Advanced Photoshop Class Sept 26 & Oct 3: Smart Objects

Input vs. Output Levels

http://www.zuberphotographics.com/content/photoshop/levels-output.htm

Smart Objects

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/smart-objects/

Smart Objects Part I

(After right-clicking the images from the blog and saving to your desktop)

1. Open Photoshop (From your Start Menu > Programs > Adobe CS5)
2. Open your image by going to the File menu and selecting Open.
3. Choose the File and click Open (repeat for the second image).
4. Make sure the Layers Palette is visible, if not go to Window > Layers
5. Copy your background on both images using the keyboard
shortcut CNTRL + J (Command J)
6. On the Blue Benn Diner sign make a selection of just the sign.
7. Copy and Paste the Diner sign onto the Sky image
8. Make a Duplicate Layer of the layer with the Diner sign in it. (Right Click - Duplicate Layer)
9. Make the top Layer a Smart Object (Right Click - Convert to Smart Object)
10. Resize the Diner sign on the top Layer using Free Transform (CNTRL + T). Make it very very small!
11. Resize the Diner sign on the Layer beneath using Free Transform again to make it the same size as the one above.
12. Resize both of the layers with the Diner sign to see the difference between the Smart Object and the regular layer.
13. Make various sizes of the Diner sign and locate them on the horizon and on the wing of the plane.
14. Use Free Transform and Warp to make each sign look different.


Smart Objects (Part II)

(After right-clicking the images from the blog and saving to your desktop)

1. Open Photoshop (From your Start Menu > Programs > Adobe CS5)
2. Open your images by going to the File menu and selecting Open.
3. Choose the File and click Open (repeat for the second image).
4. Make sure the Layers Palette is visible, if not go to Window > Layers
5. Copy your background on the airplane image using the keyboard
shortcut CNTRL + J (Command J)
6. On the Blue Benn Diner sign make a selection of just the sign.
7. Copy and Paste the Diner sign onto the Sky image.
8. Make the top Layer with the Diner sign a Smart Object (Right Click - Convert to Smart Object)
9. With the Top Layer highlighted, select the MOVE Tool, then ALT + CLICK the image of the Diner Sign to make a Duplicate Layer. (You will see that the Duplicate Layer is also a Smart Object).
10.  Right Click on the Top Layer and choose Rasterize. (The Layer will no longer be a Smart Object)
11. Select the BRUSH Tool and paint with any color on the Top Layer.
12. Select the Smart Object Layer and try painting on that layer.  You will see that you are not able to directly edit that layer with destructive edits.
13. Select both of the layers with the Diner Signs in them by holding down the SHIFT Key and clicking on the layers.
14. Free Transform both of the Layers at the same time to make both of the Diner Signs very small using Free Transform (CNTRL + T).
15. Keep the two layers highlighted and Free Transform both of the Diner Signs again to make both of the signs large using Free Transform (CNTRL + T).
16. Observe the change in quality to the layer that was Rasterized.
17. Delete the Rasterized Layer by Clicking the Trash Can or Dragging the Layer to the Trash.
18. ALT + CLICK + Drag the Diner Sign to make another copy.
19. Free Transform the Duplicate Layer to make a small version of the Diner Sign on the horizon.
20. ALT + CLICK + Drag from that Diner Sign to make a copy.
21. Free Transform the newest Diner Sign to make it a little bit larger.
22. Move the newest Diner Sign towards the right side of the Horizon.
23. Free Transform the same layer, and ALT + CLICK + Drag the right control point to flip the Diner Sign.  
(You can also Right + Click the Free Transform object and choose one of the Rotate options :Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical, Etc.)
24. If you double click on any of the Thumbnails for the Smart Object layers you will see the Diner Sign appear as it’s own file. This is the original image file that was saved when you made a Smart Object.  Duplicated Smart Objects share the same source so any of the Smart Object Layers will take you to the same source. If you make a change on the Smart Object source it will affect all of the Smart Objects that have the same source.
25. Arrange the Workspace so that you can see both images at the same time.
(ARRANGE DOCUMENTS ICON is at the Top of the Photoshop Window)
26. With the Smart Object Source on the Left and the Main image on the Right, use the Eye Dropper Tool (I) to pick out the tan color of the background of the sign.
27. With the tan color in the foreground of your paint colors, use the Brush Tool (B) to paint of the words “Blue Bell”.
28.  Use the Eye Dropper Tool (I) to select the black color from the word “Diner” and write your own name where “Blue Bell” was before.
29. Go to File -> Save (CNTRL + S) and Save over the previous file. If it asks if you want to Replace the previous File, choose “Replace”.
30.  You will see that all of the Smart Objects in the Main image will be changed.
31. Go back to the Smart Object file and using the Adjustments Panel choose Hue/Saturation and increase the Saturation on the Smart Object.
32. Go to the Masks Panel and Click on the Invert Button.
33. Choose the Brush Tool and paint white onto the Smart Object to reveal the Hue/Saturation Adjustments to particular areas.
34. If you make a mistake you can paint black to return the mask to the way it was.
35. Save the changes again and you will see the updates on all of the Smart Objects in the main image.

To make a Smart Object Duplicate Layer but not have the Smart Objects Share the Same Source you can right click on the Layer and Choose -> New Smart Object Via Copy

To SAVE your file with the Smart Object Layers save it as a PSD.


** Note: You can CNTRL + CLICK on the Image itself to Select the Layer that has that particular image in it.

Oct 3 Digital Photography Class Assignment: Presence/Absence

History and Philosophy of the terms Presence and Absence

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/absencepresence.htm


Articles in Cabinet

Out of the Picture by Lois Kaplan:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/21/kaplan.php



Darkness Visible by Marina Warner:

"Daguerre had first invented the diorama in Paris in 1822; his later move to invent the daguerreotype follows the logic of the contemporary quest to capture particularity with scientific realism. In some of the earliest photographic images ever made, Daguerre himself, his associates, and followers chose to picture bas-reliefs and busts and other casts. They were exhibiting the fine-grained vision of the new process, its heightened powers of scrutiny (the buttons on the uniform of the microscopic guard standing to attention outside the Louvre in one image), its quiveringly alert sensitivity to different textural gleam and luster (on marble, on plaster, on gilt and on ormolu, on plants’ foliage, on damask upholstery in an interior study ).38 But the later medium also possessed, subliminally, a kinship with “peelings off life,” as the novelist Honoré de Balzac expressed it after having his portrait taken by the new process. He confided in 1841 to the photographer Félix Nadar that he felt that “each body in nature consists of a series of ghosts, in an infinity of superimposed layers, foliated in infinitesimal films, in all the directions in which optics perceive this body.” Balzac felt in consequence that every daguerreotype “was … going to surprise, detach, and retain one of the layers of the body on which it focused. … From then onwards, and every time the operation was repeated, the subject in question evidently suffered the loss of one of its ghosts, that is to say, the very essence of which it was composed.” The new medium possessed the accuracy of lost wax casting, combined with the illusory shadowy worlds of silhouette and reflections in mirrors. Balzac’s fantasy echoes closely a once highly influential theory of vision, “intromission,” which was eloquently evoked by Lucretius and then developed by Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century; according to Lucretius’s model of perception, every object beams out images “like a skin, or film, / Peeled from the body’s surface … keep[ing] the look, the shape / Of what it held before its wandering … the way / Cicadas cast their brittle summer jackets.”40 These eerie, flying sheddings from physical phenomena, calledeidola in Greek and simulacra in Latin, were also known as “radiant species.” Like a photograph made of light, they both retain material substance of their origin but also reproduce it, as with an “idol,” an effigy, or a copy.41" http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/24/Warner.php

Artists working with these themes:


Martina Mullaney
http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/mart_mull/?show=0&img_num=0#title


Doug Rickard
http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/doug-rickard/?show=0&img_num=0#title


Mitch Epstein
http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/mitch-epstein/index.html?page=5

http://www.mitchepstein.net/work/index.html


Chris Jordan

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/katrina/#reddoor


Wijnanda Deroo

http://www.wijnandaderoo.net/Gallery.php


Sarah Palmer
http://sarahpalmerphotography.com/


Abelardo Morell

http://www.abelardomorell.net/photography/cameraobsc_01/cameraobsc_01.html

Galleries visited on our field trip

Richard Misrach at Aperture
http://www.aperture.org/2012/08/petrochemical-america/


Camila Rodrigo at Witzenhausen Gallery
http://www.witzenhausengallery.nl/exhibition_detail.php?idxEvent=340


Rosemary Laing at Lelong
http://galerielelong.com/exhibition/1353


F.S.A. Photography &  Contemporary Social Realism show at Robert Miller Gallery
http://www.robertmillergallery.com/index2.html