The Wages of Photoshop

Biz stuff - I've just posted some new Talbert Briars, one Talbert Morta, and there are still (just!) two Ligne Bretagnes available, though I just sold one while working on this blog entry!

The folks on my mailing list have already heard this, but I've recently got Photoshop - a substantial graphics-handling upgrade from my 1997 edition of Paintshop Pro for Windows 95, with which I've done all my website graphics lo these many years.

To say that I'm stunned by the difference is putting it mildly.

Within one day of creating "actions" (Pre-programmed strings of recorded graphics commands and adjustments, such as "Enhance brightness 39%, Contrast 35%, resize to 1000 pixels width, Sharpen"), I've managed to save myself untold hours of slogging through the same menus over and over again every time I have a photo to assemble for the catalog. It's like heaven. For the past few years, doing any sort of website updating had become such a grinding slog that I'd really grown to hate it, but between Photoshop and Kompozer, it has once again become fun. I can't imagine what it might be like to use a "real" professional website editor like Dreamweaver, considering how enthralled I am with simple little freeware Kompozer after ten years of doing all my website updates with a text editor.

In coming months, I intend to completely overhaul the website. It isn't going to be redesigned, but it's going to get a lot of subtle graphics enhancements, better-looking catalog page photos, and some rearranging. If anyone has complaints, issues, or suggestions, please put them forward now! Especially due for some updating is the long-neglected Resources section. Even the main title page is getting tweaked - the logo photo above looked like the photo below only a few hours ago...

It's Superman

Biz Stuff - Five new Ligne Bretagnes have been added to the catalog page. The website overhaul continues apace, with the opening page for Ligne Bretagne getting a clean-up and simplification. Over coming months, I'd like to give the entire site a going-over like this - dropping pointless bits here, nipping there, and generally freshening everything. As with the redesign of the catalogs, the goal is to make the site easier and faster for me to update while enhancing the Google-like simplicity of the layout. The catalyst for all this fiddling has been my discovery and use of Nvu and Kompozer, programs which have transformed website work from tedious HTML typing into happy play.

Today's pic is a change of pace, a shot taken of us working by a photographer for a Breton magazine on village life. This is pretty much my working day captured in a snapshot, with the sole exception being that we'd normally both have wireless headphones on, tuned to our audiobooks of the moment.

And speaking of audiobooks, I'm currently listening my way through "It's Superman", by Tom De Haven. Why does this merit mention in a pipe blog? The book is quite good, for one - Far better than I was braced for, as I am not normally a Superman fan (As a wee lad, I much preferred Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, or better yet Werewolf by Night). I was expecting Smallville, and instead got the Superman version of Batman Begins. It also contains a fair bit of smoking references... and they aren't all negative. It's set in a very grimy and impoverished 1938 on the brink of the war. Lois smokes. Clark smokes. There is no preaching about the evils of smoking - yes, it's 1938, but over the past few years I've become accustomed to such insidious bits of political correctness as altering old films, subtly inserting "anti" messages into supposedly period fiction, etc. Even more amusingly, the book's one major anti-smoker is........

Lex Luthor.

Yes, Lex is not only about murdering his way through competing gangsters and underworld bosses, wiling his way into government, building a criminal empire, and generally being nasty - He's also vehemently anti-smoking, and reviles the demon weed while planning to forcefully stamp out its use. I must say, it's quite refreshing to see a Superman book coming down on the side of personal freedom and showing the anti-tobacco mentality for what it is, namely, the desire to control what other people can do based on prejudice.

Up, up, and away!

Still Alive, mostly

Gah! No posts since the 18th of last month! I haven't died, but I have been incredibly busy working on new pipes and pouring time into the ongoing project of rejuvenating our long-dormant website catalogs. I've just finished posting some new pipes yet again, including the first Ligne Bretagnes to hit the catalog for direct sale in a very long time indeed (I think it's ten months?). Full info can be found on our website's News page, but here is a bonus shot of the whole pile of pipes together. It's comparison pictures like this that really show how monstrously fat that tankard is!

I'll be posting new articles as soon as possible. I have plenty to write about, I just need to grow a few more hours in each day....