Whilst going through my RSS reader, I came across this amazing achievement of tech and photography via Photography Blog. An amazing 70 Gigapixel 360° panoramic photograph of Budapest.

The photograph was taken from a 100-year-old observation tower built on the highest point of Budapest, the stitched panorama is over 590,000 pixels wide by nearly 121,000 pixels tall. The young Hungarian photographers used two Sony A900 bodies – each outfitted with a Minolta AF 400mm f/4.5 APO G lens and 1.4x teleconverter – on a sturdy tripod complete with a custom-designed robotic head. The image capturing stage of the project took over three hours to finish. The source images were then stitched with Autopano Giga software  and this process took two full days and resulted in a 200GB file!!

Click the image below to see the panorama on their website ( you will need microsoft Silverlight installed)

Related Posts:

• June 14, 2010 -- 25 Amazing Photos of World Skylines (3)
• November 30, 2009 -- Turn A Boring Photo Into An Emotive Portrait – Photoshop Tutorial – with video (10)
• November 8, 2009 -- 20 Wonderful Photos of London Attractions (11)
• November 3, 2009 -- Amazing Panorama’s – Will Pearson (0)
• July 5, 2009 -- 5 Amazing Photo Manipulations & Digital Art (deviantArt) (4)
• June 8, 2009 -- Going to Print Tip – Photography (2)

Quote Robot is an app that I came across recently that seemingly streamlined the tedious task of writing proposals for lots of freelance designer’s out there. Intrigued, I signed up and have been giving the free trial a run for its uhh… money.

Essentially Quote Robot exists to:

Well, we’ve always found writing proposals to be a chore.  I (Shawn) spent a lot of time creating a good proposal template in Illustrator, and it really worked, so I gave it away on my blog. I had no idea it would become the most popular article on my blog. I talked to Jon about writing an app to create the proposals, using my template, and we both thought it would help us out, so we did it. The longest part of quoting for me were always, a) coming up with the numbers (what to charge), and b) building the proposal in Illustrator. We decided to focus on trimming the time to accomplish those things. !

I have decided to split this into four sections: Interface, Making A Proposal, Output and Pricing

The interface
Quote Robot is a very cool, slick web application and it follows all the design trends one would expect from a web 2.0 application. More than just superficially looking the part, things are easy to find and the usability of the site as a whole is intuitive and for the most part simple stupid. These are good things, considering the application’s entire purpose is to streamline and decrease the time writing proposal’s takes. The application guides you through making the proposal fairly quickly and efficiently. There are a few superfluous drag and drop features which don’t seem to really make anything faster, but hey they look nice right.

Making A Proposal
The options it presents are the core of any proposal: client / company information, the scope, budgeting and timescale and quote summary. Each field gets to the core of the information that needs to be handed to a client. Their claim of it being a quick and easy process is definitely true, minimising clicking into new text boxes, formatting titles and all the tiny little tasks that eat up time in InDesign / Illustrator are done away with. I was done filling out the various bits of information for the proposal in less than 10mins.

Output
The template generated is a neat and tidy PDF that looks clean and modern. You can upload your own logo, so it is completely white labelled and looks like a PDF you have made the long and hard way in another desktop program. You can download the PDF so that you can attach it to an email or alternatively send it straight away to the client from the application itself.

Pricing
The easiest way to review the pricing is $24 a month and this gets you ‘unlimited’ everything that Quote Robot offers. Simply analysed, the SMALLEST job of lets say one billable hour – is more than the $24 charge. If you use the application to send one proposal a month, your fee is covered and the time you save can be used to do other projects or just sit back and have a coffee.

At Acuity, it’s something we will definitely be making use of!

Related Posts:

• July 25, 2010 -- Maintaining Business Standards As A Freelancer (2)
• February 21, 2010 -- Don’t be another washed up freelancer – The Freelance Lifecycle (1)
• February 3, 2010 -- How do your organise yourself as a freelance designer? – Part 2 (2)
• December 29, 2009 -- Freelancing From Home and Staying Productive (14)
• December 7, 2009 -- What Should You Include In A Design Project Proposal? (5)
• December 2, 2009 -- Does a successful freelancer have to be a good sales person? (6)

The other day we blogged about the amazing things we liked about Adobe Photoshop CS5. Today it’s Illustrator CS5′s turn. As keen illustrator users ourselves, any new features is a party in our minds!

