COMPOSITION
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Photography basics: Depth of Field and compositionRead more: Photography basics: Depth of Field and compositionDepth of field is the range within which focusing is resolved in a photo. 
 Aperture has a huge affect on to the depth of field.Changing the f-stops (f/#) of a lens will change aperture and as such the DOF. f-stops are a just certain number which is telling you the size of the aperture. That’s how f-stop is related to aperture (and DOF). If you increase f-stops, it will increase DOF, the area in focus (and decrease the aperture). On the other hand, decreasing the f-stop it will decrease DOF (and increase the aperture). The red cone in the figure is an angular representation of the resolution of the system. Versus the dotted lines, which indicate the aperture coverage. Where the lines of the two cones intersect defines the total range of the depth of field. This image explains why the longer the depth of field, the greater the range of clarity. 
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Composition – These are the basic lighting techniques you need to know for photography and filmRead more: Composition – These are the basic lighting techniques you need to know for photography and filmhttp://www.diyphotography.net/basic-lighting-techniques-need-know-photography-film/ Amongst the basic techniques, there’s… 1- Side lighting – Literally how it sounds, lighting a subject from the side when they’re faced toward you 2- Rembrandt lighting – Here the light is at around 45 degrees over from the front of the subject, raised and pointing down at 45 degrees 3- Back lighting – Again, how it sounds, lighting a subject from behind. This can help to add drama with silouettes 4- Rim lighting – This produces a light glowing outline around your subject 5- Key light – The main light source, and it’s not necessarily always the brightest light source 6- Fill light – This is used to fill in the shadows and provide detail that would otherwise be blackness 7- Cross lighting – Using two lights placed opposite from each other to light two subjects 
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Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterRead more: Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterThe 300dpi digital poster is now available to all PixelSham.com subscribers. If you have already subscribed and wish a copy, please send me a note through the contact page. 
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Photography basics: Camera Aspect Ratio, Sensor Size and Depth of Field – resolutionsRead more: Photography basics: Camera Aspect Ratio, Sensor Size and Depth of Field – resolutionshttp://www.shutterangle.com/2012/cinematic-look-aspect-ratio-sensor-size-depth-of-field/ http://www.shutterangle.com/2012/film-video-aspect-ratio-artistic-choice/ 
DESIGN
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Hand made Settlers of Catan boardRead more: Hand made Settlers of Catan boardtrytrytry.de/2016/07/mega-diy-siedler-von-catan-in-3d/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqww2yZkeh0 
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AI Dresses by MaryAnnaRead more: AI Dresses by MaryAnnahttps://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7015985798567067648 Created by Discord user: @MaryAnna 
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A.I. Algorithm art fetches US$432,500 at Christie auctionRead more: A.I. Algorithm art fetches US$432,500 at Christie auctionwww.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/algorithm-art-fetches-us-432-500-at-christie-s-auction-1.4150620 www.christies.com/features/A-collaboration-between-two-artists-one-human-one-a-machine-9332-1.aspx  
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Arminas Valunas – “Coca-Cola: Wherever you are.”Read more: Arminas Valunas – “Coca-Cola: Wherever you are.”Arminas created this using Juggernaut Xl model and QR Code Monster SDXL ControlNet. 
 His pipeline:
 Static Images – Forge UI.
 Upscaled with Leonardo AI universal upscaler.
 Animated with Runway ML and Minimax.
 Video upscale – Topaz Video AI.
 Composited in Adobe Premiere.
