secret of the pros photoshop

Secrets of the ProsTM

Designers Face OffMark Clarkson

20 Top Artists and

San Francisco London

Photoshop Secrets of the Pros

Photoshop

Secrets of the ProsTM

Designers Face OffMark Clarkson

20 Top Artists and

San Francisco London

Associate Publisher: Acquisitions Editor: Developmental Editor: Production Editor: Technical Editor: Copyeditor: Director, Print Design and Composition: Book Cover, Interior Design, and Composition: CD Coordinator: CD Technician: Proofreaders: Indexer: Front Cover Images:

Dan Brodnitz Bonnie Bills Pete Gaughan Dennis Fitzgerald Stephen Burns Pat Coleman Amy Changar Mark Ong, Side By Side Studios Dan Mummert Kevin Ly Darcey Maurer, Laurie OConnell, Nancy Riddiough, Sarah Tannehill Ted Laux Isaac Epp and Matt Riddle (top left); Bas Hijmans and Evan Alexander (center); Christine Smart (bottom left); Bob Gundu and Farhez Rayani (bottom center); Richard Llewellyn and John Henry Donovan (bottom right)

Copyright 2004 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. World rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic, or other record, without the prior agreement and written permission of the publisher. All images are to the author or the individual designers in the matches, unless otherwise indicated. Library of Congress Card Number: 2003110718 ISBN: 0-7821-4191-9 SYBEX and the SYBEX logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SYBEX Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. The CD interface was created using Macromedia Director, COPYRIGHT 1994, 1997-1999 Macromedia Inc. For more information on Macromedia and Macromedia Director, visit http://www.macromedia.com. TRADEMARKS: SYBEX has attempted throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer. The author and publisher have made their best efforts to prepare this book, and the content is based upon final release software whenever possible. Portions of the manuscript may be based upon pre-release versions supplied by software manufacturer(s). The author and the publisher make no representation or warranties of any kind with regard to the completeness or accuracy of the contents herein and accept no liability of any kind including but not limited to performance, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or any losses or damages of any kind caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly from this book. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For Dad, who always took the time to explain.

AcknowledgmentsThanks to Bonnie Bills for believing in this book, and to Pete Gaughan for helping me keep track of the thousands of pieces that went into it. Thanks to Jim Coudal and the folks at Coudal Partners for formalizing Photoshop Tennis and thrusting it into the spotlight. Thanks to Thomas Knoll for inventing the worlds greatest piece of software, and to Thomas Edison for inventing the electricity that makes my computers go. Hugs to my family for their phenomenal forbearance and support during the difficult birthing process. And a big shout out to everybody at Were Here (www.were-here.com) and 12Stone (www.12stone.com), where I learned to play Photoshop Tennis and still do. (Phantom, its still your turn to volley.)

About the Author

Mark Clarkson has been a professional writer since 1987, when he and the corporate world decided theyd had just about enough of each other. The state of PC graphics was almost unbelievably grim back then, but he patiently waited the six years necessary for Adobe Photoshop to arrive. He has used it almost daily ever since. Clarksons books span a wide range of subjects including artificial life, animated cartoons, BattleBots, and Photoshop. He lives with his wife and two children in Wichita, Kansas, and rarely leaves the basement. He is a cartoonist, a 3D animator, and, despite an unseemly penchant for semicolons, a pretty good writer.www.markclarkson.com

Mark ClarksonYears as a Photoshop designer: Depends on whos keeping score. First version of Photoshop: 2.5 Area of specialty: Generalization Non-digital art medium: Lego Duplos Favorite non-Photoshop software: Macromedia Flash, LightWave 3D, Microsoft Word. How has Photoshop changed the design field: Are you kidding me? At this point, Photoshop is the design field. Height: 18,288,702,003 angstroms. More or less. Favorite color: Radio If I were a kitchen implement, Id be: A Mouli Favorite TV shows: King of the Hill, Egg Dance: Not if Im sober. Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: Layers, layers, layers Comfort food: Barbeque potato chips Favorite motion picture: Lawrence of Arabia Favorite read: Science fiction Web site I visit too often: news.google.com

if the Mona Lisa is hanging in the forest and no ones around to see it, is it still art?

Contents

The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers The History of Photoshop Tennis Everybody Plays Photoshop Tennis Rules (Such as They Are) The Matches in This Book About the CD Keyboard Conventions Match 1: Match 2: Match 3: Match 4: Match 5: Match 6: Match 7: Match 8: Isaac Epp vs. Matt Riddle Shaun Inman vs. Leslie Cabarga Eric Jordan vs. Benoit Falardeau Roddy Llewellyn vs. John Henry Donovan Audrey Mantey vs. Joen Asmussen Bas Hijmans vs. Evan Alexander Christine Smart vs. Manuel Clement Bob Gundu vs. Farhez Rayani

1 2 4 6 9 12 13 14 38 62 86 110 134 158 182

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Match 9: Match 10:

Michelle Kwajafa vs. Nate Smith Dave Bedingfield vs. Walt Dietrich Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Photoshop Tennis Real Designers Do Less, Get Paid More Master the Basics Three Words: Layers, Layers, Layers Blend to Win Preserve Your Elements You Can Never Have Too Many Brushes Add Some Texture Filter in Moderation Dont Think Index Whats on the Companion CD

206 230 254 254 256 256 257 259 260 261 262 262 264 278

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The Secret Life of Photoshop Designers

I read an anecdote once, about a man and his son playing Frisbee in Europe. A passerby, who had never seen a Frisbee before, came up and asked, How do you tell whos winning? Thats exactly how I felt when I first stumbled onto Photoshop Tennis in 2001 at a forum at the Were Here website (www.were-here.com) where the sport was played. Photoshop Tennis? said I. Just what the hell is Photoshop Tennis? Even after watching for a while, I wasnt entirely certain what I was looking at. I browsed through the images being produced, and I was hooked immediately. This stuff was great! But how were they doing it? Why were they doing it? What were the rules? Who was winning? And, you may be asking yourself, what does it have to do with Photoshop Secrets of the Pros? Hang on, and Ill tell ya.


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Photoshop Tennis (PT), defined most broadly, is two or more Photoshop artists trading images back and forth. As you watch the images in a PT match evolve, it is often far from clear exactly how a particular image has been arrived at, and the artists rarely say. The point is the result, not the process. But as a Photoshop aficionado myself, I do wonder, howd they do that? How did they build those great photo collages? How did they composite those photos so seamlessly? Where did they get the ideas? Do professional designers use Photoshop the same way as the rest of us? Or do they know of special techniques, accessible only by the initiated? That, my friends, is what this book is all about. Photoshop Tennis, it occurred to me, was the perfect vehicle for peering inside designers intricate little heads. What better way to gain insight into their creative processes than to accelerate them to nearlight speed, slam them into each other, and watch the pixels fly off? Metaphorically, at least. I realized I could use Photoshop Tennis to bring together talented, creative people in a collision of differing tastes, tools, backgrounds, and expectations. Pitting men against women, web designers against illustrators, Holland against New York. A series of Photoshop Tennis matches would provide the rare opportunity to watch designers at work; to see which tools they reach for most often and how they use them; to eavesdrop

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on their interior monologues as they make creative decisions, unfettered by client tastes and business exigencies. For this book, Ive brought together 20 talented artists and designers to face off, two at a time. You get to watch as they build, battle, and collaborate, slamming pieces of highresolution art back and forth for your edification and, sometimes, amusement. Everybody wins. What could be more fun?

The History of Photoshop TennisHow often, I wonder, in the history of humankind, has a sport been invented on purpose? How often did someone sit down and say, Im going to invent a new sport something involving a ball and maybe some sticks, and then do so? Knowing nothing whatsoever about the history of sports, Ill offer the expert opinion that it was very seldom. Usually, people were playing for a while before they realized they had a sport on their hands: Hey Ugg, this throwing a rock back and forth is kind of cool. Lets play again tomorrow. Before long, the rules, vague at first, are codified:

Smooth rocks are better than pointy rocks. Whoever throws the rock into the bears cave has to retrieve it. No throwing the rock directly at your opponents head. No cavegirls allowed. Thats exactly how it happened with Photoshop Tennis well, except for the part about the cavegirls. And the rocks. But nobody set out to create a game called Photoshop Tennis. In fact, the exact origins of the sport are obscure; we can never know when the first two designers started passing Photoshop files back and forth for fun. Australian designer Justin Fox may have been the first person to put such a

project online (www.bloop.org/choco/versus/) when he began the Versus Project in early 1999. In the Versus Project, two Photoshop designers took turns reinterpreting each others art, taking no more than one hour. The process repeated until one or the other designer got tired or gave up. Fox also created Visual Dialoguea conversation between


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two or more creatives [] conversing with imageson Australian INfront (www.australianinfront.com.au) later in 1999.

