Technology, Computers, Basketball, After Effects, Photoshop, Photography, Photo Editing, Video Editing, Social Networking, Blogging, Android Applications, iOS, etc.
The last few months have been very busy and just left me to lose my touch in writing on this blog of mine. Anyway I'm back and with a lot of stories to tell. First off is the first official wedding I've attended (although I've been a ring bearer in my uncle's wedding once when I was young) and will probably be the second best wedding to me and my soul mate's wedding.
The wedding was of my soul mate's sister and her long-time suitor. It was held in Fernbrook Gardens in Las Piñas, Metro Manila last December 28, 2011. The wedding was a dream come true for the bride as all her visions of her fantasy wedding came true at the right moment in time. Preparations for the wedding were carefully thought of and every thing was in place from the rings to the on-site video.
Arriving to the venue alone left a lot of the guests in awe because it was as if you were about to enter into another world. A world full of fantasy and staying there would make you forget the harsh world out there. I felt like I was in a dream world and nothing could go wrong in it and nothing did.
For me, the best part of the wedding was the entrance of the bride, it almost made me cry three times. It was the most grand of grand entrances, I'd bet on it anytime. On the on-site video, the groom allegedly tried to wipe his tears during this moment of bliss but he denied it. No offense to the groom but in my case I'd be proud I cried because I don't cry and cry only on a blue moon. I will always be proud I cried for the only woman I will love forever.
The wedding was a very romantic one, no doubt. It can surpass any celebrity's wedding and will always be remembered by the people who attended it. The most awaited part - the wedding kiss was also in perfect timing. Although the music that played during the kiss was not chosen by the couple it was still in rhyme with the moment. I captured it on video and wow it was amazing.
The venue and the program that followed just topped it all off and there's nothing more that I could say. It was fun, exciting, romantic, unforgettable, dreamy, fantasy, and I can't wait to plan our own dream wedding in the future.
Anyway, congratulations to the both of you - Nong Edbri and Ng Vanessa! Have a great and happily married life! Cheers!
And also, great job to Mayad Studios for the wonderful and creative wedding video. I can't wait to see the full take. Thanks to one of their founders, Fiel, for entertaining all my queries.
Copyright 2011 Notes on Hobbies | Off to an Enchanted Wedding
It's been while since I last posted on my blog due to busy schedules and a lot of thoughts just floating around. Now that I've got my fingers set on the keyboard, it's time to start writing and what better than to write about the most emotion holiday of the year - Christmas!
Christmas Tree (Year 2007)
Just had an emotional viewing of Coca-Cola's Where Will Happiness Strike Next: The OFW Project and reminded me immediately of how I miss my family. They're only 4 hours away by bus from where I am but having them right in front of your eyes and be able to hug and kiss them is very rewarding. The video is a work of art and some of it could be scripted but Coca-Cola still did a great job.
Christmas for most Filipinos is all about being with your loved ones on this special day of love and sharing and starts during the "ber" months. Back when I was young, people used to start hanging decorations on the start of September, the first "ber" month but as of today most people start setting up Christmas decorations during December. A reason could be the poor economy which results in increased prices for food and in-turn consumer goods and products including the Christmas decorations.
Back at home, our Christmas tree was put up by my mother and sister but I have yet to see how it looks like for I have not gone home for a couple of months now. When we got older, my mother made it a tradition to decorate our Christmas tree and put gifts around them although the gifts or should I say boxes are empty, they're also part of the decorations. Anyway, this made the tree a lot more beautiful to look at.
To feel the spirit of Christmas, I also downloaded a compilation of Christmas songs most of which I have never heard but still convey a message about the spirit of Christmas. I know Christians celebrate it because of Christ's birth but almost all cultures in the world celebrate it because it is the time of the year where love emanates from all sorts of people.
Copyright 2011 Notes on Hobbies | Hello December, Welcome Christmas!
There are a lot of palettes in Photoshop and what you are seeing right now is my Essentials workspace. A workspace is the lay-out/set-up of your interface which is also very customizable as you’ll learn later on.
A palette for example is the history and character palettes which you can view right at the top using the Window Menu. Again, just like your tools, if you don’t know what an icon stands for, just put your mouse on top of that icon to know its name.
You can also expand or collapse palettes using the black or gray double arrows at the top of that palette’s window just like in your toolbox. Also, the common thing about palettes is the palette menu found at the top-right corner of the palette.
Function keys can also be used as a shortcut for some of the palettes. For example, hitting F7 would bring access to the layers palette. Hitting F7 again would hide the layers palette. Other functions include the F8 which brings up the info palette and F5 for the brushes palette.
You don’t have to memorize all of them, just keep a few of the handy ones especially the palettes you use more often like the layers and history palettes.
We now go to our Menus Tab. I’ve had a brief discussion of the Photoshop Menu in this post: http://notes-on-hobbies.blogspot.com/2011/09/photoshop-basics-photoshop-interface.html but I’ll give a brief discussion of it here.
Here you have the Image Menu where you have the image size command and also a quick look at the Adjustment sub-menu where you have your color correction tools and the most favorite of most Photo Editors, the Filters Menu. This is where you can apply special effects to your image at a click of a button.
The usual Edit Menu where you can cut or copy your selection and some transform commands which gives you the option to rotate and warp your image.
And here is the File Menu.
In the File Menu, you can create a new file, open files or images and save them – just like the usual File Menu in other programs.
