On Saturday night, I had the chance to attend a fundraiser for a local politician at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg, and of course I had to bring my camera!
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
Beer Brewing Tanks at Victory Brewing Company in Parkesburg PA.
This facility has been open for little over a year so it’s spotlessly clean.
It is a beautiful new facility, with some of it still under construction, and there are many plans for the future.
Bridge Closed signs at Speakman #1 in Chester County PA.
While I was out on a GPS drive yesterday, I found myself very close to Speakman #1 Covered Bridge, and having several hours before the kids got home, I decided to stop by and do a follow-up session.
This made me very concerned, especially since we’ve had several harsh winters since I was last there.
As I approached the bridge, I felt rather depressed when I began to see barriers in front of the bridge opening.
Bridge Closed signs at Speakman #1 in Chester County PA.
While I was getting out of the car, I was wondering what kind of damage had happened, when I was shaken from my thoughts by a man in a pickup truck. He asked if I was fishing to which I raised my camera.
The truck pulled into the area in front of the bridge and the man got out and started chatting about the bridge in general.
At this point, Lawrence introduced himself and said the bridge had been closed for about two years due to damage by a truck hauling steel plates through the bridge.
Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.
Apparently, a driver was heading southbound on Frog Hollow Road, when a steel plate shifted as he turned right onto Covered Bridge Road, severely damaging the South West entrance post.
Lawrence continued to tell me stories about the local area and the bridge as we walked around, inspecting the damage.
In this picture, you can still see some of the fire damage cause by some local boys. Notice the char in the diagonal crossbeam.
Arson damage at Speakman #1 in Chester County PA. – Notice the ‘new’ siding.
From the outside, looking upstream, you can see the boards that were replaced.
Truck damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.
I asked when the bridge was going to be fixed, but that remains to be seen. There appears to be an argument between the local townships and the state about who is going to pick up the restoration cost.
When you go to the upstream side of the bridge, you can see where the tall grass has gotten stuck between the boards during several recent floods.
Flood damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.Flood damage to Speakman #1 covered bridge in Chester County PA.
If you look very carefully at the above image, you can see how the left vertical steel I-beam is bent from all the ice and trees hitting it.
Needless to say, it is easy to see that Speakman #1 Covered Bridge needs some major restoration if it is going to last into the future.
I hope by posting these images, I can make other people aware of what needs to be done.
Lately, I’ve been interested in polling internet literature regarding the art of editing. Despite the outright dearth in related articles, I’ve come across some laudable nuggets, which I’ve posted on Eagle-Eye Editing (http://www.facebook.com/eagle.editing). I also ran into a huge shocker: a series of “myths and facts” about editing, which actually asserts that editorial review is not always necessary. If you’re a good enough writer, the article blithely reports, then you just don’t need one. After I recovered my breath, I remembered Brendan Brown’s recent blog that staunchly informs readers that this particular view has no merit. While Brown mainly refers to academic editing, I’m opening up the field to any and all editing and piggybacking on his points regarding the necessity of obtaining an editor. Brown cites three key reasons for editorial review: missing and extra words and repeated sentences. No matter how polished the writer, these blunders happen, and that’s where the human touch of editorial services comes in. You simply can’t turn in an academic paper, Brown argues (or any document for that matter, I might add), without having it professionally checked by a real-life person. Imagine your chagrin at missing something as simple as a cut and paste error, for example.
I’d like to include the issue of meaning to the list of reasons to secure editorial services. Only a human reader is qualified to assess meaning. The author knows what she means when she says X, Y and Z, but does the reader? It’s easy to think we are communicating what we mean to say when we’ve been mulling it over and writing about it for hours or days. Putting that notion to the editorial test is key. Is what you mean to say really coming across? Isn’t that the crux of the matter? Whether I’m a student or a business magnate, I aim to be understood. It’s crucial to my academic success. It’s paramount to my marketing campaign. I want people to get my message and I want to be sure the message is clear. If my reader grapples with any confusion as to why my notion or product can help them, it’s just not going to sell. I can run my message through spell check and a number of other programs, but the bottom line is: meaning requires human response. There’s just no getting around it. Not only do I flatly disagree with the idea that an editor isn’t necessary, I counter with the polar opposite. Editors are vital to the writing process and product. Without us, you may never know the power and the glory of an author’s intentions.
