Black and White Shapes

Black and White Shapes

February's in Chicago are generally quite brutal. Occasionally, however, we get a nice warm streak that brings to life our cold city for a few days.

It was almost 60° so I decided to walk along the lake shore on my way home. It is by far one of the best parts of Chicago and always beautiful. As any good photographer would, I was compelled to shoot some photographs. Even though I have taken this path many times before, I always find something I need photographs. While it is a little dark this time of year at this time of day, there is a certain eerie glow to the lake shore which makes for some interesting photography.

Gray Lake Shore

A nice day is the best excuse to go out and shoot. Even if you walk the same path hundreds of times, you'll always discover something new. 

Shot on iPhone 6s

Apple's Commitment to Customer Security

The United States has opportunities within its boarders. There is contention among many about how the U.S. should proceed concerning education, healthcare, finances, and a plethora of other topics.

Much can be criticized when one discusses the government of the United States. It could be argued that all forms of governments are inherently flawed but also it could be argued that the United States has a system with the innate ability to self correct.

A very important part of such a system is the vigilance of its population; to not allow those of little or no conscience to gain a foothold and undermine the welfare of citizens. One could quote many great people in history about liberty, justice, peace, and more but this quote is one that shaped much of my values concerning freedom and the nation that is the United States.

“ Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

— Benjamin Franklin

While I have vested interests in Apple, Inc., I am both an employee and a long-time user of the best technology on Earth, and I can not say much about this subject concerning Apple in these matter as I wish to avoid a conflict of interest, I am both proud of what Tim Cook has written about Apple’s stance on our technology and security and I wholly support Tim Cook and my company. Please read this letter from Tim Cook concerning the security of the devices with which our lives are concretely integrated.

“February 16, 2016 — A Message to Our Customers

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

The Need for Encryption
Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.

All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

The San Bernardino Case
We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The Threat to Data Security
Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.

In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.

We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them.

A Dangerous Precedent
Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”

— Tim Cook

Source - www.apple.com

Polarr, A Powerful Photo Editing App I've Been Waiting For

While I was initially going to post another Tips and Ticks for Photos, this tops that by far. If you were looking for a tool to bring Photos to nearly the level of Aperture's editing, this is it. Polarr is an app I was only recently introduced to. I found its simple interface enticing so I gave it a try. The first impression encouraged me to dive deep into the features.

There are a whole lot of editing tools out there for OS X, iOS, Windows, etc. Many of them are only available on one platform or the other… maybe two if you’re lucky. Polarr, to my knowledge, is the only editing app that is available for iOS, OS X, Windows, Android, and for the Web. When discussing these cross platform features, they aren't “watered down” feature sets between desktop and mobile, mobile and web version; nearly full functionality is available across the platforms.

The adjustment toolset is the first and most impressive attribute. Here is a list to start:

Adjustments

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• Temperature 
• Tint
• Vibrance
• Saturation
• Exposure
• Brightness
• Contrast
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Whites
• Blacks
• Diffuse

• Dehaze
• Clarity
• Sharpen
• Denoise
• Vignette
• Grain
• Distortion 
• Fringing
• HSL
• Curves
• Tones

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This list is extensive and evolved beyond the basics. The HSL (Hue/Saturation/Luminance) adjustments allow changes to specific color ranges. One can select a specific spectrum to adjust, green, for example. This is one of the main features I sadly missed from Aperture.

Polarr includes a distortion control; a very powerful feature in the age of digital photography. Most applications that work with RAW files include lens specific distortion correction, however, having a manual control is very welcome to the professional.

Curves, a standard for most any pro-end photo editing application, is included and permits adjustments to channels (RGB and master). Additionally, Tones, a not-so-common tool, allow one to adjust highlights, shadows, hue, and saturation independently.

Polarr with filters (left) and adjustments (right)

One feature that piqued my interested was the denoise tool. Many applications have a noise reduction feature but few independently allow control of luminance and chrominance noise. They two are in the same family but have two different natures and, as such, having these two separate deniers is a win.

With its forty core adjustment functions, it begins to look very appealing to an editor. To take this a step further, in the age of Instagram, so many tools can overwhelm. Included in Polarr are over 100 filters to suit one’s many needs. A few of my favorites I’ve had the pleasure to playing with: Clear, Fujicolor, Vista, TM2, and IF5 (an Infrared filter!). Even with all these filters, creative types want their own, custom features. Polarr give one the opportunity to create and save custom filters and use them at one’s leisure.

These filters and adjustments work together but sometimes it is needed for an area of a photo to be adjusted while other areas are left alone. Simple gradient tools can give the virtue of a mask to one’s adjustments and fine-tune portions of the photo rather than the general global changes.

As one works on a photo, the beauty of a digital workflow, experimentation leads to great discoveries and can lead to not so great discoveries. Polarr, with its many features, not only gives unlimited undos but an history palette; a timeline of all the adjustments one has made; jump back one step or one hundred steps and all the way to the original if needed.

But the reason I put another post on hold in favor of this review, the feature that sold me beyond the afore mentioned, Polarr, as of today, released an update to their OS X version with full support for Photo Extensions. And this isn’t a half-hearted attempt by many other applications. When a photo is processed into Polarr using the extension, the entire Polarr editing suite is available; every adjustment, every filter, unlimited undo history, all of it. There is no need to organize in one application and edit in another. No need to export a RAW or JPEG from Photos, save to desktop, open another application and import it for editing only to do the same process in reverse to return the newly edited photo to Photos and using additional storage space: organize in Photos, edit in Photos, edit in Polarr.

With a simple, clean interface Polarr caught my attention. Having nearly all the same tools available to me on my iPhone and iPad impressed me more. Being able to use even other platforms as Windows and Android, online through a web browser, gave the impression the developers were serious. Having a rich toolset and access to them via extensions in Photos, really sold the whole package.

Polarr for OS X runs $19.99 and can be complimented with an iOS version for free (though, all the features is an in app purchase of $9.99). I highly recommend it. Having use many photo applications from Photoshop to Aperture, Affinity Photo (another favorite) to Pixelmator, iPhoto to Tonality, this is a simple yet sophisticated imagine editing application that I’ll be utilizing a lot.