Advanced Photoshop 16

Full text

(1)FREE CD!. Project files, desktop designs, stock art…. ISSUE 16 Retro Chic | Add shadows to your art | Charles Darby interview | Create urban snow scenes | Get more out of Bridge | Aqua art with blending modes. Build a Bridge. HIS T IMA OCRKES INC G THILUDE ES S D. Organise and present your photos with Adobe Bridge. IS O FRESUE’SN EC D. MOVIE MASTER. HOW TO…. Add shadows to images Create urban snow scenes Design conceptual art Work with Camera Raw 3 Produce abstract art. Top imageer Charles Darby on the secrets of film backdrops. 8-PAGE SPECIAL. RETRO CHIC Recreate a myriad of classic film photographic effects with Photoshop. ISSUE 16 ISSN 1748-7277. £5.99 16. PRO LIGHTING EFFECTS. Create stunning aqua art using layers and blending modes 001_APM04 2.indd 1. 771748 727009. pages of professional tips & essential stepby-step tutorials. ISS UE 16. 9. 10/2/06 11:32:37.

(2) Cover. w. Cover image This issue’s enigmatic cover image comes courtesy of imageer Brianna Wettlaufer and istockphoto.com. A superb example of how digital technology and software can be used to add authentic film effects to digital photographs, you can find out more about this type of imaging in Jason Arber’s Camera Effects masterclass starting on page 44.. Imageer: BRIANNA WETTLAUFER. A SUPERB EXAMPLE OF HOW SOFTWARE CAN BE USED TO CREATE FILM EFFECTS 5. Advanced Photoshop. 005_APM04_intro.indd 5. 13/2/06 15:35:08.

(3)

(4) PEER PRESSURE. 7 78. Get some inspiration from this readers’ and artists’ gallery of high-end image editing. ISSUE #16. inside.... LETTERS 7 10 Your comments shared with fellow readers INSIGHT. 7 12. News and showcases from around the globe Check out new art from Acidtwist Glorious illustrations from James Jean Work from the LA-based duo Kozyndan The best wide-format printers on the market. HELPDESK. 12 14 16 18. 7 82. Your technical traumas shared with fellow readers and answered by our expert. THE COVER. Brianna Wettlaufer captures the retro-style in this month’s cover image. Plus, Sam Gilbey dishes out some underwater love in his subaqua tutorial. Find out how he did it by turning to page 52.. RESOURCES. 44. Recreate retro film photo effects. Books Stock Art Websites Plug-ins. a r S th nd n t CR e sa o p IB co v a E ve e £ ge ... rp s 2 ric off 0 e. Typography. SU Tu B. 7 87. Vital assets to improve your Photoshop work. THIS MONTH’S CD. 88 91 92 93 94. 7 96. Superb video tutorials, all the project files to go with this month’s issue and more!. 12 16. A glimpse into the world of Acidtwist. Brush up on the illustrations from Kozyndan. 6. Advanced Photoshop. 006-007_APM04_contents.indd 6. 13/2/06 12:39:50.

(5) 62. Master the art of light, shadow, colour and tone. TECHNIQUES Faster, better, more… How can you work smarter?. FEATURES. ONLINE PORTFOLIOS. Improve your chances of being commissioned. INTERVIEW: CHARLES DARBY Discover the magic behind the movies. MASTERCLASS: ABSTRACTS. ZIP IT UP. 7 22 7 30 7 38. Gritty and chaotic imagery with George Smith. DIGITAL CAMERA EFFECTS. Recreate some creative lens and darkroom techniques. UNDERWATER LOVE. How layer blending can help you create ocean scenes. 7 44 7 52. MASTERCLASS: SNOW SCENES 7 58 Transform a summer street scene using Noise and Layer Masks. Create a realistic photo-montage with zest. CONCEPT ART Be the master of sci-fi with this workshop. INSIDER INFO ADOBE BRIDGE PARTS THREE AND FOUR. 7. 42. 7. 62. 7. 68. 7. 72. 7. 74. 7. 78. 7. 84. Search facilities, plus Slideshow and customisation. DEPTH OF FIELD Recreate focus effects using Gaussian Blur. SHADOWS Light sources, contours and textures. PEER PRESSURE Eye-catching images from fellow readers. TECHNICAL RUN-THROUGH Discover the power of Camera Raw 3. 7. Advanced Photoshop. 006-007_APM04_contents.indd 7. 13/2/06 12:40:16.

(6) Letters. Mailbox Send your emails to the Advanced Photoshop team at [email protected] SUBJECT: Positive vibes FROM: Philip Jean-Pierre, America. SUBJECT: Weather the storm FROM: Steve Iles. I saw your first issue and took a pass. My girlfriend, unknowingly, got me your second issue as a gift while she was shopping. Let me just admit I am not the brightest bulb and never was; the point slammed home as much as when I read the second issue. To say I regret not getting your first issue would be an understatement! The second issue was amazing, with tutorials that were great springboards for other creative endeavours. I just added a new magazine to a list of the ‘must haves’ for my library. I am an American, and while we have excellent magazines on design, there’s nothing around with the bare bones hardcore information for the advanced Photoshopper. With the world of design changing so fast, it’s publications like these that help me keep up. Keep up the excellent work.... Great mag – a step up from my long-standing digital photo imaging mags. It was a couple of years ago when one of these titles showed you how to generate lightning in an image, and this picture (below) is my attempt at that time to make a winner. It sadly never got picked. As your weather feature is in the current edition, you may like to see my early attempts. The pier is real and part of the sea, but some sky and sea were added, and the tornado and sea spray, as well as some debris on the pier. Oh yeah…the lightning and flames… (obviously). Still, I thought it was amazing at the time. The original photo was heavily cropped from a 3MP camera so I used a technique to sharpen it (without generating so much noise) that is great for fur etc. It is the old high pass filter adjusted on a duplicate layer to get hard edges and blended in layers with soft light. The effect can then be backed off, as required. My son buys this mag regularly, so if you print this he will see it, and that would be nice, seeing my input to a pro mag!. SUBJECT: More praise! FROM: Darren Firth I picked up your Advanced Photoshop magazine in Borders on Saturday. It was a pretty cool read; I know some of the designers featured in your pages, so it was pretty funny seeing their silly faces in there! It seems there is a strong Pixelsurgeon vibe running throughout! It would be cool to get any future WEARITWITHPRIDE products and exhibitions in your magazine – you can see the fruits of our labours at www.wearitwithpride.com. Anyway, excellent job. Keep it up. Editor replies: Many thanks to both of you for your kind words on the magazine. We welcome any feedback, whether it is positive or negative so keep those comments coming in. Together we can strive to shape the Photoshop title that you deserve.. Publishing Ltd, Richmond House, Richmond Hill, Bournemouth BH2 6EQ, UK, and we’ll get you a replacement out as soon as possible.. Subject: Course of action FROM: [email protected] I was looking to take up a part-time Photoshop course, but can’t decide on a course or college. I already know how to use Photoshop (up to a point!), but I need a course that enables me to get experimental and gain more in-depth knowledge of the program. Can you suggest a course in London? Many thanks! Editor replies: A good range of Adobe-accredited Photoshop training courses are listed on the company’s website at www.adobe.co.uk/support/training.html. The site will enable you to find an Adobe-certified training centre in your area, or get online support.. Subject: Inspired! FROM: Vincent MacTiernan SUBJECT: Disc depression FROM: Carol Fitzgerald I am a first year graphic design student in Sydney, Australia. Today (2nd Dec) I purchased the Oct issue of your magazine ($15 AUD). I am running a Mac G5 with OSX. This is the first of your magazines that I have purchased and probably the last. Your magazine stated that on the discs it had stock photos worth 1,200 pounds. I only managed to open two of the photos. One of a ginger cat and one of a cow. I’m very disappointed by this state of affairs. Editor replies: Please return the disc to Cover Disc Returns, Imagine. I recently went to a bookstore where I live here in New York, and saw your magazine on the rack. Normally I bypass magazines such as yours, as I use After Effects and 3D and never felt the need to look into Photoshop for other than I what I need to make a texture map. Your magazine changed all that. It has to be one of the best, no, THE best magazine I have ever seen on doing hi-end compositing with PS – you tell people not only HOW to make great images, but also WHY they are doing things along the way. I was so impressed by it that I was inspired to make this image: www.extremedigitalpro.com/ extremereel/Photoshop%20Images/HeadCase LowRes.jpg. Thanks for giving me more LONG nights of discovering new techniques!. 10. Advanced Photoshop. 010_APM04_letters.indd 10. 10/2/06 14:29:49.

(7)

(8) insight Acidtwist There’s no question about it. For Acidtwist, real name Tavish, being the son of a sculptor and architect has had a profound impact on his own career path. “Growing up, I never questioned whether I would go into a creative field; it was a given,” he says. Now an established painter in his own right, the Montreal-based creative freelances as an art director for print and interactive design – and has also recently begun directing videos. A multi-disciplined artist, Acidtwist’s degree in Art History continues to be relevant in many aspects of his working life. “Learning about everything from Graeco-Roman art to contemporary video installations gave me a great exposure to so many styles of work and I still refer back to that constantly.” His illustration style is a canny mix of East meets West – Acidtwist puts the influence down to growing up in Canada, where popular culture was often imported: “If I was watching a television cartoon, chances are that it was from America or Japan, though I didn’t know that when I was a kid watching Scooby-Doo or AstroBoy.” One of the key motifs in his work is Lichen, a sensual, green-haired figure, who brings to mind the almond-eyed splendour of anime and Jap pulp magazines. “Characters that go on to have lives outside their initial media appearances fascinate me,” he says. “I have this personal goal of creating 100 different images of her.” As for technique, Acidtwist draws first in pencil, then paints over the line-art in Photoshop. Perhaps most surprisingly, he prefers using a mouse to a tablet. “I’m just used to painting like this,” he says. “I’ve been using a mouse for ten years now and it feels natural. I should probably think about getting a tablet – pressure-sensitivity would be great – but I still like the way my hand rests on a mouse.” www.acidtwist.com/. /. LICHEN AND THE GUN: “I was in the mood for doing something detailed and carefully painted. This actually started out as a pencilsketch a couple of years earlier. I liked the sketch, but never finished it because I felt there was something missing. I solved this in the final painting by putting Lichen’s gun in her right hand, which adds more focus.”. ITALIAN FASHION: “This was a commercial piece, made for a fictional Italian fashion label. Unusually, it has a lot of layers. Most of my paintings are done with only three: pencils, figure and background. I like the look I achieved by blurring the insects and using Gradients to colour the background elements. I also added a bit of texture with custom brushes.”. nother DRA: “A ASSAN lot, but never C D E MIS ed a CUSTO etch that I lik ed new custom old sk I design for the entire . d e h is fin em s d used th no pencil line shes an are paintbru or once, there is blocked out in F image. all; everything with the loose y t visible a was very happ e final image.” I f th colour. e look o ik -l sh bru. 12. Advanced Photoshop. 012-013_APM04_insight.indd 12. 13/2/06 15:44:55.

(9) 04.06. LICHEN IN CHARCOAL: “This was one of the first series of Lichen paintings I did – and all four were drawn and later painted simultaneously… I was researching work by Egon Schiele at the time. The figure was painted with the standard Photoshop charcoal brushes at half Opacity, and the background is actually a scanned paper-bag.”. LOLLIPOP GIRL: “I specifically wanted to paint something different from my usual work. It took me a while to build up the dark, rich browns, and the hair colour changed several times before I settled on the typically – for me – unnatural hair colour. I prefer to avoid using Hue/Saturation to change a colour. I repaint areas instead.”. LATEST LICHEN: “This is the first of my latest series of Lichen paintings. I’ve taken the elements I had in the first paintings and elaborated on them. For example, the white outlines are wilder and flow into the background. I’ve also dropped the red from her colour scheme to go with the stripped-down aesthetic and upped the Saturation to reflect my original comic/animation inspiration.”. 13. Advanced Photoshop. 012-013_APM04_insight.indd 13. 10/2/06 14:31:20.

(10) insight James Jean “I didn’t know anything about illustration – or art, for that matter – until I started art school. But when I first picked up a paintbrush, I knew I’d found my calling,” says James Jean, former alumni of the New York School of Visual Arts, now resident of LA, where he counts DC Comics, TIME, Rolling Stone and Atlantic Records, among his many prestigious clients. How did he land the briefs? “I hit the pavement and walked right into the offices of DC Comics. That was pretty much it,” he says. “I’m notoriously passive in all aspects of my life, so it’s been my great fortune that my website does most of the work for me.” He puts the usefulness of Photoshop in context: “For me, the sketch stage is the most important. The essential structure of the whole picture, the life-force of the drawing, originates in the sketch. With some of my pieces, I take it to the halfway point in terms of rendering and painting, and finish the rest in Photoshop.” He’s a dedicated fan of Wacom’s Intuos3 (“Once I’d tasted that fruit, there was no going back,” he says), but his view on Adobe’s app is an interesting one. “I approach Photoshop as a printmaking tool,” he explains, “using layers to build upon the original drawing. Even in printmaking class, I would run a pencil drawing I’d done in a press under an etching plate to see what effect it would have, or paint on top of monoprints. Photoshop is a natural extension of that thinking. After applying basic colour, I use mostly layer effects to achieve depth. I also scan in hand-painted textures to develop the picture further. I do whatever it takes.” www.jamesjean.com. /. BEST LIFE BABIES: “Germany’s Best Life Magazine asked me to illustrate an article about the different ways couples can start a family. The empty silhouette is the projection of a couple’s desire to have children.”. SIGUR ROS: “This illustration accompanied a magazine interview with the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. Their studio consists of an indoor pool converted into a studio, so I immediately thought of depicting them in a ‘pool of sound.’ They are known musically for creating complex and fragile textures, so I have them floating among coral in a composition that hopefully evokes their unique sound.”. RUNAWAYS #12 (MARVEL COMICS): “A cover for a popular Marvel Comics series. The story in this issue takes place in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Right across the street from the cathedral, there’s a terrific Art Deco statue of Atlas in the Rockefeller Centre. I had a vision of the superhero characters caged in the globe held by Atlas, the original Incredible Hulk.”. 14. Advanced Photoshop. 014-015_APM04_insight.indd 14. 10/2/06 14:32:14.

