Color correction is an essential for post production which includes in the making of motion pictures, television programs, videos, photography and digital art.

I do color correction most in videos, and followed by photography.
In video, color correction not only mean correcting an incorrect color or an unwanted color. To me, by doing color correction, it is able to enhance the video, best to describe the temperature and the situation in the scene. For example, if the scene looks yellowish, it shows warm, if its blue, it means cool. By changing the color of the scene, it will also affects the contrast.
That's just base on my experience, it could be more.

In photography, which I'm so into it recently, I found color correcting is so important until I can't describe it.
If you noticed, sometimes camera cannot get the true color, as in what you see and what you will get after captured. Especially during indoor, under yellow light, your captured image looks extremely yellow, of course, if you are using Flash that's a different story. All DLSR has a White Balance setting, but still you might not get the desired color, custom white balance setting will help, but not very helpful.

Example:

Something that I've discovered recently and I would like to share this knowledge with public.

Let me tell you how I get into knowing HDR.
I used to check out new artworks in DeviantArt and I saw many landscape photographs that really impress me. What impressed me is that they could capture everything clearly even the shot was taken under bright condition. Usually photos taken under bright condition will look quite dark except for the sky, of course, I mean the shot was taken without flash, photographers seldom use flash on landscape.

So I make my own experiment, starting to shoot in day time. I tried to play with exposure at first and it didn't really work well, then I did some research and I found playing with aperture helps. Unfortunately, it still didn't turn out the way I wanted to.

I'm kind of impatient and decided to go get the answer very directly using Google. Guess what? I search: "how to shoot landscape with clouds". Why clouds? Cause whenever I shoot landscape during day time (bright), after captured, the sky looks really bright until I can't see a single cloud. Cloud is very important to show the atmosphere of the scene.
Thank god, that search engine shows many results and clicked on the first link which brought me here.

After going through that discussion, I found out something called "Dynamic range". And again, I went to Google and search "How to shoot HDR".

And that's how I finally found what I've been looking for. If you are interested in learning HDR, you can search it yourself or you can listen to mine.

Preparing for HDR shot:
1) A tripod stand (this is highly recommended for landscape shot)
2) A digital camera that allows you manually set up the exposure and aperture. (DSLR is highly recommended)

Shooting for HDR:
1) Switch your camera to Aperture mode to avoid change of aperture for your shots later.
2) You need to take 3 shots with different exposure, under expose (-2), normal (0), over expose (+2).

After you got all 3 shots, merge all 3 with Adobe Photoshop (CS3 recommended), and you will get a HDR photograph.

The purpose of getting 3 different exposures:
1) Under expose = shadow
2) Normal = midtone
3) Over expose = highlight

Example:


This is my house, my experiment shot:
I took this in the morning, as you can see, the clouds in the under expose shot was the clearest, whereas the over expose shot can see my house number plate clearly.
After combining all 3 shots, you can see everything clearly! Huuurraaay!!!


There are more to learn, it never ends....

People used to say SLR, but that's really outdated...Why? Have you ever heard of DSLR? Have you ever search for the meaning of SLR? SLR means "single-lens reflex camera". DSLR? Digital single-lens reflex camera. Of course it's digital, almost everything is digital now. Photos taken will immediately store inside memory card instead of film.

I'm a Canon DSLR user, I own a 350D which is very old. That doesn't really matter anyway, lens are always more valueable than the body.



If you are not really into photography, you probably ask,
Why choose DSLR? Why so troublesome? Is that necessary? Must it end up like picture below?


Skip the following paragraph if you are not interested in my opinion
Well, I actually had answered all these questions and managed to convince my parents to buy me one.
My opinion is, it allows me to fully control a result of an image, I can control its brightness, blurness, colors, and so much more. Even though it's troublesome, but I tell them, no pain no gain. With ordinary automatic digital camera, just one click and it does everything, and that is so....simple....(people are getting lazy nowadays huh?)....However, with DSLR, I get to learn many things, for example, ISO Speed, Shutter speed, Aperture, Exposure, White balance, Lenses, filters, lighting and many more. Is that necessary at all? Why not? Learning new things aren't good? Taking photographs can earn a lot though, you can't really study these sort of things in school. I learn it through exploring, trial and error which is quite risky, therefore, do more research through internet, I also buy magazines and some references from MPH.