 Juggernaut Xl download here:
 https://civitai.com/models/133005/juggernaut-xl
 QR Code Monster SDXL:
 https://civitai.com/models/197247?modelVersionId=221829
COLOR
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PTGui 13 beta adds control through a Patch EditorRead more: PTGui 13 beta adds control through a Patch EditorAdditions: - Patch Editor (PTGui Pro)
- DNG output
- Improved RAW / DNG handling
- JPEG 2000 support
- Performance improvements
 
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Mysterious animation wins best illusion of 2011 – Motion silencing illusionRead more: Mysterious animation wins best illusion of 2011 – Motion silencing illusionThe 2011 Best Illusion of the Year uses motion to render color changes invisible, and so reveals a quirk in our visual systems that is new to scientists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_silencing_illusion “It is a really beautiful effect, revealing something about how our visual system works that we didn’t know before,” said Daniel Simons, a professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Simons studies visual cognition, and did not work on this illusion. Before its creation, scientists didn’t know that motion had this effect on perception, Simons said. A viewer stares at a speck at the center of a ring of colored dots, which continuously change color. When the ring begins to rotate around the speck, the color changes appear to stop. But this is an illusion. For some reason, the motion causes our visual system to ignore the color changes. (You can, however, see the color changes if you follow the rotating circles with your eyes.) 
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Practical Aspects of Spectral Data and LEDs in Digital Content Production and Virtual Production – SIGGRAPH 2022Read more: Practical Aspects of Spectral Data and LEDs in Digital Content Production and Virtual Production – SIGGRAPH 2022Comparison to the commercial side  https://www.ecolorled.com/blog/detail/what-is-rgb-rgbw-rgbic-strip-lights RGBW (RGB + White) LED strip uses a 4-in-1 LED chip made up of red, green, blue, and white. RGBWW (RGB + White + Warm White) LED strip uses either a 5-in-1 LED chip with red, green, blue, white, and warm white for color mixing. The only difference between RGBW and RGBWW is the intensity of the white color. The term RGBCCT consists of RGB and CCT. CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) means that the color temperature of the led strip light can be adjusted to change between warm white and white. Thus, RGBWW strip light is another name of RGBCCT strip. RGBCW is the acronym for Red, Green, Blue, Cold, and Warm. These 5-in-1 chips are used in supper bright smart LED lighting products 
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What is a Gamut or Color Space and why do I need to know about CIERead more: What is a Gamut or Color Space and why do I need to know about CIE  http://www.xdcam-user.com/2014/05/what-is-a-gamut-or-color-space-and-why-do-i-need-to-know-about-it/ In video terms gamut is normally related to as the full range of colours and brightness that can be either captured or displayed. (more…)
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Anders Langlands – Render Color SpacesRead more: Anders Langlands – Render Color Spaceshttps://www.colour-science.org/anders-langlands/ This page compares images rendered in Arnold using spectral rendering and different sets of colourspace primaries: Rec.709, Rec.2020, ACES and DCI-P3. The SPD data for the GretagMacbeth Color Checker are the measurements of Noburu Ohta, taken from Mansencal, Mauderer and Parsons (2014) colour-science.org. 
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Photography basics: Why Use a (MacBeth) Color Chart?Read more: Photography basics: Why Use a (MacBeth) Color Chart?Start here: https://www.pixelsham.com/2013/05/09/gretagmacbeth-color-checker-numeric-values/ https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-color-checker-tool/ In LightRoom in Final Cut in Nuke Note: In Foundry’s Nuke, the software will map 18% gray to whatever your center f/stop is set to in the viewer settings (f/8 by default… change that to EV by following the instructions below). 
 You can experiment with this by attaching an Exposure node to a Constant set to 0.18, setting your viewer read-out to Spotmeter, and adjusting the stops in the node up and down. You will see that a full stop up or down will give you the respective next value on the aperture scale (f8, f11, f16 etc.).One stop doubles or halves the amount or light that hits the filmback/ccd, so everything works in powers of 2. 
