Peachpit Releases New Scientific Imaging with Photoshop Book
Scientific Imaging with Photoshop: Methods, Measurement, and Output by Jerry Sedgewick
Book Description
Adobe Photoshop is one of the more powerful tools available to scientists today. It is indispensable in the preparation of digital images of specimens for measurement, especially for separating relevant features from background detail. Scientific Imaging with Photoshop is the authoritative guide to the use of Photoshop in scientific research, with a special emphasis on the ethical ramifications of the use of image-enhancement software to extract data from digital images. Beginning Photoshop users will benefit from its tutorials in the basics of image processing, and more sophisticated users will appreciate the sections on automating Photoshop operations with actions. In addition, the book lays out procedures in straightforward language for acquiring digital images as well as outputting processed images in digital and hard-copy formats.
Scientific Imaging with Photoshop provides all this and more:
• Little-known methods separating features of interest from the background for subsequent quantification
• How to make dense colors and subtle visual detail reproduce properly in publication
• Correct Photoshop methods and techniques for all user levels
• Procedures that are usable in legacy versions of Photoshop as well as Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Extended
Jerry Sedgewick has been the director for the Biomedical Image Processing Lab at the University of Minnesota for over 10 years. The lab is a light microscopy core facility serving scientists and engineers at the University and in local industry. Jerry works side-by-side with members of the research community on a daily basis. He has co-authored articles in numerous publications, including Science (for which he has created two covers) and Circulation, and he is the author of Quick Photoshop for Research: A Guide to Digital Imaging for Photoshop 5x, 6x and 7x.
Product Details
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Math on Display
Visualizations of mathematics create remarkable artwork
Source: Science News
Written by Julie J. Rehmeyer
“Coral Star” shows the motion brought about by one particular dynamical system.
By Michael Field
Mathematicians often rhapsodize about the austere elegance of a well-wrought proof. But math also has a simpler sort of beauty that is perhaps easier to appreciate: It can be used to create objects that are just plain pretty—and fascinating to boot.
That beauty was richly on display at an exhibition of mathematical art at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego in January, where more than 40 artists showed their creations.
Michael Field, a mathematics professor at the University of Houston, finds artistic inspiration in his work on dynamical systems. A mathematical dynamical system is just any rule that determines how a point moves around a plane. Field uses an equation that takes any point on a piece of paper and moves it to a different spot. Field repeats this process over and over again—around 5 billion times—and keeps track of how often each pixel-sized spot in the plane gets landed on. The more often a pixel gets hit, the deeper the shade Field colors it.
The reason mathematicians are so fascinated by dynamical systems is that very simple equations can produce very complicated behavior. Field has found that such complex behavior can create some beautiful images. For example, the dynamical system he depicts in “Coral Star” does some peculiar things as it gets closer to the center (technically, the equation is discontinuous at the origin). So as you get closer and closer to the center, the image gets more and more complex.
“Even apart from the center, the image has quite a lot of depth to it,” Field says. “It’s a feature of the way it’s colored. I’m not so keen on bright primary colors. The shading makes it more interesting.”
This image has an unusual 35-fold symmetry, and Field created it as a present for his wife on their 35th anniversary.
The website for the exhibition is at www.bridgesmathart.org/art-exhibits/jmm08/.
Copies of the catalogue for the exhibit, complete with high-quality reproductions of all the pieces of art, are for sale at www.mathartfun.com.
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Get Your METACOW Right Here!
METACOW: A Public-Domain, HighResolution, Fully-Digital, Noise-Free, Metameric, Extended-Dynamic-Range, Spectral Test Target for Imaging System Analysis and Simulation
Geek Alert: the following would really only excite a “color geek”…
Sent in from Greg Barnett of RIT is this info about a geeky color test target from the Munsell Color Science Lab at RIT (that’s Rochester Institute of Technology for those who didn’t attend school there). From the web site:
“Standard, easily accessible, test targets have long served the field of color imaging as a foundation for comparison of the performance of various imaging systems and algorithms and the open and meaningful exchange of research results. This website details the creation and application of a new digital color test target useful for research and development of color imaging systems. The target has several advantages over previous types of targets that include spatial resolution, dynamic range, spectral resolution, metameric properties, lack of noise, and continuous tonal variations. All these features can be important for visual assessment, computational analysis, and colorimetric evaluation. This target, known as METACOW, is freely available to all performing research in color imaging.”