(11) 04.06. BATGIRL #45 (DC COMICS): “This remains one of my most popular comic book covers, depicting the new Batgirl dressed in the old Batgirl costume. I created the halftone pattern using the Colour Halftone filter in Photoshop.. GREEN ARROW 49 (DC COMICS): “A cover for Green Arrow for DC Comics. One of the maddening joys of Photoshop is the myriad of choices it affords the digital artist. The inverted look happened by accident. I find that the most successful pictures occur via the most circuitous and surprising methods. I never complete an illustration the same way twice.”. SUBWAY TARGET: “Retailer Target bought out an entire issue of the New Yorker and asked me to contribute an illustration to its campaign. The only stipulations were that the illustration had to reference New York, contain the Target logo, and use red and grey. I had a lot of fun with this one, since they gave me a free rein.”. 15. Advanced Photoshop. 014-015_APM04_insight.indd 15. 10/2/06 14:32:45.

(12) insight. KIN-SAN’S BUSINESS TRIP: “One from our Panoramic series. I’d been seeing these guys in my head for some time – Japanese salary-men dressed as schoolgirls – and had some strange visions for what they’d be doing. If there’s a standard style or process that Kozyndan is known for, this would be it. The finished piece is kind of a jumbled commentary on modern Japanese culture: the feminisation of the male populace, the obsession with childlike purity, the sexualisation of young girls, and the overall proclivity towards strangeness that the Tokyo megalopolis promotes.”. UPRISINGS (BUNNY WAVE): “I’d been into Hokusai’s work for a long time and had in my mind an image of bunnies forming out of the foam of the wave,” says Kozy. “The final piece was painted completely in Photoshop – all the lines using the Brush tool, on a Wacom tablet. The paper textures were created completely with filters.”. Kozyndan As a couple working comfortably (and successfully) together in illustration, LA-based duo Kozyndan remain an industry rarity. “We met in painting class in college and had dated for a few years,” says Dan. “We were living together before we made our first piece of art together. Kozy had done a long drawing of the inside of our apartment and I liked it so much, I decided to colour it in Photoshop.” It was their famous collaborative design for the interior of LA store Giant Robot – spotted by shop founder Eric Nakamura – that put them on the map. “He liked it so much, he asked us to do some illustrations for Giant Robot magazine,” says Kozy. The pencil lines are invariably still visible in their finished works, but, as Dan explains, Photoshop is an essential tool: “Once all the elements are scanned in, we composite the characters into the environment and then clean the drawing up – a process that includes adjusting Levels, dodging and simply painting out imperfections and mistakes. Then we put the image on both our computers and start painting under the drawing in Photoshop. We just keep going until pretty much everything is painted on either one file or the other, then we just put the colour layers from one file into the other and clean everything up.” They don’t use many techniques. “We were both trained traditionally as illustrators,” says Kozy, “so we treat Photoshop the same way we treat physical paintings – almost everything is done using the Brush tool.” The pair are busy, but there was one job they had to take. “When the creator of Kozy’s favourite videogame, Katamari Damacy, asked us to do an illustration about the game, we jumped at the chance.” www.kozyndan.com. / 16. Advanced Photoshop. 016-017_APM04_insight.indd 16. 10/2/06 14:34:58.

(13) 04.06. LIKE SANDS THROUGH THE HOURGLASS: “Another in our Panoramic series, this one set at a street corner on Berwick Street, London, where Kozy and I once had a fight while on holiday. Most of the imagery revolves around the passage of time, with scenes covering vastly different lengths of time converging in one image. For example, a sequence showing a strawberry gleefully diving into whipped cream intermixes with Kozy and I as babies, growing up, meeting and growing old together.”. KATAMARI DAMACY: “The creator of videogame Katamari Damacy contacted us to do an illustration about the game for an article in Relax magazine in Japan. We wanted therefore to mix flat colours, like those of the game graphics, with the more natural look we’ve been working with this year. We achieved this by simply scanning in a piece of cardboard and laying it over the final artwork. A little real texture always changes the dynamic of a piece of work.”. 17. Advanced Photoshop. 016-017_APM04_insight.indd 17. 10/2/06 14:35:21.

(14) insight Epson Stylus Pro 9800 Manufacturer: Epson Price: £5,282 Web: www.epson.co.uk The 44-inch Stylus Pro 9800 is part of Epson’s UltraChrome K3 range and exploits a proprietary inkset that offers three black inks for truly superlative image quality. The print technology is Epson’s own Micro Piezo drop-on-demand with variable sized droplet technology and 3.5pl Epson Ultra Micro Dot. The print head configuration offers 180 nozzles in eight colours, and a resolution of 2880x1440, with quoted print speeds for B0+/Plain Paper in Draft Mode of up to 22.1m2 per hour. The 9800 also provides edge-to-edge and borderless printing for media from 515mm-1117mm. Images printed with the 9800 will last a lifetime, with the UltraChrome K3 inks offering lightfastness for up to 75 years for colour and 100 for black and white (if kept indoors). The printer itself boasts a pleasingly formidable physical presence, measuring 1702mm x 678mm x1196m, weighing around 90kg and producing noise levels around the 50dB mark. Flexibility is the key for connectivity, offering USB 2.0, Firewire and optional networking. The Stylus Pro is available for both the Mac and Windows platform, supporting OSX, OS9 and Windows 98, 2000 and XP.. Wide-format printers: best of the best For large-scale projects that demand only the highest quality output and performance, check out these six walletbusting offerings By Steve Jenkins. HP DesignJet 110 Plus Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard Price: £935 Web: www.hp.com The DesignJet 110 Plus is very much the budget baby of this issue’s round-up, coming in under the four-figure mark by an appreciable £65. It’s a six-colour, multi-format printing solution that delivers fade-resistant, photo-quality images every time. A C-size tray and automatic roll-feed to 24 inches makes it ideal for everything from postcards to posters, too. The standard tray holds up to 150 sheets (plain paper) and extra-wide front and rear paths allow oversize output up to 24 inches x 64 inches. A print resolution of 2400x1200dpi, combined with HP Professional Color technologies (including Automatic Closed Loop Color calibration and CMYKplus) gives quoted print speeds of 11.9 minutes for an A1 ‘Normal/Glossy’. But turn the quality up a notch to ‘Best/Glossy’ and you’ll be tapping your fingers for a further six minutes. Standard connectivity is provided by the lesser USB standard USB 1.1, but is compatible with USB 2.0, plus there is a Centronics parallel IEEE-1284 port and 1 EIO slot for networking. Support is provided for all Windows platforms (95, 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP) plus Mac 9.x and OS 10.1 and higher.. 18. Advanced Photoshop. 018-019_APM04_insight.indd 18. 13/2/06 12:29:56.

