Best Tips for Metering ScenesBy Keith Tuomi on 4/8/2010 5:10 PMBest Tips for Metering Scenes
By Darryl Brooks
The first thing to get out of the way is whether you meter your scenes to begin with. If you just leave the camera in its default settings, set it to auto or P mode, then you have a very expensive point and shoot camera. If this works for you then great. But assuming you want a little more from your photography, let’s take a closer look at metering the light for the image you want to capture.
Depending on the camera, there are several different metering modes available. Check your camera’s documentation to determine what is available and how to change the settings. For the purpose of this article, there are two main methods of metering; some variations of evaluative metering and some variations of spot metering. Typically the default will be evaluative metering. For getting a better understanding of metering, and tighter control over your images, change this to spot metering.
Why not use evaluative or average metering? Several reasons. First, it is a highly educated, highly technical, and very refined guess, but it is still a guess. Second, if there is little or no variation in the lighting on the scene, then it doesn’t matter which method you use. But if there is a lot of variation in the lighting, or high dynamic range as it is called, then an average may or may not give you the results you want. If it is, you still can and should determine this average using spot metering. Finally, and most important, spot metering will force you to take your time, evaluate the light, and determine how you want the image exposed.
High dynamic range was mentioned earlier. This article is not about shooting and processing HDR images, nor is it about using fill flash or other lighting techniques. It is simply about metering the scene you see and determining how, or even if, you can capture what your mind sees in front of the camera. For this, we will not only be using spot metering, but manual exposure. But first, let’s use aperture priority and determine just how different the light is.
Looking at your scene or subject, determine how much depth of field you think you want and set your aperture accordingly. For the purpose of this exercise, f8 or f11 would be a good starting point, but adjust that if you need more or less depth of field. Now with that setting, aim the center point of your viewfinder at the main subject or subjects, and see what shutter speed the camera suggests. Next, meter other areas of the image, particularly any that are much brighter or darker than your main subject.
If the difference in shutter speeds isn’t more than a stop or two, fire away. You’re done. If the variance is more than that, you have some decisions to make. If you want to try and capture the whole scene as best you can regardless of the difference in light, then determine the average of the shutter speeds your camera reported, move to manual mode and use that shutter speed with the same aperture as before. This will probably give you similar results to what evaluative metering would have produced. Also bracket a bit as this may leave the bright areas too washed out or the dark areas too under exposed. The reality is, sometimes you just can’t get the shot you want under the conditions you find yourself.
But if you want the main subject perfectly exposed regardless of the rest of the frame, then meter off of that and set your manual exposure to match those settings. This may give you an under or over exposed background, but it will nail the main subject and maybe you can recover the background in post processing.
There is a caveat to that method however. What if the main subject is white, such as a wedding gown or a snowman, or the subject is wearing a black suit? The camera is going to try to move these two extremes toward middle grey. So if you meter off the subject and take the image based on those settings, your wedding gown, snowman, or black suit is going to look grey, and the rest of the image will shift to the wrong exposure along with it. One solution is to use a black and white card in a test shot so you can set the proper exposure and white balance in post, but for the purpose of this exercise, let’s try and get it right in camera.
Okay, as above, set your aperture according to your desired depth of field and meter the subject. Move the camera to manual mode and set the aperture the same. But now instead of setting the shutter speed at the recommended setting, compensate for the black or white subject. If the subject is white, set the shutter speed, one and a half to two stops slower than suggested. If black, move it the same difference faster. Now take a test shot and check the view finder and histogram. You may have to bracket or take a few test shots, but this setting will be very close to where you need to be to nail the subject and achieve an almost white or black subject correctly.
You have invested in an expensive and sophisticated piece of equipment. Get out there and learn to use it. Set you camera to spot metering and manual mode. Wander around and look at the world through that viewfinder and experiment with what you see. You will soon train your eye to see the world in f-stops and shutter speeds and this will become second nature.Read More »
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How to Use Fill FlashBy Keith Tuomi on 4/8/2010 5:08 PMHow to Use Fill Flash
By Darryl Brooks
How many times have you taken a picture of someone only to have them be dark silhouettes against a beautiful background, or have the people exposed properly and the background completely washed out? The problem is the high dynamic range of the scene you are trying to shoot. In laymen’s terms, the background is much brighter than the subject, so exposing properly for one, gives you an incorrect exposure for the other. The answer to this problem is fill flash.
