Happy Father's Day!

Dads Are Great!

Here's wishing all the fathers out there a Happy Father's Day! I saw my dad today. We went to church, then to Wendy's drive through for lunch. We ate in the car at Cascades and had a nice conversation. I gave dad his gifts: a card, a piece of banana bread from J, and a card "sculpture" that I cut out for him from a deck of cards. 

Watch this video to see what I'm talking about - this is not me in the videos/pictures, but I took the design and made a similar deck for dad. It took one time through a deck to get the hang of it, and the second deck - the one I gave dad - worked out a lot better. 

Some Links

Uncrate: Everything you never knew you needed. 

This rolling toolbox, along with another large toolbox on top of it, would be a good start. Perhaps a workbench to go along with it would be nice. 

Some people use notebooks for their shopping list or to record forgettable things about the last meeting they were in. And then there's this. 

Fun Video Conference Backgrounds

Identical Teammates 

At work, we use Microsoft Teams for our video conference calls. Calls on Teams are similar to Zoom. One feature of Teams and Zoom is the ability to insert your own background, so it looks as if you're in a different building, or on a tropical island, or somewhere else.

I took three pictures of myself in different shirts and positions in my basement, and combined them into one image where the three of "me" are either getting things done or taking a break.

These guys work pretty well together...

United States Marine Corps, 1953

Here are some group pictures from when Dad was in the Marines. The first two were in pretty good shape, preserved in a scrapbook. I was able to scan them, clean them up a little bit, fix the sky in one of them, and then have a good finished image. The third was a huge challenge, one that I was ready for after spending so much time learning Photoshop in 2020. 

Parris Island, SC

Boot Camp

January, 1953

In the original, the sky was washed-out gray. I added some clouds. Dad is in the center of the first row. On his right (your left) is a friend from Lisbon, OH - they would stay in touch with each other for the rest of his life.

Camp Lejeune, NC

May, 1953

Dad is second from the right in the first row.

Camp Pendleton, CA

October, 1953

The group picture from Camp Pendleton was originally 9" x 20". It was so long it didn't fit into a scrapbook, so the two ends were folded in. Over the years, the crease damaged the underlying image, and so it had to be repaired in Photoshop. 

It was too big to fit on the scanner bed, so I scanned it in four pieces and stitched those pieces together on the computer to be whole again. 

The crease on the left side was pretty damaging to the faces under it, while the right side mostly affected uniforms and the background. I took some artistic liberties with parts of this image while repairing it. For example, compare the window under the right-side crease in the original with the same area on the "after" image. Fixing the damaged area of the window to look original would have been harder to do than replace part of the window completely. In Photoshop, I removed the soldier's head and moved it to the side. I patched up the window, then put the head back. I did this kind of thing many times, and even replaced some damaged faces with other faces from another place in the photo. This is not a historically accurate photo. 

Part of the right side of the image, before and after.

The original image after scanning and "stitching" together the four scanned pieces. The yellow lines next to the creases are dried strips of tape used to hold the picture in the scrapbook.

The final image, which measures 10" x 20" when printed, is below. I had each of the three group photos printed by Printique, an online printing service. The results were amazing - all the tiny flaws I could see when I zoomed into Photoshop disappeared during printing, the colors and shades blending perfectly. 

The final version.

Learning Photoshop in 2020

Keeping Busy During the Pandemic

In spring of 2020, I stepped down from the Board of Directors for Washtenaw Elementary Science Olympiad (WESO). I had been a member for about five years. I "retired" a little before the end of April - I was planning to leave after our May tournament, but COVID-19 caused us to cancel it. 

I had promised myself that I was going to spend some time learning Lightroom and Photoshop in my post-WESO life. Many photographers learn and use both to enhance their images.

Over the course of the year, I took several online training classes, and the boys bought me a "how to restore old photos" book for Father's Day. Below are some of the projects I worked on. 

The Home Office "Hamilton" Poster

I imagine this is what the poster would look like if Lin-Manuel Miranda had written a musical about cats, dogs, and using your own bathroom during work hours. 

Home Office: An American Musical

The Tiny Planet of Don's Dwellings

This is a "tiny planet" with an image of each of the buildings/homes/apartments I've lived in. I started with an image of each house laid out horizontally (and stretched really tall) then put in some trees and the grass. [Edit: I found the horizontal image and added it below.] That was followed by the clouds and the "Home" in the middle. The special ingredient is love.

Tiny Planet of places I've lived

What the houses looked like before the rotation. 

Frankfort, Michigan Movie Poster

This is a tribute to the many years we've met our friends The Baroskos at Frankfort, MI for a beach vacation. The names are all either first/middle names of family members, or plays on names, or nicknames. Look closely and you'll see a reference to Sirius radio stations, and our hometown of Jackson. The title and tag line of the "movie" were suggested by Hannah. 

A Tribute to Pioneer High School's Marching Band

M is no longer at the high school, but when one of the parents with children there asked if I could put together something similar to the home tiny planet for the band, I couldn't resist. I was looking for Photoshop projects, and this was a good idea. Getting the symmetry right was a bit of work, but it was fun to go back through all of M's and K's high school pictures to find the ones that were used here.

Pioneer Marching Band poster

Soon there will be another post with restorations of some of dad's pictures when he was in the Marines. Stay tuned.