The Sprague Lab

Yay for Thursday. :)

Here is a beautiful sight to me:

Rowen in her new foam princess crown, greeting Jared as he came in the back gate from work today. She’s always so surprised and excited to see him. So the sound effect you can imagine as you look at that first picture is this long, drawn out, “Daaaaddaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy” as she ran across the yard. :)

Click for Larger

I’ve also had several surprises in the past day or so. 

The first one is this: So I put that little poll up there yesterday, to try to find out (informally) how many people who show up here are using which version of Photoshop. And I must admit that I am really surprised at how many people are using CS/CS2. Almost as many as use Elements.

Clearly these can’t be construed as official numbers, but if at least half of people have CS/CS2, I need to modify the way I approach the instructions I do.

So, to inaugurate that, I created two separate videos which will go up tomorrow. I’m officially retiring the “Gradient Map” black and white conversion technique, in favor of adjustment layers. So I’ll show you how to do that tomorrow, and hooray! CS/CS2 users get their own vid! :D

If you haven’t voted, it just takes a second. I really would love to get a good sampling.

And the second is this:

During naptimes today, I downloaded and configured a free little photo gallery application called SimpleViewer. This thing is so cool. What a great way to display photos online. It takes a bit to do, since you have to create your own thumbnails and edit the XML file to add in file names, but overall it was quite simple, and I am totally in LOVE with the way it makes my photos look. And I am surprised that my photos look so good.

You can view the beginnings of my photo gallery over at my newly registered domain (yay! WAY more awesome stuff coming on that front, see below… :D), these are just some I’ve taken in the past couple weeks.

And the third (less pleasant) surprise is this: 

I know a lot of people were waiting for my Digi 1 class to start over at CKU Homestudy (and so was I), but it looks like that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Lots of changes taking place on the Web side of CK, awesome changes, but some things get shuffled, plans change, that kind of thing. So part of me wants to sigh. Okay, a big part of me. But it’ll turn out for the best, as things always do.

I learned a lot from creating that course, so all isn’t lost. I learned (again) that it is hard work making high-quality instruction that has measurable results and gives people real success. I learned that love teaching, even online (because you are so awesome at reinforcing me with comments and emails). I love helping people understand. And of course, I love Photoshop. So I’m developing a cunning plan, which cannot fail  (and if anyone gets that totally obscure reference, I’m SO sending you a RAK). ;) But more on that as I work out details.

See you bright and early for some video-enhanced black and white conversion! :D 

oh, and before I go..

I just want to say THANK YOU. To everyone who commented about my car/doll dilemma from yesterday. Thank you for being honest, and real, and sharing your stories with me that helped me see my own with a bit better perspective. You totally made my day yesterday. (And wait til you see the photo of Elliott in the princess crown…)