i missed it here...

hi, i am really hungry for writing here and posting stuff that i produced. hope to be able to do that soon. i cannot promise anything yet. my tone will probably be much different because i have changed a lot. i have a totally new set of existential questions nowadays. it is hard for me to look at my old stuff which seem to be from another life that has nothing to do with this one. let's see. need to do something about the blog format as well! see you soon.

quick note

there has been a recent tragedy in my life that keeps me from writing this blog. i'm not sure what i am going to do with it right now. hope to find new reasons to write in an inspired way in the future... thank you so much.

discrepancy

lately there has been quite a lot of discrepancy between who i am right now and who i want to become. that is why i felt out of blog entries to post. i hope you are not too pissed off. but it was necessary for me to figure this out. was i forever going to float in the air, not knowing what to do? maybe you think: what the? wasn't it already obvious what you want; which is to become a good designer? yeah, but sometimes you look around and realize: well, you simply are not there!

as i was talking to a dear friend several weeks ago, i realized: you can be anything you want, anything; if you put your mind to something and give yourself, say, 5 years. in five years' time from now you can become your dream. yep. even if you start from the point of absolute zero. it is not a matter of 'too late' and 'oh i can't do it anymore'. it is really imporant to set your goals straight, though. otherwise...

hey, is this a pep talk? a pep blog? hmmm. too serious stuff... but tell me, were there times in your life when you felt that discrepancy? any problems with regard to your dreams? am i the only one?

and somebody please do something about this blog design!!! aggg! 

more stuff and odd tutorials will be coming soon. here, bit of a teaser:

i'm all ears

just how cute are these guys! well, this gal and this guy maybe? i know this is not the best photo, but i like the fact that mommy goat provides a slightly darker background for the cleaner, lighter little goat. and my, look at the expression on their faces! priceless. plus i have always been a big fan of olive trees. their misty greyish green texture is really a feast to the eyes. i think they deserve their own entry. if only i had a better camera and better photography skills. (note to self: join a photography group).

this picture was taken in the wonderful kaz daglari (goose mountains would be a rough translation -but what good would that do?). kaz daglari might as well be a gift of nature. soo many surprises along the way! i would like to go there specifically just to sketch everything. and we didn't even go into the national park. it's a huge place.

now you know what i have been doing instead of blogging. have you ever been to kaz daglari?  what are your impressions?

does this blog make me look old?

i'm not sure i am crazy about the new blogger interface. the 'in your face' attitude with the pageview counts etc. is kind of driving me nuts. and why can't i see the blog itself in a separate window? grrr.

buuut i hope you will like my new blog interface! yep, finalmente! i have already set up an under construction page at www.merictaylan.com. i simply wasn't ready to do these changes all this time. but you know what? i think i'll never be ready. there will always be 'other' stuff to take care of. so this will be quite a real-time blog and website makeover combo for me :) hehe. i think i could even turn this into kind of a game. some things won't work for a while, my portfolio will be lacking a lot of stuff. awkward buttons will pop up and disappear.

i hope you will not get frustrated with the constant format changes in the process. i have a private test blog to test the new design, but i think i will put it up before it is finished. raw. crude. squeaky.

as always, any feedback is good feedback for me, so please do comment :)

odd tutorial #1: how to make your images a bit more dramatic

yes, here it goes: my first ever odd tutorial... maybe not too odd for most of you but hey, there will always be newbies who could find this interesting. i hope :)

you could give a rather dull image a much more dramatic and sharper look with a couple of really simple tricks in photoshop. these tricks have saved my life in many occasions where i had to work with crappy, out of focus raw photos.

applying 'sharpen' with 'brightness/contrast' to such a photo-which seems to be the obvious solution that comes to mind-, does not do the trick with most of the raw images. you might end up losing too much image data on the way, and still get a 'blah' result.

i have to assume that you have at least a little photoshop experience.

yup, here is our starting image:

ok, let's begin. just start by downloading the first picture above.

once dowloaded, open the .jpeg file in photoshop (any version will do).

from the 'layers' tab in the right-hand side menu, duplicate the 'background' layer. change the blending mode from the default 'normal' to 'overlay'. the resulting image should look like this:

pretty decent looking, high-contrast and all. but i'm still skeptical about the sharpness of the image.

now we will add another layer that will sharpen the image, but it will yield a much more advanced result than the 'sharpen' filter. we will use 'high pass'.

duplicate the 'background copy' layer one more time. again, change the blending of the layer to 'overlay'. don't worry, the super-contrasted look will soon go away. choose 'high pass' from filters. that's right, with the uppermost layer chosen, go to 'filters/other/highpass'. tweak the value until you are happy with the sharpness of your image. notice that 'high pass' also adds some detail back to the image.


enjoy!

first tutorial ready...

yup, the first ever odd tutorial will be up in couple of days. i wonder what you'll think about it. let's see, i could improve myself with the reactions i get from you. or maybe not.

in the meanwhile, you could check out felt-tip kittens :D