Traditionally, an HDR image is created by merging 3 or more photos together that were taken at different exposures. By doing this, you maximize the details in all elements of the photo; underexposure to grab sky/highlight detail, correct exposure for midtone detail, and overexposure for increased shadow detail.  However, taking three identical shots is not always possible, especially when your subject is moving. With Photoshop Camera Raw and a few other tricks, it is possible to imitate the HDR effect with a single photograph.

For this tutorial, we’ll take this photo I took of a dive shack in the Belizean Cayes last year (below).

Begin with a RAW image whenever possible. Open the image in Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw. This is the best place to make major changes to an image without losing pixel integrity. To artificially create the effects of a HDR photomerge, we are going to drastically alter some of the RAW settings. Begin by underexposing the image with the “Exposure” setting (in the “Basic” tab). Next, slide the “Recovery” button all the way to the right, or close to it. This will help retain detail in the sky/highlights. Then slide the “Fill Light” setting to the far right as well to fill in shadow detail. The “Blacks” slider can be adjusted to darken the shadows and give more contrast and depth to your image. The “Contrast” slider should be used to adjust the contrast and give your image a dramatic look. The “Clarity” slider should also be moved dramatically to the right – this helps to give exaggerated edges to your details.

Many HDR images also feature selective over-saturation. I use the “Saturation” and “Vibrance” sliders sparingly, and prefer to use the HSL/Grayscale tab in Camera Raw instead. Screen shots below explain the settings.

Next, open the image in Photoshop. We will now apply some filters to achieve even greater effects.

Start by going to Image>Adjust>Shadows/Highlights. Use this panel to lighten some of your shadow features, and enhance your highlight detail. This will also create a “glow” effect around contrasted elements of the photo, like the shack and the sky in our example.  

Next, create a duplicate layer of your image in the “Layers” window. Select the top layer, and go to Filters>Other…>High Pass. Be careful not to overdo it on this filter, or your image will look grainy and too sharp. A radius of just a few pixels should do it, depending on your image size and quality. This will render the top layer into a sort of grey textured image. But we will use this layer to create a combined overlay effect with the background layer.

In the Layers window, go to the drop-down menu at the top of the window (default value is “Normal”). You will see a list of options for blending layers. Depending on the severity of effect you desire, select “Overlay”, “Vivid Light”, or “Linear Light”. You can play with these settings to see which one achieves the look you are after. Once you have applied this effect, flatten your image.

Next we are going to sharpen our image with Filters>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen. Again, a little bit goes a long way, so don’t get too crazy with this setting. But using it wisely will help to give that HDR-sharp look.

Once we do this, we will turn right around and use the Smart Blur filter by going to Filters>Blur>Smart Blur. This will help to soften the image just a bit, without losing detail. It will also help to eliminate any noise you created by sharpening and High Pass filtering.

Now let’s take a look at the final result! Without using 3 different images, we achieved similar results to an HDR photomerge. Ta-da!

Original image (above)

After our Faux HDR process (above)

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Climbing is one of those sports which, in theory, is entirely egalitarian. Different body types lend themselves to different climbing styles, and women can just as easily send a 5.13 as men. Granted, perhaps the style of 5.13 may be different, but it is a fact that some of the best climbers in the world are women. Lynn Hill, Katie Brown, Steph Davis… just to name a few.

As a climbing photographer, and a female climber, it has been my personal mission as of late to take more photos of women climbing hard. Despite the 10:1 male to female ratio in the climbing community, I’ve been able to shoot some photos of some very inspiring ladies. Below are a few from my recent trip to Indian Creek, Utah.

Rachel Greenburg on "Scarface" (5.11-)

Megan Polk on "Family Home Night" (5.12)

Megan Polk on Pitch 2 of "Heat Searcher" (5.11+)

It was a pleasure both to shoot photos of these ladies, and to get to know them. Since my personal resolve for climbing has faltered in the past 2 years, it’s refreshing to meet other women who have overcome hardships while climbing, and have returned to the sport. For the first time in a long time, climbing has not only inspired me artistically, but physically and mentally as well. I look forward to returning to Utah next week.

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I often use colored boxes or gradient sidebars with black text on top of them. I find it helps give color to the page, and adds some visual interest to an otherwise monochrome copy space. I had never had a problem with these in the year and a half that I have been designing this particular publication. Yet, the printer informed me that this time the black text was overprinting, causing rich black text in the colored sidebars. As mentioned in my previous post on rich blacks, small rich black text is a big NO-NO. Even the slightest misalignment in plate registration can cause the text to become illegible. Below is an example of what the overprinted text came out looking like. In print, it looks blurry and over-saturated.

The first step to correcting this problem is realizing it is there. So, when you are checking your output PDF in Adobe Acrobat, go to Advanced>Print Production>Output Previewer. Hover the cursor over the overset black text. If you have exported incorrectly,it will look like this:

As you can see, the black text is actually built of 100%K, along with the ink blend of the color beneath it. In this case, the ink limits are 200% or higher, and the built blacks will cause my text to be fuzzy or illegible. Fortunately, it is an easy fix. In Adobe InDesign CS4, simply go to the Edit>Preferences menu and select “Appearance of Blacks”. A dialogue box will appear with all of the Preferences menu items on the left, and “Appearance of Black” as the active item. Make sure that the drop-down menu called “Printing/Exporting” reads “Output all blacks accurately”. Then, UNCHECK the checkbox below that says “Overprint [Black] Swatch at 100%”. As follows:

.

This will cause any overset black text to knockout the ink below it, instead of adding 100% to the existing color ink blend.  Now simply export as you usually would, and double-check your ink in the Acrobat Output Previewer. Ta-da!

There you have it. A simple step you can take to make sure your overset black text comes out looking crisp and legible.  Hope this simple tutorial helps you!

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I never really liked Photoshop brushes. I felt they were rather limited in scope, and it was difficult to get the effect I wanted. I ended up doing a lot of rotating of the image, a lot of copying and pasting and free transforming.

And now I find out all that work was for nothing.

Adobe, being the geniuses that they are, include an entire options window for brushes. I noticed it before, but never really explored it fully. So, I’m passing on this incredibly simple tip to you…

Window>Brushes produces the Brushes toolbox window. Click on “Brush Tip Shape” (the cleverly hiding option without a checkbox) at the top of the Brush Preset menu list on the left hand side of the window. And ta-da! Here’s what you get:

Using this option panel you can rotate the brush to acheive the effect you want, as well as edit the spacing of brush strokes. Pure gold. And so simple…

Amazing that a person can use Photoshop for 11 years and still learn new things every day. Ha.

Enjoy!

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Maybe.

Newspapers have taken the biggest hit, by far. The problem, according to NPR’s recent story, “Chronicling the Death of American Newspapers“, is this:

“Swiftly moving competition from emerging Web sites has hastened the downfall of newspapers. As more people turn to the Internet for news — even, ironically, to the newspapers’ own Web sites — fewer subscribe to news printed on paper. As circulation dwindles, so does advertising revenue. And without the same amount of advertising revenue, newspapers can no longer afford large, comprehensive, news-gathering operations. So the newspaper shrinks, attracting fewer readers, leading to a decline in advertising revenue, and the death spiral continues.

Newspapers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to migrate to the Web and hold on to their readers. But the advertising revenue is dramatically less than it was for the print version. (Many advertisers have their own economic problems to solve.) Consequently, newsrooms are having to contract — through buyouts, layoffs, combining or closing certain sections and even shutting down the presses altogether. There seems to be a general consensus that the kind of print and photographic journalism supported by large newsrooms and substantial resources is teetering on extinction.”

Even worse, the publications that seem to be thriving in this economic atmosphere, have nothing to do with investigative journalism or memorable imagery. The New York Times has a greattracker for comparing the difference in advertising revenues for major publications during the past 3 years. Interestingly (and rather disturbingly), most tabloid publications recorded significant increases in revenue, like inTouch, who increased advertising by 68% from 2005 to 2008. In contrast, magazines like Newsweek, Businessweek, New Yorker and Time took big hits in ad sales. But the big winner? TV Guide, whose ad sales increased in volume by a whopping 458% over the same three-year period. Americans love their televisions.

Many print publications have been able to stay afloat, just barely, by developing robust online content. So far, it has been nearly impossible to gain the same level of advertising revenue from online publications as from print editions. But the idea of bolstering missing advertising revenue by charging readers to view content online doesn’t seem a likely scenario. Experts agree that consumers simply won’t pay for news content online. People want their news for free. Period. And the internet is more than willing to oblige; with blogs, free news sites and even syndicated news sites, consumers have all the news they need at their fingertips.Despite the floundering newspapers, ironically, the demand for news has never been higher. Web traffic to newspaper websites was up 12% in 2008. MSNBC saw 45 million unique visitors in January 2009. People seem to reconize the value of quality newsgathering, but are unwilling to pay to access it. Smart newspaper publishers should recognize that the end of print news is near, and should invest time and money in developing their online presence to shift to an online advertising-only revenue model. If they accomplish that, they might be able to survive.
As for consumer magazines, the weaker ones are rapidly being culled. But these special-interest publications are much more resilient than their newsprint brethren. Why? Two reasons. First, because they generally carve out a specific niche for themselves, instead of covering a wide array of subjects relevant to the general public. In contrast, every newspaper in the country covers the same major national news stories,  giving newspapers a massive redundancy factor. The second advantage of magazines is that while they may publish time-sensitive information, the shelf life of that information is much longer than the average news story. Newspapers can’t compete with constant online updates – by the time a printed paper hits the newsstands, it is already 6 hours old (eons in news-time).

