No Nigerian Scam Here. They’re Making Movies!

This info was put out there to drive home the point that a lot of the growth we’re probably going to see in digital tools is going to come from emerging markets. This means opportunities for both software developers and artists. Granted, I don’t know how much software anyone is actually buying in Nigeria (or what they’re paying artists). However, I do know that some emerging markets, like India, are buying software and, at the higher end, apparently there are some well paid opportunities. I know several folks that are working in China, Singapore, and India.

There’s a huge demand for digital content worldwide. Movies, games, whatever… With phones and tablets we are constantly connected to devices that let us view and play whenever we have a little free time. Some of this content is becoming less valuable because there’s so much of it. (There’s certainly a lot of crap on YouTube!) The stuff that stands out though becomes extremely valuable simply because it’s able to stand out from the rest of the 10 million lolcatz videos out there. Professional produced and marketed content will usually stand out… but it’s becoming easier and cheaper to produce high quality entertainment. (although, it’s becoming more expensive on the high end for 3D movies and ever more complex and immersive games)

It’ll be interesting to see how and where this valuable content is created. As the tools get cheaper you’re going to see a lot more graphics power in the hands of everyone. Nvidia now has a graphics chip for mobile devices. You can record and edit video almost in real time on a phone or tablet. And it’s fascinating to see things start to go the other way… from digital to analog. Pretty soon you’ll be able to scan in a real world object with an app on your phone, transmit the data to your nearby $1000 3D printer and recreate the object. (or at least the exterior look of the object) There’s some pretty incredible technology out there.

While there is some truth to the computer graphics industry being somewhat mature, there are still a lot of untapped areas. We’re constantly seeing new devices, new ways of distributing content, and the tools are getting cheaper/easier/faster. While we may not be watching movies spoken in Igbo, the content we watch may be coming from unexpected places and the content you produce may end up distributed far wider than you would imagine.

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It’s been interesting and disheartening to see the stream of photos and videos coming out of the Occupy Oakland economic protest that basically got attacked by police a couple weeks ago.  No longer is it just people in far away places like Egypt, Syria, or China using this technology and social media to show peaceful protesters being fired upon and, but now it’s 10 miles away from where I live.
The true power of photography is it’s ability to capture dramatic moments, be they on the other side of the world or across a bridge. This is what makes it exciting to work within the photography community. Even if much of what passes for photojounalism these days is not taken by professionals. I find the thought of having a thousand cameras in a thousand places to be an incredible way of seeing what’s happening in the world.

btw… yes, I support the Occupy movement. However, I think it’s time they moved beyond the campouts and offered some solutions. This article is a good start…

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We recently had the technical guy at a photography studio give us a call. Their primary business is doing greenscreen photography for clients and they use Primatte for it. He called to complain that they had recently upgraded to Primatte 5.0 and that he gets an error message when he tries to run it on all his machines.

All of Digital Anarchy’s software looks for other instances of the plugin running on a network and shuts down if it sees a copy with the same serial number. This studio, which makes their living doing greenscreen, had one serial number. In his words “We have Primatte 3 installed on all our machines and never had a problem, but now it looks like we’ll have to buy more licenses. Why?”.

Well, because we’re nice people and you want to make sure we can eat. And if that doesn’t move you, then consider that we need to answer phone calls from people like you that make their living using our software. If we can’t eat, we can’t answer support calls/emails. This would be unfortunate all the way around.

We get emails and phone calls all the time from customers dealing with one emergency or another. They’ve got an event on a Saturday night, just bought a new machine, and email us ON Saturday in a panic because they can’t find their serial number. Or they run into some problem on a deadline and need an answer yesterday. Such is life around here.

