Aug 11
Calgary-based multi-media artist Jeff de Boer created ornate and gorgeous sets of armor for mice and cats!
Jun 11
Goldgenie Bobby Moore Signature Range Gold iPod Touch 64GB:
£599.99 (U can buy it here)
- This special edition 64GB Ipod Touch features Bobby Moore’s signature on the reverse and has been embellished with 24ct gold by Goldgenie. This stunning piece will make listening to music and surfing the web a truly luxurious experience, and would also be an exceptional memento for football fans.
- Goldgenie will donate 10% of the profits from each Bobby Moore iPod Touch to the life saving work of the Bobby Moore Fund. The donations will be spent on cutting-edge bowel cancer research, carried out by leading scientists.
Goldgenie Frank Lampard Signature Range Gold iPod Touch 64GB
£559.99 (U can buy this here)
- This special edition 64GB Ipod Touch features Frank Lampard’s signature on the reverse and has been embellished with 24ct gold by Goldgenie. This stunning piece will make listening to music and surfing the web a truly luxurious experience, and would also be an exceptional memento for football fans.
- Goldgenie will donate a portion of the profits from each Frank Lampard iPod Touch to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Jun 01
For the Milan Design Week, Italian studio Carnovsky created a series of wallpapers that react to different coloured lights
The designs were created for the Milan shop of Janelli & Volpi, a noted Italian wallpaper brand. Each features overlapping illustrations, different elements of which are revealed depending on whether a blue, green or red light is shone upon them.
Under red light:
green light:
This one features the animal kingdom:
Color est e pluribus unus
RGB is a collection of wallpapers that mutate and interact with different chromatic stimulus.
RGB consists in the overlapping of three different patterns that results in unexpected and disorienting images.
The colors mix up, the lines and shapes entwine becoming oneiric and not completely clear.
Through a filter (a colored light or transparent material) it is possible to see clearly the layers in which the image is composed. Each one of the red, green and blue filters serve to reveal just one of the three patterns, hiding the other two.
We wanted to represent the antique theme of the metamorphosis intended as an unceasing transformation of shapes from a “primigenial chaos”.
For this purpose we have created a sort of catalogue of natural motifs starting with the engravings from natural history’s
great European texts, between the XVI and the XVIII Century, from Aldrovandi to Ruysch, from Linneus to Bonnaterre.
A catalogue – it naturally includes also human – that does not have a taxonomic or scientific aim in the modern sense, but that wants to explore both the real and the fantastic, the true and the verisimilar in the way medieval bestiaries did.
In each image three layers live together, three worlds that could belong to a specific animal kingdom or to an anatomical part, but at the same time connect to a different psychological or emotional status that passes from the clear to the hidden, from the light to the darkness, from the awakeness to the dream in something that could be a sort of exploration of the surface’s deepness.
RGB has been shown during Milan Design Week at Jannelli & Volpi store
Photos By Luca Volpe
Click for bigger photo.
May 25
Damon Lindelof wrote,
“Remember. Let go. Move on. I will miss it more than I can ever say.”
May 09
Mar 26
If you are a professional diver you should visit Cenote Angelita Mexico.
These amazing pictures were taken by Anatoly Beloshchin in the cave Cenote Angelita, Mexico. Here’s his description: “We are 30 meters deep, fresh water, then 60 meters deep – salty water and under me I see a river, island and fallen leaves… Actually, the river, which you can see, is a layer of hydrogen sulphide.”
It must be an unforgettable feeling once you’re there and see it with your own eyes.
skipnjump says:
Hydrogen Sulphide is toxic in large quantities, but only if inhaled, like carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. It can irritate mucous membranes, eyes, and respiratory organs. Since they’re diving (having oxygen supply and are suited) H2S would have no impact on them. All is safe.
Mar 02
A rarely seen Buddhist flower, which blossoms every 3,000 years, has been discovered under a nun’s washing machine.
Rarely seen Buddhist Udumbara flowers, which blossom every 3,000 years, was found under a washing machine in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi province, China Photo: REX
The Udumbara flower was found in the home of a Chinese nun in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi province, China.
The rare Youtan Poluo or Udumbara flower, which, according to Buddhist legend, only blooms every 3,000 years, measures just 1mm in diametre.
Miao Wei, 50, was cleaning when she discovered the cluster of white flowers under the washing machine.
At first she thought the barely-there stems were worm eggs, however, the next day she discovered that the stems had grown 18 white tiny flowers on top and smelled “fragrant”.
Local temples believe the mini blooms are specimens of the miraculous Youtan Poluo flower – called “Udumbara” or “Udambara” in Sanskrit, meaning “an auspicious flower from heaven.”
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
More Udumbara flower’s photo:
Jan 07
Something to think about….
Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.
The questions raised:
*In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
*Do we stop to appreciate it?
*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.
How many other things are we missing?
Source: http://bitsofwisdom.org/2009/10/21/interesting/perception/
Dec 22
Here’s a neat kitchen gadget — a toaster that “prints out” toast. It allows you to feed multiple slices at once from the feeder at top, and spits out finished products from the bottom. It’s a concept by Othmar Muehlebach, and it won second place at a design contest in Switzerland last month.
Dec 22
Author: elleevee aka Lev has been a Threadless member since January 3, 2007, has scored 3209 submissions, giving an average score of 1.46.
This might be the most fun you’ll have in photoshop all year.
Presenting a tutorial to transform any image into 3D using depth maps.
Difficulty rating: 3/5 dimensions
What you will need:
● 3d glasses (red/blue lens)
● Photoshop (6.0, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4)
Step 1: Image selection
Any picture can be made 3d. But if you really want a cool 3d image you have to search for one with interesting features. I’m choosing a pic of Harper (found in the press photos for threadless) for my test as he is obviously in the zone, and also because he is creating motion with the ping pong balls. There is some good depth between him and the table including the net bottom frame. The wall also gives us some restrictions which is good.
Things to look for in your image:
● Good depth between camera and objects
● Sense of motion
● Various objects & people
● RGB image (if in cymk convert to rgb)
● Try not to get images with red, blue or white in them (as you can see in some of my tests below the red and blue mixes with the channel displacement. Greens and dark earthy colours are great.
Step 2: Setting up your Image
Open your image in photoshop and save it as a .psd document. If you’re familiar with photoshop then you know all about layers and will breeze through this part with your shortcuts.
For others here is a quick guide:
● Create a new layer from menu bar (Layer → New → New Layer)
● Name it whatever you want, or call it ’3d’ to remember what you’re using it for.
● This layer will be used to paint over the original image.
Step 3: The Depth Map
Now the fun begins…
We’ll be using a depth map which is a grey scale representation of the distances from the camera to the objects within your image. (thanks to Rafael for the definition)
The closest object represented will be white, the farthest, black and all other objects in between will be given different shades of gray.
Study your image to locate any objects you would like to pop out in the final picture.
Step 4: Greyscaling your image (“A Whiter Shade Of Pale…”)
It’s time to brush the objects from white to greys to black.
For the people learning photoshop you can just use a hard or soft brush and work on the layer we created earlier for all your various greys. Make sure you work from white to black and greys which you can do by clicking the colour button and selecting colours on the far left of the colour picker.
For the advanced photoshop users you might want to trace the objects out with a path to get a sharper image. Fill in the paths with your various shades of grey later.
Things to watch out for:
● Make sure the entire image is covered with greys, whites and blacks
● Don’t go outside the lines of your object
Step 5: Saving your depth map
So now you have an image covered in greys. It looks pretty boring right?
This step may get a little tricky so I’ll do it in point form.
➊ Click the channels tab next to layers
➋ Select either a red, green or blue channel
➌ Right click on the chosen channel
➍ Click duplicate channel
➎ It will ask what you would like to call this channel
➏ Call it whatever you want, maybe ‘MAP’ for saving purposes
➐ Under destination, click the drop down and select NEW, also give it the name ‘MAP’
➑ Photoshop will open it as a new file (you can blur the image a little bit if you want to soften the edges)
➒ Save this file as a .psd in the same folder as the image you are currently working on
➓ Close the newly created depth map
Step 6: Applying your depth map to the original image
After going back to your original image you will want to turn off the greyscale layer that you painted over the top of your original picture.
Make sure all the channels are visible again.
As this is a menu step I’ll do point form once more.
● Click the layer of your picture
● Click channels tab and highlight the red channel by clicking it.
● Make sure all the channels are still visible but the red channel is just highlighted.
● Click the menu bar at the top for Filter → Distort → Displace
This part will require some back and forth, apple z, ctrl-z moments as you calibrate the level of 3d you need before it starts to break up. It’s kind of like a sweet spot you need to find.
Have your 3d glasses ready to test the effect of the 3d map.
As you clicked the red channel you’ll want to horizontally shift the depth map to the left. Using integer scales.
So to do this set the horizontal scale to -5
Set the vertical scale to 0 (as you don’t want it to shift up)
Make sure the displacement map option is: Stretch To Fit
Undefined Areas: Repeat Edge Pixels
Click OK. It will ask for you to choose the displacement map which should be where your original image is located on your computer. Open the one you labelled MAP (or whatever you called it)
Yo Wow! the image should be 3d!
But now we need to shift the blue channel in the opposite direction to make it more 3d.
So repeat the steps for the blue channel that you used on the red channel. However this time instead of setting horizontal scale to -5, set it to 5, as it needs to go to the right. Select the same map again and the image should be 3d!
Now you can undo a few times and try stronger shifting on the displacement values, try doing from 1-10 and see how extreme the displacement effects the image.
Step 7: Find a New Image & Repeat!
Keep practicing on different images, and adjusting different horizontal values to get the 3d effect to pop better.
For more advanced 3d effects you can also use gradients to simulate perspective and vanishing points which are effective on walls and roads.
Some more pics:
Read more please visit Source: Threadless