Photoshop Tennis, in the format I employ in this book, was invented by accident at the Chicago-based design firm Coudal Partners (www.coudal.com), one lazy Friday afternoon in the summer of 2001. We were just goofing around on a Friday, recalls Jim Coudal, trying to avoid work. I made a Photoshop image and sent it over the LAN to [Creative Director] Susan Everett. I said add a layer and send it back. She added a layer to it and sent it back to me, and I added a layer and sent it back to her, and that was very fun, and we didnt do anything but that for a while. We said it was like tennis, says Coudal. We laughed at that: Photoshop Tennis. The activity caught on throughout Coudal Partners, and they hosted their first official live Photoshop Tennis match, on their site, August 10, 2001 (Figure 1). It featured Michael Schmidt from K10K and author/artist Michelangelo Capraro from hopbot in San Francisco, with play-by-play commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin. To give the matches a context, Coudal Partners invented the RGB Cup Photoshop Tennis Championship (Figure 2). They create a unique promotional poster for each match.1. Volley 8 from the first official Photoshop Tennis match. Michael Schmidt slams the image back with a wicked, multicolor backspin.Michael Schmidt and Michelangelo Capraro

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|Jim Coudal, coudal.com X-ray provided and Victor Micallef, unusualxrays.com


2.To help promote Photoshop Tennis, Coudal Partners invented the RGB Cup.

Everybody PlaysThe word is definitely out about Photoshop Tennis, and designers all over the world are anxious to throw down the gauntlet and show off their chops. A search of the web turns up dozens of places where designers are engaged in a little of the old back-and-forth, whether its personal matches between two designers or an active community of players inhabiting a public forum or newsgroup. Coudals Photoshop Tennis site and INfronts Visual Dialogue site are still up and active; coudal.com is conducting an invitational tournament that continues its status as the biggest PT event site. Designer Shaun Inmans Designologue (www.designologue.com) offers various spins on the Photoshop Tennis idea. Inman, who appears in Match 2 in this book, defines a designologue as a conversation between two designers in the medium they understand best: design. Youll also find them swapping PSDsand other image formatsat plenty of forums, including these: Digikitten The Flashkit Arena Worth1000www.digikitten.com www.flashkit.com www.worth1000.com


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Baseboard Were Here 12Stone We're Over There Graphic Forums Creative Flight Club YayHorray! Newstoday

www.baseboard.net www.were-here.com www.12stone.com www.were-over-there.com www.graphic-forums.com www.bd4d.com yayhooray.com www.newstoday.com

Historical Co-op PlayCollaborative graphic art is nothing new, of course. It has ancient roots, stretching back, at least, to a collaborative charcoal-on-limestone project that started on a lazy Friday afternoon in Chauvet, France, back in the summer of 29,892 B.C. Check out the results on the web at www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html. More than 30,000 years later, surrealists, who favored suggestive and ambiguous titles, enjoyed a game called The Exquisite Corpse. The idea of the game is for two or more artists to collaboratewithout benefit of actually seeing the others work. Sometimes the game is played by adding words, one by one, to build up phrases, sentences, and stories without, of course, being able to see the words that have come before. Sometimes the game is played with drawings and paintings on paper, folded so that the previous artists work, or most of it, is hidden. The Exquisite Corpse is alive and well in the digital age. Applications such as Photoshop and e-mail make it easier than ever for artists to collaborate and to stitch everything together again at the end. For some interesting examples, check out the Digital Exquisite Corpse project at www.corpse.org/issue_7/gallery/yow2.htm. The artists of the Digital Exquisite Corpse have been collaborating since 1997 and still have never met.Copyright David Walters, Burnell Yow!, and Lawrence R. Parkes Copyright David Walters, Burnell Yow!, and Lawrence R. Parkes

6Mark Clarkson Walt Dietrich Jorge Villanueva Lawrence R.Parkes Mat Bastian Michelle Kwajafa

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As Photoshop Tennis popularity has spread, the number of variants has grown as well. Ive seen matches with tall skinny images; matches with short wide images; and matches in which the size and aspect ratio of the images changes from volley to volley; matches with huge images, tiny, icon-sized images (Figure 3), and even one-pixel images; matches in which every volley comes from a different designer; and even team battles between different communities of designers. Perhaps the most popular derivative of Photoshop Tennis is the Photoshop mural, or quilt. In these large, collaborative projects, like the one in Figure 4, everyones work is preserved; rather than placing new layers over previous layers, players add them to the side of previous layers, building sideways or sometimes up and down. Youll likely find murals anywhere you find an active community of Photoshop Tennis players. For an excellent example of the genre, visit the Versus Project (at cubadust.com), run by Photoshop Tennis veteran Jonas Ring. Cave drawings notwithstanding, theres never been a better time, in the history of the world, for collaborative art. The possibilities are quite literally limitless. PowerPoint Tennis? Been done. Flash Football? Somebodys playing a game right now. Go out and get you some.3.This tiny image is from a 6464-pixel thumbnail bout.

Photoshop Tennis Rules (Such as They Are)It turns out that the rules of Photoshop Tennis, like the rules of Frisbee, are whatever you want them to be. Players pass images back and forth, making changes as they go; beyond that, theres really no saying what a match might be like, although players usually agree to a set of house rules before starting: number of rounds, black-andwhite, use (or prohibition) of typography, or whatever. If youre a quick study, thats all you need to know. Feel free to skip ahead to the next chapter and start enjoying the matches.4.This Photoshop mural was created especially for this book by these fine artists.


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7Jim Coudal, coudal.com

Still here? Okay, a few more details, just for you. Photoshop Tennis matches are not limited to images and effects created entirely within Photoshop. Photoshop is a near-universal tool for 21st century artists, bringing together elements from every digital (and digitizable) medium: scanned artwork, type, illustration, photography (Figure 5), or 3D software such as Maya, 3DS Max, and LightWave 3D (Figure 6). The typical match is between two designers and lasts for 10 volleys, 5 per player, but individual matches can be longer or shorter. Designers having a really good time may agree to extend the match by a few volleys, or a player who feels they have been sufficiently humiliated may choose to drop out early. Everyone agrees on the number of volleys beforehand, as well as on image size, color space, theme (images of war, images of food, images of bugssuch as Figure 7), and so forth, in advance.

5. (left)Outside images such as digital photography can provide the raw material for a Photoshop Tennis volley. 6. (above) Some players build elements in other apps, such as Poser, Illustrator, or (here) LightWave 3D.

87.You can do a lot with some simple bugs.

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8.Will this be a drab match? An old-fashioned fight? Or a family game?

9. Now you cant see Gram and Gran at all.

One player is chosen to create the first image. This first volley, called the serve (Figure 8), will more often than not set the tone for the entire match. The next player has a number of options. They might just throw a new layer on top of the previous layer, completely obscuring the other designers work (like the volley in Figure 9) but, hopefully, continuing or expanding on some element or elements in that image.


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10.This new layer will be blended with Figure 9 to create a new volley.

11.The result of Figure 10 blended with Figure 9.

Or they may decide to blend a new layer (Figure 10) into the previous image, obscuring some parts while revealing or even enhancing others, combining the two images into one with the countless methods available with Photoshop. These include darkening, lightening, and multiplying, transferring color, saturation, or luminance, casting shadows, and so forth, but leaving some measure of transparency. The resulting image retains at least some aspects of the underlying image: colors, bright or dark spots, and so forth, depending on the blending mode(s) used. In actual play, a designer rarely slips a single layer on top of the previous layer. Rather, the volleys are often surprisingly complex and may contain a dozen or more layers, which are folded together with each other and the previous image(s) to create something new and unexpected. Figure 12 shows an example of such depth.