But we need our customers to support us if they expect to be supported. That means actually buying the correct number of licenses to run on the number of machines you’re using. We try to be flexible. We offer hefty discounts on multi-seat licenses. We understand that many people have a work machine and home machine (or a laptop). You can use the software just fine in such a case. But for studios with multiple machines, please support the people that support you making your living. It helps ensure bug fixes are done promptly, that we answer phone calls (on Saturday), and otherwise support the products… which you rely on.

All this is just to point out that there are real folks behind the software. Most plugin companies are pretty small affairs, Digital Anarchy is just four people (plus two cats and an alien), so we’re similar in size to most of the studios we sell to. We do our best to support our customers and hope that they do likewise.

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Why do I think that?

I was talking to a friend who had recently been to a wedding. Apparently the total cost of the thing was about $80,000 including about $10K for the photography. At first I thought, ‘well, ok, they must be pretty well off’, but not so. Apparently they took a home equity loan out to finance part of the thing. Never underestimate the need for social validation that comes about by spending money. Sometimes people WANT to spend money.

This is also borne out by stories I hear from my sister who runs a florist in Los Angeles that, among other things, does high-end weddings. (shameless plug: her company is LA Botanicals) There doesn’t seem to be a dearth of people willing to spend $10-15,ooo on flowers. Granted, that’s LA, but it does seem like folks are willing to spend money on weddings, recession or no. And that includes photography. So I think a lot of the fears that any family member with a Canon Rebel is going to displace real photographers is a bit overblown. I think most people understand that if they want memories of this expensive event to last a lifetime, a pro photographer is important.

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Basically, our deal is if you bought it from us, we’ll make sure you’re supported on it. There’s no time limit, support contracts, or whatever. There’s some caveats with this… if new hardware comes along that isn’t supported by an older version, you might have to upgrade to get a working version. It can require a lot of work to support new versions of host apps and new OSes, so we need to charge for upgrades sometimes. But if you bought something and it’s supposed to work on a given system, we’ll support you on it. (this includes stuff that we sold to Red Giant if they’re not supporting it for some reason)

So why are we so wonderfully altruistic? (tongue in cheek ;-)

There’s a few benefits for us:

1) We make software to be used. It’s exciting to see it being used, so there’s definitely motivation to ensure customers are successful with it. Also, if you all use it and get good results, you guys generally talk about it. That’s good for us. For example, I _love_ Amazon’s support. That’s advertising you can’t buy. But they rock and deserve it.

2) You’re a customer now, we’d like you to stay one. There’s no better way to make sure someone DOESN’T buy something from you in the future than to not support them now. If you’ve had a bad support experience, you aren’t likely to expect the company to suddenly offer good support because you bought additional things from them. We’re coming out with new products, we want you to be able to purchase those products knowing you’ll be supported.

3) Folks talk a lot more about bad experiences. It’s not always true, but people are more passionate about complaints than compliments usually. Lots of complaints don’t make other customers want to buy from you.

4) Bad support pisses me off. And I believe in Karma. So if I’m not willing to make sure my own company offers good support, I can’t really complain when we get crappy support for the hardware, software, and other stuff we buy.

We aren’t perfect. We fail sometimes. We forget to return emails or call people back. We’re a small company and sometimes those things happen. We don’t have a big support staff in India, if you call you’re as likely to talk to me as anyone, so occasionally balls get dropped. But if you call us on it, we’ll do everything in our power to make it right.

We want you to be successful. We want _ourselves_ to be successful. I think the best way to accomplish both those things is to offer good support. (well, and good products)

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There’s been a number of interesting privacy things happening lately. The most interesting is the FTC’s smack down of Google. Here’s a good article on it… but basically Google got forced into 20 (yes, 20!) years of privacy audits and a requirement that users have to Opt-In to future social marketing endeavors. This is a pretty big blow to them and it bolster’s the FTC’s case that they should be able to regulate what companies are doing with the information we give to them. This has to be making Facebook, who happily whores out your data to all comers and constantly tries to ‘innovate’ new ways of doing so, a little nervous. FTC regulation might put a damper on Zuckerburg’s notion that ‘Privacy is dead’ and in the process, affect their IPO which is probably coming soon.