To use fill flash correctly, you will have to use the dreaded manual mode. Don’t be afraid, the camera is still going to do most of the thinking for you; it just takes a little practice and planning. First look at the scene you are trying to shoot. In this case there is a person or persons in the foreground that is the main subject. Obviously, you want them to be in focus and well exposed. Behind them is the background. Do you want that in focus as well? That is a personal choice, but for this example, assume you want the background relatively focused as well as properly exposed.
To achieve reasonable focus for this scene, try a medium f-stop such as f11. At this point, you don’t need the flash, so turn it off. Put the camera in Aperture Priority mode and set it to f11. Now meter on the background. If the sunset is in the background, meter a few degrees away from it. Note the shutter speed the camera suggests for this aperture. Now you have a good exposure setting for the background.
Shift the camera to manual mode, then set the aperture and shutter speed to the settings you just saw in aperture priority mode. Frame up the shot and take the picture. If you look at it in the LCD, you should see a beautifully exposed background and a very dark, under-exposed subject. Now, turn on the flash and take the same picture again. You should see the same exposure on the background, but now the people in the foreground should be well lit. If not, there are a couple of more things to try.
If the subject is still too dark, it is probably too far away for the flash to light properly. You can either move a little closer or adjust the flash exposure compensation. Check your camera manual on how to do that, but somewhere there is a button that will turn this on. Then look in the viewfinder and you will see an exposure meter with an indicator over the center. Again, following the instructions in the manual, turn the correct knob and you can adjust this setting up or down. In this case, you want to dial it up a bit and try again until you are happy with the exposure. The same is true if the subject is over-exposed or lit too brightly. Move back a bit, or better yet, dial the flash exposure compensation down a little and keep trying until you have the perfect balance between foreground and background exposure.
Fill flash is a great tool and not just for people. Work this trick into your repertoire and you will add a lot more flexibility to your photo taking abilities.Read More »
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Who's afraid of the Model Release?By Keith Tuomi on 4/8/2010 4:57 PMWho's Afraid of the Model Release?
By: Bob Pardue
Why is a Model Release Important to a Female Photography Model?
What the heck is a model release?
I am asked over and over again what a model release is and why models are required to sign them. I want to first express that I am not an attorney and have no intention of giving you legal advice about the state and international laws surrounding model releases.
If you are really caught up in whether a model release is a legal contract and you plan to cross every "t" then I suggest that you consult with a good contract lawyer.
With that said, here is a basic explanation of what a model release is.
In short, a model release is a form of legal document that assigns the right to the photograph to a particular person or entity (such as a privately owned building, animals or any other property owned by another person or corporation).
Any published image that is taken for commercial use (except for most editorial work) must have a signed model release along with it before it can published. Your photographer will almost always ask you to sign a model release either before or after the shoot.
Since a model release will almost always be required for you to work with a professional photographer, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the different types of releases and when they will be used.
When is a model release necessary?
There are many times when a model release is not required. Examples ...
-Taking personal snapshots of your friends and family
-Shooting a picture of your house or business for your own advertising, etc.
-Paying a photographer for personal photos of yourself which you only will be using such as high school senior pictures or a family portrait (Sometimes a photographer will ask for a release to show these also but it is generally not required)
- If you are in the middle of a news story and your photograph is used in the local newspaper or on national TV.
But none of the above has a thing to do with being a professional girl photographers model.
So, when are you required to sign a release?
Anytime you are being paid for your modeling services no matter if the payment is in money or you are trading your talents for photographer services (explained further below) you will be asked to sign a model release 99% of the time. As a professional model the release will become a fact of life to you.
What you should ask the photographer before signing a model release
First, you should have already done your homework before the subject of the release is brought up. If you have already conducted your research for that particular photographer or he / she is a well-known, published professional, then you can feel more at ease in most cases when it comes to the model release.
If you are not familiar with the photographer, check some references first.
You should ask your photographer some simple questions before signing a model release but the main one is ...
How will my images be used?
There are many reasons photographers need model pictures including ...
-To show in his or her portfolio
-To show on an online portfolio (Internet)
-To sell to magazines or newspapers for editorial usage
-To use for clients in advertising situations (i.e. As a photo on a product, etc.)
Many of these questions about usage will be answered when you apply to work with the photographer but if not, it's a good idea to find out the intent.
Model release types
There are basically two types of model releases; adult and minor.
The adult release is signed by the model if he or she is over 18 years old.
The minor model release, on the other hand, is for any photographers model under the age of 18 and must be signed by a legal parent or guardian. No one else has legal right to sign this release and normally the photographer will ask you for an I.D. like a license or birth certificate.
If you are a minor, even if you are one month away from becoming 18 years old, do not try to present yourself as 18 and go to a model shoot. It will only cause problems and you will come away with no photos and a bad reference from that photographer. Get permission and have one of your parents come with you to the photo session.
What about tfp and photo exchange?
Just as in a paid photo session, a model release will be required in tfp and photo exchange situations.
If you are not familiar with these terms, here is an explanation below ...
Time for print (tfp / tfcd)
Many photographers will work with you on a trade after you have acquired professional photos to show. This time for print (tfp) or time for cd (tfcd) is an effective way to gain images to add to your emerging portfolio.
A TFP / TFCD photo session is fairly basic. You trade your time and talent for the photographer's time and talent. You get images for your book and she gets images for her book.
It's a win-win situation for both of you and a terrific way to add to your model portfolio.
If you work with six to ten photographers using this system you will end up with an awesome portfolio!
But, be sure to follow the same guidelines and safety rules you would with a paid model shoot. Do not go just because it's free. There are some people out there you just would not want to deal with.
Do you sign a model release when working on tfp? Absolutely! I do not know of a single professional photographer who will work tfp without getting a model release signed.
Photo Exchange
A photo exchange session is similar to TFP except that it's more geared toward the photographer using your images for commercial or editorial use. This method is used mainly by stock photographers to trade with models since they do not normally need photos for their portfolio.
Two types of stock photographs are rights managed and royalty free.
Royalty Free Stock
Royalty free are images listed for sale for unlimited use by the client which means the image is sold to the buyer and the buyer can use or alter the photo in any way he or she likes. Choose your photographer carefully when shooting for royalty free stock photos because he will not have much control over where the images will be displayed.
Model release required? Simply yes!
Rights Managed Stock
Rights managed means a photo is licensed for a specific use over a certain period of time to magazines, newspapers, ad agencies, etc.
Rights Managed is still stock photography but the image maker has a little more control over where and how the images will be used.
The plus side to stock photography is that you may do a photo exchange model session, open your favorite magazine one day, and there you are!! Quite exciting, isn't it? And, a published stock photographer can give you some well-planned, unique photos whether you do commercial, fashion, glamour or female form photography.
All this came from your signing a model release. Not a bad tradeoff!
One more thing about Free Model Shoots
Other than free photos and exposure in a national magazine (maybe), another advantage of posing for a published photographer is experience. The photo exchange or tfp sessions will help you to develop your skills as a model and experienced professional photographers can be invaluable in helping with your look, posing ideas and more. So, do not discount the power of free model sessions!
In the case of female form photography or artistic nude photography
So far, we have covered model releases for fashion, glamour and commercial modeling. But, what if you are planning to do artistic nude or female form photography where you will be showing a little more of your "assets"?
No professional photographer will shoot this type of work without a model release. If he says you can pose for him in compromising positions without a release, be wary and check more than one reference. My advice is not to shoot with a photographer who doesn't want a model release. He is probably inexperienced and not someone you want to do figure modeling for, or any other model for that matter.
Where can I find an example of a model release?
You can find many web sites online who have sample model releases. On Flyerstarter.com you can find a generic model release at http://www.flyerstarter.com/documents/modelrelease.pdf.
Now that you know all about model releases (almost) you are ready to enter the wonderful world of modeling. Reach for your dream and be educated about model releases so that you will not be held back because of the fear of signing a paper. Go for it!Read More »
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Getting Started as a Designer With Flyerstarter.comBy Keith Tuomi on 9/12/2009 1:26 PMTutorial by Justin Griffith - Flyerstarter Designer
Flyerstarter’s agency-quality fully customizable design templates will save you hours of time-consuming design layout and graphic production.
