Logo's Too

Digital Drawing Made Easy With Mango Studio 5.0

Pair of Wolf Eyes for a High School Mascot

I was able to draw this image using Manga Studio 5 and my Wacom Tablet, not Photoshop. Why? Manga Studio was designed with the digital artist in mind, and is the premier tool used by comic book artists around the globe. The work flow is smooth, the interface is user friendly. The ability to design and draw in either raster or vector layers with lightning speed is absolutely top notch. I give it two thumbs up. 

Ditch the Mac, LR5 on a PC

Running Windows 8 on a PC and photo editing with PS, Lightroom 5, plugins and other stand alone editing software programs. Details of My secret workaround.

I choose windows 8 for an OS earlier this year; I had an opportunity to get Win8 Pro for $49 as part of the promotional package Microsoft offered. I’ve not been a fan of the windows platform since about Win98 introduction when at that point it has only been three years since the introduction of 95.

So maybe I refer to this somewhat begrudgingly, as I recall the avid and massive ad campaign those wonderful folks over at Microsoft went on to tell us all why we needed to update our PC’s. I’ve said enough about that. There track record speaks for itself.

Whether or not this was a mistake by Mr. Gates’, it’s my opinion that it’s also this blunder that allowed the Mac to have its’ resurgence.

How I got to this Point

Mostly curiosity. I became intrigued with the re-engineering of the Win OS platform, and I’m looking forward to the future. Competition breeds excellence. Or death… ummm.

Highly doubted this possibility turning out as swell as it has. I Use Manga Studio 5 with my Wacom Tablet, the Intuos 5, and now LR 5. It works brilliantly thus far. But I have a secret to why this works and how I made this possible which is the reason I am writing on this topic.

The Rest of the Story

I’m doing all of this on a PC from 2005 which originally ran windows XP before the services pack came out. The processor is an AMD 64 Athlon x2, I was able to get this PC from work for free, completely clean with the XP service pack 3 pro edition installed. And less than 1GB RAM.

I found this the perfect opportunity to play with an Idea I got from Sony. Ready to release the PS4 gaming console it has been almost 17 years since the PSone hit the market. Sony promised us all that they would allow for one generation of console to have a ten year life cycle. And they’ve stuck to that.

My theory came from the thought that if it’s possible to create a gaming console with this life projection then why not my image editing PC?

So Why Not?

Rebuild. And it works; I had a great motherboard (which is a must have), with lots of space to grow. I added a sound card, Graphics Card, new larger hard drives, more RAM and a new power pack.

Including the OS less than $600 spent. This gives me way more opportunity to spend my dollars on the things that I want, bigger Wacom Tablet for instance. While a lot of people are out there spending money on their Mac’s, probably using a credit card and making monthly payments. I’m enjoying the fruits of my labor; 

I run an HDMI cord from the Graphics card to a 32” LED HDTV by INSIGNIA, not a computer monitor. Editing a photo or creating a painting is made a whole lot better because it is easier and faster. Price for this was around $220. Which is about the price of the cheaper PC monitors at around 24” and they’ll not have the color quality that a TV will.  

I did it So can YOU

Two more years is all I need out of this PC, I’ll be doing my next build from the ground up, I’ve already got my APU an AMD A6, I plan on using SSD’s and running with 32GB RAM and with the new Creative Cloud from Adobe. I think many more years for less happens to be in my future, now that’s a bargain. 

Digital Imaging (Part V)

The Digital Lightroom (Part 2b)

Lightroom 5, the new darkroom created for the Photographer. I’ve been hyping Ansell Adams photography for a couple of days now so let’s get strait to his images. Below.

What Ansell Adams was able to accomplish will most certainly never be reproduced, nor in my opinion will anyone even come close. His skill behind the camera was just as good as his talent in the darkroom, terms such as dodging and burning may be gone forever but we can still achieve those same results with the digital tools of today, gone is the darkroom, and in with Lightroom.

Lightroom varies in that of what Photoshop can do. It sets it's self apart from the field by bringing a shear commitment to the digital image, it's ability to allow me as a image maker to stay true to what I want to accomplish by staying true to the image I set out to capture in camera. No tricks, no gadgets just think of it as digital chemicals. 

While not the quality subject matter that Ansell has shot over his lifetime, here are a few images that I have achieved with the use of the digital Lightroom. Employing the same techniques Ansell and other great photographers of days past use; I am able to achieve similar results. Some of these are digital from the start and some have been scanned into the digital realm from their original 35mm full frame films. Can YOU tell which ones!

As you can see employing the use of Lightroom is a necessary tool in the digital Photographers handbag. 

Just remember that no software program fixes bad composition in photography! Enjoy your weekend and Happy Shooting!