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May 31, 2007
[ FRAME UP! ]
FEELING STRONG? FEELING SECURE IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR PHOTOS ARE AS GOOD AS THE NEXT DIGITAL SNAPPER’S? SURE YOU’RE ON TOP OF THE TECHNOLOGY AND THE ART?
Take a look at the gallery of the late Francis Toussaint and either be inspired to try harder or to give up.
Francis had the advantage of being European and therefore a mere train trip away from Venice, Bruges or Mont St Michel. Not to mention majestic mountains and crystal lakes which are in short supply here in the wide, brown and sadly flat land.
Technically the photos are superb. Many of them get their kick from having been taken early in the morning or at dusk when the light is most magical. And we suspect that Francis was not averse to fiddling with reality in Photoshop, winding up colour saturation for effect and certainly sharpening images just a tad too much.
But never mind the pictures, look at the frames. Every image is set inside a simple frame to isolate it from the background clutter of the web page. The frames draw the eye instantly to the photograph and push the distractions on the screen to the edge of our perception.
When we first encountered the work of Francis on Fred Miranda’s gallery site we realised in an instant that the frame is the essential finishing touch to the picture, just as it would be if we were hanging it on the wall. And Francis’ frames are easy to make in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or PaintShop. Photoshop and PaintShop both provide for automation of frame insertion with Actions or Scripts.
There are three frames built in to the Special Effects set of Photoshop Elements, but they are boring. To create an elegant black frame like those that Francis uses it is simply a matter of opening the edited image, changing the size to about 600 pixels in its longest dimension and the resolution to 72dpi. Ctrl-Alt-I opens the image sizing dialogue in both versions of Photoshop. Then select the image (Ctrl-A) and under Edit select Stroke. Using this command an outline is put around the picture in any colour or size. Try a 4 pixel white outline to start with.
Next expand the size of the canvas (Image/Resize/Canvas Size) by 2cm in both dimensions (check the Relative box) and select black as Canvas Extension Colour. Select all (Ctrl-A) and use Edit/Stroke again to create a 1 pixel white border. Then increase the canvas size again by 2cm and the frame is made.
For more elaborate frames and mattes in Photoshop Elements there is a tutorial here and the instruction set here is worth a look.
For Photoshop CS2/3 there are many sources of ready-made frame actions. One place to start looking is in Adobe’s Studio Exchange where Photoshop users post Actions they have created – some useful and many weird!
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Posted by terry at May 31, 2007 04:56 AM
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