There really needs to be better legislation protecting the data we give to companies. I highly encourage you to support movements like Dotrights.org.

We’re giving a lot of data to companies and when companies like RapLeaf are attaching all that data to your name and then selling it, there needs to be some protections.

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Brilliant spot for Subura. So simple, but shows the power of a great script and good acting. Completely gets the message across and pulls the emotional strings as well.

Beautifully done CG world of paint chips. I actually saw a slightly different one (couldn’t find it online), but they are all really well done.

Hopefully the first clip inspires you to make sure you have a great story. And the other clips offer some technical inspiration.

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The DVD has a lot of amazing photos of the Humpbacks, but very little actual video. This is due to the fact that the 5D doesn’t work well for wildlife videography. Now, some of you might have expected that, knowing about rolling shutter, aliasing, and some of the other issues that DSLRs have. However, when I started the project, I was blissfully unaware of most of those issues. Even though we shot with the 5D on a Stedicam Merlin most of the footage was unusable. Between the motion of the boat, the rolling shutter, and fast moving wildlife the 5D proved not to be the camera we hoped it was. (it was everything we expected for the tripod shots, so that came out well. But when we were actually on the boat… not so much.) There are some Final Cut Pro plugins to help out with these problems, but when dealing with a boat and wildlife it was just too much for the camera.

So the DVD was made with a little video footage of the whales and a lot of great photos. It came out fine, but looking to the future we want to shoot videos of the whales. What to do?

Buy an inexpensive HD Camcorder! In my case, I choose the Panasonic TM700 (Canon also has some great ones, but they’re more expensive and nothing I read indicated they were worth the extra money). $750 and it shoots 1080/60p in high quality AVCHD format. The other nice thing, at least for wildlife, is the touchscreen focusing. You can tap the screen on the object you want the camera to focus on. This is incredibly useful because one of the main problems with shooting wildlife is keeping it in focus. And when you’re on a moving boat trying to focus on a fast moving whale you really don’t have the time to manually focus.  It’s extremely difficult and unless you’re a real pro at it, you’re usually going to miss the shot while you’re futzing around with the focus ring.

The image stabilization seems to have a noticable effect on the TM700 (perhaps because it’s designed for video). On the 5D (24-105 lens), the image stabilization doesn’t seem to make a difference. Of course, the real solution is not to shoot handheld and use something like the Steadicam Merlin. But nothing I shot handheld with the 5D was usuable (and very little of the 5D on a steadicam was either), whereas the TM700 produced relatively nice footage. It’s going to be fun to put it on the Merlin.

Here’s the first test with the TM700. This was basically just taking it out of the box and shooting. There are a number of things that I need to set up, which I think will improve the video even further. But right out of the box it trumps the 5D hands down for for this situation. For interviews and other situations where you have more control over what you’re shooting and how it’s being shot, the 5D is an amazing video camera. For scenics it’s beautiful and for wildlife where you can sit in the bushes with a tripod it works well. But if you’re moving and your subject is moving it starts to present a lot of challenges.

http://vimeo.com/18688733

Vimeo, in this case, darkened the footage, so the original footage is nicer than what you see on vimeo. I’m still working out the best way to get the .mts files through FCP and into Vimeo. But still, good footage from a $750 camera!

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We’re really excited to have this available. It definitely took longer than expected to get this working with all the different video cards out there. But the performance increase makes it all worth it!

This is a free update for current owners of Beauty Box Video (for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro). Click here to download the demo. Install the demo version and it should automatically recognize your serial number.

If you don’t own it, now is a great time to purchase it as it’s on sale for $149 ($50 off). Go to the Digital Anarchy store to purchase it.

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Randi’s topic is really about greenscreening for video and film (with specs like HDCAM and 35mm/24fps) since Post is a broadcast media publication. However, her sage advice is completely applicable to working with photographs and other still images.

