Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Living naturally

There is a lot of talk about eating natural foods. How about "living naturally"? What if we get used to the idea that dust and dirt are just a part of the natural environment. Imagine not having to clean the house. I mean, it is still alright to keep the house neat and tidy so that we can find things and we can fit our amenities into our limited space. However, dust and dirt occur naturally; keeping the house spotlessly clean is just something we impose on ourselves. I am pretty sure that in ancient times people do not mind having a bit of dust in their tent, or mud hut, or straw house. Somewhere along the line, someone invented the broom and from then onward we must have developed an obsession for keeping the house dust-free, and looking as unlived-in and as unoccupied as possible.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Notes to myself: Using Image>Calculations with Gradient mask

It is possible to create a selective positive/negative image using gradient mask. The resultant image is in B&W with parts of it in positive and part of it in negative.

  1. Open an image
  2. Create a new file in another tab: File>New. Set Preset to the name of the previous image file.
  3. In this blank image, choose and paint in the required gradient in black and white monotone.
  4. Go back to the previous image (click on the tab)
  5. Select Image>Calculations.Set Source 1 as the original image, and Source 2 as the gradient image. Set Blending mode to Difference, and Opacity to 100%. The result can be set to New Document or as required.
  6. To make the image save-able, set Image>Mode to Grayscale, and then repeat and set Image>Mode to RGB colour. The image is now save-able in the correct colour space.