It may not strike non-photography-geeks out there as anything special, but today (thanks to some prodding by Greg) I took my first High Dynamic Range picture with Photoshop CS2.

What you should be oohing and aahing over (or ignoring, take your pick ) is the fact that while the sky is still quite light, and you can see detail in the shadow of the stairs, you can also see detail in the highlights around the light over the door. In a normal picture, either the sky and shadows would be lost in black, or the light would be a vast wash of white.

The impressive thing is that Photoshop CS2 now has a function that takes a series of pictures taken a different exposures (and in RAW format, no less), and does all the hard work for you.

Made my day!

UPDATE: the fastest exposure was 1/30th of a second, while the slowest was a full 30 seconds long, in case you were wondering…

One of the many plusses to being boyfriend to the Princess:

Professionaly made Lemon Meringue Pie.

PS: I did make Porcini Risotto last night.

Normally, I drink stuff with sweeteners in it. Margaritas, Cosmos, White Russians… Lately I’ve strayed into drier territory with drinks like the Green Apple Martini, but it still tasted more like dessert than like diner.

Well, I had an epiphany last night at Asia de Cuba (nice site, by the way, except for the use of PDF files for the menus).

I started out with a margarita, I figured the lime juice would do well with the calamari salad and the BBQ salmon, but it came back waaay too sweet. That’s the issue with the sweet drinks, especially here in the US, the bar tenders go overboard with the sugar, even when they’re not trying to scam you on the alcoholic content.

So a quick scan of the drinks list revealed that the best dry drink on the list was the classic martini.

Ah, the revelation.

People drink martinis because:

1. No sugar means only calories from the alcohol

2. No non-alcoholic ingredients or ice means bartenders can’t cheat you out of your hard-earned buzz

3. Awful taste means that your girlfriend won’t steal half your drinks mini-sip by mini-sip

4. 200-proof contents mean that one glass can be nursed thru the nite

Tastes like concentrated Sake, really, and the olives are a nice touch. They taste so natural, and yet so close to the drink itself, that they make it all believable.

“Yes, I am drinking this for pleasure, for the taste, not as a more civilized alternative to mainlining rubbing alcohol.“

Drew and I spent President’s Day in NYC. It was guys’ day out… with fresh OJ to keep our immune systems up against the incisive cold.

We cruised the MoMA and grabbed some ramen in a little hole in the wall between 2nd and 3rd. We talked about our families, our lives, the human condition and the mysteries of J-pop.

It was a good visit, and I’m glad he came. Ivonne and he really hit it off, we cooked up a storm Sunday night, and we had a lot of catching up to do.

We’re already making plans for the next visit.

Brother Greg is back in business over at http://leserpent.blogspot.com/!

It’s now become a repository for his Bangkok pictures, the ones from his new camera, and you still can’t comment, but you should drop in, once in a while, the pictures are better than good. He has an eye, he really does.

(07:55:0 Grégoire: kids in thailand will pile up when presented with a camera. it’s very convenient!
(07:55:39) Grégoire: especially when they can’t see the picture once it’s all done