Wall Street Series

© Joselito Briones

This finance website from Poland used some of my photos.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Thanks :)


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Wil at Harthill Hall

© Joselito Briones

This is one of the NUMEROUS photos I took of Wil and everyone else who joined the gathering at Harthill Hall. It would be fun to put it side by side with the original photo and play "spot the difference". haha!


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Duplicity

© Universal

Saw this movie tonight at Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz. Smart dialogue and great chemistry between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Some predictable outcome (SPOILER ALERT!), i.e., when you see that Wilkinson's character became the moral one among the characters, and this being a holywood movie, you just know he's gonna be on top in the end. Over all tho a very entertaining movie.

Verdict: recommended.


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food stuff

© Wil

I've almost forgotten this, but since Wil is the only one who comments on my videos, i had to go check his videos too, no? done by Wil from another trip (early last year), this time in some posh restaurant in Chamonix.


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And the award goes to...

© Joselito Briones

Good news! My sister Irma, ("Neh" to the family) was awarded the "Global Achievement Award" in her company. She's an industrial engineer managing production in Africa and the Middle East of products distributed in mainstream U.S. markets (Saks, Target, GAP, etc.).

Congratulations, Neh! We're proud of you!

(Photo taken in Dubai)

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white belt tip - color adjustment

© Joselito Briones

In the latest issue of "Contact Sheet", the newsletter for iStockphoto contributors, a short tip/article I submitted was used:



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Color Adjustment
By: attator

Adjusting the colors of an image also changes its actual or perceived luminosity. If it's only the image's color that needs adjusting, this can be done without touching the luminosity (contrast, brightness) by instructing the software to limit the adjustment only to colors. RAW format processors, for example, usually have an option to apply noise reduction only to colors, thereby instantly solving the problem of chroma noise while preserving the texture of the image. In Photoshop, it's also easy enough to duplicate the main layer and assigning the new layer as "color" and do all kinds of color shifts and adjustments to this color layer. Still in Photoshop, just before saving the file in jpeg format, while still in the color layer, a simple localized gradual desaturation can be applied by running repeatedly (as many times as required) an action that goes:

* select - color range - out of gamut (to adjust only colors that are out of bounds, leaving the rest in their full colorful glory)
* select - modify - expand - a few pixels / select - modify - feather - a few pixels (to avoid banding)
* modify - image - desaturate - a few levels down

Repeat as necessary.


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Photo above was taken in Miami on a recent trip, I used the above process to push it to maximum saturation without going out of gamut.

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Back to London

© Joselito Briones

Today we drove back to London. On the way back, we went to Haddon Hall and Hardwick Park ("Lady Spencer's Walk" and the grounds full of cows and cow shit>. As it was when we went to the Peak District, Ronnie and Jerome (photo above) were kind enough to give us a ride. They dropped us by Wil's, then after some time to take a quick rest we met up again in their flat in Baker Street and from there, dinner. Indian.


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