Okay....those are just simple reasons to convince my parents since they wouldn't understand if I go any further.
Now, comes the true advantage of Digital SLR. Oh wait, before that, I should say, the disadvantage of Compact Digital Camera which frustrates you immensely. Let me reminds you.

• You're attending a big event and want to grab a shot of a fleeting moment
• For some reason your compact digital camera just won't focus
• FINALLY it locks the focus and you're ready - you press the button
• But there's a DELAY - the camera pauses for a second, then it takes the shot

At last, you've missed the best moment. ARGH!!! Darn it!! That's it, go for DSLR!!!
Haha.

Now, I shall begin my talk on advantage of DSLR. So obviously, it's FAST! How come? Hmmm....it's like electronics VS mechanics. Here comes the Shutter which you can't find it in compact digital camera. What so good about Shutter? Well, Shutter is instantaneous, which means, you click the shoot button, it instantly closes *chick* and opens *chak*. Whereas in compact cameras, the sensor is electronically activated every time you take a photo, after all these processes, theres delay, which means SLOW........

Also, wtih DSLR you can have a lens for every occasion. For landscape shots, I will use wide angle lens. For close up potraits, I'll use telephoto lens. For plants and insects, I'll use macro lens. Theres no such thing as 3-in-1 or All-in-1. Be specific, be professional. Maybe you would say, compact digital camera only has 1 lens and it does everything. Lens in compact digital camera has built in mega zooms, x10, x20....but it takes time to zoom plus the quality of the picture will decrease as you zoom in. Unlike DSLR, the zoom is driven by a motor, plus you can control it manually either fast or slow, close, or far.

Thirdly, DSLR can shoot anywhere, anytime, no matter how bad the weather is. You see...I'm sure you noticed, you will face problem when shooting night scenes, a slight movement will makes the image look blur, so difficult. With DSLR, you are allow to manually control the ISO speed which controls the sensitivity to light. At night, there will be less light, so you need high ISO Speed so that your camera detects more light and your image will look fine. Whereas, a compact digital camera needs flash to shoot a proper night scene.

Again, this is same as my own opinion, you can fully control the result of an image. Most importantly, you can do it manually instead of letting the camera do all the job.

Currently, I have 3 lens:
A standard lens comes with the camera, 18-55mm
Wide angle lens (L-series), 17-40mm
Zoom lens, 70-300mm

You might ask, how far is 300mm? Well, I can tell you that your eye is 80mm wide angle lens. You should have learnt this in science, human eyes are stereoscopic, which similar to wide angle lens. Why wide angle? It's because our eyes is convex shape. Agree? You probably learned this in Physics. Another words, image produce by wide angle lens will have slight distortion at the corner. Bascially, almost all lenses will have slight distortion just that we can't really see it.

You can choose your own path as a DSLR user, choose your lens:

Wide Angle lenses View the world with a wide perspective. • Standard lenses What you see is what you get. • Telephoto lenses Get into the excitement of action. • Zoom lenses Produce innovative photographs with a variety of angles of view and perspective. • Macro lenses Discover the beauty of the small things in life. • Tilt & Shift lenses Tilt and shift the perspective anyway you like it.

Pictures and links will be added when I'm free.

Good morning, afternoon, night everybody! I've been working on this "BCA" project....Argh...Give me a break!

Let me just introduce it a little.
Basically, Breast Cancer is cancer in a breast. This includes men and women, no joke. 2nd most common type of cancer after lung cancer. A person who is affected will look like you, they will have a tumour around breast area which you cannot see usually, but can feel it by examining it. Breast cancer kills by spreading and humans' pretty cells will die! Argh!

That's enough! I'm not a doctor. I'm doing graphics for this project, Vince animate it.
I'm sharing the title page with you guys! I hope you will like it....not the cancer...but the graphics.

Here you go:


It is available for download. I did a Standard size 1280X1024 and a Wide Screen size 1280X800.
Click on the picture and you will be redirect to my deviant page for download.

You know...good people love to share photos, music, video with their friends. But sometimes the file is just way too big to be sent through email.
Moreover, your email account might have limited capacity.

So, why not give it a try on free file hosting service? It is totally F.O.C.

TRY THEM:


































You can upload stuff to those sites. It is 99.9% safe, virus free. Once the file is uploaded, you will receive a download link. You just have to give the link to whoever is interested in getting the stuff you uploaded.