In fact, the subtitle of the article is exactly the mantra that we tell our Primatte Photoshop customers: “Give yourself enough time, light it right and plan ahead.”

An interesting topic in the article is when to break the rules. For instance, posing your models against white (almost never) or red (if the subjects are wearing green and blue) versus the standard chroma-blue or chroma-green back screen. Another compelling subject is the variation in location, preparation and conditions under which film/TV studios shoot their subjects. Sometimes the situation is planned and optimal and other times — as many photographers have surely experienced — the chromakey shoot is unexpected and requires imaginative resources.

Randi quotes from an interview with editor Tom Fulks of Detroit’s post-production studio Grace & Wild. “[He] says the basic rules of working with greenscreen have always been the same: it’s all about lighting and separation…”What’s changed is the technical prowess,” he says. “The Flames, the Nukes, the plug-ins… those are the things that have evolved.”"

This statement is totally in line with our development of Primatte as an Adobe Photoshop CS5 plugin. When we took over the product in 2004, its core algorithm for recognizing color separation was good but the interface was clunky. Over the years, the algorithm has gotten exponentially better AND our interface wrapper has become more sophisticated and easier to use.

We are very proud of this latest Primatte release. As our president Jim Tierney said, “We’ve improved the speed and further enhanced the workflow, but Primatte 3.5 is just the beginning. Look for additional big changes in the coming months.”

regards -debbie

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It brings up some excellent points about creativity and how the teaching of it is getting pushed out of schools, in favor of standardized test.

When you start talking about creativity most people think painting or photography or some other ‘artsy’ thing. But it’s not so. Many of the computer programmers I’ve met are some of the most mind blowingly creative people you could imagine. Same goes for any field where innovation is key. Einstein’s genius was not in his mathematical skill, but his ability to creatively look at a problem and have the vision to see things no one else thought possible.

However, I do think that teaching art can help teach creativity, no matter what you study or do for work. It helps you look at things differently and in ways where there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers.

Many people don’t think they can be creative. But they can. I think the system just beats the creative impulses out of them. Relegating creativity to the arts and discouraging answers that don’t exactly match what’s in some text book or test.

Anyways… read the original article.  It’s quite good.

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Now, I realize that going into a camera store and stealing a $1000 lens is difficult and stealing a $500 software program is relatively easy. But just because it’s easy to steal software doesn’t make it any less wrong. If you can afford to buy a $1000 lens, you can afford to help support the people that make the software you use to organize, enhance, manipulate, and print your photos. We’re all real folks trying to make a living and, even though piracy is given with software, sometimes it hurts when it’s thrown in your face as my friend did (unintentionally, sure, but here’s someone that’s relatively well paid just casually throwing out she wants to steal Photoshop.).

I usually don’t lose much sleep over piracy. Much of it is done by people that would never buy the program. They  download the software, use it once or twice, and then don’t use it again. But for artists that use something like Photoshop every day, it does dismay me a little about how common piracy is. Some photographers and artists that would be up in arms if their work was copied and used for an ad without being paid, think nothing of copying software from a friend. Yet, it’s the same principle.

I don’t care if you download a pirated copy of our plugins to try out. But if you find it useful, please… support those of us that work our asses off to bring you cool, useful software.

Yes, there are real people behind all this software… Jim, Garrick, Debbie, and Maggie (see above). And we all greatly appreciate all of you who do find our software useful and help us continue to do something we love… allowing us to create cool software that hopefully makes your jobs easier!

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The example above shows one before/after image with only a little skin correction needed. The example below shows a more extreme example of skin smoothing. The plugin is great for both kinds of situations because it always gives a natural look.

You can still purchase Beauty Box Photo for it’s introductory rate of $79 until July 31, 2010.

