The pen tool is the most accurate tool for making selections. This is the tool professional retouchers use for making selections with precision.
The other selection tools like the magic wand are good for making approximate selections but if you want accuracy you are going to have to learn how to use the pen tool. I think the fact that it is vector based is what puts many people off. It is not as straightforward to use at the other tools but once you get used to it you will never look back. Or so I am told.
The pen tool group includes the main pen tool, a freeform pen tool and the modifier tool to add, delete or modify the path points.
The pen tool has three operating modes. When in the Shape Layers mode you can use it to draw with. If you click on the Path modes button this allows you to create a pen path without adding a fill layer to the document.
I don't tend to make selections very often in my workflow. However, I have added becoming more familiar with the pen tool to my list of things I must do. It is just a matter of finding the time.
I do feel though that from the course I have learnt a lot more about selections and I am feeling more confident in making decisions about which tool to use rather than shying away from it altogether.
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Photoshop - Actions
Maybe it is just me but I was pretty excited to discover actions n my Photoshop course last month. Until now I hadn't realised such a feature existed.
Actions allow you to record a number of operations in Photoshop and then apply them to another picture or a number of images in a folder. They are application scripts that record a sequence of events like converting an image to monochrome. This sequence can then be replayed on other images.
These are really useful if you have a particular processing routine that you run in Photoshop. If you record this routine then you don't bother having to do it on every single image you process. I think actions would be beneficial to me for formatting images for output on the web. I can make the adjustments to one image while recording them and then play them over the entire folder I want to put online.
If there is a process in the sequence that you don't want to run you can stop that from being applied to other images by turning that action off.
I still feel that in my workflow I work better at the processing stage in Lightroom. I also feel like I want to consider each image individually and therefore running actions like monochrome conversions would not be suitable for me at the moment.
Actions allow you to record a number of operations in Photoshop and then apply them to another picture or a number of images in a folder. They are application scripts that record a sequence of events like converting an image to monochrome. This sequence can then be replayed on other images.
These are really useful if you have a particular processing routine that you run in Photoshop. If you record this routine then you don't bother having to do it on every single image you process. I think actions would be beneficial to me for formatting images for output on the web. I can make the adjustments to one image while recording them and then play them over the entire folder I want to put online.
If there is a process in the sequence that you don't want to run you can stop that from being applied to other images by turning that action off.
I still feel that in my workflow I work better at the processing stage in Lightroom. I also feel like I want to consider each image individually and therefore running actions like monochrome conversions would not be suitable for me at the moment.
Man Ray at NPG - BBC review
The BBC news website was running a piece on the Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which opens today. Exhibition closes 27 May.
Monday, 4 February 2013
An introduction to Man Ray
Man Ray was a modernist artist and significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements in photography. He is best known for his avant-garde work and his portrait and fashion images.
He was born in 1890 in America to Russian-Jewish parents and showed his creative talents from an early age. Before working in photography he experimented with other art forms like painting and sculpture but it is his work in photography that he is best known for.
Some of his best work was produced for his Electricity portfolio consisting of ten images primarily photograms or rayograms as Ray renamed them. Solarized images have a degree of tonal reversal was a particularly good technique which allowed him to show pulsating energy.
His most famous image from this series is a portrait of his lover, photographer Lee Miller. We can see he has used montage and solarisation in this image. It is cropped tightly to give the appearance of a torso and an anonymous object. She is like a type of goddess. The new, modern energy system is rooted in the new goddess.
I feel there is a definite energy in this image. It is surreal and irrational. He has given us the opportunity to view the unviewable - electricity.
Looking back at my work on assignment 4 on this course I found myself at a crossroads in relation to my photography. This section forced me to delve into the unknown and leave the technical considerations behind. I realise now that my technical ability has improved which will enable me to become a lot more creative in my work.
I like May Ray's ability to capture things that we can't necessarily see like electricity for example. I am also keen to experiment with some of the techniques he has used in his work.
He was born in 1890 in America to Russian-Jewish parents and showed his creative talents from an early age. Before working in photography he experimented with other art forms like painting and sculpture but it is his work in photography that he is best known for.
Some of his best work was produced for his Electricity portfolio consisting of ten images primarily photograms or rayograms as Ray renamed them. Solarized images have a degree of tonal reversal was a particularly good technique which allowed him to show pulsating energy.
His most famous image from this series is a portrait of his lover, photographer Lee Miller. We can see he has used montage and solarisation in this image. It is cropped tightly to give the appearance of a torso and an anonymous object. She is like a type of goddess. The new, modern energy system is rooted in the new goddess.
"Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information."
I like May Ray's ability to capture things that we can't necessarily see like electricity for example. I am also keen to experiment with some of the techniques he has used in his work.
The National Portrait Gallery is running an exhibition of Man Ray's portraits from 7 February to 27 May and I am looking forward to going. I feel that it will be a great opportunity to see more of his work and to learn more about surrealism in portraits.
Surrealism in photography
The Surrealist movement officially began with the publication of Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924.
We are all familiar with the work of Dali who is undoubtedly the most famous surrealist painter. However, what exactly is surrealism and what is its role in photography?
Surrealists viewed the reason as a force that blocked the passage to their search for the imagination. To find the imagination they looked to the subconscious. In looking at the unconscious mind they explored dreams, intoxication, sexual fantasy and madness. Their quest was to find the inner beauty of a world we do not know.
Photography as an art form played a major role in the surrealist movement - the main protagonists being Man Ray and Maurice Tabard. Techniques like montage, double exposure, combination printing and solarization were used to capture the dream world they sought.
Solarization was a technique that was used in Man Ray's Electricity series. It is essentially where the image in a negative is totally or partially reserved in tone resulting in dark areas appearing white and vice versa. This is due to the halogen ions released within the halide grain during exposure diffusing the grain surface in adequate amounts to destroy the latent image. This method created a particularly surreal effect.
In this image by Tabard we can see many of the techniques at work. This provides a move away from traditional formalist photography and presents us with a world that is unknown to us.
In addition to these techniques, surrealist photographers looked to the meaning of a photograph and the fact that this meaning can change based on people's interpretation. This saw the snapshot, medical pictures and mugshots take on new meanings roles.
We are all familiar with the work of Dali who is undoubtedly the most famous surrealist painter. However, what exactly is surrealism and what is its role in photography?
Surrealists viewed the reason as a force that blocked the passage to their search for the imagination. To find the imagination they looked to the subconscious. In looking at the unconscious mind they explored dreams, intoxication, sexual fantasy and madness. Their quest was to find the inner beauty of a world we do not know.
Photography as an art form played a major role in the surrealist movement - the main protagonists being Man Ray and Maurice Tabard. Techniques like montage, double exposure, combination printing and solarization were used to capture the dream world they sought.
Solarization was a technique that was used in Man Ray's Electricity series. It is essentially where the image in a negative is totally or partially reserved in tone resulting in dark areas appearing white and vice versa. This is due to the halogen ions released within the halide grain during exposure diffusing the grain surface in adequate amounts to destroy the latent image. This method created a particularly surreal effect.
In this image by Tabard we can see many of the techniques at work. This provides a move away from traditional formalist photography and presents us with a world that is unknown to us.
In addition to these techniques, surrealist photographers looked to the meaning of a photograph and the fact that this meaning can change based on people's interpretation. This saw the snapshot, medical pictures and mugshots take on new meanings roles.
Dadaism in photography
Dadaism was an art movement born out of the horrors of the first world war. As a movement it had strong anti-war politics and was anti-bourgeois. It rejected logic and welcomed the irrational. It was the beginning of abstract art and laid the groundwork for movements like surrealism and postmodernism.
In photography this rejection of reason and logic manifested itself in the use of the photomontage. We can see this at play in the work of Hannah Hock. Her image Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany focuses on Dada's dissatisfaction with the Weimar Republic. We can see various slogans in the image like 'Anti-Dada movement' pasted over portraits of Wilhelm II.
In essence Dada in photography introduced artists that were anti-pictorialist. In Europe these photographers saw photography as a cultural force and viewed it as socially progressive. Fine art was being replaced by an art based on popular culture. Art was to be for the proletariat and would become a force for social change.
(C) Hannah Hock
Hock was particularly focused on the role of women in society and the method of cutting out images with a scissors to make an image provided a link to the domestic realm.
In this image we can see that women have a role to play. The image hints at women's suffrage and their domestic situation. She contrasts traditional domesticity with images of progressive women like actresses and poets.
Other photographers that were influenced by the Dada movement include Man Ray, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Laszlo Maholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky.
If we look at Lissitzky's famous photomontage The Constructor we see an image from his self portrait series. It is a modernist statement. He produces a collage of future man using his head, hands and other instruments like a compass. There compass has drawn a circle which acts like a halo for this prophet.
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