Techno-frustration

Do you make pacts with yourself? Does that work - do you stick to it? And if not, what happens next?

At some point during the weekend at the CQ Summer School I sort of decided to start using my new computer for "everyday stuff" ... so, bright and early this morning, I started to try out this new resolution. 

It has Photoshop and Indesign, which I need for newsletter etc layout. But on the tiny screen of the Surface Pro, the writing on the menu bars is suitable only for ants! Spend half an hour trying to find if this can be fixed - first, figuring out what words to use to describe the situation - and discover that Adobe isn't going to fix it, ever ... then find this fix but it involves changing the registry, which I'm not brave enough to do, not before breakfast at any rate, despite the clear instructions and the enthusiastic testimonials from dozens of people. 

I pretend I'm an ant, and give Photoshop a try - what I want to do is change the huge dimensions (and large file size) of my photos to 600x480 pixels at 72dpi for using in blog posts. 

You need a mouse to do this, and my "cheap" one, says the Son, isn't Bluetooth ... so he brings his, and it says "it takes a minute to connect."

Son also tells me, somewhat impatiently, about why yesterday's photos (taken on phone) haven't appeared in Google Photos - I need to go to the phone to back them up. This takes quite some time; perhaps a hint not to take so many photos?

I lose patience with the phone, and with the new computer, and here I am back on the old one. Two screens, two keyboards, two mouses ...

... and a photo uploaded straight from the phone, unedited, to find out, via someone else's computer, if the file or the photo is huge. Though actually a bit of research shows this is no longer a problem - you get 15GB storage:

Blogger usually doesn't have any limit for the storage as the images the you upload will be stored in Google Photos of your Google account.

You can check your Google account's storage usage by using this link.

Son and I had a conversation that started "you don't need photoshop Mum, you can do all that with the photo software in the phone" - er, no: not correct keystoning, not doing Levels to get the contrast etc right. Editing is more than just cropping, especially editing photos that will be printed in newsletters etc.

But to a large extent he's right. I need to move with the times, and with the improved software.

So my next challenge is to find out how to use "the photo software on my phone" for ordinary purposes. One quick way to improve matters is to take a little more time when snapping the pix in the first place!

To end, the photo that's on the new screen - unedited -

and trying to get the light right (with a little cropping along the way) -

Nope, can't get the light ... it was much more sombre, despite the sunlight. These huge old conifers are in the beautiful, varied Licky Hill Country Park, near Longbridge (my Summer School experience included long walks before breakfast) - look hard on the left, there's a man with a dog to give you an idea of how big these trees are.  

As for that pact with myself, I'll give it another go later. Much as I love the familiary old computer, it gets so hot when it runs, can't be good. It needs a rest.