This morning, I started to “stitch” together a panoramic photo that I had taken the other day in Dowlin Forge Park, right here in Downingtown.
It is a series of (28) Canon RAW files (cr2) that were taken with a Canon T5i/700D, imported into Lightroom 5.3, and merged into a straightforward panorama image in Photoshop CS 6.
The actual merge of the (28) 16-bit files took about 3-4 minutes, which was A LOT better than last time, where I had to break-up the (42) files into groups of 10, merge them into one file, and repeat until all the files were merged.
Once the merged file was in Photoshop, with all 28 layers showing, my new machine was not even breathing too hard. Even with Lightroom and several Chrome instances, I was still only pushing 85% physical RAM and the CPU spiked at 15%!
From there, I tried to “Save As” a Standard Adobe PSD, and got the standard error dialog, showing the 2GB file size limitation.
Nothing new there…
Then I tried a “Save As” as an Adobe TIFF file, and this time the computer took a great deal longer, 5+ minutes, before there was an error, and during that time, Photoshop created a 10.6+ GB file tmp!
10.6 GB Adobe TMP file
To date, this is the single largest file that I have “Saved” in Photoshop!
Finally, I tried saving the file as a Standard Adobe PSB file, which is still a large file at 3.3+ GBs!
Main Adobe PSB file w/o Flatten
Time to Flatten some Layers!
With the Main PSB file open, I Flattened the Layers into 1, and did a “Save As” a PSB and then Re-Opened the Main PSB file, Flattened, and “Save As” again as TIFFs, and was very happy to see both files sizes were nearly identical at 638 MBs!
Comparison when Flattened
Conclusion
I conducted this test mostly out of personal curiosity and to see if files have remained consistent since the last time I did this experiment.
I expected the file size to go up, mainly because I was using 27-28 MB files created with the Canon T5i/700D vs 8-9 MB files with the Canon XTi.
If I were to estimate, the same 46 shoots done in 2011 could easily reach 6 GBs as a PSB file, and maybe create a 20-30 GB temp file at the same time.
Be sure that you have enough scratch disk space before you start.
It should be obvious that if you know a file is going to reach over 4 GBs, save it out as a PSB and go from there in the rest of your workflow.
The current maximum file file for an Adobe PSB is 4 exabytes – 300,000 x 300,000 pixels – 350 x 350 feet, which should keep you.
It is also nice to see that after Flattening, both PSB and TIFF files appear to be the same size.
Personally, I would keep the TIFF files, mostly because TIFF is NOT a proprietary file format, and in the future, if I want to move the file into another program, it will be easier.
Although I wrote my first post on PSB vs TIFF several years ago, I have yet to find out what IS all the Un-Saved data?
Duplicate “colors?” Non-Human readable code?
If you happen to know, please let me know.
I’m just very curious!
And finally, it should be noted, just like last time, the 2 PSB files do NOT show up in Lightroom, so you have to remember that they are there.
The TIFF file that was created, after Flattening all the Layers, DOES show up in Lightroom.
Adobe Bridge CS6 (5.0.2.4 x64) is able to show the Flattened PSB and TIFF, but NOT the larger Un-Flattened 3.3+ GB PSB file.
Hope you enjoyed my little file size observations.
If you have any questions or answers, please let me know!!
Sunset over Shamona Creek Elementary School (4/9/2012)
As Seen In – County Lines Magazine
I’ve been rather low-key about this, and I was going to say something yesterday, but…
I am happy to announce that I have 5 images appearing in the April 2014 edition of County Lines Magazine, including a two-page opening spread on our little town of Downingtown – “Small Town Heaven“!
My main sunset image also appears on the County Lines website, in the feature section, but to be honest, I LOVE the print edition better!
The original image was a hand-held panorama and really needs to be seen wide, to get the full feeling, and the two-page printed version does this well!
I want to really thank all the folks at County Lines for their hard work, and especially Jaimielynn Cooper who was such a delight to work with during this project!
So look for the April Print Edition, which also happens to be the Wedding Edition, at your local newsstands and bookstores in Chester County, Montgomery, Berks, Lancaster, New Castle and Delaware counties or by subscription.
