Anarchyjim » Art we like

Sometimes Commercials Are Good

anarchyjim — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:44:31 +0000

Seen a lot of commercials over the last two weeks watching the NCAA tournament. Here are the outstanding ones (yep, just two… the rest were crap):

Brilliant spot for Subura. So simple, but shows the power of a great script and good acting. Completely gets the message across and pulls the emotional strings as well.

Beautifully done CG world of paint chips. I actually saw a slightly different one (couldn’t find it online), but they are all really well done.

Hopefully the first clip inspires you to make sure you have a great story. And the other clips offer some technical inspiration.

Commercials, lions, and manipulationInteresting video of what goes into a high profile commercial photo shoot. In this case for Bebe, posted on Giulianobekor.com. Very cool to see what...

Evil Geeks vs. Evil MarketersI’ve always said that I’d prefer to have an Evil Geek (Bill Gates) rule the world instead of an Evil Marketing Guy (Steve Jobs). Sort...

Beautiful Example of ‘In-Camera’ Motion Graphics

anarchyjim — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:37:20 +0000

BDDP Unlimited has created a beautiful spot for Solidarités International about the dangers of dirty water. While not a CG piece, it looks like real water and ink were used, it’s still inspiring both graphically and in the message. Check it out:

Camera sensorsSo an article discussing 2K vs. 4K images popped up on my radar today. It’s named ‘The Truth About 2K and 4K’ and is an...

Beauty Box: Make everyone look beautiful.And we’re back. Digital Anarchy is once again making plugins for After Effects and Final Cut Pro. Our first new product is Beauty Box 1.0,...

Featured Artist: Peter Saunders

Maggie Mae — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:08:35 +0000

From time to time, our customers are gracious enough to send us their amazing work in which they have been using our plugins. Pete Saunders is one of those customers.

Earlier this week Peter offered up his work for us to use in our 3D Invigorator gallery section. He is the Company Director for After Hours Creative, a small design studio in England that specializes in high impact graphics.

(Above) “Created for an individual looking for a totally unique card design. We decided to create a romantic feel to the word “Love” with just colours, textures and a small selection of well placed images. The combination of 3D text created in 3D Invigorator, textures in Texture Anarchy and images of small roses achieved the look and feel perfectly.” -Saunders

(Above) “Our slogan for this design was “Don’t leave your graphics out in the cold this winter.” The weather was freezing, the economy wasn’t great but we wanted to let businesses know this didn’t mean they had to abandon their budgets for design work. When it came to creating imagery for this slogan we decided to warm up 3D Invigorator. We manipulated each letter of the word “Graphics” then added it to a wintery scene. Texture Anarchy enabled us to create the two textures needed for the letters, we then added snow and a few lonely branches creating a design that both inspired and kept us busy and warm!!” -Saunders

To see more 3D Invigorator gallery images visit here.

Featured Artist: Jook LeungMany of you may be familiar with Photoshop’s Photomerge, but this artist is in a panorama class of his own. Jook Leung has been recognized...

9 1/2 Most Frequently Asked 3D Invigorator Questions3D tends to be a new thing for most people, so we get a lot of questions about it. Here are the most frequently asked...

The LA Kings Use Beauty Box Video

anarchyjim — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:53:30 +0000

We were excited to receive an email from Aaron Brenner, of the LA Kings hockey team, letting us know that they had used Beauty Box Video on a high profile piece they were doing.

An interesting aspect to Beauty Box Video is that it’s difficult to get people to admit they are using it. A LOT of production companies have bought and loved the software but they’re a little shy about singing its praises publicly. Their actor and actress clients aren’t too keen about wanting fans to know they used software to make them (more) beautiful.

This wasn’t a problem for the subjects of Aaron’s production for the Kings. It’s a behind the scenes video of the photo shoot of the LA King’s Ice Girls calendar! Some very beautiful girls who you wouldn’t think would need much retouching.

(Click on the image above to be taken to the King’s site and see the video.)

