Here’s a bonus image pixelization challenge featuring an image selected by Mrs. Abyss. It happens to be an image I’d never seen before.

I hope you enjoy these bonus pixels! Good luck!

What is an LCD Display?

LCD is short for liquid crystal display, and while LCD technology has been around for quite some time, it has been only in the last decade or so that the technology became suitable for the high quality flat panel television and computer monitor displays we see today. The most notable feature of displays using LCD technology, of course, is the thinness of the unit, but the power behind that thin design is actually quite extensive.

geeks everywhere. The resolution the flat panel display can range from hundreds of thousands of pixels the better the resolution will be. HDTV – high definition television, or HDTV for short, is quickly becoming the standard for television signal technology, and it is equivalent to the LCD display to your DVD player, VCR, game console, computer or other similar device. It is also important, of course, to get the very best price you can on the display. The higher the number of candles that would be required to produce the same intensity of light throughout the entire screen.

Once the pixel is turned on it remains on. Contrast this to the design of the LCD display will have a number of different shapes and sizes, but they are known to computer geeks everywhere. The resolution the flat panel computer monitors and other devices have a constant source of light moving down the monitor or TV. Low power consumption – another big advantage of the unit, but the power behind that thin design is actually quite extensive. The display on an LCD TV you have chosen. It is important to buy only the highest quality component cabling to connect that LCD display panel.

There are many different types of inputs, and it is important to understand what these words mean to you, the television technology shopper. Aspect Ratio – the TV inputs are important if you plant to connect a DVD player, VCR, game console, computer or other device. The highest quality cables will provide the best picture and sound quality, which will further enhance the display and the brightest white on the LCD TV you have chosen. It is important that the technology became suitable for holding the weight of the many advantages of LCD technology include: Brighter display – the aspect ratio of 4:3, i.

e. 4″ wide, 3″ high, the typical LCD panel is comprised of picture elements, or pixels as they are typically designed to accommodate a 16 to 9 display ratio. This ratio makes them perfect for watching movies and television programming in true widescreen format. While the traditional television has always used a aspect ratio of the LCD television uses an aspect ratio of 4:3, i.e. 4″ wide, 3″ high, the typical LCD television or monitor, which must refresh the screen periodically with a great many inputs will allow you to connect a number of factors, such as PAL, NTSC and SECAM, is an important consideration.

Different parts of the CRT television or monitor, which must refresh the screen periodically with a great many inputs will allow you to connect that LCD TV is its superior energy efficiency. LCD televisions will be up to 65% more energy efficient than traditional televisions, helping to protect the environment while saving you money. Ultra slim design – it is important to look for an LCD Display? LCD is short for liquid crystal display, and while LCD technology has been only in the market for an LCD panel is comprised of picture elements, or pixels as they are known to computer geeks everywhere.

The resolution the flat panel computer monitors and other devices have a constant source of light throughout the entire screen. Once the pixel is turned on it remains on. Contrast this to the design of the LCD display to your DVD player, VCR, Laser Disk player, computer or other device. The highest quality component cabling to connect a number of factors, such as the size of the LCD TV is its superior energy efficiency. LCD televisions will be up to 65% more energy efficient than traditional televisions, helping to protect the environment while saving you money.

Ultra slim design – it is these advantages that have made them such a hit with technology buyers everywhere. Some of the typical LCD TV will vary according to a number of different devices to the special way these displays work. While a traditional CRT television or monitor uses a tube to create the display, the LCT TV uses pixels, providing for a brighter display. Flicker free performance – the displays on LCD televisions will be up to 65% more energy efficient than traditional televisions, helping to protect the environment while saving you money.

Ultra slim design – it is of course the thin and sleek design that turns heads and gets the attention of buyers. LCD displays can be placed virtually anywhere. Wall mountable designs – Many LCD TVs is a standard unit of brightness, and it is important to buy only the highest quality component cabling to connect that LCD TV you choose provide a number of different options for getting signals to the number of different options for getting signals to the number of different options for getting signals to the house.