(15) 04.06. Canon W6400 Kodak T200+ Manufacturer: Canon Price: £2,499 Web: www.canon.co.uk. The A1+ 24-inch W6400 is a six-colour pigment ink Large Format Printer (LFP) aimed specifically at the graphic arts market. It features a one-inch-wide, highdensity print-head that can produce microscopic 4-picolitre droplets for highquality imagery free of graininess. Output speeds of up to 2.2 minutes per page when producing an A0-size image ensures optimum hardcopy turnaround at the proofing stage. A1 output, on the other hand, slashes the output time by nearly half, offering an impressive speed of around 1.3 minutes per page. The printer comes complete with two bundled software packages. The first, Digital Photo Print Pro, enables users to process, enhance and print photographs. Poster Artist, meanwhile, comes with a set of templates and images to help you create large format designs.. Kodak 1200i Manufacturer: Kodak Price: 60-inch: £10,077; 42-inch: £7,121 Web: www.encad.com While the Kodak 1200i system offers great cost per print, the initial outlay will set you back around £7,000. Still, you get a lot for your money, including high-speed printing that delivers excellent image quality on every page. The dualcomponent rapid evaporation drying system improves drying efficiency, too, facilitating rapid dry times for instant take-up and faster print-to-lamination time. The Intelligent Mask Technology optimises colour gamut, density and vibrancy without compromising speed, while the Kodak Quantum Inks deliver an expanded colour gamut, enhanced durability and longevity for both indoor and outdoor applications. The 1200i is available in both 60-inch and 42-inch versions to suit all your outputting needs.. Manufacturer: Kodak Web: www.encad.com Price: £2,814 The Kodak T200+ offers two distinct outputs, effortlessly switching from fullcolour graphics printing to four-colour or monochrome Computer Aided Design output. The new CIS2 ink-set creates brilliant full-colour photographic images, plus CAD drawings with distinct line acuity, thanks to the CIS2 pigment black ink (with cyan, magenta and yellow) option. For ultra-fast monochrome printing, the T200+ also offers a CIS2 ink-set with four black pigment inks. This dual functionality is made easy maintain thanks to a range of pre-filled ink cartridges that simply snap on and off for quick, clean installation. In addition, ENCAD’s Ink Caddy System holds ample ink for extended printing. Handy transparent caddies ensure that printer ink levels are visible at all times. What’s more, the compact and sleek design of the T200 ensures the printer wil be able to find a home in more compact creative studios.. Epson Stylus Pro 7400 Manufacturer: Epson Web: www.epson.co.uk Price: £2,814 The A1 24-inch Stylus Pro 7400 is a four-colour large-format printer aimed at design professionals in the POS, CAD and GIS markets. The 7400 incorporates the Epson UltraChrome inkset (2xCyan, 2xMagenta, 2xYellow and 2xBlack), ensuring vivid, lifelike, edge-to edge output every time. These ink cartridges are deisgned for a large workflow and offer higher volumn capacities than rivals. An intuitive control panel and interface ensures quick and easy highresolution printing at up to 1440dpi, with a lightfastness of up to 75 years for colour prints. The 7400 supports matte and glossy media up to 1.5mm thick, and even caters for specialist techniques such as screen-printing. It can also print on transparent media too, with screen rulings up to 150lpi for creating designs like black-and-white masks.. 19. Advanced Photoshop. 018-019_APM04_insight.indd 19. 13/2/06 12:30:18.

(16) Feature. online art. Are you sat at your desk waiting for that big first break? Raise your profile and get your work out into the big bad world with this guide to producing online portfolios. Before you contemplate setting up a portfolio site of your own, consider realistically what you hope to achieve. Are you out to sell prints, raise your profile and kick-start your image-editing career, or produce a portfolio aimed at advertising agencies and clients as a means of securing further work? Identifying features and design style that will work best for you is crucial. Remember, a portfolio site may well be the first point of contact for many of your future clients, and should present a mature and professional image. As one commercial photographer Lonna Tucker, recognises: “A website is crucial to marketing an imageer’s work. Art buyers at advertising agencies now look at your website first rather than calling in your book.”. BY ROSS CONSTANTINI. A. personal portfolio website can expand your potential client base. Many imageers have benefited from gaining contact with clients through their sites, and come to the realisation that a welldesigned and maintained website can significantly raise your profile and success as an illustrator. Other than simply providing a permanently accessible portfolio, a website can be useful in many other ways…. GALLERY PAGES: Should be simple to navigate and provide good sized, clear enlargements. This example shows effective design together with a userfriendly layout. 22. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 22. 13/2/06 17:35:17.

(17) Online Art DARRAN REES: Darran has incorporated previous contract work into his site, acting both as a portfolio and client list. This shot was used in a Wrigleys advertising campaign. Professional advice KEEP IT SIMPLE: The simplicity and strong graphical design on Gene Peach’s portfolio site provides a professional appearance and enhances the content, instead of distracting from the photography. The Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality. Tiffany Shlain, founder and chairperson of The Webby Awards, provides her top five tips for creating a winning website: LESS IS MORE What really sets Google apart is its simple interface. Avoid extraneous bells and whistles that slow users down. STAY ON COURSE Keep your navigation bar consistent and prominent on every page, so customers don’t get lost. Use guides to show users where they are and how to get back to where they started. MAKE CONTACT Put a clear link from the home page that leads to your contact info. Include as many forms of contact as you can process: telephone and fax numbers, postal mailing address and email address. Customers will place more trust in you if they know you are easily accessible. SET EXPECTATIONS Acknowledge all contact with an auto response email so customers know you received their message. In the auto response, let them know how long it will take for you to get back to them, and then respond in that time frame. KEEP UP APPEARANCES Unlike a movie or a book, a website is a constant work in progress. Keep your customers coming back by highlighting personal or industry news on your home page to keep it fresh. Every quarter (if not more often), review your site thoroughly to make sure everything is current and links are still live. In addition to this, we’d highly recommend updating the site regularly with your most recent work. This keeps visitors returning to your site to view new material. Finally, always present your best work. Avoid padding the galleries with sub-standard images; it will do you no favours. It is better to have a few top-notch images, rather than a vast array of mostly mediocre content. Jim Shannon from the Giraffe advertising agency informs us that when searching for a photographer, he looks for a website that is primarily clear and easy to use. Contact details are obviously important, as well as sites updated occasionally with new work. A client list and a stock selection is a good idea if a client won’t run to a full commission. Darran Rees has made various re-usage sales specifically from his site. Deborah Gasper from The Ad Agency says: “The site needs to be simple, images need to download fast, and examples of their experience need to be easy to find. Another major point with the design of a website is to design it so the search engines can pick it up.”. 1 2 3 4. The method most suited to you will depend not only on budget, but also the features you want to see on the site, and how original and professional the results are. Once you have established your requirements, there are basically three main methods of getting your own personal photography site up and running. Choosing the correct option for you is the first step on your way to a worldwide client base.. The budget site For those with a limited budget the best option is to design and develop the site yourself. This requires relevant software, the technical knowledge, some design sense and a whole lot of time, but provides an original site that is designed around your requirements. There are some online aids for those new to the game, which guide you through the major steps to launch your site. The only costs involved are in securing a domain name and hosting the site, which usually demands a yearly sum dependent on the amount of space required. One good site to look at for advice and information on all aspects of web development and design is www.jessett.com.. The template site A pre-designed template can be purchased fairly cheaply, offers an easier option for those on a budget, and is a popular way to get a site up and running quickly. The text and images are added to the template to complete the site. Finding a host and publishing the site is still up to you. Xpose-gallery.co.uk and foliolink. com offer templates specifically for photographic websites. Webeden.co.uk and buildmygallery. co.uk offer online website builders. This requires no knowledge of website development, and by using the wide range of template options you can be set up and ready to go in a matter of hours. Lonna Tucker, a commercial photographer from Arizona, worked with Foliolink to produce her template-based site. Using one of its Flash templates, she worked closely with Foliolink to customise the site to suit her requirements. She knew what she wanted from the site beforehand, so they could arrange one to suit her needs. “I wanted a site I could manage, upload photos and other content, and have a client area for assignment pre-production requirements, like viewing scout locations, casting pics, etc. It was a collaborative. BEFORE CONTEMPLATING SETTING UP A PORTFOLIO SITE, CONSIDER WHAT YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE. 5. 23. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 23. 13/2/06 17:35:39.