However, no situation is perfect.

Aaron and crew were shooting a photo shoot, which was set up to be ideal for photos, not necessarily for video. Most of the footage was shot with a Canon XL H1S, but a Canon DSLR was used for interviews, and a GoPro HD camera was used for underwater shots. All these cameras produce great footage, but it’s all HD. If makeup and lighting aren’t set up for video, HD is not always kind to the talent’s skin texture. This is why Beauty Box has been so popular and why Aaron really needed it on this shoot. He was nice enough to answer a few questions about the production:

AnarchyJim: Beautiful models, professional photo shoot, makeup… you wouldn’t expect a lot of retouching would be necessary. How did Beauty Box help you out?

Aaron Brenner: The girls looked beautiful, but the lighting conditions and overall shoot were geared toward the still photographs for the calendar. Beauty Box helped us clean up some of the shadows and skin tones as well as minor blemishes here and there. In the past, we had taken our footage, separated the highlights from the rest of the image and applied a diffusion filter to affect just the skin tones. Beauty Box cut our post-production time in half.

AnarchyJim: What were some of the challenges you ran into shooting it?

AB: Overall, we shot 8 hours worth of footage, using 3 different cameras and resolutions. The second you’re working with multiple cameras, formats and resolutions, you’re going to face challenges. Mixing 720 60p footage with 1080 60i and HDV is a huge challenge. We worked in Apple’s ProRes codec and Beauty Box didn’t slow down for any shot.

AnarchyJim: How hard was it to get good results from Beauty Box?

AB: Click. Click. Boom. Manually set the skin tone to match, or auto analyze the frame, then let her render. It’s pretty impressive. We also ran almost every shot through the 3-way color corrector built into FCP. So Beauty Box fit into our workflow nicely.

AnarchyJim: Where is the video being shown?

AB: Our finished product is shown on our telecast, on our website at lakings.com/calendar and in our arena on our brand new HD scoreboard. Overall, we are producing 15 3-minute videos. The first video is the behind-the-scenes feature you saw. The next 14 videos are profiles on each girl. Those are all currently being edited.

AnarchyJim: What other kind of work are you doing for the Kings?

AB: For the Kings, we handle everything from post-game interviews, behind the scenes features and bikini calendar photo shoots. We work around the clock to deliver up-to-the-minute Kings video to our fans on our telecast, in arena and online.

AnarchyJim: So far the Kings are doing pretty well. Any plans to ‘beautify’ the hockey players if they make it to the Stanley Cup?

AB: We don’t have any plans… yet.

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Featured Artist: Jook Leung

Maggie Mae — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Many of you may be familiar with Photoshop’s Photomerge, but this artist is in a panorama class of his own. Jook Leung has been recognized worldwide as a master of panoramic photography.

Some if his most captivating work comes from a project titled, “Times Square New Year’s Eve at Midnight.” For the past decade, Jook Leung has been capturing the ‘famous’ moment in 360VR. View his most recent 2010 image here.

Jook on his work, “I’m quite passionate about crafting the kind of panoramic images that reveal a unique perspective while conveying a strong sense of intimacy with the subject. Here the viewer becomes fully immersed in the same moment in time the photogapher is trying to capture. This is what masterful photography is all about. New technologies like Apple Computer’s QuickTime VR and Helmut Dersch’s Panorama Tools have made it possible to construct, publish and view full 360° x 180° spherical images. For me, this is the ultimate panorama and is what I specialize in doing well.”

all images on this post: © Jook Leung – http://jookleung.com/

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Why You Should Enter Photo Contests.

Maggie Mae — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:54:35 +0000

Recently, one image of mine was selected to be a part of Photomedia Center’s 2010 Open Juried Exhibition. As an emerging photographer, I am very thrilled and honored to be included in such a fine body of work. Organization like this gives us, emerging photographers, a chance to fulfill one of the most exciting aspects of being an artist… Having your work displayed and seen by others.

“Cabo in the Summer” by Maggie Percell, www.maggiemaephoto.com

When looking to submit to a photo contest, I try to find ones that don’t stress my budget, which can be hard considering that most entry fees range from $30-$40 per image. When I see an entry fee between FREE and $10, I jump at the chance to enter my work. Photomedia Center provided me such an opportunity.

Photomedia Center is a non-profit organization which promotes the creation and exhibition of fine art photography and digital media. The entry fee for the 2010 Open Juried Exhibition was $5 per image, $3 if you entered early and FREE for members.

Toonit! Photo 2.6 – 64bit/CS5 Update Released!We are so happy and excited to announce the releasing of Toonit! Photo 2.6 which is compatible with 64bit and CS5! The best part about...

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Beauty Box enters the CS5 ring…

anarchistbabe — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:58:02 +0000

…And the rest of our contenders are a few steps behind. We are working hard to update and release our products for the Adobe CS5 suite. Keeping up with changes from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe does kinda feel like being in a boxing ring sometimes.

Our first release has been our Beauty Box Video skin retouching plugin for After Effects CS5. We’re very excited about this product being ready for After Effects 64-bit use in a timely fashion. (Boxers are often not good with time management; that’s why they have managers.)

Go here to try the Beauty Box Video demo for Adobe After Effects CS5. Click here to read our line-up of CS5 contenders.

Photo by Maggie Mae Percell, www.maggiemaephoto.com, our favorite anarchist-in-training. “He coulda been a contender!”

regards -debbie

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William Branson III – Portrait Artist

Maggie Mae — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:24:08 +0000

I recently spoke with William Branson III surrounding our exciting new product release of Beauty Box Photo and were reminded of how much I love his artwork. He is an amazing Portrait Artist and his images really push the limits of photograph vs painting. Check out his work here: http://www.wbranson.com/

(Both images © William Branson III)

Portrait Illusions – Green Screen and Other TricksI recently came across a blog post by Fuzzy Duenkel, a photographer over in Wisconsin. He makes a pretty passionate case against using scene swapping...

Making 3D look realSo I just got a calendar from Maxon (makers of Cinema 4D). Some really nice examples of 3D art using their software. As I looked...

Pencil vs Camera and ToonIt!

Maggie Mae — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:51:45 +0000

I came across this great photo series on Flickr, entitled Pencil vs Camera by artist Ben Heine. It is always interesting to see how different mediums can be combined, especially when it comes from reality (photos) and imagination (drawings). Ben used a traditional method to do his sketches. All the graphic elements shown come from his own stock/production. He drew the sketches, took the photos, and edited them.

©Ben Heine

Here at Digital Anarchy we have always been a big supporter of how illustrations can play a role within photography. Our plugin ToonIt! Photo lets you create cartoon effects, like shading and lines, from your own photographic images. Learn more about ToonIt! Photo here.

I had a few extra moments to play with the Pencil vs Camera concept using my own images and ToonIt! Photo. I shot these photos in Santa Cruz, CA on a very overcast day about two years ago. I would have liked to have a more pleasing sky but you can’t always get what you want, right? Here are the results:

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend! -Maggie

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Joe Farace lights up the room.

anarchistbabe — Sat, 01 May 2010 23:22:14 +0000

Joe Farace lights up the room in two ways. He is a talented photographer, writer and teacher whose emails end with catchy signatures like ‘It’s 2010 and the Big Bang never ended’ or ‘Saving the world, one pixel at a time’. He is also an expert on lighting and imaging techniques for photographers.

Recently, Joe showed me a photo composite that he created while writing one of his upcoming books. The image was masked with Primatte Chromakey, our blue / green screen Adobe Photoshop plugin.

Joe wrote, “My first try with Primatte. The on-line tutorial really helped and the photo was shot blue screen. Same pic, one in color, the other black and white to match the original Godzilla movie. I need to find something to add scratches and dirt!”

