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Might Be Seen in the Delaware Art Museum

I am not one that highlights my achievements too much, and I am sure it has cost me some views over the years.

Anyhow, to start the story of this adventure off, one has to go back to early December, when I received an email with the subject of “Image of Brandywine”, and the following thumbnail image.

Fall (2011) image taken of the Brandywine River in Hibernia Park in Chester County PA.
Fall (2011) image taken of the Brandywine River in Hibernia Park in Chester County PA.

In the email, Margaretta said she was one of the curators at the Delaware Art Museum, and she was working with a exhibition designer, Keith, who had found my image online, and they were wondering if I would be interested in allowing the museum to use my image in a exhibition called “Eye on Nature“, comparing Andrew Wyeth and John Ruskin from March 10-27, 2018.

Also included with the email was a PDF file of proposed design layouts, and my image was already included, at a 11 feet by 17 feet!

After finishing the email, I had to walk around to catch my breath, and after a few minutes, I showed the email to my wife, and pointed to the address at the bottom.

Could this really be true?

The next day, I called the phone number provided, and the voicemail confirmed the name in the email, but I could only leave a message.

I did follow-up with an email, and the next day Margaretta followed up with a date and time to chat more about the exhibition.

As the day and time we agreed on, drew nearer, I was becoming more nervous, and when I finally made the call, I made sure that I had a large glass of water with me, so that I would not be too parched during the conversation.

Margaretta and I chatted for some time about the details of the exhibition, the exhibition designer and what I was looking for in compensation.

I remember blurting out a number, and I got the sense that I had blown the opportunity, but she responded back “Normally, I do not deal with living artists, but I’ll look into it.”

Internally, I giggled – “Normally, I do not deal with living artists…”

A couple of day pasted, and I had a change to speak with Keith the exhibition designer, and indeed confirmed the output size: 11 x 17 feet!

I told him of my printing background, but I had never dealt with anything of that size, but I knew of a technique that might allow me to get size required.

At this point, I was still not internally sure if I was in a dream or not, but after another phone call with Margaretta, and a couple days a waiting a check arrived from the museum!

My thought, “Hold S***, this is for REAL!!”

Now I had to start working on getting the image ready for Keith the exhibition designer.

At first, I corrected some image issues on the original image file that were cosmetic in nature because of my use of several images (ghosting), and then I began to tweak some of the various tones, basically reducing some of the ‘hot spots’, and eventually, I created the following image.

Image for the Delaware Art Museum - "Eye on Nature" - Andrew Wyeth/John Ruskin exhibition
Image for the Delaware Art Museum – “Eye on Nature” – Andrew Wyeth/John Ruskin exhibition

Now, the fun part… Getting the image to the right size… 11 x 17 feet…

I used the basic technique that I have outlined before (See my post “Fine Art prints done local“, section “Going Big”), but instead of 110%, I used 105%.

I created a Photoshop action, and repeated, and repeated until Photoshop crashed, and corrupted the image.

In troubleshooting the crash, I found out that I had filled my 128 GB SSD drive used for the Photoshop scratch/VM file! (My machine has 32 GBs of physical RAM)

In Photoshop, I re- targeted the scratch/VM file to one of my 4 TB hard drives and began the resizing again.

After numerous resizes, and quick “save-as” files, I finally reached 16.57 x 11.0 feet or 198.887 x 132.733 inches or 19889×13273 pixels (@300 dpi)!

Within the file, I still had a couple of correction layers, but the file size was approximately 19.2 GBs! By FAR the largest single file I have ever worked on, and had to save it a PSB file (See my post “Large Image Files – PSB vs TIFF“)

Note – Large PSB files are STILL not visible within Lightroom Classic CC, version 7.2. — Adobe, are you listening? It’s been 7+ years since I reported/blogged about this!

Any how, I created several different DPI files (and file size(s)):

  • 100 dpi psb – 565.487 MBs
  • 100 dpi tiff – 773.447 MBs
  • 150 dpi psb – 1,277.122 MBs
  • 150 dpi tiff – 1,740.209 MBs
  • 200 dpi psb – 2,455.681 MBs
  • 200 dpi tiff – 3,093.681 MBs
  • 300 dpi psb – 5,212.382 MBs

and placed them on my FTP server for Keith to download.

Note – For those techno-geeks, PSB creates significantly smaller files, when compared to TIFF, but as mentioned above, Lightroom STILL can not produce thumbnails within light room.

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Blogging Chester County Coatesville Photo Journal Rivers Streams Water Weather

A look back – Hibernia Park

It should be not secret at this point, to anyone living on the East Coast of the United States, that if it is not raining, just wait.

I will…

At the moment, Hurricane Joaquin is headed toward the East Coast…

Which means flooding… Somewhere…

It just so happens, that 5 years ago today, Tropical Storm Nicole, had just passed over the Chester County area, drenching the area, over night, with several inches of rain.

Silly me, I grabbed, my camera, and went out…

Out to Hibernia Park in Coatesville walking along the West Branch of the Brandywine Creek.

As you can see, there was a great deal of water, especially when you compare these two images, taken 7 months apart, during a Photography Meetup.

Hibernia Park Oct 10 vs Apr 11 - Two images taken 7 months apart in Hibernia County Park, Coatesville, Chester County PA.
Hibernia Park Oct 10 vs Apr 11 – Two images taken 7 months apart in Hibernia County Park, Coatesville, Chester County PA.

Do you remember Tropical Storm Nicole?

Are you ready for any type of storm?

What tips do you have to get through the next couple of days here in Chester County?

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Chester County Downingtown Nature Photo Journal Photography Rivers Water

Face(s) of Struble Trail

Some images taken along Struble Trail in Downingtown, Chester County PA.

How many faces can you find?

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Adobe Announcements Barn Blogging Bridges Chester County clouds Covered Bridges Creeks Fields HDR Lancaster County Long Exposure Nature Online Life Oxford Pastures Photo Journal Photography Projects Published Rivers Software Streams Sunsets Tone Mapping Water Weather Wildlife

Covered Bridges of the Oxford Area – the Book

I have been playing with the idea of publishing a photography book for some time, and after my experience with producing Madison’s 10th birthday gift, I decided to make a first real attempt.

So what was my first real book going to be about?

Looking back at my recent history, it only makes sense that I do something about covered bridges, and I already had the content from the presentation I did back in October 2012 for Citadel bank.

This time is going to be easier from the standpoint that I only had a limited number of pictures, and a layout with the text.

So after a couple of hours, I was able to put the following together using the simple Adobe Lightroom module, and uploading to Blurb.com.

I invite you to take a look, and let me know what you think.

Covered Bridges of the Oxford Area

With this first book done, and I’m sure that I’ll revisit at some point, I am beginning to put together some ideas on themed books.

This time, using Blurb’s SmartBook application to put together my next adventure, namely because it seems to offer far more options and controls than what is available in the built-in Adobe Lightroom module.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of the book!

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Chester County Creeks Downingtown Events Nature Photo Journal Rivers Water Weather

pre Hurricane Sandy

After spending much of the day, waiting for Hurricane Sandy, I finally got so stir-crazy, that I grabbed my camera and headed put for a quick drive around the neighborhood to see what ‘life’ looked like, and here is what I saw…

You might also be interested in taking a look at last years Hurricane Irene photos.

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