The only thing that rivals the beauty of a brilliant sunset is a gorgeous sunrise. It must have been a pretty calm night in the Windy City for Lake Michigan to be as placid as it was. Paying the extra dough for a West-facing apartment is definitely worth it!

Not much was done to this photo - only slight boosts in saturation and sharpness. I'm thinking the photo could benefit from slight vignetting - what do you think?

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-200mm VR
Focal Length: 18mm
F number: 9
Exposure: 1/13
Taken March 24th, 2010

Ok, so maybe not right now, but still... this is incredible! Watch the video and be amazed. For those without flash, or those that don't have time for the video, basically what this shows you is the next generation of photo retouching. Up until now, removing objects from photos has been a painstaking task. In the next generation of Adobe Photoshop, deleting objects, lens flares, even shadows will be easier than ever.

What will come of this? For one, it is going to make my photo editing process a whole lot quicker. It's going to be so easy to create fake iPhone 6G leaks!

So this is my cat Boozer. She's a half tortoise shell half tabby mix and she takes wonderful 35mm photos! No post-processing was applied to this photo - my D90 was set to my custom "Vivid" setting to boost the saturation. As mentioned, I used my Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens with my S600 flash attachment. The funny thing is, Boozer and my other cat, Moxie, pretty much overdosed on catnip like 5 minutes before this photo, so she's totally in a haze in this picture.

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.8
Focal Length: 35mm
F number: 3.5
Exposure: 1/60

More pictures of my cats' drug binge after the break…

To me, the best part about HDR photography is usually the clouds. I've explained the basics of HDR before, but this photo uses an entirely different technique. First of all, it doesn't even look like a photo! Sure, the architecture of the Dresden Theater is enough to make the picture beautiful, but the way the artist blended the images together really make it surreal.

According to the Photographer (dhfotos):

A high dynamic range (HDR) panorama of the Dresdner Hofkirche, the Residenzschloss and the Zwinger. It's a part of a 360-panorama that took me twelve hours to create.

Canon EOS 50D, EF-S 17-85, Stitch (Hugin), HDR (Qtpfsgui), Finish (Adobe Lightroom).

51.053678, 13.736063

12 hours of work really paid off! Head over to interfacelift.com to download other resolutions.

Ever since that crazy Wells-inspired Superbowl commercial for the first Apple Macintosh in 1984, the cultural divide between Mac and PC has been epic. To most, the argument is black and white, but for me, I use both on a daily basis and enjoy using each platform for certain tasks. Apple has stolen from Microsoft probably as much as Microsoft has stolen from Apple. Whatever the case may be, I like to find useful third-party software that brings better functionality from one platform to the other. In this post, I'll show you how to adopt one of Windows 7's best features, Aero-Snap, into OS X.

Everyone knows what a standard bar code can do, but not everybody knows about the latest in scanning technology: the QR-Code. Basically, the code is square and allows for cameras to easily scan and interpret the code. Using a simple app like ShopSavvy for the iPhone or Barcode Scanner for Android, you can scan a QR-Code simply using your phone's camera. On my Droid, I was able to scan the QR-Code to the left in about a second.

So how do we make use of these things? Using this QR-Code Generator, you can easily create your own URL links, phone numbers, or even an sms message! The QR-Code to the left sends you right here, to TakeItOrTakeIt.com.

For most scenarios, having a simple hyperlink will do the trick, but if you're trying to link to something thats only available on the phone, using a QR-Code is MUCH faster than having the user type it in manually. Try it out - the code to the right links you to the Barcode Scanner app in the Android Market. How am I going to use it? I'm going to print this QR code on the back of my business card, making it easier for people to find my website.

Do you use barcode scanners? Have any suggestions on how best to use QR-Codes? Say so in the comments!

Opera, Chrome, and Safari may have their own "speed dial" homepage variations, but for those that use Internet Explorer or Firefox: start using fav4! Its extremely easy to setup, and provides a very elegant and simple homepage or new tab page:

1. Point your browser to fav4.org
2. Pick your top 4 most visited websites by dragging them into the drawer on the right
3. Select any additional options (like adding a search bar at the bottom)
4. Set your browser's homepage to fav4.org

That's it! If you'd like to have it show up everytime you open a new tab in Firefox, download the "New Tab Homepage" addon here.

The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.

Who doesn't love time lapse videos? And who doesn't love space? This video is just awe-inspiring, but what's really amazing is that the entire sequence was shot with a Canon 5D Mk2!

Here's the information that the photographer, Charles, provided:

Location: Mauna Kea, Hawai'i
Camera: 5D MK2
Lenses: Tokina ATX-116
Sigma 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L
EF 24-105mm f/4L
EF 17-40mm f/4L
Music: "That Is Why I Am On This Porch" from the movie
"The Village" composed by James Newton Howard

All night scenes were shot with ISO6400, 30 sec exposure, 15 sec interval and on f2.8 lenses (except from 0:34 to 0:43, which was shot with a f4 lens)

Head over to Vimeo to check it out in HD (you really should).