Heart of Stone Studio Blog

All About Ammonites

Ammonites are fossils of animals that lived between 65 million to 400 million years ago. They died out at the same time as the dinosaurs (65 million years ago). These animals were Molluscs (Phylum Mollusca) in the same group as the octopus and the squid (class Cephalopoda), who are believed to be their nearest living relatives. Although nothing is definitively known about the behavior of these animals, they are believed to have lived in the open waters of seas, rather than living on the ocean bottoms, and are believed to have eaten a variety of small creatures. In turn, they were probably eaten by some of the marine reptiles, and some of the fossil ammonites have been found with tooth marks left by such predatory reptiles.

What we see today is the fossil shells of the ammonite animals. While alive, they secreted a shell that was made up of a number of chambers. These chambers were filled with gas, which gave the animal buoyancy and allowed it to swim in the open oceans. The animal itself is believed to have lived in the outermost chamber, and as it grew, it added larger outermost chambers to accommodate its larger size. The shells were composed of calcium carbonate, and are now preserved as fossils in chalky clay, limestone, or limey shale. Some of the ammonites have been fossilized in pyrite and have a golden color, while others have iridescent layers that are made up of glass-like layers of aragonite, a calcium carbonate mineral that is also found in onyx marble, pearls, and mother-of-pearl. These iridescent layers have been recognized as a gemstone called ammolite in 1981 by the International Commission of Colored Gemstones.

Ammonites have a Mohr’s hardness of 4 and a density of 2.75-2.8. Because they are relatively soft, care has to be taken to avoid scratching them.

Ammonites have a spiral shape, and that gave rise to their name: The name ammonite comes from the Egyptian god Ammon, who was often depicted as wearing ram’s horns. The Romans referred to ammonites as ammonis cornua, or horns of Ammon.

These fossils are surrounded by a number of legends.
In Britain, ammonites are known as snake stones, because legend has it that Saint Hilda (614-680 AD) wanted to build a convent at Whitby, but the land was infested with numerous snakes. So she prayed, and the snakes were turned into stones after she cut off their heads with a whip. The people around Whitby used to carve snake heads into the ammonites and sell them as petrified snakes. A triplet of ammonites became an official symbol for Whitby in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and is still used today. Near Bristol, a similar feat was ascribed to Saint Keyna, who also apparently turned snakes into coils of petrified stone.

In India, ammonites are thought by some to symbolize the god Vishnu and can be found in some temples. Because of their spiral structure, ammonites are called the “Wheel of God” by some Himalayan tribes.

Ammonites have been thought to have a number of healing or beneficial properties.
The ancient Greeks thought that putting an ammonite under a pillow brought good dreams and cured insomnia. A Greek coin dated 480 BC contains the words, “The horn of Ammon which makes beautiful dreams.”  In Greece, the fossils were known as Ophites, and in addition to their effect on dreams, were thought to provide protection from snakebite and cure impotence and infertility.
The Romans thought that pyretized ammonites would bring prophetic dreams, as did people in Ethiopia.In Germany, ammonites were proposed as a remedy for helping a cow start to produce milk again, by putting an ammonite into a milk pail and presenting the pail to the cow. And in Scotland, the ammonites were believed to help alleviate the cramps that cows might develop, by putting an ammonite into a pail of water, letting the ammonite sit in the pail for a few hours, and then washing the cow with the water from the pail. For that reason, ammonites in Scotland are still sometimes called crampstones.

Among the North American Indians, the Navajo and Plains Indians sometimes carried ammonites around as amulets. And the Blackfeet Indians considered the ammonites to be good luck, referring to the stones as buffalo stones because they thought that the spiral structure looked like a sleeping buffalo. The Blackfeet also called the stones journey stones, because finding an ammonite before beginning a journey was considered to be a sign of success on that journey.

In a metaphysical sense, ammonites are believed to be able to transform negative energy into smoothly-flowing positive energy.

Ammonites have been prized as jewelry. In England, Anglo-Saxon graves have occasionally been found to contain ammonites with holes drilled through them, suggesting that they were used as pendants. And in Elizabethan England, ammonites set in a jet matrix were highly valued.

At Heart of Stone Studio, we have ammonite cabochons that can be made into pendants or other jewelry, or can be placed under to your pillow to see if the Greeks and Romans were right about ammonites producing pleasant or prophetic dreams.

Sources: http://orion.kitsunet.net/ammonite.html; http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/ammonite_fossil.html;

http://www.tonmo.com/science/fossils/mythdoc/mythdoc.php; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonite;

http://www.ammonite.com/faq.htm; Melody: Love Is In The Earth; Schumann: Gemstones Of The World

 

All About Pyrite

by Con Slobodchikoff

   Pyrite is a yellow-gold or silver-gold mineral that is found world-wide in igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. Particularly good specimens come from Spain, Mexico, Peru, Italy, France, and Colorado in the United States. It is an iron sulfide, with a hardness of 6-6.5, a density of 5-5.2, and a crystal structure that is either cubic or pyritohedral (12 faces each with 5 edges). 

   The name comes from the Greek, Pyr, meaning fire. This is because pyrite will produce sparks when struck against a hard surface, particularly against steel. Legends and myths suggest that Pyrite was considered to be a magical firestone in the Stone Age, when it was used to help produce fire.

   Pyrite is also sometimes called “Fool’s Gold” because it often has a yellow-gold color, and stories abound of people salting mines with pyrite and then claiming that they had struck a vein of gold. Naïve investors are said to have sunk money into such supposed gold mines, making fools out of themselves and enriching unscrupulous prospectors.

   In the jewelry trade, Pyrite is sometimes called Marcasite, which is a mineral that has the same chemical composition but a different crystalline structure. However, true Marcasite is not as stable as Pyrite, and often decomposes in air, becoming covered with a white iron sulfate powder. True Pyrite on the other hand is quite stable in air and does not decompose. Almost all of the jewelry labeled as Marcasite is actually Pyrite.

    In ancient cultures, Pyrite was used by the Greeks, the Romans and the Incas for jewelry. The Incas made reflective mirrors out of Pyrite, using these for divination.
Pyrite is said to have a number of beneficial properties. It is said that it improves memory, and is good for intellectual and nervous fatigue resulting from overwork. Holding a piece of Pyrite in each hand during meditation is said to produce a burst of vitality and physical energy, and enhances creativity and mental clarity.

  On a physical level, Pyrite is said to have some healing properties. It is said that it helps repair DNA and RNA, helps stimulate endocrine function, and when worn as a pendant, is said to help fight infections of the respiratory tract.
In a metaphysical sense, the stone is said to be associated with the third chakra, and is said to bring balance and harmony to the aura, protecting a person from negative energies in the environment.  It is said to be associated with masculine energy, bringing balance to those who need to develop more willpower, confidence, and vitality.

 The pyrite cabochons that we sell at Heart of Stone Studio are really pyrite in quartz. In these cabs, gleaming silvery pyrite particles float serenely in a quartz matrix that is colored a dark charcoal due to the presence of another mineral. Some of these pieces are partially translucent. All of them combine the metaphysical properties of pyrite with those of its more famous healing cousin, quartz, the same material that composes healing crystals.  These cabs are particularly well-adapted for either jewelry or metaphysical uses. Because one side is flat, they can easily be laid down on the chakras. They can be crafted into jewelry, and can also be conveniently put into a pocket or a purse. They can easily be held in the hand during meditation.

Sources:
Hall, C: Gemstones;  Harding: Crystals;  Megemont: The Metaphysical Book of Gems and Crystals; Melody: Love Is In The Earth; O’Donoghue: Rocks and Minerals; Peschek-Bohmer and Schreiber: Healing Crystals and Gemstones; Schumann, Gemstones of the World; Simmons and Ahsian: The Book of Stones; Walker: The Book of Sacred Stones

All About Sugilite

By Con Slobodchikoff

Sugilite is a lovely violet-blue stone that is quite rare. It was named after a Japanese geologist, Ken-ichi Sugi, who discovered it in 1944. The stone is composed of potassium lithium iron manganese aluminum silicate, with a hardness of 6 to 6.5, a density of 2.76 to 2.80, and hexagonal crystals. Although it is found in Japan and Canada, much of the world’s supply comes from South Africa. Visit our Heart of Stone Studio website to see examples of the Sugilites that we have available.

This is a stone that is said to have strong metaphysical properties. It is a very spiritual stone, and has many metaphysical uses. Sugilite is one of the principal stones of the Age of Aquarius.

 

One major use is as a healing stone. It is said to help physical healing by sending energy to any place in the body where there are blockages. Some people recommend using this stone during catastrophic illnesses such as cancer, because of the peace and calmness that it can bring to the physical body. Sugilite is believed to regulate the output of the pineal and pituitary glands to optimal levels, leading to harmony within the physical body.  It also helps bring conscious control to the mind and helps direct the mind toward aiding in the healing process. It is said that this stone is good for pain relief, particularly of headaches.

On the emotional side, Sugilite is said to have a number of healing properties. Through the peace and understanding that it brings, it is said that it brings compromise and heals jealousy, encouraging forgiveness and loving communication. For people who have been traumatized, it is said to bring peace and balance to their lives. Sugilite helps bring compassion for all living beings.

This is a stone that seems to be particularly good for dreams. Those people who meditate or sleep with the stone are said to experience vivid dream imagery or lucid dreams containing symbols that are meaningful for spiritual development. It also helps those who have trouble remembering their dreams, and those who suffer from insomnia or nightmares.

On the psychic side, the stone is said to help open the third eye and crown chakras, and balance the heart, third eye, and crown chakras. The stone can be placed on the third eye chakra of the forehead or on the crown of the head to stimulate these chakras to open. Sugilite can build up the strength of the aura and can help repair damaged auras.

Spiritually, the stone is said to remove negative attachments and bad karmic influences, and protect people from harmful energies. Meditating with Sugilite is said to provide insights into the spiritual reasons for a person’s existence.

