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Do your kids love Star Wars? Do you love photography? If so, here’s a great opportunity to join forces and turn your kids into Star Wars heroes or villains by giving them the ultimate Star Wars weapon, the lightsaber.

All you need to awaken the force are these three steps:

1. The setup
2. Capturing the shot
3. Light up your sabers using Photoshop

BONUS tip – The Jumping Jedi

Step #1 – The Setup

For the setup, you will want to make sure that the photographs of your kids look as close to a Star Wars scene as possible. Don’t just take a picture of your kids wearing a t-shirt standing in the kitchen. Luke Skywalker doesn’t light up his lightsaber in a kitchen. Your kids will have a lot of fun getting into character, so spend some time on the setup.

Costumes

You can buy costumes for your kids on Amazon. Here are the costumes used in this tutorial.

• Luke Skywalker
• Rey
• Kylo Ren
• Lightsabers
• Total customs cost ~ $40-70

Location

For the location, you will want to find a place that looks like it could be a scene in any of the Star Wars movies. The easiest location to use would be a park with trees, and no noticeable man-made objects in sight.

Step #2 – Capturing the Shot

Action shots

For action shots of a lightsaber battle, you will want to use a fast shutter speed of at least 1/500th of a second, and set your camera to continuous (burst) shooting mode. This will allow you to freeze the action of the battle and take multiple shots in sequence to ensure you capture the best of the action.

Portraits

For the portraits, give your kids some epic poses to follow. To give you ideas for creative poses, do a Google images search for the Star Wars character of your choice. This will also help your child get more into the character. For example here are some for Rey.

Do basic edits to the image

After you capture the image, you will need to make a few adjustments to the image to make it stand out. This can be done in Adobe Lightroom and is the final step before your photo is ready to go into Photoshop for the lightsaber effect.

For the look of Star Wars, a few basic edits, such as increasing the contrast and the clarity will help give it a rough and grungy look that Star Wars is known for.

Step #3 – Light your sabers up in Photoshop

Adding the lightsaber effect is the last and final step in making turning your kid into the Star Wars character of their dreams. This process should take about five minutes per photo once you have done it a few times.

Part 1: Prepare the layer

Start by creating a duplicate layer by pressing CTRL/CMD + J.

Select the icon to create a new fill or adjustment layer, and from that menu select Hue/Saturation. Then, move the lightness slider to -100 to make it black.

Select CTRL/CMD + E to merge the adjustment layer and duplicate layer. Next, set the blending mode drop down to Screen.

At this point, your layers are prepped and ready to add the lightsaber.

Part 2: Add the lightsaber by using the brush tool

Select the brush tool, and adjust the size and hardness of the brush. The size of your brush will vary based on the size of the lightsaber and your image. Set the hardness of the brush to approximately 50%.

Begin to add your lightsaber using brush strokes. Select the end point of the lightsaber, then hold down shift, and click the other end of the lightsaber to draw a straight line. Repeat these lines multiple times to fill in the lightsaber with brush strokes. You will likely need to add free-form brush strokes around the base of the lightsaber to fill it in.

Illuminate the lightsaber

The next step allows you to illuminate the lightsaber. Create three duplicate layers of the lightsaber by selecting CTRL/CMD + J three times. For each layer, you will then select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. But, each layer will be set to a different radius setting. For this image, we used 5, 15, 35, 75 for each respective layer. Note, that the amount of Gaussian Blur needed may vary based on the size of your image. Adjust these numbers as needed to ensure you have a nice glow from the lightsaber.

Select all of the duplicate layers (do not select the background), and merge them into one layer by pressing CTRL/CMD + E. Then set the blending mode to Screen.

Add color to the lightsaber

It’s now time to add color to your lightsaber. Select the icon to create a new fill or adjustment layer, and choose the option for Color Balance. Activate the clipping mask so that you only add color to the lightsaber, not the entire image. You can choose any color of your choice, but in this example, we are working with green.

