Here's your chance to share links for tools that help you get your geek on when working with Photoshop. "Geek" in this case being in the technical sense, not the carnival sense.

I'll start by sharing http://www.filtermeister.com, which lets you make your own filters.

Good call with Filter Meister. I recently did more Lab filters, but I'm not telling. Nyeh!

{Right now I'm brushing up on my circles and spheres because I have a cool idea for contrast. How about 3d gamma?)

I also use Ultra-Edit (http://www.ultraedit.com/) for when I have to delve into Land of the Hexed. Just the other day I was using Ultra-Edit and VB6 to manipulate ACV files. Is that geek enough for ya?

Sorry but not sure what is ment by "Geek" either the technical sense or Carnival ?
Where i am from you are a "geek " which is meant as a sort of insult like a "nerd " or Book worm that sort of thing, So not sure if i can join in this thread. but will find it interesting anyway

Palms

Palms, in the US, we respect our computer geeks. They're the ones with all the answers! :) "Geek" in this case being in the technical sense

A geek used to be a person in the carnival that did rather weird things. I heard that it was specifically a person that bit the heads off of chickens and acted like a maniac. But I'm sure it could have refered to a variety of macabre activites.

I don't know how we went from the carnival geeks of yester-year to the techie geeks we have now-a-days. Perhaps some sort of connotation of outcast?

I wear my Badge of Geekhood proudly.
Can't touch this!

edit: geek (http://www.answers.com/geek&r=67)

Geeks (and nerds (http://www.pbs.org/nerds/who.html)) are the pinnacle of human evolution. Geeks have the best toys (http://www.thinkgeek.com/), the best jobs (http://www.geek.com/), and even the best pets (http://www.infinitecat.com/).

I don't know how we went from the carnival geeks of yester-year to the techie geeks we have now-a-days. Perhaps some sort of connotation of outcast?
Acording to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeks) the link is....
A derogatory term for one with low social skills, regardless of intelligence. (Late 20th century.)(bolding mine)

So that would seem to put a chicken-head eater and a 3 a.m. filter coder in the same boat!

Rô
(Photoshop: Only a geek would cite Wikipedia!)

If i got it right, something like this?
http://www.artlebedev.ru/portfolio/optimus/hi-res/keyb_photoshop.tif
and this?
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/mus/

Ahahaha! Roland, I added a link to geek in my other post that uses Answers dot com. Did some link hopping and found some serious funny regarding leet speek.

A few weeks ago I was over at my bud's house. He was on the phone with someone trying to help with an IRC client. He pulled a piece of paper out his wallet and read some numbers from it. After it was all sorted, he said to me, "You know your a geek when you carry a proxy in your wallet."

true.dat

The I see it, or the way it has been in my neck of the woods, is that a geek is a nerd with social skills. If you are smart and socially inept, then you are a nerd. If you are smart and well presented, then you are a geek.

One of my favorite geek jokes is:
There are 10 types of people in this world: those that understand binary and those that don't.
If you are a true geek, then you should see the layered irony in that joke.

since i understand stroker's joke, i guess that puts me in the geek class :)

but if you really want to know what a geek is, ask stroker about 3 dimensional color, lum frequencies, and 3 dimensional histograms... bring a pillow for when you fall asleep ;)

craig

I've been seeing more reports of devices such as this (http://www.contourdesign.com/shuttlepro/) and this (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate/) being used with Photoshop. They let you do things such as draw with the right hand while simultaneously adjusting brush size or hardness with the left. The first one even comes preconfigured for Photoshop.

http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

You guys gave me some good ideas.....

How about a mouse with 102 keys? Just put a wheel under the keyboard.

How abut a USB pedal-controller? I used to be play an organ, should be easy!

A bit more serious....I've been using Notepad++ for javascript and HTML, small, quick, easy and FREE (important geek parameter).

Rô

A small offering for those messing with Filter Meister. A modicum of Code Geeka.

Attached is a txt file. Save it and rename to ffp. Start Photoshop, grab a photograph, go into Lab mode, start Filter Meister, and load the ffp code.

play.fiddle.learn

Thanks for all your explanations on "geekness" and boy am i glad that there are some Geeks about to make my life easier, and no i won t be able to contribute to this thread but i will read it, might not understand it, but i do know where to go with any questions :bow:


A geek used to be a person in the carnival that did rather weird things. I heard that it was specifically a person that bit the heads off of chickens and acted like a maniac. But I'm sure it could have refered to a variety of macabre activites.
edit: geek (http://www.answers.com/geek&r=67)

finally on the subject of geekiness this definition brings to mind a celebrity named Ozzy Osbourne who funnily enough was born and brought up about 6/7 miles away from me ! ! ! ! :devil:

Palms

ok, doug and subsequently Ro playing off doug's input, gave me an idea as well. you've probably all seen those totally geeky game joysticks, the ones with 64 buttons, twists, axis x, y, z, rotate, sliders, et al. now, i happen to know these can be configured software wise. so, why not a game joystick configured to your favorite graphic editor? tilt forward for more 'pressure', back for less, left-right for different brushes, etc, ad infinitum.

