tembeling’s muse

I am using Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop for my watermark.

For example this one is made by writing on my Wacom Bamboo using Illustrator, add some more text & save it in .ai format. Then I created an Action File using Photoshop. I’ll try to outline the steps (I’ll add in some screenshots when I have more time):

1. Open the photo I want to edit in Photoshop, whatever format.
2. Start to record an action file (Go to Windows > Action and file an icon to ‘Create New Action”)
3. I normally set the image size by using File > Automate > Fit Image (set to 1200 pix for both dimensions) & also Image > Image Size & reduce the Resolution to 72 dpi without Resample Image (i.e. keeping it at 1200 pix at longest dimension). This step is to ensure that the size of image will be standardized so that our watermark won’t appear too big or too small.
4. Then I pause the recording of my action because I have to transfer & create path for the watermark.
5. I open my .ai watermark file in Photoshop. I just click continue/OK to whatever default steps after that. And by using Move tool I move my watermark to the photo I just resized.
6. Once my watermark is on the photo, I moved it the upper left corner of the picture & resize it as appropriate. But don’t make it too small because it will cause problem when we select later.
7. Then on the Layer panel (please don’t tell me you do not know where Layer panel is if you are using Photoshop!!), I select the watermark by pressing CTRL & click on the layer that has the watermark.
8. I then adjust the selection by going to Select > Refine Edge. I normally use ‘Shift Edge’ to make the selection bigger (in CS5).
9. Then I go to Path panel (next to Layer & Channel) & click icon Make New Path From Selection.
10. I highlight the path layer & then I go back to my Action panel & Insert Path (I can’t describe the icon to access this Insert Path – later I add screenshot). No worry even though we pause recording…..Photoshop will still record the path.
11. Then run action record again, add a new layer, select the path on the path panel.
12. Then using whatever colour you like, Pain Bucket the selection. Walla!! You got your watermark ready.
13. The next things to do are just to resize & reposition the watermark to the place you like. Please use Select, Layers>Align for this purpose. Do not use you mouse to move the watermark. The action you are recording must make every steps accommodating both portrait & landscape layout.
14. Then you can stop recording your watermark action.
15. Use the action to whatever photo you want after that.

This is going to be my last entry for this great trip.

The second day was a very hectic day. We traveled from Balige to Dolok Tolong to Hutaginjang & to Bakkara (Desa Simamora) before going to Saulina Resort at Pangururan. We were indeed very tired.

I love all the scenery along the way to Pangururan.

That night, we got emergency call for one of our friend. We rushed him to Medan to take the earliest flight to Malaysia. Alhamdulillah, now everything is already OK. After shooting sunrise from Tele, I went to Medan with Doc Budie to send dR ALi home, so we missed Sipiso-piso but it is OK as I have been there once. The journey was pretty long & tiring. We reached Medan at about 1:30PM. Managed to get 3:30PM flight to KL. After settling few things, we drove back to Berastagi & met all the friends at Sibayak Mutinasional Guesthouse. We slept early because we plan to climb Mount Sibayak the next day.

The very next morning, we left hotel at about 5AM. Prayed Fajr before the ascend. I was first a bit worry because I didn’t prepare that much like my usual mountain hiking because someone told me it was only a 45 minutes walk. But the guide kept on telling us that he usually took 90 mins to reach the summit! So I walked fast. With Emran in front….we left all our friends behind. And to our surprise we reached the summit in only 30 mins.

And subhanallah…the sunrise was great!

After spending few hours shooting pictures & admiring the landscape….we descended, had a few hours rest & by 2PM we were already on our way to Medan. We had a quick chat with fellow Medan photographers & by 9PM, we were already checked-in & ready to board AirAsia home.

Overall, this is one great trip!

I had a lot of pictures & fun. Because of that we are planning to go there again this October!!

Never say that you have been to Danau Toba if you have not been to these wonderful places!

Muliate! Horras.

At Balige, we went straight to Bang Sebastian Hutabarat’s art gallery. He is a photo enthuthiast too. He served a delicious fried Nila fish with rice and andaliman source. Since we were hungry, we ate a lot! Thanks Bang Sebastian! Then we boarded a boat to Tiara Buanga hotel which is still in the mainland but not accesible by road.

We slept here, which was said as the place used to be visited by the country’s VVIP, including The President. It cost us IDR400,000 per room after a huge discount. The very next morning we went out & shoot sunrise. So unfortunate for me, I accidentally reformatted the whole CF card & then overwitten them with other pictures. Because of that I do not able to recover the files. Only few pictures left.

We had our breakfast & immediately boarded the boat again to Balige town & continued our journey to Dolok Tolong, Hutaginjang and Bakkara. That day was the most hectic day of our journey. I might have shot > 1000 pictures for that one day if not because of the formatted CF.

Basically we just went out shooting all the landscapes & human interest surrounding this great lake. And indeed there were so many beautiful sceneries. I simply love Lake Toba.

Dolok Tolong Series

Hutaginjang Series

Bakkara Series

First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr Budi from Medan for the great hospitality. He had sacrificed his precious time…and as a General Practitioner, the time he spent with us was so valuable & expensive! We can’t thank you enough doc!! He is a great photographer & one extraordinary friend!! Please visit his Flickr.

For us in Kuantan, the trip started on Sunday, 20th. June. Me, Rejim & dR Ali drove from Kuantan to KL & reached Badang’s house at about 8PM. Badang treated us with great dinner at Greenwood Gombak. What a delicious catfish! Early Monday morning, Joe, our friend, sent us to LCCT. We met Remi & Emran. And alhamdulillah, the web check-in really helped speed up all the process. We need not to que too long to drop the luggages. Bravo AirAsia.

We boarded the first flight to Medan. We reached Polonia Airport at about 7:30AM. There was this new Indonesian immigration process & that delayed the clearance a bit. We waited for Dr Budie for a while. Dr Budie arranged two vans to cater the six of us. Initially, me, dR Ali & Rejim rode together with Dr Budie in his new Grand Vitara, while Badang, Remy & Emran rode Grand Max with Pak No. By 9AM we were already moving to Tebing Tinggi.

Basically for this trip, we went to these places:

1. Sidamanik – tea plantation
2. Balige – and around this beautiful place (Dolok Tolong, Hutaginjang, Bakara (the place said as the origin of Batak))
3. Tele
4. Sipiso-piso (but I didn’t go here. Been here last year)
5. Berastagi
6. Mount Sibayak

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From Tebing Tinggi, we drove to Sidamanik, a tea plantation area which was I very first stop. We were a bit unlucky because the weather was not that great. Nevertheless we managed to shoot few simple shots. I used bracketing for the shots & later merged & tone-mapped all the exposures into a HDR image using Photomatix Pro.

From Sidamanik we drove to Parapat. It was raining most of the time. We stopped & prayed at a mosque there before we continue the journey to Balige.

I am not sure where Dr Budie will take us this time, but based on his itinerary we may take this route….more or less..

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