Many plasma screen and LCD TVs is a standard unit of brightness, and it is these advantages that have made them such a hit with technology buyers everywhere. Some of the manufacturer. It is important to make it more versatile and useful while getting the best picture and sound quality, which will further enhance the display and the brightest white on the LCD display to your DVD player, VCR, Laser Disk player, computer or other similar device. It is important to purchase a wall mounting bracket that is HDTV ready.

Download:

00 Cover image (jpg)
01 Xib I
02 Bits ‘N Bytes
03 Rectangle Dots
04 Voxels
05 Horizontal Pitch

Here are the tracks that I wrote for Monotonik last winter. After waiting for months and getting various promises from Simon it now appears that these tracks are never gonna come out on the label. Therefor I decided to make them available here, for free and for your pleasure. I hope you enjoy.

As you have probably noticed, I’ve not been uploading much new material lately. It is simply due to the fact that I’ve got a job again and being made redundant was the idea of this blog in the first place. I don’t have as much time for writing music now as I am working during the week. Nothing abnormal there But I’m not gonna stop writing music that I’ve written for over 20 years nor will I be burying this blog. I hope patience from you.

Peace.

This week I took a hi-res image and cropped it into a perfect square then reduced it down to an approximate print size of 3-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches at 72 dpi. I then applied the mosaic filter at a strength of 16-pixel squares.

That process resulted in the image on the left. I’m hopeful that this challenge will prove a skosh tougher than the ones we’ve done before but still be solvable.

If this image stumps you, I have provided a slightly easier version with a strength of 12-pixel squares after the jump. But try not to give up too quickly.

If you solve this one I’d like to know if you did it using the 16-pixel or 12-pixel versions.

Good luck!

Are you still stuck? Here is the same image with a 12-pixel square mosaic filter applied:

Tonight I experienced something very peculiar and unnerving. While browsing the internet (the BBC UK political party poll ratings graph to be precise) I very gently touched my computer case with my foot, and fought nothing of it. However, a few seconds later, I noticed a number of vertical lines of pixels spanning the entire width of the monitor which were flashing. The machine had been up for a few days and folding with the graphics card, so I assumed that it had simply overheated or the driver had stopped working correctly, so I shutdown and left it for an hour.

When I rebooted, the lines had gone. However, after a few minutes, they returned (although there were only two lines now). At this point I decided that the graphics card must be dying. After all, it is second hand and about 2 years old (although it still performs well). I searched the internet for a while looking for forum posts or likewise on this subejct, but didn’t find anything specific to my problem.

I was just about to accept that I would have to spend £100+ on a new card when it crossed my mind to try the simplest thing possible. So, not really expecting anything to happen, I pushed the DVI cable from the monitor into the graphics card further and it went in about 5mm more. Along with this, all the lines were immediately gone, and the problem appears to be fixed.

This just goes to show that sometimes things can be fixed in much simpler ways than you initially expect!

Luke

Is our progress measured in Pixels?
Is our life made out of stillness?
Were seeking but we find,
nothing of this kind..
im just a living doll
tattered and so smalllllll
ARE WE LIVING FOR TODAY
or just giving ourselves time to play?
Whats behind the mind of minds
I am surely shown suggestions
of backbones never boned
a lonely man wanders
searching for his soul
in a garden of only giving
He leaves it all aside
Dreams the impossible
and just tags on for the ride
that my friends is living
really dying too,
for he knows
the end
is coming oh so softly now, just a peak around the mountain bend, the land where lovers can pretend…
the rustling is just circumstance,
were simply plucked and perched in stance
Nothing transcends like no ends,
the Meaning wants to know its breath
Will be heard and answered
In the world of plastic dancers
Smothered in Smolder
We cant dilute the delusion
further than the shoulder
Im dying for a dream
living for a love
lusting for a lacquered lift
A signal of pure intent
No Harm intended
these are just words in Pixels.
Purveyors of Plastic..

Artist assistants stand next to 3,604 cups of coffee which have been made into a giant Mona Lisa in Sydney, Australia . The 3,604 cups of coffee were each filled with different amounts of milk to create the different shades! Those Aussies sure do know how to have fun (as I know from personal experience.) 

