I found some daguerreotype images online at Deviant Art and thought I would try my hand at a Maggie Taylor inspired image.
With several composite layers and lots of refining edges I ended up with the following image. I used a number of techniques including:
Textured layers with blend modes (the textures created from scanning)
Scanning
Gradient overlays
Dodging & burning
Free Transforms and distorts etc
Colourisation with grey-scale (for the daguerreotype)
The techniques can be found in more detail throughout my blog but if you wish for a tutorial or if you have any questions please dont hesitate to comment
Currently studying units heavily influenced be the digital side of photography I thought it would be useful to add a post about copyright within the world of digital imagery and issues we, as photographer may encounter.
So the main question I wanted an answer to was;
How do we prevent worldwide copyright, are the UK laws different?
The most useful information I have come across regarding worldwide copyright protection is the Berne Convention. Its full title is Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. It came into place in 1886 as an agreement to honour the rights of all authors who are nationals of countries that are part of the convention. The most current version of the convention is the Paris Act of 1971.
There are 164 countries that have signed up to the Berne Convention, the full list can be found here. All the countries who have signed up to form this union providing proection for the work of the artists/authors who are nationals of one of the participating countries, or where the work itself was first taken or published.
Below is a list of rights provided to the agreed parties, the information I found here on the WIPO site.
For the period of copyright, the copyright owner has the following exclusive rights. None of the actions below can be carried out without permission:
The right to authorise translations of the work.
The exclusive right to reproduce the work, though some provisions are made under national laws which typically allow limited private and educational use without infringement.
The right to authorise public performance or broadcast, and the communication of broadcasts and public performances.
The right to authorise arrangements or other types of adaptation to the work.
Recitation of the work, (or of a translation of the work).
The exclusive right to adapt or alter the work.
The author also has the following moral rights:
The author has the right to claim authorship
The right to object to any treatment of the work which would be ‘prejudicial to his honour or reputation’.
An excellent site giving you heaps of info regarding copyright in the digital/photography world and whilst studying is here
Providing you with various information and easy to understand diagrams ranging from what areas copyright protects to the duration of copyright, which is 70 years for artistic work from the end of the year the creator died.
Copyright in the UK falls under the IPR Law (Intellectual Property Right)
Under this law falls many categories such as copyright, performer rights and trademarks etc
Again, an excellent site for information on copyright and how it represents you as an artist and your work, see here
A great article to read is the Sara Lewkowicz’s Copyright Battle. Sarah documented the life of an ex convict wanting to capture his life and portray how hard it is to get back on the straight and narrow and adapt to normal society. One night she witnessed and documented an event of domestic violence. The images Sara captured were evidence of the assault Shane had carried out on his then partner Maggie in front of their toddler daughter. Saras images were confiscated by the police, the rest is history. The Times displayed them online in a feature conjoined with the debate on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The images then went viral.
As quoted by Sara: “The Time story appeared, and people shared it on Facebook,” Sara said. “I only saw the ones I was tagged in, and it was like a couple hundred! I stopped counting at a certain point.” Next came more articles as Sara sold the series to different publications, like CNN and Brazil’s Claudia. But the photos then started to show up on blogs—with and without her permission [full disclosure: Resource’s blog joined the frenzy and didn’t properly clear our use of her images, a mistake we regret and won’t do again]. The images are powerful and unique—domestic violence happens mostly without witnesses, far from cameras—so they really resonated with a lot of people. The stalling of VAWA in Congress only heightened the issue of women’s protection and the importance of Sara’s images. “People just started sharing them in their eagerness to say, ‘Hey, look at this,’” Sara said in regard to social media and blogs. “Most people aren’t doing it out of malice; they’re just thinking, ‘I want as many people to see this as possible.’” The rest of the article can be found here
Sara Lewkowicz
Even though the event took place in the United States I think her experience and lessons learnt is a great lesson to take on board for any photographer. For more information on the International Association of Photographers please visit their site here
Other useful links that you may find useful are below, I found the embedded meta data website initiatives site extremely useful, teaching me how important it is to embed rights restrictions, copyright and contact information for myself on my images so that the info would be carried as far as it could when published online. Take a look: http://www.embeddedmetadata.org/index.php
Photo manipulation is making your ideas, your imagination come to life. It allows you to create surreal dreamlike images that would be near impossible to in the real world.
It is heavily used in the advertising industry, mainly because the costs of creating an advert through digital manipulation is far cheaper than trying to create the same image outcome on location, it also allows the viewer of the advert/image to be submersed in the atmosphere and environment the advert is creating. They usually grab the viewers attention because of their surreal conceptual theme, something that you dont see every day!
I wanted to attempt to recreate an image that was created purely by photo manipulation with composite layers. There are heaps of tutorials out there but I chose the one below as it falls into the advertising category, which I have been discussing in this post.
The source of the original tutorial is http://www.psdbox.com/tutorials/lonely-photoshop-manipulation-tutorial/ You will also find the links to the stock images you will need for this tutorial there.
Step One:
So the first thing to do is to open a new canvas with the dimensions of 2500 x 2800 pixels, 300dpi.
Then place the dessert image onto the canvas ensuring that the full canvas is covered with this image with the free transform tool. Flatten images and rename this layer as background.
Step Two:
To create this night scene I used a layer mask then inversed and with a hue/saturation adjustment layer changed the sky to night!
Layer mask
Inverse
Hue/Saturation Layer
Step three:
Now open the sky stock image and paste it on a new layer above the background layer, name it Sky and increase the size to cover the canvas sides because this stock image is not wide enough to cover it. Then create a layer mask for the Sky layer and using a soft brush, mask the bottom part.
Remember to blend the gradient overlay with the layer mask by reducing the poacity of the brush to soften the harsh line like above
Step Four:
Open the girl stock image and extract her from the background using any technique that you want. I often use the Pen Tool to trace a Path around the edges and then create a selection and mask the background. You can use the Magic Wand, the Quick Selection or whatever you prefer but make sure you leave nice and clean edges (you can use the refine edge for that: see this tutorial).
Once I had the girl extracted from the background, I pasted her on a new layer which I named Woman, converted the layer into a smart object and resized it. I use smart objects just in case I want to change the size of the layer later on and that way I don’t lose quality.
Step Five:
All the composite layers are in place now so now we have to create the ambiance.
I placed a Curves adjustment layer above the background layer but below the model, this will allow me to darken the background.
I then added a photo filter to add some warmth to the background layer also:
Finally to add a little more depth to the background I added a colour balance adjustment layer with the below settings:
I also did the same to the sky layer, adjusting with a levels layer and colour balance layer with the below settings:
Colour Balance adjustment Layer
Levels adjustment layer
Step Six:
The background is now complete so the following steps are to ensure that the model layer sits nicely in the image with the correct tones and values.
1. cast shadows: First I duplicate the Woman layer, I then reduce the Lightness to 0 with the Hue/Saturation adjustment. I then manipulate the shadow using the distort option and put it on the ground. Rember to cast the shadow in the oposite direction of the light source.
I added a new layer and with a soft black brush with reduced opacity I painted the areas where the body touches the ground, this created the softer shadows.
Step seven:
Now for the tricky part, we have to adjust the lighting on various parts of the models body. This step is to darken the left side of the body.
Using the Gradient Tool, the Gradient Overlay effect and the Inner Shadow effect follow the below settings
Now to add a Gradient map to adjust to tone and colour of the model:
Please make sure you have the correct colours, they are highlighted in red.
To darken the skin I adjust the levels using the same procedure, levels adjustment layer in a clipping mask.
To match the night scene ambience we then have to adjust the colour balance of the model, the following setting or thereabouts seem suitable:
Dont worry if you think the image is looking a bit naff and dark at the minute, we will be lightening it up with the light in the next steps.....
Step NINE:
Open the candle lamp stock, extract it from it’s background and paste it on a new layer above everything else. Name this layer Lamp and create some shadows using the same techniques as on Step 6.
Step Ten:
The next step is to create some ambient light from the lantern glow. Create a new layer and woth a soft brush and colour #5b4212 paint a soft glow over the candle. Once yoyu have done this change the blend mode to colour dodge.
Now create a new layer above the candle glow layer naming this glow 2, this time using a screen blend mode paint over the same area with the colour #fd9b00.
Step 11:
The next step is to create a glow on the floor from the candle. Again create a new layer and place it under the lantern layers and rename this to floor glow. Select the soft brush once again and paint on the colour #7a5821 and select the colour dodge tool. I painted with reduced opacity of 23% so I could build up the colour if needed. See the images below before and after adjusting the blend mode. Note that I have added a slight glow to the models body too, the legs foot and face.
Before
After
Step 12:
In order to illuminate the models body correctly I add another layer and name body glow, change the blend mode to colour dodge and selct the soft brush tool with the colour we used earlier 5b4212.
Normal blend mode
Colour Dodge blend mode
Step 13
Create a new layer, this will be renamed Dodge & Burn. Guess what we are doing next??
Fill the layer with 50% Gray and change the blend mode to Overlay and start using the Dodge and Burn tools on that layer. Adding depth to the clouds and shadows on the flooring and shadows to the models face to contrast the glow on her face.
Step 14
Now to add the fireflies. I will use the same procedure as earlier, open the firefly image, use the magic wand tool to remove the white background. Copy the insect on a new layer on your canvas and make several duplicates of it and scale them down to different sizes.Move the fire flies around and rotate and distort them to vary them is sizes and posotions.