Online since 2003, Flyerstarter is the world's original marketplace for print design. Download high-resolution, print-ready flyer designs in the popular layered vector (.EPS) format from talented artists, modify to your specifications, and print in-house or send to a print shop. So how do you get in on the action? Let’s examine the process of preparing a file for the site and how to get the most out of your work. DesignFirst we need something to upload. Your source files could be a pre-existing design you made for a client or something you create specifically for the site. You can use anything you want as long as it fits into Flyerstarter’s size and color specs and you have legal ownership and/or right to distribute the content in template form. This is something you especially want to check if you find yourself wanting to use stock imagery in your design, as most stock agencies explicitly prohibit reselling images in template form. If you have some illustration or photography skills, this is where they’ll really come in handy. Images that contain human beings traditionally attract more interest than those that do not, so the ability to produce original imagery will give you a distinct advantage. Keep in mind that if you do use an image that depicts a recognizable human face, you will need to include a valid model release with the flyer. It doesn’t matter if you have a crowd shot with 20 faces in it, you would still need a release for each person. Model releases are available at http://www.flyerstarter.com/documents/modelrelease.pdf. If you are a photographer or just tend to take a lot of pictures when you go out, it’s a great idea to print out a small stack of release forms and keep them in your camera bag. I shoot both model sessions and club events and I never leave home without my forms. Back to flyer design. If you find that you want to use existing work, make sure you eliminate any logos and actual contact information and replace this with faux data of your own invention or “Lorem Ipsum” text. You generally want to “sterilize” the design and make it as general-purpose as possible, at least for the target market you are going for. Make web addresses generic, change numbers to “555” prefixes, etc. My method involves plugging in made-up info for the display copy and filler text for the smaller, body copy. It’s fun to come up with fake DJ and club names and it lends a little character to your design. Try to stay away from using the name “Flyerstarter” as it gets a little tiring on the eyes to see page after page of designs that say “Flyerstarter Event” or “DJ Flyerstarter.” We’re graphic designers and should be more creative than that anyway. There are definitely certain types of templates that sell better than others. If you’re making club flyers, keep in mind that hip-hop/rap/top-40 reigns large in many areas so these themes tend to sell quickly. Make it as modern, sexy, cutting-edge as possible and you’ll have no problem moving some work. In addition to traditional flyers, the site also provides a wide variety of standard products like business cards, restaurant menus, posters, and letterhead. If you upload one product, consider expanding the theme across multiple print pieces. For example, let’s say you have a business card design you want to upload. Why not modify the design to work on a letterhead and give the client the option of a total identity makeover on the fly? You could then do the same thing for brochures, flyers, even a poster. Bleeds
As for the designs themselves, remember to add a .125” (9mm) bleed area around the edge of the design. Do this even if you don’t plan on bleeding any elements because the client might add or move artwork to the edge. It might be a good idea to use the Guides function in Illustrator to clearly section off this area. Guide-lining the bleed area is a good idea, but a better one is to place your lines about .25” (18mm) into the design to allow for breathing room between the active content and the cut edge of the paper. Fonts
Try to use fonts that are available for free or that can be substituted easily. Using a high-end and unusual boutique font to create your display copy might provide a more aesthetically pleasing result, but it won’t do much good if your end user cannot re-create the same look and feel with something off a free font site or default machine font. Personally I tend to live in the middle of this and use fonts like Helvetica and Avant Garde and Century Gothic which the user might have, but if they do not they can easily use something like Verdana or Arial or some other neutral sans font. I have also started leaving a notes section well outside the artboard area that contains links to download the fonts I used or communicate some other bit of info to minimize customer support issues for the site. EPS Format
For now we’re saving all files as EPS 7 or 8. Make sure all raster data is high resolution, 300 dpi, CMYK. EPS is a standard format recognizable and editable by a multitude of applications. Upload
Getting your files on the site is an easy process. Go to flyerstarter.com and log in to your account. From the drop-down menu at the top, hover over “Account” and select “Submissions.” A page will come up showing any previous flyers you have uploaded and their status. To the left of this is a “Submit Templates” button. Click it and it will take you right to the upload screen. On this page you will see a list of guidelines for your files as well as a chart listing several common sizes for templates. Give the lists a quick scan and make sure your files are good to go. I’ve been on the site for three years and I still go over this and make a little mental checklist just to make sure I won’t have to upload a 50MB or more flyer twice.
 If everything still looks good and you are ready to upload, scroll toward the bottom to find the submission forms. Choose the single-sided or double-sided form. Enter up to 20 keywords that describe your piece. As it says on the page: “When you enter your own keywords, they will show up on the product page under 'Artist's Tags.' These keywords will also go into strategic locations on your product page that will help search engines such as Google find them. Keywording is extremely important to helping your art become marketable, as it is the number one way people will find your art. As the number of files in the Flyerstarter inventory grows, it becomes more like a search engine; often people don't have the patience to browse past the first few pages of search results. Choosing 20 effective, descriptive keywords/keyphrases for each of your files will magnify the probability of them being found and purchased The words you choose should be an effective balance between a literal, objective description of the art, and words that people will be likely to use.” When you are satisfied with your keywords, browse to your file(s) and click submit. When your design has finished uploading, you will see confirmation at the bottom of the upload box. Read More » |
Mastering Brushes in PhotoshopBy Keith Tuomi on 9/6/2009 1:11 PMBy Gyz
All Photoshop Brushes are based on a flexible, sophisticated system which you can use to customize existing Brushes or to create new ones from scratch. When you select a tool, its corresponding options will become accessible in the upper tool bar. Being quite complex entities of Photoshop though, Brushes have a separate palette dedicated to them, as well. You can toggle this palette by relying on the F5 hotkey, or, alternatively, you could invoke it directly using the option bar of the Brush tool.
There are numerous attributes that control and define how a Brush behaves when you create a stroke with it. The level of this control could range from simple to extremely sophisticated, depending on the result you are looking for. The essential attributes of Brushes are the shape, the size and the hardness of the tool. Apart from these properties though, you may also need- or want to control optional values exclusive to the Brush system. As you will see, a wide range and fluent customizability of options are available to form the type of control you need to achieve the results you have in mind.
Accessing Brushes
Photoshop comes with rich libraries of Brushes, inviting you to organize a virtual jar containing the tools that you use most frequently in your current work. While the Brush system is infinitely flexible, the basis of an effective jar consists of the default Brushes Photoshop comes with. Regardless the unique sets and types of tools you will use and create, the most frequently used tool in the software will be the standard Brush with the shape of a circle.
To access a Brush Library, you need to activate the flyout menu of the Brush palette. Flyout menus are easy to spot on all Photoshop palettes. They are located in the upper right hand corner of every palette that has this function associated to it. The flyout menu of the Brush palette is quite rich in its contents. Notice that the menu is divided into numerous parts. The bottommost section lists the available Brush Libraries, while the upper sections give you straightforward controls of Brush management. Once you click on an available library, Photoshop will ask if you want to add these new Brushes to the jar, or, would you prefer to replace the previous Brushes with the contents of the selected library instead. Libraries can be saved out with the .abr – Adobe Brush – file extension to them and this is the file extension you will find downloadable libraries with, as well.
Brush Customization
The Brushes section of the Brush palette hosts all the optional attributes you could utilize to form virtually infinite types of control to define Brush behavior. To see these in effect, pick a Brush Tip of your choosing that has well defined characteristics. Tips resembling grass are good candidates to see the effects of various options on. Brush customization happens via six main categories and all of these have a separate set of controls. To see and understand how custom attributes do work, select the Shape Dynamics category and put a checkmark next to it. You have just activated this optional set of attributes. Now click on the word „Shape Dynamics” to access the attributes themselves.
The values you currently see on the right side of the palette are context sensitive and they are exclusive to the Shape Dynamics category. Try and adjust the different sliders and see how they affect the Stroke preview. This preview is a precise representation of what the stroke will look like if you amend the current settings.
Once you have established values for a category that you are happy with, you have multiple choices. You could lock these values in by clicking on the tiny padlock icon. Locked values will be remembered by the software and the visual results they yield will not be altered by any subsequent changes. There is one exception though, as you could deactivate the effect of the category by removing the checkmark. This will not remove the effect, but will toggle its visibility. These optional attributes are stackable, meaning that they will react to each other non-destructively to create the stroke you are looking for.
Essential Brush Shortcuts
There are multiple methods to access the most essential Brush attributes like the size of the tip and the hardness. A quite effective technique is to press right click with the Brush tool activated. This will grant access to a dialog panel you could define the Master Diameter – size – and the hardness from. You could select a fresh tip from here, as well. Once you are confident with the shape of the Brush though, you may want to gain even more effective control of the size and hardness attributes.
One of the most comfortable pair of hotkeys in Photoshop is activated using the bracket keys. Once you have a Brush in your hand and you press and hold the bracket keys, the diameter will change “on the fly”, giving you direct feedback on the size of the Brush. Keep in mind that the Brush cursor is not necessarily rendered by the software. In case you do not see the Brush cursor, then there is a good chance that you have it deactivated. To display the cursor and the shape again, press the hotkey “Caps Lock”. This is the shortcut to toggle the visibility of the Brush tip.
Being able to alter the size of the Brush intuitively is a valuable ability, but the hardness of the tool remains almost as essential as the previous property. To alter the hardness of the Brush, you could rely on the bracket keys once again, but press and hold the SHIFT modifier key while you set the new value. These four, comfortable hotkey maneuvers will make your work flow much more swift and fluent.
Creating Custom Brush Tips
Create or open up an image and select an area of it which you would like to use as a brand new Brush tip. Keep in mind that your selection will define the Brush tip itself. Once you are happy with the selection, go to Edit - > Define Brush Preset. A dialog will pop up, inviting you to name the new tip. You could do so or you could skip that step, as well. Regardless of your choice, the new tip you have just created is added to the current jar of Brushes. You will find the new tip as the last component of the jar. In case you would like to keep any of your custom Brushes, you could save them out as a variant of an existing Library, or you could create a Library from scratch. To remove and/or rename individual Brush tips from a Library, simply right click on the Brush tip’s thumbnail image in the jar and select the function you need.
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Pen Tool and Navigational Essentials in Adobe Illustrator By Keith Tuomi on 9/5/2009 10:38 AMBy Gzy
Abobe Illustrator is a sophisticated vector based application, yet there is nothing to prevent the new user from learning her/his way around with one of the most versatile tools the software offers: the Pen tool. Vector based drawing is based on the creation of intricate line segments, these are the underlying elements you either use to create customized Strokes out of them, or to Fill an area that the segments are bordering. This tutorial will show you how to create line art efficiently, using curves and straight lines you have infinite control over. This infinite control of the individual components lets you create what you have in mind with ease, and – if needed – mathematical accuracy.
Start a new document using the File - > New... selection from the upper Main Menu bar. Illustrator offers a wide selection of consensus templates. Select the A4 paper format which will be quite fine for these examples. The easiest way to access the Pen tool is to rely on the default hotkey “p”, but at first it is a good idea to take note of the tool’s location in the toolbox. At default, Illustrator will give you instant interface access to the toolbox, but, in case you can not see it, you can invoke it using the Window - > Tools path.
Illustrator comes with two toolbox layouts. You can change between these configurations by pressing the small arrows at the upper left corner of the toolbox palette. Regardless of which configuration is currently activated, you will find the Pen tool in the second group of tools in the toolbox. It is the first component of both of these subgroups. Before you start the examples with the Pen tool though, let’s see the most essential navigational commands of Illustrator. Panning and zooming the camera.
Basic Navigation
The Hand tool is used to pan the camera around, and it can be accessed by the hotkey “Space”. If you keep the Spacebar pressed, clicking and dragging on the canvas lets you define your focus region on the workspace. You also need to know how to zoom in or out. This command happens the same way as in Adobe Photoshop. There are two main options available when using the Zoom tool. While they are very different, both are very useful.
You could pick up the Zoom tool via clicking on its icon in the toolbox, or, you could rely on the hotkey “z” to get a hold of it. The Zoom tool is area sensitive, meaning you are free to define a region of any size with it on the canvas, simply by making a rectangular selection. The Zoom tool will automatically zoom to that particular region. This is one method. The other one is to rely on the keyboard shortcut CTRL, combined with the “–“, and “+” keys on the Numeric Keyboard. This technique gives you manual zooming, which is especially efficient when used together with the Hand tool.
A final tip for basic navigation yet: no matter how far or how close your zoom is on the canvas, double clicking on the Hand icon in the toolbox will always snap your view back to 100% view, which lets you observe the current state of the document in its original size. Now is the time to grab the Pen tool. Remember the “p” hotkey? Once you have the Pen tool selected, let’s see what can be done with it.
Anchor Points
The Pen tool uses different kinds of Anchor Points to define straight- or curved segments. As user, it is your call to tell Illustrator what kind of Anchor Point you need at a given position, and/or what kind of curvature - if any - is desired at the moment. This sounds more difficult than it actually is. To illustrate this, let’s see what happens if you simply click on the canvas using the Pen tool. A simple click will create your first Anchor Point, which, in this case, will be a Corner Point. Click again in the vicinity two more times, as you would construct a triangle. Notice that Illustrator will automatically draw a straight segment between the first and second Corner Points. Depending on your current Fill and Stroke settings of the tool, Illustrator may or may not start to apply the current Fill value to the ensuing shape, once you placed a third Anchor Point. The same is true concerning the Stroke characteristics. Since these two attributes – Fill and Stroke - are of essential importance, let’s address their fundamentals.
Notice the Control bar immediately below the Main Menu bar. You can activate and deactivate this interface element by the Window - > Control toggle. This interface element is context sensitive to your picks, always informing you of the attributes of the current selection. Once you have the initial, simple shape constructed, go to Select - > Deselect in the main menu bar. This will leave the initial shape inactive for a second. Select it again, using the Selection tool – hotkey “v”. Click on the shape with this tool. Notice that the Control bar will pick up the attributes of the selected shape, including its Fill and Stroke values. Notice the tiny rectangles on the Control bar with the arrows beside them. These are very important. The first, left rectangle informs you of the Fill value, while the right one registers the Stroke value of the selected element. These rectangles represent an efficient method to define the Fill and Stroke values.
Using the small arrows beside the rectangles, assign a custom color as a Fill, then, do the same to the Stroke value. Notice how the Fill and Stroke colors are changing on the shape. Before moving on, set the Fill attribute to “None”, and keep a random color of your choosing as the Stroke value. The third attribute you see on the Control bar is the Stroke weight. This is the width of the Stroke. Now that you know how to control the basic Fill and Stroke characteristics of the simple shape you just created with the Pen tool, let’s focus attention on the types of Anchor Points you could create with it.
As you have seen, a simple click on the canvas with the Pen tool will create a Corner Point. Corner Points always will generate the shortest possible distance between each other. On the main menu bar, choose Select - > Deselect if you have an active selection. Pressing Enter should do the trick, as well. Construct a new path now, by placing another Corner point to start it. Now, as you did earlier, move the pointer to a different location in the vicinity, but, instead of a single click and release, click the mouse and keep it pressed. While still pressing, adjust the mouse left and right, even up and down. Notice the resultant curvature of the segment. You have just created a Curve point. When creating a path or a shape with the Pen tool, your agenda either is to “rough in” the shape you are looking for and refine it until you are happy with it, or, you could always go for rigorous precious right from the very start, as Illustrator knows no upper limit to the complexity of a single segment, let alone a network of intricate curves.
Curve points will have Control Handles to them. These are the tiny rectangles you see on both sides of the selected Curve point. After selecting them using the Direct Selection tool – hotkey ” a” - these Handles can be manipulated separately, and doing so will have a dramatic effect on how the curvature of the segment flows. Now that you are aware of how to define Corner points and Curve points, let’s see how you can refine a segment, or a shape.
Selections and Refinement
Adobe Illustrator knows two types of selection tools. The Selection tool - hotkey “v” – and the Direct Selection tool, which you can invoke by the hotkey “a”. The difference between the two Selection tools is crucial. The first one will pick up an entire object, while the second one is suited for component-based editing. If you have a relatively complex path segment defined by seven Anchor Points, the Selection tool will select the whole segment, so you could transform it around the canvas in its entirety, while the Direct Selection tool will recognize individual components of the segment. It will let you select and manipulate Anchor Points on a point by point basis.
The first habit you want to get used to though is a simple shortcut to deselect the current selection. Whenever you are happy with the momentary state of an edited object, you could always rely on the CTRL + click shortcut, making sure you click on empty canvas space. This technique releases your active selection, letting you make another. The method gives you an efficient way of moving between simple or even more complex selections, saving you the time of doing this essential maneuver via the interface.
To refine an existing segment or shape, you need to be able to incorporate additional Anchor Points into them, and you need to know how to remove existing Anchor Points from them, as well. First of all, you need to tell Illustrator which path or shape you want to edit – your safest bet would be to rely on the Selection Tool. Select the object you want to refine, using the Selection tool. Now that the shape or path is active, Illustrator becomes context sensitive. To take advantage of this, let’s take the Pen tool once again. Position the Pen tool pointer over an existing Anchor Point. Notice the tiny minus sign displayed automatically beside the cursor. This tells you that a click would remove that particular Anchor Point. Now position the Pen tool pointer over any region of the path that has no Anchor Point on it. Notice that the Pen tool automatically displays a persistent plus sign along these regions, ready to implement a new Anchor Point into the path by a single click. Now you can construct a simple path or shape by creating a sequence of Anchor Points, and you also know how to maintain infinite flexibility by removing and adding Anchor Points.
Converting Anchor Points
To ensure this limitless flexibility, you also need to be aware of how to convert Anchor Points. Illustrator won’t carve anything into stone at all. In case you have a Curve point, but decided that you want a Corner point instead, then you could convert that point. To accomplish this, select the Pen tool, position it over the point you want to convert, then use the ALT + click and ALT + click and drag shortcuts to confirm these conversions. ALT + click is sufficient to convert Curve points to Corner points, while you would need an ALT + click and drag maneuver to convert a Control point to a Curve point. You would need to define a curvature value to the new segment – hence the need to drag.
Additional types of Anchor Points
When you will get deeper into Illustrator, you will see that there are times when you create two additional types of Anchor Points: these are the Combination Corner Points and the Curved Corner Points. A Curved Corner Point will form whenever two different – essentially separate - Curve points intersect. To illustrate this, create a curve using two Curve points, then press ALT plus click and drag over the last Curve point you created. The consecutive click with the Pen tool will create a new Anchor Point, but will leave behind a Curved Corner Point to attach the new segment to the existing segment.
