Amersham Beyond Group - 4th April 2019

Meeting Notes on Creative Photography and Photo-Art
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spb
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

Amersham Beyond Group - 4th April 2019

Post by spb » Sun Apr 07, 2019 11:59 am

MONTHLY CHALLENGES

Many thanks to APS member Andy for presenting his experiences with the next Challenge topic which will be…

#5 TRIPTYCHS

Definition;
- a set of three images designed to be appreciated together

Guidelines;
- three different images or three parts of the same image
- not necessarily all of the same size or aspect ratio
- to be presented as a single .jpg
- spacing and arrangement is important

If you search for Triptychs online (eg flickr) there are many excellent examples, but also many where the three images are so similar that they don’t total more than the sum of their parts. Three almost identical images of a cat are, in my view, less appealing than one good one.

I have specified a Triptych rather than a Diptych because it demonstrates care in spacing and layout. Photoshop layers will be particularly handy in this regard and so forms a very timely piece of homework on that topic.

HOW TO CREATE A TRIPTYCH IN PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS
- prepare your three images and crop each to a suitable aspect ratio. Don’t worry about reducing their sizes at this stage.
- open a new empty image file in your chosen background colour: File>New>Blank File making it plenty large enough for your largest final output (eg perhaps at least 4000 px by 3000 px for an A3 print or 2000 px by 1500 px for projection)
- bring all three images into the empty file as separate layers (see below for the various ways to do this)
- plan your layout and therefore how high and/or wide each image will need to be in pixels
- click on one image in the layers palette then Image>Resize>Scale and choose a suitable value for height or width in pixels. Ensure that you specify the units eg 1000 px and also that the Constrain Proportions box is ticked
- repeat for the second and third images. Always scale smaller not larger to maintain quality
- View>Grid>On
- View>Snap To>Grid. I have found this works best if you turn off the other Snap To options
- Edit>Preferences>Guides and Grid>Gridline Every…… and choose a value for your preferred grid spacing eg 100 px
- Choose the Move tool and drag each image onto the grid as required to achieve your layoiut
- Use the Crop tool and the grid to crop the entire image as required.

HOW TO CREATE A TRIPTYCH IN PHOTOSHOP CC
- prepare your three images and crop each to a suitable aspect ratio. Don’t worry about reducing their sizes at this stage.
- open a new empty image file in your chosen background colour: File>New>Custom making it plenty large enough for your largest final output (eg perhaps at least 4000 px by 3000 px for an A3 print or 2000 px by 1500 px for projection)
- bring all three images into the empty file as separate layers (see below for the various ways to do this)
- plan your layout and therefore how high and/or wide each image will need to be in pixels
- click on one image in the layers palette then Edit>Transform>Scale and choose a suitable value for height or width in pixels. Ensure that you specify the units eg 1000 px and also that the chain-link icon to Maintain Aspect Ratio is selected
- repeat for the second and third images. Always scale smaller not larger to maintain quality
- View>Show>Grid
- View>Snap To>Grid. I have found this works best if you turn off the other Snap To options
- View>Snap>On
- Edit>Preferences>Guides, Grids and Slices> Grid>Gridline Every…… and choose a value for your preferred spacing eg Gridline every 100 px, Subdivisions 1
- Choose the Move tool and drag each image onto the grid as required to achieve your layout
- Use the Crop tool and the grid to crop the entire image as required.

HOW TO CREATE A TRIPTYCH FROM A SINGLE IMAGE
An effective triptych can also be created by dividing up a single image as follows. Having prepared the image in Photoshop, switch on the grid as above but set the spacing in Preferences to 33.33% to define the three areas of the triptych. Snap the Rectangular Marquee tool to each third in turn and use Edit>Stroke>Inside to create a border of the required colour and width. Finally Select>All and stroke a border around the outside of the entire image of twice the previous width.

HOW TO COMBINE IMAGES AS LAYERS IN ONE FILE
Creating composites such as triptychs requires bringing two or more images into one image file as separate layers. This is easy once you know how, but is not quite as intuitive as it should be. There are at least five ways. Pick the one that works for you……
1. (Currently my new favourite). With all required images open in separate tabs; click on the thumbnail of a source image in the layers palette and drag it over the tab for the destination image. Keep the mouse button pressed and wait until the target image comes to the fore, then drag down onto it and release. This entire move should be one continuous click and drag. It’s easier to do than to describe. If you want the source image to be centred in the destination image, press the Shift key before you release the mouse button. Or,
2. With a source image open, Select>All then Edit>Copy. Now open the destination image and Edit>Paste. By default it will place the image in the centre of the current visible area of the screen. If you want it in the centre of the destination image press Shift as you Paste. Or,
3. (Photoshop Elements Only) Open the Photo Bin by clicking on it’s icon in the bottom taskbar. Thumbnails of all open images are shown there. With the Destination image open, click and drag a thumbnail from the Photo Bin up onto the screen. It is always centred within the file. Or,
4. Tile all open images on the screen at once Window>Images>Tile (Elements) or Window>Arrange>Tile (CC). With a source image selected, drag the image thumbnail in the layers palette and drop it onto the destination file. If you want it to be centred, press Shift as you drag. Or,
5. (Use with caution) File >Place Embedded from within the destination file opens source files directly into it as layers. However I have discovered a problem with this method. All four methods above show the source image at true pixel size in relation to the destination image which is the most logical to me. File>Place takes account of the Resolution setting of each file and scales them to match each other. Although no damage is done by scaling, trying to lay out a triptych with this method is unnecessarily difficult. Adobe argue that this is logical for print-orientated professional users but we photographers are pixel-oriented and the assigned resolution of an image is rather arbitrary.

CREATING A DROP SHADOW
As an option, we could add a drop shadow (or other effect) to each of the three images.

In Photoshop Elements, display the Styles Palette (Window>Styles) then select the first of the three images and select Drop Shadows in the Styles palette. The settings icon enables you to choose the type, colour, direction, spread etc of the drop shadow. To use the same values on the other images choose Layer>Layer Style>Copy Style then select the other images in turn and Layer>Layer Style>Paste Style.

In Photoshop CC, double-click (in the empty space to the right of the layer name) the first image layer in the layers palette. The Layer Style palette will pop up then select Drop Shadow and click on the + symbol to display the drop shadow options. To use the same values on the other images Layer>Layer Style Copy Layer Style then select the other images in turn and Layer>Layer Style>Paste Style

As usual with Photoshop there are several ways to do the same thing and a more elegant method to apply a layer style to all three images simultaneously is to group the three image layers and apply the drop shadow to the group.

THE BACK OF BEYOND – DIARIES

EPSON REPAIRS
Our recommended Epson printer repairers have done it again. Gill’s printer refused to feed the paper consistently and the usual fix of a damp cloth on the feed roller didn’t work. John at Repro Repairs identified that the roller had become hardened and polished and fitted a new one with full success.

FEATHER-EDGED BRUSHES
The soft, or feathered, edge of a brush (as used by many Photoshop tools) can be invaluable for blending-in but there is a catch – repeated cloning with a fully soft-edged brush produces a muddy edge where old and new image details mingle. Take care not to go over the same area repeatedly and also use an appropriate feathering value. Photoshop CC offers a Hardness slider with brush tools but bizarrely, Photoshop Elements does not provide this with some tools, including the Clone tool, offering only fully hard or fully soft brushes by default. NB a fully-hard brush is never appropriate within any photograph – the photographic process is just not that good!

Never fear, it’s worth learning the keyboard shortcut for all versions of Photoshop;
- left and right square brackets make a brush smaller and bigger respectively
- shift + left and right square brackets make a brush softer and harder respectively

The above keyboard shortcut for softening and hardening a brush works in five steps 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% hard. Unfortunately you can’t see exactly where you are in the range so I always go four steps down or up so that I am at a known point; 0% or 100% and then up or down from there. I find that the middle three steps are often the most useful.

ESSENTIAL WINDOWS SHORTCUTS
There are a very small number of absolutely essential Windows shortcuts that I use all day, every day. It seems that not everyone knows them. Here is my short list of essentials;

- Alt+Tab keep the Alt key down and press the Tab repeatedly to cycle around all open windows. Release to jump to one
- Windows + D to jump to the Windows Desktop
- Ctrl + A to select all
- Ctrl + C to copy
- Ctrl + X to cut
- Ctrl + P to paste
- Ctrl + Z to undo
- Ctrl + Y to re-do

Cheers, Steve

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