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Giving Your Pictures HDR Look Using GIMP
Before I start writing this article, I’ve to admit that I’m a big fan of HDR photography. HDR photographs are so full of magic but all this magical goodness comes with a price. Not everybody is equipped with high-quality photography gears. Cams that support HDR photography are usually very costly. Realizing that the majority of amateur photographers can’t afford high-end dSLRs, I decided to write a short tutorial that tries to achieve HDR-like effect using GIMP, the freely available open source Image Manipulation program.

Here are Before and After shots just to show what you’ll be achieving using this technique:

Before:

After:

Should we start? I’m assuming that GIMP is already installed on your systems. In case it isn’t already installed, get a copy for your OS and complete the installation procedure. Once you’ve got it installed, download the original image. Open it using GIMP:

Now, go to Colors >> Auto and apply Color Enhance a few times:

After repeating the previous step 4-5 times, the picture should start looking like this:-

Now, before we can proceed further, I’ll suggest you to download the Fx-Foundry Scripts Pack. You can install it via EDIT >> Preferences >> Folders >> Plugins:

After downloading the script, extract it in its own folder. While on the Plugins window, click browse and select the directory of the download script. After adding the directory path, go to Filters >> Script Fu and select Refresh Scripts. A new menu “Fx-Foundry” should appear on the menu bar. In case you still can’t see it, just restart GIMP.

Now go to Fx-Foundry >> Photo >> Effects and select “LOMO effect…“.

This is it. Did you come close to something like this?

You can download the finished version here. If you liked this technique and applied it on your own photos, please post your versions in the comments.
Improve your portfolio with pro bono design
Photo by Tudinh Duong

You’re a graphic design student with a portfolio full of fictitious projects. You want to work with clients to build your experience, but you need a more developed portfolio to attract the clients. A classic catch-22.

That’s when working pro bono proves extremely useful.

Read on to learn why, and for a chance to win one of five signed copies of Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities.

What is pro bono?

Pro bono publico (usually shortened to pro bono) is a phrase derived from Latin meaning “for the public good.” The term is generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment as a public service.

Unlike traditional volunteerism, pro bono uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them.

What business should you approach?

Contact a small- to medium-sized non-profit organisation. Larger non-profits will have a substantial budget allocated to their brand identity, and are more likely to work with an experienced professional or studio.

Conduct an online search or look in your telephone directory for a non-profit in your locality. The benefit of staying local is you can meet your new client face-to-face. Doing so will not only help build your confidence in business meetings, but it makes it easier to ensure you’re dealing with the decision-maker rather than passing design ideas through a middle-person — adding an unnecessary step to the design process.

There are further benefits with working locally. For instance, once the project is complete, you will have the opportunity to take photos of the finished design in context (e.g., on signage and stationery). It’s these contextual shots that can turn an average portfolio into an excellent one.

Additionally, you’re building your network of local business contacts, and the stronger your network, the more tools and help you will have available throughout your design career.

How to make the approach

It’s important to talk to the person directly responsible for the visual branding. In a small-sized non-profit this is likely to be the managing director or chief executive.

Call or send an email pitching yourself as a talented designer who is about to, or has recently graduated with a design degree. Say it’s your policy to devote a small percentage of time towards pro bono work (for the public good), and that your client’s non-profit mission is one you have a great deal of respect for (this should of course be true).

Detail the savings you are offering your client (your standard rate for an identity project, only discounted by 100%). Doing so will ensure the value of the outcome isn’t underestimated, and helps keep your client motivated.

Arrange a 30-minute meeting, where you will discuss the design needs and set a course of action.

In the meeting

Arrive with a list of pre-determined questions, a notepad, a pen, and your business card (which you will hand over at the end).

It’s possible your client is anxious about the process of having a brand identity created or redesigned. She may see ideas as a risk, and not as a way to secure her mortgage. So the more indepth your initial discussions, the more at ease you will make your client. It may be that it’s her first time working on an identity project, and it’s up to you to show how smoothly the process can flow.

Be sure to time the meeting, and if you haven’t finished within 30 minutes, say you have reached the end of the allocated time, and that you can call or email your client at a later date for any other necessary information — your client will be very busy, and will appreciate you sticking to your pre-arranged time limit.

Questions to ask

The crux of a healthy graphic design brief lies in the questions you pose. Obtaining the necessary answers isn’t difficult. You just need to ask.

If you want specifics, I outline a number of vital questions in chapter four of Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities, and I have five free signed copies up for grabs.

Photo by Raja Sandhu

There are two ways to enter the random draw:
1. Either upload one of your favourite self-designed logos to the Logo Design Love Facebook group
2. Or update your Twitter account with the following message:
Improve your portfolio with pro bono design: http://bit.ly/cfkg1m (by @DavidAirey)

Winners will be drawn and notified on Friday 26th February. I’ll also update this page with the winning names. Two signed copies will go to designers who upload to the Facebook group, and three to those who spread the word on Twitter. Double your chances by entering both ways.

