Apr182012

In Love With Photoshop CS4

By Ann Fiser on April 18, 2012

I recently acquired a copy of CS4 after using Photoshop 7 for years and years. One feature on it alone has made a huge difference in my ability to post reasonable facsimiles of my artwork on the web. It’s called Vibrance. One problem I always had with reproducing my work is caused by my saturated colors.  In PS7 if I approximated the values in my paintings then the colors would be become too hot and if I faded them to reduce the heat then they were too light and lost too much contrast. So they ended up somewhere in between without really solving either problem. Enter CS4. I soon discovered Vibrance under  image/adjustments/vibrance.  And I was in love!

Here’s a painting of mine that I’ve re-color corrected from what I had originally done. It’s called “Midnight Magic”

This how it currently looks on the website (hopefully to change soon)

This is after playing with the levels and getting the values closer to the actual painting. But now the color is too hot and everything is a bit harsh. This is especially true when you view it in a larger size..

I then used the vibrance plug-in to take out the heat. Took it back to levels and played it back and forth in those two until I achieved what I was after.

Here is another example that I think makes it even clearer what I’m talking about because the teals and oranges are very hot. This one is called “Forgotten Summer”. With them side by side I think it’s a bit clearer what the differences are.

"Forgotten Summer" the scan without adjustment.

"Forgotten Summer" the scan without adjustment. The colors are nice but there isn't enough contrast between lights and darks.

"Forgotten "Forgotten Summer" after levels were adjusted. The values are good now with strong darks and lights but in the process the colors are way to warm and glow too harshly.

 

"Forgotten Summer" after adjusting with vibrance

After adjusting with vibrance the colors are no longer popping out harshly and the contrast is still good.

Composite of "Forgotten Summers" at different points in color and value correction. Notice in particular how the orange shifts in the three photos.

Composite of "Forgotten Summers" at different points in color and value correction. In particular notice how the orange shifts in the three photos.

Composite of “Forgotten Summers” at different points in color and value correction

I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me to use this new tool to adjust all the pictures on Moontoe Gallery but it’s worth it. I’m also looking forward to seeing what other nifty tools PS4 has under it’s hood. When I discover that next greatest thing I will let you know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The values are good now with strong darks and lights but in the process the colors are way to warm and glow too harshly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now after adjusting with vibrance the hot glow is gone but there is still a nice contrast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I have the long time consuming job of going back and editing all my photos but I think it’s completely worth it. I’m looking forward to discovering what else is under the hood in CS4!

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Dec232011

Christmas 2011

By Ann Fiser on December 23, 2011

I’m excited to say that I’m getting a video camera for Christmas and that I will be able to make videos of working on my paintings.  And I will be blogging more about what has happened to me over this year that has prevented me from keeping up with this blog. Things are improving but more about that later.

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Jun172011

The Passage of Time

By Ann Fiser on June 17, 2011

Time, or the passage of time to be more precise has been on my mind today.  I was thinking about old movies and how they used to film a calendar with the pages flipping quickly by to represent the passage of time.  They usually started slowly and sped up.  I didn’t take much notice of the fact that they sped up at the time because it had no relevance to me. I had yet to experience the phenomenon of time moving more swiftly as I aged.  Now in my mind’s eye I see that calendar and the days and months zipping by and it has meaning for me as it never did when I was younger.

Until recently I would imagine that if I just slowed my activities and was mindful and fully present going about during my day that I might be able to re-capture that feeling I had as a child of endless days and summers that seemed to last forever.  But that hope was dashed by an article I read about the fact that as we age our brains ability to accurately gauge the passage of time changes. They asked young people to close there eyes and  tell the tester when they though a minute had passed.  Young people either guessed accurately or allotted much more time for a minute than older people who thought that a minute was much shorter than it was.  Thus a minute that feels shorter becomes a shorter month, year, etc. The question I was left with was, “Why?” Why do our brains lose the ablity to accurately judge the passage of time. If and when I figure that one out I’ll get back to you.  So time is short and will continue to get shorter for all of us,  One of the ironies is that the very young want things to happen more quickly and elders just want things to slow down a bit.

For me personally I realized that thing that was bugging me so much about this phenomenon was the feeling that there was not enough time to get everything done. When I realized it was just a faulty mechanism of the brain and that time really wasn’t speeding up no matter how much it felt like it was, that my day was still in fact 24 hours long. That meant I had as much time as ever to get things done.

My husband came to the realization a year or so ago why some houses have their Christmas lights up all year. He said it was because in those houses Christmas came around every 3-4 months.  Of course! Made perfect sense to me.

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Jun092011

The Little Things in History

By Ann Fiser on June 9, 2011

When I think about history I’m curious about the little things. Like how often did they wash their sheets in Elizabethan times? Did they even have sheets? In the time when didn’t have mirrors, were they as concerned about how they looked as we are today? What was life like in the summer and winter when you went to bed at sunset and got up at sunrise? Were you tired in the summer from too little sleep? (Keep in mind that it doesn’t get dark in the summer until about 10 and the sun comes up around 4AM here in the north) What do you wonder about when you think of history?

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Feb012011

The Wyrd Sisters and the Gift of Prophecy

By Ann Fiser on February 1, 2011

The witches of Macbetth were based on earlier references such as The Fates, and Holinsheds Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland* (1587) which described the women as “three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world,”  who gave their prophecies and vanished immediately our of sight. Holinshed observes that “the common opinion was that these women were either the Weird Sisters, that is… the goddesses of destiny, or else some nymphs or fairies enbued with knowledge of prophecy by their necromantical science. **

From Hollinshed's Chronicles

In other words, magical creatures, maybe even fariy kind.  It was only in Shakespeare’s time that the three women were described as ugly, dirty, old hag witches. At the time he wrote his masterpiece,  there was great superstition and fear around witches and the gift of prophecy.

Those who can see the future are often blamed for  making happen what it is that they’ve seen. The people that they predict the future for, often don’t want or can’t see that their own actions are leading to outcome in their future. A seer simply follows the lines into the future and tells what they’ve seen. Is the future indelible? Is it written in stone? Why have someone tell you your future if you can’t do anything about it? The truth is that, at each and every moment in our lives we shape the future with our thoughts. feelings and actions. If you don’t like what you’ve been told then change your thoughts, and more importantly, your feelings, so that your actions lead to the outcome you that you do want. And please don’t blame the messenger!

The Wyrd Sisters

In my painting, the woman on the left looks inward to see what thoughts and feelings of the past that have inspired actions. The one in the middle looks at those past actions that have led to this nexus, and finally the one looking into the crystal ball follows the lines to the probable outcome in the future.

* Holinsheds Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is a collaborative work published in several volumes and two editions, the first in 1577, and the second in 1587.

** ^ Nicoll, Allardyce; Muir, Kenneth. “Shakespeare survey”. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 4. ISBN 0-5215-2355-9

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