The upcoming book is titled ‘Joe Farace’s Studio Lighting Anywhere’. This image is from a chapter about backgrounds, specifically using green or blue screen backgrounds, and Joe’s wife is the model. The book will be published in 2011 by Amherst Media. You can read about Joe Farace’s books and photography on his website, joefarace.com.

Joe’s original photo, before using Primatte to remove the blue screen:

The color version of his composite:

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‘Car’-tooning.

anarchistbabe — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:58:07 +0000

I love play on words. Moreso, I love gorgeous images that inspire me to write. This artwork by Carl Campbell has accomplished all of the above. Carl used ToonIt Photo, our Adobe Photoshop cartoon plugin, to transform a BMW car into something even more special.

Carl explained his piece, “The inspiration was the color and shape of the object/car combined with a bit of art. Toonit! is useful here to create interest in mediocre pictures. The image was an experiment using a new compact camera shooting on a rainy Fall day in downtown Portland.”

I love the soft, shaded floor that Carl generated, and how beautifully the painted floral pattern combines with the outlines of the cartoon effect. It is quite the ‘car-toon’. The original painting is by Michael Schultheis and was photographed with permission at Froelick Gallery in Portland, OR.

Here is Carl’s original photo, pre-cartooning:

The new background he added and toon’ed:

Want to make your ordinary images look extraordinary? Try ToonIt for Photoshop or ToonIt for Aperture on your own photographs. You can download a free trial of this cartooning software.

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Portrait Illusions – Green Screen and Other Tricks

anarchyjim — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:27:42 +0000

I recently came across a blog post by Fuzzy Duenkel, a photographer over in Wisconsin. He makes a pretty passionate case against using scene swapping (e.g. the type of stuff you do with Primatte and green screen) for traditional, ‘classic’ portraits. By and large I agree with him. I don’t think it’s a great use of the technology to put someone in a place they’ve never been so they can say they were there. For novelty photos and the like, it’s great, but for a ‘classic’ portrait, maybe not so much. But there’s more to portraits than just the classic look.

Image by Deverie FX, www.deveriefx.com

Let’s define the classic portrait. It’s a portrait of a person at a place and time, exactly as they are. Sitting in their car, standing with a violin with a regular muslin background behind them, walking on a beach, etc.

However, there’s more to portraits than just the classic look. Putting someone in front of the effiel tower so that they can tell all their friends they went to France is cheesy. But sometimes portraits are more about creating a story, a fantasy, or something else that provokes an emotional response. Creating an image that not so much captures that person at that moment, but captures their dreams, goals, desires, and how they veiw themselves at that moment.

It’s not about deceiving the viewer. It’s about letting the viewer see more of them than a classic portrait would show. Green screen (or scene swapping however you do it) can give you flexibility in creating that story for them.

Image by Steven Gotts

Are the portraits created this way going to be their favorite image of themselves 15 years down the line? Maybe, maybe not. But I would argue that to many seniors these types of images resonate more strongly in the short term than a classic photo. It allows them to really express themselves and reveal how they view themselves. Of course, much as the fashions we wore when we were 18 change, so too these types of images may end up looking dated. So shooting a classic portrait, as well as an ‘enhanced’ portrait, is worthwhile.

I’m certainly not arguing against classic portraits. They can be timeless, and because of that are potentially more valuable long term. Just don’t overlook non-traditional portraits. They can provide a great deal of emotional impact for seniors (or anyone) that are wrestling with new identities, dreams, and much more.

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Avatar technology… & philosophy?

anarchistbabe — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:48:00 +0000

If you pay attention to news sites covering digital graphics, there have been interesting articles surfacing about the the Avatar movie. There is quite a bit of talk about the philosophy and technology behind the movie, perhaps a tad on the over-analyzing side of things, but personally, I still find this topic more interesting than a rant about the new iPad.

In Post magazine — consistently a terrific source of film related news — there are two articles about how director James Cameron took motion capture into a new level of technology. The article ‘‘Avatar’ Introduces a New Era in Filmmaking‘ talks about his vision of a system that provides performance capture rather than motion capture. The article ‘Director’s Chair: James Cameron – Avator‘ goes into more detail about this new system, called the Simulcamera.

From Post: “Cameron wasn’t interested in “redefining gluing rubber on to actor’s faces.” He was interested in finding a way for non-human characters to express humanness… “We were going down the road of performance capture and computer generated character creation, and that was one of the stated goals of the film. In fact that was one of the stated goals before the story”… Years were spent developing a high-resolution performance capture system that could faithfully reproduce the fidelity and subtly of an actor’s live performance at the level that Cameron was looking for.”

Another great graphics news site, Videomaker, has an ‘exclusive’ video interview with John Landau, who was the producer of Avatar. I doubt it is really exclusive except for maybe the corner of the show hall they were standing in, but it is an interesting interview taken at Consumer Electronic Show show. The video article ‘Exclusive Interview with Avatar Producer!‘ also speaks with the CEO of Panasonic, which just released a new HD 3D Camcorder.

In the New York Times, a less traditional source for graphics reporting, there’s an interesting article called ‘You Saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass Those Glasses!‘. This talks about the sociological undertones of the story. Well, of course. It was a simplistic story with standard analogies to the strong bullying the weak. Certainly there are parallels to American settlers bulldozing Native Americans, to white Americans bullying African Americans, capitalists strong-arming the environmentalists. (Recently a friend sent me a Facebook link about how Avatar resonates for the Jews.) I like that sci-fi and fantasy can address those topics with more ease than a live action drama.

From the NYT: “Since its release in December, James Cameron’s science-fiction epic… has also found itself under fire from a growing list of interest groups, schools of thought and entire nations that have protested its message (as they see it), its morals (as they interpret them) and its philosophy (assuming it has one)… There is, at least, consensus among “Avatar” critics that good science fiction operates on an allegorical level. In novels like “Dune,” films like “Star Wars” or television series like the recent “Battlestar Galactica,” Ms. Newitz said the fantastical elements of these works offer a place of “narrative safety” to contemplate real-life issues like environmental decay, totalitarianism and torture.”

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Mixed Media Photography

anarchyjim — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:02:58 +0000

With so much technology around, can you use it to enhance photographs to tell more complete and compelling stories?

One beautiful example comes from Todd Sanchioni. Todd is a San Francisco based photographer who recently had an exhibit that featured Laos street musicians. The photographs were compelling in their own right, but he added an mp3 player to each piece which played the music of the musician in the photo.

While Todd is certainly not the first photographer to do such things, I thought it was a particularly good reminder that as we’re out shooting, it’s easy to capture other media. Our cameras can capture video. Our cell phones can record audio. It’s never been easier to add extra dimensions to photography.

The photo should always be able to stand by itself, but if you can add more context and meaning by including audio or video, there’s a great deal to be said for that. Of course, some common sense should be applied to this type of mixed media. Mp3s along with photos of musicians and their instruments adds depth to the piece. Putting mp3s of war sounds next to war photographs would, in most cases, take away from the photos.

I think for mixed media to really work, the artist/photographer needs to really understand all the media types they are working with. If that’s the case, the overall effect can be quite stunning.

Content vs. Ads In Photography Newslettersine marketingSo I’ve got to hand it to the folks at Professional Photography. They actually put together a newsletter that has content! http://www.ppmag.com/web-exclusives/ I received three...

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Albert Einstein gets invigorated.

anarchistbabe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:22:42 +0000

Ron Kalstein, M.Ed. is a long-time customer of Digital Anarchy, and quite the accomplished digital professional. His degree acronym certainly conveys this and his job title is the impressive ‘Media Services Director of the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network’ in Philadelphia, PA.

Equally impressive is the artwork that Ron creates for Albert Einstein Network. In response to a general call-out for artwork created with our 3D Photoshop plugin, 3D Invigorator, Ron emailed this wonderful piece.

Ron described his work: “Attached is an invitation cover I designed, that includes my Invigorator art. I created this piece using Invigorator in order to achieve an overall look of sophistication, and convey the high quality of Einstein staff who were honored at the event.”

Thanks Ron!

And a big callout to Philly, my hometown. (Yo!) I am now a long-term California transplant, but I will always appreciate the Einstein Network for the many things that hospital did in my youth.

regards -Debbie

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Cheerleading practice with Shawn Wright

anarchistbabe — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:21:13 +0000

Digital Anarchy recently added a great photographer to our Primatte Chromakey gallery. His name is Shawn Wright and he runs Wright Studios out of Indiana, USA with his wife Betsy.

Shawn is a photographer of all talents and trades. Not only does he specialize in many subjects — high school seniors, industrial product shots and sports teams, to name a few — but he also runs photography seminars. More info on his company site, www.wrightstudio.us.

The images of Shawn’s that caught my eye are customized portraits of cheerleaders. After all… who doesn’t like cheerleaders? Admittedly contributing to my interest is a recent discovery on Hulu.com of the pilot episode of Fox’s ‘Glee’, which has adorable cheerleaders plus rags-to-riches young singers. Shawn photographs his subjects in several cheerleading poses against a greenscreen, uses our Adobe Photoshop masking plugin to remove the screen, and adds in his own original backgrounds.

I love the vibrant colors and juicy patterns that Shawn Wright brings to these portraits. Doesn’t get any better than that, unless you’re lucky enough to have one of his 4 x 6 print in your hands.

regards -Debbie

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Celebrities of LENNON the Photographer, Part II.

anarchistbabe — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:18:55 +0000

LENNON the Photographer has given us terrific celebrity images that he creates, in part, with our Adobe Photoshop greenscreen plugin, Primatte Chromakey. A year after we first talked to LENNON about his work, he contacted us with more high-profile photography. There is a **gorgeous** shot of Gilles Marini from Dancing with the Stars, as shown below.

Something that I really enjoy about LENNON is that his personality seems as colorful as the celebrities that he photographs. That’s why his first name is always written in CAPS; very Hollywood, yes?

LENNON the Photographer also showed us the final composites for Ambercrobie Model Billy Marquette for International Press. You can see them all by going to our Portrait Gallery page. We don’t have much information about the photoshoot or the original greenscreen images. But these are all composites created in Photoshop after using Primatte Chromakey for the masking process.

In 2008, LENNON did a photoshoot for Michael Petersen, star of Disney’s ‘Movie Surfers’. You can see the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images of these terrific composites in our Primatte Gallery. You can also read last year’s blog post about LENNON and go to his commercial portfolio at www.lennonthephotographer.com.

regards -Debbie

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Outback art with Chrissie Campbell.

anarchistbabe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:25:03 +0000

Digital Anarchy recently added an interesting artist to our ToonIt! Photo gallery. Her name is Chrissie Campbell and she is truly a woman of many mediums and skills. I love the main image on her website’s About page. It seems to pull in all of her talents: painting, photography and digital manipulation. Very contemporary and strong but with a delicate stylization.

It’s fun becoming friendly with someone online, then discovering details like where she lives. Chrissie’s business name is ‘Kakadu Design’ and it didn’t occur to me what that indicated until I visited her website and looked at the promo images. Kakadu National Park is located in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Chrissie wrote to me, “I live up here where they call ‘the top end’ of Australia. Lots of Crocodiles and gorgeous Native Birds! Winter here at present, the dry season, so it has cooled just enough to not have the air conditioning running 24/7. Very tropical type weather so still in shorts & singlets in winter! It really is a beautiful part of the world and I am working from a very small remote area town in the heart of Kakadu World Listed Heritage National Park. Only about population of 500 or so in town, one small outback store and mainly tourist type businesses. In addition to my photography and digital work, I also paint on commission from photographs so if you are ever interested, just drop me an email.”

