Fun with photos

I read an article last week on how to fake a tilt-shift lens photo using Photoshop. A tilt-shift lens shortens the focus range on a wide shot to give it an interesting miniature look.

Since I don't have the exorbitantly expensive Photoshop, I figured out how to get the same effect using a very powerful open-source (free) photo editing program called GIMP. GIMP is available for Linux, Windows and other platforms and it's free, free, free! Just Google it.

There are many plug-ins for GIMP that do helpful things. Most recently I installed the panorama plug-in to paste together some panoramics taken on the Parashant ride.

Anyway, below is an example of my tilt-shift experiments. This is the lobby at the Great Wolf Lodge. Looks like a dollhouse, doesn't it? Long shots work best (like landscapes, aerial shots, etc.) The bulky furniture and large-patterned carpet help the effect.

Make sure to zoom the picture for a detailed look.

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