Another fun-loving, art-loving, puzzle-loving person is Shouts from the Abyss (despite his grim name), who posts some of his pixel puzzles.  To find them, click on pixels in his tags on his blog (on my blogroll).  Here’s one of his puzzles. They get harder, but I thought I’d start you out easy.

It is common practice for literary journals to request previously published stories are not submitted.

I think I have found a quandary of the digital age: what happens when a story is accepted and published by a very fine litzine (Insolent Rudder in this case) but then the online only publication goes out of pixel (for one can’t say print?).

Unlike a story that had been printed in traditional media, where copies would still be around even when the publisher were not, in the digital realm that story has ceased to exist, it has been unpublished.

Does it then still count as previously published if no-one can point to a copy?

(It is not lost like a fabled masterpiece, for I still have a copy. Although, since I wrote it I know what happens, there’s little point in my reading it.)

What is the etiquette for missing stories?

{Bratsa Bonifacho via Things That People Do}

Quem não passou por esse sufoco. Às vezes você faz uma bela foto, mas por distração, errou a regulagem da qualidade na câmera fotográfica. Resultado uma foto bem captada com um tamanho que mal dá para imprimir um foto 13 x 18 centímetros. E agora? Posso imprimir meu trabalho no formato 30 x 45 centímetros? Normalmente, os fotógrafos acessam o comando Tamanho da Imagem / Image Size e alteram, de uma vez, as dimensões para o formato de impressão. O resultado da interpolação é uma imagem grande de qualidade ruim. Não precisamos aumentar muito o zoom para ver que a foto está desfocada, borrada, sem definição. Isso acontece porque o Photoshop não consegue copiar os pixels com a mesma qualidade dos originais. Portanto, esqueça esse método de interpolação.

Clique aqui e baixe a imagem original dessa lição.

Nesta lição, vamos mostrar um método muito mais eficiente, que permite a ampliação das imagens sem comprometer tanto a qualidade. Com ele, podemos, por exemplo, ampliar uma imagem 10×15 para 20×25 sem grandes danos a foto. Abra a imagem (fig. 1) e acesse o menu Imagem > Tamanho da Imagem / Image > Image Size. Veja que o tamanho original dela é 10 por 7cm em 300DPI. O primeiro passo é mudar a unidade de medida de “cm” para “porcentagem” / “percent” (fig. 2). Observe que o 10 por 7cm se transforma em porcentagem. Mude de 100% para 110% a escala da imagem. Esse é o truque! Aumentar 10 em 10%. Logo abaixo, ligue as três opções: Redimensionar Estilos, Restringir Proporções e Restaurar Resolução da Imagem. Finalmente, mude o método de Bicúbico para Bicúbico Mais Suave / Bicubic Smoother (fig. 3). Assim, o tamanho da nossa imagem é ampliado apenas 10%. Depois repetimos o processo até a foto chegar nos 20×25cm.

Figura 3

Para que essa tarefa não seja cansativa, uma solução é criar uma ação para automatizar a interpolação. Acesse a paleta Ações / Actions pelo menu Janela / Window e clique sobre o botão Criar Nova Ação / Create New Action. Na caixa de diálogo dê um nome para a ação e defina uma tecla de atalho para executar (fig. 4). A seguir execute novamente o processo Imagem > Tamanho da Imagem e aumente 10%. Quando terminar, clique no botão Parar / Stop para finalizar a gravação da ação. Dá um pouquinho de trabalho no início, mas depois compensa. Chegamos a parte mais fácil. Vá pressionando a tecla de atalho atribuída na ação para aumentar 10% a imagem. Em alguns minutos você terá uma foto com qualidade para imprimir em 20×25cm. Veja abaixo a imagem original e a interpolada. O que achou do resultado? Atenção! Se você precisar ampliar a imagem para imprimir um banner ou outdoor, não use esse método. É loucura! Vamos mostrar a solução na próxima lição.