The Perspective tool is genius! Getting angles of perspective right has always been a somewhat tedious task with endless reference drawings needed etc. Now Illlustrator pulls up a great interactive grid for use. Go Adobe!

The Bristle Brush is a great addition and another step towards removing illustrator and photoshop from intermediary steps in work flows. No more switching the file into photoshop and spending hours creating a huge painted version of a file to import into illustrator as you can now get similar effects in vector format from within Illustrator itself. Great stuff.

Enjoy the video! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFXJY0a8NiU)

Related Posts:

• March 3, 2010 -- Interview with Illustrator and Artworker – Liam Barry (1)
• March 2, 2010 -- 20 Free Grunge Like Fonts For Your Creative Projects (4)
• January 26, 2010 -- Aurora Borealis Typopgraphy Wallpaper Photoshop Tutorial (17)
• July 5, 2009 -- 5 Amazing Photo Manipulations & Digital Art (deviantArt) (4)
• May 25, 2009 -- Bus retrospective Illustration Animation (0)
• May 12, 2009 -- 4 Tutorials to Improve Your Drawing (0)

With all the talk about the content-aware features in Adobe Photoshop CS5 – I think the following feature has been somewhat over shadowed but for me its ridiculously intuitive. I love it! I am already imagining the hours of time it is going to save me when retouching photographs.

The tool makes use of various different techniques which have been seen before such as not removing edges – but removing colours to define edges – but has condensed them into a simple to use and effective little tool which has an amazing amount of accuracy and control.

I honestly haven’t been this excited about Photoshop since CS2.

Enjoy the video!

Related Posts:

• July 27, 2010 -- 70 GigaPixel Photo of Budapest (0)
• January 26, 2010 -- Aurora Borealis Typopgraphy Wallpaper Photoshop Tutorial (17)
• December 8, 2009 -- Give Old Photos A Punchy Stylistic Feel – Photoshop Tutorial – with Video (6)
• November 30, 2009 -- Turn A Boring Photo Into An Emotive Portrait – Photoshop Tutorial – with video (10)
• July 5, 2009 -- 5 Amazing Photo Manipulations & Digital Art (deviantArt) (4)
• June 8, 2009 -- Going to Print Tip – Photography (2)

A while back, I made a post showing a free utility available for mac that was very comprehensive in calibrating a LCD screen. You can view that here. However, it was only available for Mac, QuickGamma is the nearest substitute for the estranged Windows users. I have not personally had a chance to test this one out because I am a mac fanboy but it looks well constructed and has some decent reviews around the blogosphere. View it here.

Read About QuickGamma.

Download QuickGamma

The relationship between the input signal and the luminance of a monitor is not linear but exponential with gamma being the exponent. Monitor gamma values usually range between 1.4 and 3.2. Because only a gamma value of 1 resembles a linear relationship, a gamma correction is necessary to achieve maximum reproduction quality. A monitor gamma value of 2.2 has become the de facto standard for Windows, the Internet and the digital photography. Under Windows a gamma correction is already automatically applied. This yields a linear luminance distribution for monitors with a real gamma of 2.2. Because most computer monitors do not have a real gamma of 2.2 an additional correction is required. With QuickGamma you can calibrate your monitor to a gamma value of 2.2 which in conjunction with the automatic gamma correction yields a linear luminance distribution for every monitor. More information and detailed instructions on how to use QuickGamma are available by pushing the Help button in QuickGamma.

Related Posts:

• September 15, 2008 -- Great Custom Adobe CS3 Icon Packs (4)
• January 6, 2010 -- A Monitor for Every Budget – What Monitor for Photography and Design? (5)
• July 5, 2009 -- What is the best 22″ 24″ 28″ 30″ graphic design photography monitor (13)
• July 27, 2010 -- 70 GigaPixel Photo of Budapest (0)
• June 7, 2010 -- Essential Resources For The Starting Freelance Designer (2)
• December 7, 2009 -- What Should You Include In A Design Project Proposal? (5)

Whilst on twitter, I came across this nice little tool to help grade your blog via a tweet by Rutiso It then provides an analysis of your blog and outputs a score out of 100. It functions/looks vry similar to hubspot’s ever popular Website Grader.

