civilized ku # 948 ~ testing, testing

WE GRIND OUR OWN BEEF (work-in-progress) ~ West Village - NY, NY • click to embiggenFor the past couple years I have been festering about how to post daily entries with pictures that I make when I'm on the road without spending a small fortune on a new laptop computer. A new laptop that would also require an new (updated/ $$$) version of PhotoShop and some other ancillary software (my RAW converter, to name just one).

Currently, the way I make entries when I am on the road - such as yesterday's civilized ku # 947 - is to resize, upload and make thumbnails of some current existing pictures onto the blog platform before I leave home and then post one or two of them, a day at a time. There's nothing wrong with that way of doing things but I must admit there are times when I wish I could post a picture made when I'm on my travels. However, that desire is not a need and therefore does not justify the considerable expenditures it would take to scratch that particular itch.

But that said, I was particularly vexed at the prospect of being away for a full 7 days - knowing that I would be making lots of pictures during that time - and only being able to post pictures made last week. So I investigated the possibility of finding a really good used laptop deal on eBay. There were a few decent but not spectacular deals to be found, none of which got me off the mark.

an aside - it should be noted that I have found an app for the iPad that can do a very reasonable job of processing my RAW picture files - square crop, corner blur and vignette, add a (un-feahered) black border, and exposure / highlight / shadow adjustment if needed - but to date I have not been able to find an app, including the app from SquareSpace, that allows me to upload a file, create a thumbnail, and add a caption for posting on SquareSpace. That situation, of course, is another fine example of cross-software / platform babble that is problematic in the tablet world.

In any event, it was with great trepidation that I turned (by literally turning in my chair) to my 10 year old Apple iBook - OS10.2.8, 500MHz G3 processor, 384Mb RAM, and Photoshop 7.0 - that has been sitting unused on one of my work surfaces for the past 6-7 years. Just for the pure hell of it, and despite the probability that what was once a pretty decent machine would now be relegated to permanent paper weight status, I fired it up and ran a few files through PS to see what it might do.

Surprise, surprise - while it wouldn't recognize, much less process, my RAW files, it actually performed reasonably well if it was presented with jpeg files (programmed the E-P1 to record RAW+jpeg). Well enough, in fact, that I didn't see any problem with posting the results with a work-in-progress advisory attached. That is to say, a work-in-progress picture close enough to what a final picture - RAW converted and PS processed on my home desktop machine - would eventually come to look like after I put it through my hi-end wringer.

Of course, the "ancient" iBook did not have WiFi so I have to copy the work-in-progress file to a flash drive for transfer to the nearest internet connected machine available. In most cases, that will be the wife's work laptop (a PC that I believe can perform as an upload device without throwing a Microsoft hissy fit). In this specific case, it was my friend's iMac. In either event, I can upload a file and do the SquareSpace thing as per normal working procedures.

All of which is exactly what I did with the WE GRIND OUR OWN BEEF picture that I made this afternoon. All of which I accomplished without spending a dime .... well, to be perfectly accurate, I did have to spend $15 to buy a flash drive. But the way I figure it, that's about $1,975.00 less than I would have to spend if I went the new laptop + et al route.

WARNING: Avoid the use of hallucinogenic compounds when viewing the popup of the accompanying picture.

Comments

[John Linn]

You said...

I didn't see any problem with posting the results with a work-in-progress advisory attached. That is to say, a work-in-progress picture close enough to what a final picture - RAW converted and PS processed on my home desktop machine - would eventually come to look like after I put it through my hi-end wringer.

I think it might be an interesting exercise for you to post a few of your "work-in-process" results along side your "high-end wringer" results and let us guess which is which.

[JB]

How was the hamburger?