Goodies – Photoshop Texture Pack

Alright folks.

I promised a reward for sticking around…so here it is.

I know many of my readers are also avid Photoshop users, so I’m giving you a set of high-res textures to use on your images.

There are 19 images, making a nice large download of 213mb. So take some time and grab it.

I use textures like these in Photoshop to make everything from custom grunge brushes to other image effects like in the image below.

So get ‘em, play around…and if you ask real nice maybe I’ll post a tutorial about my process with things like that.

Random Email.

I got an email this morning that struck a chord with me. It was one of those forwarded “pass me along” emails that I usually look right past. Today was different, and I decided to open this one, still not sure why.

I’m glad I did though, because I liked the story it told quite a bit. So I’ve decided that rather than sending it out to my address book like so many people do, I’d post it here. Read if you like because true or not, it’s a damn fine message.

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Barack Obama in Columbia, Missouri

Well ladies and gents, if you’ve been following along today then you already know I worked very hard to bring you the images you’re about to see. After the other week when I missed the opportunity in Kansas City, there was no way in hell this one at Mizzou in Columbia was getting by me.

So, after a tremendous amount of effort, negotiating and professional photographerism (new word), I made absolutely sure I got in to this one.

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Roots n’ Blues 2008 – Roy C

That’s right, the man…the legend… the dude they were making a movie about during the festival: Roy C.  He was here at the Roots n’ Blues n’ BBQ festival, and he was awesome. However, I’m weaning you all off of my incredible reviews, and have instead decided to just show the images unless I have something super cool to say.

So without further ado…

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Roots N’ Blues N’ BBQ – 2008

Well readers, it is just after 11pm the Sunday after Columbia’s second annual Roots N’ Blues N’ BBQ festival, and like last year (before this blog was alive) I was in the thick of it. I had a blast, they put barriers up this year so us lowly photographers didn’t get trampled (thank you). As of this moment my lovely computer is putting the finishing touches on the 1,700 images I took over the 2-day festival. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think it will be easiest to split up the images I want to show you by artist, rather than kill your internet connections with one huge post full of images.

There are a few that don’t fit that category though, like my hot air balloon ride over the city. So I’ll show you that now.

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Huge Friggin’ Demon Beast Spider

I was nearly killed this morning. I arrived at the office, and a predator was waiting for me. No, it’s wasn’t ninja duck. It was a more ancient evil, a beast of legend, a giant on the face of the Earth. It could have been an epic battle…but the thing was already dead. Or cool enough to let himself be measured and narcissistic enough to get photographed.

Ok, so not very epic I guess but, still the largest wild spider I’ve actually been able to look at up close. I’m sure I’ve encountered one larger at some point but they always see me first and all I see is their giant form as they scurry underneath a log or something.

So, who knows what kind of spider that is pictured above?

Tin-Eye, The Photographer’s Bodyguard.

Let’s face it, image theft is rampant, and easy. Every professional photographer or visual artist on the net knows that much. With the number of websites in the world it is impossible to scour each of them everyday looking for someone stealing your work. Most of the answers to this issue lie in the realm of spending a lot of money to hire a company to keep an eye on things for you. Even that has flaws though as something always falls through the cracks.

It’s 5:30am here, and I’m awake fearing for my precious images’ well-being. That’s not really why I’m awake, but I am spending this fluke of free time today looking at something you need to know about. Tin Eye, and people if this thing delivers like it promises, well let’s just say that a career in IP law will be a very busy field soon.

The technology is still in beta right now, and the database is limited to about 900 million images. Obviously though – and this is the important part – the technology is here to find thefts of your work. I don’t know how it works, but it allows you to search the internet for your images, or altered versions of them. It is extremely easy to use, and at the moment it is totally free. Hopefully they will keep it that way. I imagine that a certain massive corporation will buy up the technology soon *cough* google *cough* and if they do I think the possibility of this being a free service is much greater.

I think beta signups are still open, so if you can you need to go check it out. I’ll keep playing with it, and let you know if I find a downside to this technology. I have to say though, unless they decide to charge hundreds of dollars to use it, I don’t see a downside coming.

*UPDATE – 10:57am*

So far I’ve tried to find most of the images that I have scattered around the web. No stellar results. I could view that as a good thing because that means it didn’t find anything stolen. It means something more important though. TinEye needs to update the database and crawl more websites. I understand that it must be very difficult to build something like they have. Fact is, it needs to evolve. 900million is an astronomical number of images for sure, but it doesn’t scratch the surface of the images on the web.

My stance is still one of hope, because the technology is fantastic, and the fact that I couldn’t find anything of mine doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

My suggestion… crawl flickr, catalog their images. Then approach google and either work with them, or sell the technology. It has a ton of potential, but the database needs to get much much bigger before it’s a viable option for lesser known images and orphaned works to be found and identified.

Font Conference

This has to be one of the greatest designerd videos out there. I think I just made up a new word.

-David

The Coolest Thing on the Internet

Ok.

So I once thought I hit the end of the internet. I had no more questions. I had seen all of the cool, interesting things that there were.

Or so I thought.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to the awesomest thing this side of breathing, and it works on Mac and PC!

I Give you PicLens

The iPhone has nothing on this amazing photo viewer. Download it by clicking the link above and then click the little play button at the bottom of this image after you install the plugin:

Now sit back and be amazed.

You’re welcome.