Now add an inner and outer glow
Step 15
Merge all layers into another single layer by selcting Layer>Merge visable and holding the ATL tab down. Follow the next steps:
Image>Adjustments>Variations and choose the preset More Cyan.
Then change the blend mode to Darken and set Opacity to 28%.
Step 16
Create another stamp just as on Step 15 and turn that layer into a Smart Object if your Photoshop version allows you to do that. (right click and choose Convert to Smart Object). After that, go toFilter>Render>Lighting Effects. Apply the settings shown in the image below.
Step 17
Add a gradient map with the following settings:
Step 18:
Last but no least we now have to add a colour balance layer with the following settings for all tones
VOILA!!
I think photo manipulation in advertising is fantastic for making dreams, reality, bringing the viewers imaginations to life almost. It is very effective and helps the viewer to relate to the scene and environment that product is featured in.
I do not agree with photo manipulation being used commercially to distort real subjects. For example beauty products such as make up and hair care can easily be misrepresented with the aid of photo manipulation. For e.g.. A head shot of a female model advertising foundation make-up, the majority of these images the public see are heavily edited with airbrushing, liquifying and other photo editing tools and techniques. This then misrepresents the product itself, allowing the viewers to think that if they buy this product they too will have skin complexion like this. A great video example of this method being put to use is featured below:
I am to create an image to feature for the December edition of Oh Comely. The first image is a digital image created with experimental digital photography techniques. The second image is to be an image created with Analogue experimental techniques.
I have decided to use Henri Matisse as my topic for my featured image. It is his birthday on December 31st so in tribute I have decided to do a screen printed portrait replicating one his beautiful paintings called the Portrait of L.N Delekorskaya.
Henri Matisses work would be a perfect example to replicate in print screening. I particularly like the portrait of LN Delekorskaya (image below)
oil on canvas 1947
I think the fauvism would work very well in a portrait to screen print. My plan is to photograph a digital portrait of my daughter, taking out large areas of her features, such as her hair, lips and face and replacing the original colours with bright contrasting colours in photoshop. The finished product would represent a replica of the above Matisse portrait.
I have researched the process for print screening and over the next few days I will be adding to this post the step by step process.
Today I did a bit of experimenting with the effect Split Toning
As stated in my previous post, split toning is an effect similar to Sepia, although split toning was a happy accident discovered whilst using the Sepia affect. Split toning is somewhere in between black and white and colour, highlighting the shadows and highlights in particular colours.
Today I will show you how to create this effect in Adobe Bridge Camera Raw.
1.
Open up the image you wish to work on in Adobe Bridge and then open selected image in RAW
Original image
First of all convert image to greyscale in the HSL/GREYSCALE tab <tick box)
Brooke Shaden is an artist who specialises in conceptual photography. The fine art photographer is based in Arizona and has been creating these beautiful pieces of work since 2008 after graduating from Temple Univerity where she studied English and filming. Specialising at first with self portraits Brooke created with digital manipulation and photography, worlds that she wished to live in or experience.
Brooke Shaden: For as long as I can remember, I have had dark daydreams or nightmares. When I picked up a camera for the first time, I felt like photography and Photoshop would help me confront my fears and help others get a glimpse of the surrealistic visions in my head. I had always loved making short films, yet it clicked for me that I could distill the kernel of a short film into one image—the moment of tension when the character cannot turn back from a fateful decision. In addition to telling a story, I often use photographs to explore new worlds, where secrets float out in the open. By using painterly techniques, I am able to create otherworldly experiences.
http://www.photoshop.com/spotlights/brooke-shaden
Worlds Above
Mother May I
Sheldons work is created through a mixture of photography and stock photos and textures manipulated on composite layers on photoshop. I will be practicing this technique in my other post named Surreal Photoshop manipulation.
I think Brookes work will be an inspiration to my project, I am wanting to do some conceptual composite images for my superstitions theme
In this post I will be discussing digital solaristion and demonstrating how to achieve this in photoshop.
Solarisation is when an images tones are reversed partially or wholly. So simply put, dark turns to light, light turns to dark.
I will be experiement digitally today in photoshop and with the help of photo tutplus I will be providing you with a step by step demonstrations on how to acheive this effect.
Step One:
Open image and convert into black and white
Layer > Adjustment layer > Black and White
Step Two:
Curves: The curves adjustment layer is probably the most important tool and the only tool we really need to use for this technique.
Adjustment Panel Tools Palette or go Layer > New adjustment Layer > Curves
Step Three:
With the curve adjustment open you need to draw and inverted V.
Start at the bottom left, click once at output 0, input 0. Then hold down shift and then click again in the center at the top. (output 255, input 127).
Step Four:
Create another curves layer and make some final tweaks:
