Safety Chris Harris and any defensive tackle that bothered to line up next to Tommie Harris (Boonie, Ian Scott, Tank) are the most notable defensive absentees from our Super Bowl run. Sure, you could throw Todd Johnson and Cameron Worrell in for giggles, but the last three drafts and free agent signings have produced enough quality special teams players to keep that unit among the league’s best for years to come.

Barring injury, the Bears will have the best defense in the National Football League in 2008. Notice, I didn’t say, “among the best” or “top 10”. I’m talking about the absolute, hands-down, top defense in the entire mother-effin’ NFL. (On a side note, I apologize if the point was, in any way, diluted by use of the word “effin’”).

Left End

Dan Bazuin has fully-recovered from the knee injury that kept him out of play in 2007. He is the type of high-motor, try-hard player that the Bears like. Draft pick Ervin Baldwin has drawn comparisons to Mark Anderson for his pass-rushing ability. Wale Ogunleye starts. Back-ups: Dan Bazuin, Ervin Baldwin.

Right End

Last year, Mark Anderson was given the starting job but a sprained knee put him on injured reserve as the regular season came to an end. Alex Brown was impressive in all the opportunities he received in the Bears’ regular-rotation scheme. The Bears rewarded him with a new contract through 2011. Regardless of who starts, both men will see plenty of playing time. Brown starts. Back-up: Anderson.

Tackle

Tommie Harris is about to be uber-rich, son. The perennial Pro Bowler will be a mainstay in Chicago and if he can walk, he will start. Dusty Dvoracek has played in one of the 32 games since he’s been a Chicago Bear. Now, my math ain’t too good but dat must be somethin’ like 3 %. The good news is he’s healthy now. Izzy Idonije has made the permanent switch to tackle and third-rounder Marcus Harrison could make an immediate impact. Anthony Adams and Matt “Catch a tiger by its” Toeaina played relatively well last season. Harris and Harrison start. Back-ups: Dusty, Toeaina, Izzy and Adams.

Weak-side Linebacker

The biggest surprise of the offseason had to be the re-signing of Lance Briggs. I had emotionally detached myself from him in preparation for his departure. Had he gone, I might have crashed my 1997 Geo Prizm into a pole and left the scene. Luckily, no other team was biting and now Briggs is all ours once again. Jamar Williams played admirably in Briggs’ absence last year. Briggs starts. Back-up: Williams and Okwo.

Middle Linebacker

Is he or isn’t he hurt? This will be the big question about Urlacher’s health going into the season. He underwent “minor” neck surgery and battled an arthritic back but says he’s fine. I believe him, I think. Either way, he’s the man. Urlacher starts. Back-up: I don’t even know.

Strong-side Linebacker

Hunter Hillenmeyer has been solid, if not somewhat spectacular, over the course of the last few years. He’s often lost in the shuffle with Briggs and Urlacher receiving the glory, but Hillenmeyer does a great job in doing what he’s asked; taking on blocks, shedding blocks and redirecting the play to his more celebrated counterparts. Hillenmeyer starts. Back-ups: Williams and Okwo.

Cornerback

Ricky Manning, Jr. has less of a chance than the poor chap he pummeled in the Denny's parking lot of making it to the regular season. If his sub-par performance last year wasn’t enough, the emergence of Trumaine McBride and drafting of Zack Bowman should be reason enough to say “don’t let the door hit you in your ass on the way out.” Corey Graham impressed enough as a special-teamer last year to stick. Peanut Tillman and Nate Vasher start. Back-up: McBride, Bowman and Graham.

Free Safety

If Mike Brown stays healthy he will (fill in the blank). Reasonable options that cross my mind include: have a Pro Bowl season, be all over the field, decimate receivers coming through the middle and my personal favorite; carry the Bears to the Super Bowl. Mike Brown starts. Back-up: Danieal Manning.

Strong Safety

I love Craig Steltz and we will be a much better team because of him. Will he start right away? He could. But he’ll have to beat out Kevin Payne first. Payne played well in limited time and can contribute as a special-teamer, too. It’s a coin toss but I gotta go with my gut. Steltz starts. Back-ups: Payne and Brandon McGowan.

Gosh, did you really just sit through all of this bull? You deserve some kind of prize. Really, you do. Tell you what: I’m going to promise that “Blog Down, Chicago Bears” will continue to offer you the mother-effin’ (second reference) best in Chicago Bears rumors, news, analysis and opinion as long as you leave a comment or two (and I guess, even if you don't).

Special Teams up next week. Nah, eff it: Gould, Maynard and Hester start.

It took NBC anchor Bob Costa and his team twenty-odd minutes to even mention Eight Belles, who was euthanized almost immediately after her front ankles snapped across the finish line. Substantive information took longer, preceded by nonstop coverage of the winning owners leaping about in live, million-dollar-purse jubilation. At the New York Times, equine softy Alex Brown was live-blogging the Derby and pulled out his best passive-aggressive for the network: "NBC is choosing to focus on Big Brown," he sniffed. "Death at the Derby," screamed Matt Drudge in a rare display of appropriateness.

