Yesterday my youngest son and daughter-in-law dropped my granddaughter off so they could drive to Ohio in preparation for a move. I have always told my kids that they are welcome to leave their kids with us but to not be surprised if we take the kids to Disneyland. With COVID-19 that is impossible right now as the park is closed. I still wanted to send them a picture of us in Disneyland.
I searched through my phone and found a picture of the Millennium Falcon in Galaxy's Edge from our most recent trip back in September. Then I had my wife take a picture of me and my granddaughter at my work desk. The rest should be easy. Everyone always talks about Photoshop'ing people into pictures, so how hard can it be.
My first idea was to use Microsoft Teams. I have been using it for a lot of my conference calls and rather than use my own office background, I have added a picture of the Snowbird tram to my Teams picture library. I figure I could add one of Disneyland, start up MS Teams, and take a screenshot. After playing for a bit, I decided that I didn't like my picture with my hands out reaching for the keyboard. Interestingly enough, my oldest daughter thought that I had used a Zoom background for the finished picture.
Instead I decided to try GIMP. I actually use GIMP quite frequently as it is a great little tool for editing photos and other computer graphics. Lately I have created a bunch of icons for a project at work with it. Unfortunately I have never used it to take a person (or two in this case) from one photo and add them to another. My first stop was YouTube. I watched the process where you add an alpha-channel to the photo with your people and then use the free-hand tool to trace them. Once you have them traced, you cut out the background. That looked really tough and so I searched for another video in case there is a trick to use. The second video showed multiple tricks. First, make the picture really large so you can see the fine edges. You can then drag the free-hand lines to fit the outline of the people better. The second video also suggested going in sections so you are pulling off a bit at a time.
I didn't really care that I did a great job creating the fake photo. In fact I wanted it to be fairly obvious that I had created the picture. Then I stumbled upon some more tricks that make my fake actually look pretty good. One is that I cut out my granddaughter and myself from a fairly large picture. Then I shrunk us down before pasting us into the Disneyland background. Shrinking the photo removed a lot of the imperfections from my cutting out the background. Then I only used a section of the picture above my waist so you couldn't tell I was sitting in my office chair. The finished photo actually turned out pretty good even though I didn't mean it to.
Once I finished the picture, I Air Dropped it to my phone and then texted it out to the family. My oldest daughter replied almost instantly with her suggestion on how I pulled off the faked picture. I got a few laughs from everyone.
Now that I know how to Photoshop someone into a picture, it is not that difficult. I'm sure there are a ton of tricks to make the photo turn out even much better than I did and I encourage you to do some Internet searching. I don't know how to make hair look more natural but figure it is just a matter of patience and choosing a picture with a well-combed head. Today my wife and I will be taking my granddaughter to Paris. Wanna come?
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Monday, May 18, 2015
International Travel
For the first time in five years my job has taken me to Europe. I had meetings in London last week and more today. As I was here over the weekend, I decided to take the train down to Paris for a couple of days and get some good practice with my French. I used to live in France and spoke it fluently. One weekend was all it took for a nice language refresher. Once people found out I spoke French, they opened up to me were greatly relieved they didn't have to try and speak broken English. It opened quite a few doors.
In these past five years I have taken eleven trips to Japan and so it is sort of routine. Going to Europe required making some major adjustments in my international travel habits. In Japan, I use a Suica stored-value card for travel on the subway and Japanese rail system. In London I just needed to purchase an Oyster card. I did a bit of research before I flew out and knew that would help make my trips so much easier. I got to London and made sure to pick one up for myself as well as my wife who came with me on this trip.
My next trick was figuring out how to get from downtown London to Paris. A quick Internet search showed me that Eurostar runs the train line from London to Paris. I purchased my tickets online back in the States and even had seat assignments. When it came time to take the train, I just took the London tube to King's Cross station and walked over to the St. Pancras International train terminal. I could have taken a flight and it might even have been cheaper, however if you really want to see a country, take the train.
While in Paris I wanted to take my wife and show her the many sights that the city is so famous for. We started our trip by walking from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a quick walk and formed the first leg for a great walking tour. Next we walked down to the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, we passed an open Street Market which turned out to be my wife's favorite part of the trip. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, I was tired of walking. The last time I was in Paris, I had my bike with me and it was really easy to get around the city. Walking made the city much larger than I remembered it. Big Bus was the answer to my tired legs. Basically they drive you around and make 10 stops throughout the city. If you get off, they leave you but another bus is only 10 minutes or so right behind you. You just show the new bus your ticket and you can get back on. I highly recommend them if you want to save your legs.