If random draws, Twitter, or Facebook aren’t your thing, the book’s available to purchase now on Amazon.com (or Amazon.co.uk for those in the United Kingdom).

There’s also a free chapter here, and a few book reviews here.

How did you attract your first client in self-employment?

My first design client was actually my former employer — a cancer organisation in Edinburgh. I had been responsible for the company’s print and web management, and when I resigned to spend some months travelling the world, I returned to find that a suitable replacement hadn’t been found.

I asked the chief executive to hire me for three days per week as a design contractor. He agreed, enabling me to spend the remainder of the working week building my online presence and sourcing new clients.

Five years on, and there’s very little I’d change about the path I’ve taken.

What about you? How did your first client come about?

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

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Man Appears Free of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant
Jacquelyne Froeber writes on CNN:

A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to the virus that causes AIDS, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“The patient is fine,” said Dr. Gero Hutter of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. “Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication.”

The case was first reported in November, and the new report is the first official publication of the case in a medical journal. Hutter and a team of medical professionals performed the stem cell transplant on the patient, an American living in Germany, to treat the man’s leukemia, not the HIV itself.

However, the team deliberately chose a compatible donor who has a naturally occurring gene mutation that confers resistance to HIV. The mutation cripples a receptor known as CCR5, which is normally found on the surface of T cells, the type of immune system cells attacked by HIV.

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Skate & Destroy Exhibition
Skateboard decks find that they go through short and abusive life cycles as fanatical skateboarders repeatedly perform tricks in tough environments. These decks end up fraying, cracking and wearing out rather quickly which consequently results in skateboarders going through an abundance of them in their skateboarding careers.
As new skateboarding decks are purchased, older decks end up either collecting dust in skateboarders’ basements or are thrown away. Thus, haroshi’s HARVEST project was spawned which recycles used skateboard decks to produce dazzling pop artwork. As a former skater, haroshi’s guiding philosophy is to embrace sustainability through finding new applications for used possessions.
The exhibition opened on February 18^th and commences on the 27^th of the month. If you’re fortunate enough to be in Tokyo tomorrow, you have one last chance to check it out in person. But for the rest of our readers who can’t make it, Brandon Shigeta was kind enough to share with us the photos of this exhibition at PLSMIS in Tokyo.
See the rest of Brandon’s photos on his Flickr page.
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Источник: Приколы - XXLive.RU
A short story
A few months ago I posted four short stories that undergraduate students in my class wrote.

In response to these stories, some readers proposed their own short stories, and today I am posting the fist of these:

Here is “Five Sundays,” By Jamey Stegmaier
The Internet and Self-Control: An App To the Rescue
I have “a friend” who will head over to a coffee shop to get work done. Not because she’s unable to work at her desk or because she needs the presence of other people, but rather because it lets her get away from the Internet and all its distractions.

True, she could easily stay put by just keeping her browser closed. But that requires self-control, and as we all know, keeping ourselves in check is easier said than done. Whatever the resolution (start dieting, start saving, stop procrastinating, etc.) we routinely stick to it for a bit and then cave. We make the resolution in one state of mind – a cool, rational state – and then break it when temptation strikes.

That’s the reason for my friend’s coffeeshop strategy: precommitments allow us to commit upfront to our preferred course of action. In her cool, rational state, my friend can decide not to surf the web and make a point to leave the wireless behind; later, when temptation strikes, she’ll be out of luck. Access denied.

On the whole, I like my friend’s strategy. But there’s a potential problem: what if she needs the Internet to do her work? What then?

Not to worry – there’s an app to the rescue: SelfControl, a free Mac-only software program that blocks access to incoming/outgoing mail servers and websites and was thought up by artist Steve Lambert. (As the son of an ex-monk and an ex-nun, he’s well-versed in self-control.) The app only takes seconds to install and comes with all the flexibility that my friend’s coffeeshop strategy lacks.

Instead of taking leave of the Internet all-together, you can pick and choose what you can and can’t access, and for how long. If Facebook is your particular time-suck, then add its URL to SelfControl’s blacklist and the program will block Facebook and nothing else. If Twitter is another danger zone, then by all means, throw its URL into the mix. Next, figure out how long you want to block them for – anywhere from one minute to twelve hours – and move the slider accordingly. Then press start and you’re good to go.

But here’s the key part: once you click start, there’s no going back. (No wonder the app has a skull and crossbones symbol as its icon.) Switching browsers won’t help you, and neither will restarting your computer or even deleting the app. You won’t get those websites back until the timer runs out. As such, it’s as effective of a precommitment as seeking out a wireless-free zone.

Though temptation routinely deflects us from our long-term goals, our struggle with self-control isn’t a lost cause. Once we realize and admit our weakness, we can do something about it by taking on clever precommitments that save us from ourselves. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need the SelfControl app, but in this world it sure is useful.

Irrationally Yours,

Dan

P.S. For more on precommitments, check out this post on self-control and sex.
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