Digital Captive

Photoreal Still Life

2009-03-02T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is a still life I created as a sample for the Advanced Digital Imaging and Illustration class I teach. I had a lot of fun working on it. One of the things I love about doing composite work is playing with the subtle effects - reflections, lighting, shadows, etc. It's the little touches that really makes it all come together for me. While I could probably keep tweaking this image I have learned that sometimes it's best to call a thing 'done' - else you'll always find something else to do to it.

Also included is a thumbnail breakout of all of the original elements used to create the final piece. Enjoy!

Having Fun in Photoshop

2008-06-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been a really looooong time since I've posted, and even before that I'd been lax in my posting. Life has been really busy, I've been teaching new classes and prepping new classes, but I know, that's no excuse, I need to get on the ball and get back to blogging! I'm working on it.

To start off what will hopefully be more consistent monthly blogging once again, here is a fun little composition I did over the past few days in Photoshop CS3. Using some of the images in the Digital Imaging class library, I whipped this up for some fun and additionally as a means to demonstrate what you can do with that is available. Partially inspired by some recent surreal work by some students, partially driven by my need to create, I had a lot of fun, especially since this took on a life of its own and actually ended up in a different direction than I'd originally intended, but one that I enjoyed all the same. Hope you enjoy it too!

Student Work: Photoreal Illustration

2008-02-11T09:10:00.001-08:00

Student work by Jeremy Bransford
Commentary by Instructor Cori Ratliff

Photorealism is one of my all-time favorite art styles, so it's no surprise that I'd like to highlight this piece by Jeremy Bransford. Jeremy recently took my Computer Illustration class in the Fall of 2007 and did some amazing work during the semester. He really had an eye for detail, and put a lot of effort into his pieces. This one in particular is a challenging illustration due to all of the highlights and gradients on the boots and all of the little details. This was Jeremy's first introduction to using the mesh feature in Illustrator CS3 and I think he did an outstanding job for his first attempt with the tool.

Student Work: Surreal Composition

2007-09-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Student work by Ashleymarie Sey Debondt
Commentary by Instructor Cori Ratliff

Here is another great example of a surreal image created by an outstanding student. "Sey" creates a wonderfully ethereal feeling image that makes one stop and look. I love the use of the paper clips - not something you would expect to see in most compositions, but it really adds to the overall surreal quality. The overall effects applied to the image gives the piece a dreamlike quality and the color scheme produces a serene feel. Here is what the artist had to say about her composition:

"I titled this piece, “The Wait.” I found it to be one of the most difficult compositions I have yet to create. At first, I wanted to use a violin and an egg, but for some reason, the placement, or idea just wasn’t sitting right with me. I went through three complete layout changes in this project, and I am surprised with the result that followed. This surrealistic composition actually holds more meaning than an egg or violin.
“The Wait” is about the unexpected paths our lives brings us too; it is that one pivotal point in time which we are faced with the unexpected future.

To understand this, we must break down each part. The first thing we see is the waterfall. Water is often associated with life and death. In this case life, because blue is a calming color and the waterfall isn’t harsh, but almost like heavenly clouds.

The three paperclips symbolize the three aspects of life (past, present, future) and how we try to organize ourselves to be prepared for it. However, they are not holding anything to organize. This means that no matter how hard we try, we can never be ready with what the future has to bring us.

The snail on the window frame represents time. Eyes are often referred to windows of the soul. In this case the window frame is the window to the future, and the snail on the window frame represents time. The waterfall is part of the future coming in on the present.

In short, “The Wait” is the unexpected, unknown, and unprepared present worried about the future to come. However, no matter how much we worry, we can never organize or be completely prepared with whatever path life takes us on. All we can do is live it. We only have one life, and there is nothing wrong in understanding that we do not have a complete hold on it. Sometimes we just have to go with the flow."

Check out more of Sey's work at: http://amithystblade.deviantart.com/

Student Work: Surreal Composition

2007-07-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

Student work by Patricia Green
Commentary by Instructor Cori Ratliff

While not a huge fan of skulls and “dark” imagery, I really loved this particular piece of work by former student Patricia Green. This assignment is a surreal composition project where students take a series of images and place them into a single background scene. The goal is to make the scene look natural, with realistic lighting, shadows, and perspective. Many of the photos used in this piece were taken by Patricia herself. I thought Patricia did a really great job creating a surreal scene, and one that is highly creative. Her blending of objects and the subtle use of imagery gives this image a wonderful overall appearance. I love the reflections in the orbs, and I really liked the overall lighting and the ambience of the atmosphere. I think one of my favorite elements is how Patricia blended the skulls into the rock formations. I also enjoy the lighting on the goldfish, they really pop out to me, but they seem so real, they look like you could reach out and grab them! This was an outstanding piece of work in the Digital Imaging class. Definitely a fun assignment!

Postcard Design

2007-07-09T12:27:00.001-07:00

Another round of postcards for Cerro Coso College. Again I presented 4 designs all created in Photoshop CS2 (since I'm waiting for my CS3 to arrive). The design selected was the one with the multiple small thumbnail images with the blue footer that says "Education, for your world." My personal favorite! It's always nice when your personal favorite is selected and you get to see it come to life. The other designs were also liked and it was said would likely be transformed and repurposed for other productions. Not surprising since nearly all of last years postcard concepts have also come to life in some form or another in a variety of different designs, from theatre advertisements to the inspiration for brochure designs. Enjoy!

Student Work: Advertisement

2007-05-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

"Attack of the Killer Origami"
Student work by William Deem
A Review by Instructor Cori Ratliff

This is the second time I've featured the work of William Deem. There are definitely some new pieces from the recent class that just completed I plan on highlighting, but I love this piece, so I wanted to make sure it was included. This was a piece I found not only outstanding, but totally hilarious. This assignment was to use between 5 and 7 images to create an advertisement. The subject matter is totally up to the student. The goal is to successfully apply the elements and principles of design to create a visually compelling layout that utilizes effective use of typography and graphics. The students combine at least two images into a background texture, and then the rest of the graphics are up to them as to how they choose to implement them. Something I really liked about this piece was that the graphics really grab your attention and the use of lighting and shadows make it appear realistic. The cracked glasses and the blood, all added for the graphic effect, along with the running figures being chased by the origami in the background all add to the sense of drama in the piece. In my opinion William did a good job at capturing the feel of a movie poster, and really put the flair of "horror" into the design. I also thought the use of color with the limited color palette worked very well for the overall design and contributes to the sense of unity in the design. A really nice example of student work in my book.

Digital Painting in Photoshop: Phlegyas

2007-05-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is a character painting done in Photoshop CS2 of Phlegyas from Dante’s Inferno. While the character may not be totally accurate, I always imagined him as being more robust and more warrior-like than some of the other paintings portrayed him. This painting took around 6 hours to complete and used a variety of the custom brushes in Photoshop. I had a separate layer for all of the major elements – water, boat, skin, hair, cloak, armor, leather, mounds, sky, etc. This made color adjustment really easy. I also worked with the brushes all set to lower opacity (50% or less) so that the paint blended together and took on a more natural paint look. I also used the smudge tool set to finger painting frequently. I think my favorite part of this painting is the boat and the water as well as his eyes. I had done three color comps for this scene and now I plan to go back and shift the color of the layers to see the final painting rendered in the different color schemes. I love layers! Enjoy.

Photo Editing with Photoshop

2007-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here is an example of photo editing that I recently did to improve a photo. This was a good photo of the subject, but unfortunately due to the background and bad lighting, the photo quality is poor. As you can see from the photo on the left, the background wasn’t exactly the most neutral of backdrops, so the entire background was removed and replaced with a more traditional photo-studio backdrop look. As you can also see from the photo on the left there is a significant yellow cast to the skin and heavy shadows, making the subject look rather ill. In the finished photo the skin color has been corrected, the red eye corrected and eye color improved, the shadows lightened, and the contrast has been increased in the hair for a shinier look. Overall our subject looks healthier, younger (though still very much his age), and now we can focus on the person, not the bad photo. Masking, blending modes, filters, colorizing, painting, the healing brush, and adjustment layers were used to correct this photo. The background was created using the Clouds filter and the Lighting Effects filters. Hopefully you’ll agree this is a good example of how to take a good photo gone bad, and make it good again.

Another Daily Dose

2007-04-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Anyone who plays around with Photoshop a lot and surf's the web frequently has likely come across another of my favorite sites, Worth1000. Worth1000 is a creative competition and photoshop contest site that features some of the most interesting photo"chops" out there. Sometimes it's bizarre, sometimes it's a simple photo retouch, but whatever it is, there's bound to be something to inspire. For a daily dose of inspiration, check out Worth1000's Picture of the Day at: http://www.worth1000.com/potd.asp

Daily Dose of Inspiration

2007-03-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

I discovered this site through an article in PopSci recently. The site features new paintings every day by a host of artists. While it isn't digital art, it is inspirational nonetheless. Sometimes we all need a boost in our artistic life, and for me there is no better source of a pick me up than to look at the creations of others. It's a great way to get ideas, be inspired by a color, a theme - whatever strikes you! So, why not stop by and get a daily dose of art.

http://www.dailypainters.com

Looking Back at the Beginning

2007-02-28T15:40:00.000-08:00

I'm having a nostalgic moment right now. I was browsing through some of my really old digital work and came across my first 'real' digital painting. This was done in Paintbrush, yes - that wonderfully old and basic painting tool from Microsoft. I actually started this image during a computer literacy class (waaaaay back when). The class was supposed to be playing Solitaire to learn how to use the mouse (yes, it was a very basic class but part of grad requirements), and since I was already well familiar with the little plastic rodent I decided I'd play with the mouse in more creative ways. While the gist of the drawing was done in about 15 minutes, I ended up spending a couple hours afterwards working on a pixel by pixel basis to get the detail I wanted. I had lots of fun doing this and even though I'd call it "archaic" in terms of what we can do now with digital painting, I still enjoy it all the same. Hope you do too.

Student Work: Surreal Composition

2007-01-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

One of the projects that students work on in my Digital Imaging class is to create a surrealistic image that combines 5-7 images into a single composition. The goal is to not only create an interesting composition, but to have the lighting, shadows, and effects all appear natural, and to make the composite images look like they were part of the original photograph. I selected this particular piece, by student William Deem, as a great example of creating a good looking and interesting composition. I think his lighting is dramatic, and the appearance and message that the composition conveys well fits the surreal concept.

William provided the following statement about his piece and some comments about the process of creating the piece:

Title: "The River"Meaning: This piece depicts the U.S. and its need/greed of oil. The sharks represent the U.S. military aircraft and the hook represents an anchor of the U.S. navy. Ms. Liberty is slightly sinking in the sand representing her overspread military forces around the world. The river of oil is what is being protected or taken from the foreign nation represented by the child with the instrument. The boy may be alarming its citizens or may be sounding off for war. Disclaimer: This is not a personal viewpoint.

This piece had some challenges. One of the challenges was getting the reflection of the child to appear in the oil as a true reflection. The challenge was met by duplicating the child layer the flipping it vertically. The boy's reflection needed to be transparent so I selected the child and deleted 'his area' from the river background making it a black background so the mountains wouldn’t be inside his reflection. I set the transparency to the appropriate level then merged the reflection to the background. The next step was to make the river move, so I duplicated the river onto its own layer without the surrounding elements. Using the Liquefy filter I made some movement in the water being sure not to make it too wavy and ensured it was all moving one direction. I also used the match color tool located in layer adjustments for getting the colors of everything to go together. I didn't always go with the default and had to use the slider bars to match the hue/saturation. Using the burn/sponge/dodge tools I changed the position of the shadows on the objects to match the lighting in the scene.

The psychic lines of Liberty and the sharks along with the implied lines of the hook and river draw the viewer's eye to the child after first noticing the anchor surrounded by the blackness of the oil. The psychic line of the child's eyes and implied line from the horn along with the contour line of the mountains bring the eyes back to the sharks and Liberty creating Harmony and Rhythm. The wavy reflections in the oil add a sense of motion to the oil as it flows freely like a river past and around the anchor. The scale of the hook creates emphasis because of its larger than life size. Balance and unity is created with repetition of sharks and placement of objects using the canvas evenly. The color creates a warm feeling with the contrast of the river drawing the eye. The smooth texture of the river adds to the oil/fluid feeling.

William 'Bill' Deem

Ridgecrest Bytes

ridgecrestbytes.com

Ms. Dewey: A New Breed of Search Engine

2006-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

One of my students had posted this for part of an assignment evaluating web design, and I found this site to be intriguing, and most certainly amusing. Ms. Dewey is a newly launched search engine site. Taking the concept of “asking” for help, the site features the character of Ms. Dewey, a real-life (albeit canned video) person who is ready to help you find what your heart desires. The sassy Ms. Dewey adds life and amusement to your search queries, though I definitely noted a sense of impatience if I took a little too long to figure out what I wanted to ask.

Ms. Dewey brought her sassy self to the web a couple of months ago to mixed reviews. The site can be a little slow, and doesn’t always provide the best of search results, but my vote for sheer amusement is what makes this site one I’ll revisit again. The site gives us a glimpse of what can be done with some of the current visual and web technologies, though I can’t say that it’s the best example of search engine technology. I recommend dropping by to ask Ms. Dewey a thing or two if you haven’t already, and while you may not get what you wanted from the search, the journey getting there can be quite fun.

http://www.msdewey.com/

Drawspace.com

2006-11-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

I discovered a website recently, Drawspace.com, which features drawing lessons created by Brenda Hoddinott, who is a talented artist. This is a very cool site for anyone interested in learning to draw. Registration is free, you can sign up to be notified of new additions to the site, and the site is well organized. More importantly though is the instruction! While some of the tutorials don’t go as in-depth as I’d like, there is so much covered here that it is a wonderful resource for any artist.

Hoddinott provides a wide range of lessons, from drawing tips, skills, and the basics of getting ready to draw, to drawing highly detailed imagery to caricatures and cartoon drawing. The lessons are provided in PDF format and range from Beginner to Advanced. In reviewing the lessons I’m reminder very much of the Walter Foster drawing books that introduced me to drawing when I was young. Oh, if only the web had been around back then! Thankfully though terrific resources are available today on the net for the youth of today, and for those of us that are still young - and even younger at hear. Visit the site today at http://www.drawspace.com

Gradients For Visual Impact

2006-11-17T10:49:00.000-08:00

I recently did a couple of ads for Cerro Coso, one highlighting the campus of the college, and one with showed the service are of the Kern Community College District. Knowing that these ads were going to be included in a publication with lots going on around the ads I wanted the ads to really stand out. To give the ads that extra impact with color I used gradients as a background fill. This allows the photos and graphics to really pop on the page, and allowed for the similar ads to be differentiated by the primary color scheme of each ad.

While these ads would have worked on a white background, the richness of the color really makes them stand out. These are pretty large ads, being 9.5”x12” and 9.5”x6” so the color will have added impact due to their size, really adding to the drama of the design.

Creating a Theater Ad That Pops!

2006-10-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

One of my recent projects was to create a marketing ad to be displayed in a local theater for the vocational programs at Cerro Coso College. The ad entices viewers to visit a web page to sign up for more information about the programs. This web page collects requests for more information through a form and provides links to the various program sites. The page collects the number of hits received. There is a redirect page for each program page that also collects the clickthrough's so that we can capture the number of hits for each program through the site. The ad was created in Photoshop, saved as a jpeg, and the companion page was done in FrontPage.

With this ad I wanted to design something where the main tag line “What’s in YOUR future?” would really pop. Since the theater itself is usually dark when the slides are being displayed, I used the black environment and a reduced color palette to create a subtle design where the primary text jumps out against the expanse of black of the entire screen. Using monotone pictures helps the text to jump out, and keeps the visual collected. If all of the photos were in full color the pictures would be visually distracting and pull the attention away from the text, which is where we want our viewers to focus their attention. Since the ad is displayed for a considerable length there is time for the viewer to explore the visuals and review the list of programs after reading the initial text.

The companion page uses a very similar design, pulling from the same color palette as the ad, to bring continuity to the overall package. Using a thumbnail of the ad helps the viewer to clearly identify that this is where they want to be. Tying the designs together, instead of using the standard college website interface, brings a higher sense of professionalism and visual continuity to the entire package. Using the program visuals in the ad to serve as links to the program websites is a good way to make visual connections with the programs. These graphics, also used in other marketing materials related to occupational education, help to establish connections with the programs and the other materials that viewers may already be familiar with, helping to strengthen the branding. Overall, a pretty enjoyable and quick project.

IT Salary Guide for 2007

2006-10-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

A new article from one of my favorite e-zines, e-Week, provides some salary projections for 2007. The good news is that starting salaries in IT are expected to increase an average of 2.8% in 2007 (from 2006) and up to 4% in high-demand areas, such as Web development and data warehouse management. It appears that the “Web-ification” of the world as it is referred to in the article, is driving the demand for Web developers, with projected salary increases of 5.1% ($60,250 to $94,750) in 2007. It’s basically an overall good time to be working in the IT world, but with more and more services and products going online or making use of the Web, this is a great time to be in Web development.

Learn more about the 2007 projections and some of the most coveted IT skills by CIO’s through the e-Week article, Cha-Ching! The First 2007 IT Salary Guide Arrives.

Salary information and projections are according to the 2007 IT Salary Guide from Robert Half Technology, to be released Oct. 24.

Metamorphoses, a journey in redesign

2006-10-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity recently to do a redesign of the Metamorphoses website. Metamorphoses is a literary and art journal produced collectively by the English and Art departments at Cerro Coso Community College. The site owner, Gary Enns, said he wanted something more modern, more along the lines of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The site was previously designed within the Cerro Coso site design, with all of the standard navigation and design templates applied.

The two main challenges of this project was to create something visually interesting with a very limited color palette and secondly, to design a graphic that would be a visual representation of metamorphoses. The color scheme was the age-old dynamic red, white, and black. Using web-safe colors I selected colors that I felt would all work well together, incorporating orange for unvisited/visited links and a bright blue for active links. The image created to represent metamorphoses is very simple and is a series of circles that turn into squares. The overall site is pretty clean, straight-forward, and was fun to design.

Sometimes I really enjoy designing the small sites that don’t have a lot of pages, but that have cool content. Gary described the site as being “modern retro” and I would have to agree with his assessment. Overall I really enjoyed working on the redesign and am now going to take on the redesign of the blog to bring consistency of design to the entire Metamorphoses spectrum.

Check out the new Metamorphoses site

3D art takes brochure into overdrive

2006-09-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a brochure created in Photoshop and InDesign for the Automotive Technology program at Cerro Coso. I had lots of fun doing the design and layout for this piece, but the coolest part of this brochure is by far the awesome 3D visuals of the cars. The cars were all created by Kris Horton, a graduate of the Digital Animation program at Cerro Coso. Kris now does automotive visualization professionally. You may have seen some of Kris’ work in Popular Hot Rodding magazine as his modern camaro concept, pictured in the brochure, received world wide attention.

The target for this brochure was high school students so having a design that was attractive to a younger crowd was important, and using eye-grabbing car visuals was the way I addressed this. Carrying the road theme through the brochure tied together the car concept and also added some visual flair to the brochure. The color palette for the brochure came from the various vehicles featured in the brochure and the cover title was based on the program website. Overall this is one of my favorite pieces of work.

InDesign: Schedule Cover

2006-09-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

The newest schedule cover for Cerro Coso for the Spring 2007 semester. The background was created in Photoshop. The rest of the document was laid out in InDesign. I really love InDesign for doing page layout, it rocks. Oh yeah, I also took the photos seen on the cover using an Olympus 4040z.

Cerro Coso Theater Ad

2006-09-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here is an ad, created in Photoshop, for Cerro Coso to be shown in a local theater. This design was based on one of the postcard designs I had done previously. The ad is made up of stock photography and vector shapes. Pretty simple, though admittedly a somewhat busy design. The focus was a more youthful appearance showing diversity.

Steve Irwin; a man worth remembering

2006-09-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was deeply saddened by the death of Steve Irwin earlier this week. Not only was I a fan of his Crocodile Hunter show, I can’t imagine anyone not being a fan once they watched his zany antics, but I truly admired his passion for his work. I admit there were times I thought he’d gone off his rocker, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen someone so totally enthused by his work.

I think everyone could learn a lesson from Steve, to do what you love, but to go beyond that, to be passionate about it. There is no doubt in my mind that Steve had fun every day he was working, even when it was a tough job like capturing an unruly croc. He made his job his life and shared his passion, not only with those he loved, but with the world.

If we could all take a chapter from the life of Steve Irwin and write that into the books of our own lives, well, we might just find the kind of passion for our own work that Steve found in his. I will always respect Steve Irwin for demonstrating to me, through his work, the kind of passion that I should have for mine.

Learn more about Steve Irwin.

Coyote Howler, re-visioning a newsletter

2006-09-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

I've been involved in a project to release the Cerro Coso newsletter via an email listserv. Previously called "The Report to the Board" the college wanted to revision the newsletter, in particular with a name that was more fitting of a college community-wide publication. I initially suggested the Coyote Howl, which then became the Coyote Howler. Since this was a great time to not only give the newsletter a new name, I thought it would also be great to give it a new fresh look. I originally had planned on only working on a new masthead as I had an idea to go with the new name, but as often happens with me, the concept grew from there and it became a full-fledged redesign (much to the surprise of those involved with the actual production of the newsletter). The inspiration behind the overall design is the new college catalog cover design I recently worked on. I felt it would be ideal to have two well seen publications tie together to create some visual continuity for the college.

Originally created as a full-bleed concept in InDesign, the layout was revamped to fit print specs and converted into a PageMaker doc since there was software incompatibility due to version issues with the system of the staff member who would actually be producing the newsletter every month. Here is the result of the makeover. Enjoy!

