Walt-O-Matic

Aurora Feint won’t start.

I’ve been playing Aurora Feint on the iPhone, and all of the sudden, it quit working. The game, not the phone. I’d go to start it, and then get returned to the main menu. Seems other people were having a similar problem. Some were lucky to get the game working again, others lost data.

Here’s how I recovered mine, preserving game play. Your mileage may vary.

0. Back up your iPhones by syncing it with iTunes.
1. Hold down the Aurora Feint button until the icons jiggle.
2. Press the (X) delete button over the Aurora Feint icon.
3. Acknowledge that you’re deleting the game and that all game files may be lost.
4. Hold down the power button on the phone, slide to Power Off.
5. Power phone back on.
6. Immediately go into App Store, select Search, enter Aurora Feint, and Install.
7. Acknowledge dialog that you already purchased this item and want to install again.
8. Let the game download and install.
9. Again, hold down the power button on the phone, slide to Power Off.
10. Power phone back on. For me the phone went through a very long boot cycle with the Apple logo.
11. Press the Aurora Feint icon to start the game.
12. For me, the screen went blank and stayed there — tap the center of the screen, movie controls appeared.
13. Unpause movie intro and let play to completion.
14. After a moment, I was returned to the map.

I’ve found that I always have the best of luck restoring the game when I’m at the map. Exiting while at the character page or in the middle of a mining activity does work, but not always; this causes the game to be fussy and exit prematurely to the main screen after start (unless you can intercept with a tap in the upper right corner).

Good luck.

So I’m visiting my sister’s church, and after the service I go into the nursery to see if she needs help cleaning up. There’s one little girl left who’s about two years old and cute as a button; she takes an instant liking to me, sharing with me her impression of a lion right after accidentally bouncing a toy off my head.

The adults clean the room and my sister says she knows the parents and scoops the kid in her arms, heading back to the sanctuary to find them. The little girl waves to me playfully as she’s carried out the door to come join them.

When we get to the destination, there’s still a lot of people standing about and having conversations. My sister puts the little girl down who then looks up at me with doe eyes and says “Chase me!”

I tell her I’m tired. But, she insists, “Chase me!”

Fine. I take a false step toward her, and she squeals in delight and goes running down the aisle a few steps before she notices I’m actually not in pursuit.

Stomping her little foot, she declares, “Chase me!”

So, complying, I start to chase her at a slow pace where she’s sure to get away safely. She’s giggling and having the time of her life. She turns the corner, looks over her shoulder, and sees me.

“I’m gonna get you…” and I wiggle my fingers at her. She grins and runs off, with me slowly following.

Then the unexpected happens.

She turns the next corner, goes running up to some set of couples in a post-service conversation, and declares “He’s chasing me! Protect me.” Next thing I know, they’re putting themselves between her and I in a very “I need an adult” kind of manner. I quickly discover that this is one of the pastors’ daughter. While, I, on the other hand, am a stranger that no one at the church recognizes.

Great. Just great.

“She told me to…” I start to explain, and now it’s clear that it’s my veracity that is being tested. The fact that people have cell phones in their hands and 911 on speed dial isn’t helping.

That’s when I see my sister and the pastor who’s the father having a really good laugh at my expense across the room.

Once the group saw that, and joined in, the little girl’s asylum was forfeit; now the chase was real.

So, I’m leaving Rita’s of Ashburn, and outside there’s a dad holding on to a very young child who’s trying to escape his arms to crawl on the table to go after the colored iceies. He, meanwhile, is boastly bragging to the group of people at the table with him how smart his kid is.

“Well, my kid isn’t even one, and he can talk.”

The other members of his group are rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.

Then, suddenly the dad, barks a command at the kid, jolting everyone - “TALK!!!”

The kid, who’s reaching for a red slush freezes in place, silent, unsure if the appropriate response is to burst into tears at being startled.

Then, as if on delayed command, the kids speaks. One word softly: ‘ow.’

