TSB23: Richard Harrington and John Andersson talk Photography and CGI

TSB23: Richard Harrington and John Andersson talk Photography and CGI

Got interviewed by Victor C on Typical shutter bug. It was my first Interview ever only had some talks at schools before so this was a new experience.

I really love to contribute and help people and want to get this blog more updated and I will really work to give you interesting content.

Please if you want to know anything how I made an image send me a comment and I will work to show you the work process.

Take care!

Keep your self Calibrated

Why do usually images looking different screen to screen and why don't the printed image look the same as on your computer? Also why do my image in my editing software look different when I post is on the web?

As a professional Image Creator I often get questions from my friends why this, why that and I hope by this I also can answer some of your questions.

I will mention some softwares and hardware that I use. There are loads of companies out there that produce  similar stuff that works as well.


Basis:
When we start talking about profiles there are some of them you should know where they are used.
sRGB - This is a color profile that is mostly used on the internet but also for screens and printing.

AdobeRGB - This is a more common profile for pictures and Print. Also used more for Screens.

CMYK - This is used as the main color model for printing. Within CMYK you have several profiles.

Ok I throw you in to the deep end but I ensure you that after this you will understand what i mean. I talk about color moddel and profiles. Yes they are different where Color model is telling how many colors samples you are using and profiles are telling what colors you can get out of that mix also called color space.
Each profile have its limitations of how big span of colors it can show.

Where to start:

New Layout

As you might see I have changed the layout a bit to a more flexible one.
This resulted in some older posts got corrupted or got disarranged.

Ether i delete it or I keep it as it is.

A trip to Gotland

Hi everyone

It was a while a go since i wrote anything here but my goal is to speed things up allot the rest of the year.

I have just been on a holiday on Gotland Sweden. The weather was pretty bad during the whole time but I focused on taking as many shots as possible while I was there.

I used my Canon G10 for everything and that have been my camera for off work stuff. It is a great camera.
I have used three exposures to do every shot and Photomatix pro and Lightroom as the only softwares. I will probably on some of them go in and do some photoshop work but will keep it to a minimum. The reason is that i want to focus more on shooting what I want on my spear time and keep the postproduction to a minimum. Always at work I do quite heavy post production but that is a slow and time consuming process that I wanted to avoid.

Here are some of the shoots. Enjoy.

Google Logo Gallery

It is always fun to go in and see the new google loggo showing up in your web browser. On this link you can have a look on most of the logos google have. I really like how they show what is happening in the world. Enjoy.

Light painting and a have fun

Using long Exposures and then play around with some lights. We all have done it, and it is loads of found. But using it for something more useful creativity these guys/girls really done it. Richie Thimmaiah at Richworks have put together a great amount of images to get your mind going.

Read his blogpost here.

 

FluidPaint: An Interactive Digital Painting System using Real Wet Brushes

An interesting interactive system for the artist that want to leave the canvas behind and go digital. I love this  free minded idea and that the belief that still want to use real brushes and not a wacom. The idea is very similar so it was probably just a matter of time.

read more at: Adobe.com

Are you "just" in your field. Think again.

This is a start of episode from PSFK with high ranked agency people. In this episode they are talking about "planers" but it still involves Photographers, Designers, 3d artist and manny more. Just having a speciality in only one field limits you to what you can do in the process and the competition gets harder and harder you have to bring more to the table.

By understanding the processes as an AD when doing a photoshoot he/she know what possible to do or by working with a photographer or 3d artist that can implement other forms of media gives so much more room for creativity and freedom.

Short by Tim Bollinger

Tim Bollinger have made a great short film that is a mix of several techniques.

The fun theory by Volkswagen

Viral videos is spreading over the internet and companies have realized the power of them.
The swedish commercial agency DDB did three viral videos for Volkswagen with the idea that fun can change the way we do things. These three videos show that it is possible. All the text is in Swedish but you will get the idea anyway.

Creative search engine

Creative Search is a Great search engine if you quick and easy want to find images, videos, articles, blogs and much more.The interface is dynamic and you can move the boxes around after you own priority. I have just started to use this one but i really like it. Try it out and come back and say what you think.

Tip of the day: camera strap by Blackrapid

As you all probably know I'm a photographer. And as any photographer I have a camera. But caring it around and be ready with it is not always comfortable, or the time to get the camera up is way to long and you miss the shot. The creator of Blackrapid have the solution. They have created three different camera straps that cover most your needs.

The RS-4 model is a strap for one camera and have a low profile and is lightweight. It is quick and easy to adjust. It have quick access pocket for memory cards.

The RS-5 This is the RS-4 model on steroids. It gives you access to 9+ memory cards. Extra on the front for telephone, walkie-talkie or anything you can fit in the pocet. It is made in a silent material so if your shooting wildlife you wont alert them while approaching. This is just a great replacement to the camera bag when you don't need to carry with you more then one lens.

The RS DR-1 double strap is just something ells. I have been shooting so many weddings and often i have two cameras with me were one have a short lens and the other a tele lens. With the regular type of camera straps having both ready for shooting or a quick change without any risk of dropping or damaging the cameras is not easy. The DR-1 make it possible to do quick changes and is ergonomically design so the weight is spread out evenly. With this strap system I would have the right camera in my hand at the right time and help me take that shoot.

