A friend asked me to do a personal favor of retouching a photo. Here is the progression.

The original image (cropped to the face—the whole image is much larger, but I wanted to show the details):



Brightness adjustments:



Color adjustments:



The eyes could not be salvaged from the original data, so I redrew them from scratch in Photoshop:

Tags: photoshop

The first installment in my series "Our Heritage" appears in the June 3ABN World magazine. I wanted a creative introduction to this first story, and this is what I came up with:

I stand at the edge of a small lake. It’s quiet here—a good place to meditate, to think. As I skip a rock across the water, I notice the ripples. At each point where the stone strikes the surface of the lake, waves radiate outward. Together they look like a series of points, each sending out signal waves in every direction. In a sense, that’s what this series is about. Our Christian heritage is a string of pivotal events, each with its own lasting repercussions in the stream of time. It’s a story that inspires me every time I think of it.

I thought it would be cool to add a little thumbnail illustration. I tried to look for stock photos of a rock skipping across a pond, but couldn't find any. So Adam and I headed down to the nearest little pond, and this is what we got:

The original photo:



Unfortunately, despite numerous attempts, we couldn't quite capture the feel of skipping stones. The surface of the water was really icky. We did get some nice splashes, but they just didn't look like what I wanted to convey.

Add "Pond-Scum-Be-Gone" (aka, Photoshop):



Ripples:



A nice reflection:



Some nice early morning mist, and we're done!

Tags: 3abn, photos, photoshop

I recently created a page for 3ABN on Facebook. I needed something for the picture, so after a little brainstorming and experimentation, I created this:



It was created with a combination of SketchUp, Swift3D, and Photoshop.

One trick was to create a picture in which 3ABN's logo would look OK, once automatically scaled down and cropped by Facebook's software. This was part of the inspiration for having a screen with the logo in the center, surrounded by other screens. To be cropped correctly, the logo must fit within a space defined by a perfect square with a width and height less than the smallest dimension of the image.

Tags: 3abn

UPDATE: Art has been updated since the original post.

For the November issue of 3ABN World, we needed to illustrate a devotional article based on the famous Apollo 13 mission. After a futile search for a useful clipart image, I decided to take the plunge and make my own composition. Keep in mind that I do not have much experience in 3D — I think I could count my 3D illustrations on one hand — and I had only six hours or so across two days to work on this. Besides that, my tools were a clunky 3D application called Swift 3D 4.5 (nothing "swift" about it), SketchUp 6, and Photoshop CS2.

I found a number of 3D models. Interestingly, each one was different in various ways, including in regards to the colors and materials used for major pieces of the Apollo command module. So I compared them all, noted the common features, and also perused some online articles about the Apollo 13 mission (characterized by fuzzy, black and white images). In the end, I went for as accurate as I could guess, along with adding a few random stylistic elements that are almost certainly not true to life, but which make it look more believable.

Here is the base model that I downloaded. Note the absence of color and detail, and that the dish antenna is completely missing:



I added basic colors, materials, and textures in Swift 3D, and got the angle set to what I wanted. Then I exported it as a PNG image, and opened that in Photoshop. Then I added more color, shading, and texture. I also added lettering, rivets, the words "United States," and other little do-dads. In the background I added stars (using a real photo of the night sky, not just random stars), and a view of Earth.

Originally I had added a dish antenna borrowed from another model, which I retouched in Photoshop. But I was not happy with the result. The new graphic below shows the new antenna that I made from scratch using SketchUp, Swift 3D, and Photoshop.

Here is detail of the craft:



Here is a small version of the final image. The full size one is 11 inches wide at 300 ppi.

Tags: photoshop, 3d, swift 3d, photos, cg, illustration, graphics

In the November issue of 3ABN World magazine there is a recipe for Blueberry "Buttermilk" Pancakes (dairy-free), contributed by Jill Morikone. In her short introduction, Jill tells how these pancakes became a weekly tradition in her home. For the design of this page, I decided it would be nice to show a married couple eating pancakes at a candlelight dinner, as Jill had described the tradition in her home.

This is original photo was taken by my assistant, Kenton Rogers. The couple at the table are Jill and her husband Greg:



It's a fine photo, and we could have run it just the way it was. But for this intimate candlelight dinner shot, I decided I wanted something more romantic. I also thought the lighting looked a little flat.

In this version, the highlights have been diffused, the candle's flame is a little softer, and I added additional lighting around the candle and at other places to help illuminate the scene a little more dramatically:



Like many designers I know, I often set out with a general idea of what I want to achieve, but along the way I toy around with other possibilities. It is often through play and experimentation that new methods and styles are developed, and sometimes there are very pleasant surprises to be found.

While playing in Photoshop, I also stumbled across a technique that produced this image. Notice the very soft color transitions (especially the candle), the effect on the cabinet in the background, and the hard dark lines defining the shapes. I think it has a very artistic, painterly feel to it. Although I decided not to use it in the layout, I thought it was an interesting effect to file away for possible use on another occasion:

Tags: photoshop, photos

For some reason I've been taking a lot of these lately! (Maybe it's a testament to the lack of interesting scenery in Illinois?)

This one was taken June 24:

For the January 2007 issue of 3ABN World, we are running a feature on the new children's studio that is being built. Since the children's studio will be housed inside our existing 3ABN Worship Center, using a studio space in the back, we wanted to show what the Worship Center looks like. Unfortunately we did not have any flattering pictures of the building's exterior, only shots of its construction and later shots prior to the landscaping being completed. The only recent shot we had was taken after all the leaves had fallen. But, with Photoshop, that can be fixed....

As you can see, I made three scenic changes: Colored the sky a bit, painted in the trees (yes, it was done with a digital brush, not a cloning tool), and greened up the grass. What do you think of the results?

Before:



After:

I saw a website the other day that showcased laptops with "transparent" LCDs. It was kind of cool, so I decided to see if I could do it. The photo below can be considered a work in progress. The camera's flash sort of ruined this particular shot, but it was the best one. If you look carefully you can see the icons on my desktop, as well as the OS X menu bar and dock.



Can you guess how it was done?

A regular part of my work as a graphic designer is retouching photos. In many cases this involves subtle improvements, but occasionally a photo may need more drastic editing. Below is a somewhat poor photo that needed some work (faded, blue color cast, little real color, noise and scratches, etc.). The flesh tones were so far gone that they could not be restored from color data in the photo itself; I had to manually paint them in. This is not a particularly dramatic example, but it does show the kind of retouching I do.

Before:



After:



Note: The photos are not cropped the same because I decided to do this demonstration after I had already cropped and altered the photo, and I was in too much of a hurry to make the "before" and "after" crops identical.

I admire gothic architecture, especially romanticized dark and mysterious depictions. This morning I found a beautiful rosette window in an online graphics database, and was experimenting with a technique to stylize it. Here is the before and after:

Before:



After:



This version, with some modification, is used in the October 2006 edition of 3ABN World, which should eventually be available for download from 3ABN's website.

Note: The effect I added of light streams on the inside of the window is subtle, and doesn't show up so well at this small size.

My previous post got me to thinking about fractals, so I downloaded this really cool application called IFSLab (a freeware application, available here for Mac OS X only). This program is so much fun to play with ... it's a bit addicting. Anyway, here is one of my first experiments with this program, recolored a bit in Photoshop:



Below are a couple more scenes I made with the same software. Every one of these scenes is created the same way: by defining a simple master object (a basic line drawing like a triangle or other polygon), and then cloning it a few times, scaling and positioning each clone to define how the fractal iterations will develop. The results are rendered in real time, which is what makes the program so easy to play with.

As you can see, these fractals strongly mimic natural patterns we are all familiar with, suggesting that fractal structures are building blocks in the physical world. I spent maybe 10-15 minutes on each of these; more time or expertise with the software could yield more realistic results.

I have always admired Islamic art, especially because of the geometrical, mathematical basis for its beautiful and intricate patterns. Recently I purchased a Dover clipart book full of copyright-free Islamic designs, and I absolutely love it. Here is a sample:



Personally I am very intrigued by art based on math. To the uninitiated, mathematical art may sound very plain, rigid, boring. However, it is possible to mathematically construct very beautiful and intricate designs. Fractal theory suggests that many objects in the natural world, appearing complex or even chaotic as a whole, are actually built from relatively simple mathematical repetitions (examples would be tree branches, sea shell patterns, snowflakes).

Music is also a prime example of art with a mathematical basis: timing, rhythm, and harmonics are all based on math. (The degree to which two given notes harmonize is related to the alignment/correlation of the "peaks" in their respective sine waves.) It is often alleged that many of the great classical works have strong patterns that can be mathematically derived, and this is perhaps true on a lesser scale for other genres of music.

Although the theme, activities, and main artwork or photos for the Kids Korner section of 3ABN World magazine are supplied to me each month, it is my job to create a unified look for the pages. One of the aspects of that is to create the background graphic, which I usually (but not always) try to create from scratch. Right now I am working on the August issue, and for this issue I decided to do something original.

Because the story and activity were related to ducks, I decided to go with a pond theme. So I created this simple graphic in Illustrator:



In the final piece I had to rearrange the flowers, turtle, and dragonfly to accommodate items in the page layout. The dragonfly didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but I think it looks OK when reduced in size. If I had to do it over, I would also use a different technique to create slightly more realistic flowers (although I was purposely not wanting a photorealistic look).

If you would like to see what 3ABN World looks like, back issues are available on 3ABN's website in PDF format, at the bottom of the page this link jumps to.

Yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to all friends and family who sent their greetings.

I didn't have any birthday cake this year (or last year, or the year before that, or the...), since there is no one around with a heart to make such a thing for me. So I decided to try my hand at making something in Photoshop, the challenge being to draw it from scratch without using any source art. This represents about 45 minutes (if I had more drawing experience, I could no doubt chop that time down; but drawing is not a regular part of my design job). Here is the result:

This is the first post in a new category called Art and Designs. I thought since art is such a large part of my work and life, and since many people have no idea what it is that I actually do, it might interest them to see examples of things I've altered or created.

This is a small, actual-size piece of the art that is currently decorating the desktop of my PowerBook laptop. At actual size you can see the detail much better.



Below is a scaled-down picture of the whole image. As a desktop background, it is a bit busy. I wouldn't use it for a production computer. But it does make a rather pleasant backdrop for general use, although desktop icons tend to get lost. You can see the original that I adapted it from here. (I also made a light and a dark version, without the blue, which are less busy. But I still think the blue one is the most beautiful.)