Now we’ll go to creating a New Document. On the File Menu, you can either click New or press Ctrl+N on the keyboard to go to the New Dialog Box.
You can use this New Dialog Box to create a blank image or start from scratch if you don’t have an image to edit. At the top is where you can give your new image a name. I’ll name this new document – Imagery.
You can set the width and height of your image and where you can also have the option to change the measuring unit you are going to use. For now we’ll use inches. Set it to 5 by 5 inches and leave it as a low resolution file with 72 pixels per inch. Set the color mode to RGB and click on OK.
The same thing with web browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome, Photoshop also has tabs which allow you to switch between opened files. Way down here at the bottom is the zoom field. There are two ways in which you can change the zoom level of your work. You can either type directly the zoom level you want like zoom to 50% view or zoom in to 150% or you can press and hold Ctrl on your keyboard and press the (+) plus or (-) minus sign.
To the right of the zoom field is the info area. By holding the alt key on the keyboard and clicking here, you’ll get an info pop-up box stating the width, height, channels, and resolution of the image. Again, just hold the alt key and click on the area.
If you want to work on your images a bit closer, you may want to try pressing F key to expand the image screen to full for a better viewing experience. If you hit F one more time, a message will pop-up informing you about full screen mode and its features. Just click on Full Screen and your image will be isolated on the screen.
The cool thing about the full screen mode is if you remember the different shortcut buttons to get to the different panels, tools and so on, they will still work.
For example, if I press V, I can instantly access the move tool, P for pen tool and B for brush tool. Hitting F again will take you back to the default view.
I’m much more used to having all the tools and panels around but if you like, you can use the full screen mode with the gray background by pressing F then hitting the tab key to remove all the panels and use only what you need and when you need it.
For example, when you want to look at your layers, you can just press F7 and the layers palette will appear. When you are back at the default view, you can press shift+tab and the palettes will disappear but the options and applications bar will remain at the top. Shift+tab will get the palettes back again.
Copyright 2011 Notes on Hobbies | Photoshop Interface – Palettes and Menus
Photoshop Interface - Toolbox
To start off this tutorial on Photoshop's Toolbox, I've opened up a file for you here so you will see the true Photoshop interface when there's a picture open. I've got my Coca-Cola Can Glass Collection here (http://notes-on-hobbies.blogspot.com/2011/07/complete-6-coca-cola-can-glass.html).
The default location of the toolbox is at the left-most side of Photoshop but you can move this anywhere you see fit. There are many tools in Photoshop and if you're a beginner or seeing Photoshop's interface for the first time you may get overwhelmed but don't worry, with constant use and practice you'll be editing your photos without the help of tutorials or guides.
As I put my mouse on top of one of these tools, a tool tip will pop up. The tool tip helps you in identifying the name of that tool and also, if you can see the letter inside the parenthesis, for example in the Marquee Tool, the letter M is inside the parenthesis. This is the keyboard shortcut for that tool and you can press M on the keyboard to easily switch to the Marquee tool. Other tools also have shortcut letters like the eye-dropper tool – letter I and the eraser tool – letter E.
Shortcut keys are important for fast and convenient editing. For example, I want to select a portion of the picture I just press M to use the Rectangular Marquee tool and select an area on the picture. However, I want to switch to the move tool so I press V which is the shortcut for the move tool. So now I can move to another side of the image or move the image. There are a lot of tools but don’t be discouraged, just familiarize yourself with them and in time, you’ll be using the shortcuts with no problem.
If you noticed, most of the tools have a small black arrow at the lower right. This means that this tool has a fly-out menu which contains other tools under a certain tool category. For example if we click and hold the left mouse button on the Lasso tool, a fly-out menu shows two additional tools – the polygonal lasso tool and the magnetic lasso tool.
To easily access these tools, you can press and hold shift plus the shortcut letter of that tool and you can easily switch from any of the tools in that category. So if I press shift and M, I can switch from any of the Marquee tools and this applies to all the tools. Another way to switch from one tool to another in the same category is to press and hold alt then click the icon of the tool. This will make the tools rotate from one sub-tool to another.
For the last part of this tutorial, we have the color area at the bottom of the toolbox. The default colors for this are black for the foreground and white for the background. The foreground and background colors are important in other aspects of Photoshop but for now the basic is that the foreground color is the color that will show when you start brushing on your canvas. For example you use red for the foreground color; you can then start brushing red onto the image. To quickly get back to the default, just press the letter D on your keyboard.
In previous versions of Photoshop, the toolbox used to be shown in two columns. To do this you can press the two white arrows at the top of the toolbox and you can easily switch from one to a two-column toolbox. Another way to do this is to double-click on the gray bar at the top of the toolbox. You can also press and hold this to drag the toolbox anywhere you like.
Copyright 2011 Notes on Hobbies | Photoshop Interface - Toolbox
Torrents nowadays are very popular especially for those who are downloading TV series'. Torrents are much more convenient for those with slow connections because with torrents, you can stop, pause, and start what you are downloading at any time. The case with direct downloads is if your connection is interrupted, you will be disconnected and you have start downloading again from the first byte of information.
To get started, first you need to have a BitTorrent Client and I recommend to you one of my favorites - Utorrent which is available at utorrent.com. Once at their website, just click the Free Download button and your download should begin automatically. Install the software by running the download file, no hard task here - easy to install.
After installing, your only one step away from downloading your favorite TV series'. The next thing you need to do is find yourself a website that offers free download of torrent files. I can recommend two websites:
