I look at my google reader this morning (which btw, if you don't use it you should) and it almost brought a tear to my eye... almost. But the point being, I do miss keeping up to date on such things. I'm a bit ignorant now a days, so if we invade another country be sure to send me an email.
It was nice to see that people actually care about my ignorance. Last night I received 2 phone calls and one live reminder that LOST was starting again last night. I love you too.
But I must argue that it isn't completely my fault. I'm gonna blame my Typography professor. This woman (yes she's a woman which makes it even more blasphemous) not only makes me want to take my x-acto knife and poke my eye out, but she has no idea how lucky she is I haven't hauled off and given her the 'ol bitch slap. Yesterday in class, it took every iota of the goodness in my heart to not explain to her what an idiot she was. So now, my heart is black. I have nothing left.
I have my first midterm today, but I think I'll ACE it. Unless my prof makes those impossible tests. I was given advice from people that have taken his class to just memorize our handouts and notes. So I did that, and my brain is now consumed by useless data that I will surely dump out at approximately noon today.
The kiddos have been out of school all week, today is their first day back. Of course after a 6 day vacation, they still didn't see the need of going back. Touche.
So, two assignments for my readers:
1) If anything important happens in the world (or semi-important) you must email me.
2) If any of you know how to use Adobe Illustrator, any tips would be... precious.
Labels: life
OK here's one trick (that I assume will work in that bloated piece of crap Illustrator) that I love to play around with...
Duplicate the main picture layer.
Select ONLY the backround layer and apply a Gaussian blur, to about the point where you can still see there are objects, but you cant tell what they are.
Select ONLY the top layer and change the hue map, dramatically emphasizing a main color in the shot.
Still only on the top (non-blurred) layer, increase the transparency.
Play around with these three settings (blur on bottom layer, hue map and transparency on top layer) until you get what you like, then merge the layers.
I've used this process (or its functional equivalent) in Paint.net, Paint Shop Pro, and other programs, and with many different kinds of original graphics (photos seem to work the best but many other things look great, too.)