Kingofthesofas

image by Randahlem

I spill all my secrets in this post! I have been wanting to make an editing tutorial for a while now. It seemed inappropriate to post one however, due to the nature of revealing a photograph step by step through the editing process. Like I am going to do here, I will show you the before and after. The before photograph will make anyone look terrible in comparison to the finished product. I didn’t want to do that to one of my clients.

So I made an example of myself! I set my camera up on my tripod, set it to self timer, and here is the picture I got strait off the camera. It is a bit underexposed:

 

Looks pretty different from the finished photo above it, right?

So the editing process takes more than five steps, but for the purpose of this tutorial, I am going to group my edits into five steps or categories. Some of the intermediate photos will look fairly similar, which is okay. Every little element does add up, as you can see by the finished photograph above, versus the raw photograph. I do 85% of my post-production in Lightroom, using Photoshop only to remove serious distractions. For this example, I edited everything in Lightroom. Granted, I glamorized it quite a bit for this tutorial. I don’t always go this far with portraits, keep in mind. So without further ado, here is my general process.:

 

1. Bring Photo to Neutral

Bringing the photo to a neutral state requires one of a few things. Fixing the exposure, highlights and lowlights, cropping, and fixing any white balance issues. For this example, you will see that I upped the exposure, to about +1.15, cropped the picture to the composition I wanted, then put it in black and white.

 

2. Add Creative Effects

I have a Lightroom Preset I created that I like to apply to the photograph early on. Some people prefer to do this later, but I like to see how everything will look together before digitally manipulating the photograph further. Especially for facial touch-ups. For this preset, I upped the contrast to +90.  I bumped the exposure up an additional +.15, brought the highlights down -35, brought the shadows up +57, and the whites +30. I also gave a split tone to the photograph, warming up the highlights and adding a purple hue to the shadows. Then I sharpened the photograph. Then I maxed out the “Grain” setting. Grain gives texture to the photo. I typically don’t use it, but I like the vintage look to this picture, and I think it fits nicely.

 

Now, I think that this is a great photo. Many people will stop here. Not me. I wanted to feel like a fashion model and get my faced touched up (we all know that the real models do).

 

3. Digital Facial Contouring

I like to think that I coined this term. Probably not though. In this step, I smoothed out my skin by lowering the clarity, just to areas of exposed skin, including my face, shoulders, arms, neck, etc. By doing this, you “flatten” your face. It looks unnatural, (in my opinion) to leave it this way. So I digitally apply highlights and shadows, similar to how you apply makeup, in order to restore depth and angles to the face. When applying makeup, you use a bronzer for under your cheekbones and around the sides of your face. Then you apply highlighter to your cheekbones, forehead, bridge of nose, and chin. If you look closely, you can see that I did that with the paintbrush tool in Lightroom. I Burned and Dodged the areas, respectively. I also darkened my lips.

 

4. Glamorize

I call this step glamorize, because that is essentially what I am doing. I Burned my eyeliner and eyelashes, making them darker, using the paintbrush tool in Lightroom. I also increased the highlights on my cheekbones. Then I darkened my hair a bit more. After that, I realized my hair looked unnaturally dark, so I went back and highlighted (again, using the paintbrush tool), individual curls in order to define them. I enhanced the irises too. I also applied a vignette in this stage, which can be done at any stage really. A vignette keeps the eye on the subject, by darkening the edges of the photograph. Take a look:

 

 

5. Eliminate Distractors/ Last minute Touch-Ups

So this last photograph is so similar to the previous one in step four. I am going to share why I did all these small minute details, when the picture in step four is fine. I realized I didn’t care for the lines in my backdrop, so I cloned those out. Normally, I think it is appropriate to do that earlier on, but it was a detail that almost slipped by me. I cloned those out using the spot removal tool.

