I found a new databending tool.
Also this post is going to have a few images to make sure to check out the full post.
bluesky embeds
— Hypha (@hyphamancer.bsky.social) October 12, 2025 at 12:47 PM
— Hypha (@hyphamancer.bsky.social) October 12, 2025 at 12:48 PM
So I found a new databending tool. Having to go through each edit on Tenacity to make sure it works takes forever. Not to mention if you accidentally select apart of the header the image is corrupted.
https://rose.systems/sockbend/
This tool lets me try multiple attempts without having to worry about the headers and if the effect is going to fully corrupt the image. I have to change some things around between this and Tenacity. Tenacity only lets me change a selection of rows in the image but sockbend lets you adjust random shapes. However, I've noticed that when using gif bend masking (I have yet to try it without using the gif bend mask) the image will shift to black and white. The second bluesky post shouldn't be in black and white. It should have the same color scheme as the last image in the post.
I do like using sockbend I can try multiple effects and the image won't break. Tenacity will make some wild effects like with the previous seagull post but it's so random and finicky.
Now about the image.
I took a trip down to the Bar Harbor aquarium. The staff there are fantastic. They're super into their field and love to chat about marine biology. After you see the museum and the creatures, there is a small hike about the salt marshes in Maine. One of the view points leads to a river where I saw numerous sea birds and seagulls just chilling.
How many seagulls do you see?
So I was reading about abstract expressionism in the during the Cold War and I started asking myself. Why has photography remained the same for such a long time? We've seen a large variety of painting in the last 200 years alone. But it seems like photography has been fairly stagnant. I don't think that's true. There are really impressive shots that exist throughout history. But where is the abstract expressionism, cubism, surrealism, etc, of photography? I had a lot of fun using my cyberpunk cameras and to a keen eye you could see the blend of a digital sensor and an analog lens. Those sensors really brought out the boketh of the the lenses and I love that, but I want to have more than just landscape and realism.
On my bluesky I posted an image I took of a donut shop in Portland, Maine. I adjusted the image to bring out the neon sign in front of the shop. But minor color tweaking and highlighting is just slightly funky realism. Databending is a really cool way to mess with the data that is stored within an image. I know this style will never reach mainstream and that's okay. I do want to find a style of photography that is beyond just capturing what you see. I wanna capture things you don't normally see.
This was a fun learning experience. First off, I learned about using back button focus on my camera. This allows you to lock the focus on your target before you press the shutter. Normally a half press of the shutter will lock the focus. Honestly, I like having the second button. It feels awkward to half press then full press to focus and take a photo.
Secondly, I learned about using the panorama tools in Affinity Photo. That really causes my computer to think but its way better than doing it manually. Now I just need to learn how to take the photo so it doesn't create an s-curve in the final image.
I can't believe I found this small rose.
It's always nice to see roses. While the rose is a little bit out of focus I still like the way it looks. I enjoy most of the pictures I take but it's always fun to edit them in Affinity Photo. I get to learn new skills and adjust the image to how I see it when I'm taking the photo. However, this image is the first image that I've posted where I didn't do any editing. I liked the lighting and the colors that I naturally captured. If I did edit this image I would bring out the pink of the rose and pull distraction away from the curb.
Yum! Hot Fresh Donuts!
II had a lot of fun editing this photo. I learned a new technique in Affinity Photo. I wanted to separate the neon sign from the rest of the image. My first attempt at doing this was by duplicating the image layers, but that caused them to blend together. So I followed a guide on how to isolate and group a set of layers away from the rest of the image. Affinity also has a 'Selection from layer' tool that allowed me to inversely edit the rest of the image to be black and white. This works but it leaves a hard edge. I can use a guass blur to soften that edge and a brush but it's not perfect. I bet there's a way to do a custom shape instead of a selection but for now this works.
Shout out to my friend for telling me it looks bad until I got to this edit. lol
Like with all the images I start to edit I have no clue to what I want to do.
I got kinda annoyed with this one. I like the angle of the shot but I didn't like the colors. The sky constantly wanted to be a very light blue. But I tweaked the blue and the green to remove that sort of overcast sky look.
I'm usually wearing dark sunglasses when I take photos and I try to match the colors I see.
So I wasn't sure what to do with this picture at first.
But then a friend of mine suggested that I use black and white. "I was told by a photography professor once to not be afraid of the whitest whites and darkest darks."
I was trying to take this pic quickly so sadly the bug isn't in focus. Sometimes, bugs will stand still for a picture and sometimes they'll teleport away. I should said screw it and gotten closer. smh
Heres the version with color. This has less exposure and black point edits but I think it can be neat to see a before and after sometimes.
omg look at this little guy!!! :)
So I'm using affinity photo to focus merge this frog. This camera is new to me and I learned after this image I can use auto focus and manual focus at the same time. Some of the images I took had the frogs eyes in focus and some had its body but none of them had its mouth. sadge :( I also adjusted the colors of the frog to be more vibrant.
These photos were edited in Affinity Photo to bring out the red of the bricks.
There are a few things I would change. It was raining outside so I used my car as a tripod to take these shots. My camera is super sensitive to motion and considering it has no image stabilization at all. So, having my car running while trying to take photos made every photo blurry. I didn't notice it on the view finder. Secondly, I should've brought my batteries and for whatever reason the camera kept shutting down. So, I had to be quick with my shots. I'm not sure if this raspberry pi has a thermal issue or I did something wrong but it gets super hot super fast. I should check the journalctl to see if CamUI is causing the pi to crash or if its overheating.