The trip from Paris back to London was very uneventful. I wanted to see how fast the train was going and so I pulled out one of my phones. Unfortunately I couldn't get a GPS lock as I had it in airplane mode and so I pulled out my company phone and tracked myself on Google Maps. Unfortunately I couldn't get my speed and so I just looked it up. I knew I was going fast as we were passing cars on the autoroute next to us and was pleased to see we were doing 186 miles per hour. It didn't feel that fast. When you take the tunnel under the English Channel, the train slows down to 100 miles per hour for safety reasons.
The last adjustment I had to make is with my electronic devices. Everything in Japan runs on 110 volts just like the United States. Furthermore there is no need to bring any plug converters because the outlets look exactly the same. Europe is different and more complicated. First they run on 220 volts and so you need a transformer for some of your electrical items. As most electronic products now convert AC power to DC, the transformers built into them will automatically convert the voltage for you. That means I don't need a transformer for my laptop or my USB outlet connectors. The real problem is that the power outlets don't look anything alike. England is different than France and they are both different than the US. So I have to carry a number of various wall outlet adapters. Fortunately most of Europe uses the same outlet format as France and so you can get around pretty well with just two adapters.
Tomorrow I head back to the United States and my European trip will be over. I have to say that the International travel has gotten a lot easier since my first trip many years ago. I know I am getting a bit more experienced as I voyage to various places around the world but I think the Internet is definitely helping to make the world a smaller place.
In these past five years I have taken eleven trips to Japan and so it is sort of routine. Going to Europe required making some major adjustments in my international travel habits. In Japan, I use a Suica stored-value card for travel on the subway and Japanese rail system. In London I just needed to purchase an Oyster card. I did a bit of research before I flew out and knew that would help make my trips so much easier. I got to London and made sure to pick one up for myself as well as my wife who came with me on this trip.
My next trick was figuring out how to get from downtown London to Paris. A quick Internet search showed me that Eurostar runs the train line from London to Paris. I purchased my tickets online back in the States and even had seat assignments. When it came time to take the train, I just took the London tube to King's Cross station and walked over to the St. Pancras International train terminal. I could have taken a flight and it might even have been cheaper, however if you really want to see a country, take the train.
While in Paris I wanted to take my wife and show her the many sights that the city is so famous for. We started our trip by walking from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a quick walk and formed the first leg for a great walking tour. Next we walked down to the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, we passed an open Street Market which turned out to be my wife's favorite part of the trip. When we got to the Eiffel Tower, I was tired of walking. The last time I was in Paris, I had my bike with me and it was really easy to get around the city. Walking made the city much larger than I remembered it. Big Bus was the answer to my tired legs. Basically they drive you around and make 10 stops throughout the city. If you get off, they leave you but another bus is only 10 minutes or so right behind you. You just show the new bus your ticket and you can get back on. I highly recommend them if you want to save your legs.
The trip from Paris back to London was very uneventful. I wanted to see how fast the train was going and so I pulled out one of my phones. Unfortunately I couldn't get a GPS lock as I had it in airplane mode and so I pulled out my company phone and tracked myself on Google Maps. Unfortunately I couldn't get my speed and so I just looked it up. I knew I was going fast as we were passing cars on the autoroute next to us and was pleased to see we were doing 186 miles per hour. It didn't feel that fast. When you take the tunnel under the English Channel, the train slows down to 100 miles per hour for safety reasons.
The last adjustment I had to make is with my electronic devices. Everything in Japan runs on 110 volts just like the United States. Furthermore there is no need to bring any plug converters because the outlets look exactly the same. Europe is different and more complicated. First they run on 220 volts and so you need a transformer for some of your electrical items. As most electronic products now convert AC power to DC, the transformers built into them will automatically convert the voltage for you. That means I don't need a transformer for my laptop or my USB outlet connectors. The real problem is that the power outlets don't look anything alike. England is different than France and they are both different than the US. So I have to carry a number of various wall outlet adapters. Fortunately most of Europe uses the same outlet format as France and so you can get around pretty well with just two adapters.
Tomorrow I head back to the United States and my European trip will be over. I have to say that the International travel has gotten a lot easier since my first trip many years ago. I know I am getting a bit more experienced as I voyage to various places around the world but I think the Internet is definitely helping to make the world a smaller place.
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