Today we went on a picknick with the children’s playgroup at Hägnan. It was about 10-15 children in all ages and we had a very good time. We grilled chicken, sausages and ate it together with breadsticks and melon. It was very delightful. It is the kind of place where you can just let the children run around on their own. No strange places where they can fall down, no cars, no high speed bicycles and just tons of fun things to do. In the beginning I was a bid of a protective dad and followed Tovah around but I got over that after lunch but that unfortunately proved not to be to good as Tovah for the first time in her life got lost. She was on her own about one house away but it was still very scary for her.
They also had straw barn where the children (and adults đ could jump into the dried straw. Tovah was a bit scared, but she jumped nicely when she held my hand. Later there was an unfortunate accident đ Tovah and another girl were supposed to jump together. They held hands and Tovah started counting to three and the other girl jumped immediately, pulling Tovah with here. Tovah landed on top of the other girl. It must have hurt quite a bit as they both cried for some time and I couldn’t get Tovah to jump again.
When we got home I was really tired, and found myself just sitting in front of the computer for a while. Some the and chickpeas helped my mood back to happiness. Played with my photos for the rest of the day and learned tons of new things about Photoshop and the most misnamed filter, Unsharp mask which is actually a tool for making the image look sharper.
During the evening I also made IP-telephony experiment. I used Marratech Pro as a SIP client towards DigiSip and called my mother using it as a phone replacement. After a while Tovah wanted to speak with her as well so I called the Pingtel phone as well and included that into the conversation using Pro as a mixer and gateway. It worked very well and the only real problem was sound levels as my speech came out much louder in the Pingtel than my mother.
It is my mother’s birthday today! Happy Birthday, mom!!
Today was also Dick’s funeral. Tina was there. I couldn’t go as I was giving an exam today and honestly I didn’t feel like going.
Now I am just waiting for Tovah to fall asleep so I can get into bed with my lovely wife.
All posts by Peppar
Scanning Experiences
I have now been playing with scanning my photos for a while and I have come to some conclusions. For the record, the scanner is a Canon Canoscan 9900F and I have connected it using USB2.0. My target is publishing them online but also saving them is original PSD (I use Photoshop) for later editing. The source is all negative film.
As you can imagine, the settings you use when scanning a photo affects the result and I have currently found that the following produces the best result.
* Resolution 1600: This produces files of about 2288×1464 pixels and each raw file is 9.56MB in PSD format which in turn can be compressed non-lossy to 7.2MB using Winzip with maximum compression. The resulting JPEG as created with Adobe ImageReady using JPEG quality 90 is 1.35MB. For comparison the PSD file becomes 34MB if the resolution is increased to 3200.
* Remove Dust and Scratches (FARE) Hard: FARE is a technique that uses infrared light to detect dust and scratches on the source and does a VERY good job in removing them. This features as I understand it is unique for Canon scanners. Most of my old negatives have been stored badly and are a bit damaged.
* Fading correction Normal: This makes the colors a bit more saturated.
* Grain correction: Normal This was actually the hardest one to decide on. If I set it on soft you can see the grains on e.g. white walls but if I set it to hard then the image gets to blurry. I decided to use normal.
* Quality High Quality: This just means that it scans in higher quality than normal.
* Not using Unsharp Mask: The unsharp mask is very important but Photoshop makes a much better job than the scanner software. More about this later.
Using these settings scanning on negative takes 5 minutes 20 seconds.
The scanner can scan 24 negatives at one time but that requires that the negatives are cut in sheets of 6 which most Swedish negatives aren’t (they are cut in sheets of 4).
That was the scanning part and I will post more details about handling tomorrow.
[Written while listening to: Chris de Burgh – Carry Me 03 – and talking with my mother using SIP.]
Update: changed the text about Fading correction.
Putting a child to sleep
I have just put a child to sleep. My child. She is so beautiful, lying there in the light from the lava lamp. The light goes up and it goes down as the wax gathers at the bottom of the bottle covering the lamp. She turns this way, she turns that way, she checks if I am there and then finally, she is really asleep and I can leave. Do I really have to leave? Can’t I just sleep there, right next to the princess? Well, I have another princess to take care of to night. Good night!
[Written while reading “EN SKEJTARES OSKULD“]
Scan 002
Scan 002 is now finished. It contains among other things photos from when we got Timbo.
[Written while listening to: 02 – My Hometown – Bruce Springsteen – Best Ballads]
1 Billion Kronor?
I have always been fond of money, who isn’t honestly? Anyhow, this is what 1 billion kronor looks like.
Thanks for the tip Rolf!
[Written while listening to: I Ain’t Gonna Stand For It – Eric Clapton – Reptile (Advance)]
Giving Blood
Giving bloods makes me feel good, but I did feel fatigued and aggravated during the cycle home. I recruited Johanna today and got an extra 50:- as a thanks. T was running around the place between me leaving blood and J in the testing room for the newcomers. Nobody seemed to mind my little critter running around and being cute.
Me and T had planned to visit the icebreaker Frej today (after a great tip from Jalle) but unfortunately the two last yours were sold out so we were only allowed to view the 4 icebreakers from the outside. Instead T and I hid from the rain down in the harbour and did some creative drawing, on the ground and other creative places đ Tovah even found out that she could draw and stones and in places where I couldn’t reach.
After that Tovah got a small burger and an ice cream and we headed for the blood central, then Kvantum and then here I am.
I must admit that I feel good.
By the way, T woke me up at 5.30 this morning and after tossing for 30 minutes I got up and showered. Then J came and pulled me back into bed and we slept until 0900. I am really glad she did!! When I awake that early, it seems like all problems get ten times bigger and I get queasy feelings in my stomach and my chest and I cannot sleep. Later when I get up at an reasonable time the problems are all gone, well they are still there, I just don’t care anymore đ
[Written while listening to: madonna – american life – 03 – I’m so stupid – – ]
Distorted USB Extigy Sound
Personal Problem&Solution for my own notes only.
Today my PC audio on Blipp got distorted and mic-in vanished. Many BSODs and much testing showed turned out that the driver for the USB pccard reader is not very correct. Uninstalling the driver and drive solved the problem. It was the violet LexarMedia reader with dual drives. The drive itself worked with the driver.
[Written while listening to: madonna – american life – 02 – hollywood – – ]
Quiet
I haven’t been blogging much the last two days and the reason is that I have been working, working and working. I woke up full of energy today and got to work immediately. After a great lunch of chili marinated grilled chicken and curry rice I got a bit tired and headed out for a 10KM cycle ride. This was my first training ride since the accident and it just felt great. When I got home I felt pumped up (though physically tired). By the way, Tovah joined me, at least half the way as she fell asleep. She usually does when riding the bike cart in the afternoon.
During the morning I created an exam for SMD151 so students, now you can begin to crack into my account and read all the questions.
I get to do what I want to do and just have to do some minor “boss bullshit”. I worked longer than I had planned today but now I am finished and I am going to eat some supper and then dig into my photo collection.
Anyhow, just wanted to say that I feel great đ
[Written while listening to: 13 – What It Feels Like For A – Madonna – GHV2]
Scan 1 – 1994
My first photo scan is now online, 35 photos from 1994. It is mostly of my dog Timbo but you can also see me, Johanna, Johan ‘K’ Karlsson and Jalle.
[Written while listening to: 11 – I Wish I Were Blind – Bruce Springsteen – Best Ballads]
Clie UX-50
Sony has created a dedicated site for the new Clie UX-50. Sony knows how to design stuff. Expansys takes pre-orders here.