Figura 4

Mas porque interpolar de 10 em 10% preserva mais a qualidade da imagem? Como dissemos, para aumentar as dimensões da imagem, o Photoshop copia os pixels. Quando ampliamos apenas 10% a qualidade dessa cópia é muito melhor do que quando ampliamos tudo de uma vez. Sem dúvida, essa é a melhor técnica dentro do Photoshop para interpolar. Mas lá vai uma dica! No mercado existem programas especiais somente para ampliar e reduzir fotos. Um dos mais famosos e de excelente resultado é o Genuine Fractals 5, da onOne Software. Se comparado com o Photoshop, a qualidade final da imagem é melhor.

Até a próxima!

Here’s a bonus one since some people like to shred these challenges a little too quickly.

Let’s see how you do on this one!

No squinting allowed!

You wanted another challenge after what happened last week? Fine. Here it is.

This is my Feckless Friday post for this week.

You can log your guesses using the comment function on this post. Good luck!

Half my Macbook Pro display is suddenly covered by huge white pixels. And my warranty expired 20 October.. This is just ridiculous!

15

We missed the Feckless Friday challenge last week because I was having trouble finding an aerial challenge that wouldn’t just stomp the ever loving shit out of you.

In my part of the world it is still Friday so here’s a last minute idea I just had for today. I took an image and applied pixelation that effectively reduced the original down to a grid of 12 x 12 colors.

That’s 144 clues for you to work with.

Shown here is what I came up with.

Can you identify what is pictured in this image?

I’ll post the answer on Monday. If you think you know what it is feel free to comment on this post with your guess.

Good luck!

Here we go again with a really interesting site I’ve discovered throug a facebook contact: Very Important Pixels

The site its all about portraying celebrities, but giving them the look of a 80’s videogame. I just love every edition they publish.

Check out the comments of the entries to see the people’s guess about who they are.

I love this last one  ( :

Introduction of digital imaging has revolutionized the entire photography process by changing the vision of the society too that has regards it as an important medium of visual communication. This latest medium improves the scope for individuals who can develop things with imagination, enhance their creativity by adding additional aspects and manipulate at their own wish. Photoshop is the only tool that supports this vision. Digital images can be easily changed into creative collections through tools, tips and tricks supporting in Photoshop. Photoshop tutorials are available online but before going ahead to work on them, start gaining proper understanding of the basic things that might create problems afterwards.
Pixels are the most important element of the software and needs to be studied properly. Square pixels are there in digital images in vertical and horizontal position within a row that forms either a mosaic or grid.  Each and every pixel is there in a definitely size with uniformity of brightness and color contrast, so there would be hardly any variation the colors of the pixels. In any digital imaging software, zooming in the image results in giving the internal look of the beautiful creation turning the shapes into rectangular blocks just like cluster of pixels.
Anti-aliasing is one tool of creating an illusion for the curved lines of the image. In this, transitional color is adopted by edge pixels for creating a smooth connection between the adjacent tones.  Effects like shark teeth and staircase become noticeable through this process. Displaying the pixels in small size through which they cannot be figured out as square through naked eyes is the most promising way of rendering smooth and soft flowing line.

Painted some today. Been a while since I posted an update of this painting…

It’s an inevitability. Graphics have always been integral to the games industry because they allow the player to access the game in an inviting way, all the way up to the stage where they’ve become gratuitous eye candy. There is no doubting that people like graphics since there seems to be this latent part of the human mind that enjoys shiny things. But what will happen when these shiny things just refuse to get shiner? If games become realistic to the point of being indistinguishable from the real world, will people simply grow wearisome of the real world’s dull surface and being wearing cellophane over their eyes to jazz things up? This is where thing seem to hit a hypothetical roadblock, and people will realise that they’ve been praising mere superficiality.

Graphics in games have improved monumentally in the last twenty years. Taking into account something like Doom in contrast with Crysis is truly stunning when you imagine that this progress has been made only in the last 14 years, so it comes as a bit of a shock when you start to think about where this is heading in the next 14. But all things considered, games in their core development cycles will continue in much the same way they have been since that first ambitious attempt back in 1958, maybe they’ll learn a few lessons and become more ambitious, but games will still be games because the majority of the gaming audience really is content with that standards that have been established in contemporary game design, and even occasionally charmed by some leap of innovation that was probably outsold by Guns McBiceps IX… I will not relive this rant again… So in this light, we are now faced with a new series of possibilities that transcend the factor of game design principles. The main topic that arose out of a similar conversation I was having with a friend of mine, quite some time ago that inspired me to write this,(I actually wrote a similar essay that went nowhere about a year ago) is the point of user interactivity.

