Photopea

 I just came across this brilliant site - photopea.com 

For those who can't afford Photoshop, or for whatever reason can't put it on their computer (maybe a Linux user?) then this site is essentially a free, online version of Photoshop.

It does have a few limitations (you need a stable, decent internet connection for starters) but it gives you most of the functionality of the best image editing program out there without having to fork over a whole bunch of cash. I wouldn't rely on it as a main editor, or attempt any large or overly complex projects with it - but it might come in handy for quick little things or for opening up a .psd file and saving it in another format.

And as a bonus - no watermarks!

Edit: I've just gone through and deleted a bunch of old comments, specifically a whole bunch of spam comments from this blog - some from 2008! In my defense, I only recently got my proper login working again on this blog, I've been using an alternate account for over a decade which was accidentally created when Google bought Blogger. Over 150 comments deleted, about 48 comments left. For a blog that's been running long enough to be considered a teenager, that's not a lot of engagement...  

And... the flashes arrive

So I'm back in the game!

I ordered two Yongnuo YN-460 II flashes at the start of the month and they've arrived. Tested and working, I now need to get on with it and take more photos. I know the 460's are a "cheap and nasty" type flash but they are so cheap and easy to work with.

Well, I find them easy to work with. They will pretty much only work properly in Manual mode which is fine by me, but someone who wants to use Auto or one of the Creative modes then they would struggle with manual flashes.

On the Agenda: I want to get back into writing. Not sure why nor do I have too many ideas (I keep thinking I'm creative and then proving myself wrong) but every time I listen to Writing Excuses I get the urge to write more.

Cactus V5 triggers

I received my new flash triggers! *squee!*

I bought two sets of the Cactus V5 flash triggers from Gadget Infinity. I only have one flash at the moment but I've ordered two more which are on their way giving me three flashes to play with. This'll make for a basic three-light setup.

I was testing them just now and they appear to be working properly. I was initially a little frustrated as I could get all the triggers to talk to each other (orange light on top) but couldn't get the flash to fire. Turns out (after reading the instructions) that I needed to press just a tad harder which makes the trigger lights flash green and sets off the flash. So there you go, read the instructions!

I'll probably pick up another two flashes and another set of triggers for a set of 5 flash/trigger units.

Gallery - Redux

Well, it took longer than expected (like everything) but my new gallery is up and running.

Actually, it's probably not very well done as the main gallery index does not show any actual photos! It is a list of links to the pages that have the photos. Not the best way to do it since there are no "hooks" to grab people and get them into the photos themselves. My bad.

You can check it out here and see what all the fuss is about.

In other photography related news - my new camera has arrived! *squee* You can't see me, but I'm totally doing a happy dance right now. It's a Canon Kiss X4 and it's just dandy. I've only just started playing with it, I'm hoping to get some photos to share this weekend (or sooner!).

One more to go...

Well, the rebuild of my music site is practically complete. There is a bit more jazzing up that can be done, but that's as far as I'm going to go on it for now. I'm not producing music at the moment, having swung back to photography so there isn't much point in spending time and effort on the site.

However, my main site needs an update. I'll be totally re-doing the photograph section but the whole site I want to upgrade to 4.01 strict which means changing all the back end stuff. This is a lot of effort considering that on the outside it'll look pretty much the same.

Having said that, my primary focus is going to be the photography stuff.

I've already been sorting out through all of my photos looking for which ones to put up and have a fair stack sorted out. There's still more to go though, but I'm getting there. I'll need to re-organize the main page as well (plus write more articles, but I've been saying that for years).

Final thing on the to-do list is sort out the media computer and get it sorted out. It is too noisy and is running out of space. We'll see how that goes.

Multi-flash setup?

Well, I've now got several flashes for the 300D (three actually). They're Yongnuo Speedlite YN460 flashes - basically a cheap knock-off of the Canon Speedlites (which cost several hundred dollars - each).

The idea is to be able to get light flashes onto the subject from different sides at the same time.

Obviously they are not going to be anywhere near as good as the proper Canon flashes, but I'll have to have a play with them to see if I can get some satisfactory results out of them. I tried it once with one of the flashes mounted on the hotshoe on the camera and the result wasn't very good.

In other news, the copy of "Let the blood run free" mentioned a few posts ago has come through which is quite nifty - very fast delivery and it wasn't even express - just regular mail. I'll pop it into the machine tomorrow and have a watch and see if it was worth the expense...

Also, I temporarily have the Kogan hi-def camera again for a few weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to produce another video clip or two in the next fortnight.

Watch this space!

Atlantis Marine Park

For those that don’t know, Perth used to have a large number of theme parks back in the 80’s. One of those was the old Atlantis Marine Park. It had dolphins and sea lions and slides and all manner of stuff that was exciting if you were a kid back then.

Of course, if you went there as a teenager or had been to bigger, better parks on the East Coast then you would have been bored out of your skull. The place pretty much only had six dolphins and a few other small animals.

It’s been closed for nearly 20 years, but I went up there to have a look at it a few weeks ago. Wandered around and took a bunch of photos while I was there.

Finally got around to organising it all and writing out a proper article. You can read it here and see the photos that I took. It is quite interesting, if you happen to have been there.

Trying out Coppermine

Well, I wasn’t able to find a different image gallery program so I went ahead and decided to install Coppermine (it is available as a one-button install option provided by my website host, Jumba).

So far, it has gone reasonably well. The learning curve isn’t too hard, I’ve been able to sort things out and get the ball rolling (15 photos uploaded thus far) and it looks like it will be much better than my original photo gallery which was just a basic page with links to photos.

 

The new one looks pretty crappy at the moment (default theme) but I will be trying to change the look of it to fit in with my website a little more.

If I can get it to look like it is part of the site, then I will be very happy with it.

Night Photography

Not a whole lot going down at the moment. Went out the other night to take a few more pics of the streets at night. Didn’t get anything particularly exciting, but there were one or two that were good enough.

This is one of them:

There must be a story behind this shoe, though I do not know it.

I was walking back to the car when I happened to notice that there was a shoe lying by the side of the road. It is pink and not very large. There is only one and the straps are done up. Like I said, I have no idea as to the story behind this shoe.

Maybe a young girl was happily playing the park, went back to the car to go home with the family and dropped it by the side of the road. Perhaps an annoying little brother threw it out the window as they were leaving.

I don't know what happened, but somewhere there is another little shoe, sad, and missing it's twin…

In other news, I put in an order for some business cards. I have no idea if or when they are going to show up, but I’ll wait and see how they turn out.

Worked out the remote

Playing with my 300D I finally figured out how to use a little cheapy IR remote I picked up off eBay.

The trick was telling the camera to accept IR - done via the normal / timer button on top of the camera. It should also be noted that the IR receiver on the camera is covered by the fingers in a normal holding position so that the remote will only control the camera when it is on a tripod or on a desk.

Now I just need a subject to photograph...

Finally - an update!

Well, I managed to get up off my backside and made an update to my main site.

I've uploaded a photo gallery with some of my less bad photos on it. None of them are award-winning or even particularly good, but hopefully it'll give me a baseline to improve from.

Trying to get more into writing, not very successful thus far. On the plus side, I've stopped ordering stuff on-line, which means there is less chance of things getting lost in the mail during the upcoming move.

Not sure when we'll be moving, the uncertainty is the most annoying part. We've moved plenty of times before so it isn't as traumatic as it can be for some people. Probably helps that I can't wait to get out of this place. Anyway, boxing is going nicely, still have more stuff to pack than stuff which is packed, so we're aways away still.