3d Extrude in Illustrator

2006-08-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

I just finished creating an ad to be printed in the local paper to highlight the "Simple Steps to register" at Cerro Coso. This was a very short turn around project in which I had about 2 hours to work up the design, which was a spin off of an article done at our sister college Bakersfield College.

The cool thing about this project was that I had an opportunity to play with the 3d extrude feature in Illustrator. A pretty nifty little effect. I found it pretty easy to work with, and it's cool that you can go back in and edit the effect if need be. I do wish that preview was automatically checked as that threw me more than once when the effect would disappear all of a sudden, but hey, I just need to pay better attention. This is a really cool feature though and it really expands what we can do artistically with Illustrator.

What would be really cool would be if you could place objects together and merge them so you could build more complex objects, much like in 3d software packages. But then, I suppose I should just go open Maya if I want to do that...

Displacement Map & Lighting Fun

2006-08-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've been having some fun playing around with displacement maps and lighting effects in Photoshop. Here was a quick attempt at getting images to look natural in a scene. It could be better, but I wasn't being too serious about it, I was mostly getting a feel for some techniques I want to share with my students. All in all though I think it came out pretty good.

Lucky Dog

2006-08-16T15:25:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to design the logo for Lucky Dog Canine Spa. The three color logo was created in Illustrator. I'd have to say the most challenging part was the playing cards, playing cards usually use four or more colors, so trying to get the feel with only three was somewhat of a challenge. Here is the final design.

Logo TM by Lucky Dog. May not be used without permission.

Postcard Fun

2006-08-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to design a postcard for Cerro Coso College. I presented four designs, all created in Photoshop CS2. The "Degree Ahead" concept was selected. Enjoy.

A look at web salaries

2006-08-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

While there may be some out there who think that IT jobs are going out of style, nothing could be further from the case. In fact there is an increased demand for IT professionals, and according to projections, IT jobs will continue to increase in the coming years as more and more businesses turn to technology for solutions. The Web will certainly be a large part of our future so now is the time to get in and start getting trained for what promises to be a stable career choice.

So what are web professionals making these days? According to a survey conducted by Information Week of over 10,000 IT professionals, here are some of the average salaries for 2006 amongst staffers:

Web security $90,000
Web infrastructure $83,000
Internet and intranet $70,000
Web design and development $62,000
Web content development $57,000

While staff salaries are pretty good, their managers are doing even better. Here are the average salaries for 2006 amongst managers:

Web security $101,000
Web infrastructure $113,000
Internet and intranet $92,000
Web design and development $94,000
Web content development $84,000

While pay is certainly important in our ever-increasing-cost world, especially with energy and fuel cost increases, many of the respondents to the survey cited that job stability, challenge and responsibility, as well as flexible work schedules as being more important that salary. I for one appreciate those three factors very much and it’s what makes my job as a web designer much more rewarding. For some interesting reading on the IT working world, check out the article on InformationWeek about the salary survey.

Resource: Information Week, "$99,000 Salary Survey," April 24,2006 pgs. 58-59

Photographic Fingerprints

2006-07-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Did you know that your digital camera has fingerprints? Apparently it does. Researches at Binghamton University have indicated that they can identify which digital photos come from which digital cameras. In comes down to the slight variations caused by the sensors in the individual camera. Each camera has a unique “fingerprint” that it leaves on each and every digital photo it takes in the form of a noise-like pattern. The caveat is you have to know what camera took the photo, and you have to have a sampling of photos from that camera to be able to identify the common noise pattern, so it’s not as if you can just grab a digital pic and say it came from John Doe’s camera.

So why should we care? First of all law enforcement is interested in being able to use this technology to catch predators who use digital cameras for unlawful purposes which could be a leap forward in catching criminals. Secondly this could also mean a way to identify and prove what photos were taken with your camera. Perhaps the technology of fingerprinting digital cameras will lead to a means to register your camera in a database, with samples of its unique fingerprint as a means to verify ownership of your photography. Keeping the rights to our creative works is always a concern for digital artists and photographers, and this could potentially be another way to protect your work. It will certainly be interesting to see how the technology progresses in the future.

Reference: Wolfe, Alexander “Fingerprints In Your Photos” Information Week 2006 (1 May 2006 pg. 18)

Deep in the Cave: Dimenxian Demo Available

2006-07-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Deep in the Cave: Dimenxian Demo Available

For anyone who hasn't heard about Serious Games (educational games), or for someone that thinks educational games are boring or couldn't possibly be any fun, you 'seriously' (pun intended) need to check this site out. "Learn math or die trying" - the tag line of the game - it's not your dad's math class. I sure wish it had been mine.

