Day 122: Inspired to action by a discussion with a friend about hoarders, I decided to do a little "de-stuffing." De-stuffing occurs at least once a year, and is defined as a purge of unnecessary items, sometimes mild, sometimes brutal. It keeps me from being buried in objects I never use, and as any half-baked psychologist would undoubtedly assert, it provides a sense (largely false) of being in control of my life. To this end, I binned half a dozen pairs of old shoes, set aside overly snug pants to be taken to a thrift shop, and sorted a dozen t-shirts into a pile to be turned into rug strips. As you have heard me complain several times, I'm desperately short of material for my posts, so I thought I'd have a go at converting rug strips into an Orb with PaintShop Pro. Orbs are fun to make, and often give quite unexpected results. My first attempt was rather blasé, so I backed out of it and hit it with a "wave" distortion. My rug strips became Rickrack! The Rickrack translated into a delightfully psychedelic Orb. So how do you make an Orb from a photo? Start with a square. Using the distortion tool in the photo processing software of your choice, convert the polar coordinates from polar to rectangular. Then flip the image vertically, and convert the polar coordinates from rectangular to polar. You'll probably have some other options available for changing the background colour, etc., but those three steps (polar to rectangular, flip vertical, rectangular to polar) are crucial to success and must be done in that order.
