(Thanks Wiki!)

Tilt shift lens tend to be very very pricey. They’re also the most difficult lens to work with on your dSLR or SLR. (Granted, LensBabies are pretty tough to work with. But don’t get me started on those! I would rather take my money and insert it into the closest trash can.)

So that brings up the point to this post
Visualphotoguide.com posted an excellent article explaining how to take any (properly composed, of course) photo, and give it that “tilt-shift” look. (without spending a fat wad of Benjamin’s!)

Tilt Shift Photoshop Tutorial: How to Make Fake Miniature Scenes

Give it a shot! If your results are portfolio worthy, excellent! If you’re not a fan, well then at least you (probably?) learned a few more things in photoshop, understood the concept of tilt-shift photography, and most importantly, saved a thousand bucks on a real lens

Below is a the job brief.
Interested? Send your resume and work samples to: varezzi@rightreasontech.com

Right Reason Technologies produces industry leading web‐based training and eLearning solutions. We are looking for a hard working, self‐motivated, and multi‐faceted Creative Developer eager to succeed. We provide opportunities for career growth and advancement to employees at all levels.

Job Description

As a member of the Creative Development Team, the right candidate is a dynamic, self‐motivated individual that will work with the Creative Director to develop graphics and creative solutions for web, print, and interactive media. Additionally the candidate will perform HTML/CSS development in the creation and maintenance of web properties and web‐based training modules.

Responsibilities

1. Support Creative Director in executing the visual representation of Right Reason’s branding and products. Participate in development graphics and creative solutions for web, print, and interactive media for use in marketing, web based training, and web applications.

2. Right Reason takes pride in the quality of its products, the service that we provide to our customer, and the success of our engagements. We are seeking candidates that will not only support Right Reason’s vision, goals, values and presence, but are motivated by, and will thrive in such an environment. As such, you will be responsible for learning our product lines to assist in the development, and support, of these products and services.

3. Right Reason strongly believes that its success is directly tied to the cohesiveness of the overall team. Each member of the team is responsible for supporting team objectives by completing tasks on time, actively participating in group meetings, supporting and coordinating with team members, and communicating appropriately to the team and management.

Requirements

1. Associates or Bachelors in design related degree program.
2. Must have in depth knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign and Dreamweaver
3. Strong understanding of page layout concepts.
4. Able to perform HTML and CSS development and debugging
5. A good eye for details and an ability to work efficiently within given deadlines
6. Possess the ability to go from conceptualization to full design.
7. Willingness to collaborate with team members to achieve optimal design results
8. Flash experience is a plus
9. Must present portfolio for consideration

Right Reason Technologies

As a KUCD alumn, and designathon participant for 2 consecutive years, I can safely tell you that a pro-bono experience like this looks fantastic on your resume and print/web portfolio. It’s also something great to talk about during an interview. Not to mention the tables overflowing with junk food and caffeine, hide and go seek in sharadin, and laptop DJ sessions of 80′s dance music at 6 AM. (designathon ’08, gooood times!)

Designathon 2010

The full list: 60+ Examples of beautiful design
(may take a few minutes to load)

Interested in making boring and blasé photos pop with life? Check out some of these tutorials!
Not only are the final results extremely impressive, but the tutorials are very well explained! (Some are videos, too. score!)

11 Great Photoshop Photo Effects

40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica

“The main menu for Kutztown University is unusual in many ways. First, it’s positioned in the middle of the page, towards the bottom, whereas primary menus are typically located higher up. The alignment of menu items is staggered, not the usual left aligned. Finally, the lettering of the menu item text is randomized.”

Here is a LINK to the article.

• Refurbished Mac Pro 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor
• 3GB (3 x 1GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
• 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm
• 18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB GDDR3 memory

This was still way out of my price range and any past any budget of most college students. After much research I have found many people who would download a hacked version of os X and install it on a PC. This is a good idea however whenever there is an update in the OS you would have to wait for someone to hack it and make sure it will not “brick” your computer. Then   I found out about the EFi-X USB device. Now the reason OS X can run on a regular PC is because  apple has taken the common mother board and put in a chip which the OS looks for when booting. If it is not there it will not work. What the EFi-X does is mimic the chip the OS looks for and allows the OS run perfectly. You can also run any other OS including Windows and Linux.

So back to building a badass computer… First you need to get the EFi-X chip from www.expresshd.com it costs $239. Also on the website is a list of compatible hardware to choose from. You mainly have to worry about the Motherboard and Graphics card being compatible. Directions on setting up the BIOS so you can install and run os X are also on www.expresshd.com.  Here is the list of components I purchased in order to get my Hackintosh up and running. All ordered from NewEgg.com

• 11-112-244 (Computer Case)
• CASE LIANLI|BK PC-A71F RT1 $239.99
• 13-128-362 (Motherboard)
• MB GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 X58 RTL $268.99
• 14-130-339 (Graphics Card)
• VGA EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR 9800GTX RT $134.99
• 17-139-006 (Power Supply)
• PSU CORSAIR|CMPSU-750TX 750W RT $109.99
• 19-115-211 (Processor)
• CPU INTEL|CORE I7 950 3.06G 45N R $569.99
• 20-231-223 (12 gigs of memory)
• MEM 2Gx3|GSK F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ R $279.98
• 22-148-445 (750 Gb Hard drive)
• HD 750G|SEAGATE 7K ST3750528AS % $79.99
• 27-118-030 (dvd/cd burner)
• DVD BURN SONY|AD-7240S-0B % $27.99
• 35-103-057 (CPU Cooler)
• CPU COOL|CM RR-920-N520-GP R $44.99

Total: $1756.90

I was able to build a bad ass computer that had  more RAM, a better processor, more hard drive space, and a better graphics card for less than the cheapest Mac Pro. A Mac Pro with similar power will cost you more than twice the amount of money it would for you to build it yourself.

If you go ahead and check out the apple store and build a mac pro based on the items I have purchased it will look like this…

Mac Pro

Processor — One 3.33GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
(Not the Newest i7 Xeon Processor I Purchased)

Memory — 8GB (4x2GB)  (I have 12GB (6 x 2gb ddr3 ram))

Hard Drive — 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
(I have a 750GB 7200rpm)

Graphics Card — NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
(I have NVIDIA 9800GTX 512ddr3)

Apple Key Board

Magic Mouse

Total = $3,949.00

An iMac 27 inch

where you cannot really upgrade over time will look like this:

Processor — One 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel i7
(Not the i7 Xeon Processor I Purchased)

Memory — 8GB (4x2GB)  (I have 12GB (6 x 2gb ddr3 ram))

Hard Drive — 1TB

Graphics Card — Does Not Specify

Apple Key Board

Magic Mouse

Total = $2,399.00

Now First of all I went a bit crazy with some of the items here such as the Case, I purchased a really  expensive case with lots of room and really well designed. This is one thing you can go with a cheaper quality if you are tight on money. Also I purchased a HUGE CPU cooler, Your processor will come with one that will work just fine however I also bought a bunch of RAM which you can just get 4gb to start with and add more over time. However, back to the point, I was able to build a bad ass computer that had  more RAM, a better processor, more hard drive space, and a better graphics card for less than the cheapest Mac Pro. A Mac Pro with similar power will cost you more than twice the amount of money it would for you to build it yourself. Also note that my machine runs much cooler than any apple I have used or owned.

Finally I should probably note the legality issues with doing this… Yes according to Apple’s copyrights you are not supposed to put OS X on a Non Apple product. But hey how many of you college students actually have a “Legit” copy of Adobe? And if Apple didn’t over price everything so horribly we wouldn’t have to go through this.