The METACOW test target available to all, for use in imaging system design and evaluation. Since it is such a large image it is not really practical to download, it will be provided on DVD for a nominal $25 media & shipping/handling fee. On this fabulous DVD you get: Many Gigs of Fullsize METACOW Glory, Smaller and Easier to Manage MINIMETACOW, Matlab Source Code for Reading and Rendering METACOW, and Much More. Or you can download a smaller version (420×600×77) here: Small METACOW Images.
Contact Garrett Johnson or Mark Fairchild for details on how to order your very own METACOW DVD
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Grant puts field in the public eye
Source: Detroit Free Press
Written by Patricia Ansetett
A little-known field of ophthalmology soon will get work space in Ann Arbor that matches the stature a University of Michigan team has achieved.
A $1.5-million grant awarded in October by the Harry A. and Margaret D. Townsley Foundation will help U-M build a state-of-the-art Ophthalmic Imaging Center in the new Kellogg Eye Center under construction.
Scheduled to open in 2010, it will house six camera rooms, a photo studio, a waiting area and a larger work space.
When ophthalmologists review milestones in their field, they will likely credit Richard Hackel, chief of the U-M ophthalmic photography program, as the person whose digital images helped transform the diagnosis of eye disease.
In 1995, Hackel changed an arduous process of cutting and pasting together dozens of photos of the eye’s interior — much the way a collage is made — into digital photographs that precisely capture its texture and color.
Today, ophthalmic photography is an important adjunct to the diagnosis of eye disease. It also is used to monitor whether patients benefit from certain treatments.
In that way, a computerized photo can spare patients from undergoing possibly risky, invasive procedures and save money by avoiding unnecessary treatments that may cost $2,000 or more.
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Brain’s wiring seen in Technicolor
Source: Chemistry World
Written by John Bonner
Researchers in the US have developed a technique that could allow neurologists to draw a detailed wiring plan of the mammalian brain by inserting genes coding for fluorescent proteins into mice. Dubbed ‘Brainbow’, the system reveals individual neurons within the nervous system in up to 90 different colours.
The work by Jeff Lichtman and colleagues in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Harvard University uses a combination of genes from natural sources such as bioluminescent jellyfish or corals and man-made constructs to produce proteins in four different ‘primary’ colours, red, yellow, cyan and orange. The researchers inserted the genes into the mice genome using the Cre/Lox recombination method developed by Du Pont in the 1980s. This allows tissue specific modification - in this case, the genes are expressed only in the cells of the central nervous system.
One or more gene constructs may be present in a single cell and the entirely random expression of these proteins in the cell cytoplasm creates the many possible colour combinations.
‘In some cells we see a greyish colour because all the proteins are expressed about equally. But in most cells the proteins are at different concentrations giving us a range of hues,’ Lichtman told Chemistry World.
The group has been using the system to investigate the changes in the neural circuitry that occur during early development and have tracked the changes that occur in the mouse brain over the first 50 days.
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals
Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals: A Complete Digital Imaging Course for Investigators
Written by George Reis
Digital imaging technology has been used in forensics since at least 1992, yet until now there has been no practical instruction available to address the unique issues of image processing in an everyday forensic environment.
This book is an excellent tool for:
Law enforcement personnel, from crime scene and arson investigators, detectives, and patrol officers to forensic photographers, fingerprint examiners, video analysts, tool mark and footwear examiners, and criminalists.Security pros in such fields as private investigation, insurance, fraud detection, and loss prevention.
Scientific and technical users of Photoshop with workflows similar to law enforcement, such as medical photographers, research imaging experts, engineering and architecture staff, and industrial photographers.
Staff responsible for maintaining a photo archive or printing images for court.
Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals is the only book to provide forensics professionals with specific answers to their imaging questions. This is the perfect resource for those who want to move from simple theory to the essential skills needed to be more effective. This resource is dividied into three parts:
Part I: The Essentials is about setting up your workflow, archiving your images, and familiarizing yourself with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge, including the setting up of preferences. Also covered are the best practices in writing reports and providing courtroom testimony.