The cabochons that we sell at Heart of Stone Studio are particularly well-adapted for metaphysical uses. Because one side is flat, they can easily be laid down on the chakras. They can be crafted into jewelry, and can also be conveniently put into a pocket or a purse. They can easily be held in the hand during meditation.

Sources:

Eason: Healing Crystals; Hall: The Encyclopedia of Crystals: Harding: Crystals; Lambert: Crystal Energy; Melody: Love Is In The Earth; Moorey: Crystal Code; Schumann, Gemstones of the World; Simmons and Ahsian: The Book of Stones; Stuber: Gems of the 7 Color Rays.

 

Ideas for Gift Giving: Buy and Give Art

   As the holidays bear down upon us, panic can easily set in as we compile lists and try to decide what we can possibly get everyone this year. At this juncture, I would like to make a suggestion: Buy and give original art.

With the downturn in the economy, everyone is taking a hit, but the ubiquitous chain stores and mall companies have layers of corporate padding to protect them. This isn’t true for small business people, who are operating on the edge. Especially vulnerable are artists, whose creations are considered by many to be “luxury items"--among the first to be crossed off the list of life’s necessities.

So wouldn’t it be a great idea if everyone spent more of their money this holiday season, buying and giving art? Surely there must be someone on your list who would appreciate an original lithograph, sculpture, or best of all, a piece of art jewelry? Giving something handmade is a two-fold gift: It brings beauty into the life of your giftee, and it supports an artist struggling to make it in a tough economy.

Just to start the ball rolling, I want to recommend several websites where you can find original art for sale by the artist:
1. etsy.com.  This is a website community composed of individual artists who set up their own online storefronts and sell their wares directly to you. 
2. GlassArtists.org   This website is a collective where a wonderful variety of glass artists sell their work, including blown glass, cast glass, jewelry, and functional pieces. It also functions as an information clearinghouse about classes, openings, and other events.
3. artanddesignonline.com   This is a very interesting website that sells everything from fine art to handmade furniture.
4. eBay.com  If you go to eBay and click on the Art topic, you get a list of categories that you can buy “direct from the artist.” If you find something you like, you have the opportunity to get it at great savings compared to a gallery.
5. Heart of Stone Studio's Online Gallery  If you're interested in beautiful jewelry, stop by the Heart of Stone Studio Gallery, you can see the work of 20 artists, along with links to their websites.
6. Online museum stores. Google your favorite museum and it's likely that you will find an online gift store. Suggestions include: The Heard Museum Shop (for Native American art), The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), The Smithsonian (which has a place where you can shop for items made by artists from other countries), etc. If your giftee is a plant or animal lover, check out the online shops of larger zoos, botanical gardens, or arboretums.
7. Last but not least, my website, Heart of Stone Studio, sells finished jewelry, sculpture, and mineral specimens in addition to its better-known designer gemstone offerings. Go to the Heart of Stone Studio homepage and click on the Gift Catalog link at the top of the page. We've got some gorgeous amber jewelry, as well as some stunning pieces by the Southwest design firm of Felley, which are no longer available in galleries. Oh, and by the way, if you want to see some of my own jewelry designs, click on the Judy as Artist link.

All of these sites are worth visiting, if for nothing more than the visual enrichment of seeing everyone’s original work. If readers out there have other suggestions of great online places to buy art, by all means, send them in and I will post them.

One last note before you buy: Keep in mind your giftee’s taste when selecting your gift, especially if that taste is different than your own. You might love modern design, but don’t foist it on a friend whose house (and jewelry box) is filled with antiques. Use your gift-giving as an opportunity to stretch your own horizons as you seek to find the perfect piece of art to match your giftee’s taste.

The Scoop on Adobe Lightroom

I have designed and built my 75-page website, Heart of Stone Studio.com, all by myself. Every week, I post an average of fifty new gemstones to the site that are purchased by jewelry artists and collectors. Until recently, I was doing all the photography myself, which included editing of photos of stones to make sure that the depiction of each stone, especially color, was accurate.

I had thought that Photoshop was the ultimate photo editing program, until I saw Adobe Lightroom on my friend Doug Von Gausig's computer. Doug is a professional photographer (and also mayor of our neighboring town of Clarkdale, AZ), who takes thousands of photos every week and uses Lightroom to organize and edit them.  When he showed me what Lightroom could do, I was immediately hooked. I went out and bought the program,then took a workshop to begin to better understand how to use it. 

The Lightroom working screen is a very sexy black that you can make even more attractive by adding your own personalized logo and company name. Photographers do this because Lightroom is not just a behind-the-scenes type of program; it also can be used create and show very slick slide presentations, with music even, to clients. You can also use Lightroom to set up your photos on a web page. And of course, it's also helpful in preparing to print photos. So it's a real start-to-finish type of program.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. If you've read my previous posts about Adobe Bridge, you'll have an idea of what Lightroom can do because it does all of the things that Bridge does, except that photos have to be imported into Lightroom before you can work with them. (And, Lightroom is an independent program that you have to purchase separately.)

Like Bridge, Lightroom has a main work area with a "filmstrip" of smaller images running across the bottom, showing you everything that you have in a folder. Lightroom is different in that it has two main working modes: "Library" and "Develop."  The Library mode is where you do the main importing, organizing, and exporting, although it also has some quick editing features.

But it's the Develop mode that's really neat: Switch to "Develop," and Lightroom presents you with the same main viewing area, only now you get an expandable column on your right. This is where you can easily access and adjust all the main aspects of a photo--tint, temperature, exposure, white balance, color, brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity, etc.--just by scrolling up and down and using your mouse to move a point along each slider (scale). You can even select individual colors and instantly adjust them to your liking.

Like Photoshop, Lightroom has a tone curve, that infamous graph with the diagonal line across it. In my opinion, Lightroom's tone curve is more user-friendly--Once you've got it open, you can click and hold on any area of the photo and, using your mouse, "slide" the cursor up or down right on the image to lighten or darken all the tones matching that of the area you've selected. If you want to fine-tune your changes, you can then go over to the sliders in the right column and adjust them individually. You can adjust color and contrast in the same way. In Lightroom 2, you can even replace a washed-out sky using a graduated filter that is easily adjustable. The only thing you can't do is outline (isolate) and select an area of an image to change--That you would have to do in Photoshop. And, as mentioned before, Lightroom doesn't do layers.

But as I don't work often with layers, I'm enchanted with Lightroom. What's really neat is that Lightroom enables you to set up your "before" and "after" images in a split screen so you can compare what you've changed with the original. The left (history) column on the screen keeps track of every change you make, so if you don't like it, you can click on an earlier step to undo a certain change.

The thing I like best about Lightroom is that it allows you to make changes to multiple images at once. You can do this two ways. One is by the Copy and Paste buttons: Say you have a dozen photos that you shot indoors, all of which need to be lightened and have their white balance corrected so that they're not all greenish from the overhead flourescent lighting. You can select one representative photo, correct the white balance with a single click, make your other adjustments, then hit the "Copy" button, which makes a complete copy of your changes. You can then select one, some or all of the other photos and hit the "Paste" button, and they'll all instantly be adjusted exactly the same way.

Another way to do this is to pre-select all the similar problem photos by highlighting them, make your changes on one photo, then click the "Sync" button, and all will be immediately synchronized and adjusted the same way. Can you imagine how this will speed up your work flow? It's fabulous!

The main thing that makes Lightroom responsive and just plain fast is that, believe it or not, even though you've imported your photos into Lightroom, it's not your actual photos that you see on the Lightroom screen. They're not really sitting backstage in the program. They're virtual! And all the editing changes you make in Lightroom, well, they're virtual, too. They're just a set of instructions that Lightroom saves and assigns to that particular photo file. This is so cool because it means that even though you have tons of photos copied into Lightroom, because they're only data files, not real photos, they take up hardly any room on your computer.

That means that, despite what you do inside Lightroom, your original photos--be they jpegs, tiffs, or even Raw images--are sitting untouched in another folder on your computer. The virtual changes that you make in Lightroom become real when you go back to the "Library" mode and hit "Export." Then you're presented with dialogue boxes that allow you to save your changed virtual photos as real .jpg, .tiff, or .xmp files for Camera Raw photos, and you can assign them new file names if you want, or over-write and change your existing jpg and tiff photo files. So when you're done with the Export, you can close out Lightroom and go to your target folder and there are your photos, all cleaned up, corrected, and perfect.

The capabilities I've mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Lightroom can do. Again, this program is not for someone who just wants to print quick pix for the family photo album. But it is a wonderful new tool for those of us who have lots of photos to review and adjust. If it's something you're interested in, I suggest dropping by Adobe.com, where you can sign up for a free 30-day trial download.

 

Adobe Bridge: An introduction

     Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom are, at their roots, sorting programs. They allow you to review lots of photos at once and organize them. But they also do so much more. You can use either program to edit your photos, and if you hit Control-R (Command-R in Macs) while you're in Bridge, it will take you to a special page where you can quickly edit Camera Raw photos and save them any way you want, in any folder you want.

     In fact, these programs seem so similar that I asked our workshop teacher, Markus Pfitzner, why we had to learn both. Here's essentially what he explained: Adobe Bridge allows you to quickly access any photo file without having to go through the extra step of importing it. Just select the folder you want to see, and Bridge opens all the photos in it for you. Plus, you can do most of your photo editing right in Bridge, although it can't do selections, masks, and layers like Photoshop does.

  Bridge is linked with Adobe Photoshop, which means that it's automatically installed when you install Photoshop onto your computer. That also means that a double click on a photo displayed in Bridge will open that image in Photoshop, and conversely, when you're already in Photoshop, hitting Control+Alt+O (Browse) will open Bridge.

    You can set up Bridge to label each photo and add copyright information to it (which is crucial if you're sending it out into the world), plus, you can add keywords. Keywords are little descriptive tags that you type in about that photo. For example, I have some of the flower shots that I took at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens on my Heart of Stone Studio website (to drop by and take a look at them, click here: Judy's Photos). The Dahlia photos I took could have been assigned keywords such as: dahlia, flower, garden, California, Mendocino, Botanical Gardens, etc.  Typing in keywords might seem like extra work to do just when you'd prefer to spend time admiring all your photos, but it's not so bad because Bridge and Lightroom will assign the same keywords instantly to a bunch of pictures if you select them ahead of time.

     And the absolutely coolest thing about keywords is that you can use them to search for and pull photos for you. Say you shot flowers like I did in Mendocino, but over the years you also shot them in Hawaii, Kew Gardens, Vermont and in your own backyard--but those photos are scattered around different folders on your computer. If you go to Bridge and do a keyword search and type in "flower", Bridge will rummage through all your files and pull up every photo of a flower that you've ever taken, assuming that you had entered in "flower" as a keyword for each of them. Isn't that neat?

    In addtion to organizing, labeling, and basic editing, Bridge also enables you to crop and size your photo before saving it, and gives you options which enable you to save a copy for your files and a smaller copy for e-mailing or posting to the Web. And it does all of this while hovering over your photo files like an alien spaceship, grabbing a hapless file here and there (at your command), making changes, and plopping it back wherever you direct. It's quick and easy.

    So, you say, if Bridge is this great and it comes free with Photoshop, then why should I consider investing in another program like Lightroom? "Ah," I answer, "there are lots of reasons, the main one being that Lightroom does everything Bridge does, but also does so much more..."

   And I'll discuss Lightroom in my next post.

What is Camera Raw and why do I care?

     The workshop I attended in Mendocino last weekend was based on Camera Raw. You might have heard this term bandied about...What exactly does it mean? Basically, it refers to an image that is taken using every part of a camera's sensor and not altered or edited in any way by the camera or its programming. You might have thought you're already doing that when you take a picture, but no, not when you're taking the usual JPEG photos.(You'll know you've taken a JPEG when you load your images onto your computer and each photo will have a file number followed by the following tag: ".jpg")

    JPEGS (pronounced Jay'-pegs) are the product of an editing program approved by a group of professional photographers and photo editors. What JPEGs do is edit an image down to a manageable file size so that it doesn't take up too much room on your memory card or computer. The editing is, simply put, automatic, based on a set of rules that reduce detail by grouping similarly-colored pixels together. For example, if you have a little area in your photo with two yellows that are very close in color, JPEG will go ahead and combine those into just one color yellow, thereby halving the amount of information coding needed in that area. Most of the time, this automatic editing is not especially noticeable, although there is one major drawback: Each time you save a JPEG on your computer, you apply the automatic editing program once again, and so that means that with each save, you lose information. That means that over multiple saves, edges within the image soften, the focus is not quite as crisp, and details are modified or even lost.

    Some photographers don't like that loss of information. If anything is going to be cut out or modified in their photos, they want to do it themselves, and be in control. That's where Camera Raw comes in. Camera Raw photos are exactly everything the camera saw when you pointed the lens and pushed the shutter button. The majority of family cameras are not equipped to shoot Camera Raw; only the fancier models do. (If you're in doubt, check out your user's handbook). Camera Raw photos have no editing, no compression, and no alterations beyond the aperture opening, shutter speed, and related settings that the photographer set the camera at.

   Now, if you're following what I've been saying, your next observation will be: "Well, with no editing and no compression, that means that the file size of each photo will be a lot larger than usual, right?" and you'll be absolutely correct: Camera Raw files are humongous. Fortunately, gigundo memory cards are coming down in price, as is the cost of additional memory for your hard drive, or even for external hard drives. And to serious photographers, it's worth it.

   This weekend was the first time I shot in Camera Raw, and to give you an idea of how much space Camera Raw takes up, I shot 262 photos and I still hadn't filled a 4Gig memory card. So the Raw photos aren't impossibly big.

But let me tell you some other things I learned about Camera Raw:

1. Camera Raw photos can NEVER be changed. Sure, you can delete them, but you can't alter their content. Well then, how do you edit them, you ask? Well, you need a professional-level photo editing program, such as Photoshop CS3, or Lightroom 2.

Here's how it works: You import a Camera Raw photo into one of those Photoshop programs, and as you edit it,  the program can be set up to save your editorial changes to what's called a "sidecar file," a little file with an ".xmp" tag that gets hooked onto the Raw file and travels around with it (on your sayso). When you open the Raw file, its sidecar .xmp file kicks in and applies your editorial changes, which you then see on your computer screen. Better yet, these programs also give you the option to either save your edited image as a JPEG or a TIFF (uncompressed) file, both of which can be easily read by your and other people's computers. But even with your new, edited JPEG, you'll still have that unchanged Raw photo stored on your computer. Or better yet, you can set up an external hard drive and store all your Raw images on that, like a museum archive.

2. This whole idea of storing unchanged Raw photos in an archive can be really appealing, except that there's one catch: The particular Camera Raw format you use is tied into the particular model of camera you're using, and five or ten years from now, especially if your camera model is discontinued, new versions of photo editing software may no longer recognize your camera's Raw images and you won't be able to open or edit them using the new software.

How do you get around this? One way is to set up your camera to take a Raw image and a JPEG image simultaneously. No extra clicks of the shutter; it's all done automatically--more professional cameras can be set to it easily, just look under your "Quality" topic on your camera's menu. You can edit either image, but save a master copy of your JPEG untouched as your long-term archive photo, because those will always be accessible.

Or, here's another idea: You can import your Raw images into Lightroom with the special instruction that copies them and converts them to digital negatives, or DNG format. The DNG format is very similar to Raw, except that it is considered "open source," which means that any program will be able to open it, now or later in the future. Once in the DNG format, your images can easily be edited and saved.

3. One last thing that I learned the hard way: Microsoft Windows won't be able to "see" your photos. In other words, they won't open up as photos in Windows Media Player or any of its other photo organizers. That's because your computer just sees your Raw images as batches of data; there's nothing to translate them into color pictures for you. So don't get crazy (like I did) when you can't see your Raw photos on your computer--You'll have to import them into a program like Photoshop CS3, Adobe Bridge CS3, or Lightroom 2, and then you'll be able to see and work with them.

That's the scoop on Camera Raw. Next, my take on Bridge and Lightroom.

   

About Adobe photo editing programs: The pros and cons of Photoshop

   I've recently returned from a photo-editing workshop at the Mendicino Art Center. Taught by Photoshop specialist and educator Markus Pfitzner, the workshop dealt with photographing pictures using the Camera Raw format, then importing, organizing, and editing them using two Adobe programs: Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom. I want to discuss the neat things I learned at this workshop.

    But first, I want to point out that the major photo editing program in use today is Adobe Photoshop. CS3 is the most recent version, and is by far the most powerful. You can buy a beginner's version of Photoshop, called Elements, for not much money at big box stores, but if you can at all afford it, I suggest making the investment in CS3. Even buying the previous version, CS2, online at websites like eBay would be a better investment than buying the much more limited Elements. I know of people who have a family member who is a faculty member or student and ask them to buy the educational version of CS3--It's essentially the same as the professional version, but at a fraction of the price.

   Photoshop is an incredibly impressive, amazing piece of software. You can edit photos with it, add type, and even convert your photographs to artworks because you can add texture, use brushes, layer and mask images--It's all there. Having sung Photoshop's praises, I will add that it is not a user-friendly program. I have often said that someone could get a Ph.D. just in Photoshop, and still not know everything there is to know about this program. So if you just want to crop and size photos for your family album, skip Photoshop and stick with the software that came with your camera. But if you are serious about your photography and want to really master digital photo editing, Photoshop is the way to go.

   Once you get the program, load it onto your computer, and open it up, it's pretty bewildering. Plus, what you see on your screen is just the tip of the iceberg. That's why I suggest you hunt down as many video tutorials as you can: Search your local library; check out eBay; borrow from friends, etc. Even one good tutorial on a CD will get you started moving your mouse around the space and getting an idea of which button does what.  After tutorials, check out books on Photoshop. Starting with the books was, for me, pretty overwhelming. Plus, I was impatient and just wanted to "get to it." That's why I suggest getting your feet wet by following a step-by-step video.

  All I ask is that you stick with it for several months. During that time, if you've given Adobe permission to send you information, you'll probably receive e-mail invitations to lecture and workshops. If the topic appeals and you can afford the time and registration cost, try one out. But be forewarned: The official Photoshop workshops offered in big cities like Phoenix routinely have 500 or more people attending, so you won't be getting any individualized attention. A better place for that is your local community college, university, or art center. By signing up for that level of workshop, you get the opportunity to have a Photoshop expert in the same room with you to answer your questions--which is worth its weight in gold.

    But once you've mastered the basics of Photoshop, you'll never want to use anything else. You'll see why it's the preferred choice of photographers, artists, illustrators, and web people.

    Next, spotlight on Camera Raw, Adobe Bridge, and Lightroom.

   

Understanding Turquoise

Turquoise.    From Tucson to Tibet to Turkey, this sky-blue stone has fascinated people for at least three thousand years. Turquoise is a phosphate of copper and aluminum, so it is found most often in the U.S. in copper mining areas. Its colors can vary from light aqua to rich sky-blue, then all the way to teals and greens, depending upon mineral content. It is an opaque stone that has a rich history—It was used for jewelry and currency by Native Americans, and also was mined in Iran and found its way through Turkish bazaars all the way into Europe (hence the name, which mistakenly attributed its origin to Turkey). Today’s biggest producers of turquoise are the U.S. and China.

     Turquoise is not a tough stone. The best turquoise is only a bit harder than window glass, and the worst is as soft and porous as chalk.  As a result, most turquoise is treated in some way. These treatments are not necessarily a bad thing.  For example, good medium grades of turquoise are treated primarily to strengthen the stones and accentuate and deepen, but not change, their color. The end effect is equivalent to spraying water on a stone—the color “pops.”  In the U.S., this treatment is called stabilization and I’ll discuss it in detail later.

     Lower grades of turquoise, which are very soft and crumbly, can be pulverized and mixed with a binder to form reconstituted turquoise. Reconstituted turquoise can be found in cheap souvenir jewelry, and personally I don’t think it’s worth working with. It’s on the same level as base metals. It is easy to pick out reconstituted turquoise because the stone looks like it contains little pieces of aqua confetti. It’s also helpful to know that imitations exist that don’t contain any turquoise at all—they’re either some sort of plastic, or another stone that’s been colored to look like turquoise. I recently came across a website selling “Howlite Turquoise.” There is no such type of turquoise. It’s a soft white mineral with black inclusions called Howlite that has been soaked in dye.

     The most valuable type of turquoise is untreated in any way. The term that’s used to distinguish untreated turquoise is “unstabilized.” I’ll get to stabilization in a minute, but for now, it’s important to know that untreated, or “unstabilized” turquoise is the rarest and most valuable. Unstabilized turquoise might have a shiny surface, but this is simply from the compounds used in polishing.
    
      Unstabilized turquoise comes in its natural color, which could be any of the colors discussed above. It can also contain patterns, a mix of colors, and veins of other minerals such as silvery pyrite, black tenorite, or white quartz. It can also have seams, healed fractures, and other natural imperfections. Often natural, unstabilized American turquoise is “backed,” or glued on to a tough plastic (devcon) backing that helps protect it. This does not detract from its value; in fact, it’s good to have a backed stone because that protects it from cracking over time. Native Americans have been backing their turquoise for a while, so that is one clue that the stone is unstabilized.

      What I’ve found interesting about unstabilized turquoise is that each mine seems to produce a characteristic color or patterning. If you see turquoise with lots of bold black in it, chances are it’s from the Ajax mine in Nevada. Royston, NV turquoise sports a soft green color, while turquoise from the huge Morenci copper mine in southeastern Arizona is a beautiful deep aqua blue. Birdseye turquoise from Kingman, AZ is very light aqua with a pattern of fine lines that look (to me) like the shadow pattern of water in a swimming pool. Unfortunately, the Kingman mine is now closed, so any Birdseye turquoise is rare.

     There does exist a flawless natural turquoise without seams or fractures. Its color is a consistent, intense robin’s egg aqua blue and is considered “gem-quality” turquoise.   Iranian, or Persian turquoise was of this high gem quality, but that material is no longer readily available. That’s not a tragedy because there is one other source of this fine material, and that is outside Globe, Arizona. Here, the Sleeping Beauty mine has been producing this rare, and thus very expensive, gemstone. In fact, all turquoise given the name “Sleeping Beauty” must come from that mine.
   
     The majority of turquoise from around the world is stabilized. I asked master lapidarist Keith Horst about this process, because Keith started out his career specializing in turquoise, and if anyone knows about it, he does. He even teaches a special course just on turquoise at Yavapai Community College.

     Keith told me that stabilization is a process developed by Leonard Hardy in Kingman, Arizona, nearly fifty years ago. It’s a chemical process where chunks of natural turquoise are immersed in buckets of polymer resin, covered, and left to sit. The polymer resins mix in the same way you would mix the components of epoxy glue, and in mixing, a chemical reaction occurs that generates heat. The heat buildup inside the closed bucket creates a vacuum, which draws the resins into the porous turquoise chunks. So stabilization is not a surface treatment—it penetrates and permeates the stone.

     After the appropriate time has passed for the chemical reaction to be completed, the bucket is emptied and the turquoise chunks have to be hacked out of the resin matrix. These chunks are cleaned up, but Keith says that the easiest way to tell whether a piece of turquoise has been stabilized is to look closely at the rough—little translucent nodules and bits of shiny, plastic-like material can usually be seen here and there on the outer surface of the chunk.

     Keith says there are two types of stabilizing mixtures. One, called “clear shot,” doesn’t change the color of the turquoise; it just makes it richer and easier to see. The other, used on low-grade turquoise, is called “color shot,” because it adds dye to the stone. The result is what Keith calls “Tidy-Bowl blue,” and to the experienced eye, it looks oversaturated and phony.

     Keith sees nothing wrong with clear shot stabilization. He says that most of the peoples who mined turquoise throughout history, treated the stone in some way, primarily to protect and preserve it. “Even the ancient Navajos added sheep fat to turquoise to enrich the colors,’’ he says.

     In my personal opinion, the most important part of turquoise is that the material is in its original form (not reconstituted), and that the color is natural. Beyond that, it is up to the designer, and the customer, to decide whether they prefer stabilized or unstabilized cabochons. Purist might insist on only unstabilized stones, but some of the more interesting patterns and colorations are available only in stabilized pieces. So it’s up to you.

    The bottom line for both types of top quality turquoise is that it has to be treated with care. Turquoise jewelry should be stored wrapped or bagged to prevent it from being scratched in jewelry boxes by harder stones. It should NEVER be sonic-cleaned, only lightly washed with mild soap and water. Exposure to the sun, perfumes, and oily skin can change the colors, so those should be avoided.

