A new Webcomics “How-To” site launched yesterday at webcomicalliance.com. Hosted by some familiar names in my Favorites folder it offers free resources to help you in case you’re foolish enough to start a webcomic.

I went straight-away to the first podcast, and I’ll admit I wanted to hate it because I’m not sure if we need – or if I have time for – another webcomics podcast in my playlist.

But I liked it. And I subscribed to it in my RSS reader. Let’s hope they can keep it up.

What do you think?  Can the new, free Webcomic Alliance can keep up with the established resources?

A couple of weeks ago I got on a  Metro-North train to meet with a NYC recruiter on a rainy Monday morning.  Another passenger was standing alongside me in the doorway area since all seats were taken by other commuters (and their backpacks).

Since we were in such close proximity I noticed he was pretty well-dressed in the style of the Wall Street type.

Early on in the commute, the train lurched suddenly and forcibly. His feet went out from under him and he fell hard to the slippery floor. It became quickly apparent that what could have been simply an embarassing moment for him was something more serious when he couldn’t get up right away with my assistance.

In chatting with him, he said he couldn’t go out for medical attention because he had to get to a meeting. When I pressed that an emergency room visit would be my first choice, he divulged that it was actually a job interview, and re-scheduling because he “fell on the train” would be embarassing. He asked for my contact information in case he needs a witness for a claim.

I don’t know how it turned out for him but this is what the job market is like. Suffer and wince through a job interview with a broken rib for fear of re-scheduling. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

-T.A.D.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s love letter to Twitter, I became a user of the Qwitter service recently and weeks later I can’t for the life of me understand why.

Qwitter sends you email with the Twitter names of followers who unfollowed you. The best use of this information is to help you thin out your list and weed out the Twitter users who are not reciprocating the follow. In other words, Twitter works best when the follow is mutual. This isn’t always practical in the case of celebrities, if following celebrities is your thing.

The worst use of this information is when you are having a bad day and want to feel worse. While some followers are spammy (I didn’t mind when the bowling alley in Portland Oregon unfollowed me), some are genuine relationships. This post was inspired by a certain  webcomic artist who un-followed me hours after I re-tweeted a pencil sketch  from his sketchbook. A re-tweet (or RT) is an implied compliment. If something strikes me as special, or note-worthy, I’ll ReTweet without hesitation. To be promptly un-followed seemed downright rude.

On a related note,  I’m phasing out logons to Facebook for a bunch of reasons – likely the subject of a future blog post. This will free-up more time to waste on foursquare, my new diversion.

What are you favorite or least favorite time vacuums?

Here is a look at my first HDR image in Photoshop, shot with a Nikon D40. This was “commisioned” for Caz of Callouscomics who requested photos of the comic he graciously sent to guest artists around the world. I used this as an opportunity to show where the “magic is made”, and my knowledge is lifted from this HDR tutorial.

Key differences from your point-and-click digital camera process:

• Get out of Auto mode
  They key to doing this is “bracketing” , taking different exposures at different shutter speeds to acquire the source images to combine. I used three  at f1/30,f 1/125, and f1/250, but would probably use five if presented with a phenomenal subject. If this makes you squeamish, you won’t be able to experience high dynamic range photography.

• Use your camera’s RAW format. Check to see if your camera supports the capture of uncompressed data – the JPEG settings introduce compression and discard detail.
• From there, the basics of getting into HDR are as simple as running Automated tasks in Adobe Bridge.

As with anything else – it’s the mastery that is difficult and beyond the scope of this post.

For the more advanced photographers, the title that springs to mind is The World in HDR by Trey Ratcliff. Lavishly illustrated with fantastic and almost surreal images, it contains a tutorial which seems to be geared at professional photographers using Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture.

I hope something here has helped whet your appetite. Please feel free to comment if you have a great resource you’d like to share.

Regards,

-T.A.D.