Part II: The Digital Darkroom teaches how to use Photoshop to accomplish what traditionally was done in the darkroom, from correcting color casts to making prints and exhibits for courtroom use.
Part III: Image Analysis & Enhancement covers techniques for clarifying images so that details can be better viewed and used for analysis or comparison, from contrast enhancement and pattern removal to even forensic video analysis.
The companion CD-ROM provides sample images—including various accident and crime scenes—you can use to practice the techniques from the book while?following along with the tutorials. It also includes several scripts, plug-ins, and actions so you can work more effectively.
In addition, instructor’s materials are available so you can use book in workshops and training seminars.
Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals: A Complete Digital Imaging Course for Investigators
George Reis
ISBN: 978-0-470-11454-4
Published by Sybex
Paperback
252 pages
July 2007
List price: $59.99
Amazon price: $37.70
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Interpol Untwirls a Suspected Pedophile
Source: The New York Times Blogs
Written by Mike Nizza
The world locked eyes with a suspected pedophile today after a lot of digital photo manipulation and an apparently unprecedented global appeal by Interpol to help find him. From Agence France-Presse:
“For years, images of this man sexually abusing children have been circulating on the Internet,” Interpol chief Ronald Noble said in a statement.
“We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice, but we are now convinced that without the public’s help this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young children whose ages appear to range from six to early teens.”
This was “the first time the organization has made such an appeal,” Interpol stressed.
The suspect wasn’t caught in the act so much as found performing with a mask in public. About 200 photos of the suspect with 12 different young boys were located on the Internet in December 2004, an Interpol official said. But in each image, his face was obscured, apparently by use of a standard Adobe Photoshop effect called twirl, which is used by digital artists to manipulate images.
Apparently, the suspect, or whoever handled the pictures, did not think it was possible to reverse the twirling, a capability that at least one Interpol official was intent on keeping confidential.
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.2007 Visualization Challenge Winners
PHOTOGRAPHY: FIRST PLACE (TIE)
What Lies Behind Our Nose?
Kai-hung Fung,*
Source: Science Magazine
Written by Jeff Nesbit, Director, Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, NSF
Monica Bradford, Executive Editor, Science
Scientific data are the currency of science, but they often buy little understanding outside science itself–or even outside the narrow confines of a single scientific discipline. But when data are brought to life through images, illustrations, computer graphics, and animations, they can stimulate excitement, awe, new ways of looking at things, and, above all, a broad appreciation of even the most esoteric scientific information.
For the past 5 years, Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have cosponsored annual challenges to encourage cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data. Our interest in supporting these competitions is based on our firm belief that bringing data to life visually will be increasingly important not only for public understanding of science and engineering but also for improving communication across scientific disciplines.
This year, we received more than 200 entries from 34 states and 23 countries representing every continent except Antarctica. A committee of staff members from Science and NSF screened the entries, and an outside panel of experts in scientific visualization reviewed the finalists and selected the winners. (No awards were made this year for illustration.)
We encourage you to submit applications for next year’s challenge, details of which will be available at www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/index.jsp, and to join us in celebrating this year’s winners.
Susan Mason of NSF organized this year’s challenge. Benjamin Lester of Science’s news staff wrote the text that accompanies the images in this special section, and Stewart Wills and Tara Marathe put together a special Web presentation at www.sciencemag.org/sciext/vis2007.
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.Eye diseases gave great painters different vision of their work
Source: PhysOrg.com
Michael Marmor, MD, wanted to know what it was like to see through the eyes of an artist. Literally.
After writing two books on the topic of artists and eye disease, the Stanford University School of Medicine ophthalmologist decided to go one step further and create images that would show how artists with eye disease actually saw their world and their canvases.
Combining computer simulation with his own medical knowledge, Marmor has recreated images of some of the masterpieces of the French impressionistic painters Claude Monet and Edgar Degas who continued to work while they struggled with cataracts and retinal disease.
The results are striking.
In Marmor’s simulated versions of how the painters would most likely have seen their work, Degas’ later paintings of nude bathers become so blurry it’s difficult to see any of the artist’s brush strokes. Monet’s later paintings of the lily pond and the Japanese bridge at Giverny, when […]
Original post by PSN Editorial Staff
Written by PhotoShop News.