Stephan Miller

Archive for the ‘Graphics’ Category

I have Flash turned off on my browser. I use Flock and have a few addons that I can’t live without. But it kept slowing down on me, so I trimmed a few things. I learned how to use about:config and turned off all Flash until I click the play button to start it. It wasn’t until then that I realized how many Flash ads are out there.

And some people build their whole sites out of Flash. If you’re a designer, photographer, or your site is only supposed to be a business card floating in the ether of the internets, Flash was probably a good choice, but if you expect your site to get read for content, look elsewhere.  Read more... (904 words, 2 images, estimated 3:37 mins reading time)

I swear that one of these days I will have something useful to do with this Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, but for now it’s like having a million colored pencils in one. Want a rough gradient instead of a computer generated one, then draw it, changing the color and the pencil size gradually as you go.

I have to admit I think that most computer generated images are a little too perfect for my liking. It’s unnatural. Nothing in nature is perfect and computers can only generate simulated imperfections. I like a old fashioned hand drawn cartoon every once in a while. But it seems no one does this any more. Everything is computer generated.  Read more... (354 words, 1 image, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

I don’t know if images help or detract from the content. I think I like them and have been adding them to most posts lately. I have also been bugging a lot of bloggers about how to streamline the process of adding pictures to a blog post. I know there is a Flickr gallery plugin for Wordpress that will make the process I am about to describe quicker. It apparently adds a tab to your posting box that is linked to your Flickr account. But it has issues in my installation and only gives fatal errors  Read more... (474 words, 1 image, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Here I am opening my big mouth again waiting for the real photographers to come along and prove me wrong. But when you are trying to get products online quickly, there is really no time to wait around for a photographer or Photoshop expert to do everything perfectly.

I have taken over 1000 pictures over the last year. It’s part of the daily grind at All About Doors. Some of the products have never been put online. This is the reason why much of our photographs get hotlinked and show up in Google images first, even though we have never really optimized the images.  Read more... (377 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics » Check Mate: Google Images I think it will be a while before Google can actually crack down on this. For one thing, until they have an algorithm to tear the image apart and decipher what it is, about all the data they have to determine the contents of an image is through the words and tags that surround it. Now, I read in Wired about a month ago, about a guy developing software to do this exact thing, but developing is the keyword. I guess they can determine the value of the site itself and then give rank accordingly to image results, but not all authority sites are above reproach, hello Wordpress and New York Times. I think it is just a issue worth investigating.

tutorialicious : Community driven Programming and Photoshop tutorial links

My type of site. I have learned more about programming by online tutorials than textbooks.