Ok, so over at the iO Group, one of my colleagues (Anna) is in design school right now, and it turns out has quite a few tricks up her sleave.

On Monday, she called Jay and I over to her desk and said “check this out.” She proceeded to take low quality, blurry photo, and drastically improve the level of detail.

I am blogging “remotely” right now, so I can’t do screen shots and show you what I’m talking about, but I promise it will make sense. I will also try to get back here later to edit this post to include some “pics” so you can see what I’m talking about.

Ok -
So over in your layers area, duplicate your background layer (whatever layer the image is currently on).

Next, go up to ‘Filter’, then to ‘other’, then to ‘high pass’.

With the high pass filter enabled, move the ’slider’ from left to right until you see only the lines of the image showing through.
Click ‘ok’.

Finally, in your layers area, select the new layer, and in the filter options, set it to ‘overlay’.

If done correctly, you will see all of the edges in the photograph improve in detail.

Of course now that I’m sitting here reading through this, it all seems to be wrong. Everything you’ve just read might be totally incorrect - my apologies. I will check later though, and edit this as necessary.
Really, this is more of an exercise in writing for me, than it is an exercise in Photoshop for you.

Stolen Sidekick is an Internet Hit

About three weeks ago a Motorola Sidekick was left in an NYC cab.
I’m sure this happens all the time. I’m sure that sometimes, someone with character makes an effort to return the phone. Most times however, I’m sure that the person who finds it considers it their lucky day, and just keeps it.
Unfortunately for the “Corona Crew”, the phone they stole belonged to someone with a bit of tech savvy. Within hours drama ensued with thousands of hits generated between the story being dug, and being anointed by Slashdot.

So some of us have been following the drama - and finally it comes to a conclusion. The phone has been returned, and the correct people have been punished.
Awesome

Why do people feel that they have the right to other people’s property? This entitlement attitude always baffles me. The idea that if someone left something somewhere, it somehow no longer belongs to them, and it is fair game.
With this logic, shouldn’t burglary be legal as long as the residents aren’t at home and currently handling the property?

What really baffles me with all of this though, is why people have sidekicks in the first place?

I gleaned this from CubicleDeath - quite possibly the BEST blog in the blogosphere.

Ode to Ace

Basically, Ace is a top notch guy. His actions speak volumes, and we’re sorry to see him out of the running.

Ace, Ryan, it was a good run - we’re sorry to see it come to an end, but I’d like to think it is in a way a new beginning. May now be the start of something fantastic for you!

Perhaps for you too Ryan … what with all that free publicity! :)
For those who don’t know, Ace is the brother of a buddy of mine (aquaintance really - I don’t want to appear as though I’m dropping names where I shouldn’t).

We’ve all been pulling for him, and are sad to see his reign on Idol end.

As an aside, I just realized what a frightful place myspace is. While looking for a decent picture of Ace, I wound up reading through half of the crazy fan postings here.

Wow