There are plenty of sights sicker and more gripping than confetti falling to the track around a still and prone horse (save me the HETA indignation, please), but it's up there. Emmy-winning sportscaster Jack Whitaker once said "the horror of seeing a horse break down" was "like seeing a masterpiece destroyed." Whitaker would know, having watched as filly darling Ruffian refused to stop running on her broken leg at Belmont Park in 1975. Wasn't pretty. Protruding bones and such. Two decades later, the prolonged demise of Derby winner Barbaro was a ratings bonanza for NBC, and just about anyone else who covered the country's ensuing absorption with the animal. Barbaro was so in vogue that his fans earned Deadspin's unwavering disdain! You know you're somebody when a Gawker Media blog takes the time to point out the many ways in which you are a nobody.

All of which explains why I'm extra annoyed at NBC's insistence on focusing on the ho-hum (if efficient!) Big Brown win to the near complete exclusion of Eight Belles' compelling story.

Go ahead and be impolitic and heartless, Oh Peacocksters. But for God's sake (and the shareholders too!) don't turn up your nose when a viewer-friendly ratings bonanza (now with extra pathos!) literally falls down at your feet.

It almost makes me think they didn't actually receive that messengered copy of my world-famous manual On How To Be Constantly Right And Other Preachy Parables.

Recuerdan la noticia cuando OOXML fué aprovado por ISO?. Resulta ser que MS Office 2007 no cumple con este estandar, a esta conclución llegó Alex Brown, lider de la International Organization for Standardization (ISO), al realizar una revisión del formato xml generado por el editor de texto de Microsoft tomando como referencia ISO/IEC 29500; documento obtenido a partir de la estandarizacion de ooxml y que tiene como objetivo asegurar la compatibilidad de documentos creados actualmente por cualquier programa de procesamiento de texto.

En verdad no lo puedo creer, es realmente irónico que Microsoft, el creador de ooxml, no cumpla con su propio estandar.

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entre masters desde webMaster

Also: 260 Substantive Reasons to vote for Barack Obama from Daily Kos

- Kansas City Chiefs franchise DE Jared Allen

4:40 PM - Chicago Bears release WR Muhsin Muhammad and re-sign DE Alex Brown to a two year extension

2:37 PM - Cincinnati Bengals franchise OL Stacy Andrews

RUMORS

UPDATED 10:38 PM - LB Dan Morgan to meet with New Orleans Saints 

- Tampa Bay Buccaneers are interested in TE Alge Crumpler and DT Rod Coleman

-  Carolina Panthers will likely use the franchise tag on T Jordan Gross

-  Jacksonville Jaguars may not retain QB Quinn Gray

Scotty Serenades

A Unique Experiment

Scotty is my classmate and friend. At school, one of our assignments is to work in a team of 3 (me, Scott and Alex). Our task is to contribute to a website that Scotty has been building, utilizing leading edge technology and trends. Scotty's site will host a community forum where people can communicate and share knowledge and ideas. As part of our team project, I offered to contribute a Photoshop tutorial showing the process I use when creating digital art. We thought it would be more interesting if I did the tutorial from scratch, using a photograph that I'd take of Scotty, then afterwards explain the steps. This tutorial will be useful for people who already have a basic understanding of Photoshop's interface and tools, however beginners might glean an interesting tip or two.
:-)

First Step

To begin this image, I took some photographs of Scotty and his cat at his apartment during a time of day when there was sufficient indirect lighting shining in through his balcony window. By the way, the amazing guitar he's playing is my gorgeous Taylor acoustic. I took photos at the highest jpeg setting that my digital camera would allow, as it is essential to obtain a high amount of pixel data. I could have taken the photos in Tif or Raw, but those modes would have slowed down my camera’s response, so Scotty would have to sit longer between each photo. This would have been less spontaneous, so instead I used the jpeg setting. I made sure that the lighting in the room was neither too bright, nor too dim. The best lighting is solid indirect lighting. I begin each digital piece with a full range of highlights and shadows. Any moody or dramatic lighting is created using Photoshop. BTW ... Scotty is actually playing the guitar, not merely posing. He is an amazing musician and singer.

Detail of Graffiti

Layer Palette

I’ve done a print screen of all 47 layers from the layered PSD Photoshop file. I’ve printed the Blending mode that I used beside its layer, and I’ve assigned a number next to each layer so that you can easily refer to it while reading this tutorial.

Background

I gathered about 30 images and began dragging and arranging them, sometimes masking out portions of the images until a mood began to emerge. I generally spend a lot of time experimenting, looking for interesting textures, colors and a hint of lighting that I will afterwards carry throughout the entire image. I merged several images to come up with the background image, displayed below. During this process, it’s necessary to merge images in order to continue superimposing more images over top, rotating them, blending them together until I arrive at a background that carries a particular mood.

