out of the loop

Why I Should Write Photoshop Tutorials

How To Pull Text & Typography from Low-Res Images

It's a week before tech for SCLO's Hello Dolly in the McKinney Theatre. Our scenic painter needs a transperancy of a period window sign for the millinery. The only source image we have is a low-res photo from Vintage Maine Images. 

Note:This fake little tutorial is meant for those who have a decent understanding of masking and making selections. 

1. Open the image in Photoshop. 

2. Duplicate the layer using cmnd+J and use the marquee rectangle tool to create a marching ants box around the desired text or image you'd like.

3. Click the "Quick Mask" button (white rectangle with the gray dot) and delete the background layer.

4. If your image is white on a dark background (like this one is), invert the colors using Image > Adjustments > Invert. Luckily, I'm working with a black and white photo so that makes this step super easy*

*with a color image you're pulling text from, you may want to use the adjustments menu to turn the image Black & White first.

5. Black text! Now we're getting somewhere. Using the marqee rectangle tool and/or the lasso tool, create a closer selection to the text and mask out the stuff you don't want to see anymore.

6. Fun part! Separating the light from the dark. Or increasing/decreasing the threshold of the image. Go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold and slide the little arrow down until the junk in the background disappears. As you can see in the example below, the F still has some extra pixels attached to it. But it's nothing we can't mask out. 

7. Once you've got the clean (yet pixelated) text, save the image as a .jpg and close Photoshop. 

8. Open a New Document in Adobe Illustrator (whatever size you'd like). I made my document 1000px by 1000px. In your new image go to File > Place and select the .jpg you just saved in Photoshop.

9. There's your image! All pretty and ready to be vectorized. 

10.  Go to Window > Image Trace. In the Image Trace window, select "Black and White Logo." Make sure your image is selected during this step. Image Trace creates a sooth-n-pretty vector version of your image. 

11.  Slide around the Image Trace Threshold until it's where you like it and Voila!

A sign! 

They're in the scene shop creating the window stencil right now. 

*takes a little bow*

Saddleback Jazz Camp T-Shirt

Jazz Camp 2014 t-shirts - Adobe Photoshop CS6

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Yay for decaptitated models! 

This was an offhand request from one of the other admins. She did a quick-and-dirty design for last year's tshirts and asked if I could whip something up. 

Consider this CoolWhip. 

The Camp Director likes it simple. So simple it shall be. 

Boring rectangle images below: 

Front - 

Back - 

GIF Test

So I'm doing this thing next Saturday-Sunday. 

And I almost passed out when I got the e-mail. 

But I don't want to jinx it. 

To keep as vague as possible, I was asked to report on my proficiency in the Photoshop techniques listed below:

• layers, including multiplying
• image size vs. canvas size
• creating new canvases and cropping
• creating shapes and barreling images into shapes
• effects on images, including color overlay and opacity
• type
• GIFs!
• MASKS!
• collage layouts and overlapping
• liquify, clone tool, healing tool
• levels
• gradients
• filters
• actions

Effects, masks, layers are candy. I've been working on creating actions and freshening up my liquify skillz.

But GIFs? I've never made a gif before. 

#awkwardlypeaceful

Thanks, Google!

Graduation Invitation & Poster Series

 

 

 

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Graduation Invitation (Front/Back) - Adobe Photoshop CS6 - Adobe InDesign CS6 - Photography by Lucy Darby

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Look at them, darnit. They're so grown up. 

My mom refuses to throw the standard black-and-white graduation party. So she asked me to do a Ferris-Bueller-inspired invitation and poster set as decor. 

Considering she lets me live in her house and eat most of her food, there was little protest on my part. 

A photoshoot and some editing later, our Costco prints were ordered. 

 

Each of these peeps get their own poster. Which I think is a totally cool and unexpected grad gift.

What's great about photographing Jon, Nathan and Tori is that I've been shooting them for years. They're used to my camera in their faces and they need little encouragement to get them to play along.

They had fun. I had fun. We all had fun. 

I realized during this project that I love... not working for other people. Yes, mom said "hey can you do this." and I said "yes." But being in charge of the photography and design and overall feel of each of the prints made me really quite happy. And I know it's not a very elaborate undertaking. 

All the same, it felt good. It's what I would want for my future as a designer and an artist.

