stephbg | Somewhat back on the horse

If the horse was a flat slab of interesting rock, or a digital microscope, one could say I was somewhat back on it. Pretty rock pictures may soon be making a reappearance, and here's a couple to go on with.

(This post is also notable because it's the first time I've uploaded new images to flickr to point to, rather than using the rather horrible lj Scrapbook function. An important step in freeing myself from this place.)

Tonight I spontaneously felt moved to pick up the microscope and try to deal with some of the image quality problems that meant every shot had to be fixed in post in much the same way. Let's just say the software is less than friendly, and there's no documentation at all.

I finally discovered a preview mode so I could adjust brightness, saturation, contrast etc and actually see what effect it had, albeit at a slight delay, but far better than going blind. I have new default settings that generally seem much better than the factory settings, and the confidence to tinker as required. I may yet do things in post, but I assume it's better to get the original image as good as possible first to avoid unnecessary losses later.

Many things kept me away from the rocks and the camera, and for a while there I was getting a bit worried. When I *tried* to get excited about the rocks, and worked my way through the collection looking for ooh aah moments I found none. I briefly flirted with the idea of buying more rocks, but fortunately some vestiage of sense prevailed. I have *plenty* of rocks, but for a while there I just couldn't enjoy them.

Hello Clinical Depression :/

But in the ways these things happen I seem to have taken a step towards recovery without fanfare. So, enjoy the fruits of my apparently improving mental health, a couple of microscope shots of East Java plume agate. First alien intestines: