Picture Piddling

There are times when the clock stands still, and there are times when the clock hands spin so fast that those who watch them get dizzy and disoriented.

I must be one of those people who are immune to time's bullying ways.

Making time wait for man

Who said it was so that "time waits for no man?" Time waits for me. I am the one with the wind-up key in my pocket, the batteries in the desk drawer, and the checkbook with which to pay the guy who wears that funny little magnifier thing on his forehead for use when it is necessary to grease the sprockets in my bragging, bullying clocks.

How simple can things be?

That is why, today, I did not pay attention to the noisy, clacking clocks while I sat in front of my friendly ten-buck keypad and used both the keyboard and that hairless, plastic gadget named "mouse" to piddle around with some old photographic images stored within the mouse and keyboard's attached computer. From the bunch of photo images in the old computer file, two were selected because one was the simplest image of the lot and the other image was quite complicated. You can quickly see how the simple file worked out, because it is installed as the lead-in image for this bit of writing.

Avoided any use tax, too

The image is actually of a costly lens that I have had kicking around this place since approximately 1973. Even back then, it cost a bundle. "About time I got some actual use out of that costly lens," thought I.

Now, if lenses have feelings, this lens's feelings are likely quite low right now. The use made of the lens was not the kind of use for which lenses are designed and produced.

Those backers backed in the wrong direction

If memory serves me right, I bought that lens originally to install it onto a big studio model video camera that I was using to build a computer-controlled microfilm imaging deal. The backers of that project lived up to their name. They backed out. I sold the video camera, but I have been stuck with the expensive lens ever since. Today, the lens actually served a good purpose.

I used the lens as a model for some picture piddling.

By their names you shall know them

The original image is above on this page. The piddled images are on the page, below. The title of each image is indicative of one aspect of each of the many applications employed to alter the original picture within the confines of the GimPhoto image manipulation (editing) program.

The wine incline worked fine

It was a real bunch of fun cheating my clocks to play around with these images. Messing around with the single image of the lens was maybe not quite enough for one afternoon of playing. So I did some stuff with yet another photograph - this image being of a bunch of wire racks holding a large number of wine bottles in the wine and whiskey store run by a good buddy.

Here again I installed the original image first onto the page and followed that up with the same image after piddling around with its "aspect" - from being a nice horizontal display of wine bottles on their racks to what looks like - but is not - a sloping display of the bottles. From there I went on to present a view that might well have been the sight of those racks of wine bottles as seen by an already inebriated customer.

Maybe I made the wrong choice after all

Back in the beginning of things for me, I was given the choice - be lovely to look at or be smart. I went for good looks. Surely, I wish I knew how to do these image manipulating and editing things on my own, but it is with deep gratitude that I sit here in front of my ten-buck keypad and watch the GimPhoto program do all of this piddling for me. Unfortunately, and this was brought to my attention by all of those clocks that I mentioned to you early-on, my time for picture piddling today flat ran out.

Actually, wives and suppers don't wait

Just like when time stands still, there are occasions when a picture piddler goes into high speed. When the bride hollers, it behooves a guy to quit picture piddling, get up off of his rear end, and head to the other room for supper.

Those clocks have to keep on ticking. My cameras and my ten-buck keyboard have to keep on clicking. I cannot prove either one of those things, but "time will tell."

Before I leave you with all of this good stuff, allow me to advise you to pick up your own copy of GimPhoto software. I'd surely be lying to you were I to tell you that neither you nor I are smart enough to make use of the program. So go ahead and download a copy. It's a freebie. You'll find it on the list over at SourceForge.net.