Next, I highlighted my shoulders because I felt like my face was the only thing with “light” on it. That was courtesy of the vignette for darkening the rest of my shoulders. I added highlights to them to help encourage the eye to move all around the image. Our eyes are naturally drawn to areas of light, and avoid the dark. I didn’t want my shoulders to disappear visually. While I was highlighting, I added one spot to my cheekbone. I think it makes my cheeks look more symmetrical.

Lastly, and this is a very odd thing that I did, but I widened my pupils. I darkened the area ever so slightly, which diminishes some of the catchlights (the light spots in the eye). Studies have shown that when we are attracted to someone, or when we view something of particular interest to us, our eyes dilate. Fashion photographers will widen models’ pupils often times because we, as viewers, look at the picture and subconsciously feel attracted-to due to this phenomenon. Does this make sense? It essentially makes you like the picture more. Anyway. Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to feel like the model in this photograph, which isn’t something I get to do often, seeing as how I am usually the one behind the camera taking the pictures.

And VOILA! The picture is finished. And this my friends, is how easy it is to manipulate photographs. With the right programs, even a simple one like Lightroom, you can dramatically alter an image. So if you feel bad about yourself after viewing a gorgeous model in a magazine, just know that they HAVE been digitally alters with programs like Photoshop. Take a look at the before and after again:

 

 

 

 

 

image by @jesterorb

image by Constantine

I've heard from a lot of people over the last day, and though I can't respond to every email, there are a couple more points I'd like to talk about.

The first of which being to remind you that I have no skin in this game. Who buys or doesn't buy a PS4 or X1 is of little consequence to me. The most I can do here is offer my personal opinion on things, from my viewpoint. And just because I'm not bothered by the X1's feature list doesn't mean I think the fact that you may be bothered by it is unreasonable. We just have to agree to disagree.

People tell me that buying used, discounted games is the only way they can afford to partake in the hobby on a restricted budget. I can sympathize with that... to a degree.

New games are priced down as time goes on. That's the nature of retail. When products are no longer the hot new thing, they go on sale, get priced down, etc. For example, I could buy a new copy of Halo 4 right now from Gamestop for $39.99. I just had to wait six months. A used copy of that game is listed for $37.99.

If the "used" option was not available, I doubt anyone is going to squabble over $2. There's no massive advantage to buying used in this situation.

Another example, Bioshock Infinite. Brand new, $39.99. Used, $37.99. And that game is only two months old. Again, if the used game market didn't exist, you'd pay exactly the same price. You just have to wait a couple of months for the price to drop.

A newer game, last month's Injustice, has not had its price drop yet. It's still listed at $59.99. The used copy (which you cannot buy from GameStop's website, likely due to limited stock) is  listed at $54.99.

In fact, the only place I could find a significant discount for a used game is by going back years. For instance, 2007's Halo 3. $19.99 new, $7.99 used. That's more than 50% in savings, and the only place I see saving significant money by buying used. On a game that's nearly six years old.

So then the other side of the package is the selling of used games, which people do to fund another game purchase. Ok, now I've seen what GameStop offers for used games, and it's laughable.

Here's an example. Right now, if you trade in two "eligible" games (read: released within the last month or two), you can get a brand new game for only $9.99 (plus tax on the full price of the game). They're essentially giving you $20 for each of the games that you just bought within the last month. They'll turn around and list them for $40 or $50, essentially doubling their investment. (If you bring in older games, you need like ten of them just to exchange for one new game, and I can't even wrap my head around how that's worth it.)

But here's what I'm thinking. If someone is tearing through two new games fast enough that they're selling them back during the period that they're actually worth anything, and struggles with money problems to do so... they're in the wrong hobby. No, no, I'm kidding. But seriously, perhaps there's a better solution developers/console manufacturers could offer. 

Perhaps Microsoft is already planning it. In the midst of their muddled, chaotic launch messaging, they did say you would be able to still buy/sell used games. They just didn't specify you'd be able to do so to GameStop. But that's okay, GameStop is bullshit anyway.