Completely seriously, he exclaims, “There, you see! I told you he was smart.”

As I’m stepping off the curb, I hear someone else at the table say, “Dude, come on. First of all, that’s not even baby talk. Second of all, I saw you pinch him.”

You know how TGI Friday’s has all that junk nailed up to the wall?

Well, while we were eating, we happened to notice some kid had long dropped his sun glasses on the floor. Rather than have them thrown out by staff, I social engineered our waiter to put them on Nixon.

Let’s see how long before someone notices.

When I see a nozzles up high, I want to turn them to see what they’ll do…

I’ve been using Hibernate for relational persistence for a while now, and I have to say it’s been working out pretty well.

That was, until I went to do a SchemaUpdate.

The moment I did an alternation of a table, or created a new entity, things went sour, and I was unable to read my old data. Was it me, or was it Hibernate?

could not initialize a collection
PSQLException: ERROR: permission denied for relation newtablejustadded

It was me.

Turns out Hibernate’s update was working just fine. There was no magic versioning or class hashing going on, detecting the change to the database.

The problem was the ACL was blank for the newly created entity table (I was using Postgres).

By issuing this command, all was fine again:

GRANT INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, REFERENCES ON newtable TO GROUP agroupIwasusing;

Since it took a while to figure out what was going on, I thought I’d post this to help others that follow a similar, yet frustrating, path.

In addition to capturing the perfect image and having the perfect lighting, you also need to know how to do photographic retouching.

Yes, you know to shoot in RAW mode.

You may even know about Raw Developer, to eek out what your photo editing software can’t.

You might even know about the Pantone Huey Pro, which is the dual-monitor color calibration device.

Forget everything you know or think you know, here are the sources you need for high-end professional photo retouching!

Color Correction

A good photo has to take into account its color space, and it turns out the simple color wheel model is actually fairly simplistic. A color space looks more like a stretched and distorted multi-dimensional field. By deliberately contorting the color space, it’s possible to do everything from white-balance to invoke moods to increasing contrast.

Additionally, your camera has the ability to pick up more detail that you’re able to discern or your monitor can display. By stretching and twisting the color space, you can draw out more details in areas where you need it.

Instead of using the Levels control, building a strong command of advanced Curves will do wonders. Curves can be used on different channels. And, with selective masking, it’s possible to create images that are physically impossible for a camera to capture.

Curves effectively do a translation, but instead of linear relationship, the change can be dramatic in some places, less so in others. Think of it like a color spectrum on a rubber band, you can stretch portions of it.

The eye dropper tools in the Curves dialog help identify what should be considered white, what should be considered midtone, and what should be considered black for transformation. It may come as a surprise that it might not be ideal to have a pure black or a pure white.

Mastery of Curves allows you to deal with under exposed, over exposed, and color casted images. With a well exposed picture, it will help make the subject pop. It also affords some very clever use of creative coloring. And let’s not forget controlled desaturation can lead to many splendid images.

Once you learn how to really use Curves, you’ll have no need for Levels.

Certain color-space models play off of different strengths. Color need not be RGB.

Print, for instance, looks great when CMYK is used.

It turns out that for drawing out detail, LAB color space makes a world of difference.

LAB space is magical because it puts the luminance on it’s own channel. The tradeoff is that red/green become opposites on the ‘a’ channel, and blue/yellow become opposites on the ‘b’ channel. This works well, as often it’s the brightness you want to affect without washing out the color. For instance, LAB mode can remove unwanted fog and haze, magically pulling color out of seemingly nowhere.

Additionally, the Unsharp Mask can be applied to just the luminosity channel, pulling out extra details. If there’s noise in an RGB’s blue channel, one can covert to LAB, apply the Dust’n'Scratches filter to the B channel, and convert back. Blurring A and B will hide imperfections.

The A and B channels can be used to accent color. And if an image has an unwanted color cast, moving the curve out of A’s or B’s center point removes it.