You will want to add the color selection to each option for Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights. Adjust the color slider up or down based on the color preferences for your lightsaber. For this photo, we set shadows, midtones, and highlights to green at around +65.

Your lightsaber is now complete, but there is still one more important step to get a realistic photo. You need to add some glow to the subject from the illumination coming off of the lightsaber.

Part 3: Add the reflective glow from the lightsaber

Select the background or base layer. Click the icon to create a new fill or adjustment layer, and choose the option for Color Balance. Choose the same color as you used for your lightsaber, but this time as you adjust the color for Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights, it will work best if you emphasize the color around the highlights more than the shadows or Midtones. For this photo, we used Shadows +32, Midtones +38, and Highlights +70

Add a vector mask and then select CTRL/CMD + I to hide all of the color balance. Select the brush tool, and make it a soft edge brush with an opacity around +18. This will allow you to brush in a soft reflection of glow to parts of the image that make it look realistic.

Bonus – Jumping Jedi

A bonus tip that you may want to use in your Star Wars photo shoot is a jumping Jedi. With a few simple tricks, you can give the illusion of your Jedi jumping high into the air over a swinging lightsaber.

First, make sure you use a tripod as you will need the camera to be completely stationary for two different shots. You can have your Jedi jump off a chair at the same time that his enemy swings his lightsaber. Then remove the chair and capture a shot of the exact same scene, but this time without the chair or characters in the shot (tripod use is important for image alignment later).

The second shot should be empty with the exception of the background because it will allow you to take the chair out of the original picture to create the illusion of a jumping Jedi.

Here’s how it’s done in Photoshop.

Start by opening both photos as layers. You will want the empty background shot to be set as the base layer and the action shot as the top one. Select the top layer of the action shot, and click Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal all.

Select the brush tool, and make sure that your foreground color is set to black, which will allow you to brush away the top layer to reveal some of the base layer. If your foreground color is set to white as opposed to black you can switch it to black by clicking X. Simply brush over the chair (make sure you are painting on the mask NOT the layer) to make it disappear.

Add the lightsaber effect from above, and you have the illusion of a jumping Jedi.

Below are some additional examples of the final images from this Star Wars project to give you additional ideas for action shots and portraits to bring your characters to life.

Finally

You can watch this whole process in the follow short video as well:

Note: thanks to my co-author on this article, David Kahl.

Try to awaken the force in your family by giving them a lightsaber and following this tutorial. In addition, leave a comment with any other fun photography projects that you have captured with your kids or family. Share your images if you give this a go, we’d love to see them!

The post How to Turn Your Kids into Star Wars Characters Using Photoshop by Paul Fontanelli appeared first on Digital Photography School.

via Digital Photography School
How to Turn Your Kids into Star Wars Characters Using Photoshop

The MySQL developer tools team announces 6.3.9 as our GA release for MySQL Workbench 6.3.

For the full list of changes in this revision, visit

http://ift.tt/1G0Irmq

For discussion, join the MySQL Workbench Forums:

http://ift.tt/1avx3nY

Download MySQL Workbench 6.3.9 GA now, for Windows, Mac OS X 10.10+,

Oracle Linux 7, Fedora 24 and 25, Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10
or sources, from:

http://ift.tt/KHX9aU

Enjoy!

via Planet MySQL
MySQL Workbench 6.3.9 GA has been released

In this blog post, I will review some of the MySQL replication concepts that are part of the MySQL environment (and Percona Server for MySQL specifically). I will also try to clarify some of the misconceptions people have about replication.

Since I’ve been working on the Solution Engineering team, I’ve noticed that – although information is plentiful – replication is often misunderstood or incompletely understood.

So What is Replication?

Replication guarantees information gets copied and purposely populated into another environment, instead of only stored in one location (based on the transactions of the source environment).

The idea is to use secondary servers on your infrastructure for either reads or other administrative solutions. The below diagram shows an example of a MySQL replication environment.

