button, then choose “straight alpha” from the bottom left drop down menu:
Close the window, then you should still have the image opened in quicktime in front of you. Click on the video anywhere (not play, just make the window active) to make it active, then select edit>select all (command a in osx), then edit>copy (command c in osx). Now close that quicktime window entirely.
Now open the target video (the video that you want to add the logo to) in quicktime, select edit>select all (command a in osx), then choose “edit>add to selection & scale” as shown:
The text will then appear in the upper left as shown:
To move the text into the desired position, you will need to complete a few more steps.
First select “Movie Properties” as shown:
Then select the video track with the image in it, and click “visual settings”
Now, to the right, play with the numbers in the offset boxes until you have the desired position
After you have the desired position, click “straight alpha blend” in the drop down menu to the left:
Now, you should have the completed video with the logo you just added.
We still need to save the video, so choose file>save as:
Name your new video, and choose the location you want, and save the movie as self contained:
At this point, your video will play with the new logo in the entire video. Anyone can remove this track, so to make it permanent you need to export it using any compression method you might like. It is important to add the logo to the highest quality copy you have, so when you compress it, the quality will be better.
Please comment on any mistakes that I may have made in these steps, so I can correct them as necessary. Please link back to this page for future users. It took me a while to find how to do this on google, and I think this is now the best page to link to.
You can also add any image to the corner of your video (jpeg file etc) using the same steps, except skip the first straight alpha step, and use normal blend. Just use the normal image, no need to setup transparency in the beginning.
Use the comments for questions.
Tags: bugs, drop down menu, image logo, instruction, logo, movie, OSX, quicktime, transparency, transparent background, transparent image, transparent text, tutorial, video