turnings

Sexy Charts In Your Rails App In Less Than 5 Minutes:

Matt Aimonetti has put together a solid tutorial with code examples showing how to build “sexy charts” in a Rails app in a surprisingly short amount of time (although 5 minutes might be pushing it unless you’re a cut and paste champion).

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Source: Ruby Inside

Harman Matte FB Paper: When I ask which one they prefer, the answer is unanimous. They prefer the Harman Matte FB to the other papers. It’s not even close.

Harman Matte FB was released earlier this year, but it’s not the only entry in this latest round of new papers. More recently introduced is Harman Gloss FB AL, a baryta paper with an alumina coating, and Hahnemüehle FineArt Baryta 325. Both of these papers have been extremely well reviewed. As well, Epson is kicking in with their new Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper, a paper that’s supposed to match traditional air dried F surface photographic paper and have an incredible dMax. [More paper...]
Source: James Duncan Davidson

Epson’s New Exhibition Fiber Paper is “The Real Deal”: Also, I found this interesting; while this new Exhibition Fiber paper is now clearly THE paper for black and white, I was stunned by the quality and richness of the color reproduction as well. This paper is just sick!!! (in a really, really good way). [Cool.]
Source: Photoshop Insider

An Easier Path to HDR Photos: In the example shown above (photos by Barney Streit); the top photo is the regular correct exposure for the building, which was shot in direct harsh mid-day sun. The bottom photo is the HDR image which displays a much broader dynamic range. That image was processed in Photomatix Pro, from nine separate photos (all shot on a tripod), each with a different exposure (bracketed in the camera) to capture the full range from the darkest possible shadows to the brightest highlights.

You can download a trial version from the Photomatix Pro Web site (click here), and here’s a link to Barney’s NAPP online portfolio, where you can see more of his HDR work. My thanks for Barney for the use of his images, and for turning me on to this very cool program.

[Hmmm.]
Source: Photoshop Insider