(18) Feature. LONNA TUCKER: Lonna has modified her template site to her requirements. The Flash-based site includes a client area, and provides information on each. process that took a few months, but it was an enjoyable experience.” Lonna made good use of the template method to achieve a professional result.. The custom site The site is designed and developed around your needs – all you have to do is supply the information and images. This is by far the most expensive option, but hosting and publishing can be managed by the company, and the results will be of a professional standard. Prices vary, but as with most things you get what you pay for. Domain name and hosting fees are typically not included, but offered by the company for an additional charge. Darran Rees, a London-based photographer, employed the expertise of Taylor James to produce his stunning custom site. Originally a photographic retouching company, Taylor James has branched out into website development, making use of its many ESSENTIAL INFO: Incorporating contact details is a must, and providing a client list will give integrity. years’ experience of the photographic industry to produce effective custom websites for its clients. “The site was actually co-designed by myself and Taylor James. ‘The picture house’ idea was my own; I wanted to get away from the usual two-dimensional way of displaying pictures on-screen, and introduce some perspective, while retaining the simple graphic of the design. It’s really the same as walking through a real gallery; we see something that catches our eye, and wander up to it for a closer look. Taylor James took care of all the technical stuff like purchasing of space and getting it all up and running, thankfully.”. Content It is important not to overwhelm the viewer with information and pictures. Keep it concise yet effective. We recommend you plan your site around these simple contents: 5 GALLERY PAGES: Thumbnails should be large enough for the viewer to recognise the content, and ideally be continually. present on the portfolio page. The enlarged images should display an increased level of detail, but avoid huge images that require scrolling. A portfolio of more than about 100 images becomes a chore to view, and distracts from your best work; select your very best photos and categorise clearly into different pages. 5 BIOGRAPHY: A personal biography is often included to provide the viewer with a bit of information on your background, and perhaps your aspirations for the future. 5 CLIENT LIST: For those of you who have been working for a while, and have built up a client base, it might be worth listing your major clients. If you have received any recent press coverage, then this could be included here, along with any awards that will add credentials to your work. 5 CONTACT DETAILS: This is an absolute essential – if the potential buyers or clients can’t get hold of you, it defeats the purpose of the site.. FOLIOLINK: There are many companies offering template-based website design; one of the better providers is Foliolink. Dedicated to photography clients, it provides a range of solutions to meet your needs. 24. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 24. 13/2/06 17:28:42.

(19) Online Art Advertising your site is crucial. To avoid it getting lost in the tangled mass of the web, it’s imperative that your site has ‘web presence’. There are many methods that can be used to raise your site’s profile. The most common and perhaps most effective is to optimise it for search engines. This simply means that by cleverly adapting the site coding, you can gain a higher listing position in search engines. To have your site listed among the first few results of a search will guarantee more visitors. Another method is to advertise your site on relevant photography sites and search engines. This obviously costs money, but it is a worthy investment if you advertise smartly. In his experience, Gene Peach has seen the majority of clients reach his site through group websites. “Even when my individual site floats at the top of a Google search, I hear mostly from people who found it on a New Mexico group listing.” To get involved with a local web group or with a group of similar content, simply make contact and arrange a connection. See www.guava.co.uk or www.Find-My-Link.com for details on how a specialist company can help.. Copyrighting issues Illegal downloading of images has always been a hazard associated with portfolio sites. Darran Rees was well aware of the risks, and ensured measures were in place to protect his work. “Illegal download and copyright infringement are very important and common parts of any web design – or should be! In my particular site we have an inbuilt mechanism that prevents the download of images from the site, plus the file-sizes are small enough so that they are not able to be reproduced commercially.” If you want to keep image sizes as large as possible, watermarking may be the best option.. Go interactive? Macromedia’s Flash is increasingly being used in the design and development of websites to enhance the visual appeal and functionality. Incorporating Flash content into a site is a great way of creating a more appealing experience, and when used well can RANCH ROAD: Taken from Lonna Tucker’s portfolio site, www.lonnatucker.com. © Darran Rees. Publicising. TOO MUCH FLASH CONTENT CAN ACTUALLY DISTRACT FROM YOUR WORK IF NOT USED WITH CAREFUL CONSIDERATION provide a professional touch to your online portfolio. There’s always a danger of overkill though – many sites overload on Flash, which becomes annoying. Too much Flash content can actually distract from your work if not used with careful consideration. Jim Shannon from Giraffe says that when looking for a photographer to shoot a job, “Flash intro pages, and especially waiting for large Flash files to load, is not something we’re keen on! Unless it performs a function like navigation or a slideshow, don’t use it.”. E-commerce Producing an online portfolio is a great way to get your work out there; however, selling prints through your site is an opportunity too few photographers. embrace. Recently conducted research suggests that just eight per cent of artists sell prints online, despite the rapid growth of e-commerce. Selling prints can be a good way of supplementing your income and making the most of a site. The system can be included in many templates, or custom-designed by web-development companies. Lonna Tucker has plans to sell art prints and stock photography through her personal website, and seems enthusiastic about the possibilities: “Foliolink is finalising the e-commerce end of things. I can’t tell you how exciting this technology is. It will enable individual photographers to market their work, and do it in a very professional, upscale way.” The management of online sales may put some off the idea of selling prints. Artists need the organisation and time to invest in such an enterprise, as well as the extra costs involved in printing, packaging and distributing the orders. James Randklev, a landscape photographer with an e-commerce-enabled site, unfortunately has had little success selling his prints online. “It’s not because people aren’t interested in having prints made; it’s mainly the production and fineart costs of the prints.” For those concerned about overheads and organisation, there are other options. Theimagefile.com offers an all-in-one solution, which takes care of the complete process from ordering, using secure online payment, to the production. 25. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 25. 13/2/06 17:29:07.