LAB also has another amazing use: getting amazing selection masks from the channels.

Color Enhancement

Scott Kelby, a Photoshop guru, has identified that there’s really only seven steps needed to really push an image to the limits. This can make a horrible picture acceptable, and a well exposed image astounding.

1. Use Open the file in RAW mode, even if it’s a JPEG, and pre-process there.
   Fix the white balance, and then do things like warm it up. Fix the exposure and twiddle the details. Information that’s clipped can be brought back into the color space.


2. Perform the Curves adjustments.
   Bring out detail.


3. Adjust the Shadows and Highlights.
   Pull out more detail, and set the mood. Good contrast makes a dramatic photo.


4. Paint with light.
   Layers, gradients, and layer blending can simulate camera filters. A neutral density, for instance, can bring out the blues in your skies. In a more controlled sense, this is non-destructive dodging and burning.


5. Channels Adjustments using LAB color space.
   By applying an image to itself with soft light, in LAB mode this produces aesthetic contrasts.


6. Use Layer Blends and Layer Masks.
   Often the whole image won’t need uniform changes, this step brings all the elements together.


7. Sharpening with the Unsharp Mask and fading the Luminosity afterward.
   Extra sharpness can be pulled out to provide what looks like a really in focus image. Doing it this way removes color halos that may appear.

You don’t apply every step for every photo, and it’s important to recognize less can be more. The cumulative effect of these steps is what get results. Also worth mentioning, the order is important.

Professional Retouching

Most retouching instructions inadvertently make a model’s skin look like plastic. They focus on the Gaussian Blur filter, screening layers, and use the Clone tool, and the Spot Heal Brush. This might be acceptable for small web images, assuming you want that look.

It’s not what the professional do.

Why not? Those activities destroy information in the image. That means the image looks fake and retouched when viewed up close or when it appears in print.

To do things right, you need a solid command of color spaces, the Healing Brush, the History Brush, Dodge/Burn brush, Warp/Liquify tools, and Unsharp Mask. Most changes are made with Adjustment Layers, so the image is actually a composite of small, controlled alterations. This is time consuming and can be tedious if you don’t know the numerous shortcuts of your post-processing application.

To make a clean image, one uses the Healing Brush with sampling from all over the image. Reshaping parts of an image requires the Liquify tool, and to alter the whole image the Warp tool is used. These activities can damage data, which is why after using them cleanup with the History Brush is necessary. The goal is to preserve detail and remove imperfections.

Since the magic of photography is in capturing the light, not the subject, having controlled contrast makes an image stand out from the rest. What makes a good professional photo retoucher isn’t the blemish removal or pushing of pixels, it’s the re-sculpting of the image in 3D.

In this context, I’m not talking about modeling tools like Poser, Blender, Animation:Master, or DAZ:3D. No, I’m talking about the illusion of depth created with shadows and light.

Face Painters are do this to reshape the face, using smooth gradient blending and edges to create fantastic illusions. The dodge and burn tools, along with an decent understanding of human anatomy, will let you get a model closer to that perfect body.

The insight comes when you realize things that are further away are darker, and things that are closer are lighter. By performing slight emphasis on naturally falling light, shadow, and edges, it’s possible to enhance the perceived depth of the photo’s subject. By adding or removing light, it’s possible to alter the shape of the subject in very flattering ways that are not perceptible unless you compare the image to the original.

Total reconstruction is possible when sampling can be used to build the right textures, hue and saturation can set the right colors, and dodging and burning can create the right shadows to convey a shape or edge.

Bringing It All Together

The name of the game is contrast and sharpness, and with the resources above, you’ll be able to produce some jaw dropping images.

Mind you, there’s no magical automated formula. One image can take literally hours, but the results are worth it.

Photo by Walt Stoneburner

Photography, good photography, is a complex and deep subject, primarily that it’s an art about making trade-offs. A while back, I wrote about The Best Photography Books Ever on Light.

