painting tips

Michael,

Take a look at the following
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshoptutorialsphotoart/

HTH
TMH

"i’m a writer …[snip]…i want to take the magazine in a little bit of a different direction. i’d like to take a photo and add some filters to it to give it more of an artistic look."

Sooo, I take it that this magazine has a bare skeleton of a staff?

No offense to you, personally, but think about this: How would you feel if a pressman expressed an interest in taking your writing in a different direction? Perhaps presently you write on the social aspects of how the hearing impaired get along in their day-to-day life, and the pressman feels that you’d do better by writing about the legal hurdles that impede smooth daily existence by the subjects of your writing?

Again, no offense, but if you’re a writer, how is it that you are tasked with finding out about the nuts and bolts of creating more painterly effects for the images that illustrate your stories and the magazine? Would it not make more sense for you to communicate your interests and desires to someone on the art staff, then see what they can come up with? If it were me, I’d want to work directly with my writing staff rather than find out they are, in a way, trying to usurp my abilities and the reason I’m working for the magazine in the first place. Maybe I’m a little overly sensitive, but I’d also feel it was a little insulting.

I’m not trying to dissuade you from learning how to do what you want to do. Perhaps you’re a writer with an abiding amateur interest in image manipulation, but I’m curious about why you have chosen to pursue your goal for the magazine in this direction as opposed to talking with your staff.

Or, do you also wear the graphic artist’s hat at your magazine? If that’s the case, you might have done well to say so straight away, thus saving a me bit of lecturing and consternation.

Do tell, Michael…

🙂

Sure, I’ll tell.

There’s no "art department" here. There is the managing editor (a published author doing this job for 25 years but is, admittedly, not artistic). There’s a PR rep who sells the ads and contributes a story or two to the magazine, but has no say-so over the layout and design of the magazine.

Then there’s me. I’m also a writer and editor and have been on the job for about 9 months now. I’m pretty decent in PS, in photography, and in writing. I’m also the only deaf writer on this very small staff.

We have management that’s very conservative. At the same time, the magazine is not out to showcase art. It basically introduces new teaching techniques to educators of the deaf.

For the past 5 or 6 years, they’ve basically used photos to illustrate the articles. I was given the task of putting together the most recent issue from scratch, as the managing editor was out on leave. We needed a photo to illustrate a story. Management kept telling me to go back to the archives – "we pay a fortune for those photographs!" was their line. Every one I found they didn’t like. So then I came across a photo of a painting done by a deaf artist. It shows two deaf people conversing in sign language.

I thought it would break up the pace of the magazine by showing some art and management agreed. But it was a risk to even suggest it because, to date, I’ve not seen a one illustration or painting in any of the previous issues. When the sick managing editor got back, she agreed that it looked great and we went with it. I also told her that it might be nice to maybe "illustrate" photos in future issues to add a little "art" to the magazine. She agreed.

So here I am. I don’t have the luxury of sitting around for 2 days to create exquisite art, sipping on coffee and taking my time. I write stories for this magazine, for several other publications, design and update about a dozen web sites for the center here, produce web video for the center, and am grossly underpaid to boot. I recently got a glowing promotion for being on the job for the first 9 months. My evaluation says that I’ve introduced so many new and exciting things to the center. And what was my reaward for busting my butt? I terrific 2% raise of my $40,000 a year salary. To complicate things, I live in a large metro area and am barely getting by supporting my wife and two children.

Being deaf has never been easy. I’ve been discriminated against countless times because NO ONE would take a chance on hiring a deaf TV producer, writer, and web designer. And in a perfect world, there should be no need for the world at large to even "take a chance."

Black people think they’ve got it bad and, believe me, I feel for everything they’ve been through. But if you think it’s easy for a disabled person with a college degree to get a job they’ve worked hard to reach, you’ve got another think coming.