The Matches in This BookThis book is not version-specific; some of the participating artists used the latest version of Photoshop, and others are variously out of date. Most of the techniques they employed

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have been available in Photoshop for many years. The book is divided into 10 chapters, each detailing one hard-fought match between two Photoshop artists. Each match consists of 10 volleys, 5 per player. After introductions have been made, each new imageeach volleyis featured and dissected in its own two-page spread. Simply turn the pages to watch the pretty pictures evolve. Or tarry a bit at each volley and read about what that artist was thinking and what tools and techniques they used to create their striking work. Photoshop Tennis is especially exhila12.This volley uses no fewer than 16 layers to achieve its effect.

rating because the players make themselves more vulnerable than traditional artists by working in public. Picasso could spend days, months, or years working on a painting if he wanted to, and, if it didnt suit him, he could always burn it or paint over it. No one would be the wiser. But a Photoshop Tennis player, like an X Games athlete, has to hang it all out, right now, in front of the world; and if they trip, everyone gets to watch them fall. We worked hard to preserve that atmosphere of possibility and risk in the preparation of this book. Each match played out in real time, over the course of about 24 hours, with the artists getting one to two hours to create each volleyand, of course, to take extensive notes on tools and techniques for my further edification and yours. There were no take-backs. No do-overs. We didnt let each designer drop their least attractive image. We didnt re-create the images in a studio later, using advanced computer technology. This is real art, done on the fly. Everything happened just as you see it here. The idea was to maximize the artists creativity and inventiveness. We asked them to avoid copyright violations, misappropriation of corporate logos, and needlessly shocking imagery, but other than that we gave them complete free rein.


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Consequently, you might see something a little edgy from time to time (depending on where your personal edgy-meter is set). If thats cool with you, youre welcome. If that makes you a little nervous, I hope youll bear with me. I trust youll find it worthwhile, because these folks are good. Anybody can run a few stock filters on an image and make something. But it takes much more than that to make a piece of art or even to aspire to make a piece of art, in an hourespecially with the understanding that everybody gets to see the results, no matter what they are. For the 10-volley matches in this book, artists worked in RGB color space at either 19001250 pixels (landscape), 15751575 pixels (square), or 12501900 (portrait). These relatively large file sizes assured that the final images would look all sexy when printed in this book. The rules are simple. The results speak for themselves. Questions? Comments? Want to learn more? Want to send me some fan mail (or hate mail?) Drop by www.photoshoptennisthebook.com. Enjoy!

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About the CDOn the companion CD-ROM, Ive included these bonus tools to help you grow your skill set: Volley images Ive provided flat, full-resolution versions of all 100 volley images from these matches. (These images are for readers personal viewing only and may not be redistributed in any way.) Adobe Illustrator Macromedia Flash Macromedia FreeHand Signwave Auto-Illustrator

The Secret Life of Photoshop DesignersMark Clarkson Jason Pratt Audrey Mantey

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Keyboard ConventionsPhotoshop is popular on both the Macintosh and Windows operating systems. This book always gives shortcuts for both so that users on either platform can successfully follow along. Ill give the shortcuts for both Mac and Windows keys at the same time.

David Blanchet

Macintosh Shift Option Command Control-click

Windows Shift Alt Ctrl Right-click

Example Shift+X Option/Alt+X Command/Ctrl+X Control/right-click

Isaac Epp

For example, the shortcut to open a file in PhotoshopCommand+O on the Mac and Ctrl+O in Windowswould be given as Command/Ctrl+O.

Ian Rogers

Match 1

No Strangers: Sonus vs. Tha Riddla

These contestants are no strangers to Photoshop Tennis or to each other. Both are past residents of Bloomington, Indiana, where they attended Indiana University and, later, worked in the web development division of the Hirons and Company advertising agency. Both Isaac Sonus Epp and Matt Tha Riddla Riddle wanted very much to get into Photoshop Tennis, but they were new and shy and hesitant about challenging others to a competition they werent sure they understood. Instead, they began by battling each other and still do so regularly. In fact, during one holiday visit, the two had an in-house battle at Riddles Chicago apartment. At a maximum of 10 minutes per volley, that match pushed the time factor to the extreme and added the unusual factor of placing both players in the

same room at the same time. I was really surprised, says Epp. Once we were actually right in front of each other designing, the camaraderie level jumped right up. Ten minutes was probably too much pressure, but having the other guy right there while youre working went really, really well. Now the two are talking about putting together a gallery show to exhibit the highlights and processes of different really cool battles and, at the same time, feature rotating artists throwing down live in front of everybody. Turning to our battle here, expect no nasty slams and trash talking from these two guys. But expect a great match, nonethelessfamiliarity breeds contentand one that serves as an excellent example of the format, style, and intensity of Photoshop Tennis.

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No Strangers

Spectator commentary is a big part of Photoshop Tennis as it is played online. To give you a little taste, weve invited Walt Dietrich, whose own match appears in chapter 10, to sit in as a guest commentator for this first match. Walt lends his insight into the tasty treats offered up by Epp and Riddle, in the style of Iron Chef. Allez Cuisine!

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Designers Match 1: Sonus vs. Tha Riddla

San Franciscobased web designer Isaac Epp works mostly in Flash animation and ActionScript, but he finds Photoshop an essential piece of the puzzle: Anybody doing digital design or artwork has to be adept at Photoshop. His co-workers at e-learning company Vitesse Learning tend to have Flash, programming, and instructional design backgrounds, says Epp. With my Photoshop and advertising background, Im a different-colored egg. Epp is also a former philosophy major and a classically trained violinist and composes music he describes as jazz-influenced, laid-back, downtempo trip-hop. Although Epp has taken part in dozens of online Photoshop Tennis matches, he found that working at print resolution changed the rules. You cant fudge and get away with the things you can get away with online, at low resolution. I was so worried about artifacts, and making sure everything was going to look good in print, that I was printing my work every few minutes.www.fluidformdesign.com

Isaac Sonus EppYears as a Photoshop designer: About six Specialty: Typography Photoshop Tennis really keeps your design skills sharp and keeps you abreast of design trends. Nondigital art medium: Music Favorite non-Photoshop software: Flash Favorite Photoshop filter: Anything but Emboss Photoshop is to designers what a hammer is to a carpenter. If I were a kitchen implement, Id be a food processor. Without it, there would be no pesto.Without pesto, what is life? Music to play Photoshop Tennis by: My own, Miles Davis, Portishead, Massive Attack,Tricky, Mozart, Bjrk, PJHarvey, Radiohead Comfort food: Taco Bell Hardshell Taco Supreme with no meat. Mmmmmm Best work I ever lost in a computer crash: About 50 tracks I recorded over a span of about 3 months. It still hurts. Favorite read: James Clavells Asia saga Political bent: San Francisco liberal If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be a person with more free time and less money Theyll identify my body by the small birthmark on my [behind], inherited from my Native American forebears

a different-colored egg

No Strangers

Matt Riddle has been a Photoshop maven for six years, since he encountered the program in a digital photography class at Indiana University. With digital photography you can really take control of your photographs, he says. In a traditional photograph, accidental elements or plain happenstance can combine to make the image magical. But there has to be a purpose for everything in a digital image. Why is this element in the picture? Why here instead of there? Do I want that leaf falling off the tree? He landed an internship at Hirons and Company, where he did web design and development. That job started my education in design, he says. Isaac got me that job. He also introduced me to the design elements of art. He was the first person I ever talked to about design sense. I owe him a lot. Riddle recently moved to Chicago, where he is doing freelance web design. But hes not completely a Lone Ranger; the strength of his Photoshop Tennis work demonstrates his ability to create in a group environment.www.mattriddle.com