 

Fine, But What Choices Do I Have in MySQL?

You actually have several different choices:

Standard asynchronous replication

Asynchronous replication means that the transaction is completed on the local environment completely, and is not influenced by the replication slaves themselves.

After completion of its changes, the master populates the binary log with the data modification or the actual statement (the difference between row-based replication or statement-based replication – more on this later). This dump thread reads the binary log and sends it to the slave IO thread. The slave places it in its own preprocessing queue (called a relay log) using its IO thread.

The slave executes each change on the slave’s database using the SQL thread.

 

Semi-synchronous replication

Semi-synchronous replication means that the slave and the master communicate with each other to guarantee the correct transfer of the transaction. The master only populates the binlog and continues its session if one of the slaves provides confirmation that the transaction was properly placed in one of the slave’s relay log.

Semi-synchronous replication guarantees that a transaction is correctly copied, but it does not guarantee that the commit on the slave actually takes place.

Important to note is that semi-sync replication makes sure that the master waits to continue processing transactions in a specific session until at least one of the slaves has ACKed the reception of the transaction (or reaches a timeout). This differs from asynchronous replication, as semi-sync allows for additional data integrity.

Keep in mind that semi-synchronous replication impacts performance because it needs to wait for the round trip of the actual ACK from the slave.

Group Replication

This is a new concept introduced in the MySQL Community Edition 5.7, and was GA’ed in MySQL 5.7.17. It’s a rather new plugin build for virtual synchronous replication.

Whenever a transaction is executed on a node, the plugin tries to get consensus with the other nodes before returning it completed back to the client. Although the solution is a completely different concept compared to standard MySQL replication, it is based on the generation and handling of log events using the binlog.

Below is an example architecture for Group Replication.

If Group Replication interests you, read the following blog posts:

• http://ift.tt/2gxTdi1
• http://ift.tt/2hn6t6c

There will be a tutorial at the Percona Live Open Source Database Conference in Santa Clara in April, 2017.

Percona XtraDB Cluster / Galera Cluster

Another solution that allows you to replicate information to other nodes is Percona XtraDB Cluster. This solution focuses on delivering consistency, and also uses a certification process to guarantee that transactions avoid conflicts and are performed correctly.

In this case, we are talking about a clustered solution. Each environment is subject to the same data, and there is communication in-between nodes to guarantee consistency.

Percona XtraDB Cluster has multiple components:

• Percona Server for MySQL
• Percona XtraBackup for performing snapshots of the running cluster (if recovering or adding a node).
• wsrep patches / Galera Library

This solution is virtually synchronous, which is comparable to Group Replication. However, it also has the capability to use multi-master replication. Solutions like Percona XtraDB Cluster are a component to improve the availability of your database infrastructure.

A tutorial on Percona XtraDB Cluster will be given at the Percona Live Open Source Database Conference in Santa Clara in April 2017.

Row-Based Replication Vs. Statement-Based Replication

With statement-based replication, the SQL query itself is written to the binary log. For example, the exact same INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statements are executed by the slave.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to this system:

• Auditing the database is much easier as the actual statements are logged in the binary log
• Less data is transfered over the wire
• Non-deterministic queries can create actual havoc in the slave environment
• There might be a performance disadvantage, with some queries using statement-based replication (INSERT based on SELECT)
• Statement-based replication is slower due to SQL optimizing and execution

Row-based replication is the default choice since MySQL 5.7.7, and it has many advantages. The row changes are logged in the binary log, and it does not require context information. This removes the impact of non-deterministic queries.

Some additional advantages are:

• Performance improvements with high concurrency queries containing few row changes
• Significant data-consistency improvement

And, of course, some disadvantages:

• Network traffic can be significantly larger if you have queries that modify a large number of rows
• It’s more difficult to audit the changes on the database
• Row-based replication can be slower than statement-based replication in some cases

Some Misconceptions About Replication

Replication is a cluster.

Standard asynchronous replication is not a synchronous cluster. Keep in mind that standard and semi-synchronous replication do not guarantee that the environments are serving the same dataset. This is different when using Percona XtraDB Cluster, where every server actually needs to process each change. If not, the impacted node is removed from the cluster. Asynchronous replication does not have this fail safe. It still accepts reads while in an inconsistent state.

Replication sounds perfect, I can use this as a manual failover solution.

Theoretically, the environments should be comparable. However, there are many parameters influencing the efficiency and consistency of the data transfer. As long as you use asynchronous replication, there is no guarantee that the transaction correctly took place. You can circumvent this by enhancing the durability of the configuration, but this comes at a performance cost. You can verify the consistency of your master and slaves using the 

pt-table-checksum

 tool.

I have replication, so I actually don’t need backups.

Replication is a great solution for having an accessible copy of the dataset (e.g., reporting issues, read queries, generating backups). This is not a backup solution, however. Having an offsite backup provides you with the certainty that you can rebuild your environment in the case of any major disasters, user error or other reasons (remember the Bobby Tables comic). Some people use delayed slaves. However, even delayed slaves are not a replacement for proper disaster recovery procedures.

I have replication, so the environment will now load balance the transactions.

Although you’ve potentially improved the availability of your environment by having a secondary instance running with the same dataset, you still might need to point the read queries towards the slaves and the write queries to the master. You can use proxy tools, or define this functionality in your own application.

Replication will slow down my master significantly.

Replication has only minor performance impacts on your master. Peter Zaitsev has an interesting post on this here, which discusses the potential impact of slaves on the master. Keep in mind that writing to the binary log can potentially impact performance, especially if you have a lot of small transactions that are then dumped and received by multiple slaves.

There are, of course, many other parameters that might impact the performance of the actual master and slave setup.

via Planet MySQL
Overview Of Different MySQL Replication Solutions

Excellent news: Samurai Jack is back next month! Even excellenter news: To celebrate, Adult Swim is streaming all 52 episodes of the show on loop, available for free online with no ads, right goddamn now. You should watch all of it, of course, but here are 10 episodes you just can’t miss before the new season returns on March 11.

1) Jack and the Three Blind Archers

A perennial favorite, this episode sees Jack attempt to get access to a well guarded by three Jackal Archers, who’ve trained themselves to overcome their blindness in order to unleash volleys of arrows at anyone who comes close to it. It’s a tale of Jack’s ingenuity as he tries to overcome the Jackals’ defense, but as with a lot of Jack episodes, it’s also told in an incredibly stylish manner, with virtually no dialogue—instead, using the series’ stellar music and sound design to tell its tale. (Season One, Episode 7)

2) Samurai vs. Ninja

That amazing fight in the new season five trailer between Jack and the female assassins, lighting up the dark with the clash of their weapons? It’s an homage to one of the most stylish episodes of the series, in which Jack faces a robot ninja sent by Aku to kill him, and the two warriors use light and shadow to conceal themselves from each other during a truly spectacular duel. (S4, E1)

3) Any Episode With the Scotsman

Aside from Jack and Aku, Samurai Jack doesn’t really do recurring characters. One of the few exceptions to this rule is the Scotsman, Jack’s rowdy, hilarious, machine-gun-for-a-leg-having foil across several episodes. He’s always a hoot when he shows up, but season four’s two-parter “The Scotsman Saves Jack” in particular is great.

4) Tale of X9

Jack is barely in this episode, but it’s an awesome, tragic insight into the world of Aku’s domain and his minions, framed through a noir lens. X9, a robotic detective type given a personality by Aku, is the star as he hunts for the one thing he’s bonded with: a small dog named Lulu. (S4, E11)

5) Jack Learns to Jump Good

Jack is often seen as being great at everything, especially in a fight. But this fun, slightly goofy episode focuses on a rare area of weakness for our hero. It’s sort of an extended take on the classic training sequence montage, but with a village of incredibly affable monkey-like creatures. (S2, E1)

6) Jack and the Haunted House

The closest thing Samurai Jack has to a Halloween special also features one of the most gorgeous fight scenes of the entire series. Jack battles an evil spirit in a style that looks like a moving ink painting mixed with a sentient Rorschach image. (S3, E9)

7) The Princess and the Bounty Hunters

Another episode where Jack is barely in it, “Princess and the Bounty Hunters” is told from the perspective of a group of bounty hunters who are explaining their plans to take down Jack (and then being told how poorly it will go by the titular Princess). Although it’s a lot of fun, when Jack finally appears at the end the episode pivots into a brilliantly anxious scene that is one of the most gut-wrenchingly tense moments of the show. (S4, E5)

8) Aku’s Fairy Tales

One thing season five will be sorely missing is the absence of Mako Iwamatsu, the evil Aku’s original voice actor, who sadly passed away in 2006. “Aku’s Fairy Tales” is told from the villain’s perspective, as he attempts to make the children of the world fear him once again by telling a trio of fairy tales and replacing the heroes and villains with himself and Jack, respectively. It’s an example of the remarkable range and depth Iwamatsu provided to his performance. (S1, E13)

9) Jack and the Smackback

One of the best things about Samurai Jack is its brilliantly choreographed action, and this episode is pretty much all action. Trapped in an homage to the Mad Max’s Thunderdome, Jack is forced into combat against a series of vivid, weird, and fearsome foes, one after the other. They’re all different battles that Jack overcomes in different ways, but the episode essentially one long master class in the show’s violent, kinetic approach to action. (S2, E3)

10) Robo-Samurai vs. Mondo Bot

As the title implies, Jack gets a huge goddamn robot (well, it’s actually a big golem) to pilot in this episode, as he goes up against the gigantic robotic guardian of the city of Andromeda after it inadvertently goes rogue and turns on its creators. Consider it the spiritual ancestor of Tartakovsky’s short-lived but excellent Sym-Bionic Titan, which further explored his love of the mecha genre. (S4, E2)

---

What episodes of Samurai Jack are you looking forward to rewatching before Jack’s return? Like we said going in, the answer should be all of them, but there are many great episodes not on this list (“Jack vs. Aku,” “Jack Remembers the Past,” “Jack vs. Mad Jack,” “Jack vs Demongo the Soul Collector,” “Jack Tales”—we could go on). Let us know your favorites in the comments below.

via Gizmodo
10 Samurai Jack Episodes You Need to Rewatch During Its Massive Online Marathon

In this new clip from the third Wolverine movie, Logan (Hugh Jackman) has a friend who seems to be having some kind of land dispute. The man says he’s gotten a lawyer, but I don’t think he actually needs one. Pretty sure Logan’s got this one handled.

This scene introduces Eriq La Salle (ER) as a character who hasn’t been revealed yet. There are precious little clues here to tell us if he’s playing someone we’d recognize from the comics or someone completely new.

The other question this clip makes us ask is where the hell Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Laura (Dafne Keen) are. Since we’ve seen the first chunk of the movie, we know this scene doesn’t appear there, and we also know it’s after the three of them get together. So where are they during this scene? Are they in the house? Did they get separated? What’s happening?

I guess we’ll find out when Logan hits theaters on March 3.

via Gizmodo
Wolverine Doesn’t Need His Claws to Be a Badass in This New Logan Clip

Finding all the paperwork in your business a hassle? Struggling to keep up with the mountain of management associated with employing people that isn’t directly related to the work they’re doing for you? Then you might want to consider a professional employer organization (PEO). A… Read More

The post How To Decide Whether or Not to Outsource Your HR Department appeared first on Business Pundit.