Related Posts:

• October 23, 2008 -- Check Your Google Position for a Keyword/Keyword Phrase Tool (7)
• December 7, 2009 -- 5 Articles To Understanding Your Websites Bounce Rate (11)
• June 8, 2009 -- Is Alexa Traffic Rank Important – 4 resources to help you find out (6)
• April 12, 2009 -- How to translate a website – considerations (2)
• September 2, 2008 -- 10 Great Free SEO Tools and Resources (19)

Whilst searching the web for a comprehensive resource to help me to decide what monitor to buy, I came across this great thread on the AnandTech Forums:

Best Monitor for Purpose

The thread is segmented into different purposes you may require monitors for. Here is the section related to Design:

PRINT-TARGET MEDIA PROCESSING (print proofing/Adobe RGB photo editing, Publisher/PageMaker)

o High contrast at medium brightness
o Accurate color/gamma curve
o Good text reproduction
o Wide gamut (92% W-CCFL or >100% LED) preferred for CMYK/print matching

1. 25.5″: NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi-BK, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: soft anti-glare H-IPS w/ A-TW-Pol, 92% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-I, DVI-D (HDCP), VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 40.33 ms, avg (In House)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

2. 30″: NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi-BK, 2560×1600 (16:10)
o Panel: hard anti-glare H-IPS, 85% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D DL (HDCP), DVI-I
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 40.5 ms, avg (prad)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

3. 30″: Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP, 2560×1600 (16:10)
o Panel: hard anti-glare S-IPS, 117% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D DL (HDCP), VGA, Component, S-Video, Composite, 4-Port USB Hub, 9-in-2 Media Card Reader
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1
o Input Lag: 33 ms, avg (Estimate) (inferred from prad, BeHardware, and HotHardware’s findings)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, VESA Mount

4. 30″: Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC, 2560×1600 (16:10)
o Panel: hard anti-glare S-IPS, 92% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D DL (HDCP), 2-Port USB Hub, 4-in-1 Media Card Reader, CF Slot
o Scaling: None
o Input Lag: 28 ms, avg (Source)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, VESA Mount

5. 24″: HP LP2475w, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: soft anti-glare H-IPS, 102% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DisplayPort (HDCP), HDMI, DVI-I, Component, S-Video, Composite, 6-Port USB Hub
o Input Lag: 33 ms, avg (prad)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1

6. 25.5″: Planar PX2611W, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: anti-glare H-IPS, 92% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D (HDCP), VGA, 4-Port USB Hub
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (ToastyX)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, VESA Mount
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1

7. 25.5″: DoubleSight DS-265W, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: anti-glare H-IPS, 92% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D (HDCP), VGA, Component
o Scaling: Full
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

8. 27″: Dell UltraSharp 2709W, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: anti-glare S-PVA, 110% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DisplayPort, HDMI, 2 x DVI-D DL (HDCP), VGA, Component, Composite, 4-Port USB Hub, 9-in-2 Media Card Reader
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1
o Input Lag: 47 ms, avg (prad)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, VESA Mount

9. 30″: Samsung SyncMaster 305T, 2560×1600 (16:10)
o Panel: hard anti-glare S-PVA, 92% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D DL, 4-Port USB Hub
o Scaling: [Unknown]
o Input Lag: 29.3 ms, avg (DigitalVersus)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, VESA Mount

10. 24″: Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: anti-glare S-PVA, 102% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D (HDCP), VGA, Component, S-Video, Composite, 4-Port USB Hub, 9-in-2 Media Card Reader
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1
o Input Lag: 33 ms, avg (gorobei)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

PHOTO EDITING/WEB DESIGN (classic sRGB/web-target photo editing, or web design)

o High contrast at medium brightness
o Accurate color/gamma curve
o sRGB (72% NTSC) gamut for better screen matching

1. 24.1″: NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi-BK, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: soft anti-glare H-IPS w/ A-TW-Pol, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-I, DVI-D (HDCP), VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 33 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

2. 21.3″: NEC MultiSync LCD2190UXi-BK, 1600×1200 (4:3)
o Panel: anti-glare S-IPS, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D, DVI-I, VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

3. 20.1″: NEC MultiSync LCD2090UXi-BK, 1600×1200 (4:3)
o Panel: anti-glare S-IPS, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D, DVI-I, VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

4. 21.3″: NEC MultiSync LCD2190UXp-BK, 1600×1200 (4:3)
o Panel: anti-glare S-PVA, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D, DVI-I, VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1, Custom
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount

5. 19″: NEC MultiSync LCD1990FXp-BK, 1280×1024 (5:4)
o Panel: anti-glare S-PVA, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D, VGA
o Scaling: [Unknown]
o Input Lag: 16 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount
o Notes: S-PVA panel. Not supported by SpectraView II, and not quite as high caliber as other NEC 90s series monitors, but still a good photo editing candidate. Not the best monitor for fast motion, but perhaps adequate. Info about the similar LCD1990SX is unavailable.