 So starting with 0.18 in your constant, you will see that raising it by a stop will give you .36 as a floating point number (in linear space), while your f/stop will be f/11 and so on.If you set your center stop to 0 (see below) you will get a relative readout in EVs, where EV 0 again equals 18% constant gray. In other words. Setting the center f-stop to 0 means that in a neutral plate, the middle gray in the macbeth chart will equal to exposure value 0. EV 0 corresponds to an exposure time of 1 sec and an aperture of f/1.0. This will set the sun usually around EV12-17 and the sky EV1-4 , depending on cloud coverage. To switch Foundry’s Nuke’s SpotMeter to return the EV of an image, click on the main viewport, and then press s, this opens the viewer’s properties. Now set the center f-stop to 0 in there. And the SpotMeter in the viewport will change from aperture and fstops to EV. 
LIGHTING
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Rendering – BRDF – Bidirectional reflectance distribution functionRead more: Rendering – BRDF – Bidirectional reflectance distribution functionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_reflectance_distribution_function The bidirectional reflectance distribution function is a four-dimensional function that defines how light is reflected at an opaque surface http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~zhu/tutorial/An_Introduction_to_BRDF-Based_Lighting.pdf In general, when light interacts with matter, a complicated light-matter dynamic occurs. This interaction depends on the physical characteristics of the light as well as the physical composition and characteristics of the matter. That is, some of the incident light is reflected, some of the light is transmitted, and another portion of the light is absorbed by the medium itself. A BRDF describes how much light is reflected when light makes contact with a certain material. Similarly, a BTDF (Bi-directional Transmission Distribution Function) describes how much light is transmitted when light makes contact with a certain material http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~smr/cs348c-97/surveypaper.html It is difficult to establish exactly how far one should go in elaborating the surface model. A truly complete representation of the reflective behavior of a surface might take into account such phenomena as polarization, scattering, fluorescence, and phosphorescence, all of which might vary with position on the surface. Therefore, the variables in this complete function would be: incoming and outgoing angle incoming and outgoing wavelength incoming and outgoing polarization (both linear and circular) incoming and outgoing position (which might differ due to subsurface scattering) time delay between the incoming and outgoing light ray 
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Arto T. – A workflow for creating photorealistic, equirectangular 360° panoramas in ComfyUI using FluxRead more: Arto T. – A workflow for creating photorealistic, equirectangular 360° panoramas in ComfyUI using Fluxhttps://civitai.com/models/735980/flux-equirectangular-360-panorama https://civitai.com/models/745010?modelVersionId=833115 The trigger phrase is “equirectangular 360 degree panorama”. I would avoid saying “spherical projection” since that tends to result in non-equirectangular spherical images. Image resolution should always be a 2:1 aspect ratio. 1024 x 512 or 1408 x 704 work quite well and were used in the training data. 2048 x 1024 also works. I suggest using a weight of 0.5 – 1.5. If you are having issues with the image generating too flat instead of having the necessary spherical distortion, try increasing the weight above 1, though this could negatively impact small details of the image. For Flux guidance, I recommend a value of about 2.5 for realistic scenes. 8-bit output at the moment   
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Tracing Spherical harmonics and how Weta used them in productionRead more: Tracing Spherical harmonics and how Weta used them in productionA way to approximate complex lighting in ultra realistic renders. All SH lighting techniques involve replacing parts of standard lighting equations with spherical functions that have been projected into frequency space using the spherical harmonics as a basis. http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cs4162/slides/spherical-harmonic-lighting.pdf Spherical harmonics as used at Weta Digital 
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GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle GrayRead more: GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle GrayThe human eye perceives half scene brightness not as the linear 50% of the present energy (linear nature values) but as 18% of the overall brightness. We are biased to perceive more information in the dark and contrast areas. A Macbeth chart helps with calibrating back into a photographic capture into this “human perspective” of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_gray In photography, painting, and other visual arts, middle gray or middle grey is a tone that is perceptually about halfway between black and white on a lightness scale in photography and printing, it is typically defined as 18% reflectance in visible light  Light meters, cameras, and pictures are often calibrated using an 18% gray card[4][5][6] or a color reference card such as a ColorChecker. On the assumption that 18% is similar to the average reflectance of a scene, a grey card can be used to estimate the required exposure of the film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorChecker (more…)
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