A good turn-out for our new 2025/6 season and welcome to some new faces.
MONTHLY CHALLENGES
Current and past Challenge images can be seen at Amersham Beyond Group on Flickr.
For APS Members only, the images are also available for viewing and commenting on Facebook here.
We enjoyed about 100 images for the current Challenges which are;
#51 INSPIRED BY PAUL KENNY
#52 ONE to THREE
… and the latest Challenge;
#53 PRINT WORKS
A rather different meeting this time with about 50 physical print-based creations on display from our summer Challenge. They were both two and three dimensional. There was lively discussion of the work, both as we viewed it, and when it was explained by the author with the benefit of projected images. Everyone found this to be a very stimulating evening and a refreshing change. Lots more work is in progress and we look forward to it in the next two months.
Many hints and tips were shared for all three Challenges;
Myra’s printed tryptic of corroded red steel was embellished with ‘Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes’ from Hobby Craft. This needed to be seen in good light to appreciate the colours.
Alison explained her images as follows: “1. Dancing With Light - Original images were created as multiple exposures in camera of a vase and further refined in Ps. Two copies printed of each image, one on semi gloss photo paper and one on Perma Jet Inkjet transparency film. Each individual image has been mounted in square mounts and then the transparency version has been overlaid onto the printed copy of each image. This approach was inspired by the Linda Bembridge talk. 2. Rooftop View - original image taken on iPhone, edited in the Prisma App using the ‘Hunter’ style. This second version was printed onto copy paper from an Inkjet printer and transferred onto mount board via a PVA-type medium. This resulted in some gaps where the transfer was less successful so I painted the areas that needed some enhancement using acrylic paint. I finished the piece by coating it with a clear matt acrylic varnish. 3 & 4 - Cyanotypes - I converted each original image to black and white and then inverted in Lr to create a digital negative. I then printed each negative onto Perma Jet Inkjet transparency film. I coated some papers with cyanotype solution, which I left to dry before placing the negatives over the papers and leaving in bright sunshine for 20 minutes”.
Jacqui gilded her Cambodian prints then added small embellishments such as beads.
Viv found inspiration from Pinterest for her mixed media prints involving art paper, material, watercolour and pen.
Angela used the Photoshop Oil Paint filter to create a remarkable effect on her Great Migration image.
For my Venetian Alchemy image, I purchased a gilding kit from Gold Leaf Supplies and added faux silver leaf to the faux gold leaf in the kit. This needed to be lacquered to prevent discolouration and although Polyvine Decorators Varnish is widely recommended, it is applied by brush and I couldn’t get the perfect gloss finish that suited the subject. I had more luck with a Windsor and Newton Professional Gloss Varnish aerosol. For my Enigma image, I wanted two layers of printed acetate but most acetate for printing is slightly milky. I found an almost entirely clear printable acetate from Paper Cutz at a reasonable price. The problem was getting my Epson SC-P900 to accept it. I did eventually succeed by attaching narrow strips of Avery Labels to the leading edge and both sides that enabled the printer to see and grip it.
Several members made photo transfers of printed images to other materials such as wood, stone or canvas. There are many videos on methods to do this on YouTube. One of the most straightforward is to reverse and print the image, then glue if face down onto the chosen surface. PVA glue is often recommended. After it has dried overnight, soak the paper on the back of the print and gently rub it off, leaving the image behind. Don’t rub too hard or the image will come off. Remaining bits of paper become invisible when the dry transfer is sprayed with a varnish or lacquer. It is generally thought that laser prints are better for this technique than inkjets. I have also tried Hayes Paper Co. Clear Waterslide Decal Paper available for inkjets and lasers. This is quick, cheap and easy but I found that the decals did not stick, even onto paper. Maybe they could be applied onto a wet glue? A couple of members tried using a gel transfer plate which is widely used by crafters but they found it very messy.
Martin took my guidance to ‘get your hands dirty’ literally. He wanted a suitable texture to his print of a road surface, so he laid it on the road and drove his car over it!
Ken used the Percolator app (iOS - free) for the circles effect in his Print Works images. Interestingly this is by Tin Rocket who also make Waterlogue (iOS, Mac, Win – free) - my favourite watercolour app and other graphic apps. He also discovered that printing directly onto inkjet coated canvas was easier than printing onto paper and trying to transfer it to canvas. For his Durer image he printed the same image onto sheets of different coloured papers. He then sandwiched them and cut his design through them all with a scalpel. Finally the chosen pieces and colours were glued down.
Diane used Snapseed (iOS, Android – free) for her images and, like many other members, found it to be powerful and flexible.
Juliet printed onto fabric transfer paper which was then ironed onto a tee shirt.
Although generative AI is not allowed, several members used it for other purposes. I used ChatGPT to generate many creative titles for my gilded image of Venice. I finally settled on Venetian Alchemy. Martin asked Chat GPT to generate several paragraphs of pretentious ‘English Art Speak’ about his littered road surface which it did very effectively.
The feeling of creativity in the room was tremendous. Many thanks to the members who spend the summer months (or last ten minutes before the deadline in one case) in this endeavour. I know that more is to come.
The next Challenge will be;
#54 PICTURE IN PICTURE
The aim of this Challenge is to create an image which contains another image. There should be some connection or relationship between the new image and the included image.
BACK OF BEYOND DIARIES
Windows 10. In response to European pressure, Microsoft have dropped the various prerequisites to receiving another year of security updates for Win10 when support officially expires on October 14th 2025. In Europe it is therefore now possible to register for ongoing updates free of charge. I strongly recommend everyone still running Win10 to do this.
I have updated one desktop and two laptops to Windows 11. The oldest was my 7 year old laptop. They were all tested as compatible for Win11 and all updated without problem in an hour or two. The desktop was only four years old and was a very fast gaming machine, but it had other long-standing unresolved faults and was rendered very slow by the update so I sold it for spares, replacing it with a new one. I was actually impressed by the fact that two laptops operated identically before and after the upgrade, apart from the minor interface tweaks, with no need to touch registrations, passwords or software versions.
Image File Size. I was surprised to hear from a member that he was having problems with image file sizes regularly exceeding the 2GB limit for PNGs. I have never encountered such limits, but I believe that TIFF files are limited to 4GB, JPG files are best kept to less than 10MB for practical reasons. PSD files are limited to 2GB but apparently there is also a PSB (Photoshop Big) format where the sky is the limit.
I would argue that we should be continually on the guard against such massive files if we want to keep a handle on storage and backup.
The problems start with cameras taking 40Mpx or more. Even my iPhone 16 can take 48Mpx. Bear in mind that for family snaps, switching to a very much smaller size in Pixels and JPG is more economic than a full size RAW file. If you save TIFF files they are large, as are PSD files. On your camera, there will probably be a compressed RAW file option. This will be much smaller than uncompressed RAW and I can’t see any difference so I always choose it.
The biggest change you can make is to set your raw converter to output in 8bit colour. The purists will be aghast and demand 16bit colour but I’ve done the tests and again, I can’t see the difference so I always set it. Your new files will immediately be half the size. Another bonus is that many older features of Photoshop, especially some filters, are not available in 16bit. To be fair, if you are doing extreme editing then a 16bit image may be the best starting point (NB you can’t convert an 8bit image to 16bit and get the benefits, you need to start with 16bit from the RAW).
The other important factor in file size is good housekeeping with your image editor. Going from one image layer to two image layers in Photoshop doubles the file size, and so on. This doesn’t apply to non-image layers such as adjustments. (NB Going from one layer to two or more layers also adds a large composite image to the file for compatibility purposes, further increasing the file size). So by all means, use all the layers you need but when you are finished, delete unwanted layers, merge layers when possible and delete unwanted versions of the image.
Finally of course, edit, edit, edit your images and never keep the failures!
So, I do all the bad things: 8bit colour, compressed RAW (not to mention sRGB instead of the bigger colour spaces) and as a result my entire 25 years of digital images and processed files (120,000 image files) takes up about 1TB which is easily backed up onto cheap HDDs. And I don’t get complaints about quality – just content!
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is on Thursday 6th November 2025 in the Large Barn Hall at the Community Centre.
Cheers, Steve.