Matt Tha Riddla RiddleYears as a Photoshop designer: 6 Area of specialty: Web layout Favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis: Expanding creativity, pushing my limits Nondigital art medium: Photography Favorite non-Photoshop software: Quake 3, Urban Terror Mod Favorite Photoshop filter: Layer blending modes Photoshop has grayed the line between the real and the created in design/photography. If I were a kitchen implement, Id be a cheese graterI love me some Parmesan Comfort food: Oreos Favorite TV show: Good Eats Best work I ever lost in a computer crash: A years worth of Photoshop Tennis matches Favorite motion picture: Raising Arizona Favorite read: Photography books Favorite sport: Soccer (both playing and watching) Political bent: San Francisco liberal If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be playing Street Fighter Theyll identify my body by my soul patch

a purpose for everything

Volley 1: Isaac EppIn Photoshop Tennis, having the serve can be seen as either an advantage or a disadvantage; since there is no previous image to build on, the designer is starting with a blank canvas er a blank screen. I started out with a photograph I took of power lines with a Minolta Dimage X digital camera, Epp says. I felt the blue gradient of the sky was really striking and would be a nice starting off point. I was playing with the idea of mimicking the gradient of the photo to fill the background, cutting out the power lines, and then duplicating them for a texture across the canvas. But not every idea works out, and Epp couldnt get a texture he was happy with: I tried to liquify the ends of the lines to create organic interest, but that failed too. In the end, all I kept of this effort was the background gradient. Now it was time for a little foreground text to add interest to the image. I love playing with fonts, says Epp. Chalet is my favorite and most versatile modern font family, so I chose that. I wanted to keep the battle openthis was only a serve after allso I kept the text to the point. Epp conceived of the bracket and bent line as a way to give the text a connection to the rest of the image. He wanted the bracket large enough to enclose the text, but simply dialing up the font size resulted in a line weight that was too thick. To keep the line weight thin, he started with a smaller bracket and rendered the type (Layer Rasterize Type). Next, he cut the bracket in half and pulled the two halves apart. Last, he stretched the vertical line to extend all the way between the two halves, resulting in a tall, thin bracket. Epp copied the brackets inner line, pasted it on a new layer, and then used the Free Transform command (Edit Free Transform) to rotate and stretch it to make the horizontal line. He used a mask to hide part of the horizontal line, and then he copied a portion and tilted it at a 45-degree angle to help imply visual motion across the gradient. I used a mask, he says, because I wasnt sure that the 45-degree angle would work, and I wanted to be able to go back with little effort. That done, Epp wanted to give the image more life. I had the idea to wear away a few corners. I used the Eraser tool in Paintbrush mode. Epp selected a stock Adobe brush that he calls bristle star because its shape resembles a marine bristle star. When used in rough, uneven strokes, this brush can give a nice worn, streaky, or torn look to edges. It was at 100% opacity in most cases. Next, he applied the Liquify filter (Filter Liquify) to create the cloud-flame effect. I was really happy with the clean result, says Epp.

From Battle Dome Stadium,todays theme ingredient is sky blue! Announcer: Master of Photoshop cuisine Sonus-san serves up a dish of sky blue, delicately balanced with just a touch of vector line. Reporter: It is said that Sonus-san learned to draw fine omelets at the age of eight. Celebrity Guest #1: These are clouds with crab claws, hmm? Interesting.

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1. Epp started with a digital photograph of some power lines.

2. He played around with the lines

3. but failed to liquify them into something pleasing.

4. All that remained was the background gradient.

5. Stretching a square bracket to a new height

6.The Photoshop bristle star brush

7. Rough strokes give a torn look to the edges.

8.The Liquify filter turns torn edges into clouds.

Volley 2: Matt RiddleI liked Sonuss image and composition, says Matt Riddle. It was very minimal. A minimal image is a good thing this early in the match, Riddle believes. It is often hard to work off a highly complex image. Riddle duplicated Epps serve several times, on different layers, and combined them with different blend modesExclusion, Darken, and Normal. Newcomers to Photoshop often overlook this technique, but it can yield interesting and unexpected results. Riddle next looked for a theme on which to base his volley. He found Sonuss serve evocative of the clouds and sky; that became his theme. He nabbed an appropriate image of crepuscular case, Riddle felt that the Hard Light mode presented his added clouds to their best advantage. Riddle wasnt content to simply stack layers; he masked out parts of the image, in effect erasing them from the final composited image, choosing which details to accent. I use a mask instead of erasing, says Epp, because you cant restore an erased image. With a mask, on the other hand, erased portions can be restored or expanded upon with a simple swipe of the Paintbrush tool. About halfway through, I decided that I didnt like my color palette any more, so I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer New Adjustment Layer Hue/Saturation) to create the aqua coloration.

1. Initial experimentation duplicating the original image and testing different blend modes

2. A stock image of clouds from STOCK.XCHNG

3.The stock cloud photo blended in with Hard Light

4. Riddle played around with several ideas for incorporating the previous volleys text before starting anew on a field of white.

rays streaming from the clouds at Inertia STOCK.XCHNG (http://stock.d2.hu/) and dropped it in to see how it looked. After I find an image that I want to use, says Riddle, the first thing that I usually do is run through all the blend modes and move it around in the layer stack to see if anything catches my eye or sparks a new idea. It pays to experiment; even Photoshop veterans who use the program daily can still be surprised at the results of different blend modes and combinations of blend modes. In this

He played around with several unsatisfactory ideas for the volley number text before deciding to place the volley number on a newly created field of white. That field of white looked just a little too plain for Riddles taste, so he added a stock texture via Hard Light mode. Finally, he used a color overlay (Layer Layer Style Cover Overlay) to bring the text in line with the aquamarine color palette.

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5. Adding a little texture, via a stock photo, to the white field, in Hard Light mode

6. Riddle used a Color Overlay layer style to match the text area with the rest of the image.

I didnt like my color palette

Volley 3: Isaac EppIsaac Epp admits that Riddles volley left him a bit stumped. His image was really beautiful, he says. But I wanted to move away from the cloud/sky theme, at least a little, because I was worried we might end up in a pigeonhole later. Epp began by adjusting the hue and saturation of the image (Command/Ctrl+U), deepening the colors and bringing the palette back toward pure blue. He replaced the word Round from his original serve above the horizontal line. Next, it was back to the digital camera. Epp printed his work so far, held it up to the window, and took a digital photograph of it. Volley numbers have played a significant part in the designs so far, he says. I wanted to do a really creative treatment on the number for this volley. I took a STABILO watercolor pencil, scribbled a 3 onto some sketch paper, and then ran water over it for a few seconds. Next, I crumpled up the paper to give it texture, stuck it to the back of a wet, clear shower curtain, and took a picture. Epp imported both photos into Photoshop. I wanted to create a really wide widescreen look, he says. To accomplish this he scaled the photo down and then copied it five times onto five separate layers. He repositioned each layer to the right of the last and made each progressively lighter by 25% (Hue/Saturation/Lightness, Command/Ctrl+U). This created a sort of visual echo of the image across the canvas. Next, he wore away at the area after the word round in the most dominant image, using the bristle star brush again. Its really nice for rough, streaky edges, he says. He color-balanced the photo of the wet and runny number 3 and placed it behind the photos, in the newly worn hole. Finally, he completed the widescreen effect by adding simple blocks of white at the top and bottom of the picture. Epp next added new text elements to the theme: his and Riddles hometowns (San Francisco and Chicago, respectively) and the words Doin It and Widescreen. At the last minute, Epp realized that he had neglected to delete Riddles Round 2 text from the image: I used the Poly-Select tool to select a healthy area around the text and used the Stamp tool to fill the selected area. When used well, the Stamp tool can be the best photo manipulation tool in Photoshop.

1. Epp first changed the hue and saturation, moving the palette away from green and back to pure blue.

2. He printed an interim image, held it at arms length, and snapped a digital photo.

3. A digital photo of a soggy number 3

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4. A progression of images, each 25% lighter than the last

In the bowl, cloud pieces, thumb,garlic, sesame oil, black pepper, soy sauce, chicken oil, cornstarch, and lots of white space. Guest #2: Is he holding slices of volley 2? Reporter: Yes, yes thin slices of volley 2, balanced in white space.

5. Using the Stamp tool to erase the last volleys text

might end up in a pigeonhole

Volley 4: Matt RiddleWhen Matt Riddle saw Epps volley, he was immediately hit with the idea of somehow using the Golden Gate Bridge to connect the skylines of the two cities, San Francisco and Chicago. I had this idea, he says, but I was unable to find images that I wanted to use. I started working, but it wasnt the bottom, says Riddle, where the bridge and the water both go black. But a successful blending process eluded him. I made about ten failed attempts at blending the two images, he says. I tried duplicating the Chicago side and fading it out on the other end and several other things, but

1. Multiple copies and the Hard Light blend mode add color and texture to the bridge.

none came out looking even halfway decent. I ended up masking off the sky from most of the Chicago image to let the old image show through. I liked the way the sky3.The Chicago skyline, blended into place

faded in the original image of Chicago, but I didnt know how I

was going to use it. Ironically, in the end he used2. A stock photo of the Chicago skyline

the fading sky by erasingor maskingmost of it from view. Riddle felt he needed more compositional elements to fill in the space and balance the overall image. He sampled the red from his hard-lit bridge image and used that for accents such as the horizontal line and text at the top of the page and the large dingbat below the bridge. Riddle used masks to insert a block of pure black beneath the Chicago waters, to erase the Chicago sky and part of the previous volley, and to create the red horizontal line at top. A little text finishes off the volley.

coming out as I had hoped. I began to get frustrated, which led to indecision. But this is Photoshop Tennis. The clock was running, and there was no choice but to go forward. In keeping with his inspiration, Riddle started by adding a stock photo of the Golden Gate Bridge to the mix. He eventually stacked three duplicate copies of the bridge, each using the Hard Light blend mode to drastically alter the look of the original photo. Next came an image of the Chicago skyline. I wanted to blend the two halves of the image at

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This was a difficult volley for me, says Riddle. I was frustrated with this image throughout the entire creation, he admits, yet, somehow, at the end I am happy with it. Sometimes things just fall into your lap when you are working, he says. Example?

The way the circular object from the previous image alights perfectly on the crossbeam of the bridge. I didnt even realize it, but when I showed it to Isaac Epp, it was one of the first things that he noticed. Sometimes you get happy accidents.

A second-course cityscapeblend with fennel, red vectors, giblet, and a little added olive oil. Guest #2: Riddla-san uses kani abura (crab oil)a rare seasoning for sure. Guest #1: Ginger, scallion, Golden Gate Bridge, and just a visible portion of volley 3.

things fall into your lap

Volley 5: Isaac EppI was inspired by Matt Riddles last image, says Isaac Epp. Its intense. The rough edges felt heavy and stressful. I decided to take the next round into the expressively stressful and surreal. He started by completely desaturating the image. I wanted to create a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari feel to the piece, he says, so I had to start with some black and white. Next, Epp saved the desaturated image as a bitmap and imported it into Macromedia Flash MX. I do quite a bit of Flash design, he says. I wanted to play with Flashs native toolset for a while to achieve a distorted, surreal look. Epp used Flashs Trace Bitmap command to turn the imported bitmap into a piece of vector art; he then transformed and stretched elements to exaggerate details of the Chicago skyline. I really was enjoying the circle/dial element Riddla added to the Golden Gate Bridge element and wanted to accentuate it, so I selected the area around it and blew it up. As I did this, it started looking more and more like a giant clock tower. I went with that. When he was satisfied with the distorted results, he exported the image as an EPS file and then imported that into Photoshop. Epp wrote the number 5 on a fogged-up window with the tip of his finger and took a digital photograph. He desaturated the photo (Image Adjust Hue/Saturation), played with the curves a bit (Image Adjust Curves), and then blended the photos edges with a masked gradient. Masked gradients are a really cool way to get photos to cooperate with each other in tough design situations, he says. The surreal skyline image went on top of that photo. I still had a lot of white space in the image, says Epp. It was killing the mood a bit, so I brought in another moody digital photograph to fill it in with. I wanted to accentuate the fact that the Golden Gate Bridge element resembled a clock, so I built some really exaggerated clock dial arms in Flash. I made them a super-saturated red to draw a lot of attention to them and set them to 5 oclock since this was volley number 5. The addition of some numbers completes the transformation of Golden Gate Bridge into a clock tower. I saw a really interesting curve in the top of the skyline, says Epp. I wanted to add another element to the image to accentuate it. I took a digital photograph of my eye, imported it into Photoshop, and duplicated the layer. On one layer I desaturated the eye and used the Stamp tool to get rid of the iris and pupil. On the second layer, I left the color but knocked back the opacity to 40% and changed the scale relative to the black-and-white version to give an eerie, cataract look. A shade of The Twilight Zone enters The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This volley was the most fun for me so far! says Epp. I was buzzing when I was done.

Pan-blackened cityscape, billboard, [yes] red vectors with an added eyeball. Guest #3: Sonus-san makes a subtle change to the dark palette. Guest #2: Ah, the eyeball! A favorite ingredient of artistic chefs. Guest #3: I think it will be steamed.

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1. Epp begins by recasting the image in black and white.

2. Converted into vector format in Flash MX, the image gets distorted. 6.The red clock hands, made in Flash, are set to 5 oclock because its volley 5.

3. A digital photo of the number five, drawn on a fogged-up window

4. A gradient mask helps blend the photo into the background.

5. Some foggy black-and-white imagery adds to the mood.

7.The artists own eye enters the fray.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Volley 6: Matt RiddleComing into volley 6, Matt Riddle is confronted with an image turned almost completely vector. This was fine with me, says Riddle. I wanted to go the vector route at some point anyway. He liked the contrast of the sky and buildings, but felt the need to change the overall look of the picture, to move away from the skyline theme and to add color back in. To add color, Riddle created a copy of the main image and placed a green color overlay (Layer Layer Style Color Overlay) on it, at 76% transparency. This green contrasts with the striking, saturated red color of the clock hands, which Riddle planned to use later. Next, he created a fine grid pattern and used the Paint Bucket to fill a new layer with it. The new layer was blended into the mix in Lighten mode. He next copied the original image onto a new layer and applied the Hard Light blend mode to it. It created a white, blown-out look to the eye that I liked, he says. Riddle still wanted to drastically change the look of the image, moving away from the skyline motif. He selected a square area of the skyline with the Marquee tool and copied and pasted into a new file. He used the Polar Coordinates filter (Filters Distort Polar Coordinates) to create a distorted version of the skyline. He then copied this new image and pasted it back into his volley multiple times, on multiple new layers with different blend modes, to alter various sections of the skyline. He partially masked these layers to help blend them in. Last, I selected and copied the hands of the clock from the original image, pasted them on top of everything, and added some accents to finish off the piece.Riddle created a layer mask by selecting all the black pixels (Select Color Range) and then choosing Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal Selection.This masked off all the nonblack areas of the image, leaving only the black portion visible. A second thumbnail appears on your Layers palette beside the image it is masking. Click the mask thumbnail, and you can use the Paintbrush,Airbrush, Pencil, Paint Bucket, or any drawing or painting tool to modify your mask and hide or reveal parts of its associated image. You can use layers to blend pictures together, by creating a mask on one of the pictures and airbrushing the mask with the feathered brushes or custom brushes to create a smooth blended look. Blends can be seamless, since you have total control over what is visible and what is not. The original image is never touched. If you erase too much, you can simply paint the mask back in.

Layer MasksA layer mask selectively hides part of the image on the layer with which it is associated.You can create a layer mask in several ways. You can highlight a layer in the Layers palette and choose Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal/Hide All. Reveal All creates a completely transparent mask; Hide All creates an opaque mask. Black areas of a mask are transparent, white areas are opaque (masked), and gray areas are translucent. (You can also create a new layer mask by clicking the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers palette.)

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1. A green color overlay brings color back into the picture.

2. Riddle filled a layer with a fine grid and added it in Lighten mode.

3. A second copy of the original image, applied in Hard Light mode, blows out the highlights.

4. A section of the skyline, distorted with the Polar Coordinates filter

5.The partially altered skyline

a white, blown-out look to the eye

Volley 7: Isaac EppThis round Epp felt like taking the image out of the screen again, so he started by, once again, printing Riddlas image. He used red paint to put on the text Round and the # character to cross out the previous round number. He threw the image down in the tub, ran some water over it, and took its picture. After importing the photo into Photoshop, he cranked the saturation way up (Image Adjust Hue/Saturation). This had the effect of rendering the text completely illegible. To compensate, he created a second copy of the photo on a new layer above the first and turned the saturation all the way down in this one. I masked out the undersaturated photo and used damaged and organiclooking brushes to eat away at the mask, leaving the area around the text visible. The saturated version was just too blown out to be read clearly, he says. Stacking the two images gave a nice, lasting impression of vivid color while remaining perfectly legible. Epp continued with the distressed brushes, painting black around the photo to create a dirty border to frame the image. He used segments of different letters from the overflourished Edwardian Script font to create a tentacle form. He placed the result emerging from the bath tub drain in the image. I included an image of a light bulb, says Epp, but the treatment of the light bulb wasnt quite right. It didnt come to me until later how to fix it. For the volley number, Epp had taken a digital photograph of a length of rope in the form of a 7 but didnt think it worked in the image. Instead, he opted to use a type 7 in the Edwardian ScriptPhotoshop ships with lots of brushes, and thousands more are available for download from the Internet. Better yet, its easy to create your own custom brushes in Photoshop. You can turn any image or any portion of any image into a new brush. Simply select an area with any of Photoshops selection tools and choose Edit Define Brush. Voil! A new brush. Photoshop offers a positively stupefying array of options to further refine how the brush works when applied: its size, rotation, scattering, roundness, hardness, brush dynamics, spacing, and more.

typeface. I played around with different colors and effects before deciding on a nice vivid red, playing off the immense vividness of Riddlas past images red. I added an image of a real frame to the outline of the canvas and encased the interior of the frame with a rich blood-red color, catering to the rough occult feel of the image. Finally, it came to me what to do with the light bulb: it needed to be within the added frame, and it needed more dirt to fit in with the rounds

Custom BrushesRagged, torn, or dirty brushes are essential to producing organic or grungy effects.For all the grunge and dirt in this volley, says Epp,I used some of my own custom brushes as well as a fantastic collection from another design battle champion, Jerkstore (thanks for the brushes!)