Extracting

I then extract Scotty and his cat from photos I've taken. During this process I take my time, extracting in several stages. I first make a loose lasso selection, then afterwards use a soft brush to Mask the edges, using progressively smaller and smaller brushes and zooming in to a detailed view. Masking has always been my preferred method to extract because it allows the flexibility of using different edged brushes. On areas like hair or fur I use a soft-edged brush, whereas on architecture or sharp edged objects I use a harder brush. I'm never in a hurry to finish extracting. I find the process tedious so after doing a bit of extracting I go work on some of the more artistic aspects of the image, then later come back and continue extracting. Often I don't finish fully extracting until I'm almost finished the piece.

Adding Graffiti

For the graffiti on the door I overlayed an image of graffiti art, cutting, Masking and using the Free Transform Tool to rotate, skew and resize it to fit an area on the door. For the graffiti on the left wall, I blended it into the wall by using one layer with reduced opacity, set to Normal. Then I duplicated this layer and set the second layer to Multiply Blending Mode. (These 2 layers are in a folder labeled Pass Through on the Layer Palette diagram above).

Graffiti Face

The face on the upper right is from an image of a statue. I superimposed this image using Multiply Blending Mode, which knocks out the white and light colors and only preserves dark tones. I then overlayed several other colors and images over top of this to make it appear to be graffiti.

Graffiti Maiden

It might be difficult to view from the photo below, but in the final version at the top of the page you will be able to see the 'graffiti maiden' who is looking lovingly down from the door towards Scotty. She was created from an image of foreign money that I found on a stock image website. I used Overlay Blending Mode along with the Smudge Tool, Liquify Filter and Clone Tool to change her features and make it appear as though she was painted on the door as part of the other graffiti.

Additional Color And Wall Texture

I then add extra bits of color, highlights, and more graffiti to the walls and beneath the stair railing, using portions of images that have been Masked, rotated with varying degrees of opacity. I choose Overlay Mode to burn in the midtones.I now add many different layers in Overlay Mode to create texture on the walls. This process takes several hours of tweaking, rotating, changing opacity, experimenting with various Blending Modes, and mixing these layers together.

Lighting

I then begin overlaying random images that I've chosen only for their colors. It doesn't matter what the images are because they will be blurred using the Gausian Blur Filter. This takes some experimentation, but results in amazing lighting highlights when superimposed over the image using Blending Modes. I then Mask portions of these images. For this image I used Color Dodge Mode, but for other images a different Blending Mode might work better. I try all of them to see which ones work best. I overlay these blurred images over Scotty and the scene I've created.

Dodge And Burn Tools

I also use the Dodge Tool to create highlights throughout the image. The Dodge and Burn Tool functions like a paint brush and has 3 modes. These 3 selections are available from the Options Palette at the top of the screen and becomes available once you click on either the Dodge or Burn brush in the Tools Palette. The 3 modes that you are able to burn or dodge are: highlights, midtones and shadows. I always experiment with all of them to see what ones work best on a particular portion of the image. This process requires patience and a lot of trial and error.

Final Result

Shadows

I then begin to mold in a 3D appearance by burning in some shadows using the Burn Tool and by using Multiply Blending Mode.

Detail of Cat

Finishing Touches

I then add back the fine hair around Scotty’s head that was removed during the extraction process. I do this by taking a close up photograph of Scotty’s hair against a dark background. This allows me to use Screen Blending Mode with this layer, which knocks out all dark colors and preserves only the light colors, such as his blonde hair. I also add extra whiskers to the cat that I extract from an image of Scotty’s other cat which has black fur. Again this is perfect because I can apply Screen Mode to the layer which reveals only the white whiskers and knocks out the black fur. I then add intense highlights on Scotty’s clothing and on the cat’s fur to make it appear as though there is a light source casting a glimmer of light onto the scene. I do this with the Color Dodge Blending Mode.

Detail of Graffiti Maiden

I hope you've found this tutorial helpful and that it provides you with some new ideas for using Photoshop with your images.

Cheers!

Gale Franey

Visit my website: The Graphic Groove
Or my gallery on Flickr

Return To Gale's Home Page

Second, Brian Jones blogged about the changes to OOXML specifications. I welcome the changes. He use it as examples to hit back at critics who says that TC45 will not accept changes. Actually, one can equally interpret it as ISO force it down the throat of ECMA. My bigger beef is that those proposed changes should had been done inside T45 BEFORE being proposed to ISO. Now, we always hope that any changes in the BRM stage is for the better of the standard, but I cannot help but think that the changes will actually REQUIRES voting down OOXML. The proposed changes is big and is SUBSTANTIAL. There is simply not, I repeat not, enough time to fully study the implications of the changes. I still hope that the changes are for the better. It, however, remain true that these changes, although welcome, should had been done before the OOXML is proposed to ISO.