Armful of Dolls
It is time, once again, for me to include a Hitty, or eleven, on these pages. I noticed this picture as I was looking through some older files and remembered that I hoped to use it sometime. Hittys are a large (well, small-large) part of my surroundings and I am often found taking their pictures, but usually for my spouse’s blog called Quimper Hittys (she usually does the photography, but sometimes wants something a bit different than can be managed with her point and shoot). I have previously posted about the Hittys, with a bit of an indication of their role in the household.
This armful are on their way out to the picnic table for their Thanksgiving portrait, which I did with HDR methods, published here and reproduced below (you can also click on the image below to get to the original post). The picture is worth clicking through to the large version, it is very clear and the girls are all such darlings in their own ways.
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Rant alert! Is anyone else experiencing weird behaviour from WordPress’ new “Add Media” layout? There are things I like about it – for instance galleries looks like they will be easier to set up. However, setting the featured image is now many extra steps. And worse, I think that the images are being more badly treated than before, though a sample of one is perhaps not a good test. Anyway, my single experience so far is with the top image which I uploaded in colour – it’s contrast and darkness was so messed about that I decided to try a black and white version, which is also very much altered. I produced that b&w image four different times at different sizes and uploaded it six different times. I have looked at the output versions (before upload) in different software than I generated it from and it is a high quality image as it sits on my hard drive. The uploaded version is made much higher contrast, darker and blotchy in some areas than before uploading. I output to the same size that my theme uses as a maximum (1024 pixels), use 72 pixels per inch, 85% quality in sRGB colour space. I tried to export to AdobeRGB (1998) standard with no substantive differences, and .tiff and .dng versions would not upload at all. I don’t see why the jpegs would need “crunching” with these settings, but apparently they does. (The second colour image from Quimper Hittys was uploaded before the most recent changes). I will be monitoring this for a few days, but if it does not change I will bring it up with WP help (I have had very good experiences with their help desk).
This link is to the announcement about the new layout, but there seems to be no instructions and so on as to how to use it yet.
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Canon 5Dii, Canon 100mm f2.8. Top: tonemapped from single image, ISO400, f2.8, 1/160th. Bottom: ISO800, three brackets, f-5.6, 1/100th +/- 1.5 EV.
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burnt embers 
What a wonderful post, it’s great to have a chance to see the entire family together like this! I am just getting back to my desk today, after being away for what seems to be countless days on end stuck in meetings. Just trying to get all caught up with my favorite blog out there!!
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Countless days of meetings? What a chore that must have been. I hope you have some r&r this weekend, sounds like you need it. Glad to see that you have taken time from your favourite blog to comment on mine too 😉
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I am just digging out from being way behind… been having a blast the last day or so trying to get caught up with everyone and work on this week’s Light Stalking article! Thanks for all your kindness, my dear friend!
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Aha, now I see what Hittys are.
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Oh, now I see how you found out – you must have run a search or something. This is an ancient post.
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I’ve been away for a few days and was surprised when the new interface popped up but it seemed to behave as normally as the old one (I just uploaded 6 images that look pretty alright).
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Indeed, they do look alright. Love the one of the green-hatted guy.
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Thank you! I’ll keep an eye on the new interface. I think the problem is that they apply their processing to everything – regardless of whether it needs it or not.
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What I don’t understand is whether WP does it differently than other websites or if there are standard algorithms that every one uses.
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Love love love the b&w image, I don’t think I could see it any other way than how you present it. I’ve noticed I’ve been on a b&w kick for some reason…hmmmm.
I haven’t noticed anything different with image upload/quality…yet. I will keep a little closer look on this though. 😀
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Thank you David. That picture is growing on me more and more, probably because it is getting so much love in the comments section!
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Well, if you want to see it in the colour version, you can find it here: http://quimperhitty.wordpress.com/about/. You have to scroll down to find it.
