Great week in The Web for Photographers. We started out by looking at Chase Jarvis‘ new project, The Best Camera. If you don’t know Chase’s work, be sure to check it out. He’s amazing and he’s a fantastic advocate for the community aspect of photography. From there we moved into the importance of wire framing your site design. It’s much easier to tweak a pencil drawing or a bunch of grey boxes than it is a fully realized Photoshop comp. The class project of linking HTML and CSS files when well, for the most part. A few people struggled a bit, mostly from incorrectly naming or referencing their files. For those of you who got stuck and for those of you who want a refresher, I’ve created a quick screencast demonstrating the steps involved in linking your HTML and CSS. Please take a look at it so you understand this step. We’ll be building on this next week when we complete several different CSS layouts. Now, just do the work!

No getting around it…this week’s edition of The Art of Compositing was rough. In a nutshell, there are a small number of students who simply should not be in the class. It’s beyond your current level and you know it. At least you should. As I have stated several times before, this is not a beginning class. Although there are no prerequisites to any of the classes at Tri, you should know when you’re in over your head. I had to continually stop for the same few people, which really affected how much we were able to get through. Now, let me be clear, it’s not the stopping to answer questions that I’m at odds with. I want to teach you guys and want you to get as excited about Photoshop as I am. It’s the constant stopping for the same few people, while the remaining 50 plus students sit and wait. It’s simply not fair and I can tell you it won’t happen again. If the majority are cool with a step or process, we’re moving on. Period. So, if you are reading this and feel as though I’m talking to you, I’m going to make a request. I love that you want to learn and appreciate you taking the time to come out each week. However, I’m going to ask that you give up your computer to one of the other students who may be better able to keep up and ultimately get more out of the class. This is not to say that I don’t want you there trying to learn and better your skills, far from it. Keep coming, but I believe that you would be better served to sit along the aisles and take notes on what I’m doing on the big screen, rather than trying to simultaneously listen and follow along in Photoshop. The concepts are going to get more intricate and if you find yourself lost in week three, it’s only going to get more difficult for you as we continue. Just a thought…

LINKS
Layer Masks in CS4
Clipping Masks in CS4
Upgrade to CS4 from $199.00

For week 2 in The Web for Photographers, we started looking at how to deconstruct a website into components or containers to help streamline the build process. We also started discussing the connection between the design of a site and the overall user experience. From the high-design all-Flash, esoteric approach of clothing company Reserved to the minimalist approach of Ugmonk, user experience runs the gamut and should be tailored to your potential audience. Next week, we’re going to start writing some code and we’ll be taking a look at how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) work.

Also, Geo asked about 3D with code, versus using Flash. There’s a JQuery solution that’s close, but I think for something like 3D, Flash is still the better solution. JQuery Flip!

The wonderful world of Layers was the topic at hand for week 2 of The Art of Compositing. In addition to manipulating Layers, we blew some minds talking about Smart Objects. Smart Objects are a really fantastic way to maintain the integrity and editability of your elements as you create your own composites. Keep in mind that they are memory intensive. So if you only have 1 Gig of RAM and you are working on a 50 Layer, 30×40″, 300dpi image, it may be time to upgrade to that shiny new Mac. The second half of the class was spent on Blend Modes. Please take the time to go through these on some of your own photos so that you have a firm grasp of how they work. Next week, Layer Masks and Adjustment Layers…Sweet!

Someone (I don’t remember who) didn’t believe that the Annie Leibovitz photo below of Helen Mirren and Judi Dench was a composite.



Well, here’s the info, straight from Annie’s wonderful book At Work. “The picture of Hellen Mirren and Judi Dench in the car was made in two different places. It was fun directing Judi Dench to act like she was talking to someone who wasn’t actually there. She was saying, “You bitch. How could you have done this to me? Why did you do that to me?” And she had that look. If we had been using film, we would have to stitch two frames together, but since we were shooting digitally, we built the final picture in the computer.” I love Annie’s work. Say what you want, she’s an amazing artist.

LINKS
Erwin Olaf
Erik Johannson
Calvin Hollywood