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How To Decide Whether or Not to Outsource Your HR Department

Ohio wants help designing an electronic database to track the state’s medical marijuana industry.
The state is looking for contractors to design and implement systems to track marijuana "seed-to-sale," from its start as a plant to its sale to patients and everything in between.
The system will monitor a lot of important facets of the industry. Responsibilities include tracking the medical marijuana supply chain, the cultivation and harvest of marijuana, the transportation to dispensaries, and the…

via Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus
Ohio wants IT help with medical marijuana seed-to-sale tracking system

The post The prophet Jonathan S. Hartley appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

via Marginal Revolution
The prophet Jonathan S. Hartley

It should be no surprise to anyone that the Trump administration’s ATF would be a kinder gentler regulator to the firearms industry. The NRA-backed pro-gun president made eliminating wasteful, useless…

The post BREAKING: Leaked ATF Memo Reveals Planned Pro-Gun Moves appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

via The Truth About Guns
BREAKING: Leaked ATF Memo Reveals Planned Pro-Gun Moves

The debate over on-site vs. cloud ERP software has now been settled. Companies of all sizes and in every industry prefer to rely on the cloud for its ability to lower costs, increase functionality, simplify maintenance, and amplify the benefits of enterprise resource planning software overall.

In practice, however, cloud ERP software is able to deliver even more benefits than even the most enthusiastic adopters expect. It is worth being aware of the overlooked benefits early so that you can begin taking advantage of their full potential starting on day one.

Improve Data Security

Data security is a paramount concern for every business. The risk of a breach is greater than ever, and the consequences range from disruptive to catastrophic. Cloud ERP software actually enhances the level of data security that companies can depend on by bundling a number of security resources together into a single package. Cloud service providers have invested heavily to secure their clouds, and to manage and monitor those clouds according to the direction of world-class security experts. In almost all cases, it will be too costly for companies to invest in similar capabilities just for the protection of their own data.

Optimize Your IT Team

Since the heavy lifting of managing and monitoring your cloud enterprise resource planning software is handled by the provider, your in-house IT team is liberated from a lot of time and labor-intensive work. That means that rather than having to install updates and patches, they can spend their time working on IT initiatives that can deeply impact your bottom line. You free your IT team up to utilize the full extent of their credentials rather than handle an endless stream of rote assignments.

Embrace Mobility

Being able to access mission-critical apps from anywhere at anytime is no longer just an exciting capability for today’s businesses. It is an imperative for any company that hopes to remain competitive and avoid the slow slide into irrelevance. Cloud ERP software has been built from the ground up with mobility in mind. That means companies can instantly embrace a mobile strategy, and evolve that strategy as new devices, data sources, and client expectations are introduced into the mobile ecosystem.

Prepare for the Future

Perhaps the single biggest advantage of cloud ERP software over any other type of implementation is how seamlessly it can change. Since the cloud offers on-demand access to a pool of computing resources, companies can match their exact capabilities to their exact needs at all times. As a result, when growth suddenly accelerates, new markets open up, or the industry landscape takes a turn to the left, companies are not stuck with IT that is no longer relevant. The cloud puts these companies in the perfect position to adapt to changes over the short-, medium-, and long-terms.

Maximize Customer Satisfaction

Cloud ERP software is often viewed as an in-house resource. It is designed to improve communication, collaboration, processes, and strategies for everyone on your team. But as a result of these refinements and enhancements, the overall customer experience improves significantly as well. Issues in the financing, distribution, sales, and marketing departments can easily be resolved so that every customer interaction is as efficient and effective as it can possibly be. And once you begin basing strategic decision making on data rather than assumptions, you’re in prime position to adapt what you do to the exact needs and wants of the customers you serve. The effect on the bottom line is immediate and lasting.

These are the most commonly overlooked benefits. But many companies find that once they implement cloud ERP software, it also leads to unexpected improvements and opportunities that are specific to their operations and goals. Anyone looking to reap the greatest rewards from ERP specifically and IT generally should be very enthusiastic about the capabilities of the cloud.

via Business Opportunities Weblog
The Overlooked Benefits of Cloud ERP Software