Prepping your print from file to finish: I always hear people complaining about how much better the piece looked digitally, SO, here is a run down on how to get prints that look more like your original piece. First of all, every printer is different.  Every paper is different.  Make sure you take the time to do test prints and become familiar with how your printer and paper combo work, as you’ll rarely nail a print your first try.  This one took about 5 test prints before I was confident to print on the expensive large paper Every time I mess up on a print, I save the remaining paper to use as scraps for test prints. As you can see, the original piece looks very nice!  The focus is super strongly on the tiger, and all of the vibrant colors are still super evident in the background.  That said, when I print it as is, everything about 85% gray or darker turns BLACK.  And this is high quality paper designed to get accurate vibrant colors, too. The best way to fix this is to do layer effects.  Brightness/contrast is my favorite, as a typical piece will generally print about 5x better if you up the brightness to around 15-25, and adjust the contrast up or down by 5-10 points.  That said, if you have a HIGH contrast piece (Darks against brights) like this one, you typically need to do a few more steps. Often I’ll do a second brightness/contrast adjustment layer and push brightness to an obnoxious level so the darkest darks are closer to a mid-dark range.  From there, I’ll create a mask and use a transparent gradient tool to slowly pull back the brightness on all of the lighter areas of the image. Additionally, due to printers using CMYK and your screen being RBG certain colors just physically CANNOT print.  Some people will always work in CMYK because of this, but honestly I like my saturated colors and most of my work is intended to be seen digitally so I only ever work in RGB.  Photoshop has a nifty toggle (Ctrl + Y) where you can toggle between CMYK and RGB view to see how your piece will appear when it prints.  It’s useful to check this because if you worked in a color that cannot replicate in print, you may want to shift it entirely before you even bother printing. Artwork tends to desaturate a bit as it prints, so I’ll often make a Hue/saturation layer to play with, too.  In this case the image was already pretty damn saturated, BUT some of the shadows on the tiger were printing more brown than orange, so I adjusted the saturation a bit to keep them vibrant with the rest of the image. **DO NOT use “Lightness” to lighten your image!  It basically adds a white overlay to your image.  Always use Brightness, instead. After all of that, I have a final print that much more closely captures the essence of the original painting.  I could have tinkered even more, but to me the goal is a good print rather than an exact copy.  For ULTRA high contrast images, like a dark room looking out into a snowy exterior, expect to do a LOT of adjustment to get it to print correctly.  Printers just aren’t too fond of super darks right up against super lights. I could make a proper tutorial on this if people request it.  Mostly, just wanted to put my thoughts down in one spot!

Gregorian monks singing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

Owl hides behind its owner whenever there is a visitor in the house

Birds Taking Care Of Their Babies

imagine not only seeing the world like this but taking the time to animate it

RIP job

dude

dude

W H A T,,

I’m the birb that gets embarrassed by her man

(>๑♡⌓♡๑)>      https://goo.gl/gMF8H5

I just wanted to get some folks together to pay a tribute to somebody who’s, not only been by my side for the duration of this amazing journey, but somebody who has devoted his entire professional life to service this country. The best Vice President America has ever had, Mr. Joe Biden.

John Oliver gives 2016 the proper fucking send off it deserves

We can do this. We can win. LET’S SPREAD THIS LIKE WILD FIRE ON HERE AND FACEBOOK! 

EDIT:  Adding additional information to this post as no one is reblogging the updated one: The Lawsuit against Trump for Rape has been dropped for the moment but the Trump University suite still stands.  Important Information: Who selects the Electors? Choosing each state’s Electors is a two-part process. First, the political parties in each state choose slates of potential Electors sometime before the general election. Second, on Election Day, the voters in each state select their state’s Electors by casting their ballots for President.The first part of the process is controlled by the political parties in each state and varies from state to state. Generally, the parties either nominate slates of potential Electors at their state party conventions or they chose them by a vote of the party’s central committee. This happens in each state for each party by whatever rules the state party and (sometimes) the national party have for the process. This first part of the process results in each Presidential candidate having their own unique slate of potential Electors.Political parties often choose Electors for the slate to recognize their service and dedication to that political party. They may be state elected officials, state party leaders, or people in the state who have a personal or political affiliation with their party’s Presidential candidate. (For specific information about how slates of potential Electors are chosen, contact the political parties in each state.)The second part of the process happens on Election Day. When the voters in each state cast votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice they are voting to select their state’s Electors. The potential Electors’ names may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the Presidential candidates, depending on election procedures and ballot formats in each state.The winning Presidential candidate’s slate of potential Electors are appointed as the state’s Electors—except in Nebraska and Maine, which have proportional distribution of the Electors. In Nebraska and Maine, the state winner receives two Electors and the winner of each congressional district (who may be the same as the overall winner or a different candidate) receives one Elector. This system permits the Electors from Nebraska and Maine to be awarded to more than one candidate. Are there restrictions on who the Electors can vote for? There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party’s candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged. VERY IMPORTANT DATES: November 8, 2016—Election DayRegistered voters cast their votes for President and Vice President. By doing so, they also help choose the electors who will represent their state in the Electoral College. Mid-November through December 19, 2016 After the presidential election, the governor of your state prepares seven Certificates of Ascertainment. “As soon as practicable,” after the election results in your state are certified, the governor sends one of the Certificates of Ascertainment to the Archivist.Certificates of Ascertainment should be sent to the Archivist no later than the meeting of the electors in December. However, federal law sets no penalty for missing the deadline.The remaining six Certificates of Ascertainment are held for use at the meeting of the Electors in December. December 13, 2016- States must make final decisions in any controversies over the appointment of their electors at least six days before the meeting of the Electors. This is so their electoral votes will be presumed valid when presented to Congress.Decisions by states’ courts are conclusive, if decided under laws enacted before Election Day. December 19, 2016- The Electors meet in their state and vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. The electors record their votes on six “Certificates of Vote,” which are paired with the six remaining Certificates of Ascertainment.The electors sign, seal, and certify six sets of electoral votes. A set of electoral votes consists of one Certificate of Ascertainment and one Certificate of Vote. These are distributed immediately as follows:one set to the President of the Senate (the Vice President) for the official count of the electoral votes in January;two packages to the Secretary of State in the state where the electors met—one is an archival set that becomes part of the public record of the Secretary of State’s office and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes;two packages to the Archivist—one is an archival set that becomes part of the permanent collection at the National Archives and Records Administration and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes; and one set to the presiding judge in the district where the Electors met—this is also a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes.

Tony Ward spring 2017 rtw

“I was taking a law school admissions test in a big classroom at Harvard. My friend and I were some of the only women in the room. I was feeling nervous. I was a senior in college. I wasn’t sure how well I’d do. And while we’re waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: ‘You don’t need to be here.’ And ‘There’s plenty else you can do.’ It turned into a real ‘pile on.’ One of them even said: ‘If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.’ And they weren’t kidding around. It was intense. It got very personal. But I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t afford to get distracted because I didn’t want to mess up the test. So I just kept looking down, hoping that the proctor would walk in the room. I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that’s a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don’t want to seem ‘walled off.’ And sometimes I think I come across more in the ‘walled off’ arena. And if I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I don’t view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can’t blame people for thinking that.”

words to remember