You can create a 3D image from just about anything in Open Office Draw. For example: Make a text box and type a letter. Then go to Modify/convert/to 3D rotation object...
and you end up with something like this.
You can also follow the path Modify/convert/ to 3D and you'll end up with beveled edges around your letter or drawing giving it a raised look.
You can convert a freehand drawing too. Just go to the bottom tool bar and select freehand drawing tool; It looks like a pencil on a curved line, and draw a line.
When you convert it it will look something like this.
After changing the color and transparency and adding another object it looks a bit different.
When you create a 3D rotation object remember that the software takes your image and rotates it using the left side of the selection box as the axis of rotation.
On the next post I will incorporate a 3D object with a photograph.
The project I had in mind is a group of 8 x 10 shots for a portfolio for a friend who is an entertainer. This friend does many characterizations and is also a classically trained mime. Unfortunately pinning him down for a photo session has proved to be difficult so what I am going to do now is to familiarize myself and anyone else who wishes to follow along with the draw program in Open Office.
When you first open Draw it should look like this.
It has an 8.5" x 11" page roughly in the middle and a set of tool bars on the top and bottom. Since I am going to be working with 3D objects make sure there is a tool bar on the top with some 3D objects. If you don't have them right off the bat right click on one of the other tool bars and select customize toolbar to add it in.
Now click on an object in the toolbar to choose which object you wish to draw. I'm selecting the sphere because it is the one I'll eventually use in the portfolio pictures. Hold the right mouse button down while you drag the cursor along and you will have drawn a sphere like this one.
To change the characteristics right click on the selected object to get a dialog box like this.
To change the color and transparency quality of the object select area to get a dialog box like this.
If you right click on the object and select 3d effects a dialog box opens up where you can control many of the 3D characteristics of the object
There are 5 tabs at the top of the dialog box. the first one controls the geometry of the object. The second one controls the shading and the focal length of it. The third one controls the external and ambient lighting. The fourth one is for textures and the fifth one controls the material characteristics and the specular(reflected) lighting. Experiment with these a bit and in a day or so I'll show you how to create your own 3D object.
I am starting a project for a friend. It involves Incorporating drawn objects in an existing photograph. I am using Adobe CS2 which includes Photoshop 9 and the equivalent version of Adobe Paint. Now I am not very happy with the paint program. In my opinion it's not very versatile. What I am going to use instead is the Draw application on Open Office by Sun Microsystems. I like it for two reasons. One, It does every thing that I want it to with a graphic user interface (GUI) that is pretty intuitive. And two, the whole suite of programs is absolutely 100% free! You can't get a better deal than that can you? I've used the word processor and it performs as well as any I've used. The other programs, other than Draw that is, I've spent little time with so I don't have an opinion on those as yet. Are there any drawbacks? Well, yes there are. The first one is that Draw works by working on a development file extension that doesn't translate to other like applications and I'm sure that I'll find other drawbacks as well. I am also sure that I will find work arounds to get what I want out of it. In my next post I will get started on the project so for now I'll leave you with the link to the download page for Open Office Suite. I highly recommend it. It will also be on the sidebar. http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
You might wonder what a deceased blue whale has to do with photography. Is it awe inspiring? Well, yeah if you consider that it it is the biggest thing that has ever lived on the earth and your a cetacean expert. Is it beautiful? Probably if your the cetacean expert. Did I get any good pics of it? not really. It is hard to compose 72 feet and 80 tons on dead whale. What this has to do with photography is this. It's all about access. The question being is how do you go about getting to see something that most people really don't want you messing with.
