The Photomosaic Patent Discussion:

One requirement for a patent is that the (work) be “nonobvious”. (That is, not something a typical practitioner in the field could/would have done.) Bearing in mind that what seems “obvious” in retrospect may not have been “obvious” before someone made it so, but considering  your experience with the lab code and what you’ve learned this term about manipulating digital images, address the question of whether it seems Robert Silvers work was sufficiently “nonobvious” to merit a patent. Is looking back is a fair way to evaluate the question?




Silvers created his own code and uses his own creative process, and yet he finds the need to create a copyright. If his method is as individual as he says, then why does he need to have a patent for it? In my opinion, his action was somewhat unjustified. A patent should protect a method that can be adopted by anyone, and if the specific process can only be carried out by him, why should he have the need to make a patent? His rationale is not very clear.




Here is a link with information about Silvers and his process:
Click here for article (Chicago Tribune)  

Photomosaic! (Kind of)

Today's lab gave us the ability to create our very own photomosaic! It is too bad my first creation looked like this:

 My first attempt used the same picture for the tiles as it did for the main picture.  It did not really work. I really want to play around with more examples now that this is working. I will make sure to upload more creations the next few days. I hope to be able to alter the code, but who knows when that will happen.

New Plan!

Going to take this image:

This will be my background. Because the foreground in this picture is all black, (0,0,0), I hope to take a cropped photo of a silhouette and place it at the bottom to cover up most of the cacti. This next photo will be the source of my silhouette.

I am going to take the blend program and see if I can alter it to do the reverse of the swap background effect. In this case, all of the foreground (mostly) is black. With this uniform color, I hope to be able to take the foreground out of the image.

Before I do that, I hope to add some effects to the lightening. Maybe  . . . I cannot say what; maybe make the lightening a different color or add something interesting.

Next I hope to place some planes in the sky. I will use the same swapping technique for this. Here is an example of one of the planes that I will use.

I might have it…Or try to use a mirror trick to reverse the direction. I think if I mirror vertically from the very far left side, it should swap the picture entirely around. I need to test it!

I think that is it for my new plan. If all works out, I may add more things as the deadline arrives.

Making a Plan:

Who knows if I will keep this idea, but I have a plan of sorts.

I am going to take this picture:

 . . . and throw in multiple elements.

I will include the Golden Gate Bridge:

(Maybe not from this angle.)

I will include some aurora borealis:

Maybe place a city in the water:

Maybe a dock:

But anyway, to make this final piece, I guess it will take a lot of clipping and maybe some shading to fix shadows.  And if this wont work, or if it ends up looking terrible, I can always find another plan.

Lab 6 Response:

Today we worked on more color alteration, color separation and the converting of all the pixels in an image into one of three colors. Some of the functions, or tools, including making an image darker, lighter, blending between images, and adjusting pixels. Today's class also consisted of a discussion involving the Carr article. We expressed a number of issues and did our best to try to understand them. If for some reason you did not think I talked enough in class today, you can always check out my (brief) written response to the article in the previous post. I also posted a link to a PBS video that displays the danger of an . . . incompetent school board. And without further rambling, I give you . . . pictures! These photographs were edited using the three color limitation alteration. Nothing great, but decent enough. (And I added blue to the code.)

Nicholas Carr Response:

It is easy to blow this article off as an example of paranoid exaggeration straight from Orwell's 1984. But after doing some research and watching this video about the school board in Texas changing their textbooks,

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/culture/are-conservatives-in-texas-rewriting-history/736/ 

  

I have realized that this is certainly an issue that should be discussed and taken into consideration. I am in no way stating that what the author warned will happen in the near future, I am more concerned about the implications in regard to schools and advertisements in the next 20 or so years. Leaders of countries have always been able to practically do whatever they want, that is not a concern of mine. As the author states, I feel like we should take serious note of how advertisements will weave themselves into the future of books. The wary internet user should already be realizing how much advertising has crept into our lives and personal information. In all, despite my initial skepticism, I do agree a great deal with what the author warns. The transition to digital books may not occur in the next ten or even thirty years, but I do feel like with its arrival will come a new age of advertising (and who knows what else).

Lab 5 Response:

I just finished my lab for today, and I am . . . fairly exhausted. I know, it is pathetic, don't give me that look.  The sepia1 code took me the longest time to figure out. To be honest, I just ended up scrolling down and using bits and pieces of the sepia2 and sepia3 codes. I managed to create a decent effect, so I cannot complain. The rest of the lab involved more color coordination and separation. I can post a picture of what I managed to accomplish with the sepia code. I know it is lousy, give me a break. My project plan is still in the earliest stages of creation. Bear with me. (Not to be confused with 'bare with me', which would perhaps create some civil unrest.)

"You cant be serious!"