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Pixels and Waves
Adventures in Digital Art
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January 2007
- Vol 2, Issue 1
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In This Issue
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Quick Links
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Dear Ignatius,
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Winter has arrived here at headquarters with
chilling temperatures... but not quite chilling
enough to surmount the warm thoughts we're thinking
regarding the upcoming happenings sure to take place
this year. 2007 is looking to be very important...
in more ways than one, for us all.
Here's hoping you enjoy this first issue of Volume
2... as always, do feel free to get in touch with
feedback, let me know what you'd like to read here.
I think it'd be interesting if someone sent in a
short article, too, perhaps you... it would add a
fresh voice to the mix. Think about it, OK?
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Information! A little paraphrasing from Patrick
McGoohan's The Prisoner, there, but it's
completely
true. That is indeed what people want from the
internet. Information in any form... articles,
directions, prices,
lists, music, videos, even games and chat... it's
all information.
That a 7 year old's first thought is to "Google it"
should be a good harbinger of the increasing
necessity of having every pertinent scrap of
information on your products and services easily
available online. Easily is the key word. Once
visitors land on your front door, your home page, it
must be clear to them where they need to go to find
the information they seek. Decisions are made so
quickly, in a few fleeting seconds, as to whether
they click a button or click back to Google, that
the need for clear visual impact with quick
understanding becomes highly
important. There mustn't be any possibility of
mistaking what things are.
The site needs to be laid out by the designer in a
manner
that's graphically appealing, contextually
understandable and practically compatible
with the target
market segment the website
calls their own, while working in concert with
engineering to create
a seamless flow of data between all of the site
components in a
fully functional infrastructure. Once that
integration of design and technology is in place, a
business can be assured that the site will perform
to their expectations.
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A delightful color tool for artists
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It's always been exciting, and also relaxing, to
create works of art on the computer... the digital
revolution surely does allow us to create things
that we could only really imagine before. My images
are usually a bit otherwordly... the one on the left
is a thumbnail of my latest. Most every application
is equipped with an eyedropper, the tool that lets
us grab some irresistable color off the screen,
which is a wonderful feature and so basic when you
think about the whole point of the software. Over
the years, though, it can sometimes be a bit of a
frustrating feature as well, since in most programs,
that irresistable color needs to be on one of the
program's own windows. Well sometimes it just isn't,
it's somewhere else. This can lead to all manner of
workarounds to get the code for that color.
I had long resigned myself to this situation, as I
imagine most everyone has. Then one day I was
looking at a newsletter that had a link to what was
touted
as a must-have app... it was a program called
ColorPic, from a company called Iconico, so I
checked it out... it only runs on Windows, though, which
was OK since I'd switched... and it really is an
amazing little tool. It will grab any color from
anywhere on the screen, viewed through a little
yet highly magnified window located on its panel
which it can actually see through; the picker is
just one pixel,
so it has the precision I like and usually
need. Amazingly, it's free. Mostly I just use it
to get the color code, but it has all sorts of useful
features like custom palettes and several ways to
look at the data. Oh... I'm not in any way
connected to these
folks, I just thought I'd share this as it's saved me a
heck of a lot of time and it's free
to boot. Can't beat that. They make quite a few
other interesting
things too, some free, some not. So... if you're on
a PC,
in a
cross-platform shop, or run Windows apps on your Intel
Mac then most definitely get this
program.
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Adding vibrance in Photoshop layers
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Truly an amazing program, Photoshop, with its
capabilities so numerous that even pros with years
of constant, daily professional use discover new
tricks all the time, is useful beyond all
expectations. There are websites, forums
and magazines devoted to this one application. And
I refer only to it's out-of-the-box form. There
are a multitude of add-ons that extend it even
further.
Anyway, enough of that. Let's say you are working on
a project and you've made up a layer that you really
are well pleased with. It could be anything, a
shape, an image, a pasted photo, text.
You may at times, however, come to the conclusion
that it's still missing
something... it doesn't "pop" enough, there's not
quite the definition or the contrast or the vibrancy
to the layer that you'd envisioned.
I chanced on this trick a while ago while
experimenting one day. As you may know, the layers in
Photoshop interact with each other. They even do so,
I've found, if your blend mode is set to normal.
I had stumbled across an easy way to get the layer to
stand out without affecting its style.
All I'd done was to make a duplicate layer, with
both layers at
normal blend. The color reinforcement between the
layers adds the vibrancy you seek...
and it's so simple, especially when you think about how
the program works. You can repeat it more than once
to amplify the effect if needed. Give it a try,
you're sure to
like it.
I really should note here that this
technique will
work in any imaging program that uses layers with
blend modes, so it's something that you can take
with you. In the picture, the word 'view' has been
given this treatment...
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That brings us to the close of the first issue of
the New Year and I do hope it was an enjoyable read
for you. Our readers have a variety of interests and
I'll be sure and cover them all as time goes by. Do
feel free to contact me if you have any feedback,
questions, concerns or to discuss any project ideas
you may have. With that, I wish you a healthy and
happy time filled with prosperity. Be well.
Sincerely,
Iggy Makarevich
IFM Productions LLC
phone:
203.253.8391 cell or 203.661.9326
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