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THE PURLOINED LETTER
 
   
 
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Thursday, September 14, 2006


Photoshop Fun 


UPDATE 4 Dec 2006: Michael's kitchen after-photos



Last Saturday night, while my dearheart and his buddies watched Schaumberg strippers doing unspeakable things to each other on stage (grrrr), I enjoyed perfectly seasoned pork tenderloin, grilled asparagus and red peppers, a nicely matched pinot noir, and, of course, delightful company.

Among other things, Boudreau, Dave-the-Pharmacist, and I discussed painting schemes for Michael's kitchen. It can be so hard to imagine what paint colors will look like in a room, so I volunteered to 'paint' a photo of the room.

It was a fun exercise, even though the layer masks I created for each wall probably took as much time as tape-masking the actual walls!


The Behr color swatches that Michael's considering, and their color scheme recommendations for Turtle dove:


The layers palette with masks (1), which were created from vector paths (2):

Now Michael can change paint colors by filling a layer, or go back to white by turning off a layer.


The original photo with white walls:


Voilà – a couple of key commands yield different paint plans:

1. accented counter

2. counter & back

3. accented back

4. counter & side

5. side & back

6. white brackets?

7. Behr recommends

8. Renice's oat & red

9. Go Illini :)


I can hardly wait to see what Michael decides, and how close the 'after' photo will be to its corresponding simulation.


UPDATE: Michael painted his kitchen months ago (he's not a procrastinator like me). He liked the colors in the Number 8 simulation and the effect of the Number 5 simulation, and sent me the after photo below on the left. He used Behr's Red Red Wine and Hazelnut Cream, and so I tried sampling Behr's online representation of those 2 paint colors to repaint the simulation. As you can see on the right, it doesn't work very well – just in case we needed more proof that on-line colors don't match real-world colors very well.

After photo of Michael's painted kitchen.


Simulation by eye.

Simulation sampling Behr's on-line simulated paint colors.

Behr's on-line simulated paint colors.

 

Friday, September 01, 2006


This Is Not a Short Story 


For all the people who find this blog while searching for essays and Cliff Notes (Cliff Notes?! for a 7,046-word story?) on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Purloined Letter", I have added a link on the left just for you. (By the way, my first post briefly explains why I named this blog after Poe's story.)

The link Regarding Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" will take you to links about the story that I've collected and annotated at my del.icio.us account.

Admittedly many of the links I've collected are tough to find on US search engines. I found them only after entering the term "The Purloined Letter" at google.cn. I did the search as a test after reading that Google had caved in to the Chinese government's demands for censorship (see Perspective: Collaborators at Google – and beyond by Charles Cooper).

Does that mean censorship can be good? I'm still thinking about it.