Yay! I finally made a new layout!  I wanted something brighter and more colorful, to make my mood better and make you happier while visiting So I spent my weekend designing and coding, instead of studying… 

I’ve been thinking about this design for a while, and it’s inspired by my wallpaper  I got the wallpaper from Smashing Magazine, it’s the fourth wallpaper called “Spring is coming”. I think everything is done, but if you come over something that looks funky, please let me know

I haven’t listed all the credits yet though, I will do that really soon. I struggled finding icons for my online profiles, no one had sets including every icon I needed, so I ended up using four from a set and copying the design and making the rest myself.

The only thing bugging me about the layout (so far) is that I don’t have a border with rounded corner round the images. It’s no problem coding it, well it’s a bit of code, but it can be done. But I would have to go through all my previous posts and add divs to the images, not that I have that many posts right now, but if/when I don’t want rounded corners anymore it would be a whole lot of work going through all pages and posts removing the code. So I’ll just have to live with it… 

The thing I’m struggling with is the hover image for the navigation. For some reason it won’t show up when you hover the menu… When I coded my last layout I did it on my computer and tested it in the browser before I uploaded it to wordpress and I had no problems with it, but when added the code in wordpress the hover image just doesn’t show up… Does anyone know why? Or what I can do so fix it?

I have never put so much work into a layout before, so much details, so I’m pretty happy with it

I hope I’m not boring you with all my photography posts..

But I tried HDR for the first time today! And I have to say, holy crap it’s FUN! The colors just pop from a pretty dull greyish photo and it just looks vibrant and alive. The photo to the left is a “real” HDR, composed of three exposures. I tonemapped both photos in Photomatix which is where the colors just popped, so much fun I then edited curves a bit in photoshop and applied the unsharp mask to make it a bit more crisp. I also enhanced vibrance and saturation in the sky in both pictures. The photo to the left is a “pseudo” HDR, an HDR from a single RAW file. I took the RAW file and saved three jpg versions of it with exposures +2, 0 and -2. I think I actually like the photo of the barrel better, probably because it has more different colors, the rust on the barrel, the dry yellow grass and cloudy sky.

Do come with comments and suggestions on how to improve I might have overdone the editing a bit, but I like the surreal effect of HDRs

I have uploaded the original, unedited, version of the pictures. Original of Real HDR and Original of Pseudo HDR, you really should take a look, the difference is amazing!

To share something more “personal”, I’m visiting my mom this weekend. I came home (to my mom) yesterday and I’m already having a great time. I met a friend I haven’t seen in well over a year and it was great to catch up It’s so nice to be home, not having to (or choosing not to) think about school at all, and just relaxing. Have a great weekend!  irate: