A commenter on my previous post asked about how I make the borders on the images I post. I'll talk a bit about that here.

At first I thought that it was wasteful of screen real-estate to add a border. When printing a picture to hang on the wall, I don't add borders, but I do use colored matting to compliment the picture. That's what I've got in mind when adding borders to images that I post.

The real skill involved -- skill that I don't have much of -- is deciding what to do. How to do it is much easier.

I made a Photoshop action which does most of the work:

1. Set the image's color space to sRGB. Normally, I shoot in Adobe RGB.

   sRGB is a Microsoft color-space standard, and like most of what comes out of Microsoft, it is technically inferior, but more popular, than other options. It's a del-facto standard on the web, and while some browsers can auto-adjust for a different embedded color profile, IE doesn't, so I've got to downgrade the color encoding for a general audience.

2. Make a duplicate copy of the background layer. This copy will become the image actually seen within the border about to be added.

3. Change the canvas size: add 30 pixels to both the width and the height.

   Most raw images I work with are about 3,000 pixels on a side, so this adds just a small 1% border. I adjust the size later, manually, to suit the specific image.

4. Add a black, solid-color fill layer between the background and the copy. This renders the background layer irrelevant, with the copy now the image that's seen. The newly-added fill layer is seen only around the edges, that is, it's the border. I change the color later, manually, to suit the image.

5. Change the Layer Style of the background copy by adding a white “outer glow”. I sometimes change this to a “stroke,” especially when I intend to make small versions.

I take the trouble to do steps 2 and 4 because it allows me to change the border color later on, on the fly. You can set the color of the newly-expanded canvas when changing the canvas size, but once you do the color is not easy to change. So, I make a pre-enlarge copy of the image, which, unlike the background, does not expand when enlarging the canvas, and throw a solid-color fill layer behind the copy.

I then manually adjust the border color by adjusting the solid-color fill layer, usually by eye-dropping a color from the image and working from there. I futz around with it a lot to get something that just seems to work. I also adjust the color of the outer-glow (or stroke) around the main image, to get something subtle.

If I want to add a title, I'll make the border larger, especially on the bottom, then add the text. Title text usually gets a subtle outer glow or a drop shadow, depending on the colors involved, to highlight it a bit from the background. Yet, I often do the titles at less than 100% opacity, to keep them a bit more subtle. It's all a judgement call.

Even small borders can have a huge effect on an image's feeling. The problem I have as a geeky engineer devoid of even the most basic artistic sense, is in picking a border that has the right effect. It happens often that I'll revisit an image I was working on before dinner and be totally turned off by the border that I thought was so great an hour ago. I really have no clue what I'd doing.

Here's a copy of yesterday's main image with a different border:

I really have no idea which one is better.

Once the image is done, I use Photoshop's Save for the Web command to write resized copies in the sizes I intend to use. At this stage I doublecheck that the text is readable at the resized copy. This save-for-the-web step strips out most of the Exif data from the image (including embedded thumbnails, which are wasteful of space). I then run my own little command which reinserts the main Exif data (date, location, geo-data) back into the copies that I'd just saved.

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Having looked back to cherry-blossom time in a recent post, this time I'll look forward to the upcoming fall by revisiting some photos I took last fall.

The picture above is the backyard of someone's house, visible from a trail leading up Daimonji Mountain (see this post for more on Daimonji). The following picture shows the front gate of the same house:

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The path is on a slope leading up the mountain, which is why the wall shrinks to nothing on the far right. It's from there that the first picture looking into the backyard was taken.

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If you step into the stone entryway shown in the middle of the second shot, and turn right, you're greeted with the view shown in an earlier post, reproduced in thumbnail at right to pique your interest. Follow the link (or click on the picture) to visit that post.

These are all just someone's house in an out-of-the-way area of north-east Kyoto, near Kinkakuji Temple, that I ran into while hiking Daimonji Mountain. I hope I'll be able to recreate the hike again this year. Nils, do you think you'll be up for it again come November? I'm thinking to bring Anthony this year...

Shopping for a particular kind of 50W lightbulb, I found what I needed in the package shown here. At first glance I see that it's a 50W type, and that it saves about 10% on energy. Cool.

Looking closer, I see that the big “50” is basically a lie. It says:

At least the “10%” part is true. It says:

Well, of course, if you use a 45-watt bulb where you intend to use a 50-watt bulb, you'll be saving 10% on energy. The problem is that you'll have 10% less light! Geez, I'm glad that they didn't “save” me more. (Why not put a 25-watt bulb and claim a 50% savings?)

To be clear, there's nothing here about “the same light output as a traditional 50-watt bulb” or anything like that. It's simply a lower-wattage bulb with a high-wattage number printed in the largest type.

This type of deception is probably as common here as in The States. I first noticed it here long ago, in a grocery store with a beverage carton that looked like an orange-juice carton, had a picture of an orange on it, and had ORANGE 100 written on it in huge letters. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was 100% orange juice, and this would have been very nice because at the time, orange juice was extremely expensive (having only recently been legal to sell in the first place) due to protectionist government regulations that gave very strong preference to tangerine juice, which can be grown/produced in Japan.

In reality, as the small print revealed, it had only some small percentage of orange juice, but did have 100% of the recommended daily dose of some vitamin or other. That's where the “100” came from. It was clear that it was purposefully misleading to make a quick sale.

I've even seen things taken a step further. Japanese beverages must state the percent of juice they contain, so I've seen “Orange 100” type labeling with a clear “100% juice” on the front.... the small print on the back, however, reveals that it's a mix of juices, with lemon or apple juice used to fill in for the more expensive orange juice (The relative percentages of each type of juice is not revealed, so it could well be something like 1% orange juice.)