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1. Red paint, water, and oversaturation render the words hard to read.

2. Figure 1, desaturated and masked

3. A distressed, dirty frame, painted with distressed brushes

4. Parts of different letters from a flourishy font result in writhing tentacles.

5. All elements of the image are running down the drain.

theme. I hid it beneath the layer of filth and ate away at the dirts edge. I was feeling really visceral this round, and I think it shows. The image ended up being rather intense and gritty. It is kind of funny that in this battle I used a lot more grime and complexity than I usually use. In fact, Im typically known for more modern, minimal designs, but Im never one to turn down inspiration when it strikes.6. Epp added in a digital photo of a bare light bulb, but wasnt happy with the final effect until he dirtied it up.

Volley 8: Matt RiddleI loved the image from volley 7, says Matt Riddle. I was especially inspired by the shape that was made by the large text on the left of the image. It was portions of letters in some script font. I decided to make that the focus of my new image. Riddle first selected all the black areas of the image (Select Color Range). He created a new layer and added a layer mask based on that selection (Layer Add Layer Mask Reveal Selection). Next, he began exploring his fonts until he found one that was highly decorative and included ligatures, ornamentals, and special characters for distort individual channelsdistorting the red channel, for example, while leaving the green and blue channels unaffected. I pared down my layers and channels to make the image a little less busy and chaotic, although it is still highly chaotic, which I really enjoyed. He duplicated the original tentacle shape and put it in the upper corner. I started feeling that the background of the original image was too distracting, says Riddle, so I made a layer of simply white to put focus on the textual elements and

1. Riddle selected the black areas of the previous volley and created a new layer mask from those.

2. He liked the abstract look of decorative characters run together.

3. New masks and overlays based on distorted selections

first and last letters with extensive decoration Poetica Supp Ligatures. Riddle tried using selections to create new masks and overlays in the image. He first selected the text, and then he saved the selection as a new channel (Select Save Selection). He then distorted the new channel with filters, while leaving the Red, Green, and Blue channels untouched. He also created new layer masks using these distorted channels. You can produce some interesting, and often unpredictable, effects with this technique, he says. In fact, on a flattened image (that is, a file with only one layer), you can use filters and other tools to

make it a bit more graphic. I also added a band of tan color to break up the background and highlight the round number.

When working with symbol fonts or decorative fonts,says Riddle,I generally make a new layer containing every character on the keyboard in that font.That way I can see what I have to work with. I also use that layer as resource material for creating more type: I can simply duplicate the layer and then subtract what I dont want. But in this instance, Riddle decided that he liked the abstract nature of all the decorative characters running together and kept it as a primary design element for the final image.

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4. Even after paring down the layers, the image remains chaotic.

The sauce for this main dish contains redand black vector shapes, type, papaya, fennel, tomato, lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, and, of course, white space. Guest #2: Vector shapes and papaya, wonderful. Guest #1: How do we eat it?

5. A copy of the tentacle, placed in the upper-right corner

I can see what I have to work with

Volley 9: Isaac EppI wanted to finish strong, says Epp. I was initially stumped by Riddlas previous volley. It was really intense and graphically exaggerated. I couldnt just add more elements. That would have created a mess of details, with no focus. After puzzling for a while, Epp decided to turn the whole design problem on its head: to start afresh with a new canvas and a new color palette. Then, he would add the previous volley back as a design element in the new image. For the source material for his new canvas, Epp went back to digital photographs. He searched through photos taken for earlier rounds but never used. I found a really strong set of black and leave the stronger images untouched, as part of the purity, refinement, and serenity of the image, he says. I took the previous volley, masked it, and used the Soft Light blend on top of the photograph. Next, I began laying out some type. In fact, he added a lot of type. I went a little overboard with the text layout. He used a temporary black layer to provide a nice contrasty background to work against. When he was done, he hid the black layer and painted in some white areas on a new layer beneath the text, helping the text stand out against the somewhat cluttered background. The other photos had a soft quality to them, he says, so I used the Blur tool with an asymmetrical brush to soften the edges of some of

1. Epp selected a set of black-and-white digital photos as the basis for his volley.

white photos involving a window, fog, power lines, and geometry. Epp laid out a symmetrical grid of six squares with rounded edges. He imported his photos onto separate layers, arranged them, and masked them with the rounded squares. Epp picked what he considered the weakest of the six images, the one at the lower right, to lay type and other design elements over. I wanted to

the design details. I also added some shading within the curved mask. After 16 hours, Epp is done with the match. What an amazing day. I feel creatively drained. Typically a battle this epic would take days and probably weeks. I can look back and see the progression of the battle thus far and really smile. The evolution of the images was absolutely amazing.

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2.This grid of rounded squares will serve as a mask for the photos.

3.The photos laid out within the grid

4.The previous image and the volley number blended in with Soft Light

5. A temporary black background makes type easier to see.

leave the stronger images untouched

Volley 10: Matt RiddleRiddle decided to continue with Epps movement away from chaos and toward simplicity. I wanted to keep this last volley nice and minimal, he says, yet still pay attention and homage to the previous image. He started by shrinking, rotating, and duplicating the original image to create a grid on the right. He inverted the colors of the original image (Image Adjustments Invert) to make a negative, and he bumped up the contrast with an adjustment layer (Layer New Adjustment Layer Hue/Saturation). I was originally going to take elements of the image and stretch them across the canvas, he says, making multiple stretches and matching elements in the two copies of the original image. Needless to say, this attempt failed. Epp wanted to add color back into the image. The photographs, with all of their windows and condensation, reminded me of being trapped inside on a rainy day and longing to go outside. I chose a blue to go with that. He added the blue color by creating color overlays on the layers with the grid of small images (Layer Layer Style Color Overlay). I decided to use water as my linking element between old and new, so I found an image on a stock photography site of droplets of water on a tarpaulin. I wanted a contrasting color to make it stand out, thus the red, orange and yellow. I accom1.Volley 9 shrunk and rotated 90 degrees 2. A failed attempt to create something interesting by stretching elements from the previous volley

plished this by placing a new Hue/Saturation layer (Layer New Adjustment Layer Hue/Saturation) over the droplets of water. I changed the hue by +160, converting the blues into reds and oranges, and increased the saturation slightly. Then I masked off portions of the image to ease the transition and give me space to add more elements. To finish, I added a line element, text, and color accents on opposite corners of the image to balance and tie the two colors together. And thats it for match 1, a stunning match thats taken us full circle, from clean and simple to wild and chaotic and back again.

Guest #1: I enjoyed all 10 dishes!Guest #2: This was a very stylish battle. I dont believe we will be able to declare a decisive victory by either chef. Guest #3: I agree. Simple but complex. Guest #2: A superb fusion of so many tasty colors. Guest #1: My first tasting challenge was a lot more difficult than I expected. I wish to name both as winners. Must not the rules allow this?

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4. A stock photo of water drops on a tarp

5. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer changes the water from blue to orange and red.

3. Riddle changed the color to blue, to match the feeling of a rainy day.

Match 2

Grow Up!: Shaun Inman vs. Leslie CabargaNext up, weve got a couple of designers who couldnt be more different. On your left, warming up for the serve, youthful, and full of beans: web designer and experienced Photoshop warrior Shaun Inman. And on your right, sadder but wiser: designer, fontographer, and Betty Boop fanatic, Leslie Cabarga. Although Cabarga has been a designer and an author for longer than he likes to admit, this is his first time to face off on the field of honor with another designer. Inman, on the other hand, has been here many times before and is anxious to teach the old man a few new tricks. Get ready to watch the sparks fly.

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Grow Up!

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Designers Match 2: Inman vs. Cabarga

Shaun Inman became a graphic designer thanks to a little misunderstanding. One day in junior high, Inman recalls, my art teacher was critiquing a charcoal rendering. She said, Your work is very graphic. The next day we had a presentation from a woman representing the Savannah College of Art and Design, and she mentioned that one of her majors was graphic design. I thought, well, my art is graphic; maybe Ill do graphic design. Just a stupid connection, but then I found out what graphic design was all about, and I rode it. Then, when I discovered web design, I just clicked with the whole coding aspect, underneath the design. Now a graduate of Savannah College, Inman currently does web design at Baltimore-based Silverpoint (www.silverpoint.net). He also built and operates Designologue, a site for artists to face off in Photoshop Tennislike design dialogues. Drop by and show off your chops.www.shauninman.com

Shaun InmanYears using Photoshop: 5 First version of Photoshop I used: 5.5 Area of specialty: Web design/development Nondigital art medium: Acoustic guitar/songwriting Favorite non-Photoshop software: BBEdit, although Microsoft PowerPoint is a close second. No, no, I jest. Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: The Outer Glow layer style on 8-pixel type with the blend mode set to Normal, spread set to 100%, size set to 1px, using a color that has good contrast with the type but less contrast with the background. It creates a 1px aliased line around the type (not the anti-aliased line you get with a 1px stroke layer effect) and makes the text pop off the background without having to increase the contrast of the text or background color. Height: 4" shorter than my girlfriend. Music I listen to while playing Photoshop Tennis: Roni Size,New Forms; DJ Shadow,Endtroducing...; Radiohead,Kid A and Amnesiac; Boards of Canada,Geogaddi; Nathaniel Merriweather a.k.a. Dan the Automator,Loveage: Songs to Make Love to your Old Lady By; I, Cactus. Favorite TV show: The Simpsons Favorite motion picture: TRON Website I visit too often: www.k10k.net andwww.designologue.com

my art is graphic; maybe Ill do graphic design

Grow Up!

Leslie Cabarga is a designer of logos, fonts, and websites and the author of more than two dozen books, including The Fleischer Story, Dynamic Black and White Illustrations, and the absolutely indispensable Designers Guide to Color Combinations. Mr. Cabarga is a self-described plant psychic and greatest authority in the world on Betty Boop. I must admit to mixed emotions, says Cabarga, when I see my Boop paintings being reused over and over again by other licensees without paying me again. But after all, isnt plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery? And really, money isnt everything when it comes to flying the Betty Boop banner high above everything.www.flashfonts.com

Leslie CabargaYears as a Photoshop designer: 13 Area of specialty: Illustration Favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis: The challenge of the time constraint Least favorite aspect of Photoshop Tennis: Doesnt pay Nondigital art medium: Woodworking Favorite non-Photoshop software: Fontographer Favorite Photoshop filter/effect: Unsharp Mask How Photoshop has changed the design field: It has put stripping (formerly of negatives!) into the hands of the designer, instead of the disinterested printers assistant, so the quality and complexity of our layouts have increased dramatically. Height: Variable Astrological sign: Librarian Comfort food: Ben and Jerrys Best work I ever lost in a computer crash: Half of my biggest-selling book, Designers Guide to Color Combinations. I had to pay $1000 to retrieve (part of it) from the hard drive. Dance: Roller disco Favorite read: A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn Political bent: Left of Left If I didnt have Photoshop, Id be on eBay looking for a copy. Website I visit too often: eBay

plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery?

Volley 1: Shaun InmanI started with this question in my head, says Shaun Inman. If you create something in a vacuum, does it suck? I developed that into White On White: Creation and the vacuum. Inman began by creating a lighter-than-light base layer. On a white background, he placed some vector artwork he had created in Auto-Illustrator, a program that specializes in generating random vector shapes or distorting existing ones. I used AutoIllustrator for interpolating two shapes, created in Adobe Illustrator, says Inman. The graphics that I used were created over a year ago, while the application was still in public beta. He imported one of these graphics, exported from Auto-Illustrator as an EPS, into a new background layer in his Photoshop composition. He added the white text White on White and Creation and the vacuum. Go., at the bottom left, in the Pakt typeface from YouWorkForThem (www.youworkforthem.com). To break the white-onwhite text out from the background, he added a very light 15% drop shadow to the text, using layer effects (Layer Layer Style Drop Shadow). Inman wanted to add some contrasting photographic texture to the mix. Using a digital camera borrowed from a friend, he took a photo of his bedroom door. He imported the photo into Photoshop on a new layer and positioned the dark wood to cover the right side of the canvas. He then created a new layer beneath the door, used the Polygon Lasso tool to select a block slightly larger than the door above, and filled the selection with a solid maroon color, which appears as a broad line separating the wood from the white. To join the two sides of the composition, Inman created a single large plus sign, centered within the composition. He converted the character to a shape (Layer Type Convert To Shape) and gave it a subtle drop shadow to keep it from disappearing into the white background entirely. Inman felt the right side of the composition still needed more texture. To create the diagonal stripes there, he started with a dark-brown capital U, again in the Pakt typeface. He converted the letter to a shape and used the Direct Selection tool to stretch the letter, extending it vertically. He rotated it 45 degrees (Edit Free Transform + Shift) and duplicated the layer several times, stretching and resizing the duplicates, to create a pattern of stretched lines. When he was happy with the results, he flattened the layers. He repeated the process twice more, creating slightly different arrangements. He set these diagonal layers in Overlay mode, which darkens the wood texture underneath while remaining invisible over the white background. Finally, he added the words Origin 001 again in white in the Pakt typefaceto the very center of the plus sign. He gave them the familiar, faint 15% drop shadow.

Inmans soundtrack for this volley: BT, Movement in Still Life.

something in a vacuum42

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1. Auto-Illustrator interpolates between shapes.

2. A white-on-white background, created in Auto-Illustrator

3. A piece of Inmans bedroom door provides texture and contrast.

4. Inman converted a U to a shape and rotated it 45 degrees.

5. Inman placed diagonal arrangements, built up from Us, over the dark wood in Overlay mode.

6. He used plenty of Guide lines to keep things properly oriented. 7. Inman tried out and discarded various ideas including this ladder.

Volley 2: Leslie CabargaThe open white-on-white area at the left of Inmans volley seemed to beg to be filled with something. But what? I used cigar box art, says Leslie Cabarga, because I had it, and it was original art so I knew it would scan well. Also, I love contrasting textures in art: the rich painterly effect of the cigar art contrasted with the clean simple lines of my competitors contribution. He scanned the art into a new Photoshop document and then cropped it to the area immediately surrounding the face. He copied and pasted the face into his working document and slid it to the left to cover the white part of the background. Cabarga wanted to create the impression that the face was in the process of being painted and still unfinished. He created a layer mask (Layer Add Layer Mask Hide All), which masked out the entire layer, and then he used the Paintbrush tool to paint in white on the mask, revealing parts of the head. To keep the painting beneath the brown half of the background, Cabarga duplicated Inmans volley and placed the duplicate layer above the painted face. He selected the white and near white parts of the duplicate level (Select Color Range) and deleted them to reveal the painting beneath. If the face was being painted, someone needed to be painting it. The hand is mine, says Cabarga. I simply grabbed a paintbrush and placed my hand on my four-year-old Epson Expression 636 scanner. He placed the scan on a new layer in his composition, used the Pen tool to1. Cigar box art from the 1800s 2.The cigar portrait placed in the composition

select the hand and brush, and then deleted the background from around them. He repositioned the hand so that the brush appeared to be painting the cigar label portrait. The brush needed some paint, so he created a new layer above the hand and brush and used Photoshops Airbrush tool to paint in a blob of paint over the tip of the brush bristles. Finally, he used his Wacom digitizing tablet and Photoshops Paintbrush tool to write I take it, this is my side to work? by hand. The perspective of the finished piece seems odd. Are we looking down on the hand from above? Is it upside down? I see the art being a window into another world, says Cabarga. What were seeing is a papers eye view, looking up from beneath the drawing board at whats going on outside the sheet of drawing paper.

The cigar box art is original art, given to me by the late Clarence Hornung, an illustrator, who had it in his collection.The art was a presentation sample that would have been shown to a client prior to printing. It is over 100 years old.

papers eye view44

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4. Cabarga gave the brush a little requisite paint 3. Cabarga scanned in his own hand, holding a brush.

with the Photoshop Airbrush tool.

A flatbed scanner can scan 3D objects, says Cabarga,but its hard to predict what the angle will look like. Ive done animated Flash sequences on my website, using my hand in two positions. I flip back and forth between the two as the hand seems to draw. Again its those contrasts between the realism and the line art that I love.

