Photoshop

AdobeGenPro Digital Imaging Workshop: Digital Anachronism

November 23, 2013 by kathi

Our assignment this week was to create a “digital anachronism”: a composite image combining elements from two different time periods. I decided to put a typist and typewriter in the midst of a group of computer users.

Base photo: The base photo shows a group of students taking a computerized exam in 2001. I was hoping for something newer, but even though this was barely into the 21st century, it had an appropriate Creative Commons license and at least one of the pictured people was in the correct position for my purposes.

Insert photo: The insert photo shows a group of typists at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment of the Netherlands. I’m not sure what year it was taken, but it’s available only in black and white and all of the typewriters are manual.

I decided to replace the top right computer student with the lower left typist. First, I resized the larger base photo to the same width as the insert photo. Next, I selected the lower left typist and her typewriter and pasted her into a separate layer. I used Free Transform to scale her down and rotate her slightly clockwise. Now to remove the computer student and her computer, reconstruct the wood panel background, and paste the lower right computer student in place over the inserted typist.

I took the quickest way possible to prepare the top layer by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool and selecting the entire top right hand corner of the photo for deletion.

I used various selection tools, Clone Stamp tool, and Smudge tool to remove the computer student, her computer, the plant, and create some wood paneling from the existing background. Since this would be covered up by the typist, I did not dwell on the details. I left the original computer student’s leg in the photo, but converted it to greyscale to match the typist. I also had to paint over a fragment of the computer student’s blue skirt by cloning the carpet.

I was not ambitious enough to switch out another typist. It would have been quite a challenge to replace either of the foreground computer students due to the background that would need to be fabricated.

(Base photo credit: By Michael Surran (Students taking a computerized exam) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons / Insert photo credit: Collectie SPAARNESTAD PHOTO/Wilko A.G.M. Bergmans [CC-BY-SA-3.0-nl (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons)

AdobeGenPro Digital Creativity Workshop: Photoshop

November 14, 2013 by kathi

I’d like to go into a little more detail about thought processes and technical notes for each one of the Digital Creativity in the Classroom weekly projects.

The Photoshop assignment

Creative Challenge – Big and Small: You’ll need to take two images of yourself and relate them to one another – one a supersized (or normal) version of you, the other a normal (or super-small) version.

I’ve had a recurring nightmare over the years where I’ve switched sizes with one of my pets and I’m being hunted down. That was my inspiration for this project. While this did not exactly meet the assignment given because I did not use two versions of myself (or two versions of the same person, animal, or item), I still felt it related big and small in a way that was more personally inspiring to me.

I did not have a good location to stage a hunting scene with any of my pets, so I skipped straight to where I was already captured for the next meal. Somehow I also skipped right over the fact that it was neither easy nor kind to ask them to pose with a partially filled bowl of food and do nothing but look in. I was planning to do the scene with one of the dogs and hope their obedience training would get us through the photo shoot. I didn’t expect the photobombing cat, but I ended up using his portion of that photo.

There were no other humans around to help me with photos, so the photo of myself was taken using the 10-second timer on my point and shoot camera. Why is 10 seconds so long when you are trying to fill it in a speech class, and so short when you are trying to get from one side of the kitchen to the other without hurting yourself? This was an outtake as the version where I have both hands outstretched worked much better.

I used the Quick Selection tool and the Eraser tool with a Wacom Graphire tablet to do a quick ‘n’ dirty outline and clean it up a bit. I admit to not using best practices in production: I did not use a mask, duplicate layers, or other non-destructive techniques. In an actual production situation, I like to think I’d be more careful!

Putting it all together

Here is the photo I picked for the “dog” version (1).

I cropped it down and made it the bottom (background) layer of my file (2).

I placed the outlined photo of myself on the next layer, rotated it counterclockwise, and erased my feet (3).

The bottom of the bowl was showing through where my feet should have been, so I added some layers with a few pieces of kibble outlined and pasted onto each, like this one (4).

See above for the finished product as well as the “cat” version. Click on any of the photos to display a larger version.

One of my goals is to add more graphics to any appropriate instructional or informational materials I prepare. I am not sure how often I will need to use photo montages but I will watch for opportunities to do so.

CS5: mixed feelings

March 25, 2010 by kathi

I never did get around to writing about Adobe Photoshop’s 20th anniversary back in February. We, as in my company, were not on board from the very start. But the first version we used was 2.0, and we have been using it continuously ever since. Along the way, it evolved from an infrequently used semi-novelty to a critical piece of software that is absolutely essential to the continued existence, let alone the success, of our business. It’s also been an increasingly essential part of my personal computer toolbox (and by that, I mean a legally obtained, paid-in-full personal copy) for about five years now. My particular prepress production area of expertise is typography and page layout, so my Photoshop skills are clumsy at best, but I still love me some Photoshop even for the very basic work I do with it.

Even as a longtime mostly happy user of Adobe products, I still have mixed feelings about the upcoming release of a new version, CS5. This version will no longer work on PowerPC (non-Intel) Macs. Since our small shop still uses quite a few final generation PowerPCs, the upgrade will have a significant financial impact upon us. In this still-shaky economic climate, I am not looking forward to that part at all. Our upgrade timing will be closely tied to that of our clients. Some are small design shops whose financial concerns will be similar to ours. Others are corporations: now that could go either way. Some will not want to do an upgrade over hundreds of machines, and others will have a budget to burn. Guess what I’m hoping for, at least to buy us some time.

I do have to say, though… my feelings for this one new Photoshop feature are not mixed at all. Even though I upgraded from CS2 to CS4 only a year ago, and spent more money than I cared to at the time to do so, I’d consider upgrading to CS5 for content-aware fill alone:

That just blew me away.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 25 of 31)