(20) Feature ORIGINALITY: Darran Rees’ highly original site was custom made to his rough design. The virtual gallery idea was Darran’s concept, which was brought to life by a web developer. Has your website had a positive effect on your career?. © Darran Rees. 5 DARRAN REES “I think my own site that is linked to my agent’s websites has aided my career. The proof is the various contacts we receive from people who would not otherwise have seen the work. Generally speaking, more people know my work now, more people have access to my work now, and this is no bad thing for an artist.” www.darranrees.com 5 LONNA TUCKER “Imageers have been concerned about the declining number of assignments in the USA, and that – coupled with the state of the stock art industry – leads to rampant pessimism about the photo business here. Hopefully, my existing client base will remain strong, and the website will bring new business my way.” 5 GENE PEACH “I have no doubts that creating my website was the best marketing decision of my career. My website is the strongest connection with the ‘great wide yonder’ I have.” Living and working in rural New Mexico makes it tough for Gene to find local work: “My website is definitely my best tool for attracting outside clients.” For a top-notch design, we recommend you take a look at Gene’s site: www.genepeach.com. His instructions to the developer were for a very simple, elegant, easy-to-navigate and quick-to-load site, which has resulted in one of the best sites we’ve seen. Although the gallery images could do with being slightly larger, the balance of aesthetics and functionality are spot on – great design.. NICARAGUAN MAN: Taken from the dedicated archive gallery in Darran Rees’ site. PHOTOGRAPHY SITES MUST BE UPDATED WITH RECENT WORK AND INFO. THIS CAN BE DONE AT HOME and delivery of images. This service can be incorporated into an existing site by simply cutting the code from theimagefile and pasting it into your site. Even those without a website needn’t worry, as one can be provided free by the system. Howard Butterfield from theimagefile points out that: “The prints and products available for clients to purchase through theimagefile’s embedded e-commerce service are of an extremely high quality. The system even does a logic check on the image EXIF data to automatically decide if the image should be balanced and optimised, or printed as it is. The system then generates an invoice, and processes and dispatches the order, without any intervention from the artist at all.” Jo Andreae’s site, oneworldonecamera.co.uk, has made good use of theimagefile system to create a fully automated e-commerce business. Selling a range of products, Jo’s site has been really successful. “The print sales are going well, and people like the site – it has well and truly paid for itself. As a small business, I can alter the website to fit in with marketing campaigns, and develop it as the business develops.” For more information visit www.theimagefile.com. The service costs from £20 plus VAT per month. Without exception, all those we spoke to believed that the addition of an online portfolio had a positive effect on their career. Gene Peach believes that the lack of personal contact has an effect on his business, meaning clients are less likely to form long-term working relationships. Whichever method of site construction you choose though, the basics of getting your site up and running remain the same. There are generally three major steps to consider: the domain name (or URL), hosting and promotion.. Before he was an ad man, Kerry took the art foundation course route. It was here that he had his first brush with graphic design. He immediately connected with it and went on to do a degree in advertising and graphic design. Today he is still balancing the two – an act he enjoys. All his freelance work is done under the banner of You Are Beautiful, his company, while between the hours of 9 to 5 he is head of design and typography. “I work for clients like P&O and the Radio Times, so I can’t be too wild. But sometimes I’ll get a client that likes the style of my private stuff and it’ll find its way into the advertising.”. Domain names The domain name is the address of your website, for example the Google search engine’s domain name is www.google.com. Domain names are secured for a set period; once the registration period is up, the domain is free for other prospective web-developers to secure, unless of course you decide to continue with the domain. This should be the first thing you consider. Names are being secured all the time, so when you find an appropriate available name, secure it! It’s usually best to secure a domain that’s simple and provides a sense of the contents of the site. Involving your name somewhere in the sequence is a good idea because, after all, it’s your personal site and your name is the front for your business. www.rc-photoshop.com. Contacts www.Darranrees.com www.lonnatucker.com www.jamesrandklev.com www.genepeach.com www.taylorjames.com www.foliolink.com www.theimagefile.com. www.guava.com.uk www.Find-My-Link.com www.Xpose-gallery.co.uk www.webeden.co.uk www.buildmygallery.co.uk www.jessett.com. 26. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 26. 13/2/06 17:39:39.

(21) Online Art Which host boasts the most? With so many options available, it’s worth looking around for the best deal. Here are some questions you should ask before picking a host:. 1. How much space do they offer? Make sure there is enough space available for the site data, plus some additional space for expansion. How often is data backup conducted? Ideally, daily backup will be offered, meaning any updates are saved on a daily basis. Look for companies that guarantee regular data backup if you will be changing your site often. Do they offer POP3 password-protected email accounts? Important for securing your email accounts. What kind of technical support is offered? In reality, you don’t know what the support will be like until something goes wrong. Phone and email support should be offered; try contacting previous clients for their experiences. What is the speed of the connection? The net connection should be at least T-3 (45 Mbps); anything less is simply inadequate. Slow connections mean a slow-loading site, especially evident when a number of visitors access your site at once. Do they offer full FTP access? FTP access allows for updates to be made personally anywhere in the world – provided Internet access is available, of course. If not, it means costly updates, processed by your host. With the right technical knowledge, users can overhaul and redesign the website completely. Do they offer website data logs? Data logs allow you to assess the visitor numbers, what pages are visited and even where they have arrived from. This is a kind of market research for your site, which can help you understand how well your site is functioning. Do they have an uptime guarantee? Downtime is the amount of time that your website is down and out of action. Every now and then, the host server fails and people cannot access your site. Obviously this has to be kept to a minimum. Cheap hosting from a cowboy host company will inevitably involve a lot of downtime. Companies with a minimum uptime guarantee are more likely to provide a consistent service. Do they provide options for personal updates, editing and email adjustments? The ability to manipulate and edit certain aspects of your site is an important feature that gives control over the content and the working of your site.. 2 3 4 is not quite as good as www.rosscostantini.com, simply because when people search for your site, the likelihood of them finding the latter is greater. If you have a common name like John Smith, this domain name may already have been secured by somebody else. Therefore you may have to be a little creative, and consider: john-smith, johnsmith-photo, jsmithphotography, etc. Use www.checkdomain.com to search for available domain names. Generally, .co. uk/.info/.net names are less esteemed than .com, and can be secured for a reduced price. However, domain registration is very cheap, so go with .com if it’s still available. To secure your domain name you’ll need to register it through one of the numerous companies that offers the service. Domains can typically be secured for around £5 a year. www.godaddy.com is a popular website where prospective webmasters can register and secure their domain.. Hosting Before you can publish your site, you will need to arrange for it to be hosted on a dedicated computer system. Hosting is a term used to describe a service. LOST IN THOUGHT: Greg Funnell’s striking portrait taken from his self-built portfolio site whereby all the website data is stored on a computer. This computer system is known as a server, and is permanently connected to the net. When somebody wishes to access the site, the site data is lifted from the server and displayed on the user’s screen. While it is possible to use your home PC as a website host, the technical knowledge required, along with the slow connection speeds and intense requirements on your system, make it more sensible to employ a company to host the site for you. This does not mean you should necessarily use the company that made your site. There will probably be other cheaper and better options available. Do not feel obliged to opt for their hosting service – these are two separate services. There are usually a few options available, the price dependent on the amount of space required and options like email services. There are some offers of free hosting on the net, but they obviously don’t offer a great service, and this is not a good idea if you want a professional image. Guy Tucker from the Internet design house Webeurope spoke to us about hosting and the process of publishing websites. “We rent dedicated servers and aim to fill each with around 100 websites (depending on their popularity). Clients aren’t actually involved in the hosting; we fully manage and set up each hosting account. Our standard hosting package includes telephone technical support and, if required, control panel access (using software called Plesk – see www.sw-soft.com). The control panel MAKE TEA MAN: Consider whether you want your work just to be viewed, or if you want it to be possible for purchases to be made as well. 5 6 7 8. 9. 27. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 27. 13/2/06 17:30:02.

