Archive for the ‘EVERYTHING’ Category
Hey! Let’s take a trip down Lake Shore Drive!
You don’t know HOW to use the Pen Tool? Why not?
Watch this video first, then launch Photoshop and try it yourself.
You can use the map included on this page.
Happy lever-pulling!
Why simulate a seamless backdrop in Photoshop when you have the real thing in the original shot? How does one simulate light on paper? Both of these questions will be answered in the first video tutorial. The second video will describe a technique to eliminate banding at all sizes of output, from web banner to trade show banner, kiss your banding goodbye!
Read More
In facial retouching, blemishes are covered over using adjacent area samplings. Here we will employ the Clone Stamp Tool in Adobe Photoshop. We will begin by extracting lines from the Live Trace function in Adobe Illustrator. These lines help define the topography of the face, and assist the retoucher in seeing the best opportunities for adjacent sampling.
Read More
Stock photography is so practical. It isn’t usually too expensive, and it’s a quick way to show your client a lot of concepts quickly. What happens if the stock you are seeing doesn’t match the concept in your mind? It’s tempting to open Photoshop and begin modifying, but what if you need to modify more than half of the live area? Well, depending on what you’re doing, I’m going to recommend getting a different piece of stock. Are you surprised that I am recommending NOT going the retouching route?
Read More
Before you can isolate an object with a path, you have to be able to see where the anchor points should fall, and which of three types of curve will connect them. Then drag your lever points out to roughly one-third the length of the curve, and voila! Easier than it sounds, watch the video below, then download LADY_FACE.pdf, open it in Illustrator and use your Pen Tool. Good luck!
Read More
The best thing about Seth Godin’s book on user experience in the marketplace, is that it isn’t only theory anymore. Employing a less invasive approach seems to pay, if you have something worth selling. News Flash: The old “foot in the door” is not only ineffective, it can eliminate the potential for future sales. Customer service seems to be how the battle is won or lost. By situating the customer service at the beginning of the customer relationship, a higher degree of trust is gained. Rewarding the people who care about your product is not the only strategy employed here, you must also listen to the people who don’t like it, and once you’ve compiled that all important email list, not the one gotten through purchase, but through sweat and labor, you can expect better receptivity to sales initiatives (your customer base will show you more love).
Read More
Julien Smith and Chris Brogan are at the forefront of their field… Their field being, teaching us ALL how to blog, and how to market ourselves. In the book, they discuss a diverse set of topics relating to affiliate marketing, customer service and social communities. I think that the information here is adaptable to a lot of fields, and will probably have a good shelf life, largely due to fact that many of the rules-of-thumb for social media seem to revolve around common sense principles of etiquette. Listening, adaptability and critical thinking seem to be critical skills for every trust agent to possess. It seems like these co authors spend a good chunk of time in observation of people in unrelated fields. One of the charms of affiliate marketing, apparently you can be nicely compensated for acting as an observant fly-on-the-wall. This book has helped me to better understand what type of tone might be best for blog posts.
Read More
“The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” is the tagline for this book by Clay Shirky. Before I began reading this book, I thought that social change was plausible through online initiatives, but I had no idea how extensive the changes could be, or to what extent this had already begun. I certainly had no idea that these groups could be self-stearing. Here, the author makes the assertion that there are all kinds of things about social media that nobody could have expected. The author talks about every internet-spawned social phenomenon, from the “ice cream flash mobs” in Belarus, to the fund raising efforts of Josh Groban’s fans (Grobanites). In case study, after case study, Shirky attributes these changes to pre-existing social dynamics superimposed over the technology of web2, rather than being the effect of the technology itself. If you’re still not convinced that social media is anything but a fad, read this book. It is a difficult book to put down, and it may inspire you to start a meme of your own.
Read More
Every time you sneeze, Seth Godin writes a highly pertinent book about marketing. Apparently the title was changed from “All Marketers Are Liars” to appease a rattled readership. I doubt if that’s actually true, because every time I mention the title(s) of this book to people who are in marketing, they laugh, nod and concur. I read the book because I’m a freshly reborn freelancer. My reputation consistently lodges at the agencies where I work, but because I’m a “behind the scenes” person, well don’t get me started… I now believe that unless I begin to tell a compelling story all my own, I won’t be as able to sell my services on a broader scale. Now ordinarily, I wouldn’t be interested a book of this title, but Godin’s reputation as the author of “Permission Marketing” makes this book seem somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and nothing here contradicts that book. Godin simply asserts that we people don’t buy products or services, we buy stories that fit with our personal world view. As visual marketers we’ll do well to embrace this idea.
Read More
In the opening chapter of this book, Chris Brogan points at the irony that nearly all the information covered in the book is also available on his blog, at ChrisBrogan.com. I bought the book anyway, because I wanted Brogan’s riffs in portable, shatterproof form. This book describes setting up a blog, utilizing Facebook and Twitter presence to generate leads, and stay in touch with your community. The book is full of actionable pointers, to help you hit the ground running. Brogan’s writing (like his blog) is funny and insightful. A great book if you’re already convinced you, or your company will benefit from having a presence on Facebook and Twitter, and are ready to devise a plan of action. The enthusiasm of the author is somewhat infectious.
Read More
Clay Shirky is all about case studies. His writing is very easy to follow. Before I began reading this book, I was of the mistaken impression that social media was just a macrofad. Now, I realize that the heart of the matter has more to do with connectedness, and the great feeling we get when we’ve done something nice. My wife read it and liked it! I plan on passing my copy to my father-in-law, who teaches sociology, because this book is more about sociology than technology. The text doesn’t get gummed up with tech speak. After reading all the case studies set before you by the author, you can’t help but think that there is something larger behind the success of social media than just technology.
Read More
I photographed a “cirrus uncinus” cloud last week, which means “hooked curly hair” in Latin. This is one of the pointiest clouds you’ll ever see, and it crops up again and again in the paintings of Dali. When even the clouds seem to point at Jesus, can you be confused about the subject? Dali knew how to control the human eye. He knew how to have one subject. Ask yourself these questions: Do my compositions have one subject?
Read More
One of my favorite pictures is Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. There’s such a vivid palette of colors that capture the way night really looks. If you look at any Hopper painting, you’ll nearly always notice a geometry that consists of tapering quadrilaterals, usually created by a doorway or a window, or an opening of some sort. The most dominant of these quadrilaterals usually points left. Why?
Read More
The radial blur filter is difficult to control because the interface doesn’t let you position the effect with a preview. One day it occurred to me to just make a big document, and place the image relative to the effect, rather than the other way around. If you combine equal parts of the spin and zoom filters, you can get something that resembles focus. Not bad for a motion filter!
Read More
Do you know how to use the lens blur filter to create the illusion of depth? Gaussian blur is a good way to visually smooth regions that need smoothing, but it’s NOT very convincing at depth of focus, because it is a “nearest neighbor” blur, rather than a blur based on optics algorithms, which take the entire image into account while calculating regression, and utilize geometries outside the rigid 45 degree constraints of gaussian. At first it is hard to see the usefulness of the lens blur filter, since the interface is slow as molasses…
Read More
Vignettes can emphasize your subject. Here’s an image that could benefit from some contrast, since it is largely comprised of gray tonalities. At the same time, it’s hard to know where to look. Is the subject the teapot on the stove? Is it the tree? I would like to make the tree outside the window my subject, so I can lead your eye to the middle of the frame with this simple conventional photographic device called the vignette. Watch this video to understand how it can be useful.
Read More
Thinking about agencies as a bundle of services is problematic, especially set against the backdrop of a steadily shrinking economy. As the services agencies offer become more prevalent, and thereby less expensive, something has to compensate for the institutional costs imposed by agency structure itself. If outsourcing becomes the stopgap for this shortfall, what’s to prevent your clients from arriving at the same conclusion?
Read More
01. Does it really look like you?
02. Are you in your happy place?
03. Are you recognizable?
04. Are your features clear?
05. Do you look sincere?
06. Are you large enough?
07. Do you look friendly?
08. Are you approachable?
09. Would people hug you?
10. Eyes engaged?
There’s a better way to smooth out those wrinkles, and I’m not talking about botox. This is the first of a series about retouching lines on the forehead. I’ve had this concerned look on my face since I was twelve. Here’s how to minimize lines without that costly name brand anti-age serum. If you’re thinking the answer is Gaussian, you’re wrong!
Read More
If I had a dime for every time I had to clip a picture of a man in slacks, I’d be a rich man. The issues with clipping a subject like this are similar to tracing Lake Shore Drive. But before we clip, let’s look at some flaws, and devise a strategy to repair them. Once you have your wishlist for the image, begin with the easiest things for you to tackle.
Read More
At a company where I once worked, the day after the annual holiday party held a nasty tradition. Everyone would punish the tardiness of the last to arrive by trashing their cubicle. With the exception of the pregnant, no one was exempt from this team-building exercise in cruelty. Even the president of the company had his office filled with wadded paper, rubbish and balloons.
Read MoreHey! Who clipped a hole in the fence? And why right here? I’ll tell you why, because it’s one of the best skyline vantage points in the city of Chicago. At both dusk and dawn, you’ll see film and television crews getting insert shots for news programs about “the Price of Gasoline” or “the Situation in Chicago”.
Read More
Why are these light bulbs in a cake pan? In photographic terms, what is meant by flagging? Flagging is when you use a surface to block light from reaching the camera. We use side flags in photography when we are shooting glass products. If you don’t use side flags when shooting glassware, you will need to paint edges on your glass in post. It’s better to capture this in the camera, because it helps relate the glass to the sky in the background.
Read MoreThis image is the before & after for the “Coke Bottle Project”. I’ll post a number of video tutorials on how this image was created, and how you can create your own nostalgic ad illustration, using your photos as a starting point. The first thing I did when creating the Coke bottle image was to look for a good window. If you have a window in your home that faces North or South, this is preferable. Find a window with few obstructions.
Read More
all contents copyright © 2016 Jay Hagstrom