Discovering RAW

2006-06-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

At home I have an Olympus 4040z, a good point-and-shoot camera from which I've gotten lots of good (and even a few 'great') photos. At work I just recently acquired a Cannon Digital Rebel XT. I've entered the world of digital SLR's, and been totally confused by it (I'm not a pro photographer). While I use digital camera's to capture photos for work related projects, I've never really gone through any photography training (which would probably be a good idea), so when I got my hands on the Digital Rebel, needless to say all the talk of apertures, focal lengths, etc., was a little unknown to me. I've been reading up on all of this, getting a bit of a clue about what all of the terms mean and how those things affect photography. But, my biggest happy discovery since getting the Rebel is camera RAW.

I had of course heard about RAW before and knew the basics of what it was, but since I'd never had a camera capable of RAW format before, it was not something I invested a lot of time or interest in to learn about. Maybe if I had I would have had a camera capable of it a long time ago. Now I'm hooked, and I wouldn't be surprised if my Olympus becomes my secondary camera very soon.

RAW format basically captures unprocessed photo data from the camera sensor. This basically means that it captures the photo without the application of any of the camera settings. The reason I love RAW format is the amount of data I have to work with when editing a photo, and the speed. While yes, it takes longer to go through and open the raw photo, process it, save it, etc., to me I have found that the speed at which I can improve a photo for levels, saturation, color, and so forth far outweighs the additional time spent in opening and saving the photo. In the end I find I get truer color, better exposure, better detail, and I can quickly get some really cool effects quickly and easily - all without actually modifying the original image, since you save the results as a separate file instead of altering the actual RAW file, so you can always go back to the original.

Instead of spending pages explaining RAW format in greater detail, I recommend you read an article by Dave Shea (creator of CSS Zen Garden) who also talks about the RAW format in his blog on mezzoblue.com. Also a new convert to RAW, Shea does a great job at giving a clear and easy to understand review of RAW. If you have a camera capable of RAW format, you really should understand its power and just how cool it can be. Check it out. Read Shea's Blog.

Photoshop World 2006

2006-06-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

Photoshop World goes to Vegas this year. Yeah! I might actually get a chance to go. What a great opportunity to get to know some of the leaders in the Photoshop world and to see some of the really cool tools available for users of Photoshop. There is a really wide gamut of interests covered at the expo and for anyone who uses Photoshop extensively, or even just a serious interest, it's worth checking it out.

The registration cost runs from $149 to $499 depending on your status. However, they will open up the expo for a day to the public. It costs $25 to get in, or you can sign up for a free expo floor pass (Courtesy of Adobe) by registering for the Expo Only at the Photoshop World website. With loads of vendors, free classes and training on the expo floor, it's well worth a visit.

So, if you're a Photoshop professional, or just a serious dabbler in all things Photoshop, I highly recommend checking it out!

Learn more about Photoshop World:
http://www.photoshopworld.com/

Filter Forge

2006-05-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine (thanks Jim) recently brought the Filter Forge software to my attention. Very, very cool. A software plugin for Photoshop that allows you to create your own filters. It also comes with several custom filters built-in. Currently in the BETA testing phase, I eagerly await the final release, and am hoping to get in on the BETA testing myself.

Why is this so cool? You can just make actions right? Well, this is more than that, it has way more interactivity than what you can do with actions, and the ability to preview, without applying, the filters is great. On top of that, you can actually submit custom filters that you create to Filter Forge as they have an online library of user filters. You can even get Filter Forge for free depending on your level of contribution and the usage popularity of the filters you submit.

If you love playing with Photoshop filters, and have always wanted to create your own, then definitely check this product out and join in the fun.

http://www.filterforge.com

Photoshop User

2006-05-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of Photoshop and haven't yet discovered Photoshop User, the official publication of the National Association of Photoshop Professionsals, then you need to do so NOW! This magazine is a must for any Photoshop addict. Some of the cool content includes:

Quick tips and shortcuts
Down and Dirty tricks
News
Reviews
How To's
lots of Cool stuff

This magazine is especially useful if you use Photoshop but just don't have time to explore everything under the sun that you can do with it. The magazine will help expose you to ways to use Photoshop that you might never have thought of. It also helps you to understand how to get the most out of Photoshop.

Interested yet? You should be. Check it out: www.photoshopuser.com

Digital Painting and Illustration

2006-04-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have students that don't fully understand just how powerful Photoshop and Illustrator are. Many students think of Photoshop as something you use to edit photographs. That kind of thinking is along the lines of thinking a computer is there to use the calculator feature. While yes, you can edit photos in it, there is so much more you can do!

