Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Quinnipiac in Spring

Tom took these photos as I walked around the Quinnipiac Campus with Summer during our socialization homework for Puppy Kindergarten. It was a wonderful Spring day and everything was just starting to bloom and come alive. The QU campus is such a beatutiful campus, but in Spring and Fall it is especially vibrant.



















LOTS of leading lines around this campus!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

iPod People

I know that you have seen them -- the iPod Ads in magazines, in TV commercials, etc. Well now your kid, your friend, or even you can be in an iPod ad - it's easy!

Find or take a photograph of a person doing something (doing an action, doing something iPod-ish, etc). Yes, a lot of people stand around waiting with theur iPod and listen to their music but how many iPod ads have you seen depicting a silhouetted persom just standing around looking down the road for the 3 o'clock bus to downtown? Create a fun dynamic image (karate moves, a "Charlie's Angels" pose, etc.)
The funny thing is the photo does not even have to be in focus or well exposed because we are going to make the person into a silhouette.

Select your person in the photograph and then Edit --> Fill --> with Black to get your silhouetted iPerson (or iDog for that matter). You could also create a 'solid color' adjustment layer by clicking the adjustment layers icon at the bottom of your layers palette.

Later you can go back in and fill in a few details...put a layer mask on the silhouette and at 30% opacity bring the iPod color into the black area for some detail.


One of the most common mistakes I've seen in tutorials showing how to replicate the iPod ad style is that they make the silhouette a true silhouette when, if you look at the ads, the people actually do show detail...not a lot...it's really dark...but it's there. So if you've attempted to simplify the process by shooting a silhouette that shows only a hard outline of your subject with a solid black fill within, you've probably gone too far.
Next --> Create a new layer
By clicking layer --> new fill layer--> solid color or by creating a 'solid color' adjustment layer by clicking the adjustment layers icon at the bottom of your layers palette.
Play around with the colors for hours until you find one that you like -- just kidding, don't go nuts chossing different bizarre bright colors; here are the actual iPod ad colors: Blue #1379F9, Purple #9369BF, Orange #F59110, Green #9FCC39, Pink #EB5297.


Which one should you use ? Try them all -- its easy to create all of the layers and then just save the file for the next iPerson...



Now you have the basic iPerson, but to make it more itneresting put a shadow there to make the person more dynamic.

Jagged Edges — If you find your selection and cutout has left you with some jagged edges, try deselecting the cutout and applying a Gaussian Blur (Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur) set at a very low Radius of 0.2 pixels. This can help soften the edges.

There are other more up to date variations of this