Software for your home and business

Two days ago I wrote about some hardware that I use in my business. Now it is time for the software that I use to do all the stuff Im doing. Because I really like to make my workflow as simple as possible I have allot of softwares but I use them all. To all the softwares I have there are also allot of third party plugins. These make often the workflow even easier.

Adobe:
This is one of the big names in the creative market with
Photoshop, Lightroom, Indesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Aftereffects. Those are just a small pice of the Master collection exept Lightroom which you need to buy separate. Lightroom is really a software for the photographer and the ease of use make it a must in any photographers arsenal, amateur as pro.

Adobe.com

Maxon:

This is the 3d software that I use. It have a really nice interface and integrates good with the softwares from Adobe. If you thinking of start working with 3d cinema is a great software to start with. Maxon is a smaller company in the big 3d business but it grows quickly and gives the other bigger and much more expensive softwares a great match.

maxon.com

Next Limit:
Is the creators of Maxwell Render. This is one of the most photorealistic renderers out there and it gives you an incredible result. The downside to it is that it is slow.

maxwellrender.com

Apple:

Have created this wonderful software that have saved me many trips to the office. This make me connect to my computer at the office and I can check the progress of the renders and also do support to my colleges quick and easy. Download the demo and try it out.

Remotedesktop

Hardware for your home and business

If you have your own company and starting to have more computers you soon notice that keeping track of your data is not so easy. So I will go true the key hardware I have that make my workflow easy and effective.

Computers. Yes we want them all. Im my business im using Apple computers. Why? They work and I find them more stable then PC's. I still have a PC at home and it works to but have more problems with that then all of my Mac's. If PC work better for you that is great. If you decide to use Mac a thing to remember depending on what softwares you are using you might need to use some plugins or softwares that is not compatible with Mac. Unfortunately that is a cuite common problem. Luckely the Mac gets more and more popular and thereby more and more softwares is getting compatible.

Now when you have your computers you probably want to connect them to each other and also to the internet. A nice way and very seamless way with the mac using Airport Extreme. This little box have very smart technology in it so you always have the highest speed possible to the device you are using. Normal routers adapts after the slowest unit on the network.
Setting it up is very easy and remember to encrypt your wireless.

Apple homesite

Working with Photoshop and other creative applications where you need to paint and have a flexible brush or you just want to get rid of you mouse arm the Wacom tablet is something for you. When I went from using a mouse to the wacom it took me some time before I got used it to it. But after that the mouse feel like a very blunt tool. The new series of wacom Intuos 4. The new one have allot of cool features that makes the workflow easier.

Wacom homesite

Protect yourself from power serges and peeks and by having your own UPS can save you from loosing the date you are working on. If the power goes this litte unit lets you save your data and turn the computer of.

APC homesite

This is the new Netgear ReadyNAS NVX I have the version before this ReadyNAS NV+. This one have allot of upgrades faster processor and more RAM memory. This makes it possible for you to do more transfers, folders and files without slowdowns. This is the best investment our company ever have done. By using this we can be several people that work with the same project without needing to transfer files back and forth with external hard drives. By using X-Raid you can hot swap your hard drives if anything happens to any of them. Also you can connect to it even if you not are in the office and the data is encrypted so you don't need to worry that someone unwanted to get hold of your data. A bonus is that you can hide this small unit so in case of a brake in you don't necessary lose your data.

Netgear homesite

Inspirational Logo's

Instantshift is a blog for Designers and Commercial people. DKumar M. is one of the authors and he have done a great collection of logo's that make the ideas flow. This loggo is made by Cnasshan.
Making your or someone else's companies loggo can be quite hard task. My company's logo you seen in the "Tutorial: From adobe ilustrator to Photoshop".


When doing a logo don't do the mistake of doing it Photoshop. The reason for that is that Photoshop is a pixel based software and Illustrator for example is a vector based software. Ok ok ok. you can do Vector graphic in Photoshop also but for me Illustrator is a much more powerful tool. If you don't know how to use Illustrator lynda.com have a tutorial's in doing logos and businesscard's.
Good luck

Tutorial: Remote shooting with canon G10 & Canon SLR

Why would you like to do remote shooting with a camera like canon G10 or any other camera?
And what do you need to know to do it. That is a question that for me seamed really simple I had done it several times before. But that was the thing that was going to make me spend several hours of google and the trying to understand the instruction manual.

I really like to keep it short. Don't like to have a long explanation how to do it or to have it over complicated. The manual and the stuff that i found on the internet did not really help more then finding the way not to do it. Now to the point

Allot of work at the moment

Whhoo. I have allot to do at the moment. So thats why I have not posted anything for a little while.

What i have done is stock up on things that I whant to write about and things that are interesting. I hope I will have a series of post coming up within a few days.

Image of the week on Vismaster

Every week Vismaster post image of the week. It is nice to see what people do and the high quality of it.

Created by: Cat-a-pult studio – Odessa, Ukraine

Have a look. http://vismasters.wordpress.com

Tutorial: From Adobe illustrator to Photoshop

Hi Creatives

Today i did my first official tutorial. I'm still working on the techniques and have some more to learn but hang in there. Today I'm showing how to transfer in this case my logo from illustrator to photoshop and use it as a custom shape in photoshop. Pleas leave comments if you have some thoughts or questions.

Really cool interlaced skulls

When I stumbled over Jim's site I got really impressed by his handiwork. Skulls have been drawn, molded and much more but this really got my attention. He have created many of these with different colors and constellations.

Have a look and hope you like it too.

Site: www.jim-skullgallery.com

Sam Jinks Impressive creations

Sam Jinks is an artist that have specialized  in creating these human like characters. This man was a part of the instillation hanging in the far end in a room. The sad look and small body makes me shiver. The high detail on these characters looks amazing and his coloration of the skin I think is really impressive. To get the hair look real he uses real human hair.

Go to his homepage and se the rest of his creations.  www.samjinks.com

AXE commersial show at slussen stockholm

Today on the way home from a few beers with some friends I ended up at a show at Slussen in Stockholm. This band was playing for AXE INSTINCT. Incredible to see that somone went away from the classical billboard and tv commersial and did this event and I realy liked it. Unnfortiently i did not get the name of the band and if sommone knowes it im glad to post there name.

Hope that all of you have a great weekend. Maybe I will post some more but time will tell.

onOne help you with the tedious cutouts

This is the software that i have been looking for a long time now.

Cutouts is one of the thing that can slow down the work dramatically and make you lose your hair and creativity. At the moment Im trying out this plugin from onOne and it's a life saver.

From that i installed it it took me about 20min before i got the hang of it and thats with a short tutorial at their site. There are alot of tuttorials and helpful stuff there to get you going.

onOne have many more plugins and presets for photoshop, iphoto, Lightroom and manny more for both mac and pc. They have also released a nice little app to the Iphone that allows you to remotly control your DSLR.

Check them out.
http://www.ononesoftware.com/

EverybodyLovesSketch the future in drawing

Getting your ideas to papper can sometimes be the hard thing especually if you not very good at drawing like me. So often when i whant to get my ideas out on to papper i try and sketch it down and moste of the time I'm not eaven close to what i origanly had in my mind.


By just looking at this tuttorial of EverybodyLovesSketch i can see this is what i have been missing for a long time. I don't have the fancy Wacom PL tablet but a Intuos 3 tablet. Im so used to it now so using a mouse is for me to go pre fire.


This software is something that I really would like to try out. And hopfoully will soon do, time will tell.

1st time Cinema4D materials

Yep.

Today I tried out working with cinema4D's own renderer and its material.
I have been working with maxwell render sinse I started so Im working on learning it.

Just wanted to do a RSS loggo to this blogg. As a lerning exersise it's fine.

Need to work more on getting some effects from the lights that i want.

Paint splash Breakdown

I don't know why but of some reason I really like these messy shoots.
The shoot i did here was for SAAB Aftersales and carpet protection.

We started off shooting the actual carpet (not in shoot) and thereafter we started shooting the paint cans one by one an mounted them together in to position. Now my job took over and I placed a paint can on a table and put up close as possible the same light as we used during the shoot. But more thinking of how the paint going to look as good as possible.

When i found a light that worked i started to put plastic all over the studio. The paint gets everywhere and with wooden floors I did not want that to happen.


It is important to use as low power on the flashes as possible to shorten down the burning time (flash duration) and minimize the motion blur because when the paint comes flying it is doing so fast.


The way we got the paint flying was using a paper tube like the one the backdrops come on and then a weight that fits within it and luckily we found a wight that fited perfecly and by that gave a really connsistant result. One more importat thing when chusing the wheight was use one with a flat side hitting the liquid it just giving a better splash.

I mixed my own paint by using water, flour and candy paint. When mixing the color it is good to remember if i mix this color with this color i get and it is allot of mixing.

Then it is just have patience and shoot and shoot and shoot. It will take time. I did the shooting manually so i counted to three we dropped the weight and i pushed the shutter. You can always use laser shutters or timers. Doing it manually for something like this works great because you get variety.

A small film from the occasion. I just speak swedish but you can se the set.

What this blogg is all about

I have for a long time been thinking of doing my own blogg.
Now when i have created this blog it is for gathering the things that i feel intresting in the creation of the difrent medias that is avalible. I mostly work with photography and 3d software. But also I got the nickname Macgyver.

I have been working with professional photography for about four and a half year. During this time i have been working on one of Sweden's highest ranked retouch companies and the last three years as a photo assistant. This last year i have been integrating 3d/cgi with photography and mostly just been sitting in front of the computer. What I want to do with this blog is to help me change that or just boost my creativity.

The way I want to do this is to as the same time I explore i help other people out. During 1 year in photography school I helped people out and at the same time teach my self. Ever sense that my friends and photographers I have been working with before contact me to help them out. the bottom line is helping people out is something that i rely like to do.

Even if no one reads this blogg I will keep it up to date with the stuff i feel intresting.