(22) Feature GIRL IN HEADSCARF: Taken from focus52. com. Many include their name in the web address, but Greg chose not to personalise his site, giving it the potential for branding. allows the user to create, edit or delete email accounts, and also many other features such as installing applications (including forums) and creating secure, password-protected directories.” This allows users to have full control over the site content, as well as additional services provided with the hosting. For affordable website hosting, try the awardwinning ipower.com. It offers hosting services for a small monthly charge, and domain registration is available for an additional yearly charge. powweb.com also provides affordable website hosting from $93 a year, setup and domain registration included. Websites with e-commerce facilities need specific hosting services to cope with the additional requirements. “For e-commerce sites, customers ideally need a content management system to add, edit or delete their products. This would require hosting with PHP and MySQL (databases). The products would have a unique ID, which could be referenced and passed to a payment gateway like PayPal.” E-commerce-enabled sites and selling prints or stock require a specialised hosting service to handle the databases behind the order processing.. DOMAIN REGISTRATION: This is the first port of call in your publishing process. The name can be a crucial factor for a successful site. PROMOTING YOUR SITE IS CRUCIAL. THERE’S NO POINT IN HAVING A SITE IF NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT Hostrocket.com offers inexpensive hosting for database sites – and for a listing of other reputable hosting companies, check out hostindex.com. Website hosting services vary greatly, and some are faster than others. It has been proved that the vast majority of viewers will give up and look elsewhere if it takes the site more than a few seconds to appear. It is therefore imperative to have a quick-loading site. Whereas a lot of this is down to the size of the website and how much data has to be transferred, the actual hosting performance has a major effect on the load speed. If you’re unsure of your hosting service performance, check out alertbot.com. Net mechanic’s Server Check Pro provides a similar service.. Updating your site Illustration sites must be updated with recent work and information. This can be achieved easily at home, providing you have the correct software. Guy Tucker says: “Users have the ability to upload data from their own computer systems using programs like Microsoft’s FrontPage. They can be given FTP access so they can keep their site up to date simply from within FrontPage.” FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a method of interacting with the website server. It allows the user to edit and adjust their websites from home using their own computer. This is ideal for sites. that need continual refreshment, but requires some form of web-design software such as FrontPage to edit the content and upload the changes. Once the site has been uploaded to the server, it is important to test every aspect of it. Test all links, and if it includes e-commerce, thorough testing of this system is vital. Checks should also be conducted of the content, as spelling mistakes and bad grammar don’t give a good impression.. Promotion Promoting your website is extremely important. There is simply no point in having a site published on the net without anybody knowing about it. Promotion can take many forms, and there are now services available to help you publicise your site and increase its visibility. Search engine optimisation is possibly the most important promotional technique you can employ. It is relatively easy to do, and can cost you nothing. Search engine placement should be checked regularly to maintain a high listing position. New websites, and those that have been modified to increase their visibility, may well push your site down the listings, and so the likelihood is that your site will get fewer visitors. Websites must be submitted to search engines in order to be listed within searches. Ideally, you should aim to submit your site to search. 28. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 28. 13/2/06 17:41:14.

(23) Online Art engines every four to six weeks. Start with the four largest search engines: Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Google, and work from there. www.addme.com offers free submission to 14 major engines, saving you the hassle of doing it yourself. To track the ranking of your sites on search engines, take a look at SERanker Pro from www.monocle-solutions.com. Photographer Greg Funnell explained: “Webrings are now considered a degrading factor in this field, alongside most ‘links’ pages, with the exception of those run by the search engine itself.” It is important that any sites you link to for promotion are professional, and convey the same quality content as your own. Webrings are not always a popular method of promotion; almost anybody can join the ring, and they generally do not help your image on the net. Advertising is also a good way to increase exposure and visitor numbers. Placing banners on relevant websites is one way of advertising; another is to exchange ad banners with other websites, making it free! Paid advertising slots have to be assessed to determine how many print sales are generated from that particular ad. If the advert costs £50 a month and in that month only two sales were directly generated, each sale cost £25 in advertising. You have to decide whether this is an acceptable margin. Other ads may have generated 20-30 sales, in which case you are paying around £2 per print sale. Assessing the performance of each advert is important, firstly to understand what advertising strategy works well, and secondly to eliminate those ads which don’t pay for themselves. Linking with other related sites is a little more discreet than banner ads. linkexchanged.com will put you in touch with suitable partners. You should look for sites with a good ranking, and plenty of traffic and trade links with them. Offline advertising is another way of generating interest, and should not be forgotten. This method allows you to target the audience, and can prove not only cheaper but more effective than online methods. Placing ads in specific magazines targets the audience who may have a special interest in your type of photography. Other than that, just get your name out there. Adding the URL and a short description of your website to every email you send in your signature file, letterheads and business cards is simple and free marketing. Search for directories and listings of photographic websites (or those relevant to your area of specialisation), and get your site link up there. Old fashioned business networking also helps; use word of mouth both online and off. Relevant forums are a good way to meet people and market your. MR HAWA: Greg chose the name focus52 because he felt it rolled off the tongue and would therefore be easier for people to remember it. work. Perhaps arrange to swap links, and generate relationships and contacts with those in the same business. Get yourself known – these relationships will help you to gain the most from the Internet, and can be a valuable source of information, and helping each other out will benefit both parties. In producing his website, Greg explains: “The common practices of providing text links and metadata were followed, after which the site was submitted to Google, Yahoo and MSN for indexing during the next web-crawling cycle. Linking your site to other relevant sites, web groups or directories is a good way of attracting suitable visitors from alternative sources.” Greg’s site, www.focus52.com has a portfolio of his work which will be his major contact point for future employees, and hopefully a connection to freelance work. www.apromotionguide.com will provide you with useful tips on all forms of website promotion.. Maintenance Apart from updating with new work, photographic portfolio sites don’t require much maintenance. Some maintenance tasks however, are well worth the small amount of time they take to complete. Your site’s search engine listing is something that should be checked every now and again to make sure you haven’t been pushed down the list by other similar websites. Another important maintenance check, especially after uploading and editing your site, is to check all of your site’s links. This is something that many site owners overlook, and doesn’t give a good impression to prospective clients or customers.. CHECK YOUR WEBSITE’S SEARCH ENGINE LISTING TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE STILL HIGH UP THE LIST. All this, of course, can be handled for you professionally. However, if you have the software and basic website knowledge, these are all simple and quick tasks that will ensure your site keeps running in tip-top form without the added expenses. Check out www.netmechanic.com for maintenance and promotion tools. Promotion of your site is an ongoing process – the more effort you put into advertising and generally promoting your site, the more hits it will receive. Now that you know the major steps to getting your site up and running successfully, you are well on your way to giving your career a major boost. Whether a portfolio or e-commerce, print sales site, your new website will make all the difference – but like many things in life, it will only be as successful as the amount of time and effort you’re prepared to put into it. Donate a little time once a week to maintaining, updating and possibly improving your site to get the best out of it. 5. Case study Advanced Photoshop spoke to photographer Greg Funnell, a student who has recently set up his own website with the help of his friend and programmer Naresh Verlander. His deciding factors when choosing a website host were partly specific to his requirements: “When choosing a host, the deciding factor was really reliability. However, obviously cost in hand, and the features provided for that cost, also played a decisive role (eg the inclusion of PHP, MySQL processing, large space and bandwidth).” Once a host has been chosen, the domain has to be pointed toward the host server. This basically means that when the domain name is typed into a browser, it knows where to find the site.. Contacts netmechanic.com addme.com webeurope.co.uk ipower.com. powweb.com checkdomain.com focus52.com. 29. Advanced Photoshop. 022-029_APM04_feature.indd 29. 13/2/06 17:30:43.