A Combination Corner Point, on the other hand, forms when you need to come out from a curvature with a straight line, or vice versa. To create such an intersection, you want to convert Anchor Points according to the specific need, either to a Corner point, or to a Curve point. By doing so, you tell the consecutive Anchor Point you create to behave accordingly. Using this method, you could construct a curvature coming out of a straight line, or, you could come out straight from the steepest curvature. Either way, the resultant Anchor Points of such intersections would be Combination Corner Points.
On a final note: be aware that you can turn the visibility of the Grid on or off using the View - > Show Grid / Hide Grid toggle, and you could activate or deactivate the Snap to Grid functionality from the very same menu group. A nice trait of Illustrator is that it remembers the Snap to Grid settings, regardless if the Grid itself is shown, or not. If you need to customize the layout of the Grid, use the Edit - > Preferences - > Guides & Grid dialog. Happy and efficient drawing!
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Raster and Vector Graphics: The BasicsBy Keith Tuomi on 9/5/2009 9:23 AMBy Ron Darden
If you're a beginning graphic designer, or a new desktop publisher looking for clip art to use in a newsletter, it's important to understand the differences between raster images, which are created with painting programs, and vector images, created with drawing programs. Knowing why these two major formats exist and how they are used can mean the difference between a graphic that works the way you want it to and one that doesn't.Raster graphicsAlso frequently referred to as bitmap graphics, raster images are the most common. They are formed by a series of tiny individual squares that together create a larger picture, kind of like a mosaic is made of a series of smaller tiles.
If you were to look closely at any number of every day images you would see how these images work.
Documents that come from a fax machine or printer are made up of a series of tiny dots. The text and graphics on your computer screen are made up of a number of small image elements called pixels.
When you take a photo with a digital camera, the picture is saved in memory as a long series of bits of information representing tiny squares of colors in a grid. These are all raster-based graphics.
The main problem with using raster graphics is that they are size-dependent. Normally the dots or pixels involved are so small that they blend together and look like one continuous image. If you try to print them out at a size larger than what the file was intended for, at some point you'll start seeing the individual pieces as blocks.
Making the image smaller than it was created for can also have bad consequences. For example, a line that is printed two dots thick can disappear entirely if the graphic is printed at less than half its original size, because the printer can't draw anything smaller than one dot.
Raster graphics are typically used for complex images formed from lots of different colors and shapes, most notably photos. These graphics can be saved in a variety of formats with file extensions like .TIF, .JPG, .GIF and .BMP.Vector graphicsVector-based images follow a very different method in generating an image. These kinds of graphics don't break an image down into individual parts of the same shape. Instead, they keep track of the instructions on how to draw that image. An image of a triangle would be formed by drawing three lines of a certain thickness and length that join at their end points and then filling it with a specific color. A vector image doesn't know how many dots a printer will need to print that triangle, it just knows the size, shape, angles, colors and so forth of the parts that make up the image.
Vector graphics usually resize much more gracefully than raster-based images, because the file can just tell the computer or printer to draw the image larger or smaller than normal. The lines in such images are always smooth and do not become blocky when magnified. Because it typically has less overall information to keep track of, a vector file usually takes up less memory than a raster one. The more complex an image is, however, the more difficult it is for it to be stored in a vector format; this is why all photos except for the most basic or stylized should be in raster format instead of vector.
Diagrams, logos, fonts and other graphics that have basic shapes and curves are the main uses of vector images. The font files that generate type are stored as vector-based information, and many logos are as well. The main file extensions used with vector-based graphics are .EPS and .SVG.
Raster versus vector
A desktop publisher choosing clip art to use in a project or ordering a custom image from a graphic designer should pick a format that will best suit the intended use. If it's a photo, or an image for use on a website, you'll definitely want one of the raster-based file formats. If the image will be used in a print-based product like a newsletter or book and it consists of line art, such as in logos or diagrams, you'll probably want a vector image. Raster images can also work just fine in print projects as long as the graphic is the right size, but if you try to cut corners and print one bigger than the file can support you'll end up with a blurry mess.
If you are a graphic designer creating work for other people or saving your own projects, you'll want to create each image with its format in mind from the beginning. Paint and photo editing applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Paint, create graphics as raster images even if you incorporate vector-based elements, such as fonts. If you save a graphic from one of these applications in .EPS format it won't be automatically converted to a vector image. There are some software applications that can do that with varying degrees of success, but if you want a vector image you should create it from scratch in a drawing program like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or Inkscape. Vector images are relatively easy to convert to raster-based ones once you know what size you want them to be; the option to convert it is available in every major graphic design application, whether it's a painting or drawing program.
Once you have experience with the two major types of graphics under your belt you'll be able to choose the ones that work best for your purposes without a second thought. Read More » |