6. 22″: Dell UltraSharp 2209WA, 1680×1050 (16:10)
o Panel: hard anti-glare e-IPS, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: DVI-D (HDCP), VGA, 4-Port USB Hub
o Scaling: Full, Aspect
o Input Lag: 20.6 ms, avg (8 – 20.6 – 30)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Tilt, Swivel, Pivot, VESA Mount

7. 20.1″: HP LP2065, 1600×1200 (4:3)
o Panel: hard anti-glare S-IPS/AMVA, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: 2 x DVI-I, 4-Port USB Hub
o Scaling: [Unknown]
o Input Lag: 33 ms, avg (Estimate)
o Ergonomics: Height Adjustment, Swivel, Tilt, Pivot, VESA Mount
o Info: official specs | prad
o Notes: Panel lottery between S-IPS/AMVA panels. Both panels have their good merits. Aggressive anti-glare coating might be annoying to some.

Use these panels for non-critical work only. If you work for a professional design company, use the ones above this line.

8. 24″: BenQ G2400WD, 1920×1200 (16:10)
o Panel: anti-glare TN, 72% NTSC, 16.7M colors
o Inputs: HDMI, DVI-D (HDCP), VGA
o Scaling: Full, Aspect, 1:1
o Input Lag: 1.9 ms, avg (Inferred from G2400W)
o Ergonomics: Tilt, VESA Mount
o Info: official specs | prad
o Notes: Better quality than Samsung 245BW, cheaper. Less scaling lag than 2493HM and better out-of-the-box colors. 1:1 support. You can use the G2400WD as an alternative to other pricey models for photo editing, but it does have problems with viewing angle stability due to the TN panel and you’ll want to be aware of this. Don’t use it for mission-critical work.

Full credit to those over at the AnandTech Forums who created this list.

Related Posts:

• January 6, 2010 -- A Monitor for Every Budget – What Monitor for Photography and Design? (5)
• November 13, 2009 -- QuickGamma – Calibrate Your Monitor Free (0)
• April 23, 2009 -- How to Calibrate Your Screen/Monitor for free (6)
• July 27, 2010 -- 70 GigaPixel Photo of Budapest (0)
• June 14, 2010 -- 25 Amazing Photos of World Skylines (3)
• November 30, 2009 -- Turn A Boring Photo Into An Emotive Portrait – Photoshop Tutorial – with video (10)

During my web travels I found this great article to help keep your Mac firing on all cylinders at the speeds we all need and love:

http://lifehacker.com/5252183/clean-up-and-revive-your-bloated-sluggish-mac

Related Posts:

• July 22, 2010 -- Quote Robot – A Nifty Little App! (0)
• April 14, 2009 -- Speed Up Adobe Illustrator Performance (3)
• October 27, 2008 -- How to hide desktop items on a Mac – Use Camouflage! (2)

Many just pick up and go when entering the freelancing world, but to ensure things go smoothly for everybody involved, there are a few considerations. Setting up a small studio, office or dedicated work area within your household; keeping the font police off your heels, invoicing and paying correct taxes etc are vital. Being a freelancer is more than just being an artist, it requires an accomplished business knowledge to become successful. Many things that we overlooked are listed below, to help you in case you have aswell, or a re just beginning:

1) Do everything legal

- straight away!
Register your business with your local tax office. More than often, you are likely to need to register yourself as self-employed or a s a sole trader and will have to pay taxes on your profits if your earning above a certain threshold. Sort this out quickly!

