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PapaTango

PhotoNet Pro
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Everything posted by PapaTango

  1. No, if something is in a forum thread it should not. Once upon a time, a long edit window was given here on PN. Some folk who could not help themselves edited statements they had made earlier--forming a new direction in a thread. Time travel is imaginary. If you did it on a board, live with the outcomes... Otherwise, galleries and albums should always have unlimited user permissions for editing, movement, and other sorts of management. I finally set the edit limit on forums to 15 minutes over a year ago. Permissions were given for unlimited control within the constraints of the platform software. Perhaps this latter thing has changed--as I no longer monitor this and have been busy with something else. There is another place that allows full management permissions on gallery and album images without a timeout--with a 1 (one) hour thread editing window and a 7 (seven) day saved draft post function. Do you know about it? 🤔
  2. It's exactly 15 minutes--that's where it was set. It does not bode well to have it more, as people WILL retrace their steps and edit their words when a conversation does not go their way. There are no Pulitzer's for forum posts, so what is there the next day is yesterday's news... 🤔 Anyone with basic moderator permissions can change older posts. If something is that bad, it likely should have not been posted in the first place. 🤪
  3. Josh, that is your imperative and I respect that. Casting about the years of my life there are many lost dreams, closeted aspirations, and wishes. For all too long I made images that I felt were appealing and signaled some 'universal' semaphores that could be accepted by a broader audience. After 55+ years of photography, I pronounce this strategy a resounding failure. I also made images that were not so much that. The latter are not public, and possibly will never be. It's hard to make Arbus blush... 🤔 An important photographer once told me that my output was "corporate art" and as such I should pursue the market of commercial interior design decoration. Perhaps I should have, as my personal wealth in my senior days would be much better. Although all of us are economic prostitutes to some major degree--I reject the premise that the worth of my work is as a faceless corporate interior design whore. What's real is in the seemingly random and unrecognized stream of rubbish that I produce and post. Do you see it?
  4. I hope that none of them were in a thread--as that can be disruptive to the flow and feng shui of the thing... 🤔
  5. I am not a forensic photographer, a horrific AI robot, or related to anyone named Eggelston. I am a social actor manifesting personal agency in my decision to press the shutter button. My decision cannot escape who I am in my real self. I suppose that makes me somewhat of a determinist. I also suffer from indeterminacy, but that is far outside the scope of this thread... 🤔 Unless you are a blind photographer randomly snapping images, you bring an agenda. But wait, even that starts with an agenda and action plan. I understand this to be true because I know two of them... If anyone thinks for a moment that they can detach themselves from who they are (conscious and unconscious) and then either create an image--or even more so attempt to curate and promote a collection--then they are deluding themselves. One of the biggest reasons I departed from the local arts scene several years ago has been due to the imperative that for work to be relevant, it must be always be engendered somehow. So trendy, and so wrong... A collection tells us as much about the photographer as it does the subject. 🐒 Positive, negative, soothing, disjointing--it all depends on how each of us sees the world and the individual elements thereof. We will leave repressed longings, trauma, and aspirations to another thread... 😎
  6. So then, you are using "Sort by Title" to gather multiples together?
  7. Mercury Rising Fujifilm X-T5; |Fringer FR-FTX| NIKKOR AF-S DX 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
  8. Luke and His Bunny Fujifilm X-T5; |Fringer FR-FTX| NIKKOR AF-S DX 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
  9. @mpressionz absolutely charming and a fortuitous image opportunity!
