Browsing articles tagged with " photos"
Discoveries, free stuff, photos, Stuff from the Interwebs, Videos, Web Design
Dec 30, 2008
Justin Marty
22 Comments

100s of Free Worship Backgrounds & Graphics [Church Media]

I was recently hired by a church in my area to maintain their computers, networks, information services, and web site.  Being a poor college student, and previously, a jobless high school student, I’ve gained an appreciation for frugality. That, combined with witnessing disproportionate amounts of cash misdirected in other area ministries, I am determined to support the ministries at this church by positively affecting the most people and supporting the ministry staff while operating under one of the smallest budgets.

One of the responsibilities I took over was the creation of the Sunday morning visual presentation (lyrics, sermon notes, announcements, etc). Previously, someone purchased stock photos from iStockphoto to use as backgrounds for lyrics. Unfortunately, it seemed that this person (long gone before I arrived) had very little money with which to work. There were only a handful of images which were only in small to medium-sized web quality; certainly not something that would look any good when blown up on a large projection screen.

So, off I went on a hunt to find web sites and Flickr users that would allow me to use their photos freely. Sure, there’s plenty of sites out there that offer spectacular photos made specifically for the purpose, but it all comes at a price. After some time, I’ve discovered a few good sites, and one really good Flickr group who freely share their works with the church community. Even if you don’t need backgrounds, or any of the images found on these sites, they’re a great place to get ideas for your own graphic projects.

Free worship and church backgrounds, graphics, and media:

Also, if you’re looking for videos or motion backgrounds, here’s a web site that gives them away for simply registering. They’re the real deal, and they’re doing a wonderful thing. Consider sharing your media with them if you have any to share:

This web site provides a small selection of free video backgrounds in return for registering:

Discoveries, photos, Stuff from the Interwebs
Sep 9, 2008
Justin Marty
12 Comments

My Photos Across the Web [A Little Narcissism]

I did a little self-indulgent searching recently using Google Blogsearch and came across a handful of blogs that have used the photos I share on Flickr. Of course, I would only be able to find the photos that were properly credited, but… meh. I’m not making any money off any of it anyway. (but, that doesn’t mean using my photos without credit is cool!) Anywho, click past the break if you wanna massage my ego. (I update this post as I find more uses) Continue reading »

Shared Discovery, Software
Apr 9, 2008
Justin Marty
2 Comments

Panoramic Photos on the Cheap & Easy [AutoStitch]

I’ll being filing this one under “Shared Discoveries” because I didn’t find this program all on my own; A friend of mine introduced it to me a couple of years ago on a trip down Highway 1. For some reason he wanted to take a panoramic photo so I tried setting my cheap digital camera to pano-mode. It’s supposed to make pano shots easier by allowing you to take a photo and then show part of that photo on the LCD screen so you can line up the next shot. However, as everyone knows, manual panoramic shots either with a built-in camera function or later trying to line up those shots in a photo editor are just awful.

So my friend starts taking random shots of this eroding hillside along the highway. There was no rhyme or reason, just snapping shots of the hillside. Then, he ensures me that this program he’s telling me about will be able to take all those photos and make a perfect panoramic photo out of it. I was skeptical, but sure enough, it did!

The program? From the project home page: “AutoStitch is the product of two years of research by Matthew Brown and David Lowe at the University of British Columbia.” And from Wikipedia, “The software uses the SIFT- and the RANSAC-Algorithm. This program differs from others such as photostitch in that it automatically stitches together even unaligned or zoomed photographs seamlessly without user input, whereas others often require the user to highlight matching areas for the photographs to merge properly. The only requirement is that all photographs be taken from a single point.”

In other words, AutoStitch is a free program (or “free-to-try” for non-commerical purposes) that takes a selection of separate photographs and “stitches” them together to make one large photograph. The resulting photograph doesn’t necessarily have to be a traditional panoramic photo. AutoStitch will make sense out of photos taken in any order, location, or size of particular scene. AutoStitch will also perform needed contrast, brightness, color and level image adjustments in order to create the seamless image.

Here I offer a couple of examples of AutoStitch’s work on photos taken by me on a recent trip to Yosemite National Park. Continue reading »