I’d like to now share three photography books that you need in your personal library.

The first two come from Scott Kelby, whom you may know from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) because he’s the Editor in Chief of the Photoshop User magazine.

If you’re one of “those” people, hang in there. It’s worth it.

The Digital Photography Book Volume 1

The Digital Photography Book Volume 2

The trick here is not to make the mistake by looking at just the covers that one book is a reprint of the other. They are two separate books, and you want both.

The Digital Photography Book (ISBN 0-321-47404-X) addresses how to get really tack-sharp photos by doing things like using the lowest ISO, good quality glass, turning off your image stabilizer, using a sturdy tripod, finding the “sweet spot” in your lens, locking your mirror up first, and using a remote shutter release. Yes, it covers how and why.

You even get tips on how to do a bit of post-processing for extra sharpness, using Unsharp Mask and LAB Colors (not RGB). Even if you’ve done photography for a while, there’s gonna be stuff in here you most likely didn’t know. Or didn’t know how to do well. Or easily.

There’s also practical advice along with little cheats you can do. You’ll understand a light a little better and manipulate the scene to get those wonderful backgrounds and deal with problem lighting problems. If you got yourself committed to taking wedding photos, there’s an important section you need to know.

A lot of photography has to do with composition and compensation. Ever notice how two photographers with the same gear can take a picture of the same thing, and one gets an incredible shot, and the other gets a boring and flat images. You’ll learn why and how to get the good shot.

There is even a wonderful section on how to take fantastic portraits; a section on avoiding mistakes; equipment recommendations; and even a section that shows “if you want this kind of photo then do this.”

The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2 (ISBN 0-321-47404-X) covers flash and strobes, reflector tricks, impressive seamless/colored backgrounds, advanced light metering, and how to get those multi-light touches on your subject. More portrait tricks are revealed, along with low-light, sunrise, sunset, and landscape scenes. More is covered on bad weather conditions, weddings, and touring. Again, there’s a shot recipe section in the back. This book is clearly a continuation of the first and not an afterthought or a sequel to make more sales. Good quality stuff.

The next book in your collection should be The Photographer’s Eye by Micheal Freeman (ISBN 0-240-80934-3).

Composition is hard to master. Things like frame dynamic, tension, placement, rhythm, etc. all seem pretty artsy-fartsy hand-waving mumbo-jumbo to anyone who’s trying to study the science behind creative photography.

This book explains with contrasting visuals what these terms mean and what you can do to get them. A fantastic illustration (p. 25) shows a bench in a field, but simply by cropping and using angles, the viewers eye is compelled to follow in different directions.

You’ll see how and why the rule of thirds works, how there’s also the golden ratio frame, fibonacci divisions, geometrical slicing, and fractals as alternate methods of placement. You’ll know when to fill the frame, when not to, and where not to. You’ll control the horizon. Convey balance though perceived weights, not just mirroring placement. Foreground, background, contrast, repetition of patterns, broken patterns, perspective, forced perspective, limited color, …there’s so much here.

This book alone will change the way that you view a scene and provide you many different ways to capture it, both in camera and how to make an even more impressive photo by elimination back post-processing.

So there ya have it. Two books to take a really amazing picture, and one book to compose a fantastic one.

REVIEW: Walt gives all three titles here two thumbs up!

So, I’m driving down Waxpool in Ashburn, VA on my way to work, and there’s a truck in front of me with a huge spool of wire on the back.

What’s more curious to me is the way the tools were being transported. Someone had tied a bucket to a rope and put their tools in it hanging off the back of the truck.

This can’t be safe. Well, I guess if there’s no room on the passenger side…

While visiting Ted’s in Sterling, VA, I noticed that their bathroom was either missing a very vital component, or that the place was very accommodating for drunks used to using an alley.

I keep trying to explain there are differences between men and women’s bathrooms. Women have it better. In this case, men just have a wall.

Not retouched.