My personal's favourite is RapidShare because it sounds good, its Rapid, fast, quick. It is up to you. All of them are not same, each of them has its own advantages and disavantages.

Here is the comparison table of those services: >>>CLICK ME<<<

No tutorial for this unless you beg for one. I bet no one will beg for a tutorial.

I shall repeat my post title....How much do you know about "File format"?

Learning file formats is very fun....
You can determine one's file by looking at its file format....

For example: Don't Stop Me Now.mp3
I can already tell that it is a compressed audio file. Its full name is "MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3", commonly referred as MP3.

Cool right? You must learn some too!

Alright. First you have to know a few common file formats.

Compressed/Archive
zip, dmg, rar

Graphics
jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, psd, gif

PSD and GIF are quite special, they both can be in video and graphics categories. People used to make short animation with pictures and they save it as GIF.
PSD is Adobe Photoshop Drawing, usually 2D graphics or non motion picture. Nowadays, people can even make a video using Photoshop, therefore, PSD can be in Video category as well.

Video
mov, wmv, avi, rmvb, rm, mpeg, mpg, mkv, ogg, flv, dv, swf

I've been working on video stuff recently, so I'm quite familiar with these formats. These formats are quite widely used. You came to that when you start video editing. But for now you just need to get a right video player that plays those video formats.

Sound
mp3, wav, wma, aac, aiff, m4a

I'm sure most of you know MP3. Nothing special already. When you came accross recording, you will have to use WAV, it is "Microsoft Wave", an uncompressed lossless audio, extremely high quality.

Web
html, xhtml, htm, xml, php

I'm a web designer in school, these are formats that we used. Currently, our school Cheras LimeLight is also using HTML for home page. The HTML loads all necessary contents such as SWF, SWF is a video format but I'm using it for web as well, that's why you can see many motions in the LimeLight. Those SWF files are controlled by fully coded XML which is also linked by HTML. So basically, you open the webpage, load HTML>find XML>load SWF.

**Learn its full name as well, it might help you in EST**

For slightly detailed informations: >>>CLICK ME<<<

Did you notice that the songs in CD and the songs that you have imported from the CD to your computer are different in quality?
My sensitive ears could tell me the difference very clearly.
Therefore, I did some research regarding this....music quality.....

Music quality is being differentiate by its "bit rate". Higher quality music has higher bit rate of course.
Songs or music in "CD" have bit rate of "1411 kbit/s". This is really high.

Who's low then?
Songs that are played by "FM", hitz FM, MY FM, Whatever FM, Anything FM.....They all have a same quality which is "96 kbit/s".

What's the standard quality in bit rate?
I would say "128 kbit/s" because that's the default import settings for iTunes.

Whenever you import songs from CD to your iTunes library, you are actually converting the CD quality which is 1411 kbit/s to 128 kbit/s.
Of course, you can always customise the settings to 320 kbit/s. (That's considered high quality)

What's the advantage of using 128 kbit/s?
In terms of quality, no. However, low quality audio saves you more spaces for your hardisk.
In short, the higher the quality, the more spaces you need.

If you are not so into the quality type, I suggest you use 128 kbit/s.

What if I want high quality but small file size?
If that's the case, I suggest you go for "Variable Bit Rate" (VBR).
While this setting is enabled, your computer will decide a song's bit rate.
As you know, some songs are not necessary to have high bit rate or you will end up having limited disk space.

IMPORT SETTINGS
As I mentioned before, you can customise your import settings, not just bit rate but also file extension (mp3, aac, aif......)
I guess you only knew mp3.
MP3 do gives you a very high quality if you chose the right "encoder".

Encoder is just like your "workers", setting is just a "plan" and you are the "Boss".
You shall decide which workers to use, which plan to apply, and how's the product should look like.

No more worries, I found you the best plan and the best worker!

He is LAME
*Let's give him a round of applause!*

You can download LAME for free!
With LAME, your imported or ripped songs will be in mp3 format. Also, it automatically import your selected songs with VBR settings.
All you got to do is, decide the output folder, select your desire songs to be imported or ripped, and click on the "import" button.

Simple and Clean. Just like ABC, easy as 123, and sing DO-RE-MI.

