It’s really been a while since I last spent time on actually learning how to use Photoshop. While fighting off the damned allergy and sinus issues, I managed to finished the entire book of 旅人的攝影, written by a Korean photographer whose ambicious in travelling around the world just like me. A lot of his tips are stuff that I already knew but it was good to have a reassurnace on my existing knowledge on certain things. He mentioned that when you want to take the best, competition-ready photographs, you need to travel alone, which I definitely agree. Also learned a lot about packing camera gears for a trip, framing, flash…etc. I started on another book called Photoshop 神迷目眩のPS寫真編修技, written by a Hong Kong photographer. It’s got tons of tutorials on how to edit/improve photos of girls, mainly beautify faces and add special efffects. I found one of the tutorials super useful and cool:

• You can paint your own eyeshadows with the “Overlay” color blend mode. Later I found online that the “Soft Light” and “Color” color blend mode also works magic.
• The eyeshadow should cover most of the top part of the eye, not touching the eyebrow, and extends a little over towards the tip of the eye (away from center).
• Paint eyeliner with the “Burn” tool - just do it around the top and bottom of the eye.
• Get eyelashes brushes at http://www.obsidiandawn.com/eyelashes-photoshop-gimp-brushes

I’ve also learned about “Adjustment Layers”, something seems to be super important and popular in PS although I’ve never worked with them before, what a shame. Basically it allows you to apply the common adjustment in a non-destructive way, as a layer (it even has its own layer mask!). One of the other cool thing is the “Fill Layer”, which is basically a layer that you can fill with a solid color, and what’s cool about it is that you can choose the color blend mode of “Color” and select a color say orange, and it’ll become a “warming” filter for the image.

Photoshop is so cool, I’m going to have to download CS5 soon and try out this “Context Aware” feature, which is suppose to be able to remove unwanted object with a click of a button.

On another note, I’ve finally named my inner ceo and submitted my requests! 16 pages of requests, hopefully they will get approved and worked on!

Today is the 2nd day after getting back home, having serious hay fever since I disembarked at the Beijing Airport. It was terrible that the symptoms broke out so quickly at the airport and I was sneezing and my nose was watering crazily, and it was an hour before my next 10-hour flight to Vancouver - someone on the plane is going to be really pissed off. Needless to say, I had a terrible 10-hour flight (luckily I stole loads of toilet paper from the washroom before boarding), couldn’t sleep at all. The girl next to me was probably scared seeing the toilet paper that I kept in my hands and at one point, I had to plug both of my nostrils with the paper to stop my nose from dripping. Still feeling bad right now, sneezing like crazy. Oh well.

The trip was very satisfying. I got to go to Tung Ping Chau (remote island off Hong Kong) with mom to see some really exotic landscape (mainly rocks along the shore). $260 HKD includes accomodation, 3 meals, and roundtrip ferry! Went to the Hong Kong Wetland Park to check out some birds and some gardens. Got to go to the renovated Ocean Park with Wendy to see one of the world’s biggest water tanks in the aquarium. But the highlight had to be the 6-day trip to JiangJiaJie in China - it was so packed with activities that I actually felt overwhelmed. I broke my lens again first day of the trip, lol. The front element came off again, but luckily I was able to borrow some tape from a Chinese restaurant and got it fixed temporarily. I broke the UV filter the last day of the trip though, my back pack fell off the bed to the floor, and the glass broke! That’s another $20..

I had quite a few “first times” during the past 3 weeks..First time

• Seeing a dead motorcyclist along the road (I was in a tour bus) and his wife was facing down crying, realizing from deep within my heart how fragile lives can be. Hope his wife will be okay.
• Seeing in person one of the best panorama views in China - floating gardens at the YuanJiaJie Scenic Area, where they took the scenery and used in Avatar.
• Witnessing the worst Earthquake/Tsunami in Japan. I was having lunch with Vincent in Hong Kong when I saw the news that showed how the 20m tall tsunami consumed the lands in Sendai/Japan. I had a true sense of terror, further confirming that the world is indeed going to end.
• Truly worried about Wendy’s safety (in terms of her getting injured) as the day she landed in Tokyo was the day the earthquake struck. Thank god she wasn’t in Sendai! I wish I was there.
• Realizing that eating Gwei Ling Go (Tortoise Jelly) can cure the peeling skin around my nose! I took 10+ of them when I was in Hong Kong my nose had never looked so good! I got to look for getting them here in Van.
• Getting ripped by a drug store in China. Paid 1800RMB for 3 boxes of drugs recommended by this guy that knows Qi Gong. He said that my liver is weak and has toxins and the Qi Gong that he applied to me (really felt it!) plus the drug will cure me in a month. Actually I don’t know if the drugs is going to work, will see.

Getting back to work tomorrow…argh.

Haven’t been posting for 2 weeks. When I first started the blog I wanted to do a post everyday. Did I get lazy? Or am I just too busy. That’s not an excuse, and I don’t really know why. A couple different reasons I guess. Sometimes I just got too tired at the end of the day (this is an excuse, if I’m tired I could just do a quick post with 2 lines, that still counts.) Sometimes I’m too busy with work (an excuse again. I shouldn’t be working long hours anyway, I need to be able to stop working at the right time.) Sometimes I didn’t want to start a post simply because the content that I wanted to post isn’t quite ready - photos not downloaded from the camera to the computer…etc. (an excuse I guess. I should just download the pictures as soon as they are taken or they will just pile up.) I need to make up my mind to post everyday, or at least every two days…

On valentine’s Day Wendy and I cooked dinner at home. Appetizer was a taco chips with guacamole and shrimp cooked with butter. Soup was a butternut squash soup which was very easy to make and tasty. I failed at the main course though. Wanted to do a pan fried salmon with hash brown coating but I left the grated potato out for too long and they turned black! It looked terrible and gross, although it tasted alright. Apparently you’re supposed to either grate the potato at the last minute right before frying, or half-boil them before grating and they won’t turn black. Wendy made apple strudel, it turned out to look and taste really professional! It took me an entire week to finish it. I got a Kipling keychain, coin holder, flowers with magnets for the fridge, and a glittering heart. I made a kissing doll for Wendy, it has a crank and when you turn it the two characters would kiss each other, it’s really cool IMO, and took me forever to make it.

I was able to successfully launch my super mission-critical project on the 17th last month. I had worked on it for more than half a year, being able to release it to Production without major issue was really an accomplishment and I’m really proud of myself. It was a really fun project, although extremely stressful and demanding. Oh well, it’s over.

And then on the 26th I attended Peter and Melissa’s wedding. It was very tiring, but I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot. Learned a lot about getting married in a Church, heard some meaningful speeches from the “Father”, knew a couple new friends, and heard the most touching speeches at the banquet from the groomsmen and bridesmaid. The door game was fun, the boys were asked to dance, and stick their feet into ice cold water to pick up certain objects. It was a really awesome and unforgettable day for sure.