Most
of the images on wm-arts.com are composites or make use of
compositing. That is they are made up of two or more separate
pieces of art that have been put together: composited. You
can think of the process as being the digital version of collage,
but because it is digital, much more can be done with the
work. The intent of this section is to provide a general idea
of the process. For books on Photoshop and digital graphics
see the Product and Links
page. Instead of a mouse, I use a graphics tablet with a "pen."
Made by Wacom, see Products
and Links page, this is a small pad or tablet, connected
to the computer, and a pen-like device with plastic tip and
a plastic "eraser," that allows one to draw digitally
in a very natural way.
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Still
Life Number 3 is made up of four pieces on a black background.
Each piece had to be removed or "extracted" from
its original source. Photoshop offers many ways to do this,
but for this the demonstration I use only one. |
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The
Crandall grapes, when scanned have several problems: the
leaves on the left side are incomplete and the grapes are
cluttered with light brown stems that seem to confuse the
image.
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This
is a close up the the lower of the two leaves on the left
side of the image that need to be painted in. |
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Here,
the leaf has been completed. Photoshop offers several ways
this can be done. Most of the work was done with a "cloning"
tool: I selected a small area of leaf that I then duplicated
and pasted into the area where I was rebuilding the missing
leaf. I also use a paint brush, selected an appropriate
color and painted with it.
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Remembering
that the task now, after filling in the missing leaf sections,
is to extract the grape cluster with its leaves, so that it
can be used. One way is to start by erasing the unwanted background.
Photoshop has a gray and white checkered background that shows
through when the color (pixels) has been erased or cleared.
The small circle just to the right of the top of the leaf
is the size and position of the eraser at that moment. |
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Here
is another way to begin to extract the grapes and leaves:
painting the background white. The circle in notch is the
size and location of the paint brush, which is painting
white. There is also an extraction tool, which is drawn
along the edges and the software determines what to cut
out. It isn't much less work, but it doesn't always make
the choices I would make. My work method, however, is what
I am most comfortable with.
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This
is the full screen in Photoshop, with the background completely
removed. In the Hollywood method (as portrayed in movies
or on TV), one could simply select the background and erase
it: two clicks of the mouse. When I have painted in the
background as pure white that is exactly what I do, but
the background before I paint it white (there is no pure
white in the image--sometimes I paint pure black) contains
colors in the grapes and leaves, and if I were to simply
select it, I would end up erasing pixels from inside the
art I want to keep.
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Here
are the four, extracted elements of Still Life Number 3. In
the next part of the demonstration these will be composited
and some of the colors adjusted.
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