  10. Domino's Delivers Nikon D7100; Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
  11. This thread was also crossposted to FotoFora. Below is the initial response to the conversation: I just saw this today, because as we know the text forums are a bit slow... My first thoughts on seeing the post went three ways. One, an account had been hacked and spammers were among us. Two, Nick was a paid shill for ON1. Three, this might be worth looking at. As all are exciting possibilities, I decided to act on the third one--mostly because it was the last thing I thought about before clicking on the link. Life in the fast lane, you know? Here is what the deal is, and it is fooking brilliant! Often 'free' means crippleware or trialware. I tend to shy away from such as it ends up cluttering computer memory for something fairly useless and then needing to be cleaned up after. But this is the legit deal and so smart. ON1 just rolled out their 2024 version of the app/plugin. For the entire month of January, they are giving away the 2023 version! Full 'lifetime' license, all features active--and runs standalone, or through Lightroom or Capture One--which automatically installs itself in any application that it recognizes it can run in. There is one proviso. One must create an account at ON1 to activate the license. No deep personal or financial information is requested. Registration is not a big deal because I think that there will be an update or two coming down the line for 2023 users in the future. My post-process digital darkroom consists of Adobe Photoshop 25 (beta), Capture One 2023, and sometimes Lightroom. It depends on the image. In PS, I have used Nik Collection (currently v5) ever since PS 5 or 6--back when Google gave it away. I have looked at updating to v6 of Nik, but there is nothing that attractive or compelling about it. Over the years, I have built a handful of filters and built custom presets--and rarely venture from these. Some of a single effect, others stacked with two or three filters. Much fine-tuning has gone into the adjustments. I have to admit after installing ON1 I was blown away. It does not replace Nik, as that does still other useful things--and contains those custom formulas. It becomes cognitive dissonance when exploring ON1 when one finds a stock filter that perfectly mimics that Nik creation you were so proud of. Or in an instance or so I played with--got even better as stock--before any tweaking... I find that it has all of the fine BW and other image adjustments that I have been favoring CapOne for. Given that, it is preferable to be able to work with these as an additional layer, rather than an imported image. Using ON1, one finds that the interfaces are rich, intuitive, and consistent. One UI to rule them all, and that sort of stuff... Not much time has been spent yet--mostly learning the interface and modifying it to my preference. As the first trial, I took what I call a "shitshot" which is a less than admirable image of a series. The pre-handling vision was a conversion to Monochrome. It first needed a bit of help (AI denoise and conversion to DNG in Adobe Camera Raw--then was loaded into PS. Shown below is the original image, and the final result as a PNG save from the ON1 layer: Fujifilm X-T5; |Fringer FR-FTX| NIKKOR AF-S DX 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Three successive images were recorded. This was the first, and frankly--it sucks. That is why I chose it to see what could be possible... And this is the result: My workflow was as follows: Adobe Camera RAW AI denoise in ACR, and conversion to DNG Open DNG in PS 25 beta Duplicate original layer Distracting content in the upper left corner was replaced via Generative Fill The image was opened in ON1 Filter set B&W Modern was selected Filter B8 was selected, and numerous adjustments were made to B&W color sensitivity effects and Tone Merged original background copy with ON1 layer Did a bunch of dodging and burning about the range and details of the image Committed it all to PDF and export the PNG file shown here From a reject image to an interesting composition in about an hour and a half. This application software is a keeper. I know that at some point, the purpose of this "free" offering will be realized. I will buy the upgrade, if it offers more than now. And by that, I don't mean simply other bells and whistles... If I don't get too distracted by other things, like the daily presentation of life--I will post back on my further experiences with ON1. My profound thanks to @Nick D. for bringing this opportunity to our attention. Hurry, hurry now! Step right up! This is a limited-time genuine offer, and is only good until the end of January 2024! Whaddya got to lose, except a little cleanup if you don't like it. And tell me what's not to like? Simultaneous Conversation at FotoFora (click here)
  12. And we find that how? 🤔
  13. I don't think that is what he was saying. But you are right. Finding purpose in something about the image-making ritual has to be upfront and ongoing. Vision changes, as does approach. I am scanning 120/220 strips from 20 years ago and I muse "What the hell was I thinking..." 🤔
  14. I too found that I had fallen into a slump--and puzzled about a bit to find a new footing. For me, I found that finding a working foundation that was more interesting and comfortable was the key. My trusty Nikon D-7100 no longer was comfortable to haul about and use--a product of rheumatoid arthritis. I know after nearly 60 years of this there are no "magic bullets", but there are always more elegant solutions to simple issues. For me, it took replacing my Nikon with a Fujifilm XT-5. It was comfortable to hold and lighter than the Nikon--and mimicked the feel and handling of my old but beloved SLR Canon bodies. I learned once again the satisfaction that comes with manual modes. It was something that invited me to use a camera daily--and rethink my overall photographic interests and methods. This is not to say that this is a 'solution' to a path forward for you or many photographers. But it got me to reexamine my practice, feel motivated, and get out to see what there was to see. Here are some ideas for you to watch and mull over. The link is YouTube search results for "becoming inspired in photography": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=becoming+inspired+in+photography There are plenty of differing opinions there. Perhaps one of them might be inspirational and motivational! 🤔
  15. No offense, but judging from this photo the question should have been "Are You Posting Unsupervised?" 🤔
  16. @hjoseph7 do you honestly think that the difference between 1400px, 1600px, or 800px makes any real difference in storage costs? Photonet currently has over 4.7 million (quickly approaching 5M) images in its Amazon S3 storage. To put this into context, if there were 100 new images a day of around 1 MB each uploaded, every month would add another $0.03 cents of billing--for the first wave of image access. Remember that images are being chopped down to size. Here is another important fact. To trigger the lightbox display of images (what happens to enlarge the photo when clicked on) as I recall I set it as is about 1400px minimum. What happens below that is a static display. Guess that it all just depends on what you are looking for. The threat to PN is not the size of images uploaded--but what is and has been for some time a money loser finding a purpose that aligns with the current crowd.
  17. And there is still another skeleton dancing in the closet... 🤔 This is a big reason I avoid discussing anything socially systematic. EVERYTHING is a trip down a complex rabbit warren of details and connections--and with often varied and cross-purpose factors. In reality and fact, forum communities ARE NOT the place to post a fine-featured portfolio or expect solid-proof results. Rather, they seem a place to post a good quality image, and hopefully, the viewing community will discuss it; as long as it conveys the main content of its vision. Don't do anything contrapuntal or it will confuse the audience... The web gods now dictate that a page must be delivered in 1-2 seconds, no matter how many images are on it. Otherwise, the site will be diminished in visibility and ranking on the search engines, and the possible value of the site financially is reduced. Just the way it is. Everything now is a shortcut to efficiency and lower overhead. Site 'themes' have an impact on image display. Sites that are made specifically for photo display do a better job, which is why a dedicated site for one's photography is an excellent way to display and curate images. Forums are a compromise, and do the best job they can.
  18. Yes. Essentially optimization for JPG storage shaves off at least 20% of the image detail information because it does not change the image canvas size itself. There is nothing 'lossless' about it. Depending upon how the plugin is set up, the PNG image might also be converted to a PNG-8 bit. This is why when sending up a PNG file it's good practice to save the image in PNG-24 and sRGB space. Either way your image is going to look better. Add to this making images at least 1400px wide, and for portrait orientation, a minimum of 800px, and things get even better. PNG, along with WEBP and SVG are the contemporary web development standards. JPG is increasingly less so.
  19. Several things might be happening here. Let's start with image optimization. When you upload images the image is downsized to around 80% of its original form as it is being sent off to Amazon EC2 for permanent storage and display. This necessarily strips some quality--the ~80% is pretty much the least one can set it for without casual observable degradation. But it is still there and often makes the most impact in color gamut. Second, the web favors sRGB for display, which is a different gamut than Adobe or other profiles. This can weaken your saturation also, combined with the previous issue. I have come to the point that all of the images I intend to be web-based are now saved in PNG format. Much better compression algorithm, and a richer color space. Your mileage may vary.
  20. Sorry to hear that you feel that way. I suppose that means one less trunk of junk to move around...
  21. Well, I heard that it was run by a secretive band of Lutheran corn farmers from Baden-Württemberg...🤔
  22. Your registration approval is complete. Please read the accompanying PM, and sorry about the inconvenience. Our emails are being refused by your Bell Canada email server, This also sometimes occurs with Microsoft related accounts such as Outlook.com, MSN.com, and hotmail.com.
  23. Phil Greenspun sold PN to NameMedia (of sketchy domain registrar fame) for $6M USD. No idea what he did with the money, but he became a commercial airline pilot from the time of the sale until 2012... ✈️
  24. So given the cryptic and somewhat snarky response--you do, and this creator has been featured in articles to be found in those outlets. Care to share, and add something to the discussion? 🤔 I gave up on the NYT when their paywall reached $25USD a month. That's gas money for a day out wandering and making images!
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