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I noticed there were some changes to Media upload. Slightly confusing when changes happen with no warning at all. It’s a while since I’ve tried to post a gallery of images – I had endless trouble with those previously so it will be interesting to see how a Gallery works next time I try it. My images look OK on my two Macs but then I have no idea how they look to others who are viewing them. Do mine look OK to you or are they ‘dark’? I’d be interested to hear.
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Hi Andy. By and large your photos look excellent. Looking at recent ones I would wonder if in your High Altitude Viewing post if the colour version was just how you wanted it (though this did not occur to me when I looked at it a few days ago so perhaps this is all in my mind). On my monitor some of the shadows look not so much “too deep” as something like the opposite of blown out – pixelated a bit or something. I don’t have the technical vocabulary to describe it – I also see a similar effect on the very top of the dark part of the pillars in BlueSky Dreaming, but it is less pronounced and has more of an appearance of a deliberate effect.
After loading a few more images since the above rant, I think that the problem with crunching has not become worse with the latest changes. Also, I was loading images to a totally unconnected website a couple of days ago and found that a few of those images also came out much darker. I am beginning to think that some of my editing on some pictures might result in qualities that get darkened when uploading images. My only remaining gripe about the new layout is that there is a complicated workflow, compared to before, to identify a featured image. I understand it will be fixed soon so that one can do this at the same time as uploading images, or working in the media library, without having to come in to the library from the edit page via the set featured image button. There are other aspects of the new layout that seem very much improved. I have not tried a gallery yet either and will be interested to see how it works, though I did not have any real problems with it.
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Many thanks for all your observations and your kind comments on my work. In ‘Blue Sky Dreaming’ there is some posterisation in the image deliberately. In the high altitude shot I think there is some pixellation of the shadows – really noise actually due to the high contrast in the image.
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I meant to say that I scrolled back on your home page through a few months of posts – what a terrific collection of interesting images. Interesting to see them all at once. Even though I had seen all of them before I started to see themes and interconnections that really give your work an identity.
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An armful of dolls;
Still childlike, the heart beats a
Sweet, patter-patter.
That first image is divine. It makes my heart sing – but then, the Hittys and their many adventures keep me young at heart (it’s hard to believe I’ve been following you both for a year now!)
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Oooh, another Haiku. Thanks so much, it is perfect.
And I can’t believe it’s been a year either. I think Quimper Hittys had their first year anniversary just a few weeks ago. It sure is wonderful to have such loyal followers – much appreciated!
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They are so very charming! =)
I guess I’ve not posted anything within the last few days – I’ll keep an eye out for badly behaving interfaces!
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They are charming!
Feedback I am getting from WP is that they are working on the featured image deficit. I am still monitoring the image crunching thing before I ask them about that.
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Ohhhh…now I get your reference from a week or so ago about living in a house with 6″ dolls. I hadn’t found your blog yet when you posted earlier photos of these dolls, but I’m caught up now. They are very interesting and I like your photos of them; I especially like the first shot here, which has excellent textures.
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Thanks so much Melinda! The 6″ folk in this house really do occupy quite a lot of time what with blogging, photography, tailoring, and carving. But they earn their keep in many ways.
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I’m amazed at the beautiful collection of dolls you have access to. Then I went to the quimperhitty site and was further amazed (and amused) at the imagination I found there. WONDERFUL!!! (pass it on)
I have not yet encountered the new “ADD MEDIA” layout yet but it doesn’t sound like they have corrected the image posting issues (so far). I’ll definitely keep an eye out for this, though.
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I passed it on Ken, and it was very well received. She went through a big reorg announcement at work today (though was not personally affected). I clipped your comment and emailed it to her at work so she had something nice to focus on for a while. Your timing was excellent! I find that blog very charming and amusing. I particularly like the Stories tab and the short 3 or 4 post amusing adventures of dolls and assorted other creatures from the household.
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Wonderful post Ehpem, the girls are all so lovely in the portrait!
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And won’t they pleased to hear it 🙂 Thanks so much Mrs. Toad. I like photographing them, it is kind of like doing people portraits, except they keep still and I don’t need model releases.
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