Thinking in Photoshop

I just turned in my final assignment for the Photoshop class.  I certainly have learned a lot, but I know I've just scratched the surface.  Summer classes are great, but boy you need to have some familiarity with the topic (or in this case software) before taking it on as summer class.  I can recall telling students that in the old days, but somehow I didn't think it applied to me.

There are some things that I feel I'm missing.  I've not gotten to the stage when I can think in Photoshop.  By that I mean when I have a project to do, I'm not sure where to start or what assets I need.  I also know that I need to learn more about Photoshop layers.  I think there are a number of "tricks" to using them.  I found a great book  on Layers that is a lot of text with models that I plan to go through.

This summer I'd really thought I would have plenty of time to devote to my garden and yard and work on the website.  I haven't had time to provide any new content.  I really need to tend to that. 

This has been a good learning experience, now I need to apply it.

Magazine Cover - Final Project

I have a website www.urbansaratogagardening.com that I built earlier this  year.  I've not had much time this summer to update content, but that is my next project.  However, I took this class to learn how to improve the images I wanted to use on my website, so it seemed fitting to make a magazine cover for it. I really like the upscale magazines from Taunton Press in the Fine series.  They have Fine Gardening, Fine Cooking, etc.    I didn't want a lot of text or many images on the cover.  I wanted it to be understated and appeal to the "country gardener".  I couldn't use that term since it was taken.  I found this image of a "great house" with a very nice lawn area, something that seems like Saratoga.  Since my focus is Roses, I added the article Rose Care and captured the three yellow roses from a photo of my own roses.  I originally had white text in keeping with the website's color scheme, but with the yellow roses, the yellow text looked more appropriate.  I added the url of the website at the top of the cover and included a secondary topic under the title.  Overall, I'm pleased with the results. 

Final Magazine Cover for Urban Saratoga Gardening

This has been a tough class for someone who knew very little about Photoshop at the beginning. At one point I was about to throw in the towel.  But I knew that my fall semester will also be very busy and decided to finish.  I know I have a lot more to learn, but I can continue on my own.  I've learned a lot. I'm glad I hung in there. 

Magazine Covers - Written Assignment

Final Exam Text – Magazine Covers

Part A –What makes a successful magazine cover?

 The major goal of a magazine cover is to attract the customer’s attention sufficiently to make the customer buy the magazine.  Consumers spend a very short time, perhaps just a glance, analyzing the cover to determine to buy or not.  The cover artist has to present to the customer a visual experience that says this magazine represents me and my lifestyle, or this is the lifestyle I aspire to, or that there is useful or important information in here that I need to know.  That is a lot of ground to cover with just one image.  As Gladwell points out in his book “Blink”, people make very complex evaluations with little apparent information. The cover artist needs to provide text or artwork that first gets the consumer’s attention and doesn’t  offend either culturally or intellectually.  Once the attention is there, then there needs to be substance to make the consumer pick up the magazine and say, “I need this”.   This doesn’t mean there can’t be text on the cover, in fact many covers are full of text, but it needs to be easily deciphered and relevant while making the consumer curious about the contents. This means that really funky typography would only be suitable for really funky magazines or special content. And color needs to be carefully considered to not offend customers or be inappropriate for the topic. The artwork needs to be compelling and suitable for the target customers. Lady Gaga might not be appropriate for Family Circle unless the content were about “bad influences on pre-teens” or the like.  Creating a memorable and successful magazine cover must be a very satisfying experience given the number of challenges that need to be met.

Part B – Discuss the four design approaches to magazine covers.

1-      Early Covers

Magazines have been around since the 1700’s, but they bore little resemblance to current magazines.  These early magazines were an outgrowth of a burgeoning book publishing industry. Consequently the covers looked more like a typical book cover with little or no artwork. Covers looked more like what we’d call a title or table of contents page. The Reader’s Digest used this model until 1998.  Magazine cover artwork consisted mainly of intricately stylized borders and classic motifs and allegorical sketches. It wasn’t until the mid-to late 1800’s that magazine covers were embellished showed up with generous splashes of artwork and cover lines.

2-      Poster  Covers

Poster Covers appeared in the late 1800’s and dominated the cover field until the 1960’s. A poster cover has been defined by Josef & Prijatel as one in which “there are no cover lines, or themes announced, and the image generally is not covered by the logo” [Magazine Covers & Cover Line: An Illustrated History by G. Crow].  These poster covers really focus on the artwork often done by well-know illustrators, engravers and graphic designers and minimal if any cover lines announcing a theme or article.  Many poster covers bear the signature of the artist. Poster covers by Norman Rockwell represent this type of cover, often presenting an easily identifiable evocative situation with little or no text. The picture tells the story. And the story may or may not be connected to anything in the magazine. One major variation of this type was Life Magazine with large cover art framed by an eye-catching logo at the top and a smaller footer.  Many covers featuring poster art feature well known celebrities such as Tiger Woods, John Lennon, Barack Obama or Osama Bin Laden to appeal to fans. While poster covers are less dominating today, they still can be very appealing and often turn up in specialized niches such as travel, food, gardening and art magazines. I talk about my copy of San Francisco magazine in the current magazines section below. This magazine often uses a super-sized image with little text for its food issues.

3-      Integrated Covers – Artwork blended with Cover Lines

Integrated covers became very common around the 1880’s. With this style the coverlines or typography were in mutually supportive roles to contribute to the artistic effect while arousing the interest of the customer. With many of these a large image was central to the cover, but text was placed on the image carefully and in complimentary colorations to support and enhance the message. It could be found in sidebars or as footers, in brash contrasts or in subtle shades.   Text placement and style varied as the magazines experimentations with form reflected the nation’s experimentation with cultural and lifestyle changes brought about by the depression, world wars, and post-war industrialization

4- Integrated Covers give way to an Overabundance of Text –

In the late 20^th century, text became more prominent to the point of where it caused the reduction in size of the photo and often consumed more page real estate that the image itself. Critics pointed out that there was so much text that the cover looked more like an advertisement than a cover.  Text ran over, into, above and all around the images. In some of these covers, the artwork is obscured and secondary to the over-abundant typography.   But, in actuality the cover is an ad, an ad to entice the consumer to buy the magazine.

 Some reflect on the state of cover art as reflecting the barrage of modern life that sometimes overwhelms us and the cultural and demographic glasses we wear looking at life.

Most of the magazines that I see using this style seem to be about modern life whether it be a music genre, fashion scene or technology gadget review. Those magazines that cater to the upscale good life such as Fine Gardening, Gourmet, New Yorker, San Francisco and it sister publication San Jose seem to follow the poster or modestly integrated cover styles. Perhaps they want to offer their readers a quieter, culturally rich respite of meaningful content versus the cacophony of an overabundance of sounds, images and lifestyle choice content magazines representing the hippest culture offer.  

Part C – Current magazine covers that stand out and the strategies used to gain attention.

We get a lot of magazines at my house, so I took a look at those on the table and picked out a few that really stood out and reflected the kind of covers discussed in the history of covers.  Here’s what I found:

Heavy on Artwork with some text:  San Francisco Magazine of Aug. 2010 

                This is truly an aspirational magazine.  It features good food, fine dining, luxury cars, and condos, essentially the “good life” San Francisco style.   The current issue features a mouth-watering plate of salad with veggies so fresh and appealing you can almost taste them.  What person in interested in fine foods can resist the appeal of these? The top of the cover boasts the title : The Food Issue with several lines of text with The Best Chefs, Taste the Future and Terroiriste’s Plot in a contrasting color and enlarged type.  Another cover boasts the topic:  The Best with an overlay of  “of the (Brave New) Bay Area:  Our 50 top picks from an implausibly bold 2010) and has a very large photo of the SF Giant’s pitcher Tim Lincecum. Each of these covers appeals to a customer’s desire to be a part of the good life and the food photography is really outstanding. Very compelling.

Artwork with no text or topic:  New Yorker of July 12 & 19^th

                New Yorker covers frequently evoke a chuckle as this one does.  It’s a picture of a group of bugs posing for picture with the NY skyline in the background.  At the bottom of the page appears the artist’s name, Koren.  It’s very cute and the picture tells the story without any words needed and brings to mind the summer season and outings and ants at a picnic, etc. It’s very appropriate for the season.

Celebrity-poster style Artwork - Vanity Fair for July and August 2010

                Both of these magazines feature a large image of a celebrity with a young Elizabeth Taylor on the July issue and Angelina Jolie on the August issue.  The nearby bold text (almost as large as the magazine title) announces the article about each celebrity.  Both images have side bars with additional, albeit smaller, text announcing other secondary articles. The images are compelling and caused me to take the time to read the cover, but I wasn’t compelled to sit right down and read the articles.  

Topical artwork and relevant text

                Smart Money – August 2010:  The bold text announces the topic: Going Global and the artwork while rather large, but simple. There are five foreign coins with the largest being the Euro.  The hand that is tossing them is a female hand with pearls and Chinese character tattoo.  This magazine provides financial advice without a lot of fanfare.  The cover reflects this “let’s get down to business” attitude while providing a lot of information on the topics covered. In this case the image is not overwhelmed by the text.  It’s easy to decide if I want to spend my time with this.

                The Atlantic:  FAT Nation – May 2010

                The is no guessing what the topic of this issue since it sports a very overweight Statue of Liberty and FAT Nation text across the belly of the Statue.  The word FAT is about ¾  the size of the largest letter in the title. A sidebar on the left lists other articles. Again an easily identifiable symbol and text announce the topic.  It does catch your attention.  I’m sure some folks might be appalled with the use of the Statue of Liberty, but the artist has definitely made the point of a “Fat Nation”.   

                Fortune: China Wants You – May 2010

                This cover plays on the image of Uncle Same wants you, but sports a Chinese male figure wearing the US adorned top hat against a field of bright yellow. This image plays with a lot of cultural symbols: Uncle Same, yellow China, fear of China, service to country and war.  It’s hard to mistake the meaning and implications of this very compelling cover.  The topic text is about ¾ the height of the magazine title.  Red medium sized text against the yellow background announces other main topics.  There is a lot of text to read suggesting a lot of “meaty” articles. While there is a lot of text, the image and it’s cultural meaning is not lost in a sea of text.

                Wired: Sergey’s Search & the Future July & August 2010

                Both these tech magazines appeal to a broad range of geeks. The covers are dominated by a central image.  In the one on search, Sergey (Brin of Google) is depicted as repetitive code stripes of DNA.  Surprisingly, you must read the secondary text under the image to get the full meaning. At first I thought it was about Google and Search and Google’s DNA or culture.  Instead the cover refers to Brins’ search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease. I think this cover takes a few more seconds to accurately understand than most others I’ve looked at recently.  It does play on the connections between Sergey and Search and all things technological, but it makes a turn into health research that is unexpected.  I would venture that many consumers of this issue were surprised to discover that the content wasn’t about Google’s search data or tools or business.

                The second Wired cover boasts in broad type The Future, with a smaller sized second line of That Never Happened.  Reiterating this theme is a right hand sidebar in large type of Why We Still Don’t Have.  Taking up the central position and the image of Will Ferrell dressed in a clean-room suit wearing headphones with antennas suggesting something outer-space like. This cover seems more consistent and meeting the usual expectations between text and image. The Using a comedian as the image suggests that some of the future ideas were not too realistic and suggests a reason for the theme of “never happened” While there is a lot of text on this cover it is not overwhelming and compliments the simple clean image.

Depth of Field

I choose one of the pictures I'd takes several years ago when we sailed under the Golden Gate. My camera in those days wasn't too good, so I tried to improve the picture a bit.  I also think that the picture is a bit out of focus so it might appear blurry.  Of course it was taken from a rocking boat since we had very little breeze on that sail.  Anyway, I tried to blur the bottom half and keep the top half in focus.  To do this I drew the gradient from the edge of the water upwards to the deck of the bridge.

Sailing  under the Golden Gate with depth of field

Masks

I chose to use the supplied  graphic from the one-on-one text to complete this mask.  I'd tried this process earlier and couldn't get it to work.  I'm so pleased that this time it worked.  I must have learned something in the last few weeks.

Using a Mask to create a Composite

Part 2 - Using the Mask Palette

This was a fun exercise. Of course there wasn't a lot of work to do since the author had created all effects in layers and it was merely an exercise of turning things on.

Using the Mask Palette

Using Plug-Ins

I investigated the plug-ins on the Adobe site and found a number of interesting ones. I also did a search and found a lot of interesting frames and background textures.  When I tried to load them into the Adobe -->Plug-ins folder I ran into trouble.  The folder has many subfolders such as filters, presets, etc.  I didn't know if the plug-ins were to be uploaded to an appropriate subfolder of just left in the plug-in folder.  The instructions weren't clear on this. After putting a few in, I couldn't get them to work.  One set said to load it into the presets folder.  After fooling around with this I finally got one to work.  It loaded a bunch of text-styles, so I used that in my plug-in example.  I'll come back to this topic since there are a lot of neat add-ons available. 

Use of a plug-in to style the title

For my image, I took a photo of a rhododendron my from garden (which also appears on my website) and selected just part of the image and placed it on a new background. I then used the watercolor filter to create the water color effect.  I really enjoy Impressionist school of painting.  I was hoping to use one of the backgrounds I'd found, but I couldn't get that to work, so I used just a plain green background.  I then added a title and used the downloaded plug-in to creat the shadow effect on the title.  I like this since it sets off the title nicely without being garish. 

Surrealism

I'm not much a fan of abstract art and surrealism.  But this is my idea of how a surrealist might view a daffodil.  Rather than the bright vibrant colors we associate with spring and the daffodil's erect posture, this daffodil is dark and gloomy and bending. 

Image Enhancement - Retouching & Healing

Doing the old man's face took a bit of patience and tenacity.  But this is a good technique for healing damaged photos.  I know I have some of these in my collection.  It should be fun to restore them.

Healed Bluebeard

Here are the two faces of Hannah that I've practiced retouching.  I found this a very interesting tutorial. I'm sure that I have many images that will benefit from these skills.  I look forward to working on them when I finish this class and have more time.

Face of Hannah

One question I have is that when using the brush tools, I see a circular swish (like what you get when you sand with a circular sander).  Is that trail based on the flow or intensity coverage or based on the speed of moving the brush?   Also, the book doesn't mention using a graphic tablet in this exercise, but I wonder if that would provide more control over the tools?  I'd like to hear some comments about using one so I can decide if I should buy one? Thanks in advance.

2nd Face of Hannah

Question for  my fellow students.  Are any of you using supplemental books or web tutorials?  Could you share the titles and/or locations of those items you find more useful than our textbook?   

Coloring Line Art - The Butterfly

I decided to add this assignment of Coloring the Butterfly since I really like the results.  This is one assignment that I've found fun and is the kind of thing I'd taken the Photoshop class to learn how to do.
My coloration might not be as dark as in the text, but I like my butterfly.  

Colorful Butterfly

Mid-Term Project: Paul Masson Winery

For my mid-term project, I choose to do something about Paul Masson and the Mountain Winery. It reminds me of the early risk takers who came to this valley and found success. Masson's was in agriculture and wine making which was the driving economic force of this valley until the mid-1950's. While there aren't a lot of monuments and landmarks to the early pioneers in the valley, the Mountain Winery represents that to me.

I did a lot of research on Masson using winery industry files and the Saratoga Historical Society. For the collage, I tried to create the impression of "legendary" and "aged". I'm still having trouble with masking, so I had to use other selection tools. I'd really wanted a picture of Masson, but was unable to find one. Most of the images I found were very small and needed enlargement. I'm learning that half the battle is finding suitable images requiring a lot of time or some good personal photographs. Plus there are other design ideas I have, but I don't have the skills to pull them off, yet. I'm not entirely pleased with this and would like to come back to it later for further refinements.

Paul Masson Winery in Saratoga

At the Paris Expo of 1900, Paul Masson Champagne stunned the world’s oenophiles by winning its prestigious Paris Award. The Masson brand brought the California winery industry (and its Santa Clara Valley appellation) to the forefront of wine lovers worldwide. And that reputation of innovation and hard work forms the basis of Santa Clara Valley’s success in the modern world.

Leaving his family’s reputation and vineyards behind, Paul Masson came to the US in 1878 from the Burgundy region of France. Here he met up with Charles Lefranc, another transplanted Frenchman and winemaker. The two experimented using Lefranc’s imported French vines with grafts from “Mission” vines from nearby Franciscan padres. Their work resulted in great wines that brought business success and celebrity for both Masson and Lafranc in Santa Clara Valley and San Francisco. Masson eventually married Lafranc’s daughter and set up his own winery in the hills above Saratoga. His mountain winery completed in 1905 was named “La Cresta.” The 1906 earthquake destroyed most of the winery and in rebuilding the he acquired the 12th century portal from the ruins of St. Patrick’s Cathedral of San Jose.

From this location he produced fine wines and even supplied sacramental wines during Prohibition. With most of his fortune gone and now a widower by the time Prohibition was repealed, he sold the mountain estate to Martin Ray in 1936. Ray, who had worked at the winery as a youngster, kept the Masson brand and reported that Paul Masson visited his former mountain estate up until his death at 82 in 1943.Martin Ray eventually sold the Masson Brand to the Seagram’s. It’s had several owners since then. An amphitheater was added and the property began its second life as a concert venue.

In the late 1950’s, the Masson brand needed an easily accessible location for its products. So it hired the notable architect John Savage Boles to design a modern tasting cellar to be located on Saratoga Ave. Bolles, noted for Bay Region Modernism, contributed more than 500 different structures including Candlestick Park, the Macy’s at Valley Fair, IBM buildings in SJ, and the Fremont GM plant. The famed photographer Ansel Adams documented the construction of the Champagne Cellars in an exhibition which eventually appeared at the Smithsonian.

The Champagne Cellars were razed in the early 1990’s for a housing development. While the Champagne Cellars have been replaced by housing, the historic Paul Masson Mountain Winery still stands in homage to the legacy and success of the Santa Clara Valley agricultural and winery innovators. On many nights when the lights are visible on the hill off Pierce Road, it’s easy to imagine the wonderful events that have taken place up there over the years. The Mountain Winery still epitomizes fine living with music, entertainment, and of course, a glass of champagne.

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California_wine
2. http://www.kipnotes.com/beverages.htm
3. http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/sets/72157622875749578/detail/
4. http://www.flickriver.com/photos/14696209@N02/4135384406/
5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/3632191421/in/set-72157621559636512/
6. http://synthetrix.blogspot.com/2008/03/paul-masson-champagne-cellars-saratoga.html
7. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/santaclara/mas.htm
8. http://www.santaclarawines.com/index.php/wineries-of-santa-clara-valley-history/
9. http://www.mountainwinery.com/history
/?WSDSESSID=2f6a48918ee6bcd9a9d89ee56a37cde2&/1/
10. http://www.saratogahistory.com
11. http://www.herecomestheguide.com/location/detail/mountain-winery/
12. http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/b/bollesJohn.html

Incorporating Text into Graphics

The assignment was to incorporate a piece of text (haiku, part of a poem, song lyrics or quotation) and embed it into a graphic.  I really enjoy the natural landscape, sunrises and sunsets and decided to use one of the photos provided to us.  I choose this positive quotation from Anne Frank since it reminds us that there is so much beauty all around us and how amazing it is that she could feel this way in spite of her dire situation.  It is truly inspirational.


I did a few adjustments to the photo to sharpen the contrasts and bring out the shadows in the clouds. I thought that was representative of her situation.  In doing so it brought out more of the blue in the sky which complimented the text color.

While this is just a simple incorporation of text in a photo, I'm pleased with it.  In fact it looks like an inspirational poster or greeting card that you might find in the rack at the Hallmark store.  I hope you enjoy it and that it speaks a positive message of beauty and hope.

The second image assignment in the typography assignment was to complete the Chief Executive ad. Here's my final copy of that.

Homework 4 - Colorize a Greyscale Image

I choose to colorize the woman in a hood image from the tutorial. In colorizing this image I found that there were fewer colorations available while with the duotone the number seemed to be infinite. This process seems a more limiting in that the tutorial didn't recommend using any of the other color tools such as levels and curves. In this regard the changes that I made seemed much more limited where as in the removing coloring I could more finely tune the amount of dark and light using the curve and level tool. This image is ok, but it is not something that I like.

Duotones

Part 1 - Definition and Discussion of Benefits and Challenges

Resources for this article:

• http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duotone - very weak, perhaps some of the better material from this exercise should be directed to submitting to wikipedia.
• http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/duotones/index.html
• http://www.pstut.com/tutorial-duotone.html - short and to the point
• http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/actions-tutorials/duotone-tritone-quadtone-actions-tutorial.html - very thorough but with a lot of ads
• http://www.creativepro.com/node/58522
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshpp/11.0/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-778ca.html
• Using Adobe Photoshop CS4.pdf

Discussion

Duotones are a process for presenting an image/photo using only two colors or two color tonalities. One color provides the background and main coloration while the second color generally is used for complimentary or contrasting highlighting. Designers use this process to create striking black and white tonal images, aged-looking sepia tones or brash contemporary color effects. When done using the common black and white tones, this process produces an effect like the older black and white photos. Another popular color scheme is to produce a duotone that looks like the older sepia photographs. While the black and white and sepia duotones are very common, the designer is not limited to to these two color schemes since any color pairing can be used to achieved the desired artistic effect. The photos below, from akvis.com, show an original black and white photo on the left and its resulting sepia duotone on the right.

Duotones work best when the initial photo have some interesting details that will benefit from this process of highlighting. I see this particularly useful in landscapes, images of buildings and images that have a lot of angularity to them that the second coloration can emphasize. Another application would be for highlighting one item or aspect in a photo such as a white crane amidst a dark building or landscape.

One reason duotones have had a resurgence of interest recently is that inkjet printers just can't print the many tonalities of blacks from just one cartridge. Using Photoshop to create duotones, or even tritones and quadtones, a wider range of black tonalities can be achieved. One advantage to using this method is printing cost containment. Having an item printed in many colors can be rather expensive as I discovered when I had the newsletter printed for my homeowner's group. I've never had a job printed commercially in color such as a photographic quality poster, but I can imagine that it would be very expensive. By limiting the color ranges to just two, this should cut the costs substantially.

However there are challenges in doing this. As an graphic artist creating a great duotone I rely on the images being reproduced the same as what I'm seeing on my own monitor regardless of my monitor's settings. But, each printer has a unique calibration and library of color outputs. Therefore, what gets produced from a printer may not match what I see on my monitor. Therefore I can't be guaranteed that a printing of my great work will be reproduced the same as what I've produced. The same is true for placing my duotone on a web site. The consumer of the website might have different monitor settings which will not reproduce the image as I intend. Either way it is challenging to get exacting color reproduction but for a professional project, then the designer needs to work with the printer to make sure that the colorations are as intended. But these issues are probably the same whether I'm producing a duotone, monotone or full color item. There is no 100% certainty in exact reproduction from my original to the reproduction.

Creating Duotones

Reading the histogram will reveal a lot about the image's tonal composition and if the image is a good candidate for transformation to a duotones. The lines on the histogram represent the brightness value of each pixel and the height of the bar indicates the quantity of pixels with that value. The total graph reveals the range and brightness values of the image. The image needs to have a good range of tones with highs at the right (white/light tones) and left (blacks).
I've created several duotones, but I'm not really happy with them yet. The first one is a composite using a photo I took of a of railroad tracks in Marfa, Texas and the other is the yellow frog from one of the stock photos.
These are the original photos:

And this is the resulting duotone composite:

I realize that my little froggie is too small and not distinctive enough.  I'd hoped he would stand out and this would be a humorous piece.  Need to keep trying.  I had earlier created this one using the bird in the tutorial (which I had trouble capturing) and a river scene in upstate New York.