It's as true here as anywhere: buyer beware

I know it's not the season for cherry blossoms (except in the Southern Hemisphere?), but I'm finally getting around to processing photos from last spring and ran across two blossom photos that make fantastic desktop backgrounds. They perhaps don't look like much in the small versions shown here, but follow the links to the large sizes for gorgeous, delicious desktop-worthy images.

Here's the first one:

The 1,600×1,200 size is appropriate for any standard 4×3 desktop (e.g. 1,280 × 960, etc.). A first with this post, I've included widescreen versions in native sizes appropriate for Apple MacBooks and Cinema Displays, up to an expansive 2,560 × 1,660. (If someone would be so kind as to send a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display to me, I'd be able to test that the 2,560 × 1,660 size is indeed proper 🙂

Images straight from my camera are not the exact aspect ratio of either normal nor widescreen displays, so I have to crop them slightly in one way or another when making desktop-appropriate versions. This next image presented a challenge, as I felt the composition was just perfect as is, and I had a hard time cropping for a standard 4×3 display.

Here's the uncropped photo:

Here are two slightly different 1,600 × 1,200 crops, and one uncropped version with vertical padding added to make the proper size. Which do you like?

1,600 × 1,200

1,600 × 1,200

1,600 × 1,200

Widescreen versions:    1280 × 800   ·  1440 × 900   ·  1680 × 1050   ·  1920 × 1200   ·  2560 × 1600

These were taken at the now-closed-for-two-years-for-renovation Takagaraike Children's Park in northern Kyoto, at the same time I took some other pictures that appeared in my blog at the time: Cherry-Tree Desktop Background Photo and Life Stages of the Cherry Blossom.

I tend to like darker, more muted images for a desktop background, which is why I really like these. If you prefer a lighter/brighter background, consider this full-bloom cherry-blossom background.

A new semester of classes begins this month at the Doshisha University Center for Japanese Language. I can speak Japanese fairly well, but it's all self-taught so I could certainly benefit from some formal study. I thought I'd take Japanese classes at Doshisha, since it has a good reputation.

But I won't be attending classes because the paperwork to apply was just too daunting. It's not that it was bordering on the ridiculous, but way past ridiculous.

As one might expect, the application includes basics such as:

• Name, address, place and date of birth.

• If currently in Japan, visa status.

• My “home country address” (okay, I don't know what that might be, since my home country is Japan).

• A 20,000 yen (about $190) application fee.

• Information about any previous Japanese-language study, if any.

• Info about my educational background.

• Self-assessed Japanese and English abilities.

• “Declaration of Japanese-language Proficiency”

• 3-minute audio cassette or MD, in Japanese, on why I'm applying.

• Written essay on why I'm applying.

• Written essay on what you plan to do after attending Japanese-language school.

• How I plan to come up with the funds.

I can understand most of that, but some of the stuff they require is just, well, ridiculous:

• My entire educational background, starting with my elementary school (which I finished 30 years ago, mind you).

• The name, age, and address of all family members (“including married brothers and sisters”). How is this at all relevant?

• List of all previous visits to Japan, with copies of my passports. Uh, I've entered Japan at least 40 times in the last 20 years, and had to have pages added to my previous-previous passport. If I have the old passports, and if I can find them, it would take me hours to compile the list of dates that I was in Japan. Why is this relevant, and why to this level of detail?

• A certificate of health filled out by a physician, including chest X-ray results and eyesight. This is just silly.

• Occupational experience & military service. I washed dishes for Casey's Restaurant 25 years ago — will that help my application?

• Since I'd be paying myself, I'd need to produce copies of my bankbooks, a “Certificate of Employment” (whatever that is, it'll be tough because I'm self employed), and all Japanese tax records for the previous year (which would also be tough, because I've not had to file taxes in Japan since 1996).

  Uh, why can't I just produce the money to pay for the year? I have a few bank accounts here, but most of our money is in The States. One bank account here that's in my name (as opposed to Fumie's name; Japan doesn't allow joint ownership) has about $25,000 in it — more than 5× the yearly tuition — yet I was told that might not be enough to make them feel happy, and so I should produce proof about whatever money I have in The States. Wow.

• A “Letter of Guarantee,” filled out by my parents in Ohio, assuming both financial and moral responsibility for me while I'm in Japan. (I'm 40 years old, don't forget.)

• My high-school and college diplomas. Not copies, mind you, but the original diplomas. I know that I have my college and grad-school diplomas in storage somewhere in The States, but I have no idea whether my high-school diploma (from 22 years ago) even exists.

• Full transcripts from my grad school. How are transcripts for classes in computer science completed 19 years ago really relevant to my study of Japanese today? I'm 40 freaking years old!

• Five identical photographs. I can't fathom why they need even one. Is beauty a pre-requisite? (If so, it's just as well I didn't apply.)

• The “Declaration of Japanese-language Proficiency” mentioned above is something that would cause me trouble, since it must be filled out by an instructor of Japanese or a diplomatic or consular official of the Japanese government. I've never studied formally, so who would I get to fill it out? It's silly, anyway, because it's so very vague, using a “Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent” rating system that's completely dependent upon the writer's frame of mind. I chatted for half an hour with someone in the school's office, in Japanese, who said that my Japanese was excellent — why can't she “declare” my ability?

I suppose I could scrounge up most of what's required if I really wanted to, but the ridiculousness of the whole thing really turned me off.

Can anyone suggest good Japanese-language classes in Kyoto at a school that wouldn't treat me like a child and would be willing to accept my money?