Basically, to do good work that makes me happy. Period. 

Godspell Concept

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Urban. Sophisticated. Smart. Hipster. 

Album cover. 

And then: Banksy. Shepard Fairey. 

These were the buzz words from the Godspell concept meeting last week. As their unofficial in-house graphic designer, guess who has the pleasure of taking on this project?

Above is one of three concepts I've created for the director and set designer to look at. Hipster album cover and street art aren't exactly conflicting ideas... but they're two different cultures. I want the basis or the foundation artwork to be clean. 

Then maybe destroy (improve) it with some spraypaint or sticker logo or something. 

Concept two. Obviously heavily inspired by Banksy.  This one just looks like a movie poster for a love story between modern-day Judas and Jesus. 

Which, hey, totally could've been the case. 

Yay sunday school!

A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms - Poster

A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms - Poster - Adobe Photoshop CS5

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I don't know if ya'll recall my Mozart/Mendelssohn poster. The director/conductor wanted something "young, funky, and hip" so I gave him "hipster Mozart."

On a tight deadline, I didn't get any direction for this one... so I assumed he wanted the same concept. And I thought it would be kinda neat to make the choir concerts looking like they belonged in the same series of bespeckled dead composers.

Not so:

While I LOVE the quirkiness of this, the “hipster Brahms” doesn’t really speak to the seriousness and breadth of the work. I hate to be difficult (you know that). This has to have an “eternal” feel to it. Earthy. Massive.

So take two, with more weight and infiniteness:

 

He loved it.

So it's going to print.

Another one off my list!

 

Summer of Theatre - Poster

Summer of Theatre poster - Adobe Photoshop CS5

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Godspell - Poster

Godspell poster - Adobe Photoshop CS5

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They gave me the photograph of our outdoor setup for Children of Eden. This was... August 2012. A few days before my 19th birthday. Basically, the hottest three days of my life were spent setting up the stage, the lights, the flats, etc. Two of us almost passed out from the heat.

It was awesome.

This year we're doing Godspell outside under the stars on the campus quad. Usually, the summer conservatory shows don't get advertised very much... very at all. So our fearless leader was insistant that this show got it's own posters, flyers, ads, blah blah blah.

Another two hour design. Everything could always be better, but on a deadline: "it's not terrible."

Summer of Theatre - Advertisement

SCLO Summer of Theatre advertisement - Adobe Photoshop CS5

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Fairly straightforward. This is the 4"x6" ad that goes on the back of the brochure. A 20-minute project that was due today.

I intend to use the fonts for the poster design... maybe not the starry vintage background though.

Poster soon to come!

All In The Timing - Poster

All in the Timing poster - Adobe Photoshop CS5

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SO.

The public relations officer put me in touch with the director of this show. Who gave me the following request:

I see a very dark poster that is dark all around but in the middle there is light that illuminates a three sided boxing ring with two couples inside the ring playing miniature golf and in the very back background of the whole frame is a mass of furniture, stacked on top of each other from floor to almost ceiling but it is very vague and whimsy at best.  (sort of 1776 only modern day – the stack of furniture.)

Easy, right?

I set my own record for how hard I procrastinated on this project. Because I'm a perfectionist, I have to know that I can do it perfectly or it won't get done at all.

But a deadline is a deadline. I sat myself down for 5+ hours and struggled with trying to get all the aspects of his poster into my design.

 

 

But it just wasn't happening. I wasn't happy with how anything looked.

And then I found a sketched illustration of a windmill. I kept going back to that image after reading the synopsis of the play. Time passing, movement, slow, deliberate... and there's still a little hat tip to mini golf.

Still freaking out that it wasn't exactly what he wanted and I was failing him as a designer, I plugged away at my little antique poster.

I sent it off with the following note:

I discussed with Nina about the whole miniature golfing aspect of the design and we both agreed that it was too much to include within the design. I CAN incorporate the silhouette of a couple walking... or maybe a mini golf flag/hole in the corner...

I want the visual to be simple and striking and eye catching.

I want people to be intrigued.

So please let me know what edits I can make to the attachment (which is my interpretation after reading the play synopsis and your ideas and having Nina's input).

His response?

I love this poster.  Thank you so much, you are a wonderful designer.  Don’t change anything.

AND I WONDER WHAT ON EARTH I WAS WORRIED ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE.