Mastering the Rainbow - What is Colour?

Welcome to "Mastering the Rainbow" - a captivating exploration of the enigmatic world of colour. This serialized journey, spanning blog posts here and on my website, YouTube videos, and occasional social media posts, is a progress report of my decade-long quest to unravel the mysteries of colour and its elusive nature.

As a geologist and retired part-time lecturer, I've long been fascinated by the scientific method and its ability to shed light on the intricate workings of our world. However, as I delved deeper into the question "What is colour?", I found myself venturing down a rabbit hole that grew increasingly complex and paradoxical. Contrary to our everyday experience, I've come to realize that colour, as we know it, is not a tangible entity but a highly personal illusion. Colour is not a real thing.

In this series, we'll embark on a historical odyssey, revisiting the groundbreaking discoveries of those who came before us, many of which I unwittingly rediscovered myself – a testament to the cyclical nature of scientific inquiry.

We'll dive into the various representations and models of colour, navigating through the controversies and debates that have shaped our understanding. Brace yourselves, for nothing is more contentious than the application of colour wheels. Fear not, for I shall embrace these geometric shapes as tools to unify disparate ideas and shed light on the counterintuitive aspects of what we call colour theory.

Through practical examples and hands-on fun, you'll have the opportunity to convince yourself of the profound insights that await. Whether you're an artist, a photographer, or simply a curious soul, this series promises to broaden your perspective on the kaleidoscopic world that surrounds us.

The vibrant realm of colour is a wondrous canvas upon which we create and experience art. Join me on this journey, and together, we'll unlock the secrets of the rainbow,

OneDrive and the Rug Pulled from Underneath Me

 

As someone who has set up many new computers over the years, I've gotten used to the tedious process of loading software from discs and installers. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how streamlined Microsoft has made the setup experience on my latest PC. Getting Windows and Office installed was a breeze compared to the olden days of swapping floppy disks and CD-ROMs. 

However, this simplicity came with a devious dark underbelly that left me incredibly frustrated - the aggressive integration and default setting of OneDrive for storage. At every turn, Microsoft seemed to be steering me towards using its cloud service whether I wanted to or not. Most insidiously, it had automatically set my Documents, Photos and my Desktop Folders to be synced and stored in OneDrive. 

I already have a personal OneDrive account that I seldom use. But when I did a quick test of uploading some photos, not many from my camera, I quickly maxed out the free storage, most of which was being consumed by weird files on my desktop area. Suddenly, I was being pestered to pay for more OneDrive space that I never asked to use in the first place. Where was the option to opt-out of this default OneDrive setting during setup? It felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath me.

Instead of spending a couple days getting a new PC ready like I used to, I've now wasted that same time trying to unravel and opt-out of most of the undesired OneDrive integration that Microsoft shoved in my face. What initially looked like a fresh, streamlined setup experience left a sour taste thanks to this aggressive cloud storage agenda. 

Dear Microsoft, please make OneDrive an explicit choice again, not a default imposition!!!

Tales of Woe, and hopefully meeting a new friend

 After many trials and tribulations, so many, I had given up blogging about them. I’ve had a whole series of older computers from my business die off one by one over a few years. The majority have suffered death by upgrade, so i'm starting to fear those massive windows updates that never really worked. I guess one of the big problems was I had older hardware and it was stuck in Windows 10 land and not upgradeable.

I had replaced an old favourite PC in my studio with a slimed-down Lenovo box. It had a small ssd drive, supported by two hard drives, adequate memory, it was an i5 and it ran Windows 11, I love it. It did have problems running a large-screen TV when using the second screen/monitor or projector. But I do love the fact that I can have a large screen TV on the wall, perfect to paint from. Most of the computer gear sits on a narrow shelf and I have a couple of keyboards, one waterproof on my art table and a second wireless., that can be used anywhere. The table is set up such that I can draw and paint on it or I can also use with one of two easels standing up. I’ve also recovered an old sound bar so I can have good quality music as I’m painting. Its also set up for running Zoom meetings and making You tube videos (if I have the time!)

I still use an older Windows 10 HP Pavilion desktop in my office as the master for my network and main computer. It’s also got a small ssd drive but has 2 internal and 3 USB hard drives hanging off it. It is currently doubling as my master media storage, (eg photos videos and music). Unfortunately, it is misbehaving a bit, Finally I do miss my NAS storage, which no longer works on my upgraded LAN (windows 11 is implicated) , I really wish I knew why.

Quite a while ago the battery died in my beloved little HP Spectre. The little two-in-one that I took travelling, sitting on the couch or in fact all over the place. It was getting quite old and only had a small 11” screen but I still loved it and missed it dearly. The ordeal and potential expense associated with trying to get the battery replaced meant it is lying dormant.

I had a corneal graft last year and struggled a lot when one of my two monitors on my main computer decided to go dark, very dark, too dark to read easily. Taking the monitor off the computer and plugging it into something else showed it was fine so I assume it’s the graphics card on the computer, or a graphics driver upgrade issue, just another frustration with the Windows world. I’ve really had a lot of trouble getting used to what now appear contrasty monitors and smaller text (OK it’s the same size text just harder to see without an update to my glasses prescription after the corneal graft]. I can only get about one hour at the screen before my eyes feel strained. Usually not enough time when I’m playing with photos,

So I’ve been looking seriously at different screen technologies and decided I like TVs with OLED screens. I used to like the Apple iPhone style IPS format screens on my phone and Spectre, and was with LCD monitors. So I had begun investigating screen type and size, by actually looking at them in stores. When I noticed an advert on TV about the Lenovo Yoga Range, two-in-one style computers, checking the web there was a model based on an Intel EVO i7 processor with a 14inch  OLED screen. I was at Office Works on a different matter and so I checked it out. It was very easy to read at a standard viewing distance. I didn’t take long to decide it was time to get an upgrade.

So welcome Slaty, so named because it’s very thin, layered and a dark grey. I look forward to you becoming a great friend.

Keeping it Simple for Plein Air Painting

Nothing kills the joy of plein air painting faster than battling the elements and lugging around excessive gear. As a passionate outdoor painter, I've learned some tricks to streamline my setup and focus on the act of creating.

The biggest hassle is managing the paper, the surface to paint on. Wind is the natural enemy of a damp painting, and rain can smudge your masterpiece in seconds if you're not prepared. Over the years, I've realized that less is more when it comes to plein air essentials.

My humble blue canvas bag has become an invaluable ally. It comfortably fits pads and blocks up to roughly A3 size - plenty of room for field studies done in the open air's changeable conditions. I typically pack A4 or A5 pads or blocks of watercolor paper, sometimes supplemented with  inexpensive cartridge paper for simple sketches and pen drawings

A couple of drawing boards with tripod attachments also slip into the bag nicely. Their firm surfaces help keep the pads in place, and a few bulldog clips allow me to secure paintings-in-progress between the boards if I need to pack up quickly due to unexpected showers.

By the way, painting outdoors is great I love it

The Beauty of Minimalist Plein Air Sketching

Sometimes the most memorable artistic moments happen spontaneously without an elaborate setup. A case in point - I was out enjoying the late afternoon on the forshore at Cowes, intending to stay to paint the sunset. However, as I awaited the warm light a ship standing by and people milling about on the beach provided the perfect scene for a quick sketch.

That's when the beauty of a minimalist sketching kit came into play. I didn't need much more than a small sketch pad, a couple of water brushes, and my trusty little dot chart colour wheel. 

There's something immensely satisfying about working with just the bare essentials out in the field. You become hyper-focused on transcribing the essence of the moment through swift brushstrokes. No fiddling with complex setups or hauling cumbersome gear - just you, the scene, and a sparse collection of tools.

Speaking of those essential tools, one item that continues to prove invaluable is my homemade dot chart colour wheel. Not only is it highly portable, but crafting your own allows you to arrange pigment scales exactly how your artistic brain understands colour relationships best.

Making one is also delightfully simple...

Are LLM amazing or simply stupid?

I watched a very relevant TED talk by Yejin Chai “Why Ai isincredibly smart and shockingly stupid”, which opens with the quote “Common sense is not so common” which comes from Voltaire around 3  centuries ago. I totally agree that the current large language models {LLM}, which many call AI (but I call Artifically Intelligent), lack common sense. This should be very obvious if you he ever used them.

Still I am finding LLMs helpful. They're sometimes amazing for cleaning up typos, especially for folks like me who struggle with dyslexia.  They're also good for fixing the weird stuff that happens when you dictate and/or use predictive text.

I've been trying out a few of the most popular ones.  To compare them, I created an informal scorecard system that tracks how well they handle different aspects of text, like key ideas and paragraph sentiments.  Here's how it works:

• OK: This means I can use the text without any changes.
• Reword: Sometimes the wording needs a little tweaking, to sound less know-it-all.
• Fact Check: often some points get over-embellished
• Wrong: clearly made up or simply wrong
• Missing: important information left out (ignored)

So I recently was asked to speak and I outlined some ideas but in a rehersal it took 20 minutes. I recorded and timed it by dictating into a Word document (<windows key> and H) roughly 6 pages of rabbling text, lots of good stuff but… … So I asked each of ChatGPT, Claude.AI and Google’s Gemini (previously Bard)  each to summarize it into a single page.

Their score cards were not so good

I feel that it is the Dunning-Kruger effect that AI suffer most!  These AI Bots display a smug self-confidence that they know everything but show no common sense to realise how little human norms and values they actually understand.

Finding the Ideal Surface for My 9X5 Artworks on Wooden Panels

The quest to find the ideal surfaces for my 9X5 inchartwork for the 2024 VAS Exhibition continues! I'm planning to create two pieces, one in watercolour and the other in soft pastels. To test out different surface preparations, I made three variations for each medium on some scrap plywood.

 Let's start with the watercolour surfaces:

• W1: Just plain white acrylic, which behaved a lot like Yupo paper.
• W2: White acrylic topped with a thin coat of regular gesso. This improved colour intensity and gave sharper hard edges compared to the acrylic-only surface.
• W3: White acrylic with a 50/50 mix of transparent gesso and regular gesso. This surface had the most texture, but the paint went on nicely with great intensity, and it was easy to lift off.

Both W2 and W3 seem promising, except that the watercolour washes picked up brush marks on all the surfaces. For the next trial, I'll need to apply the gessos with a foam roller.

Now, onto the pastel surfaces:

• P1: Just an old layer of Derivan background paint (China Red). This added a nice tooth to the surface, and the coloured ground made the pastel colours sing.
• P2: White acrylic with standard gesso on top. The least successful option.
• P3: White acrylic with the 50/50 transparent and regular gesso mix. Good coverage with a light pastel touch, but the colours looked pale.

 I tested various pastel marks, from very soft to hard, and even Conte pencils. Getting details on such small panels is going to be a challenge, and I need to experiment further with different "background" paints and "watercolour ground".

Stay tuned for more experimental fun on the road to the perfect 9X5 surfaces!

Spambots be gone

Has anyone else discovered a sudden massive increase in the number of views being recorded on Blogger (this site)?  I was rather pleased with myself struggling to over half a million views over the past 20 years. Yes I have been using Blogger for 20 years! However, in the past month the pageviews have risen by over 100,000. Over the past week the recorded pageviews are between 2,000 & 3,500   per day. but actual pageviews, even most recent posts, seldom exceed 10 views per day.

I do suspect bad actors, possible spambots, content scrapers or maybe a hacking attempt gone wrong. I really can not see what might be achieved by such an activity, perhaps other than wasting bandwidth (which I can not see evidence of). Is it part of giving a legitimate address for a phishing scam to fool validity checks?

Ok now I have noticed. Do I try to inform Google?  Yes, but I have gotten nowhere again. Have you ever tried to contact good with a problem? y=You will know what I'm talking about. Is is another massive "I don't care" / #FAIL google!

So what can I find out about these extra views (which I might just call an attack). Well it must be automated to reach that number. Its seems to be totally originating from Hong Kong, using apple MacIntosh and Chrome, the refereeing URL being reported as other by Google Analytics. The biggest puzzle is my blogger site is recording these extra views but my actual page view seem to be remaining normally low. Are these numbers even real? Should I be concerned, given the location these pageviews seem to be originating?

What is with the cable octopus?

 

Trying to clean up my desk inevitably runs into the USB cable tangle. Whilst USB A is pretty universal the number and variety of devices it can ad-hoc connect to a computer is amazingly diverse. Sometimes it’s used for charging, most often t will be to transfer data or connect a different peripheral temporarily.  

The downside is many use different or non-interchangeable plugs at the other end. Whilst they are all obey the USB standards,  the plugs vary to suit the devices they being connected to. I currently have 5 different device end styles. That’s quiet a tangle on my desk. So I used a spiral cord minder to group the cables together at the USB-A end. A bit of magic using a split tube, lets me keep the cable close to the computer but neatly away from my work area.

This little diagram gives an idea of many of the current plug types, but there are many more including USB-C and a range of proprietary connectors for specific devices eg. cameras, phones and watches.

Iuse pairs of recycled bread-bag ties, that I colour coded to help keep track of which of the ends match up. It nice, simple and neat. Better still no time wasting searching for the right cable.

Luminar Neo's GenAI Tools Need More Time in the Oven

Luminar Neo recently added three new generative AI tools called GenErase, GenExpand, and GenSwap, all supposedly based on generative AI technology. I’d seen a bit of hype about them and they just turned up for a 30 day trial, so I just need to play and try these new features. I have to say they clearly needed more time in development before being released to the public.

The tools are only available through Neo's subscription service presumably because they utilize cloud computing power. This means they will likely never be available to run locally on a desktop.

I was most interested in testing out GenExpand, which is supposed to let you extend the edges of an image. I do like Neo’s Panorama stitching extension but I often get bulbous, untrimmed images when stitching together handheld panoramas in Neo, so I thought GenExpand could help with that. Unfortunately, my first attempt to expand a massive 588MB panorama got stuck taking forever and then just produced blackness over the area I’d selected. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

 A smaller test image did successfully expand, but the new edge addition was blurry and grayscale. On closer inspection the horizon matched byt clouds and waves didn’t matchup well to the original.

Hoping for better luck, I tried GenSwap to insert a kangaroo into a photo. The AI clearly wasn't trained on enough Aussie animals, its a bizarre creature but “thats not a real kangaroo”. At this point, my enthusiasm was waning.

Finally, I tested GenErase to remove objects from photos. It performed decently but didn't seem much better than the standard erase tool already in Luminar Neo. Trying to erase a larger object again resulted in the tool freezing up.

In the end, while the ideas behind these new GenAI tools are intriguing, I feel they simply aren't ready for practical use. Too many bugs, glitches, and failures to finish make them more frustrating than functional. Luminar Neo would have been better served by traditional beta testing before releasing them. For now, I don't trust these tools, or for that matter many other developers' generative AI tools to deliver satisfactory results, or are my expectations too high? Maybe someday the technology will mature into something more reliable, but for now GenAI feels more like a breakable flashy toy and “trying to keep up with the Jones”.

Happy Birthday Flickr

Today marks the eve of Flickr's 20th anniversary, a milestone that brings back memories of its inception in 2004.  They have a nice article about their significant moments and time-line on their blog

Reflecting on my journey with Flickr, I recall how I initially turned to it as a platform to upload and share photos for this blog, which started out as "things they forgot to tell you about digital photography". It was a time when the concept of cloud storage and HTML image links felt groundbreaking. Moreover, Flickr's community features, such as groups and commenting, added depth to the experience, fostering connections among photographers worldwide. Introducing their "interestingness" algorithm brought exposure to countless talented individuals, while Flickr’s commitment to Creative Commons licensing set a standard that others struggled to match.

For me, Flickr and digital photography have been intertwined since I acquired my first privately owned digital camera in 2003. Over the past two decades, I've amassed a collection of cameras, each holding its own story. It's been a little embarrassing laying out the number of cameras and estimating the money spent! While I no longer use most of them, I cherish the memories and photographs those cameras enabled. Most are still operational, though finding the right memory card for my original Olympus Camedia or a battery charger for an early rechargeable, may prove challenging.

As a consulting geologist, I purchased a Canon Rebel DSLR for video capabilities which has served me well for filming professional videos over the years. I still use that Canon today with a tethered setup to photograph my art on a copy stand. Over time I had invested in two Pentax digital SLRs as megapixels increased into the 12-16MP range, though I seldom use those models now., there were and still are great cameras just a bit heavy.

The two sleek Olympus mirrorless cameras have re-ignited the joy, fun and passion for capturing moments. Despite the evolution of technology, these cameras continue to serve me well, each with its unique capabilities and charm.

As we celebrate Flickr's anniversary, I can't help but acknowledge how my own photography journey has evolved alongside it. While changes of ownership, lockdowns and changes to Flickr's account limitations have impacted my activity, I remain loyal to the platform, eagerly anticipating events like the upcoming worldwide photo walk in Jells Park.

To Flickr, I extend my heartfelt gratitude for two decades of inspiration and community. Here's to many more years of creativity and connection in the digital realm. Cheers from down under

Photography without a camera

On Saturday I attended an artist talk at the Museum of Australian Photography focused on three exhibits around “photography without a camera”. One project that really interested me was by Kate Robinson, who created images using generative AI and then made physical prints using the traditional cyanotype process. She ran a workshop on the process in the afternoon

I've been fascinated by optical illusions, like Rubin's vase which can be seen as two faces or a vase. I tried generating the illusion image through text prompts to DALL-E 2 but it didn't work, their AI evidently didn't know about the famous illusion, I just got nice vases. So I experimented with Stable Diffusion instead, knowing I could add a noisy starter image with the same prompt “photo-realistic version of Rubin vase”, this generated something closer to what I needed.

I then gave Stable Diffusion a detailed text prompt asking for “Male & Female Heads in profile facing each other, Professional photography, bokeh, natural lighting” I used the latest SDXL 1.0 model which generates very realistic images. This produced some great portraits which had sharp focus on the faces and soft, blurred backgrounds, while maintaining the illusion styling.

1. Stable Diffusion Starter
2. Stable Diffusion generated images
3. Selected image upscaled
4. Greyscale & Inverted for transparency

I picked one of the four generated AI images with good tonal range, upscaled it, and inverted it to make a negative. Then printed this negative image onto a transparency. Kate had already prepared some watercolour paper with the light-sensitive cyanotype chemicals. I sandwiched the sensitized paper with the transparency under a piece of perspex and exposed it to sunlight for about 25 minutes.

When the transparency was removed the image had magically appeared on the paper! Somewhat faded. Just like seeing that first print develop in the darkroom, under the red light. I rinsed the paper first in water and then briefly in vinegar to set the blue cyanotype tones. In only about 40 minutes, I had gone from an AI concept to a one-of-a-kind cyanotype print, all without ever using a camera!

This project showed me the creative potential in blending digital and analogue photographic methods. I'm re-excited to experiment more with generated AI images and bringing them into the real world through alternative printing processes.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Testing Out New AI Tools for Writing - The Good 👍and The Bad 👎

I've been experimenting with some of the new large language AI models like ChatGPT Bard and Claude to help summarize and clean up my dyslexic writing. At first, it seemed amazing - I could just dictate my random thoughts and the AI would turn it into clear, readable text. I even had it generate content like blog posts, YouTube scripts, and Instagram captions.

However, I started noticing some issues:

• The AI can be overenthusiastic, especially when mentioning product names. It reads like advertising copy. I have had to rewrite these sections to keep them factual.

• Outrageous claims and incorrect facts. About 40% of the time, the AI includes claims or "facts" that are just plain wrong. I end up removing entire paragraphs.

• About 30% of the time, the content is good as is. The other 30% needs some reworking to tone down the language.

Clearly there's an issue here with misinformation. My current theory is that these large language models are trained on in-discriminant internet data containing conspiracy theories, misinformation, and bias. Garbage in, garbage out. 

I'm finding Anthropic's Claude model more reliable with fewer glaring errors. I have used it on this post, but I still have to carefully review any AI-generated text before publishing. 

As AI becomes more ubiquitous, it's crucial that we understand how these models are trained and what biases they may contain. We have to establish checks and balances, verifying information and not blindly trusting AI outputs.

I'll keep experimenting with AI writing assistants, AI in photography and digital Graphics (generative AI images such as the one abouve), but always maintain oversight. Stay tuned for more on responsible use of generative AI.

Back in Nature - End of Summer Photowalk

To celebrate their 20th Birthday, Flickr are reviving their worldwide photowalks. I'm going to revisit the first walk I led as part of the worldwide photowalk project back in 2016. We'll walk through what was then the conservation area behind Jells Park Lake to capture the natural world thriving amidst suburbia. The conservation area is now opened-up but some trails are blocked off, nature is still happily doing its thing. 

This year has been a milder summer and vegetation is thriving, though some weeds are a bit overwhelming. Insect and bird life are literally hopping and buzzing. I've scheduled the walk later to take advantage of the low angle summer light. Precious moments as we only get about half an hour of golden light at this time of year at the end of summer. 

The walk winds through the trees and shrubs behind the lake. There's a quiet beauty in the lengthening shadows and soft evening light. All varieties of birds can be spotted flitting through the branches or foraging on the ground. The constant hum of cicadas and other insects fills the air. Underfoot, wildflowers and grasses sway in the breeze. It's a glimpse into the natural rhythm at summer's close.

If you'd like to stay until 8:30pm and the weather is kind, you'll have a great opportunity to watch the full moon rise over the Dandenongs or be reflected in the lake's still waters. The interplay of light on the landscape creates unique photographic possibilities.

Like the original walk, this photowalk is limited to 20 participants and is free. I hope you can join me to capture the magic of nature at summer's end! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Registration via Eventbrite