     Turquoise is a beautiful gem. It graced the fabulous burial mask of the Egyptian Pharoah Tutankhamun, and was worn by Persian kings as well as by the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon. So if you choose Turquoise, you should know that you are in good company.

     By now, you must be asking yourself where you can find a reputable place to see these different types of turquoise and know what you’re buying is what it says it should be. That’s easy—come to my website. I have just posted a variety of beautiful turquoise cabochons on my Heart of Stone Studio website, www.heartofstonestudio.com. So come see and buy the beautiful types of turquoise—both stabilized and unstabilized, all natural color—that I’ve been talking about: Click here.

A Review of the Denver Gem and Mineral Show

   The end of summer has been really busy for me, and Fall got off to a good start with my trip to the Denver Gem and Mineral Show, where I was buying stones for my website, www.heartofstonestudio.com. Every time I mention this show, which is held annually in mid-September, people ask how it compares to the Tucson show, and is it worth going to? This is my second year going, and I'd like to share my thoughts with you about it.

   The Denver show can't really compare with the February Tucson show--it's a fraction of the size, held in six or seven venues instead of Tucson's dozens. Having said that, I think that it still has merit. I'm finding that several of my suppliers now make it a point to set up in Denver as well as Tucson, so it's a worthwhile trip for me to visit them and stock up mid-year between Tucson shows.

   Let me tell you a little bit about the shows. Five of the six venues are within a mile of one another, and all of these are located in an industrialized area just north of the junction of interstates 70 and 25, which is about ten miles north of downtown Denver. Two of the shows are at hotels--the Holiday Inn and Best Western (although the sign at the top of the hotel says Quality Inn) which are within walking distance of each other. These two shows feature minerals rather than gemstones or finished jewelry, although a small percentage of those are available. Here, international dealers rent rooms and fill them with spectacular (and pricey) collectible mineral specimens. Some rough material is also obtainable. These shows are the first to open during that week. I suggest that if you're driving, you get there either a half-hour before the 10am opening time, or after 4pm, because the parking situation is horrific. These shows don't require any registration, and as far as I know, they are open to the public. Dealers will sell at retail prices, but will usually give wholesale discounts to qualified buyers who bring evidence of their resale tax status.

   Three other shows are ten blocks away at the Denver Merchandise Mart. The Mart is a huge complex, and unless you know where you're going, the shows are somewhat difficult to find. The upside is that parking is relatively plentiful.

   Toward the rear on the west side of the Mart complex is the Pavilion building, the site of the International Gem Show. This wholesale show starts a couple of days after the mineral shows, and the noontime opening was crowded and disorganized this year. The show is a mix of mostly finished jewelry, some cabochons, a few dealers in faceted gems, and some Asian dealers selling bead strands. It's not a huge show, but it does have a decent variety.

   The day after the Gem show starts, the Fossil Show opens at the Mart's Plaza area, which is on the opposite (east) side of the complex. This was the first year I attended the Fossil Show, and I was just blown away by it. Tucson has fossil venues, but to me they seemed more spread out and haphazard, whereas Denver's Fossil Show appeared large, well-organized, and in an attractive setting. Interspersed among the booths were full fossil skeletons of a 12-foot tall cave bear, a baby tricerotops, and several others. You could find 3-D trilobites complete with waving antennae, ammonites the size of hubcaps, bug-filled amber, and hundreds of fossil fish, including one whose bony head was turned as if to swim out of the limestone background. It was more fun than a museum, because you could buy the specimens if you wanted to.

   As I entered the fossil show, which is open to the public, I was dismayed to see a dozen schoolbuses disgorging hundreds of grade-school kids, but the show was so large they really didn't make viewing difficult. What's more, it was neat to see a 15-foot-long duck-billed dino skeleton walking among the crowds, bony tail waving above everyone's heads--It was a clever reproduction made by a dinosaur educator who straps himself into a harness inside the pelvis and literally makes the creature "come alive" to schoolchildren. If you and/or your kids are fossil aficianados and can get to Denver during this time of year, the fossil show is highly recommended. Plus, interspersed among the fossils were booths with slabs, cabs, carved stone boxes, mineral sculptures and art pieces. This was a very big, and very good show.

   Across the street from the Mart was a small miner's show that specialized in cut slabs and rough material. There were two other shows that I didn't have time to attend. One was the weekend Gem and Mineral show which was open to the public. Another was a bead show in a venue close to the airport. But that was pretty much it.

    In all, I would consider Denver a smaller but representative taste of Tucson. Plus, it is more manageable than the crowds, crammed hotels, and general insanity of the Tucson show. If you want to try the Denver shows next year and you're not planning to spend much time downtown, I would recommend staying to the north of the venues, preferably in or near the suburb of Westminster, which is literally a ten-minute drive (traffic permitting) from the venues and about 40 minutes from the airport. Motel accomodations are also available a few miles outside the Denver airport, but the drive in to the venues is longer. Parking is easiest at the Merchandise Mart, and a shuttle is available from there to the other locations.