Red-eye effect in photography

White cat with red-eye effect

A white domestic cat’s photo with red-eye effect (not the natural color of its eyes), wallpaper size: 1280 x 960

This is a picture of a beautiful white cat lazing on a pair of blue jeans carelessly thrown on the floor carpet. Those who have observed the habits of domestic cat know that they may choose the cleanest and the softest of the cloths, bed spreads, etc. to take rest or to sleep on. So, this cat had two choices, one is to laze on the carpet, and it needed the denim, and it just pulled it down. So, the clothing is not carelessly thrown there.

The other choice the cat did not have is the opportunity to avoid being photographed. And the chance it did not give the photographer is to photograph it without the much malice-stricken “red-eye effect”. So, the cat’s eyes are just normal, but in the photograph, it has red eyes.

The red-eye effect is a very common occurrence in photography, especially when compact cameras are used. It also happens when the photographic flash is very close to the lens in the case of better or larger cameras.

Red-eye effect occurs when the flash falls too fast for the pupil of the eyes to close and the blinding flash passes through the pupil and reflects back from the fundus of the eye that includes the optic disc, retina, and posterior pole. The camera records the reflected light that carries the red color of the blood in the choroid behind the retina. The eye also has several photo-sensitive pigments that absorb the lower wavelength components of light such as violet, indigo, blue, etc. and reflects higher wavelength components such as orange and red. This also contributes to the red-eye effect in photography.

However, red-eye effect in photos can be rectified using photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Apple iPhoto, Corel Photo-Paint, GIMP, Google Picasa, and Paint.NET, etc.

Steve Jobs unveils Apple iPad 2

Watch this video to know what is in store for those who are eagerly waiting for the release of Apple iPad 2.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, though on medical leave since January 2011, presented the improved version of iPad and said, “We have been working on this product for a while and I just didn’t want to miss today.”

So, Jobs showed off the second generation of the iPad tablet computer on March 2, at an event in San Francisco. The new iPad which is scheduled for shipping on March 11 comes with two models in terms of color: the white iPad2, and the black iPad 2. Jobs said that Apple will be shipping out the white model on day one of starting shipping of the product.

Also, Jobs said the new version of iPad is 33% thinner than its predecessor, thinner than iPhone 4, and it weighs less than iPad 1. He said iPad 2 is also much faster as it is equipped with what he called the A5 processor, a new chip with a dual core processor. The machine is twice as faster on CPU performance and 9 times faster on graphics performance, Jobs said.

Also iPad 2 comes with two cameras to make video conferencing more convenient: a built-in rear camera and a front-facing camera. The other features included can be a video editing package iMovie and a music making program.

The all new design iPad 2 will be priced at the same old price of iPad 1, starting at $499 (£305). The gadget will have 10 hours battery life, and over one month standby, Steve Jobs said.

What Steve Jobs calls ‘the dramatically improved product’ will go on sale in the U.S. on 11 March, and later on 25 March it will be available in 26 other countries including the UK.

According to industry analysts, Apple iPads accounted for 95% of tablet computer sales until September 2010, but the sales declined to 75% by the end of 2010. The fall in sales is due to new tablet devices that are based on Android operating system, Google’s open-source product.

Microsoft Windows 7 and HP’s WebOS are the other platforms that are competing with Apple iPads. According to reports, a lot more products are expected to give tough competition to Apple’s tablet PC throughout 2011, as over 80 new devices have already appeared in the market.

Funny experience while using Microsoft Word as an editor

It was with interest that I read some time ago from a blog post that posting directly from Microsoft Word to a blog or Facebook can have unpredictable and undesired funny results.

As many people may be using Microsoft Word for writing articles or editing, probably because the app helps in checking spelling and grammar and also to count the number of words in an article without manual counting, there is a tendency to post the edited articles directly into blogs. In such cases, especially in the visual mode, there is a possibility the article will carry with it the formatting code used by the program along with it and will not be visible.

I did not take it seriously, as I always use the HTML mode and I can always see the coding/ HTML that goes into the blog post. But the writer of the article claimed that even in HTML mode, there will be some codes associated with formatting in Microsoft Word, and carried to the posts and reappearing when re-posting, exporting/ importing, or re-tweeting.

I have noticed it happening while posting to the good old MS FrontPage that I used to use for HTML editing. And today a funny thing happened while I was sharing an interesting article I found on a friend’s blog on poverty in New York City to Facebook. After that I just posted an excerpt that I edited in Microsoft Word as my review to my Facebook post.

The words I posted were only:

Approximately 1.4 million New Yorkers rely on soup kitchens and food pantries. Please don’t make them beg

And what went into the Facebook box was a huge chunk of 17,330 characters/ 1272 words, instead of only 105 characters/ 17 words. See the entire code to format 17 words in the text box below (scroll it down, it is quite huge):

Advice: If you are using Microsoft Word as an editor, before posting to blogs, or other locations, first cut and paste to a plain editor like a Notepad and from there cut and paste to wherever you want so that the embarrassing hidden code like the above will disappear.

WP announces WordPress 3.1 Release

As a Christmas present for those who love WordPress, the first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 3.1has been announced on December 25, 2010. It comes after the Beta stage and before final release.

Though WP 3.1 does not have any known issues or bugs to be fixed, it is possible that WP developers might have missed something, especially as regards plugins and other software running based on the core WP software, the release announcement says.

It is available for free download, but WordPress advices to download and test it, and ‘not on your live site unless you’re extra adventurous’. To test WordPress 3.1, you may want to try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin.

You can find the original WP 3.1 release announcement and download WordPress 3.1 RC 1 HERE.