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The system works backwards. Every project should start with a certain number of points and then have points deducted for negative impacts. Instead, you can build whatever and then make yourself look good by filling it up with items that get you points whether the overall project has a negative impact or not.

It is not just big business. I’ve done several jobs for politicians who preach certain values and then don’t seem to have them when it is their own project. Some blatantly had vistas cut in wetland buffers after having construction done and been through the process, so absolutely knew what they were doing. If you know where I live, you know they…[Read more]

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yes, it is only not a regulation because our society has become victims of big business and have been fooled into thinking that environmental  regulations act against us. 
but thank you, Mr. Garulay, I am heartened by your support of a common sense simple thing we are asking developers to aim for – not even requiring it, like code and building c…[Read more]

Trace,
Believe it or not, I agree with you. I wrote”IF” there was more common sense we would not need it. The fact is there is not more common sense. Regulation has to be there. LEED is a cottage industry rather than regulation. I think the article is making that point.

If society doesn’t provide incentives to solve problems that we have collectively determined to be serious, then how do we progress? do we need the Building code, the Fire code – was the triangle shirtwaiste fire for naught, in your minds? And the trouble is,  industry is ALWAYS making the money calculation, so the interests of the collective…[Read more]

I agree with common sense. If there was more of it we would not be worried about a point system at all.
You either do these things because they are the right things to do in your circumstance, or you do these things because you want to score points. If it is the former then LEED or any other point system is meaningless.

I’m no expert on what should or shouldn’t be allowed in LEED, since I’m not even LEED AP. But I do know that some companies will say or do anything when their profits are threatened, and that includes spreading disinformation about how green their product is and bashing LEED when they can’t find a way to greenwash their product.
I agree the USGBC…[Read more]

Totally agree, but the lumber and chemical companies have a point as well. There may be perfectly acceptable uses for their products, which may be greener than something else, but they are stigmatized because of generalizations about the industry.
As well, I always thought it was ironic that USGBC charged so much for their manuals if they want…[Read more]

Thanks everyone for your advice.  I’m sure this will help.

I am by no means an expert, but I have found minimizing layers by copying symbols, etc reduces layer quantities, such as trees, vehicles and so on. 
There may be a possibility of creating smaller vignettes and insert pieces (like a puzzle) of the overall instead of rendering and texturing each minute detail.  Insert the images to create a larger m…[Read more]

Alternately, make your canvas size a lot smaller, then when you’re done, use illustrator to vectorize the finished rendering and you can make it as big as you want without becoming pixelated.

I work in 30×42 in Photoshop as well and keep the res to 200 for optimum print quality and file ‘manageability. But you could easily lower the resolution to around 150 to reduce file size.
In terms of performance, if you can, upgrade your RAM to at least 32mb (preferably more), I would make that the first choice to boost some of the PCs ability to…[Read more]

To keep file sizes down in PSD renderings I’ll group like items (trees and shrubs, furnishings, etc.) in folders and then export them to other files, which i then close and import back in later — keeping only a flattened version of the trees in my working file, to compress file size.
To accurately import/export files to and from your file…[Read more]

Drop it down to 150 dpi….possibly less. The bigger the board the less dpi you can get away with it. As long as the long side of document is atleast 6000 pixels, your good to go. At 150 dpi your pixel size is 4500×6300 pixels. This should be fine. The more layers and layer blend modes your using, the heavier things get. So do try and keep that at…[Read more]

I agree with Calico on the pdf format. It is not stable and creates funny issues across platforms.

I use Photoshop for renderings. Here are my two cents that might save you some time.

1. Save your working file with the .psd extension. Creating the .pdf extension directly from within Photoshop is unstable on larger projects, leading to errors, data loss, huge file sizes and overall anarchy.
2. Confirm that you really need 300 dpi, especially if you…

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I did try my luck on Elance for a couple of months to check it out, and my conclusion is that the competition bring the prices down so low that it’s not worth investing more time into it. (May be others have a different experience, should be an interesting topic for another thread…) So well, Elance is a buyers market. If clients believe they…[Read more]

Yes. I forgot about that. The client posts the job and anyone can provide a proposal. My experience was that the other people proposing were off the mark as far as what the job entailed and what kind of experience it required…
You are probably right to avoid it if this is key to getting a future job. Not to change the subject, but its looks like…[Read more]