New Schedule and the image process

I've been publishing a new post every Friday since I started this blog back in May. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get an article out at least once a week, so I played it safe.

Well, we are about to start August and I've been really enjoying this so far, (thank you Hannah), so much so, that I have decided to make an adjustment to my publishing schedule.

Since my dear friend Hannah publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll try to get something out every Tuesday and Thursday. Two articles a week yay! That way if you follow her blog and my blog, there will be a new article each day of the week for everyone to read.

This will then be my last Friday post, so, see you next Tuesday!

Ok, ok, no I’m not leaving you with just a simple announcement, I want to take this opportunity to write about something a little different, a look into my creative process.

Every time I send an image over to my friend Hannah for her blog, she always seems surprised by the “ease” and “speed” with which I manage to get it out to her. And while it might look quick, the reality is that some of these images take anywhere from an hour to a couple of hours, or even a few days. Not that I’m working on them for 48 hours straight, but depending on my work, daily chores, my mood, or inspiration, I might just chip away at them for a few minutes each day.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to turn this blog into a boring, "how-to" tutorial. There are already a million blogs and YouTube videos out there covering every tip, trick, and technique you can think of. Besides, in my opinion, there is no single “right” way to do something. For me, the right way is whichever method gets you the exact results you want.

If I were to write a definitive how-to tutorial, it would only be my way of doing it. Someone else might look at it and say, "Nah, there’s a much more efficient way", and that’s totally valid. As long as you’re happy with the final product, does it really matter how you got there? I mean, I suppose if you’re on a strict deadline and time is money, you’d want the fastest workflow possible. But we aren’t talking about a corporate design firm here.

So, let’s get to it, and hopefully, I won’t bore you to death. I’ve been using Photoshop since 1996. Yep, that old... I mean, that long. I started on Photoshop 4.0 and have used pretty much every single version released since then. The software is currently on version 27, so you do the math.

Because I’ve been using it since that long, I learned to do things a certain way. Of course, with every new release, shiny new tools or features get added or old tools get upgraded to make life easier and faster. And while I do try to keep up, educate myself, and improve, you know the old saying: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. For certain tasks, I am still stubbornly stuck in my old methods instead of using the more modern techniques.

So, what does my “creative process” look like for an image I make for my friend Hannah? Well, the short answer is: it depends. Is it a direct commission? Is it just for fun? Is it for a specific occasion? For the most part, the images I make for her have one singular purpose, to be fun, lighthearted and provoke a smile.

For the silly images based on movie scenes, my first step is brainstorming a movie I’d love to drop her into. I usually target popular, iconic films that most people have seen or at least recognize. Once I have the movie and the scene, it’s time to go fishing.

Fortunately, Hannah’s photo lake is quite large, so it’s just a matter of time and patience to find the perfect catch for the composition. I’ll search through her galleries and download every single photo I think could possibly work.

Next, it’s time to fire up Photoshop. I take the movie still and Hannah’s photo and roughly slap them together to see if the pose works and if the overall composition makes sense. If it looks off, I try another photo. If none of them work, well, it's back to finding a different scene or a different movie.

Once the rough layout looks right, is just a matter of doing some fine tuning. I crop her out, adjust the levels, the colors, and blend her as seamlessly as my abilities allow into the scene. Of course, I also have to prepare the movie image background first, which often means removing a character or whatever that might be standing in the way.

Again, I won’t go into all the specifics, you can find tutorials on how to select and crop subjects from an image, or make adjustment layers, etc. if you’re really interested in learning such techniques.

Now, when it’s a direct commission for the blog, the approach changes because Hannah already has a concept in mind. Sometimes she might have a very specific blueprint, and other times might just be a rough idea. So depending on that and other factors, is how I’ll proceed. Let’s look at a couple of recent examples to show you what I mean.

For her article "Changing Lanes”, the assignment was: “The image would be Princess Hannah's Storytime. Essentially a fake tv show for kids. The image could be an advertisement or even a scene from the show itself”. Okay, perfect, a title, a general concept, and that’s it, no specific photo requested.

• Step 1: Browse her gallery. Luckily, I remembered she had a couple of photos taken in a princess outfit.

• Step 2: Analyze the photo. Do I cut her out and put her in a new background, or do I build onto the original photo? In this case, the original image was great for the composition, so I decided to use it as the base and add elements to it.
• Step 3: Find and build the rest of the environment. Since it's a kids' show, I searched the web for an image of kids hearing a story and looking at the desired point the closest possible. Cropping, placing and adjusting them. Find extra set decorations to really sell the storytime vibe, composing them onto as well, like the bookshelf and the books on the couch.

• Step 4: Finishing touches, add the title text, double check everything looks alright and off it goes in time for her next post.

For her other article, “Hearts, Brains, and Other Body Parts” the request was much more specific. She sent over the image and a rough draft with examples of some of the elements she wanted included. “Something like how the Terminator would scan humans in a cool sci-fi vision, but using the image of me with the labels and such.”

This approach was different, and frankly, much simpler because half the work was already done for me, lol! I didn't have to hunt for a photo, and the general layout was specified. My only immediate thought was, Great, now I have an excuse to go rewatch Terminator. Well obviously not in that very moment, but not an unpleasant idea for a later time.

• Step 1: Find a visual reference. I went straight to the classic bar scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day where Arnold scans the room. The Terminator's point of view is iconic: a stark, overexposed red tint overlayed with digital data and text analysis.

• Step 2: Apply a red filter to Hannah's photo, overexpose it a little to try to match the movie, and overlay the specific label data she wanted, plus a bunch of extra text to also match and make it a tad more humorous.

• Step 3: Finishing touches, check everything looks alright and off it goes in time for her next post.

In this case, for this image, we are talking about a roughly two hours process. Probably a little less cause I actually spent time on testing out a different design direction, but ultimately decided against it. And that also goes for pretty much every image I create. I would explore at least a couple options and decide on one, or if I'm pleased with both, I'll send both and let Hannah decide. Whether two hours sounds incredibly fast or incredibly slow, I guess it just depends on your perspective and abilities or techniques.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes of the creation process that goes on for some of the images you end seeing in Hannah’s blog. It’s a lot of fun putting them together, and if the final product brings a smile to her face and to her viewers, then the time spent is entirely worth it.