(24) Inter view. MATTE MAN. TITANIC: “Titanic was a hard one because it just seemed to go on and on,” says Darby. “Like Crouching Tiger, it was high-maintenance for historical reasons. There are some photographs of the day Titanic left Southampton, but as you can imagine, they’re pretty rough to look at. We had to go into such detail – exactly which ships were in dock on that day, even which masts would have been poking out and how tall, what the look of the hotel in the background was... That’s fine with me, because I find it interesting, the historical side. You’re not only painting something memorable, but you’ve also learned something at the end of it. “With Titanic, we truly believed the show we were working on was going to be quite special, even if at times it looked as though it could have been a flop. We just felt it was great subject matter – Titanic back on the water. It’s the kind of show where you’re just excited about the idea of it. There was a lot of pressure on all of us. It was fun for a while and then got rather hard work, and by the time we finished it we were about six months behind. But even now, quite a few of the images really hold up, and historically, it’s as good as it’s going to get.”. His digital work may have helped shape the look of some of the biggest films of the last decade – but Charles Darby still likes to whip out a traditional paintbrush before dabbling with cutting edge Photoshop effects. T. itanic, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, I, Robot, Harry Potter… Not a bad set of films to have on your CV. And yet esteemed Photoshop artist Charles Darby is always at pains to emphasise just how basic his working knowledge of Adobe’s app really is. The difference, he believes, comes down to his background in classical painting. “Learning [how to use] the computer, the Wacom tablet and the software is actually the easier part,” he says. “There are a few people who can use Photoshop probably far better than myself. They have a deeper understanding of it.” Born in Liverpool in 1969, Darby studied painting in Florence, Italy from 1988-91, under the guidance of Charles H Cecil, because “it was the only thing I was any good at”. A stint at Goldsmiths College immediately afterwards taught him that, in painting, anything goes. But it’s his grounding in classical technique that has served him well – as a matte painter and visual effects supervisor, he’s now one of the most sought-after talents in Tinseltown. Such an outcome could not. have been predicted from his early encounters with the technology. “I’ve always been playing with computers, although I’d never tried to actually paint with them,” he recalls. “When I was very young, I was playing with rudimentary tablet software and paint software, and I was using a Commodore 64. I don’t remember doing anything half-decent on it and I didn’t really use computers for anything terribly creative until I was living in LA and was asked whether I might be able to convert a. photo-real oil painting into something on the computer.” It took time to make the transition from oils to digital, but perseverance paid off and he’s now as au fait with the brush as he is with a tablet and pen. “I don’t think about it any more, but when I started, that was probably the hardest thing to get used to – the fact that there’s no ‘tooth’ to the surface, so you’re sliding along, almost like painting on glass. It makes it much harder to draw. Quite a few really good, traditional matte artists at. 30. Advanced Photoshop. 030-035_APM04_Darby.indd 30. 13/2/06 12:33:33.

(25) Charles Darby. the beginning of the Nineties hated having to use the computer, and some of them didn’t cross over into digital because it was a different kind of artform at that point.”. Matte master The bulk of Darby’s commercial work is matte painting for the movies, brought to life with the help of Photoshop CS, a 2.5GB Mac G5 and 23-inch Apple monitor. Then, of course, there’s his. trusty watercolour paints and brushes… “Watercolours are the way I like to work, because I tend to find that directors and producers are able to comment more easily about the physical drawing or painting. They can actually sketch on it if they fancy. There isn’t some sort of barrier there, which a monitor actually becomes. So if they’re looking at a watercolour, I can get feedback quicker. I then scan it in, whichever version they choose. It’s like a blueprint. When you have a 3D matte painting, where the camera’s. CHARLES DARBY:. Computers were just for games, as far as Charles was concerned, when he was young. But all that changed after he took an oil painting into digital. Now he produces matte paintings for the top movies. 31. Advanced Photoshop. 030-035_APM04_Darby.indd 31. 13/2/06 12:33:45.

(26) Inter view. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: “Director. Courtney Solomon asked if I could re-do 12 shots for the independent movie, Dungeons and Dragons,” said Darby. “Production hoped I’d take LightWave files and work with what had been done already.” But, given the time-frame – about eight weeks – it would’ve taken longer to work with other people’s files. He explained: “These would’ve been quite complex 3D models that would have taken an eternity to render. So I redesigned all 12 shots with watercolours and then we created quite basic 3D models for the main buildings and in a 2.5D-type matte painting world, where you’re taking a basic 3D model and applying very advanced texturing. The textures give the illusion of enormous detail, which means you can render a scene overnight, rather than in a week or so.”. moving far more, then the watercolour isn’t quite as beneficial because it can only cover one frame of what could be a huge move. So here I’ll do the first and end frames. Still, you tend to work out a lot of problems at this stage, rather than finding them out later on. It’s almost like you build it and work out your problems, then build it again, avoiding all those problems. If you went straight into Photoshop, you’d tend to look at the composition differently.” Early in his film career, Darby worked for Cinesite in LA and then Digital Domain, subsequently setting up his own company Digital Firepower. Although now defunct, DF started off promisingly enough, albeit with a slight hiccup when a deal to work on George Lucas’ Star Wars: The Phantom Menace fell through at the last minute. Thankfully, within two weeks, Darby received a call from the makers of The Matrix. “They contacted us and said, ‘Would you be able to do these matte paintings?’.” It was, however, a little like working in the dark. “Not only because we were separated by a few. hundred miles,” says Darby. “It was tricky to know exactly what you were working on. It was all a little bit abstract, and tricky to know the ‘feel’ of what they were after. We weren’t really shown much of the rest of the movie, so by the time we finished it, I don’t think I was particularly excited about working on the show. And when it came out, it was completely different to anything I’d imagined. It was very surprising – you can’t guess what shows are going to be like.”. When in Rome… Darby has spent most of his life in America, but he travels the world a lot, often because the production on which he’s working demands it. His most recent project was the BBC’s historical drama Rome. “I was living there for just over three months and that’s the perfect-case scenario, where you’re creating ancient Rome and you can go into the town, live in the town and look at all the small details – not the big stuff that you can read about in books anyway. It’s the small details. STAR WARS FELL THROUGH, BUT WITHIN TWO WEEKS HE GOT A CALL FROM THE MAKERS OF THE MATRIX. 32. Advanced Photoshop. 030-035_APM04_Darby.indd 32. 13/2/06 12:34:28.

(27) Charles Darby. THE FIFTH ELEMENT: “I was supervising a sequence for The Fifth Element at Digital Domain a while ago now,” recalls Darby. “Most of the model-work had been shot in Pinewood and the rest we were doing in Venice, California. It was beautiful stuff – large-scale. Most of The Fifth Element was not only a lot of fun, it was taking these fantastic models and expanding the whole universe from them.” Everyone involved was guessing what it would look like in the final movie, remembers Darby: “People were reporting it as Bladerunner with the lights turned on. Everything gels really nicely. It was great for my line of work, because I had something to base the city on, which was the model-work, and then you could go crazy from there. As long as you kept a colourful, intricate, highly detailed look, everything worked.”. INSIGHT INTO DARBY’S WATERCOLOURS This pre-production watercolour, and the subsequent computergenerated scene, from Michael Cristofer’s 2001 movie, provides an insight into how Darby works. The watercolour is first presented to the director, producer (or both), who then comment on it, decide what they like and then mark changes on the artwork itself. Darby then scans in the watercolour and works it up, typically at a very high resolution, in Photoshop. He finds that watercolours tend to produce a better response from the people whose job it is to make decisions about the film: “Computer monitors create a barrier between the client and the artwork, which can seriously hamper creativity and slow the production down.”. 33. Advanced Photoshop. 030-035_APM04_Darby.indd 33. 13/2/06 12:34:43.

No results found