My Heart Is Aching

I picked these two stocks one and a half years ago.


Stock Portfolio

Market	Symbol	Description	Qty	Book Value	Market Value	Total Value	% Chg	Gain / Loss
USD	ABAX	ABAXIS INC	700	$13.35	$24.65	$17,255	84.64%	$7,910
USD	ADBE	ADOBE SYSTEMS INC	400	$26.93	$36.51	$14,604	35.57%	$3,832
Total USD:						$31,859	60.11%	$11,742

Arnold: I should have never been a geek. Not when i cant get rich...
Arnold: This sucks so bad...
Arnold: SO BAD!!!!
Arnold: I cant find a font big enough to show my anguish.
Arnold: ARGH <- super duper whooper looper galopper malooper huguper meleper zaluper megauper largeroper font.
WM: No use wasting time over ths
WM: Start studying for your CFA!

*void in my chest

I Am Going To Bed Hungry

Say something with a label.

Matchbox Toy Cars Tilt-Shifted Miniatures

My two newest fake tilt-shifts done on Photoshop 9/CS2. Mouseover them to see the original!

Most fake tilt-shifts are commonly done on photos of structures shot from above and I have done quite a few myself. Here's an example. So now I am experimenting with close-ups and that's what you see below. Something resembling Matchbox toy cars, only slightly more detailed. If you like what you see and want to know more, please read this.



Normal version | Full size version



Normal version | Full size version

Tilt-shifting Tips

Here are a few things I've done to make my tilt-shift miniatures look more realistic.

See full size version.

This is the original picture that we are going to edit with Photoshop CS.

See full size version.

This is the final product. Click on the thumbnail or better yet, the full size link to have a closer look. It looks pretty good. =)

This post is a follow-up of my previous entry. If you haven't seen it yet, please go there first before proceeding to click on "Read more" below.

Read more

See full size version.

1. Use Levels or Auto Levels so you start off with a nice photo.

Image -> Adjustments -> Levels
Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Levels

In this photo, notice that the white building on the left is whiter and the sky at the top-right hand corner is less "dirty". The color of the building is also less harsh.

See full size version.

2. Use Surface Blur to smooth out details that shouldn't be present in miniatures.

Filter -> Blur -> Surface Blur

I used Radius: 10 pixels, Threshold: 10 levels for the photo above. Notice the trees and the grass patch are less defined now.

See full size version.

3. The photos usually look most realistic when the foreground is in focus so take your photos this way if possible.

This is the tilt-shift effect. For those with Photoshop CS, the guide is here. For those with Photoshop 7 and below, use this one.

See full size version.

4. Raise the contrast to make the colors more solid and uniform to resemble handicraft material. Do not overdo it.

Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast

See full size version.

5. Adjust the colors to make the photo more artificial.

Images -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation
Use this to change and lighten colors and shades, thus removing detail, making your photo more artificial.

Images -> Adjustments -> Color Balance
A good example would be raising the Green midtones (or reducing other color midtones) to change the colors of grass or trees in your photo to match the color of fake grass and tree in real miniatures.

At the end, if it's an outdoor shot, raise the Yellow highlights to simulate the yellow spotlights used to illuminate real miniatures. Adjust it so that the shadows casted resemble those in a real miniature.

See full size version.

If it is an indoor shot, fiddle with the Hues to get a white light to simulate fluorescent lighting. This isn't done very well in the above indoor example because the lighting is actually from outside (ie. the sun) but hopefully, you get the idea.

Disclaimer: This is just a simple guide and I am not responsible for whatever you might do to your photos. So if you accidentely miniaturised your entire honeymoon photoset over the originals, it's not my fault. But please do post it to this Tilt-shift miniature fakes Flickr group so I can take a look. =)

Fun With Miniatures

Home Estate Miniature | FULL_SIZE
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.


Home Estate
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.


Digital Systems Lab Miniature | FULL_SIZE
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

This effect whereby photos of normal places turn out looking like photos of miniature models is acheived with tilt-shift lenses. A similar effect can be achieved with some simple editing in Photoshop.

Yup. That't my home estate over on the right along with all the other HDBs in Singapore in the background. Miniaturised. The rest of my photos are here.

I wanted to try this out earlier but didn't because I was completely preoccupied with my Final Year Project and getting Mac OS X to run on PC hardware.

I have upgraded to Photoshop 9/CS2 so my miniature mock-ups are done with gradient masks and the lens blur filter according to this short guide here.

For people without Photoshop CS (and thus the lens blur filter), you can use the polygon lasso tool, feathering and gaussian blur instead. Instructions here.

The guides already cover the basics so here are a few tips from me. =)

Here's an earlier post I made about a shot of a badminton tournament looking like miniature.

Links That Give Me Wings

I had just went to OldVersion to download an old version of CloneCD. And I decided to make a list of little-known (at least to the common masses) handy sites that I visit once in a while to get something done, quick and dirty.

OldVersion - archives old versions of many popular software such as Winamp and CloneCD. Very nice.
Astalavista - it saves you time and money, if you use it right. =)

This page will be updated with new links when I revisit other sites to get something done and thus am reminded of them.