Photoshop can be used to create complex and compelling fine art, graphics for web based applications, graphics for dvd and cd applications, digital paintings, vector based art, posters, flyers, the list is endless. On top of all that, it's the best image and photo editing package available in the industry.

For anyone not very familiar with Illustrator, this is another very powerful tool that goes beyond using it for page layout. I have seen many examples of very complex and creative work done in Illustrator that rival any piece of fine art, or Photoshop painting. If you've never considered Illustrator as something beyond using to create logos or for page layout, then you really need to do some surfing and see just what it can do - it's pretty awesome.

A great site I recently ran across is that of Rick L. Simonson. He is a scientific illustrator who uses Illustrator and Photoshop to create outstanding scientific artwork.
http://www.rlsimonson.com/

Another great example of the variety of uses for Photoshop comes from NAPP's portfolio pages in the portfolio of Rebecca Hamstead. Here you can see examples of web application graphics, illustrations, collages, digital paint, and more. Some really beautiful work here.
http://www.photoshopuser.com/napmem/gallery/view_img.php?id=18605

These are just two examples, there are hundreds more. I love to explore and discover the many ways other digital artists are using the tools, it fuels my own passion and creativity for the art. I hope you feel the same.

Web Developers high on the list of sought after IT skills

2006-03-28T14:30:00.000-08:00

While perusing my latest copy of Information Week, I came across an article titled "Hot Projects Galore." While the focus of the article was on jobs in Project Management, as a web designer I found it worthwhile as it also gave some positive information about the desirability of skills in web development.

According to the article, and its source (HotGigs.com), Web Developers are high on the list of the most sought after IT skills. Based on 1.2 million searches performed during the fourth quarter of 2005 on HotGigs.com, there were 82.9 thousand searches on Web Developers. Topped only by Networking (87.7) and Project Management (144.3), it's obvious that the need for people with web development skills remains high. Couple that with skills in project management and you've got it made, well, most likely.

Certainly the topic of "Web Developers" covers a host of specialties and skill sets, but what it proves is that the need for people with the ability to develop for the web is staying strong. No surprise, seeing as how more and more companies are looking to the web to meet their customer service, internal, and external needs. The Web is not the "cool, new, wow" technology that it once was; when having a single web page announcing your presence to the world was a brave new frontier; it has become an integrated part of everyday business for many industries.

For myself I find I get annoyed when I need to contact a business and find out I can't perform the function I need to do via the Web, and I also find I get tiny thrills when I can. It's so cool to be able to take charge of my own accounts and do what I want to, without having to go through the hassle of calling and talking to one or more service agents. So yeah, it might be antisocial, but hey, it's efficient. It's also thanks to web developers that I am able to do these things, so if you're a web developer - keep up the good work! If you are considering web development as a career - what are you waiting for - the time is now.

Resource: Information Week, "Hot Projects Galore," March 20,2006 p.74

Adobe acquires Macromedia

2006-02-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

While the news that Adobe has acquired Macromedia isn't necessarily the latest news (Nov/Dec 2005), it's interesting to consider what this acquisition means. Will Macromedia stick around? Will our favorite, and industry leading favorites, such as Flash and Dreamweaver survive?

To answer some of these questions I turned to Adobe's site. Thankfully they have already considered what many of our questions will be, and they've provided a good faq about it. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia_faq.html

To answer a couple immediate questions, yes "Macromedia" will die. Say buh-bye to the name we've all come to know so well. Apparently there will be an Adobe Flash or Adobe Dreamweaver in our near future. From what I can tell, Flash will live, and so will Dreamweaver, and for now it looks like most of the former Macromedia labels will live on.

My question is who will win out over time in the competitive labels such as GoLive vs Dreamweaver, Photoshop vs Fireworks, Illustrator vs Freehand. It seems to me like it would be redundant to keep similar software, and a waste of resources, but how will Adobe make their decision as to what stays and what goes? Will we see blended software? Will I work with a Flash interface that looks like Adobe? I can only guess at this point, and hope that my personal favorites win out!

Finally, why oh why didn't I buy Adobe stock years ago?

I enter the world of Blog

2006-01-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

I have fought the blog and the blog won. Today I enter a new dimension in communicating with the world. I want to share my love of design with my students, my peers, and whoever happens across my ramblings. While there will probably be a wide spectrum of topics covered, I'll try keep my mind under control and stay focused. How successful I will be in that is yet to be seen.