Let's speculate for a moment here. It will help if you begin thinking of the disc you receive when you buy a game as strictly a delivery system. What you're really purchasing is a license to access the content to your heart's content.

You bring the game home, register it your console profile, and play the days away. But then the day comes when you're bored of it. The way things function now, you bring it to GameStop, they give you $10 dollars for it. They sell it for $40 to some guy looking for that game, and the developer/publisher doesn't see a dime of that second sale.

But what if the transaction was handled proprietarily, within the console's domain. What if when you were done with the game, you place the license to it for sale on an Xbox Live auction house. You can set your own price (allowing supply and demand to work its magic) and upon sale, Microsoft takes a cut, similar to eBay. This cut can go where it's supposed to (Microsoft, the developers and publishers), and you get credit in Microsoft Points or whatever the fuck their new currency is going to be on your account.

Hell, maybe you can then even still take the disc to GameStop where they'll buy it for a buck or two (for those people who purchase a used license from the Xbox Auction House, but still want a physical copy of the disc on hand).

I don't know, I'm just spitballing here, and this is probably wishful thinking, but I'm trying to illustrate that perhaps there are solutions that can make everyone happy. And since right now we have more misinformation than we have solid facts, perhaps we can just wait and see what the console makers have planned before hitting Defcon 1 on the nerdrage meter.

These companies want your money. They're going to do what they can to get it. Settle down and give them a chance. You can still not buy the console come Christmas if they haven't changed your mind.

Being someone who tends to lean more towards the development side of games, I tend to play devil’s advocate fairly often when thinking about some of the more controversial topics in the gaming community. My first concern is always that the developers get what they need to remain in business and continue making games. That said, when making my usual internet rounds, I stumbled across an indie developer, Greenheart Games, who tried and interesting experiment concerning piracy.

After releasing their first game, Game Dev Tycoon, they uploaded a torrent of their own game. After having some friends help seed the torrent, within a minute it was already being downloaded and their upload speed was quickly maxed. After just one day, there were 214 genuine users (users that bought the game) while there were 3104 cracked versions out in the wild. That is less than 7% of the consumer base being genuine users for a game that only costs $7.99 here in the United States. This is simply astounding, but not really that surprising with the understanding they released the cracked version themselves. This leads to the important question: why?

Well, you see, there is one little caveat that makes this story interesting instead of depressing. The cracked version of Game Dev Tycoon has a special bit of code that, upon detecting it is an illegal copy, will start pirating the in-game projects players are developing. Once this happens, the players keep losing more and more money until they eventually fall into bankruptcy. This has a weird sense of metanarrative mimicking the exact situation Greenheart Games is facing. The developers had not yet taken a salary despite having invested over a year into the development of Game Dev Tycoon, only to find less than 7% of their player base actually bought their game. What really makes this such a fascinating experiment are the responses Greenheart Games have been receiving.

How about this one?

 

These people, who pirated Game Dev Tycoon in the first place, are now upset that their games are being pirated. Oh glorious irony, how I love thee. Even better, the second response specifically mentions DRM and if there is a way to stop the rampant piracy ruining their in-game company. This just really goes to show the plight developers are facing when they lose money to pirates and the frustration they must feel towards it. Greenheart Games had a unique situation in that they could make this sort of joke because their game simulates what it is like to be a game developer. This is an absolutely brilliant move because not only does this act as a means for Greenheart Games to persuade pirates to buy their game, it lets pirates experience the consequences of their actions and they will (hopefully) start buying games and supporting the developers that make the games we want to play. In the era of obtrusive DRM such as the always online requirement in games such as Diablo 3 and SimCity, this is a refreshing breath of air. Thank you, Greenheart Games, for taking this risk and sharing this story and I wish you the best of luck.

by Maciej

Trying to explain to my friends what I do at work

by @joshdustin

The key to why Stapel got away with his fabrications for so long lies in his keen understanding of the sociology of his field. “I didn’t do strange stuff, I never said let’s do an experiment to show that the earth is flat,” he said. “I always checked — this may be by a cunning manipulative mind — that the experiment was reasonable, that it followed from the research that had come before, that it was just this extra step that everybody was waiting for.” He always read the research literature extensively to generate his hypotheses. “So that it was believable and could be argued that this was the only logical thing you would find,” he said. “Everybody wants you to be novel and creative, but you also need to be truthful and likely. You need to be able to say that this is completely new and exciting, but it’s very likely given what we know so far.”

Here is more, interesting throughout.  I liked this part too:

Stapel did not deny that his deceit was driven by ambition. But it was more complicated than that, he told me. He insisted that he loved social psychology but had been frustrated by the messiness of experimental data, which rarely led to clear conclusions. His lifelong obsession with elegance and order, he said, led him to concoct sexy results that journals found attractive. “It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,” he said. He described his behavior as an addiction that drove him to carry out acts of increasingly daring fraud, like a junkie seeking a bigger and better high.

One of the best articles I’ve read this year, the author is Yudhijit Bhattacharjee.

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It has been a month full of watching 3D dinosaurs and hanging out with Jeff Goldblum.

by deadpants

Tired of opening multiple drawers just to find a certain tool because you forgot which one it's in? The Craftsman Dry Erase Tool Chest ($350-$450) can make that a thing...

Visit Uncrate for the full post.

by Tuwi

Awkward silence is a precursor to adjournment, not an invitation to speak more.

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Police Lambo Dubai Police And we are understandably jealous

Are the Dubai police looking for additions to their squad? Because we could use an excuse to drive this Lamborghini Aventador, which the city of Dubai has given to its force.

The 217 mph machine costs about $400,000, making it, uh, high-end, to say the least. The oil-rich Dubai (with its awesome buildings) can probably afford it, and that oil might also help offset the car's fuel costs: as Yahoo! Autos points out, police cars spend most of their time idling, waiting for a crime, which makes this behemoth a gas-guzzler most other countries wouldn't have much reason to invest in.

So the question now is: Will this turbo-charged vehicle strike fear into the hearts of would-be criminals, or will they commit a crime just for a ride in the backseat?

[Yahoo! Autos]

by khalidyousif

Think Google Fiber's expansion to Austin signals future plans to come to your town? Sorry ? infrastructure isn't Google's business.

Bring a bathing suit, kids, we're going to the Jefferson Memorial.

Climate change is going to ruin our vacations. Not only will it likely make our flights more uncomfortable, but our favorite destinations could be underwater--in a few hundred years anyway. Inspired by The New York Times's interactive project on sea level rise, Nickolay Lamm, a 24-year-old researcher and artist based in Pittsburgh, created this series of photo illustrations of the watery tourist traps of the future.

Currently, global sea levels are rising even faster than we've projected, according to recent studies. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change estimates that seas will rise an average of 6.6 feet by 2100. Over the coming centuries, as temperatures rise and ice sheets melt, our oceans could rise as much as 20 or 30 feet.

This is what the Boston Harbor Hotel would look like under 25 feet of water:

Using sea level rise maps from Climate Central graphic wiz Remik Ziemlinksi, Lamm illustrated what iconic destinations like the Washington Monument and Miami's South Beach could look like under 5 feet, 12 feet (the potential level in about 300 years), and 25 feet (the potential level in a few centuries) of water. We made them into GIFs so you can see the change over time.

Lamm compared stock photos of the locations to Google Earth data and topographical maps to figure in how rising seas would affect different places at different tide levels. The illustrations show low or medium tide sea levels.

More like Statue of Watery, right?

South Beach: closer than ever.

Lamm hopes the illustrations will help raise public awareness about the impact of climate climate change -- the change you really should believe in. No one wants to sink the Statue of Liberty, right?

[Images courtesy of StorageFront]