of course the ultimate would be voice recognition. every few years i try out voice recognition for computer control. the last i tried was 'dragon naturally speaking'. now, this is geeky. for those that have never tried voice recognition software, you have to 'train' it to your voice. all voices are different, so you've got to teach it to recognize yours and teach it that that voice pattern means 'do this' on the computer. the ultimate in this is the star trek main computer. 'computer, tea, hot,, earl gray', and the computer serves up a cup a earl gray tea to captain pickard. that's voice recognition software.

now, i would think a graphic editor could make perfect use of voice recognition. 'computer, bezier curve, 300 pixels, left to right, tilt 30 degrees'. the dragon naturally speaking program was more a curious to see how far this technology had gotten than a real serious hope that it had gotten far. i did put it through its paces and did 'train' it, though i did have to send it back for a few refresher courses. and, it did work, limited as it was. it was set to natively work in windows and could do some windows functions by voice command. but trust me on this one, this software and technology has a LONG ways to go yet. it's clumsy, cumbersome, slow, and hard to train in most cases. it also has to have 'hooks' embedded in the software you're trying to operate with it, so it has a very limited range of things it will work with.

still, it's a great idea and has gobs of potential. someday we may all be working this way.

craig

Ok, here's one not quite ready for Photoshop but when it is... oh brave new world!

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

goose,

i like that one. i can see all sorts of cool things to do with that one!

craig

I have a script for Paintshop Pro that allows me plot luminence and r,g,b versus distance along any straight line on an image. I just draw a vector on top of a raster layer, then click a button and it exports the data to an ascii file which allows me to do various nerdy analysis either in Excel or Matlab. Just rearrange the vector to choose a different direction of analysis.

Very handy when I want to determine when I've optimally sharpened an image or if I want to precisely analyze what a particular operation is doing to an image. A good example of the latter was getting a good visualization of the behaviors of multiply, screen, burn, and dodge by plotting their transfer curves. Also helped in understanding the difference between using the burn brush and using a regular brush set to burn blend (they are not quite the same thing in Paintshop.) You can also make a plot showing the precise effect of various interpolation algorithms--in any direction, not just 0 or 90 degrees.

Also useful for evaluating digicams based on test photos from online reviews. Settles a lot of arguments (in my mind) over which camera is producing more sharpness.

Is that nerdy enough? :robot:

Bart

... oh brave new world!
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/
Minority Report meets Photoshop?

Rô

...... A good example of the latter was getting a good visualization of the behaviors of multiply, screen, burn, and dodge by plotting their transfer curves. That's the photoshop geek test. :nod:

"How you ever made a couple of gradients and applied the different blending modes to understand what's happening?"

You did?

You, sir, are a Geek!

* * *

Serious now. I had asked on another thread how to break into C++ world to follow what the guys are doing there - meanwhile I'll be playing with FilterMeister.

Rô

Yep! That's what I did. Basically plot color-in versus color-out.

Paintshop scripts use the Python scripting language, so a script can do literally anything--even generate a custom UI or launch other programs. It's not limited to simply recording actions. So you can take a stand-alone program and effectively convert it into a plugin--you just run the script, the script exports the layer or image to the stand-alone program, waits for the program to complete, then brings that result back into Paintshop. Heck, I might even be able to make Photoshop behave like a plugin for Paintshop! It's nerd-vana. Somebody stop meeee.... :square:

Bart

FilterMeister is great.

It’s so easy to make simple filters. It deserves a thread of its own.

Thanks for the code Stroker. I much prefer code in this format rather than a .8fb file.

But I guess that makes me a geek as well

Ken

It deserves a thread of its own.

Go ahead and start one. If you do, I'll give ya'll a real taste of Stroker Lightyear of Borg (check the avatar, it feels good to be wearing it again).

OK Stroker. No sooner said than done

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12807

I look forward to your contributions.

Ken

This could very well be the geekiest tool ever (it's certainly one of the most intimidating):

http://www.mathworks.com/products/image/

Digital Dream Studio:
http://ddsv2.xhost.ro

Hey, slow down you guys! :dizzy: - I was planning on doing some sleeping this weekend!

Stroker: All your filter are belong to us! :bigthmb:

Rô

I'm sure all photoshop/paintshop developers have a copy of that. There is a GNU alternative to matlab called Octave which you can get here:

http://www.octave.org/

It's not completely compatible with matlab, but it's close enough that you'll spend very little time coming up to speed if you happen to know matlab (doesn't everybody? :glasses: )

Then you need the Imagemagick package which gives you the commands in octave that allow you to (among many others) read and write image files to and from a matrix:

http://www.imagemagick.com/

Like most GNU stuff, it's a pain to install and rough around the edges, but it does work. Imagemagick also has command-line tools that are handy sometimes--geeks have a natural affinity for command-line tools.

Bart

stroker,

only a true geek would ever come up with 'Stroker LIghtyear of Borg'....rofl. i love it :)

and thanks for the DDSv2 link :)

craig

Thanks Doug for this thread. Sooo Geeky ! Love it and all the great links posted by the other "geeks" Would take me ages to get acquainted with most of them but I am sure it will be worth the effort.
This thread "rocks" :bigthmb: