paullittlephotographypart2-blog

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Pen tool 2nd attempt - after failing to get my head around the first try of using the pen toll I seeked advice on this which enlightened the method so much, now I feel I can or have I should say a good base / platform to work from and build up my knowledge of using this.

going from the above images you can see the original image > then the pen tool markers I made around the t-shirt >  I then changed the anchors into marching ants then I selected a mask to highlight it in red > from here I clicked on mask and that erased the back ground to form it transparent and lastly as you can see I zoomed in a little to identify the cleanly cut out t-shirt. 2nd time luck and successful :-) 

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Colour grading - gradient mapping

select original image

layer > new adjustment layer

reverse bottom sliders to give the image a look from a negative

double click the bottom left slider to have the colour selection panel

select desired colour 

repeat for the bottom right slider by double clicking

once happy - blending mode > soft light

duplicate layer and chose soft light again if needed 

select contrast as an extra adjustment layer and bring down to -40 or desired.

this image has went from having a blue colour cast to almost a golden cast, for me making it look more autumn time and eye catching.

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I think this has to be the most frustrating toll in Photoshop?!

having selected an image with curves and putting myself to the test - I failed! 

after numerous attempts and placing my pin I can't seem to be able to curve the anchors the way I want...this will need more work and learning but I tried :-( 

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Creating a custom brush tool -

pull image from google (skull & bones)

select > colour range > grey scale > fuzziness

new layer > fill with black

duplicate layer > Alt & new layer - fill with white

crop into the skull to required size / crop

edit > define brush preset >name - skulzz

new document > B for brush tool

above is the tutorial I followed to guide me into creating the brush tool

Credit - Phlearn

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Whisky composite - I have used only the 4 of the 5 required here :-/

starting off with the bottle - this was shot in the college studio and then cut out in post production placing it into this scene later.

the ice cave was from a Iceland trip in march this year. Although the back ground looking out the cave was very much different I used another image of the northern lights shot from Iceland and placed it in behind the middle layer which is the cave giving the impression that the lights were on display during the time of this shoot.

the only downfall I feel is that I didn’t use colour grading to its full potential and could have had the bottle looking more in tune with the rest of the scene.

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Above is my image research task on image manipulation - image 1 to 9. Image 10 is on another post below.

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Image 10 - this is the follow up of my image editing research take on photo manipulation

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2 images - this is actually an image I shot recently at my friends wedding, he asked me to move the bridesmaids else where into the image.

from the left image you cam see them side by side, but in the right hand image you can notice I have moved them down toward the point of the heart. 

this was achieved using the content aware tool.

its not the final image I will be Hading over to the couple but it was my initial testing of the tool.

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At the top is the tutorial I followed step by step using the image and text provided by the host.

a little bit tricky I found and it took me a few attempts as he does stop talking or take a break so its pretty fast and calls for pausing then starting again but I go there in the end. the image below is my result using his exact steps and settings.

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Duo Toning

Image > Adjustments > Black & White. Adjust sliders till you are happy.

Image > Mode > Greyscale.

Discard `Colour.

Image > Mode > Duotone > The colour black is already selected you just need to add  another colour,

the final image colour I chose was mauve.

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Channels is one of the many tools I use for creating selections. You can make a perfectly fine selection literally in seconds, depending on your image and the complexity of the subject: some pictures work better than others.

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Puppet warp tool - low res image pulled from google used for this demo. This tool can be used very subtly or like mine can be disastrous! that being said I do understand what it is and can be used for although I do need time to practice more. luckily to date I haven't had to use this tool but its something I will take up in the advance PS classes I'm booking for myself.

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this is a very simple GIF created for my images editing class.

File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack.

select Browse and choose which files you'd like to use in your GIF, then click OK.

Layer > New > Layer.

Window > Timeline

In the Timeline window, click "Create Frame Animation

Select > All Layers.

Create new layer for each new frame.

Open the same menu icon on the right, and choose "Make Frames From Layers

Under each frame, select how long it should appear for before switching to the next frame

At the bottom of the toolbar, select how many times you'd like it to loop

Preview your GIF by pressing the play icon

Save

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Graded Unit Work Book

The following below will be consisting of my digital workbook rather than a physical one.

Its content will show the development of my duration producing and sculpting my still life project.

Starting off I had to learn about clay, the clay would resemble what I call metal railway bolts which would look forged and beaten into shape! Not an easy task.

The books by - Sue Heaser & Alexander Sturgis were extremely helpful in my understanding in how to handle clay but I couldn't help getting away from in my head that my technique and handling will be on the job training rather than taken from a book itself.

From this niggling thought I had I searched the web to see what would be the best clay from my to buy, DAS air drying clay seemed to be the cheapest option but with great results, as Amazon is my go-to place for everything just about I immediately found the product and bought it, arriving the next day I began to test this product by cutting a wee strip off of it, from there I moulded a wee figure to look like a railway bolt, the intention wasn't really to shape at this point I was more interested how long it would take to dry and how hard the clay would form? to my surprise it hardened extremely fast over night and by day 2 is was solid, I then tested the durability of it or in other words what it would take to break the figure, it turned out actually a lot.Over the next few days I sat it in the sun to see if it would soften, I left it outside over night, left it in the rain and finally softly tapping it on a unit while increasing too until I was satisfied that the existence of my sculpts would be safe. Many weeks later I still have my original tester intact and undamaged. I was happy with my DAS product and decided its time to get my game face on and sculpt for real,

The product in question.

The flip side to this product is that it does need a little TLC and attention as if not careful it can dry out just like the tester sculpture. This would be bad for my and I would have to re-buy it again. Coming to a quick solution is I would be keeping it in my “warming cupboard” where the boiler is for the hot water, this temperature would be exactly right for keeping the clay block humid which in turn keeps it sweating and soft.

This tutorial is something I watched initially before getting started for real, like the books it was informative and gave me a good insight on how to handle the clay, but again I could only learn from doing it first hand hence the test sculpt, to be honest I felt I learned more on how to do all of this by ‘on the job training’ and handling. I now felt I was ready as mentioned to do this for real. Not being naive I knew I was going to face troubles and complications.

below is an example of what I mean by this. Starting off I did find the clay to dry out extremely fast when exposed to the air and I had to work fast.

Cracks would form :-( 

This happened when being the clay into shape, as you can see I even tried to patch them up with this strips of clay too.

how would I get around this?

working faster? re-heating the clay?

Well, bit of both. Also I would prep the night before and make sure the packaging was sealed properly and as closer to hot water tank as possible, I would also cut thinner strips off to work with, this would let me shape and bend my sculpts at a faster rate and more successfully.

Things started to take shape learning from this (pardon the pun).

Getting into the flow of sculpting I managed to achieve sets or pairs of my visions, I kind of resigned to the fact that being a beginner and doing this for the first time I wasn't going to perfect and my figures would be flawed, I was able to shape just about all of them to the way I wanted but there was admittedly a few that I struggled with and cracks were obvious on them, 

This above is an example of what I mean, the shape was there but tiny cracks were noticeable, but.... I went with it as I mentioned this was on the job training and learning and I had a wee sneaky thought to myself that I could cover the crack up in the next stage of my development.

now I had one figure shaped I was always trying to stay one step ahead of myself and think what I needed to do next? I was thinking how to colour the clay to look like forged metal? This would be real tricky as how would you colour white clay to look like heated, bashed and forged metal? well I believe that you can't, not easily anyways and it took me a good few attempts of doing it.

Craft paint - I visited B&Q to see what kind of selection they had, thankfully it turned out actually not to bad, I bought silver / gold and graphite, my thinking on this was to layer the sculpts with the paints.

Using the silver paint to start of with you can see above that it actually isn't very effective, its really thin and not sticking to the clay. I have / had to think of an alternative?

Spray paint - I re visited B&Q and bought a tin of spray, it was a graphite coloured spray where I began to spray my figure in the shed where its vented and outside.

once it had dried in I was still not satisfied, for the life of me I just couldn't get the colour I was looking for, it dawned on me that over the years I have watched my mum colour icing for cakes she makes, taking a wild gamble I thought to try cake decorating colouring.

this may seem a little odd but by blending the flakes of colouring together and a few drops of gin it actually turns into a paste, the more silver I put in the of course the more silvery it is with hint of gold through it, this is vice versa too, its actually very strong stuff, the gin works wonders with congealing it together, then its just a matter of brushing it onto the figures.

Above is some examples of the materials I bought to construct my figures

it was all starting to come together, the next stage was to give the figures an identity. This would involve me buying bolts and filling them with clay to dry out and in effect give to a flat surface too glue them onto my figures.

identity - now I have given the figures an identity but subtly shaping them in a human form, placing the bolts on top with araidite glue I feel they now have emotion in the scene.

in this image a simple stone glued onto the back of the “father” figure and the “son” figure you can now imagine backpacking or hill walking / adventuring.

Back to B&Q, this shop is / was becoming a regular haunt for me!

I quickly sourced the correct stone I was looking for, round and very light coloured was perfect, all I had to do was rummage through the bag until I found the size the would be appropriate for my figures.

now that I have a selection of figures made into human form its time to do test shots!

in my plan I mentioned I was doing this studio based, technically I am still but instead I Brough the studio to my house and used the equipment I have bought over time, this included studio lighting (continuous) , a white bed sheet, my camera , light meter and tripod of course. the location within my house - the dining room on the dining table. I have now essentially taken over a whole room.

looking at it from another angle!

in this image I'm using my Nikon D800 with the 24-120mm f4 lens. 

my settings varied and will log the final images metadata in my evaluation.

essentially this would be the view for the next few days for me while capturing my first 10 images / sets.

coming together -  4 out of 10 of my sculpts.

this is my new / would be my new workshop - the shed! armed with tool and a vice!

more sculpts formed.

Newley formed sets in production

construction

construction

construction

this would be the chewed bark that will be used in the above image - found in the garden!

I decided to change the twit for a n=bit of dead bush from the garden to give a more romantic feel to the set.

sand paper & polystyrene is a regular feature in my set building

chess

under the spotlight

boxing

gorilla tape is a life saver

my head right now!!!

intimidation 

dammit....just walloped my finger with the hammer.

nearly there

contact sheets from all of my shoots.

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Work experience - examples of email I have sent away to make contact with photographer asking for work experience

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Blurb is a fantastic site to develop a self styled book, it has a whole host of option which will work well with my book project, initially I chose to do the book on myself and my life/background. After gather ing my research for this idea I started to think twice about it as its a very dark story and to be blunt, has areas where I would like to not visit again..so.....on the flip side I have now chose to fulfil my dream of being primarily a landscape photographer and use my trip to Iceland too complete my book, titled “fire&ice” . I have my locations all set and the images I want for my book all researched and prepped, camper van is booked and everything is good to go for it.

admittedly it will be tight to meet my dead line for hand in but I do think I can make a stunning book of landscape, something I'm very fond of doing on my own personal time and have done for years now, this in effect will be the pinnacle of my landscaping to date.