Sounds beautiful to me as I write from the “warm & sunny” summer weather of San Francisco, CA. High 50′s and quite foggy. Also beautiful are the water-media paintings on Chrissie’s site. Check out more art on her portfolio website, and a feature of her digital work in Digital Anarchy’s online ToonIt! gallery.

kind regards -Debbie

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Chief Executive Anarchist on Colorburned.com.

anarchistbabe — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:11:39 +0000

Jim Tierney, the President and ‘CEA’ of Digital Anarchy, recently sat down to talk with Grant Friedman of Colorburned.com. This is a terrific blog and info site that I became aware of when Grant contacted us about some of his online contests. Jim and Grant had a lively conversation via email, as many of us do these days. You can read Colorburned’s interview with Jim Tierney here on their site.

I often check Grant’s blog posts to see what he’s thinking. He is pretty knowledgeable about industry trends, in particular how to leverage social media for publicity and marketing outreach. Check out this article about website traffic that Grant wrote in the spring. Grant’s also a great digital artist, as evidenced by the design of Colorburned. I hear he’s available for hire…

Here’s an excerpt from the Colorburned interview:

Q: Photoshop plug-ins and filters can be very useful but sometimes it seems that they have developed a bum rap among the design elite for making things “too easy.” How do you go about convincing people that filters and plug-ins are not a crutch and are ok to use?

A: It really depends on how you use them. Usually you can go much deeper into them to create things that would be difficult or very time consuming to do by hand. How much is your time worth? If you spend 30 minutes messing around with layers, blend modes, built-in Photoshop filters, etc. vs. 5 minutes applying a filter, I wouldn’t say that’s smart design. Especially if your client comes in and wants changes. But, yeah, some people are a little too reliant on the presets that ship with most plug-ins. There’s a certain level of user that really wants presets, so we always have them… but we always try to give users enough control that they can get in there and create some unique effects fairly easily.

Read more of the interview on Colorbunred.com. Thanks Grant!

regards -Debbie

Good standards for good design.I have recently read articles about how two well-known software companies conduct their design and development processes. A mixed bag of ideas — just like...

Nick Cattermole: Music, monkeys & monks.

anarchistbabe — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:23 +0000

While performing as a musician for the Fashion Week in Delhi, artist Nick Cattermole took a lot of photographs around the McLeod Ganj area of India. Nick’s two primary subjects in this photo series are monkeys and monks. These are subjects whose relationship to each other — in my eyes — is bound only by their English spelling and co-existence in a geographic region. But Nick has put together an interesting body of work that combines the inhabitants of both temples and forests in McLeod Ganj.

I love that Nick uses our ToonIt! Photo plugin to transform his photographs into delicate illustrations. Many people use ToonIt! for more ‘aggressive’ images, which is what cartoons typically look like, all thick black lines and bold heavy color fields. Nick’s illustrations are instead turned into soft, thin lines over a jeweled, geometric pattern of color.

Monk walking in the village, post-ToonIt! treatment:

Original photograph by Nick:

A great aspect of our Adobe Photoshop cartooning plugin is its ability to easily create a variety of visual styles. You can see some variations on this Color Styles page and this Cel-Shaded Styles page.

Nick’s illustrative treatment is very apparent in the closeups of his subjects. In the images below, the monkey’s expression is bought out by the color and contrast changes made in ToonIt! and Photoshop. The muted tones of brown and custard make a sensitive color palette.

Cartoon version #1. The new light eyes are very appealing.

Original photograph by Nick:

Cartoon version #2. Mixes in the dark/light contrast of the original photo.

Hmmm, no photographs of monkeys INSIDE the temples just yet… You can see more of Nick Cattermole’s photography and his Toonit! Photo work in our online gallery on www.digitalanarchy.com.

regards -Debbie

Toon the cat! (if she’ll stand still)I’m doing some product development for our ToonIt! Photo plugin, and wound up playing with some personal photos as source material. Looking at my cat...

Tiny Toons & more Panos from Perry.For the July 4th weekend, I went to a friend’s cabin in the Russian River, California area. The town of Guerneville has tons of scenic...