Giveaway - Pixar: 20 years of animation exhibition
The Pixar love-in continues here at Lifehacker AU with our second giveaway - tickets to see the Pixar: 20 years of animation exhibition at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) in Melbourne.
The exhibition, made up of artwork and digital media borrowed from the Pixar Animation Studios archives, originated at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and makes its only Australian appearance at ACMI.
The exhibition features over 500 sketches, paintings, sculptures and storyboards revealing how Pixar's characters and worlds are brought to life. In addition to these one-of-a-kind works by artists and sculptors, the exhibition includes spectacular immersive environments and interactive experiences developed by Pixar to extend the magic of their films. ACMI has more information on the exhibition here.
We have five double passes to giveway to the exhibition, which runs until Sunday, 14 October. So if you live in Melbourne (or you'll be visiting Melbourne between now and then, and promise you'll go to the exhibition while you're in town!), then submit your best tip to be in a chance to win a double pass!
We'll be giving the free passes to readers who submit the top five tips on anything to do with digital video, photo or animation. Could be a tip on editing, could be a tip on taking good photos - it's up to you how high or low tech you go.
To enter, leave your best tips here in the comments section. If you have multiple tips, leave multiple comments - go mad!
Entries close at 7.59am AEST next Friday - the 21st of September. See here for the official terms and conditions.
And thanks to our friends at ACMI for donating the prizes! :)
Sharpening in Photoshop.
Instead of using the unsharp mask feature, copy your image onto a new layer and go to filter > other > high pass. if it is for a newspaper ad - 3.0 to 6.0 should sharpen it up nicely when printed, otherwise (assuming it's an A4 size pic) 2.0 to 4.0 will do for offset printing.
once you've done that, switch the layer from normal to overlay.
that is the basic move - play with it and see what else you can do.
Cheers, dg
A bit of an oldie, but still fun! Take photos remotely. Ever wondered what it would be like to have a remote camera of 50 metres. Well, Sony's Bluetooth enabled ROB-1 camera can be remote controlled via your handset and the images captured are of VGA resolution, which is 640 x 480 pixels.
http://www.imobile.com.au/WhatsNew/default.asp?ID=whatmar0501
If you start thinking about it - the possibilities are endless.
An easy way to convert your own DVD VOB files into another format such as WMV is to drag them into Windows Movie Maker (in Windows Vista) and edit them like you would any other file.
To make a simple yet fancy looking DVD with menus use Windows Vista's built-in Windows DVD Maker
it's a really really basic one, but it's one that's always missed and can make even the most amateur photographer with the worst camera take decent social pictures - when at parties or gatherings of friends, try and take social photos when people aren't paying attention to you. You see more of who the person is, and generally you get a much more natural smile when they're not being forced, and the photos generally have more of a "you can imagine being there" feeling to it.
I tend to always have a problem with blurry pictures. I attribute this to perhaps the amount of caffiene I intake but I digress.
Instead of pushing the button and snapping a picture, rest the camera on a flat surface and set the automatic timer. Works wonders on night shots.
A tripod can make a world of difference to any photo, especially in low-lighting situations where the exposure time is a little longer. But that doesn't mean you need to carry this huge thing around with you. I have a small hand sized tripod, which keeps the camera mounted about 10cm from the ground. Obviously not useful in all situations, it can be very good if you're taking a photo over some kind of surface, like a bridge, railing etc.
For best results, put the camera on a timer (just 2 seconds if the camera has the option), so your hand is away from the camera when it actually takes the photo.