Something Interactive

UPDATE: Adobe has put this feature into their latest CS4 version of Photoshop!

Adobe Photoshop CS3 is a graphics designer’s Swiss-Army knife, bundled with an amazing set of tools like Camera Raw, Photomerge, Vanishing Point, Liquify,… the list goes on.
I’ve dreamed of a couple tools that might help me with my image resizing too.

Well by coincidence, one of my dreams has been put into application reality – it’s called Seam-Carving Content Aware Image Resizing.

Also known as Media Retargeting, rather than me use words to explain what it means, these geniuses have put it into a nice video for us to learn all about this new image processing technique.

There are two online examples that allow the public to upload and retarget their photos:

I assume that they heavily use Adobe Flash’s latest bitmap API to do the processing on the fly.
The concept of the programming is pretty straight forward, but the application is still computationally-intense.

Seeing as how it has already been built with Adobe Flash, and since it’s quite slow, I figure it’s only a matter of time before Adobe incorporates an offline adaptation into Photoshop’s next version toolset where they can really harness the appropriate computing power to make the process a bit more “real-time”.

And look at that, Adobe CS3 is less than a year out and I’m already looking forward to CS4.

Agency Fusion certainly had a fun time with this little gem of a video.
I have no problems identifying with their humour even if it is reality for me.

My fellow colleagues can often relate to the problems that we go through from time to time as a graphics designer at The Shopping Channel. Just imagine!

A regular designer’s job is two-fold: one being the creative geniuses that we are, and the other being a copacetic robot that endlessly pumps out restricted visual media.
In my case however, the job cuts back the creativity to about 20%, and the rest,… well let’s just call it patience worthy of sainthood.

Luckily, I am not the only one out there in my exact predicament.

There are many people who “need” their visuals to have:

• larger logos
• every last bit of white space filled up
• florescent or god-awful colour schemes
• starbursts
• call-to-actions on everything

Many unexplained phenomenon have resulted in these “needs”, and due to many other factors, the designer is forced to make them reality.
I’ve come to terms with these fundamental laws of the designing universe quite well.

Sometimes though, when I’m completed a job, I really wish I could attach a nice tube of “Do it yourself!” cream,… just in case.

Dove launches “Evolution” follow-up commercial.

I gotta ask this question though.

If my friend’s tried and true home-made soap lasts me 4 months, and Dove’s soap lasts me 4 weeks, isn’t their “clever” marketing just another way to regain popularity in their product that is designed to waste away faster so you’ll be forced to buy more?

It’s one thing to combat the problem with complete juxtaposition, but it’s altogether just as bad.

I feel the most disturbing and influential scene in that commercial is the snap-frame animation of the girl on the weight scale, rapidly yo-yo dieting.

Well hello,.. this is obviously not ideal for anyone.
We can’t forget that losing pounds is a positive thing at one point either.

People die sooner from complications of being overweight OR underweight – that is medical fact.

The positive image of women losing weight is misrepresented because of the way that it is thrown together amongst all of the other negative advertising.
It’s easy to distort the message and absorb the overall concept that “losing weight is futile” in the end.
That kind of thinking can be a useful crutch for people who have a weight problem and are unmotivated to do anything about it.

People want to fight a fight that they can win.
People watching the video may identify with :

• being fat,
• not participating in healthy management of their weight,
• and, buying Dove soap,

Does that mean that they have finally achieved beauty? “Being fat is beautiful”?

In my personal opinion, skinny models aren’t beautiful – they’re gross and just as unhealthy as people who are fat.
I generally find healthy people beautiful.

Dove should be tackling the real problem with their advertisement campaign: HEALTHY beauty.
A company as large as Dove could be spending their marketing money on figuring out how to portray beautiful health.

I’m not seeing any effort towards that at all; just buy Dove soap and keep doing what you’re doing, or lack thereof.

In the past decade, a lot of popular game developers have produced some amazing accompanying musical scores for their games. Usually when the game is launched, whole soundtracks are compiled as well, and you can buy these separately from the game at your local or online music store.

I have particularly become very fond of the Halo 2 Soundtrack, and Martin O’Donnel and Michael Salvatori are no exception to the list of masterpiece composers in the gaming soundtrack world.

Their musical scores create emotional excitement, tuned perfectly for the game at specific points throughout the gameplay of Halo 2.

Standalone from the game, the blend of orchestra, choir voices, guitar riffs and electronic samples weave a mental tapestry that can fill your heart with courage, hope, and pride or at times sadness, fear and weariness depending on the music track.

This favourite collection is often heard at my work while I’m plugging away at my computer. It helps me get through a boring day making it into a game of sorts, where I shoot my way through tasks and defend the design world (many designers can attest that it is certainly a battle at times having to deal with the client, or the not so design-savvy co-worker).

Find out if your favorite game has a soundtrack, you may love it just the same.

Check out the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack on Amazon.com.

I just upgraded my Vibe Streamer skin and embedded music search capability too.

Don’t know what a Vibe Streamer is? Found out here:
http://www.vibestreamer.com/

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