From Nancy Cheng’s Arch 610 class. Revised
on Oct. 25, 2006
X.
Sizing Images from Sketchup
Q. We had difficulty figuring out the
terminology of the tools and how the definitions of the tools affected what we
were trying to do. Often, when we tried
a tool or action, it would have a different outcome than we had expected; or
that we wanted to accomplish a specific action, but didn't know where to go
within the program to get the job done.
Maybe an index or cheat sheet would help.
A. It can be confusing to figure out the actual
function of new tools. Luckily there is
a ton of reference material available.
So, it's pretty fast to find tutorials on Photoshop through Google. And don’t forget the Help menu> Photoshop
Help utility. Since some of the entries
are not graphical, a quick way to get an overview is to type in
"gallery" or "tools gallery" into the "Type in a word
or phrase" search box at the top right of the Help menu - it will bring up
images of shortcuts.
Our Photoshop cheat
sheet is here: http://www.uoregon.edu/~graphics/syllabus/psd_tips.pdf
Q. How do you fill in
a large object with Color?
A. Select the object
(using the Magic Wand, Magnetic Lasso, Quick mask painting, etc.), the choose
Edit menu > Fill.
Q. How do you rename
your layers to be more familiar/memorable in the design process?
A. In the Layer
palette (open with Window menu > Layers), double-click on the name of the layer
you want to change.
Q. How do you multiply images without creating
new layers?
A. Use the Move arrow
with the Alt (Window) key depressed to duplicate on the same layer.
Q. How do you blend
real photos with digital images and still get an imgae that is not dumb
looking? (convincing?)
A. In the 3D modeling
software, be sure to set up lighting, views and rendering settings
(i.e. Sketchup Display settings - make lines 1 pixel or none) to generate
an image that matches the desired background. Find entourage that is compatible in terms of lighting and
views - see image banks such as Flickr.com.
Q. Some overview
regarding how to effectively contextualize the image would be fantastic
A. To combine images,
use Layer Masks. This tutorial shows
the technical aspect of collaging.
http://www.crhfoto.co.uk/crh/layermask.htm
To make it work you
need components with the same lighting, colors, contrast and perspective - or
you know when Oprah's body has been pasted in.
Q. Could we have more
information regarding feathering of cut edges:
how it works and how best to use it.
A. Feathering is a way
to give a soft, gradually transparent edge to a selection area so that it can
be collaged seamlessly on top of another image. Select an area, then in the Select menu, pick Feather. The Feather radius depends on the dimension
and detail of the picture - for small images keep it down to 1-3 pixels. Alternatively, when using the selection
tools (marquee, lasso, magic wand, etc.) you can set the feather radius in the
Options Bar, just under the main menus.
You can also decrease
fringe on a selection by choosing Layer menu > Matting > Defringe. Or use the Advanced Blending sliders in the
Layer Styles dialog box to remove, or make transparent, areas from the layer.
In this case, you would make the black or white areas transparent. Alt-click
(Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the sliders to separate them; separating the
sliders allows you to remove fringe pixels and retain a smooth edge.
Q. What is the
difference between "feather" and "trim"?
See above for
feathering. Trim cuts away extra pixels
outside of a specified color in the corner of the selected area:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps502fx6.htm
Q. How do you fade out
part of an image?
A. Use a Layer Mask to create variable transparency. Quick overview of Photoshop masking
http://www.spoono.com/photoshop/tutorials/tutorial.php?url=masks
Q. We are interested
in seeing more about masking-- how to and various features.
A. 3-page tutorial about Layer Masks:
http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut003.htm
Q. How do you deal
with images with various resolutions when you are using them all in the same
collage?
A. Great question. If you have two pictures at 100% (top of frame), then you can see
how their
sizes compare. Select View > Actual
Pixels for each image. For image components to come out
sharp, they can't be stretched. Once you
paste onto the background image, you can resize the
newly pasted layer with Edit > Free
Transform.
Q. How can you work with
several layers at once? Some information regarding layer blending would also be
beneficial.
A. Basic Layers Tutorial: http://www.sketchpad.net/psdlayer1.htm
Layer Blending - an
elegant if abbreviated example of layer blending
http://www.l7designs.co.uk/tuts/blending1/
Q. How can I make a
flat, smooth object wobble or ripple?
For example, it looked funny having the shadow of my screen fell
smoothly onto the irregular lunar surface. Would there be a way of distorting
it in small segments? Or somehow adding
a texture to it?
A. To make a flat,
smooth object wobble or ripple in Photoshop, under the Filter menu, choose
Distort > Ripple. There are many
filters that allow you to transform the visual appearance of an image - see
them in the Filters menu > Filters Gallery.
Since they are very intuitive, I usually don't worry about featuring
them. Watch out for overuse - they
become cliche easily.
Q. Can you transfer a texture using the paint
bucket tool?
A. Instead, I would use the Healing Brush
(fourth icon from the top of the tools palette in the left column) to pick up
the pattern and paint it somewhere else.
Alternatively, you can Edit menu > Define Pattern to make a tiled
image one of your Pattern Brush choices.
Q. What is the best
way to add shadows to images? Is there
a good method for bending a shadows over hills or rounded surface?
A. Select the shape
that is casting a shadow, copy and paste it onto a new layer. Then use Edit
> Transform >
Distort to flip the shadow and stretch it into Perspective. You can then bend it
with Filter >
Liquify. Once you have the shadow the
right shape, replace it with a translucent
grey film (i.e. Use
the Magic Wand to select the clear background on that layer, Select >
Inverse, Edit >
Clear and then Edit > Fill with Black with Opacity an appropriate %
Q. Sometimes it was very
difficult to navigate the Photoshop functions such as the lighting tools and
know what the tools would even do.
A. Here is a tutorial
on lighting effects:
http://www.webreference.com/graphics/column15/
Q. Shadows - How can
we make them clearer and create new ones?
A. This sample chapter
may tell you more than you want to know about faking shadows.
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=30311&rl=1
Q. How can you apply
lighting effects to all layers?
A. You need to merge
the layers that you want to light. Turn
off the layers that don't need the light and in the Layers palette, context
menu (right button or the tiny black triangle at the top right tab) choose
Merge Visible.
Q. How is Adobe Bridge
best used? Is this something that must
be set up for each project with a corresponding folder or does it automatically
ask you to link them?
A. Adobe Bridge helps
you organize your work by providing previewing, annotating and versioning
tools. You do need to set up
a project folder to store assets.
Here's an overview. http://www.adobe.com/creativesuite/vector/movie_bridge.html
Q. What is Adobe
Designer, not InDesign, and what is it used for?
A. Adobe Designer is
for creating Web forms in XML or PDF format. (Translation: you probably don't
need it.)
Q. How do you extract layers from a pdf in
illustrator?
A. The usability of the information in the file
depends on what application saved it and what application you are using to
open it. So if you Generally, you
see layers in Illustrator only if the document was created in
Illustrator. I've opened up PDF's made
from AutoCad and some illustration package where I can move, ungroup and
edit objects and text, but I can't see layers.
Q. Sizing the image
and canvas for printing via Acrobat gets a little complicated.
A. If you install
Acrobat correctly, you will be able to choose a printer called Adobe PDF.
In Photoshop, "File > Print with Preview" allows you to see
what you will get. After you choose the
Adobe PDF as your printer, hitting the Properties button will allow you to
check the resolution settings, etc.
Or in Photoshop, you
can save as Photoshop PDF, then you need to use the Adobe Acrobat
Professional's Page Setup - the choices depend on your printer.
Q. Is it optimal to print via PDF on
photoshop? I had problems with
pixilation.
A. The AAA Output Room
prefers receiving images in PDF format because the files are faster:
invisible information is omitted when layers are compressed. If you do it right, the quality should be
the same as printing directly from the graphics program. There are settings that tell Acrobat
what resolution to make the images. In
Photoshop if you "Save As" Photoshop PDF,
$ "Compression" from the left menu of the dialogue box and set
the image quality. In Adobe Acrobat Professional, the
"Advanced > PDF Optimizer" allows you to reduce resolution to make
a smaller document.
AAA
Computing’s Guide to PDF Optimizing
Q. Where can I get photos that I can use on my
Website?
A. Library of
Congress' American Memory - includes Historic American Building Survey
drawings, Harvard historic landscape photos – read the permissions for each
image.
http://memory.loc.gov/
Artstor - UO has a
purchased access to this excellent art image bank. Usually these may NOT be published on the web, although you could
make an argument for placing a thumbnail since it's educational, not for profit
and clearly not a replica of the original.
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ keyword search for "Artstor"
Flickr - share and
rate photos. A community resource
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.shtml
Four factors to be
considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. the purpose and character of the use,
i.e. commercial or nonprofit educational;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect upon the potential market
value of the copyrighted work.
Q. Does the University
provide webspace for hosting students websites and files and if so how do we
establish that space?
A. You automatically are given an account for
e-mail, storage and webpages. Any
webpages put into a public_html folder at the top level will be visible online. If your email is "jsmith@uoregon.edu", your web address
will be
<http://www.uoregon.edu/~jsmith>. For a simple file upload guide, see:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~mcshtml/security/ssh/windows/sftp.html
POSTING IMAGES TO THE
WEB
Q. Why I can’t load my
Photoshop collage into Blogger?
A. You need to give Blogger.com files in the
formats that it likes. In addition to
GIF (256 colors but no loss), JPG (full color, compresses and loses information)
and PNG (full color, small files, less universal), it takes typically non-web
formats of TIFF
In Illustrator, after
you have saved the layered file as Illustrator AI, use File > Save for
Web. At the top left of the dialog box,
choose the 2-up or 4-up tab to compare ways to save the image. Once you have a
GIF or JPG format image, you can resize it in Photoshop.
Please note that
sometimes you can access a JPG option for "progressive" compression
that can make the JPG unreadable by
certain programs.
Q. How do I set resolution for my Sketchup
images so they don’t come out fuzzy?
A. Sketchup does not
allow you to control the dpi directly.
However, it does let you control the size of the image in
pixels. In the "Export 2D Graphic" window, select JPG and click
the Options button. In the "Export JPG Options" window, uncheck
the box labeled "Use view size" and enter in the Width and
Height that you would like your final image to have. On the Compression slider, make sure you select Best. Be
careful here, if you go too large, Sketchup will take a long time to
export and the resulting file could be very large.
Now, you're probably
wondering how large to make the image.
You can figure that out based on what you want to do with it and how
big it will be. If you want it print it, decide how big you want it to be
on paper (in inches) and multiple by 150 dpi. A print image that measures 4" high by 6" wide becomes
600 pixels by 900 pixels. If
you want to post it on a web page, screen resolution is typically around 72 dpi
(I round it to 75); so, that 600x900 images will measure roughly 8" x
12" on screen... it will almost fill the screen.
Once you have exported
the image, you can resize it in Photoshop.
Select Image... Image size on the menu, uncheck "Resample
Image" and enter the dpi in the Resolution field. The pixel dimensions will be the same as you
exported from Sketchup, but the document size will change to reflect the
dpi that you have chosen.
Before you do all of
this, you will want to compose the image carefully in Sketchup. Find a
compelling angle from which to view it and zoom so that the image fills
the screen area. Sketchup will
export the entire screen area (minus the toolbars and palettes). You may also want to crop it in Photoshop.