2) Employ an accountant

We were lucky enough to have a family friend who is an accountant; who we grabbed early on at a discounted fee, but either way we recommend getting one. Best practice is to ask around for recommendations. Find one who has some knowledge of the industry; they can advise on the beauty of tax-deductable items, VAT etc

3) Invoicing

Invoice for all your work as soon as it is completed. Make sure your invoice includes all of the details of the work carried out and to whom you would like the payment made to. If you want to invoice manually, check out: Invoice and Receipt Template. There are many online invoicing services that are available which help with timely invoicing. You can view a comprehensive list here:

http://www.freelanceswitch.com/money/7-online-invoicing-apps-for-freelancers/

4) Software

Adobe Creative suite is the industry standard for just about everything. (almost). This suite and other programs that you need, come at a hefty price. However, using illegal copies is not advised and may come back to haunt you. Furthermore, you should only use fonts that you own or available under free licensing.

5) Work Environment

A good work environment is essential, it will help you stay organised as well. Are you the type of person who is okay to work in the solitary confines of their home, or do you need a little human interaction to keep you sane? For the latter, renting in a shared studio might be the answer. Scan local newspapers and classifieds for studio space. Sharing means paying less!

6) Equipment

I am a advocate of any reason that results in justifying more electronics but some equipment is vital to improving your work flow and efficiency. Have a look at:

Equipment for a graphic Designer – Graphic Design Blog

I also would add to the mix:

• Phone -landlines or mobile numbers whatever you feel comfortable with. If you work from home and are weary against using your home number, Skype can rescue you.It is roughly £3/Month for an Unlimited Country Account and if you choose to pay £8 every three months, you can get an online number landline number. Which basically means you get a UK landline phone number that when dialed will ring your skype account.
• E-mail – this should go without saying, but you should have a contactable e-mail account; preferably ending in your own domain name.
• CD Burner – this is essentially for archiving your work for legal purposes. We two times a month, burn everything we have created to disk and then post it to ourselves via recorded delivery. A quick way to copyright works etc. Have a look at: 5 ways to copyright your art work
• Good lighting
• A comfortable chair!

7) Insurance

Get insured. Get your studio insured. Get your portfolio insured. Insure yourself against injury. Studio insurance covers you if a visitor falls and breaks a leg! and having your portfolio insured means if it goes walking, you get some financial remuneration.

Related Posts:

• July 25, 2010 -- Maintaining Business Standards As A Freelancer (2)
• May 11, 2010 -- How to Avoid Over Working Yourself As A Freelancer (4)
• May 9, 2010 -- Designers – Maximising The Value Of Your Work (4)
• January 30, 2010 -- 5 Free Non-Disclosure Agreements (4)
• December 31, 2009 -- Factors To Consider When Pricing A Project – Part 2 (4)
• December 29, 2009 -- Freelancing From Home and Staying Productive (14)

Whilst surfing the web after buying my new Samsung T220 monitor, I was looking for a way to calibrate, as out of the box it was glaringly bright – great for movies etc – poor for design work. What I ran into was Supercal. Is a great tool, and after running a few test priints after calibration process which took me roughly 20minutes, the gap between what I saw on screen and my photographs printed on my Canon ix4000 had decreased monumentally. Highly reccommended!

Visit Site: Here
Direct Download (mac): Here

SuperCal™ is a visual display calibrator capable of measuring and correcting most conventional displays, including LCDs, CRTs and projectors. SuperCal doesn’t require any hardware measurement devices – only your eyeballs – yet it can be much more accurate, based on how well you pay attention to what you’re doing .

SuperCal lets you accurately measure the response of any display and build a profile with a corrected gamma table that improves the appearance of your display under Mac OS 9 or X. When your display is properly calibrated, you’ll notice much smoother tonal gradations and cleaner-looking anti-aliased text.

SuperCal was designed to provide the most accurate calibration possible without the use of a hardware measurement device. Very few users can afford to purchase a hardware calibration device like an X-Rite or Colortron, but all users need a properly calibrated display, whether they are retouching digital images or shopping for clothing on the internet.

Related Posts:

• January 6, 2010 -- A Monitor for Every Budget – What Monitor for Photography and Design? (5)
• July 5, 2009 -- What is the best 22″ 24″ 28″ 30″ graphic design photography monitor (13)
• July 27, 2010 -- 70 GigaPixel Photo of Budapest (0)
• June 14, 2010 -- 25 Amazing Photos of World Skylines (3)
• November 30, 2009 -- Turn A Boring Photo Into An Emotive Portrait – Photoshop Tutorial – with video (10)
• November 13, 2009 -- QuickGamma – Calibrate Your Monitor Free (0)