Pon De Lion

Something New

I’m sure everyone remembers my favorite donut post, Pon De Ring, this time around I have a perfect complement to the other desktop, the mascot for said donut, Pon De Lion. I never actually thought I would own one of these because it takes purchasing more donuts than I could imagine eating while on a short month stay here. Thankfully though, YoungDoo has a friend who often buys donuts there for work and could quickly accumulate enough points to take home one of these lions and was nice enough to give it to me! I realize this is far cuter than most things I post around here but what’s wrong with a little cute from time to time eh?

As for the lack of posts as of late, I honestly thought I would have more time to post while traveling but the funny thing about weddings is that they take a lot of preparation to make happen smoothly! That said, I have done my best and you can rest assured that posting will become more frequent post wedding which takes place in a few short days. Trick is, however, that I still need to find and shoot something blue!

downsample.jpg

Downsampling

I have received an unexpectedly large amount of traffic based around the iPad retina wallpaper post. Unexpected because in the past I have not experienced such a huge rush when posting like minded articles such as those for the original iPad and iPhone 4. It seems in this time demand for device specific wallpapers has exploded and I have seen countless content farming “retina wallpaper” websites and the like pop up all over the place.  I am humbled that so many people have found their way over here and have been enjoying what I have made available.

With this boost comes a few problems though, the wider the scope of readers the more likely it will be that little issues will come up. I shouldn’t say problems, they aren’t problems, lets call it helpful or constructive feedback. Being the open minded person I am I figured I could answer a few questions and concerns and wanted to do it here rather than trying to cram them into Twitter.

Most questions that have come in over the last day or two have had to do with the retina images themselves. One was addressing the slightly off center nature of one of the photos, one was asking about JPG compression, and a few were about problems with the resolution.

The most alarming of these was a problem with the resolution of the images. I have heard varying reports that the images I made available were not at the new iPads full resolution but were actually downloading at 1024×1024. This is a strange issue and is both true and completely untrue at the same time. Oddly enough, Safari puts a limit on the maximum resolution of images it allows to be displayed in an apparent effort to increase the overall speed of web browsing. This limit falls in right at 1024, the resolution of the old iPad screen.

I can’t help but imagine that this is something that will be addressed in the future with a simple update and was somehow overlooked as they moved into the higher resolution screens. This and with ultra high resolution screens such as this, the web suddenly just got a lot more expensive. At any rate, it has been a confusing experience for myself and readers as when you click to download a high resolution wallpaper thats exactly what you expect to see. The trick here is that as soon as you tap and hold to save the image internally it will save at its full, original resolution. This is based on user reports because I do not have a new iPad on hand for testing so if anyone has any further questions, comments, or concerns on the matter please, let me know in the comments below or through email. More information on this issue or at least other places I have read about the problem are herehere, and also via podcast here on 5by5.

Now, for the other questions. There was an image, Going Home, that I missed the cropping a bit and was off center. I have re-cropped the image and simple replaced the file so if anyone else noticed this, please, delete the old version and update to the newer image.

The last thing that came up was someone who was adjusting an image a bit in photoshop and/or iPhoto and said the result was increased compression artifacts showing in the image. This is not some kind of sneaky way of keeping people from messing with my images (though thats a clever idea!) it is simply a symptom of me using the desktop versions of images as my source material rather than the originals. I do regret not having them with me here while I am traveling. I will be away from home until April 23rd and until then I am most likely unable to access those files. While I always save my wallpapers at the highest possible jpg compression rates there is still room for them to loose a bit of information in the process so while they look OK for their intended purpose, further editing may result with increased attention to the limitations of the JPG format.

Thats all for now, just a quick update to answer a few frequently asked questions on the new images. See you guys again soon!

Update: Further speculation (read here, and here) has lead me to believe that mobile safari may have an issue with JPG’s that are not progressive scan versions. I will go back through and save them again with this method and see if it clears up the bug. So frustrating. I am really hoping that this will not result in more artifacts in the images. I can’t spare another afternoon cropping images for quite some time. This would also indicate that even when saving images to the library they very well may also be the small size from what I am hearing…

Straight from apples Safari developer recourses there appears to be limits due to the amount or RAM in the devices. “The maximum decoded image size for JPEG is 32 megapixels using subsampling. JPEG images can be up to 32 megapixels due to subsampling, which allows JPEG images to decode to a size that has one sixteenth the number of pixels. JPEG images larger than 2 megapixels are subsampled—that is, decoded to a reduced size. JPEG subsampling allows the user to view images from the latest digital cameras.” Interesting indeed.

If anyone is having this issue, could you let me know in the comments if you are using Wi-Fi or if you are on a 3g/4g network. Just part of my troubleshooting.

Update two: To recap whats been going on, the issue has proved maddening and I have heard different reports from different readers about success or failure in downloading certain images versus others yet all were saves in exactly the same manner. Not to mention some reporting success in using the save to disk trick while others have no luck at all. Even more discussion on the issue of image size limitations on iOS here and according to this discussion it may be a bug within ios5, well, a “feature” that backfired and caused these issues.. It is still a bit maddening to deal with and most workarounds have failed so far for me so I am taking a break from it until someone can possible offer more information on what may be a god solution. At the moment I have read from readers that they have been successful in using their mac to download the full images and then emailing them to their iPads in order to get the larger size to save to the device. Meanwhile, I will continue to poke around and read whatever information comes my way about the subject. If anything changes I will let everyone know and make alterations to the files accordingly. Thanks for your patience.

Retina iPad Wallpaper Pack

There goes Apple again making more work for me. The apparently beautiful new iPad screens have a remarkably high resolution, nearly as big as the large, full size desktop wallpapers I offer. Knowing this I knew it was time to jump in and start cropping images for all of the new iPad owners out there. It’s a bit time consuming but you guys know I love you so here we go.

I would honestly love to be able to include every wallpaper I have ever released and simply update the files on the backend but it would be far to great in scope for me to handle on my own. For whatever reason I don’t have an intern handy to sit at a desk and crop images for me all day. That said, I have done my best to get a nice healthy group of many favorites from the past all in one place as a way to catch up to the newest tech. From here forward expect every new wallpaper post to include the larger retina sized iPad images as well as the other usuals.

I also wanted to mention that images you remember from before may seem ever so slightly different for those discerning eyes out there. This is because I am using the wider desktop versions as my source material to compile these. I am away from my original files at the moment so I must pull from what I have available to me. Let me know if this bugs anyone and perhaps in the future I can update any that feel too off but all in all most everyone should not see much of a difference. Sorry about the slight inconsistency, I am simply doing the best I can.

For simplicity’s sake I have included all images below in thumbnail size. Simply visit the page on your iPad and tap the one you would like to save to your device. I am not making them all available in one single download because in the past this has lead to widespread loss of the images as those less trustworthy users of the net were simply scooping them all up at once and dumping them on other paid sites.

Please do not link to the images directly if you decide to share them with others, link back here to this page so they can have a proper pick of all that is available.I appreciate the understanding and support! You can read over my simple terms of use here. Let me know if anyone has any trouble with any of them and more importantly, since I am unable to test them on a new iPad at this time, let me know how they look on the new display. Thanks again and enjoy!

Follow the read more link to access the full collection.

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something old

Something Old

I came across an opportunity to take this old Mac out back and shoot it recently. We were cleaning out old storage space and came across our Mac graveyard of sorts. Also In there was a Cube and moving head iMac. Good stuff. I took out one of the Classics we had around and put it in the middle of a nearby field. I’ll tell you what though, it may look warm but I was freezing laying on the grass to get this shot. I am a bit disappointed in myself for letting the highlight there get blown out but thats bound to happen when shooting straight into the sun. The image still somehow ended up in my shareable image pile so here we are.

I am nearly finished with an article about the new 5D Mark III which I started writing by request. I should have time to get a few more good posts in before my wedding at the end of March which is coming up quickly! I am also excited to share that YoungDoo and I will be spending some time in Bali while I am away so heres to the travel and beauty that lies ahead. It’s going to be an exciting couple of months I know that much. Till then, enjoy this little piece of the past.

To whom it may concern,

IMAGES FOUND WITHIN FIFTYFOOTSHADOWS.NET ARE ©JOHN CAREY AND MAY NOT BE USED FOR ANY COMMERCIAL USE WITHOUT PERMISSION. 

DO:

• Enjoy the images! It’s a labor of love, thanks for your support!
• Share fiftyfootshadows.net with friends.
• Send me a quick mail if you are interested in using an image for commercial or personal use other than wallpaper.

DON’T:

• Post desktops elsewhere online.
• Share links directly to images.
• Pass them around in mass.
• Make prints.
• Use images for web banners or graphics. (send a quick email to ask, I’m pretty easy going about this with permission.)
• Use them in commercial work.

If you help me out with these I will be able to keep doing what I love to do. Thanks again, really, for your support and understanding. -J

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By downloading any content from fiftyfootshadows.net you agree to the following terms:

All of the images contained within this website, fiftyfootshadows.net, are property of, John Carey unless otherwise posted. The images are distributed as freeware but they are available for personal use only on your personal computer, tablet, or smartphone as your wallpaper image. Any use of these images for any purpose other than this is a violation of these terms and anyone found using said images will be asked to either compensate the creator for doing so or be asked to stop using them immediately.

I ask that you refrain from using any images found on fiftyfootshadows.net to create physically printed material of any kind. This includes posters, photographic prints, fliers, etc. Under no circumstances may you make a physical reproduction without written permission.

These rules also apply for any artwork or imagery submitted and shown within this site which was created by an artist aside from myself. Any images submitted and shared as wallpapers are the property of the artist who created them and in the same manner as my images, you are asked to receive permission before using them in any way aside from their intended use. Any use of these images outside of for your own personal use as a desktop wallpaper image is prohibited without permission from the author of the image. Commercial licensing is available upon request. Please write with any inquiries.

When sharing images via your personal blogs I kindly ask that you link back directly to either the post the image was taken from or the base of the website at www.fiftyfootshadows.net and give a credit to www.fiftyfootshadows.net. Do not re-post full resolution desktop images anywhere without permission. If you would like to use an image for your blog background or something of the sort simply write to ask first. Support the artwork you admire! Also, it is greatly appreciated if you do NOT link directly to the zip files. This is more or less the same as re-posting them as it circumvents the tiny bit of support I ask of you which is to simply link back to the original post for others to enjoy the site.

It’s not fair to artists if you do not credit their work and link back to the original content creator. It is theft plain and simple and blogs that attempt to somehow be mysterious by not giving credit to the creators are simply hurting the artistic community as a whole. If you love it so much then please, support it! The artistic community on the Internet is based on trust. Without trust then what do we have? are you going to be one of the responsible users out there or will you be among the bottom feeders, stealing content and passing it off as your own to make a quick buck in ad sales.

Use your best judgement and we will get along just fine.

Thank you for your understanding and support!

John Carey (curator, owner)

fiftyfootshadows.net

fiftyfootshadows@gmail.com