The morals of this evolving obituary? What does print media need to do to survive? My advice:

1. Develop a dynamic and interactive web presence. The Internet is not going away. It is here to stay, and it will bury print media inthe near future. For publications to survive, they must embrace web content, not fight it.
2. Carve out a niche. Even newspapers can capitalize on niche reporting. Downsize your print edition and localize. The one thing that the consumer cannot find easily online is in-depth local news. Leave the redundant national news stories to the big guys, and focus on developing hard-hitting stories within the community. They’re out there – go find them.
3. Increase your shelf life. Focus on stories that are relevant for days or weeks or even months after you report on them.

As for me… I’m going to cross my fingers that magazines and newspapers can and will survive in one form or another. After all, they write my paychecks.

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Based in Las Cruces, New Mexico, GRU provides services to developmentally challenged individuals and their in-home care providers. They came to Keen with the desire to improve the look and functionality of their existing website. In conjunction with the skills of a talented web coder, we developed a color scheme with the client, recreated an old logo with a slightly updated look, and set to work developing a fully-functional website that would provide GRU with:

• Login permission groups with access to different member services, including announcements, policies blog and downloadable PDF forms
• Secure file management system for confidential records
• CMS system for adding and editing content

Another project completed! To learn more about GRU, or to view the site, visit MyGRU.org.

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First of all, CMYK is composed of four plates, or process colors. Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y), and Black (K). Standard process black is 100%K, or 0/0/0/100. Visually, 100% Black is a kind of washed-out black, not a deep black like we can obtain through rich black. Rich black combines ink from all four plates to produce a dark, super-saturated black. An example is below, which uses 70/82/90/100.

Rich blacks can be very useful when looking to obtain a deep, dark black over a large field of solid color. However, be aware that utilizing rich blacks can have two negative effects:

1. Super-saturation. Depending on your medium, this can be a real problem. If you are designing for newsprint, using inks in excess of 240% can cause the ink to soak through the page and obscure content on the other side. In the above example of rich black, we would be using ink percentages of 342%. Check with your printer to see what their maximum ink limit is for the medium you are using. You can check overprints in Adobe Acrobats “Output Previewer” option (more on that later).

2. Registration problems. This is the most common dilemma caused by rich blacks. Sometimes the registration, or alignment of the different color plates will be just a fraction misaligned. This is normal, especially for newspaper printing. However, when utilizing all four plates to create black, especially text or knock-out text, the margin for error is minimal and misaligned plates can cause illegible text.

Below is an example of using 100%K text compared to rich black text:

And here is an example of knockout white space in a field of 100%K as compared to a field of rich black:

As you can see, rich blacks should not be used on black fields with knockouts, or on text under 48 pt. Using these general guidelines will hopefully help you avoid ugly or illegible text.

So what happens when you receive camera-ready artwork that needs to be converted to CMYK from RGB?

This can be a frustrating process. But it’s really quite simple. When converting an image file or PDF to CMYK in Photoshop, it generally defaults to CMYK profile US Web Coated (SWOP) v2. However, as illustrated below in the channels window for our camera-ready ad, this profile creates blacks built with color in all four channels. No bueno.

The key is creating a custom CMYK conversion profile that limits the black ink to 100%, and generates the maximum amount of K for blacks. To do this, we will go to Edit>Color Settings…>CMYK dropdown menu>Custom CMYK…

This produces the following screen:

Here we will select GCR, Black Ink Generation = Maximum, and Black Ink Limit = 100%. Click OK. This will save your custom CMYK profile. Exit the Color Settings window and return to your RGB image waiting to be converted. Now we will convert to CMYK by selecting Image>Mode>CMYK like we always do. But this time it will load the custom profile you just made, and presto! Look in your channels window and you will see that ll the black is in the black channel.

Also note that an easy way to check for built/rich blacks in a camera-ready PDF is to utilize Adobe’ Output Previewer. In Acrobat Professional, go to Advanced>Print Production>Output Previewer. Not only will this break down the ink builds when you hover the mouse over colors on the page, but it will highlight rich blacks and overprints for you. This is a very useful tool when preflighting your print files.

I hope this brief tutorial is helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

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As I was listening to NPR the other day, they broadcast a story on biomimicry. The idea of biomimicry is to derive inspiration and solutions from nature for sustainable innovation. Essentially, when faced with a dilemma, we ask, “What would nature do?” For example, when faced with the dilemma of liquid storage, nature provides us with myriad solutions, ranging from the snail to the banana to lettuce. Lettuce is 98% water, but when punctured, the leaf does not leak. Imagine if we could produce packaging that, instead of employing the traditional method of thicker leakage barriers (and thus excess materials), could utilize the structural matrix of the lettuce leaf to render the vessel leak-proof?

Or, more pertinent to this blog, let’s examine nature’s construction of vibrant color in the peacock. All the colors of the peacock are actually comprised of just one brown pigment, melanin. The secret to those vibrant hues lies in the microstructure of the feather. This allows light to bounce off of the structure in a way that produces vivid blues and purples and greens. What’s more, this is done without dyes, is 100% permanent, safe, and edible! Imagine if we could create packaging for food on this model, so that you could eat the packaging along with the food! Or, imagine if magazines were printed in a manner that never required recycling to return to nature?

The introduction to this radio broadcast mentioned that the narrator met Janine Benyus (founder of the Biomimicry Institute, a collaboration between biologists and innovators) at a national graphic design conference. My ears immediately perked up. Though the story focused primarily on packaging/product design and structural design, I wondered how this concept can be applied to my trade. How can graphic designers employ biomimicry? The answer is twofold:

Concept:

Inspiration is all around us. Nature provides us with endless combinations of shapes and colors and textures. It is possible to incorporate these basic yet elegant images into our design, without being pigeon-holed hippie artists. The vision for biomimicry in graphic design is to subliminally promote respect for the natural world by incorporating nature into visual design.

This is not a new phenomenon and has been utilized for decades, again for myriad motives. Combined with color theory, abstract symbolism is used by corporations to portray a very deliberate image to the marketplace. A prime example comes from the marketing genius of multinational petroleum giant BP. BP, through the use of color and shape, managed to both subliminally portray itself as sustainable (yeah, right) with the liberal use of the color green, and to incorporate the sacred lotus blossom into its image. Though my sensibilities are offended by this double blasphemy, I must admit it is marketing genius. Below:

the sacred lotus flower

BP logo

So how can we use our powers for good? How can we incorporate natural art into human art, when often the recipient is unrelated to eco-industry? I know my own clients range from NPOs to publications to software companies, and biomimicry presents a unique challenge in design for these clients when their marketing strategies are not focused on being “green”. Below is a wonderful example, including a portion of a social service industry ad and its biomimicry inspiration:

print ad

Here the designer drew visual inspiration from the skeleton of a leaf, and the imagery was made all the more potent by the green element containing the main text of the ad. This accomplishes the concept of biomimicry without converting the subject into something it is not. We can all strive to take our cues from the natural world. Take note of color and shape next time you are in your backyard or even walking to the mailbox. How does nature construct itself visually? Art should, after all, represent life… even if abstractly.

Execution:

photo of a leaf skeleton

This element of biomicry is, for the graphic designer, much much harder. How can we find natural structure for the packaging or print materials we design for? Applying the idea of biomimicry to the end products of graphic design poses an intimidating challenge to those of us who are not inventors or structural designers. We feel we are limited by the product resources we are presented by our vendors. And perhaps we are. So must we then settle for “green” instead of biomimicry? Perhaps. And perhaps this is better than nothing?

An easy thing to do: When calling around for print bids, take bids not only on price but on availability of recycled materials or low-impact print processing. Present these options to your client. You’ll be amazed how often they will opt for the “greener” alternative.

And maybe, just maybe, by applying the concept of biomimicry to our visual design, the ideas will trickle down through the layered soil of the design industry and permeate the very roots, thestructure of graphic design. Perhaps if we insist on incorporating nature into the imagery, the innovations of the execution phase will follow.

So pay attention. Inspiration is everywhere, and you needn’t look further than your biological surroundings. Nature wrote the book on art, and perhaps it is time that we give it proper annotation in our bibliography of design.

Want to learn more?

WEBSITES

Biomimicry Institute

Package Design Magazine on biomimicry in package design

biomimicrynews.com

Biomimicry Guild

READING

Benyus, M. Janine. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

Gatter, Mark. Getting it Right in Print: Digital Prepress for Graphic Designers (some relevant chapters discuss environmentally-friendly inks and materials)

Papanek, Victor. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change

EDUCATION

California College of the Arts
The College offers a course entitled “Applied Biology for Designers and Artists”. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the basic concepts of biology and relate these concepts directly to design and artistic work using the field of biomimicry.
Minneapolis College of Arts and Design
Offers an on-line course called “Biomimicry for Designers” taught by Dayna Baumeister of The Biomimicry Guild.

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