Vootie's blog

By Dan Zarrella
Excerpted from The Social Media Marketing Book (O'Reilly)

A social network is a website where people connect with friends, both those they know offline and those who are online-only buddies. Social networking sites are a hot topic for marketers, as they present a number of opportunities for interacting with customers, including via plug-in applications, groups, and fan pages.

Each social network presents its own possibilities and challenges. Users of individual sites have different expectations of commercial behavior. In what follows, I’ll introduce you to the three most popular networks and their unique features.

Adapted from Photoshop CS4 Bible (Wiley Publishing) - By Stacy Cates, Simon Abrams, Dan Moughamian
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Making images or parts of images lighter, or brighter, is a commonly needed adjustment. There are many ways to lighten an image in Photoshop. You can use a lightening process that lightens the light and/or dark qualities of an image (the luminosity or luminance) along with the colors in an image.

But let’s say you’ve got the color the way you want it — you just want to lighten part of the image and avoid risking a shift in the color while you’re at it. In that case, you can use a lightening technique that lightens only the luminosity and does not affect the colors. There are also lightening techniques that can better preserve contrast in an image, and others that may reduce contrast. You can use certain methods to make broad changes or you can use methods that allow you to target specific areas.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Photoshop CS4 After the Shoot (Wiley Publishing)
By Mark Fitzgerald
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

I work with lots of photographers, most of them professionals. When I first begin to work with a new photographer, one of the first questions I ask is how she handles sharpening in her workflow. That’s because sharpening is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the postproduction workflow. When it’s done incorrectly, it can have a detrimental effect on the final image. If someone is making this mistake, I want her to know before moving on to other things.

Understanding Sharpening

Digital photo sharpening is nothing more than enhanced edge contrast. Photoshop tricks you into thinking a photo looks sharper by isolating edge detail and enhancing contrast along those edges. One side of the edge is lightened while the other side is darkened. The enhanced edge contrast is referred to as haloing because of the effect it causes along these edges.

There is no magic formula for sharpening because the amount of sharpening for a particular image depends on two very different things — the content of the image and its overall dimensions. Images with lots of edge detail, like the bowl of silver rings shown below, can handle more sharpening than images with fewer hard edges, such as photos of people or a photo of a landscape on a foggy morning. This is because lots of sharpening adds to the feel of the ring photo, while it would detract from the softer feeling of the portrait or foggy landscape. Additionally, a smaller print of this shot doesn’t need as much sharpening as a larger version would require.

Read further on Graphics.com

Adapted from Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press)
By Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

Creative sharpening is the catch-all term for localized adjustments to image detail. Unlike optimizations for capture and output processes, creative adjustments can’t be applied automatically based on specific parameters—they require creative judgment, hence the name.

But automation plays an important role in making many of the tools we use for creative sharpening. The only part of the process that can’t be automated is the actual localizing of an effect to a specific area of an image. So in this section we’ll discuss building creative sharpening (and blurring) tools and applying them effectively to images in Photoshop. The first valuable lesson to learn is that you can turn any adjustment into a brush!

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Glitch: Designing Imperfection (Mark Batty Publisher)
By Iman Moradi, Ant Scott, Joe Gilmore & Christopher Murphy
Dateline: October 23, 2009

Q: Please outline your working ethos and history as a graphic design studio—your experimental glitch research and the commercial side. How did this way of working come about?

Adapted from EdgyCute: From Neo-Pop to Low Brow and Back Again (Mark Batty Publisher)
By Harry Saylor with Carolyn Frisch
Dateline: October 20, 2009

I believe in art. I collect it, search for it and am driven to own it. My first “real art” purchase was in 1988: an Andy Warhol “Cow.” I loved the use of a trademarked character—Elsie the Cow—to create a homey feeling that was so familiar to me that it created instant comfort. Next, I acquired a piece by Rodney Alan Greenblat: “Challenge of the Suburbs.” At first glance it comes off as very silly. At the time none of my friends understood why I bought it. But I understood it and that’s all that matters anyway. It was like a new roommate. I look at all my art as roommates, silent, joyful, sometimes scary, always thought provoking, and happy! When I look at them they speak to me and even haunt me.

See the collection of images on Graphics.com

Adapted from What is Illustration? (RotoVision)
By Lawrence Zeegen
Dateline: October 9, 2009

“I’m a graphic designer at heart. I understand that different problems require different treatments, and that the mantra ‘form follows function’ is going to save my ass one day,” says Christoph Niemann, a passionate advocate for ideas-centered, problem-solving illustration. Niemann trained in graphic design at Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, moving to New York upon graduation in 1997 to begin a career in illustration, working predominantly as an editorial illustrator.

“Despite studying graphic design, I majored in illustration,” Niemann admits. “I had a harsh tutor, but it was a fantastic education.” The harsh tutor was no less then Heinz Edelmann, art director and illustrator of the 1968 classic Beatles movie Yellow Submarine. It was this education that set Niemann on his path to concept-led illustration.

“I have a real problem with illustration that isn’t created within the context of graphic design,” he continues. “Being an illustrator is like being an artist without being an artist; it is not about self or ego, it is always about collaboration and compromise.” Niemann understands the complexities of working to a brief, for a client and for an end user or “reader,” as he refers to his audience. “For an illustrator, the collaboration with a good art director means that it is never just about making a picture to fill a white space on the page—an art director will always have an opinion,” he explains.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Photoshop CS4 for Nature Photographers: A Workshop in a Book (Sybex)
By Ellen Anon and Josh Anon
Dateline: September 24, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

The Shadow/Highlight adjustment is an excellent way to reveal subtle detail in the shadow and/or highlight areas of your images. Although you could theoretically produce similar results with sophisticated use of Curves, the Shadow/Highlight adjustment is far easier to use when you need to recover detail that has been lost in shadow or highlight areas because of excessive contrast. It’s similar to the Fill Light and Recovery sliders in ACR, but it has additional controls so you can fine-tune the results.

Read the full article on Graphics.com

Adapted from Negative Space
(Mark Batty Publisher)
By Noma Bar, with an introduction by Buzz Poole, Dateline: September 11, 2009

When a student enrolls in a class to learn the craft of writing there is one adage that cannot be escaped: Show, don’t tell. This ubiquitous sentiment reminds writers of all stripes that their readers do not need to be bludgeoned over the head with the text’s “message.” Rather, writers need to do little more than pepper the scene with details of the moment—Is the room cold? What does the woman do with her hands when she is on the phone? The bread in the toaster is burning. The litter box has not been changed in three weeks—which permit the meaning to form in the reader’s mind.

Excerpted from Tricks of the Trade, an online bonus chapter for Photoshop CS4 QuickSteps (The McGraw-Hill Companies)
By Gary David Bouton and Carole Matthews
Dateline: August 28, 2009
Version: Adobe Photoshop CS4

I'll be showing you how to build a brush in Photoshop, specifically a natural media-type tip that simulates watercolor, complete with “wet” edges.

Begin By Painting a Brush Tip

There are two types of brushes you can build and use in Photoshop:

• One based on math, i.e., geometry. This sort of brush is created by duplicating a Photoshop preset labeled “Soft Round” or “Hard Round”, and then customizing it as shown in the following sections; you click a brush, click New Brush Preset on the pop-up menu, name the brush in the Brush Name dialog box, and you’re all set to modify it. The limitation to building this type of brush is that it’s always elliptical in shape—you cannot give it an irregular outline as a stroke with a physical paintbrush can produce.
• One based on a bitmap. This is the type of brush you’ll learn to create in this chapter. It’s a mental, not a physical challenge; and the payoff is that a saved bitmap-type brush can be used in scores of design and retouching situations. The strokes it produces can look quite natural and photographic; additionally, all the options on the Brushes Panel are available for customizing the bitmap brush tip.

Read the full article on Graphics.com