Author: admin-blog

Thoughts on Photoshop CS5

Great upgrade.

Content-aware fill doesn’t always perform as well as it does in the Adobe demos, but it can save a heap of time. If it’s not perfect straight away, try again and you’ll probably get closer. Good enough for the Spot Healing tool to get its shortcut back.

Deleting on the Background layer invokes the content-aware fill, but deleting on any other layer does not. You’ll need shift-delete for that.

The new zooming behaviour is straight out of Apple’s Motion, and a vast improvement. Command-space-click and drag to immediately, interactively resize the image. Fast, responsive, awesome.

The revised brush resizing tool is faster, if a little less precise. Control-option-drag vertically to change sharpness and horizontally to change size. Was a little different before, but this is fine.

It’s fast. 64-bit uses more RAM on my system though apparently it will make a difference only with large images, and only works on Snow Leopard.

Other Dynamics in the Brush settings is now called Transfer.

Brush Presets is now a separate panel to Brush, which removes a point of confusion.

The new colour sampling tool is nice and the new natural-media style brushes are good too. Command-option-control-click for a superb new colour picker and never use the Color panel again.

I’ll be running some new Photoshop classes soon, so let me know (email iain@THISWEBSITE.COM) if you’re interested and I’ll let you know where they’ll be running.

Hazelwatch. So, Nic’s reading out a book of dinosaurs to Hazel:

Nic:”Leptoceratops.”

Hazel: “I don’t know Leptoceratops. It’s like Triceratops.”

Distraction

Typing this text into an app called Ommwriter. An interesting way to work.

I’ve never given full screen writing applications much thought, but it really does help to remove the distractions of a modern computer. Maybe the iPad, in that it will only show one application at once, will work the same way. Right now, if I can monitor Twitter or Safari’s Top Sites when I have ten seconds free between thoughts, distraction is but a click away.

There’s a variety of sounds I can choose for key clicks, which seems odd at first. Don’t I want to avoid distractions here? Well, nicely enough, the key click sounds actually seem to focus you on the words you’re typing.

As well as the key clicks, it plays soothing music all the time. Meditative, gentle music. I suspect that’s probably part of the appeal, and I should probably just find some meditative music to play in iTunes if this is truly helpful.

Really not liking the underscore for typing, though. That seems a throwback, a long, long way back. Zardax on a CAT Apple II clone way back. And it’s getting in my way.

A nice idea. Worth a look if you need to write and the world is interrupting you.

Why Digital Killed Analogue

I really like the idea of 365 ways to say goodbye. Take a Polaroid photo with the last of your expired instamatic film, one a day for a year. The photos are nice too. But it’s just nostalgia.

A common opinion I hear about books when the iPad (or a Kindle) comes up in conversation: “I like the feel/smell/weight/look of real books, I’ll never give them up.” I heard the same thing about film from a traditional photographer, upgrading his massive developing machine as digital cameras really ramped up in the early 2000s. And I have a friend who likes analog film so much she bought a Holga.

The thing is, digital makes a compromise up-front. You don’t try to capture everything you see, you capture at a certain resolution with certain limitations, compress it a bit and store it. You can’t lose any quality if you don’t change the file, you can back it up as many times as you like, and it will be easy to modify it, re-use it in other projects, and transfer to multiple devices.

Film is not infinite resolution. Analog captures to the ability of the material — which is often not as good as you might think. I’ve got many rolls of film shot on an old SLR which look worse, from a resolution/dynamic range point of view, than the shots we took with a 2MP camera..

Analog can’t be copied with 100% accuracy. It can’t be properly backed up. It can’t be transferred to other devices without making a digital copy — in which case, why not capture it digitally in the first place?

Analog is expensive. If you told a kid today that they could only shoot up to 36 shots at a time, couldn’t review what you’d shot to see if they came out, and had to pay $1/shot(ish) and wait from an hour to a day to get printed photos that had to be scanned to go online, they’d laugh.

Yes, the best motion picture film can capture more shadow detail than the best HD DSLRs — check the Zacuto Shootout for proof. But the cost of film and developing is wholly prohibitive for anyone on their own and for many clients. The editing/grading workflow will involve scanning it to a digital file anyway.

So, my strong recommendation, for all mediums, capture digitally, on the best equipment your budget allows. (A Canon EOS 550D is a great choice for a DSLR.)

If you want the analog look, apply a filter.

Finally, if you’re one of the people who prefers a “real” book to an electronic version, pretend you just had a kid. She’s never going to have the same kind of nostalgia for the new printed book as you do. She will want to make space in her home for a bookshelf, she will love having every book she’s ever read with her, all the time, she’ll like the free access to every book in the public domain, she’ll like being able to change the size/colour/whatever of the text and have it read aloud, she’ll like the full colour, the searchability, the instant dictionary definitions of any word in any book, the ability to read niche books from anyone that wouldn’t be published in today’s system, the ability to buy books older than a year that can’t be found in shops, to enjoy video or animation as part of a magazine.

I can’t express it any better than John Siracusa on Ars Technica, comparing the physical book to the horseless carriage (p3):

I’m sure plenty of people swore they would never ride in or operate a “horseless carriage”—and they never did! And then they died.

So, by all means, don’t read books on your iPad. But your kids will, and one day you’ll die. Happy reading!

Making Music in Soundtrack: The Basics

It’s easy to make your own music with Garageband or Soundtrack Pro. If you don’t have the budget to buy music, it’s essential to make your own to avoid copyright problems — and often quicker than searching through a library of “almost-right” music anyway.

The basic structure of Western music revolves around a rhythm, typically provided by drums and bass. Most songs work in rhythms that are a multiple of two, usually as groups of two or four loops, often changing on a multiple of four.

  • First, make sure Snapping is turned on (View > Snap should be checked).

The easiest way to get started with an original song is to audition a few drumbeats — to play them. There are many available to choose from, in many different musical styles.

  • Add a drum loop (we’ll call it “Drum 1”, and extend it across the entire timeline by clicking on the lower right-hand edge and dragging to the right. (Suggestion: “80s Pop Beat 10”.)
  • While Drum 1 plays in the timeline, audition several bass loops to complement the drums. (Suggestion: “80s Dance Bass Synth 02”.)
  • Drag the next loop (we’ll call it “Bass 1”) into track 2.
  • Extend Bass 1 across the entire timeline.
  • Reduce the volume of both tracks to approximately -9dB. This will give us room to add additional instruments without peaking (going higher than 0dB).

Now we’ll add a solo instrument to the mix. This is where much of the interest in a song comes from, and where most of the variation could be. This instrument might be a guitar, a synthesiser, or something else, but we’ll refer to “Solo 1” in these notes.

  • Play your composition so far.
  • Audition a few instruments and choose one that has several variations on a theme. (Suggestion: “Funky Electric Guitar Riff 1-49”.)
  • Add one of these solo instrument loops (referred to here as “Solo 1”) in track 3.
  • Position it at the start of the fifth measure, 5.1 on the measure ruler.
  • If it’s not already long enough, extend Solo 1 for four measures, to 9.1 on the measure ruler.
  • Pick a similar solo loop, the same length as or shorter than Solo 1. (We’ll refer to this loop as “Solo 2”.)
  • Add this loop to track 4 at 9.1 measures, and extend it for two measures only, to 11.1.
  • Duplicate Solo 1 (within track 3) by option-dragging it to 13.1 on the measure ruler. This should be immediately after Solo 2 finishes in track 4 — as if the musician is now playing different notes.
  • Reduce Solo 1 to half its original length.
  • Duplicate Solo 2 (within track 4) by option-dragging it. Position it immediately after the second instance of Solo 1 in track 3.
  • Select the second instance of Solo 2 and choose Clip > Transpose > +3. Transposing can add variation in a limited selection of suitable loops.

This structure now includes a pause at the beginning, a solo instrument, a variation in that solo instrument, a return to the original solo, then a variation on the second solo.

Your composition will probably need some work before being good enough to be given attention, though it could be OK as a backing track you hear now and again. For variety, we’ll now duplicate this structure and change it.

  • Select everything by choosing Edit > Select All (command-A).
  • Copy the entire structure.
  • Click at the end of the composition so far, in the first track, then choose Edit > Paste.
  • Creative rearrangement. Change the arrangement of the solo instruments — add a new pattern in the first four measures, transpose one or more loops, introduce new loops from the same family.
  • Split at least one track by selecting a loop at the end of a measure and pressing S. Letting a track rest now and again makes it sound fresher when it returns.

This basic structure can be varied and reused in many compositions. A little more info:

  • Western pop songs usually have an introduction (8 or 16 measures) followed by chorus and verse (each 16 or 32 measures).
  • A repeated chorus at the end is called a coda.
  • Within each chorus and verse, the harmony might change every one, two or four measures.
  • The end of a pattern is often different, to signify a change. This is called a fill.

Listen to as much music as you can, studying the structures used. Not every piece of music is a song; not every piece of music has or needs a rigid structure. However, knowing the basics will help you plan your music more easily — start working with the conventions and stretch them as appropriate.

Feedback is welcome. This tutorial was written some time ago for Soundtrack and has been heavily revised for Soundtrack Pro 3. The basic principles will also work for Garageband.

Obligatory plug: visit Motionally.com for all your Motion Template needs!

Appalling Compositing from Chanel

I don’t think I’ve ever seen worse Photoshop work in the fashion industry than the compositing nightmare that is Spring-Summer 2010 CHANEL. It’s Flash, but if you only have a few moments to laugh, check out #37 (featured on Photoshop Disasters) and 29, 30, 36, 50, 56.

That’s right, they’ve used clipping paths instead of layer masks throughout the collection, and those images feature meshy fabric you can should be able to see through. Oh dear. (And they really shouldn’t have put sharply focused shoes on a blurry background in every single photo.)