Creating Digital Image Without Camera
My camera having reached the duration of time allotted to it, has given up its last photo. This has given me the opportunity to play with creating images in other ways. Ways that I also enjoy.
I like combining and meeting several goals within one piece some times. With Jan's new card group I was excited to explore image without camera this week. Working exclusively with digital technology (on a couple of pieces), and making an image that by dimensions would work for cards I've been wanting to create for my 19 Planets Cafepress shop, as well as Digital ATCs and be able to contribute to something here on Gather was fun.
Getting back into creating for specific items was what this first piece did for me. I like how it works and now I've made several minor adjustments that will work better on future pieces (I've done a second piece and I'm working on a third). It's all a learning process; everything we do teaches us if we will simply be open to learning.
Here's my first Greeting Card style card this week:
Front, which will also work as an ATC for two different swaps (although I will probably do watercolor and ink ATCs for the actual swaps) and has the following haiku on it:
Sea sky setting sun
Summer stars in island nights
Warm breeze whispering
Inside, which will also work as an ATC if I choose to have it printed up that way as well.
Both of these were created entirely in Photoshop Elements 4.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 24
I love the first verse, where you have sea sky setting sun fit together in one uncomplicated line, both literal and visual.
These would make such excellent gifts! Did you first paint the scene and then photoshop it? It looks like a watercolor. Or is it the effect fill in?
thanks Minnie - for me with Photoshop it's a combination of experimenting and exploring until you begin to have enough knowledge about what tools and processes can do, so that you begin to get ideas about what you want to use for something i think. that just takes time to explore and become familiar with the program (i am no where near knowing all of it by a long ways). then you begin to create with that knowledge in mind.
so i encourage you to keep exploring and expanding your knowledge of Photoshop by doing exactly what you are doing - play with it and try different things out. make copies of things when you have something you like but intend to go a lot further on with your piece. . .
it's not often (if ever) that i can do one thing to something in Photoshop and it ends as a one step piece. i know there are plenty of people who know far more about Photoshop than i do. Photoshop has so many tools and processes that each person, as they get to know the program in their way, finds the ways and preferences they like to use - but there seems to always be more and different combinations that can be explored.
what i did not make clear in this article (which i hope i made a little clearer in the solo image i posted of the front piece) is that these pieces were both made entirely in Photoshop. they are entirely, from start to finish, Digital. ...until they are printed out at least.
i started with a blank screen and drew with my mouse using drawing and painting tools in Photoshop. from there it was adding color in a variety of ways, selecting out areas to treat one way or another, manipulating and so on in many steps along the way. then applying a number of filters both to specific areas and to the entire piece. tweaking values and contrasts as well as sometimes hue and saturation etc.
it is an amazing process of exploration to get the look the way i like it - i like that process. i can explore endlessly if i want to do so - or until i get it the way i want it.
each piece is complex enough that unless i wrote down each and every step i know i could not repeat the exact sequence or even exact thing i did to any one work again. i look at a lot of options before deciding which way to go sometimes. other times i know exactly what i want to do. i know some things i like to do and can do something similar from piece to piece but i like to explore on each piece i do individually using things i know as well as trying out things i havnt tried. as i work i make copies at points i like - so if i go too far and can not undo something, i have an earlier version as a copy to go back to and set out again in a new direction.
the second piece i did - which i hope to post soon if not in the next day or so - looks similar to this one but is different once you really compare this one and that one side by side, even tho i started out with a similar process of mouse drawing. even the drawing/painting tools are endless in the ways they can be set up to work as well as sizes.
the first verse above is my version of haiku. i like it too - it does pack a lot into a few words that have several ways it can be read and interpreted. the inside (2nd image above) might be considered a one line haiku but it was not intended as the traditional 3-line with specific-syllable-counts haiku - i wanted that inside message to be directed more specifically at the receiver of the card from the person sending it as a friend so i stepped out of the haiku form.
i've put these up in my Cafepress shop - mostly on cards, or note cards and if appropriate on a postcard or tote bag - i didnt think they would make good images as they are for wearing apparel altho i could probably adapt them by adding to them and reworking them a bit to make them work... it's an ever fluid possibility with digital technology - another one of the things i like about Digital work.
i hope i've been a little more clear now - this work does not exist as a traditional painting at all in any way. in fact when i started, what i actually set out to do was to make a few visual notes on an idea i had for a (actual watercolor and ink) painting piece. notes in the way i would understand my own ideas because i had just learned of two themes i was going to work on as projects. so i started out to simply use photoshop as a sketchbook for my idea. i had reminded myself recently to work in ways that could be used for finished pieces even when i am just doing a study or a note sketch. so i began with the right dimensions for an ATC knowing it would also work for a greeting card image. one of the adjustments i made for the second card that i have not posted yet, was to leave a quarter inch more of boarder around the piece so that i could "full bleed" the image - which just means the image will go right off the card and then be trimmed to size. so it's critical that important elements in the work do not get too close to the edge - thus a larger boarder area. i had left a small boarder on this one which will work for an ATC but the greeting card needs a little more to work as a full bleed. that extra boarder wont be a problem for the ATC either as it can also be trimmed the way i have them printed as a photo so that is what i am now doing.
whew - you leave great comments that really set me off to rambling Minnie - i like that. it gives me a chance to evaluate my own thinking process and intent. cool. so thank you for taking the time to look and respond. - ps - if you want to see my 19 Planets shop let me know and i'll email you the url. you can google "19 Planets" and i think you'll find the one with my name on it easily too. you can look around on that site as much as you want - click different designs and items and larger views etc. without worrying about buying. (to buy you really have to intend to buy on that site - it wont happen by chance). if you have more photoshop questions or explorations let me know. - and always have fun. . .
thanks Donna - i'm having fun with these - i do like to explore and play in a variety of ways. i'm delighted it appeals to you. - cool.
Thanks a ton for sharing your vast knowledge of photoshop. Im humbled that you took all this effort to exxplain it to me. Im sure whoever reads this will be encouraged to try their hand at tphotoshop. It certainly takes time. I downloaded Photographic Edges demo the other day after reading an article by..God..I've forgotten his name..it is in the photoshop group articles. The writer had given links to try out these demo downloads. I thought Ill first check it out and then leave a comment whether I liked the demo or not. I just never got around to doing it. The demo is prety complicated for me at the moment. Guess as you say, one can do so much just by spending some time over it.
I would love to go and explore your shop online .Im sure Ill find great stuff there.
Thank you , again, Wrick, for being so generous and patient..no wonder you are one of my favourite people on Gather :)
Aloha!
Now as a real beginner to a lot of this - what is ATC?
And be on the reciprical list of trading with you!
;)
I love the little haiku and writtings next to your pictures aswell. They fit nicely.
WwW.SparkleTags.Com
FABULOUS YOU ARE!!!
Pamela
for some quick responses:
Minnie - i find demo's help me to know what is possible - but i'm not always able to follow the HOW to do it part. for me i just have to explore and find my own way - then i have something like bread crumbs to follow the next time i want to do it again... (i hope that makes sense)
Bobbi K. - ATC is short for "Artist Trading Card". this is a common format among Mail Art people as well as others. it is always the size of a baseball or sport trading card = 2.5 x 3.5 inches. same as a standard size USA deck of playing cards too. you can do what ever you want to do on one - on the back (or someplace) you include your name and a way to be contacted. ATCs originated so that artists and others could see what each other were doing and establish networks and contacts with each other. it has grown into an amazingly large field of work. swaps are organized around themes and in other ways as well among mail artists. some galleries have swap meetings to facilitate interaction among designers, artists, architects and others. let me know if you want more info.
Jan H. - i take your note to mean you'd like to swap ATCs. ok. cool. if that is correct let me know in a PM and we will swap. or if you need more info - let me know that too and i'll get you started.
thanks Jackie.
Alexandra E - yes - PS Elements 4. and i know you can do some awesome stuff in it. just keep at it and explore.
Julya - the full version of photoshop is expensive (imo) this is a lite version of photoshop. it is still packed with all kinds of stuff. there is i believe a #5 and a #6 version of it now at least (Jan. 2008). Elements being a lite version is about $90. and you can probably find it for a little less if you look for deals. that's way more affordable than the full version. if you are new to photoshop the lite is likely to be plenty and a great introduction to the program.
Tanya P. - i do know that kind of bummer. i had been without my camera since last June. i took the plunge and bought one in december. now i just have to see if i can figure it all out and get it going by next June. - actually i am excited to do this... i just have to find the time.
thank you to all of you. i hope your 2008 is moving in a great direction - especially that of Fun! - aloha Wrick.
so thanks for the encouragement.