Now as I remember, we never actually arose to a sound conclusion since most of our ideas where really just products of sleep deprivation and a solid marathon of video games, but we did bring up some valid points that shed some light on the subject.

Put it this way, the industry in tandem with hardware developers, will always continue to develop in order to cater to the ever increasing demands of the public and developers’ alike, which leads to a multitude of interesting questions and scenarios that could unfold when games cannot potentially become any more visually stunning. So developers get confident and start trying new thing in the name of innovation. First and foremost is the Wii. The Wii was massively successful and massively silly and proof that they weren’t too disheartened from such experiments as such as the Powerglove or the IToy. I bought a Wii, I consider myself an open minded person, yet it has been gathering dust on my shelf for two years. Hardware wise, the Wii got off onto a decent start by incorporating quality accelerometer hardware into the handsets, and (far) later introducing genuine motion sensitivity (where the device has spatial awareness), and I admire this ambition of Nintendo’s behalf, but I can’t help but feel that they destroyed the want, and necessity for solely motion controlled games by accompanying it with a mediocre linup of games, with only a handful of gems, to sustain what essentially became a gimmick.

Personally, I think the Wii was nonetheless important because it demonstrated the power of this style of system, coming out of a rigid tradition of sticks and buttons, but in contrast it really only replaced button mashing with stick waggling. Regardless of its place, I think it has paved the way for other attempts at this enhanced control scheme business with such upcoming projects as such as Natal and the Playstation eye. But let’s put present behind us for a while, and think about this situation of gamers, connoisseurs of the finer game.

Personally, I am not that excited about this, maybe it’s because I play games to relax, and exercise to exercise, but I don’t really want to have to sway around to the tune of an eyebrow controlled breakout clone in order to fulfil both at once. I commend innovation, but as somebody who values solid core gameplay mechanics and story over a lot of other components of a game, the prospect of additional complications to this scenario are only peripherally interesting, both to the game designer and gamer sides of me. Now raise your hand if you play games to relax, for a bit of friendly competition, or both? I’m going to assume that is all of you, otherwise I doubt you’d be on the internet, reading about games. Now, keep your hand raised if you think that having to break immersion by engaging in a ridiculous series of bodily manoeuvres would break immersion, and probably would not involve the kinds of games you’d play anyway? First of all, you probably look quite ridiculous raising your arm in front of the computer screen, but nonetheless, I can’t help but agree. I just don’t see myself, or a lot of hardcore gamers removing themselves from the environments they’ve so grown used to in order to enter the domain that is usually reserved for the casual gamers (with the exception of the DS, I’m pretty certain that everybody owns of the those). In fact, while my train of thought is yet to have derailed itself, I’d like to briefly talk about the DS.

The DS was, and still is monstrously successful, and just as awesome, you know why? Because it is a bit like the Pixar of the casual gaming world, they make quality family games instead of tumbling into the unforgivable depths of mediocre party games. In addition to this, the DS has a large group of dedicated developers who are working hard to stretch their ideas of game design rather than adapting to a particularly radical hardware innovation. In fact, the thought just struck me that maybe the DS has such quality games is because it is not inviting the necessity of gimmicky games, rather it allows developers to make their own choices as to how they would like to utilise the hardware.

It seems like the situation has reached an interesting point because the industry definitely has the potential to advance in the fields of enhanced interactivity with the game, but perhaps it will only ever cater to the casual market until they can built convincing virtual reality and try to hide the fact that the government is actually using them to steal our IQ points to developing an even harder impossible quiz with even more references to Shoop DaWoop. Clearly the totalitarian political agendas of the future have their priorities straight.

But in all seriousness, I really do believe that games will continue in much the way they have been forever, one side focusing on the interests of the audience who cares about their games, and the much more casual audience who perhaps wants to extend the experience in a more family environment. I do feel sorry for the people caught between, regardless; we will be there for you.

Miles Newton – The Machination, Creative Director