Tag: technology

Photo editing using Snapseed for Android

, , Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Photo editing using Snapseed for Android

Hi all! It’s a couple days after we returned from a 6-day vacation, and during that trip I blogged every night, including photos that I took during the day. Since I didn’t have Lightroom with me, I did all my photo editing on my Android phone using the Snapseed app. I’m pleased with how the photos turned out, considering I used just the mobile app. And so I thought I would share how I edited my photos with you all! (If you use an iPhone, you can find the same/similar apps for that platform)

First, I take all my photos using my Fujifilm X100T in JPG mode, usually the Standard (Provia) color setting. Then, using the Fujifilm Camera Remote app, I transfer the photos via WiFi to my Motorola Moto G phone. I browse them using the QuickPic app, then when I find one I’d like to edit, I select Share, then choose Snapseed from the list:

2016-11-27-20-02-15

The image opens up in the Snapseed app and then I get down to business! I’ve found I like to start by using the Rotate tool to straighten things out (it will do its best to auto-straighten, which works surprisingly well!), then Crop. Next I will use the Tune Image tool, adjusting the Shadows, Saturation, and Exposure. Lastly, I might add a slight Vignette. For many photos, this is all I do.

2016-11-27-20-02-29

On other photos, I’ll go to the presets and play around more. I like to use the Tonal Contrast to give the photo a little more definition, the Drama presets to add a little punch, and the Grainy Film presets for a VSCO type feel. If I only want to add some grain, I will use a Grainy Film preset, but set the Style Strength to 0, and only use the grain adjustment. FYI, most people like to reduce grain for a super clean image, but I like the feel of grain, so that’s why I use the preset.

2016-11-27-20-02-49

 

After I am satisfied with my edits, I’ll click on Done and move on to the next image. When I have all my photos edited and ready for posting, I’ll select them all in QuickPic, and Share them with my WordPress app, which will add them to the WordPress Media library. And that’s it! They are ready to be added to my post when I type it out on my Chromebook.

Of course, there isn’t the same kind of control as you get with Lightroom, but I think it’s a great mobile solution, and it doesn’t take long at all. I hope this helps! Please take a look at the photos I edited using this technique below:

(anti) Social

, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on (anti) Social

Over the years, I’ve been on plenty of social networks, but at this time, I’ve whittled it down to just a couple that I am active on:

And of course I check my blog feed… BUT, I’m no longer active on Facebook. So if I don’t respond there, my apologies! If you need to contact me, you can find me on these chat apps (search firstnamelastname):

LINE, Google Hangouts, Messenger,WhatsApp, Skype

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

**************

"Delicious" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/75 sec, ISO3200
 “Delicious” Cedar Park, 2016

Today’s photo is of a wonderfully refreshing local brew. I just love the design of the “label” on this one. It’s one of life’s little pleasures to arrive home after work and have one of these little beauties waiting in the fridge. 😊 Cheers! 🍻

Cold Weather Food

, , Food2 Comments on Cold Weather Food
"Oden" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
 “Oden” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Today the rain arrived and the temperatures dropped a bit. As the days get cooler, three Japanese dishes come to mind: Curry, Nabe, and Oden. We had the last one this evening, and it was delicious!

Oden is hard to describe to Westerners. It’s kind of a bunch of different things that are kept warm in a yummy broth, then served in a bowl. Typical items found in oden are sausage, hard-boiled egg, tofu, daikon, konyaku, fishcake, and potato. We like to serve it with some hot mustard on the side for some heat. And of course white rice. 🍚 You just pick what you want out of the pot and enjoy!

Oden is popular in the wintertime, and you can even find it in convenience stores in Japan, sort of like how there are hot dogs and burritos in a 7-11 here in the States. I’ve only gotten oden at a Japanese convenience store once, but I remember that it was pretty good.

Of course, our home-cooked oden is the best! Another wonderful comfort food to enjoy with family. If you have the chance to try it, please do.

On a completely different note, the system drive in my desktop computer 🖥 died this past weekend, so I replaced it with an SSD unit. I must say, it’s super-fast compared to the old HDD 💽! The boot-time is down to just several seconds… it’s one of the best “upgrades” I made to this computer, which is now over four years old, but running fast once again.

I have a second, larger hard drive in this computer to store all my data on (which I keep backups of), so I didn’t lose anything important. However, one thing that I did lose was my collection of Lightroom Presets that I collected and created. There were several that I used often, but luckily I was able to recreate them using History panel, which kept a record of past changes to edited images. (I keep my Lightroom catalog on the data drive, so it was backed up) I guess I need to add the Presets folder to my backup profile. 😃

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Hi-tech and lo-tech

, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Hi-tech and lo-tech
"Technology Advances" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/13 sec, ISO800
 “Technology Advances” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！Hello, how’s it going?

Today’s photo represents today’s hi-tech part of this post. It’s a top down view of some digital storage – the large hard drive is an older 2TB unit that we’ve had for a few years, the smaller hard drive is a brand new Seagate Portable 3TB unit, and the smallest item is a 32GB USB thumb drive.

I’m surprised at how small the 3TB hard drive is, and how inexpensive they have gotten. I bought it at Costco for only $89! It’s USB3, so it doesn’t even have a separate power cord… it draws power through the USB cable. How cool is that? And I love that it doesn’t take up much space, and will be easy to put into my bag when I take it to work. (I keep one of my 2 backup drives at the office) This is an example of technology making things simpler… I love it. 😀

Now for the lo-tech part of the post. Our kitchen sink got clogged way down past the elbow joint and I spent a couple hours trying to fix it. I removed the elbow joint and stuck our plumbing snake pretty far (about 15 feet) but it didn’t seem to hit any clogs, so we’ll have to call a plumber tomorrow.

I feel so stupid because I put a container’s worth of food through the garbage disposal and that seemed to have caused the clog. The food was actually really soft cabbage (from soup), soft tofu, and other soft veggies. I wouldn’t have thought that those could back up the plumbing but perhaps the pipe was just about clogged already and that food just put it over the edge… 😕

Anyways, I think it’s just amazing that we live in a world where most people have magical electronic devices, but we still suffer from clogged plumbing. 🙄

I hope you had a nice Saturday!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Camera Charging via USB

, , Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Camera Charging via USB
"USB Charging" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO800
 “USB Charging” Cedar Park, 2016

One of the top features of my Fujifilm X100T 📷 is the ability to charge the battery via USB. Just like a smartphone, I can plug in a simple micro-USB cable and the battery charges.

This simple feature is wonderful. It fits into my daily workflow seamlessly – so much so that I rarely even think about charging anymore!

In the evening, I’ll connect the camera to my computer using the USB cable so I can import the photos into Lightroom. I then do my editing, and after that, I flip the power button on the camera to Off. If the charging light stays lit, I will leave it plugged in to charge. 90% of the time, though, the battery will have topped off during the time I imported and post-processed my daily photo. Convenient, isn’t it?

FYI, the camera did come with an external battery charger, but I haven’t used it in months. It’s so nice to not have to keep a charger around, or pop out the battery to charge it. Anything to simplify processes is a good thing! 😄