Category Archives: dirty hack

You Bring It, This Blings It: Retrofitting a Hot Foil Stamping Machine

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Hot foil stamping is a method often used to embellish and emboss premium print media. It’s used on things like letterhead and wedding invitations to add a touch of luxury. The operation is actually quite simple, where a custom die is heated, pressed into a heat transfer foil, and then transferred on to the print media. Some of the very first manuscripts used gold leaf embossing to decorate intricate calligraphy. You can also see it often used to decorate the sides of religious texts.

Professional foil stamping machines are often pricey and the cheaper ones you can get from eBay …read more

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Horrible Macro Rig Makes Good Photos

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We love horrible hacks like this. It’s a lens and a ring of LEDs, taped to a cell phone. Powered through crocodile clips, also taped to the cell phone. There’s nothing professional here — we can think of a million ways to tweak this recipe. But the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

The source of this hack was deleted, but the image above is all your really need to recreate this. It’s no secret that the secret to good photography is good lighting. And for macro photography, shadows are always just exactly where you don’t want them. …read more

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