My wife and I have had to scratch and claw our way here to practically survive while, all around us, we see our neighbors – all hearing people – living in million-dollar houses and townhomes. We live in a neighborhood of home owners and we’re one of the very few who’s renting because we can’t afford to buy.

And is all of this because I’m deaf? Of course it is! I don’t have the luxury of scanning the job ads, writing down a dozen a day, and then picking up the phone and calling about them.

I’m just painting a picture here for you. I’m not asking for self-pity. I’m just telling it like it is. Now you know why I didn’t go to the "art department" – because we don’t have one. And I did go to the staff – my sole colleague.

Well, I’d be a bit concerned about the ethical and legal implications of manipulating any photographs you may already have or acquire in the future. That’s something you ought to look into.

But, once you’ve cleared that hurdle, and given your resource contraints (time and staff) you may want to have a look at the new Corel Painter Essentials 3. They’ve beefed it up considerably from the previous version, and are now offering it as a retail purchase. Previous versions, as I understand things, were only distributed as part of a bundle when you purchased a scanner or a Wacom tablet, along with maybe some cameras or other hardware.

Read a review about it here:
< http://www.macdesignpro.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=3519 7>

The salient point for you would be…
"Auto-Painting: And the third major functional difference is in the area of image cloning and the application of "painterly" effects to photographs. And it’s one that’s actually in favor of Painter Elements. In particular, there’s a new feature in Essentials 3 called "Auto-Paint." It basically allows Painter to do the painting for you based on the type of brush you select and the parameters you set for the automatic painting process."

"There are several ways you can work this. But essentially, you choose a cloning brush, then go to the new Auto-Paint panel. Here you can choose a type of brush stroke (scribbles, straight lines, etc.) and set several different options for the way the stroke will be applied to the canvas–randomness, pressure, path length, rotation and brush size. Then you just click the Play button in the palette, and the brush is applied automatically to the canvas stroke by stroke."

This sounds like it might be right up your alley, and for the MSRP of about US$100, it may help streamline your production enormously, and pay for itself in one or two jobs. I got a Wacom tablet not long ago that had Painter Essentials v2 bundled with it, and, while it doesn’t offer the dizzying array of options available in the full-fledged Painter, it’s easy to work with, quick and smooth.

Have a look at the quick "Before & After" demo I did a few weeks ago: Phosphor, "Oil painting texture?" #9, 23 Sep 2005 9:06 am </cgi-bin/webx?14/8>

Michael: IMHO the best thing is to try.

If possible set aside a number of hours every week and do this:

1 – try some new filters in Photoshop

That’s it! S’easy! Nothing more nothing less.

A good practice issue is to use images that are not copyright protected (unless you or your organisation owns the copyright or privilege to use the image from the copyright owner).

The blend of ethics and point 1 aboove coupled with time (I’d say 6 months to prfociency at 3 – 4 hours every week, sooner depending on other factors)

Here is an idea to start of with:

1 – take a sequence of 3 images

2 – in Photoshop create a File > New that is 3 times wider plus a margin based on the largest image (sorry! Math does come into this)

3 – move each of the images into the new image and position them as to be aesthetically pleasing

4 – make at least 5 different variations on this theme and ask your colleague to select the best.

5 – then do it again this time with a vertical arra ngement of the images

Once both of the above have been completed (and providing all copyright good practices have been observed) pop them into the magazine and ask readers to vote on the best

Photoshop is great – Photoshop (unless I am mistaken? Learned colleagues to advise otherwise?) has a voluntary sector policy.

In the words of nike: Just do it!

A humble deebs from (probably) several thousand miles away or so

thanks for the tip. i hope to get over to the UK someday. i’m a walton, after all, which is veddy british, heh?

There is a town by the same name (at least one)

It used to be property or territory owned by the Waltons I think.

As a resource idea?

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1K4j3scdcD26jHqZvJ CHqz1ZoloJH1>

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1K4j3scdcD26jHqZvJ CHqz1ZoloJH1>