A few weeks ago our local newspapers reported that a blue whale, one of the rarest animals on earth, had been struck by a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) contract vessel. It had come to rest finally on the rocky shoreline south of Fort Bragg, CA. What they had forgotten to say was that access to the shore was by 2 ways only. One was over private land and two was to swim in icy water and rough surf for a mile or so to get to the cove. Not knowing all of this a friend of mine, myself and a few hundred other curious souls headed out to Ft Bragg. When we got there many of the curious were breaking through hedges, fences and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Needles to say the local sheriffs were having a grand old time handing out trespassing citations and shaking there fingers at those of us who happened to be in the vicinity. On top of that there were two enterprising youngsters that had set up a stand were if you asked they would let you look at a map of the area detailing where the whale was and subsequently asking for a donation to their favorite charity. I was never quite sure what that charity really was. College fund I imagine. It would seem that from all that we gathered the police didn't want anyone there and the property owners also would have been just as happy to see everyone go away. What's a budding photo journalist supposed to do? Well a journalist's job is to seek the truth is it not? What was the two kids truth? Their truth was that they were trying to make a few serendipitous bucks off the situation. We passed them a couple of bucks for their trouble and found the location of the whale. What was the sheriffs truth. Their truth was that they probably drew the short straw that Sunday and had to go out and keep the peace around a giant whale carcass. After discussing the situation with them further we found out that the only way to gain access would be to get permission from one of the property owners to cross their land. So after the police wagged their fingers at the kids for being promiscuous but not actually breaking laws they were on their way. So now all that remained was to see if we could find a willing property owner. When we drove back up the public road and saw that the sheriffs had stopped and were talking to a man in front of a private gate. Having nothing to lose we parked, got out and walked up to the group. By chance the man they were talking to was the owner of a house on the cliff over looking the cove with the whale. The police then introduced us to Jerry Zari. Jerry's truth was that he understood that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for most . He just didn't want people damaging his property and making a mess of the area he called his home. After speaking with him for a minute he agreed to let us in to see it in a couple of hours. When we came back he let us in and allowed us to park in his driveway. When he saw that we had our wetsuits with us he asked that we do a favor for them. The favor was to rescue a cormorant that had become trapped in the whales ooze. If it had stayed much longer it probably would have died. So we took some pictures, rescued a cormorant, sent it on it's way to a local bird rescue and then brought out a bottle of white wine which we shared with Jerry and his wife Wilma. So the main thrust of this post is that just because the way seems to be blocked look for a deeper truth in the situation. The kids truth, the polices truth and the property owners truth were different from what most people expected. Oh, yeah, and always bring a couple bottles of good wine.
These pics are proof that 1. There was a dead whale that I took pictures of( albeit not good pictures).
2. We really did rescue a cormorant covered in whale yuck and 3. The view from Jerry Zari's place was fantastic despite the rotting whale smell.
It has been more than a week since I published this post with a promise to finish it with a follow up. Due to some my newness to the world of blogging and an encounter with a 72 foot blue whale carcass (more on that soon) I was unavoidably detained. To begin with there was one thing I liked about my photo that was the depth of field of the fly on the granite rock. It made the fly pop out of the picture a bit. I also liked the texture of the granite itself. To keep the rock and improve the damsel fly I had to separate them by creating a duplicate background layer in Photo-shop 9
Next I highlighted the background in the layer dialog box and knocked out the "eye" to the left of the background copy layer so that I could only see and work on the background.
I then went to Image/adjustments/brightness - contrast and boosted the brightness +25 and the contrast +15.
I went back to the image/adjustments to "saturation" and increased it by +50.Next I put the eye back on in the layer dialog box for the background copy and highlighted the background copy. Using the eraser tool I erased the lacy parts of the wing and the more colorful body parts. Leaving the eyes and the legs alone because the contrast worked on those parts. A little use of the the clone tool to get rid of the other insect on the dark rock face and some cropping to add interest and here is the finished product.How would any of you handled this? I would be interested to know.
A few years ago when I bought my first DSLR I took a trip to Taiwan to visit a friend of mine and his wife who lived in Taibei city. I was learning how to operate in on the fly and as my first photographs show I had a lot to learn. I am showcasing a photo with a few problems. The subject matter is an insect common to Asia known as the Water Beggar Damselfly.
The fly itself was a bit skittish and not very cooperative but after traipsing around the runoff pool at a waterfall near Yuli Taiwan I finally got him (her?) quiet enough to take the shot. The first problem is that it was taken at mid day with the resulting high contrast burning out a lot of detail. The second is that for the most part it is kind of boring due to the centering of the subject.
I am going to fix it and show the process here on the blog. If any one has any ideas on what they would do with it your comments are welcome.
Recent Comments