photography digital information

Find out who’s using your images…

Every wonder who might be using your image(s) without your knowledge or approval?

With a new image search engine from TinEye you can now find out. No typing in keywords, descriptions or tags, TinEye will first take a look at your image and then search the internet for a match.

The folks at TinEye claim that even if your image has been cropped, resized, or "photoshopped" they can find it.

You can click on the search results and it will toggle between your mage and the image found to compare them, a pretty cool feature.

To make life even easier, there is a plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox that allows you to simply right click on an image on any webpage and perform a search for that image.

You can view some searches and the results here and here.

Hey everybody!...

I'm finally back - between my two seminars last week (that took up 5 days), out of state visitors, and my daughters softball playoffs, things were just a bit hectic!

Starting this Thursday (maybe sooner) I'll be back posting photography stuff. But in the mean time let me share a story about one of my Twins.

Emma is my only daughter playing softball this season and is not having her best year, things (at times) have been a struggle for her, but bless her heart she is at every practice and every game giving it her all. Here is a story from one of her last games.

There Emma sat in left field when up to the plate comes one of the other teams power hitters and I know she is praying that the ball goes anywhere but to her.

Doesn’t this girl hit the farthest highest fly ball to left field I have seen this year (or maybe it just seemed that way to me).

I am watching Emma as she runs to get under the ball and I hear her say (as did everyone else in the stands) “OH NO”…

You would have thought by my reaction that she had caught the last out in the seventh game of the world series. After the game she came over to me and said sheepishly "I didn't mean to say that out loud".

Her team made it to the championship game, and we go to the banquet to pick up her trophy tonight.

;)

(click on image to enlarge)

A little about HDR...

HDR (High Dynamic Range) seems to be the rage lately, though it has been around since the 1930's.

HDR is the combination (bracketing) of 2 or more images in an effort to better capture (and display) the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows.

Matt Kloskowski has had several recent blog entries specific to HDR, one is a video about HDR, the other contains "Links, News, and Inspiration".

Here is a very good High Dynamic Range Tutorial, here is another, and here is one more from Pop Photo.

Some folks (including Mr. Kloskowski) are not big fans of using Photoshop for HDR and prefer to us Photomatix, you can view tutorials here and download a free trial here.

A Fathers Day thought...

A couple months back, just before I turned 52, I was having lunch with my friend Bob, we have lunch weekly and I always enjoy our conversations as Bob is thoughtful and insightful man.

When Bob talks, I listen.

At this particular lunch I was telling Bob about my dad, who left when I was 6, and how it had been decades since I last saw him.

That on my 40th birthday a card and letter arrived from my dad telling me of his regrets, that a lot of water had passed under the bridge, and that he would love to visit. Reading his words didn’t provoke any emotions, the anger of him leaving us had long since gone, but I didn’t feel the need for a reunion either. The letter went into a drawer and I never replied.

Bob asked why; I told him that “at this point in my life I didn’t feel the need for father”. Bob nodded thoughtfully then responded, “ya, but maybe he has a need for a son”.

It was like I had been struck by lighting. I got it.

I found out where my dad was living and made arrangements to go see him.

He died before I got there.

Regrets don’t come from the things we do, sure there are things we won’t do again, but we learn from them, there was a lesson there somewhere for us.

The true regret comes from the things we don’t do.

You too may be at a point in your life where you don’t feel the need for a father, but maybe your dad needs you.

Something to think about.

Happy Fathers Day dad.

(dad & me)

Some quick hits, then I'm outa here...

Here are some recent posts from other blogs that you really should read:

1. Digital Photography School has a couple you good posts (actually more, but I am limiting it to two), "Best Camera Accessories for Beginners" and "Food Photography Tips & Techniques".

2. Camera Porn has "60 Photography Links You Can't Live Without", though I think they should add Weekly Pho Tips and make it 61.

3. Studio Lighting has recently added "Photography Video Tutorials".

4. PixSylated will show you how to "Pimp Your McNally". I only recently stumbled onto this site and have added it to my bookmarks, you should too.

5. Speaking of Joe McNally, bottom line, reading Joe will make you a better photographer, and isn't that what its all about?

Now for the "I'm outa here" part:

I am heading to Boston today (Thursday) and will be there until Sunday learning from the great Lou Jones, then spending Monday getting ready for the Lighting Essentials workshop we are hosting next Tuesday and Wednesday, so if blog entries are few and far between it's not because I don't love you, it's just that I am a little busy.

See ya when I get back.

I hate spam!...

Anyone who has had an email address for more than a week finds themselves squarely in the sites of spammers. I am usually a loving and tolerant man, but when it comes to spammers the image comes to mind of a person buried neck deep next to an anthill and covered with honey.

They (spammers) seem to fall into three categories:

1. Those who want me to help them to sneak millions of dollars out of Africa. Let's think about this for a minute, they could deal with honest professionals (accountants, and attorneys) to move their money, or go to a complete stranger. Ya, that makes perfect sense, sign me up!

2. Porn. Please, like porn is soooo hard to find on the internet that you have to fill my inbox with it. And I like it even more when you send it to my daughters. Keep up the good work.

3. Viagra. You would think that every man in America was impotent, and that married people actually have sex.

Anyway, my point was not to rage on, but to give you a couple tools to keep these leaches from our inbox.

The first tool is for those who use Outlook, it's called SpamBayes and works incredibly well. You can get it for free, it's really easy to setup, and you can download it here.

If you use Outlook Express you need to stop, friends don't let friends use Outlook Express. Two big negatives about OE is that you can't backup your address book and mail boxes without buying a third party program, and you can't control spam without buying yet another program.

You should move over to Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is a wonderful email program, you can easily backup all your mailboxes, it has powerful anti-spam capabilities as part of the program, and most important, very secure!

You can also find a ton of templates and themes that allow you to customize it to your liking.

If you use OE and install Thunderbird, it will import all your settings, address books and mail folders for you. You'll be up and running a snap.

You can download Thunderbird here.

So once you are done transferring those millions of dollars, looking at porn, and popping Viagra, grab one of these free options for taking back control of your inbox!

(caught spammers - click to enlarge)