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(After Toonit! Photo has been applied)

(Original image before Toonit! Photo has been applied)

This is just the first in many more 64bit and CS5 updates to come. Here’s are run down of when you can expect these updates for our other products:

Primatte Chromakey: Available July 6th

Backdrop Designer: Available July 2010

Texture Anarchy: Available July 2010

3D Invigorator: Available August 2010

Have a fun and safe 4th of July everyone!

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In the first article, The 10 Most Common Mistakes Web Designers Make, the Author talks about, “with a little diligence, poor design can be easily avoided.” My favorite one, which is #1, talks about busy, crowded pages. There’s nothing worse then going to a website and not being able to find what you are looking for.

The second article, 20 Virtual Techniques & Best Practices For Effective Web Design, refers to “twenty excellent techniques and design elements you can incorporate into your designs to create a beautiful, polished website.” I found #20 interesting as it talks about adding a cartoon element. The Author says, “cartoon characters and other design elements keep your site looking fresher and younger.” So if you want to add a cartoon element to your web page, why not use our Photoshop plugin, Toonit! Photo? Toonit! Photo is an easy way to give your photos that sought-after cartoon look. Want to try the free demo? Click here.

To end this post off, here is a  funny footnote for a bad design article: The Ultimate Ugly Showcase of Current Government Websites. Go ahead knock yourselves out!

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Here are my favorite two:

Antique Icons

Realistic Icons

With over 80 to choose from, which are your faves?

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©Ben Heine

Here at Digital Anarchy we have always been a big supporter of how illustrations can play a role within photography. Our plugin ToonIt! Photo lets you create cartoon effects, like shading and lines, from your own photographic images. Learn more about ToonIt! Photo here.

I had a few extra moments to play with the Pencil vs Camera concept using my own images and ToonIt! Photo. I shot these photos in Santa Cruz, CA on a very overcast day about two years ago. I would have liked to have a more pleasing sky but you can’t always get what you want, right? Here are the results:

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend! -Maggie

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It’s fascinating — and maybe a bit disturbing — to realize that mundane scenes in TV shows are now regularly treated as visual effects events. Digital Anarchy first developed Primatte Chromakey, our Adobe Photoshop plugin for green screen masking, in mid-2005. At the time, we had to spend a lot of time simply explaining to photographers what ‘green screen’ meant. Five years later, green screen is a recognized entity with information accessible on non-pro sites like ehow.com. The convergence continues!

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Many people I know are freaked out about this. One person was shocked that her photos and blog posts were found. Seriously. There’s a lot of folks out there who are unclear on how all these cookies, logging, networking, and whatever else works.

Privacy Law Needs To Be Updated. Support dotrights.org

Notwithstanding obvious things like blogs, that we put up so other people can see, our privacy is being eroded fast.

For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article discussed how Ebay served ads to friends of the people that were buying things on Ebay. They used a separate company, one like Spokeo, to identify friends of the buyers and targeted ads at them. The assumption was that your friends probably like the same things you do. However, they did it without the knowledge of the buyers.

This should be illegal.

Not because targeting ads should be illegal, but because of other crazy shit companies or the government might do and are doing. Google’s Buzz service, when it was launched, let anyone viewing your social networking page see who you most frequently emailed with… again, without your permission. I wonder how many marriages or business deals were wrecked because of that?

How can they do this? The Electronic Privacy Act, which governs such things, was written in 1986. It is hopelessly out of date and needs to be revised. The ACLU, EFF, Google, ATT, Microsoft, and others have started a movement to get it revised. It’s called dotrights.org.

dotrights.org needs to be supported. We need strong privacy protection for all of us. There’s a lot of data out there about us and it’s pretty easy to gather and use or misuse. Governments, companies and individuals are NOT going to just ignore all this data because it’s the right thing to do. There needs to be a law with teeth that defines what can be done with this data.

Please support dotrights.org.

Your online privacy matters, and right now, you have very little control how much data is out there and how it is used.

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