{"id":1317,"date":"2020-03-27T14:51:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T19:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2020\/03\/27\/20200327-shellcasingejection\/"},"modified":"2022-04-20T12:17:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T17:17:14","slug":"20200327-shellcasingejection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2020\/03\/27\/20200327-shellcasingejection\/","title":{"rendered":"A minor diversion…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the silver linings in the COVID-19 stay-at-home protocol is that we have time to pursue trivial matters that previously would have been preempted by more important things like…well, don’t ask me. I’m retired; I can pursue all the trivial matters I want, at any time. But, perhaps you aren’t that fortunate, but you now have time to enjoy MY trivial pursuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s a long and ridiculous introduction to the following gif that I made with my own two hands. It’s a big file (4.5mb…if you scoff because you have high-speed internet and unlimited data, keep it to yourself), so it may take a while to load. But if you can watch it, give it a shot (no pun intended) and I’ll tell you some stuff about it below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Animated<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it is<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is a slow-motion time lapse of a spent ammo casing being ejected from a pistol being fired by MLB<\/acronym> at a target in an undisclosed location in West Texas. The gun is a Springfield Armory XD-40 Sub-Compact<\/a>, firing .40 caliber S&W ammo. The XD is a sweet shooting firearm and I like it a lot, the downside being that .40 cal. ammo is more expensive than the more popular (but generally less powerful) 9mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How it was done<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The original video was shot via an iPhone 8 using the slow-motion feature of the Camera app, and I selected about a two-second interval from that video. I did this in iPhoto, and I worked backwards from the point where the casing disappeared from sight. I clicked frame-by-frame in reverse (iPhoto tends to jump forward more than one frame at a time, hence the reverse approach) and took a screen capture of each frame using a desktop app called Snapz Pro X for Mac. Each screen capture was automatically saved in Photoshop format (.psd) for editing purposes. I captured about 65 frames in this fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to convert the images to grayscale for two reasons. First, grayscale allows for a sharper and smaller image in gif format. Second, I wanted to showcase (no pun intended) the casing throughout the sequence by leaving it in its original color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To achieve this effect, I applied the following steps to each frame using my ten-year-old desktop version of Photoshop for Mac (version 12):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Warning: Extreme geekiness ahead]<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Immediately after opening each frame image, I enhanced the contrast, vibrance, and sharpness using the respective tools in the app. <\/li>\n
  2. I zoomed into each frame 300% so get a better look at the casing. Using the lasso tool, I outlined and selected the casing, then copied it into a new layer (Layer > New > Layer via Copy<\/i>).<\/li>\n
  3. I returned to the original layer and converted it to grayscale via the Image > Adjustments > Black & White > Darker <\/i>option. This yielded a slightly higher contrast image than the simple Grayscale conversion that’s available in Photoshop.<\/li>\n
  4. I then flattened the two layers and saved and closed the edited file. I opened the next frame image and repeated steps 1-3, until all frames had been completed.<\/li>\n
  5. The images were still in individual .psd files, but in order to create the animated gif in Photoshop, I needed one file with each frame image loaded sequentially into a separate layer. I accomplished this (rather laboriously, I might add) by creating a new master .psd file, opening each frame file one-by-one, and dragging the image into the master file where it appeared as a layer.<\/li>\n
  6. I then opened the Animation window in Photoshop and selected Make Frames From Layers<\/i>. Photoshop automatically created the animated gif and I selected the option to have no delay between individual frames.<\/li>\n
  7. I then selected File > Save for Web and Devices<\/i>, selected “GIF 128 No Dither” from the optimization options in the resulting pop-up window, made sure the looping was endless, and saved the finalized animated gif to my hard drive. I uploaded it to the Gazette’s server (using Fetch as my FTP program), and then crafted this post a pixel at a time (kinda) so that it appears in the glorious, mesmerizing incarnation you’re now looking at.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The entire process took a couple of hours, time that I would otherwise have spent plopped down in front of the TV. Being plopped down in front of a monitor is a MUCH MORE worthwhile use of time, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You really need to affirm the wonderfulness of this effort; otherwise, I might be forced to upload an audio file of my clarinet playing. You’ve been warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of the silver linings in the COVID-19 stay-at-home protocol is that we have time to pursue trivial matters that previously would have been preempted by more important things like…well, don’t ask me. I’m retired; I can pursue all the trivial matters I want, at any time. But, perhaps you aren’t that fortunate, but you… Continue reading A minor diversion…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firearms","category-photography","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9985,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/9985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}