Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11

Sprinkles from around the web

A collection of interesting links that I found around the web. Read and enjoy.

Me

Erica in her new dress
Because sometimes, I just need to buy and wear a pretty red dress.

Environment

Polar bear swims for nine straight days in search of ice Polar bears swim, but they don’t swim as far as this one. Why did this bear swim so far? It couldn’t find ice. Yep, the real effects of global warming.

Squirrels Around the World There are some freaking adorable squirrels out there.

Fandom

The Rape of Inara: On heroines, consent, and women’s sexuality

I am now gleefully happy that “Firefly” got canceled. Not that I wasn’t before, but now? I can almost forgive FOX for canceling all those TV shows if it means that Inara was never raped. Also, TV, can you stop having the women with sexuality be raped or otherwise punished for having it while pretending to be edgy for having women with ‘unconventional’ sexualities?

Resistance, a Star Trek: The Next Generation fanvid I love this video so much. It’s amazing.

‘Dark Knight Rises’: Anne Hathaway will be Catwoman, Tom Hardy is Bane Okay, she’ll actually be Selina Kyle as who knows if she’ll be Catwoman in this one… Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 1/14-1/27/11”

Sprinkles Around the Web 7/09-7/22/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Links that I enjoyed and shared around the web. Take a gander.

Economy

Times report: The real mortgage deadbeats are the rich. Why does it not surprise me that even in the Great Recession, the rich keep getting richer by hiring their legal team to take advantage of all the loopholes, including ones that are supposed to be helping the middle and working classes.

Fandom

Feminist Hulk SMASH Exclusive Interview with MS.! Awesome.

Tweeting in all-caps, this size-XXXXXXL superhero fights for social justice and breaks down the gender binary–all the while looking “smashing” in purple shorts with a big smile on his face.

Mythbusting Princess Leia’s Hair. Leia had some bizarre hair, even for the 1970s. And some hair that expert cos-players can’t figure out how to replicate. Certainly hair she couldn’t have done by herself, while on the run and fighting a war. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 7/09-7/22/10”

Sprinkles Around the Web 7/02-7/08/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Standard warning: These are links that I found interesting, exciting, or relevant, and I hope you do too. But I don’t make any promises.

Environment

Scientists find oil blotches on Gulf crab larvae. Great. This is the first major consequence of both the dispersant and the oil. If you don’t count clean-up workers getting sick.

Tar balls wash up on Florida’s eastern coast. That’s right, the Gulf Oil Spill continues to spread.

Fandom

How to Stop Worrying and Love Comics. Sometimes, you just have to remember what made you so passionate about your hobbies to start with. They should never be a chore. Continue reading “Sprinkles Around the Web 7/02-7/08/10”

Sprinkles from Around the Web 05/21-05/27/10

Sprinkles from around the web

Environment

Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion take hazmat dive into Gulf’s oily waters. Video of what the oil-and-chemical-filled Gulf looks like. Horrific. Sad.

Fandom

Come party with Lady Gaga: From her dressing room to a sex club, an exclusive interview in which the singer discusses fame, the paparazzi – and those health rumours. And the 12+ reasons why I love Lady Gaga. (Music video NSFW.)

The Weekly Geek: Proud to be a nerdy gay girl. Reasons why being a queer fangirl is awesome. Continue reading “Sprinkles from Around the Web 05/21-05/27/10”

Pants Magic: Another Adventure in Photoshopping

One of my biggest work projects is to take the raw clothing photos from the photographer and edit them by removing the background (and mannequin) and color correcting. By color correcting, the photographer only takes one photo of a product and I, via Photoshop, transform it into the many colors it comes in. The helps cut back on expenses, especially when a single shirt or pant can come in three to five different colors.

Photographers have a lot of product to shoot and not every shot comes out picture perfect. Most all of them have editing software, and they do a good job at adjust for major changes, which I deeply appreciate. However, sometimes I’ll still go back and fine-tune it.

On this particular pant, the leg was bunched up over the foot in an angle that would have looked especially strange without a foot present. So I built a new bottom for this pant leg.

Pants before Photoshopping Pants after I photoshopped them

Photoshopping Magic

Thanks to access to Photoshop, anyone can subtract (or add) wrinkles, freckles, frown lines, or those 10 extra pounds off a photo. The Seattle Times recently did an article called Photoshop: Memories – the way we want them about a woman who removed her ex-husband from her travel photos. Of course, not everyone has to photoshop that drastically.

Let’s face it, most photos don’t come out of the camera perfect. Not only do we have human flaws we don’t like, but there are often things like inappropriately placed people in the background. Don’t you know I was the only one at the Space Needle that day! Or the basic need to cropping due to photographer’s angle or they tell me on lesser cameras you still have to fix red eye.

When putting together my mom’s wedding website, I did some Photoshopping with these three photos for her banner. (No, I didn’t take them and they were super low-res.) I give you three befores and afters.

Image #1: Before Image #1: After
Continue reading “Photoshopping Magic”