Again...this tutorial is for Mac User. I'm so sorry Windows users, no tutorials for you guys, but I'm sure you guys are expert in Windows.:)

Have you ever heard of Address Book? I'm sure you do. Base on the name itself, it definitely has something to do with Address. I must say Address Book is a great software, it not just stores contact but also you can use it to work with other softwares such as Mail. You won't know how it works until you try it.

It looks like this:



I already had all my contacts here. But if you are new, you should only see Apple Computer Inc.



Now I select Interact Club directory, so, you see all my Interactors' contact here including myself for no reason. Then, you see my contact, my name, nickname, post, school, phone numbers, emails, birthday. You can have more details if you want to.

To add new contact:
1) Make sure you are at "All" in the "Group" column.
2) Hit  + N, which means "New Card".


3) Then just fill in the blanks.

Grouping
If you want this contact to be in specific group, just drag the card from the "Name" column to your desired group.

Sending email to a person
When you want to send an email to someone, just find that person in your Address Book, again, drag the card to the correct field (To, Cc, Bcc).

Sending email to a group of people
If you are about to send an email to a group of people, for example: I want to forward an email to all members of Interact Club, therefore, I will drag "Interact Club" in "Group" column instead of dragging the name card one by one since there are so many people in Interact Club.

I experience this myself and its really a lot fun than studying through books. Maybe some of you would prefer reading through paper instead of screen, I understand because sometimes reading through screen is really hurting your eyes. However, that doesn't really matter, nowadays, all computers are come with a LCD screen which reduces many problems.

Back to e-learning. In order to learn effectively through internet, you must have the right resources or you will be learning something incorrect.
You do not need a very good search engine to search for good resources or references. All I use and only use is "Google". But you must know some basic so that you can search as accurate as possible.

For example:
I want to search for "SPM Mathematics". You should type ""SPM+Mathematics"" instead of straight away type "SPM Mathematics". Trust me, it does make a difference.

I have some useful links for certain subjects:
Chemistry: Structure of Atom
Mathematics and Additional Mathematics
Many animations regarding Biology

Have you ever thought of the how butcher get their meat freshly? I'm speaking this in terms of science, biology....

Form 4 Biology, Chapter 7, Respiration. All living things do respiration, animals, plants, humans...There's two type of respiration for humans and plants. They are aerobic and anaerobic. Not going to detail, aerobic is with oxygen, anaerobic is with very very limited oxygen or even no oxygen. Usually when people having vigorous exercise will have anaerobic respiration. What will happen when you are having anaerobic respiration is that you will produce lactic acid and energy (150kJ) instead of carbon dioxide, water and energy (2898kJ).

This lactic acid is no good to our body, it will make us feel tired. Same goes to animal, cow, horse, chicken, and so on. In order to get their meat fresh, their body must not contain lactic acid. So, to get rid of lactic acid, they must not suffer from pain. You might ask, how to kill them if they must not suffer from pain? Very simple, the answer is, One-hit K.O. It sounds really simple but how to do that, we have no superhuman ability. Well, that's not a problem now, we have advanced technology.

Firstly, we let the animals enjoy some romantic music instead of rock music. Just make them feel calm, never make them feel scared. Then, slowly lure them to the killing spot. By using high current electrical shock, the animal should be dead with one-hit. Knock out! That's it, the butcher will now collect them fresh.

Ever thought of writing new entries even though you do not have any connections?

Don't get misunderstood by the title. I'm just too over excited. I can't believe that I've sat for 21 papers in 8 days. Why I say "Fart"? Because this examinations have made my digestive system malfunctioning due to the messy timetable, including many last minute changes, so, we don't have a fixed time for break and lunch, it's totally screwed up.

I just found out some of my friends actually install "Windows" in their macbook because "Mac OSX" couldn't play some movie format. For example, .rmvb, .wmv, .mkv, .ogm, and so on. Those video format are not playable by default unless you do something to it.

Besides taking notes from the whiteboard, you can also turn those notes into a beautiful map with "NovaMind". NovaMind is powerful and easy to use mind mapping application not just for students, teachers but also for business use. I can't describe how cool it is, but trust me, it is super-duper cool!

Indeed, there are just video clips everywhere. Anyway, try make good use of those video clips, some are actually educational.

Haha! Another exciting tutorial brought to you by Voon Fei!

Want to know how to update your softwares in Mac OS X?

Did your song stop when you change slide. Don't know any other applications to solve this problem.