Volley 3: Shaun InmanI felt that Leslies direction was far too literal, says Shaun Inman. Im not one for literal visual dialogue; I feel it limits the conversationnot to mention being more difficult to do well in the short amount of time that we had to complete each image. Inman began by selecting the left half of the face from Cabargas volley, using the Marquee tool. He copied and pasted the selection onto a new layer and then slid it to the right so that the left eye in the new layer overlapped the right eye in the background. He set the new layer in Screen mode and created a slightly blurred layer mask to soften the sharp edge. The new layer didnt show up very well, so he duplicated it (Command/Ctrl+J) to strengthen the effect. Next he duplicated both new layers, flipped them horizontally (Edit Transform Flip Horizontal), and slid them into position so that, again, all the eyes lined up. The overall effect is of a balloon-headed Cyclops. Why a Cyclops? That was a happy accident, says Inman. I was trying to illustrate crumbling up his last comment and throwing it anywhere. Finally, Inman created a new layer over the Cyclops and filled it with white. He used the Marquee tool to select and delete the portion directly over the Cyclops, leaving the white to block out the background layer everywhere else. With the Cyclops in place for a foreground element, Inman needed a background. Time,1. Inman constructed the Cyclops from the head in Cabargas volley, placing the left half of the face over the right so that the eyes lined up and then duplicating and flipping the results horizontally.

says Inman, to tile like it was going out of style. He grouped all the Cyclops layers together within a new layer set and then duplicated that layer set. He flipped the duplicate, vertically, and repositioned it so that the eyes all lined up, once again. He merged all the layers within both layer sets into a single layer, which he resized and rotated 45 degrees. He duplicated this smaller, conjoined Cyclops head and repositioned the duplicate layerahemby eye. Next, he merged the two layers and then duplicated the new merged layer. He repositioned the duplicate again, repeating the process until he had filled the canvas with a repeating wallpaper pattern. This process has the added advantage of retaining any heads or parts of heads that go off the canvas, allowing them to be moved back into view later. Inman wound up with two

2. Next he duplicated the Cyclopss head, aligned the eyes once again

and then rotated and flipped.

3. Inman duplicated the tiled Cyclops again and again, creating a background wallpaper.

4.The brown U elements from Volley 1 reappear.

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layers, each half full of Cyclopses. He set these wallpaper layers in Multiply mode. The lack of a mouth on Balloon Head started to bother me, says Inman, so I Xd it out using a Pakt plus sign rotated guess 45 degrees! To emphasize the X, he added a 2-pixel width stroke around the border, as well as a dark outer glow, both courtesy of layer effects. He brought his diagonal U layers in from Volley 1 and placed them on new layers behind the

large Cyclops head. This time, he set the diagonal layers in Normal mode, revealing the curves on their ends and completely masking the background underneath. He also brought back the plus sign. The match had to have some continuity, says Inman. He changed the text with the plus sign to Mi Corte, Su Corte (My court is your court). Just throw your stuff anywhere plays off the fact that I plastered the canvas with his illustration, says Inman. This is definitely my favorite volley, says Inman. The 45-degree Cyclopses look a little like two dismembered businessmens hands shaking.

Inmans soundtrack:Bassdrive.com. Playing guitar occasionally while I think

the lack of a mouth started to bother me

Volley 4: Leslie CabargaLeslie Cabarga began Volley 4 by spattering black ink on a piece of paper and scanning it into Photoshop after it had dried a bit, I presume. The ink effect was just an abstract gimmick, says Cabarga. Theres no greater meaning than to create another contrast between slick and grunge. To begin his composition, Cabarga brought Inmans volley in as a background and then semifilled it in a novel way. He sampled the brown from Inmans volley, created a new layer above the background, and filled in with the sampled brown color. By setting this new layer in Darken mode, he filled in all the light values and hid the brown U elements, as well, while still allowing random bits of flotsam to poke through. I wanted a good contrast with the ink splotches, he says. Next, he selected the dark, inked parts of the spattered-ink scan and copied and pasted them into a new layer in his composition. inverted the colors (Image Adjust Invert), rendering the dictionary text as white on black, and used Free Transform to skew it into a position with a little more perspective. With the Eraser tool and a large, soft brush, he faded the text toward the bottom. Next, Cabarga used the Macro setting on his Olympus Camedia C-5050 digital camera to take a close-up of a small, stainless steel ball, about 1.5 inches in diameter. I was delighted that my reflection did indeed appear in it, he says. He imported the photo into a new Photoshop document and used the Blur tool to remove some distracting detail beneath his image. I wanted the ball to read as a mass, rather than as a confusion of unrelated tones, he says. He selected the ball with the Elliptical Marquee tool and pasted it on a new layer in his composition, using layer effects to give it a yellow glow (Layer Layer Style Outer Glow).

1. Ink spots

2. Cabarga began by filling the previous volley with brown.

3.The ink spots laid on top 4. A scan from an old slang dictionary

Cabarga next scanned a page from an old slang dictionary into a new Photoshop file, selected the scan, and copied it to the Clipboard. He returned to his composition and used the Magic Wand tool to select the dark areas on the ink-spot layer. With that selection active, he chose Edit Paste Into to paste the dictionary page from the Clipboard into a new layer, using the ink-spot selection to automatically create a layer mask. He

He selected the white cross from Inmans volley and pasted it on a new layer, rotating it 180 degrees to stand the text on its head. Finally, he fired up Adobe Illustrator to create the crossed text element that overlays the white cross and copied and pasted it as pixels into his Photoshop composition. The lettering is in Generik, says Cabarga, which is one of my own fonts. I used the phrase the cross is sacrosanct because

48

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Cabarga has been designing fonts since1990. Ive always done my own lettering for my illustrations, so the step to font design was a natural one. Among my most popular fonts are Magneto Bold and Streamline, both Art Decostyle connected scripts that I see virtually everywhere, including on porn websites (friends tell me, that is!), on myriad book covers, and even on the logo of a car wash down the street from me. Naturally, whenever possible I use my own fonts in my work, but only when mine are the right ones to use. Otherwise, I used whomevers font is most appropriate.

5. Dictionary text pasted into the ink spots and inverted 6. Cabarga captures a self-portrait in a small steel ball.

I liked the idea of including Inmans cross from Volley 1 in every volley, and it seemed he went along with it too. Everything could be edited and changed but the cross, which was... sacrosanct.

just an abstract gimmick

Volley 5: Shaun InmanI had no idea what was going on at this point, says Shaun Inman. I was discombobulated. I made an aborted attempt at building a tile out of that glowing ball-bearing. I even scanned a couple of open garlic pill tins to use as a Take a pill response. But after numerous, frustrating failed attempts to cope, I gave up and wiped everything with gray. Mind clear and blank slate at the ready, Inman began taking screen shots of various system elementsfile folders and so forthand pasted Next, he copied Cabargas volley to a new layer, resized it to the same dimensions as the file folder (Edit Transform Scale), and altered its perspective (Edit Transform Perspective) to match that of the file folder. Since this produced the very blurring he had worked to avoid with the file folder and arrow, Inman next ran the layer through the Mosaic filter (Filter Pixelate Mosaic) with a cell size of 16 pixels, breaking the image up into distinct squares sized to match the

1. A failed attempt to build a volley from tiled copies of Volley 4s steel ball

2. Inman took screen shots of system elements and blew them up to 1600% of their normal size.

3. A file folder, similarly blown up

them into a new Photoshop file. Next, he zoomed all the way in to 1600% and took another screen shot to capture the oversized, pixelated graphic. I did it this way instead of resizing the image, says Inman, because resizing blurs the hard line between pixels. He chose two elements: a standard Mac operating system file folder, and an arrow from Microsofts Entourage e-mail program. He used Hue/Saturation to desaturate and then to recolorize the elements.

pixels on the blown-up system elements. He created the pixelated black border by hand with the Marquee tool, 16 pixels at a time. The text is in the 04b03 Bitmap font fromhttp://04.jp.org/. Inman drew the bevel around

the letters by hand, using the Pencil tool.

Inmans soundtrack:Queens of the Stone Age.

I have no idea whats going on50

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4.Volley 5 resized to fit the file folder

skewed

and pixelated

Volley 6: Leslie CabargaI wanted to reverse the last volleys low-resolution treatment, says Leslie Cabarga, which I liked, actually. He began by actually increasing the low-resolution appearance of Inmans volley, selecting a small section of Inmans volley with the Marquee tool and stretching it to fill the entire canvas with a handful of lightly blurred pixels. To create more of a sense of depth, he created a new layer above the background and used the A

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