Ashutosh Nilkanth's Blog

Update (9 Jan 2009): TiltShiftMaker gives your photos that delightful tilt-shift look (via Boing Boing). After some playing around, I think that the manual effect in Photoshop or Gimp gives better results.

Couple of weeks back, I saw a sample video which had an impressive mix of time-lapse and tilt-shift effects. The tilt-shift technique allows to depict a very shallow depth of field. It creates an illusion of a miniature model. Here’s an example of a photo with tilt-shift (from 50 Amazing Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography):

While its been raining out here today, I thought I’ll play around with tilt-shift faking in Gimp. Based on some nice tutorials ([1], [2]), here’s what I came up with a photo that I took on a trip to Dalhousie:

Btw, here’s the original photo for the photo I processed above. Not too bad eh? I guess this technique works best with aerial photos/videos.

Briefly, here’s what I did in Gimp to achieve the tilt-shift:

1. Play with the photo’s color curves, brightness and contrast
2. Activate Quick Mask
3. Reset colors in toolbox with the ‘d’ key (so that FG = black and BG = white)
4. Select Blend (Gradient) tool
5. Set Gradient to FG to BG (RGB)
6. Set Shape to Bi-linear
7. Think of a focal point in the photo (i.e. where the key subject is based)
8. Use the Blend tool from your focal point on the Quick Mask (you’ll have to play around with this a bit to get the right size/shape)
9. Deactivate Quick Mask (you’ll see the selection outline now)
10. Apply Gaussian Blur (or Focus Blur for an even better outcome)
11. Invert the selection
12. Sharpen (Enhance) the inverted selection

I’d like to try out this technique on a video sample as well, but for that I’ll need the right tools (or an expensive lens).

I just got back from a memorable trip to the east central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. I visited my wife’s hometown (Bhilai), and adjoining towns on the trip (see map).

I landed in Raipur (the closest airport) and we drove to Bhilai (second-largest city of the state, around 25km from Raipur on NH6). Bhilai is a small industrial township featuring the government-owned steel plant that was built in collaboration with the USSR and that started production in 1959. Nearby mines supply iron ore among other resources. The whole state is rich in natural resources and a major producer of rice.

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Egosurfing is passe. So, my cousin sis Yashi looked up for her hubby Colby over at Google, and found this beautiful wedding feature at TheKnot.com. Their’s surely is a romance made in Manhattan. I have some past pictures from their wedding in a separate blog post (private photo post).

Best wishes to these two!

I was going through the blog of this guy (American Desi) who calls himself Libran Lover. One of his posts, titled “Heartache for R!” was quite provocative. A couple of months back, I remember waking up one morning and walking like a cauliflower to the fridge to get some juice. On the fridge door we had this small poster of Avril Lavigne. What caught my eye were these tiny word magnets eloquently placed on the poster spelling “you need love”. Supposedly, my then flat-mate Aaron (who’s now back in Malaysia), improvised it – maybe for me to recollect it today when I read Libran Lover’ romantic melancholy. The poster is not there anymore, and the magnets fell-off, but it seems there’s a pebble mark through the jungle for us to find the way back home.

The heart, I’ve discovered, is a funny little thing. Everytime you lose a piece of it, it only gets that much heavier!