Help me relax

Last night after work I came home, drank some margaritas and fell asleep in the hammock. Here are some of my other drinks that help take the edge off.

My new Hammock

I've always wanted a hammock but I never lived in a place where the tree spacing was suitable. I've seen the huge ones that have their own stands but they take up way too much space, until I found this little gem at the Discovery store.


It folds up to a compact size, can hold a weight of 250lbs, and at $99 how can you go wrong. Fits perfect in my back little slab.



All I need now is a Majoto and my iPod and my day just got booked solid.

Photomerge in Photoshop CS3

I've been getting some questions about the panoramic images so I'm going to share some tips.

Most of my images are 180° and compiled of 7-11 images with 20% overlap in each image. There are some great programs out there for merging images but the one I use is the new photomerge in Photoshop CS3 (you can get a free 30 day trial).


Photomerge is located by choosing File > Automate > Photomerge.

A dialog box asking you what type of layout (Auto works great) you want pops up. Select the location of your images and hit "OK." Depending on your processor speed this could be a fast or slow process. (On my G5 tower it will do a photomerge in about 2 minutes.)



Photomerge will analyze the images pixel by pixel instead of just blending the images which results in a seam down the merged areas. Instead you will be able to see the pixel merge by being able to turn off the merged layers.

Some more in-depth tutorials:
Using Photomerge
CS3 Workshop

Hope this helps guys.

Restaurant Connoisseur

Jer and I have an issue with cooking...we both hate doing it. Jer complains when I cook that I make too much of a mess and I never clean up to his specifications. I always complain that it takes Jer too long to get the food prepared and we end up eating around 10pm. So our daily dialog always ends up asking the question, "what we should do for dinner?" Jer will get frustrated because we spend way too much money on food but then he doesn't want me to make anything because he doesn't want to clean up my mess, so instead we always go out to eat. Rarely do we go to fast food. We like to sit and relax so were always going to some place where the bill ends up being around $45...almost every night of the week. We could be saving so much money if we would just cook something but who the hell wants to cook after working all day?

Tonight's restaurant: BJ's.

What I've been up to...

All last week I was running around getting stuff for my back yard (an by yard I mean 12'x12' area). Last year we had just moved in and I wasn't up for the task of being ambitious outside. So this past weekend I spent the whole day digging in the dirt.





[ the above image was done with the new photomerge in CS3 ]

Zoomify in Photoshop CS3

Zoomify is one of the new features of Photoshop CS3. It lets you interact with high-res images and zoom in the way google maps does. (use the slider at the bottom of the image and drag the image around). I'll be featuring some more of my images in zoomify in upcoming post.

Another year older

*sigh*

brandonhunter.net

I often visit the websites of people who leave comments on my blog. One of the recent ones was left by brandonhunter.net. His site has some amazing 3D renderings done in 3D Studio Max. Check it out.

Columbus at night

More examples of Photomerge.

Nice day

Jer and I went to the conservatory and to Innis Woods the other day.