Friday 28 March 2014

Off on a Tangent

I am finding it difficult to concentrate on the exercises at the moment. I know the reasons but only time will change my attitude towards them, so in the meantime I am happy to sit and take a few Springtime bird shots. On issues of layout and placing the images on a page I am still trying to determine the need for a white border for colour photographs. Maybe these two will help me see the issues and gain an outcome.


Goldfinch - D800 with 500 f4 and 1.4TC

Greenfinch - D800 500 f4 with 1.4TC
 
Robin - D800 500 f4
 

Saturday 15 March 2014

Using Type Tools - Applying a drop shadow to type

Following on from the previous exercise and using the same file the task now is to add a drop shadow to the title text. This was not a technique that I had come across before.

The workflow is.


  1. Duplicate the "Title" layer
  2. Click on the lower of the two
  3. Layers > Gaussian Blur and set radius to 10 pixels
  4. Use Move tool
  5. Move down and to the right
  6. Layers window, set opacity to 50%




Screen grab with drop shadow.

The technique is a gimmick and not one that I will be using too often. There are numerous variations within the capabilities of Photoshop to produce work suitable for any number of situations.




Screen grab for coloured drop shadow




More to be added.









Using Type Tools - Getting Started

This section of the course will demonstrate the text tools in Photoshop in readiness for the book cover assignment.The title Getting Started is a course annotation and not mine. In my work I have been using the text features within Photoshop for 10 years. It will be by way of a refresher then to do the exercises and by further probing I am sure I will find something new.


As a start, a simple piece of text and a title, using Verdan 48 pt for the title and Ariel Regular 12 pt for the main text. The text is left aligned with the grid and a vertical guide used in the page centre line.